Fourth Wing, millennial irony, and Dodie Bellamy

Fourth Wing, straight women, millennial irony, and Dodie Bellamy

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Alright. Hello. Welcome back everybody to this wonderful place. I already drank my Ashwagandha tea. So we're radiating calm. Uh we're radiating calm. Welcome back. This is I Don't Like This Podcast where I talk about things that I like and I don't like. Is that an intro? I don't know. I don't know. I'm just trying to get everybody up to speed, you know? If there are new faces, if there are people who aren't listening from the beginning, if people don't know what's going on, I feel like you all should be welcome here as well. In this wonderful place. In this wonderful place where we talk about things that I don't like, where I talk about things that I don't like. Not you. I'm meaning. You don't talk about them, not that I don't like you. I probably. I probably do like you. I like most people. I like most people, but you know what? I don't know. I've encountered some people recently on the street who I don't think I like. In the street in the world, there's sort of a weird angry white guy energy kind of happening, I've just noticed a little here and there, here and there. That's my scene report. Just, you know, somebody was somebody was yelling at someone sleeping on the street as I was walking by. Noticed that. I said some words to that angry man. Because it was so rude. I don't know. There's just weird weird energy I've noticed around. Stay safe. Stay safe. Prayers up. It's getting warm. I don't like that. I do not like the heat. I don't like the heat and the muggy. Heat and the humidity? Gross. Gross. Take it back to Florida. Take them all back to Florida. All these nasty Nellies. All these little preg equity gentlemen. Not that they're gentlemen. Not that they're gentlemen. They're they're goons, ghouls, and goblins. Prayers up for them. Prayers up for us for having to deal with them. Yeah. Yeah! You know, I watched um the the precursor to the newest 28 days later movie. I can't keep track of of what's happening. So the the newest 28 Days Later movies, you know it's supposed to be a trilogy, and I watched the second one, the most recent one. And I liked it. But then I watched the first one of that trilogy, the one that I think that came out last summer, and I didn't really like it. It was a little cheesy, I thought. It was a little cheesy, and you know, there's the crazy woman trope, which is kind of lame, I think, right? I say right a lot in this podcast. That's it's a little jack on jackpot. It's got the crazy woman trope, I'm not into that. And there is something troubling, I think, about how the big alpha berserker guy is uh not white, one of like the only not white people in the movie? It's just kind of a strange choice to make. He's not white, he's got like, you know, kind of wavy brown hair, clearly racialized, and has a giant dick. So it's a little like uh what's happening. It's a little like uh what's happening, and you know, the the second movie I think handles it a bit better. The second movie, which I think inherited that choice, because the second movie, Neilong, who's a black director, so she inherited this choice, I guess, of this, you know, big non-white savage with a giant cock, pardon my French. And there was a lot in that movie about him and who he is and his interiority and psychology. So it seemed more complex and nuanced in that way. This one, no. This one doesn't have that. This one doesn't have that. It's just big brown guy chasing after all the the white British people. So, you know, and this one was what, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland. Who you know, are of a certain time, or of a certain time have a certain sensibility. Alex Garland's bless. Prayers up. Um and yeah, so I didn't I didn't love that. But that's just a return, a return to that earlier conversation from an earlier episode. Go back, listen. Like, share, subscribe, right? I said write again. See? See? Verbal ticks. We love them. What else? Oh, it's it's hot. I took off my shirt. It's a little, it's a little uh backstage look for you guys. Took off my shirt. Oh, this is we're back to putter powder. We're back to putter powder. I'm up, I'm ambulatory. My phone might die, so I gotta keep an eye on that. But I am putting some sheets on my bed. And making my bed. I'm gonna do some dishes. I was gonna take you all out on a walk around the neighborhood. But the weather's just not that nice. Not that nice today. So, so hold on that for that big exciting episode that's coming. That's coming, but okay. Let's get down to business. Let's get down to business. I am listening to, full transparency, listening to the audiobook of Fourthwing. I don't know if you know this book. I'm listening to it for research purposes for the book that I'm working on. And it is strange. It's strange. So if you don't know what it is, it's a fantasy book. I guess it's YA Young Adults. I'm not totally sure that that's how it's marketed, but it reads like Mishmash of like Harry Potter, Hunger Games, there's dragons, so they're going to school to ride dragons and become warriors. Okay, that's pretty straightforward. Forward. Forward for forward. It's pretty straightforward. Um, but it is really horny. That's sort of the top headline there. It's really horny and it's sort of Erica Kirk coated. There's just big Erica Kirk energy, I think, abounding in this book. Um, you know, because there's a young female protagonist. She's this little nerd girl who gets thrust by her mother into this dragon academy, learning how to ride dragons. And there's a lot of stuff like badass, things get called badass, sort of in like a millennial ironic way, like, little did he know I'm a badass at archery or whatever. Or that science can be pretty badass. Because she's smart and you know books save the day. Uh what else? There's a lot of, oh, for the win. For the win. That's a phrase that gets used multiple times, like, history for the win. Uh it's choogy, I think. It's choogy, it's chooggy. Choogie, but it doesn't seem to care about that. It's not, you know, troubled. It's not troubled by its chooginess. So I don't feel it's harsh to say that it's chooggy. I think it sits in that space and cringe. It's unafraid to be cringe. It's definitely unafraid to be cringe. So it's chooggy, but then it's also horny, right? So there's lines like, wait till we see what else my tongue can do. And like a lot of uh descriptions of men, shirtless, muscled. Oh my gosh. And you know, the the protagonist loses her train of thought just looking at this shirtless hunk with rippling muscles. There's some reference to like someone has a magical power to make dicks bigger. You know, it's it's it's that kind of vibe. And oh, the um, what is it called? The what is that called where there's the line and the front of the book? It's too hot. I can't recall the word. Don't judge me. You know, the um, I want to say inscription, but it's not a scription. It's the uh like kind of the the dedication, I guess. The dedication. Is it the dedication? Anyway, not important. You let me know, you let me know. No, don't let me know. Um, I'm tapping my belly. There, the okay, so the dedication, we'll just call it, is to her husband, who is uh in the US military, and she's she calls him her real Captain America. This is for the real Captain America, and then also for the artists who are dreamers or something like that, for the artists who make all things possible. Just leaving that there. Just leaving that there. You know, we all make dedications as writers. Well, I guess we don't all. You don't have to. You don't have to, but it's very Erica Kirk coded. I just imagine her, this protagonist, as sort of a blonde with piping hot blue eyes and just an enormous blonde braid just cascading down her while she's like, History for the win! Oh, look at that guy's rippling muscles. I can't. Oh my gosh, what a good hero. There's all there's all these traitors. It's you know, clearly one of the traitors is a traitor to the traitors. The traitors are just bad guys. Um what's going on, you know, it made me think. What did it make me think of? It made me think a bit also of Sabrina Carpenter's album that came out. I think it was last year at this point, right? In the summer? And like House Tour, you know, that song House Tour, where the whole thing is a metaphor for her wanting to have sex. You know, except it's not like a cute, subtle wink thing or whatever. It's just very heavy-handed. Every line is like fuck me up yes, but it's coded in this house tour metaphor. And then heated rivalry, thinking also about heated rivalry, which I'm also gonna listen to. And you know, I've been ragging on, I've been ragging on straight people, I've been ragging on gay guys, and I'm not gonna rag on straight women, but are straight women okay? Is everybody okay there? Is everybody having the amount of sex that they want to have? Like, I hope I hope so. I hope so. I hope everybody's having the the amount of sex that they want to have. And if you just want to have sex, you feel okay saying, I wanna have sex, I wanna get plowed. I've always said, I've always said the world would be a better place if everybody would just get like really plowed from time to time. Just occasionally. You just boom, boom, you know, real, you're you lay back. You you're not thinking of Britain, you're just you just your eyes are rolling back. You know, you're really you think that the Queen Mother Mary, you know? And and you just get a little reset. You just get a little reset. I think the world would be a better place if everybody did that. So I'm hoping also that straight women who do seem to be craving that or something. Is it that they're craving that, or like why this always coded, or in these examples. In these examples. I'm not an expert. I'm not an expert on straight women, but in these examples that I'm thinking of, the Fourth Wing, the Sabrina Carpenter, with that album cover where she's like on her hands and knees and a man's holding her hair. And then this whole heated rivalry thing is like it's it's it's not directed, like it's not even with a wink. It's it's not with a wink, it's like uh Hey, I'm making a joke about sex or you know, it's like it's really That's my heavy-handed monster, you know? That's the that's the cookie monster being like I need sausage! I love sausage! It's like it's not subtle, you know? It's not subtle, it's not really like connecting new things in new ways, you know, it's not drawing analogies between different things. It just seems like these women want to talk about sex and express sexuality and sexual desire without saying it directly, or without saying it directly involving them, you know, so fourth wing it's still a little hidden, whatever. Again, it's like that cookie monster subtlety. Sabrina Carpenter again, it's this like real heavy metaphor. It's like, just say you want to get fucked, you know? Just say that, if that's the case. If that's the case, then we can move on, you know? I think that's the thing, it's like sex really isn't by itself that fascinating, you know, or uh complex. It's like sometimes, yeah, you just wanna get plowed, you just wanna get plowed. Sure. Sure, I hear ya. I hear ya. Sounds good. Get plowed, you know, and and we can move on. Unless you're connecting sex to, you know, other things, more complex stuff. Obviously, sex is connected to all kinds of things. Violence and power and pleasure and blah blah blah, and bodies and technology, and you know, you can we can go on. We can go on, we can do a whole podcast about sex, right? Oh, I have to stop saying right, guys. Guys, guys, I gotta stop saying right so much. Um so I don't know. I don't know what's happening there. What is this why what is this kind of not even repressed, barely repressed sexuality? It's it's sort of like it's sort of goony, you know, like gooning. There's a sort of gooning aspect to this where it's like it's like if this if this is really making you so horny, just go and yank it and then come back, and we can continue talking about other things, you know? It's like that person who's just so constantly bringing up sex, it's like you need to just go and have it. And then we can, you know, talk about our days. We can talk about literature and cinema. And things we don't like. I'm not being sex negative. Right? I need a right jar. I need a right jar. I'm saying it's a crutch, it's a verbal tick. I've never noticed it before. Maybe you all are bringing it out of me. Pointing the finger, but you're pointing back at me. I didn't say right after that. Okay. Yeah, I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on there. Fourth wing. But I am researching it. Well, researching it, it's a sort of grandiose term for just listening to the audiobook. I am listening to it, one, because my book is gonna be sexy. But okay, so the book that I'm writing, I want to play with convention, with these kinds of conventions that are popular current genre conventions. One of them being this weird obsession with sex on the page, or highly suggested sex on the page. And another one being first person present tense, which I'm really which I'm really fascinated by. So first person present tense, fourth ring is in first person present tense, and a lot of books these days are in first person present tense, and a lot of people have written about how it's um in immediate it's a it's a tense and perspective that gratifies a desire for immediacy, makes it seem like things are happening now. It also is what people think of as like writing a book to be a movie. Like this is happening now, excuse me. Excuse me, I burped. No editing. So this is happening now, you know, as as it's a movie scene, and it does lend itself to basically writing a book as though you're writing a script. Not necessarily a great script, but everything, or a lot of it ends up being dialogue, action, and you know, it kind of hinders the ability for a writer to write as much backstory or more complex, nuanced things that might seem to slow down, dilate time, take you out of the linear order of events. Kind of simplifies things, simplifies things a bit. But does it have to? Does it have to? I don't know. I think it's something to play with. Play with a reader's desire for immediacy. And also, I think now it's coded, at least for maybe writers and editors, as a real lowbrow genre convention. And you know I love a lowbrow genre convention. So, I'm trying to write in first person present, and it's something obsessed with sex. And we'll see. It's an experiment. It's an experiment, and I hope it works. If it doesn't If it doesn't, I don't know. There's just gonna be another unused science fiction manuscript lying around out there. You know why the feeling I gotta listen to, because I'm not gonna read it. Uh Project Hell Mary, I think, is written in first person present. I think Project Hell Mary is also has a Chugi aspect. With which what is going on with the Chugi thing? So there's a another kind of maybe trope that I'm noticing in Fourth Wing is, which also feels millennial, is weakness. Is this you're a weak person, but you're also somehow going to become powerful. It's a sort of Harry Potter thing, right? I guess maybe the Lord of the Rings, also, you're this weak little hobbit, this meek little thing, but you're going to become super powerful. So in Fourth Wing, it's weird the way that shows up because there is this weird oscillation between super strength and super weakness. Whereas, you know, I guess in earlier stuff, like maybe Lord of the Rings, there's it's a little more consistent. They're never like so helpless. Weak. Oh my gosh, I couldn't ever do anything. It's sort of coded in their physicality. They're supposed to be small and then less capable of doing things that the bigger people are doing, I guess. A little ableist there. And the hobbits are never so as powerful as anybody else. They are morally powerful, I guess. Whatever. Harry Potter is more like the modern convention where he actually does become super powerful. Magically. You know, he goes from this super weak, vulnerable person who suddenly discovers that he's actually very, very powerful. Well, not suddenly discovers that he's very, very powerful. He suddenly discovers he has some power, and then over time he becomes very very powerful. Fourth Wing, it's a little more accelerated. You know, it's like a trilogy of four series tetrology. But in the first book already, she becomes very, very powerful. And I think, I think. I haven't finished it yet, but that seems like you know, she bonds to this giant dragon. Spoiler alert, spoiler alert. So she gets all these power. And even before then, she's always oscillating between strength and weakness. And that plays into that cloying millennial irony. The for the win, I'm a badass. You know, that like overstating, being ironically overexcited about something that shouldn't be excited. Like history for the win. That kind of millennial irony. There's something there, something related to that also with the the weakness and this unexpected power. I don't know. I don't know. I'm just thinking. I'm just thinking, you know what doesn't have these tropes? Dune 5. Or is it 6? It's the last one that he wrote, the main author. Oh. That's so good. It's so good. It's so good, and it doesn't have these tropes of like somebody being like, oh, I don't know if I can do this. Oh, I'm actually a badass. You know, it doesn't it doesn't fetish weakness in that way. In the way that these other books are doing. Like the the hero of that one is just strong, and she's challenged by the very powerful forces arrayed against her, but she doesn't, you know, discover that she's somehow powerful. She she's quite powerful and complex from the beginning and navigates a very difficult situation. And it is it's beautiful. It's a beautiful book. It's a beautiful book, and I like it a lot. And it yeah, it doesn't rely on this. So I think I'm also gonna tie that in to the book that I'm writing. That there's gonna be a character who's using that. Can't wait for you all to see, because I have to talk it coded ways. Coded ways about this. Um what's up with Boomer? Not Boomers, sorry, what's up with Gen X? What's up with Gen X? Is that the is that the real lost generation? Is that the real lost generation? Is that Gen X? What are they up to? I was thinking about this because everybody wants to be a millennial these days, I think. I have this theory. I have this theory. I've talked to people in their 20s who are claiming millennial status, and that surprises me. That surprises me because just a few years ago, everybody wants to be Gen Z. It was all about Gen Z. It was all about the middle part, it was all about the genes. Now, jokes on you. Nobody wants to be Gen Z. Because what is Gen Z doing? Listening to whatever, Charlie Kirk, and uh staring at their phones and like afraid to talk to people? Nobody wants to claim that. Nobody wants to claim that. Everybody now wants to claim millennial status. So it's like, you're 25, my friend. I don't know that you're a millennial. I don't know that you're a millennial, but you're definitely not Gen X, which seems to have been the generation lost to neoliberalism. What? Neoliberalism? I can't even say it, much less understand it. Uh I won't I won't say what precipitated that thought, but I won't even hint at it. I won't even hint at it. I'm just gonna leave it out there. That I it's not even a hot potato. It's not a hot potato. I think it's pretty unobjectionable that it is the most neoliberal pro-America. You know, because they grew up coddled. They grew up coddles. Everything was fine for them. And they sort of squandered the whole thing by not really addressing any of the world's great difficulties. What did they do? Multiculturalism. They they embraced multiculturalism. Bland. Bland doesn't really address any of the big issues, does it? Just sort of superficial aesthetic of diversity, as I call it. In my book. My first book. My first published book. Yeah. But I don't know, millennials, we're not getting off scot-free because there's choogy. This is chooggy irony. Choogie irony. For the win. I'm a total fat ass. It's weird. It's weird, but uh also the other thing, uh all these millennial tropes that were getting ID'd as millennial things are not real millennial things. If you weren't there, you don't know. Right? What's that? The opposite of I F Y K, YK, you know? If you weren't there, you don't know. I was there. I was there. I was there in the streets of Greenpoint in 2016. No, I lived in Ridgewood in 2016. It was cooler. Um, but um. It was bad times. It was bad times. It was bad times. I'm not nostalgic for that at all. I do not want to watch girls ever again. No, thank you. Prayers up, thoughts about you know, actually, I will never watch girls again because somebody sent to me. Lena Dunham did one of those Dream Baby Press, which I still don't understand what it is, but they do those Instagram posts of things that you like and things that you don't like, which is actually very this podcast coded. And Lena Dunham on her list of things she doesn't like included something that said, people who overthink reality TV, blah blah blah. It was a whole long thing. I don't really remember, but someone sent it to me saying that it was about me, and I kind of believe it because it was very specific. It was very specific that I think it easily could have been about my book. Which, go off the street. I've always wanted a literary feud. I think it's chic. I think it's powerful, I think it's weak and chic and powerful and chooky. No, I've always wanted a literary feud, and that would be an amazing person to have a literary feud with would be Lena Diam. I don't even know if it would be good, because I do feel like she would cave easily in a back and forth. You know, I feel like if you have a feud, you want like a sparring partner, you know, you want like uh Nini Leaks, Claudia Jordan, you know, you want to go back and forth at each other. You want like um what was it? James Baldwin and who's that who is the who is the conservative one? George Will? I don't remember. Um, you know, you want someone who can you want like a Gor Vidal kind of character opposite you for a literary feud. I don't think that I don't think that Lena Dunham would do well in a in a a confrontational confrontational situation like that. Um I don't think it would do well. She seems she seems to have a touch of the of the fetishization of weakness about her and girls in general. That does seem to be a kind of millennial trope is embracing being weak. Uh, ooh woo, ooh woo efication, you know, oh I'm just a small bean small bean. Small bean. That is a millennial thing. Of loving to be weak. Of loving to be weak, which has never resonated with me particularly. That fetishization of weakness. Um I'm just a small I could, you know. Not that Lena Dunham does all that, but you know, she does seem a little. There's something childlike, I think, about her, a little, perhaps, you know, what a Taylor Swift says that thing where you get emotionally stunted at the age become famous. Does she say that as people say that about her? I don't know. Dialectically, she's related to that idea. Um I think Lena Dunham perhaps is a bit stunted at the age that she became famous. So it's great for me that I'll never be famous, so I'll just keep growing. For the win! Obscurity for the win. Um please clip this and send it to Lena Dunham so we can start you dang for real. No, I'm just kidding. Love and light to everybody, as always. That's one of the um like what's gonna be on the hat for this podcast. Love and light. Love and light, and then you'll be like, oh, friend of the pod. Friend of the pod, love and light, you know? Merch. I'm gonna have a lot of that on merch. Uh at some point. Oh, and I can put right! I can put right. What else can I put? I can put jack on jack, I can put putter patter. I think someone should do this for me. I think someone should be making merch for me. Because, you know, I'm a millennial, I'm a hustler, I'm I'm juggling in the gig economy. Right? Right? Put it on a hat. Put it on a hat. You, you can do it. You, whoever you are. I have faith in you. I have faith in you, you're strong. Did I say anything that I liked this time? Literary feuds? Literary feuds? Oh, I'm still reading Infinite Jest. I see it over there. It's I you know I've been falling off because I was upstate and I'm not lugging that giant book with me. And there is there is I came across another troubling passage. So that he does this thing where he has characters where he'll write the perspective in a vernacular English. You know, there was the AAVE chapter, which I already went through. And now I I've come across another chapter where I think I I believe, if memory serves, they're Italian-American drug dealers. And this chapter couldn't didn't really read it that closely, but something that did jump out is that I do think he when he uses the has these characters that use vernacular English, I think they're also not intelligent. I I don't think he gives them a full intelligence that he gives to the characters who don't use the vernacular, the white, more white characters who don't use this vernacular English. And I think that's uh an odd choice. An odd choice, and I'm not sure what it's intending to reflect or say, and that's me being a little charitable because obviously it could just be a blind spot of his. Again, this is not we're not ragging on it. We're not ragging on it, we're not trying to take it down. We're just trying to look at it judiciously. And you know what? I've seen a lot of people reading Infinite Just online. So there's something going on, because I do think that something that is admirable about it is that it is ambitious. It is obviously not a wand little husk of auto fiction. It's something that it's, you know, it's trying to do something. And I appreciate that about it. And I think, you know, we're at a moment where we can look at it a little more clear-eyed and see what's working and what's not. And you know, it's big, it's taking big swings. I always like that. I always like it when someone takes big swings. So I like that. But I feel like there's other things that we should talk about that I like, and now I'm just looking at my bookshelf. What else would I talk about that I like? Just so you know. Just to keep it just to keep it more positive around here. Because we do need some positivity these days. We really do. Oh, I know, I know. A little book. Okay, so a little book. I got these little books at Riffraf, an amazing bookstore in Providence, Rhode Island. I did an event there for my book tour. And it's really good. They have really good books. And I got Cunt Norton by Dodie Bellamy. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. And she is a poet, I believe. And she. This book has like a few dozen authors, mostly male, mostly white men. I think there's two editions. I think in a later edition, she she did a couple other people mixing it up a little bit. But basically, so it's like the Norton anthology, you know, you remember that from like high school, whatever. And so she did a cunt Norton. So it's these little passages in the voice of these different authors. So there's a cunt Milton, there's a cunt Shakespeare, there's a cunt Spencer, cunt Chaucer. They're in chronological order. And they're in their voice. These passages are in these writers' voice, uh, talking about sex. Talking about sex. We're back to sex. But in a more complex way here. This is, I think, doing it right, you know? Doing it right. And it's really good. It's really strange. It's a strange reading experience because you're it's, you know, there's no plot. Um, but there's a lot of ways that I liked it. One was just like it's you do get to appreciate the different voices of these authors, who she is kind of parodying. And she has a whole system for how she wrote it, using their words and cutting them up. And there's a whole thing. There's a whole thing, dive into it and read it if you want. Um, but it worked on a few levels, I think. What is it, yeah, it does make you actually appreciate the writers that she's uh referencing or speaking through. Some of them I haven't read. There's stuff like I really haven't read a lot of Spencer, if any. So that was kind of nice. So you get to see a little taste. You get to see a little taste of what those writers are actually like. And then the repetitive experience of them moaning on and on about sex and welling up about it. Does What does it do? What does it do? Does it disenchant you from sex? In a way? I think in a way it does. It kind of takes the uh the slag out of it. Is that something you'd say? Is that something a British person would say? I don't know. It kind of It takes the aura. Maybe that's it. It takes the aura away from sex while also still allowing it to be something that each individual experience can enjoy. But it does take, I think, some of the aura away from this uh masculine masculine portrayal of sex that she sets up for these writers of various kinds. It takes the aura away from sex and and kind of opens up a different way of looking at it. But that is a trick. That is a trick to take the aura away from something. And I I do think that's what the book does. While not making it seem totally worthless, I don't think she takes the sort of value away from sex. I don't think that's what she would try to do, but I do think there's some there's some de-orification where you get to look at it in a different way. It opens up a different aesthetic register of relating to something commonplace. And so horrified. In a weird way, which brings us back to what we were talking about. This sort of weird anxiety about talking literally about sex. You know, in this book, they're talking very literally about sex, and it just gets out there. And it's not that you want to move on and talk about something different from sex, but I think it opens up new ways of thinking about it, more complexity. So yeah, that's a perfect thing. That's the perfect thing to pair with the things that I like and that I don't like. I'm trying to stay more level in my speaking voice, because sometimes I realize when it goes up, it's sort of popping on the microphone. You know, the the audio gets the audio gets a little wonky. But you know, I did not really like using that other microphone. It wasn't for me. It wasn't for me. I didn't like the recording experience, I didn't like the thinking experience, I didn't like the talking experience. I don't think the audio quality was better, honestly. So either I need to get an actual good mic, which I'm still resistant to because I like the DIY vibe. You know, I like this grunge aesthetic. I think it's cool. Works with the no editing. I'd be selling out, man, if I got like one of those one of those lame ass little mics that everybody now has and put it on a little clip or something and hold in front of my face. Love and light. Love and light to everybody who does that. It's just, gosh, am I in a bad mood? It's the heat. It's the heat, and I'm still getting off caffeine. I'm sorry if I'm being rude to anybody or anything. You know, if you got a little mic, celebrate it. Sing into it. Sing me a song in your little mic. Though not weirdly coded about sex. If you want to just talk about sex, just go for it, you know? Push through, push through the sex. And and either explore it in a new way, relate to it in a new way, or or move on to something else. Speaking of moving on to something else, I think it's time. I think it's time for us all to move on to something else from this little not even an hour. I don't know how long it's been. 30 something 30-something minutes. You've all been real gems. You've all been real gems. You're all so patient with me and kind and understanding, and we're all we're all capable of such kindness, of such loving kindness as that Buddhist monk Pima Chodron might say. We're all capable of such loving kindness, and you are all being so loving and so kind to me, and hopefully to yourselves, and hopefully to many others. To many others, and hopefully, we will overthrow the United States. That would be the most loving and kind act of all. And on that, I'll see you next time.