Kyle, Adam, Jarret, and Travis are back on The Babylon Bee Podcast to talk about Switchfoot, Cybertruck, and Kyle's favorite song from the 80's classic Christian movie Home Safe. They also talk about the 10 Freeway shutdown, Senator Fetterman trolling the pro-Hamas, and San Francisco cleaning up its streets for a communist dictator. There's also glorious hate mail. This episode is brought to you by ALLIANCE DEFENDING FREEDOM. Become a champion for freedom today: http://joinADF.com/BEE
Are you as frustrated as I am that males, boys, and men are being allowed to take away awards and opportunities from girls and women in sports?
That girls are being sidelined in their own sports and put in harm's way, and that our own federal government is pushing this.
When our society ignores biological reality, it's women and girls who suffer.
Thankfully, my friends at Alliance Defending Freedom are standing for truth and challenging this destructive agenda in courts and legislatures nationwide.
But they need your help.
Join with ADF and be a champion for freedom for just $19 a month.
You can stand for women and girls and reality.
Visit joinadf.com slash B and pledge your monthly gift of $19 or more to ADF.
That's just 63 cents a day to help protect women in sports from radical gender ideology.
Go to joinadf.com slash be and stand up for freedom with your monthly gift today.
The Babylon Bee Podcast.
Hey everyone, welcome to the Babylon Bee Seldom.
We're hanging out here with Travis, Jared, Kyle, and Adam.
So I went to the Switchfoot show last weekend.
Oh, nice.
How was that?
At the Wilt?
This was their original band name.
It was Chinup.
Oh, cool.
Is that their original logo there?
Yeah.
That's a better name than Switchfoot.
Yeah, why did they change it?
Yeah, Chinu.
I like it.
They were doing the Beautiful Letdown Tour where they played the whole Beautiful Letdown album, you know, their big album 20 years ago.
But they said they had a special guest.
So it was at the Wilturn in LA and we went in and the special guest was just them opening for themselves.
What?
So they opened as Chin Up.
Oh, okay.
The original three band members.
And then John Foreman kept telling dad jokes about it.
Like, he's like, ah, can't wait till Switchfoot comes on.
That's kind of fun.
He did it the whole time.
Now, do they have a different set?
Like, is it different sets?
It's like different stuff they did.
Okay.
And then they're like, okay, well, here comes Switchfoot.
And they left.
And like changed.
And they came out and we're like, thanks so much to Chin Up for opening.
He really leaned into the bit and just kept telling jokes about it the whole night.
That makes me think of how Stephen King used to write as Richard Bachman.
I think that's what it was.
But he would talk about Richard Bachman as like he's a real person.
Yeah.
And like, we know it's you, Stephen.
Stop it.
I like how Garth Brooks hosted SNL and the musical guest was Chris Gaines.
Chris Gates.
I remember the Chris Gaines thing because his sweep.
He had the soul patch.
Oh, yeah.
That was a weird time.
It was a weird time in his career.
I think it was a weird time in everyone's life.
Wasn't that the one?
That was when they had the Satan sketch, though, which is my favorite sketch.
It's a great sketch.
Above.
It's a really good one.
Yeah, I think I know that.
Devil Can't Write Any Love Songs.
Yeah.
I can't write no love songs.
It's so good.
He was a good host, but you know, I'm Chris Gain, not the best.
What a strange, like, I don't know.
I guess when you have everything, you just do weird stuff.
Historians a thousand years from now will analyze that.
I was traveling this week.
I went down to West Palm Beach, Florida for the roast of our friend Brandon Strzok, the founder of the walk away movement.
He was celebrating the fifth anniversary of the walk away movement.
So had a bunch of speakers there.
Lara Trump was there.
Rudy Giuliani was there.
And then to close out the weekend, he had a roast of himself.
So it was me, Josh Denny, Alex Stein, Shamika Michelle, David Harris Jr.
It was really fun.
That was great.
And there was a guy, I'm not real familiar with him.
His name is Mikey Harlow.
He's an influencer that's part of Brandon's Walk Away movement.
He was hilarious.
Just a really funny set.
Yeah, it was a good time.
Oh, cool.
So what kind of turkey did they roast?
Was it good?
It was delicious.
I wish I had some.
It was some stroked turkey.
The Thanksgiving episode is gross.
Next week.
Oh, sorry.
Well, it also made me note what I was watching the recording.
It let me know how much you're holding back.
Like, it could be a lot.
I generally work pretty clean, but oh, it could be a lot worse.
Oh, it could.
I can do that when it's when.
Well, you probably adapt to the format.
Well, I always said, I mean, just not to get too technically like comedy inside stuff, but I always tell beginning comics, start out working clean.
Because even if you want to eventually be a dirty comic, you will learn how to write jokes better working clean.
It's much easier to go from a clean comic to if this event is, for some reason, calls for that kind of humor, you can write that way, than it is if you're someone who relies on dirty humor as a crutch.
It's very hard to write clean stuff.
Yeah, I think Jerry Seinfeld always referred to like dirty comedy as kind of a crutch.
Yeah.
Just throwing in curse words of the punchline is lazy.
I agree, but there's also times where an F word would be perfect in a Babylon B headline.
Yeah.
There are those rare occasions.
And I can't use it.
There are those rare occasions where it's like the curse word is the perfect word.
There are a couple of cuss words that there aren't a good replacement for.
Yes, that's what's hard.
Every now and then, you know, I usually know what the sort of clean version that works for the word is, but there are a few where it's just, it doesn't translate right.
Yeah, which ones are those?
But what are some of the favorite sketches we've been putting out lately?
Oh, I was going to tell him about my weekend, but did you have anything interesting about your weekend?
I could move on.
One interesting thing was that because it was Veterans Day this week.
If the host moves the conversation on, we don't just.
Never mind.
That's fine.
Well, hold on and we are in this.
Hold on, host.
Well, this weekend for Veterans Day, I can't tell if it's like sort of insensitive, but I tend to like watching war movies on Veterans Day.
I'm like, oh, it's Veterans Day.
Time for a war movie.
For my entertainment.
Yeah.
Fight people.
That's the part where I'm like, blood.
I don't know how I feel about this.
Oh, well.
They did a Band of Brothers marathon on like AMC or something.
It's like, huh.
Yeah, I mean, that would have been fun.
That may be the best one.
So I watched K-19, The Widowmaker.
I haven't watched that in forever.
Which honor our American veterans.
That's the joke.
I watched it and I'm like halfway through and I'm like, wait a minute.
It's Veterans Day and this is about a Russian submarine.
It felt a little weird.
It's a good movie, though.
I recommend it.
That's cool.
It's a little hard to watch, though.
You watch it once and you're like, I'm good.
A good American alternative would be U571.
Yeah, that's a good recommendation.
Yeah, if you're more of an American person.
And if you're just a Tom Clancy person, Hunt for Red October.
Hunt for Red October.
I love naval movies.
Battleship starring Rihanna.
With Taylor Kitch battleship.
Really, honors our true battle.
That's what I actually watched.
I actually enjoyed that movie because it was so obvious where they were going with it.
Because at the beginning, they had the old man veteran people, you know, that's what they call them, over by the old World War II battleship, like honoring these last surviving World War II veterans by the battleship.
And then they have all the new technology fighting the aliens.
And of course, it's like Chekhov's gun.
It's Chekhov's old man battleship.
The aliens disable all the modern technology.
So the only ship available in the fleet is the old World War II ship.
And who's the only people who can pilot it?
The old World War II.
This is what you do to a ship.
The old man world, and they have to fight the aliens in an old.
So I didn't see that.
They had giant pegs flying from the sky.
Wait, ACDC, they played Thunderstruck.
Oh, really?
Which was anytime they used to play it.
And I just said, yes, I really appreciate this movie because it's bad, but they leaned into it.
Yeah, they leaned into it.
Jeff Goldblum, Randy Quaid flying into the ship.
So I didn't see a battleship, but was there a line where someone says, you sunk my battleship?
I believe there was.
There was, actually, yeah.
Was it Liam Neeson saying it?
Sure.
I've seen the movie.
I don't remember.
I haven't seen it.
I haven't seen it in 10 years.
Taylor Kitch was the most famous person in the movie.
I don't even know who that is.
Rihanna was.
Rohanna is more important than well.
Taylor Taylor was the guy from Friday Night Lights that he played David Koresh.
That guy.
Yeah, so I don't know any of those.
He's very good.
Anyway, is there any scene in Battleship where the enemy lies about you hitting one of their phones that hit?
No, no, no, it didn't.
There's nothing there.
That's funny.
Well, this weekend, we watched Back to the Future with my kids.
And I really wanted to say this because we got to go back to the future the night before.
Watched on Vidangel, by the way, tried to watch Back to Future 2 with my kids.
Not recommend.
I mean, it is dirty.
Is it?
Yeah, it's dirty.
When he's like, confiscates adult literature.
Yeah.
But it's before Playboy existed.
So it's called, I don't know what to call it.
Very magazine.
He goes to the stage.
And it's called Ula Ra.
He is innocent.
Innocent.
He's pretty an adult literature.
Innocent of evil.
I'm sure that Did Angel covers it, but this is kind of one of my stories.
Ooh la la.
Oo la la.
We're just having a side conversation here.
I just wanted to point out.
So we watched The Back to the Future with my kids.
Great movie.
My kids loved it.
It was a copy of Warren Peace.
If you know what I mean.
Wait a minute.
We drove down to the Peterson Museum and saw the actual DeLorean that they did all three movies in.
Oh, that's awesome.
And so we took some pictures.
And, you know, the flux capacitor still works.
It's really cool.
Where's the Peterson thing?
It still works.
What do you mean?
It still works.
Well, it's there glowing.
I mean, it's like a lights up.
Yeah, it's a lights up.
It still goes back in time.
Still can turn.
And the 89 Batmobile was there.
Kit was there.
The Bat Cycle from Adam West Batman was there.
Herbie was there.
It was pretty amazing, actually.
It was worth the drive.
And I saw a Cybertruck, and I realized that's my.
If I ever have a dream car, I want a Cybertruck.
I've been debating whether I wanted, I mean, they're expensive.
I don't know that I'll get one.
They're like 60 grand, right?
Insane, yeah.
But yeah, I would do it if I had the money.
They're kind of weird looking, but I also kind of like them.
I'm debating whether I want one.
Yeah, wait, are they 60 grand?
I feel like they have to be more than like a few years ago.
They were 40.
Oh, really?
When you were like signing up for them, and now they've gone up to like 60 for the base.
60 is not a lot for well.
I would sell my Silverado for a Cybertruck for sure.
Like, that's really cool.
Yeah.
I don't know if we're allowed to say this because Elon Musk is a friend of the B, but I think the Cybertruck is the ugliest car.
Yeah.
I know.
I kind of like that about it.
Then that's your point.
It's like getting a pug or something like that.
It is like getting a pug.
Oh, shoot.
We're kicked off of Twitter again.
I mean, what I meant to say was it's ugly as in, like, it's so good.
I would like to bleep everything Travis is saying and dub it with the most amazing vehicle of all time.
Please.
They kind of look like the DeLorean, though.
That's the crazy part.
Like, it's the brushed steel.
Do the doors go up like the DeLorean?
No.
But you can hit them with a sledgehammer and they don't dent.
But the other SUV, what is it?
The T-Series.
Tesla does have one.
Yeah, they do have one on the office.
It's very cool.
It doesn't have a flux capacitor.
And I'm not knocking you for wanting it.
I just think it's so all these sharp angles.
I'm like, he just saw a cheese grater.
He's like, that's a car.
That's it.
I think he watched that video, A Money for Nothing in Your Chicks for Free.
Oh, yeah.
And then he thought, I'm going to make a car that looks like this video.
Did he watch it on VidAngel?
Do you even think?
Probably.
I mean, I don't know.
To ask him.
I like the promotionals for that where they're like shooting the cyber truck with machine guns and stuff.
That's cool if ever.
Yeah.
Wanted to shoot.
Yeah, it'd be a good Mad Max car for sure.
I just think it'd be great.
I'd like it.
I saw it going off-road.
So I never pictured a cyber truck off-road.
So seeing the video was cool.
Nice.
That was cool.
Yeah.
Well, what sketches have we been putting out lately?
We have a couple of fun ones coming up.
Actually, when does this come out this week?
Yeah, so Prices Rising will come out, hopefully.
It comes out this week.
Hopefully, we'll see.
I think it does.
Yeah, I think it comes out like tomorrow or something.
So, if you went to Be Live, we did a sketch called Prices Rising that Adam wrote with Biden hosting the prices right.
Really funny.
And the crowd loved it a lot.
It was really fun.
That was the first time we didn't live sketch.
And we had Austin play Biden Live, and then we found a great actor to play Biden in this one.
Tom Rasford.
So we said, hey, you're old.
I've done an actual recorded version of it.
You can do it.
Well, you know, Tom, Tom is not as old as Biden, but he plays him really well.
He plays an old man really well.
He was in our Aging American sketch.
Which brings us to our other sketch, which was another guy.
Oh, yeah, that one just came out.
Yeah.
So Tom was in both of those.
Also produced Thief in the Night way back in the day.
He's our new star.
Oh, he's that guy.
Yeah.
That produced.
And did he produce the one that I love?
The Home.
Yes.
What's it called?
Home Safe.
Yeah.
He produced that too.
If you ever get a chance to watch the Christian movie Home Safe on YouTube, do that.
You won't regret it.
There's a scene at the end, and I'm going to spoil it for you, where a kid runs through a sliding glass window and dies.
And the lesson is: listen to your parents when they tell you not to run in the house.
It's a valuable lesson.
And it just comes out.
And there's really no other way to communicate that lesson.
There's not.
Not in such a powerful way.
Except through.
And then they have a song, a sad, slow 80s ballad that plays that describes everything that just happened.
His head went through the glass.
Yeah.
It's a tiny baseball club.
It's such a blood was everywhere.
It's literally that.
So, can we roll a clip of that?
Roll clip.
Let's roll it.
house with that dog!
Was a haze and lazy summer day.
No breeze.
Yell for Jeff, it's time to go, huh?
Have you seen my keys?
Jeff, come on home right now.
And don't you find the Thompson's fair?
I'll bet he runs full speed.
It's so hot.
Kids have no sense.
The crash was all so loud.
I saw the mama's green.
Little Jeff hit the play glass first.
Then the wire screen.
He forgot the sun and our show.
Dear God, the blood was all over the glass.
That was great.
Thank you for bringing that clip today to show us.
Hey, Windows.
We had a lot of other good sketches lately.
We've been filming some.
I feel like there's a bunch we filmed.
Adam wrote one that was really great that you haven't seen it.
See your secret Western.
We've shot our first Western theme sketch, and it's it's waiting for like a sponsor or something.
So Adam, we are, but Brandon has been working on it, slaving away at least five minutes a day since we shot, is what he's been telling us.
It'll be fun, yeah.
I'm very excited.
And if you'll get a chance to watch our sketch about board games, we did one for seven ways to host a mostly peaceful board game night.
Oh, that one's out.
Travis is great in that.
Travis is playing an obnoxious jerk at a board game, which is not usual for me.
And so we set up character.
We set up a shot where he bashes a piece with a mallet and we just said, just slam it and bash it a couple times until it breaks.
And he starts hitting it, and the figures slowly start sinking into the table.
It was like this one cartoon character.
Just every time he found it, it was like so.
Permanently, our coffee table out there now has a little space marine xenomorph.
It looks like it was eaten by it by the table.
Yeah.
I felt really bad at first when that was happening, but I didn't want to just like ruin the take.
You're like, just keep going.
So I just kept going.
But that's why I kind of clear it, like, what if it breaks?
And you know, like, it's fine if it does.
Yeah.
But I think at first you said, eh, it won't break.
And then when it did, I was like, oh, no.
Because we used a rubber mallet.
I didn't think it.
Well, it lets you know that tables it's made of cardboard.
It's made of China.
I didn't mean made of China.
It's made of china.
It's made of China, yes.
Out of a sheet of paper.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's really quality work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm sad.
What else do we have?
We had some others.
We have some other sketches coming up.
We shot one yesterday for that's gonna throw the planned parent folks under the bus again.
Yeah, you know, with Robia Scott.
Throw under the bus.
Travis.
Sorry.
Throw it under the generic regular sized vehicle.
We do have Robia Scott in the shop.
Oh man.
And of course we've been working on our top secret Babylon B project.
Can't tell you too much yet, but stay tuned.
Oh, what is the project?
I just said I can't say, dude.
The okay.
The untitled Babylon B Secret Project.
The Untitled Babylon B Secret Project.
We should just name it that.
That's kind of cool.
That's how it should be.
The title card and everything.
Yeah.
That'd be untitled.
Well, you that's what they do, though.
A lot of times in these, like, I'm working on a movie voiceover that is for a big movie that they're making, but it's, but the what's the movie called?
Well, it's called, so it's one of the IPs, one of the one of the big franchises, and it uh, they're making an animated version, and they can't tell you what it is.
So that's really cool.
That is cool.
Yeah, we will all sit here and marvel at that.
No, okay.
But if you guessed for like maybe 10 times, 10 guesses, you'd probably hit it.
Yeah.
We are Indiana Jonesing to find out.
No.
If only I could DC this only we could get to the future six and see no think more like think more horror.
It's like more like 80s.
It's almost like it was the Friday the 13th of my heart.
This is fun.
Also, you know, as an aside, like I've seen all the Friday the 13th movies.
Yeah.
I can't recommend them because there's like so much nudity in them.
Yeah.
But so it's kind of like this weird sad thing where it's like, oh, I miss sin.
Where it's like, ah, I love those movies, but I just can't bring myself to watch them anymore.
I really miss sin.
I really miss that.
Well, I mean, deep down, it's kind of what's really happening.
It's in your heart.
Then you feel bad about it.
Like, oh, that's where it as you mature.
Your flesh gets your flesh still has that like, man, I'd love to sin right now.
Yeah, yeah, that's where your spirit's like, I would really grieve if I sinned right now.
You know, though, I've seen stranger things.
You guys, you'll hit it, dude.
I'm telling you, 10.
How many is that?
Four or five?
I'm not going to tell you if you hit it.
Well, then we might as well stop because he's not going to.
He's not going to tell you.
He's going to go.
He's going to be a little bit more.
There's been, I'll give you this.
There's been like 11 or 12 movies or something like that.
Land Before Time.
You're on a real trick.
Man, Land Before Time was always a thing where it's like, I remember seeing the original cartoon, and I'm like, why do they keep making these?
The first one's so good.
It's such a classic.
But it's also kind of, it's a downer.
Yeah, it's a sad moon.
It's like Fival Goes West.
It's a real downer.
Are you guessing now?
I'm guessing.
No, that's there were only two of those, right?
It truly is.
Sometimes I would really like to go back and watch Land Before Time, but I know that Satan put dinosaur bones in the ground to trick us.
And I just miss sin.
I miss watching Land Before Time.
I miss sin.
All those scenes are blocked and you watch it.
Yeah, I know that dinosaurs coexisted with man 6,000 years ago, and I can't watch that blasphemous movie anymore.
You watch it on VidAngel, there's no dinosaurs.
Man, I tried watching Back to the Future 2 on VidAngel, and it did not help.
That's all I'm saying.
There's no categories for a list.
The top eight sexiest movies on Vin Angel.
You know, Vin Angel's kind of an interesting concept because I see, I think there is a value to like, oh, this movie's really great, except for just this one thing.
And Vidangel is perfect for that.
But I always see like people complaining on VidAngel's comments sections or whatever with a trailer going, like, well, why do you want to accept all this sin?
Why are you trying to edit sin and just get rid of it?
And I always think that's an interesting thought.
You mean they're trying to say, why not just not watch Game of Thrones?
Why not watch a good movie and not something that's usually with Game of Thrones?
Like, oh, good.
Finally, I can watch Game of Thrones.
That's the only reason why I got Vid Angel to watch Game of Thrones.
I don't know.
I'm not, I don't side with that, but it's an interesting conversation, I think.
I agree.
It's an interesting conversation.
We should have that interesting conversation.
No, another time.
Another time.
That's a really good point.
But what's going on in the news?
What's in the news this week?
But the I-10 Freeway in Los Angeles.
Dude, who wrote these notes?
They put a password in there.
They didn't put an F-word in there.
It's Long B is going woke.
Yeah.
The I-10 Freeway in Los Angeles is F at sign and sign open parentheses sign ED is falling off the end.
And the ED goes, it's completely shut down after a fire.
Gavin Newsom claims the fire was started by Arson in a storage yard leased by Caltrans to a company called Apex Development.
It then spread to an area under the freeway where there was homeless encampments and stacks of pallets.
Newsom said after initial inspections that the elevated freeway does not need to be completely demolished and can be repaired in three to five weeks according to his expert opinion.
That's insane.
To close that freeway for people who don't live in LA, the 10 is a major artery through downtown LA going east-west.
Like the 405 runs north-south and the five, but the 10 is you can't block that without disrupting already terrible traffic in LA.
We were on the road that day going to see the Delorente and we didn't realize that everything was so crazy.
So we were just trying to get around.
It took us forever to get down there.
You could have gone back in time to before the fire.
I wish.
Yeah.
But we went through downtown LA and Chinatown and everywhere to get down.
And it's a little unclear whether this was started at the homeless camp or by the homeless camp.
There's a pallet storage yard there, I guess, and that's what burned.
Certainly having a bunch of unregulated tents and stuff around doesn't help either.
I forget what the statistic is.
I don't want to misquote it, but there's a staggering number of fires in and around LA that start by the homeless.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You don't got anything else to do.
Yeah.
Gonna got a yard to mow.
Might as well start a fire.
Yeah.
Also, the Israel Defense Minister says Hamas has lost control of northern Gaza.
The U.S. Department of Defense backs up Israel's account of how Hamas has terrorist operations in networks of tunnels underneath hospitals.
That's what they've been trying to, I guess they launched that assault today where they're trying to eradicate Hamas from their base under this hospital, which is terrible.
Yeah, and thinking of them having to go through all those tunnels.
That's not going to be a pleasant experience.
Yeah.
Weeding them out one by one.
That's crazy.
And it's terrible.
Yeah.
I wonder if they're going to fill all those tunnels in?
Well, if you have gophers, wouldn't you just flood them?
I don't know if you can do that.
I don't know.
I don't know what's like.
I don't know what the living is.
Put some water down there.
I don't know.
It seems like they're going to take it.
They take a lot of water.
Yeah.
Just, you know, the Mediterranean Sea, just open it up.
Oh, salt water.
Yeah, why not?
And actually, what they should do is stand at each hole.
Yeah.
And then with a hammer.
And John Fetterman, a guy that we've taken shots at on the B before.
He's not our favorite guy politically, but he's taken some bold stands for Israel lately.
Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat, has angered many on the left after he waved an Israeli flag by anti-Israel protesters who were being arrested at the U.S. Capitol.
Yeah, so he's been taking some good stance on the story.
Some things I do like about John Fetterman are like he at least stands by his convictions.
So he's like, I support Israel.
I don't care what you guys are saying.
I stand by Israel.
I'm going to keep dressing in a hoodie.
Yeah.
I appreciate it.
He keeps wearing his I Love Jews hoodie in support.
And he wore a cape of the Israel flag and walked around by the protesters and stuff.
He's like walking around.
I like, who's going to attack him?
He's a really big dude.
Yeah, I don't think he would.
Well, if he had like five smooth stones, he could probably attack it.
Yeah.
And you'd only need one, but you'd bring five.
He does look like you imagine Goliath would look.
It's true.
I heard a sermon on David and Goliath one time where the guy used the whole sermon to say that we are the stones.
Huh.
Being hurled through the air.
Just like God, just like David picked the stones.
God picks up.
I looked for the smooth stone.
I mean, I guess there's an analogy there you can make, but I don't think it makes sense.
I just wouldn't have used it with that star.
I think it's a bad sermon.
Yeah, that apologies to the guys we were talking about.
Have you ever done an episode about bad sermon analogies?
Yeah.
That's good.
No, I think that would be fun.
We might have mentioned it, but I don't know that we've ever seen it.
I know we've done like weird viral videos of specifically bad or funny sermons, but we should look up like worst sermon analogies.
Write it down, guys.
That's the next podcast.
Worst sermon analogies.
That's a great one.
There's been some bad ones.
We were talking about it this week a little bit.
We talk about ones we've heard and we can look up some real ones.
I like it.
Like taking the Bible out of context, one verse that, you know, just like one version.
And these parallels that don't really work when you think about it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, this is.
I remember, well, I could save it.
There's a quick one.
I remember when I was growing, I had a pastor I loved.
He was a great pastor, but I remember one time he was talking about taking a leap of faith and he compared it to like a kid running out into traffic.
And it was like, you don't, but then the point of the story was eventually like, sometimes you just have to run out into traffic.
I was like, that's not a, like, I get the analogy, but that's not what you should do.
It seems like are you okay, Travis?
Are you okay?
I'm fine.
I was going to say, I know that we're not.
I didn't run out into traffic.
We shouldn't use all of our stuff here for this topic, but I did hear one once in college.
Somebody, a guest preacher came to chapel, and he did this whole thing about like, just dive in.
And it was like that.
Yeah.
And he was like, sometimes When you're fixing a car, you just got to start unplugging stuff and just jump in there and start diving.
And he was making some point about faith.
And then the next chapel, they had a guy come up and like retract his sermon.
And they said, just so you know, like if you do dive into an engine, there's some radiator fan.
And they like counter-analogied his analogy with another analogy.
Amazing.
Sometimes when your toaster is not working, you just have to grab a fork and fix it.
That's faith.
All right.
Well, we're going to save the rest.
All right.
Well, one news item that's not on here, but we should talk about is President Xi is visiting.
Oh, yes.
Yeah, he's in America right in Newsom.
And he's in California.
And there was all this controversy because Gavin Newsom cleaned up, saying, ordered San Francisco cleaned up, clean up the homeless, get rid of the poo.
It's great.
It's great.
My boss is coming.
They can't solve this homeless crisis except when it's that one time.
It's like, oh, let's sweep it all over.
And then they questioned him about it on TV, and he was like, yes, that's why we did that.
Yeah.
He goes, if you have a guest coming over to your house, you clean up your house.
Yeah.
And I'm like, this makes sense in his head.
In his head, yeah.
It's under all that.
Why is your house so dirty all the time?
So, on one hand, I appreciate his honesty.
He's just like, yeah.
President Xi's coming down.
We got to clean up the game.
Newsome is a savvy politician.
I don't like his policies, but he's a savvy politician.
He's got a team around him for sure.
Yeah.
Great hair.
A lot of people working on that hair.
Seems like a whole team.
Seems like.
A whole team.
Yeah.
I'm putting together a team.
This is a long team.
So welcome, President Xi.
And we hope you feel at home here.
I'm sure he does feel at home here.
Yeah, I was researching it a little bit.
And apparently, he was in America six years ago, and I don't even remember that.
Yeah, I'm sure they do state visits, you know, from time to time, but I don't recall either.
Did you meet him when he was here?
And you just don't remember?
I don't.
I don't want him to knock over a kid playing basketball to get basketball.
It just runs out.
That's not sort of nice.
Oh, yeah.
Look at this.
That's awesome.
That's funny.
Imagine that you just want to express what you believe.
Now, imagine having to spend more than a decade in Corn just to do that.
That's what's still happening to Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips.
He's been relentlessly harassed by the state of Colorado and an activist because of his beliefs.
But our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom are standing by his side and they need your help.
Join with ADF and be a champion for freedom.
ADF is on the front lines defending Americans like Jack in court free of charge when their First Amendment freedoms are on the line.
And for just $19 a month, you can stand with people like Jack too.
So visit, join ADF.com/slash B and pledge your monthly gift of $19 or more to ADF.
ADF is committed to the long game of protecting freedoms now and for generations to come.
And I am too.
Are you?
Because it's really important.
Go join ADF.com/slash B and be a champion for freedom with your monthly gift or any amount of gift today.
You used to be good.
Adam Ford.
I really miss Adam Ford.
So I don't know how hate mail-y this is, but NotToB, our sister site, was flagged on YouTube for being a violent criminal organization.
So it's hate mail from YouTube, I guess.
Yeah.
We know you may not have realized this was a violation of policies.
We did not apply a strike to your channel, but we removed your content from YouTube.
And I said, I guess I guess Not the Bee put out a video called If the Leaked Nashville Shooter Manifesto is legit, what does it say about censorship in the U.S.?
So because of that, they decided that we're a violent organization.
That's literally what it says, the violent organization.
Violent Cribball, yeah.
Violent criminal organization, so like the mob, not so much.
That's what that makes me think.
That sounds pretty cool, actually.
But now, whenever a news site reveals a right-wing shooters manifesto, I don't think you're not a funny person that they're supporting a violent criminal organization.
All right.
Uh, now here's a tweet from the lectern guy.
This is the guy that moved the lectern around in the capital on January 6th.
He's really owned up to that.
That's actually his real guy.
Yes, that's him.
He's named himself the lectern guy.
Wow.
And so he shared a page from our Babylon B Guide to Democracy, and this is part of a list we did of the most horrifying criminals from January 6th, and we include him on our list satirically of the most it says the deadly lectern thief.
Yeah, yeah, whole chapters in future history textbooks will be written about this guy who literally walked into the building and walked out with a piece of wood.
We're talking John Wilkes Booth levels of impact on our country.
Now, I think what he's disputing, though, is he's saying he didn't leave the building.
Or he doesn't like being called a thief.
He responded, If anyone appreciates humor, it's me.
But at the Babylon B and at Seth Dylan, should really stop calling me a thief and lying about me taking the lectern out of the building.
You guys are too creative to use false narratives.
Do better.
So I feel like the whole thing is satirically exaggerating what he did.
Yeah, the whole thing is that it's a joke.
Yeah.
Is he also being satirical and just not landing it?
No, I think he's mad.
He says they're profiting off.
Well, he's being reasonable.
He's not like blasting us.
He's saying, oh, I wish they wouldn't have done this.
And he says, they're profiting off of calling me a thief.
We're supposed to be on the same side.
How much did you guys make?
You probably got rich off of that one page.
That one didn't even sell well.
Well, I don't think we profited all that much, buddy.
But yeah, he's not.
But I also, I understand what he's saying.
And I like what, no, obviously, it's a joke around the thief.
But if we did get the fact wrong, because we say he walked out of the building with a piece of wood, then I apologize for that because that is obviously part of the joke, but it's not, we don't want to get a fact wrong like that.
And I didn't, I didn't, if he just moved it, because apparently he says he just moved it 12 feet down the road.
But I'd read it.
I don't know.
I don't know the whole story.
I'd read news stories that said the opposite, so I don't know.
I'll have to look into it.
Where did he set it down?
Like 12 feet away?
Is that what he's saying?
That's what he says.
12 feet away in his own home.
It's 12 feet away out of the house.
Inside the building.
He lives right next to me.
He lives next door to me.
I just walked it right across the street.
All right, here's some hate mail on a Babylon B headline: Starbucks workers to begin placing yellow star sticker on Jewish customers.
Yes.
This is in response to Starbucks Union, which released a statement in support of Palestine or Hamas or whatever.
And I really enjoyed this hate mail.
Oh, that's funny.
Yeah, this is from John.
Does anyone else want to read it?
This is from John.
I'm giving you guys an hour.
Take it down.
It is 4:30 CST here in Dallas.
I will report this as hate speech at 5:30 CST.
No threats.
It's a promise to my Jewish friends and neighbors.
And then Joshua interjects: John Flores, Starbucks Employees Union is openly supporting Hamas.
Confirmed.
There are other ways of joking about that than what the Babylon Bee did here.
They could post pictures of the Hamas leader and even have a new coffee drink named after him.
Separate Hamas from the people of Palestine.
Humor is always a bit risky.
I don't.
That was an interesting answer.
He just wanted a different joke about his complaint into a headline pitch.
Here's what he should have done.
There's an inappropriate.
Here's my idea.
I'm not sure what his complaint is.
And then also to say humor is always a bit risky when he's the one getting offended by the headline.
I like that someone laughed at it with the laughing emotional.
I know people laugh.
Oh, that's great.
Really funny.
Yeah, that's funny.
The idea of us putting gold, you know, stars of David on coffee cups.
Here's another hate management.
General contact form.
Sorry, that was my joke.
You can read it.
No, you can go for it.
Okay.
Actually, from someone named David Donaldson, Reason, General.
Oh, gee.
Message.
I'm contacting on behalf of Lakewood Church and Joel Osteen Ministries.
We kindly ask you, stop defaming the ministry and pastor.
Blessings, David.
And he has a Lakewood admin.
That's like his email address, I think.
I think I've had a couple of people from Lakewood Church reach out since the Bees early days.
Like once in a while, they'll just email and say, Pastor Joel is just trying to be positive.
Don't attack him.
And you know, he really does seem like he's just profiting from this stuff.
Like there are some of those, there are some of those like mega church pastors and Christian president that I'm like, well, I disagree with them, but I think their heart's in the right place.
But I'm sure there's some people that get some good, I guess, out of what he said, but he really does just seem like a prophet.
He seems pretty, yeah, pretty shallow.
I'm sure I shouldn't say that, but he's probably, yeah, just pretty much like a nice guy, but he's definitely making a heck of a lot of money.
And that's a real issue.
And that seems like the goal of it is money.
Yeah.
And who else was there?
But he stuffs in the wall behind the toilet.
Yeah.
Did they ever find out what six?
I'm glad this email has led us to defame his ministry.
But it is nice.
They've been very kind, though.
The Lakewood folks have been very nice in their response.
Even as far as hate mail goes, that's at least blessings.
Should Jarrett read this or should one of us read it?
Yeah, you guys can.
This is from Joshua Wooden 4727.
It says, no, don't turn.
No, don't turn into a Calvinist.
We should not deny free will because free will is a gift from God.
I know if a Calvinist is reading this, I don't believe our free will is a work.
And when we choose Jesus, we don't get credit for the choice or credit for any work we do for God's kingdom.
It's saying people don't have free will is saying that God does not give us something he really does give us with him being rich in grace and mercy.
Also, it's not your destiny to be a Calvinist.
Agreed.
Good one.
Well done.
Agree.
I appreciate that, Joshua, and I am still in the process of figuring this out.
You say on a podcast that you read about it is becoming more and more Calvinist.
Well, I've been reading all these expositional commentaries by RC Sproul.
I'm on my third one, and they're really good.
And really, the whole idea of free will, it's not that you don't have choice.
You do, you know, like it's just, you know, there's your choices tainted by sin.
Like, you know, if you're apart from Christ, you're like making choices in a vacuum.
How do you only choose one thing?
How do you feel about when we choose Jesus, we don't get credit for the choice or credit for any work?
Yeah.
Because I kind of agree with that.
It's a lot to discuss, but I do agree with that line to some degree.
Yeah.
So choosing Jesus and we don't get credit for the choice.
I think it is an actual free will, but it's not, I don't think it's a work.
Huh.
I don't know because works, the works of God, you know, the character of God.
I'm just curious.
No, I mean, I appreciate your candor with it.
I don't know is a good answer sometimes.
Yeah.
I think people are so intent on having an answer for everything that they'll accidentally just.
This is a non-essential.
Like you think about it in terms of salvation.
And I don't know if Dan would agree with you about that.
That makes you not a Calvinist right there.
Right.
I think it's not essential.
You're not really mad about it.
I'm not super pissed.
Yeah.
I could see that.
Becoming more Calvinist after this comment or less?
I would say I'm right smack dab in the middle of where I was before.
Right where he was.
So this didn't change your mind at all.
No.
Oh, okay.
But I'm not even sure RC Sprawl is changing my mind.
I think he's maybe clarifying what I believe.
RC Sprawl is really good.
I get this stuff.
He's a great philosopher.
Did we get Spurgeon mixed up with Spurgeon?
Spurgeon and Spurgeon.
Because they both start with an S. That's literally it.
Sprawl and Spurgeon.
So, because one of them is Baptist, right?
Is that Sprawl?
Spurgeon is the best.
Spurgeon would be Baptist.
He was the good one.
OK, so you're OK.
So you were talking about Sprawl.
No, I like Sprawl.
I'm just going to say Spurgeon was the Baptist.
Where are we talking about Sprawl?
I'm just explaining why I was confused.
Have you guys ever seen Sprawl's What's Wrong With You People, Clint?
No.
Yes.
I got to see that.
Yes, I have.
We're doing a QA or something, and somebody's like, why are things so evil?
Or something like that.
And he's like, what's wrong with you, people?
It's so good.
What's wrong with you, people?
I'm serious.
And he's like, dead serious.
I'll support him on that.
It's great.
How many times has he wanted to say that, though?
I feel like that is.
I want to say that when I look in the mirror.
It's just wrong with the nature of humanity.
Just pointing yourself.
What's wrong with that?
What's wrong with us?
You know, there was a running joke on the Babylon B for a long time after Sprawl died that anytime we had a spokesperson from heaven, we didn't say it, but it was RC Sprawl.
Oh, really?
So, like, when we said a spokesperson from heaven said blah, blah, blah.
And we'd always finish it with him saying, what's wrong with you, people?
Oh, I didn't know that.
But I don't know if anybody ever picked up on it, but R.C. Sproul was the spokesperson.
That is funny.
Just probably not theologically.
Did you ever reference his name as just implied by that line?
Got it.
But that was a fun running gag.
Well, I'm definitely learning more.
I've always been a C.S. Lewis guy.
Like, I've read almost everything by him.
He has some Calvinist strains that he never fully explores because he's Anglican and he talks a lot about free will.
When you like his autobiography, he talks about God was hunting me.
I was the deer.
He was the hunter.
He has a lot of things like even in his Narnia books.
Narnia books, there's a lot of that too.
Yeah, Aslan is always pursuing.
Yeah, Aslan is the pursuer.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think he's a lion.
It seems like even if the lion was Jesus.
What?
The biggest Arminians don't even say that God doesn't pursue people.
I think they say that too.
Sure.
But there's an emphasis.
You know, there's an emphasis thing.
Yeah.
It is.
And I don't know.
It's hard to.
It's hard to know.
Seems like a really complicated question.
Dan closed the notes because we're drifting away from Calvin.
Oh, you know, I'll open them back up if you go back to Egypt.
I probably might have told the story before, but I read my boy's All Seven Arno books.
I got to the very end.
And I was crying at the end of the last battle.
Yeah.
And my son goes, and we close it.
My middle son, he was like eight at the time.
He's like, was C.S. Lewis a Christian?
Like he just now made this connection.
Like, we've been reading the books and discussing them.
And he's like, did he believe in God?
That's interesting.
He picked it up.
No, it's just that he didn't pick it up so long.
It's like, literally, the lion is Jesus.
Yeah, well, because I like C.S. Lewis, but it's the really heavy-handed.
Yeah, hitting you on the head with the hammer the whole time.
Get it?
The Jesus.
The Jesus is the lion.
The lion is Jesus.
Get it.
Jesus.
Yeah.
The Ice Witch is Satan.
The devil.
Yeah, I think it was at the end of Voyage of the Dawn Treader or something where Aslan's like, by the way, when you go back to your world, I have another name.
Another name.
Oh.
Maybe you can figure it out.
That's good.
Yeah, Aslan does say that.
He's like, literally, I'm Jesus.
I have the name over there.
Yeah, it's a different name.
I'm in a different form.
I'll give you the first letter.
I was throwing around this idea that I don't really think goes anywhere, but it was like, you know, that's that story of.
It was the best kind of idea to bring up.
Of course.
There's that, I think it was a short story.
It was certainly a movie, My Dinner with Andre, and where he takes out his friend.
His friend's kind of distant or whatever.
They're kind of grown apart because he's awkward or something.
And I always imagined Tolkien and C.S. Lewis having dinner like that.
And Tolkien's just trying to tell him, stop being so heavy-handed with your allegory.
You can't do that.
That's such a good idea.
Yeah.
And C.S. Lewis are like, but they're not going to get it.
You don't understand.
Readers are stupid.
It's like everyone understands my allegory.
So when it's like, when do we film this?
Nobody films a sketch.
We got to have someone dress up as C.S. Lewis and someone dress up as Tolkien.
C.S. Lewis and Tolkien discuss allegory.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm down.
And then GK Chester comes.
He's just real fat.
Yeah.
All the jokes about him are just.
What are you doing here?
You're someone who's Farley style person to come.
Oh, we got it.
Oh, that's great.
We know someone.
I wasn't going to say his name and then say, we need a really fat guy and then say his name because I thought that would be mean.
I think he's a different name in our world.
But we all know who he is.
You must seek and find him there.
See if you can guess what his name starts with a B. Hey, everybody.
That's not a bad idea.
Thanks for joining us on the Babylon B once in a while.