Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of thanks Trending Mashed Potatoes, O'Brian and Miles of Gravy back together again, slathered slathered on one another.
I am suck. I'm not I'm not joking. My grandfather used to he used to have a barbecue restaurant and he was smoked turkeys and like all the like when the Raiders went to La they will all come to him to get a Thanksgiving turkey, like one of his smoke turkeys. And he passed away a couple of years ago. But this year I found a spot that was smoking turkeys and I got a smoke turkey in, you know, just to kind of commemorate, you know, bring the memory
back of my grandfather. But like at the spot, they're like you can also buy they have like smoke turkey gravy. Because I wasn't just gonna make my own gravy. I was like, give me that. I bought so much gravy that I'm going.
To just turn to gravy. Yeah I might need that because I put together a shopping list and it the gravy we got looks kind of like military ration gravy, you know, pre mixed in a Yeah, so I'm excited, though I did wait in an hour at a Honey Baked ham to pick up a ham. Yes, nice, it's a blast. Yeah it was an hour mana Glen.
Oh yeah that one. Yep, there's another one. There's another one in the cut in like Pasadena. That's also like like, I mean there's only like a couple left anyway in La. But yeah, anyway, here we are getting our arteries everything ready for the turkey the turk. All right, well, welcome back. By the way, you were out for a couple of days. Was the family. I went to Disneyland with the with our nieces and the little baby. Uh and there's some in laws and it I don't know why. I it's
the most fucking crowded time. It's I think it's quite literally the worst time to go. I think when Amanda was on from the Keys to the Kingdom podcast and I was like, that's like the worst time to go. Yeah, yeah, giving you freak.
What do you mean? You roll up and you're like is this the worst time? And the people that did, like even Mickey Mouse is like yeah, no, ship man.
Holy ship man, Like we know he has track marks on his arm here.
He's like, it's a fucking stressful boy, I tell you.
My guts hurt, buddy.
Oh boy, hey, speaking of yeah, good good Victory Light podcast called Victory Light. Everybody checking out Ki Mara, Yeah if you if you aren't listening, you should be.
Yeah, it's oh man, they got a his co hosts are amazing too. So for the people who missed Bodego boys, Victory Light is a welcome, welcome treasure.
The art is back, as the art is back, all right. Speaking of the art, the art of the negotiation, Joe Biden just single handedly brought about a ceasefire.
I mean, way to rebrand wheeler dealer. Yeah, I think we this is not a this is a humanitarian pause. But now the language of ceasefire is being very quickly adopted because yeah, right, oh boy, Biden sees for biden Omics. I mean, I think, yeah, what the agreement is for between four and six days of less bombing, like there's still gonna be military operations run, Like I do you know the full details, but I do know that they have basically said we are like the second it's over,
we're right back to it. So there will be time for a hostage swap fifty Israelis for one hundred and fifty Palestinians, some of them, you know, children that are in prison. Wrap your head around that one. Why are these why are they jailing Palestinian children? And then you know there's just age is supposed to get in there. But this is such a small like there's like the bear minimum right now, given what the situation is. And I can't, like again, we say this all the time.
Shit just looks more and more grim every time I see any kind of any footage coming out of Gaza.
Yeah, at the same time, like this is a step, it is something. Oh, I mean this is better than nothing, for sure, Yes, for sure. And you know Amen was saying like you should follow the story, but not necessarily through the Western media, but through like the Israeli media, and uh they are describing it as an agreement broker by Qatar between Israel and Hamas, which that's not the story I'm being told by.
It was all Joe Biden. Oh you're the guy who said, yeah, he's fired, not possible. Who was saying that outline? I mean, that's like the weird thing when like his rhetoric so outwardly was like, Nah, that shit ain't happening, and like I'm part of me. I'm like, is that just like state craft because you to have Netzenga who think that you're like there, but you're obviously backchanneling all this other stuff.
But at the same time, like that, the rhetoric that was needed from the President of the United States was much more forceful than that.
Yeah, and the problem with net Nyaho, like getting net Yahu to do something is not being nice to him. It's like that he thinks America will do whatever he asks them to. But regardless, it does feel like it's being covered in US media as Biden was feeling pressure from the bad pulling and he was applying pressure on Israel, like more pressure than he would have otherwise been. So I mean, in that respect, I don't know, it's like
somewhat hopeful. That gives me some hope that like, things are working the way they're supposed to in one very specific respect, and we don't know how long the ceasefire is going to last or how effective it's going to be, but it's definitely something so yeah, to pass it along, it's.
Yeah, and it's also just odd to like and then see like Democrats be like, oh, this is needed, and that like the good thank you Joe Biden, Like two weeks ago you were like, yo, let's let them cook.
Yeah, so what the fun for this was being described as.
Uh yeah, an anti Semitic attack. Yes, but again, this is why this is a huge if and you can only describe this as a humanitarian pause. That's it because the the the military operations will resume, and so I mean that's why this is a first step. But you'd
hope like that this is part of lasting pressure. And I know people around the world are like just begging their governments, imploring them to get behind an actual ceasefire, to like get something figured out, because this is not how this is not what people want to keep witnessing. And I'm sure for people who live in like you know, countries that supply arms to Israel don't want to feel like they are a party to that.
Yeah. All right, Well, Thanksgiving travel, which is seeing record numbers this year, is unsafe due to a shortage of
air marshals. Oh, which I had always assumed like there was some evidence for like that air marshals were like helping in some way, like behind the scenes or I don't know, because it's just like, right, you just hear about it and you assume like, well, that seems like a good idea to I don't know, have somebody there in case shit goes down and an interview with the director of the Air Marshal National Council went on Trocks News to complain that Thanksgiving was in jeopardy because so
many air marshals have been deployed to the southern border to help with ushering in illegal immigrants. They're actually helping distribute water to people, which is a basic human right.
Hold on, let's just check that. Yep. Okay, yep, water water, That should be a basic human right, Yeah, yeah, yep, yeah, but they're ushering them in like the R and B singer.
Okay, but it was so it's it's just interesting like that this idea that we're we're short staffed with our air marshals has caused some people to be like, well, let's let's take a look at this program. It was it was started in the sixties with like a small number of agents assigned to flights that were deemed to be high risk of hijacking. I'm sure it was those were not deemed to be high risk of hijacking for racist reasons at all.
I'm like, yeah, who like this sixties in the United States, and they're like.
Well shit, And then they massively expanded after nine to eleven, two thousands of covert agents traveling with cover stories both domestically and internationally, a time when the nation collectively lost their fucking mind, and you know, with is i'm aphobia among many other things. So people are understandably critical of the you know skycop idea thank youky cop just every time when my plane lands safely, I just put my hands up and I say thank you skycop.
Yeah, thank you sky cop. Askaby cops.
But cost as much as one billion dollars a year to taxpayers, and they have looked into like what it's preventing. Yeah, and you know, like cops of all sorts will ben will find the statistics to be like, this is weird savings fucking lives out here.
They will they will lay out thirty six dollars in cash next to a weed pipe and a bag of cocaine and be like, yeah, look, check out this fucking bust we just did.
Yeah. So uh, in the in the way of evidence that sky cops are working. We've got not shit that really, like, I haven't stopped anything. And you know, they've existed for decades now at the level at post nine to eleven levels, haven't faced a real terror threat during an actual flight, and far more air marshals have actually been arrested than terrorists. So at twenty sixteen Pro public report, thank god for Pro Publica. By the way, they're just like the only
people out here, like issuing foyer request foy mob. Yeah, but they revealed that air marshals were themselves arrested one hundred and forty eight times from November two thousand and two to February twenty twelve for crimes ranging from aiding a human trafficking ring to attempted murder. It's like minor stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, easy, he's easy, but yeah, look that is martial business.
Also charged with more than five thousand cases of misconduct during that period. One air marshal used his badge to smuggle drugs past airport security. Another used his to lure a young child to his hotel room. Uh in cyclas.
And yeah, yeah, because you have a group of people who already I can't imagine the mindset of someone who's like, oh, what do I do? I basically have that thing on me and I get on a plane and I.
Keep done on. Yeah, like all the power and apparently like the mental health is like not great, like the you know they describe. The agency's culture is described as mind numbing and toxic. Air Marshals are reportedly plagued by depression, have experienced psychotic episodes, and the program has suffered a
rash of suicides. According to one union's twenty eighteen letter, the agency experiences three to five suicides a year of active duty or recently retired to air marshals, which is a locked Yeah, yeah.
I think I then this is like a thing too where like they're randomly scattered, so it's like there ain't enough of them for flights. I mean, we've talked about this before, where it's like there's not enough of them for the number of flights to really be able to guarantee that nothing is going to go down. It's just
more like it's like putting up like a fake surveillance camera. Yeah, it's like plastic and people like, oh, I don't know that thing might be on I don't know, So just the fear of that it might be your flight, I think is the only thing I guess preventing things. But also again to your point, have has there been anything where they've actually had to go into action? Doesn't seem like it.
Yeah, Like they don't even get the you know how like pilots and people like flight attendants are famously like hot, famously hot, but also famously like not great sleep schedules and all are having to be protected from horrible sleep things like they don't even air marshals don't even have
those protections. So these people who have guns on our flights and are like struggling with mental health issues like, are being treated like absolute shit by the companies that, you know, by the organizations that are in charge of like you know, making sure that they actually are there to do a job that they allegedly have to do.
Right just seeing like how long, like on an international leg that they have to be up for nineteen hours of nineteen hours of continuous wakefulness is the physiological equivalent of being legally impaired by alcohol, and twenty four hours is the equivalent of legal intoxication. Okay, but they're gonna work. They're gonna work. They're goun works.
Yeah, unfortunately their gun works in some cases. Because there's more than two hundred k's of air marshals misusing firearms or misbehaving with guns between two thousand and five and twenty seventeen, including more than seventy incidents of loss, misplaced or stolen weapons and one time an air marshal left his gun in the airplane bathroom at least one.
Time something like yeah, you come, I like, I think someone left in the handgun toilet and also misbehaving what is this righteous gemstones like because you like to do a little like gun twirling exactly like what what counts as misbehaving? It gets hey, he gets the guy in the plane lifting his shirt up. Look, look, don't fuck with me. Don't fuck with me.
You better stop fucking crying. Yeah, okay, you are annoying everyone around you.
You can't get touched, just so you know, because I will wet your whole ship right now. Oh my god, you're misbehaving.
Uh so, yeah, these are the people that we need to be uh worried about flying because they're not on the case. According to Fox News, this made me feel a lot safer about flying when uh they're down doing some like much needed like soul refreshing work. Yeah, like giving people. Yeah please, it's like no, they're giving, they're saving people's lives and helping people who are in need.
Yeah, well, just like clear like an interest group meant to represent that that occupation and then just you know, regurgitate xenophobic nonsense.
Yeah, well, what are you gonna do?
Let you rest, hopefully rest. I know it's busy out there. I saw footage from the fucking airports on when the Wednesday for things giving. It looks a fucking nightmare.
Good luck out there. Stay safe if you're listening to us from from a flight, and thanks for bringing us with you on this one.
Yeah, stay frosty though they might have a drunk air marshal on board that you need.
Your head on a swivel out there. All right, we'll be right back, and we're back.
We're back and squid Game the reality showing viewing for Krizana smiles.
I don't know. I was always curious, like who's producing this thing? It seems like it's kind of missing the point of the show, which was mainly, I would say, like a capitalist critique where every single character was put up against a wall by the you know, strictures of capital and and then forced to like put their lives on the line and almost die or die in all cases for the entertainment of like billionaires. So it seemed
like a pretty straightforward message. And this one, they're like, wouldn't you like to be those rich billionaires who get to watch people die and struggle for your entertainment.
And you can masturbate with a mask on all happening?
You can't, I mean that is always an option that's available to you. Uh yeah, but anyways, the yes, thank you. So the producers gave an interview to the Hollywood Reporter with the dropping of Squid Game, and they were asked about that.
Oh, like, how do you navigate like the anti capitalist message of the show, like, or how do you integrate it?
Yeah, and they while they acknowledged that is one strand of Squid Game, they also added that the capitalist critique was really a very small part of the original Squid Game.
You're fucking kidding?
I yes, yes, there is one element of the original show that people have latched on to. That people have latched onto onto that like you know, you critics latch onto and keep like talking up that they think it's being not served by a reality show. But I would say it's a very small part of the original squid game.
That's actually a quote Jack just read. Yeah, that is a legitimate quote for the producer of the.
So I was like, who, so are these like the original producers of the show. Also like, how how did that work? How did they get the right The producer's name is Tim Harcourt, all right, And I have a picture of him in the dock here, and he is white as white as the name Tim Harcourt would suggest.
And his like T shirt with blazer tea. Sorry sorry sorry, yeah, but what he did is he like a like a Korean media is like, is he involved in Korean media?
No, he's just like a reality show. He made a naked attraction, the all nude dating show.
Oh perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect perfect.
So he's kind of who I go to for my understanding of like what various works of art are saying culturally, and like which of the messages are important and which can just be discarded for the purposes of entertain There's also the allegations about the filming conditions of the show. We talked before about how the Red Light Green Light Game was reportedly shot in a freezing airport hangar that led to some people having to be treated by medics due to the extreme cold.
Don't say like hypothermia, that's gonna give it a bad it's just call it. It's really it was just really chilly in there.
Yeah. One of the players on the show was quoted as saying all the torment and trauma we experienced wasn't due to the game or the rigor of the game. It was the incompetencies of scale. More than they could chew.
The incompetencies of scale.
That to be the name of a fucking book.
Yeah, d I'm read competencies of scale. Wow scathing. And then so the produces like that guy's just a hater because he got hit by paintballs in the Red Light Green Ball Green Light Game.
Yes, uh, basically so that we heard from another one of the producers, Steven Lambert, who let me guess you can picture him. He's the other guy except balder.
Yeah, he looks like he's like he's like an eagle's uncle. What if that makes sense, Like as a human, then I don't know, he has he's very avian.
But that producer pointed out that because of the huge cash prize, it wasn't going to be a walk in the park. It's like, yeah, we're gonna try and freeze you to death. There's a lot of money online. Okay, but yeah, as as was pointed out by one of the contestants, we were not getting vibes that this was an intentional attempt to freeze us to death. It was that they are fucking reality show producers who are just like, I don't know, man, we got to stretch his money.
Let's put it in this giant freezing warehouse and not heat it. So yeah, just due to the colossal incompetence of the of the production.
Man. It's also just really interesting too that there's like even like this like darker social media thing like that. Apparently people were saying they were allegations that like influencers from like TikTok or Instagram were like like it was rigged to favor them.
Yeah, that they rigged it for so yeah, they gave they gave every contestant like mics, right, and you know,
because it's reality show, there's like around their testing. Yeah, and then as people were getting eliminated, they were like never felt like they turned my mic on or that my mic even like had wiring in it, but like the people who lasted in the game did have actual mics, so it felt like, Okay, they went into this and weirdly, all the people who had large social media followings were the ones who lasted, and everybody.
Else they're they're just it's there. It's a parody of itself, you know, like in the way that they're like favoring people who could potentially offer more of a benefit financially to this show, the ones that make it so grim.
Well, this is why, like you can't really do this show unless you're going to have the courage of your convictions and kill the contexts exactly because otherwise the contestants are going to see like the sleight of hand and all the like kind of bullshit that you're putting into it.
You can complain if you're fucking six feet you know what I mean. So it's an old reality TV adage,
I think that they say. But yeah, I mean it makes sense because like, for like reality television, as someone who has watched a mind blowing amount and as like I worked in and around production of reality shows, it's it's truly like people playing with an ant farm, and except you have people in there, and what else can due to fucking make some weird shit happen on camera without any consideration for their personal lives or who they are. But and here we are. So it's just wild, see it.
It sounds so bad that I got I love a disaster. The incompetency of scale.
It's uh it squid Game, the reality show in the incompetencies of scale. It's also just wild. Like the more we learn about like Netflix and you know how uh like one of their greatest works of art, like one of the greatest works of art that they were responsible for is squig Game like that. I you know, I don't think that's controversial, right, Like that show was fucking awesome, Like.
Yeah, I mean it was so it was such a yeah, I think especially because it had this despite it being like a you know, from the English speaking world, a foreign show, it just hit the fucking nail directly on its head for.
Whatever brilliant trash like beautiful garbage, like really well done, and then like reached some really high highs that like you wouldn't expect from a show that like is about. It is basically you know, the plot to The Running Man, you know, just deadly game show, beautifully done, you know,
and also like their biggest hit of all time. I think just like massive, massive hit Cut came out of nowhere for them, and the way they respond to that is like continue to underpay the people who actually like made it and then like skin it and turn it over to a fucking reality show producer.
Good just the I mean, I say that, and I just need to see how, because man, it sounds that everyone's like panning it.
It's getting bad reviews.
I feel like if you just search it, most people.
Are like, I don't know, deals gross man, right right, right, right, yeah, damn you hate to see it? You really hate to see it. Well, Miles, you'll check it out and let us know how how it holds up. Yeah yeah, yeah, but if you just come back, you're like, guys, I'm sorry, it's brilliant.
It's fucking amazing, The Verge said squid Game, the challenge is a morbid larp trapped inside a reality TV show Whoops wee boy boy boy boye boye boye Yeah, Rolling Stone Netflix Good Game. Reality show was cruel and Rigged squid Game the Challenge Player two nine to nine. Spencer talks, so, yeah, a lot of people are a lot of people got something to say.
Yeah, like Entertainment Weekly, which described it as having an eclectic cast and inventive updates to the original inventive updates to.
Are They like the Entertainment Weekly is like what the local news is like to the police department or something exactly, like, oh, we love it obviously, it's so good, and shout out to them. Please continue to invite us to your press junkets so we may have access to sell or clicks or whatever.
Man, they really just skinned the whole show though, Like I'm looking at the trailer and it is exactly the ship.
Wow, I mean it's and it's also but like get you know, you have to hand it to like these big studios, massive media companies where they like they just go, oh, that thing's popular and completely miss the fucking point about why it's popular. Yeah, they're like, yep show big, so putting the same name even on a cartoon for babies, and they're gonna love it, right because the show was so big. Wait what was it about capital, Well, that's just like your opinion man, Yeah, exactly.
All right, well those are the things that are trending on this Wednesday. Yeah, we are off tomorrow and Friday. Yeah for the holiday. Off over the weekend, and then back on Monday with a whole ass episode of the show telling you what trended, what you missed over this hopefully slow news weekend. We'll talky'll then have a great holiday weekend. Bye everyone, Bye doctor Patt