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This podcast is supported by FX's English Teacher, a new comedy from executive producers of What We Do in the Shadows and Baskets. English Teacher follows Evan, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who learns if it's really possible to be your full self at your job, while often finding himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. FX's English Teacher premieres September 2nd on FX.
Stream on Hulu. Katie. Yeah. You do realize that I both have never listened to a podcast. I've obviously never hosted a podcast, but I also have never listened to one. Like other than when Barry plays one. You're a virgin. I'm genuinely a virgin at this. Yeah. So please forgive me if I'm like bad at it. Hello and welcome. It is TGIF. We're here with the news you need and the news you've been forced to think about because of the most annoying people on the internet.
Welcome to the pilot episode of what may or may not become a podcast. Maybe it will even become your favorite podcast. My name is Nellie Bowles. I'm a journalist, former New York Times, writing a book, and mostly, let's be honest, being Barry Weiss's housewife. I don't listen to podcasts. I personally don't approve of them. But if I did listen to a podcast, it would be the one made by today's co-host. From blocked and reported America's favorite problematic lesbian—other than myself, of course—
Katie Herzog. Nellie, it's so good to talk to you. This is, I think, the most actually gay radio hour on the radio. It shouldn't be legal.
I think they banned it in Florida. We are the last two lesbians coming together to bring this podcast to the people. Okay, Katie, let's hop into the week's nonsense. So this week, the Grammys hosted the president of Ukraine. The Senate confirmed Judge Katonji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. Major League Baseball decided that even though their ratings have never been lower, they are back to try to win our love again. None of this, though, is what we're here to talk about.
What we're here to talk about is my favorite billionaire, Elon Musk, and Twitter, my least favorite social network. Investors have been reacting this week to the news that billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk has bought a 9% stake in Twitter and is joining its board of directors. Elon Musk is taking an old saying to new level. Put your money where your mouth is. Spending nearly $3 billion to buy up 9% of Twitter. Elon Musk is taking an old saying to new level.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is one of Twitter's largest critics and now its biggest shareholder. The richest man in the world just became Twitter's largest shareholder.
And everyone's really happy about it. Back in December, Musk tweeted a meme depicting Twitter's new CEO as Joseph Stalin. Actually, not so much. In February, as Russia invaded Ukraine, Musk said he resisted demands to block Russia's news sites from his Starlink internet satellites, calling himself a free speech absolutist. Elon Musk's been complaining for a while about Twitter being too censorious and biased.
He's been complaining on Twitter, of course, just like the rest of us. But this week, Musk did something that the rest of us can't do, which is he bought his way onto the board. Now, some cheered. Jack Dorsey congratulated him, making it sound like the Tesla founder was about to take the helm entirely. He wrote that Musk and the current CEO are going to be a great team.
And some, of course, boot. They worried. The same people who talked about deplatforming as special corporate free speech are suddenly furious that a public company can have its chairs acquired and might do free speech they don't like. So I can't speak to like Elon Musk's broader moral compass, especially on things like China. I know he's up to weird stuff. I can't help rooting for the guy here.
I guess, Katie, my question is like, am I completely in the tank for Elon? Well, this is the question. Does $3 billion or 9% of Twitter get you a voice in terms of how Twitter functions? I'm very curious to find out the answer to this question. I would also love to have access to Twitter's internal Slack right now to find out what exactly the employees think about this.
Well, their stock jumped. Yeah. So that's good. I did see a couple of employees post on Twitter saying basically like,
I don't support Elon. I'm going to quit because of this. Who knows if they will actually do it? And I do think Elon has maybe a little bit of a hypocritical position on free speech. He says that he believes in unfettered free speech, that he's a First Amendment absolutist. But he has also personally done things to tamp it down on free speech with, for instance, his employees. What are you thinking of? What?
Tell me more about him tamping down free speech. So there have been a couple of whistleblowers within Tesla who complain about various things. Elon apparently sued one of them. He also, this is all according to media reports, so trust them if you want to, but he also apparently wrote the boss of a blogger who criticized Elon Musk and demanded that this guy get fired.
He also has, you know, he accused one of the Thai rescuers of the kids in the cave a couple years ago of pedophilia. Oh my God, I remember that. Yeah. So I don't know that Elon himself really embodies pedophilia.
a full-throated defense of free speech in the sort of, it'll apply to him as well as everybody else. That said, I'm not sure that Twitter can get much worse. So I'm not sure that Elon will have that much of an impact on it, for better or worse. I mean, to me, one of the ironies of Elon Musk is that, like, he ought to be loved by progressives for a lot of reasons. I mean, like, if you look at George Soros or Mackenzie Scott,
Jeff Bezos' ex. These are people who are kind of like loved broadly in the liberal world. And Elon has definitely become like a sort of known enemy. But like, if you look at what he's actually doing, he has popularized
electric vehicles more than anyone else could have imagined. Sure, but he's also a shit poster and he doesn't follow the pattern of elite behavior. I mean, can you imagine Jeff Bezos posting the same memes that Elon Musk posts? I mean, you can't because he would never do that because it's bad for the brand or one would think it might be bad for the brand. I'm not sure how bad it actually is for Tesla. He also, you know, so he does, of course,
has popular popularized electric vehicles but he's also anti-union within his own uh or at least from what i read he's anti-union within tesla it would be interesting to know if elon were pro-union how the uh dialogue or the discourse about him on the left would change if it would change at all if it's just the shitpost thing or if it's actually his politics i think that's so smart
And that brings us actually to our next news item perfectly, which is that a historic labor union has been formed for Amazon workers in Long Island. One determined former warehouse employee, a guy named Chris Smalls, has successfully organized the first union of Amazon workers ever. And the fight wasn't easy. Smalls' opponent in this fight was President Barack Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney. Yeah.
who said Smalls was fired for not properly social distancing during a protest. Another executive called the organizer, quote, not smart or articulate. Oh, man. I mean, the worst thing that you could say to a Black person is that they're articulate. The second worst thing is that they're not articulate.
My favorite part of the whole story, though, is that he's not affiliated with any national labor union. Right. So, like, no national labor union has successfully unionized any Amazon warehouse. Right.
Smalls raised his funds for this on GoFundMe just himself. AOC snubbed his event that he was hosting. She said she had a scheduling conflict. The guy did this completely on his own. So my question for you is like, why did Smalls succeed where the others failed? Like, why did Bessemer, the other big union push that like Bernie Sanders spoke at and everyone was like really gung ho on, why did that fail and this succeed?
That's a great question. I wonder if it has something to do with external forces themselves. You know, is the DSA able to mobilize people as well as just a dude at the warehouses? And I find this sort of brilliant. I'm glad that Amazon is that these particular Amazon employees are finding their power and hopefully we'll get better working conditions. I also think that there's this tension between
old school working class union values and the sort of DSA Bernie Sanders union values, which often embodies things like unionization in the media. And when you look at what media outlets have done to unionize or the demands that they make once they do unionize, it's oftentimes about the
cultural values within the organization. So I'm curious to know, is this actual working class effort going to do things like demand diversity training or representation the way that you see in media outlets when they start to unionize? I think this is a really positive development. And I also, frankly, I really like to see that this was sort of bottom up and not like the DSA coming in and trying to make this thing happen and failing. And
also hopefully this pressure brings more humane conditions to all the Amazon warehouses. There's an estimated 1 million other Amazon warehouse workers. And it's a huge population. Right. So from Amazon warehouses to the news out of D.C. this week, which is that the Beltway media is telling us that inflation is still in our imagination and also that the economy is fantastic and we shouldn't worry about it anyway.
The economy might look good on paper, record wage gains, an unprecedented number of jobs created, and GDP growth not seen in decades. But poll after poll shows voters don't feel good about how the president is handling the economy. Our economy created 6.6 million jobs. There's some truth to this, right? The unemployment is the lowest it's been since 1968. 3.6 percent. That's amazing. Look how many jobs we've created in an average per month.
This is, it's never happened before. History's been made here. But the trouble is when inflation is 8%, your paycheck is going down by 8% every month. And that's all that Americans are paying attention to. Inflation is something people feel, you know, in a different way than they do other economic indicators. Gas prices are up. Grocery prices, diaper prices are up. Rent is up. Everything is more expensive when your money isn't worth as much.
And that has people stressed. But while they're worried about their money slowly dropping out of their pockets, here's what the Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin had to say this week. Quote, if it weren't for inflation, this president's economic performance would be unmatched.
It's like the old joke. Like, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? Like, the best response to this, of course, is from the statistician Nate Silver, who points out that real wages are declining and real disposable income has declined for seven months in a row. So Herzog is a very wealthy podcaster.
Should people be complaining about inflation or do they need to pipe down and bring you more watermelon and grapes? You know, I wish I could say that podcasters are immune from inflation, but unfortunately we still have to buy groceries. Everybody has noticed rising prices of everything from lumber to gas to milk, whatever. This is a big deal. I
I'm also curious to know about how wage increases, which have been broadly championed by the left, and I think for very good reason, have impacted this. And I'm not an economist, for sure, but it makes sense to me to think that if...
there is a shortage in the labor market and therefore people are being paid more and therefore overhead cost is higher for corporations and businesses, they would pass that expense on to the consumer.
And so if this is just the natural side effect of rising wages, it might just be something that we have to get used to because I'm not sure that we have any other choice. You know, what are people supposed to do? Not buy groceries? Yeah, we can't just get used to 8% annual inflation. I mean, that's...
Also, I mean, Jennifer Rubin's idea that this is the only thing that is going wrong with the Biden administration is hilarious. Not that I think that Joe Biden himself has much control over the economy. I don't. But she seems to have put on some very specific blinders here. I feel bad always. It feels like punching down talking about Jen Rubin because she gets so much shit from everyone. I know.
I even felt bad including her name in this because it's like the poor woman. She just always has that like mainstream DC take. It's not punching down until she's on Substack. At this point, it's fine. That's so sad and so true. I don't know. The other thing I worry about a lot is like,
Am I making too much of inflation? But I think you're right. Like it is a really big deal. Like it's a really big deal in people's lives. Right. Okay. Let's stop worrying about our money and let's start worrying about BLM's money. They have so much of it.
And this week we learned that BLM may in fact be the largest non-profit scam of our generation. Black Lives Matter purchased an $8 million Toronto mansion. The group's finances are quite rightly being scrutinized. We already know that BLM used $8.1 million to buy themselves a party house in Toronto, which looks gorgeous.
But then this week we find out, thanks to this fantastic freelance investigative reporter named Sean Kevin Campbell...
that Black Lives Matter also used $6 million in donated money to buy a Los Angeles mansion. Black Lives Matter under more scrutiny over how it's spending donors' money as a new report claims Black Lives Matter used $6 million in donations to buy a massive, beautiful California mansion. That's still only part two of the scam. There's a third part.
The third part is they bought that $6 million house from a friend who had bought it himself six days earlier for $3 million. Hmm. So they got themselves a party house with donated funds, and they kicked $3 million of donor funds to their friend. Ugh.
What do you make of this? Like, am I crazy that this is like an actual crime? What I make from this, first of all, is I would like my donation back. This seems like an incredible scandal. And while this has been covered in various newspaper outlets, I think New York Magazine broke the story. Many national and international outlets have picked up on the story since then. What I find interesting is that, Nellie, maybe you had the same experience as I did,
During the George Floyd protests in 2020, my social media feeds, particularly Instagram, were just...
near 100% posts and stories of people, mostly white people, telling other people, mostly white people, to donate to BLM. And you might think that after this massive push to get your peers to donate to this organization, that the fact that they are using the money to buy party houses in Canada and LA would maybe...
filter down and make some news sort of in that social media atmosphere. I haven't found this whatsoever. And so even though this is being covered in the press, I'm just not sure that this is going to make a huge difference in the terms of BLM's actual reputation, which it absolutely should. And I think there's some interesting things there.
You know, when an organization like the Red Cross or whatever is shown to misappropriate funds, it becomes a very big deal and people stop donating. So I'm very curious to know if the same thing will happen with BLM. And I kind of think not.
The organizations like Teflon. I don't think anything's going to change in the public opinion. I think the only thing that's going to change is through law, through government. In California, they can no longer fundraise because they haven't filed any of the proper paperwork for years. So they're a nonprofit who's not reporting where they're spending their nonprofit funds on.
And I'm not shocked that they did that. Like, of course not. And this investigative reporter, Sean Kevin Campbell, he talked about on Twitter, he talked about the difficulty he had reporting this story and also the response that he's gotten. He's a black guy. Not that that should matter, but he is. And he talked about how people basically don't want to touch this story. And we all know why that is. BLM is considered good and right and correct.
and calling into question their motives or the way they're spending their money is, you know, you're going to set yourself up for accusations of racism. Yeah. And so, like, we're in this position where this thing that shouldn't be contrarian to talk about or shouldn't be right-wing to talk about is being posited as that. And, like...
I keep remembering, and it drives me so crazy, they raised this money on the names and faces of murdered black children. Justice for Tamir! Protesters say they want justice for Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old shot by police. That's how they raised this money. It was literally posters with these children's faces. Lives, they matter here! With renewed enthusiasm...
And the names of those killed by police, they march. Anybody who is sitting at home comfortable right now watching this is complicit. And they spent that money on themselves. Right. It's such a betrayal. And then the people who donated were like good, kind-hearted people who just wanted to help make the world better and actually believe Black Lives Matter. They didn't think they were donating to give 10 people a party house in L.A. Right.
One of the things that Campbell wrote in his piece was about how the parents of kids who were killed by police have been advocating for real changes in their community, and they haven't seen this influx of support. Like if BLM raised $100 million and then distributed $99 million of it to local communities actually working for change, that might be one thing, but that does not appear to be the case here.
And I think this is indicative of the way people sort of glom on to social causes without doing due diligence and just sort of imagining like, this is a good slogan. I think I support this organization and not bothering to look into the finances here. This happens all the time. You can see this with all sorts of causes. I mean, people donate to GoFundMes that end up being bullshit. So people need to be a little bit more skeptical about nonprofits. Yeah.
I know. And like, also this is like,
why reporting and financial reporting on these things matters and shouldn't be shunned as something that only Fox News can do. Because if this had been exposed two years ago when all this was actually happening, a lot of this could be staved off. Well, and the other thing is that when Fox News reports on this but left-wing or left-leaning outlets don't, it becomes a right-wing story. And therefore people who have actually donated to these organizations don't even hear it. It becomes just culture war fodder. Of course.
Of course. Like, can you even imagine trying to pitch a story like this to the New York Times two years ago? Like, it wouldn't be possible. I was pitching contrarian stories at the time and it was like...
I wouldn't even imagine touching this third rail. Right, which maybe shows you that some things have changed. I mean, this was published in New York Magazine. Maybe this is part of the vibe shift. Maybe it's just that you have to wait two years after an event happens before you can report on it, i.e. Hunter Biden's laptop. Something has to be sort of koshered by sitting there in the right-wing media for two years, and then the New York Times can be like,
oh, by the way, there was a laptop, it was Hunter Biden's and everything's real. Totally. Some of the Me Too stories fall into that category. Al Franken, I think being the closest parallel. You just got to give it some time, which is actually a great avenue of reporting for those of us who are willing to look into, re-look into his stories. When Katie and I return, groomers, Florida, and we will be saying gay. Don't go tuning into Joe Rogan quite yet. We'll be right back.
Hey guys, Josh Hammer here, the host of America on Trial with Josh Hammer, a podcast for the First Podcast Network. Look, there are a lot of shows out there that are explaining the political news cycle, what's happening on the Hill, the this, the that.
There are no other shows that are cutting straight to the point when it comes to the unprecedented lawfare debilitating and affecting the 2024 presidential election. We do all of that every single day right here on America on Trial with Josh Hammer. Subscribe and download your episodes wherever you get your podcasts. It's America on Trial with Josh Hammer.
Katie, the big story of the week for me is the escalating gay groomer Florida hellscape. Reactions are pouring in over a new Florida law that bans instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade classroom. To catch everyone up, Florida passed a bill that made it illegal for teachers to teach K-3 kids about gender identity and sexual orientation.
Most Republican lawmakers say it's about parental rights. Those opposed to the bill say it's harmful to LGBTQ students and families. Now, the legislation officially called parental rights in education was dubbed Don't Say Gay by critics. It limits classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also says parents can sue a school if a teacher or staff member violates the law.
And there is a totally reasonable outrage, both on the left and the right here. So on the left, the reasonable outrage is people saying, hey, what about a gay teacher who mentions his husband? Is that classroom instruction on gay sexual orientation that that teacher could get fired for? Are you asking people to go back in the closet? And then on the right,
You have people saying, why are you so obsessed with my kindergartner learning about sex from their kindergarten teacher? That seems bizarre. That seems a little young and unnecessary.
We have certain beliefs and we want to be able to teach our six-year-old what we believe in our family. And we don't want schools to dive into those topics. Right. And so this week, the battle has heated up to a point that I think everyone would agree is getting kind of toxic. The right has started saying, listen, you call us racist. We're going to call all of you groomers.
And then gurgling up to join that community of somewhat reasonable conservatives, you have the QAnoners who, of course, have been obsessed with the idea that the left is full of pedophiles. So this has created a massive backlash more broadly now to progressive politics. And in that backlash is real homophobia and real hatred. And I look at this and I
My feeling is I think this is just the beginning. Like, I think the backlash that we're seeing in Florida is the start of a very deep and very regressive backlash, unlike one you and I have seen in our lifetime. But maybe I'm being hyperbolic. I don't know. What do you make of this whole situation as a groomer? I am...
I'm deeply concerned about this. I think you're right. I think this is the start of a backlash that we thought had maybe died after gay marriage was made the law of the land in 2015. I think that this is partly motivated by genuine fears about what's going on in the culture.
and rapid rises of youth identifying as queer or trans, as well as the battles over trans women in women's sports, like Leah Thomas at Penn.
I also think there's definitely an element of homophobia and transphobia in these laws, which is most clear in the adoption of this term "groomer." And they've redefined the term, right? And of course, this is not special to the right. People on the left redefined terms like "Nazi" and "white supremacist" and "racist." It's basic concept creep, the euphemism treadmill. These things now are so broad that they're almost meaningless.
But so groomer now, like when I think of a groomer, if I'm not thinking about the person who cuts my dog's hair, you know, I would think of someone who befriends a child in order to molest that child. The right and principally Chris Ruffo among them has redefined this term to mean anyone who acknowledges sexual orientation or gender identity or who opposed laws like the one in Florida at all, which ironically doesn't actually ban sex ed among
you know, kindergarten through third grade, it just bans talking about sexual orientation or gender identity. So I think that they're, it's like satanic panic. They're keying in on a real trend, which is more and more people coming out, specifically young people as queer trans,
And they are using this bill to target that. But it's not going to work because the reason kids decide that they're trans or queer or whatever is not because their teachers read them I Am Jazz in school. It's because their friends are also coming out.
So unless you want to separate them from their friends, unless you want to separate them from the internet, from TikTok, from all the popular media, this isn't going to solve what these people think is an actual problem. And yes, some of the rhetoric has been deeply homophobic and deeply transphobic and relies on these tropes that go way back in time about gay people and particularly being child molesters.
So I think that there's a small grain of truth to what they're dealing with, and they have just created this overreaction to things that are happening in primarily blue states and cities where you hear about kids in kindergarten or first grade or whatever reading books like I Am Jazz and coming home to their parents and saying like, oh, like, look, a boy can have a vagina or whatever it is. Yeah, I would say that there's like...
There is a revolution that is happening in how we are teaching about trans issues and gender spectrum issues. And...
Parents aren't crazy to be noticing that. Right. And to be noticing that there's a shift and that there's a real focus on getting kindergartners to have a deep awareness just in the way they got... There's a movement to get kindergartners to have a deep awareness of their racial identity. There's a movement to have kindergartners be really aware of their gender identity. And I totally get the feeling of like, wait a minute, I want to teach my kid about that. Like, I don't think that's...
Even as I see the homophobia that's obviously coming from the backlash, and even as I'm like, clearly that doesn't help me in my life, I understand how parents are so full of anger and fear and panic over this. Like, I get it.
In a way. Yeah. I think the problem with the law is that it's just written so vaguely. I mean, the law specifically says something like instruction on sexual... In Florida, instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity is banned. Okay, so this all...
sort of hinges on the term instruction. Of course. So if a teacher refers to his male spouse, does that count as instruction? So I think if the right wing, if DeSantis wanted to actually deal with what's going on, he should write specific laws about this. But instead, they have this vague thing that is maybe going to end up with
teachers and school districts getting sued for teachers doing things like mentioning their spouses. And we don't know if this is going to happen yet. This is all theoretical because it's brand new. But
I mean, that presupposes that his interest in this is actually in improving pedagogy and not like a, you know, just electioneering, which I think is more likely. This is a culture war issue that will get people up in arms. And this bill is broadly popular among Florida voters. It is broadly popular. Among all Americans. Yes, yes. And honestly, and don't shoot me for saying this, but I don't know if I completely oppose the bill. Like...
I don't know. I don't think it's that crazy. I think it should have been written better and more clearly so that it doesn't get used for homophobia. But it wasn't, though. I know. I know. I know. So here's an example. So you have a third grade class where a kid comes out as trans. The kid has total support of their parents, comes to school one day. My name was Tammy. Now my name is Tommy. And what is the teacher supposed to do with that? Completely ignore it.
I am personally against pediatric medicalization of children. I think that there are too many side effects and too many false positives, but this is something that is really happening. So if a teacher is going to be potentially sued for acknowledging a child's transition, that's a problem.
And those of us who are, and I know you fall into this camp, those of us who are concerned about free speech and cancel culture and the stifling of discussion, not that public school teachers have total First Amendment rights, but if this is something that we're concerned about,
then I think that this is something that we should be concerned about. I think there are ways to, like this anti-CRT laws, there are ways to write the laws that actually target the problems, address the problems, and are not so vague that they encourage this sort of stifling of discussion that they maybe potentially make people go back into the closet.
It's still too soon to know what is going to happen, but it's not hard to see where a teacher mentions his husband in class and therefore he gets sued by a parent. And I think that's really bad. Yeah, it's kind of like these Florida parents are trying to legislate their way out of a culture issue. Right, or it's the state trying to legislate this, which is even less effective, right?
And there will be backlash. Every time a right-wing district or state does this, a blue state does the opposite. This is extremism on both sides. And the extremism then makes it really hard to have common sense conversations somewhere in the middle. Because if you're genuinely worried, like you are and like I am, about some of the pediatric transitions, like medical transitions...
This makes it really hard to make that argument and not be...
thrown into, oh, you're a homophobe. Oh, or you're just, you're a TERF. You're responsible for the deaths of trans children. I get this on Twitter every day. Yes, anybody who advocates for some sort of modicum of centrism here just gets either called a groomer by the right wing or gets called a TERF or a transphobe by the left. It makes it incredibly difficult to have a conversation that tries to find happy mediums here. Yeah.
the volume and level of extreme language. And just in the same way that if you had any qualms about anything with the BLM protests, you were a racist. You were a white supremacist. Now it's like, if you have any qualms about this Florida law, you're a groomer. And you see it on the right. They're going after their own moderates. And so any conservative who's even a little bit wary of this is a groomer.
that's a horrible thing to say about someone. It's the same way as calling someone a racist. Calling someone a groomer is saying they're a pedophile who's going after children. This is great news for pedophiles. They are devaluing the term. I will go to my pedophile chat and I will tell them now, good news, guys. All it means now is somebody who opposes, you know, the Florida bill.
It's like everybody's a racist, like now everybody's a pedophile. Right, right. The euphemism treadmill keeps running. I think you're entirely right about this. And I also think that- That's why we have you on. The extremes just continue to feed off of each other, right? So you have laws in places like Washington State and Oregon that make it legal for youth to get things like
puberty blockers without parental consent, or you have schools not telling parents when their kids are socially transitioning. And then you have the backlash in places like Florida and Texas and Arkansas. And all of this is bad. If we want to protect children, if we want the best outcomes for children, we should figure out what are the best mechanisms to proceed and not just do politics as though it's a team sport. Right?
This isn't good for anybody. And I completely understand why the right wing has picked up on this tactic. It absolutely works. You just redefine terms until they're meaningless. It might not be bad politics, but it's bad governing. Yeah. And, you know, the fact also remains that the shorthand for this bill, the don't say gay bill, as media outlets are calling it, is also incorrect. Yeah.
And so at the same time that people like me and you and Andrew Sullivan and Jesse Singel are complaining about the overuse of the term groomer, it's also false that this bill says don't say gay. It actually doesn't say that. It's actually neutral, which could have some interesting outcomes if, for instance, a teacher comes out as straight and a parent decides to sue because the teacher came out, which I would love to see. Ha ha ha ha!
If the producers let us, we would talk forever. Two dykes, we'd start talking about chickens. I really want some. I'm sure you have them. Oh, I do. Thank you. I'm sure you do. But to end this, we need to kick to a man, and that man is Jeff Ross. Patriarchy. The patriarchy is coming into close, TGIF.
The last word on our first episode is a voice memo from the comedian Jeffrey Ross. Jeff Ross is a stand-up comic and a writer probably best known as the Roastmaster General. And today he sent us his last word on the infamous slap. And the Oscar goes to Alopecia. The biggest winner at this year's Academy Awards was Alopecia Areata.
No, that's not the name of the best supporting actress. It's the name of a disease hundreds of thousands of Americans currently live with, including me.
Slappy Gate 2022 was especially sad to watch because I'm the roastmaster general, a comic who makes fun of people to their faces for a living, which suddenly seems more dangerous. However, that heartbreaking moment did have one silver lining, other than the one sewn into John Hamm's tuxedo, in that it got everyone talking about alopecia.
We alopecians are coming out from under our hats. It's about time. Spring is here, and my head is shaped like an Easter egg. Alopecia is not life-threatening, but it is life-changing. When it first hits you, it can affect your will to live, kind of like a slap in the face in front of 17 million people.
One summer I was out in public when I noticed a clump of hair coming out in my hand. I thought I was dying. Within a couple of weeks I was completely bald. I hoped it was temporary and everything would miraculously grow back. But then my eyebrows fell out. Then my eyelashes. I was too embarrassed to tell people what was happening. Suddenly losing my beautiful jufro was devastating. So I can't imagine the despair women feel when it all falls out.
I bought a fedora and played off my breaking bad look as an impromptu summer fashion choice. With no eyebrows to accentuate my jokes, I didn't feel as funny. More than one specialist suggested tattooing them onto fool people. With no lashes, my eyes burned from sweat and I worried about my future as a comedian. Who would possibly laugh at someone who looks sick? And who would date a guy who looks like Uncle Fester's accountant?
There are no FDA-approved treatments for alopecia areata, and there is no cure. Research funding is scarce because it's often perceived to be a cosmetic issue, and in part because high-profile people rarely admit they have it. For years, I wasn't ready to talk publicly about it either. When it happened, I hadn't felt so alone since I was a teenager and both my parents died.
I learned to keep moving forward. I'm a fighter. So I dived into my work again, even performing in a jail where I nicely blended in with the skinheads. One of the reasons I love being a comedian is that it gives me the ability to make laughter out of pain. At my shows, disabled people eagerly raise their good hands to volunteer to be roasted on stage. The crowds give them so much support, you can feel the stigma drain out of the room for everyone.
My high school pal Mark walks with crutches. The only time he's offended is if I don't pretend to yell at him in front of strangers for walking too slow. My dermatologist, Dr. Brett King at Yale, tells me stories about young patients of his who were teased and bullied and have had wigs pulled off at school. This happened to one 12-year-old girl in Indiana whose family reported she killed herself last month.
Holding back tears, Dr. King explained to me that people with alopecia are told to own and embrace their new look. But that's easier said than done. He dedicates his life to helping these patients with innovative approaches to lessen their symptoms. There is hope. It took some time, but I'm mostly okay with my newfound Shrekness. Sometimes loved ones rub my head and that feels good.
My eyebrows seem to come and go, but I've learned to accept myself for the rock star I think I am inside. Starting now, I'll encourage other Alopecians to try to do the same.
As I watched the Oscars, I was inspired to see a Hollywood star in all her alopecia glory, head shaved, skin glowing, dress flowing, proudly supporting her partner in the front row on the world's biggest stage. I admired her for previously telling her fans about her condition. That couldn't have been easy to do. Then my idol, Chris Rock, came out to present an award and work the room.
The audience seemed delighted when he lightly skewered celebrity couple Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem over their dual nominations, who both cracked up. Then Chris improvised a shout-out to Will and Jada. Having written award shows with Chris over the years, I know he is a class act and a thoughtful performer who's never trying to hurt feelings.
Besides, when Rock takes the time to mention you, most consider it an honor because it means you're one of the biggest stars in the room. After he got slugged, Chris Rock should have gotten a Nobel Peace Prize for de-escalating the situation and going on with the show.
His joke wasn't about alopecia. When he said to Jada, I love you and I can't wait for G.I. Jane 2, he was comparing her to Demi Moore, another beautiful person who once played a role with the same iconic look. Hey, before you accuse me of bald-splaining, keep in mind that most folks simply took the joke as a funny reference and a compliment to both women.
Jada shook her head and rolled her eyes, showing the world she isn't ready for her sleek look being singled out. I get it. Sometimes jokes sting us and we don't even know why. That's why as an insult comic, I only roast volunteers. But just in case, I also know karate.
I've written for the Oscars, and sitting in the front row is a choice. There's a great show business tradition of Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Whoopi Goldberg, Ellen DeGeneres, Billy Crystal, and so many great comics teasing the perfectly coiffed superstars to break the inherent tension of Hollywood's biggest night. Like Chris, most people had no idea of Jada's condition. I feel her pain. I've been there.
I hope someday she will see the strength in joking about it, not just because it could be healing like it has been for me, but because so many young people around the world would feel normalized to see a glamorous superstar laughing away the stigma. Hey, even the Oscar statue looks great bald.
Thank you, Jeff. And thank you so much, Katie. Everyone should please go and listen to Blocked and Reported. You can find it on blockedandreported.org or pornhub.com slash blocked and reported. Thank you, Nellie. Thank you all for listening. This has been TGIF. It's a podcast inspired by my weekly news roundup that I publish at Common Sense. Go sign up and get it every Friday.
Shabbat Shalom.