Dear @JoeBiden, you did noble service for your country, but it’s time to let someone else finish the job. You don’t want to go down as Ruth Bader Biden.
Real Time is coming back, unfortunately, sans writers or writing. It has been five months, and it is time to bring people back to work. The writers have important issues that I sympathize with, and hope they are addressed to their satisfaction, but they are not the only people with issues, problems, and concerns. Despite some assistance from me, much of the staff is struggling mightily. We all were hopeful this would come to an end after Labor Day, but that day has come and gone, and there still seems to be nothing happening. I love my writers, I am one of them, but I’m not prepared to lose an entire year and see so many below-the-line people suffer so much. I will honor the spirit of the strike by not doing a monologue, desk piece, New Rules or editorial, the written pieces that I am so proud of on Real Time. And I’ll say it upfront to the audience: the show I will be doing without my writers will not be as good as our normal show, full stop. But the heart of the show is an off-the-cuff panel discussion that aims to cut through the bullshit and predictable partisanship, and that will continue. The show will not disappoint.
I was taping Club Random last night when the debate was on, but I watched it later, and here are my running thoughts about the #GOPDebate: the striking writers should be worried about AI, because ChatGPT could write the SNL sketch version of this in 2 seconds... Who is that stiff on the end? And Asa Hutchinson?? Yes, that's what we want, the one old white guy in America that looks older than Biden... Vivek cannot stop smiling, and is it my TV, or are his teeth blindingly white? Is that the way to let us know he's the young one?... I hadn't really seen DeSantis speak before, and wow, he is every bit as awful as everyone says - terrible voice, robotic and canned, creepy straight-ahead stare - yikes!...who in real life ever says "thank you for the question"?: 'I'm going out, can I grab anything for you?' 'Thank you for the question: a pack of Luckys'... I need blueblocker glasses for this guy's teeth...the way they all think anyone cares about their cherrypicked brags: 'I'm the only one who lowered taxes with a Democratic senate in a southeastern state' Shut the fuck up...who is this freak Doug Burgum?? He looks like a salesman at a high-end department store. I think he sold me a tuxedo at Neiman Marcus... Thank you, Karen; I'll be sure to tell the manager...Jesus, Pence's hair is whiter than Vivek's teeth!...climate change is a hoax?? Oh Vivek, we all wanna be president but come on man..." We have to tell India and China to stop polluting." Yeah, nobody ever thought of that...'I had trouble having both my children' TMI!...oh yeah, I think we all know Penny - Around the World Penny, yup"...no, not the Constitution-in-your-pocket thing!...wouldn't it be great if President Burgum foiled an assassination attempt when the bullet hit his pocket Constitution?...THIRTY no-abortion bills you passed, how many ways are there to say 'don't kill it?'...' abortion on demand,' like there's a Drive-Thru out here in Cali: "You want fries with your abortion?..." We need a president from a new generation." - Yes, but who? Who do you have in mind? Are you thinking of anyone in particular? "When a farmer gets sick..." WHAT? What year is this debate taking place? Jesus, he can borrow my cow...Asa is talking about stopping Smash-and-Grabs in the inner city?? "As president I'll stop it!" How? You're gonna go undercover with Richard Greico?... Christie is brave to call out Trump, but good luck prying this crowd away from him, he is Taylor Swift to these people...I swear they all could switch each other's canned lines and no one would notice...also I don't think anyone would notice or care if Brett Baeir and DeSantis switched bodies, they all look completely interchangeable..." We need someone who fought in the military." But who?? Who do you have in mind, anyone in particular??... I was wrong, and President Burgum looks like an undertaker... Pence and Vivek are wearing the exact same tie..."I chose the constitution" BOO!!!, oh Republicans, you are scary...I stand by what I told Vivek on Club Random last week: "I find you both disarming and Alarming."...you gotta love how these snakes pretend they don't know how to pronounce Vivek's name. Just in case anyone forgot he's the, um, "foreign-sounding" one - Et Tu Nikki Haley?? Wow, really Nikki, YOU don't know either?... Vivek wins the battle of 'I'll say the most red meat, fuck the future, get applause and clean up the repercussions later' tactic that works best at Republican debates... this Indian-American on Indian-American violence must end!... What does President Burgum's wife tell him after this is over: 'You won! It wasn't even close'... can we please vote this guy off the island? There is less dignity on this stage than with the most embarrassing first-rounder on American Idol, Sanjaya is Abe Lincoln...I like drugs, but OK, I guess that's a bad one...you guys can call Putin a thug and tell us how he rapes women all night, this is a Republican debate, know your audience: 'Ukraine is far away, we hate Mexicans!'...are we really that convinced that the strands of hair that Asa is pulling from one side of his head to the other side is covering the top?..."I alone got the funding for..." - You did? Awesome! Done! I was gonna vote for Richard Greico's kick-ass partner, but...President Burgum, if we're just gonna cremate her, why do we need such an expensive coffin?...What is that, wool? It's August, but OK, I get it. They crank the AC in these places... "We don't need a president who's too old or who's too young." Who then?? Who could it be that you mean who's the right age?... "We led the nation in computer science education" - you did?! Well, why didn't you say so at the beginning before Asa joined 21 Jump Street? That's a great accomplishment, maybe President Burgum will make you Secretary of something... I love how in the closing statements, they ordered it from the least likely on up: President Burgum, you're the first, then let's hear from Asa, the other guy with a 0.0% chance... "We need a conservative who has shown he can win in a blue state" - But who? Who do we have like that here today??... "God said to America, I'm not done with you" - really, God says that to people: "I'm done with you? What a little bitch... "I was born in 1985", old WhiteHead next to me has ties older than that, and blah blah 1776, which I think is the year the dude on the end was born... we're so fucked, and Trump wasn't even there.
OK, "Barbie": I was hoping it wouldn't be preachy, man-hating, and a #ZombieLie - alas, it was all three. What is a Zombie Lie? Something that never was true, but certain people refuse to stop saying it (tax cuts for the rich increase revenues, e.g.); OR something that USED to be true but no longer is, but certain people pretend it's still true. "Barbie" is this kind of #ZombieLie.
Spoiler alert, Barbie fights the Patriarchy. Right up to the Mattel board who created her, consisting of 12 white men! The Patriarchy! Except there's a Mattel board in real life, and it's 7 men and 5 women. OK, not perfect even-steven, but not the way the board IN THE MOVIE - which takes place in 2023 - is portrayed. And not really any longer deserving of the word "patriarchy." Yes, there was one, and remnants of it remain - but this movie is so 2000-LATE.
At one point the Barbies have to win over the Kens, and they are told to do it by pretending to act helpless and not know how to do stuff. Helen Gurley Brown called, she wants her premise back. Yes, that WAS a thing. I saw "Barbie" with a woman in her 30s who said, "I don't know a single woman of any age who would act like that today."
I know, I know, 'How could I know about the patriarchy, I AM a man!' That argument is so old and so silly. Of course, none of us can know exactly what others go through life, but I can see the world around me, and I can read data. The real Mattel board is a pretty close mirror of the country, where 45% of the 449 board seats filled last year in Fortune 500 companies were women. Truth is, I'm not the one who's out of step - I'm living in the year we're living in. Barbie is fun, I enjoyed it - but it IS a #ZombieLie. And people who don't go along with zombie lies did not take some red pill - just staying true to CURRENT reality. Let's live in the year we're living in! Hi Ken!!! #BarbieMovie