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- [00:02]
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- [00:23]
Mike Pesca
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- [00:24]
Lowe's Advertiser
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- [00:34]
Mike Pesca
It's Friday, May 9, 2025 from Peach Fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. What a gist list today. Sometimes these things the gist list@mikepaska.substack.com kind of indicated by a lot of news that helps. We couldn't even get to Jeanine Pirro's temporary appointment to run a very important agency within the Department of Justice. But we do get to the fact that African ers are getting granted refugee status. I wonder why. I wonder why the African, as opposed to almost every other group in the world, are being allowed in by Trump. We do get to the horrible shutdowns in Newark Airport. Turns out if you're an air traffic controller and the screen goes blank for 90 seconds, that is what they call technical term in the industry. An oh shit moment. Because you think all the planes have fallen out of the sky. People in the hallway crying because they thought all the planes had fallen out of the sky. Bad enough to have to work in Newark airport. But today I rise in defense of my beloved yet somewhat idiotic son. Not an idiot, but he's a senior. He has senioritis, technically inflammation of the senior. And they're playing a game in his high school that was announced to me when he showed up in goggles, swim goggles on a dry day on land. What's going on? Well, dad, if you wear the goggles, you're immune from assassination. Yes, Everyone knows this. This. The Lord's resistance Army anointed themselves with oils for. What are you talking about? There's a game. It's called Senior Assassin. There is an app. You have targets and you spray a kid with a water gun. It's fine. You do it throughout the city. No harm. No foul. Except there is harm. In fact, I would go as far as to say there is a panic descending on the nation because of the playing of Senior Assassin. An article in south coast today. Not sure of the coast know that it's in a southerly direction. They do a big roundup of all the Senior Assassin mishaps that seem to have happened over the last eight years or something. In May, the Utah police charged a Senior Assassin player with making terroristic threats after chasing his target into a hospital. Is this a fault of Senior Assassin or is this a fault of an idiotic teen? There was. This is actually horrible, nothing to joke about. One kid jumped on someone else's jeep and the jeep tore away with the kid on the back of it hits a pothole. The kids in intensive care. Yes. Is this a Senior Assassin problem or is this a jumping on the back of a moving jeep problem? Many police departments saying this is causing our resources to be diverted because people with actual guns see the kids with the water guns and they pull their actual guns. So of course the problem in America is we got to do something about these fake guns because these real guns are going to get drawn and the real guns are everywhere and occasionally you're going to see a fake gun, a water gun and that will cause some consternation. So I rise in defense of the Senior Assassin players. One of the reasons to not do Senior Assassin according to some officials is kids are so psychologically distraught over all the lockdown drills and school shootings. You don't do Senior Assassin, I say that's exactly why you do it. You take back not the fun of gunplay and but just to think about it, conceptualize it in a non traumatic way. These kids do have inflammation of the senior after all. And I stand by this passion, shall we say, of my son and all the idiot teens. Look, if Halloween didn't exist, do you think we'd allow it in the bubble wrapped helicopter America of today? It would be diverting school resources. On the show today I spiel about the new Surgeon General designee, some of her talk show appearances where her brother made such claims as only the fat died of COVID But first, Jim Lampley is one of the best announcers out there in the world of sports and he owns his sport like no other. It is boxing. Jim has had a long and shall we say, lucky life in the world of sports television. And that is the topic of his new book. You'll want to hear the Mike Tyson anecdote. It's a corker. The name of the book, It Happened A Uniquely Lucky Life in Sports Television. Jim Lampley up next. Hey, can we talk about True Work? I'm wearing True Work right now. I guess you can't see me, but if you could you would see this pullover hoodie. It's good for the sun, but it's just good to wear. And these work pants which are in. I don't know if it's mustard, it's yellow, it says cool, but it says also it's going to wick away moisture. I feel like I'm fooling someone or getting away with someone when I wear True Work. It's engineered for maximum comfort. Check, check, check. Minimum bulk. You know, denim and cotton hasn't changed over 200 years, but true Work has elasticity, sweat wicking, soft shell technology. You don't feel like you're wearing technology, but you're inside technology with these pants. With this shirt, upgrade to True Work for a major change in the way you work. True Work helps you be your best when your best matters most. Check out the full lineup to get 15% off your first order@True Work.com the Gist this is one of those where the spelling will matter, so pay attention. 15% off at t r u e W-E-R-K.com the gist if ED it's erectile dysfunction is keeping you down, HIMS is there to get you your confidence, everything about you, your essence to get it up. Feeling a little stalled in the bedroom? You could get some gas in the tank, you know, be you diesel or unleaded. I'm not here to judge. I'm just here to help by telling you a little bit about hims. It's changing men's health care by providing you access to affordable sexual health treatments from the comfort of your couch. Again, not here to judge whatever is between you and your couch, but what it does is HIMS will give you the ED treatments like Viagra or Cialis, and they'll save you up to 95% of the cost of those brands. Fill out an intake form. A medical provider will determine the right treatment option. You don't have to worry about insurance. They'll send it right to you lickety split. Start your free online Visit today@hisss.com the Gist that's h I m s.com the Gist for your personalized ED treatment options. Hiss.com the Gist the featured products include compounded products, products which are not approved nor verified for safety, effectiveness or quality by the fda. Prescription required. See website for details, restrictions and important safety information. Prices vary based on product and subscription plan. There you go.
- [07:44]
Manny Pacquiao
Four Punch five Punch. Six Punch Combination body shot. Body shot. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Try and stop it. Bang. Bang. Here I come. Bang. Do you want to throw sometime? Bang. This is the Manny Pacquiao who has dominated boxing for the past three years. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. You want to throw back, bang.
- [08:11]
Jim Lampley
Keep coming.
- [08:13]
Mike Pesca
In 1983, Howard Cosell watched a fight and called a fight between Larry Holmes and Randall Tex Cob. It was not a good fight and that is the hinge of history. Cosell swore off calling professional boxing after that one sided affair. This opened the door for pretty much the career that my next guest is known for. The voice most associated with some of the most vicious and entertaining beatings and defenses and examples of the sweet science that I have seen. He is Jim Lampley. He was HBO's voice of boxing for years and years. And he is the author of the new memoir It Happened, which quotes one of his greatest calls. Jim, welcome to the gist.
- [09:00]
Jim Lampley
Thank you very much, Mike. And I don't know if it was exactly that fight, but my favorite Howard Cosell quote that I like to recycle is this fight is an advertisement for the abolition of the very sport of which it is a part. And that might have been the fight to which you refer, or it might have been another one sided affair, but that was, and it actually happened prior to his departure from the sport because after he voluntarily departed from the sport, I think he regretted it and would like to have come back. But I was assigned to boxing by the man who succeeded Ren Arledge as the head of ABC Sports. That man, whose name was Dennis Swanson, wanted to find the vehicle for getting rid of me. He wanted to walk away from my contract and he thought that he could accomplish that by assigning me to boxing. Ultimately, I did walk away from my contract and wound up calling fights for nearly 34 years.
- [10:04]
Mike Pesca
Was boxing seen as a ghetto, a backwater back then in 83?
- [10:09]
Jim Lampley
Well, it wasn't necessarily seen as a ghetto or a backwater. I think in this particular instance it was just that Dennis Swanson had it in his head that it was stylistically and atmospherically completely outside my realm and beyond my boundaries. That I would look like a misfit and sound like a misfit and he would embarrass me by assigning me to it. He didn't really seem to focus on or recognize that at that moment, 1986, ABC Sports had signed a get acquainted look see contract with a 19 year old heavyweight from New York whose name was Mike Tyson. And the first few fights that I called on ABC Sports were early steps in Tyson's career ascendancy. So I became associated with Tyson, which ultimately got me a ticket to the single most prestigious network in the history of television.
- [11:02]
Mike Pesca
HBO so what about your style? And the book details all the different sports you covered and your career as a sideline reporter. So what about your style would Swanson have thought didn't match with boxing? Because to tell the listeners they tried you on a basketball game and just some sports your style would work with and some sports they don't, and basketball was one they didn't. But you did football for many years. So what was he thinking when he said, lampley, boxing, that's not a match?
- [11:30]
Jim Lampley
I don't know what he was thinking. I think he thought that I was a pristine, preppy white kid who simply wouldn't fit within the ethos of the sport the way people perceived it. Interestingly, the expert commentator who first worked with me on boxing at ABC and who was a brilliant student of boxing was another pristine preppy white kid named Alex Wallow, who had grown up in Greenwich and used to get on the train and go from Greenwich to Manhattan and Brooklyn to go to the gyms and watch boxing at close range. So nobody is really culturally disqualified from boxing, regardless of what that particular ABC executive thought. And ultimately, I think my career justified or proved that I was accepted.
- [12:20]
Mike Pesca
I think boxing is deceptively technical. Maybe if you know a little bit about it, you know that it's technical. But there's something about baseball, football, the main team sports, that just penetrate our consciousness as sports fans. We watch them all the time. And it's not true that you could plop any seasoned broadcaster into one of these games and they do a great job, but I do think they do better at. And they'd explain, or they wouldn't need to explain what was going on to the audience. But with boxing, as you write about in the book, you have to know that half the battle is trying to place your foot outside the opponent's outer foot and try to get leverage. And without knowing that even if you're not saying it, you can't really communicate what's going on to an audience.
- [13:01]
Jim Lampley
All of which was taught to me in the early stages of my fight calling career by Alex Wallow, who later became a very meaningful executive at ABC and at Disney, but who in my world was my mentor for boxing and taught me that, you know, in a fight between the southpaw and the conventional fighter, the edge is likely to go to the person who can keep his front foot outside of the other fighter's front foot. That if a body puncher is fighting against a, a headhunter, he will hold on the side opposite where the referee is, so that the referee can't see it. There are all sorts of little nuances to which Alex introduced me and helped me to become a boxing blow by blow person. I don't think I ever could have succeeded if I had been paired with some other expert commentator early in my career.
- [13:56]
Manny Pacquiao
Guys, there's nothing like boxing and there are no athletes like fighters. There's nowhere else in sport you'll find greater passion, greater intensity, greater courage, greater commitment, greater sheer guts than what these two guys are showing you. This is boxing at its best.
- [14:14]
Mike Pesca
Also, boxing is good for the. The talker, the person who likes to or is inclined to fill the broadcast with verbiage like a radio announcer would. And well, you tell me, is that your inherent style or is just. Is that just what you thought the job demanded? Because I know that the book details doing that with a sport like basketball wasn't a great fit.
- [14:37]
Jim Lampley
I was naturally a talker and conditioned to be so by the two storytellers who governed and shaped my life, my mother and my grandmother. But ultimately, I hope that I learned and projected that silence is a hugely important element of active on the air storytelling. And I tried to be sure that often and importantly during my calls of fights, I would lay out and let the action speak for itself. That became even more meaningful once I was on hbo where there were no commercial breaks and the story was continuous from start to finish. And of course, one of the most important things about premium pay cable boxing coverage was that you stayed during the one minute between rounds and listened to what went on in the corners instead of going away to commercial. That really elevated boxing storytelling and is one of the reasons why Showtime and HBO became the networks of record for boxing after commercial networks began to recede in the 80s and 90s.
- [15:50]
Mike Pesca
Do you subscribe to or have heard the theory that the quality of the sports writing, and let's maybe call it SP media, is inversely proportional to the size of the ball? And since boxing has no ball at all, like they say, golf is the greatest writing and probably volleyball is the worst. But since boxing is no ball at all, it's about people and not about equipment or another object. It's fundamental. A bit more fundamental.
- [16:15]
Jim Lampley
That's a highly provocative observation. And I don't know if I've ever encountered it exactly the way that you present it. I need some time to digest and think about that. I do think that boxing is unique because every other sport is a game. Yes, boxing isn't a game. We call it the fight game, which is a convenient way of trying to place it within the context of other sports. But it's not a game. Boxing is life writ large and projected within the confines of the so called squared circle the ring. And boxers take not just their preparation, their physical talent, their conditioning, et cetera, et cetera, into their ring, but they take their lives into the ring and they. And they behave according to the way their lives have shaped them up to that point in a far more graphic way than in any other sport. That's what I fell in love with when I was calling it. That's the literary element that brought many of the greatest writers in history, like Faulkner and Jack London and various others. Two, boxing. So once you become ingrained in that, once you are identified within your own mind and heart as a boxing person, it's hard to feel the same kick from other sports.
- [17:38]
Mike Pesca
Right. All other sports are a metaphor for battle, and boxing is the metaphor made real. I mean, there are rules, I suppose you could say there are rules in battle, but there are fewer layers between. One of the fundamental reasons we're drawn to sports with the sport of boxing.
- [17:54]
Jim Lampley
Exactly right. When you, when you watch a fighter, you are watching everything about him, not just how well he plays this game, but how well he lives his life. And that's the element of it again, that most seduced me Once I was unexpectedly assigned to cover boxing by an executive who wanted to end my career.
- [18:20]
Casey Means
He's also one of the most entertaining figures in sport, regardless of whether you like him or not, Because Mike Tyson's life is so densely rich with circumstances and events that it's become our custom between each of his appearances in the ring to chronolog those battles he takes on outside the ring.
- [18:37]
Mike Pesca
So we mentioned Mike Tyson. The first time you talked to him, he gave you a question quote about driving the nose bone into the opponent's skull, and you knew you had something.
- [18:47]
Jim Lampley
Actually, my expert commentator, Alex Wallow, who was in the ring with him after the first fight I ever called between Tyson and Jesse Ferguson in upstate New York. And Alex asked Mike simple question, you know, describe the uppercut to me. And Mike said, well, Catnamata taught me that the purpose of the uppercut is to drive the opponent's nose bone into his brain. I was trying to drive his nose bone into his brain and understand I had been assigned to boxing by an executive who wanted to get rid of me. And I was standing at ringside and when I heard that quote, I thought to myself, oh my gosh, look at what I have unexpectedly stumbled into here. This kid is not only going to be the number one quote machine in boxing, he's going to be the number one quote machine in sports. And sure enough, over the course of the next several weeks, and as I continued calling his fights, they all rolled out. Boxing is a hurt business. Everybody's got a plan until you hit them, et cetera, et cetera. And Mike became Mike.
- [19:49]
Mike Pesca
Did these things occur naturally to him or do you think he thought about the things he would say? Him being a quote machine, it was a.
- [19:56]
Jim Lampley
It was a script that had been delivered to him by a legendary and in some ways unique trainer within a unique ethos in upstate New York. And Mike didn't make those quotes up. They were learned and they were memorized and they informed and influenced his entire attitude in the ring. And the public was enthralled, enthralled with him and enthralled with the quotes and enthralled with the way the quotes seemed to blend with who he was. So it was easy to suspect that Mike had made those quotes up. But I don't think he did. I think that was custom out of it.
- [20:32]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. There's a scene in your book where after spending announcing some of his fights and then some of his fights weren't on the networks that you were on, you had a meeting with him in the locker room and you weren't sure what he was going to say. Could you take me to that set the scene and tell me what your interaction was?
- [20:50]
Jim Lampley
Well, careers inevitably lead to crossroads that are sometimes not fortuitous. And Mike's career inevitably led to his meeting with Lennox Lewis in Memphis, Tennessee on the 8th of June, 2002. Now, at the very first news conference for that fight, Mike had run across the stage and attacked Lennox and bit him on the leg. I believe he was trying to get rid of the fight. I believe that he was attempting to overthrow that particular promotion because he knew what was ultimately likely to happen when he got in.
- [21:31]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, and people forget that when they think of the infamous earbud. But very similar tactics were at play and motivations, I think, 100% and reflective.
- [21:42]
Jim Lampley
Of Mike's insecurity within what he knew was his public Persona. And so after Lennox knocked him out pretty easily, eighth round, I was sent to Mike's dressing room to do a post fight interview. And at that moment, I had not had a personal face to face with him in several years because he had left HBO and gone to Showtime and I was still calling fights on hbo. And what had been a continuous relationship became watching him from afar. On another television network. And now, after years of separation, I'm sent to Mike's dressing room. And outside his dressing room, there were a group of tall, imposing men in bowler hats who were clearly bodyguard types. And one of them said to me, he's really going to be happy to see you. And that was sarcastic because, you know, I had been asked before the fight what I thought was going to happen, and I wasn't overwhelmingly complimentary to his chances. And I stepped into the locker room and Mike was alone, sitting on a metal chair, petting, stroking a beautiful, naked baby on his lap. Later turned out that the baby was his most recently born son. And without looking up, recognizing, feeling my presence in the room, Mike opened his mouth and said, I've missed you. And you could have knocked me over with a feather, but it pierced my heart. Yeah, in a big way. And I thought for a second, and I answered back, I've missed you too. And. And then he said, what did people think was going to happen? He's 6ft 6. I'm 5ft 10. I couldn't have found him with a baseball bat. Might have been a broom. I'm not sure what he said, but the point was made, and it became a warm, loving sort of benediction between me and him and a reflection of what I've always said was the real Mike Tyson. And the simplest way to say it was the real Mike Tyson was not, quote, the baddest man on the planet. The real Mike Tyson was the shy kid on the rooftops communicating with the pigeons.
- [24:12]
Mike Pesca
Right.
- [24:13]
Jim Lampley
And showing the tenderness and the vulnerability which is there within his soul. I love him and I will always love him. And I'm not alone among boxing journalists in projecting that.
- [24:28]
Mike Pesca
Would you say he's. He's definitely a savant. Would you say he's a genius of the game?
- [24:33]
Jim Lampley
I would say he's a genius of the game, and in some ways, he's a genius of life. Look at that one man show. Look at all the things that one man show reflected about his continuously evolving understanding and his humility, his ability to recognize that he's still learning, he's still getting beyond the strictures that made his teenage life what it was.
- [24:58]
Mike Pesca
Well, there you go. I mean, you just said that he's the distillation of why you love boxing. That's the human, the raw human right there. And that obviously has resonances. Do you think because he understood boxing so well, that at some, to some degree it was a disservice to him because another kind of athlete might have irrational confidence or might just blindly follow a game plan. But Tyson knew that that particular type of opponent, the rangy, taller, mobile guy with a jab, was poison to him. And in a way, his full understanding of that, you know, planted. Planted some of the seeds of his defeat.
- [25:42]
Jim Lampley
Well, it far surpassed the audience's understanding. And, and that's the innate nature of boxing, is that it is an inner enclosed experience. None of us sitting outside the ring are 100% cognizant of what's going on inside the ring. But the two guys who are facing each other, they know. So Mike was educated in the most sophisticated way by one of the greatest trainers of all time. And there was no way he could miss it. Yes, absolutely. He knew going into the Louis fight exactly what his chances were. He knew going into the two Holyfield fights exactly what his chances were, were he couldn't miss that. And you know, that's why I say, when you say to me, was he a savant? Sure, absolutely he was. He was a brilliant ring practitioner. And when he was sure to lose, he knew it. And that far surpassed the audience's understanding of both who he was and what boxing is.
- [26:44]
Mike Pesca
Well, Jim, I could talk to you forever. I could ask you about Ward Gotti two round nine. I could ask you about Moorer Foreman. These were. Your voice is just associated with so.
- [26:56]
Jim Lampley
Many of the great reformen which supplied the title of my book.
- [27:01]
Mike Pesca
That's right. And the name of the book is it happened. An honest response to a big upset. Not pre programmed, not planned, not the go to catchphrase, just like boxing itself. And in the moment reaction that lasts. It happened. A uniquely lucky life in sports television. Jim Lampley, thank you so much.
- [27:21]
Jim Lampley
Thank you. My privilege to be with you, Mike.
- [27:32]
Mike Pesca
You know what I say about a shirt that I just love? I say I could live in it. And that's what I've been doing with Quince. I've got a few pieces from Quince. They're in my closet, but also on my torso. Quint is all the things you actually want to wear. They have organic cotton silk polos, they have European linen beach shorts. And I am here to tell you, also applicable in North America, everything with quints is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find with similar brands. Because I'm talking to you. And as cliche as it sounds, by cutting out said middleman, who's maybe not even where wearing pants as comfortable as Quint's pants, we're saving you money and giving you luxury pieces without crazy markups. I have gotten two Quint sweaters that are comfortable, fashionable and make me look good. Really? That's what it's all about. One's a heather green and the other is a is a basic black. But there's nothing basic about how it feels and how it looks. Elevate your closet with quince go to quince.com/the gist for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quite n c e.com/the gist to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/the gist and now the spiel Casey Means has been nominated to be Surgeon General. Her main qualification seems to be a hearty endorsement from RFK Jr. In fact, it was Casey Means his brother Callie, a health guru and entrepreneur, but not a doctor, who reportedly brokered the deal that earned Donald Trump RFK Jr's endorsement. Yesterday. I made gentle fun at some of Casey Means more woo woo. Her word techniques for me to wooing, including the Silva Method, originally called the Silva Mind Control method, which his founder claimed gave his daughters clairvoyance. But Casey is in general full of actual practical insights that pretty much will make you healthier if you follow them. So long as you don't take her too seriously or take her methods too far. She is exactly the sort of person who should be in charge of suggesting life hacks in a newsletter and exactly not the kind of person in charge of our national health. Casey and Callie have done a few very prominent media appearances and I want to play some claims from their joint appearances on Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan. Kelly the entrepreneur, the non scientist makes more inaccurate claims than Casey, but she makes a bunch too. And she never contradicts her brother. When there is a two shot, she nods along with everything he has to say and the siblings present themselves as a two for the price of one Guru slash health expert tandem. So let's dive in. First, this is Cali.
- [30:19]
Kelly Means
The American Diabetes association says that if you have diabetes you don't need to worry about your sugar intake. They say it's not tied to food.
- [30:25]
Mike Pesca
They do not say this. The American Diabetes association highlights a link between sugar consumption and diabetes, particularly type 2 diabetes. While sugar doesn't directly cause type 2 diabetes, consuming excessive added sugars, especially with solid fats and excessive energy intake, meaning calories, contributes to weight gain and obesity, which are risk factors. They talk all over the place about how food is a factor in causing diabetes. Here's Kelly again.
- [30:55]
Kelly Means
Covid was a Metabolic condition. Covid was a foodborne illness. Like if you were metabolically healthy, you.
- [30:59]
Mike Pesca
Did not die of COVID Obesity and poor metabolic health are correlated to susceptibility to COVID 19 to death from COVID 19. But the claim that metabolically healthy people did not die of COVID 19 is nothing short of ludicrous. Just realize obesity is a rich world problem. The death rates in the developing world were much worse than in the United States, UK or other highly obese countries. They did a study of this in nature in 2023 was the first cross country study of correlations between the percent of adults who are obese and mortality from COVID 19. It found a correlation. A 1% rise in adult obesity explains a 1.5% rise in COVID 19 mortality for high income countries. The factor in what they call middle income countries just didn't exist at all. And it was lower for low income countries. But just consider 6 million people died of COVID worldwide. Most, the majority, the vast majority were not obese, weren't even overweight. Most were old and didn't get vaccinated in time or at all. Now here is another point. This is Casey piggybacking on an eye opening point initiated by Cali.
- [32:13]
Kelly Means
I started a company and it writes letters of medical necessity, doctor's notes for food and exercise. We realized something that nobody in the healthcare system knows. Casey didn't learn this.
- [32:23]
G
I never ever learned in medical school or residency that I could write a prescription for food or exercise. It's totally legal and if you do that, it can be covered by, you can use tax advantaged dollars, tax free. You learn that in nine years.
- [32:37]
Jim Lampley
So you mean you could use tax dollars to give people gym memberships?
- [32:40]
Mike Pesca
Yes, yes.
- [32:41]
G
That is really our company.
- [32:43]
Mike Pesca
I never learned that because it doesn't work. Some health insurers you probably have, you might have health insurance that does. This will give you some sort of subsidy, not totally pay for gym membership. I guess some will, but try it, just try it. There's not some claim that you can't try. Go to your doctor, say hey could you write a prescription for the gym? The doctor will probably say I don't think that'll work, say no, no, no, I'll take it from there. Get that prescription, go to the gym, see if they accept it. They won't and tax dollars won't pay for it either. It's not a lie, but it's presented as. I never knew that. As if they're, they, whoever they is, is keeping vital information from you. But it's easily checked and it's not actually actionable information. These scales from the eyes type information. A lot of times these two have maybe an interesting point to make, but then they'll just tag on a bullshit statistic that they know will not be checked in these forums.
- [33:37]
Kelly Means
Like 50% of American food were created by cigarette companies in the 1990s.
- [33:41]
Mike Pesca
Well, here's the part that's true. In the 90s, RJ Reynolds, Philip Morris cigarette profits were waning. They buy Kraft, they buy Nabisco. They make highly palatable processed food, sort of like they made addictive cigarettes. It's true if you look at some portions of the food supply. These two companies dominated Kraft. General Foods had a 42% market share in US retail cheese in cereal. Kraft via their Post Bran had 11.7%. Not as big as General Mills, not as big as Kellogg. And they had a 43% share of the 6 billion dollar a year cookie and cracker market. That's Nabisco, the national biscuit company. But you know, most of our food isn't cheese, cereal or cookies. According to the FCC and industry data in the 90s, Kraft had 4 to 5% of the US food market. Nabisco had another 2 to 3%. You know, I don't think they even touch 10% of the food we eat. So to that I say, come on. And here's another come on from Casey.
- [34:47]
G
These, these chemicals are being used 6 billion pounds globally per year because of pest control. They're also used on our children's parks and golf courses and all over the place. They're invisible, they're tasteless and they are directly toxic to our cellular biology. So they're pesticides. Side is the word for the act of killing. So herbicides and such as fungicides and they are so toxic that 20% of all suicides globally are performed by drinking pesticides. And yet we're told by our government that they're totally safe.
- [35:17]
Mike Pesca
Well, they're not safe to drink in a smoothie. Buildings are safe. But you wouldn't want to jump off them. Come on. These are logical leaps not likely to be checked by Tucker, by Rogan, but they are indicative of the kind of logic at play from the two siblings. And there are all these logical leaps, all these illusions baked into so much of what they say. And so much comes back to the boogeyman of big pharma of non integrated health. This is the idea that Cassie Means has all the time. If you have 10 symptoms, your doctor will recommend you to go to 10 specialists. You'll even maybe have to have 10 surgeries. She has said this. 10 surgeries. If you complain of your 10 different symptoms. Yes, in Casey Means world, it's only Casey Means. And I guess the listeners of Tucker or Rogan who've ever, by the way, Kasey Means, had to quit her surgical residency because she realized this point. She realized it very late. But no doctor besides her has ever thought of the idea of root causes. I think she invented the phrase there are no root causes. No doctor ever thinks of that because they're not paid to think of that. What is frustrating and also fundamental to the success of these two, they're very successful is the blending of sound advice with unfounded or sometimes just bullshit assertions. Take this pronouncement to Tucker Carlson about the procedures in hospitals.
- [36:48]
G
When babies are born, that child's eyes are smeared with erythromycin ointment and they're given a hepatitis B vaccine in their first day of life. And what are these two things for? I mean, this is. I mentioned this because it's just emblematic of how we are put on the pharma treadmill from the moment we are born in this country for reasons that are very strange. The erythromycin ointment is to prevent chlamydial infections of the eye, which we test women for chlamydia. So why would every baby in the United States need this ointment if the mom doesn't have it? And the Hep B vaccine is for hepatitis B, which is a sexually transmitted disease and IV drug user disease, of course, which babies are not going to be exposed to. And yet every single baby in America is getting the intervention.
- [37:29]
Mike Pesca
So from the very strange, very strange babies are not going to be exposed to STDs. Except there are a lot of ways to get hepatitis B. It is called the silent epidemic because so many people don't know how they get it. The inoculations occur in three stages. One right there, day you're born, then one or two months later than six or 18 months after that. I'm sure she's opposed to all the inoculations because she doesn't like inoculations. But these inoculations are extremely effective at limiting this, this once rampant and really quite horrible disease, which can be acquired in many more ways than sexual contact, including intravenous drugs, which the means made fun of. How's a baby going to touch an intravenous drug needle? How about this? A bite on the playground, documented biting can spread hepatitis B. And even this is the very important point. Even if a baby doesn't get a sexually transmitted disease, their mother might have one in the birth canal. That's true. But babies is this funny phenomenon. With babies, they grow up sometimes to be cowboys and sometimes to be Hep B carriers, unless they got those inoculations which are excellent for the health of babies. And you and me and all of them, they're great vaccines. They help society. And then Tucker Carlson asked, what's the downside? And the siblings didn't really come up with one. They offered boilerplate. All pharmaceutical interventions have downsides. True, but few have as many upsides as the Hep B vaccine, which almost never causes a problem in babies. They just want to make their provocative point about the vaccine treadmill. However, remember the other thing she was talking about there? Smearing the eyes of infants? Yeah. I expected to find a similar morass of information, but I was surprised. So they are smeared with erythromycin A prophylaxis. And the history of this is interesting. It was introduced in the late 1800s. A very large percentage of babies were going blind from not just chlamydia, like she said, but gonorrhea. And it worked. And blindness went down a lot. But since then, a lot has changed. There are antibiotics for gonorrhea, there is screening for gonorrhea and chlamydia, there are interventions. And many countries, including Great Britain, eliminated this practice in the 1950s. And for 25 years afterwards, there wasn't a documented case of gonorrhea caused blindness. This actually seems like a good idea to seriously look into sunsetting. But how are we supposed to pick the good ideas from the bad ones? The fake ones, the hyped ones, the nonsense ones? Do we just hope only the good ones get pursued? Why would that be the case? The champions of these ideas, the means, the people who have the means to support them, they don't seem to have the ability or desire to discern the good from the bad. And the political incentives are all to punish all the ideas if your enemies promote them, lest they get a toehold for a bad idea. I mean, yeah, that's broad brush, that's reductive, but I see where a Democrat would be coming from, where the Democrat were to say, no, I'm just against this nonsense, full stop. I'm not going to spend time discerning the good from the bad because I don't trust the intentions of these people not to use the good to sneak in the bad. Very sorry state of affairs made sorry or still because of all Trump's appointees, Casey Means seems to be one of the least bad. We should lose weight. Metabolic health is important. Pharmaceutical companies do have outsized sway in our society. A decent amount of psychic mind control can help you land a fella.
- [41:08]
Manny Pacquiao
Aha.
- [41:09]
Mike Pesca
Like I said, it is so very hard, intentionally so hard to discern the good from the bad. And that's it for today's show. Cory Wara produces the Gist. Michelle Pesca, CBSO of Peach Fish Productions. Kathleen Sykes rides heard over the Gist list. Leo Baum is our intern. Astro Green runs our social. Thanks for listening. The gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.