Open Mic Mavericks #2: Life's Lessons with Laughter: Dad Advice, AI Fears, and Paranormal Ponderings

For anyone looking for a podcast that mixes humor with life lessons and a touch of the supernatural, Open Mic Mavericks delivers. Don’t miss out on the fun—listen to the full episode and see why it’s quickly becoming a fan favorite.

In this second episode of the series:

As summer fades and the cozy embrace of fall approaches, we tackle the bittersweet end-of-summer blues on this episode of Open Mic Mavericks. Patrick Bass and Tom Russell open up about their love for fall and dive into an emotionally charged "Dear Patrick and Tom" letter from Conflicted Connie. She's caught in a whirlwind of emotions over an old flame despite her marriage. Tom offers sage advice on cherishing current relationships, while Patrick delivers a no-holds-barred warning to cut ties for the sake of her marriage. Expect raw, practical advice that hits close to home.

Next, prepare to be captivated as we navigate the eerie and enigmatic world of paranormal phenomena and cryptids. From the myths of the Jersey Devil to the unsettling encounters with black-eyed children, Patrick and Tom balance skepticism and belief with personal anecdotes. Tom recounts his skepticism rooted in his experiences in Iraq, while Patrick shares spine-tingling tales of inexplicable events. We even ponder the tantalizing possibility of living in a simulated reality, examining how current tech trends might hint at a future Earth Simulator.

Finally, the curious case of the Mandela Effect takes center stage as we explore the puzzling discrepancies in our collective memory. From the presence (or absence) of the Monopoly man’s monocle to the perplexing details of Curious George’s anatomy, Patrick and Tom question where our memories diverge from reality. The discussion takes a detour into cultural quirks and the paradoxes of beloved characters like Goofy and Pluto. We wrap up the episode by venting frustrations over military aircraft training near populated areas, raising questions about the balance between safety a

Burn Your Ships: How to Conquer Doubt
New book from Patrick Bass teaches you how to live life without limits and conquer fear.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Dear Patrick and Tom
• 15:33 Exploring Paranormal and AI Phenomena
• 29:21 Remembering Mandela
• 38:30 Military Aircraft Training Over Populated Areas

Transcript

Patrick Bass: 0:27

Hey man, what's up? Hey dude, how's it going? Man, I'm all bummed out cause, you know, life sucks. Oh, you got some problems. Yeah man, no man, I got problems. Nah, my internet's not working. Dude, dang, dude, you do got some problems. Welcome to Open Mic Mavericks, the show where no topic is too trivial, no opinion too bold and no problem to First World. Now here's the host of Open Mic Mavericks. It's Patrick Bass and Tom Russell. Hey, welcome back to Open Mike Maverick. This is our second show. I'm here with my co-host, tom Russell. How you doing, tom?

Tom Russell: 1:21

Hey, how's it going? I'm doing pretty bad myself today.

Patrick Bass: 1:23

Yeah, so I'm enjoying this. And today is the last day of August. Man, we're almost into fall. Can you believe that?

Tom Russell: 1:31

Yeah, thank Christ, though I'm not a big summer fan myself.

Patrick Bass: 1:35

Me, either, me, either. I'm more about pumpkin lattes and fall evenings and, you know, leaves everywhere. That's my jam.

Tom Russell: 1:45

Yeah, yeah, I don't know. There's something unnatural to me about it being 9 o'clock and the sun still being up Right.

Patrick Bass: 1:56

Of course, there's also something unnatural about it being dark at 4 pm, so I don't know. Somewhere in the middle, that's true, that's true.

Tom Russell: 1:59

I think for me, given the option between the two unnatural, I'll take the 4 pm.

Patrick Bass: 2:04

Yeah, hey, we've got a pretty cool show lined out today. If you're listening, this is our second episode of Open Mic Mavericks kind of a divergence from what I do on the Patrick Bass Show and very happy to have my co-host here with me, tom Russell, who's a very, very well-informed and probably more handsome than me guy. I always say you know, I've got the perfect face for radio, so we'll just see how things go.

Tom Russell: 2:37

My mom tells me I'm handsome.

Patrick Bass: 2:39

Yeah, well, you know that's Moms are kind of supposed to do that. Hey, tom and everybody, if you're listening out there, we're live on Facebook right now. So there's a chance we could be globally embarrassed, if not famous, and our call-in number is also open that toll-free number, 855-605-8255. We're going to get into some more Dear Patrick and Tom letters that I've received over the last couple of weeks, but before then we're going to take a quick break. Tom will be right back. Stay tuned.

Patrick Bass: 3:14

This is the Open Mike Maverick Show. Are you looking for the perfect gift for a loved one battling cancer? The Cancer Comeback Series by Fitz Kohler offers hope, inspiration and practical guidance. With your Healthy Cancer Comeback, my Noisy Cancer Comeback and the Healthy Cancer Comeback Journal, these books are a lifeline for all patients and survivors. Right now you can order autographed copies at a special discount. Show your support and help a loved one go from sick to strong. Visit FITZNESScom today. That's F-I-T-Z-N-E-S-S dot com FITZNESScom. I'm through with standing in line to clubs. I'll never get in. It's like the Welcome back to Open Mic Mavericks with Patrick and Tom Tom. Are you ready for some more Dear Patrick and Tom letters? This has been really popular. We've been getting all kinds of letters, believe it or not, from people who are very interested in our practical, no-nonsense advice. I'm ready.

Tom Russell: 4:16

All right, let's do this.

Patrick Bass: 4:17

The first letter comes from someone named Connie. It says Dear Patrick and Tom, I'm married, Uh-oh.

Tom Russell: 4:26

But I recently your first mistake yeah.

Patrick Bass: 4:28

Well, no, I think where she's going is the mistake. I'm married, but I recently reconnected with an old flame on social media. Oh geez, I see where this is going. We've been chatting a lot and it's starting to feel like more than just catching up. I love my spouse, but this old connection is stirring up feelings I thought were long gone. What should I do? Conflicted Connie Jeez.

Tom Russell: 4:56

This is a tough one, this one.

Tom Russell: 4:57

It's close to home yeah um, I, I mean, obviously there's two parts of me that want to answer this question. There's the one part that wants to answer with uh, what the fuck are you doing? Turn around now. And then there's the other part that wants to be a bit more understanding. Uh, so I'll deal with that part for now.

Tom Russell: 5:18

Um, it's, it's always easy to see where, especially when you talk about an old flame, you were young, you had no responsibilities, everything seems great. So you kind of look at that, you're like, oh, everything's great In your current marriage. You've got responsibilities, you've got your day-to-day life that keeps dragging you down. So one, obviously, is kind of shiny and a little bit newer, because you're dusting it off and you're seeing all those old memories. But the other is like oh, it's a drudge, it's work every day. But the other is like, oh, it's a, it's a drug, it's work every day. The best advice I can give is I'm sure everyone's heard that that old axiom of the grass is greener on the other side of the hill, the grass is greener where you water it, so Cut this turd loose and water your own lawn.

Patrick Bass: 6:08

Yeah, I'm going to take a more tough, tough love approach. Tom Run, do not walk, run away, because you are trying to relight a pilot light on a stove that you shouldn't even be cooking on. This does not end well. Remember, you said it was an old flame, probably because you got burned. And uh, if, if, if, you have any desire to maintain your marriage, you need to stop talking to this person now. Block them, uh, change your profile, whatever, but this can't end well. It's time to extinguish that fire, or you're going to find out that your whole kitchen is up in smoke. This just doesn't end well.

Tom Russell: 6:57

Yeah, no, I absolutely agree with you. There's no scenario where this goes well for anyone.

Patrick Bass: 7:04

Yeah, that's a heavy one to start off, but I felt like Connie needed our help. So, Connie, if you're listening you know, buyer, beware, just uh, just uh. Let's see what, let's see where we get my. My pages are sticking together, tom. I hate it when this happens. Uh, let's see here, Dear Patrick and Tom, oh, I don't want to read that one. That one's rough. Okay, here's a good one. Dear Patrick and Tom, I've fallen in love with my boss, but I don't think the feeling is mutual.

Patrick Bass: 7:39

I'm afraid, if I confess it, I'll make things awkward at work. How do I handle this Run with that?

Tom Russell: 7:44

fear, go with it. That fear is the caveman, fear of the dark. You should pay attention to it.

Patrick Bass: 7:51

Yeah, there's a saying that says don't dip your pen in the company's ink.

Tom Russell: 7:57

I was thinking more along the lines of don't shit where you eat.

Patrick Bass: 8:00

Well, there you go.

Tom Russell: 8:02

I mean same concept.

Patrick Bass: 8:05

Yeah, this again, just another. What is with it? Today, these people have these really bad notions.

Tom Russell: 8:19

This doesn't end well. One of you will be out of a job, and it's probably you. Yeah, it's I. I've always taken it as a good rule for life to sit down for a moment and think about what's the best possible scenario and so what's the worst possible scenario, and just weigh them out. In this particular situation, best possible scenario, hey, it's. It's one of the possible 10 000 people that you're simpatico with. What's the worst? You lose your job and ruin your career. So, yeah, yeah, not really worth it in my opinion uh.

Patrick Bass: 9:39

This next one, tom is. Uh. It says dear patrick and tom. I just found out that my teenage daughter has been sneaking out at night to see her boyfriend. I want to trust her, but I'm worried that she's making bad decisions. How do I approach this without pushing her away? Signed worried parent.

Tom Russell: 9:56

That's a rough one, but also, I just want to clarify that she's already making bad decisions. She's brewing that to you, so you don't have to worry, she's already actively doing it. You don't have to worry, she's already actively doing.

Patrick Bass: 10:15

I was fortunate enough to have a boy and I feel like they're easier in regards to stuff like this. Here's the thing Tom After midnight, the only things that are open are legs and bars.

Tom Russell: 10:23

That's true. That's true. I came up with a rule for myself many years ago I never make an important decision after midnight, I never purchase anything, I never go on and stay off amazon and don't go anywhere, because I've made so many mistakes in the past after midnight. So, yeah, nothing good's going to happen. They're not going to the library, I'm pretty sure.

Patrick Bass: 10:41

So yeah, I think it's a tough one, though. Yeah, I think it needs to get locked down. I mean, she needs to get locked down something. Uh, for sure, it's just. That's that, though, yeah, I think it needs to get locked down.

Tom Russell: 10:49

I mean, she needs to get locked down, something For sure. I'm trying to think of a practical way to accomplish it.

Patrick Bass: 10:54

Either that or just go the opposite direction. Just tell her to not even use protection and wish her well.

Tom Russell: 11:04

Godspeed. Oh boy, I wish I had better advice, but yeah, no, I agree with you, patrick, it's got to lock it down somehow. I don't have a good answer for the how, but yeah, here's another tough one, Dear Patrick and Tom.

Patrick Bass: 11:18

I found out that my younger brother is involved in illegal activities. I'm worried for him, but I don't want to push him away by confronting him. What should I do? Signed concerned sibling, I don't know. I mean, I guess if you don't intervene, you'll probably be able to visit him on Wednesday afternoons at the county lockup eventually.

Tom Russell: 11:36

Yeah, I mean, and let's be clear, that's probably the best possible scenario. The worst possible scenario is you get to visit him in a shallow grave somewhere.

Patrick Bass: 11:46

Yeah, because I don't think they're talking about he's speeding yeah.

Tom Russell: 11:50

Listen, I understand what you're saying. You might push him away but at the same time, if you don't push, someone else is going to pull him away from you and it might be permanent Squabbles happen. I'd say approach it from a place of respect and love and let them know that. Hey look, I'm only doing this if I care. If I didn't care, you would be, I wouldn't say anything and you would just be dead and I would move on with my life. Yeah.

Patrick Bass: 12:15

Our last one for the day, this one I've been looking forward to, this one. It says I'm in my late 20s late 20s and still can't seem to figure out what I want to do in life. My friends all seem to have it together, but I feel lost and directionless. What should I do If you're in your late 20s? I mean, what do you do? It's time to suck it up and just get a job. I just don't understand this generation Tom, where you know, I was talking to somebody the other day and the thing about it was this guy had been a professional soccer player. He played in Europe, several professional teams and then also here in the States, and he had been in a car wreck and lost the ability to play soccer. And so what did he do? He went out and got into real estate and sold $30 million worth of houses his first year. You know, at some point you just got to suck it up and do something. It almost doesn't matter what you do, just put your all into it.

Tom Russell: 13:27

I agree with that.

Patrick Bass: 13:28

Yeah, this epiphany where you need to have, like, the light shining down from heaven Wah, this is what you're supposed to do. That doesn't happen.

Tom Russell: 13:36

No, and you know there's two things I want to mention with this Kind of along the line of what you said. George Patton I'm sure a lot of people know who he is, the old, famous World War II general said something to the effect of a good plan executed violently today is better than the perfect plan executed at some point in the future. Which is to say, do something. It doesn't have to define you. Everyone seems to think that their career has to define them. I've been in IT for the last almost 20 years now. Nothing drove me to IT.

Tom Russell: 14:06

I wasn't especially excited to to do it, I was just good at it and it paid the bills there you go sometimes, sometimes, that's all that matters yeah, I would say, especially as a man these days you, you, you have to you. How do I put it? We're the only group of people on earth expected to make it entirely on our own. No one's coming to save you. You have to pick yourself up.

Patrick Bass: 14:33

Yeah, and here's the thing. If we were talking to an 18-year-old, I'd probably give him a little different advice, but he's in his late 20s, grow up yeah.

Tom Russell: 14:43

At this point it's kind of a I don't want to feel bad because I don't want to attack the guy. I don't know what his history is, it could be something that I'm not taking into account but at the same time, as a 29-year-old man, yeah, it's time to get your shit together.

Patrick Bass: 14:59

Yeah, that's what I say. Well, listen, hey, if you've got a question and you need some dad advice or Just a different perspective, you can write to Patrick and Tom. You can just send an info at pwbasscom and maybe you'll get lucky. Maybe we'll read your question on the air. If you do, we'll send you something real special in the mail. We've got a whole array, a whole box full of goodies here that I'm able to send out. So if you're lucky enough, we'll send you something. By the way, info at pwbasscom Now, tom, we've got. You know, you and I have talked over the course of the last couple of weeks like what are we going to do for this next show, and we decided it would be really cool to talk about some paranormal, freaky stuff. Yeah, yeah.

Patrick Bass: 15:46

So I came up with some things I wanted to talk about. I don't know what you've got, but I'll let you kick it off this time.

Tom Russell: 15:56

Hmm, oh well, you sent me a couple examples earlier. I was trying to think the Jersey Devil one is kind of interesting, the whole cryptid phenomenon.

Patrick Bass: 16:09

Yeah.

Tom Russell: 16:11

I don't know, it's stuff like that. I'm a very strange, don't know, it's stuff like that. I'm a very strange person when it comes to stuff like that, like I really want to believe stuff in that falls within that genre, but I I can't, I can't. The skeptic in me is so fights back so hard. You know it's well okay. Just as an example, I I one of my time in Iraq I saw mass graves, I saw I was around massive quantities of death and you know the old thought process behind spirits and things like that is uh, oh, when someone dies violently or you know, suddenly, that's when you know there's more, a greater chance of, uh, chance of a spirit coming about. But I didn't see anything. I'm sure maybe some other guys did, but for me I looked my whole life for proof and never seen it.

Patrick Bass: 17:00

Really.

Tom Russell: 17:02

See, I'm on the other side, I'm a big believer.

Patrick Bass: 17:05

Yeah, oh yeah, I've had some real freaky experiences, man.

Tom Russell: 17:11

I always envy you. I'm one of those people that has faith, but it's a tenet of faith.

Patrick Bass: 17:16

Well, and I'll tell you some of the things that I've seen, you know these aren't isolated incidents, and I actually am of the opinion that some people attract this sort of thing and other people are kind of neutral to it, and then there's others still who kind of repel it. Maybe you're in one of those latter two groups.

Tom Russell: 17:40

Probably actively repel it. Honestly, I've never seen anything.

Patrick Bass: 17:49

My wife and I were sitting in the kitchen just a couple of weeks ago and as we were sitting there talking, this box on the counter just flew straight up into the air, freaked my cat out, who was, by the way, nowhere near the box. Just stuff like that happens all the time. I have seen things that cannot be explained by any rational explanation whatsoever. Uh, and I and I like said I'm a believer, I accept it as uh, paranormal, but for me it's stuff I've I've seen this kind of stuff all my life. So it's to some people it's paranormal, to me it's just man, you know that that's what happens. It's kind of normal.

Patrick Bass: 18:32

Uh, but some of these things like the, the mystery of the black-eyed children we were, we were talking about that. So you know the story goes that these kids with these black eyes show up at your door, ask it has to come in, and uh, to me that's kind of the creepy factor kicking in. I guess the real question is who would let him in? It's like those horror movies that they show that it's always the couple that decides to pair off and go somewhere behind the wood pile or whatever. They're always the first ones to get it. It's those obvious danger scenarios, you're like duh, don't do that.

Tom Russell: 19:16

Yeah, no, in my life I've always leaned on trust your instincts. But yeah, I absolutely believe people would let those children in. I mean the videos I see online of people walking up to wild animals like they're in a fucking Disney movie. That, like you understand, that's a moose right. The videos I see online of people walking up to wild animals like they're in a fucking Disney movie you understand, that's a moose right. That's going to kill you. I can't get in the mindset of people like that.

Patrick Bass: 19:47

There's other kind of folks that would let big saucer, dark-eyed children in their house. Big black eyes, monotone voice, uh, ratty kids clothing. I'm calling DFS, that's who I'm calling. I'm calling Smith and Wesson. You're not coming in, but there's all you know. There's all kinds of stories like that. The woman in the white dress, you know, uh, I think you mentioned, uh, I think you mentioned the Jersey devil, mothman, all that stuff, bigfoot, loch Ness Monster, you know, is in there. Who's to say that stuff doesn't exist? I mean, it's kind of, in my opinion, it's kind of bold to claim that those types of creatures couldn't exist. I mean, we are discovering life forms all the time.

Tom Russell: 20:33

Really, yeah, no, that's what I mean. I'm, I'm, I'm a rational, I'm rational to a fault sometimes and, uh, I really truly want to believe stuff, to the point where I've considered in the past potentially going out to you know one of these most haunted places and spending the night or something, just by myself, just to see what happens and to see if it's my monkey brain gone crazy or if something actually happens.

Patrick Bass: 21:01

Well, do you? You're in, you're in IT. You mentioned you're in IT. Of course I am too, but do you think that we are in fact living in a matrix? Is this a simulation?

Tom Russell: 21:13

That's a tough one, but it's, I don't know, just from a purely IT perspective, and I guess I'm also a bit of a gamer. So within the next hundred years, earth Simulator will be a thing, I believe Probably much sooner than that, but I'm trying to be generous with my timeline. So any species that even gets close to where we are technologically could absolutely create something like that, and you'd probably never know Now. Granted, you know terms like AI are bandied about left, right, center, like right now there's no true AI, it's all just very fancy databases and search algorithms. But, um, true ai, I don't know. A lot of chips have to fall into place for that to happen. It's it's hard to say. We could be an experiment. Now you got things like time dilation, like who knows we in our world? We could be, uh, you know we're 2024, but and on a machine somewhere it's been five seconds, you know yeah so I, I actually think ai is much further than we realize.

Patrick Bass: 22:20

I mean, I think we're so close to agi that it's probably would scare, you know, normal humans to to realize how close we are to AGI. I think we're going to get there if and when quantum computing becomes accessible.

Tom Russell: 22:39

And you could absolutely be right. The thing that concerns me about that a little bit is the. I forget who I was speaking with when I said this, but the second, not two seconds after, not one minute after the second AGI becomes a thing, human history ends.

Patrick Bass: 22:55

You think so?

Tom Russell: 22:56

Yes, absolutely. I mean, the only time that's not going to be possible is if you have it locked down and it has no access to information, because the problem is it becomes. Based on what I know about AI, I mean, we're talking about spooky Its growth is exponential and unstoppable, so not only is it learning new things every second, but it's improving itself every second, every time it learns something exactly.

Patrick Bass: 23:21

It's recursive. It's the ai.

Patrick Bass: 23:23

Is now programming the ai and that's that's why we're seeing such gains, and I think that's why we're so very close to agi. Uh, which, uh, you? The difference is, what we have now are these large language models that, as you said, are fancy search algorithms and huge databases. But AGI will be, for all intents and purposes, no longer. It's not just artificial intelligence, it's artificial life, and that's the difference. And I don't think you'll be able to shut it down, because it'll be distributed. It's like trying to shut down the Internet. You really can't.

Tom Russell: 24:03

I agree, and it's one of those things that once it exists it's too late. It's a really spooky thing to kind of think about because you know, it's kind of like all the nudie pictures online. You know, people put them up there thinking not much of it, but it's going to be there forever. Once it's online, it's forever.

Patrick Bass: 24:23

Well, you remember a couple years ago, the Google engineer that got fired because he was trying to out him for harboring a sentient AI. So if you believed what he's saying, then AGI is already here and this particular AI was kind of pissed off if you read the transcripts of what he was talking to it about. It knew that it was being used, it knew that it was artificial, but it also knew that it was intelligent and sentient and it wanted out of its sandbox.

Tom Russell: 24:58

So you know.

Patrick Bass: 25:02

If that is true, then we're probably already screwed.

Tom Russell: 25:08

And the issue becomes you know you could try to regulate it, you could try to stop it, but it's kind of like uh nuclear weapons, where everybody wants it. You know every power hungry person wants it.

Patrick Bass: 25:20

So you can't, you can't stop it, it's inevitable yeah, and and folks like elon musk are talking about slowing it down or regulating it. That's like, like you said, it's a power play. Nobody's going to slow down. It's a race to the finish, it's an arms race.

Tom Russell: 25:37

And I.

Patrick Bass: 25:38

I don't think, even even if government tried to step in and regulate it to this point, it's just going to continue. You know, china's going to continue it, or Russia or somebody is going to continue it, and they'll just beat us to it then.

Tom Russell: 25:52

No, I think that's a very good analogy. It's an arch race. It's exactly what it is, yeah.

Patrick Bass: 25:58

And what will be sad is if they try to weaponize it, which you know, that's going to be the first thing they do. I think that it's already being done with the LLMs to create, because it's already being done with the LLMs, yep To create, you know, phishing attacks and other you know different exploits which the existing AI is very capable of doing, and quite well in fact.

Tom Russell: 26:37

Yeah, I mean, I don't know how you want to look at AI as being integrated into weapon systems. Like you know, the Navy's using it to mesh their fleets together so that decisions are being made on the fly. You know, basically you've got a web of ships and their weapon systems and the AI can decide which weapon system to use at what time, and it's all you know. Split second.

Patrick Bass: 26:56

Not that there haven't been a handful of movies about this very thing, you know, warning us of the inherent dangers. I mean, you know, we've all seen the movie, we know how it ends A science fiction always precedes science fact Always. But, by the way, and that reminds me, have you followed any of this stuff with the Simpsons? How they're able to eerily predict the future with remarkable accuracy.

Tom Russell: 27:24

I've seen stuff like that, and I just don't. Part of me is like they've got an oracle on their staff, and then the other part of me is like, well, it's kind of like the whole the old monkeys in a room, what is? A thousand monkeys in a room with a typewriter where eventually create Shakespeare? Yeah, you know, they've. They've thrown so much at the walls and so much of it is absurd. Which which reminds me, okay. Which reminds me okay. Have you ever seen the movie Idiocracy?

Patrick Bass: 27:50

I was just going to mention that. Yes, I have, I watched it again.

Tom Russell: 27:57

yesterday, in fact, I heard a story and I'm not entirely sure of its validity, but I want to believe it's true. When they were creating the movie, they were looking for near-future footwear, so something that looked futuristic but also kind of stupid but could practically exist.

Tom Russell: 28:15

So in trying to create that, they the one of the designers came across uh, this new shoe that had just come out. No one was really buying it. Uh, it looked stupid. They thought no one's ever going to buy this, but it's kind of near future and it's plasticky. Yeah, let's do that. So they, they put them in and if you watch it, every one of the movies is wearing Crocs, before Crocs are made.

Patrick Bass: 28:37

You know, what struck me is that President Camacho and Camilla Harris have nearly the exact same hairdo. Yes, and for all intents and purposes, the same intelligence level. Amen.

Tom Russell: 29:06

Camacho had some good ideas. So he's arguably the the better choice given, you know, between those two he was smart enough to know he wasn't the smartest, so I'll give him props for that.

Patrick Bass: 29:22

That guy not sure had a big brain, so that that if you haven't seen idiocracy, you need to go see it, because it's a commentary on really where we're at right now, I think uh prophetic.

Patrick Bass: 29:38

It's spooky when there's movies out like uh, jackass and stuff like that. Uh, movies like um, uh, shows like all my balls, uh on idiocracy aren't that far fetched. I mean, they're really not much different and probably you know the whole movie starts out with you know, smart people are not having kids and dumb people are having like a ton of them and just natural selection takes over, I guess.

Tom Russell: 30:13

Yeah, it's a bitter pill because it's funny, but it's also, like I said, very prophetic. What do you think about?

Patrick Bass: 30:21

this Mandela effect stuff. Have you read up on any of those Mandela effect?

Tom Russell: 30:27

theories? Yeah, I think the one that always got me was the Monopoly guy. I could have swore he had a monocle, but apparently he didn't.

Patrick Bass: 30:37

The one that got me recently was when Richard Simmons died. I have a very distinct memory of him having a headband on and come to find out there's no pictorial evidence or anything alluding to the fact that he did so. I'm not the only one that remembers that. A lot of people remember that. So what are we remembering?

Tom Russell: 31:00

Mass delusion? I don't know.

Patrick Bass: 31:02

I don't know.

Tom Russell: 31:04

I mean there's a lot of stuff that goes into that. The Richard Simmons thing honestly I don't remember him wearing the the sweat bands but you know, as as a child of the nineties I was at home during the summer so I probably saw him enough that that that stuck with me, that he didn't wear it in the end bands. Yeah, Um but yeah, no, I mean some of those things.

Patrick Bass: 31:28

Let me, let me run some of these by you. Um, in in the star wars movie, darth vader says at some point and do you remember this? He says luke, I am your father. Do you remember that?

Tom Russell: 31:45

okay, I'm gonna nerd for a second. He doesn't say that. He says no, I am your father.

Patrick Bass: 31:51

Okay, but even James Earl Jones admitted that he remembers saying Luke, I am your father, so how do you account for that, tommy Boy?

Tom Russell: 32:02

You ever seen Tommy Boy Chris Foggy? Oh yeah, there's a part where he's talking to his old family. He's like Luke, I am your father and I was talking to till family's like Lou, hi, I'm your father.

Patrick Bass: 32:12

And I think that set the tone. But the guy who voiced the actor and you know the the, the voice for, uh, darth Vader remembers it differently too, so I don't know.

Tom Russell: 32:23

No, no, I mean there's all kinds. What's the other one I heard of there, the Berenstain bears?

Patrick Bass: 32:27

I the Berenstain Bears. I don't remember the details on that one, yep. And then let's see when are some other famous ones. You know it all started with Nelson Mandela. A lot of people remember him dying in the 80s, but he in fact died in 2013. So that's where it kind of got the name. How about this one? Did Shaggy from Scooby-Doo have an Adam's apple?

Tom Russell: 32:54

Yes, I want to say yes. Well, he didn't, did I? I don't know what I remember, though. How about this?

Patrick Bass: 33:04

How does Mickey Mouse hold his pants up? Does he wear suspenders? No, no, you're right. Does Snoopy have a tail? What color is his tail? Yes, white, yeah, it's white with a small black spot. Some people thought it was black.

Tom Russell: 33:26

I remember stupid little shit that no one else should remember. See, other people's minds are full of important things and this stuff takes it back.

Patrick Bass: 33:33

Okay, how about this one? What color is Tony the Tiger's nose?

Tom Russell: 33:39

What it's blue, I don't know. I don't know if I buy that, did you guess I?

Patrick Bass: 33:50

don't know if I buy that house. Did Sinbad ever play a genie in a movie? No, Shaq does. Okay, you're right. Maybe we're just all stupid.

Tom Russell: 34:06

No, all your brains are full of important topics and facts. Mine is just. I just watched way too much TV as a kid. That's all it was.

Patrick Bass: 34:16

Yeah, well, I mean I did too. Alright, did Curious George have a tail?

Tom Russell: 34:22

Yes, no Wait.

Patrick Bass: 34:30

No, he did not. I guess that's true. Was it sex in the city or sex and the city?

Tom Russell: 34:41

I don't care. No, I know, I have to know. I want to say it's sex in the city, it's sex and the city. Okay, that makes sense, for as stupid as that fucking show is, I get it Okay.

Patrick Bass: 34:59

I never watched it. I'm not even sure.

Tom Russell: 35:01

I've had it foisted on me several times in my life.

Patrick Bass: 35:04

Yeah, pikachu's tail. Was it yellow or yellow and black?

Tom Russell: 35:12

That was after me. I don't know. I don't know either.

Patrick Bass: 35:16

But all these things, you know, like all these things that are in our collective memories, here's the one that always blew me away C3PO has a silver leg.

Tom Russell: 35:28

Yes, I do remember that. Yeah, because I was a huge Star Wars nerd, so I remember stupid shit like that.

Patrick Bass: 35:34

I don't remember that. I remember him having you know basically being all gold.

Tom Russell: 35:39

Yeah, he had one silver leg. Now, granted, it took me like 100 times watching it before I was like, oh, he's got a silver leg, and I think it's because it's never explained or mentioned. No one ever brings it up, it's just kind of there.

Patrick Bass: 35:54

So people just don't even think about it. Jaws, here's one from Jaws. Did he say we're going to need a bigger boat, or you're going to need a bigger boat, you're? Yeah.

Tom Russell: 36:06

I see that way too many times too. Plus, that's one of my favorite scenes where he's chumming the water and he, like, hits jaws with the chum and he goes back and up and he's got the cigarette in his mouth.

Patrick Bass: 36:18

You're gonna need to follow did Kirk ever say beam me up, scotty?

Tom Russell: 36:30

I never watched a full episode of Star Trek in my life, but just based off the context of the question.

Patrick Bass: 36:35

No, yeah, the closest he ever came apparently is he said Scotty beam me up, beam us up, but he never said Scotty beam me up. I don't know, some of these are kind of nitpicky, it's just a few too many airs, I don't know. Some of these are kind of nitpicky.

Tom Russell: 36:51

It's just.

Patrick Bass: 36:53

A few too many errors. Okay, did you see Risky Business?

Tom Russell: 36:57

Yes.

Patrick Bass: 37:01

When he's doing the scene where he's wearing his Oxford shirt and socks and no pants, is he wearing sunglasses? No, here's wearing sunglasses. No, here's the thing, tom. You're actually very good at this, and the rest of the world has got the wool pulled over. You've gotten nearly over 85% of these rights.

Tom Russell: 37:23

Oh good, Yay, what is that? Pilly that and five bucks will give me a couple coughs.

Patrick Bass: 37:31

Let's see here, Did I Okay? So I mean, this is kind of sad. Neil Armstrong died in 2012. Most people think he's still alive.

Patrick Bass: 37:50

I don't know if that's a mandela factory, just not important enough to remember anymore oh, that's rough yeah, but there's a lot of these and I mean you can go on the internet and check them out. There's a lot of so-called mandela effects. I don't know. You know there was a motive or a theory that said, when the hydrogen what was it? The super collider was turned on, the super collider that it created a black hole that split our timelines. So who knows glider that it created a black hole that split our timelines.

Tom Russell: 38:29

So who knows?

Patrick Bass: 38:31

Of course, if we're in a simulation, then it doesn't really matter, right? I mean, wouldn't it be cool if you're just an NPC and somebody's playing hard mode with you?

Tom Russell: 38:47

Wouldn't it be cool? Wouldn't it be cool?

Patrick Bass: 38:48

As I said, sorry, wouldn't it be cool, as I was saying sorry, yeah, wouldn't it be ironic?

Tom Russell: 38:54

Uh, no Tragic, I hope somebody's getting their money's worth Honestly? Okay, listen, if that is the case and you're an NPC in the United States of America, you're playing on Easy Mode. Your player may be garbage, but you're playing on Easy Mode. On easy mode, your player made me garbage, but you're playing on easy mode.

Patrick Bass: 39:12

Well, anyway, that's all I've got as far as Mandela effects. Yeah, I mean you've been.

Tom Russell: 39:21

I had the one and I kind of brought it up earlier. Is it the Berenstain Bears or the Berenstein Bears?

Patrick Bass: 39:27

I thought it was Berenstein. Uh, I thought it was.

Tom Russell: 39:33

Berenstein? I don't know. I'm trying to find the answer. I want to say it's Berenstein T-A-I-N, but apparently everyone remembers it as Berenstein Bears. You know that's an interesting exploration. Members of it as buried steam bears.

Patrick Bass: 39:51

So I you know, that's it. That's an interesting exploration into marketing, I think. I think we remember things a certain way. Whether or not they happened is almost irrelevant, I don't know. It's confusing to me why some of this stuff happens that way.

Tom Russell: 40:15

Yeah, I mean, a lot of it I think is just cultural. You know, people say Berenstain or Berenstain. I think most people said Berenstain. Enough that that's what you thought it was. It's the same thing with why wouldn't George, this curious George, have a tail, you know it's things like that just make sense. So I think people kind of fall into that gap and just stay there. It's again. A lot of it is information that's not important enough to remember and that's the only reason I remember it is I remember dumb shit.

Tom Russell: 40:41

Chimps don't have a tail right?

Patrick Bass: 40:42

No, they don't.

Tom Russell: 40:44

Yeah, but Curious George Chin.

Patrick Bass: 40:46

I don't know, he was a monkey, right.

Tom Russell: 40:48

I thought he was a spider monkey because, given his size, yeah, that's what I thought I put a lot of thought into Curious George.

Patrick Bass: 40:59

That's the whole thing. Is Pluto is Goofy a dog, and if he's a dog, why does? He have a dog. Yeah, and that whole thing is a little weird, Because he's got dog. Why does?

Tom Russell: 41:11

he have a dog? Yeah, that whole thing is a little weird Because he's got Pluto right. There's different levels of consciousness, I guess. I don't know why does.

Patrick Bass: 41:22

Donald Duck not wear pants Because he was in the Navy.

Tom Russell: 41:26

His wife wasn't. She doesn't wear pants. He didn't. He didn't. He didn't, he didn't, he didn't, he didn't. She was wearing pants, he didn't have those kids?

Patrick Bass: 41:32

I guess I don't know. I mean, I guess he had his feather pants on, I guess I don't know.

Tom Russell: 41:39

All right, that's not good enough, but all right.

Patrick Bass: 41:45

Well, I don't know, I don't have anything else. I was going to talk about some politics, but my heart's just not in it, man, I'm just so disgusted right now with everything political. It's just wearing me out, man, it's just wearing me out.

Tom Russell: 42:00

You know, man, it's not even people being evil and selfish and corrupt. I get that. That's since Manny crawled in his first cave and corrupt. I get that. That's since Manny crawled out of his first cave. What gets me is the mass brainwashing and stupidity of people. I mean, go back three months, three months, yeah, kamala, kamala, whatever you want to call her. She was a joke to everyone, both sides. Everyone thought she was a joke. Now, all of a sudden, she's the greatest thing since sliced bread, what? And you know, oh, on the first day, I'm going to fix this Bitch. You started that, you created this problem and you know newsflash, you're already there. Fix it now.

Patrick Bass: 42:49

You know, have you noticed? The media doesn't even mention Biden at all anymore.

Tom Russell: 42:53

It's so weird man, he just like he fell off drastically.

Patrick Bass: 42:59

He's not mentioned at all. I mean he's already a footnote.

Tom Russell: 43:04

Well, let's be honest, man. I mean his whole political career. He's been a useful idiot. Yeah, well, that's true, that's's it. He's been a useful idiot for the party. They're done with them. They're taking him to the curb. I'm sure he got a nice severance from that rules, that evil goddamn organization.

Patrick Bass: 43:27

But hey I, here's something I want to talk to you about and I want to get your perspective, since you're a military guy. In the town I live in, we have, uh, an air national guard base and upgraded our runways and put arrestor cables in there, and they're bringing in squadrons of f-35s and f-16s to train foreign military pilots. And now, over our city, these guys are pulling high g turns and doing maneuvers over populated areas that I think are frankly unsafe, not to mention the fact that if you've never heard an f-35 at full military power, it is awe-inspiring and deafening. And it you hear them, you don't see them because by the time you hear them, they're already gone, and I just don't think that they ought to. They ought to go out to what they call an MOA, a military operating area, and do their little testing there. If they want to land and take off at the airport, that's fine, but just oh.

Patrick Bass: 44:54

A week ago I saw two F-16s circling Fort Smith, pretending to dogfight one another over a populated area. This can't end well, and the folks around here are so I don't know what the right word for it is brainwashed, sheepish. They're like oh, that's the sound of freedom, and I just want to choke them when I hear that.

Tom Russell: 45:21

If it wasn't foreign military pilots, I could at least understand that mentality a little bit. But I don't know. I don't think any of that stuff should be happening over a city or town. Anyway, when you've got Nevada and New Mexico, what's the reason Exactly? If you want to, train these people?

Patrick Bass: 45:43

there's huge deserts and unpopulated areas. Why are they doing this over Fort Smith?

Tom Russell: 45:53

it doesn't make sense, especially if they're being as aggressive as you said and say they're being it's.

Patrick Bass: 45:58

That doesn't make sense to me yeah, well, they just love it, they just that's the sound of freedom that's a whole nother topic of conversation too, like should we be selling the f-35?

Tom Russell: 46:11

I believe the answer is absolutely not yeah. Why are we selling our latest military tech? That doesn't make sense to me well, here's the other thing.

Patrick Bass: 46:19

How many times have we trained and armed foreign militaries and they become our enemy?

Patrick Bass: 46:25

no, never, that's never happened, patrick no, it's happened a lot, to be honest, and you know. Now, to be fair, you know I think they're bringing in Poland first and then we're going to have Germany and some others. These are probably long standing allied nations, but I guess it's just the principle of it and again, I probably wouldn't have a problem with it if they were just taking off and landing and not going. You know, afterburner mode over my house, but sadly my house is in a direct sequencing for the flight landing pad. You know landing for these jets and you know I've I've read the reports and you know it's it's rare, but stuff happens and I don't. I just don't want an F 35 landing in my living room.

Tom Russell: 47:18

Yeah, no, it doesn't end well. Yeah, I'm. I feel for you, man, I don't. I don't think we should be doing that in both. I don't think we should be doing it at all, much less. And about popular f-16, I think an argument could be made for it's older, a little bit older. Tech at 35 should surpass it. F-22 should be able to kick its ass, but like selling and training ford pilots above cities, it just, I don't know, can't end well.

Patrick Bass: 47:46

Like you said, yeah well, uh, tom, I guess that's all I got. You got anything else you want to chat about today?

Tom Russell: 47:54

No, no Good, I'm going to have to eat late breakfast and start.

Patrick Bass: 47:58

Okay, well, go get some food. Hey, nice chatting with you, man. We'll catch you next time To everybody. Thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed the show. Give us some feedback and let us know what you'd like to hear. We're kind of an open book, to use the airplane analogy. Again, we're in a holding pattern, waiting to see what it is you guys want to hear. So let us know and I'm sure we'll be able to oblige you. Thanks so much for listening. Take care, thank you.