From Bathtub HRT to Latkes: Your Questions Answered
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Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm Bea Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream, presented by Betches News. Where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience. Hey-o, welcome to the show. We are recording this on December 2nd to pre-bank some episodes for the holidays, because we want you to have some good listening for when you are...

Taking that sleigh ride to grandma's house. Avoiding your family, whatever you might be doing. You're listening to something very important. Are there Jewish holiday songs? You know, like how we have like dashing through the snow and a one horse open sleigh. There's dreidel, dreidel, dreidel.

If you're spinning the dreidel right now, I hope you're listening. Yeah. There's dreidel, dreidel, dreidel. There's, you know, eight crazy nights out of Sandler. We have pretty cool songs for our holidays, but y'all have better food, I think. You think? Yeah, those little hamantashen cookies. I fucking love those. Those are Purim. They're okay. Poppy seed roll. So delicious. Yeah, they're okay. Who doesn't love a latke? Okay, latkes are the best. I will say latkes. Hanukkah has the best. The little smoked trout and all that business. Yeah.

Oh, like that's like all year round. That's just I'm just saying Jewish people have delicious foods. I appreciate you saying that. We have good stuff. It's all like fatty kind of like stuff, though. I feel like I eat Jewish food and I feel like good about myself. It's like good for your gut health. I eat like my Catholic holiday food. Have you had matzah?

Yes, matzo ball soup. And then I go to like my thing and it's like fucking fire ass horseradish infested cocktail sauce with shrimp. We have horseradish on Passover specifically. Not something I've had. You wouldn't have because it's for the Seder. I think it's a more mild, delicious food. You get the honey apple thing. You get the honey apple thing.

You get the honey apple thing. You're picking out like the one good thing from every holiday. Okay, the gefilte fish on New Year's Eve. I don't know. My grandma used to eat that. Is that good? I don't know. We used to have to get it for her. She's not even Jewish. She just, you know, she was covering all her bases. I happen to like gefilte fish. It's just... She liked it. She used to have it on New Year's. She'd have it on New Year's Eve. I was like, why? She's like, I don't know. That is a strange tradition. Yeah.

Is your grandmother a secret Jew? She might be. I mean, she's Roman. So I feel like the Romani and the Jews were like pretty tight pals back in the day. So it must be. Samantha is saying noodle kugel. Oh, that's a good one. Noodle kugel.

Well, yeah, I'm really more of a potato kugel gal. I'm actually pretty good at cooking the Jewish food, if I say so myself, particularly potato kugel and latkes. I should make you some latkes sometime. I would love that. You need to eat them fresh, like the minute I finish making them. Good. I'm staying at your house. Staying at Sammy's house is my favorite. It's like sleepover for besties. It's so fun. And I get to hang with Avi. I love Sammy's husband. Avi is my favorite guy.

Well, today we're going to do something a little different because we are recording this ahead of time. And one of the things we love the most is that you guys actually do write us emails and we get to chat with you offline. And so today we're going to go through Santa's mailbag.

to the North Pole and read some of your letters and answer your questions. Your emails are amazing. If you have not emailed us yet and you want to, email AmericanFeverDream at Betches.com. And we will do our best. We try to read more, but then we end up running out of time with our regular episodes. So that's why we're doing this all in one. So first up. Here we go. This

This one is from Candice. She says,

and decided that she should not have been approved based on the laws at that time. So they revoked her citizenship immediately. My friend had to reapply for citizenship. She's even married to a U.S. citizen and has two children with them. So hopefully it works out for her. But honestly, I never knew that they could retroactively change this. And it makes me so afraid from what antics are coming.

Now, this I picked out because I also have family from Guatemala and people want to oversimplify things and say, well, if folks just came here the right way, then they wouldn't have any problems. And in fact, that's not true. There have been periods of time throughout history where Guatemalans or Cubans or different people have had different standards for attaining citizenship.

We had the DACA protections for some people and they weren't for other people. And so it is super scary what's going on with Trump and saying he's just going to do mass deportations or he's going to be looking at the way people attained naturalization and potentially denaturalizing people.

In the history of America, up until Trump became president the first time, the last, let's say, like 20 years before he became president, there were 11 denaturalizations. And when Trump came into office, he did over 1,300. So this is something that he does like to do. He will find a mistake in somebody's paperwork, or he will just try to shake down and harass people, and then he'll denaturalize them and have them deported. And that is very scary. So my advice to

to your friend and to everyone else is to reach out to an immigration lawyer. Even if you think you did it the right way, there's no such thing as, you know, you should,

Check your list twice, like Santa Claus, I guess, because there is going to be all kinds of weirdness with the way that they reinterpret immigration laws to disqualify certain people's citizenship path. They're going to disqualify the DACA kids, they've said, who have been formerly protected. When I say kids, the DACA kids are like in their 20s and 30s now. They're not children anymore. Also, denaturalization is in Project 2025. Yes.

So immigration lawyer. That is that is going to become a thing. And certainly we'll try to keep getting general information for you guys on this. We'll have an immigration lawyer on if we haven't already. It's like what they're going to do with gay marriage. They're not going to ever be able to take away my gay marriage or my marriage certificate because that is an event that has already happened.

What we know they're going to do is reinterpret what a valid marriage is now. Once they pass this bill that defines sex as just male or female and then defines marriage as just a male or female, you know, it'll take about a year, a year and a half for this to get done, but it will get done. And then my marriage will simply no longer meet the burden of proof to be recognized by the federal government anymore. And that's why I've had to go through the nine documents. And we have a special episode called nine documents.

Now, that will not be out yet because this is something that lawyers from Lambda Legal and marriage experts, family lawyer experts are putting together. The episode will be called Nine Documents, and we're going to have it for you just as quickly as we can. And what it is is those nine documents create a marriage. They create the 1138 law.

rights that you get when you get married, but as a domestic partnership, essentially, so that you can protect your marriage. So we have that coming for you. Same with the immigration thing. There is no silver bullet because he is a stochastic terrorist, which just means a random terrorist. And so anybody who is worried about immigration, even if you're from Canada, we've had some people ask me, well, my mother was from a reservation on Canada, came to the United States, has lived here. Could she potentially be deported back to the res in Canada? Maybe.

You're going to have to get those one-offs kind of looked at by an expert, but we'll try to get you as much general information as possible. Yeah. I just want to add, I had that conversation with Rhody Glass, the Holocaust survivor on the show. And she talks, if you haven't listened to that episode, she talks a lot about how her family was able to basically save themselves through having documents buttoned up in certain ways and

Like you said, there's no silver bullet, but there are workarounds and there are things you can do to try to protect yourself, to slow down issues by time, get yourself standing in certain cases where that you can ultimately challenge certain things. So it all kind of comes down to these like personal protections that

people take. It's gallows humor in some way when they say we're so close to show me your papers. We are in show me your papers. We are in that show me your papers situation. And Natalie and I have it right by the door. It's in the car. It's everywhere because you never know when you're going to need them. And it's just a certified copy of the nine documents that give us the domestic partnership that would allow me to visit her in the hospital and make medical decisions for her own property together. It

information about our revocable trust, our adoption stuff, all that kind of stuff. And it's just where we are. We're not happy about it, but I refuse to fall into despair about it. We will just be prepared. We're doing something. Yeah. Like Michelle Obama said. Yeah. Yeah.

What do we got next? Hi, friends. I am listening to the latest episode of American Fever Dream where you're discussing ways for trans people to stay safe under the new regime. So we're coming back to another protective question. I was wondering if the same things apply to non-binary people who don't necessarily identify as trans. I am an assigned female at birth white person who's femme presenting and I don't really identify with any gender.

So when I'm asked to label my gender in some official way, for example, on intake forms for doctors, I usually pick non-binary. Now, I realize I have a lot of privilege being white and presenting as my gender assigned at birth, so this may not particularly apply to me, but do you think people should avoid identifying as non-binary as a way to protect themselves?

Thank you so much for all you do. Also, thanks for the Missouri shout out. We need all the love we can get. I love Missouri. The show me state. Missouri has it all. Missouri is a microcosm of America. Just one little state. I can tell you I identify as female on all government and medical documents because I

I have been able to put in my mind that it's just paperwork and that it would be the most efficient and simple way in an emergency for a doctor to identify my makeup, my whatever you want to know in the event of an emergency. And I don't trust the government. So I never went and got that X marker because I thought, you know, let's let this go for a certain number of years before I go and do it for myself. And

My gramps used to say, you don't got to be first. You don't got to be last. Just got to run middle of the pack. I love a C student. Don't put too much into it, okay? C's get diplomas too. And so for me, that's been what I have been able to do. I certainly can't speak to and nor would I advise anybody to go back in the closet or detransition or anything like that. I think you got to be realistic about what safety means to you. And for me, I was able to separate for myself safety

efficiency and not being on the radar of people by just identifying as female on all of those types of documents. And then of course, in my regular life, my wife treats me the way that I want her to. And like we use they, them pronouns and I use she pronouns now too, but yeah,

I think for folks who did get the X marker on, say, your passport or your driver's license or whatever, we can for sure bet that that will be going away. I don't think that opportunity will be extended to people in the future. And it is likely that you may need to have that updated. We don't know yet. But I would just start to mentally prepare yourself for the idea of

What you put on paperwork does not define who you are. That's just for the paperwork, you know, and you still get to be your own rainbow of a person and respected in the ways that you show up in your life. And it just is harder. And so don't make it hard.

To struggle is not to present higher virtue. Okay. Try to make the next four years or however long it is as uncomplicated and safe for yourself as you can. And that's going to be everybody's choice what that means to them. Well, okay. Well, how would you answer this if someone doesn't present the gender that's on there? Yeah.

I think you're, I'm not going to lie to you, you're going to have a hard time, right? Like we know that trans people and people who don't pass have been always a bigger target and will likely continue to be a target because this is the thing that they have created as the enemy that the whole right can unite around is these like couple thousand people who they've decided to blame for all of the world's problems.

I think you're going to have to, you know, kind of build safety and community locally. And I mean that so seriously. We in Rochester have in-person local groups. You learn about them through friends or family. You learn about them through flyers at the gay bars and gay safe spaces. And we don't talk about stuff online. And because those meetups are important to be confidential and in-person, we don't talk about stuff online.

Because if you make a Facebook flyer saying, hey, we're doing a workshop on how to make your at-home HRT and how to make at-home supplements to continue your transition, I do think that there is surveillance that could certainly get you in trouble with that. So you do have to kind of create these in-person circumstances that are not online, that you don't get famous off of or whatever, and sort of like go back to your local as much as you can. And so that is my – they exist. Yeah.

People have been doing at-home HRT for decades, if not centuries. And you will be able to find that help. You need to start to get into community spaces in your area. And if there's not one in your area, then as close as you can get. Because it won't be an online thing that we can do. There won't be some big online movement. It won't be public. The things that you need to do to keep yourself safe. You can meet people online. You can meet them online. But take it offline.

Yeah. And really vet the online space you're going to so that you don't get honey trapped into some kind of like, hey, we're doing this big HRT thing. And then you show up and it's the fucking Nazis or something. Right. So, again, be cautious. Know people in person for real. And and that's how we're going to get through a lot of this. Yeah, definitely. And that is how people have gotten through times like this. Exactly. Forever. And for kids, yeah.

There was another email where somebody was asking me about their child being trans and having long hair.

We've talked about protective styles. It doesn't necessarily mean throwing it in a ponytail and putting it up in a hat. It means, you know, when I was in second grade, there were kids who were getting their rat tails cut off because kids are mean and they will just cut your little long hair or whatever it is. And that could be incredibly gender dysphoric to a child if their hair were to be cut even in a joking way by someone at school, nevermind in a hateful way. We see the Crown Act exists because people were cutting black children's hair at school. So, you know,

Put your child's hair in a protective style could mean Viking braids, right? And you tell them, oh, those are your Viking braids. You're just changing what that society might think are acceptable ways of saying it instead of saying princess braids. You could have princess braids at home, but you have Viking braids at school. You're going to have to do this shit. It also depends on where you are because different places in America have different

you know, styles or, you know, they're coded differently in terms of what's acceptable or what means you could use to blend in. And for whatever reason, the tomboy thing is back. This is something that the right has decided is just a tomboy thing. So if you have a child who presents more masculine, was born female or whatever, and presents more masculine, likes playing with the boys, may have grown up to be a transgender male adult, it's the same thing.

Just use the terms that keep your kids safe, okay? None of us need to be a fucking hero right now. We're just trying to survive the day and protect them. Well, you are being a hero. As long as they have foundational safety at home to be their best self and know that they're loved, they're going to be fine. And then you do what you need to to protect them when they're at school or in public. Also, you are being a hero. Being a hero doesn't always mean being really loud. Or contrarian. I know we're all taught, use your voice, but it's a different era now. It's hard. Yeah. Yeah.

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This one is from MR, and it says,

The right doesn't play by the rules and the left seems dedicated to peaceful transfer and democracy for democracy's sake. When there is no indication that the incoming administration is going to do anything but shirk the rules in literally any instance where they can try to dismantle our democracy. Is there anything that Biden can do now?

Well, he pardoned Hunter. So that was one thing. Biden cannot pack the court. That's not a real thing. That's a dream. He cannot step down to make Kamala Harris president for the day. He's not going to do that. And that would not mean any like, OK, so she's she does the peaceful transfer of power. So you get your aesthetic first woman president, but it doesn't actually help people at the end of the day. I think he could have been a little less jolly when he was meeting Trump in the Oval Office. I mean,

Well, that ship has sailed. All of this, all of these things. And he said he's going to the inauguration. Okay. To answer the question, is there anything that they could do? Could and will are different. And could plausibly do versus could do and seem absolutely utterly insane are also different because they have not effectively laid the groundwork for

for any actions to actually... They've been doing it. Strengthen the guardrails of democracy. The only thing they have done is talk about the threats, but they did not really take any protective measures. And frankly, the fact that we're here shows that we've already been here for a while. Do you know what I mean? The fact that we are now in a situation where Trump is running, appointing these people and...

has these plans to dismantle the civil service and to take back the power of the purse from Congress. Now that he's doing all these things, it just proves that it was an option for a bit now because it's happened. I think this is another example of, like I said, real G's move in silence. I think that we have been Trump-proofing for a long time. The Pentagon has been working on Trump-proofing things. NATO has been working on Trump-proofing things.

He's going to be able to do an awful lot of damage. There's not much that Biden could do right now other than potentially try to somehow write an unbreakable law that we provide aid to Ukraine. He's sort of letting Ukraine shoot off rockets into Russia and shit now. The problem is, it's not that Trump just has the presidency. He also has Congress and the Senate. So anything that Biden does could certainly be undone.

So I don't think that there is anything he could do to further Trump-proof him. That hasn't already been done structurally. He also has a state media apparatus and he owns the billionaires. Right. So I don't think so. Unfortunately, I don't think so.

I mean, we're in cahoots with other countries, too. You know, like Mexico's like, yeah, well, if you deport everybody, then I'll deport the 2.1 million Americans living in Mexico City on my, you know, having their best time. So I'm sure that there's a lot that's happening behind the scenes that is in public for the sheer point that, like, you don't want to tell the bully where you are.

There's a lot of that going on that I trust, but I don't think you will see any public display of Biden Trump proofing democracy or any kind of like packing the court, any kind of putting Kamala Harris on the Supreme Court. He is pushing through federal judges at a rate that is like astronomical right now. They're doing a lot that they that they should have been doing, but they're not there won't be any grand. There's no silver bullet, big grand thing he can do to, quote, like save America. Yeah.

There is nothing new or creative that is happening. It's just same old standard shit.

Sorry. If we find out that that's not the case, we'll let you know. Yeah. And of course, Chuck Schumer's got to be home for the holidays. So I'm not sure how much he's calling the Senate to order to get a lot of this shit done. Well, Hanukkah and Christmas overlap this year. Well, he said that he's not going to do special sessions to confirm any more judges or anything. So again, the president isn't as powerful as we think he is and also all too powerful.

Trump-proofing has been going on. I do not think we'll see any major big things on the way out the door. All right, next one. Hey there, lovely people. I've really been enjoying listening to the podcast. The day after the election, I deleted all of my social media, but subscribe to your podcast because I feel like right now it might be the only place that I trust to get information. Thank you. Guys, just want to thank you both for the work that you do.

I love you. Now, at the end of the most recent episode, you were talking about populism. And the first thing that crossed my mind was wondering if this is the same as the historical conversation around the oligarchy and the bourgeoisie. I did appreciate hearing that it's hard to nail down the definition because it's being used in many different ways and basically used to vilify whoever somebody doesn't like. But initially, it really smacked of that.

the oligarchy versus the bourgeoisie. And I was wondering how they compare if you have the time or energy to enlighten me. We do. If not, I'll just do what I got to research it more. I wonder if you did. I've been finding so many analogs throughout history lately to what's happening now. And it's really interesting and curious to me. Great way to distract myself from the horrors. That's for sure. Thank you so much. And I hope you both stay safe because it's wild out there.

Um, yeah, I would say that this is like spiritually the same kind of conversation, right? Yeah. I think this is spiritually the same conversation. I do think it just sort of looks different in every era because, you know, like right now we're, we've talked about, you know, the working class, so to speak. And this is a time when work and the way people's jobs are being redefined along lines that

that haven't been used in the past. So like working class, unskilled versus skilled labor, professional managerial versus like blue collar versus white collar. These things all used to have much more clear distinctions that mapped onto people's socioeconomic status. But now, because you can be a professional or in the managerial class or college educated,

but still have the finances of someone who is working class. All of those people who are not in that really, really high upper echelon of the elite where their money is literally just budding off of itself and they can never possibly spend it. I think that's the actual distinction that exists here. And that's what populist rhetoric is trying to vilify, even though in Trump's case, it is him that is that elite that never has to worry about working and

And the other piece is that like think about freelancing. You could have someone who's a super successful content creator with no college degree or you could have just someone who runs like a solid business. I think what people miss is that the distinction between working class and freelancing.

you know, elite as it used to be. We're much closer together in the past rather than now. It's like everyone who kind of works for a paycheck and can't really stop working

versus people who can just keep going because they have so much money. Like Whoopi Goldberg, who's working class because she works for a living and she couldn't afford to stop working. There just needs to be another term. But that's the thing. They think that they can, but maintaining a multi-million dollar a year lifestyle versus making 80 grand a year is like,

Yeah. Okay, Whoopi, I'm sure maybe you could make a couple of sacrifices and you could be okay. Whoopi Goldberg's not a good example because she's a household name. I'm just saying she was on The View when we were talking about the working class and she's like, I'm the working class. I work for a living. And I was like, girl. But the producers of The View, even very highly paid ones, are working class. Yeah. Yep.

Maybe we need a new word for it because working class sort of connotes a certain type of person, but it's actually not. And I think only the really...

extreme elites benefit from creating this false distinction between the working rich and the working poor or the working middle class. Well, and we've talked about this before. Part of the reason why we lost the white male vote is the fact that we've told white men that they're trash and they have a ton of privilege. And it's really difficult to tell a guy in West Virginia who is white and works, but also has dirt floors and five kids. Well, you have a ton of privilege. And he was like, okay,

Like, do I? You know, there was a lot of like, uh, okay. And systemically and academically and CRT wise, absolutely. White people have an outrageous amount of privilege compared to their counterparts and compatriots. But to go in and specifically say-

You. Guy. They took that personally and they're like, I work two jobs and I'm worried about I don't have enough money to buy my kids shoes. What privilege do I have? That was the disconnect. Because academically, yes. But in practice, no. And that's the class solidarity thing too. White and white poor and every other kind used to kind of have class solidarity or want to, but

They the Republicans started to show white men like, oh, no, you're just a temporarily embarrassed millionaire. Oh, no, this is the third path. No, you're with us. No, you're our guy.

betray your class. Buy these gold coins. Buy these NFTs. Buy these sneakers. These are all things that will produce value. It was like they were selling them the Beanie Baby Dream. Literally. That's the first time we tricked white people into thinking that they could create value from capitalism. Tulips. Tulips. What's the tulips? The Dutch tulip craze in like the

The centuries ago? Yeah. Oh, it was like the first example or one of the first examples of like a artificially inflated boom market where the price of tulips just went crazy in the Netherlands. Read about it. It's interesting. It just shows that like value can be created out of seemingly nothing. But yeah, that is... The thing with the white man of it all is...

There is a way to talk about, quote unquote, critical race theory or the ideas inherent in that that I think could be very appealing to Americans, which goes back to why I find reactionary rhetoric so annoying. Because the answer to telling to someone who doesn't, you know, agree with like DEI or affirmative action isn't, well, you're racist and you're wrong because you have everything, is wrong.

to, I think, try to meet someone in something they would understand. Like, have you ever been in a situation where you felt like the deck was just really stacked against you and you had had all these hurdles to finding your way into a certain room or situation that you had really worked hard for and you felt like, or objectively, the situation was kind of rigged out of your favor? Yeah.

And then you can get, you know, there's ways to speak to people that does not make it feel like it's their fault for being born who they are. Because no one can help that. And it's fucked up to do that. And you don't win anyone over. Yeah. They just get mad because everybody wants to believe everything that we earned. We earned through merit and not through the fact that my dad, right, worked in a factory for 40 years, had me at 19 years old, like still married to my mom, all this stuff. He's like, I didn't fucking have privilege. I worked so fucking hard. I worked so hard that sometimes I worked overtime on overtime.

You watched me and you're going to say I had privilege. I'm like, right. But what he may not recognize is he did get that job that maybe he wouldn't have got if he were black. Right. So it's like, yeah, it's both pop. And also like, okay, yes, you, no one's saying you didn't work hard, but also when you, if you had a speeding ticket and you were pulled over, did you fear that you would get shot? Yeah. I was like, daddy, grandpa was the sheriff in our town. We were okay.

But that came out of that came out of my family's weird. That's a whole other thing. My family tried to attain whiteness, right? Because they came here as a marginalized group. And what they saw was as a lot of like Italian immigrants and different people who came from fascism saw was like, if you can.

assimilate, you can succeed. So there are some families who came here by force and they didn't want to be here. And there are some families who came here and were like, I have to give up what I am to find safety and any kind of prosperity. And so I'm willing to do that. There are people who weren't willing to do that. But on my side, it was like,

They came here, they escaped fascism, and they were like, if we can assimilate, if we can become Americans, then maybe our entire blood lineage won't be killed by the shit that we've gone through for the last several centuries. And those people, I think, are more...

frequently found in America today that are successful are found here today than they were maybe decades ago. If you're part of this 1800s Irish, Italian, Croatian, Albanian, whatever, Polish immigration situation, then you've had your grandparents who worked their asses off, your parents who are boomers, and then you are maybe a millennial and you feel very comfortable. But that was directly related to your grandparents' decision to assimilate.

right, to try and like be a part of, you know, being American or whatever. And that's why they get so defensive about patriotism. They get defensive about working hard, who is working class, where we came from, what we have, why shouldn't we have a little bit more comfort? We struggled for all this time. And when we say things like, well, you just have privilege, it hurts that like,

deep part of your bloodline that like struggled and wants to believe that you chose right all those years ago when you chose to try and like be the best version of yourself or whatever. Yeah. I mean, I'll say that like both sides of my family come from very different ways of

the American dream. Like my dad came into America after his parents were in a displaced person camp after Auschwitz. He was born in Canada. They tried to get into the U.S. when he was like six or seven he got in. So he was a naturalized citizen. He drove a cab all night to put himself through college. Like he grew up in like squalor

And then my, put himself through college, dental school. Then on my mom's side, my grandfather fought in the Korean War. So he got to take advantage of the GI Bill. And I'm very aware that he would not have gotten that if he were not white. But also, I grew up in his home. And that home was in a very, very good school district.

And that's why I got to where I am, why I went to the college I went to most likely. I mean, had the friends I had and have the life I have now. So it's like, I realized that all of that was my grant. Like he was the one who could afford to like live in the nice neighborhood because of the GI bill. Cause they got a good mortgage rate when they were building that suburb. When, when,

He was able to take advantage of those things. And that is why I'm here. That's what Republicans promised the good old days of the post-World War II 50s and 60s, right? And they were speaking to white people and they were the predominant voting bloc. The white men came out and they said, okay, now they're not going to actually give you that because as we'll talk about in a future episode, the trad movement loves to present to you very wealthy people who stay at home with their children and have the aesthetic of homesteading.

But you will never get that. You can never actually achieve that. Well, I feel like the reason I am a Democrat in theory, you know, is because I believe that

I have what I have because of this country, not because I deserve, you know, I inherently deserve it. And I want more people to have that. I want other people to have those advantages or forget if it's like an advantage or disadvantage, a good education, a safe household, clean water, some grass in their neighborhood. Like just a decent, safe, secure, not that I always felt so safe and secure, but just have the things that they need.

This is why Emily Tish Sussman, our favorite billionaire, once said when I interviewed her at the DNC, I was like, why do you, you know, love the Democrats so much and work so hard for the Democrats? You're a very wealthy woman. She was like, yes. And I'm like, what makes you want to be over here, though? Like what you and Mark Cuban, like what's going on with you guys? And she was like, I have enough.

Because I recognize that I actually have enough. And so I don't need any more. And I want other people to have enough because I own a soccer team. It's called the Gotham. And I would love for that stadium to be full of families who could afford comfortably to buy the tickets, pay for the parking, get the peanuts and popcorn, maybe buy a jersey for their kid, maybe come multiple times. I want people...

to generally comfortably enjoy the world. And I have plenty, so I don't need anymore. I'm not, you know, she's at no risk of whatever she, but there, and then there are people who it'll never be enough. It'll never be enough for Jeff Bezos. Right. And so that's why he goes a different way. But I remember her talking about it and she was like, and I think that the Democrats policies get us closer to that world where there's always going to be some people who have more that's we're not, you know, it's not communism where everybody's going to make $10 an hour period. That's the end. But it's like,

Everybody in a country as wealthy as ours with as much opportunity as ours should be able to say, you know what? I have a lot, a lot. I have so much that I want to give back in a way like the Rockefellers built the fucking railroads, right? Like why is it shit like that?

But they gave back in some way, you know, with arts and all that shit. Why not give back in some way so that everybody can, again, just enjoy to do whatever it is? Well, some of the giving back is like a little bit of like bullshit because it was meant to furnish their name and then also get tax breaks. But like, fine. But I do believe there is altruism within people that is not entirely motivated by the

you know, real self-interest at the bottom of it. And I think that that is a good value that we should have. And maybe we should go back to, because like in the classical music world, we deal with this with Natalie, the way that you can even begin to play in classical music is that your parents are already rich because it's so fucking expensive. Not that her parents were rich, but they did okay. So she got to do all this and she got all these different scholarships by other rich people because you eventually take on a patron, right? And this person's like supposed to just make it okay for you to go make music in the world. Well, the patrons don't shut the fuck up.

up anymore. And she's going to be mad that I said this, but like people who used to be patrons were like eccentric old lady billionaires or whatever, who just spending their husband's money for art and fun and like, want you to play at their little holiday parties or their ladies lunch twice a year. Now they're like, here's the repertoire I want you to have. And like, what's going on there too. They're overly involved because now when rich people spend money, they like want to control it still as opposed to being like,

They want an ROI. And it's like, you can't get ROI on music, okay? Like, that's not how it works. The music is the return. She made you the music. Like, leave her alone. And so, you know, we don't go the classical music route anymore. But so many of our composer friends used to, you know, their mentors would get a certain endowment from some rich-ass family who just wanted more music in the world. And they'd go do their, you know, handshaky special thing. Now it's like, no, I need you to, like, sell tickets at this volume to do whatever. And it's like...

It's fucked up. All the wrong people suck. No, except for you. You're a good rich person. You would be a great billionaire. I don't have, here's the problem. That's because I don't have enough to make, to be a patron. Well, that's what I'm saying. If I were a patron, I would just be like, okay,

Like, enjoy. Sammy, if anybody deserves a billion dollars, it's you. You would be an excellent billionaire. I don't want a billion dollars. No, I don't want a billion dollars because it fucks up your brain. You think so? It 100% does. Yeah, I guess so. Like, I think that it makes them, like, sick. JP Pritzker is cool. Sure. But, okay. I can't speak for everyone. But that's the old money versus new money again. I think the old money versus new money is exactly what we're coming back to again. There are certain families who, like— Well, I'm very new money. I know. But I feel I was rich in a previous life. Yeah. I wasn't.

You don't think? No. Oh, my God. Are you kidding me? I have such a deep-rooted Irish Albanian struggle in me that I get money and I get weird about it. I'm like, I have to take care of a million people and give it all away. Oh, same. But still. Listen, that's why we need to be more wealthy because we would be better at being wealthy. We'd be great rich people. I just want to buy people gifts. I do, too. I love presents. I

I asked my grandma for a school project when I was young. You know, you have to like find out where you're from or whatever. And I was like, Grandma, I have to do this project and find out where I'm from. And she was like, no.

Go ask your grandma Alice. She'll tell you something the teacher want to hear. Like, I don't know, your Cherokee princess or something. But not me. Not fucking me. Who's asking? Don't you dare put my name on that paper. So I know that my blood runs just absolutely scared. Yeah, I'm paranoid. Mine too. She's like, who's asking? I'm like, I don't know. Like my teacher, she's like, what's your name? Like, I don't want. Yeah.

Yeah. Go ask your grandma Alice. I thought that was the funniest shit. She wants to see my papers. Yeah. She's like, what? They shouldn't be asking you that. I'm in third grade. I'm like, okay.

Meanwhile, my father's mother is so lovely. She's like, oh, yes. And we came here from Ireland and like the early founding of this country. And it was so lovely. And I'm like, OK, I'll write that down. You got a lovely little Mayflower story out of that. I did. I got a lovely little not Mayflower. So whatever the Irish came on in like the 1700s, whatever. Ellis Island. Yeah.

We got Ellis Island on one side. Some of my dad's family was here well before. Yeah. All right. Should we close the episode? Let's close it out. Anyway, send us your emails because it is so fun. And there were so many that were specific to my curiosities that I appreciate. We got about 40 on things to do in Philly when I was going to Philly. And then we got this one, which was I was asking about cool ways that people celebrate New Year's Eve. And

Our friend here says, hi, friends. Love the show. Looking forward to new episodes. Keeps me company on my long commutes during the week. Amelia Island in Northeast Florida hosts a shrimp drop every New Year's Eve. A giant lighted shrimp is hoisted into the sky and dropped at about 7 p.m. So the whole family can enjoy it without having to stay up too late. There's lots of food and shop vendors as well as fireworks. That is my dream, a 7 p.m. celebration.

A 7 p.m. shrimp drop. I love it. It is a little bit, look, it's a little anti-semitic. I'm pretty sure. Yeah.

Right. And then all the all the dishes are just like little pork sandwiches. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, do they have like a non-trim option? A salmon drop? A tuna drop? No, we can't do a tuna drop or a salmon drop because the orcas are wearing salmon as hats again. We'll talk about that. I saw that weirdness. All right. Well, we love you guys. Thank you for giving us your time and attention. It truly is an honor to spend this time with you guys today.

Until next time, I'm Vita Spear. I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream. Good night. American Fever Dream is produced and edited by Samantha Gatzik. Social media by Candice Monega and Bridget Schwartz. Be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Betches News and follow me, Sammy Sage, at Sammy and V at Under the Desk News. And of course, send us your emails to AmericanFeverDream at Betches.com.