Fireworks, Soccer Pain & NATO’s Bar Tab

Bright: You'll never guess where I'm at. Do you know it I don't think I told ya. Do you know where I'm at? Obviously I'm coming from a very nice hotel room right now.

Duds: somewhere tropical maybe.

Bright: not even close. The exact opposite of somewhere tropical. No, that's a that's a good guess. No, worse.

Duds: Baltimore? let's see. Worse than Baltimore, hm.

Bright: Well, it's not worse. I do I do like it up here, but generally speaking, people would be that I mean most people probably haven't even heard where I'm currently at. I mean it it is a state. No. Well, no. No. I'm in the no. No. No. I'm gonna have to tell you eventually. I mean, not not even in the ballpark. I am north of St. Louis. I'm still in the central time zone. but I'm about as

Duds: Somewhere in the northeast. How about Georgia? Atlanta?

Bright: far north as you could get without being in Canada.

Duds: Somewhere up in Minnesota.

Bright: Mm. More rural than Minnesota. It's a red state. So not that far from North Dakota. I am in Minot, North Dakota. Yes, yeah, Minot. I got a work work event, you know, all actually we're we're done, we're wrapped up. It was a good good couple days. But you know, it's hard to get up here, it's not easy.

Duds: Mm, Montana? North Dakota. Yeah, what's going on over there?

Bright: you know, got up here after a couple of delays and it was a quick trip, just one day, and I head back tomorrow, before the weekend. But actually been coming up to Minot for years, just had a great a great dinner. They actually have a very nice downtown, believe it or not. had some had some drinkies, but you were late, so it killed my buzz. So I yeah, I picked up a couple from the front desk of the hotel. You know, I stopped at a gas station.

Duds: We'll just have to have a couple more. You need to drink a lot of those to get a buzz.

Bright: Well, I I already had a couple of craft beers and then an old fashioned you know that the old Yeah, this one was good. It was a black walnut old fashioned, so it had a really nice undertone flavor to it. so I was like, All right, feeling pretty good and getting ready to podcast, right? So I was like, I'll just stop at the gas station. No, I guess that's not a thing up here, you know, like back home you stop at the gas station, you get so yourself some tow boys, you know. But nope, nope.

Duds: Ала лавом. Yeah. Yep. They must have some blue laws up there, huh?

Bright: something. They're like, You gotta go to the liquor store. I'm like, Yeah. So I just at the luckily at the front desk they had a couple of beers ready to go.

Duds: Yeah. Not like Missouri, man. It's freedom down here. You can just buy your liquor at a gas station, get everything you want.

Bright: There is something to be said about that. You know, I've I've traveled all over the country. You know, Philadelphia is is one place in particular where it just amazes me how strict their their liquor licenses are. And I guess it it might date all the way back to like the Puritan days or yeah, like something, like crazy stuff because they're really strict. A lot of restaurants, like restaurants don't even have liquor licenses. That so they just let you bring your own

Duds: Mm-hmm. Prohibition. Yeah.

Bright: beer and wine in, which I I know a lot of places do that and they have the corking fee and all that. But like these places don't even sell alcohol. I'm like, how do you make money? Like money? I know. You have to Yeah. You have to like wait until somebody there's only a finite amount of liquor licenses. So you have to wait for somebody to like go out of business or give theirs up and then you have to be in next in line. It's like an organ donor or something like that. It's crazy. And you know, meanwhile in Missouri, St. Louis in particular, they're just handing them out.

Duds: That's kinda crazy. That's a big money maker, yeah. Yeah.

Bright: They're right, you know, just you want a liquor license, you get yeah. It's a free for all, you know. All the Catholic churches.

Duds: yeah. It's a free for all. Ever tell you about Yeah, when I when I first moved to Kentucky, they have blue laws there too. I guess it's you know, depending on what state and I actually goes by county, I think a lot of the times too. So it's funny because you couldn't buy I don't think you could buy any alcohol on Sundays, maybe or something like that. And then it was funny because the in Kentucky they had a bunch of drive through

Bright: Yeah, counties. Yeah, and some dry counties, yeah. Right, yep, yep.

Duds: What was it? I think in Kentucky they had the drive through cigarette stores. And then over in West Virginia and Ohio they would have like the drive thru liquor stores. So people would go across the the border to get their cigarettes or liquor wherever they wanted to go.

Bright: Okay. Right. Yeah. So I remember my dad telling me, you know, when he was growing up, in Missouri you had to be twenty one, of course, to drink, which of cour is the rule now. But in Illinois, his age, you only had to be eighteen. So they would just weird. And like, I mean that's a big difference, eighteen and twenty one. So they just drove across the border. And of course, why do you think Yeah, when you're that close, why do you think my dad chose to go to school in Illinois? Like I I c I could tell ya.

Duds: Right, that's weird. Yeah, when you're that close. would probably be a big factor right there.

Bright: You know. A big factor, yeah, yeah. They it may have something to do with soccer or scholarships, but I'm sure a lot of it had to do with access to alcohol.

Duds: You know, when I was when I was in school they fraternities have walkouts. I don't know if know what that is. But like the pledges will go on a walk out and they'll basically escape from the all the actives. The actors will try to capture and hold them for ransom. but the walkout is like where they all leave and they'll go to another campus, usually some kind of locally to wherever the school is. so the some of the pledges that they were younger than than me, I went with them.

Bright: Right. Right.

Duds: like their big brothers went with them on their walkout. We went down to Penn State, which is over in Kansas, and they have obviously they've got laws over there and they only sell like three point two percent beer. So they would always come right across the border to Missouri to get the real beer. And they would they would sell it till one in the morning in Missouri. They would stop selling way earlier in Kansas. So there's always a little tricks people, you know, college students for sure, circumventing the laws.

Bright: Right. Yeah. Yeah. case is terrible. Yeah. Yes. Right. Right, right. Of course. Yeah, for sure. I did always think that was weird in Kansas, like three percent I'll I'm like you can't even how do you even do craft beers? Like I I don't even I don't even get it. I don't know.

Duds: You know, I don't know what all the laws are, but I know that when we were driving down to Texas once, we stopped in Kansas to get more beer because we had run out from our Kansas we started in Kansas City. We were driving down to somewhere in the middle of Texas and we ran out of beer in Oklahoma. So we went in and you could buy you could buy the full strength beer, but it was warm. It was not cold. If you wanted if you wanted cold beer

Bright: Yeah. 'cause they did they were like, You're not gonna drink it. Yeah.

Duds: Yeah, if you wanted cold beer, it was the three point two percent beer. So we opted for we opted for the the warm beer. You just ice it down. Yeah, you ice it in the cooler, you're good. But I guess they figure you're gonna drink it on the way home, so give you the the lighter beer.

Bright: Wow. The warm beer, yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right, right. They probably don't want people drinking drinking and driving. That's probably what they're thinking, 'cause you know, Oklahoma's such a waste of state. Just driving through it, right? So you gotta get yourself some some beer to make it to make it across the border. that's funny.

Duds: Right. And do you remember I think it's Bud Select fifty five or something like that? Do they still make that? It was like two point six percent or something crazy. Yeah, super low alcohol.

Bright: Yeah, yeah, yeah. really? it was just called Select Select fifty five. I definitely remember it. I didn't realize it was that low in alcohol. I know it was all about like fifty five calories or something like that. I don't know. But you're right. If you're gonna have a beer that light, it would have to be less alcohol, you would think.

Duds: When I was working out in Virginia I was working out in Virginia and we had some of those and I think I drank like twelve. I like, I don't feel a buzz from these. So we looked at it, it was like, it's only two and a half percent alcohol. It's like nothing.

Bright: Yeah, no wonder. No wonder. Yeah, even over in England, you know, they had there were several beers on tap, their cascales or whatever that were only like three point six percent or whatever, or three point nine. I'm like, what is this? I'm like, even even an ultras for two, you know. Like that's kind of the minimum, anything less than anything less than four. And I'm like, This is this is a weak man's beer. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Duds: Yeah, it's getting a little a little weak. A little weak.

Bright: All right. Well before I know we've already been just chatting about stuff, but before we I got I even though it's a light episode, I'm on the road. I didn't have as long to prepare. I wasn't even sure if we were gonna record this week, actually. But I got some stuff to talk about. But I you know, how was your fourth? Obviously we're coming off the fourth of July. It's good holiday weekend, I think, across the board. We had our our guys' night on Thursday night. that you got interrupted by the ladies. of course it did.

Duds: Little bit.

Bright: A little bit, so if any of the ladies are listening, I tell ya. but yeah, that yeah. Well, you know, I heard somewhere that it was like the most fireworks ever bought and set off across the country that DC, even the even the CNN panelists, the liberals that are down on Trump and everything, they're like, you know what, this was the the biggest, yeah, the biggest show that they've ever had.

Duds: Told you was like a war zone here on Fourth of July, man. It looked like the middle of Baghdad or something. It was a big show.

Bright: And I think I don't know if they were trying to set the record and I think they more than doubled yeah, they more than doubled the biggest fireworks show ever in DC. I'm assuming it's probably a record.

Duds: They must have. Yeah. They said from what I saw it was like eight hundred and fifty thousand shots. And and I think their previous year was like thirty thousand. So and I don't I'm sure they've done bigger ones, but that's a massive show. That's definitely definitely a record. It has to be. I I saw some of the video of it. It was amazing looking.

Bright: Yeah, huh. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I saw. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It yeah, it looked cool. You know, even the the St. Louis one, you know, I saw the videos of that down by the arts. I mean, it it's a very cool vibe, certainly, and and I've gone downtown to see it. It's it's neat. They had the drone show, I think, on Friday night, and then the fireworks show on Saturday night. You know, back in the day though, they used to do three days of fireworks, you know. It was all and now they've cut it down and I don't know if that's more budget or they kind of started with COVID. They were like, we're only gonna do one, and then they just kept it. It's kinda like a lot of a lot of things companies cut back and they're like, this is just the new standard, right? but it's still it's yeah, it still looks still look cool. We haven't gone down in a couple of years. And actually I wanted to talk about that a little bit later in the show. But but yeah we we had some good fireworks even just in the neighborhood, you know, off the deck. I had people over. The rain kind of sucks on Saturday. We had that crazy st it was a it was intense storm for a while.

Duds: Mm-hmm. I hate that. Yeah. Court.

Bright: so kind of threw a rent. I mean poured windy, like like torrential downpour for for a little bit. We lost power, like just like very briefly. In, out, in, out, you know. and I was like, no, of course we were watching the World Cup game. I had the baseball game on, you know, everybody was drinking down at the bar. We weren't outside because we knew it was coming, but yeah, they are gonna tell me about it. Yes. Yeah, because it was still hot, although the storm cooled it down a lot.

Duds: yeah. Right. And the main thing, the air conditioner. You know It did, it did.

Bright: and then we were able to sit out on the deck in the evening. I made some mudslides, got the patriotic music going, you know, and and watch the fireworks. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It ended up being pretty nice. Yeah. Well you did your big fireworks show on Friday night, right? So yeah. Yeah, yeah, good.

Duds: Yeah, after that storm came in it actually turned out to be pretty nice in the evening. We did. Yeah, I got a lot of compliments on it. People loved it. People were texting my neighbors like, Do you know there's people shooting fireworks off in your backyard? Are you home? Yeah, it was probably about a twelve twelve or

Bright: You're like, yeah, we got it.

Duds: thirteen minutes. You know, it was not bad for twelve hundred bucks. I mean but that other one yeah, yeah, they loved it. I'm glad we did it on Friday night, got it out of the way. I was sweating my ass off when I was wiring all that stuff up. For sure.

Bright: Yeah. That's pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah. And your kids liked it, I assume. Yeah. Yeah, better weather though in in general probably. You didn't have to worry about that. And then on Fourth of July you could just kick back, relax, and watch everybody else's shows. Yeah. Yeah.

Duds: Exactly. Yep. And that one I'm telling you went on behind my house. It had to be forty five minutes long. It was it was massive. Yeah, they they outdid themselves. So it was pretty cool.

Bright: Really. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It it blows my mind the amount of money that people are spending on on fireworks. I mean you're so you're self included. You're self included, but I just like letting everybody else do it. But it it was fun. I spent my money on barbecue and beer. I had plenty of that. I made some pork burnt ends as an appetizer. they were they were good, man. They were good. And so I smoked them, got up early, cut it all up.

Duds: Lighting on fire. Yeah, how'd those turn out? Those look good.

Bright: put them in the smoker at probably about like 10 o'clock. At about noon, I pulled them out, wrapped it in tin foil, put in put on the barbecue sauce, a little honey drizzle, and then put on some home homemade jalapeno and banana peppers just to give it a little bit of spice, poured in a beer, and then put it back on the smoker, cooked off some of the well, you know, let it stew, and then I pulled the foil off, cooked. cooked down some of that sauce, made nice and sticky. and then I put in the crock pot just to keep warm for serving. And they were a hit. They were a hit, no doubt about that.

Duds: Yeah, I love how you have like your you grow your own peppers. That's awesome.

Bright: Yeah, we love doing that and making I have my own salsa out and you know, all of that. But we we have a bunch of peppers right now. jalapenos, banana, hot banana, and then so I forget what they're called, but they're like a a flare pepper. And we thought they were jalapenos just by looking at And we were like, my god, these they're so hot. And then when we went we looked in the garden, we're yeah, they're like a flare pepper. This is not this is not a jalapeno.

Duds: yeah.

Bright: but yeah, so it was good. It was good. Then I did brats and burgers and the standards. So right now I have like an offset Texas smoker. so I have it's a grill, I have the propane, and then it has charcoal, and then I have the offset Texas style smoker. and and it's it's cool because you get that true authentic smoke flavor, but it's a pain in the butt trying to keep the temperature, and I I have to babysit it the whole time and

Duds: What kind of smoker do have? Okay. Mm-hmm. It is.

Bright: So eventually it's yeah, a lot of work now that I've got the new deck and everything, at some point, when a good bonus check comes in or whatever it may be, or we take a year off where we don't go to Europe, whatever, I was like, I'm gonna buy a pellet smoker, a little bit a little bit easier, you know, high quality, get trager, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Duds: A lot of work. Mm-hmm. A Traeger or camp chef or something. Yeah. They're just so easy. It's like an oven, you know, and mine mine you can control from your phone, you know, you can check the temperature.

Bright: Exact that's what my brother has and every single time he smokes it's perfect, every time. You know, so I'm like, you know what? Yeah, it is kind of crazy, you know. So I'm like, you know what, I gotta gotta go that route. This is cool and it it feels more authentic, but it it does take a lot of work. There's no doubt about it. So yeah.

Duds: Yep. And it's kind of crazy. Sure. I know it was a lot of fun. I used to have the Oklahoma Joe offset smoker and that was the first time I'd done pork butts on there. But like you said, I mean you're babysitting it for sixteen hours or something, you know.

Bright: Yeah. Uh-huh. Babysitting. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I always used to smoke a turkey for Thanksgiving. And I I had an electric smoker and it was perfect, you know, and I get the turkey in there. It came out perfect every time. but when we moved into the new house, I had the Texas and I did it one year and I had to babysit and I had the alarm. So I was sleeping down on the sofa, the alarm was going off because of the temperature dropped, like I'm just like, I can't do this. So now I switch to the deep fry. The deep fry turkey. You know, which is still very good. ex exactly. Forty five minutes and you're set. Yeah, yeah. So

Duds: Yeah, and you're done in an hour. I mean you really can't beat it how fast it is and it tastes great. You know. Every time. I I that's what we do up at for Thanksgiving up at my in laws. We just deep fry a turkey up there and it turns out amazing. I love doing it and then I take all the oil and Sure. Yep. Yeah, the key is I think just turning the turning the flame off when you put the turkey in.

Bright: it's fantastic. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You just gotta be safe, that's the biggest thing, yeah. I think that's the number one mistake people make, you know, because you might think that you've thawed that turkey. Or you might think that you measured out the oil perfectly, you know, but that little mistake and they leave the flame on, and that's that, exactly. So if you just turn off the flame, you know, put it even if you spill, yeah, you're gonna make a little bit of a mess, but you're not gonna engulf yourself in fire. So, you know. Four yeah, four hundred degree oil. man.

Duds: Right. That starts to spill over, you're done. Yep. And four hundred degree oil fire.

Bright: I I burnt myself not that long ago. It go it goes up crazy fast. I burnt myself, I was deep frying chicken wings. And I don't know if I had like a little bit of water maybe in there or I'm I'm not exactly sure because I've done it before, obviously. But I went over to reach over is all it took to turn down the the dial. And it because this this is my electric one that I use for chicken wings, not my big turkey one, and just the smoke.

Duds: 'Cause it goes up crazy fast. Mm.

Bright: burnt my like half of a second. I was like, ow. And I had like second degree burns on my arm because it was four hundred degree smoke or whatever. Like I was like, shit. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I was like, I won't make that mistake again. That's that's for sure. So all right. should we get it? Yeah.

Duds: yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah, and if you have any water that stuff just pops right out of there 'cause it Nope. Yeah, so speaking of that, you remember hearing that story about the guy who killed himself by sticking his face in the deep fryer in that restaurant?

Bright: that was that was relatively recently. Yeah. did we talk about it? I don't remember if we talked about it on the pod, but

Duds: Yeah, it was like in the past few months or something, but I mean we might have, but that just reminded me of it. I mean, that's I don't know w that's a way to go. Like 'cause it couldn't have been fast, like, you know.

Bright: Yeah. Yeah. I know like why why would you do that? No, you have to feel it. You're gonna feel it. Yeah, it's not like the jet engine that we talked about a couple of weeks ago, the guy that just threw himself into the jet engine and it's over instantly.

Duds: Yeah. Like you you chose one of the most painful ways to probably kill yourself.

Bright: Ugh all right. Well I have a story, so I guess maybe we'll just skip down to that one. This is one I was gonna end it's actually yeah, the one I was gonna end with, but since you brought it up, suicide, you know, I might as well get to it. Did you hear about this flight instructor that was up on a he was up on a training flight, he's teaching this kid how to fly a plane, and in the middle of the flight he jumps out of the cockpit to his death on purpose to kill himself.

Duds: my god.

Bright: And I guess he told he told the kid who like he may have been like eighteen or you know, I don't know ex his exact age. That's what he said. He was like, You've got it from here. You know? And then this kid had never landed a plane before. I don't know if it was his first plane or whatever. Yeah, so I mean, what an asshole, you know. I mean, this this a true story. It happened this last week. I think it was in Argentina.

Duds: Good luck. my God. Could you imagine? Like what what did he he just jumped out of the plane?

Bright: I didn't do enough research to see actually where it was. But yeah, you're on your own, kid. Like, good luck. And then the student like kept us cool, called the radio tower, you know, told him what was going on. Yeah. Probably, yeah, practical joke. And yeah, and he ended up landing the plane just fine. But what the hell? Like just mid flight. Just I'm out of here.

Duds: You're not gonna believe this. They had to think he was messing with them. Like, no way, you wouldn't have done that. Wow. I guess they just kinda gave him the directions, like, Yeah, just do this, pull up. You know, it's like remember Top Gun on Nintendo? Did you ever play that?

Bright: I don't know that I ever played I've done like the flight simulators on Xbox and stuff like that, you know.

Duds: The old antenna? Yeah, that was one of the toughest games, top gun, back on the old NES. And you'd you'd have to land on the carriers and it'd tell you, you know, pull up, pull up, aim down and left, left and you'd crash into the water every time or overshoot the carrier and crash and

Bright: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I tell you, that's gotta be one of the the hardest things to do in real life is to probably to take off and land on a carrier, you would think, right? Yeah. Yeah. Not mm mm. You screw up, you're in the water. It's happened. I know it's happened.

Duds: You yeah, I would think so. Yeah, there's not not a very long runway. I mean they're just they're touching down and hitting those, you know, cables to stop So I mean, if without that, they they'd fly right off.

Bright: Yeah. Yeah. And then they d don't they yeah. Yeah. Do they throw parachutes too out the back?

Duds: I I don't well maybe. I don't know. I don't think so. I think they just they catch that I think they catch that wire and then it it sh it stops them like almost immediately. Because without it the I don't think the runway is long enough. You can't land on it otherwise.

Bright: Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy.

Duds: I've actually been watching a show on World War Two on Netflix. it's like I don't know, a six part series or something like that. Going through the whole war and they were talking about or showing like the flight or the carriers over in the Pacific and the Battle of Midway and how these some those old planes, man, that they used in World War Two, they were just like so small. Those little fighter planes. They looked like they were looked like they were made out of just like, you know, plastic or something, but

Bright: Sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, little propeller planes. Yeah. They probably were. They were probably making them so quickly, you know, they were just putting you know spaghetti cans together to build these things. Yeah.

Duds: Yeah. They barely looked like they could fly. I mean I mean and to be shooting each other like with those it's crazy to think that all those guys were up there. I mean trying I was watching that and trying to put myself in like those guys' shoes like pretty nuts. Pretty nuts.

Bright: Yeah. All right. Sure. Yeah. Pretty nice. All right. Well, speaking of World War Two, we had the USA Belgium match. did you watch the game? Our our Access and Allies game? Well, I've been thinking about strategy, man, because I thought that I had you beat and somehow you came back and and managed to win. So

Duds: I thought you were gonna I thought you were gonna talk about our our our game we played.

Bright: I think we just might need to do a straight up rematch. I'll stick with Axis. You play the Allies. Yeah. You know, all right. So we're way off tangent here. But you were talking about modding, you know, Axis and Allies. And I was like, I I think it would be awesome to do that. And I wonder if it exists or if it's possible to do, because you know, the old computer game, they you could.

Duds: Sent those paratroopers sent those paratroopers into Berlin and killed Hitler. Mm-hmm. Had it. Yeah.

Bright: You had all of these different you could have the paratrooper rules, you could have all of these different rules that you could institute just toggle on and off, you know. So I was like, It'd be pretty cool if somebody, you know.

Duds: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I don't know why they it seems like this game they haven't really supported like in the last year, couple years for some reason. But it seems like there's enough players on there, like I don't know why they haven't really been doing anything with it. It would be nice to have some more options on some of those technology roles and stuff, 'cause that was kind of fun, you know. Changes the game quite a bit.

Bright: Yeah, right. They made it and then that was kinda it, yeah. Right, right, right. Yeah. I don't know. That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well it changes the game absolutely. And if you know you're kinda out of it, you start throwing some money at a you know, a technology thing, and maybe you get lucky and all of a sudden you start investing all your money in bombers or I don't even remember. But you know, I told you I got the new board, you know, the map coming to the house at some point. So we'll have to get an in-person access malaise game going. Like like the old days. I think it'd be fun once I once I get that set up on the dining room table and

Duds: That would be fun. I would like to do that.

Bright: Bigger, it'd be fun.

Duds: Just t kind of time consuming, but you just gotta set aside like a whole day to do it.

Bright: But yeah, you just you said yeah, definitely you've got one whole day with some beers and some pizzas, you could do it, you could do it. Well, no. So I was talking about the USA Belgium. I we we bailed Belgium out of the war, World War II, like it it connects, right? But this it I I do want to talk about it. I mean, I it we it was tough to watch, and it was really disappointing for me as as a

Duds: I think so. Do we really want to talk about that soccer game? it was so bad. It was tough to watch.

Bright: Soccer fan, you I'm sure it was disappointing for everybody and new fans are, you know, they're like getting excited about Team USA. And we had played pretty good up to that point. You know, now we're going up against Belladim. Who I mean they're a good team. They're ranked higher than us, top ten in the world, you know. And but we're at home. We're playing in Seattle. You know, we're the home team. So I I think there was a reasonable expectation that we were at least gonna compete and possibly, you know.

Duds: Sure.

Bright: And the way that I looked at it, you know, this is the biggest World Cup they've ever had, but there's never been a round of 32 before this year, right? So I was like, this is actually no. Uh-uh. It always went straight to the round of sixteen, which for the most part, USA, when they make the tournament, I was like, they're usually pretty good to win the group stage or or make it out of the group stage. That was always the goal to get to the next round. And then

Duds: they never did that? Okay.

Bright: you know, hopefully winning around a 16 game. If you could get to that, you know, the Elite Eight, if you want to call it. That's a big win for the US. And that's how I felt about this game. So I was like, even though we had a pretty decent World Cup, you know, it ended up being a complete blah, you know, complete bust because we threw up a stinker against Belgium. You know, it wasn't even like the Mexico England game. You know, Mexico lost. And of course they were outmatched. England's a great team. They were playing in Mexico.

Duds: I don't know Still a good game to watch though. Mm-hmm.

Bright: It was a great game to watch, and Mexico was laying it on thick at the end of the game. Chances glory, you didn't know what was going to happen. It was a nail biter. And we had the exact opposite. No. We gave up the early goal. You could tell as soon as we came out we were timid, you know, desped. There's that ball in the box, and he's going up for the header, and then he's like, No, never mind. And he just looks up. Well, the Belgian player goes and gets the ball, and now it's a goal. You know, and you're like, We're yeah. Then we score, and you're

Duds: Yep. They were in it. Not this game. Yeah. And then we score and then less than a minute later they they give up a goal. As soon as that happened, you're like, This is not good.

Bright: Yeah, yeah. This is not good. Exactly. Yeah. You thought that was our opportunity to get back into it.

Duds: Then our Goalie freeze misplaying that ball was just horrible. That was you felt bad for him.

Bright: I well of course, of course you do. And I was yelling. We were my dad, my brother, we went to the bar, we're watching it, and I was like, the guy filed him, like he clipped him from behind. I was like, don't worry, they'll review that and it's gonna come back. And then they show the replay. I'm like, what the fuck did he do? I'm like, what is he doing? Like, and then Tim Reem, Saint Saint Louis in the boot, the captain, he he could have still stopped that ball.

Duds: He kicks the ground. It was like a second second grade play or something, you know. Mm-hmm.

Bright: You know, he was all off balance and he couldn't get and then I'm like, my God. And then we let up the the late one. But I was like, other than that one free kick, it was a terrible game. Christian Politic had not only a terrible game in hindsight, he had a terrible World Cup. You know, like he's our star player and he was a nothing. He they said it was like a micro fracture, like he's out three to four weeks, you know, landed

Duds: Yeah. Did he break his toe or something? Looked like I hurt.

Bright: Landon Donovan, who I generally consider to be the best American player of all time, I understand Christian Christian Polisek might be a better player by today's standards. But Landon Donovan, I think, meant a lot more, certainly at the time, to US soccer. He played in Europe. He's a great player. He decided to play most of his career in the United States, played with Beckham on the Galaxy, all those things. But you know He scored some big goals for Team USA, but Lana Donovan came out and said like he would have had him have been dragged off the field. And I believe him. He talked about how he played a game against Ghana years ago that we lost, but he said he played it with a torn handstring or something like that. Torn hamstring. He was like, I I played like you're at the world stage. But yeah. So and then so Christian Pallissa comes off in the 60th minute and didn't do anything, really didn't do anything all tournament long.

Duds: the big you know, you're at the the world stage. Yeah.

Bright: felt like a big bust, our goalie screwed up, our defense wasn't good enough. You know, it it just felt like a big letdown. Even at the bar, I overheard some people saying like, well, if the USA's out of it, I don't know that I want to watch the World Cup anymore. And I was like, that's a little bit of a bummer because there's still some great games. Did you watch that Argentina game the other day? Arg Argentina, Egypt. Egypt was up two nothing on Argentina. It was like like the 85th minute or something like that.

Duds: Sure. No, I haven't I haven't watched anything since. is what you're saying, right?

Bright: And Argentina came back and scored three goals before the end of the game. Messi Messi scored the winning goal. And it's like, what the heck? no. They're never out of it. That's that's for sure. But I I couldn't believe it. And you know, now we got the Norway England game this weekend. That's the one Saturday. I'm looking forward to that one.

Duds: That's crazy. Well, they're never out of it. I do like all the videos and everything with the Norwegian guy. What's that big guy's name on Norway? That dude just looks like a Viking.

Bright: Yeah, Holland's Hollands. Yeah. He's I've always been a fan of his. He is. He's a Viking. And you know what's interesting is, you know, he's he's probably the best striker in the world. He might not be the best pure goal scorer. That might still go to Messi. but but Holland is the best striker in the world, and he's scoring a goal on average in the World Cup once out of every thirteen times he touches the ball. Which is insane.

Duds: That's wild.

Bright: He only touches the ball thirteen times every time he scores a goal. And you'll watch you'll watch him play and he'll just kind of mope around the field most of the game. And then all of a sudden it's like boom, he jumps in and he just scores a goal out of nowhere. And people are like, I don't even know what happened. He was just like a second ago, he's just moping around like he doesn't care. And then all of a sudden he's he he knows when to turn it on. So that's that's pretty exciting. Some other stats though about he's sneaky.

Duds: That's pretty wild. He knows when to turn it on, yeah. Little sneaky.

Bright: about the USA Belgium game. We had in the United States we had 42 million viewers. And that's a new record. And it's the most watched soccer game in America. And I didn't in I didn't independently research this next stat, so I did hear it, but that no baseball game, MLB, NHL, or NBA game has ever had forty two million people tune in. Only the NFL has more than that. So

Duds: Wow. Thanks Pretty good. Yeah.

Bright: so that's pretty cool. That's pretty good. The only downside is we gotta wait another four years, you know, for for another really interesting USA match. So yeah. That's right. We'll see. We'll see. All right. a couple of other stories here.

Duds: Yeah, four years to get it together, boys. Well hopefully it doesn't hopefully it doesn't turn anybody off and everybody just gets more excited the next time, you know.

Bright: Well, and that's what but you know what, to be fair, that's what I feel like we say every World Cup is like, well, hopefully this helped to grow the game. Well, you know what'll help grow the game? Start beating some good teams. Yeah. Start beating some of these European teams in games that matter. You know, it's one thing to beat a Belgium or, you know, whatever in a friendly which we we haven't done that either, but in a knockout World Cup game, win or go home game, that

Duds: Right. Winning. Mm-hmm.

Bright: That is a true difference maker. So no. No. Yep. you know, we I I can remember a couple of games. We did make it to the the Elite Eight, if you will. One we play in Germany, I think. And I think it from what I remember, it was really close. We had them up until the very end, and we ended up losing. And I th that might be the infamous handball game where Germany, we almost scored a goal, and Germany.

Duds: It's just one of those things they've never been able to, you know, step their game up.

Bright: uses their hand to keep the ball out of the net. And of course it was before can't do that. And it would put before the days of VAR and RAF didn't see it and Germany came back and ended up winning that game. And, you know, we've had opportunities. We four years ago we played the Netherlands, you know, it's just like you just gotta win one of these games against a big European team and that could be the the difference. So

Duds: Can't can't do that? Yeah. There's really no reason that we shouldn't be able to beat too. I mean, w why not? You know?

Bright: I remember years ago, I think it was the South Africa World Cup. Before that, before the World Cup, and I don't know if they do this anymore, but they played the smaller tournament, the Confederations Cup. And it's basically a warm-up to the World Cup for the host nation so that they can practice. And so certain teams get invited. I don't I don't know how that all works out. But the USA was invited. And we made it all the way to the finals of this Confederations Cup, and we were playing against Brazil in South Africa the year before the World Cup. So this is a big deal. You remember the South Africa one, don't you, with the Vubuzelas? Yeah, yeah, the Vubu Zeilas. And and we're up two to nothing at halftime against Brazil, who at the time was the number one team of the world. You know, I know they've slipped since then, but the number one team of the world, and we're up two to nothing.

Duds: I think so. Yeah. Right.

Bright: And wouldn't you know it? We lost three to two. You know, it's just it's like we just we just can't do it. We just we haven't been able to to get over that hump. It's kinda like the blues beating the blackhawks, right? The Cubs finally winning a World Series. Or, you know, well you gotta you gotta get over that mindset that you don't deserve it, or if some other team deserves it more, or you know, yeah, I don't know. So until

Duds: Right. You'd like to think that one of these days, one of these days we're gonna get there, but yeah. Hopefully in our lifetime.

Bright: Yeah, yeah. I don't know. We'll see. You know who's not gonna get there? Graham Plantner. You following the story at all? Do you know you don't know anything about so that that name means nothing to you? Ugh, it's just a name. All right, so he was the Democrat Senate candidate for Maine.

Duds: Yeah, it's just a name. Who is that?

Bright: So he's running against Susan Collins in the state of Maine. Yeah. Well Susan Susan Collins isn't a great Republican. We'll we'll go that much. Now Maine is kind of one of these split states, right? So yeah, yeah, yeah. So she's she's not great, but she doesn't get along with Trump and like the the what is the bill, the Make America Great Again bill, is that what it is? with

Duds: That name sounds familiar. Yeah. One of those rhinos. Yeah. Big beautiful girl.

Bright: Big beautiful bill. I don't know, whichever one they're trying to do to pass voting laws and all of that. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Yeah. Is it might be the Make America great again? Save America. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she's one of the holdouts on that, you know. So she's not a a great Republican. But of course, you know, the Democrats are trying to win back the Senate. They thought this guy, right, Graham Plantner, was gonna be the guy. This blue collar oyster farmer.

Duds: that one the big beautiful big beautiful bill already passed. That was earlier in the year. This is the Save America. Save America. Yeah. Course.

Bright: Former vet, you know, like liberal mindset. This this is our guy, you know. has not gone well for them. And so he just dropped out of the race or suspended his campaign. And it's been a slew of scandals. A slew. Yeah. Well, yeah. So the b the biggest one that's that kicked it all off, not the biggest one that

Duds: I think I might have heard that there was some scandals going on. I don't know if it was that guy.

Bright: finally got him to suspend his campaign. But the guy has a Nazi tattoo on his chest. So that's the that's the story that you probably are familiar with. And yet all the Democrats still blast him. So they don't like it when when Elon Musk gives a you know a high five to the crowd or whatever, a wave to the crowd. He's a Nazi, but the guy that has an actual Nazi tattoo on his chest could be the Democrat for Senate. He's fine. You know, he covered it up. So it's cool.

Duds: yeah. That's our guy? He's fine. He's totally fine.

Bright: You know, so well, ever s that was the first thing. And of course Republicans were, you know, conservative news people, they're like, How can you support this guy? Like like you you're complete hypocrites, so on and so forth. Well, now it turns out right. But meanwhile you have an actual Nazi that you're supporting. And all Chuck Schumer, all of these popular Democrats are supporting this guy. And well then it like a couple of things started to come out about

Duds: You're calling Trump a Nazi all the time.

Bright: he had a sexting scandal that was not with his wife. You know, so that if it's his wife, okay. You know, you're allowed to sex your wife. No, it it was not it's a crazy. It was it was not his wife, you know, multiple women. you know, this was after his 2023 marriage. So he's I think he's roughly our age, you know, like 39, 40, 41, somewhere in that in that range, you know, so

Duds: Yeah, that's fine. It's encouraged.

Bright: so that was number one. Then he had all these old school social media posts that started to go, you know, viral. You know, of course, now you're in the spotlight. Things are gonna start coming up, you know. So he Yeah, he had you know Well, and I get that, you know, I do understand because when you're younger, I mean I can look back at some of my original Facebook posts, and I nothing like was crazy or bad, just like I'm like, What why am I posting that? You know.

Duds: Sure. People are gonna start digging into your social media past, of course. I hate I actually hate that, but Right. I don't remember I don't remember doing that.

Bright: Or, you know, like yeah, you break up with a girl and you write something, you know, some song lyric or you know, I'm like, what was I what like what am I doing? You know? so I yeah, I get that. And certainly social media has changed some of these things. But he had some like he blamed sexual assault victims, saying that they have to take r some responsibility for being sexually attacked, you know, putting themselves in compromising positions.

Duds: I don't know how you can make a a broad claim like that. Like you don't even like every situation is different anyway. Like how could you possibly say that?

Bright: That they need to act like adults. You cannot, of course. Like obviously. You can't you can't s you can't. You can't say that. Like so he did that. He downplayed military sexual assault. he's used anti gay slurs and endorsed political violence. You know, all on social media. It's like, okay, it's one thing if you do it in your own home, I guess, or you know, you say it in confidence, it's yeah, right. Yeah, of course, you know.

Duds: I mean, that sounds like a democrat, you know.

Bright: So so now this stuff starts coming up, and then like maybe we didn't vet this guy properly. And of course they used a vetting company, all this stuff, but not good. Well, then you know, then there were some other instances of like sexual assault he got charged, not charged with, but people started bringing it up, and yet still they supported this guy. Well, up until up until this week, his ex girlfriend came out and said that, you know, he he raped her.

Duds: Wow.

Bright: during one of their on and off again relationships, that he entered her home in Maine uninvited in late 2021. So not even that long ago. You know, it's not like this was 15 years ago. This was five years ago. he was heavily intoxicated. he ignored her repeated objections and forced non consensual sex.

Duds: Right.

Bright: and then she only confided in her therapist and a couple of friends until recently she came out and then that was it. You know, he he had to drop out. Eventually all of the all of his supporters are like, Well, all right, now, finally now, you know, at some point, I mean the sexting scandal, the infidelity, the other sexual that he had been accused of sexual assault already, and they still supported him. And then it was this one, they were like, Okay, this one seems real. We're we're out, you know? Ugh. It it just amazes me. Like you can't find like how can there not be somebody that's just not a creep that wants to run for Senate? I don't I don't know.

Duds: That's gonna be that's gonna be the one. I feel like I mean, you have to be some kind of narcissistic, you know, crazy s some kind you have to have horrible skeletons in your closet. You have to be compromised somehow. And that's the only way you get in there is some, you know, big funder is gonna come in and pay for you knowing that you're compromised and that they can control you, you know.

Bright: Yeah.

Duds: Is that the only kind of people that are getting into these political positions or people that are under control from other people that have dirt on or what? Like I don't I don't get it either.

Bright: Yeah, yeah. Well, and you know, this comes after Swalwell. And you know, we talked about that several episodes ago, and he had to drop out of the California governor's race and all of that because of the same deal. You know, the guy was a creep. And to that point, a lot of people said that the Democrats knew that he was a creep and that he was doing all these things and they let it go because they had dirt on because they could control You know, they knew that they had his vote, you know.

Duds: I feel like that's gotta be it.

Bright: And I'm sure that happens across the board on both sides, blah, blah, blah. You know. But

Duds: Well you know they have that that congressional fund for like for protect for doing lawsuits and stuff for sexual malfeasance and all that.

Bright: Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah yeah. You know, there is something to be said about as you know, as you get into the public forum, you know, that people are gonna be out looking for a payday. I mean l you look at the NFL, not every case in the NFL or college football, I'm sure, has merit. I'm I'm there's yes. Right, right. So that's that's where it yeah, that's where it gets tough and

Duds: No, there's gonna be people out there just looking for a payday too. Pay me off and I'll go away.

Bright: And I think a lot of times that's what they look for. You know, they know that these people have crazy stupid amounts of money and they make this claim and they're like, Hey, you know what? Like just give me a hundred thousand dollars and I'll I'll retract my statement. And then you're you know, these people are like, All right.

Duds: And you know, unfortunately a lot of those cases in that are like your word against theirs, you know. It's like nobody there's no witnesses, so you you have to believe the other person. I mean it why? 'Cause they're not all gonna be legit, you know.

Bright: That's exactly it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's part of the thing. Course not, but but then there are legit ones, you know, obviously. And then you start seeing these where, you know, like who was who was the guy in Hollywood, right? Where like one person finally came out and said like yeah, yeah, Weinstein, yeah. And then then another one, and then another one, and then another one. Like, yeah, and and that's kinda like this one, like, you know, this wasn't the first lady that came out and said something, but

Duds: Sure. Weinstein. Yeah. Snowball, yeah. Yeah, if this was I was gonna say that, like if this was the if this most recent one and from twenty twenty one was the only case, you could say, Well, you know, she who who knows? It's just her. Why didn't she go to the cops afterwards? Yeah.

Bright: She s she's a scored ex girlfriend, right? The normal thing. Or like, they were together at the time. Like and I know that doesn't mean that you Right, sure. There's all those arguments that yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Duds: Yeah, was it really non consensual? You know, who it's just her word. But a track record, you know, building on itself, it's like, okay, maybe this guy is creep.

Bright: Sure. Yeah. This guy was clearly a a creep and a Nazi. And yet they were still still trying to get him just just because they a creepy Nazi, just because they didn't want a Republican in the Senate, right? Like it means that much. Like I will I don't know that much about Susan Collins, right? But like even though she doesn't always conform to party lines, she's probably a good person. And I will support her for being a non rapist Nazi.

Duds: Creepy Nazi. 'Cause they're worse. They're worse than Nazis, apparently. No swastika tattoos on her.

Bright: Not to my knowledge. Not to my knowledge. All right. let's keep it going here. quick topics. what the hell's going on with Iran, man? I know I know Bobcat, man. He's up in arms. I I never thought we were out. You know, they keep announcing these peace deals that it always fell through. And actually I've been a proponent of we need to end this. Like I'm getting tired of it. I think they've

Duds: Yeah, I thought we were I thought we were out. Back in, we're out, we're in. Mm-hmm.

Bright: They forget who's in charge. And, you know, Trump is, I you know, Iran probably knows like politically it's not great for Trump. Economically, it's not great for Trump. But or the world, I guess it's probably less less so for us than the world. I mean, we have our own oil, you know, we'll we'll we'll be okay, you know. But I also look at oil prices and I look at stocks that drop.

Duds: More the world. Right.

Bright: You know, and I'm like, you know what? We were in Afghanistan for how many years? You know, Iraq for how and I was like, I yeah, yeah, right. So I'm like, okay, like this, you know, nothing's even really going on.

Duds: ten, ten years, fifteen years in Afghanistan or something. So, how how did we most recently just get back into this? Like what sparked this?

Bright: Well, I think Iran attacks some commercial s ships first in the Strait of Hormuz. we may have mentioned it last week. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Well yeah, they yeah, they had done one that was like kind of like unprovoked and I think it kind of like let it slide, but then I think they've done it again, right? And

Duds: 'Cause we talked about that last week, right? That they did that. Or maybe it was two weeks ago that they had they had bombed a ship or something. Are these ships that they're not paying their fee or they're not getting approval for my ring to go through or what?

Bright: Well, no, because there is no fee. There's no fee. There's not supposed to be any fee. The straits supposed to be open and all those things. But the cease excuse me, the official ceasefire, I believe, has ended. So we had this whatever it was, sixty-day ceasefire while we negotiated a peace deal. And we could never do it, right? And then they their old Ayatollah just had his funeral. And so, you know, we we respected that.

Duds: Never happened.

Bright: Which is crazy to me. You know, this is, I mean, the Ayatollah, this guy's a dictator. you know, and right. We we killed him. Then we're like, let us respect his funeral rights. I you know, I don't know. It seems strange to me. But we did that. We were like, All right, we're gonna hold off and then we'll resume negotiations. And I think it was after that they attacked and then eventually Trump's like, All right, so we attacked 80 different targets with missiles, strikes, drones.

Duds: Right. Yeah, we killed them.

Bright: coastal attacks and then they tried to attack our bases in Kuwait and Baron, however you pronounce that. We s we intercepted all those missiles, so they didn't do anything, you know, but by rain. Yeah, yeah, by rain. So I think they're they're trying to

Duds: Mm-hmm. Power in Yeah. You know, I heard about that on I think it was like on Tucker Carlson, I was listening to his podcast and he was talking about it might have been on that one, about these bases that we have throughout all these Arab countries. And then before we went and attacked Iran, we pulled all of our troops and everything out of those bases. It's like, well, why do even have Like, what's the point of having the bases there if you gotta pull out if you go if you're in a war with somebody? Like there's no point even maintaining these bases, you know?

Bright: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That is an interesting point. I mean, obviously we don't want American soldiers to to die. And if we you know, we should be in a point where we should be able to protect those bases. And I think we are. Obviously we were able to take out all of these missiles or drones or whatever that were coming in on this most recent attack. But I don't know, man. I

Duds: How many billions of dollars do you think they spent the last couple of days bombing them?

Bright: That's I mean that's that's why I'm just like just finish it. You know. I know I understand why Trump's not doing it. You know, it doesn't look good. He doesn't want to look like a warmonger and and all of those things, but

Duds: I don't know how you do I don't know how you get out of it, you know. How you can end this thing amicably and

Bright: Well and I think that I think that's kind of at the point where, you know, he wants to make it look like it's a win and he keeps saying, like, we're negotiating, like, trust me, he keeps saying that, like, I'm just gonna bomb but they wanna talk. So I'm gonna let I'm like, they've been wanting to talk for sixty days. And and they nothing's come of it. So like just wrap it up on our terms. You know, I don't know. I might get cancelled for that. I don't know, but

Duds: And and I mean bombing them, I mean it's a huge country too. And I don't know what bombing all these places is gonna even do for you, you know.

Bright: Well he's talking about taking out like you know, the bridges and the power plants and you know, do yeah, which I I don't know. Is that a crime against humanity? Because now they're not gonna have any, you know like it's gonna hurt the civilians. Right. I think that I think that's the point. Yeah, right, right. But at that point, do the people revolt? Do you know if if you don't have bridges and air conditioning, you can't run a country.

Duds: All the infrastructure. Yeah. I mean that punishes the people. Yeah. All the the ninety nine percent of people there that aren't, you know, they're just living there. I mean, but does that do that? Does it does it do they revolt against their current government or does it just radicalize them more against the US? You know, that's the thing that I would worry about.

Bright: Yeah. Well I th I I that's a valid point too, but I don't can it get any worse? I don't know that it can get any worse. Yeah, right. No.

Duds: Probably not. I d I don't see a good way out. I don't know. It's a I'm glad I'm not in his shoes, you know.

Bright: Yeah, I mean for sure. For sure. I don't I don't know. I don't know. And instead he you know, he flies home on his new Qatari seven forty seven Air Force One. Did you see this? Yeah. Well do you remember that? So you remember Qatar gifted him this new this new plane, the seven forty seven eight that's totally basically, you know, like pimped out to be the new Air Force One, because the Air Force One I know we have

Duds: yeah, I think so.

Bright: currently, I guess is super old. And Boeing has been working on a new one for like twenty years or something like that. Like something ridiculous. And Trump's like, it's never gonna come like he's been president for twelve years now, right? That's a little bit of a joke. No, they already had it, I guess. They used it for their oil moguls or something like that. They gifted it to the United States when we went over there and, you know, yeah, still Boeing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Still Boeing.

Duds: So Qatar built this plan. okay. So it's still Boeing. Okay.

Bright: It's just all luxuried out. And, you know, some people on the left threw a big fit about him accepting this gift. And he said he was like, Well, it's not a it's not a gift for Trump. It's a gift to the United States. And I'm gonna retrofit this to be the new Air Force One. And then you didn't hear much about it. Well, yeah. You didn't hear much about it for

Duds: Not taking her with me.

Bright: I don't know, like almost a year or something like that. And now all of a sudden he was like, This is it. This is our plane, right? so I d I don't know the whole story, but I guess they flew the plane to England and then he was on regular Air Force One in Turkey, where he's ha having this NATO summit. And then he flew Air Force One back to England and then got on the Qatari seven forty seven back to the US. So I don't know. It's yeah.

Duds: Those are huge plans too, man.

Bright: Massive and like I said, it's all luxuried out with seating and beds and bars and all kinds of stuff, I'm sure. I'm sure.

Duds: Got spitters on the wheels. I did see a little funny video about Trump earlier. I don't know if it was today, but he was talking, I guess, in front of the White House and they were talking about the ballroom. And he he's he's talking to these reporters. He's like, Yep, we're actually doubling the size of the ballroom because we need it to be even bigger. And then this this reporter is like, Well, yeah, I heard that the price was doubling on or the cost was gonna double on this thing. He's like

Bright: Yeah.

Duds: Yeah, we're gonna double the size of it. You are just a stupid person. You know that? You're just not smart.

Bright: did you see his tweets and or his post on X? I you know, I don't know if this is real. It could be AI, so I'm gonna clarify that right now. but I did see it. So after the United States lost to Belgium, there was a a post on X, whether it actually came from Trump or not, I don't know. And it said Belgium is two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon. And I about to die I thought, this is so funny. I'm I'm like, if that's if that's real, if that if it's it's trolling at its best, and if if that came if that came from Trump, that is just a great, great joke. Classic. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know if that's him or not. going back to this NATO summit, and I didn't have this on my agenda, but

Duds: I mean it's pretty funny. It's a it's pretty funny. yeah. It's classic, classic Trump.

Bright: He really went off on Spain. I don't know if you saw this. He was like, We're done. We're not trading with Spain. they don't contribute anything. And and so Spain immediately caved, wrote a big check to NATO, because I guess they hadn't paid up in however long, you know. He was just like, That's it, we're done. Yeah. So if nothing else, you know.

Duds: Well that needs to happen. You know, if they if they want the US to be part of NATO, which I mean I think I don't know what the numbers are, but don't we fund like eighty to percent of NATO or something? Yeah. That's wild. Like, come on, other countries need to pull their weight too. That's ridiculous.

Bright: Eight eighty percent, eighty percent of NATO was funded by the United States. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well that's you know, and that's what that's been a Trump talking point for years, even before he was running for president. And I remember being in high school in was it Mr. McCarthy's class or who taught no no no who taught Stevenson? Yes, it was Stevenson. not not Jerry Stevenson, but the other one. I can't remember.

Duds: He was history. yep. Mm-hmm. Tom, I think. I think it was Tom. Or maybe it's Charlie, yeah.

Bright: Charlie? Tom Charlie Stevenson? yeah, Tom Stevenson. one of the two. But anyhow, I I did one of his economics classes and we were learning all about, you know, current events and stuff like that. And one of the things was NATO, and he was talking about how the US runs NATO. And I was like, What do you mean? I'm like, NATO is all these countries. And he was like, No. He was like, We we pay the bill, like

Duds: Mm-hmm. No.

Bright: It's kinda I don't know, I'm not even gonna go down this analogy that I had, but Right. Well the and we could do whatever we want. So NATO can come out and be like, No, we don't want to do that. And we can basically be like, after you NATO, we're gonna do it anyway. And NATO would have to be like, Okay. Because it they don't exist without the United States. So if they want to keep their jobs, if they want to keep the treaty all of that in place, they have to bow down to whatever the United States says. We have so much buying power.

Duds: Yeah, why even have it? Like why even have it? It's just the US military, you know? Right. Exactly. That's At least make you know, they have to have some kind of contribution somehow, you know. No no more free rides.

Bright: Mm-hmm. Yeah, well that was the thing. Everybody was supposed to Yeah, yeah. And and I think that's something that Trump and I somebody even came out and said it recently. And I don't know if it was the Prime Minister from Spain or somewhere else. He was like, he can't blame Trump for this. You know, like he he says it actually pretty plainly. It he was just like the fact is that other presidents would just ask nicely and then we would just say no, you know? And then and then we didn't do anything about it. Yeah.

Duds: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Hey, pay your bill. Nah. All right.

Bright: Nah, I don't want to. You know, Trump Trump's probably the one that's like, I'm gonna send you guys to the collection agency and then you're like, All right, I'll pay you know.

Duds: Yeah, or we just pull out a NATO. I think

Bright: Or exactly. Well you pull out of NATO and then Russia owns Europe. Yeah. Right. I don't want that, that's for sure.

Duds: Exactly. And they don't want that. You know, everybody always talks about how awesome Europe is with their socialized medicine and how they have all these benefits to their people and that's because they don't have to fund a military in Europe. You know, n none of those countries have to worry about their military. They'll have a military, but it's small. They don't put nearly the amount of funding to it that the United States does.

Bright: Wow. Yeah, that Yeah, yeah. Well and they have a much smaller population, you know, we're funding all these welfare programs, you know, but you know, we also have Social Security, you know, which of course I'm a fan of social security, don't get me wrong, but like we have it for three hundred and fifty million people. France has it for the state of Texas, right? Like

Duds: Mm-hmm.

Bright: Come on, the United States is a big country. You know, we we have to operate differently than these small little like Sweden. We're not Sweden is not the same as the United States, I'm sorry.

Duds: Yeah. I don't know. I think a lot of people would support just going back to be a more of a, you know, isolation isolationist. That's what the US was prior to World War Two, you know. We just, hey, we're gonna be our own country, we'll protect our borders and protect our people, do what's right, and nobody messes with us. You guys, the rest of the world, you guys gotta figure it out yourselves too. Like take care of yourselves. If you can't defend yourself, do you really deserve to be a country? You know? I don't know.

Bright: You can talk about their socialized medicine all you want. Yeah, yeah. Right, right, yeah. Figure it out yourselves. You know, I think I think there Right. Yeah. There there is something to that. And I don't know that I want to go back to that stage of being complete isolationist, but I do like the idea of America first, right? Like we can do both things. We're we're big enough, we're rich enough, we're powerful enough that we can be America first and still help out in situations that need our help. We can be humanitarians in Africa.

Duds: Uh-huh.

Bright: And the Middle East and things like that. We can stop China from invading Taiwan or whatever, but we don't.

Duds: You know the worst part though is like no appreciation for the efforts that we do also. You know, all you hear is how terrible the US is.

Bright: Well, I think that's the I think that's the biggest thing that yes, I think that's the one of the biggest things that's come to light, especially with Trump as president. I don't know if it's because of the media, if it's because other leaders of other nations don't like that Trump quote unquote bullies them or, you know, is in charge. He just he just knows his hand. He's like a good poker player, right? He knows when he sits down at the table that he's got two aces.

Duds: Uh-huh. Right.

Bright: And everybody else has a two and a seven, right? So like he he he's holding all the cards he gets that. So I'm sorry if you don't like it, but that's just the situation of the world, you know. So I do think that we don't get the appreciation sometimes for the stuff that we do, the money that we contribute, the the protection, like sometimes that's all like it with NATO. It's just like we don't want to mess with the US, right? That's why that's why Finland hasn't been invaded.

Duds: He's holding all the cards. Remember the a few good men when Jack Nicholson's on the stand, you know? And he talks about how you know you you want me up on that wall, you need me up on that wall, and then you criticize me for the way the manner in which I, you know, conduct myself. It's like so if you you need me and you want me to do these things for ya, well then then shut up and appreciate me. Just say thank you next time, you know.

Bright: Yeah. Course. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Let me do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. What a great what a great ending. What a great movie, though. It's been a while since I've seen it. But you know, I don't know that I've ever actually seen it not on television. Like I've seen the whole movie, but I is it edited? Like if I went and got the D V D, am I gonna see stuff that I haven't seen on like USA or or something like that? You know, I've learned I've learned that Yeah.

Duds: But we don't ever get a thank you. Never. right. Mm-hmm. maybe. I'm sure they've cut out scenes and yeah. That's what they say about like all these streaming platforms, you know, is like if you actually want the real movie, you gotta get it on DVD. And then you've got that media forever. Like nobody can change that. Whereas streaming, if they want to go through and now with with AI, they could very easily update and edit movies. You know, if you want the original, you know, you gotta have it.

Bright: Yeah, I learned that like one time. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Nobody could change it, yeah. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. I think they've already they've already done that, right? They've changed words and things like that, certainly with like old Disney movies and things like that. did you ever see you know the movie Stripes with Bill Murray? It would be a great movie. I don't think that I knew that there was a sh a naked shower scene until like my adult life. I had seen that movie so many times and I was like, I love this movie.

Duds: Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah, Bill Murray. really? Always on TV, yeah.

Bright: I'm always on TV. And then somebody was like, yeah, the shower scene is the best. And I'm like, what are you talking about? I'm like, there's nudity? There's nudity in this movie? Of course, this is when I was younger, you know, but yeah, so right, something like that. great movie.

Duds: Never seen that. And that was always on channel eleven or something, you know?

Bright: All right, we're gonna hit pause right there. This was supposed to be a light episode from a hotel room in Minot, North Dakota, and somewhere we made it from Fourth of July fireworks to the World Cup, Iran, NATO, and Weather America is basically Jack Nicholson standing on the wall for the rest of the world. Since we're off next week and can't record, we're gonna go ahead and split this conversation into two parts. So part two will drop next Friday and we'll get into St. Louis's new downtown curfew. Firework chaos over the 4th of July, our follow-up thoughts from the Ken Good Bail Bond episode, some listener comments, Rizzuto maybe stealing our homework, and yes, Taco Bell's explosive diarrhea. Follow NFNP wherever you listen, so part two lands automatically. Until then, join the posse.