Latest / Coconut Justice / CJP #27: Common Ground Windy City Adventure
Transcript
- speaker-0: Hey, what's good? Jen Johansson is a leadership advisor cultivating leaders who remain clear, human, and grounded. She's also the director of Reasoned Reality, an independent media progressive think tank. Amanda McGonicle is the creator of Cats on the Couch Instagram account. It's an account made specifically to troll Vice President J.D. Vance. She's also here to topple fascism one cat reel at a time. They're coming on the channel to tell us about Common Ground, an event that's happening in Chicago January 17th from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Riv, 4746 North Racine in Chicago. C4 Explosives joins me in this conversation with Jen and Amanda. Before we get into it, remember to go to CoconutJustice.com to get you some clothes that I think would look good on you. Let's go. Hey Chicago, this one's for you. You know how much we love you. We know how much you're tired of the bull stuff. So we're bringing in some help. In this episode, we're going to be talking to Jen Johansson. We're going to be talking to Amanda McGonagall and your boy C4 Explosives. All that to say, welcome, Jen. Thank you. How are you doing? speaker-1: I'm doing great. Happy to be here. speaker-0: Hi Amanda. speaker-2: Thanks for having me. speaker-0: Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule, rabble rousing, to come hang out with us. speaker-2: Rousing. speaker-0: C Fourth. What's going on, my man? speaker-3: This is a good day to kick some ass, brother. speaker-0: Yep. And so with that, Jen and Amanda are coming to talk to us about this effort that they have going on. It's called Common Ground and it's happening. ⁓ we're recording this January 9th. ⁓ this happens next weekend. ⁓ I'm gonna let Jen give you guys all of the ⁓ details before we get all the way into the like explaining the the push. So Jen, you wanna give it to them? speaker-1: And so Reasoned Reality Project started as an Instagram account rooted in how to help people question their beliefs that are rigid. Because so much of how we're stuck as a country is rooted in a huge part of our population having these very rigid beliefs that they're terrified to question. I live in the same city as Liberty University as a New Yorker. So I've had to learn this as an outsider, and that's how I got involved in this work. But very quickly it became apparent that that's not the only reason we're stuck. The other reason is because of money that influences how people vote. in politics, how their campaign is funded. And they end up not being able to vote in a way that's people first. The problem is that it's almost impossible to get elected without that resource. So we've created, we've we've crowdsourced strategy, we've put a bunch of these aligned candidates together in a program. We've brought in experts in everything from the Instagram algorithm to ⁓ like Steve Hofstedter, the comedian offered to do a ⁓ a seminar for our folks about that. We have Robert Arnold who's a career strategist helping them. We have an optics and a crisis management guy. We have Everything we need. We've even built an e-commerce model with aligned brands to fund these campaigns. And the missing piece of the puzzle that we are so excited to bring in this year, because if 2025 was the year of the noise and the protests, 2026 is the year of the structure and the clarity, and the year that we rise above the noise on both sides of the political establishment with something better. And these common ground events are the flagship part of that where we're bringing together our top candidates from all over the country and our favorite influencers, like Amanda. I know it's really weird to identify with that label. It's a whole thing. You know, our favorite influencers and even celebrities in the same space to have events that make politics fun. And this is less about ⁓ in-depth. speaker-0: But speaker-1: I mean, it's gonna be some political conversation, but it's gonna be entertaining. This first event is a real housewives format where people will be up on stage. We have different things that are that in ⁓ integrate entertainment and culture and the changes we all want to see and the people who will bring about those changes all in one place. speaker-0: Is this an indoor event? speaker-1: The concert in California. speaker-0: Yeah. Yes. And in Chicago is a outdoor thing. or no, it's not an outdoor thing. Look at Amanda's face, he's like, no. speaker-2: No, no, no, no, no. speaker-1: No, no, teleport. speaker-0: I was like I was like speaker-1: We are door knocking with our candidates and door knocking in Laguna Beach in March is going to be a much different experience than door knocking in Chicago in January. speaker-0: Tell them. ⁓ speaker-3: Still a little bit. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-0: That's pretty neat. So it started as as an Instagram account. speaker-1: Correct. And I was not the person who started that. He's anonymous. ⁓ he will probably become more public over time, but I synced up with him in the spring and we started to write content together behind the scenes. speaker-0: Okay. And it was you said ⁓ religious re ⁓ deconstruction. Yeah. I know there's some religious folks that are getting nervous right now when they hear that. Yeah. Why would someone like a religious person even want to participate in something that's gonna undo their belief system? speaker-1: So the cool, I love that question. And I could talk to you for a full episode on that question alone. So I will do my best. So I am not personally from a particularly religious background. However, I would say that I experience spirituality as something that is rooted in curiosity, humility, and human connection. It's something that's generalized and it's something where I can take an ancient religious text of any background and approach it with curiosity because I don't have this framework. speaker-0: Challenge accepted. No speaker-1: When people have frameworks, unfortunately, they're often rooted in shame and fear, especially in Western evangelism, which is, you know, a lot of Christianity in America, or at least the loudest parts of it, because it's not all this, but a lot of Christianity in America is rooted in certainty, which is a fear-based ⁓ control mechanism. Versus ⁓ like so what what I ended up doing, and a lot of people are doing right now is where did all these Biblical things get mistranslated. And I'm not going to go into this today because it's a long conversation, but a lot of the main frameworks of our modern understanding of Christianity were things that came about for fear and control hundreds of years later. And when you strip all that back, we're left with probably the same thing that like Jesus, the Buddha, da-da-da-da, and others were taught. And it's a it's a growth, it's a healing journey. ⁓ so what I would I try to show people, if anything, that deconstruction is ⁓ about moving into something that's like a healthier. more connected human version of spirituality and less something that's rigid and honestly scary. speaker-0: Yeah. And let me tell you, I think people I think people have a the the bad the wrong idea of who Jesus was. ⁓ and this is I'm going to translate what you just said to the religious folks. That's what I'm doing right now. So Jesus was a rabble rouser. Jesus was a guy who was anti establishment. Jesus was sent to tell you guys that all your rules and all of this stuff, all this punishment stuff, all that it wasn't about any of that. He came down to tell you there's no filter between you and God. None. Stop playing, stop, stop falling for all of these rules that are getting in the way of your perfect self. speaker-3: Yeah, I mean, so God there there's there's there's always the the er the devil always tries to divide the house so that the the house falls. And that and that translates into politics, your religion, your home life. You know, you they're trying to separ separate everything so there's there's no there's no stability, there's no there's no pillars in your home. So anything that's load bearing, they're gonna try to remove, right? So what we have to do is we have to figure out what is the common ground. And our common ground was Morality. We believe in a better life for ourselves and others, hopefully, because you can't just be self driven. But you if you s if you drive yourself, then everybody else you want to pick a look pick up along the way. You know, like we're hitchhikers, we're all hitchhikers on the road, but somebody hitchhiked me along the road. So we have we have to continue to push this narrative that we are all in this together. We all are our one. And if we can't do that, then Whatever you believe in on spiritually, politically, it it means really nothing. speaker-1: I love that. ⁓ what I was gonna jump into real quick and I'll not go into the mistranslations thing super in depth, but I think it's relevant because it's exactly what Carlos just said, but I'm gonna frame it in biblical terms. Do you know what the word sin was translated from? speaker-0: I heard it but I can't remember. It's something to the effect of anything that turns your gaze from God. speaker-1: Okay, that's even a little I would say that's even a little bit of a control-based misinterpretation of that from what we know. ⁓ here follow-on this is Dan McClellan, and there's a lot of other people, but the there's nine different words with very different meanings that were translated to the word sin. And so at some point somebody tried to make the Bible have a through line that wasn't necessarily there in the original text. The only word Jesus has recorded as having used is hemartia, which means to live blindly, to miss the mark, to miss the whole point of life. Which to me is the black and white thinking that happens when we're in these very like rigid structures. So ironically, modern religion, for the most part, creates the blindness. ⁓ the journey, ⁓ repent was mistranslated from metanoia like the three to four hundreds. Metanoia meant to transform within. It had nothing to do with shame and punishment and fear. And liberation more or salvation more closely meant. Liberation and hell isn't even in the Bible. That's a whole aside that I'm not going to get into because people are like, wait, what? But it it's a mistranslation of four words that have nothing to do with a burning afterlife type of thing. ⁓ but I think the journey is recognizing our blind spots and doing our healing work and ending up in a place of humility versus fundamentalism tends to trap people in their blind spots with fear, which to me is the exact opposite of what you know, in Buddhism, it's suffering, which is being in these blind spots. Our lens of reality is creating suffering that's secondary to what's actually happening. The journey is the eightfold path. And the ⁓ I don't like to use the word goal in this because that becomes in itself like a thing that thwarts the process. It's almost like a sinking into a remember a remembering. But in ⁓ in Buddhism, they call it enlightenment. But in Christianity, I think it was more like liberation from the prison of the mind, from these places we get stuck in scarcity and a filter that's not true of reality. Which is speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-3: That is good. speaker-0: is the antichrist. ⁓ speaker-1: I mean we knew that, but like speaker-3: Yeah, for sure. speaker-1: but yeah, that's like a I could do a whole episode on that because I've ⁓ done a lot of work with that and with the people in the ⁓ like the word homosexual wasn't in any Bible in any language before 1946. We interviewed Rocky Rogio, who made the documentary about that in person in ⁓ LA in September, which was an incredibly meaningful. ⁓ but yeah, we can do a whole episode on that. I know today the focus is this event, but ⁓ I love talking. speaker-0: are. Yeah. At the end of the day. At the end of the day it was the church that killed Jesus. So here we are. speaker-1: Yeah. It was the establishment. It was him being outspoken and speaking truth to power. And I use that word all the time. I the words I use to describe our candidates, people ask me all the time what's the through line, as if it would be so hard to come up with a through line. And it just isn't. They're unbought. They're unafraid of speaking truth to power. And they're relentlessly people first. And what that means is when there's policy disagreements, they're not really disagreements. It's like, okay, universal health care. Cool. We all want that. And then someone might say, hey, if we do this too fast, there's a doctor shortage. So we actually just need to address that too. So it's not a disagreement, it's a collaborative looking at all of the angles to solve the same problem. And what if a whole block of those folks got elected to Congress and they already had that skill together with the friends? speaker-0: Mm-hmm. And they have that networking. Cause you know, C4 and I talk about this all the time. When you're trying to do something, it's ludicrous to try to do something as big as change. It's ludicrous to try to do it by yourself. Yeah. So you build a team, you figure out who's good at what. In basketball, the point guard figures out what to do and where to go and how to. And it seems like Jen is one of those point guard type of people. speaker-1: I'm the node. I just like find people and I plug ⁓ in and I let you do speaker-0: I think Yeah, and then it seems like you guys are within the time, you know, the the technology time, so you're leveraging what we have, which is social media, which popping Amanda. She she's been working really hard on social media. I don't know, yeah, but you might have heard about her account. I don't know. It's pretty, you know, she's got a couple followers, a few hundred. Can you fill us in, Amanda, on on your efforts? speaker-2: Yeah, so thanks. I started my account ⁓ in August of last year, ⁓ with the sole purpose of having more followers than JD Vance and just trolling the shit out of him every day. speaker-0: Nelly emoji. Nail emoji. ⁓ speaker-2: Because he's generally unlikable. And this was during the election cycle, right? And we were looking at the Trump Vance ticket and the Harris Walls ticket. And JD Vance had, you know, all these clips were resurfacing where ⁓ he had said that the country was being run by a bunch of childless cat ladies who were so miserable in their own lives that they wanted everyone else to be miserable too. And then there was like a Twitter rumor that he fucked a couch. And so speaker-3: Yeah. speaker-2: I decided. speaker-0: Talk about pillow talk. speaker-2: I decided that we were gonna combine these things and we were gonna troll the shit out of him. But really we were just gonna kind of bring awareness to the fact that like this this guy bought, right? This guy's Peter Teal's puppet. Yeah. This guy is somebody that the Heritage Foundation and who we know are the architects behind Project 2025. Like he is their their meal ticket to power. And ⁓ and and people really weren't talking about him. And so You know, I wish that I could say that it was like more of a profound thing, but really it was shitting on this guy and raising awareness of him. And then as it started to become a little bit more popular, I was like, I was like, ⁓ he's really unlikable. and so I tried to kind of shift and use it a little bit to draw attention to the Harris Walls ticket, but also down ballot Den's and progressives. and then the election happened and ⁓ I probably spent like 24 hours like sitting in my own sadness and wallowing and just kind of being like, ugh, like this is the first election that my 10-year-old daughter really got invested in, you know, whether it's because she saw herself in the candidates or whatever. and so having to have like hard conversations with her was difficult. And, you know, I opened Instagram and it was just all of these messages being like, please don't stop doing what you're doing. Like this is therapy. And I was like, okay. It's kind of therapy for me too. So this works out nice. ⁓ and then over the past year, it's just kind of transformed into this like hub of good, good trouble and mischief. ⁓ and it's very like community led. So they'll message me and be like, You should do this. We should do this. And I'm like, Okay, let's go. So like You know, Nancy Mace had a town hall scheduled ⁓ in her state and we scooped up all the tickets. so that only eight people showed up. JD Vance, JD Vance had a fundraiser on Nantucket that was $250,000 ahead a week after casting the tiebreaking vote that would rip healthcare for millions of Americans. So we showed up outside his fundraiser with a 20 by 20 meme. speaker-0: Ha ha ha. speaker-2: picture of him that he had to drive by because there was only one way in and one way out. ⁓ we have ⁓ allegedly Helped crash the ice. We allegedly helped ⁓ crash the ice tip line when it first came out, ⁓ flooding it. We ⁓ go and fill out forms on Turning Point USA and the Heritage Foundation and all of these things and fill it in with totally erroneous data so that they have to sift through and comb through it and their data becomes shit. ⁓ speaker-0: But allegedly. speaker-2: So like little tiny bits of good trouble, right? That people can do at home that gets them comfortable with the idea of disobedience so that when push comes to shove and people like me need to be putting our bodies on the line in the street, evidently, to protect our neighbors. they have a little bit of they feel more empowered or courageous to do so. And it's so fucking crazy that that's where it's at now when it started as a JD Vance is a fucking idiot account. but it just kind of keeps morphing. And like, you know, the reason why I synced up with Jen and connected with Jen, I texted Jen the other night and I was just kind of like, I I I get it. Like I see it and I'm fucking in because like it's one thing to protest and take to the streets, and it's one thing to call our reps, and it's one thing to like talk shit on social media. But at the end of the day, like what am I able to do to move the needle for like actual meaningful fucking change? Yeah. Right. And backing candidates who we know. Are that change is is so is such a light lift for us, right? But it also takes like the mental load off of our followers, right? Because we've built this community, we've built this rapport. They know that if I'm connecting with a candidate, it's for the right reasons. And so it takes that that like mental fatigue of like, you know, who Who is the candidate? Who is this? What do they believe? And blah, blah, blah. They know that if I believe, they probably believe. And it's that way with so many other creators. Cause I find myself doing the same thing too. Like creators that I love and respect, whether it's Jolly or Matt or whomever, you know, I see them connecting with someone and I'm like, ⁓ I probably, I'll, I'll probably like that person. ⁓ and so it's it's really cool to kind of see what. this has all turned into, but also like looking forward to the future and what sort of mischief we can get into. so yeah, so that's a long-winded thing to say. JD Vance sucks and that apparently resonates with a lot of people. speaker-3: I I think I think the big importance is the for you or for all of us actually, you know, is that we we have a following and we need to keep progressing in the following. 'Cause we'll stunt our growth of our followers and we'll they'll be they'll be satisfied what w what we tried. Right. So we gotta we gotta keep it moving. We gotta we gotta let them know, you know, you now that they get they're all able to get some skin in the game and they get their hands dirty a little bit. Now what then they get eager what can what else can we do? What else can we do? And and and when you're when you're transparent, they they they build the trust. So when we get all these crasroot grassroots candidates involved, then they don't have to do as much homework on them because we re broadcast it for you. Like on the channel. We're like here here here's all here's ⁓ Ka ⁓ Kaya Creekmore, Bernard Taylor, Russell Cleveland, here's all these here's all these speaker-0: More importantly, and I'm sorry for cutting you off. More importantly, you got two dudes from Chicago that will call you out on your bullshit. speaker-3: Come on, man, you already know. We're not playing games. We don't bullshit. speaker-0: That bullshit sniffer is is peak. And you're gonna let me get my you're gonna let me get my words on you? I'm gonna get I'm gonna be able to interview you to see if you're full of shit or not. Let's go. I'm ready. speaker-1: Would you say we have a pretty solid group of like like little to no bullshit? I would say no bullshit candidates though. I think that no bullshit is also a through line of our candidate. speaker-0: The fact that I talk to you and you don't give me the heebie jeebies that that politics that politicians give me. ⁓ You know what I mean? I just got done having a two-hour conversation with Kevin Ryan, Chicago. Kevin Ryan is running for office, Senate of Illinois. He wants to represent you as a senator in Illinois. We had two hours of conversation. This boy told me about how he grew up and his family's from out there. He went and became a Marine veteran and then he taught at Chicago public schools. And C4, you know my stance on Chicago public schools. And he sat there, he sat there and he took a verbal, he took a lot of my frustration. And he just sat there and took it and listened. And then and then was like. Yeah, bitch. I've been in there too. I know what you're talking about. I was a teacher. speaker-1: I hope you actually said yeah, bitch. Are you good? speaker-0: And I think I think I didn't I didn't make him feel that comfortable. speaker-3: Yeah. speaker-1: I know Kevin very well. I know he didn't say that, but he's great. speaker-0: Yeah. I did I did, you know, he did he did go in and and he reached in and he he got a couple of fucks off. speaker-2: You know what? Like, I feel like we fell into this place. And I I, you know, Michelle Obama, I fucking love her, right? But I can see her on the stage saying when they go low, we go high, right? And that was fine for them. Like, but like we can't play, we can't play that way anymore. We can't play that way anymore. speaker-3: Everybody's speaker-1: We speaker-3: We can't play that. speaker-1: We go low, we go petty, right then. speaker-2: Right. Like like speaker-0: Okay. speaker-1: Yeah, we we organize. That's what we're And and we can get speaker-2: We can get low. We can get low. ⁓ Real though is the thing. It doesn't have to it doesn't have to have this air of like elitist like ⁓ I'm better than or whatever because that disenfranchises people. Just be a real person. Just say fuck. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. This would be the perfect moment to talk about what the real housewives format. ⁓ okay. ⁓ Okay. This is speaker-0: Give me 15 seconds first. Don't use the word fuck if you don't use the word fuck on a daily basis. You look awkward as shit. When I say it is like poetry flowing from my lip. speaker-2: Right. Right, right. I'm from Massachusetts. speaker-1: We have a candidate who I will let remain unnamed, who ⁓ I got to meet in person recently, and he like non-performatively swears nonstop in person, and then he somehow just magically turns it off when he needs to. And it's my favorite of many qualities I adore about this human, his non-performative swearing that he can just and when he does it, it's creative. It's so good. You're gonna meet this person in Chicago, Amanda. speaker-2: Love it. speaker-3: That's great. speaker-0: That's up, Mike. ⁓ C4. We're sitting here and and this big event is happening and neither one of us who are actually from there gonna be able to go. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-3: hurt in bed. I'm hurting. speaker-0: We would do that. I'm trying to I'm trying to move some things around. I'm trying to go down for the California one. Awesome. Down an Irvine. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-1: Awesome. Should we talk about the real personalized part now? The fun part. So ⁓ we want these events to be, I mean, something where people see it on social media and they're like, ⁓ my gosh, why did I not hear about that? Right. So this is gonna be ⁓ 14 different creators on stage. Amanda's gonna be one of them. Two couches. We're gonna have you guys in two different rounds. And some ⁓ did you see in the group text that we're trying to find actual cats to speaker-0: Yeah, go for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. speaker-2: Did you say couches? speaker-0: You're trying to watch J D. I don't know. speaker-1: Creators if they have allergies, but like there might be guys I think we need to like we like Demi was like we need to contact his shelter I was like yes we do anyway that's a whole no we we do need to rate it back in and actually planning we need to do but if we can get to it we will have actual speaker-2: I've done people like actually ⁓ my god. can adopt them out. speaker-0: Mm. speaker-1: To the audience. speaker-2: Guys, I'm gonna leave Chicago with four cats. speaker-3: Go to pause. They're they got a ton of cats. speaker-1: Small plates, the comedian. Okay, so ⁓ I think Robert Arnold is doing like an opening thing. He's our resident ⁓ you know, stud slash consultant slash poet. His handle is Defiance 13. We all love Robert. He'll probably do some opening whatever. Cliff Cash is gonna do an opening comedy show. And then Smallplates, the comedian, is going to host the conversation, which ⁓ the way I understand it is he's gonna toss out a question and let you guys just riff on it authentically. speaker-0: Nice. speaker-1: unscripted. We're not telling anyone the questions ahead of time. And I was part of an event over Labor Day Weekend that was like this. And it they were they said something last night like, we're worried is it gonna like fill the hour? And I was like, you guys, you have no idea. You're gonna have trouble, you're gonna have like you're gonna run over and you're gonna have trouble people cutting people off. There's going to be a bar on stage and we're gonna have like carpets, couches, backdrop. It's gonna look like the like a really awesome show. There's gonna be a bar on stage. Guess who the bartenders are going to be? speaker-0: Holland Oats. speaker-1: Wears a giraffe costume and is a rabble rouser. Yes. But there's a second one and it's like a foil to that. It's it's gonna be Robbie. Is that his name, right? Robbie Rhodes. Yeah, Robbie Rhodes. And ⁓ the other person who'll probably up there is Hunter Dunn, who's 22 and he's the press off there. ⁓ speaker-0: No way. You gonna rap though? Exactly. speaker-3: Yeah. speaker-2: Stick that boy with Robbie! speaker-1: boy apparently is like I in the group chat I texted him. ⁓ I think I had this in the group chat. I was like are we corrupting you? Cause you know that that creator chat would fails. speaker-0: No. speaker-1: Real quick. And then Smallplates told me that he got corrupted already when we were on short. So I don't know what that means, but they're buddies now and he's staying with Small Plates. speaker-2: ⁓ my god. speaker-1: I love it. There's something about the fact that that like the I I was trying to explain this to my dad the other day. I was like, picture theater kids all grown up, but like ranging from like early twenties to like sixties. Like the content creator personality type. And everyone's like a little bit ADD. Everyone's like also feels the world very deeply. And we're gonna go to this big event and we're staying at a haunted hotel and they're buying ghost busting equipment. Yeah. speaker-0: Ha ha ha. speaker-1: Wait, and this is about politics? Yes. speaker-2: I'm still very upset. I'm still very upset about the hotel portion of the thing, but it's fine. No, no, I am. And I'm very upset about it. speaker-1: Wait, are you not at the Haunted Hotel? Because you're afraid? That's the real reason you told me so a few days ago Amanda told me she was going to quote snuggle the shit out of me. Now I know the real reason. speaker-2: Yeah, I'm horrified. speaker-0: Ha ha ha. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. speaker-3: There's plenty of couches there that are haunted. speaker-2: Listen. speaker-0: They have they got a lot of well at JD's JD Vance's house. It's got a lot of souls in there. ⁓ speaker-1: It's not a fair change and soul. speaker-3: Talk speaker-0: Ha ha ha ⁓ ⁓ my god, that might have been the funniest thing you've said. So we're gonna have a couple couches. We're gonna have all of these wonderful, very, very smart, talented people. Is it gonna be like a question and answer thing? Is it gonna be them feeding off of their own energy? speaker-1: So okay, I'm let me tell you who some of the people are first because I think this will come together pretty quickly. Monty Mayor, Jolly Good Ginger, Maggie Reed, whose handle is Mermaid Mom Mama Maggie, Amanda, who else do we have? Off Jawagon, his name is Jordan. ⁓ Chris and Dave are gonna be there. I don't think they're gonna be on stage, but I'm super excited they're gonna be there. ⁓ but think your favorite creator. ⁓ and good trouble, duh. So think that energy and think ⁓ small plates feeding them a question about something kind of irreverent about. our current world. And then they all get to just openly speaker-0: While they're sitting on couches. speaker-1: Well this is uncatches and then we can wear speaker-2: JD Van's traps. speaker-1: And we're calling all of the creators the housewives. All of them, all of you guys are the housewives. speaker-2: I'm so excited. speaker-0: I have so many inappropriate JD Vance jokes happening in my head. ⁓ wait, talk about like blowing buttons. speaker-1: Okay. Like that could be an hour. Like there's so much we can go off of right now. There's so much we can go off of. speaker-2: Okay, but small places on speaker-1: There's so much. speaker-0: I know we had we had Cliff Cash on the show and ⁓ and he told me that people from men from Florida will will fuck an alligator in church. speaker-3: Yeah. He was good. speaker-0: I wasn't ready for that. I wasn't ready for it. I was like, what did the Spanish say? speaker-3: I was like, damn, I'm in Florida. I don't want to go to any of those places. Jesus. speaker-0: Yeah, you want to deconstruct religion. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-3: He was also though. I s he he he came on the show. He freestyled with us. He's got he's got some hidden talents that you you might you might not know about. So if you get him. speaker-0: You don't speaker-1: Those people are our jam. We'll find we'll find the perfect place for them if they wanna like I feel like we've collected the most incredible group of people with these niche talents and we've plugged them into the exact thing that they're good at and what we're doing. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-2: That we're doing. speaker-0: We have a singing giraffe on squad. Brings his own music wherever he goes. speaker-2: Speaking of rabble speaking of rabble rousers. I need a t-shirt. You said Jesus was a rabb rabble rouser and I need that on a shirt, I feel like. speaker-0: ⁓ I got I I got a couple of Jesus shirts that are if you read it the wrong way, they would be inappropriate, but they're not meant that way. So yeah, I might be able to I might be able to I'm I'm I'm gonna go on a Jesus T shirt run. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-1: I think speaker-2: Yeah, I think Jesus was a rabble rouser is good and I think Robbie Road Steamer needs it. speaker-1: And I think if there's a picture, it could just be text, but if there's a picture, I think Jesus should have a subtle this kind of vibe. speaker-3: I can see that. speaker-1: I can see that. speaker-0: Ha ha ha. The ⁓ nail flags. All right. So we got all of these guys who are just on their own. ⁓ I'm on Instagram more than anything, but their Instagram accounts on their own accord, they're out there doing their thing, getting their message out. So now you're you're you're basically putting together The hall of justice of social media folks. how are you gonna control this circus? speaker-1: ⁓ do circuses need to be controlled? speaker-2: There's no control. There's no control. speaker-1: Heard of the magic. speaker-0: There it is. There's four walls. That's it. speaker-2: They had me you don't understand, I'm like an eight thirty p.m. bedtime girl. Like once my kids go to sleep, I wanna go to sleep. These people had me out until three o'clock in the morning. They don't s I don't know when they sleep. It is speaker-0: It's all their fault. speaker-1: Doing karaoke, Monty Mater can sing. I she's extremely talented. I didn't know that that was one of her talents. We ended up at a karaoke bar ⁓ after Remove the Regime and Bree Woodson, who's one of our candidates, she also is a content creator, the controversial blonde. ⁓ she's running in Georgia's 12th district and she's fierce. She's incredible. But anyway, Brie can sing. And we got there and they put on a Lady Gaga song. I have watched, were you there, Amanda? I don't think you were there. speaker-2: walked in while they were singing and I was like Of course you guys are amazing at this. Of course. speaker-1: That moment was where this idea came from. I texted Dylan Blaha's campaign manager the next day and I was like, that we're gonna create that this year. We're gonna come to Chicago in January. And then Demi and I got on it with planning, and then the rest of our team came up with it being a series and they named Common Ground and it becoming a much bigger thing. ⁓ but that karaoke moment was what I was like, this is what we need people to see to get people excited and on the same team. It has to be human, it has to be something different than protest energy. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: It has to be fun. speaker-3: And that's what that's what I saw with r remove the regime. Like everything was everything every day had capped off with something, like a comedy show, a concert, you know, and then there was just the the the seeing everybody together was hanging out in one place. It that was that was something where like do these like it you know, when you look at it from this side of the screen and you're looking at it all happening on on on your phone or computer, you think that these people don't exist in the same realm. And then and then when it's all together, everybody's hanging out, like, ⁓ that I I followed them, them and them. Like you're checking them off. Like you're collecting baseball cards when you're young. You see everybody that that's your favorite. And that that that's powerful right there. speaker-0: It is. speaker-1: It's also been really cool to see people who, you know, we've started to bring celebrities into the fold. And there's one person I can think of who was like s as a s as a celebrity star struck to meet a certain creator. And seeing that is really cool too. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, so everyone is gonna show up in Chicago. Is there is there any buildup to the event? speaker-1: Yeah. Great question. ⁓ so if you get a ticket for the event, which is the the main thing is six to eight PM Saturday night at the Riv the Riviera Theater. However speaker-0: Saturday night, what ⁓ what date? Seventeenth. Saturday night, seventeenth. All right. speaker-2: Just speaker-1: Seven. And the Instagram account where all this is housed is commonground.rr. And that's RR is for Reason Reality, which is the you umbrella organization. ⁓ so if you get a ticket for that, you can come to any of the other workshop things we have that weekend. ⁓ Robert Arnold is gonna be ⁓ having like creator round tables during the day on Friday. I hope I just said that right with the invitation. I do need to clarify that with my team, but my understanding is if you buy a ticket for the event, you come to the round table. So just direct a I can give my email at the end for people to direct questions too, but ⁓ Roundtable discussions at the hotel Friday during the day so that creators can like actually there, you know, because you we need the grit part too. We don't just the fun part is great, but like there's a real like behind the scenes work component to what we do with policy. ⁓ but that part's not fun, you know, no one wants to see that's that's not necessarily the online part, right? Yeah. And then Friday night we're gonna have ⁓ like some something where we all go out, all the creators and anyone else is welcome to join us. We haven't picked a bar yet. ⁓ but it'll be just like a casual meetup. Saturday during the day. We're gonna protest at the ice at the Broadview facility at 10 a.m. Then we're gonna do door knocking with Demi Palachek, ⁓ one of our the one of the candidates, ⁓ at one, and then the events from six to eight. And then we'll have some sort of an after party that will probably involve karaoke. We have some other ideas in the works too, if we can get a couple of other people on board, and I don't wanna say who they are because it isn't happening yet, but it might involve a drag show. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Because why not? It it's probably too close. But everything we've put out there so far, it's like, yeah, I'll come. Yeah, okay. What can I do? So I'm just putting it out there to the universe that we end up with our our traction after party. But ⁓ and then ⁓ Sunday evening. Yeah, yeah. Sunday evening, ⁓ Cliff Cliff Cash is putting on a performance and we're all gonna go to too. speaker-0: Fun. That's awesome. And your the ultimate goal, what you wanna do is bring attention to speaker-1: The ultimate goal is to not only flip the House and Senate in 2026, but to bring in fierce, bull, you know, Mamdani energy, but adapted for those districts, right? Like because Arkansas, ⁓ you know, one of the campaigns that Robert's supporting had does not have the same needs as New York City, but it's the energy. It's being bold, it's having moral clarity, it's being willing to take ⁓ like leadership should be about being. Fearless and knowing that, and that's hard to do. That's hard to do. But like exactly, these candidates are doing more on the kid, like as people not even elected from my perspective, than a lot of the people that are already in office. So it's about getting that energy, not just a Democrat, but that kind of Democrat into office everywhere, and literally reshaping the entire party around that. speaker-0: If you're doing the right thing. speaker-1: And what I see happening is, yes, November, of course, November's going to be a big deal, but a lot of people are going to resign this year. I think it's more than we think it is. And what we intend to do now that we have this structure built out is as soon as we hear of a resignation, we're going to figure out who's running in that district that's aligned and plug them into our existing system and get that person elected. My goal is to have this kind of ⁓ I hate using the word power because that's not what it's about. This kind of momentum, this kind of yes, taking back the House and the Senate, but with this kind of energy by the end of the summer. Because enough people drop out. And momentum's a funny thing because I'm sure we all know what it's like to be so defeated that we want to quit, right? MAGA feels that right now. And it doesn't look like that from the outside because they're doing all these hideous things. But they feel that. And at some point these people will quit. We, on the other hand, and some of the establishment Dems. Well, quit. We, on the other hand, have this momentum and this clarity that is rising above the noise. And once that's sort of more broadly recognized, we can make change so much faster than we think. speaker-0: It's true. I mean, look at how quickly it took MAGA to change things. Yeah. And it was I remember I am old enough to read to to remember when you could actually trust the news. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And now we're here. And that's you know, there's there's a lot of noise when it comes to social media, but that's just the nature of the beast. Is everything is noisy at first. You you trip over when you're learning how to walk, you trip over literally everything. It's gonna be messy. But eventually you you know, you get your momentum and then you start getting good at things, and then change happens. But then when you get that, you know, and I'm I'm specifically talking to people that are trying to understand why we do what we do and why we're passionate about what we do, is because change isn't going to change itself. Sitting around and complaining about stuff isn't going to change things either. You have to get out there, you have to put feet to ass, and you have to just keep pushing the same way they're pushing. But You have to trust in the fact that you have a group of people, good people with good intentions out here, trying to do the right thing. And they're fighting against a system that has been established for a long time, a lot longer than all of us have been alive. And you're fighting against that. And remember the story of Jesus, going back to the beginning of this whole thing. Remember that story when he was trying to tell people listen, wake up. They're guiding you in the wrong direction. speaker-1: One thing I want to riff on real quick to tie this all together is, you know, the word resistance was also part of the word of 2025. I personally would like to change that to the year of transformation because it will be harder to try to build something completely new that's never existed than to transform what exists. And to bring it back to the content creator side, ⁓ our friend Trevor from my cluck hut, we had this conversation after remove the regime with a bunch of creators. Actually, Meta, you were on that call. And he said, we need cool kid table energy. And that stuck with me. And we do. And we've built that. And we don't want that to be like something we're like necessarily saying. It's more felt. But when a block of people gets elected to Congress who have that energy, especially the people on the left who maybe understand some of these progressive ideas, but they're scared. All of a sudden it's the cool thing to do when they're not scared. Now, do I wish they could come to that conclusion and transform on their own? Of course. But it's then they're human beings are not static. And human beings make predictable changes in predictable ways. And there's like safety in numbers. And the momentum thing, I can't the vision is so clear to me that by getting a group of these people in Congress, it's not just their votes, it's the ripple effect of how they affect everybody else there. That's already there. And we transform what exists. And my vision long term is that we still have this two party system. There's this whole thing with political science. I'm starting to learn where. We're probably never going to have a multi-party system because of how things are set up at the state and local level. But if both parties are actually about trying to workshop better policy to help people, and it becomes wow, human rights is off the table. We're not talking about like transgender rights or immigrant rights. The human dignity is front and center, no matter what. But then something like climate change. These two parties can talk about how to better and get better and better and better and better at handling it and communicating how to handle it. That is what's supposed to happen. And I very strongly hold that vision to be true. speaker-3: definitely what's missing now is communication. You know, you're that's a dividing line. You're either with us or against us and the administration and Trump has has clearly stated that he this isn't liberty and justice for all. And our our our job has to be relentless pressure. You know, through through the primaries, through November, through the next presidential election, we have to be relentless. And we have to re we understand that we all get tired. So we have to if if I if I get tired, tag I'm gonna Carlos, I'm gonna tag you in. Janet, I'm gonna tag you in. Amanda look and let's let's keep each other going and don't let us dip down in in in into these places where we we get so exhausted that we we feel like we can't go on any further. We gotta we gotta rely on each other and then we we can start breaking down all of these walls. speaker-1: Love it. Yeah. Guys, this is thank you so much. Yes. speaker-0: For that. Takes a lot of drops of water to make a wave. speaker-1: das speaker-3: Well ripples make title waves. speaker-1: Happy moments to do speaker-0: Takes a lot of fingers to get sassy nails. ⁓ speaker-3: Yeah. speaker-1: I don't know how many of your listeners like watch this instead of listening, but I hope some of them, you know, can see what's going on here. speaker-3: We'll have to do some screen grabs on that. speaker-2: ⁓ yeah. speaker-1: You guys, thank you so much. speaker-3: ⁓ thank you for like thank you for doing what you guys do. Like, you know, it makes it easy for us to say, hey, like I said, you know, the leaders will lead and then the followers will come if the leaders are leading us on the right path and not off a cliff. And we ho we wholeheartedly believe that we're leading being led in the right direction. So again, we're gonna grab everybody along the way. And that's what we're supposed to do. Even that that's what Jesus said. We're supposed to go back and through the fire and grab the people that are burning right now. And save them, not just let them burn. So let's keep pushing. speaker-1: We just went through the whole emotional arc of like human absurdity and hilariousness to just like the most raw and I love that. I love that. speaker-0: Yeah. Gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna say that similar to Amanda. Amanda's trigger point was JD being a douche. Mine was ⁓ I mean I've I've talked and I've tried to do podcasts and all that stuff for years now. But when ⁓ Elon is little mushy headass. speaker-2: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: When he said Americans are too dumb and too lazy, I said, Okay, bitch. Okay. That was my day. That was my day. speaker-3: Mine was I'm in a district with Bernard Taylor here in Florida, District 21. And ⁓ we're just north of West Palm and we my my community got decimated by ice. And immigration's been relentless and it's destroyed the community, it's destroyed the businesses, it's destroyed families, it's destroyed generations of future leaders and dreams and hopes. And I said, fuck that. I can't I can't let this happen anymore. And I started hand handing out immigration rights cards to people all over the all over the place where my wife speaker-0: He wrote a whole song when ⁓ he came speaker-3: The song came. The song came. speaker-0: Came to me, he goes, I got this. I got and I was sitting like all of this happened, like it was you we keep talking about serendipity and then just this moment this movement, right? I was sitting outside, sitting outside on the on the back porch, just angry. And and C4 sent me his song, I need a video. I was like, Yeah, this is the this is where we go. This is where we start to push. Yeah, and I'm I'm dumb like that. I don't check the water. I cannonball. speaker-3: Yeah. speaker-1: And we need that, you know, like ⁓ on our team, we have a full range of like I'm the one who does tend to do the more like dive in quick action than we have someone who's more in the middle and someone who's more like the ⁓ wanting to check all the boxes, but like that's what makes us really good together. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. And if you and if you stretch that out over the nation, like if we can get people to all start thinking in the same direction, you don't have to you don't have to be a hundred percent happy with everything that's happening. Just be mostly happy. Understand that that government gives people this little bubble of protection to figure out. Who their best, best self is. And then after that, you mind your goddamn business. It's not that hard. So it's cool that it's we're starting to see this combining of efforts that that of people who really do we I one of the common things of all the people that I've talked to, they just they don't care about money that way. And they understand that if you if you improve the base that is America, ⁓ the United States. If everyone is winning, everyone wins. Everyone wins. And it's not that much of a struggle for you people up top. It's not that difficult. And then if you if we make all of this change, when we make all of this positive change, we won't have to run out and bomb people to say, here's democracy. We are the example. We are the democracy that everyone wants to be because we got it on lockdown, just like that. Everyone is taken care of. Everyone is eating, everyone is educated, everyone can go out there and be the business person that they want to be if they wanted to be, but at least we have you not being an asshole now. That's what's ridiculous. Money is ruining or the love of money is ruining everything. speaker-1: Which ties it back to the Bible. There's an ego-based greed component, or there's like an abundance component. And like Jake and I and the ⁓ e-commerce model, what we've said multiple times is we intend to make billions of dollars to fuel causes. We don't need that money ourselves. And that's an abundance model. We're not trying to be scarce, like cut back, cut because we can't win broke. We can't win broke. And that's where we get tripped up, I think, sometimes on the left, because there's this like. the environment and cut back and cut back. No. Let's be the leaders in sustainable energy. Let's let's build. Let's create jobs. Let's create housing. Let's be the leaders in and do it in a big way that's abundant. And not self serving teamwork. speaker-0: Yeah. What's happening in in ⁓ Venezuela, they're they're fighting over this stuff that's going to poison your water. That's poisoning your air. That's that's making the oceans a little more acidic than than we need them to be. Like this is real stuff. This is real stuff. And if we continue to ruin the planet, bitch, where do you think you're gonna live? Mars motherfucker, they don't have anything on Mars. They have a rover. They don't have grass. They don't have water. They don't have nothing. They have surveillance, goddammit. speaker-1: Did you just say they don't have couches? speaker-0: And they don't have couches. speaker-1: They don't have kids. speaker-3: He's like foiled again. speaker-2: You guys are my people. speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ speaker-3: That's what we do. It's important. I don't like the decency in what's going on or the with with what we're doing is important. Because they're it's not on the other side. It's giving a green light to do whatever you want. It's giving the green light to for Russia to do whatever they want to Ukraine. 'Cause for us now they're expendable but speaker-0: China's about to put Taiwan. speaker-3: That's that's what it is. And then everybody's okay. Well, what happened to our allies? We don't have any more allies. We shit on everybody. It's us against everybody. Well that only works for so long. You know, and then and then there's gonna be a regime collapse. Because it always does. It always fails. Because it does you can't build principle on that. You you don't have a foundation that's solid, it's gonna crumble. And this guy's the you already know what this guy's about. speaker-0: The goofiest. speaker-3: And it's not about cutting and it's not just like removing removing a a dictator. You have to remove the entire snake. speaker-0: 100%. Same way like in Venezuela, they took old boy and his vice president. His vice president. It's the vice president. Like what do you if you ⁓ if we were to take down Trump, J D Vance is next. speaker-1: Okay, do you wanna hear my ⁓ pot tape? speaker-0: The only difference that's gonna be is is like a digital dumbass. speaker-1: ⁓ Amanda, I don't think I've ever told you this. I have a I have a hot take on the downfall of the entire regime. speaker-0: Ooh. speaker-1: Trump dies, or if we're lucky, he like has a stroke and he's aware of what's going on and he can't talk and he shits his pants all the time. speaker-0: Well the second part. speaker-2: Sure, pretty sure that's happened. speaker-1: ⁓ okay. And then JD Vance comes into power. Now he has he is the epitome of unresolved childhood trauma, which generally goes one of two ways in adulthood. People have a really hard time functioning or the or they over function and they're like chameleons. Okay, but that's not sustainable. So the spotlight combined with grinder just deciding to all of a sudden like reveal all the stuff that they're talking about makes them all have public breakdowns where they can't function. And then we are then they're just not there. That's my that's my speaker-0: Exactly. speaker-1: It's always involved Grinder to me. And if Grindr ceases to exist because of them having to do all this stuff, we will help those people become a new whatever app after the fact. speaker-2: Right. speaker-0: Why do you think all those right winging dudes are so aggressive? Because they're fighting. They're fighting who they really are. speaker-1: ⁓ and to be more specific, Grindr will publish all their stuff and Mike Johnson and J D Vance will be part of part of it and that's what will lead to their public speaker-3: I love it. speaker-0: It's gonna come out that they're together. They've been together this whole time. ⁓ speaker-1: Well, I don't know if they're together, but I think they're on the app. speaker-0: I mean exactly that's what I'm saying. speaker-3: Think there's been those looks, those exchanges, those eye exchanges, those glances where they were like, I d I you know. speaker-0: You're the only two you're the only two left. You're the only two left because you're not that attractive. And you're like, ⁓ might as well. speaker-3: JD's like my kind of submissive. speaker-0: I mean I wish I had a pillow, but all I have is a blanket. You see Mike, ⁓ Mike Johnson runs in, he's dressed like a couch. You know. Yeah. speaker-1: Draw me, draw me. speaker-3: Fluff my pillows, fluff my cushions. speaker-0: Hey, you think you mean you think Mike Lindell has a chance? He is the pillow guy. Am I pretty? speaker-2: Ha ha ha ha ha. speaker-0: That's speaker-3: I can't wait to see this clip come out. This is speaker-1: If you like this conversation, come to the event in Chicago. speaker-3: There we go. speaker-2: No. speaker-0: Amanda, what are some of the craziest things since you've been to these events? ⁓ What ⁓ what are some of the craziest things that you've seen and some of the things that you hope you see in in Chicago next weekend? speaker-2: imposter syndrome. I'm I'm realizing or I've realized Jen and I have talked about this a little bit. ⁓ speaker-0: That's that earlier thing you know. speaker-2: I still ver like I very much am just in awe ⁓ that I get to call all of you guys my friend. And there's just like a There's just this like, I don't know if it's a trauma bond. I'm trying to figure out what it is. ⁓ but we're just trudging along this road together. And it ⁓ it's just refreshing. Like, so you know, I'm here in Massachusetts, which everyone says is like, you know, super blue. It it has its purple bits, right? It has its little red dots too. But for the most part, like it's a pretty progressive place and I'll be here at a protest or I'll be here doing work in my community and like it's great. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: get to DC and it's everywhere. It's the action, like people doing the work, you're surrounded by it. And it's just a completely immersive experience. And you're surrounded by like everybody that's in your circle while you're out there is like team good guys. Again, taking that mental fatigue and mental load off and knowing like everybody that you're kind of in the street with is on your side and has similar worldviews. speaker-1: It's it's speaker-2: And it's such like a ⁓ my God, I can breathe. ⁓ and then kind of bringing that juice back home, re-energized and like reinvigorated. And like I want that here. ⁓ and I imagine that everybody feels that way. So like that's kind of one of the cool things that I've seen out. ⁓ speaker-1: There speaker-2: Is just kind of like sitting back and watching all of that happen. craziest things. I mean, I feel like I feel like Jen kind of speaker-1: You know. speaker-2: said it best, but it's like We are a bunch of like we are a bunch of theater kids. Like like like speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: You know speaker-2: I'm I'm such a fan of the work that everybody's doing. And I see such value in the work that everybody's doing. And so to be sitting on the floor of a karaoke bar watching these people that are my friends like take that hat off and just be and like be their authentic selves. It's just, it's really fucking refreshing. And yeah, Monty's an absolute fucking savage with a microphone. She is absolutely insane. speaker-1: Can you imagine like post event energy, theater kid vibes, all of us being like in the same place and maybe having had a beer and then going ghost hunting. speaker-3: It's hot. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-2: Yes. No. No, guys. speaker-0: Yeah, that part sounds fun until you find them. speaker-1: I think they're the good guy. speaker-0: And you're like, this ecto blaster's fake. speaker-1: ⁓ what if Alexander Hamilton's ghost that we come across? speaker-2: It's like It's the ghosts of democracy past. Give me a fucking break. speaker-1: Ghosts of democracy past, Amanda. Amanda. speaker-0: Alexander Hamilton is like, We gave you such a good head start. What are you doing? speaker-2: What the fuck have you done? speaker-1: The ghost of Demon. speaker-0: And George Washington, he doesn't say shit. He's just shaking his head like To goes from t George Washington to what the mess that we have today. speaker-2: Can you imagine? Can you imagine trying to explain it? speaker-3: He'd be like, Hold my wig. speaker-0: Hold my wig. speaker-2: Gonna need you to, I'm gonna need you to sit down. I'm gonna need you to sit down for this one. Like imagine trying to explain it. speaker-1: Especially if it involves a former president giving a a a current president giving a former president a blowjob. I mean, how would you explain that to George Washington? speaker-2: Ooh. speaker-3: ⁓ Bob. speaker-0: After after the president that got the blowjob got kicked out of the White House for getting a blowjob. So now I'm wondering, was it really Monica in there or was it speaker-1: Also, I ⁓ would love to meet Monica at some point and bring her into what we're doing. Just gonna put that out there. She's yeah. speaker-0: Phase. speaker-2: ⁓ my god. speaker-0: She's hilarious. She's hilarious. speaker-1: The adult understanding now of the misogyny of how that was all framed makes me sick. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-2: was very young. I didn't know what the hell was going on. Yeah. But I remember talk and like having the perspective that I have now is very interesting. speaker-1: та speaker-3: It was it was it was like o adults are talking. Don't worry. Don't worry about what he said. speaker-0: Like. speaker-2: We thought we saw that with Stormy. We saw that with Stormy, right? We saw that with her. speaker-0: Do know how sad you have to be to pay to have friends? And it's not even not not even just stormy wise. Like the only people, people the only people that hang out with this clown are people that are after the bag. If he didn't have money, he will have zero friends. You have to pay to have friends. That's how morally bankrupt you are. speaker-2: It's certainly not his fucking personality or his hair lined. speaker-0: Or according to or according to Stormy Daniels, that little mushroom is not worth it. speaker-1: Or is made. speaker-3: She's probably seen cats with bigger speaker-0: Okay, so I was talking to Kevin Ryan and I asked him for his go to spots for when you guys are in Chicago. speaker-2: Mm. speaker-0: ⁓ number one spot C four. ⁓ he said pequads. speaker-3: I'm Lumal Natis. I love Lumal Nadis. speaker-2: We're talking pizza right now. Is this pizza? Okay, because I talked to Demi about this and peacock came up. So I'm listening. speaker-0: ⁓ great. This is a good spot. Okay. I really like what now that I'm in California and I go to ⁓ taste of chicago.com, not sponsored. I'll get things delivered. The Pequad's pizza doesn't hold up as good as Lumalmati's. But if you're in the restaurant, ⁓ Pequads, it's a win win situation. But Pequad's is really good, especially if you're in the restaurant. Lumalnati is a delicious no matter where you are. You could eat that off the floor. speaker-3: Slice. speaker-2: So but here's the thing. I'm a I'm a Massachusetts girl. I like ⁓ I like a North End Pizzeria Regina thin pizza. speaker-0: Don't sleep on Lumalnati's thin crust. It's delicious. It is so the deep dish thing, the deep dish thing is it's cheesecake. It's cheesecake. Okay. But it's worth trying, especially if you like cheese. And then depending on where you go, depending on where you go, if you ask for sausage, they'll ask you if it's crumbled, if you want it crumbled. speaker-3: Yeah. speaker-2: It looks like pizza cake. Okay. speaker-0: If you say, no, just bring it, what they do is they put a dish of sausage and then they put more cheese and more sauce. speaker-3: It crumbled. It's delicious. speaker-0: Okay. It dep I've had it both ways. I I I'm not picky. speaker-3: Okay. speaker-0: Let's see, Chicago he he gave me a spot for Chicago hot dog, but I can't remember right now. But don't don't Gene and Judes is great. Portillos Portillos is so good that it's even out here. speaker-3: Ian and Judes is great. Hello. Yeah, we got ⁓ in Florida too. There's about four of speaker-0: Yeah. I went to go visit my mom ⁓ when she broke her ankle. And one of the first spots we went to, she knew we went straight to Portillos in her area. I'm like, all right, I could stay for a little while. speaker-2: Is there anywhere where I can get the good pizza and the malort in one place? speaker-0: That's a that's a good question. speaker-2: On a time crunch here. Don't ask. speaker-3: Dords. speaker-0: I would check I would check I would check at Lou's. I would check at Pequods if you're there. Just ask. Worst case scenario. speaker-2: Is this a trick? Am I gonna end up calling you guys in two weeks and be like, hey, you're an asshole? speaker-0: I will I will send you guys a link to ⁓ Kevin's book. It's it's a real thing. He wrote a real book about it. He saved he saved a distillery. It's all it's Kevin Ryan is done. He saved him a lot of distillery and yeah. And then he wrote a book about it. speaker-2: We have to drink this with Kevin Ryan. speaker-0: I think it would be helpful. speaker-1: Right. Is this a thing you drink as a shot or a drink? speaker-0: I would suggest I think it's a sipping thing. speaker-1: And what's in it again? Herbs. Herbs. speaker-2: Gas. speaker-0: He d yeah, and and medicine. ⁓ he said it's it's the type of whatever the type of booze it is, whatever type of the alcohol, but then it it distills in wormwood. And then and then you and then you drink it. It's not a trick. Like it's a legit there is a market for this. It's a legit drink. It's one of those things though. It's kind of like ⁓ it it's probably a lot like going to white castle it's a little it's a lot like going to white castle not everybody understands it but it's worth it you might you might shit your pants i don't know it depends on who you are everyone is different everyone is speaker-3: You gotta do it else. Yeah, yeah. Got started. speaker-0: ⁓ and if you if you're at a pizza place that doesn't have it, go to Burwood Tap. They will have it. All right. Tell them Carlos ask for Mimi. Tell them tell them Carlos sent you and you wanted to try Malort. Okay. It's a thing. It's it's I'm probably what you guys say? ⁓ theater kids. I'm doing theater kids all over it. It's it's worth trying. Okay. Yeah. speaker-2: For Mimi. speaker-0: It's a it's a definitely a ⁓ you can brag once you survive a Melort drink. If you wanna be a champ, have Melort and White Castle at the same time. I've never seen a half of your body might rip in half. speaker-3: You will levitate above yourself. speaker-2: ⁓ my goodness. ⁓ speaker-0: You might end up having superpowers too. I don't know. I've never seen it done. The world is scared of everything. World is scared of perfection. That's true. speaker-3: So so what's all right, so what's this this next week looking like for you guys? With the speaker-1: Awesome question. And I do need to ⁓ go in just a second here because I have another call at 11. ⁓ the next week is gonna look like us having our creators do a lot of amplification. ⁓ Amanda, if Jake hasn't reached out to you yet about the big collab reel, he will, but it's super simple. He'll be like, you come to Chicago, and then you know, you, Monty, Jolly, et cetera, start like, I'll be there, I'll see you there, da da da. And we'll have all of you share it from your account. So this is gonna start popping up in your feeds ⁓ all the time. and then we're for the people that are going to be, you know, involved on stage, we have a thing Sunday night that I can tell you about. I know that's ⁓ kind of an aside here. But ⁓ it's mainly just amplification at this point. Those of us who are involved on the planning sides have a couple things to wrap up to have it go well. But the main thing is amplification. So ⁓ go to common ground dot dot dot rr, see our materials, share it, share it, share it, share it. ⁓ text it directly to your people that are in ⁓ Chicago and we We'll get a big turnout. We'll raise a bunch of money for our candidates. But even bigger than that to me is the amplification to this overall thing, like giving people hope and structure and a thing that they can plug into. Cool candidates, I'm gonna find who's running in my district, plug them into this program and we're gonna do this together, that type of thing. speaker-0: Excellent. So let's go ahead and bring this plane in for a landing. I want to go Amanda, maybe C4 if you have anything to say, and then Jen, you can wrap it up. But let us know what you're excited about, not excited about, but let us know what you're looking forward to and then how people can follow up with you and and your social media accounts and whatever else you want to say. So Amanda, if you wouldn't mind. speaker-2: All right. So I am looking, I'm kind of looking ahead. You know, I talked a little bit about how this whole silly concept of this account started on everyone's mutual hatred and disdain for JD Vance. ⁓ but it has morphed into something so much bigger than that. And I never know what direction it's going in because it is such like a community led thing. So I'm looking and I'm looking forward to seeing where like my audience calls themselves petty besties. Like I'm so excited to see where the petty besties take this in the next year and like leading into the midterms and what sort of good trouble we can get into. ⁓ I'm really excited. I'm excited to see progressive candidates kind of lean into the petty too. And I've had quite a few, like I've had the opportunity to talk with some of them and just like again take the mask off, say fuck. You know, like, like just be real. You don't have to be up here. Meet people where they're at. Just just be a human. ⁓ so I'm excited to see how candidates start to lean into that. ⁓ And then if you want to follow along with me, I'm on Instagram, threads, Facebook, ⁓ kind of TikTok, but not really. I joke and say that I'm way too old for TikTok, but honestly, I just I don't have the mental capacity to do just another platform. ⁓ but I'm on there as Cats on a Couch. And ⁓ you can find me there or you'll find me at a protest. Or if Jen and Reasoned and Common Ground is hosting an event, you will find me there because I will be following these guys wherever they go. So speaker-0: Awesome. Thank you so much. And thank you for taking time. Thank you guys from your couch and your cats to come and hang out with us. speaker-2: Listen, any opportunity to talk shit about JD Bance, I'm gonna take it. So speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-3: Soul. speaker-0: So how about you, C4? speaker-3: Well this weekend actually next weekend I'll start canvassing for Bernard Taylor. ⁓ out here in District twenty one in Florida. And we're just kinda dialing in 'cause we we need to get rid of ⁓ speaker-1: Right now. speaker-3: Right now, he's Brian Mass is terrible. ⁓ so he's a speaker-0: And for the record, and for the record, we invited him on the show and he ignored us. speaker-1: Yes, you did. speaker-3: it yeah over eight hundred thousand dollars in eight pack money it's it's it's ridiculous so ⁓ we'll be we'll be hitting it home trying to trying to get Bernard in in the Congress so he can start kicking ass in in DC and on the streets here. ⁓ just making more content here with Carlos. ⁓ we're we're about to launch against all pods. ⁓ that's gonna be our channel so ⁓ we'll be doing that and ⁓ I gotta invest in a new couch. other than that that's about it. speaker-0: And Jen, bring us home. speaker-1: Okay. I'll say where you can find me first because that's less exciting, then I'll say what I'm excited about. ⁓ my account is my name, just Jen Johansson. ⁓ reasoned reality is reasoned underscore reality. And the events, the common ground is common ground dot rr. Those are the three best places to find me. ⁓ and I'm very responsive in DMs. ⁓ I've actually started to have people reach out to me and be ⁓ my god, can we do common ground New York? Can we do common ground da da da? Like I'm in this city. I'm part of this organization. We will help. And it's been like a week. Of us putting anything out there, which is remarkable. So there's two things I'm most excited about. One is people getting it, people seeing it. And like you, Amanda, are like the perfect example. Like I can tell the minute it clicks what we're doing. Not just the candidates, not just the events, not just the e-commerce model, like the sweeping change that this can bring. And then they're all in. The second thing I'm most excited about are the surprising micro moments that just feel like pure. presence just like it was with Monty and Brie singing. And that makes all of the hard stuff instantly for me it dissolves that stress, dissolves the burnout, and then I have that energy to keep bringing forward. speaker-0: I love it. I love it. I love the the community that is being built that wants nothing but positive change for everyone. And that's for me the biggest thing. Everyone. Not one color, not one sex, not one anything. Everybody is included here. speaker-2: Except JD Vance. speaker-0: Except JD Vance. He's gonna be he's at the furniture store anyway. He's hanging out with with ⁓ Mike Mike ⁓ Johnson and and ⁓ fuck and the and the pillow guy. Anyway, thank you guys all so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to come and talk and and bring attention to this ⁓ wonderful group of people. speaker-2: Everything he deserves for. Ashley Furniture. speaker-1: That's a dragon. speaker-0: I'm excited to see what you guys pull off in Chicago. Chicago, here they come. Here they come. I got so excited my mic fell. ⁓ And with that, we're out. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-3: Please. Coconut trusses.