Firehose #196: NBA Fever—Catch it!

Also: Happy Memorial Day!

The above photo, which was taken Thursday night in Brooklyn with me just off-camera, currently has north of 10 million views on Twitter. “The city is bananas for the Knicks,” including “the phalanx of former Knicks, Frazier and Carmelo, Stoudemire and Starks, all just so damn proud of what they’re seeing on the court,” noted the photographer. The Western Conference finals ain’t no slouch, either; setting ratings records as my 11-year-old’s new alien-sized, Grasshopper-brained bilingual crush tries to dethrone the squad architected by friend o’ Fif Sam Presti. It’s OK to love basketball!

* I mentioned last week that favorite Fif’ sportsfella Ethan Strauss (veteran of episodes #185, #333, #383, Members Only #151, and #408) has been killing it lately; let’s just link to three of his latest: “Thunder Derangement Syndrome,” “The Democrats’ New SEC Strategy: Boycott College Sports,” and “Who Believes in Jalen Brunson’s New York Knicks?” And yes, Firehoses would include more commentary about the NHL playoffs if … somebody else wrote ‘em!

* Also foreshadowed last week, and learned about live on stage in D.C., was the primary thumping of former guest Rep. Thomas Massie (R – Ky.) by some Trump-approved political cipher. It was only immediately after the show that we heard about Massie’s gross concession-speech joke:

In a good-riddance editorial, National Review pointed out that Massie “made a last-minute appearance with [Cenk] Uygur for a friendly interview” before the election, which I guess helps explain why he declined multiple entreaties for some Moynihan-on-Massie action. More NR:

[He] was rabidly and obsessively anti-Israel. He not only opposed aid to Israel, which again, could be explained on libertarian grounds, but regularly accused supporters of Israel of having a nefarious influence on America and of displaying dual loyalty. A few months after the October 7 attacks, Massie posted a meme ridiculing U.S. support for Israel, accusing Congress of turning its back on American patriotism in favor of Zionism. He dismissed colleagues who supported Israel as paid puppets of the pro-Israel lobbying group, AIPAC. When the United Democracy Project, an AIPAC-affiliated group, poured millions into the campaign to defeat him, Massie made opposing AIPAC a centerpiece of his campaign. […]

The outcome demonstrates … that the mindless anti-Zionism that has become popular with podcasters is not a ticket to success in Republican primaries.

* Also touching on the state of GOP play this week were Kmele & the Tanglers:

* For those (very many!) of you who did not much care for #558 guest Rep. Maxwell Frost (D—Fla.), see the above graphic! Best I reckon, we are four-for-four in cursing congressional candidates out of office. (Our Senate record, so far, remains less carcinogenic.) I for one find that for political journalists/commentators, periodically checking in with actual elected officials serves a similar purpose as toddlers touching a lit stove.

* Segue to … Producer Jason’s Video Vault!

This week in D.C. we met Rep. Max Frost of Florida, and I somehow didn’t think to ask him if he had ever seen Wild in the Streets, a 1968 classic about a young, rabble-rousing politician named … Max Frost. Played by Christopher Jones, Frost is a charismatic, narcissistic, millionaire rock star who has surrounded himself with a team of brilliant teenage misanthropes (in looks and demeanor, the fictional Max Frost actually bears great resemblance to Rep. Max Frost’s friend from March for Our Lives, David Hogg). When senatorial candidate Johnny Fergus (Hal Holbrook), who is campaigning to reduce the voting age to 18, appeals to Frost to perform at a rally on his behalf, Frost pulls the rug out by demanding it be lowered another four years, doing so with a catchy little diddy called “14 or Fight.” What follows after the resultant drop in voting age is the lowering of age requirements for holding office. Frost then becomes president, and hilarity/dystopia ensues. The music is great throughout, including “Shape of Things to Come,” which actually hit #22 on the Billboard charts and was later covered by Slade, plus some great psychedelic numbers by Les Baxter. And what a cast! Richard Pryor as Stanley X, Shelly Winters as Frost’s completely psychotic mother, and Ed Begley senior as … the Man. While it is a film that has 1968 written all over it, there are plenty of unsettling parallels with today’s social media stars and callow policy prescriptions. Watch for free on Pluto; here’s the trailer:

* Same couch, same clothes, different guest, different reaction: Y’all seemed to quite enjoy our first chit-chat w/ Slow-borer Matthew Yglesias. Here’s a free clip about A.I. for those in the cheap seats:

In the episode, Matty Ygl talked about how playing poker with some disreputable D.C. libertarians back in the blogging days helped infect some of his policy beliefs. Turns out that on the day we taped, The Argument published a piece from Yglesias touching on some of that, as well as the prospects for an Abundance Democrat/Classical Liberal alliance, under the friends-winning headline “What Libertarians Get Wrong About Freedom: The ideology that thinks it knows everything.” For those interested in such exercises, Ilya Somin has a response.

* In the universes where Democrats actually run things, the discussions do not trend toward trans-ideological curiosity, but rather a butt-sniffing of a whole ‘nother sort, as I yakked about in this edited clip from Monday’s Reason Roundtable:

* Missed us in D.C.? Well, there is currently only one other live Fifth Column show in the being-advertised phase….

Gonna be epic! Go to https://soapbox.fire.org/ and use the discount code FIFTH to save $50 on tickets to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s Nov. 4-6 Soapbox conference in patriotic Philadelphia, at which we’ll be podcasting live and enjoying the presentations from fellow speakers Sarah Isgur (M.O. #314), Noam Dworman (#549), David French (#191, #325, #365, #555) Nick Gillespie (Special Dispatch #72, #379, M.O. #251, #551), Greg Lukianoff (#216, M.O. #183, #427, M.O. #276), Jacob Mchangama (#102 & #344), John McWhorter (#84, #121, #188 & #366), Matt Taibbi (#226, #348), and Ilya Shapiro (#361).

* Comment of the Week comes from DawgInExileNC:

Some people learn economics from Scrooge McDuck cartoons, I think.

Sendoff: Sometimes it’s hard to pick which song should go with mention of the recently deceased. This is not such a time. Rob Base, who was 15 months older than I am, died of cancer this week, joining his partner DJ E-Z Rock in hip-hop heaven. Their “It Takes Two” has been part of the air we breathe since 1988, a time when it was decidedly not taken for granted that rap could make it on the pop charts. As Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid tweeted, “It Takes Two was pure Golden Age Hip-Hop B-Boy GOLD. Back when tracks didn’t have to be about Drugs/Money/Violence. No name checking ‘brands’. Just for the dance floor Fun Of It.” The album of the same name went Platinum; Rob’s 1989 solo album went Gold, and that was about it. Was plenty enough: