Ep. 116 Gas Prices, Immigrant Deliveries, Flavored Bourbon, Kanye West, Tucker Carlson and Sonny Barger

Welcome to another episode of the Modern Moron dated October 10th 2022, which means we’ll be talking about events from at least two months ago.

I’m going to try something new in that I’m not spending so much time on this episode.  My guest is the Senator which is like Conan O’brien saying his guest is Andy Richter, but he brings up a couple of things with no real background or insight or explanation.  He just saw a show for 30 seconds which is more than enough to have an opinion about, whereas I take the due diligence of watching for at least 5 minutes.  We recorded on Friday and I’m publishing on Monday.

Here are a few things we cover:

Gas Prices - Especially in California where there are stricter environmental laws and also, summer and winter blends.  The Winter blend usually isn’t available until November but apparently there will be an early harvest of the gasoline trees out here and they will start in early to mid October.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom approved the switch from summer-blend gas to cheaper winter-blend gas. He wrote a letter to the California Air resources Board requesting the switch and here is a quote: 

“In light of the dramatic increase in gas prices that California is experiencing, we should not wait until the end of the month to start distributing or to ramp up production of our winter-blend gasoline.  Also, please keep producing the special higher octane fuel I need for my batmobile.  Thank  you.” That is from a letter from Newsom to the California Air Resources Board.

Something else to note about gas prices in California is that we have to refine our own gas due to those restrictions.  There are no pipelines running from East to West at least not west of the Rocky mountains to my extensive, extensive  knowledge.

Governor De Santis sending immigrants to Martha’s Vinyard - yes, this story is extremely old but the topic isn’t and I don’t really have a problem with it.  I still don’t care for De Santis and using unfortunate people who are looking for a better life to make a point is not okay, but I don’t see why all of the lower 48 states can’t participate in sharing the load of the influx of immigrants at our border. Boston is a sanctuary city that is two thousand miles away from the Mexican border.  After a quick and uniformed check of the immigration statistics for Boston from The Immigrant Learning Center dot-org, the top ten immigrant groups are: China, The Dominican Republic, India, Haiti, Brazil, El Salvador, Vietnam, Canada, Guatemala and Cape Verde which is a group of islands in the Atlantic.

The Senator mentions that he enjoys Skinny dipping in his pool - ew. 

For some reason he reminds us numerous times that he has a “second home” up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  Remember when Pee Wee’s Playhouse used to have a secret word and when someone said it, everyone would scream?  Today’s word is a phrase and  it’s “second home”

Flavored Bourbon.  Both the type you buy and the kind you can make at home!  That’s a fun home project.  

We talk a little about Football and why one might boycott it, and also news sources.  For purposes of this show I usually site the source but if I don’t and I say I read something, it probably means I read it on the Associated Press, Reuters or the Wall Street Journal.  If I say I heard something, it was probably NPR.  

And then… here’s a great  topic for two irrelevant, pasty old white guys to talk about: Kanye West.  The Senator has gotten in the habit of bringing up a topic without doing any research and by research I mean reading the whole article or following up on some basic who, what, where stuff and then he goes off half cocked and then says, “I don’t know, I thought it was interesting, and you should look that up and blah, blah, blah.”  Well, I watched some of the interview between Kanye West and Tucker Carlson and I can tell you I’m not really interested in either of them or trying to understand their message.  Why would I?  I’m old and pasty and irrelevant.   I mention a little bit about him from the Wikipedia page on him, but you guys know generally who he is and I don’t have the energy or the desire to articulate why I don’t care for him any more than I care for, say Keith Olbermann.

We join the conversation with me asking the Senator how life is living alone as his wife is in Europe with her daughter and he’s generally a little wound up so I have to settle him down.  Hope you find something interesting in this episode and don’t forget… the secret phrase is… “Second home”

CLOSE: Regarding the funeral of Hell’s Angels leader Sonny Barger, the Senator was correct stating that the memorial service was held at a speedway in Stockton, California.  

Regarding Kanye West, he does have bipolar disorder and David Letterman asks him about it in the Netflix series “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction”...

And his 2018 album is titled, ““I Hate Being Bipolar It’s Awesome”.  2018… THAT is cutting edge reporting for the Modern Moron.  The Kanye West Album I did get was called “Called Late Registration”  and has the song Gold Digger with Jamie Foxx when he played Ray Charles… remember that?  Great performance.  

Also, as of this recording, West was suspended from Twitter and Instagram for antisemitic comments.  To have bipolar disorder and be in the public eye seems beyond difficult.  We are all responsible for our actions until it is deemed that we cannot be responsible for our actions.  And then what?  We get institutionalized?  Is Kanye West a genius artist or insane or both?  And how do we deal with free speech when people with behavioral and mental health disorders and conditions?  In a democracy, does the majority ignore radical views until they go away naturally?  One would hope and think so, but today so many people have this social megaphone and to get heard above all the noise we are reverting to more radical statements to be heard, to get attention.  

Why do I feel like I’m Jerry Springer at the end of an episode?  That show was a perfect example of what I’m talking about.

See you next time.  

Map: Sanctuary Cities, Counties, and States - CIS.org (Center For Immigration Studies) 

Quick Immigration Statistics: Greater Boston -  ilctr.org (Immigration Learning Center)