The Biggest Problem in the Universe - Episode 51
Transcription courtesy of: Megan Pennock
(Theme riff)
Maddox: Welcome to The Biggest Problem in the Universe, I'm Maddox. With me is Dick Masterson.
Dick: Hey!! What's up, buddy?
Maddox: And Sean, our phlegmy engineer.
Sean: Psychopaths! (Dick and Maddox laugh)
Dick: Oh, you got a new one! Somebody was calling you out for not saying "gentlemen" 'cause you got made fun of in the comments.
Maddox: Yeah, you said "derelicts" last episode, Sean.
Dick: Is that what you're gonna do? Is that your gag, like Bart Simpson's chalkboard thing? You're gonna say a new thing at the -
Sean: (interjects) Wait, what'd I...? I don't read the comments.
Dick: Oh, alright.
Sean: No, I never read the comments.
Maddox: Yeah. Did you see the photo I posted of you on the website?
Sean: No.
Dick: Do you know there's a website? (Maddox laughs)
Sean: I DO know there's a website.
Maddox: Sean, do you know where you are right now? (laughs with Dick)
Sean: I'm not sure! It's been like a 70-hour week so far.
Maddox: We're bustin' Sean's balls. He's been workin' like crazy.
Sean: What's on the website? (Dick cackles)
Maddox: Uh... (laughs)
Dick: Just in the comments someone said that, um...they were sad that you stopped saying "gentlemen," and they blamed another comment for making fun of you for being some kind of fedora-wearing guy for "gentlemen." (stammers) Yeah, I know! He read way too much into it, I'm saying.
Sean: I didn't like "gentlemen." I tried it a couple times, didn't like it.
Dick: Of course.
Maddox: Yeah.
Sean: On to the next.
Maddox: Well, speaking of movin' on -
Sean: (interjects) "Hello" is usually good. (Dick laughs)
Maddox: Episode 51, Dick! The problems from last week...
Dick: Oo!
Maddox: ...when we had our unexpected guest WAS Unexpected Guests! You guys thought that was a huge problem!
Dick: That is such bullshit! I shoulda won. Asterios robbed us of 30 seconds of Titanic.
Maddox: You should've -
Dick: (interjects) Because it was all the showmanship that people voted for.
Maddox: Mhm, yeah. You should've won on a show where they actually have winning, 'cause it's not this show.
Dick: Uh-huh. (amused)
Maddox: Followed by High School Prom, and then First-Time Child Experts. All the problems last week came in the positive territory! You guys thought they were all problems. I'm actually okay with the voting on this.
Dick: You barely got ANY votes.
Maddox: You can barely suck my dick! (Dick giggles) I got...I got over 300 votes! That's higher than your fuckin' horseshit Sex With The Ex problem.
Dick: Is it?
Maddox: Yeah! (smug)
Dick: What's Sex With The Ex at?
Maddox: That's another controversial one. It's near zero.
Dick: Hm. Well, interesting! Interesting.
Maddox: That one and Burlesque Dancers.
Dick: And Know-It-All Masseuses.
Maddox: Uh-huh!
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: Yeah, real sh-...hey guys, before we move on, I want to mention that I have a big announcement to make in a couple weeks! About a week and a half to 2 weeks on my website. Uh, stay tuned, it's a real big announcement. I've actually been kind of thinkin' about this for over a year now.
Dick: Ohh!
Maddox: And I'm gonna mention it. And Dick, if you, uh, if you care to wager a guess you can be my guest, but...
Dick: Are you getting a dog?
Maddox: No, I'm not gettin' a fuckin' dog!
Dick: Oh. (laughs)
Maddox: I don't like their sounds, I don't like their smells! They're cute sometimes, but...
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: ...no.
Dick: Alright.
Maddox: No, I'm not getting a dog, Dick. (annoyed)
Dick: That's not the announcement?
Maddox: I'm not getting a dog, nor am I getting a monkey. Go vote up monkeys, people. As a problem.
Dick: Ah, that was gonna be my second guess.
Maddox: Oh. (cracks up) Were you really gonna guess monkeys?
Dick: You know, there's other big news!
Maddox: What?
Dick: The king, Slacktivism, was briefly toppled this week by Female Genital Mutilation.
Maddox: Yeah. They're neck and neck!
Dick: They're neck and neck! I think, uh, FGM...I'm gonna call it "FGM" from now on 'cause I don't wanna say "female genital mutilation."
Maddox: Yeah, it's bad!
Dick: FGM is #1.
Maddox: Yep!
Dick: I think it's moving ahead! It's trending ahead I think, and it was brought in LATER, so.
Maddox: Yeah. Yeah, but it's still one of the earlier problems, Dick. I think that over time, the problems that are on the list longer are probably gonna get more votes. We have to, uh, we have to look at fixing that system.
Dick: I don't think so, 'cause Hunger's catchin' up fast!
Maddox: No, it's...
Dick: And that was brought in in Episode 30!
Maddox: It's still languishing in the low 20s or 30s!
Dick: No, nonononono. It's...it's climbing. It's leapfrogging over your shitball problems.
Maddox: Yeah, your NOSE is climbing. Um, anyway Dick, I got a comment from Charles Jackson Fairchild. And by the way, one other thing: I wanna say to everyone, happy Osama bin Laden Death Day! That was this weekend. I hope you all celebrated with barbecue and giving each other alcohol and handjobs. This is from YouTube, because we talked about the wage gap shit from a while ago.
Dick: Sure.
Maddox: He said...this is from Bloody Bleeder. He says... (cracks up)
Dick: Gross.
Maddox: He says, "This is probably the most racist thing I've ever seen in my life. God, what a homophobe." (laughs)
Dick: Wait, you?
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: He's saying that about you? Racist?
Maddox: He's sayin' I'm racist AND a homophobe. (Dick laughs)
Dick: Well...
Maddox: Okay. I got another -
Dick: (interjects) But not sexist. He missed that one. (laughs more)
Maddox: He missed sexist, yeah! That's a big one! Way to -
Dick: (interjects) Thanks, uh...thanks Ray Charles. (chuckling)
Maddox: Yeah. (giggles) What do you got?
Dick: I got a comment from, uh, Benoît Da-...Jesus CHRIST. We were talking about these names in the bonus episode that just launched. Go buy the bonus episode.
Maddox: Yeah, thanks for supporting the show, guys! The bonus episodes really help everything out, and I mentioned this in the bonus episode but all the episodes have transcriptions now. Make sure to check those out.
Dick: Yeah. We were talking about the ridiculousness of some of these names. This guy has characters in his name that I don't even know...I don't know the name of this character. It's an 'i' with a little triangle hat on it. I don't know what that character is.
Maddox: That's...an accent 'i'?
Dick: This guy Benoît, he says on the problems list: "I've just voted Slacktivism down to 2nd and Female Mutilation up to 1st. I feel so good about myself and my good deeds now." (everyone laughs)
Maddox: Oh man, that is some deep meta...there's some deep meta going on there. He did a slacktivist move to vote down Slacktivism.
Dick: Yeah. Um, Amadeus Jones says, "Let's all keep calling Maddox 'Starlord.' It's hilarious."
Maddox: Great. (muttering)
Dick: He's right about that, it is hilarious.
Maddox: Fine, call me Starlord! At least I'm the lord of somethin', dickhead! (Dick laughs) What are you the lord of? Jack shit!
Dick: Oh, I don't know.
Maddox: Yeah! I got a comment from Dan McLeod. He says, "The Biggest Problem in the Universe is the best podcast in the universe. It could only be improved by calling Dick versus Dick 'Dick on Dick.'"
Dick: That's clever. I saw that one.
Maddox: Yeah, what do you think?
Dick: You shoulda thought of that.
Maddox: Dick on Dick!
Dick: Nah, you already coined it. You can't change in the middle.
Maddox: I can change whatever the fuck I want! It's... (stammers) I can change whatever I want!
Dick: It's perceived as weak.
Maddox: YOU'RE perceived as weak.
Dick: Well, you do what you want then.
Maddox: Great! I will!
Dick: That guy made the poster and everything. I don't want a bunch of gay porn of me coming in if it's Dick ON Dick. (cracking up)
Maddox: Okay, you heard that everyone! (Dick giggles) Dick does not want a bunch of gay porn coming in.
Dick: Got a voicemail. You wanna hear it?
Maddox: Yeah. [Dick plays first voicemail message]
Voicemail (male caller): Hey guys, this is Chris from Maine again. Um, I think Asterios was actually on to something with his little parenting contest, but um...
Maddox: Yeah!
Voicemail: ...I don't think you guys could actually get a hold of a couple of real babies.
Maddox: Sure we could.
Dick: Well...
Voicemail: Maybe you could look into gettin' some of those, uh, simulacra that schools are usin' to teach kids about parenting.
Dick: Yeah!
Maddox: Bag of flour?
Voicemail: Of course, it's not really a fair fight because you can't exactly leave a baby simulacrum emotionally crippled for life by crushing its spirit, but uh...you know. (Maddox laughs) I think Maddox is up to the task anyway.
[message ends]
Maddox: Yeah. I think he's referring specifically to me with the "crushing spirits" part.
Dick: We could have a contest! Who can raise a baby better?
Maddox: Crush someone's spirit? Oh yeah, to raise a baby?
Sean: You know the babies they're talking about, right?
Dick: No!
Maddox: No.
Sean: That they send with kids home?
Dick: No!
Sean: Yeah, they're like, uh...not animatronic babies, but basically they...they make you get up at all hours like a real baby. (Dick gasps) It basically logs everything.
Dick: It times you??
Sean: Well, yeah.
Dick: Ohh!
Sean: It cries in the middle of the night, and if you ignore it...they get grades on this shit. So it's like it tells you when it needs to be changed, it tells you when it's hungry, it tells you...and like, just -
Dick: (interjects) Just like a real baby!
Sean: Just like a real baby. You can't sleep through it.
Dick: Oh dude, we should...
Maddox: That's fucking awful!
Dick: ...we should do that.
Maddox: Why are they teaching...?
Dick: Why are they doin' that? (smiles)
Maddox: Why are they teaching this to kids? (Dick laughs) Why aren't they teaching them how to take out a loan, or how to invest in the stock market, or how to get a job?
Sean: No, it's -
Dick: (interjects) Or how to not run up your credit card into the quintuple digits?
Maddox: Yeah!! Or how to put down your fucking cell phone and be an adult for five fuckin' minutes and have a conversation with someone at a dinner table, you fucking zombies?
Dick: Kid Prison! Vote it up!
Maddox: Dick, less education is not the solution.
Dick: This is not education!! This is a TOY! This is a game that they're making kids play.
Maddox: Bad education is better than no education, I think. Well, uh, hold on. (Dick cackles)
Dick: Ha, yeah! That's...
Maddox: Okay, I take that back. I take that back.
Dick: ...that's how you get World War II!
Maddox: Yeah.
Sean: It's supposed to scare the shit out of 'em.
Dick: Oh, scare them out of getting kids?
Sean: Having a baby!
Maddox: Ohh, okay Sean.
Sean: Oh yeah, when they see how much responsibility it is.
Dick: Oho, that...no, that's not gonna work. (cracking up)
Maddox: No, I'm on board with Sean actually. That makes sense. If -
Sean: (interjects) I'm not sayin' it WORKS.
Maddox: Yeah.
Sean: That's the idea.
Dick: Yeah, that's the idea? "Oh, they won't wanna fuck if we have this dumb alarm clock all night!" Uh, yeah, we -
Sean: (interjects) Yeah, preach abstinence! (amused)
Dick: Now that I'm awake at 4 A.M., I'm texting my girlfriend.
Maddox: Can you think of saying or showing anything to a kid, to a high school kid, that would make them not want to fuck?
Dick: No!! Nothing!
Maddox: Like, I remember seeing the nastiest, grossest herpes sores and all the STDs and all the videos and everything, and everyone's still like, "Yeah, but I'm horny."
Dick: Yeah!
Maddox: Uh, I can't think of anything! Like, what would you...threats? Threats don't work.
Dick: And a baby is DEFINITELY the worst STD you can get.
Maddox: Babies are the worst STD.
Dick: Still not gonna work.
Maddox: Yeah.
Sean: No, and you always think "it won't happen to me."
Dick: Well it's like, talk me out of eating lunch. Go ahead, gimme...show me an ad that's gonna make me not wanna eat today.
Maddox: I can show you my...I can show you a DICK that will make you not wanna eat. (grins)
Dick: (stammers) Yours?!
Maddox: Well, if it's in between -
Dick: (interjects) That's a... (snickers) That's a pretty good self-burn.
Maddox: If it's in between a hot dog bun! (Dick giggles) What?
Dick: Your dick makes people not wanna eat?
Maddox: You specifically! I don't know, maybe you want it!
Dick: (interjects) Oh, me specifically.
Maddox: Yeah, maybe you want it!
Dick: I'll still eat.
Maddox: I think a lot of people get an appetite when they see my dick. (laughs)
Dick: Alright. Uh, speaking of dicks, somebody re-edited some audio of ours a couple shows ago.
Maddox: Oh great, let's hear this.
Dick: I forget the guy's name, but here...
Maddox: Let's hear this hack job.
Sean: I think it was "Maddox."
Maddox: Yeah! (laughs)
Dick: Nonononono, it's a...one sound effect changed the entire conversation that we had.
Maddox: Okay.
Dick: I think it's actually a great bit!
Maddox: Let's hear it!
Dick: Like, one sound effect. [plays edited clip from Episode 47]
Dick: Look at this cock! (zipper sound effect)
(Dick and Maddox laugh hysterically)
Dick: Not only...so not only is the cock short... (goes to show Sean) You see this? (Sean laughs loudly in the background) Alright, yeah. Thank you, Sean. Not only is the cock short -- it's the same size as the balls -- either that is a short cock or it's a limp cock, both of which I'm offended by that...
[clip fades out]
(Maddox and Dick still laughing)
Maddox: Bravo! That's actually really good.
Dick: I gotta hear it again. [replays bit]
Dick: Look at this cock! (zipper sound effect)
[Dick stops clip]
Maddox: (giggles more) (clapping sound effect)
Dick: That's great. (grinning)
Maddox: Bravo, that's really good. I like that a lot. I got a comment from Humble Dwelling. He says, "So Dick just tricks girls into sex? What does that say about him? The drama is expectable, Dick. You sell false advertisement."
Dick: What does that say about me?
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: That I'm a man.
Maddox: Oh? (chuckling)
Dick: Yeah. That's why...that's why we do anything.
Maddox: That you're a chump!
Dick: That's why I put a shirt on!
Maddox: Yeeeah.
Dick: So I can trick someone into having sex with me.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: That's why I participate in society.
Maddox: You know, Dick -
Dick: (interjects) That's why we all do!
Maddox: You know, Dick, with you it's poker. You gotta put on your best bluffing face. With ME...
Dick: Yeah!
Maddox: ...with me it's an all-included resort. (laughs) And people are lining up! Lining up to get into that resort!
Dick: All-inclusive resorts are renowned as being horrible, tremendous scams.
Maddox: No they're not!!
Dick: They're awful! The liquor is all watered down, the food is shit... (Maddox laughs) ...the accommodations are shitty. It's like, uh, it's like mass-produced vacations.
Maddox: Look, what I meant to say is I'm an all-included trip to Italy. Huh??
Dick: Oh, like on...you're a "Price Is Right" showcase? Is that what you're saying?
Maddox: I'm the Showcase Showdown, buddy!
Dick: You're the Showcase Showdown. (chuckling)
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: Yeah. Two people fighting intensely out of greed. That's what sex with you is like. (giggles)
Maddox: Yeheheheeeah! Yeah, that's exactly what it's like.
Sean: Last week you were the conductor of a love train or something like that, if I remember right. (Dick and Maddox laugh)
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: And goin' to Bags-of-Sand Town! (laughing)
Maddox: There was a, there was... (cracks up)
Dick: All aboard!! All aboard the Bags-of-Sand Express! (Sean laughs loudly in the background)
Maddox: There was a girl in the comments, I think Emma Olsson, whatever. She said, "Hey Maddox, if I ride this train to Lovetown..." Or to Pleasuretown, that's what it was called.
Dick: Oh. (giggles) That's creepier!
Maddox: She said, "...is there a round-trip ticket? Do I get back home?" And I said, "No, there isn't. However, you just take a quick jaunt down Walk-of-Shame Lane and you're right there."
Dick: Ohhh.
Maddox: You're right there, yeah. (smiles)
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: Yeah, yeah. Pretty clever, I thought!
Dick: Always going, never coming on the Maddox Express. (everyone laughs hysterically)
Maddox: Oh, people... (giggles more) People come left and right, buddy! They come before they even get on the train!!
Dick: Yeah, I'm sure. Alright, here's a good...this is a good voicemail. [plays next voicemail message]
Voicemail (male caller): Maddox, you drove a van up to the makeout point and flashed your brights into people's cars because they were making out so that you could ruin their fun.
Maddox: Pretty cool!
Voicemail: You're LITERALLY the king of ruining fun. (Dick and Maddox laugh) Don't ever complain...
Dick: Yeah!
Voicemail: ...about being a ruiner of fun again.
[message ends]
Dick: You are! That's the worst thing I've ever heard anyone do. (Sean laughs in the background)
Maddox: You know what, guys? (Dick giggles) I'm already getting shit on for hating fun because I didn't like Guardians of the Galaxy. Go ahead, label me that! I don't give a SHIT!
Dick: Oh. (worn out from laughing)
Maddox: 'Cause sometimes it's not about fun; sometimes it's about learning. (cracks up)
Dick: Oh, Stephen Smith was the guy that did that zipper...the cock zipper bit.
Maddox: Oh, Stephen Smith. Good job, Stephen. Anyway Dick, uh, are we ready to move on to some problems?
Dick: And Adam Anderson said it bothers him that Sean says "hello." I'm sorry, just getting...I'm just getting the shout-outs out there.
Sean: Oh! Okay.
Dick: 'Cause I appreciate that people leave funny comments.
Maddox: Yeah!
Sean: Adam Anderson?
Dick: Yeah, Adam Anderson.
Sean: Okay, I'll remember that name. (Maddox laughs)
Maddox: Sean, you said that so creepily.
Dick: (gasps) One more! One more big call-out: Sheldon Codling says, "I had my doubts that Maddox is any good at Street Fighter, but he confirmed it in this episode when he said he would play the guy at Street Fighter Alpha or Alpha 2 over Alpha 3."
Maddox: Uh-huh!
Dick: "Anybody who really cares about Street Fighter would have challenged someone to Street Fighter III: Third Strike or Ultra Street Fighter IV." So he's saying you're a poser! You're a video game...er, a Street Fighter poser (Maddox gasps) 'cause you picked the wrong Street Fighter to challenge someone in, and I don't know if that's true!
Maddox: Fffffucking...it's not!! This guy's a...THIS guy's a fuckin' poser, 'cause I guarantee this guy's never played Street Fighter III: Double Impact, has he dickhead? I bet he fuckin' hasn't! He's probably a Street Fighter EX fan, or EX2, God forbid. This guy's a piece of shit. Listen, Street Fighter Alpha or Alpha 2 kicked ass! You know why he didn't wanna step up to the challenge for Alpha or Alpha 2?
Dick: Why?
Maddox: Wait, what was he saying?
Dick: No, he said you should've...you should've played the guy at Street Fighter Alpha or Alpha 2 over Alpha 3.
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: I guess you said Alpha 3.
Maddox: No, nononono! He COMPLETELY misheard!
Dick: Oh!
Maddox: I said Alpha 1 or 2, NOT 3 specifically.
Dick: Okay.
Maddox: So that makes me -
Dick: (interjects) Okay, so he's...so then he was wrong?
Maddox: Yeah, he's wrong.
Dick: Okay, alright.
Maddox: You know what? He is as bad at hearing as I am good at video games.
Dick: Okay!
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: Well, that's...he said, "It sounds to me like Maddox just sucks at Street Fighter and is picking the easiest game to play. Also Dick can go fuck himself."
Maddox: Sounds to me like he's bad at listening comprehension.
Dick: Could be! Could very well be.
Maddox: Okay Dick, should we move on to the problems?
Dick: Yep!
Maddox: Alright Dick, my first problem this week is...flowers! (clapping sound effect) Yeeeah, flowers! There we go. ( 'ding!' sound effect)
Dick: Okay. (amused)
Maddox: Now, I know what you're thinkin'. I know what you're ALL thinkin'. You're thinkin', "Oh, this is another horseshit Maddox problem, or you know, one of those problems where he has a problem with love or family or what- "
Dick: (interjects) Fun!
Maddox: Fun?
Dick: Fun, yeah.
Maddox: I'm okay with that! Call me a fun-hater, I don't give a shit. Most flowers in the US come from Colombia and Ecuador. Did you know this, Dick?
Dick: No!
Maddox: You know what it was this last weekend other than Osama bin Laden Death Day? Uh, which nobody bought flowers for. It was Mother's Day!
Dick: No it wasn't!
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: (gasps) Uh-oh.
Maddox: (taunting) Ohhhh! (suddenly quiet) ...Oh. (brief silence) You know what's coming up? (Dick laughs hysterically) You know what... (cracks up) Yeah, I just checked the calendar. You know what's coming up this next weekend, Dick?
Dick: Does your calendar have a name? (laughs)
Maddox: N-...no, why?
Dick: Nonono. Nevermind, nevermind. (smiling)
Maddox: Yeah. You know what's coming up this next weekend, Dick, is Mother's Day, and people are gonna be buying flowers for their moms.
Dick: It is for real?
Maddox: Yeah, for real!
Dick: Oh, f-...dude, you just saved my life.
Maddox: Yeah. I saved everyone's lives.
Dick: Man, the gr-...like, the greatest service a company could do for me is just email me every year 3 days before Mother's Day. I will buy whatever they're selling if they would just do that.
Maddox: What am I but a humble servant, Dick? Why don't you go to maddox-store....whatever, spreadshirt.com and buy a t-shirt? (Dick scoffs) Then you can support me. Um, most...so I was mentioning, Dick, most flowers come from Colombia and Ecuador.
Dick: Uh-huh.
Maddox: And most of the workers have work-related health problems -- two-thirds of which, actually -- because of pesticides they use in Colombia.
Dick: Ohh!
Maddox: Yeah! This is from this website; it's usleap.org. It's a...it's, like, some kind of a -
Dick: (interjects) US Leap?
Maddox: Yeah, US Leap.
Dick: Like a jump?
Maddox: "Leap." Yeah, like "jump."
Dick: Okay.
Maddox: Usleap.org. They say these pesticides are banned in North America and Europe, so we push our demand for these flowers on countries with lax regulations.
Dick: No shit!
Maddox: And the result? Over two-thirds of flower pickers have the following symptoms: they have nausea, headaches, impaired vision, conjunctivitis, rashes, asthma, stillbirths, miscarriage, congenital malformations, and respiratory and neurological problems. This is some real shit! And it gets worse: there was a law passed in 2002 because the only way these workers...these workers barely scrape by on the minimum wage they get picking flowers all day.
Dick: Sure.
Maddox: So the only way they used to be able to make any money, any real money, was by working overtime. So in 2002, they passed a law that defines a work day from 6 A.M. to 10 P.M. (Dick scoffs) (Sean grimaces in the background)
Dick: 16 hours?
Maddox: So workers don't get overtime unless they work more than 14 hours a day, so given 8 hours of sleep -
Dick: (interjects) Oh my god!
Maddox: Right? If you give 'em 8 hours of sleep, 1 hour to eat -- which means you have to fit 3 meals in, 20 minutes apiece -- that leaves you 1 hour to yourself for every 24 hours you live! It fucking sucks.
Dick: These are slaves!
Maddox: They're slaves! They're essentially slaves.
Dick: I mean, they're probably cheaper than slaves!
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: 'Cause you gotta feed a slave or they'll die!
Maddox: Yeah, that's true! Yeah!
Dick: You don't have to feed...
Maddox: You don't have to feed 'em!
Dick: ...an employee working 14 hours a day! (chuckling)
Maddox: They've outslaved slavery.
Dick: Eat the flowers. (laughs)
Maddox: Yeah! And it's even worse for women; a study found that 85 percent of female workers were required to take pregnancy tests -
Dick: Ulgh.
Maddox: - to prove that they weren't pregnant before they worked as flower pickers! And some women even had to prove that they were STERILE. They had to go through these tests to prove that because the employers didn't believe them. And an average of 2 workers a day are fired for becoming pregnant, and the women who do get pregnant get premature births and congenital malformations and miscarriages because of all the pesticides they're dealing with every day.
Dick: Oh my god!
Maddox: They have to...I read something like they had to pick 250 flowers per hour or some ludicrous amount, and they have thorns and they get cut and they get blisters and calluses. They also get ruptured varicose veins and kidney failure. They also have restricted bathroom use. So all you dumbasses can give your moms some stupid flowers on Mother's Day, that's what they're doin' this for. Or some stupid carnations for some stupid high school dance.
Dick: You know what you should call this problem?
Maddox: What?
Dick: "Blood Flowers." (Maddox chuckles) Like blood diamonds!
Maddox: "Blood fl-..." Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dick: Yeah! That's what it is!
Maddox: It's almost clever!
Dick: Why is it that...? Fuck you. (Maddox laughs) Why is it that all of these symbols of love that we're basically giving to chicks...right? I mean, is that fair to say or is that sexist?
Maddox: Uh, I -
Dick: (interjects) Diamonds and flowers are for women. Marilyn Monroe fuckin' said it, not me!
Maddox: Guys sometimes give other guys flowers; sometimes women or men buy flowers for themselves. I think it's more rare, but they do...they do buy flowers.
Dick: Let me ask you somethin'. Are we that gone in society that I cannot say flowers and diamonds are for women?
Maddox: Uh, traditionally, yeah!
Dick: Why are these things specifically so fraught with this, uh...like, the human rights abuses?
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: Like diamonds and flowers. That sounds awful! Do other... (stammers) Do vegetables work like that? Does lettuce...is lettuce picked by slave laborers?
Maddox: Uhh...kinda. (cracks up) Actually.
Dick: Oh, it is?
Maddox: Yeah, yeah.
Dick: So anything grown comes from this? Or is this flowers specifically?
Maddox: Yeah. You remember in the Solutions episode I brought in Dumb People?
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: Well, you know, these are people who are subjugated. They don't have education, but they're doing jobs that other people won't do. That's why I sincerely respect their work. And you know what the worst part is, Dick, about all of this? It's that these flower workers, these flower pickers, aren't even asking us to boycott flowers because it would mean that they would...
Dick: Lose their jobs, yeah.
Maddox: ...lose their jobs, yeah! And the feel-good "fair trade" label that you see on food and flowers doesn't do shit to ensure that there's humane working environments for flower pickers. This is just an awful industry with an awful problem, and -
Dick: (interjects) Wow!
Maddox: Even boycotting it won't help because that means they go from a shitty situation to a shittier situation of unemployment.
Dick: Then they gotta make...what countries are these?
Maddox: This is Ecuador and Colombia.
Dick: Yeah, then they gotta make cocaine.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: If they can't pick flowers, they gotta pick coca.
Maddox: Yep!
Dick: I mean, that's what...that's what they export down there, right?
Maddox: Yep, that's true! All of this suffering so you can smell a rose. Which was grown with pesticides, by the way. You're sniffing pesticides, idiots.
Dick: Huh!
Maddox: And then leave it on your counter for a week until it wilts and you throw it away. That's what all the suffering is, uh, is going into, so you can have your little flower that you picked up from Trader Joe's or whatever local grocery store. You bring it home, leave it on your counter or put it in a book.
Dick: I mean, they work! They make women feel good.
Maddox: I guess! You know what? I've been fortunate enough to date women in my past who weren't interested in flowers, and I thought it was a...I thought it was a trap!
Dick: They always say that, Maddox. They say that, but they want you to get them...'cause they want to be seen as low-maintenance and ALSO they want the benefit of getting flowers. That's what they want!
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: They want a twofer!
Maddox: Ahh. (smiles)
Dick: They want both!
Maddox: That's really cle-...that's a -
Dick: (interjects) That's how high-maintenance they are.
Maddox: I interpreted it that way as well, Dick.
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: 'Cause I think you and I think similarly in that sense, but -
Dick: (interjects) Correctly.
Maddox: BUT, uh, I tested it! I tested this theory one time with one of my exes and I bought her flowers, and it was such an awkward...have you ever been to the UK and you tip a taxi cab driver?
Dick: Yeah, and it's weird.
Maddox: It's WEIRD.
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: It's really weird. They don't expect it, they feel a little insulted; it's just awkward.
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: They kinda just sit there with the change in their hand staring at it, expecting you to take it back. That's how it was when I gave this girl flowers. She -
Dick: (interjects) Well, what did you say though? 'Cause you...you might've said something to warrant that. What did you say when you used the flowers?
Maddox: I said, "Here's some flowers! Here you go! Here's some flowers."
Dick: Oh, okay. (amused)
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: Was it...it wasn't somewhere weird?
Maddox: Uh, no, just my apartment! I just bought flowers just because, 'cause I'm a thoughtful guy. But, BUT, it proved that she was telling the truth. She really didn't give a shit about those flowers. And by the way, she didn't even water them, and I felt bad 'cause they were a HUGE bouquet of flowers. I thought, "Well, maybe *I* should fuckin' water 'em."
Dick: That's rude, though.
Maddox: What?
Dick: There's...I'm seeing a lot of red flags in this though.
Maddox: Ah.
Dick: Because if I got flowers from a girl, I don't...I don't care about flowers, but I'm a human, so I can see that they're pleasant. They smell good...
Maddox: No!
Dick: ...and they're nice to look at.
Maddox: No. I hate flowers.
Dick: What do you mean, "no"?!
Maddox: Flowers are dumb! I step on them!
Dick: They're like a nat-...they're, like, natural beauty! Flowers are beautiful! How can you say they're dumb?
Maddox: My FOOT'S beautiful. Why don't you look at my foot? Kiss my foot.
Dick: Your foot is disgusting! It's utilitarian!
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: Flowers are not! They're like...they're EVOLVED to be bright so they can attract insects to pollinate them.
Maddox: Insects, yeah. Are you a fucking insect? No! Then shut up! (laughs)
Dick: (scoffs) I...why on this podcast do I always find myself having to prove things that are fuckin' obvious to everyone else on Earth?? Flowers are...are pretty!
Maddox: Dumb. (everyone laughs)
Dick: Oh, but that's... (snickers)
Maddox: Flowers are dumb.
Dick: Pointwise.
Maddox: What's your favorite flower? Pansy?
Dick: Uh...tulips on my organ. (everyone laughs loudly)
Maddox: Had you thought about that before? You had to have thought of it.
Dick: I wrote that joke in my high school girlfriend's yearbook. "What's better than roses on my piano? Tulips on my organ."
Maddox: Yeah, tulips on my organ. That's funny. (smiling)
Dick: And she got so fuckin' pissed off. Like, she wrote this long heartfelt thing in my yearbook about, like, being together and blah blah blah blah blah, and I just wrote that joke. (cracking up)
Maddox: Yeah. That's pretty funny.
Dick: Yeah, I didn't get tulips on my organ for a while after that.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: Um...
Maddox: I'll bet you didn't.
Dick: Anyway! Anyway, the natural reaction to getting flowers, even if you don't like them, is still a pleasant... (stammers) They're like, "Thank you!"
Maddox: Hey, I just thought of a joke.
Dick: Alright.
Maddox: You know what you would call a gay lion who is also a flower?
Dick: What?
Maddox: A "dandy-lion." (smiles)
Dick: That's great. (chuckling) (Sean laughs in the background)
Maddox: ('boo' sound effect) I just booed myself.
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: Anyway, um...yeah man, flowers are dumb, so...and they're awful! Everything about flowers is awful. So next time you sniff your pesticide-laden, piece of shit flower on your counter, just remember all the suffering and enjoy! Happy Mother's Day everyone! Happy fuckin' Mother's Day. There you go.
Dick: Huh! I didn't know that, that's interesting.
Maddox: (buzzer sound effect) Buzz to Mother's Day. That's my problem: Flowers! Yeah.
Dick: Are there conflict-free flowers that you can buy? (Maddox chuckles) Is anyone selling that?
Maddox: Non-...
Dick: Is anyone online selling that?
Maddox: Non-blood flowers? (amused)
Dick: Yeah!
Maddox: You know, they...some of these flowers have this "fair trade" sticker on them. That doesn't mean shit! That doesn't mean that there are inspectors making sure these workers are treated humanely!
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: And by the way guys, I know that we as Americans and westerners really like to sit on our high horse and say, "Oh god, it's so awful that there's sweatshops in China and these people are exploited." However, when you talk to some of these people in these countries and cities where they're working in these sweatshops, some of them obviously absolutely hate it. And I've actually mentioned that, I think, with Foxconn, with Apple...uh, Apple and Android and Google, all these companies use these sweatshops and this cheap labor abroad, right?
Dick: Sure!
Maddox: But they say that it's really condescending for Americans to come in and say that we should shut these places down, because the alternative isn't that they get a better job; the alternative is NO job.
Dick: No job. No schools, nothing.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: They said that they're in a bad spot but they're WAY better off now than they were before. And that's not speaking for everybody, 'cause clearly a lot of people disagree since they're committing suicide and they put up suicide prevention nets in these factories.
Dick: Yeah, it's not...it's not clear-cut, is it?
Maddox: No, it's not. It's a real complex issue, kinda like riots. Um, anyway Dick, that's my problem. What do you, uh, what do you got this week?
Dick: Good problem. Uh...earthquakes.
Maddox: Earthquakes!
Dick: It's a big problem, wouldn't you say? Or am I gonna have to explain that earthquakes are a problem?
Maddox: Can be. I wouldn't say it's the BIGGEST problem in the universe. It's, uh, it's up there! Earthquakes do cause damage and the loss of lives, so it's up there.
Dick: Okay, so remember how I said FGM is the #1 problem now? Female Genital Mutilation?
Maddox: Yeah, it was. It was, it's no longer.
Dick: Well, I think it's gonna overtake Slacktivism though.
Maddox: Okay.
Dick: 'Cause it's a...it's a real horrific problem, and Slacktivism is just annoying on Facebook.
Maddox: Slacktivism I think is sincerely a...probably a bigger problem, because Slacktivism causes people to ignore problems that actually need attention...
Dick: Mm.
Maddox: ...by doing something that actually helps nobody. So in effect -
Dick: (interjects) Compared to FGM?
Maddox: FGM only affects...I think in that episode I mentioned 1 to 2 million women per year. It's not, uh...I mean, compared globally, it's not -
Dick: (interjects) 133 million women.
Maddox: Oh, 133 million?
Dick: Yeah!
Maddox: Okay. No, that's...that's a lot bigger than I thought.
Dick: It's a lot.
Maddox: Um, yeah.
Dick: 'Cause it's, like, the entire middle of Africa.
Maddox: Yeah. But it's not even the majority of the countries in Africa. It's just...it's like a handful of countries.
Dick: So are you... (stammers) Are you talking down FGM?
Maddox: I think FGM's a huge problem! That's why I brought it in!
Dick: But not as big as Slacktivism?
Maddox: But I don't think it's the biggest problem.
Dick: Okay. Well -
Maddox: (interjects) I think it deserves to be in the top 3 easily.
Dick: You know what IS the biggest problem?
Maddox: Not earthquakes. (chuckling)
Dick: Earthquakes.
Maddox: Not fuckin' earthquakes!
Dick: Earthquakes. They affect 136 million people! Uh, in the last...in the last 30 years, I think. That's more than FGM. And the one just hit Nepal, right?
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: That's why I'm bringing it in. It's topical.
Maddox: Yeah, yeah yeah. There was...okay, no joke, I felt an earthquake this morning. Did you feel it?
Dick: Uh, no...
Sean: I did.
Maddox: ...but I was in a bad state this morning.
Dick: Yeah!
Sean: At about, uh...
Maddox: Like 7 A.M.
Sean: Yeah, just a little before 7.
Maddox: Yeah, a little before 7. I felt it, and I -
Sean: (interjects) Really small, but I could tell it was an earthquake.
Maddox: Yeah. I'm so jaded at this point, I wake up with one...I open one eye, and I just wait for it to stop rumbling and I think to myself, "God, just stop so I can go back to sleep. I don't care. I just don't care."
Sean: I can't remember the last time I got out of bed for one.
Maddox: Yeah.
Sean: 'Cause as soon as you get up -
Dick: (interjects) Guys, they're a big problem. Okay? (Sean laughs)
Maddox: We sound like earthquake hipsters.
Dick: You do.
Sean: Yeah!
Maddox: Yeah. (laughs) So what were you gonna say, Dick?
Sean: No shit, that one in '94? Big problem in California.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: People affected: 136 million. People KILLED: 385,000.
Maddox: In 30 years?
Dick: How much in damages from earthquakes in the last 30 years?
Maddox: Yeah?
Dick: 351 trillion dollars.
Maddox: Well, can't put a cost on lives! (chuckles)
Dick: You know how many... (cracks up)
Sean: Wait, in the number killed, does that count tsunamis caused by earthquakes?
Dick: No!!
Maddox: No!
Sean: Oh, see, because that was 230,000 in Indonesia or wherever that was.
Dick: Yeah!
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: Exactly!
Maddox: Different problem, Sean, and I'm bringin' that in.
Dick: Exact-...no!
Maddox: No, you don't get tsunamis! (yelling over Dick)
Dick: No, earthquakes are the root of tsunamis.
Maddox: You don't get tsunamis, fuckhead!!
Dick: Earthquakes are the CAUSE of tsunamis, Maddox.
Maddox: Oh, well then existence is the cause of suffering, dickhead! Let's bring THAT in as a problem! (Sean laughs in the background)
Dick: Mm, nonononono. This is...life is not...Judge Death, calm down. (Maddox laughs) Life is not a problem. (smiles)
Maddox: No, 'cause I have tsunamis on my short list of problems to bring in. You don't get tsunamis!
Dick: Well, you fucked up! You shoulda brought it in. Earthquakes cause those.
Maddox: I think YOU fucked up. You brought in...you brought in the fire rather than the spark.
Dick: Okay, all these deaths aren't doing it for you guys? Lemme pitch it -
Maddox: (interjects) Or no, you brought in... (cracks up) Sorry, you brought in the spark, not the fire.
Dick: Not the fire.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: Eh, well, I don't know. The voting will tell us. How about earthquakes, um...earthquakes knock over your toys!
Sean: Mmm. (from background)
Maddox: Oho, wow!
Dick: That's a pretty big one.
Maddox: Well, you gotta spend countless seconds picking them back up. (Sean laughs) Yeah. Maybe, uh, maybe if I had one of those iPhone watches I could save all that time checking Facebook.
Dick: You know how much a...uh, estimated cost I found of a space elevator?
Maddox: What's that?
Dick: 8 billion...a space elevator, you know.
Maddox: Yeah, I know what a space elevator is, but what's...?
Dick: 8 billion dollars. NASA's entire budget: 18 billion dollars.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: Earthquakes cost 351 *trillion.*
Maddox: Yeah, but that's -
Dick: (interjects) So imagine what we could do to all that money!
Maddox: Yeah, but it's not like that money was just sitting around waiting for us to spend. That's just money that... (stammers) Actually, you could make the case that earthquakes are a good thing.
Dick: Let's hear it.
Maddox: And I know I'm soundin' like just a contrarian dickhead here, but you could make the case that earthquakes are a good thing similar to World War II. Economists largely agree that World War II stimulated the economy and got us out of the recession, the rut that we were in, because it...because of all the industry that we had to create for it, right? If an earthquake strikes...every time an earthquake strikes, go look at the stocks. Go look at the stock prices of companies that produce lumber, that produce housing materials; they skyrocket.
Dick: Mm.
Maddox: That stimulates the economy!
Dick: So they're...they're a GOOD thing?
Maddox: Some good comes out of earthquakes. I don't know if it's more good than bad.
Dick: Lemme ask you this.
Maddox: Yeah?
Dick: Would you say that heart attacks are good because they keep cardiac surgeons employed? That's basically what you're saying. Is that...?
Maddox: In that regard, yes. Yes.
Dick: You would say "yes"?
Maddox: In that reg-...in that aspect, yes.
Dick: (scoffs) I don't know with you. I don't know with you. (Maddox laughs) I don't know how to get around some of these arguments you make sometimes, 'cause they're so outlandish.
Maddox: Well, I'm not saying -
Dick: (interjects) Earthquakes boost the economy?!
Maddox: They do!
Dick: So they're good? I think... (laughs) I think people in Nepal would disagree with you.
Maddox: You know what, Dick? There's good earthquakes and bad earthquakes. (Sean laughs in the background) Here's the thing: that earthquake that happened in Ne-
Dick: (interjects) It's not cholesterol, Maddox!
Maddox: No! (laughs)
Dick: It's an EARTHQUAKE. It's an -
Sean: (interjects) It's all how the earthquake was raised. (Maddox laughs harder)
Dick: It's the wrath of God that you're talking about. (chuckling)
Maddox: Dick, there are good earthquakes and bad earthquakes. Let me give you an example, 'kay? So this Nepal one that just happened, 4,000 people died. Right?
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: That's a bad earthquake, BUT... (Dick scoffs) ...it may have...because now they have to rebuild all that infrastructure and they have to build it up to code.
Dick: Yeah, all their cardboard huts. (cracking up)
Maddox: No! They have to build it up to code, and now they CAN -
Dick: (interjects) Code?!
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: In NEPAL??
Maddox: They have codes -
Dick: (interjects) They didn't build it like that because they thought it would be funny, they built it like that 'cause they're dirt poor! They don't have fuckin' codes!
Maddox: Yeah, but they built those buildings years ago, decades ago, before we had modern materials and technologies. Now we have the technology to build it stronger.
Dick: WE do! They don't! They're still Nepal!!
Sean: It's one of the poorest countries on Earth.
Dick: Yeah! They can't rebuild nice shit 'cause all of their old shit got knocked down.
Maddox: They get aid from the US, and guess who's goin' out there to rebuild those buildings? Civil engineers from America. A bunch of fuckin' do-gooders, uh, these GOAs. NGOs, rather. They're goin' over there to build these buildings! You know they are.
Dick: I...no! I do not know that a bunch of contractors from America are going over there to rebuild their shit for free.
Maddox: You know what, Dick? This sounds kinda drastic, but I would volunteer to go over there and help build. However, I don't wanna be one of those -
Dick: (interjects) Please...please don't. (Maddox laughs)
Maddox: Why?? I'm a fuckin' good builder!
Dick: Um, for maybe the first half.
Maddox: What? (annoyed)
Dick: Are you gonna finish the job, though?
Maddox: Ohhh, don't look at ME about finishing jobs, buddy! (Dick laughs)
Dick: Alright.
Maddox: You're the king of not finishing jobs.
Dick: Allllright.
Maddox: I'm the star of lords! (Sean laughs in the background)
Dick: Tsunamis, avalanches, landslides. Earthquakes cause volcanoes to erupt.
Maddox: Um...
Dick: Pretty big! Floods, they cause.
Maddox: Yeah... (unsure) Earthquakes...okay.
Dick: They annoy you on Facebook, since that is what's winning in the problems right now. Earthquakes also annoy you on Facebook.
Maddox: Yeah, go vote up Facebook! Yeah, then vote up Facebook.
Dick: You know what? I've been meaning to bring this in. Have we talked about that Facebook owns Oculus Rift, your favorite thing in the world?
Maddox: Dick, I named my solution "Oculus Rift/Virtual Reality," because I don't give a shit that it's branded Oculus Rift.
Dick: Oh.
Maddox: I just care about the technology.
Dick: Okay. Shoulda called it "Virtual Reality" then.
Maddox: I did. ".../Virtual Reality."
Dick: Yeah, you shoulda went with one. That also looks weak. That's why it's not getting votes.
Maddox: No! I hedged my bet just in case Oculus Rift does turn out to be the technology, which I don't think it will. The HTC Vive sounds way more promising. (Dick chuckles) Whatever it is, "Virtual Reality" is my solution.
Dick: Yeah. Um...earthquakes are slacktivism for God! (Maddox and Sean laugh) So if you don't like Slacktivism, definitely vote up Earthquakes 'cause it's God's slacktivism. He doesn't get involved, he just hears that it's kind of a problem. Earthquake, can't stop that.
Maddox: Dick, that is, like, the classic act of God. In every contract, when they say "act of God" everyone's always thinking two things: earthquakes and lightning. Well, lightning is #1, followed by earthquakes.
Dick: Yeah, it's slacktivism though.
Maddox: That's not slacktivism! God's reaching down and shaking shit up!
Dick: No no no, but it's... (stammers) There's no specific problem. There's nothing specifically that he's tryin' to fix. It's not like he's sending Jesus back to fix things. It's just wreck everything, knock the buildings down.
Maddox: He's saying, "Hey, this economy needs some stimulation!" (Dick chuckles) "Here you go, lemme...lemme poke my finger down here. Whuuuuh, it's all wobbly!"
Dick: It's like the FGM of, uh...it's like the FGM of bein' God, too.
Maddox: Yeah. Dick, I'll give you that. Look, earthquakes are a problem but they don't deserve to be in the top 10. I wouldn't say they're in the top 10, not even by a long shot. No way.
Dick: Really? Not over Anti-Vaxxers?
Maddox: No! Not -
Dick: (interjects) Not over...not over Outrage Porn?? Which does NOTHING?
Maddox: They should definitely be up...uh, it should definitely be higher than Outrage Porn. I'll give you that.
Dick: Okay. So it should be in the top 10?
Maddox: No, Outrage Porn should not be in the top 10. Outrage Porn should be in the top 20, but Earthquakes should probably also be in the...I'd say maybe #11, at most. Guys, vote it up to #11, and if it gets any higher vote it down because we wanna make sure this works. (Dick laughing)
Dick: Alright, that's my...that's my problem.
Maddox: Yeah, pretty good problem, Dick.
Dick: Pretty good problem!
Maddox: Did you have any other st-...did you bring any stats, by the way? From the, uh, the earthquake in Szechuan Province a few years back?
Dick: No, I didn't...what? What is that?
Maddox: That was a slam dunk for your argument, dickhead! That would've been...'cause I think 50, 60, 70,000 people were left homeless and tens of thousands died. It was a huge earthquake!
Dick: I said it affects 139 *million.*
Maddox: Yeah, but over 30 years.
Dick: How is a smaller amount a slam dunk?
Maddox: Hold on, Dick. You said 139 million over the course of 30 years. And by the way, "affect" is kind of an ambiguous verb. Uh, how exactly -
Dick: (interjects) Oh yeah, you're right. Some of them that, uh, that the UN counted were just ANNOYED. (sarcastic)
Maddox: Yeah, like me! (Sean laughs in the background)
Dick: That's what the fuckin' stat included, Maddox.
Maddox: I was affected this morning, Dick! I woke up early!
Dick: They called people after an earthquake and said, "Um, were you affected at all?" And they said like, "What do you mean, 'affected'?" and they said, "Eh, you know, just whatever."
Maddox: They said, "Yeah, my toys were knocked over!" (Dick sighs exasperatedly) They... (laughs)
Dick: They're not counting that in the stat!
Maddox: How do you know?
Dick: It's people who had their lives ruined. Because otherwise, the stat's useless!
Maddox: Yeah, it's -
Dick: (interjects) It's a usef-...well, they meant it to be useful. So it's people whose lives have been fucked up because of earthquakes.
Maddox: You know what, Dick? I don't think that they called people in an earthquake, especially immediately after.
Dick: Of course not! That's the joke!!
Maddox: Okay. (cracks up) Great.
Dick: 'Cause everything's destroyed! It destroys civilizations! (yelling)
Maddox: Dick, you know what goes into that stat, is they look at a country like China and they see the Szechuan Province got a huge earthquake, right?
Dick: Uh-huh.
Maddox: It knocked out the power grid. So they say, "Okay, well, there's 40 million people living here. They went without power for a few days, so it affected 40 million people." Well, sure. It definitely affected 40 million people, but not all of those 40 million lost a home or lost a family member or lost a loved one. Yes, it affected a lot of people.
Dick: Pure conjecture. Everything you said was just a story that you made up...
Maddox: No!
Dick: ...about how they make that stat. Absolutely, it was.
Maddox: Okay Dick, how do they make it? How else would they make it?
Dick: They would count how many people are homeless in China! There you go. That's a number. Next time an earthquake happens, how many people are...how many people suffered?
Maddox: It's a guess! They don't...it's a guess, Dick! They're goin' around trying to find...like literally, they just have the tools that we have, you and I have. You and I, Dick. We'd just sit around, look at a map, say "Okay, well, there's the strike zone, and here's where the power grid went down."
Sean: Don't they ever go to the site?
Dick: Of course they do.
Maddox: Of course they do, Sean!
Dick: Of course... (stammers) Of course they do. You're totally making stuff up to make it seem like not a real problem.
Maddox: Nonono, it IS a...
Dick: 'Cause it's a fuckin' contest.
Maddox: It is a real problem and it's not a contest, but it's not as big as you're making it sound. Dick, not 139 million people have been affected to the point of loss of limb or loss of life or loss of home. I don't believe that. Even over the course of 30 years, 139 million seems...seems pretty high.
Dick: It's an earthquake! It's a huge natural disaster!!
Maddox: It really depends on where the earthquake happens. When it happened...there was that one -
Dick: (interjects) You're right. When it happens on the moon, it's not a problem.
Maddox: I would say it's a pretty big problem on the moon. (Dick scoffs) 'Cause it could throw our tidal...our tidal shift, our tidal wave shift...
Dick: Uh-huh.
Maddox: ...out of whack. Man, that's a real...real delicate balance.
Dick: Okay!
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: I'm done.
Maddox: Oho, great!
Dick: That's my argument for earthquakes. (smiles)
Maddox: Good. Good pro-...good problem, Dick. Let's get to a -
Dick: (interjects) But not good enough. Not as good as, uh, Slacktivism. What else is on the top? What else is in our top 10?
Maddox: Militarized Police, vote that one down. Uh...
Dick: Celebrity Worship? Earthquakes are a much bigger problem than celebrity worship. (chuckling)
Maddox: I'll give you that!
Dick: Okay.
Maddox: I'll give you that. I agree.
Sean: What about Armchair Psychologists?
Maddox: No!! Vote that the fuck down! Why is that even on the list? (yelling)
Sean: Is it in the top 10?
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: It's like...yeah! It's like #5...like 6 or 5 or somethin'.
Dick: Big problem.
Maddox: It's your highest problem so far, Dick.
Dick: Cool!
Maddox: (scoffs) Whatever. Anyway.
Dick: Go ahead.
Maddox: Wanna get to a real problem, Dick?
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: Gossip.
Dick: Alright. (giggling)
Maddox: Gossip's a big problem, man! Huh?
Dick: Really? You think so?
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: Why? Celebrity gossip or all gossip?
Maddox: You know, Dick...all sorts of gossip.
Dick: Okay.
Maddox: You know those, uh, those tulips on your organ?
Dick: Yeah?
Maddox: There's another kind of lips that can sink ships. (Dick scoffs) Huh? Gossip sinks ships. Loose...loose lips. (smiles)
Dick: Uh, you're talking about the World War II propaganda?
Maddox: Yeah, the World War II slogan. Let's call it a slogan! Stop hating America for 5 minutes!
Dick: I mean, that's what it is! Propaganda can be good, can't it? It's not necessarily bad.
Maddox: Yeah, but propaganda, the word "propaganda" has a negative connotation.
Dick: Ohh.
Maddox: So Dick, um, gossip sucks. This is from Psychology Today. It's an article titled "To Gossip or Not to Gossip: That Is the Question." Real clever. (dryly)
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: It says, "Gossip creates herd mentality." Did you know this? "Gossip often leads to groupthink, which occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because of group pressures. We are especially vulnerable to groupthink when we are with those from similar backgrounds, when the group is insulated from outside opinions, and when there are no clear rules for decision making."
Sean: That's called "the Internet." (Dick cackles)
Maddox: Yeah. It's called "Reddit," specifically. "The worst kind of human behavior can result when we start letting herd mentality settle the question what is true or what is false, what is right and what is wrong."
Dick: Well, that part...they were right until they had to put a twist on it, and then they just made that up.
Maddox: Yeah, I know, 'cause -
Dick: (interjects) Like, that's just bullshit.
Maddox: No, it's not.
Dick: Oh, the worst evil comes from when people are thinking similarly? The best does too. Like...
Maddox: Uh, yeah. No, I'll give you that too.
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: Sometimes it does.
Dick: They just threw in that editorializing, 'cause they want...'cause they don't like gossip.
Maddox: Yeah, but uh, but mob mentality is definitely bad, right?
Dick: Nooo! Mob ment-...the thought process behind mob mentality has been sh-
Maddox: (interjects) Here we go. (annoyed) (Dick laughs) I know you just -
Dick: (interjects) Has been shown to be better than an individual's decision-making! A mob's decision-making, when they're properly informed, has been shown to be better and faster than an individual's thought process.
Maddox: I know you just read this study. Um...
Dick: I didn't just read this study!
Maddox: You were just tellin' me about it the other day! You said, "Hey, I read this interesting thing in..."
Dick: I happened to mention it to you, yeah.
Maddox: "...on Apple News," or some...what was it? (laughs with Sean)
Dick: But don't frame it like I just read this and I'm excited about it. See, that's what you do!
Maddox: Oh, recently enlightened.
Dick: You try to do this sneaky shit... (Maddox laughs more) You try to do this sneaky shit and then you act like you aren't caught when you are. (background laughter)
Maddox: I'm so strong and powerful.
Dick: You're s-... (cracks up)
Maddox: I'm such a good guy. (smiles)
Dick: Your fuckin' innuendo game is very weak.
Maddox: Brilliant.
Dick: But go ahead!
Maddox: I'm so smart.
Dick: Tell everyone about this study I just read and I was so excited about it like a child that I ran to you and said, "Ohhh, listen to this!" (dumb voice)
Maddox: You DID! What was the context?
Dick: No.
Maddox: What was the context that you brought it up in?
Dick: We were talking about what problems we were gonna bring in, or solutions we were gonna bring in.
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: I said, "I'm thinking about bringing mob mentality in as a solution," and you said, "No, I'm bringing in riots."
Maddox: Ohh, right!
Dick: And I said, "Yeah, that's more interesting and topical and funnier."
Maddox: Okay.
Dick: "So I won't bring in mob...uh, mob mentality."
Maddox: And you know what's interesting, is the entire Solutions episode you sat there on your, uh, on your little soapbox talkin' about how bad riots were, yet riots are a result of groupthink, aren't they?
Dick: (stammers) I...I...
Maddox: Ohh... (taunting)
Dick: No, they're not a result of groupthink!
Maddox: ...ohhhh! (laughs)
Dick: They're a result of people committing crimes!
Maddox: That's the sound of Dick gettin' caught! (laughs more)
Dick: How is...why is a riot the result of groupthink?
Maddox: It is by definition a group of shitheads who are doing something violent! It's groupthink!! You see someone throwin' a -
Dick: (interjects) Sorry, what is a riot? A group of shitheads doing something violent, and you brought this in as a solution?
Maddox: I... (stammers)
Dick: Good fuckin' luck.
Maddox: I brought it in as a solution -
Dick: Yeah, there you go.
Maddox: - because some good...just like the heart attack example, Dick. Some good can come of something bad. Just because there's something bad that happens and there's shitheads who do it...look, someone who robs a bank and does something good on the way to rob the bank doesn't mean he has good intentions, or doesn't mean that he was justified in robbing the bank.
Dick: Uh-huh.
Maddox: I don't know how else I can make myself so clear.
Dick: It's not clear at all.
Maddox: And by the way, the PS4...the PS4 argument, I wanna mention these fucking shitheads in the comments. For those of you who don't know, someone mentioned that...oh, what was it? Uh, Wauterboi. He sent in that...
Dick: Wauterboi, the master of Maddox versus Maddox.
Maddox: The master of bation. He sent in that clip where he was like, "Oh Maddox, uh, you said you didn't like Sony, but you're gonna buy a PS4." (dumb voice)
Dick: No, he said that you called me a douchebag for watching the NFL even though I have some problems with the No Fun L-...a set of problems with the NFL I labeled "the No Fun League."
Maddox: Right. After -
Dick: (interjects) And yet you support...
Maddox: Hold on!
Dick: ...Sony.
Maddox: After I called you a hypocrite douchebag for supporting the NFL -- because it was a hyperbole.
Dick: Uh-huh.
Maddox: But after I called you that, you said, "Hey, don't throw out the baby with the bath water."
Dick: Right.
Maddox: And I agreed! I thought, "Well, that's a fair...that's reasonable."
Dick: That's why I brought in the No Fun League and not the NFL.
Maddox: Yeah! I agreed! That wasn't ever contended.
Dick: Uh-huh. (skeptical)
Maddox: That was not -
Dick: (interjects) You did go on a big rant about how I'm a douchebag for supporting an organization.
Maddox: It was ONE SENTENCE in the episode, Dick! It wasn't a big rant, it was literally one sentence and I let it go!
Dick: That's the part you're defending, is that I labeled it as a rant? The one sentence or is it the content of the sentence?
Maddox: No no, the part I'm defending here is how I can still own a Sony PlayStation because it's not so bad that I have to completely boycott the company. It's -
Dick: (interjects) Then it's not a big problem!
Maddox: I never...
Dick: Then Sony's not a big problem!
Maddox: No, Sony is a big problem in different areas. Look, Sony's a huge company that does a lot of different...it has a lot of different heads to this organization! Just because...and by the way, I have friends who work at Sony. I don't think they're part of the problem. I have good friends who work at Sony. But anyway, that's...that was the point. The point was...
Dick: "I know a black guy!" (cackles)
Sean: That's exactly what I was gonna say!! "Some of my best friends are black!"
Dick: "I'm not racist, some of my best friends are..." Go ahead.
Maddox: Alright, you... (Dick and Sean giggle) Couple chuckleheads over here.
Dick: That's why you're a hypocrite!
Maddox: No!
Dick: 'Cause you called me out on doing exactly what you're doing.
Maddox: Dick, you know what the best example I can give, 'cause you meatheads aren't gettin' it through, is -
Dick: (interjects) Yeah, it sucks when EVERYBODY ELSE doesn't get it, right?
Maddox: Dick, listen!
Dick: Then you're definitely right. (Sean laughs in the background)
Maddox: No, 'cause everyone a fucking idiot, for sure! For sure. Here's why. Like seriously, I am so, um, disappointed -
Dick: (interjects) And dumb people are a problem!
Maddox: I am so disappointed in humanity (Dick laughs) and especially...specifically our listeners. I'm so disappointed in you guys, I feel like a father who was let down.
Dick: Uh-huh. (giggles with Sean)
Maddox: Listen, does anybody like the taste of medicine? No! But people dislike being sick more than they dislike the taste of medicine! So you swallow the pill, don't you dickhead? That's exactly what Sony is! It's the bitter pill that I have to swallow to get to the games I want to play, you fucking idiots!
Dick: Yeah, here's why you're wrong.
Maddox: Okay. (annoyed)
Dick: This is why everyone thinks you're wrong.
Maddox: Alright, you know what? (stammers angrily) (Dick laughs)
Dick: Can't even hear it! Can't even hear it.
Maddox: Hold on, let me get a knife so I can cut my eyeballs out and swallow them so I can see them shit out, 'cause it'll be less painful than this horseshit I have to deal with.
Dick: Are you done? I don't wanna...I don't wanna read another bitchy comment from you in the comments section saying you got steamrolled when you were tryin' to explain this.
Maddox: Okay, what?? (angrily)
Dick: Are you done?
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: Because being sick, curing your illness, is a necessity.
Maddox: No, it's not.
Dick: Your... (scoffs) To live it is!
Maddox: Nothing is a necessity, Dick!
Dick: Curing a medical...
Maddox: NOTHING.
Dick: ...curing a medical illness...
Maddox: (yells) Being alive is a choice, having friends is a choice, eating food is a choice! Being sick...look, eventually your body's going to heal itself.
Dick: Wrong. People don't equate being sick to not playing video games.
Maddox: Dick, just because it's not exact...look, there's this fuckin' comic online that -- you do this all the time, Dick. (Dick guffaws) You look for...you look for one degree, one degree of separation, one degree that's different in an analogy and say, "Well, it's not exactly the same!" and you completely dismiss the analogy, whereas the bulk of the analogy here is that yes, it's similar in that you WANT to be not sick.
Dick: Uh-huh.
Maddox: You don't have to not be sick. You don't have to live, you don't have to eat food, you don't have to do anything! There is nothing that's a necessity in life, end of story! You don't! If I choose -
Dick: (interjects) Death is.
Maddox: If I choose...fine. (Dick sighs exasperatedly) But it's not a choice. It's not a choice unless you commit suicide. But if I choose to like video games and I want to play video games -
Dick: (interjects) Taxes are. Yeah?
Maddox: If I choose this thing for myself, then it's entirely my choice whether or not I play it or not. Look, the um...Sony's bad right now, but -
Dick: (interjects) You're jumping around like crazy in this defense.
Maddox: No, absolutely not!
Dick: Well, you wanna go back to the analogy thing? Or do you wanna keep -
Maddox: (interjects) There's nothing to go back to. It's very clear.
Dick: Well, the reason I...the reason I point out inconsistencies with your analogies is because you pick them to support what you're doing. The inconsistencies make the analogies not applicable to the situation.
Maddox: No Dick, what you're doing is cherry picking inconsistencies with the analogy rather than looking at the bulk of the analogy.
Dick: We'll see!
Maddox: There's this webcomic. I'm gonna post it online and I'm gonna shit all over...I'm gonna take a big shit right in your throat, Dick.
Dick: Yeah? (amused)
Maddox: When you guys see this comic, because it's exactly what's going on right now. Like, I'll say...I'll say, "You know what? Driving through traffic is like, uh, doing taxes. It's agony." And you're like, "No it's not! You don't do any paperwork while you're driving, euhhh!" (stupid voice) Idiot! That's exactly what you're doing right now! You're choosing intentionally something -
Dick: (interjects) That's what *I'm* doing right now? (chuckling)
Maddox: Yes! You're saying, "Well, it's not a necessity to play video games."
Dick: It's not.
Maddox: Nothing is a necessity!
Dick: Yeah, but it's...it's seen as more important to cure an illness.
Maddox: Irrelevant!
Dick: That's a more dire situation...
Maddox: Irrelevant.
Dick: ...than playing video games.
Maddox: Irrelevant. It's not necessary to cure anything. You don't HAVE to do anything in life.
Dick: Can we...can we drop this?
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: Alright.
Maddox: I'm happy to! I'm happy to. I understand that, um, our listeners are -
Dick: (interjects) "I'm happy to drop it immediately starting in on a rant with it." (laughs)
Maddox: No! No, I understand. It's just like, um... (sighs) You know, it's like you walk up to, uh, Mount Moses, whatever, where you're gonna get the Ten Commandments? And instead all you get are a buncha shithead fans with shitty comments. (Dick scoffs)
Sean: Wouldn't that be Sinai?
Dick: Yeah, that's...that's Mount Sinai. (smiling)
Sean: It's been renamed "Mount Moses."
Maddox: Has it really?
Sean: No.
Dick: Yeah! (giggles)
Sean: It's like JFK and "Cape Kennedy" from "Cape Canaveral," right?
Dick: Ahh. (amused)
Maddox: You know what I'm talkin' about. (Sean laughs)
Dick: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
Maddox: Yeah. You get up to Mount Moses and there's nothin' but a grinning dick up there.
Dick: So now that you've had the last word, can we drop it?
Maddox: (smirks) I don't care. Gossip gives people a false sense of superiority. (laughs with Dick)
Dick: Isn't it fun to gossip though? Come on, we gossip all the time. Like, "You'll never believe...you'll never believe the kind of ass Sean's farming."
Maddox: Oh my gosh!
Dick: Alright, what's your...what's the...you don't like gossip?
Maddox: No no, but look, it gives you a false sense of superiority. People stand around and they think that they're building camaraderie, but what they're actually doing...like, if you come to gossip, it makes you feel like you're above it all, right? But if people come to me and they gossip to me, I immediately write a little mental note in the back of my mind to remember to never tell them anything, unless it's something I want to spread. And I have some gossipers in my life.
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: My mom's a huge gossiper. I know some gossipers in my life who I know if I want to spread any information, especially MISinformation, they're the first person I go to. (Dick giggles)
Dick: What kind of misinformation do you spread?
Maddox: Well, for example, if I want to do a misdirect. Like let's say I'm planning a surprise party, right?
Dick: Uh-huh.
Maddox: And I want...I want to completely misinform all my friends so nobody suspects anything and I'm surprising a bunch of people. I will tell them to plan for something unrelated and in a completely different time, or...not even plan. I'll tell them something like, um...oh, I don't know. "I got this...I'm gonna be out of town this and this week, or this and this weekend," and they'll spread that information. Even innocuous little information like that, they'll spread.
Dick: Huh, so you use gossip to your advantage!
Maddox: Sometimes.
Dick: As a tool!
Maddox: Well, that doesn't justify it.
Dick: Eh. I -
Maddox: (interjects) And, AND, more harm comes from gossip than good.
Dick: You know, I don't know. I think everyone does it. Like, I've heard, um...I've heard this position that gossip is just wrong...
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: ...and bad, and we shouldn't do it, but then it's always from someone that I regularly shoot the hot goss with. (Maddox laughs)
Maddox: Shoot the hot goss?
Dick: Yeah! We all do it! We like talkin' about each other and the minutia of life.
Maddox: You know Dick, I draw a line though. I don't get into personal details.
Dick: Really?
Maddox: I may allude to it. No, I generally don't.
Dick: Personal details of what, other people?
Maddox: Yeah. There's a lot of detailed information you don't know about people who we have in common, and vice versa.
Dick: Sure!
Maddox: I haven't told other people, like, certain intimate details I know about you. Uh, gossip is -
Dick: (interjects) Yeah, I tell them all on the podcast. (both laugh)
Maddox: Gossip is a way of separating us from them, and it makes you sound like a shithead. Some people bond over gossip like two turd planets colliding into each other.
Dick: Hmm.
Maddox: But people like me trust you less when you gossip, and uh...yeah, like any time I get a juicy scoop I trust you a little bit less. I think, "Well, there's a person I can't ever trust."
Dick: You like gettin' the scoop though, don't cha?
Maddox: I do...
Dick: Yeeeah.
Maddox: ...but it goes in the vault. It's a one-way vault.
Dick: Ah!
Maddox: It's like my butthole. Things come out, nothin' goes in. Except occasionally a doctor's finger. (laughs)
Dick: Oh, it's fun, man.
Maddox: What, gossip?
Dick: Gossip's fun, yeah.
Maddox: Great. You yenta. (smiles)
Dick: Yeah, but I think, like...when I picture anyone shitting on gossip, I picture someone who wants to project this image of themselves like a principled...like, "I'm Teddy Roosevelt! I'm from an era when men had honor and integrity, and I don't engage in childish games like gossip." (stuffy voice) But then I'm like, "Yeah, you probably do. Like, you probably participate a little bit in the gossip."
Maddox: Nah, well... (sighs) Here's where I draw the line with gossip.
Dick: Okay.
Maddox: Like, say for example you have a mutual friend in common with somebody. You come up and you find out that this mutual friend, say...oh, I don't know, got arrested over the weekend for doing graffiti.
Dick: Who...who did that? (hushed)
Maddox: Let's just say! Let's just...completely hypothetical situation.
Dick: Was it Sean? (Maddox chuckles)
Maddox: It was Sean.
Dick: Was it Asterios?
Maddox: Yeah, both of 'em. The Sneaky Greek and Shifty Sean, graffitiing! (Sean laughs in the background) No, but you would say, "Hey man, did you hear what happened to Allen? Allen got busted for graffiti this weekend." That's not gossip. Where it's gossip is, "...and Allen has anal warts," or something.
Dick: Ooo!
Maddox: You're volunteering irrelevant, detailed, intimate information about somebody that you know that they probably wouldn't want other people to know, and it's something that you wouldn't find out on your own unless you heard it from the source. That's when it's gossip.
Dick: That's...okay.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: I get that.
Maddox: That's my definition.
Dick: I don't know. I find people very, like, precious about the details of their lives.
Maddox: Gossip has ruined friendships, Dick!
Dick: Sure!
Maddox: Like in my personal life, I know friends who don't talk to each other because of gossip anymore. And -
Dick: (interjects) Was it true?
Maddox: What, was the...?
Dick: Was the gossip true or was it false?
Maddox: It's true, but it's information that, uh, that they didn't necessarily need to know.
Dick: Huh.
Maddox: Like for example, Dick, like for example...I'll give you a perfect example.
Dick: Okay.
Maddox: I was hanging out with my friend one time, a married friend of mine, and he confessed to me that didn't, uh, he didn't quite...he wasn't really quite attracted to his wife, and he was attracted to other women more than his wife. (Dick exhales in surprise) Yeah! Pretty heavy load, right? Would that be information that I need to share with his wife? Fuckin' of course not! If I was a gossiper -
Dick: (interjects) No, you'd be a snitch.
Maddox: Yeah, I'd be a snitch! I'd be...if I was a gossiper, I would go up and tell his wife and ruin his life, wouldn't I?
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: And that kind of stuff has happened to me where people...not that specific example, but -
Dick: (interjects) What happened to you?
Maddox: Well...
Dick: You wanna give some hints?
Maddox: No!
Dick: Tell me a li-...that's very interesting though, 'cause I'm trying to identify with this problem.
Maddox: Sure! I'll give you the most general summary of it. I confided in someone, and that someone broke my trust and went to the person I was confiding about and explained everything, and it...it has since ruined my friendship with this person.
Dick: Chicks? Was this chick stuff?
Maddox: If course it's chicks!! It's always fucking chicks, man!
Dick: Ahhh.
Maddox: I have like 2 male friends who gossip and like 30 female friends who gossip.
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: Actually, that's not true. I have about the same amount. (Sean laughs in the background) It takes a certain mentality. You know what I think -
Dick: (interjects) You have the same amount...equal men and women shootin' the goss with you?
Maddox: Yeah, I think so! The type of friends I have who gossip, I know who they are and they have a certain mentality. I think it, uh...the egg that gossip is hatched from is boredom.
Dick: Oo. You know what I think it is?
Maddox: What?
Dick: I think they want the attention...
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: ...for revealing a salacious, scandalous story about someone.
Maddox: Yes! Yeah.
Dick: Maybe there's a distinction...maybe I don't know what gossip is. Like, maybe what I call gossip is not really gossip. 'Cause I like tellin' funny stories about people and revealing things that maybe they wouldn't want to, but I don't think...that I think ultimately would probably help them if other people knew about this, and it's usually funny and humiliating, but I don't know.
Maddox: Generally if it's something that you would find out anyway, like your friend Allen went to jail, you're probably gonna find that out.
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: If it's something intimate about themselves that they wouldn't reveal unless you specifically talked to them, then it's gossip. But yeah, I get it. Like, funny stories...you know, as long as you're not revealing that intimate detail, I don't think it's gossip.
Dick: Yeah, you're probably right then.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: Celebrity gossip is definitely a big problem.
Maddox: Celebrity gossip? Well...
Dick: Yeah, it's annoying as shit.
Maddox: And half of it's fake, so whatever.
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: But yeah, gossip is a way that people like to...you know what it is? It's judgment. That's what it is!
Dick: Yeah!
Maddox: You're sayin', "Look at So-And-So! Isn't this funny?"
Dick: Uh-huh.
Maddox: "Isn't this funny how fucked up their lives are?" And guess what?
Dick: (interjects) "I would NEVER do that."
Maddox: "Yeah, I would never do that. My life's perfect!"
Dick: "I would never find other women attractive. Are you kidding?"
Maddox: Suuure.
Dick: Yeah. (amused)
Maddox: Yeah! That's a real dick move. It's a real dickhead move. And if I was a -
Dick: (interjects) It is a dick move.
Maddox: And I was a lesser person or a lesser mind, like most of our listeners with that Sony/PS4 debate -
Dick: (interjects) Welp, just lost all the votes! (both laugh)
Maddox: If I was a lesser mind and a lesser person, I would be a gossiper and I could very easily destroy lives. But I...why would you wanna do that? I mean, I can destroy...
Dick: Laughs?
Maddox: (chuckles) I'd rather destroy arguments. Which is what I do for a living!
Dick: Yeah.
Sean: Did you say "destroy laughs"?
Maddox: No, FOR laughs.
Dick: I just said "laughs," but it sou-...yeah, I said "for laughs."
Sean: Oh.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: I didn't mean "destroying laughs." (Sean giggles) No. Even if it sounded like that. Well, is that...is that your problem?
Maddox: That's my problem!
Dick: It's a good problem.
Maddox: Thanks.
Dick: This is...this one's it. Mine is the end-all, be-all...
Maddox: M'kay. (chuckling)
Dick: ...of problems. Biggest problem in the universe: bachelor parties.
Maddox: Uhh...okay.
Dick: You know what a bachelor party is?
Maddox: What?
Dick: It's, uh, it's a man, it's a fully-grown man demanding that his other man friends throw him, like, a quinceañera.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: That's what the modern-day bachelor party is. It's no longer going out with your friends to a bar, having some laughs, telling some stories about the good old days and then stumbling home at like 1:30 to think...or stumbling to a strip club?
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: And, you know, enjoying some female attention before heading home for the night?
Maddox: Sure.
Dick: It's now...it's now a 3-day weekend. It's now an event!
Maddox: Yup. (laughs)
Dick: It's an event where you are FORCED...where you are forced to pay more to engage in than you are to pay for the fucking wedding.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: If you're in a bachelor party, you are...you might have to spend 500, 600 dollars spending one of the few 3-day weekends that you get in a year going on some fucking Fantasy Island tour at the behest of your best friends, some of whom you probably have never met before!
Maddox: Sure!
Dick: Because it's always a mixture of friends!
Maddox: It's always a mixture of their hometown and their current town, yeah.
Dick: Yeah! And you know, people who have things in common with them currently, and people who have things in common with them growing up and will tell stories that have no...that have no relevance!
Maddox: Yep.
Dick: To life! To, like, your life as it has been for the last several years.
Maddox: It's like hanging out with your longtime bro, but 50 percent is pleasurable because you don't get 50 percent of the references.
Dick: Yeah! Uh, it is... (stammers) On a scale of, like, things I want to do, meeting new men is dead last. (Maddox laughs) You know what I'm saying?
Maddox: Uh, that's not what you said from a few episodes ago, Dick.
Dick: What did I say?
Maddox: Pickup Artist 101, you gotta be hittin' on everyone all the time, even men! (laughs)
Dick: That was a...that is a joke!
Maddox: I know!
Dick: Because I think...yeah!
Maddox: I know, I'm bustin' your balls!
Dick: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah. (cackles)
Maddox: Unlike me, I can't get away with a fuckin' joke, otherwise I'm a huge fuckin' hypocrite and my entire moral fabric is CRUMBLING based on one fucking sentence that was a throwaway and as a joke a fuckin' LONG-ASS time ago! All you fuckin' lesser minds in the comments! (yelling) Oh, I wanna pick my own scabs and eat them. (Dick and Sean laugh)
Dick: Yeah. Um...guys, fuck off with the bachelor parties.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: Okay? It's not your special day. It's a man's version of a wedding now.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: Like, that's what a bachelor party is to me. Girl has a wedding, throws a wedding? "Oh, I want this! I want this!" A huge diva. "I want this! I wanna spend 10 grand celebrating this event." This is MEN doing this!
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: To each other!! (stammers angrily) Guys, guys: we have tolerate shit from everyone in life! We have tolerate people fuckin' us over. Don't do it to your best friends!
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: Okay? I want my weekend. Give me my weekend back. I want my 500 dollars; I don't wanna make new friends!
Maddox: It's like black-on-black crime.
Dick: Yeah! (Maddox giggles) This is man-on-man crime.
Maddox: Yeah Dick, I know why you brought this problem in, because I mentioned to you recently that I'm going on a bachelor party, uh, this weekend!
Dick: Well...
Maddox: Yeah. That's why we had to throw our -
Dick: (interjects) Sayonara.
Maddox: Yeah. (cracks up) We had to record -
Dick: (interjects) Have fun. (laughs)
Maddox: Thanks! Thanks, buddy. I was tellin' a girl this just recently, and I was tellin' her that I'm goin' to this bachelor party and I'm just...and they're like, "Oh, what's wrong? Why don't you sound excited about it?" I said, "Well, 'cause it's not what TV sells you." On TV, in movies, in TV shows, it's always that crazy weekend where you guys go to a strip club and you wake up with a lampshade around your head and a tiger in your bathtub. Like what's that, The Hangover?
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: Yeah. It's not that!
Dick: No!
Maddox: EVER. It is what you described, which is, um...a bunch of bros -
Dick: (interjects) A bunch of lonely men sitting around...
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: ...trying to see who's gonna be the last one to cave and buy beer.
Maddox: Right, and it's usually two groups of friends, exactly like you described, who don't have anything in common, don't...they're not necessarily bad people. I've gone to bachelor parties and kind of bonded...I'm usually the bridge between the two groups, because I can...I'm good with people!
Dick: Yeah! You're a social lubricator.
Maddox: I'm a... (cracks up) I'm social lube.
Dick: Yeah!
Maddox: I lube up that dick of conversation.
Sean: "Your group is dumb, and YOUR group is dumb!" (Maddox and Dick laugh) "I'm the bridge in between!"
Dick: Everybody likes a bad guy!
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: They all need somebody to hate together. (smiling)
Maddox: They bond over the hatred of me. (Dick keeps laughing) Um, well -
Dick: (interjects) So are you excited about this bachelor party or what?
Maddox: Actually, this one I do know most of the people there so it's gonna be...it's probably gonna be pretty fun. However, there's the, um, the Pacquiao fight and there's Osama bin Laden Death Day and all this other shit this last weekend.
Dick: Yeah!
Maddox: Yeah. But here's the thing, Dick: in defense of bachelor parties, sometimes...and usually actually, I will say, it's not the bachelor himself who's setting it up. It's usually his best friend who's just tryin' to do something good for the guy. Can't you stop bustin' his balls? He has all this pressure from society and women and men and TV shows. "Oh, you gotta have this big extravagant fucking thing!" Whereas if it was your best friend, most likely for the bachelor party he would just say, "Hey man, can we just bro out at a bar and not make a big deal out of this? 'Cause we hang out all the time anyway, and it would just be great to do that instead of goin' to a strip club and pretend having fun and pretend..." Like "Oh, you gotta buy the bachelor a lap dance," that he reluctantly receives.
Dick: And you're touching on something that also infuriates me. I went to a...I planned a bachelor party last year, and there was obviously...OBVIOUSLY I'm going to a strip club.
Maddox: Sure!
Dick: Obviously that's gonna be a part of it. I got flak from some guy saying like, "Well, you know, are you sure we have to do that? Are you sure that's gonna be fun?" I'm like, "Dude, is this real life? Am I getting shit from a m-...from MEN about going to a strip club on a bachelor party?!"
Maddox: Uh-huh. Yep!
Dick: "Have I fuckin' been in a coma? Am I Rip Van Winkle? Did I wake up in the future where everyone's a chick? What the fuck are you talking about?! Of course we're going to a strip club, so don't go! Don't fuckin' go then!!"
Maddox: Yeah. You know what it is, Dick, is you get the hometown heroes who are their childhood friends who stayed in their hometown, got married and have kids now, and they're dads with responsibilities and suddenly they're gettin' dragged out to their -
Dick: (interjects) I wouldn't wanna go to a strip club if I was a dad.
Maddox: You wouldn't?
Dick: Probably.
Maddox: Would or wouldn't?
Dick: No, I think I would have a different opinion of it.
Maddox: Yeah, I would probably get...I would probably wanna go as a dad. I don't now for some reason, 'cause I don't...I don't know, man. I've never just...I've never really been into strip clubs. Whatever.
Dick: Really? Why?
Maddox: Um, because I'm not gonna pay for a lap dance. I don't get horned up that way. I don't, uh, I don't feel like...I don't feel like if I'm paying a woman for any kind of interest, like if she's taken interest in me and I know that there's my wallet at the end of that line...
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: ...it doesn't turn me on.
Dick: I feel exactly the opposite. (Maddox laughs) Like, I'm specifically turned on dangling the money in front of their face.
Maddox: Yeah! That's, like, some weird fuckin' power thing that you have.
Dick: Yeah, it is.
Maddox: I don't have that. I do go to strip clubs and I try to make the girls laugh with my buddy, my big buddy Austin. He's really funny at strip clubs. He -
Dick: (interjects) And they're laughing to get money out of you.
Maddox: Uh, no. No, they laugh 'cause they're PEOPLE who want to have a good time at their jobs, Dick. And believe it or not, they're bored with a buncha sleazeballs dangling cash in front of their heads all the time, so if you make a girl laugh she's gonna be your friend and talk to you all night. That's pretty cool!
Dick: Wasting her time. Wasting her time at work. She could be out getting money.
Maddox: Hey, I'm just sittin' there fuckin' bored outta my mind while this bachelor party's goin' on, I might as well have a conversation with a decent human being.
Dick: Eh. Alright!
Maddox: I've had some really good girls at strip club, like just...
Dick: Yeah, me too.
Maddox: ...decent people. (cracks up) Oh, 'kay.
Dick: I've had some bad girls at strip clubs too. (smiles) (Maddox laughs)
Maddox: I don't have anything against strippers, I don't have anything against strip clubs. I'll go to 'em! I just -
Dick: (interjects) I WANNA have something against strippers, you know what I'm sayin'?
Maddox: Ohhh. (uneasily) (Dick cackles) Is it your organ, Dick? They play with your favorite flower? So if they planned this bachelor party...
Dick: Mhm.
Maddox: ...and they show up, they have a lot of pressure. The best man has a lot of pressure. He's expected to do this, so I think it's the bachelor's responsibility to be like, "Hey man, don't. Let's not do...just don't."
Dick: I think it's all of our responsibilities. I'm done. No more. I'm done with bachelor parties.
Maddox: You know what's funny, Dick? One of the bachelor parties I went to...so you had the local crew who lives in his current town, and then you had the home crew who flew in, and the home crew and the local crew couldn't be more different. You had, like, me wearing my samurai t-shirts and my...you know, whatever crazy shit I'm wearing and I don't give a fuck.
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: And then you had the hometown crew wearing, you know, khaki Dockers and polo shirts.
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: Just straight off the plane from their jobs, their 9-to-5.
Dick: Right outta J. Crew.
Maddox: Yeah, and those guys were so horned up to go to strip clubs.
Dick: Yeah!
Maddox: It was hilarious to watch. 'Cause like with me...they were kinda takin' a poll with all the guys and it was kind of a 50/50 split. Some of the guys were like, "Yeah man, I'm okay with it," some of the guys like me were just on the fence. I'm like, "Eh, I could go or not." And then the home crew was like, "Yeah, we're definitely goin', right?"
Dick: "Yeah, we're definitely goin'!"
Maddox: "And can we bring a girl back?" Yeah, "Can we fuck 'em?" And I'm like, "No man, it's a strip - "
Dick: (interjects) Yes! Of course.
Maddox: Well, you don't want to go to...you want to go to a strip club in your mind where you can hook up with the strippers, but then when you DO, you don't.
Dick: Wait a minute, I thought you were just speaking about respecting strippers. Now you're saying you don't wanna...bang them?
Maddox: Nonono, you don't wanna go to the type of club that allows it. Those are real shady clubs.
Dick: Aohhh, man. They all..."allow"? Of course they don't "allow" it.
Maddox: Yeah. They turn their...they look the other way.
Dick: Well, there's alotta gray area you're talking about now.
Maddox: What??
Dick: 'Cause it's just two people banging at the end of the day. Like, are you talking about prostitutes or are you talking about having sex with a stripper? 'Cause they'll...they're real women!
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: You can have sex with them without money being involved.
Maddox: Sure.
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: Yeah, well if THAT'S the case. That's not the case I'm talkin' about. I'm talkin' about the -
Dick: (interjects) You're talking about a whorehouse.
Maddox: Basically.
Dick: Okay.
Maddox: But it's under-the-radar whorehouse.
Dick: Well...
Maddox: So you're going there...basically you're hiring a prostitute, but it's illegal, so...
Dick: Yeah, I don't have a big problem with that either.
Maddox: Yeah, but the other kinda shady shit that goes on? Those are the strip clubs where they have ATMs where if you take out 20 bucks from the ATM, there's an 8-dollar fucking fee.
Dick: I've never been to a strip club where that's not the case.
Maddox: I have! I've gone to some strip clubs where they don't let you hook up with the girls, and it's on the up-and-up and they're not tryin' to screw you every time. 'Cause if it's the type of strip club that lets you hook up with the girls, they know if they jack up the ATM fee you're not likely to complain because you don't want to have to explain this bill to your wife or to your bank or whoever it is. You're not gonna sit on the phone with a bank teller and be like, "Yeah, so I went to this strip club and they ripped me off with an 8-dollar ATM fee."
Dick: Well, that is a scam, but I've never been to a strip club, like ANY strip club, and none of them have been...I mean, not all of them have been whorehouses. (Sean laughs in the background) I've never been to a strip club that didn't have a... (chuckles) ...that didn't have a 10-dollar ATM fee at least.
Maddox: Oh, yeah. No I've been to some -
Dick: (interjects) Where is this magical place?
Maddox: I went to a strip club in Vegas that was really cool, actually! The girls were really nice, everybody...like, it wasn't seedy and depressing. It was like, the girls were really nice and it was...everyone was havin' a good time, there were lots of people there, it was really good environment. And the ATM fee was somethin' reasonable, like 4 dollars, which is reasonable for a strip club.
Dick: I'm surprised.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: I'm surprised by that. Anyway, I think it's partly a branding problem. We gotta stop calling them "bachelor parties," 'cause that sounds too much like the TV show.
Maddox: What do you wanna call it?
Dick: "Stag night." NIGHT. "Night" is right in the name. One night!
Maddox: Yeah, but if you call it "night," people...like, the dumb people might think that it's "K-N-I-G-H-T."
Dick: Dumb people are a problem.
Maddox: Dumb people ARE a problem.
Dick: Okay. Just checking.
Maddox: In certain contexts!
Dick: Ohh, okay.
Maddox: They may be a bigger problem than a solution. We'll see someday.
Dick: We'll see.
Maddox: Yeah, we'll see.
Dick: You think people are gonna...and then what, make you go to a 3-day Renaissance fair? (Maddox laughs) 'Cause they think it's "knight"?
Maddox: That sounds so awful.
Dick: That's what a bachelor party is to me now.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: It's 3 days...3 days doin' something that I'm sure is fun, I like doin' it, but don't...just stop.
Maddox: You know, when we had Asterios in when he brought in Burlesque Dancers?
Dick: Uh-huh.
Maddox: Remember that was because of a bachelor party?
Dick: Yeah!
Maddox: That problem? I actually had fun at that bachelor party, but what do I know? I mean, I...I thought it was kinda cool! Everyone was there in some Harry Potter shit. I dunno, I guess if I didn't HAVE to...I didn't have to so I had a good time, but if I had to I feel like...I don't wanna feel like I'm obligated to do anything.
Dick: Yeah, like work. "The whole company's going bowling!"
Maddox: Yeah. No, oh, work functions are the worst!
Dick: The worst.
Maddox: Oh man, um...I just wanna end on this. Well, I mean it's your problem, but...
Dick: No, I'm done.
Maddox: Okay, I just wanna end on this then. My boss a long time ago sent out this email to our entire department. This was when I was at the...the programmer at the telemarketing company.
Dick: Mhm.
Maddox: He said, "Hey, we wanna do something to reward you guys and take you guys out for some special treat, like kayaking or go to a park someday or do this...you know, something fun after work."
Dick: Just go home.
Maddox: Yeah! Go bowling or something.
Dick: I have the most fun at my house.
Maddox: Well no, I -
Dick: (interjects) Just send me there.
Maddox: No, I was...I was super excited, Dick. I thought, "Wow, that's really cool! I would love to go kayaking," and then EVERYBODY thought that we were gonna take a day off of work and go kayaking.
Dick: Uh-uh. (chuckling)
Maddox: Mm-mm!
Dick: Saturday.
Maddox: Yep!
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: They were like...they said, "We'll do this a 3-day weekend. We'll start Friday night after work, after you're exhausted and just wanna fuck off at home."
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: "You're gonna go to...you're gonna spend MORE time with your coworkers going kayaking instead. Who's in?"
Dick: Nobody.
Maddox: NOBODY responded. Not a single fuckin' person. Of course not, dickheads! We don't wanna spend more time with our colleagues after work!
Dick: That can only hurt you.
Maddox: Oh, that's gotta be a problem.
Dick: You make a...yeah, I got it on my list. I got it on my short list.
Maddox: Yeah. Anyway Dick, my problems this week were Flowers and Gossip. Happy Mother's Day, everyone.
Dick: My problems are Earthquakes and Bachelor Parties. (closing riff starts)
Maddox: Big problems, Dick. I actually agree with Earthquakes. Bachelor Parties, um...should be in the positive territory, maybe?
Dick: See you next Tuesday. (Maddox laughs)
(theme riff)
--------------------
Voicemail (male caller): 10 IQ points? Really? That's what you're gonna go with? That's like the difference between knowing the 16th number in pi and the 32nd number in pi. Nobody gives a fuck. I would much rather do...deal with a fuckin' idiot with a 50 IQ than deal with someone who's got 60 IQ points and is a fuckin' asshole because he just can't enjoy life.
Maddox: What??
Voicemail: Fuck it.
[message ends]
Dick: He's talking about when we were talkin' about pot and we said it would cost you 10 IQ points.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: Like, a habitual pot user.
Maddox: Oh, okay. And so what's the...what's his problem here?
Dick: That losing the IQ points is not a problem.
Maddox: Sounds like he's lost too many IQ points.
Dick: Yeah. (chuckling)
Maddox: Why don't you learn how to articulate a point, bozo?
Dick: They're precious. Precious IQ points.
Maddox: Yeah. [Dick plays next voicemail message]
Voicemail (male caller): Hey guys, regarding the whole prom problem thing, I can say that I do relate with Maddox because, um...I'm a senior in high school, and my junior year I did try fuckin' with people on prom night.
Maddox: Yeheheeeeah!
Voicemail: Oh wait, I forgot: I'm not a fuckin' virgin! (Dick and Sean laugh)
[message ends]
Maddox: 'Kay. (buzzer sound effect) You know what, asshole? Real... (baby laugh sound effect) Real funny joke, you get a baby laugh for that! Real fuckin' funny joke. You're not a virgin? Okay, cool kid, enjoy your fuckin' mediocre sex in high school.
Dick: Oh man, you're dead wrong on that.
Maddox: Yeah. Talk to me when you take the training wheels off and you have sex with actual women who are experienced, dickhead.
Dick: Experienced? (smiling)
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: Eh. Go vote up Penis Injuries. (Maddox and Sean laugh)
Maddox: That's inexperience, buddy! That's why you stop fuckin' high schoolers! That's your problem. (Dick cackles)
Dick: Um...
Maddox: You know, Dick? No, for real though, every girl I've hooked up with who's been younger has been inexperienced, just amateur hour. It's like watching the worst-production porno I've ever seen, where it's just, "Oh, oh, oh!" (flatly) It's just fuckin' fake. Everything's fake, and I'm like, "You don't have to ham it up, man. Like, this is...everything sucks. It's just..." The only thing good about it is their bodies are more supple.
Dick: Sorry, everything sucks? Um...younger girls, their bodies are more supple?
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick: I haven't found any kinda correlation with age and how good the sex is.
Maddox: It really depends on the amount of experience they have, and some people are naturals, but...yeah, it's something that you can get better at.
Dick: I TOTALLY disagree with that, that having sex makes...having sex with one person makes you better at sex with *them.* Like, having sex more with the same person makes you better at sex with that person, but it doesn't translate to other people.
Maddox: You know what's great about having sex with experienced people is that they get to a point sometimes where, um...hey, sex on paper is awesome, but sex in real life sometimes, you're not super into it and you're just not in the mood and you just wanna kind of get it over with. However, you still do it because it's pleasurable, but you don't have to sit there and pretend like you're havin' this mind-blowing orgasm when you're not. Sometimes with more experienced people they'll just be like, "Yep, well, here's...that's all I got in me and that's that," and you're like, "Thank God. Let's move on with our lives." That's great! That's a fuckin' beautiful day to me.
Dick: That's GOOD sex?
Maddox: Yeah!
Dick: Oh, now I definitely don't know what you're talkin' about then.
Maddox: Well that...I mean, that aspect of it is... (trails off)
Dick: You don't like it when they perform? They put on a little performance for you?
Maddox: I do to an extent, man! But it's like, you know, 5-10 minutes and I'm like, "Alright, what else you got? What are we doin' here?"
Dick: I think I could just stay in bed all day. 40 minutes...
Maddox: Well, sure!
Dick: Yeah.
Maddox: Yeah, I mean I can have those marathon sessions. I don't know how you can with your lack of stamina, Dick.
Dick: I...I don't know what you're talkin' about. (Maddox laughs) Uh, I got one more. [plays next voicemail message]
Voicemail (male caller): Hey, this is Jordan from Bountiful, Utah, and do you know how I know that Maddox is from Utah? He's a shit driver like the rest of us. (Maddox laughs) I almost killed 3 people on my way home from the McDonald's. It was great!
[message ends]
Maddox: Cool. (Dick and Sean laughs) Yeah, I was about to be like, "Bravo, man! That's pretty cool!" Yeah, I'm not...you know what, Jordan? When I was spending a lot of time driving in Utah, my nickname by my friends...I'm embarrassed of this, but my nickname was "The Grandma" because I drove slow, I drove cautiously. Driving around in a large city has awakened something in me. Something primal, something primordial from the ancient Japanese era...
Dick: Hm!
Maddox: ...of samurai has woken in me. (mysteriously) That's how I drive now.
Dick: Well, that's good to know, Grandma.
Maddox: Fuck you, Dick! (Dick and Sean laugh) I don't need this shit! I give you tips on driving and this is how you treat me??
Dick: Tips on driving? "Honk a lot"?
Maddox: Yeah! Honkers care.