Is 2020 over yet? We don't like this ride and would like to get off.
Jeepers, 2020 got off to a start.
Dan and Maureen are back for thee first 2020 podcast, and they are…well…a bit uncertain how to address what the first seven days of the new year have been like. Spicy? Eventful? Something else?
But they have made personal strides. Dan has discovered the joys of the bullet journal. Maureen is getting things done and having strangers over to the house to help! Lots of strangers. Some with strange tales. In fact, the more she thinks about it, the more questions she has. Maybe it is best not to think about it.
And, of course, we are back on the impeachment train! Dan is hard at work cranking the impeachment,fyi back into action. John Bolton steps into the spotlight. The show is about to start. Does Dan have regrets? Maybe.
But also, things are hard and dark. Harder and darker than they've been. Sayswhovians, we know. We feel it too.
There is also a very moving story about a bonsai tree, and a real life Blue Apron encounter.
Keep your hands and your arms inside the 2020 at all times. The ride is about to begin.
Dan: This episode of Says Who is brought to you by you, through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho. Your dollars are the thing that make this happen, and boy howdy, I don't know why I said that. Well we sure couldn't be more thankful about it. Patreon.com/sayswho.
Maureen: Hi, look, you know who it is, it's Maureen. Who else is it going to be? What else I'm I going to be talking about? Books, but for real guys, we're so close now. The Hand on the Wall, the third book in the [inaudible 00:00:41].
Dan: That was good, you nailed it.
Maureen: Look, I know what I'm talking about.
Dan: You just did it.
Maureen: Dan, it's coming. It's coming out on the 21st, it's so close. You could pre order it now and no matter where you pre order it from, in the US, sorry it's the US thing, you get a free, I always say this word wrong, lenticular?
Dan: That's right, you said it right.
Maureen: A free lenticular print, you can get signed books. I hope you guys like it. [inaudible] it's dedicated to Dan.
Dan: Stop it.
Maureen: He just got his copy, which apparently was stolen by his son.
Dan: Immediately 14 year old just took it and started reading it last night.
Maureen: Well you have to let me know what he thinks.
Dan: I certainly will.
Maureen: I liked his realtime commentary before, it was very helpful.
Dan: He's on it. He read the middle book I believe or maybe it's the first one he read it. When he had the flu and he read it all, we locked him in his room basically and he had to just make it through. Couldn't get out until he was healed, and he read it all in one sitting.
Maureen: That sounds like good parenting.
Dan: We're good parents.
Maureen: You just locked him in his room.
Dan: We're very good parents basically.
Maureen: Did you just throw protein shakes in there?
Dan: Yeah, literally. Just a stuck of muscle milk and a book.
Maureen: See you in a week kid, hope you live.
Dan: It's funny because it's true.
Maureen: You could find out more at maureenjohnsonbooks.com if you pre order. Also, I just want to point out that anyone leaves a review of the book on places like Amazon, even if you didn't buy it from there, which you shouldn't, but it's hugely helpful in getting the word out about the books. Those reviews are really huge. It's like the podcast reviews, they're really, really helpful, so I just want to thank anyone that's been leaving reviews and pre ordering. I owe you my life. Here, have one of my fingers, chop.
Dan: You only have 10 of those.
Maureen: No, I have four, I've been giving them away a lot.
Dan: Oh boy.
Maureen: Maureenjohnsonbooks.com, have a finger.
Dan: Hey everyone, this is Dan. It is a new year and the impeachment is happening alongside everything else, but still happening. I am still writing it up every night at impeachment.fyi. There is a lot of news happening right now, so offload your impeachment side brain to me and I will help you through it at impeachment.fyi.
Maureen: (singing) it's really very good Dan.
Dan: Well thank you.
Maureen: I meant my singing.
Drive Thru Kid: Welcome to McDonald's, can I take your order please?
The Passenger: Yeah, I'm going to have a 15 pack of McFish nuggets and raspberry dipping sauce.
Drive Thru Kid: None of those are things that we serve.
The Passenger: Banana pie with barbecue dipping sauce.
Drive Thru Kid: Listen, we do have that, we have barbecue dipping sauce, so that's the...
The Passenger: With banana pie?
Drive Thru Kid: No, we don't, we have apple pies.
The Passenger: I'll have the banana pie.
Drive Thru Kid: Since you're here-
The Passenger: Yeah kid.
Drive Thru Kid: ... I actually have some questions.
The Passenger: For me?
Drive Thru Kid: Well, yes.
The Passenger: Okay shoot. What you got? What do you want?
Drive Thru Kid: I feel like the winter holidays happened and nothing was supposed to happen and then everything happened. I'm really confused and also a little bit frightened. Can you explain this?
The Passenger: What are you talking about?
Drive Thru Kid: I mean it just seems like everything is supposed to be chill right now and nothing is chill.
The Passenger: What's not chill? What happened? I've been out of the office for four hours.
Drive Thru Kid: Oh.
The Passenger: What's going on?
Drive Thru Kid: You know about the whole Iran thing, right?
The Passenger: Well it's a country.
Drive Thru Kid: Oh no. Listen, I don't know that I, maybe you should go to work and then drive through again.
The Passenger: What is it kid, you could tell me, what happened?
Drive Thru Kid: There's a lot of things. You know what, it's okay, I'll just put some food in a bag and you can drive through.
The Passenger: Well no. Hold on let me check my phone. Oh hey kid?
Drive Thru Kid: Yeah, there's a bunch of cars behind you can you...
The Passenger: Yeah, I know about that, but we're going to have bigger problems soon, so kid?
Drive Thru Kid: Yeah.
The Passenger: Just get in the car.
Drive Thru Kid: I don't know.
The Passenger: Just get in the car [crosstalk 00:06:09].
Drive Thru Kid: I need to take the food orders behind you.
The Passenger: I know. I know a place, I've got a place, just come home with me.
Drive Thru Kid: Look, I put a bunch of dipping sauces and some more fries and some straws in a bag, and I'll give them to you and just keep going.
The Passenger: All right, I'll send you a helicopter at five.
Drive Thru Kid: Oh boy.
The Passenger: Can we land on your roof?
Drive Thru Kid: I don't think it's load bearing.
Maureen: Welcome to Says Who, the podcast that isn't a podcast.
Dan: It's a coping strategy. I am Dan Sinker.
Maureen: I'm Maureen Johnson, and I tried to bring something to the table. I tried to really...
Dan: Man, it was like we were in the big top.
Maureen: Yeah.
Dan: I was expecting like an elephant to come out on a beach ball.
Maureen: This is our first time recording in 2020, and boy does it feel good, right? Right? 2020.
Dan: 2020, Says Whovians, we are recording this on the 7th of January, you will hear it on the 8th of January. This year started a week ago. I have no ability to comprehend how 100 years has been packed into seven days, but that's what it feels like.
Maureen: It's been something, huh?
Dan: It has not been good Maureen. It has been a real-
Maureen: It's been something.
Dan: ... fucked time. It is a fucked time.
Maureen: Well Dan, how have you spent some of your time?
Dan: Well first of all, I am standing today, which is good because I currently have four jobs Maureen. Yesterday I worked all of them in one day.
Maureen: Sounds healthy.
Dan: It is not, it is not healthy. It is not good. I felt by the end of the day yesterday, I felt like I had been locked in a cement mixer and just tumbled all day. It goes, but I, Maureen Johnson, I did not think I was going to make a New Year's resolution this year. I don't always, but I was at the library last Friday. I was stressing out about the fact that I am going to have multiple days in the next couple of months where I've got all four jobs happening at once. There are just a lot of balls in the air, and the trying to keep them all in my brain has become a real source of stress for me.
Dan: I was at the library doing some work because it's hard to work when your kids are home from winter break. I was just doing a walk around taking a break, and I passed a book on a shelf that was just like a how to keep notes and to keep a journal type book. I picked it up and I was like, "This is a 300 page book on how to keep a fucking journal." Then I looked at it and I was like, "Maybe I need to read a 300 page book on how to keep a journal."
Dan: I got it and it turns out it's one of those books that appears to mostly be written by having a topic and then typing that topic into a famous quotes' database. You can actually move through it very quickly, because there is a lot that you don't need. Anyway, it basically is a way of taking notes and making to do lists and kind of ordering. It is a way of ordering a notebook that is all about offloading your brain into the notebook so that you don't have to try to keep it all together.
Maureen: What's this book called?
Dan: The book, the notebook method is called The Bullet Journal. For the life of me I can't remember the name of the book, but it is like The Bullet Journal, something, something. There is a lot of bordering on wellness bullshit in it I would say, but I decided. I read it and I was like, "You know what, there is a lot here that actually makes sense," and so I started doing it. Maureen, I think it might be working.
Maureen: It does work.
Dan: I am like two or three days into it, so I am nowhere near the habit forming stage. Even simply the cadence of you wake up first thing in the morning and then instead of stressing out, when you start stressing out about shit, you pick the journal up and you make your to do list for the day. It's a to do list that also has integrated notes in it and all of that. Then at the end of day you also go back to it and go through it, even that alone I have found to be incredibly helpful.
Maureen: Yeah, those things are really helpful. There's a little book called, it's something like How To Stop Procrastinating. It's a tiny little white book and it's really good. I read that, I picked it up when I was on tour last year because I was like, "I think I need this in my life." It has this really cool exercise, where basically you take a blank sheet of paper and everyday you do a quick mind map. You just quickly throw down the things that need to be done like in little circles or whatever. Then you look at it and then you go, "Okay, what flow, what order do I need to do these in?" Then you draw the line.
Maureen: Like, "Okay, this is one, two, three," and you just number them and then it let's you do it really Lucy Goosey and then reorder. Like, "Okay, here's what I need to do," and then you can lump things together. It's the same idea, but just actually having a little dump list of get that out of your brain, put it on here, it's there. You don't need to worry about it anymore.
Dan: I do a lot of do to lists in my computer and stuff like that, but the idea of just sort of like don't pick up your phone, don't pick up the computer. I just looked it up, the name of the book was The Bullet Journal Method: Track The Past Order The Present And Design The Future. Which is that set of lofty goals, but I will say it has helped me at least in the very short-term. I am glad for it because I did feel like my brain was beginning to kind of spin out of control as it was trying to hold all of these stuff together on sheer will alone.
Maureen: My problem is that I start to read those books and then I get my head all mixed up with all the organizational systems. Then I have this almost develop an organizational system to organize all of the organize... Basically just pick one and run with it, because otherwise you will destroy your mind.
Dan: Yeah. No, I mean it was like, it was a pure library serendipity like, "Fuck it, I'll check this out."
Maureen: I think I've read that book.
Dan: Yeah. I guess the guy kind of made his name with life hack YouTube videos and then the book kind of grew out of that. I will say, it's like the method is sort of do a little bit of dumping your whole year than like once a month you do a big task list for the month. Then you kind of keep daily records and it's...
Maureen: Yup, I did that.
Dan: I don't know, I think it might work.
Maureen: I've cracked open. I have a beautiful 2020 notebook, Moleskine Limited Edition David Bowie set where I was like, "Fuck it I'm buying this." It's beautiful. It's my present to myself this little, it wasn't like crazy expensive, I'm like, "This is my notebook for the year." Now I have a junk notebook. I always carry two Moleskines around now. One is for the Lucy Goosey notes and then I transfer the nice neater list into the 2020 one. It sounds insane, but it works.
Dan: I like it.
Maureen: For one is that little goose, goose, goose, goose, when you have to quick scribble something down. Dan, I have also been getting things in order.
Dan: Yeah, I think that's this year. It's just like man, got to get that shit ordered.
Maureen: I've been working on that for years Dan, but this year I've really decided it's time. I think that I've burned, it's like I've burned all the fuel. I'm out, I've burned, I've dropped all the units away. I'm the rocket going into space that's like, well, now I'm just that little capsule that's like poof. I'm like, "Well, what we've gotten here is fine, this is actually all I ever needed."
Maureen: One of the things I resolve to do this year Dan is get more help, because I have too many... For example, a simple job of fixing something on my website will take me so long that I thought, "You really just need to get help to do all these things." That people do them and they're really good at doing them quickly as opposed to me just trying to remember to do the million little pieces of things that I have to do. I said, "This year I'm getting more help."
Maureen: On the train to Massachusets, where I spent the amazing New Year's, I went on TaskRabbit. I did a bunch of hiring so that the minute we got back at like 6 PM on the 2nd, on the morning of the 3rd an organizer turned up.
Dan: Wow!
Maureen: Yes, because I will organize compulsively and never get done. It's the kind of displacement thing where instead of doing what I need to do, I'll just like ruminate and hold on to this one thing forever and go, "What do I do with this one object?" She came in and in about four hours we drilled down into so much stuff. She reorganized my bookshelf, like I worked with her. We created like an in, out section for all of the books I have coming in and we put sticky notes on where everything should be. I'm going to have her come back in to do other parts of the house with me, but that was like...
Dan: This is just on TaskRabbit?
Maureen: Yeah.
Dan: Wow!
Maureen: TaskRabbit you can get pretty much anyone to do anything. It's great.
Dan: I've never done it.
Maureen: Oh, I use it all the time and I've pretty much only gotten great people. Then based on her notes, the next morning I went out to Home Depo and I was like, I rolled up my sleeves, I had a list of stuff. I was in there for about two hours just like making sure I got all the right posts and the right screws. I got a shelving unit, all the ones that have to be installed on the wall with the hanging shelves and the racks so you can adjust them. I got new blinds for our bedroom because they always fall down. I got all the hooks, then I hauled all this shit home.
Maureen: Then when I got home, I went back on TaskRabbit and found someone to come and drill that shit into my wall and get it all correctly assembled that night. This woman showed up with her giant organize toolkit at 8:30 in the evening.
Dan: Wow!
Maureen: Yes, you could just go on and see like who's available now, and she was like on. That you have a time and you could pick the time and then they just come. It's great. They get paid, they're working when they feel like it, it works out. I always talk to them about how they feel about it and generally they feel like pretty good and they like having their own control in hours and stuff.
Maureen: She made friends with Dexi, so two of the shelves weren't the right size Dan. I had to go out for coffee the next morning, so I carry these four foot high shelves with me, two coffee and then I carried them. I walked all the way back, they're lightweight but they're big. Then I walked across town because this is New York, you have to carry all your shit with you. I'm carrying the shelves, I got to Home Depo and I realized I was almost shaking with hunger.
Maureen: I've been getting a lot of flares recently, couple of really bad ones. I was like, "Stop, eat, be sensible, listen to your body," another resolution. I sat down because they opened up a new veggie grill, which was like a vegetarian high end fast food. Your side is like broccoli if you want it to be or fries, whatever you want. I went in I was like, veggie sandwich and I went in and I sat down. I was like yeah. I was working on my little notebook to do list, and then I looked up and I noticed that sitting next to me was Russell Simmons.
Dan: Sure.
Maureen: He had an entire table to himself with about five dishes, like a giant ass kale salad and like a plate of sandwiches. Just all these dishes and he was just eating and seemed to be ruminating. He's famously vegan and he has this big set of prayer beads on. He was in there with a big old plate next to me with all the foods from, then I went in and I got my stuff. Then yesterday morning I had a guy come in to do heavy duty cleaning and like do this.
Dan: Wow!
Maureen: Yeah. Oh Dan it's really good. They installed my stuff and you can get stuff done like that day. These people are like they just show when they're available and you just click. Read the reviews. Then, so he comes in and I made him coffee and we sat down, I was like, "Hey, how do you like working with it?" He was telling me about his background and he's like, "Well you know I used to run two tech companies."
Dan: What?
Maureen: I was like, "Oh," and he was like, "Yeah, I worked in a B market." In my head I'm like, "Pretend like you know what a B market is." I mean I could kind of guess, but not really sure. I was like, "Well what do they do?" He's like, "Well I ran, I created and ran a wiretap analysis software company."
Dan: Oh sure.
Maureen: I said, "Oh, well why don't you tell me about that?" He created and he was like, "And then a QR code into sorting into blah, blah, blah." He created basically a company that when there's a bunch wiretaps and they have a bunch of transcripts and stuff. The software that goes through and finds stuff you want to find to create stuff for mostly for lawyers, like get the information out of the stuff.
Dan: Okay, just quick point of order.
Maureen: Sure.
Dan: This is a guy that is then cleaning your house?
Maureen: Cleaning my house.
Dan: Okay.
Maureen: We're going to find out why he's cleaning my house, because he said, because I was like, "Do you know FISA warranty stuff?" He's like, "Oh yeah." He's like, "Well, the company, the FBI blacklisted us and we lost all of our government contracts."
Dan: What?
Maureen: He said that when he was doing these surveys of all of these different, going through the information and the wiretaps, that they would notice that something would come up at one that was information about some other illegal activity. Then clearly what was happening was it was being passed to another division to start a criminal investigation that would be attributed to an unnamed confidential informant. When he was like, "Well clearly this has been sparked because of this surveillance over here." Then he's like, "So then Rod Rosenstein froze me out." I was like, "What?"
Dan: What?
Maureen: He said, "Oh yeah I had multiple run ins with Rod Rosenstein." He's talking about this and he was like, "Also, I noticed that the hinge on your dresser back in there is a little loose, all I have to do is lift that screw up and fix that. I can order that back up and yeah. Anyway, we lost 90% of our government contracts and our revenue went down from $900,000 a year to 90 and I had to fire everybody. In the end we had to shut the company down and then my sister got cancer and I came up to take care of her. I've been living on her couch and I've really actually like working for TaskRabbit. I'm making more than a lot of my friends who are still in software development. Anyway, I'm going to start in the bathrooms."
Dan: What the hell? My mouth is just hanging open right now.
Maureen: What it means Dan is, even when I'm not looking at the news, the news literally comes into my house to find me. More specifically Dan, this is a sign that Carter Page and I are destined to be together because FISA warrants and got your dossier, so and Rod Rosenstein freezing out my guy.
Dan: That is fucking wild.
Maureen: Also apparently he taught selling for 10 years and he was like, "Yeah, I taught people how to sell for 10 years. Also, I'm an artist and anyway I use bleach. You're okay with bleach right?" I was like, "I love bleach. I love the smell, it's like perfume to me." Anyway Dan, I learned a lot about wiretap analysis just kind of randomly.
Dan: How clean is your house?
Maureen: It's pretty clean. I mean there were some things he didn't do, but the things that he did do, he did really well. It's like one of those things where I'm like, he didn't really dust that, but he did bleach the hell out of that and he used this power mop. He also told me that he would consider me in the top 10% of cleanest apartments he's seen in New York. I'm going to be riding that high forever Dan.
Dan: Wow!
Maureen: He said, "Look at this dry mop, almost nothing came up on it." I was like, "You're damn right son." Yours truly here, got one a little crazy out there Dan rented a Rug Doctor, that's right. I'm not fucking around. This is why I need help Dan, because left to my own devices for like three seconds, I will just go on and rent a Rug Doctor and drag the thing home through the slit. There's no car Dan, I'm dragging a Rug Doctor down the streets of New York going, I definitely need to be doing this right now.
Dan: Seems like the Rug Doctor's going to enter your house just covered with gravel and grit.
Maureen: Yeah, it does.
Dan: Creates more dirt than it cleans.
Maureen: Well you can take that up with the Rug Doctors the good news. Dan, anyway, I powered through so much. I rocked my body into a flare twice, like a big, old fashion one where I have this, it triggers some neurological stuff. When it's really bad I can't see right, because it'll affect the eye muscles as well. Then I just have to kind of ride it out, but luckily I've also resolved to start doing meditation again. I'm like, "Well you can't see, might as well close your eyes and do meditation." You know, silver linings and all that. Dan, a lot of stuff has been going on.
Dan: You do realize that your house is bugged to the teeth now, right?
Maureen: Oh for sure. For sure.
Dan: Okay.
Maureen: One of the things he told me is, "You know, when you clean, you get to know," he's like, "Cleaning is about picking up other objects and touching them with other the objects. You lift up an object and you touch it with paper or cloth or whatever to remove the dirt. Then you have to put the things back, and so in doing so, in picking up all these objects," he's like, "I try to imagine how the person here lives. In cleaning your house I was thinking a lot now." He's like, "Your house is really lovely and how you live, it seems very nice and orderly."
Maureen: He was just talking, it was really beautiful, but also he is talking about stuff fondling and I was like, "Well, I don't know how to feel." I mean he's right, but at the same time it sounds like he's been in fondling everything in the other room, so I don't know. He has that big vacuum strapped to his back that's like some kind of HEPA filter vacuum that looks like a Ghostbusters machine. I'm like, "Whatever, I guess so, dude bug this place up." It's like let's make this the second Mar-a-Lago. Microphones hanging from the ceiling.
Dan: Many moons ago and I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately because of all of the Iraq, Iran stuff happening. When I did Punk Planet magazine, we actually did a number of stories about what at the time or the sanctions against Iraq and then eventually the Iraq war. A lot of that was driven by one of our writers, who also did quite a bit of peace work in and around Iraq. He would call me every now and then from Iraq, which is not a great thing.
Dan: It got to the point where the phones in our office were, you'd be talking and you'd hear clicks. Sometimes you'd pick up the phone and you instead of getting a dialed tone, you would get effects, like a style sound. The phones would just go out sort of randomly, and eventually it was bad enough that I had to call the phone company.
Dan: This guy came and he spent a really long time working on the line and going out and coming back. He was like, "You know, I've got to tell you, I don't know what's going on, but it's like your phone line is going somewhere else." Yeah, and I was like, "Oh that's good, thanks." Yeah, it was really weird because this was right around when Janice and I were first dating and so you would do the thing where you would talk for a long time on the phone. I would talk to her about stuff.
Maureen: Then say things like, "No you hang up." "No you hang up." "You hang up."
Dan: Yeah, exactly.
Maureen: "You hang up first."
Dan: I talk about stuff that we're working on with the magazine and then, "Oh yeah, we're doing this thing in Iraq," and you would hear this like click, click. Then you'd talk for a while and then it'd be like, "Yeah, okay, I've got to remember to do laundry tonight," then it would be like click, click. Yeah, it was good, it was good times, but that gets to be your reality now. You're going to be a FISA warrant on you soon.
Maureen: Look, they're more than welcome, they're more than welcome. They want to plow through my bullshit, I welcome them to my world.
Dan: Maybe he is just a big truly devious fan and he wants to know how it ends two weeks early.
Maureen: I always get, "What do you do?" Then they see the books in my office and go, "Oh these your books?" I go, "Yup, that's me." That's usually how that conversation goes. I'm very embarrassed by it, because they're like, "What do you write?" "I don't know this stuff over here, this pile of stuff." They're like, "Well what is it?" I'm like...
Dan: See all of those interactions, I don't think I could do that.
Maureen: I'm like, "You know."
Dan: I don't really like having people I know into my house.
Maureen: Yeah, but when you have a kind of almost compulsion to do the, it's almost like therapy. It almost medical where I will do this stuff to the point of madness and exhaustion and I won't get anything else done. I know I have a little bit of a problem in that respect, so it's a thing. Then having it done, I just feel like so much weight has been lifted off my brain. My brain no longer itches, and I'm like, "Okay. Yes."
Dan: That's how I felt when I started doing these lists, the itch, the brain itch went away.
Maureen: Anyway Dan, the other day I turn on Twitter and the trending topic was World War III. I thought, "Well, better get some coffee."
Dan: Well I'm out.
Maureen: That seems fun.
Dan: That Simpsons GIF of grandpa walking in and out, that was you.
Maureen: I wasn't even that phased.
Dan: Yeah, that's what's scary, isn't it?
Maureen: Yeah, this is like, "Yeah, sounds about right." The impeachment stuff's heating up. It was ticktock, it seems he was at about schedule to do something completely bug fucked, so here we are I guess.
Dan: Yeah, it's a different kind of bug fuck though for sure.
Maureen: I don't mean to sound glib, this is a clipping voice. This is the keep calm and carry on voice.
Dan: Yeah, we are in the convergence of the dumbest timeline and the darkest timeline right now for sure. It's not good, I don't think.
Maureen: No, it's probably not good.
Dan: No.
Maureen: It does seem to have risen from the fact that somebody went down to Mar-a-Lago with a PowerPoint presentation with a bunch of crazy hawkish stuff that they wanted to happen. Then this bug fuck version of events that was supposed to make the other terrible things more palatable.
Dan: Yeah.
Maureen: Trump pointed at the bottom one and said, I'll have that bug fuck one," and they all looked at each other and they went, "Well, we were not expecting that. We were not expecting that to come."
Dan: It is hard to know what is face saving leaks and what isn't, but I did read today that apparently general Mattis who left, was fired a bit ago, claims to or people that worked for him claim that he had standing orders with his underlings to draw that kind of stuff together to specifically not do the bug fuck option. They knew that he knew that, that would be the one that was picked for anything, but apparently the bug fuck option is the normal way of doing things.
Dan: Essentially it's a way that the Pentagon can say, "Look, we are literally giving you every option. These ones are not ones you should choose, but these are all of them because you're the president of the United States." He apparently was like, "Yeah, cut that list off right there." You and I both are elderly enough that we have done two Iraq wars.
Maureen: Yes.
Dan: We have witnessed them. Yeah, there is a lot that it's like, "Oh I've seen this playbook before."
Maureen: Yeah. I'm running out of words to describe what it's like to see the same thing done repeatedly. It's a war, we'll just keep doing this. I guess in case there is someone who for whatever reason, I mean to be them miss this. If you want to quickly summarize what it is that happened, lay down. Yes, puppy got up. She got up and looked at me sleepily like, "This bullshit?" I was like, "I'm afraid so girl, go back to sleep."
Dan: In the interim period between Christmas and New Year's there was, the best I can understand, there was some level of militias within Iraq that are mostly backed my Iran or entirely backed by Iran getting up to no good. Specifically kind of the big one was, storming the US embassy, which is not a good thing in Iraq. There were a series of Twitter threats by the president as a result of this. Then suddenly on the second of January, the report came out that the US had droned a major person within the Iranian Defense Department or whatever you call it. I don't got good words right now.
Dan: As he was getting ready to leave Iraq, and that has triggered a lot of words and threats and all of it from every side.
Maureen: Yeah, is it what's called an extra judicial? Assassination really, I mean they straight up assassinated the guy and they straight up assassinated the guy in Iraq without telling the Iraqis.
Dan: Yeah, without telling almost anyone, they didn't tell Senate Democrats who are supposed to be told before that sort of thing. Apparently they did give Republicans an early warning and they told guests at Mar-a-Lago.
Maureen: I didn't know that Dan.
Dan: Yeah. The Daily Beast, Spencer Ackerman, who has been on this podcast before at The Daily Beast reported in little quotes. "In the five days prior to launching a strike that killed Iran's most important military leader, Donald Trump roamed the halls of Mar-a-Lago, his private resort in Florida and started dropping hints to close associates and club goers that something huge was coming."
Dan: "According to three people who've been at the president's Palm Beach club over the past several days, Trump again telling friends and allies hanging at his perennial vacation getaway, that he was working on a "big response to the Iranian regime" that they would be hearing or reading about very soon. His comments went beyond the New Year's Eve tweet he sent out, warning of the "big price Iran would pay for damage to the US facilities". Two of the sources tell The Daily Beast that the president specifically mentioned he'd been in close contact with his top national security and military advisors on gaming out options for an aggressive action that would quickly materialize. He kept saying, "You'll see one," of the sources recalled describing a conversation with Trump before Thursday's strike."
Maureen: Well we live in a terrible fairytale.
Dan: Yeah.
Maureen: You'll see, you'll see. I mean, one doesn't want to call up names like Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but there are those. We went in and we did an assassination. Iraqis were not happy that...
Dan: No, the Iraqi parliament almost immediately voted to kick the US out of Iraq. Yesterday then, you go ahead.
Maureen: No, no, no, I want you to do it.
Dan: Yesterday then the Iraqi prime minister produced a letter from the US government basically saying they will withdraw from Iraq. Then like an hour later, the US walked it back by saying that was a draft that they sent by mistake.
Maureen: Yeah, I think that was the point Dan where I did the grandpa Simpson with the hat and putting it back on again. Just we sent them a letter by mistake that said we were going to withdraw all our troops.
Dan: Or we didn't.
Maureen: Or we didn't.
Dan: Then we realized after the fact because we got yelled at that we needed to figure out a way to take that back.
Maureen: It's almost like Donald Trump was elected president.
Dan: Yeah, I mean that's the thing, right? That's why it is both terrifying and weirdly not surprising at the same time.
Maureen: We're not going to do the thing, we'll just only touch on the fact that he tweeted and ranted for so many years that Obama thought was under pressure, so he was going to randomly start a war with Iran. Which he never did, and then I guess he gave himself the idea, who knows that he was like, "Well what if I did that?"
Dan: Yeah. I mean he is the king of projection, and he somehow manages not only to be the king of projection, but the king of inception. A lot of his projections are from the past into the future, but certainly people have pulled up a half dozen tweets about how or Obama's in trouble, so he's going to start a war with Iran. Suddenly, just a week or two after the house impeaches him, here we are on the edge.
Maureen: Into this fray rides a hero Dan, a hero, a hero. A hero in the form of John Bolton.
Dan: Jesus Christ.
Maureen: That's coming into your [inaudible 00:40:56]. You're in the wheelhouse of your little ship impeachment.fyi and you're staring, there's a little knock on the cabin, "Hello, let me in. Let me in." You open the door and you need a little stroke-y beard and you've got your captains hat on. Oh captain Dan, you open the door and there's fucking John Bolton standing there, mistachio John Bolton saying, "I [inaudible 00:41:18]." Surprise motherfuckers, not the House but the Senate, because apparently I can choose. Also, did I mention I have a book coming out?
Dan: PS, I am one of the biggest Iran hawks ever and suddenly I'm emerging to say that I'll testify? I don't understand the game that John Bolton is playing, but I don't like it.
Maureen: Is it that he got his wish and therefore now he can kind of, it's like his cheat day or something, I don't know.
Dan: Or is it the start of what a bunch of these assholes have said, which is like, "Well I'm going to hold my tongue unless it really feels like the right time or whatever." Is it suddenly the right time, because someone even like John Bolton is like, "Hey, wait a second, I've had a giant fucking boner for a war in Iran for decades."
Maureen: We were supposed to do it this way.
Dan: "But not this way."
Maureen: Yeah, we're supposed to tell them and before we started this horrific, horrific endless war. Anyway, we've just caused a major realignment, and I would say it's fair to say that neither you or I are experts of Middle Eastern policy.
Dan: No, no, none.
Maureen: I mean as sort of citizens, I guess we can see a major realignment of Middle Eastern politics and alliances. It certainly makes it more difficult when you then tweet out that you're going to bomb 52 sites and commit of cultural or civilian or cultural value. That's a worked crime, and so if you tweet that you're going to do war crime and isolate the entire international community because it you'll be a war criminal and would be in violation of international law. To the point where even as far as Johnson has to censor you.
Dan: This is the thing that I don't quite understand about that threat. I mean first of all, it's a fucking nightmare. It's horrific, but he specifically is like, 52 sites because of the 52 hostages that were taken in the 70s, right?
Maureen: In 1979? Yeah.
Dan: Yeah. He does not in any fucking reality could he tell you probably even that that ever happened. Though it did kind of happen in his wheelhouse of the early 80s, so maybe he remembers that it happened. He could not possibly tell you that there were 52 hostages. Who is fucking feeding him that information, feels like a key question to ask.
Maureen: It feels like he has a deck of cards.
Dan: Yeah, but he references that it's the hostages, that is not information that was not given to him. Somebody gave him that. Anyway, Maureen Johnson, shit is dark in this conversation and in reality I feel like I've got to pull us out.
Maureen: You're pulling us out, you're getting us out?
Dan: Here is how I'm going to pull us out, because we have moved into a remarkably dark timeline very quickly. I'm going to shift gears just a little bit. A couple of years ago, two, two and a half years ago my dad died. Some folks here in Chicago gave me a gift of a bonsai tree as sort of a condolence thing, which was very thoughtful, but also giving live things to people as gifts is maybe not the best thing because probably they're going to kill those things.
Dan: I became very attached to that tree, because grief is weird and all of that stuff. Made sure that I didn't kill it, watered it really carefully, it did really well. When we traveled over the summers and things like that, I find a home for it and make sure it gets taken care of. This December we put up our Christmas tree and it blocked the space that the bonsai was in, so I was like, I've got to move this to a different window.
Dan: Impeachment.fyi stuff started and prepping for Christmas and suddenly two weeks go by. I think it was Christmas Eve and Janice goes, "Dan, your bonsai." I had completely forgotten about it for two weeks. It was dry, like the leaves were just like these shriveled hanging things. You could touch it and they would just drop off. I was just like, "Holy shit, I've killed this bonsai tree," which because it's interleaved with my dad's death is like you can't take out the guilt and all of that. I was just like, "Jesus." I felt like really, really bad. I was like, "All right, I guess I'll just keep watering this dead thing."
Dan: Put water on it, multiple days I'm like fucking talking to the thing. Like at one time I was just like, "Come on please just give me a leaf." This weekend has been like two weeks and there's literally like three leaves continuing to shrivel leaves on the thing. It has dropped all its leaves at this point. It's just like sticks, and this weekend I was like, "I think I'm fucking done. I don't even know why I'm watering this thing anymore."
Dan: Then yesterday I watered it again, I was like, "Is that like a little tiny bud?" My eyes are fucked, so I couldn't even totally tell, but felt like it was at the very tip of one of these what I thought was a totally dried up stick of a branch. It felt like there was something different, and then this morning I got up. I got up when the four year old got up, he gets up at 6:30 so it's still dark. I was like, "I want to look at this thing."
Dan: I literally used the flash light on my phone and I'm like looking, and I'm like, "I think there are tiny little leaves in bits of this and I don't think they're dry. I think that I'm seeing this." I looked something up and it was like, with the bonsai, scratch the bark a little bit, and if it's brown underneath it's dead. If it's green there's still life. I scratched the bark and it's bright green underneath, like bright green. It was like and it should feel wet and it totally felt wet.
Maureen: Yes.
Dan: This was literally like four hours ago, and I looked at it right before we were recording and I was like, "Those are definitely little leaves and little bits and parts of it." I realized that's right, you can't give up on the little tiny bits of hope even when it feels like there's nothing there.
Maureen: This is amazing.
Dan: Even when it just feels like this is fucking fruitless. I mean I spent two weeks basically watering a stick in some dirt, and being like, "Come on become a tree. I need you to be a tree for all sorts of dump fucking reasons. I need you to be a tree."
Maureen: It's a tree.
Dan: I think it's a tree.
Maureen: Dan, that's amazing.
Dan: Yeah, and to me it's like, last week we said our 2020 slogan was grow for it, and now I've got a thing. I'm just like, it's growing for it.
Maureen: It really is. It's coming true Dan. We're manifesting it.
Dan: Yeah, so I don't know. As to me as dark as shit's going to get, we've always known 2020 was going to be fucking bananas and dark and awful.
Maureen: Let's not use the words dark and awful, let's use the words interesting and event filled.
Dan: Sure, we'll go with that.
Maureen: I'm trying Dan, work with me.
Dan: We've got to keep watering.
Maureen: We've got to keep watering.
Dan: Even at the moments where it just feels like it's a fucking stick in the ground.
Maureen: Got to keep watering, keep watering.
Dan: Yeah, you've got to grow for it.
Maureen: Just speaking of water very quickly, we would be remise not to even mention at the end of this episode that, obviously if any help you can, if you're in the mood to do any donating, donate to any organizations that are helping with the Australian fires.
Dan: For real and if you're a listener in Australia, our hearts and everything go out to you. Hope that you and yours are safe.
Maureen: I've been concluding each day by reading several articles on what's happening with the bushfire, and that is hard to go to sleep on. For me it's not that I don't feel bad, I feel a lot about the people, but seeing the pictures of the animals is always the thing that grabs me and goes, "Get your wallet out, get anything out and give." The animal loss has been about 500 million animals.
Dan: Jesus Christ.
Maureen: Half a billion and people are literally standing in the water sheltering from the fire. The air is orange in New Zealand, it's about 2,000 kilometers away. Yeah, the skies over New Zealand were bright orange, orange in the middle of the day. Orange like an orange, it's really weird looking. The air quality in many places is, they said it's something like smoking three packs of cigarettes a day.
Maureen: Block anybody that spreads rumors of the arson on Twitter. It's not arson, that's a thing that people are trying to spread, block those motherfuckers. Of course, the people of Puerto Rico who this morning suffered a giant earthquake. I didn't mean to end bleak, just you know these people need help.
Dan: No. I also think that we can't run from it being bleak. There are absolutely things that are bleak, but alongside all of that bleakness. I mean, one of my four jobs involves working with a bunch of really remarkable people, one of whom is in Puerto Rico right now. I was sending emails first thing this morning being like, "Are you all right?" I'm just thinking about her and the work that she's doing, and knowing that she will be right there doing her kick ass work even as conditions are difficult. Seeing Jose Andres on Twitter almost immediately being like, "We'll be there, we'll be feeding people."
Maureen: They're in Australia too.
Dan: Yeah. As hard as things get, you can also, I mean Jesus it's a fucking Mr. Roger's thing. Look for the helpers once they are there, and there are always signs of hope even in the moments that things feel the most hopeless.
Maureen: Hooray, it's Says Who.
Dan: One of the things that gives me hope is our Says Whovians, who are continuing to do amazing things on Facebook. Janice tells me almost every day has something to show me that is just remarkable and it is a good community. Says Who is made possible by that community, by you and your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho.
Dan: I have been busy getting things out the door, the posters for our continuing $10 and up supporters. Those have gone out and it seemed like largely been received. The coping boxes are done, I just got the shipment of boxes themselves in the mail, so those are going to be packed up in the next couple of days and will be going out. That's for folks that are sustaining supporters at the $25 and up level.
Maureen: Yesterday Dan sent me two gifts.
Dan: Yeah, I did.
Maureen: One was a mug that says, "Grow for it." The other is a kitchen apron, a white kitchen apron with an embroidered image of another apron on it that just says, "Who." He sent me a who apron.
Dan: I sent you a who apron, apron.
Maureen: I have it spread out on the dining room table like an artifact.
Dan: You're supposed to cook in it.
Maureen: No, I'm just looking at it for right now. I think it's actually just going to go in the kitchen as a kind of decoration, keep it, because it's white. I want to preserve it.
Dan: These are all bits and pieces of experiments that I'm doing that may be creating a fifth job for myself.
Maureen: Yeah, oh good. That's probably a good idea. You should do that.
Dan: It's actually a great idea.
Maureen: You should do that.
Dan: It may manifest in some Says Who merch sooner rather than later, that's all I'm going to say right now. The mug is really nice, I sent myself a mug too. I drank coffee out of it today.
Maureen: Yeah, the mug is nice.
Dan: I specifically made it very 70s looking.
Maureen: Yeah, if you want merch, let us know. I mean, a nice big scrots mug or you can put your balls in this scrots.
Dan: Oh boy. Okay, you caught yourself there. Anyway, Says Who is made possible by you at patreon.com/sayswho. Our theme music is performed by Ted Leo, thank you Ted, I hope you are well. Our logo is designed by Doroth. We love you Doroth.
Maureen: We love you Doroth.
Dan: You can contact us at Says Who podcast on Twitter. You can email at Hey, that is H-E-Y, @sayswhopodcast.com. You can join the discussion on Facebook at /groups/sayswhovians. Our Facebook group is moderated by Janice Dillard. You can spread the word, subscribe and please leave stars and reviews on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. That includes Spotify, which more and more people are listening through. If you listen on Spotify, do whatever they ask you there with reviewing or starring or whatever.
Maureen: Just do whatever Spotify tells you to do.
Dan: Anything they tell you to do just do it.
Maureen: You do.
Dan: It's like, "Why is this playlist just names of people and it's labeled hit list?"
Maureen: Just do what it tells you.
Dan: Join us on January 15th, that is next Wednesday for our next episode, but even more excited than that in two weeks join Maureen Johnson on the road for The Hand on the Wall book tour. Where are you going? Tell us.
Maureen: Okay, on release day I'll be in Los Angeles, California with Billy Jensen at the Grove, the Barnes & Noble at the Grove. On the 23rd of January I will be in Denver, Colorado at the Tattered Cover Colfax location. The 25th I'll be in Christiana, Delaware at the Barnes & Noble at Christiana. On the 26th I'll be at Oxford Valley, Pennsylvania at the Oxford Valley Mall, Barnes & Noble, which is a giant one in my hometown. On the 27th I'll be in Athens, Georgia, it's through Avid Books but it's at the library.
Dan: Nice.
Maureen: It's going to be awesome. We also booked our vacation.
Dan: Where are you going?
Maureen: Yeah, to the Caribbean Dan. Technically it's our honeymoon. We go away once a year for a week and we like to do it during the winter because I have seasonal defective disorder. Going away to get sun in the winter fills my brain up with Vitamin D so that's our going away.
Dan: That sounds awesome.
Maureen: I don't think we did it last... Or I actually took Oscar with me on a retreat, so I was working and he was sitting there on the retreat. This we're actually just going away the two of us technically on our honeymoon because we didn't take it yet. I booked that between going to the Home Depo and right before the woman came with the drill on Saturday night. We were chugging.
Dan: You are TCB, taking care of business.
Maureen: That's right.
Dan: Maureen Johnson in 2020, Jesus, what an inspiration.
Maureen: I got this happening with this hand, this happening with this hand and this happening with my third hand.
Dan: Well your third hand is apparently TaskRabbit, Jesus they should sponsor this podcast.
Maureen: It's brought to you by TaskRabbit.
Dan: It's not though, it's not.
Maureen: It's not.
Dan: It's brought to you by you.
Maureen: A new sponsor, a new sponsor.
Dan: Yeah, anyway, before you get any bad ideas, from my basement in Chicago, I am Dan Sinker.
Maureen: Like say you didn't have any food.
Dan: Oh boy.
Maureen: You were like, "I'm hungry." Oh, oh my God Dan, this is true, I cannot believe I forgot this.
Dan: Oh no.
Maureen: The guy, remember...
Dan: This is an ominous setup.
Maureen: No, no, this is real. What's amazing is this is the best part and I left it out, which is often what happens. The guy, the guy here that was like the wiretap company, and I said he founded two tech companies. I said, "What's the second one?" He said, "I'm obsessed with meal box services," and so he developed... I couldn't tell from what he was saying, a meal box service or software that works. I guess it's software that works with meal delivery services. I said, "You mean like Blue Apron?" He said, "Yeah, I'm constantly trying to get into Blue Apron, every month I try to get in there with my one pager. I've made it past security once."
Dan: What? Wait, he means that literally.
Maureen: Yeah.
Dan: He's just rushing Blue Apron with a one sheet?
Maureen: Yeah. This is when I start, first of all I didn't know that a one sheet was a thing because I don't know anything about anything Dan. I got a general idea from the term one sheet, what it must be. It's like B market, I'm like, it seems like I guess I know what that means. He's got it and I thought he was like sending it via, and apparently no, when he said, "I got past security once." Or no, it wasn't even he got past security, he gave it to somebody in security to take it to somebody.
Dan: Oh my goodness gracious. I am...
Maureen: Is that how you do things? I think I know why his company isn't working.
Dan: Just don't know that you should be inviting random people into your home.
Maureen: Yeah. When he said the thing about the security, and then I was like, "It seems there's a lot of food waste. Then he went into a whole thing about the food waste ratios.
Dan: Oh boy.
Maureen: That he's like, "You come out about even when you turn in terms of going to the grocery store because of the packaging that arrives at the grocery store. The compacting that happens in the back." He went through all of it, but that guy is apparently, got his one sheet and he is literally trying to get into Blue Apron headquarters. The security guard's like, "That rustily guy is back," and he's like sneaking and he's got a mustache on. He's like, "I just have to make it, I am a French chef, and I have to take this [inaudible 01:02:24]."
Dan: He's just wears a stack of Blue Apron boxes and tries to shuffle in.
Maureen: Oh it's me, I'm Luigi the chef. Let me upstairs I make a new pasta recipe. I must speak to the boss immediately. Oh, yes sir, and you've got a big coffee chef's hat on. Is that how you do things Dan?
Dan: No. I'm really nervous for you.
Maureen: He's going to get tackled right.
Dan: He's listening to this whole conversation right now.
Maureen: I know, because he's been fondling my things.
Dan: Oh God.
Maureen: You pick up things.
Dan: You need to move.
Maureen: You touch them with everything.
Dan: You need to move right now.
Maureen: I may hire that guy again, he did a pretty good job, just saying. We didn't hate it.
Dan: Oh God from my basement in Chicago, I am Dan Sinker.
Maureen: From a place of-
Dan: Oh boy.
Maureen: ... optimism that can sometimes be tempered by the weight or current events, but with the overall spirit or renewal and growth, that I don't think that's how you... Then that he's printed it out, maybe he's laminated it.
Dan: Definitely not how you do things.
Maureen: I really did not think, I can't believe I forgot this part, but there was a genuine Blue Apron connection.
Dan: Oh my God.
Maureen: I was sitting there thinking like, "This guy has a lot of jobs." Like more jobs than you and your jobs are kind of running similar, but different things out of your house. This guy is like, "I am cleaning, I've got a machine on my back. I've got a wiretap analysis company and also I'm trying to break into Blue Apron on the weekly. Did I tell you I also know boats." I was like, this is a lot.
Dan: All right, just say your name. Might be the last time we ever hear from you.
Maureen: Look, if anything happens to me, at least this has been recorded. Just go through my TaskRabbit backlog and we'll figure this out. Should I give this man keys to my house?
Dan: No. I mean he probably already has them.
Maureen: He's like a key cutter as well? "Oh yeah, I curved your key into soap."
Dan: Oh my God.
Maureen: Blue Apron, we're in your house.
Dan: God damn it.
Maureen: I'm Maureen Johnson.
Dan: This has been Says Who.
Maureen: I can't believe I forgot that part, that was the most amazing...
Dan: I think that that is terrifying.
Maureen: This [inaudible] was a one 10 minute conversation over a cup of coffee.
Dan: You just had him sit down and eat coffee, are you paying him by the hour?
Maureen: I am yeah. Okay. I mean usually I make coffee and people may not necessarily sit down, they may drink it while they're doing, but he just sat down. I was like, "So tell me all about yourself guy." He was, "10, four let's do this, how do you feel about wiretaps?"
Dan: "How much time you got?"
Maureen: "How do you feel about wiretaps, sale boats and boxed food?" I said, "Yes."
Dan: You're all two of that and a three, you've got me.