The day after American Thanksgiving, Randall Kennedy and Joe Wilcox discuss what they are grateful for in 2016. Joe begins Episode 83: “If not for fake news, we might have a different President of the United States, and there would be nothing, absolutely nothing, interesting to read on the Internet. This fake news stuff is just so good, and the other stuff is sooo boring—except for our podcast, but you don’t read that, you listen”.
Way, way later in the podcast, when talking about archeology, Joe brings up fake news again. “Imagine archeologists of the future, trying to understand our society, our culture, and they discover a treasure trove of fake news. What kind of mistakes could they make about what things were really like here in the 21st Century”. Of course Randall has an answer, and he identifies their source: “The ultimate arbiter of all things truthful—that news source of record for the 21st Century—the Onion.com!” They would understand, for example, “that half of us were abducted by aliens at one time in our lives”.
Back to gratitude, Randall unsurprisingly boasts: “Breitbart is in the White House now, and I’m thankful for that”, referring to “conservative media” having a “significant role” in the future Trump administration. Steve Bannon, who is Breitbart CEO and principal Trump advisor, “is there, whether you think he is a white supremacist, Nazi Hitler worshipper, or not”.
That leads Joe to ask Randall about Hitler worshippers. Adolph “did seances and stuff like that. Is that what these Hitler worshippers do? Do they have little shrines to the man, and do they have seances and channel him?”
Randall is also thankful for social media, which using it, to say, live broadcast “is a more democratizing technology”. He praises Scott Adams’ Periscopes. But is that for the information or to look at the cartoonist’s smoking babe girlfriend? Joe asks. Randall acknowledges that it’s a mystery “how this guy pulled this off! She’s a friggin’ Instagram model. She looks like a Barbie Doll” because “he’s not an attractive man. He’s ugly”.
The Black Friday podcast is livelier still. Some of the other topics: Americans’ big-screen TV buying obsession; Christmas in Boston and New York; Remembering the Brady Bunch mom; Mexico’s offer to build Trump’s wall; great director’s cut movies; film Dances with Wolves as liberal white male metaphor; and William Shatner’s weight gain and hair loss.
Photo Credit: Scott Granneman