75: George Orwell & Dragons
57:40 Share

When you choose to earn your degree online from Southern New Hampshire University, you're saying yes to new opportunities and to new adventures. You're saying yes to something big, something you've always wanted to do. If earning your degree is one of your goals this new year, SNHU can help you get there. With low online tuition, no set class times, and multiple term starts per year, you can set the pace that works for you and save money along the way. Visit snhu.edu today to get started.

Direct from the Broski Nation headquarters in Los Angeles, California, this is the Broski Report with your host, Brittany Broski. I thought you were my favorite worst nightmare.

Ask if we could have six in. If not, we'll have to have two. Well, you're coming up on our end, aren't you? Will I get one with you? Ask if we can have six in. Especially not with the food. Could have just told us no, though. He didn't have to be rude. You see her with the green dress. She talks to me at the bar. I miss the Arctic Monkeys. I miss when the Arctic Monkeys were little British fucking rats.

when they were little, like, nasty Cockney Sheffield rats. Now Alex Turner is all, Oh, there better be a fucking mirror ball, girl. I love Alex Turner. Don't get me wrong, okay? Do not get me wrong. However, I went to the last tour in what? When did me and Tato go? 2023?

They came to Dallas. We saw them, which, by the way, that was 10 years in the making because they stopped touring in 2015, which I hadn't even graduated high school yet. And Artsy Monkeys were like, fuck you, bitches. You will never get to hear Arabella live. And I said, okay. And I begged my parents to go. I said, please, you don't understand. They're going to go to hiatus after this. I don't know whether they're going to make music next to this. He's doing a fucking solo project that I don't like. It's Shadow Puppets I don't like.

Even though people love the shadow puppets. I don't know, dude. I don't know. I was never that. There was this weird little gay thing on Tumblr where they were like, we want Miles and Alex to have sex and have a child. And I'm like, neither of them are gay.

Anyway, yes, what was I talking about? Oh, when we saw them live in 2023, he's doing this like hotel jazz singer shit, but he's still playing the hits, but he's singing them like Zack and Cody's mom in Suite Life. And so I'm like, Alex, lock in, okay?

And I think he does that on purpose, which honestly, hilarious. He'll do that shit on purpose. Well, he'll sing it a little behind the tempo or he'll kind of freestyle it. He'll kind of go pork and beans on it. That's a new thing I'm testing out. And Taylor does not like it. Okay. You know how people will be like, people will be like, I went ham on it.

I went ham on it. Okay, I started to say that. Like I went ham and beans on it. And then I started to say I went pork and beans on it. And every time I say it, Taylor gets mad. Because she's like, no one says that. It doesn't make sense. And I'm like, you know what? They called Thomas Edison stupid.

I don't know if that's true. They called Thomas Edison an idiot at first. Definitely not true. He was like one of the best inventors ever. Actually, oh, y'all, I have so much to talk about today. And the number one thing is I broke my middle fingernail. Don't talk about it, okay? Also, Body Mod...

I got a new piercing. Okay. Thanks for noticing. Okay. I want to talk about, actually, let's transition from, you know, those games where you can connect point A to point Z. I could do that for real. Cause I'm about to connect Alex Turner to Nikola Tesla. So give me like literally 10 minutes and I'm about to do that. Okay. Here's the thing.

Alex Turner is an innovator. And what was I trying to say? They called Jesus crazy. They called Jesus a fucking liar. Okay? Maybe that was what I was trying to say. I'm trying to say that Thomas Edison, when the idea, electricity,

was first kind of you know circulating people could not comprehend it literally was magic okay then you know look at where we are today it becomes integrated into society okay what i'm trying to say about alex turner is that he's doing this weird like jazz singer thing when they came from this like nasty garage pop punk band not pop punk what would you call early arctic monkeys

AI overview on Google is saying it's a hybrid of indie rock, garage rock, and post-punk revival. I'm so smart that I literally not just say garage nasty post-punk revival. Every time I hear revival, I think it's like a church. Like we're going to the revival and I feel the spirit. Lord, thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Me listening to the Archie Monkeys. Do I wanna know? Me in the audience. Thank you, Lord.

The farting preacher. Thank you, Lord. Okay.

Do you consider early Arctic Monkeys a punkish band? Absolutely. Have you ever heard Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured? Have you ever heard Favorite Worst Nightmare? Let's go through that album. I've been addicted to that album. I remember in high school when I was like, I like the Arctic Monkeys. Because I heard Do I Wanna Know? And I heard Are You Mine? And I was like, oh, I'm fucking with this. Fucking with a capital F and a hard G, okay? Then I was like, oh, they have more albums.

And the first one came out in 2007, and I went back into it, and I was like, that Jay-Z gif of him, like, okay. And then I got into it, of course. It's so interesting as, like, a middle schooler, high schooler being like, do I like this? Or do I just think that I should like this based on what everyone else is saying? You know what I mean? But I like it. I do like it. What's it called? Arch... Arch...

Guys, the beverages today, what's on the menu today for the Broski Report? We're doing sugar-free Red Bull because I ran out of my blooper. Chocolate premier protein, hydro flask full of lukewarm water because all my ice melted. And earlier, I had a hazelnut coffee with a bit of pumpkin spice creamer. Dairy-free, mind you.

What is this album called? Favorite Worst Nightmare. Yeah. And then the next one was what? Oh, no, no. The first one is whatever people say I am. That's what I'm not. This album goes crazy, too. I bet that you look good on the dance floor. I don't know if you're looking for romance or I don't know what you're looking for. Red Lions, Gates, Roads to Security. Yes. From the Ritz to the Rubble. Yes. Where are my Arctic Monkeys girls? Okay. Anyway, so here's actually what I wanted to talk about. Okay.

New special interest unlocked! Guys, it's time! It's time! I watched this movie that I can't stop talking about. And I wouldn't say it's particularly critically acclaimed, but somehow it's the most me movie I could have found because I was doing some research, just general research, okay? On something we might be, we may or may not be working on. I was doing some research on it.

And I watched this movie called The Current War. Okay. Have you heard of it? No, probably not. This movie came out and I want to say 2017. Yep. 2017. Okay. Now this movie stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Nicholas Holt. Who's the guy that plays, uh, oh, Tom Holland's in it. Uh, Matthew McFadden is in it. Shout out. Um, and who's the guy who plays Westinghouse?

I guess we'll never know. This chronicles the race to power America, meaning in the most physical sense of electricity. It was this sort of copyright slash patent war back and forth between Thomas Edison and someone named Westinghouse. What is his name? I'm going to pull up the cast.

George Westinghouse, okay? Let's just read the little trailer because the summary I'm about to give is probably not correct. The greatest inventors of the industrial age, Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, engage in a battle of technology and ideas that will determine whose electrical system will power the new century. Backed by J.P. Morgan, okay, Edison dazzles the world by lighting Manhattan. But Westinghouse, aided by Nikola Tesla...

sees fatal flaws in Edison's direct current design. Westinghouse and Tesla bet everything on risky and dangerous alternating current. Okay, so here's the thing. I had figured out where ACDC came from. That actually means alternating current, direct current. Okay, the more you know. Am I 27 and I just figured that out? Yeah. Because did I give a fuck about physics in high school? No, I don't give a fuck. That shit was so confusing to me, actually. I really do. I don't want to ever...

typecast a brain, but that shit is true. You know what I mean? Like, are you right-brained? Are you left-brained? Are you a fucking Taurus? Are you a fucking Taurus? But it's true. Like, I'm not, this is not my sort of, I don't get it.

I was never a math person. I did okay in math just because I wanted good grades and I like locked in, but I didn't enjoy it. I didn't particularly, you know, innately understand it. It was just sort of like retain enough to be able to do the test and then lose it. Like if you put a calculus problem in front of me today, I'd be like, this is a different language. I genuinely do not understand it. No literature and language on the other hand. I love that shit. I love that shit. It's my, I love it.

I would much rather annotate and summarize and write an essay on a five-line poem than have to work through a calculus problem or explain ACDC to someone, okay? Explain the difference between alternating current and direct current. I can't do it and I don't particularly care. I'm glad it exists. Don't really give a fuck.

Come immerse yourself in the time as always now. Artists Reframe the Black Figure, an exhibition now on view through February 9th, making its U.S. premiere at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The exhibition explores how 28 artists perceive the world, pay homage to history, and find new ways of exalting Black life. Tickets are on sale now, and members get free and unlimited access to the exhibition. Let us help you plan your visit at philamuseum.org.

People buy all sorts of things with Visa. What people buy is their business. But protecting every transaction, that's Visa's business.

That's why Visa checks over 500 data points on transactions to help stop fraud before it happens. Over the last five years, Visa has invested $11 billion into fraud prevention and network security technology. And last year, Visa prevented more than $40 billion in attempted fraud. What you buy is your business. Protecting how you pay is Visa's. But!

in this sort of more philosophical sense of when red tape becomes a factor in this thing of like powering the United States, like we were living by candlelight previously.

we're seeing a rapid exponential increase in innovation because I think of it also in a sort of like space race thing of you want to beat this other party and in doing so, you're just improving and improving and improving the technology to get it to a point that is actually safe and consumable for the American people. And a big plot point in this movie is the safety of installing electricity in

In American houses and in businesses, and there are some deaths that occur because the technology is just people are so excited about it. They don't really understand it. And there's this push to just get it out there and sell it and have your name be the one that's like this building is powered by technology.

It becomes a big plot point that they try to say that each other's technology is fatal. It's dangerous. It's, you know, you touch a doorknob in a house that's powered by Edison's electricity and you run the possibility of being electrocuted to death because it's just that unbridled versus, you know, the other one is safer. And then they kept trying to go back and forth, back and forth.

Edison does this demonstration where he electrocutes a horse and he tries to prove that it's a humane death, you know, that the horse didn't even fucking feel anything. Then, of course, because human invention always has to turn evil, which that's a statement in and of itself that I could dive into at a different time. Because when a science is discovered or an invention is like ready to be presented, for whatever reason,

I don't know why I've talked about this before, but I feel like I have. The science itself is not inherently good or evil. It's just science. It's just nature. When it's placed in the hands of the wrong people, that's when there's the sort of ethical code, right? So you watch in this movie from the discovery of the light bulb,

And how magnificent it is from keeping it illuminated for two minutes, ten minutes, an hour, five hours, ten hours. How that literally was magic. I mean, it's like you're going from this undiscovered technology to we're lighting a whole room for an extended period of time. Amazing. What was I about to say? Fuck. Fuck.

Oh, the technology depends on who owns it. So you see it go from the light bulb to the electric chair. The electric chair is introduced. This shit is so interesting to me, but it's like the movie was, it wasn't very well received. I enjoyed it. Benedict Cumberbatch is in it. He played Sherlock in it, which is fine. They're like, we need a quirky, smart white guy. He was like, I know just a guy. His name is Sherlock Holmes. I'm going to play him. I enjoyed it though. I like Sherlock.

It's this sort of ethical dilemma of I have discovered this technology, and I say that in quotes because Edison probably didn't, right? It's just his name attached to it. And other scientists were working on it at the same time. He was just the first one to kind of be like, and then I introduced the light bulb.

The electric chair is this dilemma, ethical dilemma of, is this how I want my technology to be used? And when the government or a private company is offering you millions of dollars to use your technology, have your name on it, or not have your name on it, but you still get paid for their use of the technology –

Is that worth it? You know, how does that sit with you as someone who's created this beautiful thing to give light, to literally bring light to the darkness? How do you sit with that? And so that's a big plot point that was kind of tea. And of course, they end up creating the electric chair and it goes horribly wrong. Like the first ever humane death that they use on a murderer. It was someone who killed his wife, I think, is what the plot line in this movie is. I don't know if that's historically accurate.

They go, we're going to privately sell

execute this man, capital punishment, by electric chair, death by electric chair. And they do it. And Edison promises it's going to be humane. It's going to be quick. You put the little probes on the temple. You strap them into the chair. They show the selection process of finding a chair with the right conductive materials and this and that, whatever. They assemble it. They said it was one of the most gruesome deaths imaginable. First, it was the smell, burning skin, burning hair.

Then it was just screaming because the wattage was not enough to kill him. They were just torturing him. It was a torture chair. And after that, it became this thing that Edison's name was attached to it. It was kind of tea. Like this movie was tea. All the while, Nikola Tesla is creating the most impressive technology, to be honest. And he's being pushed to the wayside. The story of Tesla is actually very, very sad. He died alone in debt in a hotel room.

and he lost the patent war for his own technology, which was an improvement upon both Westinghouse and Edison's technology. It was tea. It's crazy, you know, how the true contributors to the collective history of humankind are

are rarely credited. It's always just the big names who can attach themselves or who have the most money or who, you know what I mean? It's a name game. And it's not really giving credit where credit is due. And the fact that he died, not a penny to his name, in fact, indebted, not even owning a home of his own as an immigrant into the United States who contributed this thing to American history. It's just really sad. And Nicholas Holt plays Nikola Tesla.

I loved his performance. Okay? I loved it. I love this movie. I don't know why. It was like a hyper fixation movie. And you go and you look on Rotten Tomatoes and people just were not loving it. And that's okay. Hey, that's okay with me. Because I like movies like this. And then I looked up who the director was and I didn't recognize any of the other movies he had done. Alfonso Gomez Rejon. And he looks just like Javier Bardem. He did...

Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl, which I have not seen. He's from Laredo. He's a Texan. Yes. Anyway, love this movie. Oh, my God, y'all. Okay, so that concludes my Nikola Tesla biography part of the podcast. Now we're going to move into Animal Farm. Sorry, not Animal Farm. 1984. Because the last time we checked in about a month ago. Sorry, I've been gone for a while, team. The last time we talked about

I was about a third of the way through 1984. I finished it. I remembered that I had read it in high school. And because I thought I was like, they didn't make us read this in high school. I lied. Yes, they did. Because I was like, oh, yeah, that part. The book in and of itself stands the test of time, in my opinion.

It was written in the 40s. It was written in like 1949. So this is like directly after World War II. And he's seeing all these visions of like what the world will come to if they continue on in this way. And the whole premise of 1984, if you've never read it, is this idea of an omnipotent, all-powerful government.

They live in a society that is referred to as Ingsoc, which is English socialism. But the term socialism has been so bastardized, so watered down, so mutilated that you wouldn't even recognize it. It is totalitarian, but it's to a figure that doesn't exist, right? So this like

almost dictator position is Big Brother, but Big Brother's not a real person. It is a construct. And I'm fairly sure that Orwell based it off of Stalin.

you know, this big, just loving guy with a mustache, just like averagely handsome mustache, strong features, and that he's always watching you and that you need to behave like you are always being watched. And the extent of the monitoring that happens in this book is just, it's psychotic. And it's very weird to think about how all of us have kind of accepted this idea that our phones listen to us, you know what I mean?

You know what I mean? I've been thinking about all this shit. It's been cooking around in my brain. It's been swirling around in my little crock pot of a brain. We just acknowledge that our phones listen to us, and it's really not. And there is, at least for me, a sense of detachment of like, I don't really care. I don't really care anymore because my personal information, personally, has been online since I was 11. So.

You know what I mean? Like my, all my private information, I was giving that shit out for free to webkins.gov. I don't give a fuck. They're going to get it another way or the, like, if you are completely off the grid, never had any social media, never, that is the only way to avoid this idea of like being monitored, being listened to. And it's not necessarily in a, you know, and I say this, I guess in quotes, it's not in a dangerous way. You know, the fact that my TikTok algorithm listens to me when I talk,

It benefits me, I guess, because it is a very highly personalized algorithm. But at the same time, you got to just know that when you use this technology, when you use your phone, when you use whatever, and you agree to those terms and conditions, it voice monitors and whatever, whatever. The world's on fire. I don't give a fuck.

You know what I mean? Just show me, show me edits of Paul Meskel. And that's really all I'm asking. That's all I care about. I want to see AI recreations of ACOTAR. That's all I really want. And if by me saying that out loud, it's going to give it to me, fuck it. You know what I mean? This episode is sponsored by Blissey.

Broski Nation, you're not new to this. I know you're true to this. You know we only sleep on blissy pillowcases or else. I have rat's nest hair tendencies, and it's for real the only thing that prevents me from waking up as an electrocuted fuzzball. These silk pillowcases are better than satin, which is made from synthetics and is rough on hair and skin. It's cheap for a reason.

Silk eliminates frizz. It's naturally cooling, breathable for all you sweaty heifers out there. It's antibacterial and hypoallergenic. And for all you destructive people out there, they're easy to care for and they're machine washable with a nice zipper on the end for easy use.

There's over 70 colors, including a new Harry Potter line. I've been using mine for years now. I've got a few different colors. They're on my guest bed. They're on my real bed. I travel with them, so I sleep better at hotels. And because you're a listener, Blissy is offering 60 nights risk-free, plus an additional 30% off when you shop at blissy.com slash broski report. That's B-L-I-S-S-Y dot com slash broski report.

and go ahead and use code BROSKI REPORT to get an additional 30% off, your skin and hair will thank you. This episode is sponsored by SeatGeek. It's almost New Year's, team. Time to think about how we're ending the year and going into the next. Now, for me, there's genuinely nothing more magical than live music. That is why I need to tell you about my special hookup from today's sponsor, SeatGeek.

Everyone can use my code "BROSKI20" and get 20 bucks off your first purchase on SeatGeek, sports, concerts, festivals, you name it. I am waiting, idly by, for Sam Fender to release more American tour dates, okay?

I love him. I love him. There are so many artists touring right now, including Post Malone, Sabrina Carpenter, Charlie XCX, and Billie Eilish, and SeatGeek has got you covered. Each ticket is rated on a scale of 1 to 10, so look for the green dots. Green means good, red means bad. So take out your phone, open the SeatGeek app, and add code BROSKI20 to your account. See you. Yeah, 1984. I think that, uh...

All that to say, I think it stands the test of time. It's an important message. And I don't know, you know, I could literally write an essay on what the message is of letting a government get too powerful, losing a sense of humanity, losing a sense of community, the idea of tattling on each other instead of looking out for each other, the tragedy of the commons.

When you exhaust a resource out of your own greediness and selfishness or for you and a certain group of people, everyone else loses out. And that is very true in this book. In this book, bitch, it's fucking crazy. I didn't remember this part.

Everyone works, right? You work, you work to create products, to create just consumer goods. But the populace never sees the fruit of that labor. In fact, on the telescreen, which is what they sort of call the – it's a mandatory screen that's installed in every –

outer party member's house. It is always watching you. There's a camera in it, and you can never turn it off. You can turn it a little bit down, but never silent, and you can never completely turn it off. It watches you cook. It watches you read. It watches you sleep. It watches you whatever. It's like this inescapable thing. Big Brother is watching you. That's okay. A lot of the concepts are, I think, in a weird way, prophetic concepts.

Because he anticipated the technology of the future and its impacts. Because we're there. And so not much has changed. It's just a strange, chilling thought to think 70 years post-publication, not much has changed. I really enjoyed it. Now, I went on Goodreads, like I do. And I wrote my little review. And I was like, you know, powerful, ever, an evergreen story of...

ever giving the government too much power over free will and what is best for all of humankind. And in doing that, so I left my little review and I was like, you know, I think the story at times kind of dragged. I think there's a part in the middle where he quotes this fake author named Goldstein,

From who's supposed to be this sort of revolutionary figure, the people who want to rebel against Big Brother and the party, as it's called, always reference the book. And it's supposed to be this book that just tells the truth, you know, like this is how the world came to be like this.

This is what they're keeping from you. This is you are valid and feeling like this. And it doesn't make you a bad person and all this shit. And it just sort of lays out the doctrine of what a world without the party and without Ingsoc, what that looks like. And it spends a bit too much time, I think, in the middle part of the book or towards the end. It just I felt like I was reading a fucking political book.

Which is fine because, right, that's the whole – you have to understand that it's a setup for Orwell to tell you his politics. Okay, fine. If that's through the lens of a narrative story with this lead character Winston and his counterpart Julia and this, you know, it's fine. But it just went on for too long. It was like 30 pages of just political – not propaganda but just theory. Okay.

And then the end of the book, I think, ends too quickly. And I was kind of, the resolution is like, okay. But the book is fine. And it's iconic and everyone should read it, whatever. I go on Goodreads. I look at the reviews. Oh my God. Apparently, there is a, and I'm going to pull up my Goodreads to fact check myself. Okay, here we go. Listen to the, I'm going to read this. I literally screenshot it in. This is a review of 1984 from Goodreads.

Do you guys care? This is just some random dude. And he wrote this review and I was like, no fucking way. There's always tea in the literary community, right? I'm on Goodreads. I'm reading the reviews and I come across this review and

that is just destroying Orwell. Because in my review, I was like, I enjoyed this book. You know, I gave it four stars. I was like, I think it's important. But really, my favorite part about this book is Orwell's writing. It is so weird to feel seen by someone who's been dead 70 years, you know, or 60 years. It's like some of the things that he would say and how he would phrase them, I was like, and this sounds so pretentious, which I fully am self-aware of.

Like I've written a similar sentence like in my journal or in my, you know, just as a thought in my notes app or fucking whatever, like just a brain dump. It's like I have a thought and I'll just put it out. And the way I word it sometimes feels pretentious, but it's how I feel. And I've never thought, and this is also navel gazing, I've never thought other people feel that way too. Reading some of his writing in 1984, this sounds so pretentious. I was like, wow.

Orwell's writing is really, really – it really struck a chord with me. And while I think he's incredibly intelligent and had a real grasp on the world around him and the things that he saw early in his life living under British imperialism, serving in the war, I think he fought in the Spanish Civil War.

Civil War, and he lived in India under British rule as a British citizen, then moved to London, lived in poverty. Like, he has seen the dusty, nasty, dirty corners of the British Empire. And I think that that's such a unique perspective to, without access to

like-minded materials you know what I mean to be like other people feel this way too early on in his life he already had that sense of right or wrong of like this is fucking wrong Orwell just had a unique perspective that he wrote from and that informed all those experiences early on in his life informed a lot of his writing and I think that that can be true

And at the same time, you can read other writers and be heavily inspired and, in fact, be prone to plagiarizing. Not necessarily plagiarizing word for word, but plagiarizing a concept, plagiarizing a structure, plagiarizing a sort of narrative perspective. And I think that that's a little disappointing.

So I'm about to read you this review, and it's for a book called We by a Russian author named Zamyatin. This is the inspiration for 1984, which is what I came to find out, okay? This was originally published in 1924.

It's a dystopian novel by the Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin that was written in 1920. It was first published as an English translation in 1924. Okay, so this was the original. 1984 apparently is a cheap copy, a cheap British copy of We. So now I'm going to read you a review that some fucking dude left under We and

And it blew my mind. And I immediately added we to my want to read list. I was like, damn. Okay, here we go. George Orwell, you poser, you punk, you thief. I heard that you had read this before writing 1984, but I didn't expect Zamyatin's writing to be so superior to yours. And it is. It is so much more intriguing than your sterile work.

D-503 is so much the better character than Winston. I'm assuming D-503 is the main character in We, and Winston Smith, of course, is the main character in 1984.

And you rob I-333 of her power and respect by demoting Julia to the role of a sexual object that stirs Winston to action. Yes, D-503 is stirred to action by I-333, but she's the political activist, the intelligent one in this revolution. Besides, Zamyatin had the guts to apply a letter and a name to his characters, while your very English Winston makes your work smack of parochialism and, frankly, condescension.

Parochialism. A limited or narrow outlook, especially focused on a local area. Narrow-mindedness. Like, bitch, he's gagging him. He said, you narrow-minded little prick. You British fucking dick sucker. D-503 is the universal toady and I-333 the universal revolutionary. Winston, really? Were you trying to evoke Churchill? Somehow I sense...

Regardless of this, Zamyatin's prose is far better than yours. It never seems hackneyed, lacking significance through having been overused, unoriginal, and trite. Damn! It never seems hackneyed and rarely pedantic, though I suppose any novel that portrays rebellion against totalitarianism has to be somewhat pedantic.

But because Zamyatin actually lived under a totalitarian state, too, actually, and you only imagined what the socialists would do in your imaginary world, he avoids much of the rhetoric that you seem to embrace, even while lampooning the imagined society of Big Brother.

You see, despite his impersonal name, D-503 is so much more human than Winston. Yes, Winston is a revolutionary like D-503, but when I read him in comparison with the protagonist of We, Winston comes off as disingenuous. D-503 is the real deal, because Zamyatin was the real deal. Damn.

The man was exiled by both the czar and the communists for his free thinking while you were worried about threats from within your country that never materialized. Maybe that's why 1984 feels so forced. Remember that awful middle section outlining the world's politics? Boring! While we feel so much more natural and easy to read.

Wow. Then he goes on, the whole last section is like, furthermore, Zamyatin's prose is beautiful. Yes, you have a grasp of the English language, but Zamyatin, there is something about it being originally written in Russian and then translated. The fact that the beauty still stuck through the translation, amazing. Amazing, amazing. Anyway, I read that and I was like, damn!

I've never read a book and been like, I have to write a scathing review. Actually, I'm lying. I'm completely lying. After I read Iron Flame, I was like, I'm so fucking mad. Iron Flame is the sequel to Fourth Wing. Fourth Wing was so good. But then again, a lot of those authors I've heard, okay, and I cannot, don't, or do fact check me on this, but don't quote me on this, stole a lot of ideas from Iron

Lord of the Rings, from Lord of the Flies, from a lot of classics. Fourth Wing stole some stuff from popular fantasy books. Yeah. Ideas from other novels like Harry Potter, ACOTAR. But then again, I think even Sarah J Maas copied someone. I think that it's something I never really thought about of authors. When you're in an intense writer's block after you've created this IP of these concrete characters...

a concrete magic and I say that in quotes because that was one of my qualms with Rebecca Yaros' books is like it feels like she doesn't even understand the magic that she's created the mad and I don't mean that and like the magic she's created I mean the magic system I'm about to nerd out for a second at the end of Iron Flame I was like what the fuck is going on in terms of the magic system

And the limits of that magic, and I guess some of the rules just changed because she changed her mind. I was like, this is hard to follow because there's no rigid structure to this magical world that I'm supposed to be in. You know, like, I'm down with the dragons. I'm down with the fucking this and the that and the strength and the telepathy and they're fucking and then he's fucking the dragon and whatever. Okay, I'm there.

But you lost me, dude. You freaking lost me with the, what are they called? They're trying to create these like stone pillars of magical protective something against the rotted zombies who fly on the evil dragons. I don't know, dude. They lost me. And also half of Iron Flame, Zayden and Violet are separated and they don't even have sex. So they don't even have sex.

And so they're not even fucking, and I don't even, or they have sex, and then he leaves in the morning. I'm pissed off. Or they don't talk to each other because they're mad at each other, and then he almost dies. I was just mad. Like, fourth wing, the original concept, Dragon Rider Academy, oh yeah. Oh yeah. I'm down for that. No, it's just disappointing. The second book is disappointing. Am I going to read the third one? Yeah.

Because I have to know, does Zayden die? I don't give a fuck about Violet. I only care about Zayden. And that's saying something because Violet had pissed me off. But Zayden also had pissed me off in the second book because, oh, dude, there's this whole, a major plot point of the book is them just not being truthful to each other, which is one of my least favorite tropes in all of these romance books, okay, is miscommunication.

Don't piss me off. And I had my nails done recently, okay? And I was talking to my nail lady about this because she is an astrology woman. She is an astrology hooker. She loves that shit. She read my chart and I was like, that makes total sense. Apparently my Venus is in Gemini. My Venus is in Gemini? No, and my Mars is in Aries. And that is my problem solving, okay? Yes, my Mars is in Aries.

I'm very direct. If we have a problem, come over here and talk to me. Okay. We're going to sort this out right fucking now because I cannot sit here another second with this on my spirit. It will drive me nuts. I don't know how some people can do that. Some people can like, if they have an issue, they'll hold it. They'll hold it in and they'll ruminate on it and they'll hold it until the pressure boils over and they fucking explode. I don't know how they do that. And

And then it's also that's unfair because if you hold that anger inside and you blow up at the person that was the subject of it and this person had no prior warning to the fact that they had even done anything wrong, that's just so unfair to me. And I've had people do that to me and I'm like, I never even knew that I did something wrong. And you're yelling at me about how I did this and how fucking dare you and whatever. And you always do this and whoa.

I just don't appreciate an indirect communication. If we have a problem, let's work it out because it doesn't behoove either of us to – anyway, as a person with their Mars and Aries, reading a book like Iron Flame was infuriating because fuck you. It's also why I couldn't ever – the later seasons of Drake and Josh couldn't watch it. Pfft.

A lot of it was a miscommunication trope of like someone misheard something or this wasn't communicated to so-and-so and then the whole episode spirals out of control because of that. And it was a simple thing that they cannot fucking fix. I'm pissed off. I literally, I could not do it because it infuriates me to the point of DNF. Do not finish that episode of Drank and Jocks. You pissed me off. Or having a little fucking instigator like Megan. Don't piss me off. Okay, anyway.

And apparently, yeah, my Venus is in Gemini. Whoa. Let's read that. Venus in Gemini, meaning...

This signifies communication, curiosity, and a playful intellectual nature. This generally translates to a person who enjoys flirting, mental stimulation in relationships, and thrives on open, varied communication in love life. Listen to that. Do the stars lie? No. And the older I get, the more I'm like, I'm going to put my tinfoil hat on because this shit is real. I'm

My chart is so real, it makes me really, really nervous. Because how the fuck do you know that? Because what do you mean Mars and Venus are right there when I was born and that's why I can't deal with Iron Flame? And that's why when the dragons are fucking each other and then Zeta and Violet aren't talking, I'm mad. Because Venus was right there when I was born. What do you mean? And what do you mean when they made Pluto not a planet, that means that I started to get PCOS and my hair fell out? This shit is, it's science, dude. This shit's science, I can't explain it, bro.

Yeah, that's nuts to me. She read my chart and she was like, this means this, this means this. Are you like this? And I was like, yes. What the hell? Anyway. Yeah, so get into We by... And there's a third one as well. Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy.

This doesn't have the best reviews on Goodreads, but here's the summary. Because these are the three. I read the intro, the foreword, and the... What the fuck is that called? It's like an afterword, right? Afterward. W-O-R-D.

After 1984, someone wrote a little like post thing of the impact of 1984 and the cultural relevancy and all that. And it referenced these other two books where it kind of refers to, in a loose sense, the big three dystopian novels that are of note of this time period. And then the earliest being – actually, I wish I had my copy. It's in my freaking room –

Um, there's an earlier book from like as early as the 1600s, 1700s. That's a dystopian novel. That's actually kind of modern and really good. And I wish I remembered the name of it. Anyway, this is one. Um, this was written in 18. Oh, just kidding. It was published in 2000. Am I stupid? Edward Bellamy's classic look at the future has been translated into over 20 languages and is the most widely read novel of its time. What?

Someone rated it five stars and they're saying that it turned them into a socialist. Okay, queen. As a novel, this book isn't much.

That isn't a mark against it, though. The story serves as a light frame to build an explanation of socialism around, and it does that very well. Looking backward is the best and clearest way I have ever seen socialism presented, although that is not hard since I've never seen socialism presented in any light other than a negative one. And in almost every way, it seems better than capitalism. It raises questions in me that I have never had occasion to consider. Why indeed should we not all work together?

Why should one have so much more than another? Will all people are created equal? Why waste so much manpower and economic power with endless duplication of enterprise? Why should many of us live under constant threat of poverty and hunger when the good earth is rich and can support us all equally? Yeah, bro, we know all this, but this might be a pessimistic worldview, but we'll never get there. Humans are too selfish. It'd be nice. It'd be ideal, right? But that's why it's called a utopia and not reality.

Utopia definition. The breakdown of the word utopia means not place. It doesn't exist, okay? If you want to get into the etymology of the word, the Latin root, it's Greek, and it came about in the mid-16th century. The word was first used in the book Utopia, 1516 by Sir Thomas More. That's the book I was talking about. Thank you, Google, for listening to me. Thank you, Google, for always being on my side.

Thank you, Google, for giving me cognitive bias. Or what's that called? Confirmation bias. Yeah, confirmation bias, yeah. An imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. This episode is brought to you by Tinder. This holiday season, Tinder is giving you the best gift of all, time.

Between holiday shopping and travel, you don't have time to worry about first impressions, and you definitely don't have the time to scroll through the hundreds, or if you're like me, thousands, of photos you took this year. Turn on Tinder's new photo selector tool to go through all those photos at once and curate a profile that shows off your best features, like your glowing personality and killer style.

Now you'll spend less time finding the right photos and more time finding new connections and the perfect gift for your mom. Explore all the possibilities for yourself on Tinder. It starts with a swipe. Download Tinder today. A big thing in 1984 is this idea of a new language that limits the mind's capacity to think because it removes the necessary words to express contradictory thought. Hey, I'm terrified.

They call it Newspeak. If you have not read 1984, I really would recommend it. Or if you read it in high school and you're like, eh, it didn't fuck me, I just had to read it. Read it as an adult in your free time and let me know. I love reading y'all's comments under the YouTube video of these podcasts of being like, if you liked so-and-so, you should do this. I had to write a paper on it. And it's really interesting how the author goes into, I read all of them. I read all of them and I, bam, smash that like, bam, throw it a like, bam, red heart.

You guys are smart when you want to be. OK, you guys are smart when you try. And I really appreciate it. Seriously. I think that that was one of the most disturbing parts. Well, it's a very disturbing book, but one of the most disturbing parts is when they're describing new speak compared to old speak.

And it's just this simplification of language to the point of making rebellious thought not even possible because you don't have the words to describe how you're feeling. How terrifying is that? And so there's something called, which is a big plot point. It's a big point of the whole reason he wrote the book is called double think. And double think is to simultaneously hold the belief and belief

an inert, innate knowledge that Big Brother knows best, that the party is always right, that we are all working towards the same goal, that this is correct, that, you know, I trust what the telescreen tells me. Of course I do. Because why would they ever lie? But it's also this

accepting and simultaneous understanding of you're erasing history, that whatever you hear from the telescreen probably isn't true, that it's, you know, to be critical, but at the same time have utmost allegiance to the party and know that they are looking out for you, but also to be like, I know what's going on here, you know? Doublethink is inherent in the plot of what happens to Winston at the very end.

is he resists, he resists, he resists, and they finally break him. And you break someone by really nailing in the idea of doublethink. That yeah, the rebellious thoughts you're thinking, sure, you're right. Is that what you wanted to hear? You're right. But it's how do you quell those while still acknowledging that, yeah, we're actively rewriting history,

We are actively, it's an intentional choice to have you live in poverty so, you know, the inner party can live comfortably. But it's all for the better use of the party. And it is this crazy idea, which makes total sense. If you keep a society in eternal war, it's always going to be this hyper patriotic, like I will do anything for my country. And it's this fervent protest.

hatred for foreign enemies, for, you know,

protecting your territory and trusting your government to take care of stuff overseas. And there's always infighting, and then you're fighting this country one day, and then you're enemy the next day, and you're an ally. It's always switching back and forth. And if you've been at war with Eurasia, and now you're at war with East Asia, you were always at war with East Asia, because of course you were. We were never at war with Eurasia. No, you're making that up. It's insane. I really enjoyed the book. I'm about to start...

Because I love Red Rising. To completely pivot. I miss Red Rising. I miss Red Rising. Me and my friend Jack, we love that series. I've had a book hangover because I finished Lightbringer. Waiting on the seventh book to come out. Which will probably be late next year. I'm pissed off.

I read 1984. I'm still doing Anthony Bourdain's. I go back to Anthony Bourdain's book when I'm like in a slump where I'm like, I don't want to read about political theory or war or this or that. Anthony Bourdain's book is just like, and then the chefs were fucking in the fridge. And then the chefs in the walk-in were fingering each other and then going back to work and making fish stew. And I'm like, hell yeah. I'm highlighting and underlining it. I miss, I miss Tony.

There is a new book series called We Are War of the Plenty. We are... Damn it. I don't remember it. It's on my nightstand. I need to go grab it. But it's supposed to be like to cure the Red Rising hangover. We'll see. We'll freaking see. I don't know. I'm going to start it soon and I'll come back and I'll give you a little review of the first like five, six chapters. Anyway.

Let's do songs of the week. And let's also, if we haven't, talk about Paul Meskel. Because did the Gladiator premiere. Did I debrief after the Gladiator premiere? Paul Meskel is the nicest person I've ever met. Hey. And he's...

I feel like he's one of those people that's on the same wavelength. You know what I mean? Like we had brain blasted. Like even talking to him for what, a minute and a half? Because the production people on the carpet were like, let's keep him moving. Don't keep him for too long. Let's get the viral clip and then let's actually keep going. But I was like, this is an opportunity to not be like, so when you were working out for Gladiator, what was that like when you were the Gladiator Russell Crowe and you held a sword?

He doesn't want to talk about that. So let's do something silly and fun. And I think that it was, you know, that's what I tried to do. It was the best I could do with the time that I was allotted and also the questions I was allowed to ask. I hope he had fun. It looked like he did. And I'd love to have him on royal court, dude. I'd love to have Paul Mescal on royal court. So he just did SNL. I think he did great. SNL's hard. I think he did really good.

I just want to talk to him. You know what I mean? I think he's got such an artist brain. I just kind of want to sit down, talk to him, maybe sing some Irish drinking songs. Maybe I can show him some of my Irish hats or like my Irish flag I put up here sometimes. I don't know. Maybe he can introduce me to Cillian Murphy. I don't know. Maybe we can all hang out together. Maybe we can all watch The Current War together. I don't know. It's like an awesome movie. Anyway.

Dick Harpo was crazy. That was one of the craziest things I've ever fucking done. Thanks for letting me do this job, guys. Seriously. Hey, guys, check this out. I'm making a hand heart. Okay, let's talk about songs of the week. Arctic Monkeys. I'm back in it. I'm back in it. Hosier just released Hymn to Virgil. Love it. Song's so good and I'm pissed off. How much music is he sitting on?

He's done eight post-album releases. Just release the second album. Just release Unreal Unearthed Part 2. And if it has 45 songs on it, good. Stop keeping it from us. You're an evil overlord, Hosier, and I will not tolerate it anymore. Because you're sitting on a heap. You're like a dragon hoarding his gold treasure. And I come up and I'm like a little beggar and I'm like, please, Mr. Sir, if you could spare a gold

And the gold coins are his music. And he's sitting on a big pile of them, of rubies and gems. And I go up and I like put my hand out like a dog, like for a dog to smell my hand before I can pet him. I put my hand out to big dragon hosier. And he goes, and he bites me. That's what it feels like. Share your wealth with the common people.

He keeps releasing these songs and it's just banger after banger after banger. One of my favorite Hosea songs of all time is Empire Now. Empire Now was some B-side, C-side song from like the third release that he did after Unreal Unearthed. It's one of the best songs ever. What the fuck is wrong with him?

I think that I would never want to second guess how an artist feels the art should be ranked, so to speak, in terms of track list, release order, project, what project it belongs on. That's up to him. And I trust him inherently to give us the project that he wants to give us because he is the authority on it. You know what I mean? But at the same time,

If you have that much music and it's all of the same caliber and quality that Unreal Unearthed was, fucking release it. Anyway, love Hymn to Virgil. I also have been loving... Okay, can I just level with you guys for a second? About six months ago, I started to get TikToks of live...

footage, like concert footage of that band. I think you say it McGee, MK.G, Machine Gun Kelly, MGK, McGee. I was getting like, I think it was fake fan accounts.

And Sam Fender does this too. I love Sam Fender to goddamn death. But there is an account that I know is run by his record label. I fucking know it. Because it's like, guys, Sam Fender's new single dropping February 12th. I cannot believe this is the... Guys, isn't everyone pre-saving it? I'm so excited to pre-save it. Shut the fuck up, girl. I'm like, we know it's you. I like every video though. I think that...

I don't know if these videos of McGee were from a label or I don't even know if they're signed, but I ignored them. I was like, who the fuck is this? And I would just scroll. I was like, they're trying to push me. They're trying to push the year of the boy band. Dude, Rockman came out? This song, Rockman by McGee? It's going to be my most played song. I know Spotify rap just happened. It's going to be my most played song of 2025. I am addicted to this song. So now I've gone back into their discography.

It's great. It's great like ambient music to put on the background. It's not too intense. It's not too heavy. I'd love to see them live. I would love to take an bull. I'd love to take a bull and see them live and act and like float above the crowd. It's that type of music. That's I'm addicted to it and the shit, the effects they do on the vocals. Love it. I've also just been back into Jack Harlow. I mean, Hello Miss Johnson is okay. It's not my favorite song ever.

Come Home the Kids Miss You is one of my favorite. It's probably my favorite Jack Harlow album. Like a Blade of Grass, Dua Lipa, all those songs. Love them. And I miss him and I hope this new album's great. And Jack Harlow, I know you're watching. Come on Royal Court. Come on Royal Court because I got something to show you. Okay. Let's, I think that's it. Guys, if you want a muumuu, it's a great Christmas gift. Give your father a muumuu.

Everyone wants to freeball. Let your mom freeball. Let your dad freeball. Let your siblings freeball. A friend. Let yourself freeball. Go pork and beans on it. Really just get in there. Go pork and beans on those moomoos. They're there for you to enjoy. There's Broski Report merch. Go get your slippers, okay? It's going to be a cold winter. Go get yourself some slippers. And I'll see you guys next week, to be honest. Like, to be totally for real with you.

We're filming Royal Court today with a guest that y'all are going to act. You are going to lose your fucking mind. Should I wear the elf ears? We'll see. Okay. Love you guys. Fuck off.