Firehose #170: I’ve Gone to Look for America

Also: See you under California stars!

It being my contention that the solution to (the perception of?) America’s problems is significantly upping your dosage of America, this Firehose is being blasted in your general direction from beautiful downtown Tulsa, where tonight at the world-famous Philbrook Museum, Tafv Sampson, set decorator for the great Sterlin Harjo TV productions Reservation Dogs and The Lowdown, and also daughter of our very own Nancy Rommelmann, will be presenting a special screening/discussion on the 50^th anniversary of One Flew Over’s the Cuckoo’s Nest, that classic Miloš Forman pic in which oh yeah Tafv’s grandpa Will Sampson played Chief. There may come a time when I explain what an incredible domino effect that movie (then the novel, then Tom Wolfe, then … [*waves hands*] EVERYTHING) had on me, but today is not that day, because tomorrow it’s off to No Man’s Land & other north-of-I40 routes through God’s country all the way to our live shows next week in California. Will send pics.

* Let’s get this party started with a little Hitler, care of the undefeated Arch Stanton:

* OK, *I* know how to finally make me start to care about the just-finished federal government shutdown 1/100^th as much as Peter Meijer (veteran of Special Dispatch #51, Episode #307, #339, #367, #424, and Members Only #184) says he does! By having the insane Andrew Heaton make a baby w/ Artificial Intelligence that they (jointly?) christened SHUTDOWN: The Musical:

* Speaking of funnymen, the incomparable Dave Barry (S.D. #72) reminds us that Wednesday was the 55^th anniversary of

what I think we can all agree, as a nation, is the most wonderful thing that ever happened in the history of the world, or at least of Lane County, Oregon.

I refer, of course, to the exploding whale.

* Some stranded bits of past content that I’d been meaning to get to, starting with our buddy Mike Pesca (#343, #418 and #467). Remember a few weeks back, when everyone was marveling at how horridly former White House spokesgal Karine Jean-Pierre handled the most simple of interview questions about her dumb new book (subject of some discussion on #530)? Well, Pesca had just interviewed her before all that, and concluded: “After thirty contentious minutes with the former press secretary, I decided not to inflict what amounted to audio waterboarding on my listeners. But after a week of watching Jean-Pierre confuse everyone who interviewed her, I’m reversing that decision.”

* The patriotic pic decorating the top of this email/post is me last month upstate w/ my dear longtime friend & collaborator, Ken Layne. The bearded fella held a special Desert Oracle Halloween scary-story seance/episode adjacent to our studio, complete with lil’ stories of sorts from me and our old comrade, Antique Roadshows co-star Nicho Lowry. Here we are pictured along w/ the great journalo Amy Langfield, wearing a festive Ken Layne & the Corvids shirt.

* Speaking of Layne, I also banked an epi with him for a special upcoming miniseries-within-a-pod that we hope to unveil for you by around the beginning of the New Year. What’s it about? Well, let’s just say it will be of particular interest to those of you who will be tuning into PBS Sunday night. And who find this pic more intriguing than, say, casus belli to call CPS:

* Did you want some more contemporary material? Well, OK. Moynihan on his Report this week interviewed Nathan Livingstone, the

Aussie filmmaker who found himself in the crosshairs of the “most Googled man,” Andrew Tate. Nathan details his journey from a forklift driver fired over COVID mandates to a leading chronicler exposing Tate’s “unique evil”; a mission that’s now landed him in a major defamation lawsuit he calls “lawfare,” where the “process is the punishment.” But the conversation doesn’t stop at Tate. Nathan and Michael dive deep into the “conspiracy rabbit hole” defining the new Right, tackling Tucker Carlson’s “softball” interviews with Tate and Nick Fuentes, the “schizophrenic” theories of Candace Owens regarding the Charlie Kirk assassination, and the alarming rise of Nick Fuentes and his “groypers.” It’s a fascinating look at the battle for “team reality” and the high price of exposing the internet’s most controversial figures.

* Also in the Moyni-chair was Meredith Whittaker, the president of Signal, and chief advisor to the A.I. Now Institute. The two talk about “how artificial intelligence is often just a marketing term designed to degrade jobs rather than replace them,” the “dangerous concentration of power within Big Tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft,” how “their surveillance business model creates an unholy alliance with the government,” plus a bunch of privacy/crypto whatnot.

* The Reason Roundtable this week tried gamely to get me to talk about the government shutdown; instead, my only rant deemed repackage-worthy was about that grisly line in Zohran Mamdani’s victory speech:

* Kmele does various things at a place called Tangle News; here’s one from a week ago:

* Comment of the Week comes from Gordon Bombay:

What a sweetheart of a misguided man

Usually my Walkoffs are complete songs, but whilst looking for a YouTube of this banger, found instead a very charming dance vid to most of the song done by a team of sassy girls my (Dance Moms-loving) daughter’s age. So let’s go!