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Episode One Hundred Sixty Six: Comfortably Stuck · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Welcome to episode number one hundred and sixty six of the Death of Journalism podcast.
• 0:04
  My name is John Szickler. I'm your host on today's show, something
• 0:08
  entirely different. For the first time ever since we got married, I'll be
• 0:13
  interviewing my wife, Allison. This will be interesting. Alison, Welcome to
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  the Death of Journalism podcast. Thank you. All right, Let's first explain
• 0:28
  why it is that I decided to ask you to be interviewed on the podcast
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  and why you agreed to do this for the first time. We did do
• 0:36
  one interview many many, many many many years ago when we first met.
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  That was back on KFI Radio in Los Angeles, but that wasn't really an
• 0:44
  interview about you or about us. That was about there was no real us.
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  Then that was about you teaching nine to eleven on the fifth anniversary of
• 0:54
  nine to eleven. But this particular week, I can't do a normal episode
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  of the Death of Journalism podcast because I have no internet access. And the
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  reason I have no internet access is because we are taking our yearly trip to
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  Yosemite, where we're basically cut off from society. And the reason why we
• 1:14
  take a yearly trip to Usemite is that it is your favorite place on Earth,
• 1:19
  this is your favorite week of the year, and so I thought this
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  would be a perfect symmetry since Yosemite is the reason why I have to come
• 1:26
  up with a new way of doing the podcast for this week, that I
• 1:30
  would invite you on, and you agreed to be interviewed, and I was
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  excited about that, and so I'm just curious, how are you feeling about
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  this idea. You're welcome for introducing you to Yosemite and planning and packing for
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  the trip every year and making sure we get reservations that are incredibly difficult to
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  get. You're welcome, Okay, that is all very true, and we
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  are all very thankful to you, Alison, for the work that you do
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  on this. Of course, it is your trip. This is this is
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  your life's goal all year long is to get to this week. Correct.
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  It is my goal every year to make it to seventy Yes, and it's
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  optional for you to go. You don't have to go on my trip.
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  You're invited, and if you choose not to go, that's entirely up to
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  you. You say that every year, but it's not really true. This
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  is it. This is a trap that you have set this went before you
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  were alive in my life, and I will go when you are no longer
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  alive, which I'm sure is the moment you're very much looking forward to.
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  I have no doubt you'll be going to use seventy long after I'm dead.
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  That is not a question in my mind. But the first of all I
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  want to I want to back up for a second before we get to my
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  view of you, Semite and a whole other series of things I want to
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  talk to you about. Let's talk first about why it is that you love
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  you seventy so much, Why is it that useemity is such a big part
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  of your life. And let's start off with how many times do you think
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  you've been to Yousementy National Park in your life. I've been there well over
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  fifty five or fifty six going in there probably fifty six weeks out of my
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  life, because I started going as an infant with my family. We went
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  every year. Then I've gone in the winter. Sometimes I've missed a couple
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  here and there, but that I've made up for it in other trips.
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  And because it's the most beautiful place in the world, and because there's no
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  internet access, I like this, and there is some limited it's not great.
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  No, there's no living, there is no internet. Well, but
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  it's the most beautiful place on earth, and it resets my soul to be
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  able to deal with everything all year. It's you know, we're looking at
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  a picture of it clearly that I shot right now, and I stare at
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  pictures of it all year, just waiting to get back there. And if
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  I could, I would live there. But you have said no, I've
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  thought of living there. I could be a bus driver, or you could
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  be a school teacher there, which you are, and it's very difficult to
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  do that, but I would, Okay, I know you would. And
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  look, I agree that Usemite is the most beautiful place that I've ever seen.
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  I am curious, though, why do you have to go for seven
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  or eight days at a time, because I think the perfect Yosemite trip is
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  like it takes a long time to get up there from where we live.
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  But I would think, you know, four days would be the perfect amount
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  of time. Why is it that does it have to be a week?
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  Well, you would be wrong because it has to be a week, because
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  that is how it takes me three days to unwind U ravel and then I
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  need to revel in it. And then of course there's the last two days
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  where I'm more in believing. So you understand, Oh oh, there's no
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  question that the worst day of your year is the day before we leave Yousemite.
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  Is that accurate? I've always found that odd that you would think the
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  last day where you're a place that you love you, that's a terrible day.
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  It's just a it's a very sad day because I know it'll be another
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  year before i'm there, and and it's a it's a it's like a benchmark
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  in my life every year and I can reflect back and all the important people
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  in my life have gone to Yousemite and I have experiences there, and it's
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  every year I can sort of it's like a touch point. And I like
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  that. I agree that that's got to be a large part of the allure,
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  even more so than just the place itself, that it has been such
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  a huge part of your existence and your evolution as a person, and memories
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  of your childhood too. Is that is that also part of the equation I
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  have, I have a great child. Yes, my childhood is hard.
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  That was hard. So do you think that if you had not had childhood
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  memories there, that you wouldn't be quite as obsessed and it wouldn't play as
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  large a role in your lifesemite as it does currently. I have no idea,
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  but millions of people like Yosemite. People come from all over the world
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  to go to Yosemite. People dream of it, and we get to go
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  once a year, and it doesn't take that long to get there three hundred
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  miles. People fly all over the world to see things much less spectacular than
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  this, which is stupid. So this is going to be interesting interview,
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  folks, There's no question about it. This is going to go down some
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  interesting paths, so stay tuned, all right. Before we leave the U
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  seventy topic, I just want to set the record straight. I think Yousemity
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  is awesome, and I love seeing you be happy. I love seeing the
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  kids be happy. Kids love it. I am thrilled that you've been able
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  to indoctrinate our kids into U seventy. I mean, by the way,
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  are you surprised how well you've been able to indocumate the kids? Not in
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  the least. I was mildly surprised. I thought in the modern era it
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  might be difficult to get two young kids this jazzed up about Yosemite. But
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  you've done a great job. That's why it's so essential because there's no there's
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  no junk there. It's just rivers and lakes and rocks and stones, and
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  they love it. It's everything good and nothing bad. No, I get
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  it. I think it's fantastic. Again. I like, I like very
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  much. How much you love it, how much kids love it. It
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  just becomes a bit of a grind from my perspective, you know, because
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  my life is very different than your because you don't do anything when you're there.
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  You just sit there. I'm the one cooking, and I'm the one
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  carrying, and I'm the one organizing. Because you know what you're doing.
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  I don't know. You could figure it out, but you don't. You
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  haven't yet. Wait a minute, hold on. This was a major requirement
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  in our marriage that I participate in this on a year basis, and I
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  do so. So I don't think that I deserve criticism for my lack of
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  participation in your perception as far as what I should be doing, you wouldn't
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  want me to, you wouldn't allow me. You don't even let me drive
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  the car for most of the time. Not a very good driver. But
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  that's a fact. You won't even let me drive the car. That's something
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  I know how to do. He cannot drive on Kirby roads. Just straightaways
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  are fine, Okay, yeah, right, So there's about a one hundred
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  mile stretch that you will allow me to drive onto Semite. I don't want
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  to die. Okay. So again, for the record, I love you
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  seventy I love even more that you and the kids love you, Semite.
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  But it does cause a bit of havoc in my life. But from a
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  professional standpoint, it's a It screws up the whole golf season. There's there's
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  all sorts of ramifications to this. One week out of the year. If
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  you cannot take off from golf from the Lynx should not be a problem.
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  I understand. It's part of the deal. I get it. It's part
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  of the Alison deal. It should be part of your deal too. Okay,
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  again, I don't want to belabor this. I like you somebody.
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  I talk about you somebody on this podcast all the time, especially from the
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  perspective of climate change and global warming and how the whole valley basically proves that
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  the liberal view of climate change, global warming is total bs. By the
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  way, do you agree with that that yousemity proves that? And why would
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  you say that? Because I've been going to somebody my whole life. I
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  can tell you exactly if there's going to be snow, if there's going to
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  be how much water is going to be going in the river. I can
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  tell you because it's been doing it for fifty years. Just California has droughts
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  of about seven years and then we'll get two three years of a lot of
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  water. It's been happening forever, and you can look at it. You
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  can even gauge it. They have maps of how much water comes down and
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  out of the river for the last two hundred years. So I do find
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  that to be one of the more interesting elements of the trip. And this
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  year will be another another a very high level, high water level a year,
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  and it should be very interesting to see all the impacts of the permanent
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  California drought on your seventies U sebenty Falls is flowing forward at an almost record
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  clip, and I'll have a report on that when I return from our trip.
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  Now, let's talk about California in general. Because you are a California
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  girl. You knows, born and raised. You looked like a California girl,
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  classic California girl in the nineteen eighties and nineties, tall, blonde,
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  Right, Well, I don't know what a California girl is today. What
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  do you think a California girl is today? Not blonde? Not okay?
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  Right? Not then? Not los okay, But talk to me about how
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  California has changed in your lifetime, from being a kid growing up in California,
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  in southern California to now being an adult with two kids. How would
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  you describe the changes that you've seen in the state of California. My elementary
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  school was ranked one of the top elementary schools in the nation and it's just
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  a little school down the street from where my parents still reside. We had
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  the greatest schools in California. You could jump on the freeway and get to
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  Santa Monica from Glendelle, where my parents live, in forty minutes or something.
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  There was never traffic, not on the weekends. Now it's a dead
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  standstill. Our schools come in last place or maybe like you know, third
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  to last place. And the people in California are not very nice. Anymore.
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  People in California used to be very nice and very relaxed, and I
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  don't find that anymore. We are catering to the lowest common denominator and human
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  kind. As I saw today. What happened today today was Juneteenth, and
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  I was unaware of that. And I went to Magic Mountain, which is
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  a part an amusement park, and the people actually went to the water park
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  portion. And I can never unsee the seat the things that I saw today.
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  It was disturbing. Well, perhaps we'll leave that for another conversation.
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  But as far as California is concerned, I mean, I talk a lot
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  on this podcast about the decline of California, and the best way I would
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  describe it in connection to you and your family and specifically your parents, is
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  that I can't tell you how many times in the years that I've known you
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  and hung out with your parents where the subject comes up that is almost identical,
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  even though the specifics change, and that is, hey, remember when
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  this awesome thing used to exist here in California and no longer does I mean
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  that conversation We've had at least one hundred times, Greg, I've had that
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  at least one hundred times. There were so many awesome things in California,
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  little places to eat and fun places to go, and the minute there's something
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  cool. For an example, we were talking about it with I was talking
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  about with the kids today. Griffith Park, which is a huge park in
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  Los Angeles. It was gifted to the city of Los Angeles. Used to
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  have pony rides. They were there for fifty years or something. Ridiculous little
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  pony rides. They were five bucks. You could throw your kid on a
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  pony. They would ride around in a circle. Well, the environmentalists got
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  hold of that, or the horse people whatever they are, and they killed
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  that. So you can't go. You can't take a kid for a pony
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  ride. Well, Diana's never learned to ride a horse. Grace knows how
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  to ride a horse because she went on the ponies in Griffith Park. There's
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  little things like that all over southern California. Are the State of California places
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  that used to do things that no longer are available, and it's a very
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  sad state. Even somewhere like Yosebody used to have horses that you could ride
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  through. You can't do that anymore. Everything sort of fun, sort of
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  dies out and it's not great. And there are a lot of reasons for
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  that, but one of them is insurance rates and political correctness and busy body
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  people who think they can run your life to protect you from danger. And
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  that's basically. It's all related to the liberal takeover of California, either directly
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  or indirectly. And I'm curious you've mentioned within your description of how California has
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  changed the gregg my god, I'm having a brain fart. Let's pick that
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  out, Yes, let me pick that up. Three two one. You've
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  mentioned within your description of the degradation of of California the decline of the educational
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  system, which you have been a large part of, not just as a
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  student, but someone who went to public school and then went to UCLA and
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  then became a public school teacher. How would you describe the changes specifically in
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  the educational system here in California. In the education system, we cater to
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  the lowest common denominator instead of even the middle of the pack, and every
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  single student can hold back all of the other students, and it's not great
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  for the education system, and they don't teach the basics. We spend so
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  much time talking about nonsense and very little time actually discussing the curriculum that the
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  kids are learning. And I'm a curriculum specialist, I have a master's degree
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  in it, and there's barely any time spent on the reading and the writing,
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  you know, But it goes way beyond that. In my perception,
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  to me, there is and it's you know, in recent years, is
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  now called wokeness or progressivism. There it feels like it that wokeness drips from
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  the very language that the educational system in California uses. I learned this firsthand
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  when I try to get involved with our superintendent of schools and the principle of
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  our kids' school, and I can't even understand what they're saying half the time.
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  Do you feel like you need to learn a second language to understand woke
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  educational verbiage these days? As you know, I have not one, but
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  two teaching credentials some different subjects, actually three if you consider it might extend
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  one, and I have a master's degree in education. I have no idea
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  what nine out of ten educational people are discussing the same superintendent lovely lady came
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  to do a came to teach our school how to do something. No one
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  knew what she was talking about. There was no substance to her discussion.
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  It was all very flighty. You can't define it. It's very wokey,
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  touchy feely, and in the end, it doesn't get down to the nitty
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  gritty of how is this going to help these children? And what is the
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  reading, the writing, the arithmetic, how is it going to help that.
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  It's always some social emotional something or other. And I don't have any
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  idea how they're what they want, and no one does because all I did
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  this, I did this little study. I went around my whole staff to
• 17:49
  ask after the superintendent came to teach us something what she was talking about,
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  and no one knew. Everyone was on different ends. And that's pretty pretty
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  standard throughout education. Now. My sister's teacher, all my brother's a teacher.
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  We all think the exact same thing. It's crazy. Now. One
• 18:07
  of the things I'm going to ask you during this interview is to verify certain
• 18:11
  stories or not verify them if you don't want to verify certain stories that I've
• 18:15
  told on the podcast that relate to you. One of them just came up
• 18:18
  when you reference our superintendent. I told the story of how it is that
• 18:23
  I had gotten a meeting with the superintendent and I was intending to try to
• 18:29
  dissuade her from this say No to Hate campaign because I thought it was very
• 18:33
  anti free speech and it was basically giving an incentive to students to rat each
• 18:38
  other out and to make up stories, you know, using the N word
• 18:41
  or whatever, because these kids know immediately how to get other kids in trouble
• 18:45
  in this PC world. And I told the audience of this podcast that my
• 18:52
  plans were derailed at the last minute because you basically cut my balls off and
• 18:56
  said you only want ten percent of John Zigler meeting. It's that an accurate
• 19:00
  assessment of what happened. A few people can handle one hundred percent of John
• 19:06
  Ziegler. Okay, but are you are you? Does that mean you're verifying
• 19:10
  the story? Verified? Okay, the story is verified. I love my
• 19:15
  job. I still love it's funny. I love my teaching job. I
• 19:18
  like my students when I'm in the classroom. I still love doing what I'm
• 19:22
  doing. But as a whole, the system isn't broken, partially because we
• 19:30
  have Nitwitz as parents, and we can't control the nit with parents before you
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  know, even ten years ago, we would say to parents who are being
• 19:37
  crazy, sorry, but this is the school policy. Now. We can't
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  do that. We're not allowed to so right now, one of the elements
• 19:47
  of wokeness that I have perceived is pervasive within California's educational system, and I
• 19:55
  think it's probably pervasive throughout all of academia across the country is the the issue
• 20:00
  of DEI, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. And I despise DEI for many
• 20:07
  reasons, but one of which is that it creates an inherent suspicion of anybody
• 20:15
  who is a person who might be covered under DEI, who is successful is
• 20:22
  given a prestigious position or an honor or an award, whatever, that that
• 20:27
  there's a suspicion inherently that the only reason why they got it was because of
• 20:33
  DEI, and it therefore degrades any achievement by a person of color or a
• 20:40
  woman, and in particular situation if they're covered by DEI. And so I
• 20:45
  can't stand it on so many different levels. But my perception is that within
• 20:51
  academia it also creates an extreme level of entitlement when it comes to people,
• 20:57
  certain groups of people who are now gaining advantage because of DEI and know that
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  they are untouchable within an academic setting where everybody in charge is a liberal,
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  and that their race, or gender, or their sexuality, whatever it is,
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  is essentially a force field against any sort of criticism or accountability. Has
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  that been your perception of what's happening within the educational system in California? Yes,
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  And I don't think that people who are benefiting from it are even aware
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  of the fact sometimes that they are benefiting from it, where if it was
• 21:34
  a different person in that same position, they may be tossed out on their
• 21:40
  ear, but or at least be criticized. But there's certain people you just
• 21:47
  throw up your hands and walk away from, and everybody around knows what's going
• 21:53
  on. They know that a particular person I don't always know that some of
• 21:56
  them do. I don't think that some I think that there are a lot
• 22:03
  of liberals who are completely unaware. But there are also a lot of liberals
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  again in my perception, correct me if I'm wrong, who do understand that
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  race is a weapon and you just let it go and you let it be,
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  and don't you don't poke the bear and it's not right, and it's
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  not good. But I'm not going to say anything. One because it's not
• 22:26
  myself interest to say anything, but also because as a liberal, I kind
• 22:30
  of believe that, you know, this is making up for past wrongs or
• 22:33
  something like that. You don't see that as being part of the reality.
• 22:37
  I don't know, I think that. I mean, there are some,
• 22:41
  there are some, but there are a lot of liberals who are so blind
• 22:47
  to the fact that it exists, and they don't see it because they're they
• 22:52
  live in it. I don't understand why they can't see it, because they
• 22:56
  almost name it, but then they can't. There's a blind spot. I
• 23:02
  don't know. Now, obviously you're a conservative, and you know, I
• 23:07
  don't want to make it sound like every teacher in California is a liberal,
• 23:11
  because there are actually, I think a surprising number of teachers, based upon
• 23:18
  what you've said and other experiences I've had, who are not liberals, but
• 23:22
  they are afraid of being outed as not liberals. And so you guys almost
• 23:27
  have to have a like a secret society sort of thing. Is that is
• 23:32
  that an accurate representation of things? This is accurate. There's many many conservative
• 23:38
  teachers, but they will never say anything. And I found this in my
• 23:42
  last job. I was there forever, and I taught in Torrance for years
• 23:45
  and years, and I was an open conservative, I think at the time,
• 23:51
  you know, I drove around with a Bush sticker on my car because
• 23:52
  I love George Bush and we It was und the believable the number of people
• 24:00
  who I knew were conservatives and they would never say a word about some of
• 24:08
  the things that were going on at that point in education. So yeah,
• 24:14
  And is there a particularly particular way that you can pick up on whether or
• 24:18
  not a fellow teacher is a non liberal. A fellow nonliberal they usually know
• 24:22
  the other one, So you have to find one, and then they rather
• 24:26
  then you you have to make and then you quietly talk in your classroom and
• 24:30
  then you have to figure out which the other ones are. But you can
• 24:33
  usually tell through discussions, but you have to do it slowly. You can't
• 24:38
  go in gangbusters, like when you first start a job. You can't.
• 24:42
  You don't tell anyone you're because I would never tell anyone a conservative. I
• 24:45
  didn't tell anyone I was a conservative, except for one person, because I
• 24:49
  knew she was a conservative. She had pictures of Trump all at or a
• 24:52
  classroom. But which is crazy. But I knew she was a conservative,
• 25:00
  and then she told every She would tell me who everybody else was. Hasn't
• 25:04
  there been? Isn't it a little bit easier in the post COVID world to
• 25:10
  figure this out when all you have to do is ask people or talk about
• 25:14
  what their views of the COVID response was. No, I think that there
• 25:18
  were actually a lot of conservatives that were stupid on COVID when it came to
• 25:22
  education, because I think that there's a lot of teachers who don't like teaching.
• 25:26
  So they pretended like they were really pro you know, oh, we
• 25:30
  have to, you know, be careful of the children. Meanwhile, they
• 25:33
  just really didn't want to really work all out. Interesting, Okay, I
• 25:37
  do think that's probably true and sad empathetic. But let's talk about COVID and
• 25:42
  in general and in the schools in particular. What is your view of the
• 25:48
  COVID response here in California visit v the public educational system. Well, that
• 25:56
  it was the worst thing that we've ever done to children, the absolute and
• 26:00
  by the way, that past reference was not about the people that I work
• 26:04
  with now, it's just about all my friends who are teachers. I know
• 26:07
  a lot of teachers because I've been in several different districts, So it's actually
• 26:11
  not that my current staff. Actually my current staff, they're all they work
• 26:18
  pretty hard, very hard, and I think that some of them worked really
• 26:21
  hard through COVID. They just weren't affected. It was the most ineffective,
• 26:30
  ridiculous thing that we have ever done to students. We tortured them. They
• 26:34
  lost years of learning. And if anyone is going to try and pretend like
• 26:38
  they didn't, they are ridiculous, because of course they did. And it
• 26:45
  was the most vulnerable children that lost the most. As you know. You
• 26:51
  know, I teach special education primarily because we have a daughter who's super dyslexic.
• 27:00
  So I stopped teaching in Jenna and I went to teach special ed.
• 27:03
  And these are the children that find it extraordinarily difficult to learn through reading and
• 27:11
  writing and arithmetic. It's just difficult. They have certain blind spots. And
• 27:17
  those are the kids that were most impacted, the ones that we are supposed
• 27:21
  to cater to the most. We did the greatest disservice to it. And
• 27:27
  it's my perception from things you've told me and things that I have seen on
• 27:32
  my own that we're only beginning to realize the damage that we did do students
• 27:40
  in particular, the educational system in general. And it's not just with regard
• 27:45
  to academics. You have said, and even Saturday Night Live has highlighted the
• 27:52
  reality that this particular school year was unprecedentedly bad from a behavioral standpoint, and
• 28:02
  that there is very likely a direct causation between what happened with COVID and the
• 28:10
  fact that we're seeing residual behavioral problems now in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty
• 28:15
  four. Is that an accurate representation of what you perceive to be reality.
• 28:19
  Yes, And my sister is also a teacher in a different district. My
• 28:25
  brother is a teacher, and we're seeing these behaviors that we never saw before
• 28:29
  COVID. We're seeing incredibly high rate of absences, tarties. Now. I
• 28:36
  don't think it's all COVID related. I think some of it is just how
• 28:41
  stupid California is when it comes to their education and the laws now that are
• 28:48
  on the books. You're basically not allowed to punish kids anymore. Correct,
• 28:52
  you can't. It's impossible. It's extraordinarily difficult to suspend or expel a student.
• 29:00
  It can be done, and it is done, but it's extraordinarily difficult.
• 29:04
  The punishments are never swift. There's always, you know, going back
• 29:10
  and forth. We have something called positive behavioral interventions, which is just the
• 29:15
  most ridiculous thing. It's this new idea that's being taught in California schools and
• 29:21
  it does not work. Children want limits, especially I teach middle school,
• 29:26
  especially middle school children, they want limits. They want to understand what they
• 29:30
  can and cannot do, and they want to whether they know it or not.
• 29:34
  They want to receive consequences when they misbehave or when they behave inappropriately for
• 29:41
  a situation, and we keep talking about it, and we talk and we
• 29:47
  talk and we talk to them, and there's never a consequence. Now that's
• 29:52
  also a problem because parents are also ridiculous. Now parents will not provide consequences
• 29:59
  for the our own children. And so you have parents who aren't giving consequences
• 30:03
  and schools who don't give consequences. I think next year we're not allowed to
• 30:07
  give detention during lunch and detention after school. We can give a detention before
• 30:11
  school. The child won't come before school, So how do you give it
• 30:15
  attention? Now, speaking of COVID story verification time again, I want to
• 30:22
  go back to twenty twenty, and this is something I've mentioned on the podcast
• 30:27
  several times before in relation to Grace. So Halloween happens. We have an
• 30:33
  absolutely horrific Halloween, and I get very concerned about what's going to happen with
• 30:40
  our Christmas light presentation that we use as a family event about fifteen to twenty
• 30:45
  times during December, and whether or not that's actually going to happen, and
• 30:51
  whether or not the liberals in the neighborhood that we canvas for the Christmas lights
• 30:55
  are going to pull the plug literally and figuratively. And I'm curious what your
• 31:02
  recollection of that whole situation is, how you would describe it starting with the
• 31:07
  Halloween from the COVID year of twenty twenty. Well, the COVID year of
• 31:12
  twenty twenty, Halloween was a disaster area because we go went up to my
• 31:15
  parents, who live in an area where everyone decorates, they've decorated for years
• 31:22
  and years. They go over the top, and so our plan was to
• 31:26
  only visit homes that had been decorated that way we would know if there was
• 31:32
  candy and if they were into it. And so here we have what a
• 31:36
  three year old and a eight year old decorated, you know, all dressed
• 31:41
  up, and we went up to houses where there were decorated you know,
• 31:45
  from everywhere, and they slammed people, slammed the base, you know,
• 31:48
  slammed the door in our face and said, you know, basically, get
• 31:51
  out of here, crazy people. And it was a disaster, yes,
• 31:56
  And so then what happened. So then you and you said to Grace,
• 32:00
  we need to protect the Christmas lights, which we walk every night, because
• 32:04
  let's face it, it gets dark if four forty five is boring during Christmas
• 32:07
  time. And I like to walk. So it's a great walk. You
• 32:10
  can walk two miles with your kids and they and walk look at all the
• 32:14
  beautiful lights. And we've been doing that for years. It's our Christmas tradition
• 32:19
  and it's one that I think Grace, our older child, looks forward to
• 32:22
  the most. So you and Grace set out and we made fifty letters,
• 32:29
  and Grace decorated them according to what each house is decorated, like, you
• 32:34
  know, there's a Jack the Pumpkin King, there's a Mickey house. So
• 32:37
  she decorated them and we delivered them to everyone in that neighborhood. It was
• 32:42
  fifty five letters, and it was fifty five And when we went walking the
• 32:49
  lights that first time that we were uncertain as to what was going to happen,
• 32:52
  whether anyone was going to do it, and we were quite surprised and
• 32:57
  happy that there was only the one or the Biden lady, because you had
• 33:00
  a Biden flag out that decided not to participate, which did not surprise me
• 33:06
  at all. But talk about the reaction that we saw that year in our
• 33:13
  walk and the people that we ran into and those whose houses were decorated,
• 33:19
  and what they thought about this idea of saving the Christmas lights and what it
• 33:25
  seemingly meant to them, and their reactions specifically to our two kids, Grace
• 33:30
  and Diana, and the entire effort to save the lights. Well, we
• 33:35
  made a whole group of friends over there. Now they all know us because
• 33:40
  someone made a sign for actually several people made signs thinking Grace and put them
• 33:45
  on their houses. And one day we were yelling at our children, as
• 33:49
  we do on a regular basis. John's very loud. You can hear them
• 33:53
  seven miles away. You were yelling at the kids, you know, Grace
• 33:58
  and Diana, and a man called us and said, is that Grace and
• 34:01
  Diana come here? And he had us come over. He's the one that
• 34:07
  with the Santa in the red car and he decorates his house every year and
• 34:13
  he just wanted to meet Grace and he broke out down in tears because I
• 34:17
  think it was the first time in twenty five years that he wasn't going to
• 34:22
  decorate, and because of Grace's letter, he said that he did decorate,
• 34:28
  and he was so happy he had done it, because I think by that
• 34:31
  time, you know, in December of twenty twenty, people had really lost
• 34:37
  all hope of any sanity, you know, coming back to the situation that
• 34:44
  was COVID, and just people were so happy. And then there was a
• 34:49
  whole new section of lights that came up. Remember in that whole area,
• 34:52
  the military section and the main drag of the Christmas lights that we walked around
• 35:00
  has sort of moved and now you have a there's about six or seven houses
• 35:05
  that are all military families, clearly very conservative who during COVID decided to really
• 35:10
  decorate even more than they ever had so it expanded. Yeah, post COVID,
• 35:16
  the American flag has become a much more prominent part of our Christmas light
• 35:22
  display, the lights that we walk on a nightly basis. And you know,
• 35:28
  last year, once again that Merry Christmas Grace sign was up. I
• 35:31
  now worry every year is going to be the year that they don't put it
• 35:36
  back up. But Grace doesn't seem to care anymore, so I guess I
• 35:37
  shouldn't care nearly as much either. But thank you for verifying that particular story.
• 35:43
  There are several other stories I want you to talk about and verify that
• 35:47
  I've referenced on the podcast. Before let's go, I'm going to try to
• 35:52
  go kind of in order. So I want to go back to the early
• 35:57
  days of our relationship and the the entire OJ Simpson saga, because there's a
• 36:02
  couple of different elements that I know you are going to remember, and I
• 36:08
  don't want to get your thoughts on, so tell me about your perception.
• 36:14
  We'd not been dating all that long. We've been dating for a while,
• 36:16
  but not all that long. And Oj Simpson gets arrested in Las Vegas,
• 36:22
  Nevada, in a memorabilia heist and of course, this was a huge deal
• 36:29
  for me, even before we knew any of the details, because, like
• 36:32
  almost like so many different people in Southern California, the O. J.
• 36:36
  Simpson saga had already to that point been a big part of my life.
• 36:39
  But what are your memories, your recollections of what transpired in the aftermath of
• 36:45
  the O. J. Simpson Las Vegas arrest. Well, that was nuts.
• 36:50
  And at that point I probably should have cut all ties because I realized
• 36:52
  you're crazy because you were I don't remember his name, the guy that took
• 36:59
  the hell captain. Oh yeah, Alfred Beardsley, that guy. So you
• 37:04
  were taking a shower and your phone kept ringing and this is your home the
• 37:09
  day after the heights. Yeah, and it's being reported like there's news and
• 37:14
  stuff, and Alfred Beardsley keeps calling you, like he called you like ten
• 37:19
  times that day, and I'm like, this is nuts, this is crazy.
• 37:24
  Maybe I should maybe I should, sud but I didn't because it was
• 37:29
  fascinating. So that was a double edged sword for you. You found that
• 37:31
  interesting but also dangerous and maybe an indication you should leave like the relationship.
• 37:38
  Pretty much like with everything, like there was a lot of red flags that
• 37:43
  I ignore. So so the OJA situation was a red flag that you ignored.
• 37:51
  I just you're a little crazy. Sometimes I'm not so crazy, Okay,
• 37:57
  I always like that. So now there another element of the oj Simpson
• 38:00
  situation, and I have reference on the podcast before, and that is that
• 38:06
  you don't really like Kim Goldman very much at all? No, I don't,
• 38:10
  do you you want to tell us why you don't like Kim Goldman and
• 38:15
  just just for backup, for backdrop for people that don't remember, not because
• 38:17
  she's not it's not because she's Kim Goldman. It's because when I first started
• 38:22
  dating you, I heard her in the bathroom talking to her friend. She
• 38:25
  probably wouldn't even remember, but I was in the stall and I heard her
• 38:29
  talking about me, and so I didn't like her. And do you want
• 38:32
  to say what she said? What you overheard? I can't even remember.
• 38:36
  It's so long ago, but I just remember we were at some movie thing.
• 38:40
  It was my movie okay, So okay, so all right, I
• 38:45
  think it was at the Jewish Center up on the hill right of the four
• 38:47
  or five. It was the debut of my movie some movie thing, some
• 38:53
  movie thing. Yeah, okay, right, it is. But Kim was
• 39:00
  there because she and I were very close friends. We had dated for a
• 39:02
  while. And but you at that point felt like another red flag. That
• 39:08
  was another red flag that was ignored. What was the red flag about that?
• 39:14
  That you're friends with all your like people you dated, I don't like
• 39:16
  that. Well it's no longer the case. I don't. I don't keep
• 39:20
  in touch with anybody I used to day because I'm old now, but also
• 39:22
  don't keep in touch with anybody he didn't use today. You don't like people.
• 39:25
  So that's that. That's a big part of the equation. No,
• 39:29
  no, no question about that. Thanks for listening to today's free drop of
• 39:34
  the abbreviated show. If you're interested in listening to the entire show, you
• 39:38
  must become a patron. Please go to Patreon. That's p A t R
• 39:44
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• 39:52
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• 39:57
  R. That's patreon dot com slash the Death of Journalism with John Ziegler.
• 40:06
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