Mike Pesca on the Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em Podcast

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Gist – Episode Featuring Mike Pesca on the Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em Podcast

Release Date: March 15, 2025
Host: Peach Fish Productions
Guest: Mike Pesca

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1. Introduction

In this episode of The Gist, host Mike Pesca engages in a candid and thought-provoking conversation with his fellow journalists, Nancy Rama and Sarah Happila. The discussion delves into contemporary societal issues, media dynamics, and personal anecdotes, all delivered in a responsibly provocative style characteristic of the show.

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2. Gender-Segregated Gyms: Legality and Cultural Implications

The conversation kicks off with the controversial topic of gender-segregated gyms. Nancy Rama introduces a tweet by Joshua Hames advocating for men's-only gyms, citing concerns about women's attire and the importance of male-only spaces for fostering camaraderie.

Notable Quote:
Mike Pesca [17:41]:
"Trans women playing women's sports is an 8020 issue. 80% of Americans don't think it's right. And this is while 56% of Americans still think that trans people should have civil rights and should be defended."

Nancy Rama elaborates on her personal experiences with both female-only and co-ed gyms, highlighting the discomfort and societal pressures associated with gym attire and interactions.

Key Points:

• Legality: Nancy points out that men's-only gyms are technically illegal, raising questions about discrimination and equal access.
• Cultural Dynamics: The discussion explores how gym environments reflect broader societal attitudes towards gender and sexuality.
• Psychological Impact: Mike introduces the idea that athleisure wear, like yoga pants, serves as a modern equivalent of the corset—designed to enhance physical appeal while providing comfort, inadvertently attracting unwanted attention.

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3. Gavin Newsom's Interview with Charlie Kirk: A Democratic Dilemma

Mike Pesca shifts the conversation to the political sphere, focusing on Governor Gavin Newsom's inaugural podcast episode featuring conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. This segment scrutinizes Newsom's strategic choices and the potential ramifications for Democratic politics.

Notable Quote:
Mike Pesca [46:08]:
"This is an excellent interview. I'm glad I heard it. And the weirdest thing about it was we have this phrase or this concept of we're going to platform someone or we're going to normalize someone, but this really normalized Charlie Kirk."

Key Insights:

• Political Strategy: Newsom's decision to host Kirk is analyzed as a move to broaden his appeal, though it risks normalizing views that may not align with Democratic values.
• Authenticity vs. Pragmatism: The discussion questions whether Newsom is genuinely adapting his stance or merely pivoting to stay politically viable.
• Electoral Impact: Nancy Rama emphasizes that while the issue of trans athletes in sports is divisive, it may not resonate broadly with the electorate, potentially diverting focus from more pressing concerns.

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4. The Male Gaze and Athleisure: Societal Contradictions

Sarah Happila introduces an exploration of athleisure wear, particularly women’s yoga pants, and its role in perpetuating the male gaze. The conversation highlights the paradox of clothing designed for comfort and performance simultaneously serving as a means of objectification.

Key Points:

• Sexualization of Fitness Apparel: The design of athleisure wear often accentuates physical features, leading to increased objectification in public spaces like gyms and grocery stores.
• Cultural Expectations: Women face the dual pressure of showcasing and concealing their bodies, navigating societal standards that dictate appropriate attire.
• Impact on Behavior: Nancy Rama raises questions about consent and responsibility when individuals face unsolicited attention in public settings.

Notable Quote:
Sarah Happila [25:59]:
"To basically convince an entire generation of young women to wear ass revealing pants everywhere they go. At the same time, you convince them that anybody looking at your body or commenting on it is a trauma."

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5. Female-Led Podcasts: Challenges and Representation

The discussion transitions to the landscape of podcasting, particularly the underrepresentation of female hosts in a predominantly male-dominated space. Nancy Rama and Sarah Happila reflect on their experiences and the broader implications for gender dynamics in media.

Key Points:

• Barriers to Entry: Women face societal pressures and higher scrutiny, making it challenging to freely express opinions without fear of backlash.
• Content Dynamics: Female-led podcasts often navigate topics differently, balancing personal anecdotes with critical analysis in ways that resonate with their audiences.
• Cultural Shifts: The episode underscores the need for more inclusive platforms that amplify diverse voices without perpetuating gender stereotypes.

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6. Personal Anecdotes and Reflections on Media Consumption

Throughout the episode, the trio shares personal stories and reflections on various media, including Jeopardy, Saturday Night Live, and true crime podcasts. These anecdotes serve to illustrate broader themes of societal norms, media influence, and personal identity.

Notable Quotes:
Mike Pesca [10:31]:
"I have been on Jeopardy. I came in last place, I want you to know."

Sarah Happila [43:44]:
"Mike, you're very handsome."
Mike Pesca [43:44]:
"Oh, thank you."

These lighthearted exchanges provide a balance to the more serious discussions, highlighting the interpersonal dynamics and the importance of humor in navigating complex topics.

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7. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

As the episode draws to a close, the hosts offer final reflections on the discussed topics. They emphasize the importance of understanding and addressing underlying societal issues, advocating for empathy and informed discourse.

Key Takeaways:

• Complexity of Social Issues: Topics like gender-segregated spaces and political strategies cannot be easily categorized, requiring nuanced discussions.
• Role of Media: Podcasts and other media platforms play a significant role in shaping public opinion and fostering dialogue across ideological divides.
• Personal Responsibility: Listeners are encouraged to engage critically with the content, reflecting on their own beliefs and the societal structures that influence them.

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Notable Moments and Quotes

• On Trans Athletes:
  Mike Pesca [00:54]:
  "Trans women playing women's sports is an 8020 issue. 80% of Americans don't think it's right. And this is while 56% of Americans still think that trans people should have civil rights and should be defended."

• On Gender-Segregated Gyms:
  Sarah Happila [25:59]:
  "To basically convince an entire generation of young women to wear ass-revealing pants everywhere they go. At the same time, you convince them that anybody looking at your body or commenting on it is a trauma."

• On Gavin Newsom's Interview:
  Mike Pesca [46:08]:
  "This is an excellent interview. I'm glad I heard it. And the weirdest thing about it was we have this phrase or this concept of we're going to platform someone or we're going to normalize someone, but this really normalized Charlie Kirk."

• On Female Presence in Podcasts:
  Mike Pesca [68:14]:
  "Females have been punished historically for riffing. Women do feel that they have to get it right and be extra and you know, this is society has, has essentially forced this upon them."

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Conclusion

This episode of The Gist offers a multifaceted exploration of contemporary societal issues, blending analytical discourse with personal narratives. Mike Pesca, along with Nancy Rama and Sarah Happila, navigates complex topics with clarity and insight, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and dynamics at play in today's cultural landscape.

Transcript

[Sarah Happila]

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[Nancy Rama]

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[Sarah Happila]

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[Nancy Rama]

Runner, however you choose to do it. Because when you're not worried about doing.

[Sarah Happila]

Things the right way, you're free to discover your way.

[Mike Pesca]

Coming Be a winner.

[Sarah Happila]

And that's what running's all about.

[Nancy Rama]

Run your [e-mail] Running.

[Mike Pesca]

Foreign it's the Saturday show and I'm gonna play you another podcast. Other than the gist, there's a great podcast and substack out there called Smoke him if youf Got Them. What it is is this show co hosted by Sarah Happila and Nancy Rama and two of the loveliest and finest journalists you'll ever meet. And they had me on on Sunday to talk about. Well, a couple of things. One of them was the idea of gender segregated gyms not a good idea. And another was this Gavin Newsom podcast that I'm still reading about and hearing about. And there's one insight that I'll lay on you now, but I'll I'll get out of this intro in a hurry because pretty long podcast. Want to give you all of it. But I will say this right now. Trans women playing women's sports is an 8020 issue. 80% of Americans don't think it's right. And this is while 56% of Americans still think that trans people should have civil rights and should be defended. So 20% of the people think it's right. I would say that the vast majority of those most criticizing Gavin Newsom's decision are in that 20%. I just read a critique of how horrible and unstrategic Gavin Newsom's podcast was and it used the phrase throwing vulnerable populations under the bus as related to his idea that having trans women play girl sports is unfair. It's just something to think about. A lot to think about. A long show. It's called smoke them if you got them. Enjoy.

[Nancy Rama]

I'm ready for my life to change.

[Mike Pesca]

ABC Sundays American Idol is all new. Give it your all.

[Nancy Rama]

Good luck.

[Mike Pesca]

Come out with the golden ticket. Let's Hear it.

[Sarah Happila]

This is a man's world.

[Nancy Rama]

I've never seen anything like it.

[Mike Pesca]

And a new chapter begins. We're going to Hollywood. Carrie Underwood joins Lionel Richie, Luke Bryant and Ryan Seacrest on American Idol News Sundays, 8, 7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.

[Nancy Rama]

Ryan Reynolds here from IT Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying.

[Sarah Happila]

No judgments. But that's weird.

[Nancy Rama]

Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try.

[Sarah Happila]

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[Nancy Rama]

Don'T come any closer. Don't come any nearer.

[Sarah Happila]

My vis of you can't come any clearer.

[Nancy Rama]

Just want to hear girls, good morning or whatever. They did a time change on us, Sarah. I don't know. What am I, what am I wishing you?

[Sarah Happila]

Happy Daylight Savings time. Nancy Raman, I, you know, there are.

[Nancy Rama]

Some people that are super against that time change thing. Like people in Arizona, like. Yeah, I don't know.

[Sarah Happila]

Also, I wanted to wish you a late, happy International Women's Day.

[Nancy Rama]

Oh, yeah. You know, Sarah, if had you not gotten around to that, I was gonna really question our relationship.

[Sarah Happila]

I know.

[Nancy Rama]

Yeah. I, I, the only international. First of all, why would I even know it was International Women's Day? Two, why do we even need an International Woman's Day?

[Sarah Happila]

Oh, somebody doesn't care about the oppressed women of other countries. Wow. Okay. Entitlement entitled white woman.

[Nancy Rama]

You that right? But also, no, it's just, it's, it's so, it's like, why? Oh, they get one day and what?

[Sarah Happila]

Just one day.

[Nancy Rama]

It's just, it's it's so in any case, the only thing I saw you.

[Sarah Happila]

Get to pick where you go to dinner that night.

[Nancy Rama]

The rest of the time you're like.

[Sarah Happila]

And then you go, I don't know. Where do you want to go?

[Nancy Rama]

The only thing I watched, only reason I knew it is because I watched a Richie Ricky Gervais clip about. You can imagine, it was a bit hilarious.

[Sarah Happila]

It was salty. Well, I have an international women's gift for you.

[Nancy Rama]

Is it the great Mike Pesca?

[Sarah Happila]

Yes. Wow. I brought on for International Women's Day everyone's favorite not woman. The great Mike Pesca.

[Mike Pesca]

I was gonna say you. Thank you. Thank you. You guys are domestic women, so why would it apply to you?

[Sarah Happila]

Oh, we're not international women. That's a really good point. Yeah, I thought you meant we, like, kept good house. And I was like, maybe that's just Nancy. She bakes pies. I'm a disaster.

[Mike Pesca]

The other thing is, aren't all these days, all these faux days which used to be called Hallmark Holidays, aren't they all just a version of narcissistic Facebook posting day? Isn't that all that they are? Someone, like, hashtags it and talks about how great it is to be a whatever daughter. International Woman Rescue Pup Mom. That's all they are.

[Nancy Rama]

The ones that I always think of is like, it's International Peanut Butter Day. I'm like, who said jiffy? Like, where does this even come from?

[Sarah Happila]

First of all, every day is International Peanut Butter Day in this house. In this house, we believe they have International Daughter's Day at least, like, quarterly. Because my mom, they target my mom. And so she is always sending me these Instagram posts that are like, daughter. Daughters are very special. And I'm like, yeah, I know. She's like, international Daughter's Day. I wouldn't be the same without you daughter. And I'm like, heart emoji.

[Mike Pesca]

My mom does the same thing, only it's jars of peanut butter.

[Nancy Rama]

Well, I like your mom.

[Mike Pesca]

She only. She only celebrates jars of peanut butter.

[Sarah Happila]

My mom listens to this podcast, so I'm just gonna say, Susan, that's. That's an idea. Moving forward.

[Nancy Rama]

Anyway, are we supposed to actually do something for International Women's Day?

[Mike Pesca]

I want to react. I want to spike the football on that. Yes, Susan, who is, from what I understand, a psychologist.

[Nancy Rama]

Yes, yes.

[Mike Pesca]

See, I know the lore of smoke em, if you got em.

[Sarah Happila]

Thank you. Thank you for knowing. I have an almost worthless introduction for you. The great Mike Pesca is the host of the Gist, a podcast you should be listening to. He's a third time guest, an all around good dude, and still the only Smokem guest whose son has been on our show. Mike Pesca. Welcome to Smokem if youf Got Him.

[Mike Pesca]

Thank you. I feel a little naked without my son. He's off celebrating International Sun, Women's and Peanut Butter Day all in one. He does. Does the Jamboree, and he has an hour less to do it because it's daylight savings Time. Or is it Standard Time? I always forget which one it is.

[Sarah Happila]

But I don't know. But when I was drinking this, this one, the spring forward was the worst. Oh, it was the worst because the one that was spring back, you'd be at the bar and it'd be like midnight, and suddenly they'd be like, it's 11. And you'd be like, yes, three more hours of drinking. And then the other one, you lost an hour. Not only did you lose an hour of drinking, but then you'd pound to get it all in and then you'd wake up an hour earlier. You didn't have an hour to sleep it off. It was just the worst. So every daylight savings, then I'm like, oh, I'm glad I quit drinking 14 years ago or whatever, because it's not so bad.

[Mike Pesca]

So this is so. By the worst, you mean it was better for you. The nanny state was trying to help you in some way. So the answer is we should scrap standard time. It should always be daylight savings time. We should always have the extra hour of light in the winter rather than. Rather than having, you know, four hours of light in the winter. At our parallels. And we were close to doing, you know, the Senate passed that, right? The Senate passed it. And then they all said, wait, what the hell did we just do? Because it would be a major change. And then they went back and now it's just a debate. It's in the realm of never ending debate. But it's so clear to me that it should always be daylight savings time and no standard time should exist.

[Nancy Rama]

Arizona doesn't change the clocks.

[Sarah Happila]

I know.

[Nancy Rama]

No, we're not doing it.

[Sarah Happila]

It's so weird, but kind of cool.

[Nancy Rama]

Oh, no, it's great.

[Sarah Happila]

I mean, in Trump's America, if you can get rid of the penny.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes.

[Sarah Happila]

I feel like you can get rid of daylight savings time.

[Nancy Rama]

I put on a jacket yesterday and there was a penny in just like one penny. And it's old. It's from 1973. And I was like, are we going to, like, start getting sentimental about these things and keeping them, especially if they're old, because aren't. Weren't there. Or those nickels. There was the buffalo Head nickel.

[Mike Pesca]

Those could be worth something. The pennies before I forgot what year it was and I think it was the 80s. Used to be mostly copper. So you could take your recent pennies and your old pennies and there is a difference in weight and you could actually. Well, if you put up five of them from that year against another five, you could feel it in your hands, the weight difference.

[Sarah Happila]

Oh, interesting. Peska's full of all sorts of interesting data. I can't remember. Have you been on Jeopardy?

[Mike Pesca]

I Have been on Jeopardy.

[Sarah Happila]

That's what.

[Mike Pesca]

I came in last place, I want you to know. But I was in first going into final Jeopardy.

[Nancy Rama]

Oh, so what. What, what, what screwed you up?

[Mike Pesca]

What tripped me up? Did I never give you this question?

[Sarah Happila]

No, he has, but we forgot.

[Nancy Rama]

I forgot.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, it was name two of the four people who've ever won an acting Oscar and had a number one single. Oh, you guys were good.

[Sarah Happila]

You were good at this.

[Mike Pesca]

You got it, Sarah.

[Sarah Happila]

I think I did, but I can't remember Jeopardy.

[Mike Pesca]

This is Alzheimer's Jeopardy.

[Nancy Rama]

Can I try one?

[Mike Pesca]

We just asked the same question.

[Sarah Happila]

Menopause Jeopardy. Cause I'm like, I know, I got it, but what was it? The first name that came to mind was Lady Gaga, but I don't think that's right. It was Frank Sinatra. Frank Sinatra.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes.

[Nancy Rama]

Barbra Streisand.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes. Look at you two combining for the right answer right there.

[Nancy Rama]

The first thing I thought was Olivia Newton John, but I'm like, I don't think she won an Oscar.

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah, I don't think she won an Oscar.

[Mike Pesca]

Gaga. Did Gaga win an acting Oscar? She did. So I think that's. That counts now.

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah, I guess she did, but I figured this was pretty. Star is Born.

[Mike Pesca]

She was on. She was on Saturday Night Live hosting last night. She was fine. Good, solid B performance.

[Sarah Happila]

I. I really like Lady Gaga. I really like Lady Gaga. Like, I think she's super talented. I mean, I love her. Like, about a third of her music and then two thirds of it is just nonsense. It's like dance club nonsense.

[Nancy Rama]

Yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

But a third of it is, like, super brilliant. Like, pop majesty. Like, Bad Romance is just. I heard fantastic song.

[Nancy Rama]

I heard Bad Romance in the car yesterday. I was by myself. I was just totally bopping and singing to that. It was. It's really, really a banger.

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah, it's a classic. And then she's actually, like, a really good actress. Like, she was really good in A Star is Born.

[Mike Pesca]

She was really good. And she. I saw her before anyone knew who she was on a rooftop party, essentially. And then years later, Michelle, who. You know Nancy, but you've never met Sarah, because we've never met in person.

[Sarah Happila]

We've never met Michelle.

[Mike Pesca]

And I realized we were in the same place where Lady Gaga was performing. So we had been in the same room or rooftop, and both of us had the opinion at the time that this was a drag queen named Lady Gaga. Like, we didn't think she.

[Nancy Rama]

We didn't.

[Mike Pesca]

We didn't think she was a woman. So we're like, what a great drag queen.

[Sarah Happila]

We both said for years, believe that Michelle is your wife, by the way.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes, thank you. Thank you for telling.

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah, I've heard. Is very cool. Delightful.

[Mike Pesca]

She's very organized.

[Sarah Happila]

No surprise. And Lady Gaga. Oh, I was gonna ask. Speaking of last night's Saturday Night Live, how do you guys feel about Mike Myers? Elon Musk?

[Nancy Rama]

I thought it was tremendous. I didn't see the whole show, but I saw that clip. And at first I think. Cause I was watching it on my phone, I didn't know who was. I was like, who is that? And it's. It's so spot on. I mean, of course, it's a little exaggerated. I liked it. I thought it was good.

[Mike Pesca]

I. I don't love the trend of getting ringers to play these members of the administration. They even made a joke about that on Weekend Update. And I guess Dana Carvey played it beforehand. And I'm too in my head about the internal. I wonder if Dana Carvey's feelings are hurt. I wonder if this is a Wayne and Garth thing. And I know Mike Myers.

[Sarah Happila]

Oh, my God, I hadn't even thought of that.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. They handed it off between Wayne and Garth. And I know Mike Myers is a comic genius, but from every. From what everyone says, he's very difficult to get along with. So maybe in this smaller role, he's being a more functional member of the cast. But I do think that if you look back at when he was the best cast member, he. There's a. There's a claim to put that guy on the Mount Rushmore of. Of. Of snl. And of course, he does a good. Elon. The South African and Canadian accents. And, you know, his mom's from. I think she's from Liverpool. I know she's from England. So he does nail that accent pretty well.

[Sarah Happila]

You remember Coffee Talk?

[Mike Pesca]

Yes, of course. With Linda Richmond.

[Nancy Rama]

Coffee Talk.

[Sarah Happila]

Coffee Talk.

[Nancy Rama]

Coffee Talk. Coffee Talk.

[Sarah Happila]

And. And sp. What was it called? Not Sputnik.

[Mike Pesca]

Sprockets. Sprockets. This is the time on Sprockets when we dance. I'd like to see your body covered in scabs and abrasions.

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah. It was so random. I never even knew what it was. Mocking. It was one of those, like, cultural reference points without a point.

[Mike Pesca]

Isn't that good? Like when one of these guys gets obsessed with something you don't know, and then they bring it to life and only change it a little bit. And then you watch the original and you're like, oh, my God, I've been. They're not even changing it. I love that.

[Sarah Happila]

I used to have a huge crush on Mike Myers. Like, gigantic. And I had forgotten it because it was all pre Austin Powers, which I found kind of dopey.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

In the same way that, like, I loved Jim Carrey before Ace Ventura.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

Because I loved him on In Living Color.

[Mike Pesca]

I think he did. I think those are both very boy movies.

[Sarah Happila]

Very boy movies. Very fart comedy.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, well, that. Well, Austin was right. No, I mean Ace Ventura, because he's.

[Sarah Happila]

Like, talking with his butt and stuff like that. But Austin Powers was just.

[Mike Pesca]

I didn't like that either.

[Sarah Happila]

It was just so goofy. It was just. I didn't. I don't know. It just felt like an extended. I didn't like it. But Mike Myers. Yeah, I had a huge crush on him. Why was he so difficult? I've heard that.

[Mike Pesca]

You know, I don't know of the why, but the chronicling of how he was difficult is. You know, he was sort of like a genius, was very committed to his ideas, and then wouldn't collaborate well with others. That sort of thing. It's very hard in the pressure cooker of snl, from what we all understand.

[Nancy Rama]

I haven't. I have an In Living Color story. Excuse me raising my hand here. So when I was pregnant, I was catering to make money, and we did a lot of TV shows. Gary Shandling show, Married With Children, and In Living Color. And one day I was kind of. They had me set up in a room across from the writers room, and they're all, like, sitting around a table, and they were trying to think of a punchline for the joke, yo mama. So poor. And they're, like, just all throwing things out. And the one that won was, your mom is so poor she had to put her weave on layaway.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay, that's good.

[Sarah Happila]

It's pretty good. Well, we have Mike Pesca on to talk about a couple different things. One of them is Gavin Newsom appearing with Charlie Kirk and starting his new podcast. The other one is this thing that I got kind of semi obsessed with, which was a tweet about how there should be men's only gyms. And then I. Nancy and I were talking about it, and we kind of came to the realization that men's only gyms are technically illegal. And. And. And this is actually just a conversation about the hypersexualization of culture, really. But it's also about masculine spaces and whether or not we need or want them. And so you're our dude on the ground, you know, like, you're our regular dude.

[Mike Pesca]

I've been going to gyms. I've been doing the research.

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah, exactly. So. And then we may talk about some other stuff. But. But which of these do you want to talk about first? Mike Pesca.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, you know, I guess I didn't read the show prep because I had no idea we were talking about Gavin Newsom and Charlie Kirk. But can I tell you, I went out just. I don't. Not coincidentally. I'll tell you why. I listened to the whole interview and I've. I wanted to talk about it on the gist. I have many, many thoughts.

[Nancy Rama]

Great.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, but. But gyms are good. I'm going to the gym later today. Went to the gym yesterday. I belong to three gyms and have been to many gyms, including a de facto men's only gym. We could talk about all that.

[Sarah Happila]

Exactly set the agenda. Okay, Nancy, do you have a preference?

[Nancy Rama]

Yeah, let's talk about the gyms. I had a. I had a little insight in terms of the male only spaces this morning. Actually. Two. Well, one was just an observation. So, you know, it is the case that dudes used to gather with dudes, like working on the car or whatever at the vfw. And I was like, well, maybe, maybe the podcast is now the dude hang. Right? That's where the. That's. That's the new under the hood. And something that I think you guys have probably noticed. You will see older guys, like guys in their 60s and 70s, they eat breakfast together. They go out and sit, and they do it every morning. They will meet at the same restaurant or the same coffee shop and sit there for like two hours. And they have that space.

[Sarah Happila]

I have a question. Do they talk to each other?

[Nancy Rama]

Oh, yeah. That's what it's about. It's talking. And I know this from my. My late stepfather, David Levine. 20 years, same restaurant, same guys. Other people would kind of like shift in and out. Of course, some people died, but it was. It was. That's where I first noticed it. And then you. Now you're not going to not see it. You will see older guys gathering in the mornings. No, gals. Men only.

[Mike Pesca]

Where? What location?

[Nancy Rama]

It was in Brooklyn Heights at a restaurant called Teresa's, which is not called Teresa's anymore.

[Sarah Happila]

And a diner, right.

[Nancy Rama]

It was a kind of Ukrainian restaurant slash diner. And they took a front table and actually, I'll look it up. I think they'd been doing it for like 15 years. And the New York Times finally wrote a little piece about it because these guys had just Been doing it for so long and a few of them were kind of well known artists and stuff. So I'll find a link to that.

[Sarah Happila]

Well, I'm going to sue them for discrimination because I can't go to their men's only spaces.

[Mike Pesca]

So you could sit down at a table, you'd be, you can say, I'm sure.

[Sarah Happila]

We'll see. We'll see. It sounds illegal to me. I'm going to read you the tweet that started all this. It's by somebody I don't even know named Joshua Hames. So he could be, I don't know, he could be anybody. But this is what he says. We need men's only gyms. Two reasons. One, women literally wear their underwear to the gym these days. It's wildly inappropriate and immodest, designed to cause men to lust. Men shouldn't have to deal with that at the gym. Number two, it's important for men to have regular space and time with just the boys. When ladies are present, the dynamic changes, often for the better, but not always. Women also need women's only time and spaces. The sexes are gloriously different. And sometimes we just need a break from each other. So that's where it starts. And I got to thinking about this because, I mean, it's sort of almost silly to think to me to think men need men's only gyms because it's like that was gyms, like gyms were men's only. And then they had to create women's only gyms, which I belong to one because it's called Curves, embarrassingly enough. I don't know why that's embarrassing to go to a gym called Curves, but it was embarrassing for me. I felt like I was walking into Jenny Craig. But there's a women's only gym, which I liked because in Dallas, and this may not be true in other cities, but in Dallas in particular, and I guess I found this in Austin too, because that's where I was. Gyms are very meat markety. You know, they're very. Everybody checking you out. And I. This is, I did this. This is before Lululemon and the Athleisure, all this business that's happened over 20 years now. You know that there was this idea that you go to the gym to meet people. And I was like, I'm going to the gym to not meet people. Anyone. I don't want to meet anyone. So I joined a female only gym. But, you know, in more recent years, I joined a gym called Equinox, which.

[Nancy Rama]

Is, I Have that. That's right.

[Sarah Happila]

I think New York based. It's really nice.

[Mike Pesca]

Gym cost about $18,000 a month.

[Sarah Happila]

It's so expensive.

[Nancy Rama]

250Amonth.

[Sarah Happila]

Not in Dallas. I mean, it was a special.

[Nancy Rama]

I got it as a special. So.

[Sarah Happila]

Well, I. It was like close to a thousand dollars a month. And then there was like, you had like a personal trainer and that was extra money. And a Pilates trainer and that was extra money. I've never spent so much money. But when I originally joined Equinox, I would go in my sweatpants and a shirt. And one day I realized, kind of to my horror, like waking up inside a dream where you realize you're naked, that I was the only female that wasn't wearing yoga pants. And I said this to my personal trainer, who was a very hot woman that looked like Olivia Munn. And I said, I think I might be the only woman that doesn't wear yoga pants. And she was like, oh, you are. And she said it in a way that I knew everybody had been talking about it.

[Nancy Rama]

Oh, no.

[Sarah Happila]

And I went to my car and cried. Oh, I know, I know, because that's me. And then what did I do? What did I do?

[Nancy Rama]

You didn't buy yoga pants, did you?

[Sarah Happila]

I went to Lululemon.

[Nancy Rama]

Oh.

[Sarah Happila]

And I bought the yoga pants. They were $90. And they showed my ass, like, as if this year.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

My ass had arrows pointing toward it. And when I showed up, all the personal trainers gave me a high five.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, well, the joke's on her because now Olivia Munn is married to John Mulaney.

[Sarah Happila]

Exactly. It's not worked out well. Yeah, actually, John Mulaney's hilarious. But anyway, this kind of overlaps with a lot of interesting topics. To me, I think the first one I wanna start with is the normalization of leisure wear, Athleisure, which is that Lululemon has been a juggernaut of a brand for probably 20 years now. There's a Lululemon in Dallas at the mall. And it is. It is so packed all the time. It has, you know, all these young women in there and they're all buying these things that are, you know, expensive and suctioning. And it's a really interesting contradiction between flaunting your body and hiding it, because they're all sort of comfy, lounge around outfits that I think a lot of men understand to be basically like a woman walking around naked, but with clothes so you can see the entire outline of the body underneath. And I've had men say to me, Married men with kids say, I'm so tired of watching a woman's ass at the Whole Foods because women wear these things to Whole Foods. And you know, it's just, it's very interesting to me. I also saw a video recently of a woman, I think she was like, in Britain, she was wearing yoga pants. She leaned over to like set up her phone and a guy behind her said, nice arse. And she started to panic and she was like, oh my God. And she starts crying and she's running and she's going, I can't believe this has happened. I can't believe this has happened. And this feels like such a cultural setup.

[Nancy Rama]

Yeah, like a. Yeah, to.

[Sarah Happila]

To basically convince an entire generation of young women to wear ass revealing pants everywhere they go. At the same time, you convince them that anybody looking at your body or commenting on it is a trauma.

[Nancy Rama]

I have a quick question that is exactly about this that I do wonder about. It is the case that I don't think women in general respond the way men do. Like, if you see a guy and he looks nice and he had like on tight pants, it's not like, ugh, want pants. First of all, I would find that awful to see a guy in tight pants. It would not be interesting to me.

[Sarah Happila]

And Nancy gets so upset when men walk around without their shirts.

[Nancy Rama]

I don't like, yeah, no, I don't. I don't want to see men without their shirts unless they're playing basketball or like swimming or in the ocean or something like that. I don't want to see if it's.

[Mike Pesca]

Motivated by the plot.

[Nancy Rama]

I don't like it. But I'm asking you a question, Mike, as a representative of all men. When you see a gal and she's got like some serious boob showing or her really tight pants, like, what is the. Is there a response that's just like a primal response?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, men are very visual. I mean, every statistic backs this up. And the reason, I mean, it goes back to our animal needing to have or wanting to have many mates and the other member of the species wanting to have one mate who stays with them to foster and raise the children. I think the big problem with everything you laid out, if there is a problem, well, the advance and to the benefit of Lululemon, is that they took the structure and body contouring of the corset and not only eliminated the downside of discomfort, they made it comfortable. It's as if it's the clothing equivalent of the delicious tasting food that helps you lose weight. Or cold fusion. The technology that we. There was always, you give a little to get a little. You guys know the maxim that pain is beauty? Well, what if beauty was the opposite of pain? What if beauty now for not just psychologically, but literally felt better? So that's a. What. What an advance. And the only downside is then psychologically of people who either don't understand or what you just said, Sarah. Era that to think that the attention that you're going to get, and then I have to think even the most clueless person knows that they want to get. Maybe they only want to get it from the right person in the right way, which is to some extent fair enough. But you have to be able to handle or not even handle, understand the attention properly, contextualize the attention. So this twin here are these amazing clothes to wear that will get everyone ogling at you at the same time as to be ogled is to be traumatized. Those are concomitant trends that are not helping people right now.

[Nancy Rama]

I read something the other day. There was a concert. I don't remember what it was. Forgive me. And there was a girl, she's like, on a guy's shoulder. She didn't have her shirts on. There were some girls that had taken their shirts off, so they just were completely topless. And the show was getting a little bit rambunctious. And some guy grabbed her boob. And the outrage, I think. I don't know if she pressed assault charges or not, but I was like, well, I'm not saying he should have grabbed her boob, but also, like, maybe you want to keep your shirt on. I don't know. What do you. What do you think about that? Like, is she. Shouldn't she have some responsibility in this situation? Maybe.

[Sarah Happila]

Well, what I'll tell you is that the only people that grab my boobs are gay men. And it's really interesting because when gay men get drunk around me, they almost always want to jiggle my boobs. And what this tells me is that actually straight men also want to do this, but know that they can't.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, that.

[Nancy Rama]

That's.

[Sarah Happila]

And gay men know that they can get away with it. And the straight men will look at them like, don't you know you're not allowed to do that? And I'm like, this is funny. I think it's funny.

[Nancy Rama]

And it's not going to go any further than that.

[Sarah Happila]

No, it's not. It doesn't feel threatening.

[Mike Pesca]

Different.

[Sarah Happila]

What's that?

[Mike Pesca]

Do you. Do you think the motivation for each is different or it's primal. Look, the gay man, it's got like the same base.

[Sarah Happila]

No, it's. It's got like the same base, which is that boobies like Nancy's talked about this. Like little kids, you know, boobies. But then one half of the tree grows up to want to suck that and the other half of the tree grows up not wanting to at all. You know, like nobody is disgusted by female genitalia like gay men. Sorry. It's true.

[Mike Pesca]

Interesting. So speaking of gay men, I essentially found myself in a. What A de facto male only gym. There are male only gyms. Like David Barton in New York, which is. It can't say men only. And we're a gay gym. But 95% of the clientele is. I don't know, actually probably 90 something percent is male. And of that a very high percentage is gay. So I was a member of Crunch and the Crunch and depending on location, they change a lot. This was 20, 25 years ago. And the Crunch that was on, I think it was Bowery or right near Astor Place was a. Unbeknownst to me, very gay centric gym. And I remember I was young and naive and there were signs in the sauna saying any inappropriate behavior will get you ejected from the gym. And I remember thinking about this the first few times I saw this. I'm like inappropriate. Like the way one splatters the water on the rocks. What would this be? And then it dawned on me. Or like maybe I took in. Maybe I looked up from the treadmill one day and I took it all in. So yes, that's the, that's what would happen if there were male only spaces. It wouldn't be like the coffee clatch at Teresa's. There are essentially male gyms that are that for me, I'm not. Okay, maybe this is a young male thing. And I saw the guy. Sarah, you said, I don't know who this guy, what's his name? J. Heims. The guy who posted. I didn't know either, but I looked at his. I looked at his Twitter handle and it says make America Christian again. So.

[Sarah Happila]

Right, right.

[Mike Pesca]

Coming from.

[Sarah Happila]

Right. It.

[Mike Pesca]

There was. And by the way, there was an element of Sharia law in what he's saying. Right. Don't. You cannot tempt me. You must be covered. The modern person knows to just look away a little bit. I. I just don't think practic. I've never wanted it. I don't think that there's a huge call for it to have not only Bro spaces where bros can bro out and fist pump and. Or fist bump, but also not be distracted by the scantily clad female worker outer. I think. What's that, what's that Venn diagram of guys who want to bro out and dap their other bros and lift but also don't want attractive women walking around in yoga pants? It might just be the Christian only male gym.

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah, I think there is something about younger 20something, 30something men who are married and are trying to contain the kind of animal lust that was allowed to sort of run free in their younger youth. They're also, I mean, in the Christian world. And you know, this is true, like in the feminist world too. There's really interesting overlap there. You know, looking at porn is a problem. And so, you know, lust as an energy is kind of like eating sweets. You know, like you don't want to be around it because once you start, you're not going to be able to stop. Maybe I'm just talking about myself right now, but, you know, you just don't want the temptation around you. So it's like you don't want to be at a gym and surrounded by cupcakes, you know, and this is somebody who wants to go to a gym and doesn't want to be surrounded by signals of lust. And you know, it reminds me of. Was it Mike Pence who said that he doesn't go to work lunches with women?

[Nancy Rama]

Yep, yep. Because.

[Sarah Happila]

And that was a huge, huge deal. But I've heard people say, even on the left since. Me too. Like, you know, maybe that's, maybe that's a good idea. Which is weird, you know.

[Nancy Rama]

Sarah, Nancy, Why does a man buy a woman a steak?

[Sarah Happila]

Oh, let's ask Mike.

[Nancy Rama]

Okay. Hey, Mike.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes?

[Nancy Rama]

Why does a man buy a woman a steak?

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, to give her a proper iron.

[Nancy Rama]

That's right.

[Sarah Happila]

Because they know about iron deficiency.

[Mike Pesca]

Iron in air quotes to battle possible anemia. I could think of. No, they hate cows. There are a lot of reasons both.

[Sarah Happila]

Of us have gotten in trouble with exes for having steak dinners with a straight male.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, a steak. A different kind of dinner would be fine. A just salad.

[Nancy Rama]

I. Apparently it's the steak that sets them off.

[Mike Pesca]

The steak. Interesting.

[Sarah Happila]

It's fancy, it's romantic, it's expensive. It seems like a flexibility, but you know, I guess.

[Mike Pesca]

But if you do a steak dinner right, you're so full and can hardly walk afterwards, we don't want to touch another person. I guess there's a, there's a curve to this. A Slope to the steak dinner. Like, starts off sexy, and then when the second round of cream spinach hits.

[Sarah Happila]

Exactly. You're like this baked potato.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, yeah. Have it stuffed. Okay. The rolls. Freshen the rolls. Hey, you want to hear something really interesting about gyms and lust? I go to a very interesting gym that exemplifies this in some ways. So I belong to. Unlike you could spend your money on an equinox and go to equinox, or do what I do and belong to three gyms that all cost $10 a month. This is like the new. The new trend in gyms. So I belong to a planet Fitness, which is $10 a month, and I belong to the down. There are different levels of crunch, which is $10 a month. And the reason I do it is if I'm on the road, I like to have a gym to go to. And these are national chains. I don't even go to the plan Fitness around me. I would say hardly ever. But one of the crunches, the main crunch I go to is one half black men and women Caribbean. Almost all. It's up in Crown Heights, so almost all Caribbean. Although, you know, you can't tell what everyone's heritage is by how they're doing the incline press. But the other half, you can tell because it is Chabad. It is Orthodox Jew. And all the guys are working out in their yarmulkes and talus. And some are ripped right. Some look like the Jewish golem. And all the women. And there aren't too many older women, at least the time I get to. So I don't think the moms go, but the girls, the young girls, they all go. They all wear their long skirts. They're all on the ellipticals or doing whatever on their long skirts. And it is the opposite of lust. Lust. And. Or the whole point of their existence is to not induce lust. And I have not surveyed everyone else at the gym, but there seems to be. And I don't observe too much of the Chabad community in the wild, but there seems to be the exact amount of interaction between young men and young women in the Chabad community wearing their long skirts, as there would be the interaction between the men and women in the. Not in the. In the black community who's also working out there. And the black community, of course, unlike Chabad, doesn't have any, you know, strictures on who could touch or marry whom. So it's kind of interesting. Very interesting.

[Sarah Happila]

You're reminding me that I, you know, I used to live in Brooklyn and South Williamsburg. And I was adjacent to an orthodox neighborhood. And one day I decided to take a particularly long walk around the neighborhood through their neighborhood. I had on probably sweatpants. Cause it's pre Lululemon and a jogging bra, you know, very typical for my neighborhood. But I have big up tops and I have never been stared at.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

Like a hussy. Like a brazen hussy.

[Mike Pesca]

You are the whore of Babylon in that situation. Yes. Well, that is true. And that. That is like, thank God our girls wear long skirts that get in the way of the elliptical machine.

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah, I know, I know. It's just really fascinating to me. You know, there's one more thing I want to bring up before we leave this topic. It's the Do I. Did you guys follow the controversy around high school girls wearing yoga pants to school? Because this was a trend in the teens, and a few schools tried to outlaw yoga pants as too revealing. And so the little feminist clubs fought back. And they were like, don't tell us how to dress. Tell the men how to think. So, you know, and it was that.

[Mike Pesca]

Rewire their biology.

[Nancy Rama]

Wire their biology. Exactly. What's the problem?

[Sarah Happila]

But it was that really interesting moment where we were refusing to change female behavior in favor of a wishful thinking that you could change the way men thought.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, I think there were a lot of. Sorry, Nancy. I just will add to that. Remember the whole. And this is still going on, the whole, let us rethink fatness and let us redefine how this looks or appeals to others. And there'd be one data point, like, you know, in the 1600s, to be a Rubenesque woman was very sexy, by the way. It still is, but thank you. The whole point was, instead of dealing with reality on reality's terms, like, this is people do find someone who's not morbidly obese more attractive than someone who is. Rather than acknowledge that or talk about anything close to something like healthy eating and what pre diabetes does to the body, let's just rewire all of our species. And it didn't work. But I guess it found an audience, which is the only important thing.

[Sarah Happila]

Lizzo's on Ozempic.

[Mike Pesca]

She looks great.

[Sarah Happila]

She looks great. Yeah, she looks great.

[Mike Pesca]

Great. Before, this is what we're supposed to say. Like, we all know what we're supposed to say with the change the male gaze and yoga pants or dress codes in the office. But I talked to many, many. And maybe they're people of our age, many women professionals who deal with people 20 years younger and the women are the most feminist women that you could think of, and they just have the realistic mindset on why there are dress codes in the office. It's not because your co workers won't be able to stick to their spreadsheets. There's a definition of professionalism, and it's subjective by definition. It has to be subjective. But if we're going to decide this is professional, there is a length of skirt that is and a length of skirt that isn't. Just like other things that don't have that same sexual valence, like what a man wears around his neck. This is how we define professionalism. It's not about the male gaze.

[Sarah Happila]

One of the best things about being female in the 21st century is that you are given more license to talk about how hot women are. It's just. I feel really comfortable seeing a woman and being like, you look amazing.

[Nancy Rama]

Oh, yeah, it's great. I love it when you.

[Sarah Happila]

It's so great.

[Nancy Rama]

We were at a bar the other night, Clandestino, Great bar. Right down the street from my house in Lower east side Chinatown. And there was a girl that came on duty. She's a bartender. And she had the, like, the wackiest build for a woman. She was, like, super slender, but kind of, like, gangly and real. Kind of like tomboy, the way she was done up. But also just so hot. I was so distracted. I finally Matt said to her, we have to apologize for her staring at you. I was like, I have to stare at you. You look amazing. She looked amazing. And who doesn't like to hear that? Like, someone just comes up to you, like, you look great. I know that some people apparently don't like that. They can bring it to me if you don't like it. They can. They can come and tell me I look great. But, yeah, it's nice to tell. It's nice to tell anybody. I had to go the other day and cancel my mom's phone because my mom hasn't used her phone in years. And the guy that was helping me, he was a young guy, maybe mid-20s, kind of heavyset, but like a really, really handsome face. Really quiet black dude, Nice guy. And when I was leaving, I was like, do a lot of people tell you you're really handsome, man, you should have seen this dude smile. It was like the sun breaking through. So tell people they look great.

[Sarah Happila]

If you think they look great, well, you're reminding.

[Mike Pesca]

I would never do that. I have never done that to a man or a woman.

[Sarah Happila]

You'll never do that. Really?

[Mike Pesca]

No, no, no.

[Sarah Happila]

Oh, wow.

[Mike Pesca]

Maybe I could compliment a specific feature if it's not of the erogenous haircutter boobs could maybe say something about a haircut or a T shirt choice.

[Nancy Rama]

Oh, interesting. Okay.

[Sarah Happila]

Mike, you're very handsome.

[Nancy Rama]

You are.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, thank you.

[Sarah Happila]

Oh, you are. We probably embarrassed him, you guys.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, my God.

[Sarah Happila]

Oh, my God. Oh, smoke him if you got him. Is it hot in here?

[Mike Pesca]

And we'll be back. Gonna put a break here even though the original smoke him if you got him just runs uninterrupted by commercial. But I'll put a break here and be back on the other side of it with more smoking if you got them.

[Sarah Happila]

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[Nancy Rama]

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[Sarah Happila]

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[Mike Pesca]

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[Sarah Happila]

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[Mike Pesca]

Not available in all states.

[Sarah Happila]

You were talking about the decade plus of wishful thinking that we have lived inside, you know, where it wasn't really about what was true, it was what we were supposed to say or supposed to think. And, you know, that is, I think, a good segue to talking about the conversation that Gavin Newsome had with Charlie Kirk. Because Gavin Newsom has stepped out of line. He has decided to bring on one of the most prominent conservative voices in the culture. And he's doing that like this is the launch of Gavin Newsom's podcast. He's like, I'm here and I'm bringing on like enemy number five or whatever, right?

[Mike Pesca]

That's his big get. That's how he announces itself. That's how he defines the podcast. This is what we'll be doing.

[Sarah Happila]

And part of the thing you learn pretty early on is that Gavin Newsom, governor of California, died in the wool liberal. His son is a fan of Charlie Kirk. 13 year old son.

[Nancy Rama]

That was a great line when he's like, you know, he was like, is he coming And I want to meet him and I want to do it. And Charlie Crook's like, well, is he here. Am I going to meet him? He's like, well, no, he would have. He would have had to take a day off from school. Charlie Crook's like, you kept the schools closed for two years.

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah, I know. It was a good line.

[Nancy Rama]

Yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

So I'm going to lay my cards on the table and tell you guys. You know, I really liked this. Like, I. I think Nancy has a very different, like, feelings about Gavin Newsom. And I don't really. I just think he looks kind of generally not. I don't generally like him, but I loved that he did this, and I thought it was a really engaging conversation. So I'm interested in what you guys think.

[Mike Pesca]

So I came to it in an odd way. I had. I, from the podcast world, knew that Gavin Newsom was doing a podcast and didn't pay much attention to it. Everyone's doing a podcast. And then it launched. And then I read a New York Times article on it. Newsom splits with Democrats on transgender athletes. It's deeply unfair. I'm like, oh, that's weird. Did he make a proclamation? No. This was pulled out of his interview with Charlie Kirk. And as the Times was Describing this interview, Mr. Newsom invited Mr. Kirk, who has a history of inflammatory, conspiratorial remarks, onto the debut episode of his podcast. Mr. Newsom spent much of the conversation with Mr. Kirk reflecting on the myriad ways that former Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign failed to reach key voters. I said to myself, oh, my God, Gavin Newsom is selling out whatever convictions he had. But then I said, you know, I've. Why am I reading a write up of a conversation rather than just hear the conversation? I also said, I've done this many times and so much gets lost. And the number one example of this is you read the write up of a stand up comedy routine, they leech out all the comedy and it seems like crazy statements. And you go back to the routine. It's like, oh, that was comedic. So with this, I went back to the original interview and my thoughts were, in a weird way, this was an excellent interview. I'm glad I heard it. And the weirdest thing about it was we have this phrase or this concept of we're going to platform someone or we're going to normalize someone, but this really normalized Charlie Kirk. And I don't think that's a bad thing.

[Sarah Happila]

Yes.

[Mike Pesca]

And by that I mean this. I have listened to many, many, many Charlie Kirk episodes I played on my show. I make fun of him. He makes terrible arguments. I was at the rnc, he had a. A stage right neck right outside the Fifth Serve arena where the convention was going on, and there was smoke and there were sparkles and there were explosions and he would do a show outside and I listened to it and it was idiotic. He makes terrible points. He. The. It's red meat for the base. They lap it up. And this is the first time I ever saw Charlie Kirk being smart, making good points rhetorically, which he does rhetorically, twisting Gavin Newsom in certain places. I came away with different feelings about Gavin Newsom, which is that he's not a person with conviction. And it doesn't surprise me that he admitted to only getting 970 on his SATs, which.

[Sarah Happila]

960.

[Mike Pesca]

But yeah, yeah, doesn't shock me at all. But I think he probably has a high eq. But, yeah, those are the big takeaways for me. Not a terrible interview. Glad it exists. Charlie Kirk sounded so much better than I've ever heard him anywhere else. And don't you give Gavin Newsom some credit for that. Look, if what you're looking to do is defeat your political enemies, you don't. But to me, to take this, what I thought was, well, it's just so interesting to think about, why does he have to be so stupid to appeal to his base when he has some intelligence and can appeal or turn around a Democrat? So it was worthwhile to me.

[Nancy Rama]

Well, I agree with you. I think it was a good choice for him to do this. I mean, imagine if he'd had Kamala Harris. It would be like, just like, really? No, we don't want to go here anymore. We just don't want to hang around and do this again and again. So I thought it was a good choice. Unlike Mike, I know who Charlie Kirk is. I know basically what he stands for. And yes, it's red meat for the bass. But I have never heard him once, so this was all fresh for me. I found him to be a good sparring partner for Newsom. I think they enjoyed each other. They sounded like they were enjoying the conversation. I think they covered some things that we need to talk about. And I wonder, I mean, I'm not a fan of Newsom's only because a lot of the things he's done in California, including back in whatever year when he was mayor of San Francisco, he's like, we've sought. We're going to solve the homeless problem. We've got it now. We've got the rubric. We're going to do it. Of Course, nothing ever happens. California did a really shitty, shitty job during the pandemic. We have many friends whose children really almost fell right off the edge of Earth because of the strictures that were put in place. And I find him to be sort of odious a lot. I did not find him odious in the interview. I found him to be pretty conversational. He kind of. He, He. He spoke his mind. Now, is he. Does he actually believe the things he's saying now? For instance, like, yeah, I really don't think we should have trans women competing in women's sports? Or is he doing it because he's a consummate politician and he knows that this is a 100% losing argument? I mean, the Dems are going to try to die on this hill, and I'm going to tell you, they are going to die on that hill because too much of the country is just like, no, we're not. We're not going to do this. Is he the guy that knows where, he knows how he needs to pivot if he is going to have a political future? So do you believe him? Do you believe that he's had, like, actual changes of hearts or was sort of trying to clarify for Kirk, like, well, I didn't really believe. You're kind of twisting my words. I didn't really say it that way. I don't really believe those things. Do you think that he's trying to make a fresh start in a Democratic field, which is so moribund right now? I mean, choose your fighter, or whatever that thing was the other day. This was just. This was just. This is so hideously embarrassing. You know what I'm saying?

[Sarah Happila]

Choose. Nancy, who'd you choose?

[Nancy Rama]

I chose none of them. First of all, I didn't think any of them look like. Not that I know how to throw a punch, but I'm like, these cows do not know how to throw a punch. So do you think that he understands what's happening right now? And he's like, listen, I cannot stay on that team because it's going nowhere, and I have to kind of reinvent in or if I'm going to stay viable.

[Mike Pesca]

This. This is always the conundrum. Do we want our politicians to have deep conviction? Do we want our politicians to understand where the electorate is and meet them there? These things are sometimes in conflict. So I think it comes down to how much the individual voter believes what the politician is selling. But to me, Gavin Newsom would like to come across as someone who's not stupid. I'm not going to go, I'm not, I'm not going to proudly take the 20% side on the 8020 issue of women in Sports. Trans women in sports. But, sorry, trans men in sports. But you know, he doesn't come across as anything like authentic. To me, authenticity is unbelievably subjective. I don't want someone to always die on the Hill because one time they had a conviction. But on the other hand, it does absolutely seem like he's putting his finger in the wind and just wants to advance, advance his own political career. But I also wonder, what does he mean when he said that New York Times headline that it is a question of fairness for transgender athletes and women in sports? Yes. At least he's admitting that it is unfair for someone to go up against someone who is a biological male and is much stronger and had the benefits of puberty. Liberty. Right, but is he saying he would change any California law? Is he saying he regrets any California law? Remember, this is a guy who didn't just sign a law which said, well, he's always been identified with the, and he will point this out with the gay rights movement. He, he'd have to being a, you know, California and San Francisco based politician. But when he signed the law that said teachers are not compelled to, or if they choose not to, if the schools choose not to inform the parents that a child is identifying as another gender, that's fine. He didn't just say, look, this is a very hard choice and we have to navigate this in way different virtues. He said, we believe in no snitching. So how does that guy, and that was about six months ago, maybe eight. How does that guy and this guy, how are they the same guy? What exactly does he mean? And the next time his guest isn't Charlie Kirk, but someone who is, you know, a member of the gay rights community. What's, how's he going to say it? How's he going to come across is what his current stances are.

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah, he also presented California as a sanctuary city for kids from Texas. Trans families, you know, come to California because there's, there's, there is a number of families. There are a number of families. They're not a huge number. It's not like the number of people leaving California, but some families don't want to be in Texas. Now he's trying to present California as an alternative to that. They're also same way with abortion. So yeah, I think you're both making really good points. In some ways, this is the kind of flexible speaker that Makes for a good conversationalist. I'm reminded of Joe Rogan, who often bends according to who he's talking to. You know, and. And people will light him up for talking to conspiracy theorists because he starts to sound conspiracy theoristy, and he is. He's certainly very, you know, curious about that topic. But you'll listen to him talk to somebody into else entirely, and he'll. He'll sound sort of amenable to them, too. Oprah was probably the example of this. Just the empath, empathic listener. Mike's point that he has probably a very high eq, I think is really good. But, yeah, I think you're making a great point about what are the. What. What does this person really believe? I came away from it not knowing if he was flexible or if he had been clueless, because he keeps kind of saying, oh, well, I don't. I don't know about that statute. Or, I don't know about. I don't remember this part. Or, you know. And you're like, do you. He's like, is that really being done in schools? I guess I need to get back into the schools. And you're like, okay, is this real, or are you just saying this? He felt a little actually overmatched with Kirk because Kirk seemed like he had been on the ground debating this for a long time, right. And Newsom hadn't been. I think one of the primary purposes of this interview was a kind of flex against Kamala Harris, because I think this was like, hey, let me show you how you could have won this. And, you know, because I know Newsom's name was being floated around in there. And, you know, I've always heard that the Democratic establishment doesn't like him, which I can. I can see. Maybe he's just like, well, screw you guys. I'm going to make my own sort of movement. And, you know, at one point, he said this thing. You know, he was talking about what you needed to do in order to win. And he was like, yeah, but in order to do that, you'd have to believe something. And it really felt to me like he was talking about Kamala Harris. I don't know.

[Mike Pesca]

A lot of it was.

[Sarah Happila]

I don't know for a fact that he was.

[Mike Pesca]

I think there was a Harris subtext to a lot of it. I think the very show is a Harris subtext because Harris didn't go on all these shows that were not even hostile. I don't think Rogan would have been hostile, but not seen as. As friendly as the View. And Gavin Newsom has still in touch with Ron DeSantis and has been on Sean Hannity. And I bet Sean Hannity is going to go on the show. So he's showing that what we need to win as a Democrat, the whole thing is to advance his political brand. What we need to do is the ability to go into hostile territory, to go into all these shows, to engage with all manner of people. And that is not in the Kamala Harris skill set at all. Now, I know what, I'm pretty sure if, when asked about this, he's going to get some blowback. So what is your trans policy? He would say something like, we're here to defend trans kids. We think Tennessee and Texas and all these states that have banned procedures have gotten the way of doctors and kids. And that is horrible. And we stand up for the trans community. But. And then he's going to have a carve out. We're gonna, we're gonna stand with and we're gonna adhere to the laws that are now on the books in the way that the state of Maine is not when it comes to transgender athletes and school systems. He's also probably going to defer to the local school system. So he does know the sports issue, at least, is a terrible issue for Democrats, and he is changing. But when he phrased it a year ago or eight months ago, it wasn't, like I said, it wasn't a debate between competing virtues. It was. He thought that his side of things had the advantage and he wanted to stick it to the racist, the sexist, the homophobes who would possibly not want their girls playing against natal males in sports?

[Nancy Rama]

Well, that's been the Democrats position, and we've seen that it is not a winning position for them.

[Mike Pesca]

And I also think that of. Of all the issues, it should be like a hundredth on the list. Right. And Peyton McNabb, who's the girl who got hit in the head with the volleyball in the gallery, I feel sorry for her because she got hit in the head and she had a concussion. She couldn't play the next year. But, you know, compared to everyone else in the gallery, and there were way too many people in the gallery who were mostly the widows of either kids who are killed or cops who are killed. I mean, a girl hit in the head by a volleyball. What are we doing here?

[Nancy Rama]

Well, yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

There's an interesting inability to get a bead on how big this problem is. And the left will tell you, because somebody said it to me last night, you know, this is just really like 10 people. And the right will tell you, as Charlie Kirk did In that interview, 890 trophies have been taken away. Now, this is a stat that comes, it has mysterious origins. Nancy shared it with me because there was like a un.

[Nancy Rama]

Yeah, it's like a study. The UN is, is reporting this. And I'm like, okay, first, I didn't.

[Mike Pesca]

890 in the world, in world history.

[Nancy Rama]

That's what I'm saying. 890 in world history. It's like, well, first of all, it.

[Sarah Happila]

Sounds, I don't even know how you. But how do you even measure the. The. Both numbers are wrong in my book.

[Nancy Rama]

Yes. And every side is trying to weight their side of the scale. So you're going to have the girl in the gallery when Trump is giving the speech, and then you're going to have the 890, which is an inflated number. And you're absolutely right. Mike, why is this issue, why is this the issue we keep having to hear about? Because each side feels that it's a winning issue for them. And I feel, I said this to Sarah the other day. I just do not agree with changing the laws of every sport forever in order to, to accommodate the trans female community athletes. It just doesn't make any sense. It's like if I were blind, it's like, well, I really want to play tennis, I really want to play in Wimbledon and I'm blind, so I should be able to do that. So we have to change the laws to suit me. It's like, well, no, you don't. And, and, and I, I. Anyway, each side thinks that they're going to win this battle, but I think it's pretty clear that they're not going to. I mean, it. The numbers that support trans athletes competing is, is, is, I mean, is pretty. What's the percentage in the country?

[Sarah Happila]

80, 20.

[Nancy Rama]

80, 20.

[Mike Pesca]

So, yeah, right. And it is true that there are very, very few athletes in this position. And you know, the state of Maine had five. But I think what hurts the Democrats is there are a lot of leaps of logic and lies that are attendant to this position. So you have to say, you know, there was no proof that going through puberty as a male even is helpful. Like, there's so much proof. But they will say this all along. And it is true that in long distance swimming there probably is an advantage to women. Okay, that's one sport that we've never heard of, except in the example of this. But on the other hand, I do not think, except for the Most committed person on this issue. So maybe like an actual homophobe or Megyn Kelly or someone who's. I'm not putting in the prior position, but manage. She motivated on this man.

[Sarah Happila]

Is she motivated?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, this, this and Meghan Markle. Those are her huge issues.

[Sarah Happila]

Oh, my God.

[Mike Pesca]

But I don't think that anyone will say, hey, listen, I'm going to give you a Trump presidency and he is going to stop a swimmer from coming in fifth who has a penis in the women's, Women's NCAA races. Okay, that's good. But what you have to give up for it is maybe $12,000 additional on your car because of tariffs. No one in the world is going to say this. So, yeah, it's a winning issue. It's an 80, 20 issue. But if ranked in importance, it's, you know, 100.

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah, I, I know a number of women motivated on this topic, though. Very, very motivated. And they are often former girls sports die hards. So I come from the theater community. I was a theater geek and I'm just like, I don't care. Like, you know, you can, whatever. I'm sorry to be a jerk, but like, I.

[Mike Pesca]

If trans men were taking your roles, they already do.

[Sarah Happila]

Like, that's like, that's what theater is. Like. It all starts from that place. We took their roles technically because, you know, back in the day, all the women were played by men. And, you know, we came in and changed this around. And I think one of the great things about theater is that you should be able to do that. Theater's a mask. It just, I don't know, like, it doesn't bother me. You know, I came from the alt weekly world, and I think that's the greatest place for young journalists to start. And they're mostly gone. And so when I hear people say, like, well, I came from girls sports and we have to have it, I'm sort of like, well, it's probably going to change. Like, sports is probably going to change in the next 10, 20, 30 years.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

And. And I just, I just think it's going to be. It needs to be slower than this.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, that's another reason why it's so important. People love it or the Republicans love it as an issue. It's not just 80, 20. It's a cross cutting of the normal coalition. It's a little similar to why the maha, the Make America Healthy Again movement, the people who are motivated, not Megyn Kelly. But so many of the women, you know, would be Democratic voters and for instance, would be motivated to vote on the abortion issue. The same with the Make America Healthy Again. The people most motivated are not Republican voters. So if you can get Republican, Republican women, peel them off at a time of great vulnerability, when Republicans have passed or have enacted anti abortion laws, it's great for the, for the Republicans. And they're always going to, they're always going to emphasize it because as long as the Democrats are committing to their bad answers, like when representatives from Massachusetts, Seth Moulton, who I had on my show, said something like, you know, I don't want my daughters trampled by a man in sports. He was descended upon and protested and a staffer quit. And so as long as you can, this is also politics 101. As long as you could induce your opponents to a whole bunch of own goals and knifing themselves in the back, you're going to do it. Even if it's not that important an issue to the regular voter. You know, it's destroying the Democrats. They should, they should be the ones to change in some way, not the Republicans.

[Nancy Rama]

And, well, that was a little bit about what Newsom seemed to halfway be doing yesterday, right?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Nancy Rama]

He's like, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be one of the first people to stand up and say, I'm changing on this.

[Sarah Happila]

One of the things I liked about the conversation was they were kind of shit talking each other and joking around in a way that's very podcast, podcasty and it's also very male. And I do think, you know, to Nancy's point about podcasts becoming, you know, podcasts are a masculine, dominant, space dominated space. We have, Nancy and I, we are always punching up against that glass ceiling. Nancy's looking at me. She's staring blankly because she hates.

[Nancy Rama]

Yeah, I don't, I don't, I reject the glass.

[Sarah Happila]

I was half joking.

[Nancy Rama]

No, no, no, I know, but I, it, it is the case we, it is the case where it's like, well, you girls, like, with your gal podcast, like, there used to be more and now there's not very many. I'm like, okay, whatever. I don't know why there are more. That would be an interesting question. Why aren't more chicks? I mean, I'd be happy to be part of a podcast that had guys and gals. I don't care. I happen to be in love with Sarah. But, but like, I, I, Why, why do you think that is? Why do you think women aren't more? Women aren't just kind of doing it, is it? They just don't have the. We know women like to talk.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, I think. I think a lot are. I mean, you know, call her daddy and Megyn Kelly and many of the hosts of the NPR and the daily shows, which are like shows 1, 3 and 5 and podcasting or women, probably more women hosting those. I think that. I think that the reason that it's a male dominated space is there's a little less scrutiny on every utterance in the audio form. The. This cuts the other way. Like, podcasts aren't shareable, essentially. I mean, you've seen the clip of Rogan, but that's because they made video of them. Yeah, you can a little bit like a club. I mean, there. There are times when an old podcast episode, the audio gets surfaced. Like when they disinvited Shane Gillis from being on snl. That was audio of a podcast.

[Sarah Happila]

Milo Yiannopoulos, too, got. Got hoisted on a. An old podcast.

[Mike Pesca]

That was a podcast thing or a pedophilia thing.

[Sarah Happila]

No, I'm saying it was from a podcast. It was pederasty. It was pederasty.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Yeah. So. So the point is bros being bros won't be held to account or scrutinized or punished in the podcast medium like they are in other media.

[Sarah Happila]

So there's an incentive. Okay, so you're telling me the incentive for men to be on podcasts, which I think is accurate. I also think it's the delight of podcasts that they're not this. They're a little bit of a workaround from the gotcha culture that we lived in for so many years, where you could just highlight a passage and endlessly retweet it. So that's the incentive. What's the disincentive for women to be on podcasts? And I think it's that. That women are much less comfortable kind of putting themselves out there on opinions. Like, I don't think they like that as much. Yes, Nancy, they do like talking. What do they like most? Gossip. I'm here to spread gender stereotypes today, by the way, but gossip is. Is a sort of behind closed doors, you can't bust me or hold me accountable for what I'm gonna say. You know, when I was younger, I couldn't stand public speaking. I couldn't stand talking in front of the class. My brother was like, give me an audience. Give me a stage. You know, I had to like, go into things theater to like, back door my need for attention, like hide under the clothes and language of someone else. I think a lot of women just don't feel like, like they'd be nervous doing podcasts. And there's also a certain improvisational thing that I think women are more comfortable with, like, you know, like, like organizing what they're going to say and sticking to that. Not my pod partner. She does not.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, what bears out that thesis is that the women hosted or dominated podcasts and there are many, many popular ones are often in the true crime genre, which isn't, which isn't riffing on a crime. It's normally scripted and scripted podcasts, I would say are probably, though not as popular. 50, 50 men and women. I do think that, you know, I don't know if it needs to be said, but women have been punished historically for riffing. Women do feel that they have to get it right and be extra and you know, this is, society has, has essentially forced this upon them. The, the punishment or the stakes for getting it wrong as a woman have historically been higher. So, you know, this is a reason why they, they are less apt, I guess, per your thesis, to riff. But there's a, there's a big podcast called Normal Gossip that is, that does show that gossiping or the equivalent have its, has its role on podcasts. You know, a lot of the murder podcast, my favorite murder is sort of. Yeah, that's essentially what it is about. Gossiping around the murder. They don't, it is real research. They're just kind of like two people talking with a microphone in front front of them and saying somewhat transgressive things. It's very gossipy.

[Sarah Happila]

I, I, yeah, that's actually I have some problems with my favorite murder and that's one of them that they've basically turned actual real life murders into, into opportunities for gossip. And, and you know, but I want to go back to the, the female led podcast that you mentioned. She mentioned Caller Daddy, which is one of the top podcasts. Well, that started as a second podcast with another woman.

[Mike Pesca]

Still is, isn't it?

[Sarah Happila]

Well, I mean, I, but Kamala Harris was on. I don't know. I've never really listened to it, so it seemed like it pivoted to me. But it was started on barstool sports, you know, as, as two hot women talking about sex to men, which is kind of one of the long accepted modes of being in male spaces. And then you have the daily, which is really a Michael Barbaro joint that was then outsourced to these other women. And that is, I would argue, scripted.

[Mike Pesca]

And then, oh my God. Have you ever read a script? You ever seen a Script for the Daily. They script his breaths.

[Sarah Happila]

That's insane.

[Mike Pesca]

It is. So it's the most scripted podcast in history. This American life would be. But Ira kind of does it retroactively or retrospectively by editing to within an inch of its life. The Daily. I'll send you a script. Script. It's amazing. It's amazingly. Script.

[Nancy Rama]

I listen to the Daily every once in a while for some reason. I'll turn it on. And the thing that drives me bananas is when the host or goes, huh?

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah, I love it. Oh, I don't.

[Nancy Rama]

Oh, I don't like it.

[Sarah Happila]

I know. It's a real love it or hate it thing.

[Nancy Rama]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

And then you brought up Megyn Kelly, who I really respect Megyn Kelly, but I strongly disagree with her, like a lot of the time. And she has a lot. And I mean this, she's a beautiful woman. She has a lot of masculine energy. Like she has trial attorney ball busting energy that is not common for women.

[Mike Pesca]

She, Alice from Queens, who's one of my favorite Twitter followers, at one point Megan was saying to women, don't say you can't have it all, women, you can. I had it all. I had a kid and I had a career. And Alice pointed out, here are Megyn Kelly's traits. She is a slim knockout with a law degree and boundless energy. Of those in that category, maybe you can have it all. Yeah, she has a number. She's in the top, you know, one percentile in many, many traits. Yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

Yes.

[Mike Pesca]

And I think that I agree with you, she's an amazing broadcaster, but she has become a little, little beholden to the whatever Trump says is good now a little bit.

[Nancy Rama]

Have you gone on her show, Mike?

[Mike Pesca]

No, I've not and I guess now I won't.

[Nancy Rama]

I went on once talking, I think we were talking about probably about riots in Portland or something like that. I don't know.

[Mike Pesca]

Did you sense that she wanted from you to affirm her worldview?

[Nancy Rama]

This was a while ago, so it was a little bit different. The show was a little, wasn't quite as. I mean, she's really massive, massive right now. And yeah, no, I, it was, it was actually a good, good conversation, kind of fun. And no, she wasn't looking for that. I definitely got a lot of that when I was reporting from Portland. A lot of different podcasters wanted me to have wanted to have me on so I could affirm their worldview. And I learned to say no to certain people or just push back then they weren't happy like you didn't say what we wanted you to say. I'm like, well, I'm sorry about that. That's not why I'm here. I wanted to just mention one thing about my favorite murder. I don't care for that show because they. They do make murder into snack food, I thought. And it was. It's really kind of not. It's really not. Okay, I understand. I've written about true crime many times, but you have to remember that these are people who, you know, have lost loved ones, and it's just not. It's just not. They. Not.

[Sarah Happila]

They also make a ton of money by cannibalizing other true crime writers. Oh, yeah, my friend Skip Hollingsworth, who.

[Mike Pesca]

That's the business model just to rip off a Wikipedia article or something that someone put a lot of time into. And the way they justify it is by actually exaggerating fear. Right? That's their justification. Well, we're trying to help women not being murdered. Like, no, the listeners of your show are probably not going to be murdered. You know, it might be if they're in an abusive relationship or living on a Native American reservation or have a lot of drug use in the homes or live in one of, you know, the hundred worst zip codes in the United States. But how many of your listeners are in that category?

[Nancy Rama]

They're not.

[Sarah Happila]

I used to date a homicide detective, and I told him once the motto for my favorite murder, which is stay sexy and don't get murdered. And he was like, that can't be real. You're lying to me. There's no way that's a real podcast. And I showed it to him, and he was like, that's insane.

[Nancy Rama]

Gross.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

Megyn Kelly recently had the Red Scare Girls on, and it was so funny because you've never seen more opposite energy, like the bohemian layabout energy and the, like, hyper attack dog energy. It was just this weirdest thing. And the comment section was like, what's wrong with those girls? Are they asleep? Are they stoned?

[Mike Pesca]

Well, when I listen to the show, that's what I remember. The first time I listen, I'm like, am I on the wrong speed? And so I cranked it up to, you know, my normal double speed that my. I found place I could do triple speed. Yeah, I guess I get it. I mean, but I kind of are. It's much easier for me to understand Megyn Kelly's appeal than those guys. What about. Can I just ask you, Sarah, have you had to. Have you done shows, like, for many of your pieces of journalism or even the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, where people have invited you on and they just really wanted you to affirm their worldviews. They weren't interested in anything you said that was, you know, an eighth of an inch off of their thesis.

[Sarah Happila]

Well, I've avoided those. You know, actually, I. I disinvited myself from the Megyn Kelly Show. I was invited on to talk about the cheerleaders and then the Atlantic story that I had written. And a friend of mine was looking out for me and was like, hey, I looked at a. But this is when Megyn Kelly made this pivot towards, like, real red meat conservatism in a way that I hadn't seen from her in a while. And my friend was like, I'm looking at these. These, you know, headlines, and they're really creepy. And she had just had RFK on. Now, this is before RFK was running for president. But I have bad history with RFK because we had to retract one of his stories from Salon about the vaccine.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, God bless you, because, you know, Rolling Stone hasn't done that. And all of his other quote unquote, Main street outlets haven't done that so good.

[Sarah Happila]

So we. So it was a piece that was co written between Rolling Stone and Salon, and Salon was the only one to retract it.

[Mike Pesca]

So Rolling Stone kept up a piece that Salon, which. Amazing.

[Sarah Happila]

And it was really a huge issue and a huge embarrassment and a thorn in my side in the comment section for the next five to 10 years, because our readers, you know, our comment section, our readers were like our biggest enemies. It was. It was one of those really contentious relationships where the super fans were the ones that wanted to piss on you first, and they just would never let me hear the end of it. And I hadn't even been an editor when we ran it. It just happened. The retraction came during my tenure and it just was a nightmare. I didn't want to deal with it again. Anyway, I disinvited myself from the Megyn Kelly show. And the guy that books, who I had originally reached out to, was like, you know, basically, like, f off. Like, he was so mad at me and called me a hypocrite because I had just written the story, like, the things I'm afraid to talk about or write about. And he was like, I see that you've really, you know, oh, you've really turned a corner. And I was like, yeah, I hear it like, that's fair. That's fair. And I'm just telling You, I'm going to not do this, and I apologize, but that's the only one I don't get. I'm trying to think of other. You know, I have writer friends. I have a writer friend that wrote about a police shooting, meaning not the other way, but a police getting shot.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

And the book came out during the Black Lives Matter moment. And she was invited on all these things like Tomi Lahren and Blaze Media, and she was turning them down. It was like Nancy's situation where, you know, because of the cultural moment, the only people that want to talk to you about this are pretty far on the other side. And are you going to capitalize on that or not?

[Nancy Rama]

That's right.

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

I think there's a way to do it. But I also understand for some sort of self preservation, not wanting to do it, you might not. The individual might not benefit from just an association with Tomi Lahren. There's a way to say, you know, to caveat it and to say, well, this also happens. I think we need to keep into our. You know, we need to understand that as many unarmed black men are shot in the United states each year, 17 or so, there's, you know, five times that many cops who are shot. Not necessarily by black men, certainly not by unarmed black men. But then, you know, maybe the idea gets through to the percentage of the Tommy Lahren audience, which, whenever you have a show with a really big audience, there are actually people there who are reachable. People don't seem to realize, but I understand why you'd want us to just opt out.

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah. I also said no to Chris Hayes when he invited me on his show to talk about the blackout theory on Kavanaugh. I had written a piece about how Kavanaugh, Brett Kavanaugh might be in a blackout. And I had been so proud of that piece because it was the one. I felt that it was nonpartisan on an ultra partisan topic. And so by going on Chris Hayes, I just felt that I would be like, okay, now I'm actually just a liberal.

[Mike Pesca]

You're putting your thumb on the scale.

[Sarah Happila]

I'm putting my thumb on the scale. And so I said no to them. I think they were really surprised I had.

[Mike Pesca]

I'm having him on for this book. But I got to tell you that Chris would have me on once a month at least. And then when I. When it became apparent to him that I wasn't just a liberal, that stopped. The invite stopped coming.

[Sarah Happila]

Well, Chris is really smart, but I don't know where he's at in that whole MSNBC world. Like, I don't know what he really believes or what he sees and doesn't say. I don't know. He's. I don't know.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, I think his own self conception is someone. And this is probably true. He's very smart. He can understand the arguments of all sides and he wants to hear them. But I think where his self conception and what we get as the viewer probably begin to diverge is his actual eagerness to put on things that rebut the thesis on the air. And I understand it, you're. When you're. Those news networks are essentially like radio networks with a certain kind of format. So if you're a classic rock station, you don't want to start playing hip hop and if you're msnbc, you don't want to have the interview that says something that rebuts the progressive worldview, even if it's true. Like there are only 12 to 17 unarmed black men shot every year by police.

[Sarah Happila]

Right. We should probably pivot to what's in our hot boxes. Before that though, let me just one more question, Nancy. Do you have any thoughts on the Gene Hackman and what hap. What actually happened? Because we talked about him last week.

[Nancy Rama]

I, my thoughts are that. And I put it on Twitter. It was kind of amazing the number of people who responded. So for people that are catching up on this, it turns out it seems that Gene Hackman's wife died of hantavirus, which is by, by rodent droppings. Somehow you inhale it and they think she died about a week before Hackman did. He had advanced dementia. And I can tell you as someone whose mother is in pretty deep into dementia, you do not remember one thing to the next. And so the idea that his wife was there for a week and he obviously would have seen her, but he wouldn't have remembered it and probably not been able to intellectually understand what was happening. Also, people with dementia forget to drink and eat. He had a heart condition. He was 95 and he died. I, I feel it's very, I mean, what a. It, what a really sad and tragic story. If there's any lessons here. And I, I've seen it online. And Sarah, you said to me, didn't he have children? Well, he did have three children, but apparently I don't know if they were close. I don't know if they lived close. Also, sometimes you don't communicate with your parents, especially men like fathers, as much as you might. I don't know what kind of care they had. Maybe they didn't have any care. Maybe she was his main caregiver. But it, it does sort of, you know, for people that are like in their 50s and 60s and stuff like. Well, maybe, maybe want to like make sure that that's not going to happen to you. I know your parents. Sarah moved into sort of a place where there's more of a community. I have a friend who's actually, she's 60. She's looking at a place like that. I think it's a, it's, it's a mystery that's solved, but it's solved in a, in a sad way. So those are my only, my only thoughts.

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah, I mean I, my first question was like, where were the kids? And I didn't mean to be like kid blaming, but I just did wonder, you know, his children. But for what it's worth, I mean they're like in their 50s and 60s. They're like not, it's not like 20 somethings.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. He's 95. He was 90.

[Sarah Happila]

He's 95 years old. And you know, I'm sure there's a story that explains that maybe they were calling and nobody was picking up the phone. Maybe she had intervened and said, you know, hey, I've got this. Don't, don't worry about your dad. I, I have no idea. I can't. But you know, it's very sad and you know, it's, it's. For me, it made me glad that my parents were in that retirement community.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, I read that story or the details of that story and I looked up and I have, I'm talking to you through this, through this camera. But there's a reflective surface. Cause I sometimes use it as a, as a teleprompter. And I looked up and I noticed that I was reading it. Not like this, which is through my fingers, but my head, my hand was on my head, was holding my head as I was reading it. It's the most horrible thing. And then the detail about the dog in the cage, it's so unbelievably horrible. But probably stuff like this goes on all the time. And if it's not someone who started in the French Connection, we don't know about, about it.

[Nancy Rama]

I'm going to repeat something I said last year, but I'm going to do it anyway. For you people out there in listener land with parents that are aging, step in to help them with their finances, with getting things organized, with care. Five years before you think you're going to have to, because by the time that they're showing like things are fraying or falling between the cracks or you don't, things have already gotten so far and you're going to have to be undoing a lot of bad things. Take care of your old people. It's. They're. Because they're not going to admit that they need help because they're the parent. And then they're not going to know that they need help because they're not recognizing it. So just, just look into your parents, grandparents.

[Mike Pesca]

They're going to actively fight you because this is what their pers, this is what their personhood is based on.

[Nancy Rama]

Oh, let's talk about taking those car keys. It's just battle royale. So yeah, just do it. Do it sooner rather than later. You'll save yourself a lot of you parents a lot of grief, probably a lot of money and a lot of heartache. So that's my public service announcement. I just wanted to say one thing about your camera being blurred. First of all, I want to hear how you use it as a teleprompter. Because I was looking up that the other day. We can tell me off air.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Nancy Rama]

But when I got my laptop set up today, I was getting my sound settings and I was like, why is my camera all blurry? Oh, you know what? It was all blurry because there was a glob of maple syrup on it. Because last week we have some maple trees. Ken Lane, the great podcaster for Desert Oracle, he was walking the property was US Leicester. He's like, these are maple trees. You can tap these. So we tapped them last week, came back, there's like five gallons of SAP, but the SAP is like sugar water. Very barely taste of anything. You have to cook it down and down and down and down. It took six hours. We wound up with a third of a cup of maple syrup from 4 gallons. But anyway, there was a glob.

[Mike Pesca]

Look, I know you're worried about Canadian tariffs and it's gonna definitely, definitely hit the syrup. But I don't know if that's causing.

[Nancy Rama]

But dudes, we had it. We may had some French toast this morning with this homemade syrup. It was pretty great. I have to say. Now we have project every day.

[Sarah Happila]

Do you have to put sugar in it?

[Nancy Rama]

No, you just boil it down and. So what's happening? The steam is rising. It's like you're getting a maple facial for hours and hours.

[Sarah Happila]

Smell really good and.

[Nancy Rama]

But we, we put a little. And made some parsnips last night and put a Little bit in there. It was just great. I mean, it's a project, it's fun. So anyway, we're getting up that. So, Mike, Mike, the great Mike Pesco. What's in your hot box this week?

[Mike Pesca]

I probably read three books a week and I could recommend a bunch of them. I. I interviewed this guy named Russell Shorto who had a great book a while ago, the island at the center of the World. And it's a little bit of an update about Manhattan when it was Dutch and Peter Stuyvesant and the English come and take it over. It's kind of crazy. You never think about that every. I'm here in Brooklyn. Brooklyn's a Dutch word. Quarter of the names are Dutch. You never think about the Dutch roots. But it's not even that. That is not the book I'm going to hype. The book I'm going to hype is Mark Dunkleman. He wrote a book. He's a Brown professor and he wrote a book, why Nothing Works. Who Killed Progress and How to Bring It Back. And this is it. This is, I think, gets exactly at the essence of our political dysfunction. And it is the answer for if Democrats want to win, what they have to do is regain progress. And the demon is in their midst, which is that he talks about Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians. I talk about brakes and throttle. And the progressive world has introduced too much access to the brakes. There are too many ways to stop a project from getting done. And we might not know this, we might not know the ins and outs of every agency that can stop a project. But for decades it was seen as a good thing, will allow the public to have all these ways to stop a project. And now we're suffering the consequences. We absolutely have to undo this great book. And there's a add on hotbox which is during the interview we were talking about the Big Dig as a. As a municipal project in Boston. But also there is a podcast that I always meant to listen to and then I went back and listened to. It's a WGBH podcast. It is about the Big Dig. Very detailed, eight part, well reported podcast. If you're at all interested in this. It was very well done and they have a new podcast, the team that did that about the lottery, I think, in Massachusetts of the world. So I'm interested in hearing that. So that is my cohot box, why Nothing Works in the Big Dig podcast.

[Sarah Happila]

Mike, what's the Big Dig?

[Mike Pesca]

The Big Dig is that huge project where they dug a tunnel in Boston. It was the most Expensive and elaborate and time consuming municipal works highway project. And for many years it was seen as a calamity and a catastrophe. And now that the benefits of the Big Dig are there, people get to the airport sooner, people drive better, there is less traffic. And it cost a lot of money. But things cost a lot of money in America. Yeah, we're not in a time when, you know, Eisenhower can put into effect the highway system and it just costs pennies. Things cost a lot, but that's how life gets improved.

[Nancy Rama]

I reviewed a book for the Wall Street Journal a number of years ago on the Big Dig. I'm not recalling the name of it, but I'll find it and put it in the show notes. And they were talking about how filthy Boston harbor was and they. That so many, like tampons and tampon holders would wash up on the shore. They started calling them beach whistles.

[Sarah Happila]

Oh my God.

[Nancy Rama]

Yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

So what's going on in Boston that they're just like putting in the tampon and throwing it over the overboard?

[Nancy Rama]

No, it's not that. It's just like the sewage system and the waste system is just. That's why they had to do a better job. Shall I go, Sarah, with my hot box? So last night I watched. I didn't finish it because we started to have dinner, but I watched the new Andrew Schulz comedy documentary called Life about trying to get his wife pregnant and being in the hospital and the cesarean section and it was pretty funny. Again, I didn't get to the last 10 minutes of it, but it was pretty good. But what's also really, really good, if you haven't seen it, is he did like a little two minute spot to promote it with Matt Damon. And this is some of the best two minutes you will watch this week. It is so much fun. So, yeah, new Andrew Schultz documentary. Life. Not documentary.

[Sarah Happila]

When you say documentary. Yeah, sorry.

[Nancy Rama]

Netflix. Netflix.

[Sarah Happila]

Oh, it's on Netflix. I thought he canceled his deal with Netflix.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, I think that. I think the. No, I think the last one was. I think he canceled with Amazon, I think. But I don't know, I might be.

[Sarah Happila]

They wanted him to take out some jokes and he wouldn't cancel that. And he put it on YouTube and he did it and it was huge.

[Nancy Rama]

Right. So it's back on Netflix. I guess they came back and said we're not worthy, we're not worthy. And so, yeah, it was on Netflix. So.

[Mike Pesca]

And it does. And you haven't watched the last 10. It does end well. And there are video elements so it is a little, it's like, like a third, a 0.3% documentary.

[Nancy Rama]

Okay.

[Sarah Happila]

I'm going to go with something we should have mentioned by now, but we haven't, which is White Lotus. Really enjoying that. White Lotus is back. I've got appointment television in my life again. Sunday nights, the crew is in. Where are they? Thailand.

[Mike Pesca]

Thailand? Yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

And it's got, you know, I just really love this show. It's super fun. It kind of like luxury porn for intellectuals or something like that because, you know, the environments are all sumptuous, but there's all these like complicated morality and riddles at the center of it. And it's all about, it's, you know, it's a lot of class satire and I just, I really dig it. There's three female characters that go on a trip together, and one of them is a celebrity. She's an actress. And the other two are kind of satellites to her star. And, you know, the truth is, you know, look, one of my best friends from high school, Stephanie March, she was on law and Special Victims Unit. She was married to Bobby Flay. When I was living in New York, we used to go on trips together. And a lot of this is very familiar to me. I mean, not the people themselves, but a lot of the tensions between the, the women. And I'm enjoying it. And then it turns out one of the three women is. She's from Austin. And the big bomb dropped that she was a Trump voter and she goes to church. And it's hilarious because for the rest of the country they actually think, oh, well, yeah, of course, because she lives in Austin. Which people in Austin actually don't go to church or vote for Trump. It's a super blue city. It, it's, it. You'd have to live outside of Austin in one of the up upper class suburbs. You wouldn't have to, but she'd be alienated within Austin. But that doesn't matter. The point is he dropped this little thing which was that one of the, the women voted for Trump. And it's a, it's a really interesting to look at the, the different tensions and hypocrisies going on in the, in the group.

[Nancy Rama]

I, I have a quick question. I've been watching it too. I'm not enjoying it quite as much as you are or as much as I, I enjoyed the other ones, but I'm gonna stick with it. I have a question for each of you. Have you seen it? Mike, have you seen any of the White Lotus?

[Mike Pesca]

Yes.

[Nancy Rama]

Season. Okay. Would you Want to, like, go to a place like that for a week or two?

[Mike Pesca]

Yes, Mike, Yes. The monkeys. Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

Why would you not want to go to a place like that?

[Mike Pesca]

I don't know. Two, but definitely a week.

[Nancy Rama]

Yeah, I, I. It, It's. I'm like, nope, they don't let you tap decadence.

[Mike Pesca]

Local trees in maple syrup.

[Nancy Rama]

Yeah, that's right. I can't. I can't tap my own maple syrup. No. The decadence of it is freaking me out. And I've been to nice resorts. I mean, I've been, I've traveled nicely in my life.

[Sarah Happila]

But remember that really early on in our podcast Journey Together, I went to a luxury spa in Austin. I think it's called Miraval or something like that. And we were texting. This is how our podcast started. Because I was like, I'm in hell. I'm in hell. I'm in hell. Because they just kept being like, you know, how's your energy? And here's your energy thing. And. And I wanted to smoke, and they wouldn't let me smoke on the site and all this stupid stuff. Kind of like the guy with his phone.

[Nancy Rama]

Yeah.

[Sarah Happila]

You know, where he's like, what do you mean?

[Mike Pesca]

Or the guy was smoking. Walt Goggins.

[Sarah Happila]

Oh, yeah.

[Nancy Rama]

He's one of my favorite actors. Walton Goggins. He can do no wrong. He's so good. He's so good.

[Sarah Happila]

I like that little, that little couple. They're mysterious to me. You know, he's. He's dating some young, chirpy British woman who's really cute. She looks like Natasha Leone's younger sister or something like that.

[Nancy Rama]

Greatest teeth.

[Sarah Happila]

Great. And she love your teeth.

[Mike Pesca]

Thank you.

[Sarah Happila]

She follows me on Instagram, which is totally weird.

[Mike Pesca]

Wait, Sarah, I have to ask you, as a person who at least understands Southern accents, do you hear the Jason Isaacs, Parker Posey accent in a different way? As bad because you're a Texan and understand, quote, unquote, Southern accents, Or to you, is that like me understanding a Boston accent? I have no special insight. I just know that it's not great.

[Sarah Happila]

I have no special insight. I just know it's not great. I mean, you know, a Tennessee accent is. Yeah, it's going to be different than a Texas accent. It's not going to, like, I don't have some fine tuning, but, I mean, the second her mouth opened, I was like, it was like a honk, you know, just like, what is this? Why didn't someone tell her, you know, like, use AI on this shit. They did it to Adrien Brody for the Brutalist.

[Nancy Rama]

I think it's just the Valium or the Xanax that's making her talk like this.

[Sarah Happila]

Well, it's. Yeah, the. What did. Lorazepam. It's like an extended Lorazepam.

[Nancy Rama]

Yeah, yeah, the Larazepam.

[Sarah Happila]

Yeah. It's so bad. But I do love Parker Posey.

[Nancy Rama]

Yeah. All right, let's daddle out of here, guys. Mike Pesca. Come back anytime. Anytime. We need a dude, you're going to be our dude. So thank you.

[Mike Pesca]

I have. I also have another son to offer up.

[Nancy Rama]

Oh, fantastic.

[Sarah Happila]

Oh, you'll have to bring him on. How old is he?

[Mike Pesca]

He's 16.

[Nancy Rama]

All right.

[Sarah Happila]

We can talk to him about the Manosphere. And Charlie Kirk.

[Nancy Rama]

There we go.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Nancy Rama]

And, Sarah, I'm gonna see you next time.

[Sarah Happila]

See you next time. Spoke.

[Mike Pesca]

Make a good conversation.

[Sarah Happila]

How about I handle you just right?

[Mike Pesca]

You know what I mean?

[Sarah Happila]

I took you to an intimate restaurant.

[Mike Pesca]

Then do a suggested movie there's nothing left to talk about Lessons, horrors Lonely let's get physical Physical how Want to get physical let's get into physical Let me body talk Body talk Let me body talk let's get physical Physical I want to get physical let's get a physical Let me body talk Body talk Let me body talk.

[Nancy Rama]

I've been patient.

[Sarah Happila]

I've been good Trying to keep my hands on the table.