Surgery Two

Guy gets the wrong arm cut off and becomes the 16th President of The United States of America.

Transcript

Welcome to the one-hundred-and-thirty-third episode of The Undercover Intern podcast, coming to you live from the centre of London. I'm your host, Guy Snapdragon, and today is Monday the 25th of August 2025.

We are sponsored this week by John Smith’s Podcast Zoo. 

Thanks to everyone who got in touch about falling to the right disease. I agree with the majority of you who cautioned against right arm amputation but unfortunately it’s all a bit moot as OpenAI had already made the decision to chop off my right arm, below my elbow. I mentioned back in episode 117 that OpenAI paid me a substantial amount of money for all future rights to my voice. I have recently been made aware that those rights extend to my physical body and, if the time comes, my soul too. They can essentially do what they want. Right arm amputation probably was an over-correction but it is what it is. We are where we are.

I say they cut off my right arm, but in fact it was my left arm that they cut off. I totally get that from their perspective, from where they were standing, they cut my right arm. But surely it’s just a matter of fact that it was my actual left arm that they amputated. I know that we live in a post-truth world, but it was literally my left arm. There needs, surely, to be a protocol on this sort of thing? What’s left if we cannot agree on this? And by ‘left’ I mean remaining. What they did just isn’t right. And by ‘right’ I mean correct. I can see how they got it wrong, actually. But they cut the wrong arm. And by ‘wrong’ I mean right.

My left arm and the four remaining fingers from my left hand are now in the Sheffield Podcast Museum, next to the trousers Jarvis Cocker was wearing when he carried out his stage invasion during Michael Jackson's performance at the 1996 Brit Awards. I’m not sure what that has to do with podcasting, but there you have it. The first ever podcast script, from 2018, is also housed at the museum. I think there’s only three things there at the moment, but still well worth a visit before my arm decomposes.

How am I supposed to go undercover now? I’m ridiculously recognizable. It’s not just that my left arm is missing, but there are four kind of tendrils they’ve left hanging loose. You’re not going to forget me in a hurry.

The 12 Steps help me to maintain a negative focus on my personal failures, and to place my faith in an outside Higher Power. The problem is that my Higher Power, zookeeper and landlord – I guess I can just call him John Smith now – wanted me to keep my arms in order to facilitate his sexual releases, as part of my therapy. But OpenAI were keen on eradicating my falling to the right disease immediately and restoring physical balance. There’s only one winner here; we all know what happens to people who go up against Sam Altman. It’s super-confusing for me to witness my Higher Power failing to impose his will, it makes me wonder whether I need an even Higher Power to help me complete the 12 Steps. I’m not saying that the Highest Power should be OpenAI necessarily, but surely by definition it has to be the organization or person who has the power of God? Is that OpenAI or is there something above them? Microsoft? I honestly don’t know, but it seems crazy to turn my will and life over to the care of John Smith, per Step 3, if John Smith isn’t actually in a position to make and carry out every life decision on my behalf. 

It’s crazy how much I used to use my left hand and arm. I despise cliché but you do only know what you’ve got once it’s gone. For those of you with a left arm below the elbow, please take a moment to appreciate it, to stroke it and say thank-you. Every cloud has a silver lining though, and I do value the five fingers that I have remaining. In a way, it’s easier to love five fingers than ten. I’ve lost my wedding ring finger, which is going to be bad for when I get married. As far as I’m aware, there are no other major podcasters missing a limb and this needs to change.

The average age for a podcaster is 19. It’s a young person’s game, and most podcasters die aged 27. Why do I keep podcasting at age 44, and do I see myself podcasting when I’m 50? The answer to both questions is a resounding ‘yes’. … Actually, the answer to the first question is because I want to help young people. The answer to the second question is a resounding ‘yes’. I’m positively pediatric when it comes to podcasting, so how do I keep going? Well, what else would I do? It’s like asking a bird why it flies around all the time. I podcast therefore I am. Podcasting is as natural to me as cleaning my teeth. 

But I have to admit that creating new podcast content every single week is becoming a challenge. I never want to repeat myself but I do sometimes worry that I have mined all the wisdom. Like how many different ways are there of combining words? Are we going to run out of sentences eventually? Will every single thought have been shared? After all, it’s all quite simple in the end. Love is all there is. How many ways are there to say this? If I haven’t gotten this across by my 133rd episode, will I ever manage it? That’s a rhetorical question and lines of communication are again closed to avoid abuse.

This got me thinking though, and I’m seriously considering becoming a ‘cover’ podcaster as I think it’s an untapped market. I mean, look at Johnny Cash who experienced a remarkable late-career resurgence in the 1990s. His ability to reinterpret modern songs through the lens of his own experiences resonated deeply with audiences, cementing his status as a legendary figure in American music history. Why can’t this happen to me via cover podcasts? 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Did that help anybody? I think it probably did, or it will do once America’s next civil war begins in 2028. What’s stopping me from just reading some of the Abraham Lincoln of podcasting, Ira Glass’s, early This American Life podcasts? Or Radiolab? Maybe intellectual property law. But other than that, what? I will need to avoid radio scripts and GRAD and paedophilia etcetera, but I could refresh some of the earliest podcasts from 2018 and 2019 for a new audience. Like Johnny Cash, I won’t change the lyrics, but I’ll say some of the words louder or slower, or add sound effects wherever appropriate. Maybe I will cough to signify parts that I disagree with, or chuckle at the bits that are funny. I could reimagine hundreds of old episodes and never have to come up with new content again. I could even use some of my accents, where it benefits the story. 

I’ve been your host, Guy Snapdragon. My producer is Robert Barnes. May you use your time wisely, and may your use of wise be timely.