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Oct. 26, 2007 - No Agenda
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1: No Agenda 001
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Welcome, everybody, to a brand new program on the Podshow Network, which could be titled a number of things.
We chose No Agenda.
But it could be the show with no imaging, no content yet.
The only thing it is is two guys with an idea of putting together a...
What should we call it, John?
A... Agenda-less show.
Agenda-less show, exactly.
John C. Dvorak in California, Adam Curry here in London.
Something we cooked up...
What was it?
Like a four-minute phone call.
Hey, we should do a show together.
Okay.
Let's call it no agenda.
Okay, and here we are.
Well, of course, the basis for a show like this, and I think everybody out there who has conversations with friends, they occasionally, especially when the conversations go on and on, say, you know, that would have been an interesting thing for other people to listen to.
True, true.
And I think basically, and I've actually thought about doing a show with my wife because sometimes she does a news analysis over the phone sometimes.
It's pretty astonishing.
Have you ever heard the shows I do with Patricia, with my wife?
Yeah, same kind of thing.
It's great, right?
We just have a conversation, yeah.
Right, and I think, you know, to some extent Don and Drew and almost everybody who, you know, like to chat pretty much provides this kind of entertainment.
So, you know, this week, well, I mean, we were starting, we were running on Skype for anybody out there, so, and Adam being in London is going to, probably going to, we're going to step on each other once in a while.
But this week, Adam did a thing, an interview with the senator, or I guess he's a congressman.
Congressman, yeah.
Where's he from?
Texas.
The Texas Congressman Ron Paul.
Republican Texas Congressman Ron Paul, yeah.
Yeah, so what did you think?
Well, first of all, it was kind of interesting that I got this thing together in like a week and I didn't really have to do anything.
I just said on the show, I want to talk to this guy and it happened.
That to me was a big oh wow and I don't know what it says about him, his campaign or my show or podcasting or whatever, alternative media in general, but I thought that was cool just as it is.
Was he on Skype?
No, he was on a landline.
I did it on Skype, though.
Okay.
Did you not like the quality?
No, I was thinking he was on Skype and I'm going to myself or thinking to myself, huh, that's pretty weird if a guy's on Skype and he's, you know, I just don't see congressmen as being that savvy about anything.
Yeah, and I asked him a couple questions, you know, about net neutrality and some other internet-related things, and it's kind of hard to gauge how savvy he is.
First of all, he's a very smart guy in general, I mean, and very, very...
He's a good communicator, knows how to...
How to be an interviewee.
I loved it when you could hear his aide, it was probably Jesse, whispering something in his ear, which actually wasn't a whisper because I heard it quite clearly.
And then Ron Paul goes, let me just suggest something else to you.
I have a couple more minutes.
I'm like, oh, fuck.
All right, let me get this folder scruncher in there real quick.
Well, that's a shame that people have to do that all the time now.
So anyway, I listened to the interview and I made a bunch of notes.
Okay.
And I'm going to go over a few of them with you.
Cool.
One is you insisted on calling him Dr.
Ron as though he's like a disc jockey.
I know.
I thought that was highly funny.
Well, I'm glad you like that because I like giving people names, you know, because we've got Comic Strip Blogger, we've got Prolific Programmer, and Dr.
Ron.
In fact, all medical doctors who I meet I call Dr.
Ron, or Doctor at least.
Not if they're Pete, I call him Dr.
Pete, but I'm glad you like that.
He didn't seem to mind.
Well, you know, he told you to call him Ron, but you said I'd rather call you Dr.
Ron.
And he said, eh, whatever.
Yeah, but doesn't it sound much better?
You know, Dr.
Ron, it's a German thing, actually.
If you are a professor or you're a doctor in Germany...
Oh, right, exactly.
That's where you got that.
Since people are going to start listening to this show, they might as well realize a couple of things here.
One of them is that I'm an American, and Adam is technically an American, but he is a European.
And so one of the reasons we want to do this show is so we can kind of bring some cultural togetherness together.
There you go.
I'm a world citizen, John, not just a European.
You're what?
A world citizen.
Yeah, world citizen.
That's what guys like you like to call yourselves.
Yes.
Yeah.
Fuck you.
Go to China and use that and see how far you've been.
Okay.
So, when they arrest you, that is.
So, anyway, I got the biggest kick out of this Dr.
Ron.
And you ran it through the whole show.
When you brought his name, it was always Dr.
Ron.
Well, yeah, but that's logical.
And I watch a lot of interviews and a lot of things he's done.
And people are always addressing...
Everyone has a way to address someone in the media landscape, right?
With him, it's like Dr.
Ron Paul, Congressman Paul.
The whole Ron Paul, like two first names, is kind of weird to start with.
So I just felt it would be easier if I just called him Dr.
Ron, because then I knew I wouldn't be stumbling over Congressman Paul.
Right, right, right.
Yeah, the two first names thing.
It's like a Hollywood name from the 30s.
So anyway, then the other thing I wrote down on this little notepad of mine was...
People should go back there and listen to this interview again because Adam, I think he spends about four and a half hours kissing the guy's ass and chatting before he even lets Paul speak one word.
Yeah, you know, people mention that to me, and I'm like...
I'll bet they did.
But, you know, it's like, here's what I didn't do.
I didn't interrupt the guy continuously.
All I wanted was to just hear what he had to say.
We had agreed that, you know, I would just...
And that's what I wanted.
You know, it's like, okay, I'm going to throw something at you, talk about it, until you stop talking.
So I figured I'd get on my talking up front.
I was very sincere, by the way, about what I said at the beginning.
Soon so.
Yeah, I meant that.
And also, this guy, and it was very clear at the end, he doesn't know what my show was about.
He doesn't know who I am.
So I've got to give the guy a little bit of background, right?
Because you just can't count on anyone else to do that.
That's why I did it.
Okay, well, here's what I'm going to read from my notepad, if you want to know what I wrote down as this was going on.
All right.
Long ass-kissing moment.
And then the next line is, when does Paul actually talk?
It was only two minutes.
Well, two minutes, you know, could be an eternity.
Well, I'm sorry.
I could have gotten your question in.
By the way, you got my questions in.
Now, the thing that I admire about this interview, and you're probably not aware of the fact that this was an amazing thing that you did, only because nobody ever does it.
On the one hand, it's like a grammar school question.
On the other hand, it's like a question that's never asked enough.
And it's interesting to have somebody from his position explain it.
And that's when you ask the question, so far as Paul's concerned, or you had Paul explain what's the difference between a democracy and a republic.
Yeah, exactly.
And I thought that was an educational moment.
I didn't like the way he explained it, actually.
Did you think he did a good job on that?
He was correct, but I was really looking for an even simpler answer, quite honestly, or a short...
I don't know.
To me, it's like, okay, yeah, you explained it, but people who don't understand even the fact that America is a republic, I don't think it hit the mark entirely.
But that is exactly what I intended to do, John.
If I want to debate the guy, I mean, that's easy.
I can debate the guy all day long.
I think that is...
You know, what people are saying, oh, well, it was a good interview.
You know, I learned a lot, but it wasn't really explosive.
You know, that's exactly what mainstream media tries to do.
It tries to pull someone out, you know, catch him on his words, get him to say something stupid, and then, you know, make it a headline.
I just wanted to hear the guy talk.
Yeah, no, I actually thought that was a great move.
It was something I've never seen anybody do.
So, that was good.
Thanks.
No, there was a bring back troops thing.
There was a Cassius Clay...
Oh, no, the armed militia.
This was interesting to me because it brought...
The Cassius Clay thing is my notes.
Paul was talking about how Americans by right are supposed to be armed to the teeth for whatever reason.
And it reminded me of an anecdote that was interesting.
Because when people bring up gun control and things like that, and I'm not a gun control advocate or a non-advocate, I have to say I do like shooting guns, and I have a lot of friends that have collections who will go out to a range and shoot.
Yeah, it turned John, doesn't it, John?
No, it doesn't actually.
It doesn't turn me on, but it's a lot of fun.
Okay.
Anyway, so I'm not like an arsonist.
Anyway, so I visited the mansion or the former mansion of the antebellum or the Civil War.
I guess it was a state officer, Cassius Clay, who was Henry Clay's, I think his brother.
Okay.
And Cassius Clay had this place outside of Lexington, Kentucky.
People are going to start writing.
You don't know anything, but I think it's outside of Lexington.
So I went in there, and Cassius Clay is this very famous senator, and he...
One time, a cannon, apparently, and he was an abolitionist, which was not popular in the area.
And so they tried to, like, fuck with him and the locals, including the sheriff and the local police.
And he had a cannon in front of his house that he'd fill with shrapnel.
And when they came to either get him or arrest him or harass him or whatever they were going to do, he'd shoot it at him.
Which was his Second Amendment right to being exercised.
Exactly.
And, you know, eventually they stopped coming over.
And he needed to do that, otherwise, you know, bad things were going to happen to him, no thanks to the local authorities.
And I've always thought that was like, you know, people moan and groan about it.
It's all weapons, all the rest.
This guy has like a cannon that he's shooting.
And so I'm always thinking back on that, like, what would have happened if he didn't have the cannon?
So I think there's lots of modern day analogies to that story.
None that I can think of, but yeah, there probably are.
Now, by the way, the funny story about the Cassius Clay house.
You know, Cassius Clay, of course, is who Muhammad Ali...
Yeah, named himself after, right?
No, no, he named himself Muhammad Ali.
He was born Cassius Clay.
He was born Cassius Clay.
Oh, okay.
Because most of the...
A lot of...
Well, you know, a lot of famous blacks were named after famous whites.
I'm sorry, a lot of black slaves were named after famous whites and it became a tradition in the black community to name people after famous people.
And so Cassius Clay was named after this guy.
Now, the kicker, and anybody who happens to be in the area of Lexington should go check out this.
This is actually a very interesting place because, for one thing, there's a bunch of little busts that showed, for example, his sister's clothes.
Some of these people during that era, in the 1850s, if they were 4'7", it was a miracle, especially the women.
They weren't getting a lot of vitamin B. Mm-hmm.
And his wife was obviously, she was a, not his wife, I'm sorry, I think it was his sister.
This has been years ago when I was over there.
His sister was, and I should obviously read something before I do these interviews or this show with you.
Why ruin the spontaneity, huh?
Yeah, right.
I'm waiting for the ETA on this point you're about to make.
I'm getting there.
So anyway, it's a long road.
Anyway, so his sister was a woman, you know, activist.
And when you start to see the pictures of her and all her friends, you could tell she was kind of, she was a lesbian.
It was kind of amusing.
But anyway, the story I'm trying to get to, but she was like four foot two or something.
They had like a thing of, you know, like where the clothes she were.
She couldn't have been bigger than a 12-year-old.
I bet she had a huge-ass cannon.
She might have.
Anyway, so I'm looking around this house and there is a newspaper article about a famous African who came to visit Kentucky and he visited the house and he met with Cassius Clay.
And his name was Muhammad Ali.
Wow.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
And so I said, wow, that's cool.
And now I'm thinking that Cassius Clay himself, the boxer, may, you know, because he...
He'd heard the story and he named himself Muhammad Ali.
He may have actually visited this museum.
And so that's a cool name.
Because there's a weird connection there that's never been explained to me.
That's the story.
Oh, John, I am so happy you told me that story.
Well, the funny thing about that, anyway, your interview triggered my thoughts on that story.
Okay.
So, that was the Second Amendment question, which I actually felt he answered really well, and responded kind of the way I'd expected when I said, well, you know, do we have to defend ourselves from internal dangers yet?
And he's like, well, that's what I'm trying to avoid, right?
Yeah, I noticed that.
Yeah, he's like an inch away from thinking it might be something we have to think about.
But we don't have cannons anymore.
No, they've been taken away.
And by the way, I have stuffed this pretty powerful mojo.
Yeah, I got a Japanese machine gun.
I have no bullets, but I got the machine gun.
It's got a bayonet on it.
A machine gun with a bayonet?
Yeah, it's really weird.
It's not a stationary machine gun.
It's like the one you carry around like a Tommy gun?
Yeah, you have a tripod.
It kind of folds out.
There's a tripod on the front and then there's like a stick thing in the back and it's a belt-fed system.
My grandfather took out a machine nest in the South Pacific and brought it home in pieces.
Huh.
Yeah.
So anyway, that was fascinating.
So then you got him into the thoughtful pregnancy story.
Wow, yeah.
That was interesting.
I thought that was quite good.
Well, so my takeaway from that was that...
Yes, so with right comes responsibility, I guess is what he's saying, and even the unborn fetus has a right to life, so you have no right to remove that, even though you have the right to put into or remove anything you want from your body, but not if you kill what he's saying as another human being.
Therefore...
You need to respect your responsibility for having sex, which I thought was okay.
Some kind of point is made there.
But then he kind of gave an out, which I thought was interesting, by saying, well, you know, if you can't prove a crime was committed, i.e., if you terminate a pregnancy...
I don't know, like first trimester or whatever.
If you can't prove it, then you can't prove it.
So that was kind of his out, which was weird.
It seemed to me like he was talking a lot about late-term pregnancy.
And I'm sure this goes deep into the whole Roe versus Wade.
My head hurts just thinking about it.
I don't know if we can actually resolve this.
Well, you know, I thought it was interesting because he didn't take it from a religious perspective.
Even though he is very religious.
Yeah, well, I mean, he's obviously re-engineered his thinking, but I've never heard anyone actually, I don't know why, maybe I'm not listening, which is possible, I don't know anyone who's actually, he took it from a constitutional perspective, that this person, which exists at some point, has constitutional rights, it's got nothing to do with religion, and if we're going to be strict constitutionalists, do we have to give them their rights, even though they're inside some woman?
Right.
Well, that was what I asked him to do, of course.
Talk about each issue and take it down to the Constitution, which is what he's running on.
That's it.
And you know what, John?
I don't see anyone...
I look at these debates.
I don't see anyone challenging him, what he said.
He said some pretty radical and opposing things to the GOP debate.
But no one ever calls him on it.
He just says these amazing things and draws it right down to the Constitution.
Everyone's like, okay, might as well shut up because you can't argue it.
Yeah, I think they're doing their best to marginalize the guy.
They don't need a guy like that.
Yeah, that's exactly what's happening.
I agree.
Now, the other one that was interesting, which we talked about before you had the interview, which was the Ralph Nader.
Yeah, that was your idea.
You heard I got it in there, right?
Yeah.
And he avoided it, claiming that it had nothing to do with it.
Well, he said, no, he said, I wrote it down.
I don't know.
For personal reasons, is what he said.
And then he said, you know, it would just be too much energy.
I've tried it before.
It won't work.
You know, he says, if I'm not running Republican, then I can't even get into these types of debates.
And I even said, like, you know, this is a 72-year-old guy.
You know, he knows that running as an independent, unless you have, I don't think he actually locked it out, but unless you have some kind of Incredible groundswell, which is just unbelievable.
I'm sure he could be convinced if it was very clear that he actually had a shot at winning as an independent.
Yeah, he's done the homework.
In the past, the closest thing that's ever come is Teddy Roosevelt ran under the Bull Moose Party.
Not really a great name for a party.
And then, of course, we had Ralph Nader more recently, and then Ross Perot had a shot.
But Ross kind of drove himself out of the election because he felt that, you know, he claims that somebody came up, knocked on his door, and showed him photos or something.
He has this weird story that he's never really...
Yeah, I remember that.
Yeah, I do remember.
He was like, you know, I've got to protect my family and my privacy.
And wasn't that it?
Didn't he...
Yeah, there was somebody knocked on the door, and it sounds like a government agency that said, look, get out of this thing, because here's what's going to happen if you don't.
They threatened him, somebody.
Which, you know, may or may not be true.
It's possible.
It could have been a bluff.
It could have been any number of things.
Well, either way, he didn't deserve to be president, because if you're going to pussy out because of that, then I'm sorry.
That's the job that you can be killed if you have that job.
No doubt about it.
You've got to know that going in.
It's a dangerous job.
Actually, I was going to ask him that.
I didn't get to it.
I wanted to ask him if he feared for his life.
Because he has such opposing and sometimes viewed as, you know, radical viewpoints or people see that as radical or, you know, and if he actually catches the worst thing, of course, is, you know, the shit's working.
So I was going to ask him if he was worried, you know, about his own personal safety as, you know, he's basically gaining traction and, you know, could obscure other people from from all the attention.
That would have been a good question.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I think everybody out there should...
Well, it's okay.
I don't think he's got that much traction.
I think people out there should...
If you want to read something interesting, especially the European audience, read Confessions of an Economic Hitman, a kind of an interesting tale.
We don't know how much of it's true or not, but it has a lot of...
So many elements of truth that it's a very interesting book, to say the least.
It's also available on tape.
Anyway, but yeah, overall I thought you did a great job.
It was a fascinating interview.
And I've never heard anyone do a really long interview with a guy like that.
Well, you never do.
Or you'll hear...
Man, have you ever listened to Newsweek Online?
There's so many of these radio news programs, NPR-type stuff.
And what I hear all the time, and it really bugs the hell out of me, because once you tune into it and you uncondition your mind...
What you hear is a producer did a really long interview with someone, and then they'll chop it into bits, and then they'll have the host ask questions.
And it'll sound like, well, let me ask you about the Second Amendment, Dr.
Ron Paul.
What is your viewpoint on this?
And then you can clearly hear the answer from a conversation being cut in.
You never step on each other, and sometimes you can almost hear the edits.
And I despise that, because you can...
Look, it's like reality television.
You could build a story and put in answers any way you want.
So this was completely unedited from beginning to end.
And I'm glad you liked it because if only we could get this type of conversation or information or just impression from all of the candidates.
That would be really nice.
But the media in general just doesn't make it that way anymore.
Another thing you mentioned when you talk about that kind of thing is the pre-interview, which is what a lot of people like to do.
And you and I, I know you don't like them.
I don't like them.
I've always thought that they were a bad idea, which is in other words, you get the person on.
And you interview them before they actually do the show and they talk themselves out.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And particularly, and this is what I hate the most, is if you have a funny moment in the pre-interview and you're laughing and then you try to recreate that by asking the same question and it's just not funny.
The timing's not there.
It's blown.
Yeah, it never works.
It never, ever works.
In fact, before we started this, you called me on Skype and you said, hey, you know what?
And I said, no, don't tell me.
I don't want to hear it.
What was it, by the way, you wanted to tell me?
I forgot.
By the way, if I had told you, I would have thought.
See, the problem is that people don't get out there when they, you know, immediate people.
And when you do a lot of interviews with other hosts and people, there are the two schools of thought.
In fact, Larry King has one of the more interesting schools of thought, although now he's basically a celebrity interviewer.
But when I used to do his radio show, I did it three or four times.
And the first time he'd come on his show, and I kind of admired some of his techniques, even though some people would say, well, that's just being lazy.
Yeah, maybe to some extent.
But one of the things is the first time he'd do a Larry King show, at least used to be on the radio...
Larry didn't want to meet you.
He didn't want to talk to you.
He didn't want to read your book.
And the reason was for not wanting to read the book or even seeing a copy was he figured nobody out there in the audience read the book.
So let's start talking about it as though you're some guy who just met on the street.
Yeah.
So let's start from square zero.
Yeah.
And I always thought that was actually a pretty interesting technique.
And then the other thing, and I've been on shows where they want to pre-interview, and they ask you every question they're going to ask.
Half the time, it never ends up on the show anyway.
And then when you've asked it, there's a real problem people don't realize is that when you've just talked about something and you're in a complicated interview situation, We're good to go.
Now, wasn't there a really interesting story about your dog or something that I heard about?
I was like, fuck you!
That was written on your piece of paper, and the producer said, hey, she's got a really cool story about her dog.
You gotta ask it.
Yeah, I know.
It's really lame.
I mean, I know that they have to pre-interview.
Both Letterman and Leno have to do a lot of pre-interviews with the guests because they have a lot of actors and people on these shows that really have no personalities.
And many times they don't know whether they're going to be good or not on the show, so they usually beat them up in the pre-interview.
And then, unfortunately, when the real interview comes out, unless the person's got a lot of personality, they're talked out already.
You see numerous people that you've never seen before.
You've always wanted to see them, and you realize why they never get on talk shows is because they haven't got anything to say.
When this interview got set up and I spoke to the communications director, I said, please, you really have got to let Dr.
Ron listen to my show, at least some of it, just so you understand.
It's going to be really different.
I don't want him to be unprepared, particularly because there's a lot of fuck yous in there.
That would be funny.
And he said, yeah, no, no, I'll be on the plane with him and I'll put it on my iPod and I'll put the headphones on so he can listen to it.
And I said, okay, look, there's only one thing I guarantee you I'm going to ask.
And really, it's cool, you know, this is part of the culture of my show and my audience is this scruncher folder thing.
And I set it up and he said, oh yeah, that's funny.
I'll certainly tell him about it.
He clearly hadn't told the guy.
I was like, come on.
It's good.
And I'm like, maybe I can get some information out of it.
As a medical doctor, can you tell me, is it better to fold or scrunch?
And then Mr.
Constitutionalist comes back with, you know, it's your body.
You should do whatever you want with it.
I'm like, alright.
That's an answer.
That's what I'm going to use for an answer when somebody brings it up.
I'm sure he's a scruncher.
I know it.
I know it for sure.
You can just see it.
You can see it in his face.
Alright, do you have anything more on the Ron Paul thing?
Because I've got one thing for you.
Okay, go.
I know I'm done.
Yeah, okay, good.
I read something on your blog.
Hold on.
Let me just find it.
It was about thought crimes.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, isn't that unbelievable?
Yeah, you just got to tell that story because that blew me away when I read that.
Well, there's a bill, I think it's H.R. 1955, that has been passed with the exception, I think only three Democrats and three Republicans voted against it.
I don't know.
It's early for me.
I just got up.
I'm sorry.
Anyway, so they actually passed this bill, H.R. 1955.
You can look it up and go to the blog and check it out, devorek.org slash blog.
There it is.
Thank you.
If you read between the lines, it's a thought crimes bill.
It's a bill that doesn't want you to have any...
Let's put it this way.
If right now you and I were talking and we say, hey, you know, man, we have the right to bear arms, we should go fucking blow the government away.
They're the bad guys.
Just that conversation, particularly, I think the internet is even mentioned specifically in the bill, doing that, I think, might even be illegal.
Yeah.
That's fucked up.
I think Ron Paul actually...
Yeah, he voted against it.
I checked it.
He voted against it.
Well, he voted against it, but in the interview with you, I think he came within a hair of actually violating that law if it was actually a law.
Right now, it's just a bill.
So that means it's passed Congress?
It's passed, yeah, the House.
So the Senate has to have, you know, either approve it or do their version, and then the President has to sign off on it.
But with the kind of majority, both parties saying, this is a great idea.
Yeah, that blew me away.
I mean, did these guys read this fucking bill?
Or did someone just say, hey, this is what this is about, man.
You should just vote yes on this.
How does that work?
I don't understand it.
I think they're spending too much time at parties with lobbyists, collecting money.
I don't know what they're thinking.
The six people, which I should probably put in a blog posting, who voted against it seem to be the only people who either read it, or maybe these other guys think it's a good idea, which I really can't believe.
That would really be frightening.
It's funny, because I saw it come through on Google Reader, and so I went to the blog, because of course you don't get...
You don't get full articles from your RSS feed.
And you want me to tell you why?
No.
So I went over...
Of course, I click on the link.
I go over.
Then I've got to click again because I get your ad.
So I finally get to the story.
But there was a very thoughtful link there to the bill.
And I guess there was another story about it that it linked to.
And from there, you could by state see which each representative...
Who had voted yay or no.
And I'm like, you know, I'm going to remember some of these names, man.
That's messed up.
It's pretty pathetic.
But, you know, that's the way things are right now.
So, yeah, well, that's a good call.
Let me give you one.
You know, one of the things I've noticed over the past few days is that people, especially in Europe, they say, oh, you're in California?
How are the fires?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the fires are terrible, but the fires are nowhere around here.
People don't realize that California is around 600-plus miles from one end to the other, maybe more.
And it's 450 miles from where I am to the fires, because San Francisco and Los Angeles area is pretty long ways.
It's from, I don't know, what's the distance from Wales to London?
A couple hundred miles, maybe?
Yeah, so I mean, it's further than that.
You know, it's like going to Scotland, I guess.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably like that.
Well, you know, here when shit was happening up north, people in London didn't know about, you know, people were drowning.
Their homes were floating away, and it was, you know, only up north, and they didn't know.
I mean, so imagine if you're in San Francisco versus San Diego.
San Diego is, what, a good hour's flight on a commercial flight?
About hour 15.
Yeah, so that's about 400 miles.
It's about 500, almost 500 to San Diego.
It's a long ways away.
But people, you know, they don't understand that.
Why should they?
Nobody in the world seems to have a sense of geography.
But the fires are, you know, this is something I don't think a lot of people realize either.
They got a lot of publicity, I know, in England for sure, and much of Europe.
But they happen every year.
This is just the worst that's ever been.
But every year, a good portion of Southern California and sometimes the Northern California, or Northern California too, not as much, but we get fires up here.
Yeah, and then you get the mudslides.
I'm sorry?
After that, you get the mudslides.
Right.
It's a combination.
So these happen every year.
We have lots of acreage to burn, and they burn them.
And they put them out as best they can.
And then these areas turn into mud.
Right, we have mudslides after that.
And that becomes news.
But much of it's localized.
But when they have such a fiasco like what's going on or what's finishing up, we have so many fires all over the place in the whole area.
And you have to evacuate.
I think they have to evacuate.
Close to a half a...
No, like a million people they're saying over here.
Yeah, it's like a half a million.
Oh, they're saying a million here.
Well, it could be a million, but I'm finding it hard to believe they even evacuated 500,000 because where did these people go?
Yeah, I don't know.
And the traffic down there is already...
You can't drive in normal circumstances.
Yeah, what a point there.
Damn.
Damn.
I mean, I don't know what was...
It must have been just a nightmare.
But anyway, just wanted to mention that.
Maybe like five more minutes and then we'll be at 40 minutes.
Let me just ask you one question.
Your take on the now approved by the Writers Guild of America strike.
I don't hear anyone talking about this, but I think it actually will be a pretty big deal.
You know about this, John?
A little bit.
Yeah.
They go on strike every few years, actually.
Well, but this is the big one, right?
This is the group that counts.
Yeah, this is the big one, and it's about residuals for Internet usage, and clearly stuff is almost impossible to figure out in any time frame, I'm sure.
Yeah, you know, the writers' guilds, all of the different writers' unions, have been kind of on the wrong side of the argument for a lot of this stuff, but at the same time, you know, they're thinking, well, you know, when TV first started, we had a lot of writers doing a lot of work, and there were no residuals of any sort, and then these things went into some sort of syndication.
It was like pre-syndication era, and then everyone was making money, but the people who actually did the shows, and then they came up with, you know, some residual concept After the fact, because there's still a lot of shows that get passed around in syndicates that nobody's getting any money out of, as opposed to something like Law& Order or some of the newer things that are covered.
And so I think it's a defensive thing.
They're a little freaked out about the Internet because IPTV may have some impact on how the money's distributed.
And the idea is they don't want...
These producers or the companies that own, you know, the rights to distribute this stuff, finding new ways to distribute without paying these guys.
And so they take a very conservative look at the Internet and, you know, they just as soon say no to everything because they're just worried, sick about getting screwed again.
And from what I understand, the producers and the networks are all like, you know, we've got a pretty shitty season anyway, so these guys are going to strike.
Why don't we just let them strike and we'll get six more episodes out of every one and then fuck them.
Then we'll do reruns and make them the bad guy.
Yeah, I guess.
Or maybe they get scabs to write.
I'm not sure what they're going to do, but that would be funny.
Strike...
You know, it's all online.
I mean, you couldn't even find it.
Actually, the strikers could actually be working on the site.
Yeah, scabs, absolutely.
You bet they will.
Writers.
Damn writers.
Yeah, no, with the internet and all, you could do a lot of work without ever having to go in anywhere.
Yeah, just like Wikipedia.
There you go.
Just sit at home and write it.
So I don't know what's going to happen with that thing.
I mean, a lot of this stuff's already in the can.
There's a...
You know, it's a strange business, that's for sure.
Damn straight.
All right, John.
This was the first of what I hope will be many chats in our new agenda.
No agenda.
Yeah, three, four topics sounds about right.
Maybe if we do it once a week, it might work out.
Yeah, I think that's a good idea.
I don't think we can sustain this length because sometimes, I mean, the interview you had with Dr.
Ron was worth discussing for a while.
Yeah, true.
Okay, so we'll see.
But I would say, I agree, this is maybe a little bit on the long side, but just under, you know, 40 minutes is pretty much the max, I think.
Yeah, I agree.
Alright, my friend, I'll see you, well, maybe we'll do it in person next week in California.
I think I'm out Thursday or Friday.
That'd be good.
All right.
Cool.
All right.
Don't hang up.
Let me end the show.
Yeah.
Okay.
Good idea.
Noagenda.podshow.com.
Oh, crap.
I fucked it up already.
Here we go.
Bye.
Another pod show podcast.
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