HBD LaurTrend Passell 3/21: Trump, Peanut Butter, I Survived…, Alex Jones, Winnie the Pooh

some fun AI photoshops. I guess these used to just be called photoshops, but now they have to use artificial intelligence kids these days in my rate, but they're uh, I don't know, they're pretty convincing. There's there's one where he's being like dragged away um by a bunch of New York cops um, and he's like laying back on the ground. And a good good tip for if you want to be able to tell if something is a

bullshit AI thing is look at the legs. There's like fourteen pairs of legs like don't match up to anybody down below his Torso it's like Trump's being arrested for being the thing exactly. And then there's another one where he's running away from the police and they're like running after him. But two problems. One, he like they they've put him on the body of a much younger person who can bend his knees. So it's just like he looked like a person jogging, which I can't imagine. That's

that's happening a lot. It's Trump's head on the body of Tom Cruise from the Firm, right. And then also the cops chasing him appear to just be like jogging in a race, like in they're they're part of a five k that Trump is also participating him, and it's just like a guy in a hoodie behind them. It's just like hanging out. Yeah, who's that guy? Yeah, that's a great question. He's just like, oh, man, look at that.

A nice job, robot. Come on, robot, you dumb robot. Anyways, So that's that's how we're entertaining ourselves as a national Internet as we wait for a thing that in retrospect, it seems like he's the only one who said it was going to happen. Yeah, it doesn't seem like the best source when it's like the guy being investigated for fraud is your source. Yeah, I'm gonna say it, Donald Trump's a liar. There was also a protest, you know,

that was something that I think he called for. He was like, I want to want to see people hit the streets and save our democracy. And there was a group of young Republicans out in the streets of New York. And it seemed it might have seemed to you, a non expert, non trained observer, that this was a small protest, but it turns out that was by design. Oh yeah.

The person who organized it said, we weren't sure we even wanted to come out because some people don't like us, but we were here to show that there is support for President Trump in the bluest areas in the country here in Manhattan. And then later he was like, we actually wanted to make it small, to be quote, low key, a low key event, which the chill's been there before. You know. We're like, no, no, no no, it's actually we wanted it to be low key. That's why nobody came

to the party. Yeah, it's not like a it's like a birthday party. Once you're over thirty, it's like you just want, you know, chill out with just a couple of friends, you know, yes, but I can't imagine that Trump was was happy with this turnout. Well, there was the opposite together at the last minute, the last twenty four hours, said Gavin Wax. Gavin Wax, what a name for a young Republican. At one point there was I think outside Trump Tower it was like the opposite protest.

There was a bunch like some protesters showed up, but they're all like calling for him to be arrested, right, which I don't think was what he I mean, he didn't specify what kind of protests you wanted to be fair. Um. Anyways, well we'll all be waiting with bated breath for him to be dragged out of mar Lago and you know, whisked up to New York. I gotta say even that counter protest or you know, not counter protest, but the protest against Trump was also like quite small, like considering

the press, a former president is supposed to be arrested. Possibly, it feels like this is a later season of a show that's sort of run out of ideas. The Trump presidency has jumped the shark. I think we can all agree with that, right totally. Yeah, I mean they're circling back to the Stormy Daniels story come on the question of it is peanut butter liquid is circulating? It is. It's joined the pantheon of food based philosophical queries like

is a hot dog a sandwich? Is cereal soup? And that's not familiar with that one that sucks though no, it's not quite. Obviously our twizzlers still Twizzlers without the twists. Also not really a philosophical question but more of like a branding thing. But this one is is peanut butter liquid?

And it came up because somebody was prevented from bringing peanut butter onto a flight by the TSA, who was like, we said no liquid, and they were like, it's peanut butter though, so they posted to Instagram the TSA popped on and whoever the TSA is like social media person is apparently of the opinion like the TSA needs to be cute, because they were like, yeah, actually it's a liquid and then like had little fun things fun repartee with people being like, aha, but what about jelly, which

was confused using to me because it's like, well, if peanut butter is a liquid and jelly's obviously a liquid, right, Like they're kind of similar. The TSA confirmed also a liquid, but I don't know. Apparently this is what is known as a non Newtonian liquid. According to superproducer Brian, he turned to me onto the non Newtonian liquid, which is something that one minute behaves like a solid, the next

it flows like a liquid. Non Newtonian fluids can switch between a solid and liquid state depending on the forces acting upon them, which then brought up the Great Molasses Flood, which is just a wild story where a large storage tank filled with two point three million US gallons of molasses weighing approximately twelve thousand metric tons, burst and the resultant wave of molasses rushed through the streets at thirty five miles per hour, so like not that fast but

ended up killing when people injured. It's a slow something. I can't think of something to compare it to. Yeah, it's a car like on a suburban street that has a stop sign. Like it's like, you know, you can really you really have time to contemplate the very stupid thing that's about to happen too. Why why has this not been a movie like it was in Boston? Right? Yeah, but where's the ben Affleck historical drama. I know he's

working his way up to it. It does feel like one of those things that a movie should make just so we could see what that looks like. Like James Cameron should spend a decade just creating the three D Molasses Flood movie just because it seems like it would be very cool to watch that happen. But yeah, so it might as well build a story around it, I guess.

But yeah, I mean a horrible tragedy that then for decades afterwards, the area still smelled like molasses anytime it would get hot, which is like just a weird way to be haunted by something by the sweet smell. Yeah, which then led us to the I Survived series of books. So this isn't really a trending episode so much as a thing that was trending that led us down a internet rabbit hole. Um, this is not something that was

around when I was young. But there is a book called the Superducer Victor found the I Survived the Great Molasses Flood or the Great Molasses Wave of nineteen nineteen. But there's also like I Survived nine to eleven. It's just like a children's book where it's like like the drawing on the cover reminds me of the Choose your Own Adventure books totally, if if they had to choose

your own adventure book about nine to eleven. You know, I misremembered it because I like, I didn't read these books, but I remember like seeing the pop up online, and at first, for a minute, I misremembered it as being about like time travelers. I was like, these the same kids, like just like going from disaster to disaster and surviving. But no, they're all different characters, right. I guess in my mind they were like teenage thrill seekers, just you know,

going to the most horrific parts of human history. But there's like one one of them was like I survived like the Nazis. Yeah, just the evasion of nineteen forty four, which is like, I know, like nineteen people died in the molasses thing. But like it seems like a pretty wild swing to me to go from like molasses to the Nazis. It's I don't know, yeah I get, but I guess it's just things that are that kids are interested in and like a way of like getting them

some sort of historical detail. I guess I'm glad that they're learning about the Nazis from a book that I don't know. I haven't read these books, but I would imagine they are based not there, not like written by white supremacists who are like and it actually wasn't that bad. I survived the Nazis and it was you know, it was fine, right, No, Yeah, I know, I'm sure. I'm sure they're good books. They just I mean, they look

very extreme. I guess they're for older kids. Yeah, I'm just gonna read you the description of I Survived the Attacks of September eleventh, two thousand and one. I Survived Number six. It's the sixth book in the series. The only thing Lucas loves more than football is his uncle Benny, his dad's best friend at the fire department where they

both work. Benny taught Lucas everything about football, So when Lucas's parents decide the sport is too dangerous and he needs to quit, Lucas has to talk to his biggest fan. So the next morning, Lucas takes the train to the city instead of the bus to school. It's a bright, beautiful day in you. Yeah, so it's like just children's book premise, and then nine to eleven happens Jesus. So it's like nine to eleven like teaches him a lesson about not cutting class. Yeah, Like I'm wondering how they

weave that all together. Well, it's like, do you remember that Robert Pattinson movie? Yeah? I do remember it. Yeah, Yeah,

that's that should be the twist of every movie. I think we should always pull out from every movie to reveal that the character we've been following all along has ended up on one of the top floors of the World Trade Center and then like pulls out, does he like pull out a newspaper or it's like another character in the movie is in class and it's like an intercut and then the teacher writes like nine to eleven twenty two thousand and one on the board, and like

why did she write it like that? And then she writes never forget, and yeah, what date it is? I was thinking about nine to eleven today for some reason, and I was thinking about remembering when I was walking home from school on the street corner there were paper boys on the street going extra extra, yeah, because they had like the extra supplement for the paper because something so major it happened that they had to print another newspaper. They're going extra, and I remember being like, oh, I

never got that. That's what extra extra means. It's like an extra newspaper. And then I had that thought, and then I felt like am I a thousand years old? Like I how do I have this memory of paper? Like? Where did these paper boys come? Boozies on the street corner saying extra extra? Yeah? And then the then Christian Bale showed up and they did a full song and dance. You were on your way to sing with your duop group around a trash can fire. Yeah, it's that's that's wild.

I'm sure there are listeners of this show who are not at all surprised to hear that, because nine to eleven is just like history, just like all all the other just just like World War Two. Yeah, yes, of course, newsies. Yeah, that would be a funny historical period piece written by a twelve year old. So it's just like mashing everything together. It's like Hendricks was there playing for FDR and nine to eleven happened. All right, let's take a quick break.

We'll be right back. And we're back, and Alex Jones is still hoarding his money he's saying things like, quote, I'm officially out of money. Personally, you will see that Alex Jones has almost no cash. And then then like is putting so he's like investing in a company that his personal trainer just made up, declaring bankruptcy, transferring his three million dollar home to his wife, buying a private

jet like that. So there's like some stuff like he's giving the money away or like investing in a different thing. But then like buying a private jet seems like the sort of thing that the government should be able to be Like, well, you can't do that. You're supposed like you're supposed to be giving all your money away. Yeah, it's like I can't give the money. I can't pay the money I own. It's all tied up in jets. It's all tied up in these private jets I bought

for myself. They're like, well, it's good for the economy, but yeah, I mean he's supposed to be in the whole, like close to a billion dollars to the Sandy Hook parents, and because of the way the country operates, apparently, it's just you know, it's the greatest sin that can happen, as like a company or a person not being able to make money, you know, like making the survival of a business is like the top priority, and so the American bankruptcy system is making it possible for this garbage

human to just continue to pretend like he doesn't have money. Well, you know, being the main person at a company that makes seventy million dollars a year. Yeah, that's the frustrating thing. It's working like this. I mean, it's like a shell game with you know, private jets and mansions. That's so obvious.

It's like a shell game with no shells, Like everyone can see what he's doing, and frustratingly, it seems to be working, and no one knows if you know, the victims families who are owed this money are actually going to get paid. It's just ridiculous. Yeah, that's really frustrating.

His lawyers have claimed that Jones did not fully remember where he holds bank accounts, nor how many trusts he had set up over the past decade, and has no idea about the whereabouts of his twenty twenty two W two form documenting his wages, Like isn't that something the government can find like dig up? I guess not. In

America where they make the tax system intentionally confusing. But all right, and then this is kind of a story like so Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey, the Winnie the Pooh slasher movie was set to open in Hong Kong and then pulled at the last second from theaters for possibly political reasons. This of course ties to Shi Jimping being very sensitive about his resemblance to Winnie the Pooh and like that being a thing that people troll

him with is like images of Winnie the Pooh. I'm very skeptical of the filmmaker behind the movie Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey, and he seems to be the primary source here. However, there is a detail in this story that really blew my mind that like it seems like you put the story together Jam and like it seems like it's like a story after story where it's like it could be that he's really sensitive about Winnie the Pooh,

or it might be this other thing. It could be that he's really sensitive, or like there's this other explanation that like made this movie not very popular, and like

they still let the books happen. But then there's the release of the video game Kingdom Hearts Study, which you know has Disney characters, and Winnie the Pooh is one of the characters in the video game, and they just replaced him with like it looks like they just haphazardly used the erased tool like from photoshop on Winnie the Pooh, but like not even his whole like his legs are still poking out the bottom of this like amorphous white blob.

So that made me think, Okay, anything is possible, and he probably is doing this because that is just so shameless, like the removal of Winnie the Pooh from Kingdom Hearts three, like in a way that just looks like he went in himself and used the erased wool. Yeah, they couldn't even like you know, copy and paste of like Roger Rabbit or something. Just yeah, like you said, just avoid

of nothingness where the Pooh once was. Yeah, so I don't know that that makes me think, I mean you were pointing out like the movie is not very popular, like the movie yeah as a four percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and so it's entirely possible any failure of this movie

has to do with the fact that it sucks. Yeah, well that's the thing, Like you said, it's the director who's saying like, oh, there's something mysterious happening behind the scenes, because they okayed this movie and they screened it once and then they pulled it. And to me, it's like, oh, that's very possible that's the case. But it's also like, well, it could also be they screened it once, it was

awful and they canceled it. Hot. Yeah, I mean it is a movie where like Piglet like runs over a woman's head with a car, and like, yeah, Winnie the Pooh like whips Christopher Robin with eor's tail and stuff like that. But you know, done with a budget of gift cards from Starbucks. It's like very low budget. Yeah. No, I haven't encountered anyone that liked it online. It seems

to be pretty universally panned. This movie seems like it's the I think I talked about this before on the show that like Corey doctro told this story about ordering food from his local like favorite tie place, and like when he made the order, the actual tipe place called him and were like, you actually ordered that from like a clone website that exists and is the number one result on Google and they just put the order in for you but charge you for like five extra dollars

per item, and right, so they're just like this way that people are like artlessly finding ways to just wedge themselves into other people's transactions to like make money like that. That feels like what Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey is, like somebody's just like figured out that he could make a Winnie the Pooh movie like and just happened to be such a compelling idea for people that it's now a national news story. But yeah, well I think people

also like it. It's a funny idea, and I think people are also like so frustrated with how Disney has circumvented copyright laws, like they keep you know, extending the making it like they up ended it for everybody, I think, right, like they they had they actually wielded their power to have it extended to a certain point. They keep getting extensions from Mickey Mouse like they have used their power

to Yeah, exactly. So I think having this finally come in public domain, having someone come in and do something that seems contradictory, yeah, transgressive, and also like you know, kind of opposes the sort of intellectual property hoarding that that Disney's known for. Like, I think everyone wanted to be on board with this movie. We're all rooting for you, Winnie the Pooh, Blayney. Unfortunately us all down. You let us all down. But the Kingdom Hearts three thing is unbelievable.

I mean, that's that is amazing, just self ownage by Shi jimping to just be like, yeah, you just can't see how much he looked like me. Okay, so nothing

to see here. The funny thing about that story, too, like looking it up, was that that whole thing about Winnie the Pooh being banned by the Chinese government like may have started about may have started as a joke about how the government banned Winnie the Pooh, Like it was like a screenshot of a government document that was never verified, so it was like, you know, it may have been just made by someone as a joke, but then everyone latched onto the joke and the joke basically

just became real. Yeah, it seems like if the CIA was good at their job, this is the sort of thing that they would have done just to like troll him, you know, But I would be surprised if they if they had that level of like social media, wherewithal oh definitely all right, well, Jam, such a pleasure of having you as always. Where can people find you and follow you? You can find me on Twitter at Jam McNab again. All right, that's gonna do it for us this afternoon.

We are back tomorrow with the whole last episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other, be kind to yourselves, get the vaccine, don't do nothing about white supremacy, and we will talk to you all tomorrow By