0:00

It's twelve o two a m. On

0:02

CLENDAFU and you're listening

0:04

to Night Call. Hello,

0:14

and welcome back to Night Call, a call

0:16

in show for our dystopian reality. I'm

0:18

Tess Lynch and with me are Molly Lambert

0:21

and Emily Rashida. Today

0:23

we are also joined by special guest Ezekiel

0:26

Quaku. He's a writer and editor based in Oakland.

0:28

He's also politics editor at New York Magazine's

0:31

Intelligencer, and people send

0:33

him photos of flags, which we will get

0:35

to later. We're very excited to have him on

0:37

today. Welcome Ezekiel. Thank you,

0:40

nice to have you on. Um,

0:42

we have some breaking news this

0:44

week as of this morning. I

0:47

think Molly, you tweeted that like a hundred different

0:49

people texted you that we got

0:52

Gillane, we got her.

0:55

Ezekiel, have you been following? Are you an

0:57

Epstein head? Are you? Uh? I

1:02

had to like follow him professionally. Yeah,

1:07

so I don't know if I don't know if I would call it being

1:10

it's not voluntary in your case, yeah,

1:13

totally involuntary. I um, yeah,

1:16

so I had to dive pretty

1:19

deeply into it. He's sort of like

1:21

for New York Magazine.

1:23

He's sort of like a classic New

1:26

York magazine story.

1:27

Definitely, we like

1:30

went all in and like did this big

1:33

feature on his black that

1:35

was a cover. If I recall because I

1:38

was there, then yeah,

1:40

he has to have. I mean. One of the things that's interesting

1:43

about it is that these people are in so

1:45

many Getty images of

1:47

New York high society parties.

1:50

Page six just did a slide show yesterday

1:52

that was just like famous people with Gilain

1:55

and it's all just from like premiers and

1:57

benefits and parties and

2:01

some of them probably it was just that they met

2:03

her that one time and got a photo with

2:05

her. But who knows.

2:08

Who knows a lot of people were in deep She

2:11

was found in New Hampshire at

2:14

a home owned by Yolanda

2:16

Haddie. No. No, she was

2:18

found in New Hampshire at a home that

2:21

she bought for a million dollars

2:25

called tucked Away. One

2:27

word her

2:30

WiFi password. People. Yeah,

2:33

like New Hampshire is also we're breaking

2:35

bad ends apparently, And it's

2:38

where like hides out when

2:40

he's like changes his ident or he gets like

2:43

like witness protection or something I forget.

2:46

He's like he gets like a private it's

2:48

like private witness protection where yeah,

2:51

he goes out there and

2:54

like no one knows he's like in a cabin.

2:56

Yeah, and nobody's supposed to know where he is

2:59

lives for your which is also the

3:01

title of the Sopranos episode where Vito

3:03

s about a four who ran away to New

3:05

Hampshire as well. He was hiding

3:07

out and may never have been found other

3:10

than he tired of life

3:12

not working in the mafia and went to go check

3:14

on his family. Listen, when you don't want

3:16

to get trod upon or

3:19

be exposed for being accessory

3:22

to sex ring, head

3:25

to New Hampshire. But why did I

3:27

think there was a Yolanda Hadid link?

3:29

There is a Yolanda Hadid link, Okay?

3:32

Which is that? Uh? Somebody

3:34

on Twitter claimed that they saw Gilane

3:37

in the Netherlands, where

3:40

Yolanda is from and has a house, and they

3:42

were like, I wonder why Guilane

3:45

is here, And then they

3:47

put it together later that she's friends with Yolanda

3:49

and possibly Yorlando was hiding her allegedly.

3:52

Oh hoo, okay, but this

3:55

is not in New Hampshire. This is some time in between

3:57

now and last October. Yeah, and

3:59

then the their lens. But that's one

4:01

of the theories that she's been moving around

4:03

from safe house to safe house, and it seems

4:06

like everyone who's been helping her is like some

4:08

other crazy woman. Um

4:12

like that's who was whole hiding her out in the Universal

4:14

City too, was like some powerful lady

4:17

who she was friends with let hers stay at

4:19

her Universal City house allegedly. The

4:21

thing I don't understand about it is like, why

4:23

wouldn't you stay in one

4:25

place and try not to be seen. It feels like every

4:28

time you would change locations, that's like a new

4:31

chance to be exposed because your Carmen

4:33

san Diego. I

4:37

mean, did she grab her hair, did

4:40

she get did she have a collection of wigs? I

4:42

mean, you don't have fun with this, I suppose

4:44

if you want. I don't know if that anyone has seen

4:46

her yet. Somebody printed like a Society

4:49

page thing where that had one of her friends

4:51

being like everyone wants to see if

4:53

she's gained weight and looks old because

4:57

socialites are horrible people. U

5:00

But people claim they heard her voice on the press

5:02

conference call yesterday that there was like

5:05

a British woman. People also

5:07

think maybe she made a deal, that she's going willingly

5:09

because she's been cooperating with the Feds

5:12

and she's gonna name names.

5:14

I mean that's the reason. Like, that's the whole reason

5:17

this is news is that she's like

5:19

the number one source for whatever was

5:21

going on besides Jeffrey Epstein, right,

5:23

Like that's why this is important. Maybe

5:26

our New York politics expert can

5:28

help with this, but there it was allegedly

5:30

related also to the Burman firing

5:33

the other day, the SDN

5:35

Y thing where they like Bill

5:37

bar fired Burman. Some people

5:40

think some people were wondering, like I

5:42

know, like there's some conspiracy.

5:45

I mean, no one really knows, but I know

5:47

some people are speculating that perhaps the

5:51

they decided to change strategy when the when

5:53

the you guy was brought in, maybe

5:55

they were trying to get her to flip on

5:57

on say the president of

5:59

i IT states. But um,

6:02

maybe they've given up that strategy and that's whether

6:04

they're just bringing her in now. But I don't

6:07

have no idea. And this this Berman the

6:10

sorry, he's a New York State attorney who like

6:12

that was the guy that they like announced

6:15

his resignation and he was like,

6:17

wait, I didn't resign like that. It was just like

6:19

a couple of weeks ago. I feel like a

6:22

day or two after that, or maybe right

6:24

around then, another billionaire

6:26

involved with this circle of people, Steve

6:29

Ban, committed suicide and

6:32

people were speculating

6:34

that it was related to some files

6:36

being unsealed that

6:39

have all these John does in them. Deep

6:43

Deep, That's

6:45

all that I can say, allegedly. Deep.

6:49

Speaking of Deep, Um,

6:52

I brought a new thing to the group

6:54

that is a weird app that the kids are

6:56

all into. I'm obsessed with this now

6:59

called and Anautica. Tess.

7:01

Why don't you explain it? Okay? So,

7:03

random Autica is an

7:06

app that launched, I think at the beginning

7:08

of this year, but became very

7:10

popular during quarantine.

7:13

UM. It's particularly popular with people

7:15

on TikTok. So what what randon

7:17

Autica does is it assigns

7:20

you, um random coordinates that are

7:22

close to your geographic location. And

7:24

what the user does is they set an intention.

7:27

So, for instance, UM, some of the intentions

7:30

people have set have been to find a

7:32

lost cat, to see something purple,

7:34

or just the word love, which

7:36

sometimes goes fine, and then they film

7:38

themselves going to these locations.

7:41

But there have been all of these strange

7:43

occurrences within the app that

7:46

have then been broadcast on TikTok

7:48

Uh, which have ranged trim like, oh,

7:50

funny coincidence. I was trying to find a lost

7:52

cat and then I found a random

7:55

baby cat, and the baby cat led

7:57

me to a line of Joshua tree

8:00

in the desert. How weird a cat?

8:02

I found a cat. But then there were people

8:04

and I don't know what intention they set,

8:07

but um they were led to a suitcase

8:09

full of human remains. Yes,

8:11

I watched that video. Yeah,

8:14

Um, other people have been led to graveyards,

8:17

abandoned villages

8:19

in the forest. It's bizarre

8:21

and so and nobody really knows if

8:24

there's Like I mean, people probably

8:26

do know that there's actually no magic

8:28

in the app, but that it's just people

8:30

are so bored that

8:32

you're if if you have a ton of people using

8:35

an app and they're making connections

8:37

because their brains need that exercise,

8:40

that a lot of the connections will be strange. That does not

8:43

explain finding a suitcaseful

8:45

of human remains. Though. Yeah, yeah,

8:48

this is all very pokemono like,

8:50

but for like

8:52

appropriately it's

8:54

like a Uigi board

8:57

combined with pokemones. Yeah,

9:00

it's like Pokemon go with no Pokemon.

9:06

Yeah, well it's a little

9:08

Yeah, it feels like this weird reaction

9:11

to like everybody has to be inside and so like

9:13

people kind of find the most because

9:16

like the other thing about having like about

9:18

lockdown or whatever, unless you're going to go out

9:20

to a restaurant or a bar or something and

9:22

take your life into your hands, is that if you're

9:24

not doing that but you want to be out of the house, there's

9:26

actually not that much stuff to do,

9:29

so like it's like kind of a make It's

9:31

like a make play

9:35

and uh yeah, the whole it

9:37

just gives you like a task. It taskifies

9:39

going outside, which is kind

9:42

of like bound like like there's stuff

9:44

outside. It turns out like suitcases with

9:46

dead bodies in them. I don't know.

9:49

Also, everything feels so both

9:51

chaotic and empty that

9:53

I think the idea of going

9:56

to a place that like has been instilled

9:58

with meaning and you

10:00

have to look at it with the with

10:02

your intention in mind and kind of try

10:04

to make that connection. Uh,

10:07

it's like part

10:09

of it, I think. Yeah, it's it's become

10:11

a verb to Rando nodding, which

10:14

I like, so would

10:17

any of you do this? Would any of you download

10:19

the app and actually do this. I raised

10:22

my hand for

10:24

sure. I used to do I used to dabble

10:26

in geo cashing back

10:28

in the day. I guess it's like

10:30

it's geo cashing, except it's done

10:33

like seemingly at random, Like these points

10:35

are are determined by the app.

10:37

That's the That's the spooky thing is that

10:40

are these location Who's determining

10:42

these locations? And I feel like

10:44

this is a setup for a serial killer? Yeah,

10:47

definitely. Why

10:49

would you do this? Because I'm

10:51

so bored, Joel, I'm so bored.

10:54

I was gonna say, like, because you're fourteen

10:56

and stuck at home. I was not. I

10:58

did not think my co host would be like, yes,

11:01

yes, I also will. I was really

11:03

excited by the story of like

11:05

the person finding the baby cat, and that

11:07

was all it took for me to be like I would.

11:10

All of a sudden, I was like, puppy. I mean, it's

11:12

the possibilities are not endless. There, it's a

11:14

short list of animals, but I want to do

11:16

it. That outweighs the potential of

11:19

finding a suitcase of human remains,

11:21

it does. I mean. I went on a new hike

11:23

the other day the other day, like last week

11:25

and that, and not like because I had just been

11:28

inside so much. Normally that would just be like whatever,

11:30

it's a fun it's a new hike. But just that was

11:32

like, oh God, am I gonna die? Like I

11:34

I like I I follow these instructions that were

11:36

on some random website for like how to do

11:38

this certain hike around that I've never done

11:40

in Griffith Park, and I was like, oh, what if

11:43

this leads me to my death? Like who knows?

11:45

Have you ever done a hike wrong? Oh?

11:47

All the time. Usually the first time I do a hike

11:49

wrong, if I'm trying it out, yeah,

11:52

or you're like trying to find a like a

11:54

pin and you're just like this doesn't seem

11:56

like the right way. Yeah, And

11:58

there's always there's this weird I remember when I

12:00

first started hiking a lot in l A And

12:02

it was around the like

12:05

kind of that very very long drought

12:07

that lasted for years, and so I would be

12:09

looking at photos of what like where I was,

12:11

so I was supposed to look like, and it was like unrecognizable

12:14

because because it was green and

12:16

all the pictures um. So yeah,

12:18

like you can feel like you're getting pranked by

12:20

nature sometimes. Do any of you

12:23

guys have TikTok? This is only just related

12:25

to the to the appurten

12:29

that's not something you're required to do for

12:32

in your line of work. Is like

12:34

that Epstein's. I

12:37

mean I feel like I

12:40

like Twitter curates the TikTok's

12:42

that I would be interested in and puts

12:44

them on Twitter. So it's like I don't have time

12:47

to go on it myself. Yeah,

12:49

I don't need another time sync. Yeah.

12:52

To me, it feels like what people describe it.

12:54

It's like, oh, it's just teenagers. It's like, no,

12:56

that's a why no adults should be on

12:58

TikTok. When did I went on TikTok

13:00

just to just to be random nodding?

13:02

Would that be wrong? Joel? I

13:05

could see Joe l being like, don't do it. I

13:07

remember when TikTok. When I first heard

13:09

of TikTok, it was connected with like people

13:12

in other countries, like cooking,

13:15

doing doing tasks. And

13:17

it wasn't until like I don't know, maybe

13:20

five or six months ago that I

13:22

understood it to be like an app for teens.

13:25

I want to say, it's like YouTube, where maybe

13:28

it started out, it's more just like recording

13:30

random things for that period of time,

13:32

and then it turned into people being like, how

13:35

can I use this to make my brand? Yeah?

13:38

Sure, there's like a fall The

13:40

YouTube fallout right now is really

13:43

interesting because it's all of the like first

13:45

wave stars of that platform

13:48

who are all really bad people,

13:51

it seems like, and they're all

13:53

leaving or being forced off

13:56

because they all have a black face video

13:59

and some of them like got

14:01

ahead of it, and others like Shane Dawson it

14:03

just seems like the worst person alive. But again,

14:06

you're just like, this is who got famous on

14:08

YouTube?

14:10

The algorythm supported Yeah,

14:13

Like, I don't know, and I never

14:15

got that into you. I mean, obviously everybody

14:17

uses YouTube. It's like a utility like

14:20

anything else. But I never understood

14:22

the idea of YouTube as a platform

14:25

as a as an addictive thing to keep

14:27

coming back to and be a part of. Like

14:29

I'm always just like maybe the thing I'm looking for

14:31

is on YouTube, So that is

14:33

it's all very impenetrable to me as

14:35

an ancient person. I suppose I

14:39

became very intrigued by I was like, who

14:41

would do this? Why would they do this? And

14:43

then I um had to watch those

14:45

unboxing videos to satisfy

14:48

my children's curiosity. And then I looked at

14:50

how much those people made and I was

14:52

like, YouTube, what a place. Maybe

14:55

I loolong on YouTube. Um,

14:59

I want to talk a Ezekiel's flags.

15:01

May Wee. Molly made the comparison

15:03

that you and the flags are like

15:05

her and glass bricks at least a

15:07

few weeks or a few years ago, particularly

15:10

the peak of the glass bricks. Sometimes

15:12

you just find a thing that's like your thing.

15:15

But I feel like, what, well, let's

15:17

have you talk about it. I was going to say, I think the

15:20

flags feel more meaningful to

15:22

me than the bricks are kind of repetitive.

15:24

With the flags, I feel like the more of them there are,

15:26

they do really interesting things. You

15:29

think, how did you How

15:31

did you plant your first flag? Uh?

15:36

Yeah, it was kind of a happenstance

15:40

obsession. I

15:43

Um. I posted

15:45

a flag in association with I think the

15:48

the US men's soccer team was playing, so

15:50

I was just like, oh, it's America.

15:52

I'm gonna post this flag. Go team

15:55

USA. UM.

15:57

And then I came back to it up

16:00

them like a month later because it was

16:03

July fourth, So I was looking at

16:05

some some flags, and

16:07

then it became developed into

16:10

an obsession. I think probably

16:12

I was probably part of what was

16:14

going on, was like mildly depressed,

16:16

which made me susceptible

16:18

to obsessive behaviors.

16:23

But yeah, so I started looking

16:26

up these you

16:29

know, American flags in

16:32

in an art um

16:34

and it started. I think it probably

16:36

accreedd more significance

16:39

than just like a random obsession as I

16:41

as I kept looking at the flags, um

16:44

because it's like a it's a super powerful

16:47

symbol in the sense that like it

16:50

has very strong connotations, but then

16:53

an artists can like attach all

16:55

kinds of different meanings to it. Um.

16:58

So seeing seeing the

17:00

ways that people were able to mobilize

17:03

the flag, utilize the flag, and take

17:06

advantage of these strong associations and sort

17:08

of bend them to their to their purpose

17:10

was interesting. Yeah. I

17:13

feel like the Jasper John's

17:15

flag is like always taught and like a

17:17

modern art class is just

17:20

kind of an example. Yeah. Like

17:23

the Yeah, the three flags

17:25

especially, I think that's probably the

17:27

most famous art piece

17:30

with a flag in it, one

17:32

of the probably one of the more famous images

17:34

of the flag period. Along with um,

17:38

it would Giema flag raising and

17:41

crossing of the Washington crossing the Delaware

17:44

that painting. Yeah. Yeah.

17:46

Do you have any favorite flag

17:48

related artwork other than the Jasper John's.

17:51

I have a flag in my in

17:54

my living room. This is actually

17:56

a product of my obsession

18:00

with the flag, because

18:03

I started a tumbler two

18:06

so that I would stop borrowing bothering my followers

18:08

on Twitter. He liked follow

18:11

me on Twitter because of the flags.

18:14

Um, so I started tu It's

18:17

called it's E flags E

18:19

F L A G S dot

18:22

tumbler um,

18:25

so you can see. So

18:31

the way I got this was, I there's

18:34

an artist. This is by an artist named

18:36

Sarah rebar Um

18:38

and she has like a whole series of mixed media

18:41

flags that she's that she's

18:43

done, and I

18:46

would post them on tumbler, like you know, with

18:48

her name. And I

18:51

posted so many of them that she like contacted

18:55

me on tumbler to

18:57

say thanks for posting my flag.

19:00

I mean, she's a she's a well

19:02

established artist, but like she's not like a name

19:04

brand person um.

19:06

And so I asked her

19:09

if you had any because I had tried to

19:11

look for prince of her art um

19:14

I couldn't find any. So she sent me that, uh,

19:17

that poster that makes me miss

19:19

Tumbler. Also, yeah,

19:22

is there a place people can since since

19:24

we're on zoom and we could see what you just showed

19:27

us, but can you is that image online and people

19:29

could find it or we can link to it or something. Yeah,

19:32

I'll send you a link to it. Yeah, it's

19:34

cool. It looks like a kind of collage work

19:36

though of it a bunch

19:39

of like mixed media flags.

19:41

She basically takes an American flag and like

19:43

layers other fabrics and objects

19:45

on top of them.

19:56

I have a question for you, as a connoisseur

19:59

of all this flag are like, what are your

20:01

feelings about the

20:03

just the design

20:06

of the American flag aesthetically

20:09

and then whatever other category

20:12

you know, criticism that you have around it. I'd

20:14

like to know your thoughts on it. I

20:17

think one of the super things, super difficult

20:19

things about it, it's like so familiar as an

20:21

object to me that it's hard to

20:23

like say what

20:25

I think about it aside from like all these

20:27

associations that I have with it. Yeah,

20:31

it's it's weird. It's it's like a super

20:33

weird flag. Like if you try to if

20:36

you try to like remove all the associations

20:38

you have from it. Um,

20:41

there's too many. There's probably too many stripes,

20:43

there's too many stars. It's kind of like

20:46

it's kind of clutter. It's busy.

20:48

It's too busy. But

20:53

I think the uniqueness,

20:58

especially like the field of stars, the

21:00

pattern that it's in is super

21:02

unique. So that makes

21:04

it like I can't think

21:06

of any other flag where you can see

21:09

just like a little piece of it and you know that it's

21:11

the American flag, or you can just see

21:13

the stars in that distinctive pattern and

21:16

you know it's the American flag. Um.

21:19

Which is which is cool for artists

21:21

because like you know, they

21:23

can deploy it so flexibly. You can change

21:25

the colors and it's still the American flag.

21:28

UM. You can you can drop the stars

21:31

and people still recognize it. You can drop

21:33

the stripes and people still recognize

21:35

it. UM. So

21:37

like as a as

21:39

a symbol, it's super successful. I

21:41

don't know, like as a piece of design, we're maybe

21:44

not that successful. I know

21:46

a lot of people think it's super ugly. I

21:48

think that represents America well

21:50

though, Yeah, yeah,

21:54

it's ugly and it's kind of tacky and there's

21:57

a lot going on, but you can always tell

21:59

what it is. It

22:02

always is itself. Zekiel, do

22:04

you feel like your relationship with the flag

22:06

has changed, like as you've done the project?

22:09

I mean, since I've thought about it so much, it probably

22:12

like I've probably attached more meaning to it than

22:14

and the average person would. So

22:16

I think it's a very powerful symbol. I

22:19

don't get like super patriotic feelings

22:21

or anything like that when I look at it, just

22:23

because like the number

22:26

of things that it's been that

22:28

it can attach itself to sort

22:31

of removes that feeling. So like you can have you

22:34

see the flag, like so I have picture

22:36

of the flag of you know, in

22:39

Iraq with American

22:42

soldiers, UM,

22:44

pictures of the flag on the moon. People

22:46

to point the flag, like in protests,

22:49

people to point the flag, like during

22:52

the sixties, like Martin Luther

22:54

King to point the flag, or civil rights marches

22:56

to point the flag, aids activists

22:59

to point the flags. It's like in

23:01

some senses like it

23:04

is a symbol of America,

23:06

UM, but it's also like a symbol of America

23:09

as it exists, but also

23:11

like a symbol of what people want it to be.

23:14

UM. People think it is

23:16

at its best or what it should be or

23:18

whatever. Um. Yeah,

23:21

So I always feel like the flag on in

23:23

space or like on the moon

23:26

is one of the wildest contexts for it

23:28

because I think it makes a lot

23:31

of sense to be used in protests

23:33

and stuff like that. But there's something about it being

23:35

in space. I mean, grant, if you are a person

23:37

who believes that we landed on the Moon,

23:40

then like the

23:42

the idea that like our stupid flag

23:45

is there. I mean, like, you know, I'll

23:47

all criticisms, some good points and everything,

23:49

like why is that object on

23:52

this thing that orbits our

23:54

planet? Like it just feels so small

23:57

in that context. I always like kind

23:59

of flabbergasted

24:01

by that image being used as like an image

24:03

of victory or like conquest or something.

24:06

But I don't know, I'll miss no opportunity

24:08

to say that America got to the Moon

24:11

because of the Nazi scientists that

24:13

they brought over Operation paper

24:15

Clip. Have you have

24:18

any of you watched the Apple TV program

24:21

for All Mankind? No? I haven't.

24:24

How is this It's

24:27

it's pretty good, I thought, I mean it's it's kind

24:29

of like I'm a kind of a space

24:32

nerd type. So it was a big battle

24:34

star ahead, so I was like, oh maybe

24:36

we should watch that. Yeah, So

24:39

like it's an alternate it's an alternate history

24:41

of the space race. Um,

24:44

and like

24:47

they imagine us like not stopping

24:51

moon trip. I don't remember how the

24:53

divergence happens from our timeline,

24:56

but anyway, Um,

24:59

one of the things that they go into is like

25:02

how this was dependent on Nazi scientists.

25:05

And there's like this big one of the one

25:07

of the characters in the show, So like it ends

25:09

up being like you get women astronauts

25:12

to wait earlier, so you get women astrocts in like

25:14

the sixties. Um.

25:17

And one of the science one of the female

25:19

scientists, her mentor,

25:22

is a Nazi scientist. And

25:24

there's like this big reckoning that ends up happening

25:27

where um, he's

25:29

called before Congress and like because in

25:31

the show it's like a power play, they're trying

25:34

to get rid of him, and so they like

25:36

suddenly remember, oh yeah, this guy's a Nazi,

25:39

Like call him to account

25:41

for all of his all of his crimes, and I get rid

25:43

of him. But like through

25:45

it they like there's like a reckoning of like how

25:48

the space race depended on these

25:51

horrible Nazis that we redeemed

25:53

for their scientific accomplishments.

25:56

Yeah, wow, Ezekiel, you should

25:58

definitely check out stars Troopers.

26:03

Yeah, it's like a weird a weird gap

26:05

in my in my viewing because

26:07

I like science fiction, so

26:09

it's I don't know why I haven't seen it.

26:12

It's a good time to watch Starship Troopers,

26:14

as we all discovered, if

26:16

you're interested in what yeah, what if the space

26:19

race had continued. It's a very

26:22

thing about that. Um.

26:24

I had an argument with my mom the other day

26:27

about the flag because she gave

26:29

me a little flag that came like a realtor

26:31

left a calendar that had an American flag, and

26:33

she was like, you can have it, and then she immediately was like,

26:35

don't burn it. Was like,

26:40

Mom, I'm not gonna do it on

26:43

camera, but

26:47

she was like, you know, we

26:49

have to like rescue it

26:51

from all the horrible meanings, especially it's

26:53

like taken on right now, you know, we

26:55

have to like take it back. And I was like, I

26:57

don't know if it can be taken back anymore.

27:01

You know, like when I see an American flag

27:03

just on somebody's house now, like I get

27:05

a little freaked out, you know, even

27:08

if it is the fourth of July. It just like it reads

27:10

differently. Do you think that

27:12

the American flag can be reclaimed

27:16

or do you think the point is to like, you know,

27:18

set it on fire. I

27:20

feel like I think it

27:23

can be reclaimed. I mean a lot of the flag

27:25

has flown over a lot of horrible things,

27:27

UM, sometimes even concurrently

27:30

with people claiming

27:33

it. You know, you can even

27:35

like the civil rights context

27:37

is the one I always returned to you. You know, you can

27:39

find another. Another famous

27:41

picture of the flag is during

27:43

an anti bussing protest in

27:46

Boston, UM. A

27:48

guy getting just like sort of speared

27:50

with with the flag on a pole. Seen

27:53

this picture before, UM,

27:56

And so that's been like used in an anti civil

27:58

rights context. At the same time time, people

28:00

were flying the flag for two

28:03

in you know, sort of deploying

28:07

it to say like America should

28:09

be a country that treats its isn't

28:11

equally. So I feel like the

28:13

flag could be reclaimed if people, I mean, you

28:16

can lay claim to it if you want. Kendrick

28:18

Lamar, Kendrick Lamar has did

28:20

his I don't

28:22

I don't remember which music awards it was, but he

28:24

had like a giant art

28:26

piece with the flag flying behind his

28:29

his performance. So I feel like, I guess

28:31

my answer is like I don't think it needs to be particularly

28:34

reclaimed. I have the same feeling like

28:36

when I see if I see someone

28:38

flying the flag on like their pickup truck, I

28:41

sort of feel like, this

28:44

is not a this is probably not a good person. Yeah.

28:46

Maybe, well, and that goes back to like post

28:48

nine eleven. I feel like that's the first time for

28:51

our generation that the flag really got weaponized

28:53

and in a kind of conservative context.

28:56

But yeah, I remember people

28:58

put up a lot of flags on their dorm

29:00

walls, on the front of their doors,

29:03

on their dorms, and I went around and just like turned

29:05

them all upside down. Why

29:07

were they? They're doing that a brown

29:10

for what? Just pere anywhere

29:12

we're getting that that jingo ism,

29:15

you know. I mean that's what I think is

29:17

like scary about any kind of patriotic signifiers,

29:20

Like it can be used for

29:22

for evil, but it also like, yeah,

29:25

I can be used for good. Like I also,

29:28

I feel like the flag, it depends

29:30

on the context, like you were saying, depends

29:33

who's flying it. It's like the country

29:35

that you're in. It's like a micro

29:37

cause it's like, is it like does that

29:40

count as like a synic doche or

29:42

like like whatever that word

29:44

is like for the country, But it's not, isn't

29:46

it SYNECTICU is like the name of the

29:50

movie. Never mind, I

29:52

don't know what. I don't know how to pronounce it. I've never actually

29:54

attempted to pronounce it out loud. But like

29:57

the thing that's sort of this is

29:59

like the micro cause him of a larger thing

30:01

that can be kind of um used

30:03

to speak about it. And

30:06

I don't know whenever. I'm not an expert at this sort of thing,

30:08

but like it does feel like in

30:10

that way, the flag is sort

30:12

of perfect as a symbol because it is

30:15

this. It is completely

30:17

it's importance and and

30:19

it's it's virtue or or lack

30:21

thereof, is like completely dependent on

30:24

the context and who's holding it and what's

30:27

going on with it. It's kind of a neutral

30:30

entity, just like the country.

30:33

Yeah, that's my that's my thing. Like I

30:37

remember someone getting really upset

30:39

at me posting pictures of the flag

30:41

and they're like, you know this the flag

30:44

has people have flown

30:46

the flag for all kind of all kinds of horrible reasons,

30:49

and so I don't think you should be

30:52

posting flag guard or I don't. I don't remember

30:54

what exactly said, but that was like the

30:56

paraphrase of his his his meaning

30:59

my is like it's

31:01

not like it is not

31:03

like say a swastika,

31:06

where the meanings super

31:08

determined and it can only

31:11

really mean one thing. I feel like

31:13

the flags has been used

31:15

in enough context that it it can have

31:18

good or bad reasons depending on who's

31:20

flying it in what context. Didn't why,

31:22

Yeah, it's like a mirror. It's

31:25

like I'm sure somebody has made a mirror flag

31:27

at some point, somebody. Yeah,

31:33

is he killed? Do you have any like second and third

31:35

favorite flags? Oh? Yeah,

31:39

Um,

31:41

I don't know, I have too many.

31:45

I have trouble. I have trouble picking

31:47

favorite anything,

31:49

trouble picking favorite movies. Yeah.

31:52

Oh, that's like the worst question to ask

31:54

me ever, Like I can never pick a favorite anything,

31:57

favorite movie particularly But yeah, yeah,

32:00

um, I saw this

32:03

Jasper John's flag recently that I

32:05

really liked. It's um,

32:09

I don't remember I think it

32:11

it came by saw it because some

32:14

gallery was selling it. Let

32:16

me see if I can quickly find

32:18

it on my computer. But

32:20

I just loved, like, the way it was it

32:24

was layered. I'll send

32:26

you I

32:31

really like. I really like the David

32:34

Hammonds did the African American

32:37

Flag, which is a

32:40

color swapped American flag. Um.

32:43

Yeah, that one's pretty iconic. I feel

32:45

like that that's that has

32:50

uh span, Yeah,

32:53

yeah, that one has set a long lifespan. Yeah.

32:56

I was like, I was looking

32:58

for this. I saw this thing going to oh my Twitter

33:01

recently and now I'm like, realis and

33:03

I should have looked into it before this. There's some sort

33:05

of thing called like the My American Flag

33:07

project where people are like

33:09

redesigning the American flag, which

33:13

feels like somebody weird, somebody

33:16

somebody sent that to me. I

33:20

mean, like now, it's it's super funny

33:22

because now, like

33:24

you, I think somebody mentioned I don't

33:26

know if somebody mentioned it, but like people, when

33:29

people see the American flag like

33:31

a flag in like

33:34

an art piece or just

33:36

like they see it out in the wilds,

33:39

they'll send it to me. It's

33:43

like my brand now for

33:45

better for worse. Like somebody somebody sent me

33:47

that that my American Flag project.

33:50

Yeah, I think the I think the

33:53

ones that I saw, one of them was actually

33:55

the just the African American flag.

33:57

I don't know if the person needs a history of it or like

34:00

it was an accident or what the deal was

34:02

with that. Yeah,

34:05

have you ever made a flag cake? I

34:09

have no skill? What

34:12

are you talking about like the stuff?

34:15

Yeah? Have you

34:18

no? But I'm thinking about it now.

34:20

I want to make a make flag the American

34:22

flag out of food. Um,

34:26

well, if you? Yeah, if have you?

34:30

Is there any other symbol that you think like has

34:32

this sort of quality because I think like

34:35

you think you hit on something so

34:38

right about like like like

34:40

what you're say at the beginning, where it's just like you don't

34:42

it's like a thing that you don't have a feeling about almost

34:45

anymore because it's so ubiquitous, because

34:47

it's so a part of like if you've grown

34:49

up here, it's a part of your childhood. Like I

34:51

don't know if they still make kids like do the Pledge

34:54

of allegiance in school. That was something

34:56

we had to do when I was in like at

34:58

least through elementary middle school. Like

35:01

like like there are

35:03

a few things that kind of rival. I'm trying to think

35:05

of other things that have that, like you

35:07

know, just feel that bone deep at this point.

35:10

Um, I guess this kind of depends on cultures,

35:13

but yeah, yeah, I can't

35:15

think of anything in the American context where

35:17

that has that sort of neutral

35:20

it's that has that sort of power as a symbol

35:22

while also having like sort

35:25

of neutral connotations. I

35:27

mean, it is super I mean, and and the

35:29

American people's I feel like our relationship

35:32

to our flag is kind

35:34

of unique to like, I don't I

35:37

don't feel like other other countries. From

35:39

from what I've read, it doesn't feel like other countries

35:42

have the same relationship with their own flag.

35:45

Like we like the Pledge of allegiances

35:47

about the flag. The

35:49

national anthem is also about seeing

35:51

the flag. It's kind

35:53

of odd. It's

35:57

like, yeah, it's like this thing that just stands

35:59

in for it. It's like we're not gonna really actually

36:01

say anything. We're just gonna say, like we like the

36:03

flag. It's it's such

36:06

a weird tradition, kind

36:08

of rhetorical tradition. I just

36:10

feel like your Twitter threads are really

36:12

incredible and like one of

36:14

the few things on Twitter that I'm like, this is art.

36:17

You know, this is someone who's

36:19

using social media for good in a

36:21

really cool, interesting way.

36:24

Um Decider, Now, Yes,

36:28

but it just reminds me of film film school

36:31

stuff to where they show you, like, you know, images

36:33

next to each other and how they relate to

36:35

each other, and just seeing seeing them

36:37

as a long stream like that, UM,

36:40

in conversation with each other. I

36:42

think. I think it's so cool. Yeah,

36:44

and it's cool you've been doing it for six years.

36:48

Yeah yeah. I sort of don't

36:50

post them on ton Twitter anymore,

36:52

but I still look at them all the time, find

36:55

new pictures of them and stuff. People sending glass bricks

36:57

under the table all the time. People will send them to me and

36:59

be like, are we are you still doing this? Are

37:03

you still looking at the bricks? This account still

37:05

active? Well,

37:07

Ezekiel, thank you so much for joining us

37:09

today. UM we mentioned your Twitter. It's

37:11

the Shrillist. You have also

37:14

been djaying on Twitch. I

37:16

know. Yeah. If

37:18

you wouldn't mind sharing a link to that

37:20

that we can share with our listeners, I

37:23

think we'd all enjoy it. Where

37:25

do you find those backgrounds for your dj

37:28

stets? Um?

37:31

I think the last few backgrounds have been,

37:34

um, I did

37:36

Sam Sorrow once, I did Brock.

37:38

There's all so. I

37:40

I'm kind of a film nerd, so

37:43

I just found some movies

37:45

that didn't have narratives and had interesting

37:48

if you have if you have suggestions, I'm

37:51

I'm all out.

37:57

If you have suggestions, I'm wide open. When

38:00

your next DJ set, your next twitch

38:02

set um

38:04

do you have, I'd probably be next Thursday.

38:07

I don't really have a schedule because I

38:09

have children, so

38:11

I'm not sure. It also always depends

38:13

on how soon they go to bed, but

38:17

it's like usually Thursday or Friday nights

38:19

is when I try to do it. Cool. I

38:22

like a DJ who doesn't know when he's going to play,

38:25

because it's like when

38:27

when the wind call, when

38:29

the world needs music. Yeah, yeah,

38:33

you're DJ set relaxed me a lot last

38:35

week. So cool. I'm

38:37

glad. Thanks for doing that. Thanks,

38:41

thank you. We are going to take a quick break

38:43

and when we come back, we will be discussing

38:45

Starship Troopers. Welcome

38:57

back tonight call. For the second

39:00

half of the show, We're going to talk about little

39:02

Paul verhoeven movie called Starship

39:04

Troopers, based on a Robert

39:06

Heinlein novel. Famously

39:09

right wing, militaristic sci

39:11

fi novel, The Verhoeven

39:13

Starship Troopers is a parody

39:15

of fascism, and militarism.

39:18

But at the time a lot of people didn't

39:20

pick up on that. Still

39:23

people don't pick up on that, which

39:26

is remarkable. I don't know how. I

39:28

don't know. I mean, I think I

39:30

was thinking about it because we've been talking a lot

39:33

about like things that people call satire

39:35

and whether it counts as satire if

39:37

nobody understands that

39:39

it's satire, you know, does that just

39:42

make it the thing it's parodying? Um?

39:44

I feel like that's come up a lot in the black Face

39:47

discussion about sitcom's

39:49

getting pulled. Um,

39:51

this is particular. Are you talking

39:53

about that one? Yeah, because a lot of people ask

39:55

me about that, and I think, you know,

39:58

I obviously thought about it a lot. But also it's like a lot

40:00

of people were upset because they were like, well, they're just pulling

40:02

these sitcom episodes, but like they

40:04

should do that after we've defunded

40:07

and abolished the police, like not. It's

40:09

like they're doing all the like, let's celebrate things

40:12

before the thing has been done that you would be

40:14

celebrating by doing, and you know

40:16

the instances of the Golden girls

40:18

in mud masks and the like.

40:21

Highly self aware Roger

40:23

Sterling and black face from mad Men seem

40:25

different than the black

40:27

face instances that are clearly

40:30

just horrible people do. It also

40:32

seems like you you know, I think Creina Longworth

40:34

said about Song of the South that it's like, when you make these

40:36

things unavailable, you risk turning them into fetish

40:39

objects. Um. A lot of

40:41

people who like Community were really mad

40:43

because it was like a beloved an episode,

40:45

beloved by fans, and

40:47

it's like a half second joke in

40:50

the middle of a whole episode. Yeah, They're

40:52

like, just re cut it, you know, without

40:54

that joke so we can still enjoy this episode.

40:56

But I think also it's just like just

40:59

just give money need to black creators and showrunners

41:01

to make new stuff. Um.

41:04

Yeah, And I think like I think

41:06

like in the case of something like

41:09

Starship Troopers and

41:11

and and the Roger Sterling episode, I

41:13

think that like art's going to have to

41:15

comment on this stuff sometimes.

41:18

I mean, I want to say, also, like I

41:20

think mad Men did a really bad

41:22

job with race overall. Like

41:24

that was one of my definitely criticisms

41:26

of the show, and I definitely

41:29

thought it was going to tackle it at some

41:31

point in some kind of real way, and

41:34

it just never really did, except through

41:36

things like that Roger Sterling scene the

41:38

character of Don had like a lot on

41:40

her shoulders and didn't come in into like

41:42

what four seasons in five seasons in

41:44

I can't remember, And I think they really

41:46

just like avoided They thought it was like

41:48

too much of a third rail for the show. It's

41:51

like it'll make every other character on the show

41:53

seemed like an asshole, which they are. Um

41:55

Even in that scene, I remember thinking like, is

41:58

it realistic that like some people express

42:00

disgusted at this or would they all just like fake

42:03

it while their boss did his black face

42:05

routine, Like we're definitely supposed to be grossed out

42:07

by like some of them doing it, But then some people

42:10

are like, oh, like I'm having

42:13

a good reaction to this. That will

42:15

never be shown, you know, we'll

42:17

never delve into these issues ever again in the show.

42:20

I mean, aside from the

42:22

historicity of uh,

42:24

people being discussed or not disgusted

42:27

by a minstrel performance

42:30

on an episode of Mad Men that takes place in the

42:32

sixties, Like, I do think that

42:34

that that as a as a

42:36

work of art itself, as mad Men

42:39

is, Like, I think that episode does

42:41

a really good job of making you feel

42:44

like discussed around

42:46

this and it's so awkward and it's not

42:48

funny, like this is like

42:50

one of this is what kind of makes it stand out

42:52

for me is that it's not funny. It is like

42:55

appropriately like you

42:57

kind of want to turn it off because it's so cringing

43:00

seen. But I think that that's like aside

43:03

from like, oh but our hero Don Draper's

43:05

woke, it doesn't like this, Like, I think that

43:07

it does a good job of getting that across.

43:09

At the same time, even though I think it does

43:12

in the episode, people still like

43:14

just made gifts of that, you know, and

43:16

then it just becomes like an image taken out

43:18

of context, and like that can that can also

43:20

happen with almost anything. I mean

43:22

you can't. I feel like that can't be something that keeps

43:24

you from making trying

43:27

to address things like that. Like I

43:29

was glad that instead of just avoiding it, like you

43:31

said, the third Rail, that they kind of like had

43:33

that in there. It is so uncomfortable.

43:36

Um, but also I mean, going back to

43:38

Starship Troopers a bit like it's it's very similar

43:40

in the sense that like you can take

43:43

a piece of Starship Troopers and

43:45

use it to make the opposite argument

43:47

that the movie is making and like and it is kind

43:49

of crazy. I was looking at old reviews, um

43:52

how many people critics misunderstood

43:55

this, Janet Maslin. I mean everybody

43:57

was like, you know, this movie

43:59

is intended for really

44:01

immature eleven year old boys who

44:04

just want to see like crazy violence and ship

44:06

getting blown up, and like, you know, it's so

44:08

militaristic, like how horrible. And

44:10

it's like, yes, exactly, it's so militaristic,

44:13

how horrible. Um, I

44:15

I loved this movie. Uh,

44:18

not to steer it too far away from the madment thing,

44:20

but it's it. I think it's similar, you know, it is

44:22

so I said, it's fascist face exactly.

44:25

Like some people were saying it's too

44:27

successful. They were like, it's too

44:29

good at portraying this like shiny,

44:32

beautiful fascist world

44:34

that like the critique is undermined

44:37

by like how cool it

44:39

looks. No, everything looks horrible

44:41

in it. The ships are all ugly

44:43

as fuck, like as as a

44:45

sci fi connoisseur, like they have

44:48

ugly ships and starship troopers, and I feel

44:50

like that's intentional. So

44:52

they have the it's all Nazi design,

44:55

like it's not even you know, it's

44:58

it's just directly taken from Nazi

45:00

designs, like the you know, the trench coat

45:02

that Doogie Howser was wearing at that and obviously

45:05

it's like a Nazi trench

45:07

coat. And yeah, aside like

45:10

the stuff that is even direct

45:12

nods to Nazi Germany,

45:15

which there are plenty, and this movie

45:17

like even just the tackiness

45:20

of it, Like I don't think that it's that

45:23

it's beautiful and maybe there's this like a whole politics

45:25

of taste thing, but it's like that kind of thing where

45:27

you if you step over into like a

45:29

right wing website or you go down a rabbit hole

45:32

or something like that and you're like, oh, the graphic design

45:34

sucks here, like on top of the

45:36

politics. It's like it is

45:38

that kind of feeling, like that the whole interface

45:41

for the Federal network, the do

45:44

you want to know more thing is like the

45:46

worst kind of you know, Fox

45:48

News esque infographic type

45:51

ship. Like it's I don't

45:53

know, I think like it hits the nail and it actually feels

45:55

prescient now because that was like what this is like,

46:00

yeah, so this is where it all happened. Yeah,

46:04

so it's very it feels like

46:07

like Fox News and those sorts of

46:09

um outlets sort of took the

46:11

Starship Troopers um aesthetic

46:14

and ran with it. Un ironically.

46:17

Yeah, well it's it's parodying propaganda

46:20

outlets, and there's so much

46:22

of that now in the way that it's adapted

46:24

itself to the Internet, and that like really

46:27

ancient racist and anti Semitic

46:30

memes of like resurfaced in that

46:32

way is so crazy to me, but

46:34

also sort of not you

46:37

know, not beyond comprehension, because

46:40

yeah, if you put things, if you put these really ugly

46:42

messages in this very like slick packaging,

46:46

this movie also makes you feel really

46:48

gross and uncomfortable about

46:50

all of that stuff. And the whole

46:53

opening is just a recreation of apart from

46:55

Triumph of the Will, Yeah,

46:57

there's something so unsettling about that uniform

47:00

many Yeah.

47:02

Yeah, I mean I think the thing that I always

47:05

think of and kind of forget in between

47:07

reviewings of Starship Troopers is

47:10

um how much it feels like Harry Potter,

47:15

Like it's a part of this like genre that's

47:17

also very big in like anime and manga and

47:20

stuff of like the school narrative,

47:23

because they start off at school. It's like three

47:25

friends, like where will their futures lead

47:27

them? Like the like the future is so big

47:30

and they're like there's they have so

47:32

much promise and like they're going to excel

47:34

in and this class or this class

47:36

like games and wait what does it call it? Games and

47:38

theory like like um,

47:41

yeah, and everybody has like their their expertise

47:44

and it's this very like it's

47:46

this narrative that kind of takes the system

47:48

that these characters are in for granted and

47:51

it's like, see, it's fun. It's like a game to

47:53

work your way up through the academy

47:55

or through the military or like to become

47:58

a citizen or whatever the case may be.

48:00

Um, And I think, like that's

48:03

such a brilliant I mean, I think that's

48:05

just in the novel, but I think to kind of

48:07

use that sort of seemingly

48:09

benign thing of like a story

48:11

about friends in school to become

48:14

this fascist narrative is like very very

48:16

it cuts deep. Yeah. And

48:19

it's also this world where

48:21

it's sort of like presented as being

48:24

like post gender and post racial,

48:26

like it's very diverse and there's no racism

48:29

and men and women shower together and it's

48:31

not sexual, but also like

48:33

women are drone pilots, Like yeah,

48:36

yeah, that's like a RoboCop thing too.

48:38

Denise Richards is totally like

48:41

an anime fascist girl. That's

48:44

all I could think about. She's like perfect

48:47

looking. She she is so

48:49

unnaturally beautiful that

48:51

it makes you uncomfortable

48:54

like her her like violet

48:56

eyes. Right, they both look

48:58

like total like dy arian

49:01

Superman and woman. But then

49:03

I was reading more about the book and I found

49:05

out that in the book, his character's

49:08

Filipino and it was whitewashed

49:10

in the movie. And her

49:13

character, I think is Brazilian and her name is Carmen.

49:16

Yeah, they're all they all have like

49:19

Spanish names, I think. Well, I noticed

49:21

in the IMDb trivia because I was very

49:23

confused by that. This is my first time

49:25

seeing Starship Troopers, which I swear

49:28

I thought I saw in college, but I was either two

49:30

stoned or didn't actually see Starship

49:32

Troopers. Um. But in the

49:35

trivia, Casper vand And said

49:37

um that he was often asked why blonde

49:39

haired, blue eyed actor would play the Argentinian

49:42

Juan Rico. He suggested his

49:44

character was the descendant of exiled Germans.

49:47

Argentina was famously a hiding place of German

49:49

war criminals after World War Two, and

49:51

they do, I mean they have that kind of

49:53

like German Nazi

49:56

youth. Look. It seems it seems

49:58

on purpose in the in the film, Yeah,

50:00

he is Dutch um

50:03

which is and and Verhoven lived

50:05

in Nazi occupied Netherlands

50:08

as a child, so

50:10

he there was a quote from Behoven where he

50:12

called it all quiet on the Final

50:14

Frontier. Nice.

50:17

So it is also like a critique of Star Wars

50:19

type stuff, any kind of like we're going to the Academy.

50:23

One thing that hit really different on this viewing

50:26

was the fact that the spaceport is the l

50:28

A Convention Center, because we

50:30

very recently saw the l A Convention Center

50:32

occupied by the National Guard. Oh

50:35

and I was like, yeah, we saw it occupied by a

50:37

National Guard. That was like their headquarters. It was also

50:39

in face off, like yeah, we've

50:42

been at the l A Convention Center a lot lately.

50:44

Uh. The thing that I

50:46

love about Starship Troopers,

50:49

and I was also thinking about this, this is like

50:51

kind of on my mind after watching Watchmen

50:53

recently, is that I love

50:56

a work of adaptation, and in this

50:58

case, a work of adaptation shin

51:00

that is like actively pushing

51:02

against its source material and

51:04

like being really actively critical

51:06

about it and and using that criticism

51:09

as like to create something new essentially.

51:12

And um, and I think like in

51:14

the case of Watchman, you have something that's sort

51:16

of like and this on top

51:19

of the themes that are presented by the original

51:21

Watchman. Like, I think, um,

51:24

that stuff is super inspiring to me because I think

51:26

we see so much adaptation, Like the idea of

51:28

I P is so ruling

51:30

everything in Hollywood right now, and it's just like, what if

51:32

you could do something on the level of a Starship

51:34

Troopers where you're like, Okay, this book fucking sucks,

51:37

but what if I could do something with

51:39

it? Like there's a great the

51:41

quote for for Hoove and about

51:43

it. His screenwriter Ed

51:46

Neumeyer new Meyer, who also

51:48

wrote RoboCop, brought

51:52

him the book and and wanted to

51:54

adapt that he was just like a fan of it from childhood

51:56

or whatever. And uh

51:58

so he gave it to Paul Verhoeven. This is an

52:00

interview and Empire. Um,

52:03

and he said I stopped after two chapters because it was

52:05

so boring, says Verhoven of his attempts

52:07

to read Heinlin's Opus. It

52:09

is really quite a bad book. I asked ed

52:11

Newmeyer to tell me the story because I couldn't

52:13

read the thing. It's a very right wing book.

52:16

And with the movie, we tried and I think at least partially

52:18

succeeded in commenting on that. At the same

52:21

time, it would be an eyr key can

52:23

have it all the way through. We were

52:25

fighting with the fascism, the ultramilitarism

52:27

all the way through. I wanted the audience to be asking

52:29

are these people crazy? So

52:32

I don't know, and I think, like for me it works, but

52:34

obviously for some people that like didn't didn't

52:37

get through. But yeah, and

52:39

you know he's he mentions the bugs as

52:41

sort of just like this stand in for any kind

52:43

of like military foe. Um.

52:46

Robert Highland wrote the book during the Cold War because

52:49

he was mad we weren't having hot

52:51

wars anymore. He

52:54

was like, we should be like developing

52:57

nuclear weapons and stuff. Um,

53:00

And he blamed it this is such a

53:02

sci fi nerd guy thing to do.

53:04

He blamed it on like young people

53:06

having too much freedom. It

53:08

was like, uh, was the downfall

53:11

of society that society

53:13

would remake itself as this like perfect

53:15

fascist world after like juvenile delinquents

53:18

destroyed America, you know. Yeah.

53:22

Is there's a scene in the classroom at the beginning

53:24

where, um is it Dizzy

53:27

is like, oh, I thought like violence doesn't

53:29

solve everything, and her teacher like puts

53:31

her in her place, and like

53:33

there's so much that flies by in that scene

53:36

that's fascinating, Like where

53:39

like the teacher essays of like something

53:41

that's given to you has no value. Only something

53:43

that's taken by force has any value. Um,

53:47

and like the moral difference between the citizen

53:49

and the civilian. Uh yeah,

53:51

like total recall. There's a lot of stuff

53:53

in this about having to earn your rights,

53:55

having to earn your citizenship. Well

53:58

that's like when they're in the shower, I'll take other

54:00

everyone's asking like why did you enlist? And

54:02

I mean among the answers. Or someone wanted

54:05

to go to Harvard and they were like, but I can't go

54:07

unless, like I'm a citizen, and you know, then

54:09

they'll help pay for it. Someone else was

54:12

like I want to have babies and so I need to

54:14

be a citizens. So any kind of

54:17

yeah, everything is

54:19

is dictated by your service in the military.

54:21

Yeah, and it sort of demonstrates like the way

54:23

that you know, US military

54:25

recruiting does that It's like these people aren't evil,

54:28

They're just like poor simps

54:30

who got you know, promised

54:32

things. This is like a better plan for them

54:35

than anything else. You feel

54:37

bad for them. Well. Also, the

54:40

promotional videos that they kind of

54:42

make of these kids who are so

54:44

like almost seem that they're jacked

54:46

upon emphetamine with the excitement

54:49

of fighting the arachnids. Um.

54:51

I mean, it's it's very similar to the kind of

54:54

propaganda that the that

54:56

is used by the military to entice

54:58

people who are, you know, in high

55:00

school basically you need a way

55:02

out. This made me read a lot about the

55:04

Reich Labor Service, which was

55:07

problem in Nazi Germany. It was basically

55:09

like they leveraged unemployment to get all these

55:12

young people to join the Nazi

55:14

labor Service, and it was basically

55:17

what is in this movie where you earn your rights,

55:19

you earn things by executing

55:21

your service. That's how you earn citizenship.

55:24

And it was kind of presented in this very like

55:27

gender equitable way as like

55:29

one of the great things about like Nazi

55:31

Germany will be that like women will have you

55:33

know, promise the future

55:35

of women in the workplace, uh

55:38

in a fascist regime, and like you can go

55:40

whenever you want, right like you'll have

55:42

you'll there will be a place for you if you help,

55:44

like you know, trod everybody else under

55:46

your boot who's lesser than you. There

55:49

was also the whole thing about like I

55:51

thought the interesting, like the sports aspect

55:54

of it at the beginning. It was also kind of funny. It

55:56

like links like sports

55:58

and like sex and the

56:00

military altogether is like part of a never

56:03

ending ring of youthful energy. And

56:05

it's like it's like the presentation

56:08

of an enemy, like anything that you can narrativize

56:10

is like this guy's gonna take

56:12

your girl, or like this is the rival football

56:15

team, or you know, or those bugs

56:17

want to kill you. Like it's that these these

56:19

people only respond when

56:21

there is an enemy that they can like

56:24

they have like Casper Veending's character

56:26

basically a zero direction in his life unless

56:28

something is trying to take something that's his, whether it's

56:30

his like his his hometown

56:32

getting attacked by the

56:34

bugs, or somebody tried to steal

56:37

his girl, Like that's

56:39

the only thing that mobilizes him. It's all percent

56:41

reactionary. That's

56:43

what's also scary about now, is you

56:45

know, looking at the stuff about the rich labor force,

56:47

it's like, oh, everybody was unemployed

56:49

and they were directionless and all they wanted

56:52

was like to have a job again and to have someone

56:54

to tell them what to do. And you

56:56

know a lot of people were

56:59

just following order. Is like not everybody

57:01

was a Nazi general, but a lot of people

57:03

were just like complicit by

57:06

being part of it because they didn't

57:08

have any better options. There's

57:11

uh, I think the l a p d

57:13

um Twitter account recently has

57:16

been posting like stories

57:18

of officers or something to I

57:21

don't know, to like in gender sympathy for

57:23

the l a p D or something, or to humanize

57:26

copaganda. Yeah, yeah, straight

57:28

from the cops in this case, Like yeah,

57:31

it's always it always comes from the cops,

57:33

but it's on like every local news show and

57:35

stuff like that. But it's stuff like you

57:37

know, like I grew up poor and

57:40

like I was the first person from my family

57:42

to go to college and like I

57:45

and like in this last one, I think this is just today

57:47

like the tweets that's something

57:49

like you know I had every excuse, like

57:52

did not say what the excuse was for. Like I had

57:54

every excuse, I guess what to be like

57:57

a not not a cop um,

58:00

but I didn't take it, like and I

58:02

decided that I wanted to like serve my city by being

58:05

in the military. It's so Starship Troopers

58:07

all this ship like it's so like like I'm

58:09

doing my part. Like it's just very

58:12

um transparent for sure.

58:14

And the fact that you have like a white power army

58:16

in this movie but it's diverse is like

58:19

very unsettling. Um, Like

58:21

you can have Jake Bucy

58:23

and black women

58:25

fighting side by side in the military.

58:30

Man you see another through line?

58:32

Yeah, we so what other movie was

58:36

the Freaky guy in Contact? He is

58:39

the freaky guy? So he apparently everybody

58:41

was suffering from heat stroke um while filming

58:44

Starship Troopers. I guess when they

58:46

were in the bad Lands in Wyoming. Um

58:48

maybe that was there, but everybody

58:51

it was like a hundred and twenty five degrees. And

58:53

I thought I read that Jake Bucy suffered

58:55

a horrible like a stroke stroke

58:57

or something and they had to take like

59:00

a week off. But he is he is giving an amazing

59:02

performance. Again, I'm like

59:04

it it besides being a

59:08

really like timely critique

59:10

of militarization and um,

59:13

you know a lot of stuff that we're seeing going

59:15

on now. It also like the

59:18

the excitement and the fervor

59:20

and the like optimism of

59:23

these kids in this movie

59:26

is so intense in

59:28

that it's being used for such evil, but

59:30

it's like this bright, big white

59:32

tooth smile and these big guys,

59:35

it's so scary. They're

59:37

being told that they're going to be heroes and legends,

59:40

like they see everybody at the beginning of the

59:43

movie who's missing limbs, you know. And

59:45

that actor, by the way, is actually um

59:47

a double ampute, which I

59:49

did not know. He was great. Yeah, he

59:52

encounters all these people that are like, oh, you're going

59:54

to fight the bugs like good walk but

59:57

like infantry made me the man

59:59

I with like points system

1:00:02

anything where it's like they're telling you know, you're

1:00:04

you're just like a you're a meat shield

1:00:07

basically, but they

1:00:09

are selling you this idea that you're

1:00:11

something other than that. You guys are

1:00:13

really making me want to revisit this movie because

1:00:15

I haven't seen it since I was like ten.

1:00:18

I think that's yeah, it's on Netflix now.

1:00:21

I mean, like I can't imagine being a child

1:00:23

and watching this. It's so it's

1:00:27

hyper violent, cool and like there's

1:00:29

such a What I remember most about

1:00:31

it is the coldness with which like

1:00:33

punishment was applied and the way

1:00:36

in which they addressed like all of their desks, and

1:00:38

that like really freaked me out. I was like,

1:00:41

especially the whipping scene because I was fresh offs

1:00:43

and I was like, what is happening with all these

1:00:45

because my parents are showing me so

1:00:48

violent and horrifying. Um.

1:00:50

But I was interested to hear what you guys think about

1:00:53

especially I don't know if you have any thoughts on it, but like

1:00:55

the costuming specifically

1:00:58

and the way it's sort of like if

1:01:00

you if I think about fashion at this time,

1:01:03

like late nineties early because it's like what seven

1:01:07

yeah, um, and this idea of

1:01:09

like military clothing suddenly

1:01:12

becoming hip, especially the like yes

1:01:16

yes and the big pants and stuff. Did that leave

1:01:18

any impression on you guys? Yeah?

1:01:20

I mean I think I think style is

1:01:22

the way that people often launder

1:01:25

fascism, you know, is

1:01:27

like oh but it's such a good logo,

1:01:30

um, which I feel like we were kind of talking about

1:01:32

with the flag before, like you know,

1:01:34

That's what's scary about symbols, as they can

1:01:36

be used to kind of cover up crimes.

1:01:39

That's what we talk about in the Olympics a

1:01:41

lot my anti Olympics

1:01:44

group, because a lot of people are very attached

1:01:46

to the graphic design of the Olympics UM.

1:01:49

But again, it's like that's used

1:01:51

to kind of cover up a lot of abuse

1:01:54

and financial fucked up behavior.

1:01:56

I think also like going

1:01:59

back to the sort of um

1:02:01

the sort of egalitarianism

1:02:04

between like genders and this like

1:02:07

it is kind of an andragugous thing. Like Denise

1:02:09

Richard does not aside from like the party

1:02:11

scene or whatever. She's not like dressed sexy

1:02:14

or anything. She's just like a pilot. And

1:02:16

there's this sort of like and I feel like that's

1:02:18

something that always is getting that's always

1:02:21

a point of conversation in

1:02:23

like genre stuff and in video

1:02:25

games it's like why can't the woman who's

1:02:28

holding the two machine guns, you

1:02:30

know, like not be sexual?

1:02:32

See, I find it just I find it

1:02:34

just as scary when she's like cutie

1:02:37

Panzer Division, Like that was

1:02:39

so scary to me. She's

1:02:41

just like yeah, when she's wearing the Nazi uniform

1:02:44

and just like smiling like

1:02:46

shooting, and you know, and then at

1:02:48

the end when Doogie Houser feels

1:02:50

the bug when they see you, like the last living

1:02:53

bug and it's afraid

1:02:55

and they all cheer. Well,

1:02:57

that's like the most on the nose. The

1:03:01

um Patrick Harris's costume

1:03:03

is like the most post on the nose s S

1:03:05

Officer type ship. To Joel's

1:03:08

point, I think a lot of that stuff came back

1:03:10

under the guys of like we're so far removed

1:03:12

from actual Nazis, we can do this as

1:03:15

fashion now, like Hugo Boss can be

1:03:17

a legitimate brand that advertising,

1:03:20

right, Like Hugo Boss did come back

1:03:22

really big in the nineties for sure, but

1:03:24

also like all these seventies rock

1:03:27

guys bought Nazi memorabilia,

1:03:29

you know, to be like Edge Lords of the

1:03:31

seventies, Prince Harry, Right,

1:03:35

lots of people think it's like we're so

1:03:37

far away from it, but we're

1:03:39

never that far away from it, clearly.

1:03:41

Yeah.

1:03:44

I mean it's also like, like I do think

1:03:46

it's interesting that we're talking about

1:03:48

starship troopers and this kind of stuff right after

1:03:50

talking about the flag, because like,

1:03:53

I don't know, I mean, I I still

1:03:56

keep coming back to the fact that there are just two

1:03:58

completely different readings of

1:04:00

this movie, and that we're all very

1:04:04

confident and comfortable with our reading. It

1:04:06

was what it was intended to be read

1:04:08

that way. But it's it's

1:04:10

weird that people can like miss

1:04:13

putting together all of these elements and

1:04:15

all of these clues about the message behind this

1:04:17

movie. Like people who are really seasoned

1:04:19

at like taking apart movies, and I mean, I

1:04:22

wouldn't say or they just you know, believe in The Forever

1:04:24

War. There is a book, like an anti

1:04:26

war sci fi book written in response to this book

1:04:28

called The Forever War, where it's

1:04:31

like the the Minians sort

1:04:33

of like realized that they're being used for cannon fodder

1:04:35

and that um.

1:04:37

But for Hovan said, this movie was really his own response

1:04:40

to like America after World War Two becoming

1:04:43

just like increasingly imperialistic and involving

1:04:45

itself in all kinds of conflicts that it didn't

1:04:47

need to be part of. But you

1:04:50

know, America had to be convinced to go into World

1:04:52

War two because a lot of people did

1:04:54

not think we belonged there.

1:04:57

We're on the fence for a long time about

1:04:59

World War Two. It turns out well

1:05:01

he's for having said too that this is based

1:05:03

parts of it are patterned after Triumph of the Will,

1:05:06

but also after the Frank Capra

1:05:08

response to Triumph of the Will that was

1:05:10

meant to like in gender

1:05:12

the same kind of patriotism and Americans

1:05:15

and be like, this is why we have to go do this,

1:05:18

um, because Frank Capra was

1:05:20

like terrified by Triumph of the Will. He was

1:05:22

like, this is such a good work of propaganda.

1:05:24

We have to make an equally good work of propaganda.

1:05:28

And there's some stuff in the Frank Capra one that's

1:05:30

totally false. There's like a you

1:05:32

know, it's obviously very racist

1:05:34

towards the Japanese, but there's

1:05:37

just like some some conspiracy stuff

1:05:39

in it that was maybe used to help speed

1:05:42

the process along of getting America

1:05:44

on board. No.

1:05:47

I've been um listening

1:05:49

to the current hardcore history

1:05:51

about the Pacific theater

1:05:53

of World War two a lot, and it's

1:05:56

very interesting to see the

1:05:58

whole West Coast history of

1:06:01

of demonizing Japanese

1:06:03

people through all that in ways that I kind of knew

1:06:05

about it in a cursory way, but never never

1:06:07

in depth. Um. But

1:06:10

yeah, it's wild um.

1:06:13

And again it is all about

1:06:16

finding a common enemy on getting creating

1:06:19

a narrative and like and

1:06:21

then and then created a system

1:06:23

that can be seen as blameless, like

1:06:26

somehow the

1:06:28

the idea of police in this country being

1:06:31

something that people just take for granted and that

1:06:33

it works and like, well, we gotta have police. We

1:06:35

can't not have police. Um,

1:06:38

Like it's the same as this

1:06:40

military system in this film. Like I was

1:06:43

going back to the flogging scene that

1:06:45

the gentleman mentioned Joel

1:06:48

mentioned, is uh, like there's

1:06:50

something in that scene where I think, like if

1:06:52

you don't get it by then you're

1:06:54

kind of like I don't know what to I

1:06:57

don't know what to tell you because it's just like there

1:06:59

are a couple parts like that too. Well

1:07:01

the I think like by the like from the opening

1:07:04

segment, like if you don't get that, but also

1:07:06

by that scene scene because it's like the

1:07:09

idea of that scene is not Oh

1:07:11

my god, this this system that

1:07:13

I have signed up for is hurting me and

1:07:16

is blaming for some me for some like

1:07:18

this horrible thing that happened that ultimately I

1:07:20

didn't have that much control over and now I'm being

1:07:22

like publicly flogged for it. Uh.

1:07:25

It's like it's like, no, this is good

1:07:28

for him. This is gonna like make him better within

1:07:30

this stem, which is so like that's

1:07:33

you know, and and then and so the hero

1:07:36

of the movie then, or the hero

1:07:38

of the Highland story

1:07:40

at least is the system

1:07:42

that and that the system will make this

1:07:44

person better, uh, and

1:07:47

that you can be improved through it, and the system knows

1:07:49

best. There's like a brief mention

1:07:51

of showing executions on TV. Yeah,

1:07:55

yeah, tonight at six the electric

1:07:58

chair. Yeah,

1:08:01

yeah, the only difference I think. I you

1:08:03

know, this also made me think about the Purge, which has come

1:08:05

up a lot in my mind in

1:08:08

the past. While um in

1:08:10

that, I was like, you're right, like the Nazi uniform

1:08:12

now, like the uniform that scares me now is not a

1:08:14

trench code. It's like, you

1:08:17

know, the bugaloo stuff, Like it's somebody

1:08:19

with like a Blue Lives Matter sticker on

1:08:21

their car and like a Hawaiian shirt.

1:08:23

You know. Still the fatigues, the cargo

1:08:26

shorts. Yeah, just like

1:08:28

that to me is even scarier because it's like so

1:08:31

dressed down and informal. You

1:08:33

know, it's like it's terrifying.

1:08:36

I'm just I'm just dude. To a cook out. Somebody

1:08:39

was posting once today that we're all these like Disney

1:08:42

like Mickey Blue Lives Matter flag

1:08:44

inside a Mickey and it just says like daddy

1:08:47

on it. You know. I was like

1:08:49

that, that's the

1:08:51

scariest thing I've ever seen. Take

1:08:54

it away, no, thank you. Well,

1:08:57

if you haven't seen Starship Troopers in a while, might

1:08:59

be a good time to watch it. And if you think

1:09:01

that you don't like it, it might hit different now.

1:09:04

It might might pointed out

1:09:06

like say that I saw Jaws

1:09:09

yesterday. I don't know what time is anymore. But

1:09:12

you have a mayor denying people

1:09:15

or not informing his community about

1:09:17

a deadly shark and opening the beaches

1:09:20

because listen July and

1:09:22

we need to make money and this is how we survive.

1:09:25

Oh my god, we're all freaking

1:09:27

weird. Is the timeliest

1:09:29

thing to it was Ship the other day

1:09:31

or maybe like I'd recorded it and I was like, this is

1:09:34

too real. But it's also such a good

1:09:36

movie. And so you're saying l

1:09:38

al Fresco is Joss, Yes,

1:09:41

Yes, is

1:09:43

Garcetti the giant shark? Is

1:09:47

he Bruce? He's

1:09:49

the mayor? Oh my god?

1:09:52

Well yeah, check that out. It makes for good Fourth

1:09:54

of July view, and I think if you have to stay inside

1:09:56

for your Fourth of July, might as well watched

1:09:59

our ship Troopers and and Jaws. Sounds

1:10:01

American enough to me. That's

1:10:04

a good double bill. We all

1:10:06

back that double bill. Yeah,

1:10:08

thanks for listening to Night Call this week.

1:10:11

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1:10:39

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1:10:41

for stories from teachers and

1:10:44

students who have emerged

1:10:46

now from the very strangest school

1:10:48

year ever. Um. We

1:10:51

would love to hear your experiences

1:10:53

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1:10:55

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1:10:57

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1:10:59

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1:11:15

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in upcoming episodes.