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This week, the muchachos of GLoP remember Hugh Hefner, make a few observations on bullfighting, ruminate on killing TV characters, and make a bold prediction for the 2020 Democratic Presidential nominee. Hint: We’re all gonna get cars!
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Are you suggesting that Dinesh D’Souza should get started on a new documentary … Oprah’s America?
In regards to Playboy and Hefner and originality/invention – reminds me of the idea of “firsts” or “ground breaking series” on early television, when just about everything they did was done on radio first (and sometimes even on earlier, less-remembered TV first).
I will say this, though – Hefner and Playboy did seem to, at least for a while, make girly magazines mainstream, or maybe pseudo-sophisticated. I’ve recently been watching episodes of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, which I think most people who categorize as wholesome, and was tickled to find that David Nelson’s first wife on the show (and in real life) had appeared in Playboy magazine as the playmate of the month for January 1957. A Playboy model on Ozzie & Harriet – probably not what people would expect of the period, but then what most people think about the 1950’s is askew.
Did I miss where they discuss killing off the wife on Rob’s sitcom?
It was in the rundown but not in the actual show. Maybe next episode.
So you’re saying that discussion of “Kevin” can wait?
Geez, I crack myself up.
Unofficial ranking of GLoP moments (no hits, deep tracks only):
4) “Everything else is a disaster so why shouldn’t this be a disaster.”
3) NPR discussion of Sir Mix A Lot’s seminal work, Baby Got Back
2) JG: “I think TED Talks should get a cruise so they could call it TED Cruise.” JP: *sigh of despair* “Oh my god…”
1) “Relleller, Larry Relleller is my name.”
I love this podcast so much.
The “take a knee” thing was interesting, in that Rob said (might have this wrong) is that he hadn’t heard that terminology before. If anyone’s ever played any organized sports as a kid, it’s what a coach will say to get everyone to group around him, take the helmet off (if it’s football, or the polo helmet if you’re a member of Rob’s club), take one knee, and listen to some wisdom being dispensed by the coach.
That kind of thing. How that translates, now, to chucklehead millionaires using a knee to demonstrate some kind of protest about racial relations is well beyond my brain-duder.
I’d really prefer, as noted in the pod, to keep my entertainment and my politics completely separate. Which is why I don’t like it too much when singers get too preachy (a dusting of preachy is fine in small doses). Or movies skew politics so far to the left, demonstrating how contemptuous they are of those who disagree with them that I won’t pay to see their flicks anymore.
In some ways, it’s the happy result of Barry making everything about Barry, which made everything about politics, so basically anything cultural now is fair game for political grandstanding – by everybody.
Yay for a stand-alone Jonah Goldberg podcast!
I have a buddy who is really into Hemingway. Spent an hour once telling me in detail how bullfighting works. I’ve been happy to skip it ever since though I’ve had opportunities to go in both Mexico and Spain. Multiple rounds of guys stabbing the bull and cutting its neck muscles while being careful not to kill it, until the matador meets it half dead and unable to raise its head to finally finish it off. About on a level with bear baiting and dog fighting to my mind.
I have a question, some comments, and a rant.
Q. Mr. Goldberg, if bullfights are horrible, why do you keep going to them?
Trump is not the first celebrity to become a politician (see Reagan, Schwarzenegger, and Ventura).
I do not think that Oprah would be a winning candidate. The video of her berating a confused, young, female clerk in a handbag store will be played on an endless loop if she acts like she is going to run. For some reason, nastiness in women is more disturbing than nastiness in men. She might support some one like Kamala Harris. The Democrats might be forced to run Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, lest they lose their Antifa wing.
[Rant on] Trump did not start the NFL national anthem fight, he only gave voice to what many fans have wanted to say for over a year. Kaepernick stated his disrespect explicitly:
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.” (Kaepernick, in an interview, 27 August, 2016).
I do not buy the David French fertilizer that kneeling during the national anthem isn’t disrespectful-nobody gets to tell me how to interpret what I see, and what I see is a bunch of millionaire crybabies, who went to college on American taxpayer money, playing in American taxpayer-funded stadiums, spitting on my country. Oh, and they aren’t chattel slaves, nor are they speaking German, Japanese, Russian, or Chinese, also due to the blood and treasure poured out by American taxpayers for American citizens for more than 200 years. This is not a First Amendment issue, the players are employees on company time. NFL owners have no trouble telling players how to act in the end zone, or what shoes to wear, or whether they can put stickers on their helmets. There are many, many people who would jump at the chance to play in the NFL, so if the current players will not follow owner rules, there are others that will. I am angrier at the cowardly, sniveling, owners than the players, but they all infuriate me, and I have cancelled my DirecTV account.[Rant off]
I am not a person who thinks that Trump is playing x-dimensional chess, but he has an uncanny ability to tell when people are really mad. Furthermore, Trump has been an employer, and he knows how to get employees to do what he wants them to do. He wants the NFL owners to step up and deal with this blatant disrespect. Since they won’t, he is giving them grief, which they richly deserve.
Agree completely with Rob Long about Hugh Hefner. Men have wanted to look at pictures of naked women for as long as the human race has existed. There are even cave paintings of naked women.
For @jonahgoldberg: Did the Spain trip have anything to do with this controversy? http://ricochet.com/458120/answers-day-price-steep/. And is that why you didn’t want to say who was responsible for organizing it?
No skin off your back either way — I am just curious. Keep up the great work! Too bad you are going to Silicon Valley instead of LA or I would attend.
You do realize that if the ‘missionary in every pot’ joke had been made about Obama you would all be on a month long apology tour and be fired at the end of it anyway.
Picking a nit: There’s a difference between being ‘political’ and being ‘politically incorrect.’ Jonah said during this podcast that ESPN was surprised that Rush Limbaugh would be political. I didn’t see the show when Limbaugh made the comment which resulted in his termination. However, if what I saw afterward was correct, Limbaugh was fired by ESPN for making a politically incorrect statement about a quarterback. He wasn’t being political.
Why is this? Do we expect woman to be nicer than men are is it that when women are mean they far exceed men’s meanness?
Mr. Goldberg quite confused me this podcast. Does he really believe that Oprah would be a better President than Mr. Trump? Sure she would be classier and nicer but she would bleed America dry with her stupid leftist policies whereas Trump, despite his many faults, is making America more competitive and dynamic.
I don’t know the answer to your question. In this particular case, Oprah has made “niceness” part of her public persona, so the contrast between her public and private behavior is unsettling.
Glad I listened through to the end. Caught the Easter Egg.
That’s pretty cryptic. Care to elaborate?
After the music, there was more talk.
I thought it was funny when Rob said, talking about the NFL controversy, something to the effect that if Trump had a strategy, it wasn’t a very effective one, though it got him into the White House.