A THOUGHTCRIME Thanksgiving

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Charlie Kirk Show – "A THOUGHTCRIME Thanksgiving"

Release Date: November 28, 2024
Host: Charlie Kirk
Guests: Blake, Tyler, Dan
Episode Title: A THOUGHTCRIME Thanksgiving

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Introduction: Embracing Thanksgiving Traditions

In the episode titled "A THOUGHTCRIME Thanksgiving," host Charlie Kirk, alongside his co-hosts Blake, Tyler, and Dan, delves into the rich tapestry of Thanksgiving traditions. The discussion centers around the quintessential elements of the Thanksgiving meal, the evolution of Black Friday, and a nostalgic look at pre-digital era rites of passage.

Traditional Thanksgiving Fare: Upholding Authenticity

The conversation begins with a spirited debate on what constitutes a proper Thanksgiving meal. The hosts emphasize the importance of traditional dishes, advocating for turkey as the centerpiece.

• Turkey vs. Steak:
  Charlie Kirk asserts, “No, no, no marshmallows. The marshmallow thing is a disgrace” (10:54). The group debates the acceptability of serving steak, with Dan firmly stating, “You must have Turkey” (09:36), highlighting the supremacy of turkey in the Thanksgiving feast.

• Cranberry Sauce:
  The hosts discuss the authenticity of cranberry sauce, insisting it should be “straight out of the can” without any alterations. Charlie emphasizes, “If you want to have the cranberry, no, no, no, no, no” (11:17), underscoring the tradition of serving it as is.

• Stuffing vs. Dressing:
  A detailed discussion unfolds around the terminology and preparation of stuffing. Tyler questions the difference, leading Charlie to clarify, “I never said casserole. The casserole is a…” (16:34), emphasizing the proper preparation techniques to maintain authenticity.

• Additional Dishes:
  The conversation extends to other sides like green beans and sweet potatoes, where Charlie critiques modern additions like marshmallows, advocating for traditional methods: “Gravy makes it moist. If you make it too moist before, you can always make it more gravy” (15:27).

Black Friday: From Tradition to Modern Chaos

Transitioning from the meal, the hosts examine the transformation of Black Friday over the years.

• Historical Perspective:
  Charlie reminisces about the gritty origins of Black Friday, where securing deals required endurance and strategy: “There was like a conquest, like a chess game” (27:30).

• Modern Decline:
  The shift from physical store rushes to online shopping is critiqued. Blake shares his experience: “One of my first jobs was in high school... and there would be a line wrapped around the building” (31:09), contrasting it with the current state of Black Friday’s decline due to the internet and corporate greed.

• Cultural Impact:
  The hosts lament the loss of the traditional Black Friday spirit, highlighting how convenience has overshadowed the ritual: “Now you just wait for Cyber Monday and click a couple buttons” (28:14).

Nostalgia for Pre-Digital Rites of Passage

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to reminiscing about the pre-digital age, emphasizing the loss of meaningful social interactions and challenges that fostered personal growth.

• Communication Evolution:
  The discussion touches on the bygone days of AOL Instant Messenger and the necessity of memorizing phone numbers: “There was no texting. It didn’t exist” (34:33).

• Navigational Skills:
  The group reflects on the importance of manual navigation before GPS became ubiquitous: “There is no other explanation... your brain can actually become better at a certain task” (41:36).

• Social Interactions:
  The hosts highlight how past interactions required speaking to adults and handling disappointments without immediate digital fixes: “When you call someone’s house, you had to speak to an adult” (34:53).

Cultural Significance of Thanksgiving

Charlie Kirk emphasizes Thanksgiving as a cornerstone of American tradition, rooted in gratitude and communal bonding.

• Acknowledging Gratitude:
  “There’s a day where you just stop and you say thank you, which then, of course, acknowledges you’re saying thank you to a higher power” (22:30).

• Historical Context:
  The hosts discuss the establishment of Thanksgiving as a national holiday by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, highlighting its resilience through cultural wars: “Thanksgiving is a day just to give thanks” (21:43).

• Family Dynamics:
  Tyler and Dan share personal anecdotes about family gatherings, stressing the importance of keeping family traditions intact despite political differences: “It’s horrible that they would do that” (56:20).

Thanksgiving Movies: A Missing Genre

The episode briefly touches on the scarcity of dedicated Thanksgiving movies, lamenting the lack of culturally significant films centered around the holiday.

• Existing Films:
  The hosts mention a few examples like "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and "Thanks Killing Two," critiquing their lack of widespread impact: “There are no Thanksgiving movies really should should there be more?” (47:57).

• Cultural Overshadowing:
  They argue that Thanksgiving tends to be overshadowed by other holidays in media portrayals: “Thanksgiving is eaten by Christmas” (51:15).

Expressions of Gratitude and Closing Remarks

As the episode concludes, the hosts engage in a heartfelt exchange of gratitude, sharing personal thanksgivings and emphasizing the importance of community and family.

• Personal Gratitude:
  Blake shares joyful news about his brother's new child: “I’m very grateful for babies” (54:23).

• Community Appreciation:
  Tyler thanks the Thought Crime audience and highlights the importance of mutual support within their community: “I’m very thankful for Saquon Barkley and the Eagles” (55:52).

• Final Thoughts:
  Charlie Kirk wraps up with a message of gratitude to the listeners and a reminder about upcoming events: “Thanks so much for listening and God bless” (59:07).

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Notable Quotes

• Charlie Kirk on Thanksgiving Meal Authenticity:
  “If you don’t like turkey. Suck it up. It’s Thanksgiving” (14:46).

• Dan on Black Friday's Evolution:
  “The rise of the Internet was a factor. But another thing that killed it was companies decided to get so greedy” (26:13).

• Tyler on Pre-Digital Social Interactions:
  “Think about it. You had to call her house, you had to get through mom or potentially dad” (34:28).

• Charlie Kirk on Gratitude:
  “I do not think you can have joy, I do not think you can have being content if you’re not grateful” (22:30).

Conclusion

"A THOUGHTCRIME Thanksgiving" offers a blend of traditional discussions on Thanksgiving practices, critiques of modern consumerism epitomized by Black Friday, and a nostalgic reflection on lost rites of passage in the digital age. Through engaging dialogue and personal anecdotes, Charlie Kirk and his co-hosts advocate for preserving authentic American traditions and fostering gratitude within the community.

Transcript

[Charlie Kirk]

Hey, everybody. Happy Thanksgiving. Thought Crime. Can you have steak for Thanksgiving? What is the proper Black Friday tradition? We discuss that and more with all the guys on Thought Crime. Become a member today to listen to all of our episodes. Advertised are free members.charliekirk.com and you have to come to America Fest. December 1920, 2122. Tucker Carlson will be there. Steve Bannon, Don Jr. Ben Carson, Tim Pool, Josh Hawley, Matt Walsh, KG Michael Knowles, Nicole Shanahan, Anna Paulina, Matt Gates. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Danica Patrick, Brett Cooper, Jack Posobic. It's amfest.comamfest.com so check it out. Right now at amfest.com it is the largest conservative event of the year. Amfest.comamfest.com Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

[Blake]

Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

[Tyler]

I want you to know we are.

[Charlie Kirk]

Lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

[Tyler]

Charlie Kirk's running the White House F. I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point usa.

[Charlie Kirk]

We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives. And we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold investments@noblegold investments.com. that is noblegold investments.com. it's where I buy all of my gold. Go to noblegold investments.com. okay, everybody. Hello. It is Thought Crime week. It is Thanksgiving week, and we are here. By the way, the official uniform of Thought Crime this week is the Thanksgiving uniform.

[Tyler]

I decided to go as Charlie Kirk for this Thanksgiving. I didn't. I didn't fully shave. I might later. And then. Yeah, and then like your hair thing where you do, like the down up.

[Charlie Kirk]

Hey, it's the natural collar.

[Tyler]

It's like a nice. It's like a Nike swoosh.

[Charlie Kirk]

It is. It's. I have it. Have it trademarked.

[Tyler]

Is that why you only wear Nikes?

[Charlie Kirk]

I actually don't only wear Nikes, but I should. So we also have Blake and Tyler as well. What are they wearing? Let's see. Blake is probably wearing a jeans.

[Blake]

I'm wearing my turkey hat.

[Dan]

I believe this is a Kirkland shirt. I don't actually have a Costco membership, but I'll be honest. My Mother buys a lot of shirts for me.

[Blake]

I'm wearing my turkey hat, my native American shawl.

[Dan]

I hear all you guys in there.

[Blake]

And then my Arizona State T shirt. Because we're going to the big tall championship. Unless things go awry on Saturday.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, maybe. Hold on, Tyler. You know the story of Arizona football. Whatever. Is predictable. No, Tyler knows this. They will curse. Whatever inevitable path they have, they mess it up. It is an inevitability of Arizona State football.

[Blake]

I've got a front row seat, Charlie, on Saturday with my two brothers right behind Kenny Dillingham. So. And down in Tucson.

[Dan]

This is a very dumb question.

[Charlie Kirk]

Oh, you're going. Going down to Tucson.

[Blake]

I'm going down to Tucson and front row seat.

[Tyler]

I like Tucson.

[Blake]

So it's going to be a miserable drive.

[Charlie Kirk]

Not know what you.

[Dan]

This is a dumb question. Having never gone to an ASU football game, do they just like suffer in complete agony for their first like three home games of the season? Because, you know, it's a tropical.

[Charlie Kirk]

Oh, no. They do evenings. Evenings.

[Blake]

They do them in the evenings. Evenings.

[Dan]

Still 95 degrees in Arizona.

[Blake]

It's a nice brisk 98. But here's the factoid for everybody that's listening. Arizona has the longest rivalry game in the country. The Territorial cup between Arizona State and Arizona. People don't believe it. Look it up.

[Charlie Kirk]

No way. Oregon, Oregon State has to be.

[Blake]

I'm looking up Territorial cup is the longest recognized NCAA football long played or long.

[Tyler]

See, now he's at.

[Charlie Kirk]

And here come all the caveats back to 1876.

[Tyler]

Now he's saying NC the oldest.

[Dan]

Is it like the oldest that has.

[Charlie Kirk]

How is it older than 1873?

[Tyler]

No, Yale Princeton is pretty.

[Charlie Kirk]

I mean, Yale Princeton was 1873.

[Blake]

No, but the rivalry game, I'm surprised.

[Tyler]

Not older than that.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yale Princeton is a rivalry game. They hate each other.

[Blake]

You have to look up the Territorial.

[Charlie Kirk]

Montana, Montana State, 1897.

[Tyler]

That's pretty old.

[Charlie Kirk]

We were before Illinois state. Eastern Illinois, 19.

[Tyler]

Arizona wasn't even a state back then.

[Blake]

It was before.

[Tyler]

That's why it's called be an Arizona State. Because there wasn't a state.

[Blake]

That's why people live there.

[Dan]

I'm looking online and it says the duel in the desert is just 1899. And there's many rivalries that are older than 1899.

[Blake]

No, look up territory.

[Dan]

Look up Michigan, Notre Dame, 1887. Duke, North Carolina, 1888.

[Tyler]

Guys, guys. It's the oldest one that Tyler knows.

[Blake]

No, no, no, no. Actually, Google Territorial Cup.

[Dan]

Army, Navy Game, 1890. I feel like the Army Navy, though, they're. And they're still going.

[Blake]

Territorial cup, the nation's oldest rivalry trophy.

[Dan]

Oldest trophy. That's. So they.

[Blake]

You can't really have a cup without a trophy.

[Dan]

You could just spiritually have one.

[Blake]

That's it. So. And that's. And that was territorial. That's what's called a territorial cup.

[Dan]

Sounds like your territorial Arizona State was the normal school.

[Blake]

That was it.

[Dan]

All right.

[Blake]

I'm not saying it's good football. I'm saying it's. It's.

[Dan]

I have, by the way, since it is a Thanksgiving Day episode, I wanted to flag that we have all something very important to be grateful for.

[Tyler]

You remember real raw news 1912.

[Dan]

You remember real Ron news, America's only trustworthy news source.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes.

[Dan]

They have a breaking report today, just before Thanksgiving, Special forces have arrested Kamala Harris. She has come back from in Hawaii, but they nabbed her. According to the story, there were moles inside of her Secret service detail, and they couldn't get her in Hawaii. I guess Hawaii is like the deep state safe zone where they control things. But they got her back to DC which is also a deep safe, safe zone, but not as safe. And so they managed to take her into custody. She and Doug Emhoff will be sent to Gitmo to stand trial for treason. I'm glad Real Raw News was able to be Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving, ladies and gentlemen. We got him.

[Tyler]

I was worried that she might be out there making those.

[Charlie Kirk]

Tyler's half right. It's the oldest trophy. It's the oldest trophy. Okay, that is. That is legit. So it is the oldest trophy. I mean, the territorial cup.

[Blake]

It's pretty impressive for Arizona trophy.

[Dan]

It sounds like it's a cup.

[Blake]

Nothing's old.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah.

[Blake]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

No, he's right. The territorial cup was created 125 years ago. 1999 championship.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's the oldest rivalry trophy in college football.

[Tyler]

But what. What was the school even called before?

[Charlie Kirk]

I. I don't know.

[Blake]

It was called the Normal school. It was called Normal.

[Charlie Kirk]

It was called Tempe. It was literally called Tempe Normal.

[Tyler]

Tempe Normal.

[Charlie Kirk]

And Arizona.

[Tyler]

Huh?

[Charlie Kirk]

And then it was called Arizona State. Teachers.

[Dan]

The territorial cup is so old that it literally is like a cup.

[Tyler]

It looks like a teacher's college, too.

[Dan]

It looks like a vase.

[Charlie Kirk]

I'm actually impressed that I didn't. I thought no one lived in Arizona. It's like 1930.

[Blake]

No, my ancestors were there.

[Charlie Kirk]

And it was literally just two football teams.

[Tyler]

Prior to 1912, it was just two football teams.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

And to go that you had to replace someone on the team.

[Dan]

Arizona's population 1890, was 88,000 people. When we chase family moved here, we.

[Blake]

Chased twice as many.

[Tyler]

More than twice, 65% of them were related to our two.

[Blake]

I'm a seventh generation Arizona.

[Dan]

When did. When did the old technically show up here?

[Blake]

It wasn't boy. It was lambs and those people. But there was this 1860s.

[Dan]

186. In 1860, the population of Arizona was. 482 people.

[Blake]

I'm.

[Dan]

That is.

[Blake]

That is OG second cousins with Sheriff Lamp. Yep.

[Dan]

Man. Now there's 6,000. There's, like, probably more than that within, like, a couple blocks of here.

[Blake]

Oh, yeah, for sure.

[Charlie Kirk]

All right. Speaking of getting out into the wild, they say evolution has gone soft and that men have traded their strength for comfort. But if you're not about to let your instincts go dull, Sim, fuel up with something raw and real. You hear that? It's in the script, Blake. Raw and real.

[Tyler]

Right there. Right there.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's in the script. Right, Jack? Am I making it up?

[Tyler]

Something raw, real, and primal.

[Charlie Kirk]

By the way, we should do a spin off called Primal News. By the way, Blake could be a millionaire running Primal News as a spin off of real raw news because he understands that language so well, we should just call it. Is there a Primal News? I don't want to see what.

[Tyler]

I don't think there is.

[Charlie Kirk]

No.

[Tyler]

There's no Primal News.

[Charlie Kirk]

I'm sure that would be Primal News. Okay.

[Blake]

This is gonna end wrong. Not good.

[Charlie Kirk]

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[Dan]

I really worry.

[Tyler]

Yes, but not if it's the only thing you eat on. No, no, that's incorrect.

[Dan]

Incorrect.

[Tyler]

Not allowed.

[Dan]

No, you can have. Tyler and I were discussing this.

[Tyler]

You're saying. Not at all.

[Dan]

Not at all. Not at all. You can have. You must have Turkey. It is Required to have turkey. You may have ham if it is supplementary to the turkey. But like it should be. Any meat you have should be from like a central meat dispensing entity. You cannot have individualized servings of meat. That is, that is my position.

[Tyler]

Steak is not from a central meat dispensing.

[Dan]

You don't, you don't make a giant. You don't make like a 50 pound steak steak and then take like a piece of it and like pass the giant super steak around like that. That's what you do with ham or turkey. Like you make the whole turkey or you make the whole ham and then you cut a little bit of it. But you don't do that with steak.

[Tyler]

No, but that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. You can have a separate serving of a plate of steak for people you just Similar to the ham.

[Dan]

No, it's just wrong. Like.

[Blake]

No, because ham is. Ham is like supplement to the turkey taste. You have to have turkey and ham on your plate.

[Dan]

You don't need ham.

[Blake]

No, you don't need ham. You have to.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, no. I'm a turkey purist.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

But some people think that they, they could start to get really. Now, Christmas is a completely different ballgame.

[Blake]

Totally.

[Charlie Kirk]

There are no rules with Christmas. Ham is usually center, but steak is acceptable. Yeah, but no, but still, Christmas is a whole Thanksgiving. It is un American not to have either turkey. Some sort of dressing. Cranberries. But here's the thing about the cranberry thing. If you want to be an ultra traditionalist.

[Tyler]

Right.

[Charlie Kirk]

It must be straight out of the can.

[Tyler]

Yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

Taken vertically with no adjustments. And now if you want to have. If you want to have the cranberry. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. And if you want to have cranberry with adjustments that could be supplementary. But however, it must be out of the can and you just take it vertically and it just jiggles.

[Tyler]

Walk me through your stuffing.

[Charlie Kirk]

The stuffing is very interesting. Okay, now here's the big question.

[Tyler]

Yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

Does the stuffing go in the turkey or is it prepared outside of the turkey?

[Blake]

Is that stuffing versus Paris?

[Tyler]

And then put it in, cook it with the turkey or some people will prepare it and then just put it in for like the final.

[Charlie Kirk]

See, that's, that's a final leg. You got to go the full lantha. So I. Dressing has to be obviously cornbread.

[Tyler]

Yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

Some sort of celeries and carrots.

[Tyler]

Sure.

[Charlie Kirk]

Sausage.

[Tyler]

Need your crunch.

[Charlie Kirk]

Little crunch. Mix that all together. But you know what makes the stuffing really Kicker the gravy.

[Tyler]

Yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

And so you need the gravy. You have the stuffing. You have the jiggling cranberry. You got the turkey, and that's all that's accepted. And then also maybe green beans. And then sweet potatoes.

[Tyler]

Creamy casserole.

[Dan]

How do you make.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, no, no. See, now we're getting to what's the.

[Tyler]

Issue with green bean casserole?

[Charlie Kirk]

I. I just. I just. It's not. It's not allowed.

[Tyler]

What do you mean it's not. You're getting too cute. It's a staple. It's a total staple.

[Blake]

With the. With the.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, no. With those little crunchy things on top. Never.

[Tyler]

Fried onions.

[Blake]

Fried onions.

[Tyler]

Fried onions.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, no, I like.

[Tyler]

What.

[Charlie Kirk]

I like the long, uninterrupted, unblemished green beans.

[Tyler]

With butter.

[Charlie Kirk]

With butter.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

That's good, though.

[Tyler]

Those are good.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, no. Casserole.

[Tyler]

Casserole.

[Charlie Kirk]

I never said casserole. The casserole is a.

[Tyler]

No, we are saying casserole is a staple. It's an absolute Thanksgiving.

[Charlie Kirk]

I don't think it's staple 100. And then. Let me think. What else? Okay, yes, then the sweet potatoes, sure. But none of this marshmallow stuff. You see, this is new age, and it's a mistake where all of a sudden, full trad. No, no. It's a mixture of. It's like 1950s Thanksgiving, right? It's like. That's why. It's like the gel.

[Tyler]

You know, it's saying, no marshmallows.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, no, no marshmallows. The marshmallow thing is. Is a disgrace with.

[Tyler]

Well, Charlie, hold on a second, though, because there is one thing. Wait, wait, wait, wait. How There is one thing. One dish that we know for a fact was served at the original Thanksgiving. Charlie, you know where I'm going with this.

[Charlie Kirk]

Smallpox.

[Tyler]

No, no, no, Charlie, not what. Not what we served. What was served to us.

[Charlie Kirk]

Got it.

[Tyler]

Corn.

[Charlie Kirk]

Oh, see, no, no, no.

[Tyler]

Corn was served at the original.

[Charlie Kirk]

Only corn that is acceptable is cornbread. I will say you have to bend the knee to the corn God. And cornbread has to be either the dressing, the stuffing stuff. Do you agree, Tyler?

[Tyler]

Well, longtime thought listeners will remember that Charlie is.

[Charlie Kirk]

Is. Is like Blake radicalized me the corn anti.

[Tyler]

Cor. Cornite.

[Charlie Kirk]

I. I think. I think corn has no redemptive value unless it is for Thanksgiving, because then it is a sacrament to Squanto.

[Blake]

No, no. Corn is good in the summertime.

[Charlie Kirk]

We.

[Dan]

We eat corn on Thanksgiving to show our thanks that the angry corn God has not destroyed us.

[Tyler]

Whoa.

[Blake]

Whoa. No corn. Corn on the cob.

[Charlie Kirk]

Exactly.

[Blake]

Is summer.

[Charlie Kirk]

This is exactly right.

[Tyler]

I forget his name. I forget the corn God's name in the.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, no. We're not talking about corn on the cob. We're talking about corn elements. Cornbread, for example.

[Blake]

Corn bread.

[Tyler]

So you will even. Even. Wait, wait, wait. Even Charlie Kirk. Like ant corner. Wow. This is huge.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, this is what thanksg.

[Tyler]

This is big. This is.

[Charlie Kirk]

Let's be very clear. Thanksgiving is not about what you want to do. It is what your ancestors did.

[Tyler]

Okay?

[Charlie Kirk]

It doesn't matter if you don't want the cr.

[Dan]

It is the.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, that's what I'm saying. It's not about. I don't care about. If you don't like cranberries, you don't like turkey. Suck it up. It's Thanksgiving. There is no this. We. This modernity. Like, I'm going to put, like, steak tano doesn't.

[Tyler]

Tanya will not eat turkey. She won't.

[Charlie Kirk]

It doesn't matter.

[Tyler]

She'll make it. She won't figure it out. She won't eat it.

[Blake]

So here in Arizona, I don't know.

[Charlie Kirk]

What to tell you.

[Blake]

I completely agree with Charlie. I think the canned cranberry is a must. On the table, however, you have to have.

[Charlie Kirk]

Boom.

[Blake]

You have to have a sec. In Arizona, we have jalapeno cranberries. Incredible. If you haven't had it.

[Charlie Kirk]

See, now you're regionalizing this. Too much.

[Tyler]

No, it looks good. Exactly.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, no, no, no.

[Blake]

It adds a little spice. It's just a little bit.

[Dan]

It's like when I went to the Grand Canyon last summer and I discovered that I guess they just sell, like, prickly pear everything at every Arizona thing. And that's.

[Tyler]

That's anywhere in Arizona, really.

[Blake]

So I have a question for everybody, though, and this is getting deep into the weeds. So we talked about stuffing or dressing. Moist stuffing or dry stuffing.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's got to be dry, but the gravy makes it moist. If you make it too moist before, you can always make it more gravy. You can't. It has to be on the spectrum of tilt. Moist, but not too much, because if it's too dry, then it's just. It's too brittle and brittle. There's nothing worse than brittle dressing.

[Blake]

So. So you call it dress scoop of all.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's.

[Tyler]

I'm noticing that you call it dressing.

[Charlie Kirk]

It should be stuffing. However, I've been corrected many times. I've always called it stuffing, even though it's not technically stuffing unless it's within the turkey.

[Blake]

Yes. Dressings outside the turkey.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, it's not. No. I grew up calling it stuffing, even though we never put it in the turkey.

[Tyler]

No, but it's the. I mean, I get that, but the. The type of food would be called still stuffing. Dressing is like for salads.

[Blake]

No, no, no, no. Dressing is outside. That is on tray.

[Tyler]

No, I reject that completely.

[Dan]

Stuffing is like a type of food and it, like, it should be used to stuff in it, but it is still stuffing, even if it's not doing this stuff.

[Blake]

There's lots of dressing is outside where.

[Tyler]

We don't use the name properly, but we. But we still call it that because it used to be.

[Charlie Kirk]

I'm excited for Thanksgiving at this point. This is great. So we're not people.

[Tyler]

No, we're pre taping this. Yeah, yeah, we are. We are. Today is.

[Charlie Kirk]

We are on Tuesday.

[Dan]

We blew off Thanksgiving.

[Blake]

We're supposed to be eating right now.

[Tyler]

Yeah, yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

So now let's. Let's now go to the more fundamental question.

[Tyler]

Okay.

[Charlie Kirk]

Dessert. Okay. Because that really is. What do you need to set?

[Tyler]

Well, for me, I mean, if I have. I have. All right, go ahead.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, no, you go. You. No, this is.

[Tyler]

I have. I have at times, and my mom knows this. I have left the house, gone to the store and purchased the ingredients for pumpkin pie and brought it home and made it myself because there was no pumpkin pie available. It is required.

[Charlie Kirk]

Oh, I. I completely agree. It is like 100. The first commandment of.

[Tyler]

Oh, yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

Thanksgiving.

[Tyler]

Oh, yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

Thou shall have pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

[Tyler]

With whipped cream.

[Charlie Kirk]

It is a non negotiable.

[Tyler]

Right. If it's not there. Like, I. I got up, I got in my car. I was like, I'm just gonna go now.

[Charlie Kirk]

Ryan asks a really good question. Is Thanksgiving meal a lunch or a dinner? The answer is both. Around 3:30 to 4:00pm yeah. That is the sweet spot. Right as the sun is going down in Chicago. Boom. You sit down, right.

[Tyler]

Thanksgiving Day is. It is itself its own meal.

[Dan]

No, no, that's way too late. You do it. I would say nef. Family tradition is maybe 1 to 1:30pm it's so early.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, no, no. Half time of the second football game.

[Tyler]

When are you going to sleep?

[Dan]

The second, like five. Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

You guys know the first. The first football game is the Lions, right? The Cowboys are always second. We. We have a tradition in our house. Halftime at Cowboys, we get seated because we're cheering that the Cowboys will lose.

[Blake]

Yes.

[Dan]

Well, that's good. But no, it's. That's.

[Tyler]

We're in Philadelphia. We share the tradition as well.

[Charlie Kirk]

Like, oh, a TV's off during the meal.

[Tyler]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dan]

Like, no, I. I greatly dislike the, like, TV sanctification of Thanksgiving. Like, I don't know. I would watch. I. I would consider it, like, if the packers are on, I would watch the packers, but I do not consider it essential to watch now. There's three games on Thanksgiving.

[Tyler]

Well, we usually have, like.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, this is true. There has been a desecration. It used to be only two games, and it was on Fox. It would be the Lions, who used to be bad, and now they're good. And actually, who do they play this week? Let me see. I bet it's actually pretty good lineup. And then it was the Cowboys, but now NBC got greedy because it was. Fox had their game, CBS had their game, and then NBC got greedy, and they snuck in their own. So is that this week? No. Okay, let me see here. What do we got? We got a new week of football. Okay. There's three games. Oh, Blake, you're in luck.

[Dan]

Yeah, I know. I know. I'll see. It's the evening.

[Charlie Kirk]

The Dolphins are visiting Lambeau. Okay, I'm gonna be watching that. Oh, and Chicago plays on Thanksgiving.

[Tyler]

Oh.

[Dan]

They'Re gonna die at Detroit.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's gonna be Detroit.

[Tyler]

That's. Yeah, that's.

[Charlie Kirk]

By the way, you could tell who's having a better season. Tickets start at ford Field for one. $81. Tickets start at Jerry Stadium. 28 bucks.

[Tyler]

Yeah. My. My son asked me the other day because he saw when we went to the. The Eagles game, and he was, like, all jealous that we went, and so he was like, oh, daddy, give me some Eagles tickets. We'll go. And so we looked up the ones for Thanksgiving weekend, and I was like, I gotta sell a lot more pillows. Yeah, Like, Eagles tickets right now are. It was 500. Was, like, the highest nosebleed.

[Charlie Kirk]

311 is where they start at.

[Tyler]

Insane. Yeah. This week you're seeing what, 311. And that's in Baltimore. But Baltimore. So close. You're basically. You're basically in the silly light, right? Yeah, you're pretty much in. It's like, 90 minutes. You know, the way I drive, it's 90 minutes.

[Charlie Kirk]

Okay, so now that we have develop.

[Tyler]

By the way. By the way, I don't want to throw my mom under the bus, because every single year. And I know she's going to watch this every single year. Post that. There's, like, a selection of pumpkin pies that is always available.

[Charlie Kirk]

The way it must be by the way, do you think that pecan pie can also make an appearance?

[Tyler]

Of course. Other pies can be there, but pumpkin is the only.

[Charlie Kirk]

I actually prefer more than pumpkin pie. However, I must have a slice of pumpkin pie.

[Tyler]

Wait, were you always like that, though, when you were little?

[Charlie Kirk]

My mom makes a killer pecan pie.

[Tyler]

Okay.

[Charlie Kirk]

Like, destroys the world.

[Tyler]

Okay.

[Dan]

What about.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's so good.

[Tyler]

So when I was younger, I was always pumpkin. But then, well, pecan pie now.

[Charlie Kirk]

Now we're getting into chocolate pecan pie, and that's where you just surrender.

[Tyler]

You're just done at that point.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's just.

[Tyler]

So you throw. You throw. Because guys, you know, folks who don't know Charlie, you're usually pretty strict with your diet. You're usually strict.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's like.

[Tyler]

I mean, you're usually like, no, no, no.

[Charlie Kirk]

But Thanksgiving's different. Thanksgiving, you go all in. And it is. It is a holy day, by the way, I think Thanksgiving is one of America's greatest traditions.

[Blake]

It is.

[Charlie Kirk]

Because it's a day just to give thanks. I think it's uniquely awesome.

[Tyler]

Talk about that for a little bit, because there's, you know, a lot of people say, well, it's. You know, it's just about the. You know, it's the Indians, it's the pilgrims.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, everything is what you make of.

[Tyler]

Who cares? Who cares? There's no God involved. Why. Why do you.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, no, first of all, the pilgrims were definitely giving thanks to God.

[Tyler]

They were.

[Charlie Kirk]

They were not giving, you know, thanks to Brahmin, but they're giving thanks to the almighty God. And. But, yeah. Secondly, I just think it's amazing, especially during the season where we have such abundance and we won the election, that there's a day where you just stop and you say thank you, which then, of course, acknowledges you're saying thank you to a higher power. And I. I don't know of another nation or another country that has a day of gratitude. I think I actually said this once, and I guess there was, like, some random African country that has it, and that's fine. I got, like, in trouble for saying this last year.

[Tyler]

Yeah, okay.

[Charlie Kirk]

So, fine. I. I guess Senegal has a day like that. I'll look it up.

[Tyler]

However, great job, Senegal or whatever, but following in some good footsteps.

[Charlie Kirk]

But a day of gratitude. I subscribe to the prager. Hopefully, he's doing better. He's fighting like crazy right now. Belief. He's really struggling, that happiness is impossible if you're not grateful. And I believe that. I do not think you can have joy I do not think you can have be content if you're not grateful. And I think it's a beautiful thing. As a nation, we have a day to say thank you.

[Tyler]

You know, shout out to the OG who always told us the true story of Thanksgiving. Rush Limbaugh.

[Charlie Kirk]

Oh, man, he was an OG on that.

[Tyler]

He just did it every year. I've still got. I've got a recording of it somewhere. We used to play it, and I.

[Charlie Kirk]

Gotta relisten, try to.

[Tyler]

So good.

[Charlie Kirk]

Send it at me. Send it to me tonight. I gotta retry to recreate it.

[Tyler]

I. I did something on the show last year where I sort of like, I. I didn't try to do it, like, rushed hit it, but I told the story, and people just have to keep telling that story over and over. And they tried socialism, it failed. Then they tried giving people ownership of their various plots of land. And then they had an overabundance of their harvest. And so they gave thanks to God.

[Charlie Kirk]

What a concept.

[Tyler]

What an incredible concept. But instead, now it's all like, oh, the Pilgrims were dying and the Indians had to come, and they saved the Pilgrims because they were stupid Europeans didn't know anything. Even though Squanto had actually lived in Europe, even he had been in London more recently than the Pilgrims had. So he spoke English so well. But of course, you know, facts are. You know.

[Charlie Kirk]

Blake, you were saying something.

[Dan]

Well, so first of all, I was saying we should make fun of Canada for having their knockoff Thanksgiving that is just one month before ours. I think we should always see every opportunity to bully Canada because it's fun and. But also, even, like, the full story of Thanksgiving, because evil liberals always want to dunk on it, like, it's even more beautiful than just the Pilgrims doing it when they settled here, like the very first, like, annual Thanksgiving national holiday, fourth Thursday in November, like clockwork. That was started by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, middle of the Civil War, the peak of the Civil War. I think that's probably the bloodiest year of the Civil War. And he says, yes, like, in the middle of this, we're going to have a celebration of national Thanksgiving. And like, that was what set it as a national holiday. George Washington declared a day of Thanksgiving. It's truly, you know, it's a great thing because it is possibly the one great national tradition that was created in America that we have had for the entire history of America that is just totally our own thing. And then us being America, we have exported it to the rest of the world in various ways. Someone was very shocked to learn I was talking to a foreigner who was like, wasn't Black Friday this week? No, no, Black Friday is this week. And it's kind of terrible now.

[Tyler]

I used to be a Black Friday person, but now it's. I'm done. It's. It's awful. It's just so awful. And it's not even Black Friday anymore, because Black Friday, there's like. Well, Charlie, given everything that you just said about the importance of Thanksgiving, what do you think about the people who leave Thanksgiving dinner early to go and start shopping?

[Charlie Kirk]

First of all. First of all, I totally. When I grew up, it was actually Black Friday.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

Now it's like Black Thursday evening.

[Tyler]

Right. And it's not like you start lining up, like the sales actually begin.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's actually interesting for younger listeners that don't know after so many people got trampled in the Walmart raids, because people would line up, they keep the stores open.

[Tyler]

Right.

[Charlie Kirk]

They don't close them and reopen them.

[Tyler]

Because it used to be the Walmart would close and then.

[Charlie Kirk]

And then all the, all the deals and the sales would be set and then people would get trampled so much. I think someone almost died and they got hospitalized. Lies. And there.

[Tyler]

This is the plot of that.

[Charlie Kirk]

This is the plot of people die. Is that right? I didn't know that.

[Tyler]

Yeah, people died. That's, if you watch that, that I.

[Charlie Kirk]

Didn'T know they died, though, that there's that.

[Tyler]

Thanks. Thanksgiving horror movie. This is actually the plot where people get killed and then, like, someone's getting revenge on the people who started the. The stampede.

[Charlie Kirk]

So. So I, I had no problem with, like, you have a really, really good Thanksgiving and then you want to get good deals on stuff. And I think that was fine. It was like a good kickoff to the Christmas season. But. And it used to be when I grew up, there was a grittiness to Black Friday.

[Blake]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

There was like a took. It took real spirit. So you have to understand, like, I grew up in Chicago. It would always be like sub 20 degrees. And if you wanted to get a Black Friday deal, you had to earn it. So you had to, like, leave with your family at like 10pm after all that turkey's full. And you, like, stood in line at Target from the. Open their doors at 12:01. Yeah, right. And you would, like, shop all night and you would, like, get 711 coffee and get home by like 5am and you felt like, I earned this deal. And it was like. It was like a sense of accomplishment.

[Tyler]

And, you know, What I mean you had to have. There was like a limit to what you could get.

[Charlie Kirk]

Of course. No. And it was very narrow. And also we would go through catalogs and go through what was on sale. This was all before Internet. I want to throw to Blake in a second. But there was.

[Tyler]

The Internet ruined it.

[Charlie Kirk]

There was also, there was a divide and conquer strategy of what stores are we going to hit? Are we going to go to Best Buy? Are we going to go to Home Depot? Because like and you're shopping for other people. And there was like a real like conquest, like chess game.

[Dan]

Oh yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

Where it's like, oh wow. Best buy opens at 11:30 and Walmart's @ midnight.

[Tyler]

My, my strategy would always be like I would find the one store that was like within a 45 minute drive in like a, like a non populated area. It was so much people think about or like a staples because nobody thinks that staples would have stuff but they do have computers and different, you know, items. So like what are, what's the thing that people aren't going to think about? And that's where I'm gonna go.

[Charlie Kirk]

And now you just wait for Cyber Monday and click a couple buttons and so all the adventure of it and you don't earn it anymore. It used to be you'd get home at 3:30 in the morning. You're like, I got a good deal. It was, it was a teenage rite of passage in suburban Chicago. Blake, your thoughts?

[Dan]

Yeah, it was really. I can still think of like individual things I went out of my way to get on Black Friday. I think I still have a PlayStation 3 that I got in 2011. I think I can remember the exact deal. It was a PS Slim, $250. It came with Little Big Planet and like some crummy ratchet and clank game, who cares? But like that was the best deal you could get for I think like two years after that point. But what ended up killing it was as you said, you know, you were, you'd go for the time it used to be, okay, it was on Black Friday normal hours. Then they would open it at like 6am in the morning and people would show up before then. Someone got ahead and made it, oh, let's open exactly at midnight. And then what finally killed it? I think the rise of the Internet was a factor. But another thing that killed it was companies decided to get so greedy and they just said we're doing Black Friday on Thanksgiving. And they would just be open on Thanksgiving with those deals. And I think to America's Credit. There was popular backlash to this where they're saying, wait, you're forcing employees to skip Thanksgiving to come in and work on Thanksgiving. Though I must hedge, I have to be personally grateful for the fact that some that stores are open on Thanksgiving. Some of them because I visited a friend. This is about 10 years ago, I went down to a friend in Tennessee for Thanksgiving and I took a Megabus down. You know, poor, we have to travel by bus. And I took a Megabus down and I had a bag under it. And we. I had to get off in Chattanooga, which was the final destination was Atlanta. And they get out and they're like, okay, where's your bag? I'm like, oh, it's under the thing. And they open it and they, they feel around. They're like, yeah, we can't find it. We have a schedule to do. We have. We have to go. And they just drove away with my bag, with all of my changes of clothes, and I arrived late Wednesday night. So I had to go to a Walmart, which, thanks to American capitalism, was open on Thanksgiving. And I had to buy an entire set of clothes for the whole weekend.

[Blake]

So I had that perspective. I actually. One of my first jobs was in high school. I took the seasonal job at Target. And my first day, like first real day was Thanksgiving or Black Friday. So I had to wake up after Thanksgiving when I was like a sophomore in high school like literally 4:00am I had to be at Target at 4:30, help stock everything. This was still the days that they still open the doors like Charlie was talking about before. They just like leave it open or open like super early. And there would be like, I get there at like 4 o'clock and there would be a line wrapped around the building of people waiting to get in. And we had to stock everything.

[Dan]

So here's a crazy story. So you guys, there's a myth that Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving. And you know why that's a myth? Because the real truth is. The real truth is that Thanksgiving is the day before Black Friday.

[Tyler]

And that is because.

[Dan]

Let me finish the story. This is because I am not making it up. The current date of Thanksgiving is because of like an evil plot by fdr. No, I'm not making this up. So Lincoln's proclamation of Thanksgiving is, Thanksgiving is on the last Thursday of the month. Yes, it is on the last Thursday.

[Tyler]

Right.

[Dan]

It is not on the last Thursday. It is currently on the fourth Thursday of the month. That is what the federal law is.

[Charlie Kirk]

So there are sometimes five, which requires A Friday.

[Dan]

So there are sometimes five Thursdays in November, and then it would be on the fourth. It used to be on the fifth. And then during the Great Depression, I believe in 1939, FDR got in his head. If there is a longer, like, if there's a longer time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there will be a longer Christmas shopping season. And so people will shop more and this will stimulate the economy. And so he intervened and he moved Thanksgiving to be a week earlier. And this became a partisan political issue. And so for a few years, Republican states said, we're not doing this and we're refusing to go along with it. So you had a Democrat Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday, and you had a Republican Thanksgiving on the fifth one. And I think Texas, because they were a Democrat state, but had a lot of, like, conservative Democrats who didn't like fdr, they called the truce and they just had. They said they're both holidays and they had two Thanksgivings. And then sadly, Congress submitted and now it's just on the fourth Thursday, and we. We lost that culture war battle.

[Tyler]

But what you were saying, though, what you were saying, though, there's a deeper. And Producer Foz talks about this all the time. His birthday was this week, by the way. Shout out. He calls it micro wins. Micro W's. And how. So, Charlie, you'd appreciate this is that like, in. In your teenage years and. And working retail, you know, used to be part of this, too. But in your teenage years, there used to be a variety of things that you would do as a rite of passage that have all been pretty much completely destroyed because of new technology. One of those, of course, was waiting in line like this. Another one of those, you know, having those retail jobs again, with no phone to, like, just, you know, constantly be there, getting you through it, monotony, going through it. One of the other ones we. I don't know how I got into this the other day on Twitter was like, it's not even Thanksgiving related, but it was like when you used to have to call someone's house and if you wanted to. If you wanted to call a girl, you had to call her house, and you had to get through mom or potentially dad. And so it's like the elimination of all those things in society has now created men or adults who don't actually go through any meaningful rite of passage.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, I mean, I totally agree with that. I mean, some of these other rites of passage were like elementary things, such as be home before dark. Like, that was like a very simple thing. Right. I mean, Other rites of passage were that you need to memorize, like you say, the home phone numbers of at least five people. That. Yeah.

[Tyler]

Memorizing phone numbers.

[Charlie Kirk]

Right. I don't think anybody does that anymore. Like anybody.

[Tyler]

I know Tanya's. I know my parents.

[Charlie Kirk]

I know all the phone numbers from what I grew up.

[Tyler]

I know a bunch of. When I grew up. Yeah. Like, I know much of my buddies, but like my brother got a cell phone later. I don't know.

[Charlie Kirk]

I also think it was really important that when I used to call somebody's house, I had to speak to an adult.

[Tyler]

That's what I'm saying.

[Charlie Kirk]

I think, I think that was.

[Tyler]

That's what I refer. Think about that. Think about.

[Charlie Kirk]

I think it's a very under appreciated. There was no texting. It didn't exist. No. When I was in sixth grade, AOL Instant messenger was just starting.

[Tyler]

Okay.

[Charlie Kirk]

And that was a thing. But it had to be on a like publicly available computer in my house. And it wasn't like you couldn't like bring it with you at all times. It was like there was like a very, you know, like.

[Tyler]

So it was just like logging on and logging off was a thing.

[Charlie Kirk]

Oh, it was totally a thing.

[Tyler]

That's. They had the away.

[Charlie Kirk]

You had an away message. Like, and like you would come home to see if you got any messages. And I actually, again, I don't even know if that was a healthier version of this crap that we have right now.

[Tyler]

Much healthier.

[Charlie Kirk]

And so I loved AL Instant messenger. For the record, I thought it was really fun and it was actually a really, really good service.

[Tyler]

I.

[Charlie Kirk]

It was really. I mean, I really liked it. And to. A lot of the.

[Blake]

A lot of companies came from AOL and some Messenger.

[Charlie Kirk]

Oh yeah, that's right.

[Tyler]

LOL comes from that.

[Charlie Kirk]

Lol, brb, lol, ttyl.

[Tyler]

LOL absolutely comes from AOL Instant messenger.

[Dan]

Aol. So by the way, there are still millions of people getting.

[Blake]

They shut down Instant Messenger.

[Dan]

Instant messenger has been dead. Not only is Instant messenger dead, is that right?

[Charlie Kirk]

For like AIM is done.

[Blake]

AIM is dead. Charlie. It's even older than that. Because I, I was on Instant messenger because Jack and I are a little bit older than you. I was on his semester.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, but I'm saying it would started.

[Dan]

Tyler is way older than Charlie, so. Yeah.

[Blake]

So Jack's older than me.

[Dan]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

Tyler actually is the first generation.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I loved Alex.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

Here's another. Here's another rite of pet passage.

[Tyler]

Okay.

[Charlie Kirk]

Playing a video game so much that it overheats Right? That's like a real thing or playing a game.

[Tyler]

Playing a game.

[Charlie Kirk]

Jack knows what I'm talking about. Especially computer games, though. No, no, no. If you play for too long and your computer wasn't that sophisticated or good, your computer hard drive would like.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

Start to like overheat. Right. That's a real thing, 100%. Or how about another one playing on either like Age of Empires or Sims or like whatever it was and like it malfunctioning before you save. Or you could like log your progress. Right?

[Tyler]

Mom. Mom unplugging the Nintendo before. Well, when you were on like level eight of Mario and there was no way to save or mom telling at all.

[Dan]

Mom telling you to pause the game when it's actually online and you're playing against other people.

[Blake]

Yeah, I had numerous times beating it. Defeating a level in Super Super Mario and then forgetting to save it. And you shut it off and you go back, you're like, ah, it's just so funny.

[Charlie Kirk]

Things we worried about back then were just like so insignificant.

[Tyler]

I miss, I'll say this, I don't know if any guys remember this one. I miss new music Tuesdays. Does anyone else remember new music too? So that was.

[Dan]

Albums would release on Tuesdays, right? I think games still they did at least when I was a kid.

[Tyler]

I think, thank God there's something.

[Dan]

But maybe which was a thing, a.

[Tyler]

Group of music and it was always Tuesdays that would come out. So you used to have like these mini Black Friday type things where you would go on. I guess people still kind of do it for games where you would come out for, you know, new music or you know, a new album was dropping. So back when music actually was like, good. And because that being said, I did see Creed again this week.

[Charlie Kirk]

So I'm trying to think of other rites of passage. Oh yeah, knowing the dial up sound is definitely a rite of passage. Like not having super fast Internet all the time.

[Tyler]

Just having to sit. Remember waiting for websites to load.

[Charlie Kirk]

Do you remember asking friends for rides? Oh, Uber exists.

[Tyler]

Wait, wait, Charlie. Like, what about asking directions and having to know directions?

[Charlie Kirk]

I'm still really good at directions. Partially because you had to know where you were going. Like this was before gps.

[Tyler]

How about this?

[Charlie Kirk]

How's it going? Printing out map quest directions.

[Tyler]

Printing it out. Well, see, I.

[Charlie Kirk]

Was that not the best.

[Tyler]

I used to be cheap. So I would just write it down.

[Dan]

Charlie, were you around?

[Charlie Kirk]

Charlie, were you?

[Tyler]

I would, I would go to MapQuest and then I would write down the directions and then I just like bring my little note card with me.

[Charlie Kirk]

What were you saying, Charlie?

[Dan]

You might be too young. I once had a journey where my parents made me actually narrate the. The turns to make on an actual physical map that we had purchased. Like with, you know, the highways of America.

[Charlie Kirk]

Oh, you don't know all the time.

[Blake]

I remember.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes.

[Blake]

I remember I was living in New Jersey for two years when I was in junior high and my mom printed them out on MapQuest and was going somewhere for my brother's football game and got so lost and turned around. She like pulled over in a gas station crying because she didn't know where to go or how to go anywhere. She was like completely lost, like in a new place. I had no idea.

[Charlie Kirk]

It makes you think, like actually sorry.

[Blake]

Mom, for sharing that.

[Charlie Kirk]

Is it a good thing or a bad thing? We have the gps. I mean, in some ways, like we're probably more efficient when.

[Tyler]

When China comes after us, that's the first thing they're going for.

[Charlie Kirk]

Oh yeah.

[Tyler]

Day one, it's that one. Then like all of our online banking, it's crazy. And then we're just all screwed. Yeah.

[Dan]

I don't know if you still have to do this, but I know in London in the uk, to become a cab driver, you used to have to. Maybe you still do, but you had to pass this test called the knowledge. And it was basically.

[Tyler]

Oh yeah, I know what you're talking about.

[Dan]

It still exists, the location of like 27,000 different things in London. And like people would like lose their minds attempting to pass this thing. And obviously, obviously even crazier to.

[Blake]

Yeah, it's more difficult to become a cab driver in London than pass the bar.

[Tyler]

I feel like they've done a little bit of that.

[Charlie Kirk]

They've done brain scans of cab drivers that have. That have mastered the knowledge. And their hippoclamis, which is the actual part of memory, is bigger in their brain than the average person. And so in order for that to be true. In order. And this is actually.

[Tyler]

So that's self selecting.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, no, no. In order for that to be true, the one of two things are true. Either that these are people with disproportionately big hippocampuses that are coming into the taxi business, or your brain can change which is. It was the most profound.

[Blake]

Giant hippocampus.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, but, but sorry, HIPAA campus. Thank you.

[Dan]

That was indelible in. In blot. In Blasey Ford's brain. Remember, indelible in the hippocampus.

[Tyler]

However, it is what the Campus.

[Charlie Kirk]

It was the most profound development of neuroscience in the last 20 years. Discovery to show that your brain, raw material can change based on your environment and your circumstances.

[Tyler]

Potentially.

[Charlie Kirk]

There is no other explanation. There's no way that people that have disproportionately active parts of the hippocampus all just want to become taxi drivers.

[Tyler]

Right.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's just that this is not a thing.

[Tyler]

Well, no, the. The idea would be then that those are the only ones who can pass the test.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, again, it's just. It defies logic because it's. You're in the. You're in the sub 1 set of the standard deviation.

[Tyler]

Right.

[Charlie Kirk]

These people, like, just happen to all want to become cab drivers. No, no way. Meaning that your brain can actually become better at a certain task. So it's not applied.

[Tyler]

So it's like a muscle that.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, actually, let me find the study. It's super interesting.

[Tyler]

So the more you work.

[Charlie Kirk]

It was in Sean Aster's book called the Happiness Advantage. Let me see here.

[Tyler]

So the idea being, then the more you, you know, the more you work it out the same way, like when you go to the gym and you're like, I'm gonna focus on whatever muscle right here.

[Charlie Kirk]

A taxi driver's knowledge is often linked to an enlarged hippocampus. Blah, blah, blah, key points. And the study here shows about brain plasticities phenomenon demonstrates the brain's ability to adapt and change based on the experience where the hippocampus can grow in response to intensive spatial learning. So.

[Tyler]

So let's put this on the flip side then. The fact that we're all using GPS.

[Charlie Kirk]

Now, it makes us dumber.

[Tyler]

Is literally and physically, unless you do.

[Charlie Kirk]

What I do, which is you try to anticipate where the GPS has taken you before. Because the G GPS is like AI it could be an enhancement to you, or it could just make you totally check out.

[Tyler]

Well, it's sometimes wrong.

[Charlie Kirk]

Oh, the GPS is wrong all the time.

[Tyler]

All the time.

[Charlie Kirk]

All the time. When Mikey's driving, I'm like, why isn't it taking us this way, not that way? Yeah, that's a good sign. If you are fact checking your gps, you are getting.

[Tyler]

Actually, I did this when we were driving around Pennsylvania with my brother during the election. And we were. We were driving from Penn State to Philadelphia. And at one point it wanted us to go on this road which would take us to Baltimore. And I was like, why are we driving to Baltimore? It's 83 South. We need 76 east because we need to go to Philadelphia. Because we're going to the Eagles game. And now it eventually, like, picked up, but I remember sitting there looking at it and it was just. It was just clearly wrong. It was clearly wrong.

[Charlie Kirk]

I put it in the chat. The Scientific American. Okay, I got a dash. You guys keep talking. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. And you guys hold on the fort.

[Tyler]

Happy Thanksgiving, Charlie.

[Blake]

Have a great Thanksgiving, Charlie.

[Tyler]

I see that. I did not realize Charlie was such a. A thanksgiva file.

[Dan]

Charlie's missing out on them.

[Tyler]

He even put away his hatred of corn. I completely do a Thanksgiving dinner for Charlie at amfest.

[Blake]

I completely agree with Charlie. I actually think we'll bring the corn and we'll.

[Tyler]

We'll. We'll put a turkey out.

[Blake]

My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. It's the most American holiday. Charlie's right about that. It's by far the most American holiday.

[Tyler]

It is.

[Blake]

I think it tops the fourth.

[Dan]

Good. It's a good one. I do feel like American Christmas might be better because it, like, so clearly makes libs irate. And in particular, the fact that libs throughout history have repeatedly attempted to kill Christmas. Like the jerk head Puritans who won in the more jerkish ones who won the civil war in England. Like, they tried to ban Christmas and.

[Tyler]

Wait, Blake, but is it. Is it Christian to celebrate Christmas? It's not in the Bible.

[Dan]

Yeah, I know. It's like, weird. They never.

[Tyler]

Right after Charlie leaves. Right. Right after Charlie leaves.

[Dan]

Start that debate. Tried to kill Christmas repeatedly. And they can't.

[Tyler]

They did actually. They did actually. In Massachusetts, I want to say.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah.

[Dan]

And like, they fail. Christmas always comes back. Because normal people love Christmas because Christmas is awesome.

[Blake]

I'm not disagreeing or arguing with you at all. I.

[Dan]

That's.

[Blake]

That's not my point. I'm trying to bring up. But the one reason why I love Thanksgiving, and I think this is crazy for people who have, like multiple families they have to go visit. So when you're married, you have to go see everybody's families and grandparents and cousins, all that stuff, and see everybody for whatever reason. Christmas feels so much more stressful. Going to, doing all that and Thanksgiving, I mean, you have basically the same amount of stops. You have to arguably do even more work. I mean, I think Thanksgiving is a lot of work. Like you have to. Especially for the moms and grandmas and everybody else is making food. But it's just such a less stress filled day.

[Dan]

I think a lot of Christmas. I think a lot of people feel stressed out by Christmas because they worry. They fret about giving their kids A perfect Christmas.

[Blake]

Yeah.

[Dan]

I don't think anyone frets about, you know, giving their kid the perfect Thanksgiving to the.

[Tyler]

That's a huge. Yeah, that's a huge part of stress. That's a huge stress for. Yeah, I know. For us, like, when it comes to Christmas, that's always definitely something where. Going from, like, receiving Christmas to being a parent when you are giving Christmas along with Santa Claus, that, you know, as a parent, you really have to work with Santa. And there's a lot more that goes on as opposed to being a kid and you just sort of experience Christmas. That. It is stressful. It's definitely stressful. And it's. It's something that I've. I've noticed. It's like one of the biggest differences of becoming, you know, becoming a parent or becoming a father is that you, you know, and obviously we're not doing a Christmas episode here, but. Yeah, it's in order of magnitude higher than that for Thanksgiving. And on Thanksgiving, you don't even have Santa helping you.

[Blake]

Yeah, I typed in the chat. I'm just surprised that Black Friday hasn't been canceled. You talk about canceling. Yeah, is.

[Tyler]

Yeah, I think. I think it. There were a few efforts. I want to say. There were probably a few efforts. I saw it kind of bubble up more than a few times on. And, and by the way, you see this. You see this pretty often where they'll say, you know, why is it that a black hat in cowboy movies is associated with negative or Darth Vader is associated with negative. Something in a movie. And so the black color is associated with being negative, whereas the, you know, the white collar is all white hat is a good person, white and black, etc, and so they. They'll try to do that, but it's just so ingrained in movies that there's not much you can do with it. Obviously, the new Wicked movie that's, you know, that's out right now, which looks horrible, is like totally, you know, totally a play on that as well with, you know, is the witch good or bad? But of course, they. Instead of that, they actually decided to racialize it as opposed to just leaving it how it is in the book and the musical. So they added this whole other dimension to it. And you. You do see. You do see this. Come up with Black Friday every once in a while because they were. They were just kind of going for broke there in 2020, Blake. They were just trying to go after, like, anything they could think of.

[Dan]

Speaking of movies, there's like, no Thanksgiving movies really should should there be more? Could there be more? Or do they just get eaten by.

[Tyler]

Yeah, there totally should be more. Well, there's. There's Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I think there's that one.

[Dan]

But other than that, there's. There's the Eli Roth horror movie that I haven't seen, and then there's some, like, really bad B movies I saw last year. Thanks Killing and Thanks Killing two. According to Wikipedia, Last of the Mohicans.

[Tyler]

Is that thanks Killing. Thanks Killing one was terrible, but thanks Killing Two, actually, I feel like it.

[Dan]

Rises above the subject, revitalized the franchise, really.

[Tyler]

They just. They did a lot. They. They went in different directions that I didn't expect.

[Blake]

What about Last of the Mohicans? Can we make that.

[Dan]

Is that a. Is it Thanksgiving?

[Tyler]

No, but you'd think there'd be like, a classic cartoon Thanksgiving movie that's got like.

[Blake]

Well, you do. You have.

[Tyler]

You know what I mean?

[Dan]

That's like, pretty og.

[Tyler]

Yeah, Charlie. Yeah. Charlie Brown is like all you got. But that's not even a movie. That's just like a special.

[Dan]

I'm now looking. I'm looking now. I guess one thing about it is I think the Thanksgiving. The Macy's parade displaces where you might otherwise watch a. Watch a Thanksgiving movie. Well, also football, of course.

[Blake]

Also a reminder, there's a bunch of movies that release on Thanksgiving, so if you go watch through the. The compilation of movies are coming out. Like, I'm going with my family on Friday to see Moana 2, which we celebrate because Moana 1 came out in 2016 right after Trump.

[Dan]

Mm. And yeah, I'm looking at the list of. Wikipedia doesn't have a list of Thanksgiving movies. They just have a list of movies set around Thanksgiving. So apparently, like Beethoven.

[Blake]

Oh, Beethoven movie. That was. That was. I think it was on the COVID like, because. Doesn't like Beethoven. Like, get the turkey.

[Dan]

I don't. I haven't seen Beethoven in a long time. Paul Blart Mall. That's like, again, movie.

[Tyler]

That is a scene. Yeah, because there's a. Well, no, because there's a. There's a Black Friday scene in it.

[Dan]

Okay. All right. Brokeback Mountain as a Thanksgiving movie, apparently.

[Tyler]

What are you doing right now? This is a bad, bad decision. Blake.

[Blake]

Wait, The Blind side?

[Tyler]

Wait, no, there is. There is that turkey movie. There is that, like the Thanksgiving movie where someone tried to make a turkey movie like, a couple years ago, free birds. And it was awful. It was just so bad.

[Blake]

It not good. It's one of those low grade blue sky movies, I think, or whatever.

[Dan]

They made a friendsgiving comedy movie.

[Tyler]

Oh, Turkey Hollow. We watched Turkey Hollow a couple years ago and it was really weird.

[Dan]

The big chill Thanksgiving.

[Tyler]

It's like the turkeys or the turkeys are like these, like, they live in the woods and they're like half, you know, fantastical creatures of some sort.

[Blake]

Wait, that's a Jim Henson movie. Jim Henson's turn.

[Tyler]

Yeah, Jim Henson. Yeah. Yeah.

[Dan]

Well, it must be just his company, right? Because.

[Tyler]

But it's definitely not a, like Thanksgiving.

[Blake]

Wait, wait, wait, wait. We're missing the most obvious one that is always shows on Thanksgiving is the miracle on 34th Street.

[Dan]

Is that a.

[Blake]

Because it takes place around.

[Tyler]

But that's obviously a Christmas movie.

[Dan]

Yeah, that's the thing about it. Obviously, like, Thanksgiving is eaten by Christmas.

[Blake]

Yeah, but it's a trick.

[Dan]

You know, Jingle Bells is a Thanksgiving song.

[Blake]

Yeah, but. But go back to that.

[Dan]

That traditional Thanksgiving movie, Jingle Bells is about traveling to visit someone on Thanksgiving and they've just made it a Christmas song.

[Blake]

Oh, really?

[Dan]

Yeah, but it is. Apparently it is a Thanksgiving song.

[Blake]

Where were they living? They needed a sleigh for Thanksgiving.

[Dan]

I don't know. The same place where, like, the hotel people are still called chambermaids.

[Blake]

Canada.

[Dan]

Yeah. Oh, that's. That's harsh.

[Tyler]

Wait, isn't. Didn't Charlie say chambermaid on that one? Classic episode.

[Charlie Kirk]

A couple.

[Tyler]

Exactly.

[Charlie Kirk]

A couple.

[Tyler]

A while ago.

[Blake]

You've Got Mail as a Thanksgiving movie, apparently. What?

[Dan]

Some of these are just since we.

[Blake]

Were talking about aol.

[Tyler]

Okay. Just because a movie has a scene in it which takes place in a certain. You know. You know, there's like a turkey scene or whatever. That doesn't make it a movie about that. Unless the movie is 100 dedicated to the holiday, then it is not a movie that belongs to that.

[Dan]

Well, that's like. That's like the debate.

[Tyler]

Batman Returns is not a Christmas movie.

[Blake]

Daily Wire.

[Dan]

It is not. It is not. I agree on that one.

[Blake]

We need Daily Wire, obviously. Thanksgiving movie, apparently.

[Dan]

Oh, dear.

[Tyler]

What is Daily Wire?

[Dan]

Yeah, what is it? A Daily Wire investment.

[Tyler]

Ben Shapiro. Bench. Ben Shapiro. Who's the Thanksgiving. Yeah, he's like. It's like Ben's in the kitchen.

[Charlie Kirk]

So good.

[Tyler]

Well, guys, he's like going through like the perfect cranberry mix.

[Dan]

Is it a lot? Oh, man, this is like.

[Tyler]

Oh, wait, wait, we forgot to do. We should have done one thing with. With Charlie to end. End it all out. So we'll have to. I would go so far as to say I'd love to find A way to like edit this in if we could. Because we should all go around and say one thing we're thankful for.

[Blake]

Yeah, I agree.

[Tyler]

Other than. Other than winning. Other than winning. We can't say that has to be like a personal thing because that's what we do with my family.

[Blake]

Blake, you can start.

[Dan]

No, no. You're putting the pressure on me. Ah.

[Blake]

So I. I'll start. Okay, I'll start. So actually my brother Braxton just had his. His third child two days ago. Two days ago. So Braxton just had his third child, which we're really excited about. All was great and baby came out great. We were worried because I went with my brother to the ASU game on Saturday and my sister in law was a week overdue, so he really shouldn't have been maybe doing that. But ASU won. She got induced on Sunday and. And then they named the baby Tate and then they used my middle name, Storm. So his name is Tate Storm Boyer, which is. My name's Tyler Storm Boyer, so. So they named the baby middle name. I don't know if it's after me, but it's in the same name. So. Very grateful for babies.

[Tyler]

I have a. I wanted to be serious. I can say it. But it's, it's. I don't want to give away exactly where I live, but there's this. I'll just say there's this like Christmas tradition that has been going on for just years. And last year it got canceled because there was like a financial issue. And it basically people just kind of rallied and the whole community came together and was like, no. And it was a kid's thing and it was like, we're, you know, we're totally going to save this and it's going to come back next year and it's going to be amazing. And we totally did. And I threw a bunch of money in and it's back and it just started and the kids love it and it's amazing. So I'm just really happy for that, really thankful that that worked out because we thought we were going to lose this thing. And I, I couldn't even tell you what it is. It's just, it's just a thing that kids do every, every year and they can go to. And it came back and it was awesome. And it is awesome and it will continue to be awesome for a long time. It's going to be bigger now, I think, than ever because, you know, closing down and it's sort of like, you know, a local landmark and there was you know, just like this. This stupid thing that happened last year, and it was cool to see people do that. And it's just great because I can see that with my kids, and then I can take them to see it as well and. And see that tradition keep going. I love that. And also, of course, for Saquon Barkley. So I'm very, very thankful for Saquon Barkley and the Eagles.

[Blake]

Oh, yeah.

[Dan]

I am thankful that tomorrow. As of when. Or wait, no, two days from now, as of when we're recording this. I forgot what day it was that the Neph family, my parents, my brother, my two sisters, their spouses, their children, will assemble for Thanksgiving. There will be. Trying to do the math in my head, but quite a few. Number of people, and there will be no libs.

[Blake]

No libs. And no steak.

[Dan]

And no steak. So it will be all. All proper. All proper forms will be observed.

[Blake]

You won't have a single lib in your house.

[Dan]

No libs.

[Blake]

Wow.

[Dan]

I know. That family is.

[Tyler]

Yeah, same.

[Blake]

Even I have a few libs in my house.

[Dan]

Yeah, exactly. See, we. Very grateful.

[Tyler]

I'll say. How big is the gathering of people?

[Dan]

Like I said, it's pretty. I mean, even. I mean, in the past, we would have had more satellite branches of the family, but even. Even if we added those in, it would still be the case. But. Wow, maybe, like, one shaky person who, like, voted for Obama in a moment of weakness or something. But, like, definitely with the. With the core ones, like, my parents lucked out. They had four kids and none of them, like, went to college and were suddenly, like, I realized all my immediate.

[Blake]

Family is super conservative. Yeah, there's some questionable.

[Dan]

So, like, all the marriages are good. The kids are good so far, although the oldest is, like, the oldest grandbaby is, like, four. So I guess, you know, no lib tendencies would be.

[Tyler]

I would. We haven't really talked about this, but, you know, the whole, like, libs and conservatives getting it over Thanksgiving, I'm for it. I'm all for it. There are several liberal members of the extended Pozo family and on other people's sides who basically just won't come to Thanksgiving anymore. And it's sad, and I think it sucks. And because of you, things that are bigger in politics. No, no, no. It's. It's just because they refuse to be around Trump supporters. They just will not, you know, sit down and break bread with someone who could support that man. And it's. It's horrible. You know, I mean, and I think it's just really sad that, that they would do that. And it's, you know, but at the same time, it's like, you know, if they ever wanted to come back, there's no, no hard feelings. I mean, we just, we just would love to get the family back together again. It's not even, not even something we're mad about. We just, just think it'd be really cool for my, my kids to be able to see that side of the family. Really great. So open invitation. Not that you're watching Thought Crime, but It's always open. 100. Always open, I think. Oh. And with that, since we are right at the very tail end here, of course we're also thankful for the Thought Crime audience and for everything that you guys have done throughout the the year. Year. Plus that we've done the show. Hey, we won. That was pretty cool. Make sure. By the way, I know we haven't said it. Go get your America Fest tickets, your Amfest tickets. Amfest.com definitely want to use promo code POSO. Get in early on that because they're going to go super fast. It's going to be incredible. Incredible event. And so to everybody watching Happy Thought.

[Charlie Kirk]

Crime Thanksgiving, thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us as always, freedomarlykirk.com thanks so much for listening and God bless.

[Dan]

For more on many of these stories and news you can Trust, go to charliekirk.com.