Would John Oliver be interested

I once drove cross country in the US from my home in the Ohio valley to the California coast. I have never been on an airplane and had only traveled to the biomes of Appalachia, Great Lakes, or Floridian beach.

I had a wonderful (spiritual?) experience driving through the New Mexico desert. I had never seen so much LAND visible from my point of view, and I got lucky to see this while driving westward at sunrise. Even after seeing the Grand Canyon on this same trip, I wasn’t as affected as I was when I saw the expansive desert.

I am a tall Caucasian male though, so I had a built-in sense of security. It can be a tenuous plan for plucky youngsters, especially young women, safety-wise.

I view your pics all the time and today I just wanna say I admire your commitment and enthusiasm. <3

“Jesus Camp” is just a dive into evangelical child indoctrination camps, in the George W Bush era. One scene has this prayer circle of children praying to a cardboard cutout of W.

It’s arguably not constructive, but I’d say it’s more a mirror to reflect towards a MAGA viewer “Look - this is you now.”

The villain on that movie is particularly scary to me because of how many people would do the same thing.

Amanda Palmer’s The Bed Song (YT link)

Lately I get got by Rise Against’s People Live Here (YT link)

If open to sharing, which music gives eezeebee this effect?

I dragged my introverted ass to 10 houses on my street in an attempt to find a shred of US political solidarity in a red state. I got 7 no answer, left 1 Ring Camera message, 1 polite declination, and 1 prison guard who “doesn’t really watch the news”. I felt awkward as hell but I remain excited about talking to enough people to find 1 or 2 who are like “You think this is all insanity too?!” This isn’t the “topic” OP solicited but as an introvert it feels valuable to share here that I felt good after forcing myself to break that ice.

I am easily spun up talking about myself. Getting me talking isn’t too hard, but I start to feel introvert exhaustion once I think maybe I’m talking too much or I find reason to doubt the person wants to talk any further.

Movies/shows have been good topics for me. Enough people have seen Spaceballs, Interstellar, The Pitt, Marvel that people’s inner nerd pops out like a Jack in the Box when their fandom comes up. A coworker and I once had nothing in common, but I brought up Mystery Science Theater 3000 offhand and she cut me off to shout “I LOVE EMMESSTEE THREE KAY!!”

The hands are at 10 and 2. If you can read this WAKE UP YOU ARE ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL D:

Asking his 12 year old, over the protests of his wife, whether said 12 year old prefers girls with big boobs or small boobs. And pressing the issue for ten minutes after the 12 year old told him that that was an offensive and disgusting question to hear from this particular pervert and demonstrated child groomer.

Echoing Alice’s Restaurant. It’s funny too.

New bar trivia team name: The Group Dubya Bench

Paging Joe Burrow

Dawww, they’d claim that was the reason too. So, my idea goes behind the shed.

Symbol of “the cross” with hover-over text in which Microsoft writes “pray I don’t amend it further.”

For that future timeline when the meaning of Save becomes “stop working, let Copilot perfect it, and close”

And at the exact same site that birthed the meme

Nuclear fusion is only 9 more years away.

I enjoy that community as a non-participant. A user’s decision to merely interact can reveal much more than they intended to reveal - super interesting to me. Just the existence of the community pits dudes with insecurities against their own lack of self control or social tact, for all to see.

Future me might comment there too quickly after overlooking the community name. I’ll get a warranted Tsk and I’ll see myself out. No big deal. It’s not a kick in the nuts unless I make it one.

rising up against all of this

Does Rise Against count?

I am not a good gatekeeper of “mainstream” or “sellout” etc but this feels like a hostile thread so I guess criticism is incoming.

I feel like the entirety of RA’s discography fits this theme perfectly. The songwriting is part of why I can’t get enough.

(I can’t speak for their recent Ricochet album - the sound quality is poor and lots of fans hate it; we hope we get a rerecording some day. Set aside Ricochet and I feel like you can’t go wrong with anything else of theirs.)

Trying to list deeper cuts that might be good hooks:

Album / Song:

The Black Market / Bridges
The Black Market / People Live Here
Endgame / Disparity by Design
Endgame / Midnight Hands
Endgame / A Gentleman’s Coup
Nowhere Generation / The Numbers
Nowhere Generation / Sudden Urge
EP Nowhere Generation II / Holding Patterns
Wolves / Welcome to the Breakdown
Appeal to Reason / Entertainment
EP / Megaphone

And you can’t go wrong with the back to back tracks “Prayer of the Refugee” followed by “Drones” from the album The Sufferer and the Witness.

Even older albums have good stuff but I didn’t list them since idk if you’d call them “modern”. Tip the Scales + Give It All are good tracks.

I’m still seduced from before.