Speaker 1: Give you away.
Speaker 2: You go ahead, you go right ahead.
Speaker 1: I'll attempt some kind of segue and you will pick
up on it.
Speaker 2: I that's perfect, perfect.
Speaker 3: Welcome everybody to the Ricochet Podcast. James Lilyx is off today,
as is Charlie Cook. Is Steve Hayward joined by Rob Long.
Speaker 4: Yeah what does that mean? Like, so what happens?
Speaker 2: James sick? And then you call Charlie and charlis I'm
not doing it and you're like, well, yeah, who did
we get?
Speaker 3: That's the wrong opening note? Rob, Sorry, it's that I'm
trying to do a little fifteen second one. Sorry, that's
all right, you're rusty, right. Welcome everybody to the Ricochet Podcast.
It's Steve Hayward sitting in for James Lylyx, who is
out today.
Speaker 1: As is Charlie Cook. Joining us is Rob Long. So
let's have ourselves a podcast.
Speaker 2: Keep this this is real.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the Ricochet Podcast, number seven hundred and seventy five.
And as James always wants us to remind you, please
join Ricochet at ricochet dot com.
Speaker 1: It's not expensive.
Speaker 3: Join the most stimulating conversations on the web. James is
under the weather. I think Charles is out somewhere. I'm
a little under the weather, So I apologize for my
scratchy voice, but we managed to scrounge up Rob Long.
Speaker 2: Scratch a right, you know what, you need to work
on this because like like, well, you know, James is
sick and Charlie's who knows where Charlie is? So I
don't know. We got Yeah, we put out an all apb.
We get this clown in. You know, maybe special guests.
You could say we are well, I could you're under
the weather. I get it.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I think of it this way. Rob
is uh.
Speaker 3: You know, I pick up the news every day. I'm
on the road this week, so a little less news,
but you know the good, the bad, the crazy, and
I often think that you know, at least Rob Long
has a blessed existence in a monastic occupation at the moment.
Speaker 1: You probably missed some of this craziness.
Speaker 4: Now, yeah, I wouldn't call it a monastic you don't.
Speaker 2: We're like this sponsored or the seminary was created by
very stern Presbyterians.
Speaker 3: But they weren't that stern, right right right, Yeah, Well,
Presbyterianism and monasticism don't often go together in the same sentence,
but that was our last podcast together.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we don't have to go back through that, yeah, right, right, right.
Speaker 1: So well today there is a whole lot in the news.
Speaker 3: So you know, I have been predicting for years item
number one, that eventually what was going to turn back
a lot of the really extreme transgender craziness and I mean,
frankly what I think, mutilating children and young teens. That
the trial lawyers were going to rescue us from this
because you would have and you know, we know there's
a significant number of people who regretted making a transition
and want to de transition, and I thought they're going
to sue for malpractice. And one reason I think this,
just very briefly, is I am familiar. Don't ask me
how because it was a confidential settlement with NDAs. But
some years ago I'm aware of a lawsuit brought against
an abortion provider by someone who got an abortion as
a teen with the usual no parental notification because that
was always right and it was a look, they did
not counsel me of the psychological risks of having an abortion,
which you know a lot of young women they regret
having done it, and sometimes there's trauma and ball. Okay, Well,
the abortion provider settled very quickly because they did not
want this to be spread around, right, And I think
most people who think of a suit either against these
transgender surgeries or even abortion, they don't really want to
go through a trial either, because that's painful and difficult.
But the object is that the lawyers who brought the
case was let's make certain abortion providers uninsurable. And so
I'm wondering if that's what's going to happen now with
the transgender business.
Speaker 2: Well, it could happen.
Speaker 4: It also can happen naturally.
Speaker 2: It's not as if it's not as if this stuff
isn't already controversial, even in the context of the people
who've been performing it. You know, the entire clinic, the
Tavistaw Clinic in Britain, which is one of them. First
of all, one of the most famous psychoanalytic institutes in
the world, if not the most famous. I think Freud
taught there. So this is the most establishment place there is.
And they did this kind of therapy and this kind
of and they not I don't think they did the surgery,
but they they authorized the surgery on minors and the
and the hormone therapy and all that stuff, and they
not only decided to stop doing it, but I think
a year later they closed the entire thing.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't because of pressure.
Speaker 2: From you know, some I don't know what, you know,
social conservative It was out of this genuine feeling that
maybe they haven't been making a mistake.
Speaker 4: And they were very careful.
Speaker 2: They didn't say we're against this in general, or we
don't think that you should be allowed to do this
if you if you feel it's necessary or whatever. I don't,
I don't know, but they did say that not for kids, right,
and that I mean, that doesn't seem like an outrageous criterion,
which is you got to be eighteen or nineteen.
Speaker 1: Right, right? Yes?
Speaker 2: Uh. Well.
Speaker 3: The other aspect of this is I think we now
have pretty good data that there's an aspect of social
contagion going on here. And it's kind of lumpy, right,
it tends to because why is it so high in
bel Air and Cambridge, Massachusetts and not in.
Speaker 1: Peoria, right right? Uh?
Speaker 2: And it does remind me joke Bill Bill Maher said
that he says like yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, uh, and I mean I'm sure, yeah, you'll remember
that was it thirty years ago? Now, you had this outbreak,
outbreak epidemic of anorexia and bilimia among young women, right,
and that that clearly had a contaging effect.
Speaker 1: There wasn't some and there's no epidemic.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's not caused by a virus or something, right, right,
And but it just you know, a group think and
so forth. On the other hand, I think, uh, you know,
the identitarians as I call them, one more thought about that,
and but you may agree with me at this.
Speaker 1: I do know four or five transgender individuals, men who
change teams, as I like to put it, but all
in adulthood, some of them far into adulthood.
Speaker 3: Right, And you know they all, by the way, most
of them are not down with the you know, I
can go in any bathroom I want and sort of
aggressiveness of it, right, quite the opposite. And most of
them are either conservative or libertarian. And they all say
the same thing. You know, I thought I would be
happier as the other thing, and I am. And so
I take that and respect it. It's rare but real,
and I think probably one a typical of the identitarian
left of taking it too far. They're actually going to
make it harder for people who really do have genuine
gender dysphoria.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's probably true.
Speaker 2: I mean, I find the whole thing so bad, Like anyway,
because of the I'm trying to be nicer. I wrote
a I wrote a piece for commentary. It's gonna be
out next week, and I put in a story that's
true with a joke at the end. And I'm sure
I'm gonna trouble.
Speaker 4: For you know, Like.
Speaker 2: I have a friend who is in the has been
the fashion sort of retail fashion business for a long time.
He's very well known guys for a bunch of books,
and you know his joke as he goes. You know,
a lot of these you know, these guys just you know,
they think they're going to become women. And it's like, well,
wait a minute, think about this, like what is your
summer Look? You know, you it isn't just this thing
where you just wake up one day and you get
to you know, and you got all you're thinking about
these things because but women have been thinking about these
things forever.
Speaker 4: And I suspect that that is.
Speaker 2: But you know, some some of the old some of
the older gentlemen, the older meaning you know, in their
in their grown up phase, who've decided to do this.
You know, I don't. I'm not sure they at this point.
I'm sure they trade it up in the looks department,
you know. Yeah, And but but again, that is entirely,
entirely up to them. And I celebrate the courage it
takes to make a change like that, and I hope
that they have equal courage if they if they regret it,
that there's the equal embrace of their changing back.
Speaker 4: I think that happens too.
Speaker 2: It doesn't have to, but it can. And in general,
you know, I think when you're grown up, I mean fine,
and I think there is a certain and I don't
I'm not. I am not, by no means am I
questioning the good faith of the people who have having
this done or doing this themselves, which is crucial. They're
doing to themselves, which is fine. But you know, some
of it does feel a little like a very very
rich society and a very very privileged group. And we
all are, i mean, just by being Americans in twenty
twenty six, we're incredibly rich.
Speaker 4: It's just kind of like, well, I can do this,
I can do it, so why not you.
Speaker 3: Know, well, we've also, I mean we Something that I
think is never made distinct is that it's one thing
to just cross dress, right, you know, I want to
wear a dress and call myself a woman. And that's
another thing to go all the way, shall we say,
right and have surgeries use modern medicine. And it reminds
me of the old breakfast joke that the chicken is involved,
but the pig is committed, right, So you know, the
people go all the way, they really can't switch back
very easily.
Speaker 1: I don't think I don't you know, I don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think we're not being honest to them either.
They are not switching to something they really aren't. It's
really just a more a closer visual approximation of what
they want. But they aren't able to do the thing.
You know, if you become a woman, you don't have
a uterus, you can't have children, you don't you don't
have you don't menstruate. And then there's also the truth
part of it is I have a friend of mine
who's very done, She's been doing this kind of researching
a long time and she he says, you know what,
they don't tell people is that you will not be
able to experience sexual pleasure, right right, Yeah, So this
if the if you're drawn to that, if this is
somehow these things and look, we're all kind of wired
in some weird way with God knows. I wouldn't want
to look under the hood of your head, you wouldn't
want look at ah of mine. But if that, if
that is part of what's happening here, then you're going
to be really disappointed. Yeah. Also this when you try
to buy shoes, I think that's the only thing that's
that's not going to be a good.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, one last serious point and then take a
wide angle lens look at a broader scene. I do
know that apparently one bar to more malpractice use is
statutes of limitation. Now I'm an expert on this, but
I do know that when starting thirty years ago, you
had all the explosion of the scandals of sex abuse
by Catholic priests, the boy Scouts and so forth, that
a lot of states ran out and extended there's statute
of limitations for those kinds of claims. And we'll have
to keep track on whether that happens here. I suspect
it might in some states.
Speaker 2: I agree, I agree. I think also I feel like
that I would say to those people on the pro
side or on the sort of continuing to perform these
things from miners, is that if you want to look
and see what can happen to a to may be
the most the most venerable, strongest institution and earth has
ever known in the Catholic Church, take a look, and
that will happen to the psychiatric or the psychological industry,
and that all those institutions if this keeps going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. So more broadly, I think
that what I call the.
Speaker 3: Identitarians, which is this and the whole sort of Dei world,
it's pretty evident to me they are digging in, thinking
if we can survive three more years of Trump, which
will seem like twenty years, right, because you measure Trump
and dog years if you're on the left, right, doesn't
seem every day a want. And they're digging in, and
you know they're disguising the Dei stuff on campus.
Speaker 1: That's what I follow the most.
Speaker 3: Closely, and and I don't keep want to don't want
to keep beating this dead horse. But the identitarianism business
has always been sort of the extreme of the idea
of liberal autonomy, of self definition, self creation, totally unmoored
with you know, tradition, history, human nature and the wilfulness
of it is what makes them, I think, so angry
and aggressive in a lot of domains, and so they're
not going to go away easily even after just one
or two lawsuits, is my expectation.
Speaker 4: I think that might might be the case.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, once you've once you've cracked, these
things only really work in their sort of mob intimidation,
like if you don't if you don't do this, we're
going to punish you in all these different ways. Once
that's broken, it's really hard to scare people again. And
you're already seeing it in colleges, like college is sort
of the.
Speaker 4: Bell weather, Right. This all happened a while ago.
Speaker 2: People perfectly happy sending their kids to a school that
doesn't that doesn't necessarily have the same cachet, the same
name as a school as a school might have had
ten or fifteen years ago. Now, I think this is
all gonna take a long time. Yeah, but I'm not
sure it's I'm not sure it's a slam dunk for
the weighted out the playing possum, waiting it out weighted outers.
I mean, look, if we could, if we all survived
three more years of Trump, that great.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm not sure I'm going to survive.
Speaker 2: Let alone, let alone the left. But my guess is
that these these only work if you could point to
everyone to say everyone's doing it, and you'll be can
roundly condemned if you don't.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure they can do that anymore.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, you know, one indicator is always comics, right,
And I mean I get a lot of social media feeds.
Speaker 1: Like you do.
Speaker 3: And you know, there are always a few comedians who
would make fun of this business, but lately I've been
seeing a lot more of them do it right. Yeah, right,
and and they bust up the audience. It's pretty clear
that the you know, okay, and that got significant. Well
in other news that is overlaps, maybe a little another
batch of Epstein files here the last few days. I
hope you got I hope you got to miss that
Robert of that catch up with you.
Speaker 2: Also, no, no, that's like no one's talking about of course.
I think that's the most amazing thing about being in
seminary is that no one is talking about the news
in any at any point, they'll make you know some
of the people who are on the left, which a
lot of a lot of them, will make you know.
They'll make these oblique represents, you know, in these troubled times,
which so do we get all we've always been able
to say. But I am, of course obsessed with it.
And because it's to me what I find, I'm such
a Pollyannist weirdo. I just assumed that all of this
talk about how Epstein's network was so big and you
knew everybody and all that stuff, that was like a
lot of nonsense, Like really, I don't think that really happens.
And then you go on these email list and it's
extraordinary how much I mean, his full time job, Look,
I might box right now is like twenty emails. I'm
late on returning his He seems to be doing nothing
but on the phone all day. Like I mean, that's
that would be my defense where he where his lawyer
if he were alive and he were facing you know,
more assault charge than's it? When did he have time,
ladies jumping the jury between eleven eleven and eleven twenty three,
When the when the plaintiffs insists he was attacking her.
He was actually setting nine emails, like we could see,
like the guy seemed to be doing nothing with that.
Speaker 4: So but it is interesting. It is interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I instinctively resist frothy conspiracy theories, and you know,
I want to really be proven. And on the other hand,
I noticed the same thing. How did he make his
money when he's spending all his time being social chairman
seemingly twenty four to seven and it had cost him
a lot of money to do all that too. So
I mean a few things have leaked out. I mean,
he really droves some hard bargains, evenly squeezed some people.
He frauded some people. The New York Times had a
pretty good story on a dive a couple of months
ago or a month ago, and it really detailed that
he was a sharpeither. Okay, but it's still I don't know,
it still seems so out of proportion. I do kind
of wish it would all go away. Although last thing,
maybe you, I don't know if you caught this. I
think it was maybe Bill Marshow last Friday night. I've
just read about it. But he said, where does QAnon
go to get its apology, right. I mean, I don't
know if you know all the QAnon stories, and you
know they're way out there. I mean I met someone
once who said, this is, you know, eight or nine
years ago, right that you know there is this organized
pedophile ring.
Speaker 1: Forget the pizza shop. There's tunnels that start from a
mile underneath a Denver airport to go all over the country,
and that's where the trafficking is going on.
Speaker 3: I just you know, I mean, you know, I'd rather
how about we talk about Kim Trail something more sensible just.
Speaker 2: The way I can see, right, right, Well, yeah, I
think that. Well, I mean, you know, it doesn't seem
like it requires much of a conspiracy.
Speaker 4: It's just rich people and a guy.
Speaker 2: What's interesting to me is that he is Epstein really
is a classic character you've seen in fiction and in
plays and stuff. He's every single person he is emailing with,
he despises, he hates everybody, and if the great tragedy
of his life I think for him was that he
committed suicide before he could see the destruction that he created.
It isn't as if this guy, there's not one of
those emails in which he's genuinely concerned for a friend
or anything.
Speaker 4: I mean, look, even the worst.
Speaker 2: People, you know, even Hitler was nice to his dog.
Right this he seems like all he a lifetime of
resentment and anger and he hates these guys more than anything.
And and I think that drove it. I mean, it's
very it's very the worst thing about it for me
is that there's no index like the No One's index
that so you can search on the web. When when
the North Koreans hacked the Sony emails, yeah, and then
Wiki Leaks put it on the web and you could
you could like search for your name and if you ever,
if you had, like I did some stuff at Disney,
I mean at Sony in those years, and so I
went and looked for my name because I could see
what the business affairs people were emailing to each other
back and forth about my contract and this and that.
It was really fascinating, but they were kind of like
they weren't really lying. There was one moment where it
was like, oh, I got it, I see what you
guys are up to. But mostly, you know, people even
in emails, they're not twirling their mustache. But this guy
and I don't think he is either, but you could
tell that there's just he just he's a this is
I think were he alive today, he would not be
disappointed at the wholesale reputational destruction that he has created.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I had not picked up on that
angle of it, Rob, I have to confess that there's
sort of malice there born of you know, anger and
resentment and whatever.
Speaker 1: I miss that, but yeah, I did enjoy.
Speaker 3: I mean, I have not been calling through these things,
but you can't avoid some of it. Boy, what the
Allen sure turns up a lot? Yeah, emails right, wanting
Epstein to broker you know, small bit parts.
Speaker 1: In his movies, and you know, I meet all kinds
of crazy stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think but Epstein kind of knew.
I mean like the devil.
Speaker 4: The devil.
Speaker 2: Uh, the devil always appears to you as a solution.
Yeah right, it's whatever your weaknesses is what the Devil's
gonna say. I could take care of that for you.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It's never it's never something and it's never even something
grand like I can make you a king of the world.
I mean, that's what we that's how we imagine it.
But really when the devil comes to you. He says, Look,
I know this, this this little thing is bothering you.
Let me help you. Let me help you financi your movie,
and I can sell some. I'll sell some walk on,
so before you know it, you'll have all the money
you need.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it starts right by the way.
Speaker 1: Well, yes, I do.
Speaker 3: I mean, well, maybe this is the time to do this.
I was going to bring it up later, but you
know so, I'm still out in California for some crazy reason.
Speaker 1: It's way.
Speaker 3: Here's a new one for you that I was talking
about just yesterday. Some people here in Texas uh a
three hundred and sixty five million dollar bike lane eight
miles along the La River, which, as you know, is
a storm drain. It's concrete channel, right, it was supposed
to be open last year. They haven't started construction, and
the construction cross is now estimated to be over a
billion dollars all in for eight miles along the La River.
Speaker 1: And how is this possible? Right, that's just a measure
of the comprehensive failure of California.
Speaker 4: But equally already concrete. They what do they have to do?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 3: No, that's really how hard is a bike path on
the La River which is empty ninety nine percent of
the time time, as you know, right, also have to
spend only.
Speaker 1: In California, Yeah, exactly. No one wants to ride there.
Oh my god.
Speaker 3: But that brings me to your, well, your former industry, right,
which I know we've talked about how it's in free
fall in California because of high costs and everything else.
And the latest idea that apparently Governor Newsom was talking
about is, well, we have to come up with some
subsidies and tax breaks for the Hollywood industry in California,
which is, you know, do we have to have subsidies
to take coals to Newcastle? I mean, it's unbelievable to
think that what has been one of the premier industries
of California for one hundred years was on such hard
times that it needs And I know, Georgia and Oklahoma
and all these other states New Mexico aren't trying to
lure the film industry, but California you would think would
have such an advantage like Las Vegas has an advantage.
I mean in casino gaming has spread over the country,
but Las Vegas still thrives because none of those places
can offer what Las Vegas does. And I've always thought
Hollywood will always offer what all those other states can't offer,
even with bribes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's probably true in some respect. The
problem with it is that we say it's a runaway production.
They call it in show business runaway productions leaving LA
But there was too much production for you know, the
past fifteen twenty years. So it's sort of like you
think about them as oil wells, right, you know, you
drive through oil towns and like you see these dereks
that are not being used, with the oil pumps that
aren't going up and down, up and down, up and down,
and why is that?
Speaker 4: It's just because of the price of oil. It's not
worth it.
Speaker 2: Those things will start moving when it makes economic sense. Right.
We just over invested in show business into TV shows
for frankly, mostly streaming services now needed twenty five thirty
forty fifty sixty one hundred originals, right, so they all
had to be made. They had to be made somewhere.
So if production went down to where it was when
I started, or midway around there, that would probably be
That's probably the outcome the problem with a budget is
money is fungible. So if I get the state to
pay for something and said we're not going to pay
for the big star salaries, We're only going to pay
for this or this or this, well guess what's gonna
happen to the star salaries. They're going to suck up
the Because the truth is, no matter what matter how
you pay for it, the people who are whose faces
are on the screen really for the not for the
first time, but for the most extreme time ever, they
are more important. It costs ten million dollars to twenty
million dollars to launch a title, whether it's a movie
or TV show or anything, into public consciousness. Every time,
you don't have to every million dollars, you don't have
to spend to try to tell people what the show
is about, who's in it. You're it's money in the bank.
So you want a recognizable star, you want to build on.
That's why they those why all the reboots that aren't
really reboots, That's why all the tie ins, the things,
That's why all the stars like you just need to
you need to watch the TV show with the actor
whose name you know, rather than have me try to
introduce you to some name because its too risky, even
though you and I Boke would say, well, that's dumb
because look at the biggest the biggest hits in cable
streaming in the past ten fifteen years, and they start.
Speaker 4: Nobody's right, right, but that's risky.
Speaker 1: So well, follow up question.
Speaker 3: I distinctly remember you here on Ricochet I'm going to
say five six years ago, at the height of COVID,
looking head to after COVID, and you made a comment
about how ah, there's the pipelines drying up, and so
right now, all the Hollywood production companies are green lighting
anything that walks through the door something like that. And
you know, I watched some of these streaming shows now
or I'll dial them up, and I have two thoughts.
One is, the production values are really really good, and
the acting is kind of average to mediocre, and the
plots aren't very good.
Speaker 1: It's just not very good.
Speaker 3: And I sometimes wonder if the high production values now
are actually an impediment to people enjoying a show, because
I look at the old reruns of seventies sitcoms So
tax or whatever, and I always thought, you know, they're
kind of grainy compared to what we have today. Sometimes
the laugh track too much and the lines are clunky,
but it worked right. It's it's like, well, old coat
and some of these shows now try too hard, it
seems to me, and.
Speaker 1: I don't know what this is gonna go.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, look, it's gonna have to go with less, right,
that's that's usually the solution is that you when a
bubble burst, everybody has to figure out what they really
want to do in their lives, and some people are
you know, look, there is no way around it if
there are going to be fewer people working in show
business in a year than there are now, and everybody's
waiting for the other person to leave.
Speaker 4: First, right, And it's not how that works.
Speaker 2: Like you got to like if you could, if you,
I would say this to anybody, if you haven't worked
in six months, nine months in any capacity in show
business and you can leave, leave, yeah, you'll your life
will be immeasurably, immeasurely healthier. But no one's listening to
me when I say that.
Speaker 3: I know right well that they will as soon as
you become father Rob.
Speaker 4: Yeah, given to order them, Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 1: So you know I was in Washington, d C. A
week ago today and it was two degrees, which you know.
Speaker 3: I mean I lived in Washington for fifteen years and
I don't ever remember being that cold, and it's been
that cold for a while, and I think it's still
cold up where you are.
Speaker 1: I know, I've had some people freeze to death. What's
the answer for this? I mean, we just need thicker blankets.
What do we need to do well?
Speaker 4: I mean, look, there's no answer to being cold. I mean,
we're cold, that's all.
Speaker 2: I mean. I remember it was people we've never had
a snowstorm like this, like, well, we had one in
twenty seventeen and in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4: We have them at every you know, five six, seven years.
Speaker 2: I'm not making an argue back climate change for or against,
but this is not This does not seem unprecedented to me.
I remember when I was producing a show that was
we were shooting out on Long Island, and there was
two weeks there where I had to wake up because
I was running the show super early to hear whether
because the unions require certain closures and insurance requires certain
standards for closures. And then the lawyer studio lawyer who
would decide whether you you know, they were not the
studio would not want to be liable for any accidents
to close. That studio lawyer was conveniently located in Los Angeles,
so I'd have to wake that guy up at three
in the morning, which he hated.
Speaker 4: Was like, but yes, you're going to be up at
three in the morning.
Speaker 2: And and he he had to make the decision whether
we as a studio, we we as a studio could open.
And that's because the snow is so terrible and it's
not that bad. It wasn't that bad this year. So
it's cold, and then suddenly it's warm, you know. Then
you get a thirty two degree day, and then you
got an eleven degree day, and it's called winter.
Speaker 3: Right yeah, right, and and and then comes summer and
it's all climate change all the time.
Speaker 2: Right yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Then I was like, oh my god, it's never been
this hot.
Speaker 2: Right, well, yeah, yes, it has actually a year ago,
but the last time it was hot, right yeah.
Speaker 3: And then the other question is, uh, even if you've
got the right accouterments for coping with the weather, what
do you do for your long term future, which is
a different kind of fabric.
Speaker 4: Well, I hope that that is not a segue, because
if it.
Speaker 1: Is, that's a terrible one. I know.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: On a scale of one a Lilacs, that's like a three.
But okay, he's sick, so you wouldn't want to show
him up right. That's actually fine because you know, as
you know, it's like last year it was winter and
last year was summer. And that's what happens with the
years they pass, and the passing of another year is
marked by a grand celebration of resolutions. And while resolutions
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Speaker 3: And we thank Fabric for sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast.
As James always likes to add, well, all right, let's
turn to another I guess collapsing industry, or at least
collapsing media property and The Washington Post right, and I'm
sorry James is not here today. I'll bet he has
some mixed feelings about this as an old, ink stained wretch,
and I sympathize with that. My first job out of
college a long time ago was doing the local news
reporting for a suburban daily that no longer exists, and
I realized then it was an unpromising professional field.
Speaker 1: I had no idea to be so bad. But the Post.
What to say about this? First of all, I do
the progression.
Speaker 3: I think you know these numbers, So Arianna Huffington sold
the Huffington Post. Was it twenty some years ago? For
so I call three hundred million dollars? I don't even
I don't even know the Huffing the Post still exists.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's I think it's a bucket shop man,
but I think it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then so then you know, few years later, Jeff
bezos byes the Washington Post for two hundred and fifty
million dollars. You know, this legendary publication with a you know,
a seemingly usable built in market.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: And that's couch cushion change for him, of course. And
that's what's annoying so many people who are laid off
this week, who seem to think they're entitled to endless
subsidies from him. Uh So A couple of points. One is,
you know the New York Times is thriving financially. I
mean they're making lots of money, and you know the
Post was losing one hundred million a year. The difference there,
I think you probably know and listeners may know, is
that it's not from ads and news coverage. It's from
all the collateral things they did. They figured out early
on the crossword puzzle. They bought wordle they do games.
Speaker 1: They bought a couple of proprietary what's it called the
there's a sports site they bought that people they extra for.
So you know, they figured out the digital media world
that cross subsidizes the old fashioned news. Although I think
they've shrunk that a little bit.
Speaker 4: I think they have.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember years ago people were talking a very
famous venture capitalist had a thing he had on Twitter,
you called the New York Times death watch. Ah, and
we're gonna watch it, watch the New York Times die.
Of course that we are there. They're ascified and slow,
and you look at what they've done, and they have
whether they've announced it or not. I mean, obviously New
York Times to you me as you know, we are
enraged at their headlines and their editorial editorializing on the
front page, all that stuff, right, But still what they
realized was they a long, hard mirror. Look at the mirror.
They said, what are we really? We are a service business.
Speaker 4: And they used to have.
Speaker 2: If you want to go see a movie, or you
wanted to go to a play, or you wanted to
go to a restaurant, or you wanted to live your life,
the New York Times you looked at because it gave
you all that information, like their theater section told you
what was playing in the movie theaters and all that stuff.
And they doubled down on those things. Now they weren't.
Nobody checks the newspaper to see where the movies are.
But their food section is terrific. And I did I
do wordle I do the crossword every day. Now I
do the Crossword. I get a paper delivered, which is
a sign of geriatric, you know, mental decline, but I
still do it. And that the humility it takes to
see what you really are, not what you've become thanks
to the Internet, what you always were these newspapers were
always that they just got a little too big for
their bridges. Over the past twenty thirty years, when we
were flooded with journalism students and all sorts of nonsense
that they went to school to study journalism, all this
bs that they swallowed and preened around with themselves, which
was ridiculous. Right now they're faced with, Okay, why do
I read this every day? And there are reasons why
people do you just have to give them those reasons
and instead, I mean, I remember, I mean, this is
this is a dumb I'm not talking out of school.
It was so long ago having dinner back when I
used to hang around with Rupert Murdoch, having dinner with
Rupert moroc and Peter Robinson, and we were with Rupert
in l A.
Speaker 5: And uh.
Speaker 4: We were sort of talking about wicked know what what what?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 2: What? What would you what would you do if you
were right?
Speaker 4: And he goes that or no, you know. I said,
well would you ever buy the La Times?
Speaker 2: And he said no? And I said, well don't you?
And I tried to explain to him what I thought
LA was, like, LA's this.
Speaker 5: Big, sprawling baroque city, it's all his got movie stars
and like sex scandals and creepy weird murders and gangle.
Speaker 2: I was like, amazing, So this is a tabloid city.
It's got no tabloid and he kind of looked at
it's like huh, but he said, well, you know, even
the New York Post doesn't make that much money and
say it's hard.
Speaker 4: Well, guess what he's doing.
Speaker 2: Yep, I'm gonna that there's a there's a tabloid in
kel the California Post I think it's called, said basically
the New York Post for California, which is like very
East Coast center, which is like, well New York City,
it's one tabloid and all of California gets another. But
it might work. But that's what people want. Page six, right,
you know the recipes, puzzle, sports scores. Well, you know
New York Times about Wirecutter, which is a terrific consumer
products review site.
Speaker 4: What do they want? They want service?
Speaker 2: And then you know, let's be honest, it's great that
you have a beyrout bureau. Right, Nobody's like, that's not
what's driving me. No one has ever picked up the newspapers.
They've said, I wonder what, you know, what are what
they're what is happening in Singapore? It's like, why were
there all those sirens down the street. Why why were
the cops surrounding that house that I drove home on
the way home from work. They want that's what they
want to know what's going on?
Speaker 3: Right? I think the California Post already has a staff
of eighty and they're adding more, you know, the all
different kinds of positions. Their office is in Century City,
which I think I think makes sense. I mean, Downtown LA,
as you know, is all bankers and lawyers and this
kind of boring. Yeah, the other side of town is
where the action is.
Speaker 2: So they already own they already own the space, correct. Yeah,
So it's like, you know, I'm not spending any money.
If you got no fancy offices for you people, you're
going to be in the offices that we already have.
Speaker 4: I think it's true.
Speaker 2: I also, I mean I also I remember years ago
I was talking to a New York LA Times reporter.
She was pretty high up there, and I was saying, look,
I've lived in LA for twenty I've lived in LA
for twenty years of this At that point I believed
for twenty years, and you're always driving everywhere, so I've
seen the whole city. I have no idea where anything is.
Like La is one of those places where I always
say to people, where was Rodney King beaten by the police?
And they always think south Central. No, No, it was
way out in the far Valley, but Coyment way out there,
practically on the other side of like almost in Seniorality.
Speaker 1: Actually almost in Terry County, right yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: Nobody knows where anything is. I said every La Times article,
first of I said, cover more murders, cover more crime,
it bleeds, it leads, do that stuff. But also you
used to have a graphic inset on every article of
where this took place. And she said, oh, well, we're
not interested in doing that, so.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, I mean I grew up with the
La Times and actually knew the Chamner family slightly when
they still owned it, and you know, it was a
real paper back then, right yeah, and including with foreign
bureaus because that was the flush days for newspapers.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, you talk about giving people what
they want.
Speaker 3: One of the numbers that came out this week about
the Post is they laid off sixteen of their nineteen.
Speaker 1: Climate change reporters.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, it doesn't matter what you think about the whole
climate change issue. The point is is that we know,
repeated surveys, pew gallop everybody else, that issue is a
snoozer for the overwhelming number of Americans, right even it
turns out environmentalists ranked climate change below local things like
air pollution, trees and parks, and.
Speaker 1: Exactly they prioritize the local.
Speaker 3: And so, I mean, the only reason I hired that
is because you know, the people thought they were smarter
than the rest of us, said, Oh, we need to
just jam people with climate change coverage instead of covering
murders and you know the fun stuff.
Speaker 4: Well, I'll tell you. I mean, we talked about this
a little time last time we talked.
Speaker 2: But you know, look, I'm I spent all my day
thinking about you know, lofty, big things, Steve. You know,
I'm not like you down there in the gutter of
politics and policy. I'm you know, elevated here. But and
I sometimes I do wonder. And I know most of
the Ricochet listeners will roll their eyes at this because
they've made up their mind.
Speaker 4: About me years ago.
Speaker 2: But i'my thing like you know, MI, like I don't
want to get too soft here, like I don't want
to become in some kind of woke whatever. And I
was driving to the library the other day, and usually
I walk, but it was too cold, so I'm driving,
and I have too many books and I'm too old
to carry them. And I've heard an NPR report about
a healthcare some healthcare initiative, healthcare agency, not federal, but
it's a nonprofit about climate change. And that of course,
as you know, I don't know if you knew this, Steve,
but the climate change has a bigger effect on women
and minorities than anybody else. Your climate change is different
from somebody else's climate change. And I was ever thinking,
like what that's bananas? And as I pulled into library,
the interviewer said, well, you know, some people are going
to hear that. And I'm not saying I agree with them,
so we can hear that. I wonder how exactly that
affects doesn't affect all of us equally, And the person
had and I had to stop. I had to stop
park and I was there, but I had to listen
to this answer. And the answer was this weirdly contorted
thing that maybe if climate changes happen and you are
displaced due to climate change, which of course we've seen already,
And I was like, wait where I don't remember seeing that?
But you know, this woman insisted that there have been
great migrations because of climate change, that those women may
enter it to a new place that doesn't have the
same health access that they enjoyed from where they can
Like that is the most bizarre use case I've ever
heard of. Uh, But so I felt better about myself
with thought, Okay, well, if I can recognize that.
Speaker 4: I know I'm still kind of sound philosophically.
Speaker 2: But again, it's like it is one of those things where,
of course, now how many reporters are covering that beat,
And if you're covering that beat, then you have to
be looking for a reason to be covering that beat.
So it's going to be everything and then and then
when when no one wants to read it, you get
mad at Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's been a real Gresham's law. You know, bad
money drives out good of environmental reporting generally. But I mean,
there are a few mainstream reporters whose work on climate
I have respected over the years, like Andy Revkin of
the New York Times, but he left the New York
Times a decade ago, and party was he did not
always tow the party line one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And he's a big believer. I mean, he's not a
skeptic or you know. And that's what happens, and you're
left with a lot of hacks to do these crazy things.
I mean, you know, you talk about life imitating art.
You must know.
Speaker 3: The old joke goes back to the eighties about how
the major papers would cover the end of the world
coming tomorrow, you know, right, you know, the USA today
says world to end tomorrow, but we're grinning and bearing it.
The Wall Street Journal world end tomorrow, Markets to close
early see page A.
Speaker 1: Nine for details.
Speaker 3: The New York Times would be world to end tomorrow,
Women and Minority's hardest hit. And then the Wash the
Washington Post, who we're talking about now, would have said
world end tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Reagan policies blamed. And now that's what we're reading. It's unbelievable, right, And.
Speaker 2: It's like it's it's a funny thing because you ask
yourself of a wouldn't you if you're running a business
wouldn't I mean any business. Don't you look at the
people in that same sector who are doing well, Yeah,
and steal their ideas and do those things.
Speaker 4: That is how you do it. That is like, I
don't know, you have to take a business. I didn't
go to business school, leave and I know that's how
you do it.
Speaker 2: And you try to make french fries as the way
that McDonald's makes french fries because people seem to like
the McDonald's french fries and don't overthink it, don't grow
a brain. And the Washington Post the only had only
had really had there only three newspapers in New York
in the country that had circulation and kind of the heft,
and that was the La Times, the Washington Post and
the New York Times. And of those three, only one
really exists and one is thriving. And the solution would
be just do.
Speaker 3: That right right, Well, I mean the Murdock example again,
So in the Wall Street Journal has been profitable forever,
but you know it gives it fills on a big
important it is to reporting, right, yeah, exactly. And part
of that service, of course, is the editorial page. They've
always said back to the Robert Bartley days it's the
only editorial page in America that sells subscriptions, which was right.
And then Fox News of course was a stroke of genius,
hugely profitable. So you know, i'd always heard a New
York Post ran in the red and you think it's profitable.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe it is.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I don't think it's profitable, but I mean,
I'm sure the New York Oh no, no, the New
York Post does run in the red, but a little bit.
But it's enough that you know, Dad likes it, right, Yeah, right, dad, Right,
when Dad goes, it'll probably.
Speaker 1: Go Yeah, it could be that's right. Well, we'll see.
And meanwhile, I'm very curious about Scott.
Speaker 3: Jennings on CNN, which you know, CNN's ratings are terrible,
but I'll bet if we actually got the you know,
hour by hour numbers. Maybe they're out there and I
just haven't looked, but I'll bet Scott Jennings is attracting
some viewers say oh, finally there's somebody on and it
was different from all the other cloned lefties.
Speaker 1: So I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think I think that like that could be. I
mean that the solution is has never not been to
In my opinion, the solution has never not been to, like,
have a bunch of voices. If you're gonna have voices,
have a bunch of them. That's how CNN was to
begin with. They they had conservatives liberals yelling at each other.
That was a crossfire was they decided not to do
that for a while, and they you know, look, but
that look cable news rankings came out today, right, Number
one shows the five. Yeah, number two shows that is
Jesse Waters. Number three shows Gutfeld, And I know gut Feld, right,
I'm sure right now he's trying to convince them to
say that he's actually number two, not number three. That
when Jesse Waters the movie Brett Baer, Right, Sean Hannity,
Laura Ingram, America reports that's number seven.
Speaker 1: And I think.
Speaker 4: I'm just trying to think that that is the that's
a that's there.
Speaker 2: That's what they call the box news every that's their
every weekday news. That's their standard news. Will Kine and
Martha McCallum, Yeah right, So, uh, what do they know
that you don't like? But right, the solution is so obvious, right,
it's but but they'll never do it right.
Speaker 3: One more entertainment question and then we're ready to get out.
I've got an exit question for you, But one more
entertainment question.
Speaker 1: Uh. I've been following the uh, the fight. Who's going
to acquire?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers? Netflix is going to buy it? And Paramounts
perished it in said no, we want to buy it.
And I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm a cynic and thought maybe paramount was just trying
to make Netflix have to pay more and have to
pay cash just to punish them.
Speaker 1: It seems like a bad idea to me, but what
do I know.
Speaker 2: It's a bad idea for either one of them. I
think it's the worst idea for Netflix.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that.
Speaker 2: I think that strategy could have been correct, but flipped
Paramounts always wanted to buy it. I think Netflix came
in and offered nobody should buy it. These things are
too big. They need to be smaller. The system works
better when it's atomized, and unfortunately, everyone's gonna have to
learn that by losing a whole lot of money. And
the solution isn't to have the government step in, which
is I think they want any trust to come in,
which is stupid in the same way that government shouldn't
be subsidizing production at all. The California taxpayer shouldn't be
subsidizing the cost of a making a movie. All those
things that have to be worked out the proper way,
which is with a lot of pain and screaming. But
that's the only way to solve certain problems, right right,
all right?
Speaker 3: Exit question not exactly personal, but it's a new semester
in new year. What are you reading, either for class
or on your own, just for your own edvocation. What's
what's got your attention.
Speaker 2: I don't do any reading that isn't related to my
because that's just time.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I'm behind on the reading I have to do. But
I am reading the only two things I am reading.
They are interesting, that are kind of they're not directly assigned.
One is I'm finally getting through Dominion, Tom Hollands fantastic
book about sort of like a kind of a swooping
up and down look at the history of Christianity, which
is great and juicy, and he's a wonderful writer, so
it's great. And then I'm reading this Yale story in
Carlos Air, who wrote a wonderful called Reformations, which is
a nine hundred billion thousand pages long, which is but
he's a wonderful writer, so it's not dry history. It's great.
Speaker 4: But the one I'm reading right now is called They Flew.
Speaker 2: And it's a story of he takes a historians look
at the accounts of the saints and he says, if
you have, you know, for our historical accuracy criteria, it's
you know, multiple multiple accounts that are spread out and
then a multiple unique accounts like why would no one
would make this up unless it was true? And it's
hard to say, it's hard to understand how a bunch
of people in different places at different times, who didn't
know each other would have the same account of some
bananas things some saint did like fly right, And he's like, well,
you just have to be He.
Speaker 4: Doesn't go as far.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not finished it yet, but he's a
wonderful writer. So it's a great and I actually think
that that is something on the horizon, the new kind.
Speaker 4: Of area of.
Speaker 2: Theological historical inquiry, which is, okay, well, what if what
if the world is a lot weirder than we think
it is? And whether we whether we agree it is
or we don't agree with it. It's a fascinating thought experiment.
So I recommend that book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think Peter Robinson brought up that
title some weeks ago. I think it's the episode when
we had Charles Marion to talk about his taking religion
seriously book. If I recall that I've got the Tom
Holland book on my ridiculously long reading pile or tall
reading pile.
Speaker 1: That yeah, I never quite get through. But yeah, it
looks really good.
Speaker 2: It's good as juicy, and it's like you can kind
of you could kind of flip through it. I mean, right,
I don't don't say that, but there are sections that
I want to read, you know, the.
Speaker 1: Benedictine rules section. I have a I have a I
actually got to put the list together.
Speaker 3: Books that are like that where you could just turn
to almost any page and the writing is so good
and so well constructed that you just enjoy it even
if you haven't done all the stuff before it. And
you know, that's very few books, but I have a
few that most of them are older people don't write
in that style anymore. Holland is an exception, but well.
Speaker 1: All right, uh, well, the listeners, as the old car
Talk guys have said, you've just wasted another perfectly good
hour listening to me and Rob.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is fun. We should do more often, of course.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously I want James to get well yeah, right, yeah,
I wouldn't want him to be you know, but it's
kind of fun, right.
Speaker 3: And Charlie Cook has had an on fire Twitter game
this week. He's got a good Twitter game anyway, but yeah,
he's really been firing left and right on all cylinders
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Speaker 1: So we'll see you in the comments. Everyone. Great to
see Rob, hope to see you again soon.
Speaker 4: See you soon, Ricochet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Join the Conversation