Love it or leave it is brought to you by our presenting sponsor Djura, an award winning single malt Scotch whisky made by the same tiny island community since 1810. Love it.

Yes, a bottle of Djura just showed up at my door yesterday. He said Djura, they're the most generous sponsor.

We have the nicest people in the world. Like what did I do to deserve this this extra bottle of Djura.

I don't know, but I'm happy.

This month Djura introduces a new whisky jur a 12 year old is a brand new release and since this is the month of love. Nope no jazz.

Let's go.

It says since this is the month of love sex icon John love it. You're going to read our very sexy tasting notes. That's what it says.

I don't copy. I don't think that's the part. Says in a bedroom voice. I feel embarrassed, I feel embarrassed by your ad copy.

Let's see refined, succulent, tropical aromas of chocolate, walnut and citrus fruit, your bedroom voices, your podcast voice.

Yeah. Is that not.

Oh, sorry. You know what? I'll do it a little bit more for my lover live. Here we go. The presenting sponsor of this tryst is me.

Oh, you're right. I'll make this a little bit more. You know, I'll make it a little more, you know, romantic.

How does the Wielgus flavors of honey salted bananas and brown sugar? Oh my God.

It's going to be berney by the end with a whisper of smoke, flavors of honey, salted bananas, brown sugar with a whisper of smoke. This Valentine's Day that's burning central voice. It's hot. It's subtly different.

If Jane's a listener, she gets it this Valentine's Day, get your loved one. Something special that they love and try a Jurez brand new 12 year old whiskey good Tajoura whiskey dotcoms.

Love it and use the code love at ten to receive ten dollars off each purchase helps support juror's tiny island community as they say in Scotland.

Java, which is Gaelic for you can't give one speech to undo denying 9/11 and chasing Parkland victims around the capital.

One speech doesn't undo that well. Planetary UN. Welcome to love it or leave it vacc to the future, back to the future, love it gave me the news for years past, like an attack on the minds of battered and bruised sensibilities, civility pushed right to the edge, things that tipped the other way. We'd all be out on the ledge. But it's all. They were all. I'm Johnny, we're in good hands with Uncle Sam's little brother and the youngest brother with the iguanas in the bay, loves the Bible, but seems pretty cool.

It's Papa Joe.

Back to the future, love me, the news for years past, like an attack on minds up battered and bruised sensibility, civility pushed right to the edge, things that tipped the other way.

We'd all be out on the ledge. But it's OK.

It's OK. We're all doing fine. I mean, noodles for breakfast. We're all fired up about the case. So I. In the shower.

Oh. New day is names and anything is possible, like universal basic income, daylight saving time ending and a ramp up on the Senate floor. We're in good hands. With Uncle Sam's little brother, he says folks way too much, but he seems pretty cool and happy just. Back to the future, love it, give me the news, that incredible song was by Chris Adams.

If you want to make a vacc to the future theme song, please send it to us and leave it at Crooked Dotcom. Leave it at Crooked Dotcom. Before we get to the show, check out. Keep it. This month, IRA, IRA and Lewis will be having discussions with black creators, black owned business leaders and many more great guests for Black History Month. Make sure your subscribe to crookedest pop culture and politics podcast. Keep it wherever you listen.

You're going to hear IRA do a rant later. Keep it as awesome. You will love it if you if you're not listening to it, what are you doing?

And also, if you aren't, subscribe to the What a Day newsletter, please check it out. It's written by Sarah Lazarus, who is hilarious. She it is an awesome recap at the end of every day to let you know what happened in the news. It is funny. It is insightful. You really like it. So check that out at Crooked Dotcom Subscribe.

Later in the show, we'll be joined by Alima to Erin Ryan. IRA Madison, the third Travis Helwig stops by and we play a very fun game with listeners. But first, he's an actor, comedian and host of the podcast My Mama Told Me. Welcome back. Returning champion Langston Comen.

Yeah, yeah, I'm excited. I can't wait. Let's get into it.

What a week. Langston As you know, we like to start these episodes with the worst joke we could come up with. Oh, I know.

I'm excited to hear how bad you can go.

Let's do it. This is brutal. Business Insider is changing its name to Insider ever since this pandemic started, everybody's losing business.

OK, all right. You ain't cute.

And I appreciate that. I thought you were going to you're going to say something about minding their business. And and I was like, oh, we're getting a little edgy. But now you are like, what is the family friendly version of this joke?

Which is something about the word business, just business.

Jeff, Jeff Bezos announced that he will step down from his role as Amazon CEO later this year. Bezos is stepping down to focus on his true passion, collecting infinity stones.

He wants to do this now.

I recently found out that he's he's got a whole space program he's working on. So, of course, he doesn't sound good.

No, it's not. There's no way that's good. But he's sending people to suborbital space for 200 grand each. You can fly up to suborbital space. So, you know, he's got things to focus on that's expensive.

Yeah, no, I want to wait till I'm going to wait till it's you know, after a while they'll bring it down to like one fifty.

You know, you want those Southwest discounts once those kick in, that's when you go you got to go to space on an off weekend, huh.

Right. Go to space in the winter when when the tickets are cheaper. The winter.

Oh, with of course is tickets to space are cheaper. It's winter out here. It's winter. It's bad. Weather business is stepping down to focus on his true passion being a more ripped bald guy than J.K. Simmons. Is that true? Jake is pretty buff and that's why he's got to focus.

Yeah, that's why. That's why Jeff has to focus. Bezos is stepping down to focus on his true passion, completing the time machine through which he gave himself the idea for Amazon.

What if he doesn't do it? You know what happens?

Oh, then he's just a dude with a weird eye and he's just got to wrestle with that for the rest of his life and no money to help make it feel better. Yeah, he's got to invent Amazon. We're wrong.

He deserves what he has 100 percent.

We're wrong. He deserves every penny because otherwise he just has to look at that eye. And that's crazy. Amazon workers in an Alabama warehouse have complained that the company is posting anti-union flyers in the bathroom stalls, but if they don't want to see the posters, they should just pee in water bottles like they're supposed to be.

That's a pretty good one.

I don't know if you if you don't want to see the posters, stop asking your robot boss for a break.

If you don't want to see the posters, you should have never learned to read in the first place. That's not why we hired you. Amazon workers there is they've introduced this thing.

It's called like the mega cycle or the Megadeath cycle, where there's a 10 hour shift that goes from one 20 a.m. to 11 a.m. That is a brutal shift.

Yeah, it's wild that we know. Do you want I mean, like, it's I know. Wild that like, we don't even know what Nike's doing in terms of their secret sweatshops and all that. But we know exactly what's happening with Amazon and nobody can do anything.

It's a fascinating experience. On Groundhog Day at Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Punxsutawney Phil did see his shadow. And so, you know what that means. Six more years of covid.

Mhm. Oh, I don't like that one at all and I don't know, it doesn't feel good. I want to go outside. I want to go outside. I want to go inside. Those are two of my favorite places inside and outside.

I like outside and sometimes you get sick of that, you go on inside, you go outside and you don't have to like prep to go inside or ask politely that somebody else following you inside not follow so closely. I would love to let people follow me closely inside.

I want to sneak a Chipotle burrito into a movie and then have the person sitting next to me being like, what the fuck? Hmm.

Because we're so close and not because your mask is off, but just because you're being unreasonable in a different way. Right? Right. I'm being anti-social in a less deadly but very annoying way. Yeah.

One time my friend Spencer and I, we went to a movie that we thought was going to be empty. It was like a Sunday afternoon, a movie. They've been out for a long time. And so we did sneak in a pair of piping hot chappellet burritos and we got into the theater and we're like, oh, fuck, is pretty awful. Yeah, it's pretty awful. And we sat down in our seats. We're the villains in this story.

To be clear with us. We sat down in our seats and I was I was like one next to the aisle, but the seat next to me was empty. Then it was my friend and then it was a stranger. And then the stranger turned to my to Spencer and said, would you guys at least mind sliding over? And Spencer, what now? We're good.

It wasn't right. I mean, my hands are covered in case, though I don't want to get off, I'm just going to do I'm going to chill right here.

My dad every year for my birthday would take me and my friends to the movie theater. And he would obviously he's not paying for my friend. He'll pay for the tickets, but he's not paying for us to get snacks on top of that. And every year he would make us line up at the door like twelve of us and he would literally stuff every coat pocket he could find with various items, including like Pop tarts and fruit snacks and juice boxes.

So we were all just little criminals that he was marching to go watch the six man together in theater.

Nice, nice, nice.

I would I had a pair of cargo shorts when I lived in New York solely for the purpose of putting a Big Mac in one pocket and fries in the other, like two little gun holsters for a chubby kid.

Oh, I love that. I mean, just appalling. Do you remember when Bill de Blasio killed that groundhog? Oh, I do remember that.

He just dropped it. Yeah. Yeah. He just gave it a permanent light concussion and then it.

Yeah, it died. Wow. He dropped it and it died in hindsight. Maybe a bad omen now.

I wasn't. Yeah. That's not a good sign.

What does that mean for winter now.

The groundhog seeing all kinds of things and none of it's good. Yeah, it's it's not great. It's not not a good sign for winter when the groundhog is dead.

The groundhog seeing the crippling shadow of death, I think is is what it's saying. And oh, boy, winter is going to be a while this year. It's going to be a cold one.

It's going to be a cold one. The groundhog sees only grim death. Yeah. The D.C. police are investigating after a man told his apartment building that he had the covid-19 vaccine for sale, asking for five hundred dollars or best offer. Good news. They stopped him. Bad news.

It was Foushee. Hey, it's been a real, real blow to his reputation.

There were some leftovers.

They told me I could. Sellami, what what do you want from me? The man's working hard for us. Let him get his bike. What? Russia's Sputnik vaccine has been proven to be safe and effective. I regard this as they declared while waving a needle in front of Alexei Navalny. Oh, shit, that's fine.

It's too dark. It's too much. I like it.

There's something nice about them threatening as somebody is writing it down. That's nice, huh?

Data from the clinical trials of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine and the Johnson and Johnson vaccine show that they both prevented 100 percent of hospitalizations after just a single dose. Can't wait with a zero percent chance of hospitalization. I could finally get a trampoline.

They figured they crack, that you'll never go to the house. There's no reason to go to the hospital now that covid is not on the table, all the other things that killis not a concern. Langston.

Have you ever seen the film Terms of Endearment? I have not. Starring Shirley MacLaine. I'm aware of it. I haven't seen you haven't seen the 1983 James L. Brooks film starring starring Debra Winger and Shirley MacLaine with a brief appearance by Jack Nicholson. I've covered all of James L. Brooks other work, and I just missed that one. That's the one that I skipped.

Well, in that movie, there's a famous scene where Shirley MacLaine is running around a hospital yelling to get a shot. And now we are all Shirley MacLaine running around demanding give us the shot and they won't give it to us.

And now for a segment called I Try Not to Cry because I Thought of Terms of Endearment. Oh, well, what does she want the shot so bad for?

Was there. She's in pain. The daughter is in pain. Is a very sad film. It's a very sad film. Very sad. I got I'll cry right now. I swear to God I will tear up thinking about the film. Listen, I'm sold.

You don't have to keep selling it. You keep trying to pitch this to me. Lowering the price. I get it. I'm sold.

I'm in. I've made the sale. I should just move on. But what if I told you. What if I told you that at first it's a movie about Jeff Daniels cheating on his wife?

OK, there it is. So it's not just that. It's like messy and then it gets bad. Oh, it's messy. It's messy.

And then it's said Jack Nicholson plays, you guessed it, an astronaut.

Oh, good for him.

This is when he was still, like, balding and not, like, fully committed to just being a weirdly bald guy.

Yeah, no, he was well, he was still in his balding, virile phase, you know, where he would kind of constantly push the hair back. Yeah. You wild.

You know, it was like he was he was pretending it was like sexual balding.

It was sexual tilting.

In Pasadena, a man who was turned away from the famed restaurant Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles for being massless came back with a gun and rob them of chicken waffles and syrup, which is one way to get your picture on the wall.

You know, I think owls that I think he did the best he could possibly do.

They turned him away for not wearing a mask. And he said, well, I'm not going to inconvenience all of these people by sitting here and yelling and complaining about the injustices that I'm being met with. I'll return and get my chicken and waffles the only way I know how, which is through armed robbery.

And I don't it's a blameless crime. The man know I know. No villains, no heroes, because it's complicated. People are complicated. Gray area, classic gray area. I haven't seen it any of the coverage. And it maybe it says something bad about me.

But my first question was, did he pay? Yeah. Is this a Michael Douglas in falling down situation where he robs the fast food place because he just missed breakfast, but he wants to pay down the principal.

I just want to make the transaction. And you won't do it unless I point a gun in your face. I had a different friend to who asked if he returned with a mask on this time when he held them at gunpoint, and that when I was pretty certain was a no.

I don't think that he he went got a mask and a gun and then.

Which is ironic, right? Because that's, you know, you need him once again. You're fucking up your mask situation in a different way. You would have liked a mask at this point.

You probably would have benefited from the mask. And maybe this wouldn't be quite the news story. It's become had you worn a mask.

It's ironic, right? Because you can't do a mass robbery because of a masked man. It's not possible. It's you're trapped in a loop.

You can't do it.

Yeah, I think what he's fighting for is unmasked robberies. And that's that's not a great place to be fighting.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration will begin shipping vaccines directly to pharmacies this week. Shout out to the first person who goes to CBS St. looking for shampooer a single serving container of hummus and two vitamin waters for the price of one, only to look into getting a soon to expire dose of Moderna. We hear it, love it or leave it.

So that is ready. Go. You got to get some lecroy and you just end up getting a vaccination. Yeah, that's huge.

That's what rules you just like. I'm just here for a bag of chocolate covered pretzels that were near the register and Advil and now I got the vaccine.

Can you unlock the deodorant which you've locked up for some reason? And by the way, I'd love one of those vaccines if you got a little.

I want the one with six blades. I don't know why. And hey. And some Phizer.

Does Pfizer make both? I don't know if Pfizer covers both of those, but yeah, I'll take the Pfizer brand all the way through. Do you have to? Do they have to? I bet they have to unlock both. Maybe. I think it's probably the same case. Yeah.

Now I'm waiting for a manager to unlock the thing with the vaccine and she stares at you a little mean because you've inconvenienced her. She was in the back watching YouTube videos. It's like, don't blame me, blame society. Why is all this shit like that, you know?

Senator Joe Manchin said on Tuesday that he doesn't support increasing the minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour in the coronavirus relief bill, and that means we can't pass it because Democrats can't afford to lose a single vote, which means the bill can only be as liberal as our most conservative members will allow. Just like how a lone picky eater could force an entire family to eat at Bland Andys house of buttered noodles and live in Dublin.

And yeah, you're a man who understands politics far better than I do.

Why does Joe Manchin get to call himself a Democrat like he doesn't like Democrats? He doesn't really vote with Democrats. Why does he get to keep using that tagline?

If it's like I don't get to call myself a rapper, I ain't doing that. I got other shit going on.

Well, he is a Democrat just enough. Like when when it counts, right?

Like when we really need him, he's there, some of it, which is better than Republicans, which are there zero percent of the time I got you. So it's like I think it's more like when Eddie Murphy put out that album, you know, he's a party all the time.

Kind of Democrat. Democrat. Yeah. He's a party all the time. Democrat, I guess, whatever that means. Yeah.

Well, that was the single of Eddie Murphy's album was Party all night and.

Oh, I've seen it. It's great.

It's great. It's pretty fun.

He made a reggae album later and it's the way less fun.

There are things like that that exist that remind you that you need people in your life that tell you the truth no matter what.

Yes, 100 percent.

I you need somebody to be like a man, button your shirt up and go write some jokes. This ain't the move. Rick James is cool.

We all like hanging out with Rick James, but maybe get those buttons up and start focusing on these comedy jokes. Hey, let's think about how you got here and why everybody knows your name.

They focus on that. You're super famous for this thing, not for that thing.

No, you're not the first comedian. You want to be a musician. And there's plenty of musicians that want to be comedians. Doesn't really work.

Hey, hey. Really work. You're great with voices. We love your voices. None of them should be singing.

Maybe just let them talk in silly stylings, maybe in the character of a silly person singing in a comedic moment. We'll allow it as long as it's silly.

Is it silly, Eddie? Because you don't seem like you're being silly right now.

You seem like you're being very serious and trying to attract people with this job.

Are you trying to tell us you want us to be taking you seriously right now? Because that's a mistake. Are you trying to make me horny, Eddie?

Because if you're trying to make me horny, I'm out. I'm out.

This is a Weird Al Yankovic thing we're in. All right. It's not. We're out.

We're out. This week, House Democrats announced that they would take a vote to strip Representative Marjorie Taylor Green of her committee assignments. It was either that or taking her out with the space laser. It was an option.

I like that. Hogge Somyurek Marje, welcome to the Festival of Lights.

I guess I'm wishing her happy, happy festival. Yeah, I didn't know what the space laser. Yeah, from the juice. I like that.

In a private meeting, Green then was greeted by a standing ovation by half of the Republicans in private.

So not like for show, like they are just super pumped to see her. And then the next day she went to the floor to defend herself and she said this.

I also want to tell you, 9/11 absolutely happened. I remember that day crying all day long, watching it on the news.

Well, yeah, yeah.

Think about how fucking far gone you are that you are on the floor of the U.S. Congress being like just to just to set the record straight. I do believe that nine eleven happened. She that doesn't mean she doesn't think it was an inside job.

Now, you know, she's right. It happened for sure. Those were not digitally falling buildings. Those were real falling buildings. Those lives were actually lost. And then some person in the back just stood up and slow clapped her real good as she finished like she nailed it.

9/11 did happen. I'm sorry, Democrats. What do you disagree with your rebuttal? Go ahead, Nancy. I'd love to hear your rebuttal on this one.

Let's hear some cancel culture because 9/11 happened. Oh, now you can't say 9/11 happened, huh?

AOC It's a very good argument.

I think that is how you win. It's very atom's. Dentler this is how I win. Moment is is you just say 9/11 happened. It's so dark. On the other side of the Republican civil war, Liz Cheney, she voted to impeach Donald Trump.

So House Republicans tried to oust her from leadership. She kept her vote by a vote of 145 to 61.

So roughly the same number of Republicans voted to overturn the election as supported Liz Cheney for impeaching Trump, for trying to do the same thing. And that means. Langston, that there are a bunch of Republicans who voted to overturn the the election and then voted to support Liz Cheney for impeaching Trump, for trying to overturn the election. Do you know how far gone your party is when the devil on your shoulder is Donald Trump and the angel on your shoulder is Liz fucking Cheney?

Is is Dick Cheney's third heart. Yeah. Like the devil in me thinks we should destroy our country, but the angel in me thinks we should destroy other countries. The kid in me loves racist, anti-Semitic Facebook posts, but the adult in me wants to bomb Iran.

You know, let's grow up and start a war already. Cut it out. With all this infighting, we've got real people to murder.

I love it. This is great, Langston. So good to see you, as always. Thank you so much for being here.

It's great seeing you. When we come back, I talk to Dr. Olema, too, about this moment in the pandemic and some tips for how to get there.

Don't go anywhere. There's more of love it or leave it coming up.

Love it or leave it is brought to you by Neum. Think about everything you've learned about getting healthy. There's a lot of contradictory information out there and things like that old fashioned food pyramid aren't much help. Enter Neum, for example.

Here's something I didn't know the answer to how many Oreos shouji today. What's the healthy number?

I would say somewhere south of 33. Know you can eat thirty three right now. 91 I had 33 is too many. I felt bad after that. Also kind of good.

The point is where they menis noom. Oh no no these were classic. I didn't I double three double stuff that would have. I think that literally that's about a minute for me not available on this podcast, but just the classics. The point is with Neum, it's not about what you just ate but about how you eat in general. New teaches you about eating your cravings and how to build new habits so you can ditch your misconceptions and get smart about food and the choices you make.

Based in psychology, New teaches you how to eat so you can accomplish your personal health goals and stick with them long term because you don't need rules to lose weight. You need knowledge with Neum. You pick the health goals that are right for you and you personalized is a weight loss program to help your aspirations become reality. So like, for example, you may want to just feel more confident and comfortable in a crowd or social situation or some trivia night, for example.

It's really easy to keep track of your eating and your exercise and everything in Neum and just see in charge your progress. And it works with your lifestyle and you can use it. However, it works best for you. Nîmes cognitive behavioral approach means you're not just losing weight, you're building the habits you need to keep it up.

So like it once in a while you fall off the wagon and eat enough Oreos to feed a child's birthday party.

You know, you get back on track, you can learn to eat again with Noom. Sign up for your child today at a.m. dot com. I love it. There's a science to getting healthier. It's called neum. Sign up a.m.. Dot coms love it. Learn to live healthier. Sign up for noon today. A.M. Dotcom. Love it.

And we're back. He is a clinical psychologist and former professor at Columbia University and he shares helpful videos about mental health and psychology on his YouTube channel, the psych show. Please welcome back, Dr. Illimitable. Good to see you, John.

Good to see you. Thanks for having me back. It's good to see you. Last time we talked, yeah, it was during a dark moment in terms of the pandemic unfolding before us. It was also at the peak of the fires. And you were in Northern California. You were in a dark place. We were all in a dark place. And, you know, I was you it was a little bit like physician heal thyself, you know, how are how are you doing?

How is your social distancing as it stretches out? How how is how is the family? How are you?

Thanks for asking. Big picture. I finally started to feel hopeful about the future again sometime in late December. And it was a combination of looks like we are going to have a transition in our government and it's not going to go too horribly, although then we had the insurrection. So in some ways my worst fears came came true there. But we also had the vaccines starting to roll out and that was really the first time in twenty twenty since the pandemic began that I started to see some big picture.

Hope we might be able to find a way through this. And even though the vaccine rollout has been rocky and there's a lot of public health kind of stuff we have to work through, I am hopeful about twenty twenty one being a net positive compared to last year.

One thing that I have noticed in one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is this is anecdotal, but it's something that I've heard from a ton of people in my life. It's something you see online. I've seen a bunch of columns about this that the end does feel closer. It does feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel. And yet people seem to feel worse right now, that there's a sense that, like they've hit another wall and they don't totally understand.

Why are you hearing that and what are some thoughts you have as to why this moment might feel, even as there's hope, like unsatisfying or kind of dark in some way?

Yeah, well, first off, it's winter. So that I know might not look like it in Northern California, but there's a there's a big blizzard that has impacted the East Coast. The the typical things that we would usually do to cheer each other up, to connect with each other seems so out of grasp right now. Being able to go to someone's home and hang out and be warm, it's still dangerous to do those kind of things. We've got the vaccines, but they're.

Not they're out of reach for so many different people, so, yeah, there's big picture hope, but the day to day challenges of our lives haven't changed much. We still have high rates of infection. There's still the exact same social distancing and safety guidelines are in play. It's still very hard to connect with people. Oh, we still had these frickin I'm so tired of zooming with you. I would so much rather just hang out and have this conversation face to face, but that's still out of reach.

So it's a lot of that. We we know that the first half of a prolonged period of isolation and distancing is always harder than the second half. That's true of scientists stationed in Antarctica. It's true of astronauts on the space station. We don't even know we're in the second half or not yet. Like we don't have a timeline. We don't know when this thing is going to end. And you have new variants coming up which are kicking up a lot of our uncertainty.

So in some ways, we are so much more forward than the last time we spoke and in other ways nothing's changed.

Right. Well, one thing that has changed was wondering what you thought about this, which is that the threat from the previous administration is gone. The fear that this person won't leave, that the election won't go the way we want. We ended up with, you know, one of the best case scenarios.

Do you think part of this is this sort of source of adrenaline and attention kind of being removed the days following Trump's banned from Twitter and later Facebook and other social media platforms? I don't know if you felt this, John.

I felt like I could just breathe a little bit like I had a sigh of relief. He wasn't all over the news. He wasn't the main story. Like the random shit Trump was saying on social media wasn't what was filling up my mind with anxiety. And this kind of taps onto a lot of what we know about poverty and resources, like when when you're it's not just about income and wealth and funds and money, but when your mind is really focused on one thing you don't feel like you have enough of, it focuses completely on that.

Like when you're hungry, all you can think about is hunger and everything else kind of you let everything else fall apart. Many of us don't have enough time. So we we focus so much on on our work and we don't do our laundry. We don't do anything else. Like we can't focus on solving the other problems. Similar thing was happening with the Trump presidency. There was so much fear and uncertainty and anger about what the administration was doing.

It was absorbing all of your attention and all of your resources. And now that that administration is gone and every day isn't full of can you believe what Biden said and is like he actually going to do that thing?

Like we have a bit more attention to focus on other things, especially those of us who might have been in some kind of vulnerable community or or identify with the community that was challenged or put at risk by the Trump administration, like all of our attention isn't dedicated to following all the crazy stories that are developing out of that.

We can breathe a little bit and focus a little bit more on other things.

I 33 out of 36 Oreo's from a box of Oreos in a 24 hour period. What do you think that means?

Well, two questions. One is, were they the Lady Gaga Oreos?

Because no, they weren't. They were just normal. They weren't even double stuffed. They were classic, normal, good old fashioned American Oreos.

Yeah. Yeah, Doctor. Yeah, those are those are good. I like the like dipped ones where it's an Oreo but then it's like dipped in more chocolate. It's, it's just like completely wrapped. But that's a different podcast's entirely. What does that mean when we are really full of intense emotions. Sometimes we go back to the things that reliably provide us comfort and that's totally OK. And that's totally good as long as it's not something that's happening like every single night.

Right. Say that. But like, I have been going to my own, like, Sour Patch kids as a source of of comfort for myself.

Often it's really just like finding ways to kind of soothe your body down when it's when it's been at such a high, not like a good high, like a high anxiety for so many different reasons.

Yeah, I'm surprised by how many nights in a row. I'll say, you know what, you deserve dessert today. Today's a day that you've earned a dessert. It's like every I didn't do anything that's special today. I just got through today. Thank you so much for your time. Before I let you go, I did want to ask. It feels like where we can see the end, but there's no date certain it moves around here. There are variants of.

We hear the vaccine's effective. We hear that the vaccine will be available in the spring, then we hear there's a setback to when it's going to be available. Do you have any thoughts or tips just for people how they can manage that uncertainty or give themselves more of a sense of certainty from it or just some other way to kind of think about it a helpful way, like the next few months?

There is a lot to remain hopeful for in the big picture. I am hopeful that by the time this year is out, we are going to have more in-person activities and contact with the people we love and the people we care about. I definitely see that on the horizon, but we don't know when that's going to come. We don't know for all the reasons you just mentioned. So the biggest thing that we still need is, is something that you all have been doing in 2020 and that is focusing on the near-term, focusing on today, focusing on tomorrow, focusing on the next week ahead.

The best way we can manage uncertainty is by focusing on the things that we can control, the things in our immediate environment and not plan for too far down the horizon, too far down into the future. Tolerating uncertainty is a muscle that you build. And the more that you are able to focus on the here and now and what you can control, the better you will be able to tolerate the big picture uncertainty because we have no idea what's coming.

But if you're able to tap into those skills that you built up in 2020, you're going to be able to get through some of these speed bumps we have coming our way in twenty, twenty one.

I like that. Tolerance for uncertainty is mostly about Dr. Alima, too. Thank you so much for talking to us.

Hey, my pleasure. And if you find us Lady Gaga Oreos, please stand in my way, because I've been looking I know people.

I mean, I got to track them down. I'm sure they taste great because Oreos are great. That's the thing about them. Yeah.

I never met Oreo. I didn't like that. They're always delicious. Thanks for having me.

Thank you to Dr. Olema, too, for joining us. When we come back, we challenged some listeners on the hobbies they started but did not finish during this time of social distance.

Don't go anywhere is love it or leave it and there's more on the way.

Love it or leave it is brought to you by Warby Parker. Warby Parker was founded with a rebellious spirit and lofty goal to create beauty quality eyewear at a revolutionary price point, offering eyeglasses, sunglasses, contact lenses and eye exams. Warby Parker is committed to providing exceptional vision care online and in stores, offering eyeglasses, sunglasses, eye exams and contact lenses. Glasses start at ninety five dollars, including prescription lenses, sunglasses, progressive's and blue light lenses are also available.

Warby Parker glasses are great. They look great. They're really high quality. They have a really easy home trian program that that works super simple. You can also share glasses with your friends before purchasing to get their reaction. You can send them pictures. Warby Parker now offers contact lenses, including their very own daily contact lens. Skout by Warby Parker. Scout is a comfortable, breathable, affordable daily contact lens. A 90 day pack is only fifty five dollars.

In addition to scout, Warby Parker also carries a wide variety of other contact lens brands, including Active You and Bio-Energy Try. Warby Parker is Free Home Trian Program. Order five pairs of glasses to try at home for free for five days. There's no obligation to buy ships free and includes a prepaid return shipping label.

Try five pairs of glasses at home for free at Warby Parker Dotcom. Love it.

And we're back. So we were just weeks away from the one year anniversary of quarantine and boy am I gummies tired. Eleven months is long enough for most of us to admit that our pandemic hobbies didn't really pan out. The herb garden didn't grow. The sour dough didn't start your time with Infinite Jest turned out to be finite.

So we wanted to hear all about the bikes you bought but never rode in a segment we're calling.

Oh right. I was never going to use this time effectively. Who the hell was I kidding?

Now let's stream some dumb shit here to play the game, we have Elizabeth, Samantha and Eric. Welcome to the show.

Hi, everybody. Hi, Lou. So here's how this works.

All right. It's a very sophisticated, complicated game. I'm going to talk to each of you about the hobby you attempted and failed. And I'm going to decide who failed the hardest. All right. And that's how you win. Elizabeth, start with you. What is the pandemic hobby skill that you wanted to take up, that you wanted to learn?

Yeah, I thought it would be a good idea and it would save me some money if I started making my own dehydrated fruit for my two year old. And I got really excited. I did a lot of research, went on New York Times to find the best food dehydrator, and I bought it. And then I realized that it doesn't just take fruit and a fruit dehydrator. It also takes preservatives, which I had no idea of. And it also takes about 18 hours to do apples.

So I was going to have to do a whole bag of apples. For 18 hours, it just for about a Ziploc bag size full of apple chips, and how much did the dehydrator cost?

Roughly about one hundred and twenty. Was it used once? I haven't even taken it out of the box. All right. Well, OK, OK. One hundred and twenty bucks food dehydrator did not use how long. When did you buy it?

In October of last year. I think it's cool that you still have the box. I think it's cool that you kept it all taking up space in your house. I think that that's cool. I think that's cool.

Yeah. I got to opening it, realized how long stuff is going to take me, and then it sat in a corner. That's as far as I got. And it is forgotten now. Well, till today.

All right, Elizabeth, please hold on a moment. All right. We have this we have the food dehydrator. Let's go to Samantha and find out about her hobbies and how abysmally she failed at them. Samantha, talk to us. What did you hope to achieve in this pandemic time?

So I know how to knit. And I figured I was on to talk a lot during the summer because. Sure. Who like who isn't on there? And I decided to make the Harry Styles cardigan from J.W. Anderson that everyone was making. And so but they didn't have all the colors, I thought random colors and each one involved like 16 like balls of yarn. So I just I, I spent like one hundred dollars at Michael's and got this huge ass box at my front door and it just kind of sat in the box for two months.

And then I started it and I only got like six squares in like it's an entire cardigan and I just gave up because it looks cool.

Do you have the evidence of your attempt?

Yeah, I have. So I have part of it. It's not even the right color.

That's not that's yarn you're just showing me. Oh, I see. I see.

Yeah. I gave up on the floor because it was too hard. I was also drunk going into it, so I'm pretty sure I messed it up.

So that looks like that looks like you started a scarf. Yeah. But you, you have to do like 12 of these and then you sell it together and then you become Harry Styles. That's cool.

That's cool. I like Harry Styles. I like that he's like I say no to some, but not all of your gender norms. I like that. All right. OK, so, Samantha, it is Krafts, which I think is it somehow feels like a little bit more of a failure, although I do think because of the sad remnant of basically two squares, it's is a funny image. So I feel really good about that. And it's a tough competition.

I'm not going to say I'm not going to I'm not going to rule yet. It's a tough competition right now between Elizabeth and Samantha. Time to talk to Eric.

Eric, hello. What is the hobby you decided to use this time to tackle?

So I decided to learn how to play a guitar because of a boy. I sure so sure was that.

OK, so it was like, you know, we started dating. I was trying to do everything a new thing where, you know, I tried to do active listening, try and blaming each other's needs, feeding him cookies so he doesn't leave me. So the one thing that we both missed during the pandemic was live music. And we both play the piano. So I wanted to surprise him by learning the guitar and say, oh, my gosh, we can jam, we can have live music over quarantine.

I made a name for us. We would be called the Von Trapp Family Singers. But here we are months later and I'm left with no man and a good dusty guitar.

So, OK, that is I mean, so first of all, I do want to just circle back to something you said at the top, because I do believe I heard that you said that one of the new things you were going to try during the pandemic was called listening, which I think is really funny.

So did you know this person before the pandemic began and you broke up during the pandemic? Yep.

And joke's on me. He stole my covid bubble. He's still in your. Oh, so. Oh, yeah.

Wow, wow, wow. That sucks. OK, Eric. Wow.

OK, now, but in fairness to Samantha and Elizabeth, you're definitely winning in the sense that what you're describing did make us the saddest. However, it's a little bit off from the actual hobby itself. Do you have a guitar nearby?

Yes, it's right here. And I will tell you, I had to tune it because I haven't tuned it.

So she's here and she's still dusty.

And can you show us play it, play the guitar. Let's see. Let's see what's the best you can do. And I mean, look. I may stop this at any moment, so you got to come, come in and do your best. I will cut this off. Thank you. The last of us to for this song. Stick on me. Wait, hold on. Wait. No, that's not it. Hold on. OK, so far.

Yeah. For your pretty bad.

Oh that's right. Oh shit. Oh you know my headphones. Who. I can sing if you want. No, I'm not gonna do that. Well done, Elizabeth. Samantha. Let's get some applause for Eric. That was great.

So I was sit there where I don't even buy a guitar sound.

So I'm just sort of reeling from what I've learned. All right, I am prepared now with the winner of the game, our second runner up for the dream of dried fruit and the failure to make it in her home for her family is Elizabeth. It is truly sad that you bought a fruit dehydrator and did not dehydrate any fruit. Your hope of making something akin to healthy fruit roll ups was admirable, but you failed. And for that, we salute you, our first runner up with her desire to see a piece of clothing in the world and then decide to create it in her own home during this difficult time and then completely failing.

I mean, just basically doing part of a scarf, which is the easiest thing to knit, let's face it, and then giving up, having purchased the wrong colors and seemingly having begun attempting it without any plan whatsoever when clearly making a cardigan this complicated would have required some advance planning, you can't just drunkenly start to knit. Our first runner up is Samantha and the winner of our pandemic hobby. Abysmal failure is Eric, who learned both how to listen and play guitar and ended up being unable to listen or play that guitar for anyone.

Thank you. But he played a beautiful rendition from the last of us too. And so while he may not have successfully learned to play the guitar yet, I think that we all believe that he will soon be playing the last of us to theme for another boy who will understand just what he's gotten. All right, Eric. Sounds great. Sounds great. You're our winner. This is exciting. It's exciting. Do I get like a premium account, too, like a dating thing or.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, we'll send you that. We'll get you we'll get you a coupon. We'll get you we'll get you some premium. We'll get you some premium access. I don't know what that gets you more swipes. I don't know. I know I haven't been on it. You can nobody can decide to say OK to set. Oh no Eric you've won.

Thank you, Elizabeth. Samantha, Eric. That was so fun. Thank you so much for joining. I think that many of us can commiserate with our failure to use this time to learn the things we said we would learn, because it turns out that it's still us in the pandemic, not some better version of us using the time more effectively. And I say that as somebody who has written zero things they said they were going to write during this time we are zero four zero.

I a lot of ideas. All right. I had pilots, I had OP Ed's, I had essays. All right. Zero zero. Thank you to Elizabeth, Samantha and Eric for joining us. That was awesome. When we come back, the rent we'll take.

Don't go anywhere. There's more of love it or leave it coming up.

Love it or leave it is brought to you by Brooklyn. How's your comforter looking these days? A lot like you feel. Maybe a little lumpy, maybe a little deflated. Hey, pretty good.

Hey, Brooklyn. And all right. I don't need this right.

No longer has the same love it used to. Yeah, it doesn't and I don't. It's time for a refresh with Brooklyn and Brooklyn and creates beautiful high quality bedding and home essentials. They work directly with manufacturers to give you a fair price. No middlemen, no markups. They're comforters come in lightweight all season, an ultra warm to suit every type of sleeper and lifestyle. There's even a weighted comforter option for stress relief. They also offer a variety of materials, including an eco friendly, recycled down alternative.

That's what I get because down makes knees, you know.

And Brooklyn is comforters pair perfectly with their sheets, pillows and duvet covers is a reason. Brooklyn has over 75000 five star reviews and counting. I love Brooklyn and it's really soft and comfortable. Do you guys have any Brooklyn and stuff you'd like to talk about?

Yeah, we changed our sheets yesterday and there's was brand new Brooklyn and sheets on the bed last night and boy, were they comfy, nice, cool, crisp sheets, nothing like that.

You know, treat yourself to ultimate comfort with Brooklyn and comfort her collection. Go to Brooklyn and Dotcom and use the promo code. Love it to get twenty five dollars off with a minimum purchase of one hundred dollars. That's B-R. OK, ally any and dotcom and into the promo code. Love it for twenty five dollars off with a minimum purchase of one hundred dollars. That's Brooklyn and Dotcom Promo Code L.V. ETG.

And we're back now. It's time for the rant. We all you know how it works. We spin the wheel wherever it lands. We talk about the topic this week on the wheel. We have space for Emily and Paris, Lamar Odom versus Aaron Carter, PlayStation five, Oreo's Valentine's Day Super Bowl ads and cooking at home.

We're doing a little differently on the Red Wheel this week. So you're about to hear rants from me, from Langston, from Aaron Ryan, from IRA Madison, from Traves.

And, you know, that's a. It has landed on Space Force and here to rant about the topic, the host of Hysteria returning champion Erin Ryan.

I didn't realize that this was a contest. It's a contest. I thought this was just life as a contest. It's nice to know that I'm a champion, though. I have my trophy. Must have gotten lost in the mail. OK, so I'm here to rant about space for. So here's why I'm renting space. For a couple of days ago, one of the kind of wild eyed Trump Grifter's tried to stoke up the outrage cycle against the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki.

By sending the following tweet, Jen Psaki mocked our service heroes. There's nothing funny about the Space Force. AU contraire, Grifter.

Everything is funny about the space for us, because objectively bad idea is that stupid people love our funny.

So I know a lot of people have pointed out the space versus stupid because there's been a sort of drip, drip, drip of bad ideas that have come out around this new branch of the military.

But this Trump Land grifter tweeting that about Jen Psaki really gave me an opportunity to kind of put all of those Dripps together into an ocean of stupidity.

OK, so first of all, the space for logo is bad. It's ripped off directly from one of the Star Trek's I don't know which Star Trek because I don't watch the Star Trek. Nothing wrong with watching the Star Trek.

I just personally don't want to trek through the stars, but it's a direct rip off and it is very, very silly.

Second, the name is bad. Like conceptually the title sounds like something a six year old boy would come up with.

And it also kind of brings to mind, like, what are we forcing in space? What is the point of a space army?

Have we declared war on the moon that President Trump watched the movie Alien and think it was a documentary like he thought Sicario was a documentary about crossing the border?

A lot of questions about why we're calling it Spaceport Sicario, Just Starting to Escargots, a documentary about what happens when the lead character in a movie doesn't do anything. Sorry. Go on.

As you saying. I mean, I've fallen asleep in it three times, so I'll take your word for it. OK, so third, the people in the space for us are called guardians. Guardians. OK, first of all, there's already a movie about people in space who are guardians and it's called Guardians of the Galaxy, which is a better name than space for us.

But also like the word guardians, it evokes protection. And I'm trying to think of something that could come from space that could hurt me or earth, that a person could stop literally nothing, a comet. What are you going to do with that space force? A sun storm? You're going to fly into the sun. You're going to stop it from interfering with the magnetic field. You're going to invent magnetism.

It's like if all the women in the military were declared a new branch of the military and called the Bitch Squadron or let's go now, I actually I would probably join the bitch squadron.

But that sounds good, though.

Or if all the Navy midshipmen who went in submarines were renamed the Wet Boys, the space for still you're still you're not you're just coming up with good ideas.

I think the what would be funny, I would want to be friends with a wet boy.

But here's the thing. Spaceports already exists. It is part of the Air Force.

And just as the wet boys are already in the Navy, we do not need another distinction and another way for us to funnel money to the military. The aid doesn't make us any safer. B doesn't benefit any members of the actual space.

For us, it is an invented bureaucratic layer with every possible aspect of it. It is stupid and funny. Everything about Space Horse is funny, and I hope President Biden put space for his back where it belongs, which is in the Air Force, and also maybe declaring war on the moon.

Very good points. I'll add only a couple small things. One, the uniforms are not good.

They may have had some nerd's on this, but we needed some some gay nerds on this.

I'd like to see a reconsideration of the uniform. Now, I do have some problem with this being in the Air Force because in Star Trek they use C terms. You're an admiral, you know you're our captain.

And I would like of a ship, you know. And so I would consider whether or not we think of the of space as a big sea, you know, not so much sky as a big ocean, you know, for space going vessels.

There's dark matter out there, but not very much of anything else. But the Guardians thing is sort of evocative of like heaven themed stuff like angels.

It's to pop culture, like Guardians of Galaxy, Star Trek, like use them fine, but like go deeper if you're looking for sci fi from which to draw inspiration. Erin, Ryan, everybody, thank you so much for joining us.

Great. Thanks for having me. It has landed on Emily in Paris here to rant about the topic, host of Keepit IRA Madison, the third returning champion returning champion Armada's in the third, lest I forget.

Hi, John. Returning champion. Yeah, sure.

I won the week before there were prizes. I didn't get one.

Well, everyone takes this compliment is like, where's my trophy system that our generation or my parachute gift card? All right.

All right, all right. Emily in Paris, we all love it. It's everyone's favorite show.

What are you going to say about it? For those who don't know, Emily in Paris was nominated this week for a Golden Globe for Best Series, and Lily Collins was nominated for best actress in a comedy. I have a lot of thoughts about this. And they could involve chemical and I may destroy you not being nominated, but they are mostly on the fact that I feel like I did this. I feel like I did this. I feel like Tommy Vietor did this.

Hmm. Yeah, I feel like Tastemaker John and Emily Fabro did this. It's all our fault.

You think we moved the culture? You think we did the culture? I think we did. I think cricket took a hard stance on Emily. And Paris is watchable. It's fun. Tommy was always tweeting about it.

And now Tommy well, Tommy pretended he didn't like it and then had his funny way of watching it in its entirety by himself. I will say I am surprised that you think that look, you tell me that we've got some pull with Emmy voters. I'll believe you. But why? I don't know about our pull with the Hollywood Foreign Press.

OK, so this is I have to explain this because it goes all the way to the top.

Wow. Father.

Now, IRA Anon's, who does the Hollywood Foreign Press, a lot of stars who have they gifted before?

Mia Farrow. Who do I love? Wow.

Mia Farrow and her family. Ronan Farrow, your fiancee. This is all to get to Ronan. You bet. That's for Emily and Paris. I really checks out just to apply her theory. Can you also make that theory apply to the film The Tourist, starring Johnny Depp, previous honoree of the Hollywood Foreign Press?

And, you know, I don't know.

Cricket is not responsible for that, though far our time is before our time, although I do support accolades for the tourists because it does star my favorite white woman, Angelina Jolie.

I just remember that there's I never saw the tourist, but I just remember that there some kind of unholy twist in it that does not make any sense. That's all that I know about the Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie two hander, the tourist.

Yeah, I've never actually seen it because I love her too much to watch it. But one has. Yeah. A support that for her.

But this is what the Globes do. They nominate nonsense. Aaron Taylor Johnson has a acting trophy for nocturnal animals. I just it's as if every year it feels like we do this and every year it was like, I can't believe these nominees and it's like every year, like it's just like like a couple dozen Italian people just being like they're just a total party. Oh, you did it to actually maybe for a while maybe.

The thing the only nomination I'm actually mad about is Hamilton. How did Disney plus convince the HPI that that Hamilton recording of a theater production that I watched on Disney plus is a motion picture?

I mean, it is. Is it? It is. Look, you it's a live special.

It is a special variety show.

Yes, it is. That's right. It's you know, it should be nominated alongside. It should have. If it is, you have to fight against Greece live. Yeah. You know, or carpool karaoke.

All right. Let's spin it again.

It has landed on Oreo's. So, IRA, thank you for being here for this. I have a sickness.

Do you like the or Oreo's? So first of all, I haven't even that was my keepit this week. I haven't I don't know.

Look, I don't know where these Gramatica Oreos are. They have not made it to the part of the country.

I'm currently and literally. Where are you? I'm in Connecticut. Oh, all right. The pizza. Katharine Hepburn.

Yeah, that's what I am up here. Do you think Katharine Hepburn used to get depressed and eat 33 out of 36 Oreos from the box?

Probably. All right. Look, I'll just summarize the rant. I am eating too many Oreos and I can't stop. I had 33 out of 36 from a box and I thought I'd shown restraint. That was in a 24 hour period. But you raised Katharine Hepburn. And I will share this because it's really funny, which is MIA has a handwritten recipe called Katharine Hepburn's Brownies, and they're pretty good.

Rhoda made them how if you never cook them like on your show with Priyanka or sent me the recipe to cook them, it's honestly never occurred to me.

I want to make these brownies now. This is so upsetting. Lewis, you.

Here's the thing. Here's the thing. There's a lot of things that I would go to Katharine Hepburn to ask fashion questions, acting question, style questions, performance questions, how you questions about character and and integrity.

Here's what I don't go to Katharine Hepburn about, which is Brown is because as a rule, she's not what I would go to her for.

You don't go to somebody with those cheekbones and ask them for dessert recipes, you know what I mean? You go to somebody with these cheekbones. I'm pointing at my face.

You go to somebody with softer features. That's all that I'm saying. But they're pretty good running mate. They're pretty good. They're pretty good. The Katharine Hepburn brownies. Maybe I should make those who think that's a good idea. You should. Who else has them? I don't know. I know. I just wonder, like, who else Catherine gave this recipe to.

That's what I want to know. I don't know what if it's what if this piece of paper is like the only copy, like one of those Nicolas Cage things, you know, like it's a national treasure book of Secrets, DaVinci Code De Vinci Code.

So are you saying that the Katharine Hepburn's brownie recipe actually reveals some secret like who killed Natalie Wood?

Well, it was we know. We know what? Everybody knows that.

Of course, we do know it was Jeremy Renner, Jeremy Renner, Jeremy Renner after Matt Damon said no, when we I don't know if that means all right, but then this.

IRA, always a pleasure to see you. Thank you.

Also suggestion for not eating all those Oreos all the time, because I have successfully stop myself from eating the hoards of Girl Scout cookies that I have in my home. Mm hmm. I just got Invisalign.

So it's like it stops you from eating them. You've got to take these out. So you got to brush your teeth after you, like, eat something, you've got to put them back in. I just decided to not snack.

That's cool. That's cool. It's like a it's like what? It's like a chastity belts for Oreos. Yeah. You know, in a way. In a way, yeah.

Black snake moaning myself.

All right, this segment's over. It has landed on Lamar Odom versus Aaron Carter Langston. Take it away. Yeah, OK. I'll be honest, everybody has been focusing their attention on the insurrection and I feel like this is a much bigger issue. I think that that in truth, this is.

Listen, Jake, Paul knocked out Nate Robinson in two rounds and laid him to the ground in a way that black people are going to struggle with for centuries to follow. Like this is this is something that's going to go down in our history books.

And now there's a new trend that's popping up where a bunch of filthy white boys are preparing to now take on our greatest athletes and somehow prove that they are more athletic, more capable and especially better fighters.

And my fear is that this is actually going to end up in a devastating way for Lamar Odom, despite being six, nine, six, 10 and a former NBA champion.

He might, in fact, get knocked out by by what's his name?

Aaron Carter. Aaron Carter of all of all people, not even the best. Carter Aaron Carter is going to knock out Lamar Odom, who overcome so much. He survived fucking strokes and crack addiction. And now he's going to get knocked out by Aaron Carter. And only the black community is going to be left to suffer through this. And it's all going to like it. You know, Dana White's going to get paid off. And it I don't know.

It's just it's very upsetting.

I'm not sleeping. Well, he could win. He could Lamar Odom could win. But there's no what is the win here? Aaron Carter is my height and an unwell. He his family doesn't speak to him anymore.

He's he's what Kuhnen people are afraid is inside of the Wayfair cabinet. It's like we we are not Aaron Carter is not a there's no victory in knocking out Aaron Carter.

Right. Right. What do you win? What do you win? You're supposed to win. You're supposed to beat him. Yeah. You're just going to be in a Wayfair cabinet that you build yourself. He just arrives on top is the guy who brings it to you.

He's sort of the Rumpelstiltskin of wafer cabinets. He stands outside of it.

He look inside and then, you know, a girl named Rebecca pops out or whatever it is that they think is happening.

Anyway, I'm very upset. It's it's ruining my sleep. I don't know what to do with these feelings.

I don't know what to do either. I don't understand these celebrity confrontations. They're not for me. They're not for me.

Yeah, it it I feel like it started after that. You remember that claymation show. Celebrity death match. Yes. Where we theorized what it would be like for these celebrities to fist fight each other and murder each other. And then some of them started doing it like I have a vague memory of Tonya Harding fighting somebody.

Yes, Tonya Harding did fight and then went on to like have multiple fights because it turned out she was pretty good at it.

Yeah. And Screech fought somebody. Ah, great.

Oh, we'll miss you dearly.

And, you know, all these people just started fighting and it turned into a weird thing where we just wanted to see how weird they punched or how uncomfortable they were with getting help from a man in a corner.

They didn't know. It just it makes me uncomfortable.

And I pray Lamar Odom wins. But I also don't know what the victory is here.

And I also think that when we signed up to watch celebrities fight each other and beat each other to a bloody pulp, it was yet another, along with Bill de Blasio dropping the groundhog. Bad omen for our society.

Lancs, Inkerman, so good to see you. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you.

This is one. It has landed on Super Bowl commercials and here to rant about the topic, it's Travis, Travis Helwig. Hi, Travis.

First of all, I'm not the person who started that fire and it's one of my it's once it's if you search my name and Google, one of the auto things is fire.

And it's and that and the Mike Bloomberg thing have haunted me forever. So I just want to put it out there that they're both not true.

What's not true? Yeah. You're not you're not currently a speechwriter for Mike Bloomberg. No, I never have been.

You never know what speechwriter for Mike Bloomberg or speechwriter in general, unless you count what I do for you. Speech writing.

So what was the job you did for Mike Bloomberg? I mean, we don't have the details you worked for. Mike Bloomberg wasn't technically a speechwriter.

Everything got to fucking day. I don't know what you're upset about. Whatever. Anyway, so Travis Travis Alexander and, you know, I mean, he wasn't actually speechwriter Mike Bloomberg.

He had some other kind of similar job, Super Bowl ads, Cheetos, Budweiser. Let's go.

All right. So I want to begin this rant by saying I like Tim and Eric, OK? And I don't want I don't want him OK or any fans of them to think that I. I think that they're bad. I actually think that they're great.

You don't like you like kind of more traditional comedy. I loved him and Eric.

I was very much influenced by them as a young comedian, which I was before I started working at this publishing company.

And now I'm an old I'm an old Neil that gets yelled at by people for liking people to judge too much.

The rent Tim and Eric ruined Super Bowl commercials. Wow. All right. And here is is what I'll say. Tim and Eric invented a very good style of comedy that was like, you know, some kind. It was kind of bad on purpose. And they use like this 80s video style and it was very cool and is very influential. The downside is that it was very easy to recreate by people who are less talented than them. And so around 2015, Tim and Eric started making ads for Old Spice and they involved like a man with a shirt off.

It was very fast moving and weird and a lot of strange shit happened and people loved it because it's funny and it's Tim and Eric from there.

Every single fucking Super Bowl commercial after those Old Spice ads are the exact same thing.

And it involves a weird man punching through things. 4000 weird things happen like this year. It's going to be like Fran Lebowitz on a unicorn like five, Wayne Brady like it'll be it's stupid. And there's too many things going on. And what I want I don't want from now on, I just want the Budweiser frogs back. I want the horses that make me cry because they brought the Budweiser over a field. I want like I want one funny thing.

I don't need anything. I want an old woman eating a Doritos 3D, doing a flip.

And that's it. Yeah. That's all I want to Minarik is good.

Tim and Eric is great.

Forget what Travis said to honor our great look. Travis doesn't need Travis. Someone's going to fucking snitch tag. Tim and Eric, listen to the podcast. I can't believe Travis talked shit about them. And it's going to they're going to they don't know that it's not real.

God damn. You've ruined my life. That's my rant. Travis Helwig.

Everybody was awesome. It has landed on PlayStation five, I have waited to talk about this because I felt fortunate to have a PlayStation five because I got very lucky and someone sent me the link to get one at the exact moment it was possible for me to get one.

And they've been quite scarce. That's how you got the vaccine, right? That's also how I got the vaccine. I got the vaccine the same way I got the PlayStation five, which is somebody replied to me and Josh got on Twitter.

That's how I got both. And it was in both cases, Deborah Burk's, oddly enough.

So I and I love the PlayStation five in many respects.

I enjoyed the demon souls. I then went down a rabbit hole from games and I played Your Dark Souls three. I played Bloodborne again, had a blast. I'm currently playing Hit Man three Enjoying it immensely, enjoying it immensely. Love planning my missions. The graphics are beautiful and I've been reluctant to criticize the PlayStation five because it has been such a light in the darkness in a period in which there is not much to do. The menus are terrible.

The design of the interface is garbage. What did they do? What did they do? PlayStation three had a terrible interface. They kind of fixed it for PlayStation four and it is currently an absolute shit show. Hold the PlayStation button. You get one menu tappet, you get another. Neither one is what you'd expect. And in both respects, the center of the screen is filled with advertisements and genuine bullshit.

I got a PlayStation five last week and so I know what you're talking about. And it really seems like they continue to advertise the games you've already purchased when you press that button.

What what am I. Yeah, no, I think Hit Man three is pretty cool. That's why I was trying to open it. Sony, what's going on. What are these giant cards? When I open a PlayStation five, I'm not looking for an interface that allows me to reminisce about the levels I played. Previously on the PlayStation five. Gigantic in the center of the screen. I don't know. Look, there is a culture around the trophy's that you can earn, and I actually have the times enjoy trying to be a completionist and getting the trophies.

I don't know a single person out there who wants their entire game experience to revolve around sharing information about the completion trophies they got in various games. I don't know who wants that. I don't know anyone ever who wants that. Just put a simple fucking thing where you could click on the game you want to play or close the game you don't want to play. Turning the thing off is it is an ordeal.

Yeah, I never know why the game library is the entire screen.

I will say it always makes me feel bad when I open that menu because I'm not a completionist. I'm very bad at video games and it'll be like, did you know you've only completed sixty percent of the sack boy level?

I'm like, oh, I couldn't even win this game for children.

What is this information doing terribly? Fifty. Oh you're only at fifty nine percent through this part of the game. I'm going to the game to continue playing the game. Don't tell me how to complete a video game. All right. I played the shadow of the Colossus like three dozen times to get onto the roof of the temple. All right. And have you know what I'm talking about. No idea.

Well, it's a very complicated thing about increasing your stamina, your little pink stamina ball. All right.

And you have to complete the game several times and go through the journey against the Colossus, the colossus. He's the colossi several times to repeat the cycle until you can reach the garden that you climb to on the top of the cathedral.

The point is, Soni, I'm a fan, all right?

I'm not an Xbox person. All right? I'm a PlayStation person.

You got me fixed the interface. Let's do an update. Let's do an update. I will also say the controller is excellent. Everything about the system is excellent, is excellent. So I just think the menus are just a huge mess. Huge mess on the interface, that's all. Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks to you, Aaron Eira, Lycett and Travis for joining for the rant. Will we come back?

We'll end on a high note. Don't go anywhere. Is love it or leave it and there's more on the way.

Love it or leave it is brought to you by backcountry. The outdoors is calling. And if you want to answer backcountry dotcom is the place to go because when you shop at backcountry dotcom, you can pick up the phone and talk gear with an actual former Olympian.

Cool, cool. I hope it's not that one. That's not the one that storm the insurrection. It was not that not that a bit.

Well, he only gets the one call a day founded by a former Olympic skier. Back country dotcom is the best place for outdoor gear and apparel. From Patagonia to Yeti to Big Agnese to Santa Cruz bicycle's backcountry. Dotcom has thousands of your favorite brands and products for every outdoor adventure. Not sure where to start on camping gear, skis or a winter jacket. When you ask for help at backcountry dotcom, you're not getting an outdoor hobbyist backcountry gear. Our experts give you a masterclass in the great outdoors.

I'll just let you know that it said here that there are expert experts. That's the best kind of experts you want. You don't want a novice. You don't want amateur experts. You want the expert experts. Anything from providing you a detailed pack list for your next summit to give recommendations for your outdoorsy friend to what winter jacket works for you. Everything backcountry sells is the highest quality, but the backcountry gearheads are the real difference there. Former pro athletes, Olympians, 100 day a year, skiers and seasoned guides with years of experience all available 24/7 by phone, email or chat for product recommendations and hard won advice.

There's an Olympian waiting on the other end of that phone, just waiting for it to ring and not one that stormed the Capitol.

We have confirmed that and not the one. And we just got Tommy. Really important point. Again, not the one.

We're pretty sure. We're almost sure it wasn't the one that stormed the Capitol. Mostly we're 99 percent sure.

I will say I bought an awesome jacket off of that country. I think Michael Martinez and Jordan Waller also picked up some stuff. Super great site, lots of cool gear. Check it out. So it backcountry dotcoms love it.

Enter the promo code. Eleven for fifteen percent off your first full price purchase. Some exclusions apply right now. Fifteen percent off at backcountry dotcom slash 11 and enter the promo code. Love it. That's backcountry dotcoms. I love it. And don't forget to enter the promo code.

I love it and we're back because we all need it this week. Here it is the of high level.

My home is after watching and seeing of immigration, particularly in this case, my partner was inspired in researching the requirements for running for the U.S. House of Representatives to the queer immigrant from Iran, a practicing Christian from their pastor. Sure. Bringing his voice an important one to Congress. Hopefully you'll find her on the ballot in twenty, twenty two. Thanks.

A high level. This is Laila from Virginia and I'm a grad student. I'm also a counselor who works in a grant funded clinic that provides free counseling to families. My hero of the week is that after a long time, you were able to finally be able to also provide services to teachers and school staff in our area. And so we're really excited to be able to just meet the mental health of our families, students and teachers and school staff during this very difficult time and hopefully be able to get support for them.

Thank you for everything that you're doing. I love the show. It really is a great thing for me to keep up with.

Hello, this is Katie calling from the Twin Cities in my high note this week was I just finished the 10K, but I spent all of January training for and my goal was to finish it in under an hour. And while listening to your show and your time flying by, I finished it in 58 minutes. Thirty six seconds. So thanks for that. Also, I don't know if you remember a couple of years ago you came to Minneapolis in a crazy blizzard in April.

And my sisters and I were a few of the crazy folks who came to see you. So thanks for making it there and providing some entertainment for a hearty Minnesotans. Have a great day.

I love it. This is Tim from Birmingham, Alabama. This past weekend, some friends, we got together and went out rock-climbing for her birthday and we all kinds of beautiful weather. And more than anything, it just was gave me hope because it felt a little normal and it just gave me excitement and a little bit of joy in thinking that even though we're not out of the woods yet with coded and that there's a lot of work to be done, it just felt it felt normal.

And that was really helpful for me. Thanks for all you do. Thanks to everybody who left a message.

If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, you can call us at three two three five two one nine four five five. Thanks to Langston, Erin, IRA, Travis and everybody who called in, there are six hundred and forty days until the twenty twenty two midterm elections. Have a great weekend, everybody. Love it or leave it is a crooked media production it has written and produced by me, Jon Lovett, Elisa Gutierrez, Lee Eisenberg are head writer and the person whose gender reveal party started the fire, Travis Helwig, Jocelyn Kaufman Pahlevi, Jenolan and Peter Miller are the writers are assistant producer is Sidney Rafil.

Lance is our editor and Kyle Ségolène is our sound engineer. Our theme song is written and performed by Shirker, thanks to our designers Jessie McClain and Jamie Skil for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast. And to our digital producers, Naar Melkonian and Milo Kim for filming and editing video each week so you can.