Episode 65
Is Mitch McConnell Alive? I Have Questions. And 40 Tabs On Fire.
I woke up in the middle of the night, checked my phone, and read that Lindsey Graham died. My brain, naturally, read it as Mitch McConnell — because who among us can tell them apart — and from there the whole weekend was just political whiplash.
This one is a tour of the chaos of this timeline. A senator had been missing for almost a month. They said he was "working remotely," and I said, yeah, me too, the only difference is I'm just dead inside. His wife left the country. Contractors were redoing his floors. And I had a lot of questions that nobody was interested in answering, so I did what I do: I made it funny.
Somewhere in there I decided "The Dead Senators" would make an excellent throwback band name (the genre, obviously, is French Regency punk with banjos — a punk rock minuet), I invited everyone to come fight me in our Quirky community, where the Daily Fights have already established that the only acceptable pen is a Pilot V10 in purple and the jury is still out on whether a hot dog is a taco.
And then the part that matters most. A Small Talk from Kristen in North Carolina: "I'm a 38-year-old woman with ADHD, and I look fine. From the inside, I'm running 40 browser tabs, three of which are on fire, and I haven't replied to a text from my sister in 11 days. I want someone to say out loud that looking fine and being fine are not the same thing."
So here it is, out loud: they are not the same thing, and you are allowed to be a put-together human on the outside and a hot mess on the inside. Nobody has it together. Nobody knows what they're doing. We are all raw-dogging life with no guidebook — least of all a guidebook for this exact timeline — and the sooner we stop pretending otherwise, the better.
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Contains strong language and political commentary.
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Transcript
So we had a senator who was MIA for almost a month.
Speaker:he was the majority leader in the Senate, which is like a really powerful position.
Speaker:He's not anymore because he's 84 fucking years old.
Speaker:we know he was taken to the hospital That was a month ago almost.
Speaker:We had no signs of life from him whatsoever.
Speaker:No contact, and the video that we were able, that, that has surfaced of
Speaker:somebody being taken out of his house
Speaker:shows a person on a stretcher with no life-saving measures being taken
Speaker:after the 911 call specifically said that there was an elderly person in
Speaker:cardiac arrest Like bro had to be dead.
Speaker:There's just no way that he wasn't dead.
Speaker:So they took him to the hospital and they said he was getting quote
Speaker:unquote, excellent care Okay.
Speaker:first off, they said that he was working remotely.
Speaker:And I was like, "Yeah, me too. The only difference is I'm only dead
Speaker:inside." but then they said that, he was not running for re-election.
Speaker:Is it because dead people can't run for re-election?
Speaker:I have questions.
Speaker:They're not getting answered.
Speaker:and then they said that he was recovering well, but still no signs of life,
Speaker:and that he was still hospitalized.
Speaker:And I was like, "Does hospitalized include in a refrigerated drawer with a toe tag?"
Speaker:Because none of this sounds correct.
Speaker:so everybody was talking about Mitch McConnell because
Speaker:Mitch McConnell was missing.
Speaker:Nobody had seen Mitch McConnell alive.
Speaker:people were saying they were talking to Mitch McConnell, but nobody had any proof
Speaker:that they'd talked to Mitch McConnell.
Speaker:Oh, and Mitch McConnell's wife, three days after he was hospitalized for a
Speaker:supposed heart attack, left the country and went to China Not sketchy at all.
Speaker:Oh, and then they spotted, flooring people at his house remodeling the floors.
Speaker:We also remodeled the floors in my dad's house after he literally died on them.
Speaker:So I'm just saying.
Speaker:Anyway, all very suspicious.
Speaker:All extra suspicious.
Speaker:So Saturday, this weekend was like Mitch McConnell jokes galore.
Speaker:there's so much stupid, crazy political shit all happening at the same time.
Speaker:They're trying to desensitize us to it.
Speaker:Instead, I feel like they have just made us sensitive to fucking everything.
Speaker:we're sensitive all the time.
Speaker:Like always, everything is constant sensitivity.
Speaker:I feel like everything is whack-a-mole all the time, and my
Speaker:brain is constantly being whacked.
Speaker:Anyway, so Saturday I went to bed, I think I went to bed at a normal
Speaker:time, though I don't actually recall.
Speaker:Woke up in the middle of the night, checked my phone, and saw somebody I
Speaker:know posted that Lindsey Graham died.
Speaker:And I was like, "Oh, did they finally announce that Mitch McConnell died?" For
Speaker:the uninitiated, lots of people confuse Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell.
Speaker:I looked at the post and saw Lindsey Graham, but read Mitch McConnell,
Speaker:and then looked at it again and I was like, "Oh, this guy I know said Lindsey
Speaker:Graham when he means Mitch McConnell.
Speaker:That's weird." And then I saw another post that said Lindsey Graham, and then
Speaker:another post that said Lindsey Graham.
Speaker:So of course, I turn on the television to the news box.
Speaker:Lindsey Graham died.
Speaker:We have confirmation that Lindsey Graham, who was on television healthy
Speaker:the day before, died, was supposed to be on Meet the Press the next day.
Speaker:He died.
Speaker:No confirmation of whether Mitch McConnell is still alive.
Speaker:I would like somebody to go into Mitch McConnell's basement and see
Speaker:if he has like a creepy portrait of himself that seems to be getting
Speaker:older, because that is the only way I can explain what has just happened.
Speaker:Lindsey Graham, 13 years younger than Mitch McConnell, still 71
Speaker:by the way, and like a hard 71.
Speaker:Bro has lived a life.
Speaker:but Lindsey Graham is dead, not Mitch McConnell.
Speaker:Nobody has confirmed that Mitch McConnell is dead.
Speaker:And then the next day, they send out a picture of Mitch McConnell sitting
Speaker:next to his wife that was either fully fake or his medical emergency was a
Speaker:facelift there's no middle ground.
Speaker:None it was the craziest weekend, the whole weekend.
Speaker:the thing about Lindsey Graham, and I actually didn't realize this.
Speaker:I knew that there was a longstanding rumor that he was gay.
Speaker:I knew it.
Speaker:I'd heard it, obviously many times.
Speaker:But I did not realize that he was a confirmed bachelor.
Speaker:I thought that he had like a beard, basically.
Speaker:I thought he had gotten married and had a beard.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Single his whole life, never been married, no children.
Speaker:Now, stories, lots of stories.
Speaker:Did you know that NDAs expire when you die?
Speaker:They do.
Speaker:Every escort in DC has stories about… And I should be
Speaker:clear, every male escort in DC.
Speaker:I said that Lindsey Graham was survived by a bunch of apps on his phone that
Speaker:we're not supposed to know about, because, whew, there are stories.
Speaker:I posted on the internet a statement from Lindsey Graham's housekeeper that
Speaker:just said, "I do not wear shoes because they make me fall down." and the people
Speaker:who got it are my favorite people in the world, and the people who are confused
Speaker:cannot be my friend anymore Because that's like baseline, like good culture.
Speaker:Like you should know what that means or what that's from.
Speaker:but it also led to me watching "The Birdcage" on Sunday, which I
Speaker:very much needed in my soul, and I forgot how much I needed in my soul.
Speaker:So that was what this weekend was like, was just nonstop whiplash political news.
Speaker:like what kind of bitch move is it to preempt your best friend in death?
Speaker:And the thing is like he got, he was in Ukraine the day before,
Speaker:so it's like, has anybody waved a Geiger counter over that guy?
Speaker:Are you ready?
Speaker:No So yeah, it was just a wild weekend.
Speaker:I'm very tired and my brain is like I had a hangover.
Speaker:I did not do anything fun aside from post silly things about Lindsey Graham, and
Speaker:I fell back asleep after like two hours.
Speaker:Also woke my husband up in the middle of the night and said, "Lindsey Graham died."
Speaker:And he said, "No, that's Mitch McConnell." And I said, "No." I
Speaker:was like, "I'm-- I understand.
Speaker:I understand where you're coming from, but that is not what happened.
Speaker:I need you to listen to me." but yeah.
Speaker:There's also a question about, like, how does somebody call 911 when
Speaker:you live by yourself in a townhouse in DC and there's nobody there?
Speaker:And they're saying that he called one of his staffers and said that he was
Speaker:having chest pain, and they called 911.
Speaker:Anyway, that's my weekend
Speaker:Now I wanna watch Birdcage again
Speaker:This was a rumor, I don't know if it's true.
Speaker:Yesterday people were saying Trump scheduled an address to the nation.
Speaker:Somebody reported, I don't know if this is true, but somebody reported
Speaker:that he's doing a press conference to announce that the two senators who were
Speaker:elected in Georgia, who were elected in 2020, were fraudulently elected
Speaker:and that their, elections were a scam.
Speaker:and there was rampant voter fraud in Georgia when they were
Speaker:elected Just what I just, what?
Speaker:the Republicans are down two senators, so let's just oust two Democrats.
Speaker:We'll fix the problem that way.
Speaker:So every time I'm like, "I'm not gonna post any more politics on the
Speaker:internet," this guy does something and I'm like, "This motherfucker."
Speaker:It's like I could not hate this man more if I tried, I'm gonna try anyway
Speaker:It's my obligation.
Speaker:but I will say The Dead Senators would make a really good throwback band name
Speaker:So what kind of music would the Dead Senators play?
Speaker:That's a really good question.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I was thinking like French Regency punk
Speaker:A mix of banjo music And also like gay club music
Speaker:And maybe together
Speaker:But with banjos
Speaker:obviously on the banjos, obviously it's like a punk rock minuet.
Speaker:That's what it is.
Speaker:that's what I hear at least.
Speaker:I don't know what that would sound like, but that's what I hear in my head.
Speaker:I'm inviting you to come fight with me.
Speaker:Seriously, come fight me.
Speaker:Okay, not exactly.
Speaker:so we have a new thing that we're doing in Quirky, our private community, it's
Speaker:Quirky community for the antisocial.
Speaker:and we have, this new thing called Daily Fights that we do during the week,
Speaker:and we post, like a question about,
Speaker:It just, could be anything that people in general disagree upon.
Speaker:we started this very early on with, what the best pen is, it got heated.
Speaker:It got heated.
Speaker:it's a Pilot V10, by the way.
Speaker:There's no other answer.
Speaker:It's a Pilot V10.
Speaker:You can take your G2 and shove it somewhere, but it is a Pilot V10.
Speaker:don't bring me a V7.
Speaker:those are insufficient.
Speaker:It's a Pilot V10, specifically in purple, though we will take
Speaker:it in any color we can get it.
Speaker:Anyway, this is what we fight about fairly regularly.
Speaker:and so we have fights every day about, whether a hot dog
Speaker:is a taco and similar things.
Speaker:Come hang out with us.
Speaker:It's free.
Speaker:It's silly.
Speaker:It's a bunch of weirdos who, want community but don't wanna ever talk to
Speaker:people, and that's kind of how we do.
Speaker:So come hang out with us and come fight me you can find us at alwaysquirky.com
Speaker:We have a small talk from Kristen in North Carolina.
Speaker:" Hi, Lauren.
Speaker:I'm a 38-year-old woman with ADHD, and I look fine.
Speaker:I have a job and an apartment, and I remember to water my
Speaker:plants most of the time.
Speaker:From the outside, I am completely indistinguishable from a
Speaker:person who has it together.
Speaker:From the inside, I am running 40 browser tabs, three of which are
Speaker:on fire, and I haven't replied to a text from my sister in 11 days.
Speaker:I guess I'm writing because I want someone to say out loud that looking fine
Speaker:and being fine are not the same thing.
Speaker:Are they allowed to be different?"
Speaker:Not only are they allowed to be different, the reality is that they are
Speaker:different, what does it mean to look fine?
Speaker:What does it mean to look normal?
Speaker:What is normal?
Speaker:nobody has it together.
Speaker:Nobody Listen, I work with doctors all day and I love working with doctors.
Speaker:They're some of the smartest people on earth, and also they do some of
Speaker:the stupidest shit I have ever seen.
Speaker:I had a doctor once who I worked with text me because he could
Speaker:not get into his bank account.
Speaker:And I was like, What am I supposed to help you with?
Speaker:And he goes, I just changed my password and now it's not working.
Speaker:And I was like, you changed your password for your bank account?
Speaker:No, I changed my password for the EHR.
Speaker:That's a electronic health record.
Speaker:And I was like, how does that affect your bank account?
Speaker:And he was like, doesn't that change all my passwords?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Why would you think that?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Why no.
Speaker:You take scalpels and you cut people, and I justify it by saying
Speaker:they have so much science in their brains that they don't have room
Speaker:for other stuff, and that's fine.
Speaker:We need them to have the science brains and they need people like me who do the
Speaker:other stuff because they're so science smart that they're everything else stupid.
Speaker:I get that.
Speaker:But I'm just saying he's a doctor.
Speaker:That person is a doctor.
Speaker:He went to school for like 20 something years to get letters
Speaker:behind his name that are supposed to mean that he is good at things.
Speaker:it is a very limited number of things that doctors are actually good at.
Speaker:And I say that as a person who fervently loves doctors, who loves working with
Speaker:them, and who will do it for the rest of her career because it's my thing.
Speaker:Nobody has it together.
Speaker:You might have it together in one area and not at all in
Speaker:another area, and that is normal.
Speaker:Not only that, nobody knows what they're doing.
Speaker:We're all just making shit up as we go.
Speaker:There's no manual, there's no guidebook, there's no finish line, nothing.
Speaker:just throw you out into this world of raw dog life as if
Speaker:there's any way to do it right.
Speaker:And then they make you feel like shit all the time.
Speaker:If you're not perfect and you don't have a million dollars in your bank account
Speaker:from selling crypto, that's not realistic.
Speaker:That's not real life.
Speaker:So yes, you are allowed to be an outside presenting, an externally presenting.
Speaker:put together individual and a hot mess on the inside.
Speaker:Not only are you allowed, it is encouraged 'cause it is reality.
Speaker:I actually have enough tabs open on my actual computer right now that
Speaker:even I was like, whew, this is a lot.
Speaker:This is too many.
Speaker:I need to close some of these tabs.
Speaker:It would not be unheard of for me to have a hundred tabs open.
Speaker:That's not an exaggeration.
Speaker:And even I was like, we should probably tamp down this number of tabs.
Speaker:That's the chaos of this timeline.
Speaker:do.
Speaker:You don't feel bad about any of it unless you're an actual asshole
Speaker:to somebody, then you should feel bad and you should apologize.
Speaker:We are all just doing the best we can without a guidebook and certainly without
Speaker:a guidebook for like this exact timeline.
Speaker:nobody was like, Hey, you have to wake up every morning with the crushing
Speaker:reality of fascism pushing down on you.
Speaker:When we thought we eradicated that oh, 70 years ago.
Speaker:Smile, there's no rules.
Speaker:There's no rules.
Speaker:It's fun.
Speaker:that's gonna be on my fucking tombstone.
Speaker:victim of her own success.
Speaker:the other day, my kid asked if she could listen to something, and I said,
Speaker:"Okay, open iTunes and just type it in." And she looks at me and goes, "iTunes?
Speaker:Do you mean Apple Music?"
Speaker:And I was like, "Do you mean get out of my house, you little goblin?" Like, what?
Speaker:I felt like I was like, "Hold on. please let me go sit in the corner where
Speaker:I'm going to disintegrate because my bones are chalk." God, I felt so old.
