Erudite crudite

For other philosophers: on The Dead Authors Podcast, John Hodgman has played Ayn Rand and Manzoukis has played Plato. And Gourley should do his Carl Sagan instead of his Giger. Adomian also does a killer Nietzsche.

Heh, I just watched Whiplash last night. Good timing. (Best movie of 2014, in my opinion. I hope it wins the Oscar.) I love the idea of Matt watching Whiplash and thinking he should parody it... and then his thoughts naturally turn to Armen.

The umbilical cord reveal was brilliant. It turned the whole episode from a hilarious mess into something that actually seemed narratively tight.

The boomerang and the bandito scenes were top-notch. Pam Murphy was so good in this episode. I liked how Matt's character in the boomerang scene kind of spilled over into the narrator when he gave Pam's character a bit of a knock by calling her a "brown-nosing little girl" as the narrator. It felt like Matt's character's frustration with her took over Matt's own POV. I also liked how Matt pretty clearly had no personal interest in the Loot Crate but he went on a little journey trying to figure out how to sell it and get other people excited about it.

This episode was a masterpiece. I loved it. But please police the gum-chomping in the future!

Who was the other person constantly laughing off-mic? (For example, at "You were a Native American named Horace?" at 1:42:17.) Was it Ted Leo or Brendon Small? Ted Leo, I think, but I'm not positive. It was also delightful. Don't forget about this episode for next year's Best Of, people!

SO GOOD! This is probably my favorite possible line-up of performers! I kept getting happier and happier as people kept getting added! And Ian Fleming finally hits CBB! I've been waiting for him. Fleming is Gourley's best character.

I thought it was neat hearing Betsy and Horatio together on this ep. I don't think I've heard them together before. In my mind, they occupy two completely different poles at the end of an improv spectrum. Betsy doesn't usually contribute that many new premises: she lets someone else suggest a premise and then she plays it out. Horatio, on the other hand, just throws out premises left and right without caring about consistency at all.

No worries; that was my point exactly!

Hey, although I was one of the arguers and I wrote long posts, I loved every past Case Closed and I want you to keep Case Closed! I like it when you have arguments with gun nuts or bible thumpers or people from Mississippi. One of the greatest things about your podcast is that you actually get angry and fighty, and then you turn that anger into comedy bits. Anyone who listens to the robot and skips Case Closed is missing out on one of the main thing that makes I4H (and the whole podcast medium) intimate and personal and special. My beef wasn't with Case Closed in general. It's with the particular opinions you were expressing. I mean, people on this forum and in the podmass thread expressed disappointment with the way you guys talked about Lewinsky before you ever did a Case Closed. I think it's just that you didn't realize that your opinions about Monica Lewinsky are way more unpopular with your listeners than your other political opinions. It made those segments more aggravating to us than fun. But, you know, it's super funny when you alienate other groups, so I guess I'll have to accept that occasionally I'll hear you alienate me. (You're still totally wrong about Lewinsky though dude!) Also, I dig your musical guests and my girlfriend and I buy albums based on the bands who show up on your show. I do tend to skip the music on a lot of first listens, because when I put on your podcast it means that I'm in in the mood for comedy. I go back and listen to it later.

Jesus Christ, that Reggie Watts jam at the end of the episode. That's a good song! I think that's the best I've ever heard him do. He must've pulled out all the stops to impress Tears For Fears.

Scott might have said 'eponymous' instead of 'titular', but he used it in a pretty crazy way! "Everyone was talking about Tears For Fears, and you guys are the eponymous Tears For Fears!" said the eponymous Scott Aukerman.

I still think this episode shows off better than any other what makes CBB unique: Scott challenging guests to keep their characters consistent as he keeps demanding more and more information about mundane trivia that the guests obviously hadn't thought through. It's almost certainly the best of 2014 and maybe the single best episode to play to a new listener (although the beginning, when everyone is trying to discover the characters, might be too long).

Yeah, I liked how even though Matt had just been talking about Minecraft, Dan Lippert couldn't quite remember the name of it when in the scene so he said he was addicted to "Mine... uh... Sweeper."

What happened to Master Blaster again? Oh, that's right. Case Closed? You might have won the battle for Bartertown, Matt. But you lost the war!

Yeah, he was joking, but I think the joke came from his spending time in a world where people might say things like that. He was legitimately surprised at Scott's insistence on replaying and replaying that song. I guess I shouldn't say that the bigger guests don't get the show: they quickly catch on to what the show is, but find it surprising and refreshing and usually make comments that reveal that the crazy freeform nature is a novelty for them.

I love that when bigger SNL stars come on the show, they think that, although they're having a ton of fun and laughing a lot, the show is going terribly. (I'm thinking of Andy "Can a Podcast Get Cancelled?" Samberg here as well.) They're so used to high production values and jokes being refined by writers that they don't quite get that fucking around and getting lost in diversions is the show. Gabrus is pretty astounding. Both of his impromptu stories about how his uncles died could have been stand-up bits written in advance. So quick and so sharp. Has Scott had enough of Riddle Me This? Despite shutting it down early, I thought it was going pretty well this time! Gabrus and Gasteyer understood it clean out of the gate.

Matt's always been up for debates and political rants and he's never played the 'I'm not a pundit, I'm just a regular joe' card, which seems really out of character for him. I think he knows the Case Closed segment went poorly, he sees he hasn't been able to adequately defend himself, and now he's frustrated that he's still getting criticism and he just wants out. Which is fair, to some extent. I do think Matt's response was a bit of a 'fuck you'; but, well, he's understandably frustrated (and I assume he wrote that post while stoned) so I give him a bit of leeway. But that leeway is because I like Matt as a person. This is tempered by the fact that, like pfchangs says, tens of thousands of people listen to the podcast and Matt has decided to make his political opinions part of the show. Announcing "Case Closed!" and having a robot voice say "stop listening!" doesn't inoculate you from criticism. Matt's perpetuating what the rest of see as harmful and sexist narratives and conspiracy theories; we're just trying to talk him out of them. I hope you try reading the long posts later, Matt! We still disagree with you!

OK, sorry to beleaguer you, Matt! Those posts aren't meant to be hostile: they're debatey, not fighty. You often talk about digging debate, so I thought you might be into it, and I've enjoyed reading what other people have been writing. But if you want us to wrap it up, it's over.

But it's a kangaroo court!

Aw man, I really wish pfchangs had made it on the show. That post was outstanding. (It's some comfort for me to know that there was only an hour of notice given beforehand on a Tuesday afternoon... I don't have to feel so much like I ditched my responsibility, because I wouldn't have been able to make it either.) Just to reiterate a few points: - Lewinski is a good figure for an antibullying movement. Her bullying does not come from a place where there was no wrong in the first place (like Tyler Clementi). It comes from a place where there was a wrong, but the response is disproportionate. And that's why Lewinski is important: if only victims like Clementi represent anti-bullying movements, bullies are not going to temper their actions when they think their criticisms are justified.But most cases of bullying happen when the bully thinks the criticism toward the victim is justified. Anti-bullying campaigns need to put out the message that even if you think your criticism is justified, you need to make sure your response is measured and doesn't contribute to a global effect that destroys the targets person's sense of safety and self-esteem. For instance: I'm sure a lot of the Gamergate dudes really do think that they're on the side of righteousness. As an anti-bullying advocate, you can either spend your resources convincing them the women they're attacking have done nothing wrong, or you can spend your resources teaching them that it's unacceptable to threaten women with bombings are firearms even if they think the women they are attacking have done something wrong. It's pretty obvious to me that the second tactic is better. Lewinski did something wrong (everyone acknowledges), so she provides a good teaching moment for proportionate response. - No one has ever said that Lewinski is above criticism, so I don't know why Matt and a few other people keep demanding that people stop saying that. - I don't understanding the complaint about Lewinski "comparing" herself to Clementi. She's not saying that their stories are identical or even equally tragic. She's just saying they were both subjected to (different sorts of) harassment. - The point that Matt was trying to make about the story of the hikers was the easiest slam dunk. The case was supposed to draw out the principle: if you take on risk by putting yourself in harm's way, and if you then end up getting hurt, you deserve lessened empathy. Leaving aside the fact that "lessened empathy" doesn't have to mean "no empathy", it is super, super easy to find counterexamples to this principle. Here's a case structurally identical to the hiker's case: a college junior goes to a kegger at a frat house dressed provocatively and ends up getting raped. Does she deserve less empathy because those sorts of things are more likely to happen at frat houses keggers and she should have known better?

Aaagh, I really wish I hadn't decided I was too shy to speak on Case Closed! It was so frustrating to listen to some inarticulate goober cede the case to Matt from the get-go. I honestly think this was a slam dunk case against Matt, but the guy came out of the gates with a homophobic non sequitur and all was lost. (I don't think he was genuinely homophobic, he just didn't know what to say to Matt's opening statement and then in his ramble conflated moral norms and prudential norms.) With friends like these.... I think maybe the Twitter goons are the only ones who are willing to call in to a show? I don't think any of the Case Closed people have ever been at all convincing. Ugh, I'm disappointed with myself for not stepping up now. I thought someone capable would take over.

Submit it to Yo, Is This Racist?. I can kinda see where your accuser is coming from. Not to say that the shirt is racist, but if I saw someone wearing that shirt and I didn't know anything about Daredevil or HDTGM, I would probably think, "Who's the racist dude wearing the weird anti-Muslim shirt?"

Outstanding ep! Both of the characs on this episode were great and had a lot of potential, and I hope we see more of them. (Though not together again. I think their interactions have been mined.) I like the chemistry that's generated with one non-charac (Cenac), one over-the-top and always-in-charac charac (Bitsy Boo Carmichael), and one charac with a personality-defining hook who can slip into and out of ridiculousness (Paul Funyuns). Besser and PFT both do that latter type of character really well, which makes them good in-character co-hosts.

Yeah, you can take the reins, pfchangs! Maybe someone can make a case that by 2001, Monica had made herself a public figure and so brought criticism on herself. But until January 1999, nearly a year after Drudge, she had done absolutely no self-promotion. She was under gag order. She wasn't allowed to speak to the press. And that was when the meanest, hounding criticisms came out. That's when she was depressed and suicidal. No, she wasn't above criticism. But it was so disproportionate and so harsh that of course it amounted to bullying. There are four self-promotiony things she did after the gag order was lifted: SNL, Jenny Craig, the reality show, and the handbags. She did these for money, and for image reclamation. And yeah, she was indulging in some attention-seeking too. But frankly, the world had fucked her over, so she was allowed to yell a big fuck you back to the world. When all of America and all of the media calls you a fat slut and you start thinking about suicide, you are permitted to indulge in some of your attention-seeking tendencies in order to maintain your self-worth. And then, once she tried shouting back at the world, she let herself disappear. Those 4 self-promotiony things were tiny blips. It is hugely telling that she has not put herself in the spotlight for nearly fifteen years. I don't know why Matt thinks she loved that it happened. She has hid from the media almost entirely. And given Tripp's tapes, I find the claims that she saved the blue dress for fame from the get-go to be totally untenable.