Keep that. Hello the Internet edit.
Welcome to this special Friday trending edition.
Of Dirty Guys. Yeah, there he.
Is, you might have. I'm hoping that he will keep it. You got to hear him take a big hit, big old hit right as we were starting. Uh, I'm Jack O'Brien. That over there is Brian the editor.
Who's that? It's only me, Brian the editor?
'tis I chis only I coming to us all the way from Mexico dea Mexico City.
Uh.
One of the few pieces of middle school Spanish that I I think I retained. I don't even know if it's right though. It's that Mexico, Mexico, Okay, if you say so. But I think mister Vachiano, my Italian Spanish teacher who got mad at me once I started wearing cross colors clothes. Wow, I think he might know a little bit better than you.
Wow.
Yeah.
He just pulled me aside one day and was like, I used to think you're a good kid. To look at you, that is, to look.
At you, that is a fucking trans I know.
So now I think you were a punk.
I think he literally used the word punk and it was my last day I was moving the next day, and he was like, I just want you to know on your way out. Anyways, at least he taught me the wrong name for Mexico City, Brian. We don't usually do trending episodes on Friday. I was at my keyboard last night furiously typing about some shit I'm seeing in response to the fires. But the main reason that I wanted to check in with people is, you know, Miles
has been out all week. I wanted to let him kind of share what was going on with him and his family in his own time and in his own way. But he did tweet about it a couple of days ago and given me permission to share a couple of things with you guys. So first of all, just read his tweet. Hey everyone, the family is safe, but we unfortunately lost our home like countless others did in the
eaton Knon fire. I will have more to say once I'm able to process things a bit, but for now, just wanted to let people know we are safe and we will find a way forward. Miles and yeah, we actually you know, I've been texting with him a lot, obviously, you know, their their safety was my number one concern. I think a lot of people's number one concern, but this is just a real mind fuck and incredibly difficult
to deal with. Uh, They're they're going through it. But as we were about to record this, uh, he happened to call so Brian and I got to got to speak with him. They just put up a h a gofund me this morning after a while of like kind of not knowing it, you know, feeling weird asking for help, but they they finally did, which I think is the right thing. And immediately, uh, you know, they're they're getting a lot of donations. They're well on their way to
their goal. But we're gonna we're gonna put the link to the GoFundMe in the episode description of this episode, and you know, please if you can, if you have something to give, by all means. They're great people and just the the outpouring from the listeners.
Yeah, yeah, Miles wanted to, uh wanted to thank all the listeners for all their kind words and support. Yeah, and uh just for being the you know, great people that Zey Gang are.
Yeah, we're always.
You know, we always talk about when it comes to like our listeners showing up to comedy shows for guests on the show who who have a comedy show and Zigang will show up and they're always like, man, you guys have like really great fans.
And they're totally not weird at all.
They're not weird. How did that happen? We don't know how that happened, because we're both.
Very weird people.
But we're always so proud when we just get a look at who you guys are in the community that we've built around this show, and uh, yeah, I'm so grateful, and my Alas was so grateful, and I was, you know, sitting there crying like a bitch as I We're not like a bitch, but I was sitting there, yeah, very high pitched and I just pleasant to listen to no. But yeah, thanks to everybody who is reaching out and you know, finding ways to help Miles and his family and a lot of the people who are you know,
going through it right now because of these kind of unprecedented fires, the increasingly precedented fires. I will say, so, yeah, I don't know, he said a lot, and I don't I wasn't taking detailed notes because again I was crying, but like trying to act like I wasn't so I was like, yeah, totally, totally, man, he is going to be back when he can be so he'll he'll be
able to speak to it himself. And then I did just want to talk about the people who aren't being that helpful when it comes to the crisis that La is living through.
The fires.
You know, as we record this on Friday, still the biggest ones are not contained. So some of them I think are zero percent contained, which seems like not the number you're looking for. But a lot of people, a lot of firefighters fighting valiantly out there, a lot of just Steph Curry from way downtown, water drops happening.
Kobe Swish except not anyways, don't.
I do just want to I do just want to continue to talk about this American need to find the singular villain, as long as that singular villain is not a wealthy fossil fuel executive.
Yeah, it has.
Been systematically poisoning and you know, creating the circumstances for what we're all experiencing and living through. That that would be I think, if if we're going to find a villain, there's your villain.
These people who have who.
Have buildings on college campuses named after them, you know, for having just made obscene amounts of money from the fossil fuel industry. Those are the people who we should be blaming.
If you're gonna blame anybody, here's a novel idea. We could look out for each other and not try to constantly find a villain. Yeah, yeah, that's something I'd like to see.
Yeah, but and I do feel like there are some people who are doing that. But the way, and that's usually happening under the surface and not it's not being it's not happening in the media, and you know, the media.
It's not narratively as exciting to help each other out and cool resources and all that stuff. It's much more exciting to have an action movie going.
On in the fucking news.
Yes, exactly, that's right. And social media has also been I don't know. I go back and forth on like the direction of media feels inevitable. I always tell this anecdote about how the inventor of the loud speaker blamed himself for the rise of fascism and and oh yeah that guy, and I think at the time he was doing that, it made sense to people because like one day, in order to reach a big group of people. You had to have a loud voice and stand on like
a soapbox, like literally, that's where that comes from. And then somebody created a technology and now you know, they could reach an entire auditorium full of people.
And he was like, that is my fault. Hitler is my.
Bad, and which is funny because I mean radio, you know, was invented right around man.
So I think he's big up in himself a little bit.
Yeah, And I think that's why it looks ridiculous, because in retrospect, it's like that was one tiny step along
the path toward like mass broadcasting technology. But I also just always bring it up because I think, you know, as invisible as that seems to us, now, the invention of the loudspeakers, we're at a point where like social media basically like people are like, okay, it's kind of beside the point to make arguments about social media, but just some of the like fucking Henry Winkler, the Fonds,
the book. I guess it was Thursday, and it was pretty early on Thursday too, you know, apparently got like truly existentially scared for the first time, and you know, seeing his friend's houses burned down and declared there's an arsonist on the loose in LA And it of course got like tons of play and like so many people in the comments being like, yes, finally somebody saying it, like so that the idea that it immediately took hold in the comments and around social media is like, not
only was there an arsonist, but there was a conspiracy to say there wasn't a Narsenist. And because I guess they this is like part of the narrative that we want to blame climate and fossil fuel executives unfairly.
I don't know, Like I don't, I truly don't know, like.
What baffling Like, yeah, based based on what mister Fonzareli.
Yeah, I don't know. It seemed like he was implying he had a a secret source. I'm sure he. You know, wealthy people hang out with other wealthy people. They love to be like I know a guy who knows a thing, like who uh secretly knows that there is in fact yellow cake uranium in Iraq?
You know, like he's like Ron Howard told me that his brother Clint saw guy with a flamethrower.
Then they found a unhoused person with a blowtorch in the valley, and this, you know, seemed to confirm what everybody already wanted to believe, that it's actually.
Poor people who are the problem.
With fun house person get a blow torch.
I know.
And that's like early what early reporting of a thing that it seemed like everybody already really wanted to believe. Like Andrew Huberman, do you know who that is? Has a massive podcast. He's like a Stanford PhD. But he's like now spent four years too many being told he's smart by everyone around him, and it's poisoned his mind and now he thinks he's like smart about everything.
And so he took a.
Video of like an empty lot and I think it was Santa Monica that had a fire in it and was like, they're starting fires out here, man, like geez, And someone in the comment was like, wait, I know those people they are in that video. They were they were there trying to fight that fire. But it was and you can like see the difference in the person pointing out like, oh no, that's me, that's that's my friend. We were trying to fight that fire with a garden
hose until the firefighters got there. Uh, those people are being downvote, you know, their their comments are dead before they hit the feed. And then yeah, the comments that are like this is the conspiracy. They don't want us to know that it's actually drug addicts and unhoused people that.
Are caused fire horny for like secret knowledge or like they're in some some sort of fucking club that knows more than everybody else and the secret.
The wild thing about this conspiracy, The reason I'm so skeptical about Andrew Huberman's eyewitness testimony and the fonds Is testimony is it's a conspiracy that is protecting unhoused people and drug addicts, the people who have never once been protected and treated with any deference in the history of the United States. Like there's absolutely if there's a way to blame them, they are going to be blamed, trust
you me. So anyways, after those initial reports. The other thing that's making me somewhat skeptical the police, who would love nothing you know, would love nothing more than a bad guy to pin this thing on.
Yeah, something to do.
They're already, as we've talked about, like during past press conferences, they're already jumping into the press conference being like don't even think about it, and the press is like, we sorry, who are you talking. Don't even exactly don't even think about it, Okay, I'm just saying, do you mean like arsonists?
Do you mean Luke? Don't no, don't don't even.
Don't think about anything.
Don't even think about anything. Please.
That would actually help us a lot, you know, Like Andrew Huberman in his video is like on the phone with the police being like, hey, there's a fire here or the fire station. The police are coming. They apparently arrived. It is not a location where one of the fires started, so they were able to put it out, And like there's a Fox News article that is like, actually the police like say, there's no exact instances of arson, like that was before they found the one on housed guy
with like a lighter or slash blowtorch. But they were like, there's none, there's no examples to support the fonds and Andrew Huberman, but like you know that they would fucking do anything to have that be true.
I mean you can tell from that that press conference.
It's like it's like looking at the context of that press conference is like why are you even here, Like either help or get the fuck out of the way, like no one's checking for you.
Yeah, they're so horny for there to be a bad guy they can blame. They need it to coming. It's coming. There's going to be bad guys. There's going to be un house people that they're going to pin this on. I think there's already on somebody, But I'm just saying I would remain pretty skeptical that that is actually what's going on here, as opposed to the fact that there
are all these fires starting all over the place. Because it is the most windy it's ever been, which seems to be the thing that drove the fires.
That's a That's another thing where you can tell that everyone's brain is kind of broken. Not everyone, but people who are coming up with these wild ideas. I lived in LA for thirty five years. Yeah, fires number one are a part of life in southern California, Like there are fires that devastate eight people's lives every year.
What's unusual about this.
Is it's fucking January and this is hot. I cannot remember a time when fire season extended well into winter like this.
This is highly.
Unusual to messi rans that cause flash flooding. This is this is a flooding season, not a fire season.
This is not fire season.
This is not normal, and it just seems like peoples have this. It's like they memory hole. It's kind of like with the hurricane people during hurricane season, where it's like the government sent the blah and it's like, no, dude, this happens every year. It's just getting worse and more frequent. Yeah, and there's no one to blame in regards to this is a this is a thing that happens, but the frequency and the scale of this is highly unusual, and this is this is a climate disaster, Like, this is
very not normal. Blaming unhoused people with lighters on them is fully delusional. And yeah, I get that it's a sexy, sexy idea to like turn this into like some sort of criminal investigation, but we're in we're in a really fucked up room, and acknowledging that is is it would be a huge step to addressing the actual issue. Yeah, Like, it's it's wild that people cannot accept the reality of the situation.
To me, Yeah, it's it's very frustrating, and it just you know, I like the fact that it's the fonds, like, well, respected. I think liberal icon the Fonds, and like Andrew Huberman, like Stamford scientists, guy like these are the sorts of people that we used to be able to rely on. And now you know, I will say, all right, so fossil fuel. If we if we need to create villains, it's the fossil fuel executives who knew about the ship before anybody and then took that knowledge and used it
to suppress the information. Also, just the fact that you know, so what we're seeing is a massive problem with the fact that for a long time we didn't let people publish stuff they thought they saw, right, Like, people would think they saw something and then they would go to a news room. They would you know that had a legal department that didn't want to get sued, and.
They would vet stuff.
They would have to vet stuff, and they wouldn't be able to publish stuff without having it fact checked. And the reason that we had that system in place is because back when people could publish stuff, they thought they saw the world, believed in ghosts, and they thought they thought plagues were caused by like, you know, letting fresh air in and you know, demons and shit. So I
just like I would also lump Mark Zuckerberg again. His new plan to not fact check because that is biased, is fucked up and probably going to take us into down a very bad path that we're already like well on our way down.
But I don't know, man, it just you heard him, folks, the democratization of the news has ruined us.
Yeah, I mean kind of yeah. It really like.
There are no arbiters. There are just people yelling into the void.
It just seemed like this fire. Being in the midst of this fire and watching it, Like I'm talking to people the day after the Funds is like it's arsonists. People are like, yeah, I agree, people are being weird, but I did hear there's arsenists. I'm just like, well, yeah, I don't know, and I don't I don't think there's necessarily a way to put the whole social media genie back in the bottle.
But you know, but if you got listeners, you know, if you listening to this show, you probably got a decent head on your shoulders. But if you got any goofy ass friends talking this nonsense, please check them what they talk about they talk about. Please please don't let please don't let these these weird ass. You know, I would say thoughts, but there's not a whole lot of thought put into them. Don't let this stuff go by unchallenged,
you know. Yeah, if you if you hear people spouting nonsense like this, check your people.
Yeah.
I think like we're we're at such a weird place where like a lot of community has been destroyed, and then the one thing that gives you a feeling of being part of some larger hole or shared delusions is like yeah, shared delusions and like transmitting memes and ship like on on social media, like being part of social media, but it's like so toxic. It's just like and you get to be a neuron that's sending delusional messages to
the shared brain that we're all part of. That that's how you get to be part of this large body of humanity that we're all part of. So it's yeah, the past few days have made me certain that in like one hundred years, looking back on the year twenty twenty five, people will be like, oh, wow, the United States was the worst place you could have possibly lived at that moment in time.
Like those people.
Worked so hard, justified so much, burned so many calories on cognitive dissonance in order to live and die in a place that objectively was one of the worst places to live and die.
And that hates you. That hates you, like yeah, that does not want to see you shine at all.
Nah.
Anyways, so that's my hope. Will take what we do have each other and uh, like I said, we will be linking off to uh the GoFundMe for Miles's family in the show notes.
Yes, please only donate if you have the funds to do that.
Don't put yourself out.
Yeah, yeah, if you if you can, Miles obviously will really appreciate it.
But do not put yourself out.
Yeah.
And so many people have helped so much already, like honestly, like, please don't do anything that is going to make it too difficult for yourself.
But yeah, you you guys that gang are great and we thank you for your support and your kind words. Yeah, all right, those are some of the things that are doing This Taco Bell story never that's and that's what we call it tease for Monday. That's uh uh, Brian antically made that up.
We're gonna have to find a Taco Bell story. All right, have a great weekend again. Thank you guys for being such a great community. We love y'all, and Miles loves you guys and really appreciate it to you and we'll talk to y'all on Monday.
Have a great weekend, Bright, stay safe, take care of each other.