July 3, 2025 • 24 mins
In this 'Ask Us Anything' episode of Normally, Mary Katharine and Karol share insights on their long-standing friendship, political conspiracy theories, entertainment preferences, and the current political landscape in New York City. They also discuss the implications of banning cell phones in schools and share nostalgic anecdotes from their school days. Normally is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
We're back on normally the show with normalish takes for
when the news gets weird, and today we have normalish
takes on all your questions because it's a Show's true,
there's no news. I'm at the lake, as you can tell,
because if you see this on video, I'm like basically
a billboard right now with all my gear. I am
Mark Asinham.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
And I am Carol Markowitz, and I would say these
are going to be our least normalish takes.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Maybe, so shall we get let's do it? Yeah. One
listener asked, how did you two meet? It seems like
you've been friends for a while. Thanks for the show.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
We have been friends for a while, like a really
long time. But I would say we met somewhere in
the early two thousands. It was post nine to eleven.
I had a blog. Were you at hot Air when
we met?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Possibly or even maybe slightly before or that I had.
I had sort of done things affiliated with Hot Air,
but wasn't necessarily employed with them, so a lot of
people knew me from that. But yeah, I think it
was just the early blogging days and I noticed your
old blog Alarming News.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Alarming news, that's right, and we.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Would we would see each other at various events and
also hang out sometimes in New York City, back when
the two of us were just like wild single gals.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, about the Institute of Marriage and institute marriage and
whether we would enter into said agreements in the future.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Funny right that we were kind of like, I don't
know about this.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I mean, I think it's a I think it's a
testament to how when you meet the right person.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I was going to say that, yeah, yeah, we were
dating the wrong people.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Let's be real here.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
They were very nice.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
They were very nice people, but they were not the
right people for us. One of the cool things that
we did together was we saw the nine to eleven
conspiracy start to develop, and we did kind of a
prank on one of the anniversaries of nine to eleven
where we printed pamphlets that said the truth about nine
to eleven, and then when you open the pamphlet, it
(02:12):
was like, the story that is the official truth of
nine to eleven, because that's actually what happened. Nineteen terrors
boarded planes and crash them into our buildings, and that's
the story. Even so, Yeah, but you know, people would
be like annoyed and be like you know, walking by us,
and we'd be like, you know, read the truth about
nine to eleven, and then we'd be like, read it,
go ahead.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
And read it. Yeah, and the truth thirs themselves would
be confronted with the truth, right, we were on their side. Gosh,
that is a vintage that is this.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Video of that somewhere there's definitely video of that exists
somewhere in the universe.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah, I'm try to have it, but because of my
like probable ADHD, I would never be able to find it.
It's just somewhere in my many many files.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I mean, it might be on YouTube or something. But yeah, well,
somebody actually asks why is your podcast not on YouTube
or listed on YouTube? Podcast search finds nothing, And I
will be real with you, we don't know how to
do it, just like the thing is that this pays
us that when you download our podcast, we get paid
(03:17):
I personally, and maybe I think, MK, you're in the
same boat. I just don't know how to get it started.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
On YouTube and elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Maybe we will in the future, but we're both barely
jammed and have a ton of things going on, and
we can't kind of learn this new skill that we've
maybe should be learning.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
No. Sometimes I think back about my old YouTube channel
which I started in like two thousand and.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
You could be rich right now if I just.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Stuck with that, I would yeah, have many, many many
followers now subscribers now. But but yeah, I think one
of the things about being a working mom who loves
to hang out with her kids is Carol and I
are always looking to do biggest bang for your buck, right,
so that's working. What's the thing that we can do
and also do all the rest of the things we're
(04:04):
doing and uh and this turns out to be the
best way to do it for us, right Yeah, but yes,
I'm open to it. I as my mk hammer channel
from two thousand and seven a tests but right, well,
we tried.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
We kind of tried it when we first launched. Normally
we did clips on YouTube and on rumble. But unless
you're posting like you know, kind of like the the
really catchy titles and the and you get you know,
the cliffhanger episodes, it just it doesn't quite work. People
aren't looking to like maybe they are, but we just
(04:39):
didn't do it right.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
I don't know, but we.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Just didn't have the You'll never believe what happens next,
you know, So that's not ours, No, it's really not.
But going back to conspiracy theories, somebody asks of all
the political conspiracy theories which are usually the currency of
the non normies from JFK being assassinated by the mafia,
t chemtra else, which causes you actual pause. I don't know.
(05:05):
I used to say I was a sun truther, like
I thought, you know, for a long time, it was
like sun is very very bad for you, and I
was like is it though? But I feel like people
have that's been kind of it's caught up, like I
I'm no longer a suntruther. We're all sun truthers now, people,
people know that being out in the sunshine is actually
not terrible for you. Yeah, do you have.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Any I I would say that the one, the one
that I sort of like is my guilty pleasure, is
that I think the Clintons are up to way worse
than has been publicly exposed. Just all the time. My
default assumption is that those two are just up to
pretty good worst up to the worst. Yeah, So I
(05:50):
would say that that's the one I could be convinced on,
you know, when people.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Sure, I'm not even sure that's a conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
No, it might not, but uh, I have I have
darker thoughts about them than the publicly approved version. Yeah,
can I can I ask this one? Did you see
this one about you're in charge of casting a biopic
of the Trump second administration? Who do you cast? Is Trump?
Rubio hag Seth, Wiles, gabbered, Kennedy, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And that's tough? I oh, do you have some good ones?
Speaker 1 (06:27):
I saw this one and I it actually came to
me pretty quickly. I don't have a Trump yet, which
obviously is very important.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Let me give you a Trump, even though this person
is not alive. I just feel like Norm McDonald would
have done a fantastic Trump. I could just see him
nailing that role.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Okay, I'm going to give you a couple of my thoughts,
and uh they are not you know, political. Uh, ideology
does not required to be anything.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I'm just like, yeah, Rubio.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Pedro, Pascal, hmmm, heggs, that's gonna be so happy with this.
Glenn Powell, I don't know who that is. Glenn Powell
is the uh, the iceman ish character in Top Gun Maverick.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Oh, okay, the Twisters guy, I really have to see
that movie.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, yeah, Glenn Powell. Who else do I have? Susie Wilds,
Emma Thompson.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Hmmm, that's good.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah, I mean uh, and.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Then I think for Gabbard, I had maybe Galgadot.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
That's that bad?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, yeah, I could see that Kennedy. Anybody for Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I didn't have a Kennedy one.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, I'm trying to think. I'm just so, I'm just
I don't watch movies, but yeah, Kennedy, he's he's sort
of a funky character I could see. Like again, I
guess I just know comedians more than anybody else. But
like a Seinfeld almost can you see.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Jerry, are you playing Mike Kennedy street casting? And I like, ye,
the like almost like Spaceball's version of Trump for Kennedy,
I mean, this is this is too predictable. But a
Clooney could play a Kennedy. Oh yeah, that's some same
sort of weather looking older guy. Feel absolutely yeah. But
(08:23):
Trump is tricky because Trump is a comedic force.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
So that's the thing. I feel like it has to
be somebody who gets that. And I just feel like, yeah,
even Alec Baldwin when he played him, and he gets it,
but he doesn't. He kind of is more about making
fun of him. He doesn't get the Trump is funny.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
He was my first thought, but I thought there's there's two,
there's that, and there's too much. Like in his heart
he thinks he's so malevolent that he's going to be
he's going to be intent on either playing him very
stupid or very evil. And I think there's just like
a it'd be hard to find somebody who can do it.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
What do you watch, listen to, or read that's purely
for entertainment purposes? What brings you joy?
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Uh? This is a great question. And sometimes I'm like,
I wish I had more time for such things. I
think the thing that brings me really a lot of joy.
And I'm gonna sound like such a goody goody two shoes.
Here is reading to my kids. Oh yeah, so I
read classics with them. So we'll do children's classics like
The Secret Garden or even right now, I'm reading Pride
(09:29):
and Prejudice to them, which is a little above their
great level, but I'm able to talk them through it,
and we talk about what the sentences mean and the
and the language, and and they'll probably, you know, pick
up some of it as they go. So I've been
reading that to them. I'm told that now might be
a good age for the Hobbit. And I've never done
Tolkien before, which I know is like such a so
(09:52):
terrible on my track.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I've never read it either. Yeah, so I'm not a
fantasy but I would give that a.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, so that might be our next one after Pride
and Prejudice. We also read like more contemporary stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
That's amazing, that's really cool. I feel like I should
do that, but I might have missed my window.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah. Well, it ends up being my only fiction reading
because I falls off for me. I'm trying to read
fiction while I'm on vacation this week.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yeah, I read a lot, not a lot, but I
my whole thing is I try to read fiction, and
I'm reading going. I'm reading right now, go On Pretending
by Alina Adams. She's one of my favorite writers. She
just writes really, really beautiful fiction.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
I always take recommendations from Carrol because I feel like
we have We're on the same wavelength when it comes
to fiction.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
I'm gonna I publish a list at the end of
the year where I kind of feel disappointed with how
little I read or you know, it's not bad, it's
more than I think the average person, but it's still
like not where I want to be. And then like
I'll have like, let's say, fifteen books for the year,
and my daughter will be.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Like, oh, here's the one hundred and fifty I read.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I had half as much as my children. Yeah, you're
a much better person.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Same same, Yeah, but also it's hard. It's hard.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
It's hard.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
We go easier at ourselves.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah. The very very silly thing that I watch that
makes me happy every time I turn it on is
what we do in the Shadows, which is a I
don't know if empire based mockumentary.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Okay, okay, fantastic, it's all right.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
The comedic actors are fantastic, but plots are ridiculous. It's
all just so silly that you don't have to worry
about it, right, it's right. I like that I have
sometimes gearing up for very serious TV. But yeah, yeah,
I don't have to be in any mood for just
turn it.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
On, right.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I find it very hard to watch tense shows, especially
at night, which is the only time we have time
to watch anything. We're watching The Bear right now, but
we're only in the first season. It has tension, like
a little bit too much tension, like when things go
wrong at the restaurant and you're like, like, why am
I stressing about like their lives?
Speaker 3 (11:59):
I like, yeah, yeah, same.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Funniest line from any movie. I was thinking about this.
I don't know if this is the funniest line, but
this is the line that we use the most in
our household. It's from Big Lebowski where he has his
car stolen and he has a clear.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Clearance clearwater tape in there.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
And the police officer is he yes, the police officer like,
do you think you're going to find my car? And
the police officers like I don't know. And then Lebowski's like,
but what.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
About my credence clearwater tape?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
And the cop is like, oh yeah, they have us
working in shifts. So they have us working in shifts
is a line that we use around the house when like,
are we gonna do blank, like something that's just you know,
too difficult and too time consuming. We're like, yeah, they
have us working in shifts.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I love it. I would say the most quotable movies
in my family and my family of origin and my
immediate family now like money, Python stuff, probably Monny Python.
The Holy Grail was a go to when we were
When we were kids, I feel like my dad really
got us into like comedy nerd space. So we watched
(13:13):
a lot of Second City TV and all of the
like Ed Grimley and all the SNL characters from back
in the day. Those are very quotable in my house.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Ricky Bobby, Oh yeah, Ricky Bobby for sure.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, the Billy Madison era. For me still I quote
things that my kids have no idea what I'm talking about.
By the way, and Friday might be my most favorite
quotable movie.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah, oh, that's really good. I mean by Felicia's from Friday,
and well, there are.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
So many there are so many things that are so
embedded in culture that are from Friday that people don't
even know they're from Friday. But that was really in
my formative years, Friday was a go to. Yeah, and
so so those have been just stuck in my brain
ever since.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
We're going to take a short break and come right
back with normally all right, switching gears a little bit
to politics. We had got a few questions about the
new Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City. I
think you know Zara Mamandi is he's Frankly, it's scaring
people that someone like this can get so close to
(14:22):
being the mayor of New York.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
He's in pole position to win.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
So somebody asks, should the Trump DOJ make a move
to strip Zoran of his citizenship and support him only
if you want to make him super popular and definitely
going to win the election?
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Is this? Yeah, this is one of those things that
conservatives should not get into that liberals have been into
in the past, which is the idea that when someone
wins an election fair and square, that you can unelect them,
right like, you get a shot at it.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
You had the shot, Yeah, and you have another shot
in November.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Year later, just as the entire first Trump administration. They
were going to get their shot in twenty twenty, but
they insisted on trying to unpresident the president. Yeah, and
that's not how democracy works, even though they want to
claim that they're the guardians of democracy. So don't do that.
You have to fight on fair ground with this guy.
(15:16):
It's an American to deport him at simply because he's
a bad choice for this city. He is a bad choice.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
He is a bad choice, right, it's.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Like a disastrous one. Yeah. There's actually a clip floating
around now from twenty twenty one where he's like, well,
the object is to seize the means of productition, right.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
The thing is, I think people.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Not productivity. I modern therapy speak to the new old language.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I think what people can take away from that is
we should be more careful about who we let into
the country. They should align with our values. They shouldn't
want to bring down capitalism. All of these things are
It's okay to monitor people's social media or find out
what they really really, you know, care about and want
to do here, and it's fine to say, you know,
(16:06):
no people like this.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah no. I think it's also just so gross to
have this rich kid doing the thing that rich revolutionaries
always do, which is, let me not let anyone else
get rich and demonize anyone who's working hard and moving
up and creating products for a bunch of people and
getting rich that way. And also let me take all
(16:30):
your money, but you're awful and evil. It's just the
whole thing is so gross. Please vote for Eric Adams.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I guess yeah, Well, That's the follow up question somebody
else had was should everyone who's not a socialist in
New York City just commit to voting for Eric Adams
right now? There's some controversy around this, you know, people
are like, well, why not Curtis Leewa, the Republican. I
just think that Eric Adams is the best option here.
I think he's got the biggest shot to win. I
(16:56):
like Curtis a lot.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I just if I were.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Living in New York, I would want people to put
all of their chips behind behind Eric Adams because I
think that he's currently mayor. He has some advantages because
of that, and he's normal enough is really what we're
going for here. He's not amazing, he's just good enough.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
He's not communist, and unless you coalesce, the more likely.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
I would also say I have read through quite a
bit of the indictment of him, because this is like
a vote for the criminal. It's important, situation important. Yeah,
but I will I think you can. You might assuage
yourself a bit on that front if you read the indictment,
which is a little like I'm sure there may be
more stuff there, Yeah, a little like, oh he got
(17:44):
his flights upgraded, and I'm supposed to be very concerned
about that, right, I'm not sure how concerned I am
about that compared to seize the means of production.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
That's really the thing that there's questionable stuff around Eric Adams.
I wrote out all of his problems in a Washington
Examiner piece before he was actually indicted, when it was
like he was going to be indicted. He's got a
lot of shady He had a lot of shady people
around him that he didn't fire.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
He's pledging to do better. Let's see if he does.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
But again, when you compare it to straight up communism,
it's kind of an easy choice.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
What do you think of banning cell phones in schools?
This person notes, which a great point. I can see
why they're doing it, but they're worried that if you
take them out, then teachers won't be at all worried
about being documented doing greetings that have ticked off parents.
This far left indoctrination over the last couple years, and
of course a lot of that was brought to light
(18:39):
by zoom right, and by having cameras in the classroom.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, well, I would say that they still will have
cameras in the classroom. These kids are all using chromebooks now,
which is a separate question of whether that should be
the case, right, it's.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Should kids be using.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Screens in schools pretty much at every level at this point.
My fourth grader doesn't have screens, but my older kids do,
and so you'll still have that. I you know what
the problem is, if you have a school that has
enforcement of the rules, then it won't matter to ban
phones or not. You could just say you're not allowed
(19:18):
to use your phones in class and that's it. But
the real issue is that public schools across the country
do not enforce any of the rules. They do not
suspend anybody, They certainly don't expel anybody. There's no risk
to these kids to just not follow the rules at all.
So if you have a rule following school, you could
have phones that you're just not allowed to use at
(19:39):
certain times.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
That's not what we have unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Yeah, I think I tend to think the benefits of
no phones are probably greater than the downsides of not
having them. Yeah, instruction, I think, you know, we try
to keep our kids fairly screen free, you know, not
totally and she, but I find that their behavior is better,
(20:04):
their ability to problem solve is better, their desire to
read books is better when they do not have access
all the time, and so in a school setting, that
would obviously help students. But I do think what you're
what you're saying, Carol, is when when what they're doing
is when they take the option away entirely, it obviates
(20:25):
the need for them to jump in on a case
by case basis because they've shown that they're not willing
or able to do that, and parents will fight them
tooth and nail. That's part of it, right, Parents will
fight over this each adjudication, and so they're just like, nah,
we're done.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So yeah, yeah, that's that's the problem here.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
But can I ask one question? Okay, so you went
to nineteen eighties nineties New York public schools.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I went to I went to Jewish schools.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
But yeah, so I went to eighties nineties public schools
in North Carolina. What's the wild oldest old school eighties
anecdote from your schools? Like something that gen Z would
be like, they did, what do you have any uh?
Speaker 2 (21:11):
You know? I had a really incredible teacher in high school.
I went to a small private high school in Brooklyn,
and I had this really like one of those teachers
straight out of the movies, like who inspire you and
you know, write whatever, But those teachers are always a
little crazy, and he used to do stuff like he'd
get really angry and throw a desk out the window.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Like it was just.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Like he he taught me how to write, but I
also feared for my life. So yeah, you know a
little from Colum b We've.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
We've had those. We're like, I remember my public schools,
like enforcement by teachers was somewhat rougher than would be
allowed now. I would argue that in the cases where
I saw that it was warranted, like physically restraining.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah. One of two of my favorite ones. One when
I first came to my elementary school, WHI would have
been mid eighties ish, no one was paddled in our
public schools, but there were paddles, so it was like
we had amazing we had just gotten past that. But
(22:15):
they a couple of old school teachers. They would hang
on the wall and they were legendary as this you know,
unspoken threat that something could happen to you if you
got out of hand. And legend I remember was that
like there were holes drilled in a wooden paddle, and
I was like, why would that be? And the rumor was,
(22:35):
I don't know if this is true older people than
I can say, is that makes it more like cuts
through the window. Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
They needed it to be worse, they needed it to
really hurt.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Nothing actually happened, but it was like the threat. And
then the other one was my middle school did not
have air conditioning in North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
No, none of our schools.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, the rule was, I remember that. I don't know
who wrote this rule. The rule was if it was
ninety eight degrees for three days in a row, we
would get the fourth day off. Like even my children,
who I think I've toughened up a little more than
the average kid this age, if I asked them to
be in the school building in ninety eight degree heat
(23:18):
for three days.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, I don't think they'd make it.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I don't think you make it.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, society would lose its mind.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Right. We were like in New York like two weeks ago,
my fifteen year old, my husband and I and they
were having like a heat snap. And I know I
live in Florida, so I like heat, I assure you.
But The problem was that everywhere in New York felt
really under air conditioned compared to Florida. Like Florida, you
walk into a restaurant, you're.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Like burr, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
In New York it was like, why am I still hot?
Speaker 1 (23:47):
What is it? My fifteen year old.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Was like, oh, like this, how do they live like this?
Speaker 2 (23:52):
This is not cutting right, not at all. This was
so much fun. Thanks for joining us on Normally. Normally
airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you
get your podcasts. Get in touch with us at normally
thepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening, and when
things get weird, act normally
We're back on normally the show with normalish takes for
when the news gets weird, and today we have normalish
takes on all your questions because it's a Show's true,
there's no news. I'm at the lake, as you can tell,
because if you see this on video, I'm like basically
a billboard right now with all my gear. I am
Mark Asinham.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
And I am Carol Markowitz, and I would say these
are going to be our least normalish takes.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Maybe, so shall we get let's do it? Yeah. One
listener asked, how did you two meet? It seems like
you've been friends for a while. Thanks for the show.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
We have been friends for a while, like a really
long time. But I would say we met somewhere in
the early two thousands. It was post nine to eleven.
I had a blog. Were you at hot Air when
we met?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Possibly or even maybe slightly before or that I had.
I had sort of done things affiliated with Hot Air,
but wasn't necessarily employed with them, so a lot of
people knew me from that. But yeah, I think it
was just the early blogging days and I noticed your
old blog Alarming News.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Alarming news, that's right, and we.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Would we would see each other at various events and
also hang out sometimes in New York City, back when
the two of us were just like wild single gals.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, about the Institute of Marriage and institute marriage and
whether we would enter into said agreements in the future.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Funny right that we were kind of like, I don't
know about this.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I mean, I think it's a I think it's a
testament to how when you meet the right person.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I was going to say that, yeah, yeah, we were
dating the wrong people.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Let's be real here.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
They were very nice.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
They were very nice people, but they were not the
right people for us. One of the cool things that
we did together was we saw the nine to eleven
conspiracy start to develop, and we did kind of a
prank on one of the anniversaries of nine to eleven
where we printed pamphlets that said the truth about nine
to eleven, and then when you open the pamphlet, it
(02:12):
was like, the story that is the official truth of
nine to eleven, because that's actually what happened. Nineteen terrors
boarded planes and crash them into our buildings, and that's
the story. Even so, Yeah, but you know, people would
be like annoyed and be like you know, walking by us,
and we'd be like, you know, read the truth about
nine to eleven, and then we'd be like, read it,
go ahead.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
And read it. Yeah, and the truth thirs themselves would
be confronted with the truth, right, we were on their side. Gosh,
that is a vintage that is this.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Video of that somewhere there's definitely video of that exists
somewhere in the universe.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah, I'm try to have it, but because of my
like probable ADHD, I would never be able to find it.
It's just somewhere in my many many files.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I mean, it might be on YouTube or something. But yeah, well,
somebody actually asks why is your podcast not on YouTube
or listed on YouTube? Podcast search finds nothing, And I
will be real with you, we don't know how to
do it, just like the thing is that this pays
us that when you download our podcast, we get paid
(03:17):
I personally, and maybe I think, MK, you're in the
same boat. I just don't know how to get it started.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
On YouTube and elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Maybe we will in the future, but we're both barely
jammed and have a ton of things going on, and
we can't kind of learn this new skill that we've
maybe should be learning.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
No. Sometimes I think back about my old YouTube channel
which I started in like two thousand and.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
You could be rich right now if I just.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Stuck with that, I would yeah, have many, many many
followers now subscribers now. But but yeah, I think one
of the things about being a working mom who loves
to hang out with her kids is Carol and I
are always looking to do biggest bang for your buck, right,
so that's working. What's the thing that we can do
and also do all the rest of the things we're
(04:04):
doing and uh and this turns out to be the
best way to do it for us, right Yeah, but yes,
I'm open to it. I as my mk hammer channel
from two thousand and seven a tests but right, well,
we tried.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
We kind of tried it when we first launched. Normally
we did clips on YouTube and on rumble. But unless
you're posting like you know, kind of like the the
really catchy titles and the and you get you know,
the cliffhanger episodes, it just it doesn't quite work. People
aren't looking to like maybe they are, but we just
(04:39):
didn't do it right.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
I don't know, but we.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Just didn't have the You'll never believe what happens next,
you know, So that's not ours, No, it's really not.
But going back to conspiracy theories, somebody asks of all
the political conspiracy theories which are usually the currency of
the non normies from JFK being assassinated by the mafia,
t chemtra else, which causes you actual pause. I don't know.
(05:05):
I used to say I was a sun truther, like
I thought, you know, for a long time, it was
like sun is very very bad for you, and I
was like is it though? But I feel like people
have that's been kind of it's caught up, like I
I'm no longer a suntruther. We're all sun truthers now, people,
people know that being out in the sunshine is actually
not terrible for you. Yeah, do you have.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Any I I would say that the one, the one
that I sort of like is my guilty pleasure, is
that I think the Clintons are up to way worse
than has been publicly exposed. Just all the time. My
default assumption is that those two are just up to
pretty good worst up to the worst. Yeah, So I
(05:50):
would say that that's the one I could be convinced on,
you know, when people.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Sure, I'm not even sure that's a conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
No, it might not, but uh, I have I have
darker thoughts about them than the publicly approved version. Yeah,
can I can I ask this one? Did you see
this one about you're in charge of casting a biopic
of the Trump second administration? Who do you cast? Is Trump?
Rubio hag Seth, Wiles, gabbered, Kennedy, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And that's tough? I oh, do you have some good ones?
Speaker 1 (06:27):
I saw this one and I it actually came to
me pretty quickly. I don't have a Trump yet, which
obviously is very important.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Let me give you a Trump, even though this person
is not alive. I just feel like Norm McDonald would
have done a fantastic Trump. I could just see him
nailing that role.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Okay, I'm going to give you a couple of my thoughts,
and uh they are not you know, political. Uh, ideology
does not required to be anything.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
I'm just like, yeah, Rubio.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Pedro, Pascal, hmmm, heggs, that's gonna be so happy with this.
Glenn Powell, I don't know who that is. Glenn Powell
is the uh, the iceman ish character in Top Gun Maverick.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Oh, okay, the Twisters guy, I really have to see
that movie.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, yeah, Glenn Powell. Who else do I have? Susie Wilds,
Emma Thompson.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Hmmm, that's good.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah, I mean uh, and.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Then I think for Gabbard, I had maybe Galgadot.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
That's that bad?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, yeah, I could see that Kennedy. Anybody for Kennedy.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I didn't have a Kennedy one.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, I'm trying to think. I'm just so, I'm just
I don't watch movies, but yeah, Kennedy, he's he's sort
of a funky character I could see. Like again, I
guess I just know comedians more than anybody else. But
like a Seinfeld almost can you see.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Jerry, are you playing Mike Kennedy street casting? And I like, ye,
the like almost like Spaceball's version of Trump for Kennedy,
I mean, this is this is too predictable. But a
Clooney could play a Kennedy. Oh yeah, that's some same
sort of weather looking older guy. Feel absolutely yeah. But
(08:23):
Trump is tricky because Trump is a comedic force.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
So that's the thing. I feel like it has to
be somebody who gets that. And I just feel like, yeah,
even Alec Baldwin when he played him, and he gets it,
but he doesn't. He kind of is more about making
fun of him. He doesn't get the Trump is funny.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
He was my first thought, but I thought there's there's two,
there's that, and there's too much. Like in his heart
he thinks he's so malevolent that he's going to be
he's going to be intent on either playing him very
stupid or very evil. And I think there's just like
a it'd be hard to find somebody who can do it.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
What do you watch, listen to, or read that's purely
for entertainment purposes? What brings you joy?
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Uh? This is a great question. And sometimes I'm like,
I wish I had more time for such things. I
think the thing that brings me really a lot of joy.
And I'm gonna sound like such a goody goody two shoes.
Here is reading to my kids. Oh yeah, so I
read classics with them. So we'll do children's classics like
The Secret Garden or even right now, I'm reading Pride
(09:29):
and Prejudice to them, which is a little above their
great level, but I'm able to talk them through it,
and we talk about what the sentences mean and the
and the language, and and they'll probably, you know, pick
up some of it as they go. So I've been
reading that to them. I'm told that now might be
a good age for the Hobbit. And I've never done
Tolkien before, which I know is like such a so
(09:52):
terrible on my track.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I've never read it either. Yeah, so I'm not a
fantasy but I would give that a.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, so that might be our next one after Pride
and Prejudice. We also read like more contemporary stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
That's amazing, that's really cool. I feel like I should
do that, but I might have missed my window.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah. Well, it ends up being my only fiction reading
because I falls off for me. I'm trying to read
fiction while I'm on vacation this week.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yeah, I read a lot, not a lot, but I
my whole thing is I try to read fiction, and
I'm reading going. I'm reading right now, go On Pretending
by Alina Adams. She's one of my favorite writers. She
just writes really, really beautiful fiction.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
I always take recommendations from Carrol because I feel like
we have We're on the same wavelength when it comes
to fiction.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
I'm gonna I publish a list at the end of
the year where I kind of feel disappointed with how
little I read or you know, it's not bad, it's
more than I think the average person, but it's still
like not where I want to be. And then like
I'll have like, let's say, fifteen books for the year,
and my daughter will be.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Like, oh, here's the one hundred and fifty I read.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I had half as much as my children. Yeah, you're
a much better person.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Same same, Yeah, but also it's hard. It's hard.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
It's hard.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
We go easier at ourselves.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah. The very very silly thing that I watch that
makes me happy every time I turn it on is
what we do in the Shadows, which is a I
don't know if empire based mockumentary.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Okay, okay, fantastic, it's all right.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
The comedic actors are fantastic, but plots are ridiculous. It's
all just so silly that you don't have to worry
about it, right, it's right. I like that I have
sometimes gearing up for very serious TV. But yeah, yeah,
I don't have to be in any mood for just
turn it.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
On, right.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I find it very hard to watch tense shows, especially
at night, which is the only time we have time
to watch anything. We're watching The Bear right now, but
we're only in the first season. It has tension, like
a little bit too much tension, like when things go
wrong at the restaurant and you're like, like, why am
I stressing about like their lives?
Speaker 3 (11:59):
I like, yeah, yeah, same.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Funniest line from any movie. I was thinking about this.
I don't know if this is the funniest line, but
this is the line that we use the most in
our household. It's from Big Lebowski where he has his
car stolen and he has a clear.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Clearance clearwater tape in there.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
And the police officer is he yes, the police officer like,
do you think you're going to find my car? And
the police officers like I don't know. And then Lebowski's like,
but what.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
About my credence clearwater tape?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
And the cop is like, oh yeah, they have us
working in shifts. So they have us working in shifts
is a line that we use around the house when like,
are we gonna do blank, like something that's just you know,
too difficult and too time consuming. We're like, yeah, they
have us working in shifts.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I love it. I would say the most quotable movies
in my family and my family of origin and my
immediate family now like money, Python stuff, probably Monny Python.
The Holy Grail was a go to when we were
When we were kids, I feel like my dad really
got us into like comedy nerd space. So we watched
(13:13):
a lot of Second City TV and all of the
like Ed Grimley and all the SNL characters from back
in the day. Those are very quotable in my house.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Ricky Bobby, Oh yeah, Ricky Bobby for sure.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, the Billy Madison era. For me still I quote
things that my kids have no idea what I'm talking about.
By the way, and Friday might be my most favorite
quotable movie.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah, oh, that's really good. I mean by Felicia's from Friday,
and well, there are.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
So many there are so many things that are so
embedded in culture that are from Friday that people don't
even know they're from Friday. But that was really in
my formative years, Friday was a go to. Yeah, and
so so those have been just stuck in my brain
ever since.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
We're going to take a short break and come right
back with normally all right, switching gears a little bit
to politics. We had got a few questions about the
new Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City. I
think you know Zara Mamandi is he's Frankly, it's scaring
people that someone like this can get so close to
(14:22):
being the mayor of New York.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
He's in pole position to win.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
So somebody asks, should the Trump DOJ make a move
to strip Zoran of his citizenship and support him only
if you want to make him super popular and definitely
going to win the election?
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Is this? Yeah, this is one of those things that
conservatives should not get into that liberals have been into
in the past, which is the idea that when someone
wins an election fair and square, that you can unelect them,
right like, you get a shot at it.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
You had the shot, Yeah, and you have another shot
in November.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Year later, just as the entire first Trump administration. They
were going to get their shot in twenty twenty, but
they insisted on trying to unpresident the president. Yeah, and
that's not how democracy works, even though they want to
claim that they're the guardians of democracy. So don't do that.
You have to fight on fair ground with this guy.
(15:16):
It's an American to deport him at simply because he's
a bad choice for this city. He is a bad choice.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
He is a bad choice, right, it's.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Like a disastrous one. Yeah. There's actually a clip floating
around now from twenty twenty one where he's like, well,
the object is to seize the means of productition, right.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
The thing is, I think people.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Not productivity. I modern therapy speak to the new old language.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
I think what people can take away from that is
we should be more careful about who we let into
the country. They should align with our values. They shouldn't
want to bring down capitalism. All of these things are
It's okay to monitor people's social media or find out
what they really really, you know, care about and want
to do here, and it's fine to say, you know,
(16:06):
no people like this.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah no. I think it's also just so gross to
have this rich kid doing the thing that rich revolutionaries
always do, which is, let me not let anyone else
get rich and demonize anyone who's working hard and moving
up and creating products for a bunch of people and
getting rich that way. And also let me take all
(16:30):
your money, but you're awful and evil. It's just the
whole thing is so gross. Please vote for Eric Adams.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I guess yeah, Well, That's the follow up question somebody
else had was should everyone who's not a socialist in
New York City just commit to voting for Eric Adams
right now? There's some controversy around this, you know, people
are like, well, why not Curtis Leewa, the Republican. I
just think that Eric Adams is the best option here.
I think he's got the biggest shot to win. I
(16:56):
like Curtis a lot.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I just if I were.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Living in New York, I would want people to put
all of their chips behind behind Eric Adams because I
think that he's currently mayor. He has some advantages because
of that, and he's normal enough is really what we're
going for here. He's not amazing, he's just good enough.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
He's not communist, and unless you coalesce, the more likely.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
I would also say I have read through quite a
bit of the indictment of him, because this is like
a vote for the criminal. It's important, situation important. Yeah,
but I will I think you can. You might assuage
yourself a bit on that front if you read the indictment,
which is a little like I'm sure there may be
more stuff there, Yeah, a little like, oh he got
(17:44):
his flights upgraded, and I'm supposed to be very concerned
about that, right, I'm not sure how concerned I am
about that compared to seize the means of production.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
That's really the thing that there's questionable stuff around Eric Adams.
I wrote out all of his problems in a Washington
Examiner piece before he was actually indicted, when it was
like he was going to be indicted. He's got a
lot of shady He had a lot of shady people
around him that he didn't fire.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
He's pledging to do better. Let's see if he does.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
But again, when you compare it to straight up communism,
it's kind of an easy choice.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
What do you think of banning cell phones in schools?
This person notes, which a great point. I can see
why they're doing it, but they're worried that if you
take them out, then teachers won't be at all worried
about being documented doing greetings that have ticked off parents.
This far left indoctrination over the last couple years, and
of course a lot of that was brought to light
(18:39):
by zoom right, and by having cameras in the classroom.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, well, I would say that they still will have
cameras in the classroom. These kids are all using chromebooks now,
which is a separate question of whether that should be
the case, right, it's.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Should kids be using.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Screens in schools pretty much at every level at this point.
My fourth grader doesn't have screens, but my older kids do,
and so you'll still have that. I you know what
the problem is, if you have a school that has
enforcement of the rules, then it won't matter to ban
phones or not. You could just say you're not allowed
(19:18):
to use your phones in class and that's it. But
the real issue is that public schools across the country
do not enforce any of the rules. They do not
suspend anybody, They certainly don't expel anybody. There's no risk
to these kids to just not follow the rules at all.
So if you have a rule following school, you could
have phones that you're just not allowed to use at
(19:39):
certain times.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
That's not what we have unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Yeah, I think I tend to think the benefits of
no phones are probably greater than the downsides of not
having them. Yeah, instruction, I think, you know, we try
to keep our kids fairly screen free, you know, not
totally and she, but I find that their behavior is better,
(20:04):
their ability to problem solve is better, their desire to
read books is better when they do not have access
all the time, and so in a school setting, that
would obviously help students. But I do think what you're
what you're saying, Carol, is when when what they're doing
is when they take the option away entirely, it obviates
(20:25):
the need for them to jump in on a case
by case basis because they've shown that they're not willing
or able to do that, and parents will fight them
tooth and nail. That's part of it, right, Parents will
fight over this each adjudication, and so they're just like, nah,
we're done.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So yeah, yeah, that's that's the problem here.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
But can I ask one question? Okay, so you went
to nineteen eighties nineties New York public schools.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I went to I went to Jewish schools.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
But yeah, so I went to eighties nineties public schools
in North Carolina. What's the wild oldest old school eighties
anecdote from your schools? Like something that gen Z would
be like, they did, what do you have any uh?
Speaker 2 (21:11):
You know? I had a really incredible teacher in high school.
I went to a small private high school in Brooklyn,
and I had this really like one of those teachers
straight out of the movies, like who inspire you and
you know, write whatever, But those teachers are always a
little crazy, and he used to do stuff like he'd
get really angry and throw a desk out the window.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Like it was just.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Like he he taught me how to write, but I
also feared for my life. So yeah, you know a
little from Colum b We've.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
We've had those. We're like, I remember my public schools,
like enforcement by teachers was somewhat rougher than would be
allowed now. I would argue that in the cases where
I saw that it was warranted, like physically restraining.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah. One of two of my favorite ones. One when
I first came to my elementary school, WHI would have
been mid eighties ish, no one was paddled in our
public schools, but there were paddles, so it was like
we had amazing we had just gotten past that. But
(22:15):
they a couple of old school teachers. They would hang
on the wall and they were legendary as this you know,
unspoken threat that something could happen to you if you
got out of hand. And legend I remember was that
like there were holes drilled in a wooden paddle, and
I was like, why would that be? And the rumor was,
(22:35):
I don't know if this is true older people than
I can say, is that makes it more like cuts
through the window. Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
They needed it to be worse, they needed it to
really hurt.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Nothing actually happened, but it was like the threat. And
then the other one was my middle school did not
have air conditioning in North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
No, none of our schools.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, the rule was, I remember that. I don't know
who wrote this rule. The rule was if it was
ninety eight degrees for three days in a row, we
would get the fourth day off. Like even my children,
who I think I've toughened up a little more than
the average kid this age, if I asked them to
be in the school building in ninety eight degree heat
(23:18):
for three days.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, I don't think they'd make it.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I don't think you make it.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, society would lose its mind.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Right. We were like in New York like two weeks ago,
my fifteen year old, my husband and I and they
were having like a heat snap. And I know I
live in Florida, so I like heat, I assure you.
But The problem was that everywhere in New York felt
really under air conditioned compared to Florida. Like Florida, you
walk into a restaurant, you're.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Like burr, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
In New York it was like, why am I still hot?
Speaker 1 (23:47):
What is it? My fifteen year old.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Was like, oh, like this, how do they live like this?
Speaker 2 (23:52):
This is not cutting right, not at all. This was
so much fun. Thanks for joining us on Normally. Normally
airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you
get your podcasts. Get in touch with us at normally
thepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening, and when
things get weird, act normally
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Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
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