Discovering The Nonsensical Allegory Of One of Ben's Terrible Short Stories

Cody continues to read one of Ben Shapiro's terrible short stories.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together everything, So don't don't don't hello like we

(00:21):
haven't done this year. College the Enemies, pose enemies, friend
of mees, ghost of poll Pot. Potentially it's a friend
of the you never know friend of the po. Ho's

(00:45):
a pull there's a pull pot out there, right. So
we're gonna do more Ben Shapiro stuff because my god,
it's hard getting back into the working thing. But we
should probably talk a little bit about Gillan Maxwell. Huh
is that what we're landing on? And how her name
is pronounce hit interviews? How to pronounce her name? Elane
Lane Garland I was on when I was on Fucking Harmontown,

(01:15):
Jeff May, who used to be friends with her, called
her Gillen. Hey, Robert Evans here, embarrassing mistake, I said.
Jeff May was the co host of Harmontown, who related
a story about having known Gillen from some social events. Uh,
that was the wrong person. Jeff Davis was the co
host of Harmontown. Jeff May is a wonderful comedian and
podcaster UM who I have known for a while and

(01:36):
is a very funny person. You can find him on
Twitter at hey there, Jeff Row j E. F f
r O on Twitter, apologies to Jeff May. I was
referring to Jeff Davis. Excuse me, Jeff May used to
be friends with her. Yeah, well yeah, just like they
wus over the most important part. Yeah, no, he he addressed.
He talked about like, yeah, she was like a socialite.

(01:57):
She was often at these parties. She was like, there's
no I could have come on any of Epstein's planes.
They were like big Hollywood parties. Like it was just
it was like, I don't know, he's not on any
of the flight manifest or anything. I've never heard any allegations.
It was just like she was somebody that he knew it,
like these big Hollywood soare she was at all of them.
She was a big socialite person. I think he called

(02:18):
it Gilden. I don't know, it doesn't matter. She's a
horrible person. Fucker. I don't care about her name. Um.
I think people are getting all excited that she's going
to roll on a bunch of people, and I don't
think anything particularly interesting is going to happen there. No,
don't to say that she couldn't roll on people. I
just don't think it's going to happen. Yeah, I don't either.

(02:39):
That's not what my gut instinct tells me about the situation. Yeah,
I don't think. I mean, she's going to go to prison,
and that's good because she did monstrous things. Um. It
seems like they're did a lot of very powerful people
on on both sides, um, which sort of indicates that

(03:01):
probably nothing will come of it. It's also like, if
you like, from a practical standpoint, do I think that
she has damning information on a lot of powerful people? Oh?
For fucking sure. Do I think that the most reasonable
things she could do to protect herself is roll on them? No?
Absolutely not, Like that's not how people that. I don't
think that it proves her circumstances. No, Like, that's not

(03:24):
how our system works. I don't think that's likely to happen.
You know that it's it's just not going to happen. Yeah,
I mean, I'm I'm sure there will be some stuff
that comes out, and I'm glad. I hope the more
the more of these people that get exposed, the better.

(03:44):
And it does look like some of the court cases
against Prince Andrew we're going to be moving forward, and
that's good, that's great. I'm not trying to say like
it's pointless to do this. I just don't think she.
I don't think she's going to come up with some
damning list that like destroys the ruling class in America
for there, so I think like the consequences, the consequences
won't be like, oh, all these monsters are in jail now,

(04:05):
the consequences are going to be Oh, a lot of
people know that these people are monsters now, like the
information and like the names and the people we know,
like all these people are in his Little Black book
and on the plane, this sort of thing. She's convicted,
like sex trafficker, you know who's involved, but they won't
face consequences probably unfortunately. But I think everybody is just

(04:27):
like what if, what if it could happen? But what
if it could be? And I think it's probably pretty
unlikely that we actually yeah, no, no, no, but what
if we could? I think it's it's the Royal ten
and bonds, yes exactly, everyone knows, yeah, and I think

(04:50):
what's I think it's unlikely that we will learn about
any new names. I don't think she's going to give
us any names. I don't think any information she gives
us is going to be and in either make the
case against the people we know we're involved with Epstein
more damning, or we'll add people to it. Like I
just think that's unlikely because, for one thing, we already

(05:11):
have a pretty good idea of the people he was
like supplying, so to speak, and the people who were
to something recomplexed. We have a pretty good idea. It's
been documented, and I just doubt she had a lot
of information other than on the specifics of some acts.
But in terms of like the ship that's likely to
come out, I just don't know that she has that

(05:33):
much that there's any real chance of her uh revealing
so that that that's that's where I am on it.
I'm glad she got convicted. I'm glad Elizabeth Holmes got convicted.
Other other female conviction news this week Elizabeth Holmes, But
that one's a little I mean again good convicted, but

(05:58):
not convicted all the things that she only no, I mean,
I don't know about that. I think there's I think
there's one of the things that people are complaining about
is she got convicted of defrauding investors, but not patients
and they're being like, see, this is the system we
live in. It's not a crime to defraud patients. Well,
it never it didn't get to the point where there
were a lot of patients to defraud, like it. It

(06:19):
didn't she they never served that many people. Um I
I kind of get why that's a harder conviction to
make because she Paraos didn't make it that far. Like
there were definitely some into people and that's and that
to me is enough. But I hear it. I get

(06:41):
I understand the reason why. But to me, it's not enough. Yeah,
I mean, we'll see. I think that she's got four
convictions against her, each of which they're likely to be
served concurrently, but each of which has like a maximum
of twenty years. Um I I think it's I think
there's actually a pretty good odds, uh that she'll she'll

(07:05):
do some serious time, to the extent that her doing
time will make anything better. I think she's gonna yeah, yeah,
which is fine. I guess. Ah. Well, we talked about
some news there. We did talk about some news. That's
all that's going on in the world. Oh, and Kazakhstan

(07:25):
looks like it's on the verge of a revolution, uh,
spurred on by increases in gas prices. People are now
swarming military convoys and flipping police cars. Some real crazy
gass footage coming out of this isn't something for us
to brush over. Give me more information, Um, I mean
it's it's it's very quickly developing at this moment. But yeah,

(07:47):
like these are essentially their austerity protests. You know, a
lot of the pro a lot of the massive wave
of protests into this in eighteen nineteen, we're spurred on
by similar kinds of things. Um, and the government, which
is very authority Terran and Kazakhstan sent in the military
and people started taking to the streets and significant numbers.
There's folks in the capital setting up tents. Now. Some

(08:09):
people are talking might be a situation like the Maidan
and Ukraine in two thousand fourteen. Um, But there's like
some nuts videos of like mobs like forcing back military
convoys and ship and people in cars like blocking them
on the road in in the middle of like in
high speed chases and ship like. There's some some really
outrageous stuff dropping. Um, it will have the situation will

(08:32):
have advanced, probably significantly by the time you hear this,
So my my advice would be to like just kind
of google Kazakhstan protests and see where things are when
this drops. I'm seeing but the footage is wild. Yeah. Um,
And it all started at least in terms of it's
been going on. This has been building obviously for a
little while, but it all kind of started breaking into

(08:54):
the international news to like within an hour or so
of us recording this, So it's it's still develop been
pretty rapidly. Well, I'll definitely be checking that out later today.
Pretty dope. Um, you know what else is dope? Not
really heroes? Short story, He's a dope. Go yeah, there
we go, perfect pivot, all right, he should do a

(09:19):
little refresher real quick began. Okay, Um, it's a story
about a guy. It's he's tiny, he's shrunk down to
be tiny, and he's living for many months. Uh in
this businessman he was tiny God. His mission is to

(09:41):
kill dust mites because businessman hates dirty things, but he
likes smokes and his gross man um, but he doesn't
like dust mites. So our hero is destroying the dust mites. Unfortunately,
the busines this man a k a. The whale swallowed

(10:04):
him and so now he's in the whale's stomach. I
love that Den Shapiro is such a is such the
guy he is that like every story has got to
have some kind of vague, vaguely biblical like leaning to it.
But also it doesn't make any sense, like there's no

(10:25):
through line. There's no like narrative or like moral through
line to draw between the biblical story of Jonah and
the whale and a guy volunteering to be shrunk to
kill dust mites getting swallowed by a rich man like's
not swallowed again, Oh, it's it's because of the quality
of the writing. It's not the clearest thing in the world.

(10:46):
On a cigarette At one point, right questions, you know,
he's not a cigarette or something, and he was hiding
from the mites, which we also learned don't actually uh
like uh nickotine, so they would be actually uh if
you were accurate. But yeah, he's a cigarette. That is

(11:10):
such a funny coincidence that the thing that he chooses
the wrong like anything else, he could have just chosen
anything else. Well, it's like ways because like, okay, so
he's like a clean freak, right, and he's like he's
like trying to be like clean and healthy, but he smokes. Also,
the mites wouldn't eat the cigarette. Like it's wrong in

(11:33):
many ways, which I think is beautiful. Yeah, I I
do love that. Like again, we're also going through Bin's
incredible book about sex on Behind the Bastards with Sophia Alexandra,
and it's everything that Ben could be wrong about he
is wrong about. And it's the same with this, Like
he decides that there are dust mites on tobacco and
the reality is that like in the wild, birds will

(11:55):
eat cigarette buds to keep dust mites off them, Like
everything he could have been wrong about. If Ben Shapiro
makes a factual statement, it's going to be wrong. He
goes out, It's incredible. I've never seen anything like it.
We all make mistakes, right, everybody's wrong, especially if you're
commenting on a daily basis to some extent, But like,

(12:16):
if Ben makes a factual statement, it will be as
wrong as it can be. It's I think it's karmic destiny. Yeah,
it's amazing. It's truly, it's incredible. Um, you just know,
it's like it's weird, weirdly, like he's such a he's
perfectly trumpy. It's very like in that way, he's also
got a tweet for everything in the same way where

(12:38):
it's like if you say, if he's saying something that
he's against now, just look five years ago, just just glance,
just like do do some keywords. Let's get back into
the saddle, you know, back in the high life again,
all the all the Ben Shapiro stories that saw me
once will smile take us in or something like that.
You know the song Cody, We all know the song.

(12:59):
We all know the song. Everybody's okay. Uh yeah, I
was uh for the for the musical we're gonna do
with this? Yeah, yeah, Ben Shapiro the musical. Um, God
so unpleasant? Uh um okay, look alright. So the whale,

(13:21):
which again has nothing related to do with the Bible,
although uh it's funny that like they called him that
before you swallowed him. Like anyway, I haven't prayed since
I was just a recap this is the last paragraph
we read. Just sprinkle some some memories on your on
your brains. I haven't prayed since I was a child.
I don't believe in God. No God would play the

(13:43):
cosmic joke of letting the whale fall into so much
wealth then curse him with an obsessive, compulsive dislike of
dust mites so strong that he'd spend half that wealth
developing the shrinking system and hiring duds like me to
man it it all too absurd. That is not an
argument against God. No, it's not an argument that. It's

(14:04):
not even an argument against the whale because like, yeah,
maybe this I could see like some neurotic rich person
having this obsession. But if it leads to perfect shrinking technology,
that would be certainly be worth more than he paid
for it, Like the military applications alone wouldn't get him billions.
Like that's what like if you actually developed that, it

(14:25):
doesn't matter how ridiculous your reasons were, you could make
a fortune, right like any we even says like it's
it's not a cosmic joke. It's not the use of
that phrase, but actually sounds like the thing that happens
all the time, which is like people with weird focuses
and obsessions developed things that change the world. Right, So

(14:46):
like like like the curse of cursing with so much
wealth and then he'd spent half that wealth developing again,
to your point, shrinking technology, Yeah, which would imagine the
impact on like treatment of cancers, if you can just
you know, yeah, it doesn't matter anymore. Yeah, I mean, honestly,

(15:09):
investing only half of your wealth into that seems great.
Half left, it's fine. Yeah, it seems like this guy
changed the entire world and also probably saved his own
life if he has a tumor. But I bet Ben's
not going to explain why the shrinking technology can perfectly
shrink a person not anything else, you know, Um, yeah,

(15:32):
if anything is a cosmic joke on the main character
who fucking decided to take this job. Whatever, it's fine,
it's unbelievably stupid job, because again you're positing that there's
a guy who's obsessed and terrified with the idea of
dust mites. Yeah, and that they're vicious. But like he's this,

(15:56):
this rich guy is terrified of dust mites which cannot
be seen, but is fine with little men shipping all
over they must do whenever much more ship than and
were ship more toxic? Should we live with dust mite ship?
It's clearly not a problem for anyone's health, for any
any person, but but human ship is pretty bad for

(16:17):
people to just have in their life. I think even
if it's microscopic. It might cause a problem. You're like
your cigarettes and stuff you're smoking that. I mean, it
would cause more of a problem because you can't see it. Yeah,
so you don't know to not put your hand in it.
I feel like there's a lot of potential health problems
with with this. But anyway, we haven't even read a

(16:39):
new sentence yet. But yeah, what's the important thing is though,
that his mouth and lungs are filled with ash, despite
that not being how cigarettes work. And also yeah, ok, yeah,
new sentence. But I'm praying nonetheless. Now, Oh, God, fearing man,

(17:01):
just listen to me. I whispered to the whale, false
idols and who he can't hear me. But somewhere beneath
those layers of fat, he's got to have a heart.
He certainly has a stomach, all right, Like an answer
to my prayers. Though the beacon clicks on again, Jensen,
I shout, Jensen. There's no answer but the beacons transmitting.

(17:23):
I hear the beacon, but too many beacons. I hear
the beacon bumping around Jensen's pocket. And then from outside
of the whale, I hear the thump of a door opening,
and from the beacon, the voices emerged, the thump of
a door opening. That's not how the doors sump the creek.
What all right? And from the beacon the voice emerges Jensen,

(17:46):
stammering something I need to know. The whale, cool and collected, replies,
so tell me, right, all right? Do you remember Kemp,
one of the anties, know, says the whale. Why would
I I hire thousands of aunties a year? He has
thousands of these little guys running around him. That's too many?

(18:09):
All right, Well, this one is in your stomach right now.
What a casual conversation. I feel the halo jostle, jarring lee.
I feel the jarring you know. He wrote that and
he was like, oh that's good. He was really happy
with that, really pleased himself. All right, I feel the
halo jostle, jarring lee upward as the whale stands. Are

(18:32):
you insane? He says? Then he would know? I know,
says Jensen, But he says he'll never tell. He says
he just wants to get back to his wife. The
whale is silent. He sits again heavily, and the halo
bumps against the top of his stomach. His grumbling baritone
makes my whole body rumble. No Jensen protest, he wouldn't

(18:56):
lie to me, Sir, I've known Kemp for a decade.
Have you known Camp in a situation like this where
a fortune? What is he? Where to wait a second?
Where does he know him for a decade? Like? What
is this? This guy has been here two years? Does
he have a previous anyway? Right? Eight years of training?
He's just detail. Yeah, it's just bad, just bad writing

(19:19):
again a single line earlier where he was like, I'd
worked for the Whale for years, you know, before the
opportunity came up and I decided to get out of
accounting or whatever. My friend came to me with this,
he's known the guy for ten years. Maybe the friends
my friend gave. Yeah, a single sentence would make it
not distracting. But yeah, this single sentence is very distracting. Yeah,

(19:43):
have you have you known Camp in a situation like
this where a fortune could be at stake? Says the Whale,
his voice dangerously even I'm sorry I misread that. Then
dangerously even okay, dangerous leaving it's very you know, it's
a simmering, simmer calm, destructive voice. No says Jensen. I

(20:05):
shouted to the beacon. I promise, I swear to God.
I don't give a damn about the money. But nobody
hears me. So how much time do we have? Okay,
I mean, you know, he's in his stomach, the beacon spoken,
but he can hear the other one. Yeah, how much
time do we have? The whale asks he's due to

(20:26):
begin his reversal process tonight. Uh formatting error. Um, we
must act quickly. Call the doctor, you know, the one
he treated Sean gri and Crystal Crystal with interesting Jensen's swallows.

(20:47):
I can hear it all the way across the room,
not even through the beacon, right, sir, he says, that
would be pure murder. Yes, says the whale. But it's
my body. Oh god, oh my god, oh my god,
are you fucking shipping me? It's an abortion and oh

(21:07):
my god, oh my god. Gros wow wow, yeah that's good.
Oh fuck, that's funny. Oh my god. Alright, the thing
that the whale says, and then we're gonna my entire

(21:30):
insides are cringing. That's awesome. I'm so happy, I'm so proud.
Ah yeah, but it's my body and what's in it
is my perview, that's the law. Look it up, but
look it up. I am called. I am certain that

(21:50):
the law does not have any sort of uh like, yeah,
the Rovie Wade is not apply to hiring a man
to shrink himself down and then swallowing him. And I
think I think literally any conceivable Supreme Court would not extend.

(22:12):
There's not there's not a world where this stands up
in court. Yeah, like that takes a break. Okay, right
back together everything, we're back. And before we get back

(22:36):
into this, I want to ask, come up from a
moral standpoint, where do you all stand on on hiring
people to be shrunk down in your body? Do you
have the right to kill people that you pay to
be shrunk and then swallow in order? No, I don't believe.
I think that they really understand the liabilities I guess,
but no, I don't get to then kill them because
that's signed up. Perhaps I don't know that they but

(22:59):
that's I don't even think that's one of the liabilities
he signed up for, right because this is a new thing.
So no, this does not count. Sorry, Ben, Yeah, I
I just don't think this is covered by by pro
choice or to be fair anti choice. I actually don't
think in this specific situation, your opinion on abortion whatever matter.
I don't even think it would break. I don't even

(23:20):
think there would be an argument from like the religious
right versus progressives on your ability on on whether or
not you can do this. It just doesn't seem to apply.
Unrelated scenario. Yeah, I'm dying to know what happens next. Alright, Uh,
aren't we all? From outside of the whale, I hear screaming,

(23:44):
screams of an unborn child. That's not what he says,
just like Dan, don't cut that. No, No, al right,
from outside, from outside the whale, I hear screaming. It
takes me a moment to realize I'm hearing my own
screaming from that damn beacon, damning Jensen to hell, the
whale to hell. Then the screaming goes silent. They turned

(24:07):
the beacon off. And that's the end of that, the
end of that. That's the end of that section. He
is gonna get aboarded soon. Um, and Ben thinks it's great. Um,
I will say, there's way too much left of the story.

(24:28):
We're not going to finish it today. I don't think so.
But I break the beacon with my bare hands. They
can't know where I am precisely in the stomach. No
reason to make their task easier, that's silly. I have
three options, as I see it. One is unthinkable, then
it's not an option. One is unthinkable. Drop from the
roof of my prison and risk the intestinal tract, the colon,

(24:50):
and all the rest. That's all the rest after the colon.
What's that freedom? Okay, there's no guarantee that if I drop,
I'll be better off if I make it all the
way to the end of the track, then get flushed
down the toilet. The thought of it almost makes me laugh.
This is this stuff of low comedy, and now it
might be my choice of death. Okay. My second choice

(25:14):
is to take the pill. Oh we're getting a little
more of this. Uh, yeah, that's what he's doing. It's
also it's the pill to make him bigger, right bigger,
So he would be killing the guy. So both of
them are seems to be seems to be very consistent

(25:38):
and uh and good and the welfone out shocking, how
little sinse this makes. My second choice is to take
the pill. The option itself makes me want to vomit,
to continue to stay at size, undetectable, to hide from
the doctrine side the stomach. But how long can I last?

(25:59):
What's the why? All right? I don't have enough nutrition
packets to last more than a few days. And the
whale won't forget about me. It will be It will
just be a matter of time before he finds me
and terminates me. So the pill makes you invisible to them.
Think it keeps you small? Maybe keeps you small? Okay again, Yeah,

(26:24):
it makes a lot of sense so far. My third
option is to allow the reversal to take place as planned,
to try to fight off the doctor, to play for time,
and then rip this bastard's guts out from the inside
out too. That's where he's going to go. Incredible new paragraph.

(26:48):
It isn't much of a choice. A lot of meaning
in that sentence or maybe none. It's like formatting air
is fine. I check my watch. Two hours until their
first begins. I'll need my sleep. New Sections is about
to begin, Robert, you have thoughts about that really good sentence? No, No,

(27:09):
that sense seems like a sentence legally, I think that's
a sentence. So the doctor's coming to start a reversal,
but they know that this guy is still in there,
so that's the doctor's coming to kill him. Okay, they're
the reverse is going to happen. They need to do
it in time, the doctors performing an abortion, but also

(27:32):
happens starting the process is also like an abortion. Taking
the pill so well, so taking the pill stops the process,
so it stops all keeps him small and undetectable so
that they can't do it. And but then he's stuck
for only as a couple of nutrition packets. Yeah, it
really should have stalked up on those, yeah pill, Yeah

(27:53):
I should have you know, well, you know, it's the
amounting needs for the amount of time he's in there.
It worked out, he's got a couple left, he's only
got a couple hours left. It seems like a good plan,
good system. No notes. The growth begins just as scheduled.
The pain brakes my body the birthing sequence. I can
feel each individual fascia linking skin to muscle, expanding, growing.

(28:18):
I scream silently into the halo. Thank god they made
the halo expandable along with me. It's true. Good luck.
Within an hour, I'm twice the size I was before.
The stomach is no longer looking quite so vast. The
fire behind my eyes makes me want to tear them out. Amy,
I remind myself, Amy new paragraph Amy Comma Amy space

(28:46):
dot dot dot so again Amy a formatting Amy. Also, Okay,
it's fine, He's it's also so there's something about I
think this growth that like like it's it's like describing

(29:09):
the pain of it, but also there's like a longing
you feel, like like the growth spurt that then never
had that he writes about that every every single character
has has the massive growth spurt that never happened to Ben,
which is the worst thing in his life. It's interesting
if that's his central motivation and all the art he
creates interesting just flagging that, just like putting a little

(29:32):
pin in that. Because there's a third short story and
God willing, somebody grows September. The stories do include a
man getting big. It does. So far we have we
have read pieces of one novel in two short stories,

(29:54):
and all of them include as a central plot point
a man getting big. That is very fun. That's very fun,
just throwing it out there, just something out there in
the ether. HM for maybe maybe if he's working on
a novel and listening to this, maybe maybe cut that
part out that you definitely already wrote, Maybe the part
that you're planning on doing where a character grows, Maybe

(30:16):
don't do it this time, I think Ben. My guess
is his current project is the just the novelization of
the Tom Hanks movie Big. One hopes hopes he one
hopes he ruins that story somehow perfect. That's just like
so many of the word big, so many times, and
everything sense. It's sure is, it's sure is tough being big,

(30:41):
he said bigly, alright from his big Big September. Two
days and end a wake up just fifty right, this
differently man, two days end a wake up just fifty
two hours period, new pair of graph of hell. The

(31:05):
doctor's here. I can feel the whale laugh. At this point.
I can't wait to rip his stomach out, especially as
the fiery blood rushes through my veins, growing me too
rapidly to adjust. My limbs feel stiff, heavy, ungainly, and
every time I try to move them, I find myself
thrashing about, flailing, so thrashing about. All Right, the doctor

(31:31):
says something. The whale laughs again and then his body
goes horizontal on his desk. How can you tell I
take a fleeting pleasure in the fact that he's smearing
himself with dust mites even as he does it. Yeah,
smearing himself with dust mites. I can't notice, because again,
hmans are incapable of seeing, more feeling, not really smearing

(31:55):
himself dust down, brushing dust mites probably has like some
sort of gal on too, So it's not it's a
bad word. He chose the wrong word. Wrong word, wrong word,
wrong word, wrong word. There only job is to choose
His only job is to choose the right word. He
did the wrong one anyway. Yeah, there are a few

(32:16):
beats on the stomach. There are a few beats on
the stomach, the doctor examining the whale, no doubt. Yeah,
just like, yeah, you did that in a weird way
the first time. Yeah, there are a few beats on
the stomach, the doctor examining the whale, no doubt. And
then he sits back up. Well, a little more clear,
Still a little weird, but more clear than how I did.
Give me, give me a description of what it's like

(32:37):
when he lays down. I have to hold onto something
I can tell he's laying down because I lose my
sense of balance. Whatever it is he sits up and
blood rushes to my head. Whatever the fun something about right,
that's the thing. He's describing what's happening outside. He should
be describing what's happening in the stomach, the stomach, because
that's his experience. So he's like not something like he's

(32:59):
not the narrator and looking in saying the man sat
up right, he's inside the fucking belly. It's being written.
It's like this omniscient sort of voice when like oh
like and then jostling around like oh, the the liquid
go sideway like right, like you would describe what happened
almost flashed with stomach acid whatever a grand thud uh

(33:22):
fills like an atrium in the stomach. Surely he's testing
the whale whatever it is. I don't know. So has
this guy been eating? Like, give me a description of
what it's like living in there? You can't dealing with surgery.
But it's been okay. But Ben is abiding by I
think what we can all agree the most basic rule
of fiction writing. Don't tell, don't show it, don't right

(33:45):
for either You're not supposed to never show. If you
have to show, don't tell instead, but never tell either,
all right, don't tell. I'm sorry if you haven't one
qualified to talk about this book. Um, I don't know enough.
Go ahead, cutty from above. Finally we're inside the stomach.
From above, the liquid comes, all right. It's dark and viscous,

(34:12):
sticky and thick. It's moving down the walls of the
stomach lining it moving gradually. As I watch in horror,
it covers the entire surface of the stomach, staining a
dark maroon. A pill about my size ricochet's through the
whales esophagus. I can hear the hollow plank as it

(34:33):
bounces down and then falls into the stomach below me.
The stomach acid goes to work, tearing off the cover
and from the pill burst hundreds of them. Bursts is
what it should be. But he said bursts. It's not
the worst error in this entire book, although his description

(34:53):
of a pill going down someone's esophagus is and I
don't think that's what pills do. I I don't know. Then,
I'm not an expert. Like it's like it's that feels
like nonsense, as a pill swallower. That doesn't feel like
a good description. It's like, first of all, been your
wife's a doctor. You talked about time. Your esophagus isn't

(35:14):
like an open tube that you like, don't like it,
Like it's like constricts, like it's it's like seward drain
like you like videos you can see like how the
esophagus works, food down it. It's not a empty again,
like the most basic writer who cared would have like, oh,

(35:36):
I wonder if I could find like an X ray
of a pill going down the throat. Just help me
describe this a little better as a minimum, yeah, the
very minimum, you know, also like um, just as like
a human being. This is like a child's idea of
what like the throat is like oh, it's like yeah,
esophagus and you toss it down and like a ricochet

(35:57):
is back and forth, and it's the kind of thing
like nobody expects perfect accuracy for many piece of it.
I was just reading a very good Kim Stanley Robinson
book called Ministry of the Future, and there's like a
line in it about the comb Mela, which is a
big Indian religious thing being in Varanasi, and it's like, well, no,
actually it's held in like four different cities. I think
Varnasi is one of them, but like the big one
is a Lahabad And that was a little like weird

(36:19):
to me. But I also like didn't mind it and
forgave it because the actual descriptions of what's going on
of like the individual of like this heat wave of
hitting India were so detailed and so biologically accurate that like, yeah,
I mean, people are gonna get little bits wrong. As
a fiction writer, I get like everyone does get little
bits wrong. No one's expecting perfection. The key as a
fiction writer is to do enough, good enough job, building

(36:42):
out a sense of what's happening, a sense of momentum,
a sense of emotional connection that when, as will inevitably happen,
little things are like not quite right, people forgive it
because they're still engaged in the narrative, you know, and
and you lay focus on the error. Yeah um, yeah

(37:03):
he's yeah, but you know, yeah he's trying. Like it
boils down to like the key, Like what you're talking about,
you're correct and like all the very like the details
of it, But what you're really saying is like the
key is to like try, Yeah, the key is to
try effort Yeah, people are willing to forgive a number

(37:27):
of things, especially in science fiction that don't quite that
aren't quite accurate. And it's like Star Star Trek, like
does do warp drives really make sense? Does the hyper
drive in Star Wars make any sense? No, but we
don't care because it's number one, things are generally internally
consistent within those worlds, and number two, you're actually engaged.
What you're really engaged is well also you're talking about

(37:53):
you're you're describing to science fiction things where they're creating
something out enough like we don't have you can objectively
see what it looks like and it's and need to
do some research before I feel like they do like

(38:16):
explain enough, like with warp drive and stuff and most
of these victories like yeah, we don't have the technology,
and like it's like theoretical but like it's grounded in
theoretical science and and and things like that. And it's
also like you have one of two options in this situation, right,
Option number one is the the actual science is not

(38:37):
super important. What's really important is something social, a point
that you're trying to make, in which case, like the characters,
what's going on with them? What's going on like within
the culture of the society that they're in and whatnot,
Like the points that you're trying to make about like
income disparity, like whatever like that that is engaging enough
that you don't really focus on on the science, or

(39:00):
you're actually trying to do like a Michael Crichton thing
where you're trying to get really into the nitty gritty
of the science of this like weird situation, um, and
you try to hook people in on that, in which
case it's crucial um to get the little details about
like how what pill actually falls down an esophagus? Right,
And Ben boldly does either there are two ways to

(39:20):
write this well, and Ben just chooses not to do it,
Like it's like describing like dropping a marble down a
drain is what he's done here. Um, we're gonna take
we're gonna take a short break, but we're gonna end
on a cliffhanger, right, So, like the pill very realistically
dropped into the stomach. Uh, and from the pill burst

(39:42):
hundreds of them new paragraph I never thought i'd see
them again, new paragraph formatting error of all the things.
And we're gonna find out what they are as soon
as we come back, done together everything all the French. Yeah. Uh,

(40:25):
when last we left our hero, he was fearing something
that burst out of pill that was swallowed by the
whale accurately, and hundreds of them burst from the pill,
and he never thought he'd see them again. Of all
the things, new page, the formatting is funked up again,

(40:45):
funked up still, and then it corrects itself later on
the page. Uh. Mechanical dust mites, Oh, the whale dust mites?
Why why why do those exists? Why would he make those?
Make mechanical So here's the thing. First of all, you

(41:08):
make mechanical dust mites, then you're going to use those
to get the regular dust why why why the middleman?
But also why are they mechanical dust mice? Wouldn't you
just like nano butts? Right, Like, why are they mechanical
dust mites? That's nonsense, And yeah, it just occurs to

(41:28):
me right now in this moment, this is different. Yeah,
you didn't need the people there anyway. But they talk
about the house being cleaned, so obviously there's like actual
cleaning happening. That's got to be like a huge detail
of his life. Like when they're spraying down tables and ships.
Sorry this avoiding the fucking vacuums and not going outside

(41:50):
like he's afraid of dust mites. He would not leave
his fucking house, and his house would be like sterilized,
like vacuum sealed place right like what like what is this?
Higher hundreds of people and shrink them down and put
him in your belly. Whatever is the mechanical mechanic? Dust mites.

(42:11):
The whale hates dust mites, but he must hate me more.
Formatting has been the problem is that I don't know
if the formatting is fixed or if it's wrong again,
because the paragraphs are like indented twice sometimes sometimes sometimes
it's three times. I don't know what like the quote
correct format is. So we're either back to normal or

(42:32):
we're fucked up. But the point is they're searching for me.
Now I realized what the viscous liquid was for. It
was designed to hold me fast, to keep me from
fighting back, and to cover everything that wasn't the halo
to shine a spotlight on me, give the mites to
target I get it man who in his body anyway,

(42:54):
there's too many sentences to say. The liquid was to
keep me inside Yeah, the shinest spotlight on me. Give
the mites a target. One sentence, one comma, poorly written.
They're crawling up the walls. I'd heard rumors about the
next generation of Auntie's. Looks like the rumors were right.
So the rumors were that they were making robots instead

(43:15):
of shrinking down people. Ah, there's no time to think,
thank god, because otherwise we'd have to analyze what's going on.
There's no time to think. My instruments aren't growing. Of course,
my knife, my laser gun, they're tiny toys in my hands.
Wait a second, So they shrunk him down, so they

(43:36):
made him tiny laser guns. Then you know what I
I will I'll buy that because as the whale, you
don't want them to have access to like big laser
guns whatever like. But they big laser guns would be
shrunken down. No, But I mean you maybe when you
come back, you don't like if you could target exactly

(43:59):
what return. Maybe you wouldn't want the weapons to get
bigger with him because you don't want them to be
armed in your house because you're a paranoid billionaire. But
also that would seem to suggest that you could just
shrink a tumor if you have that kind of fine control. Again, yeah,
but why just from a writing perspective, why is this
the first time we're learning about that? Is it because

(44:21):
it's your first was? From a writing perspective, the most
important is to leave people with nothing but questions from
the entire time of Again, I'm not story. I don't
know anything about writing, so I think, well, the goal
is to make the reader confused and bothered. Well, then
he's really knocking it out of the park. Oh yeah,

(44:43):
it's good. We like it because it's so good. Um,
But the point is the tools that he had, which
were either shrunken down or built to be tiny. So
like the nutrient packs, I guess we're also built to
be tiny or something. Are they doing like yeah, okay, so,
or they're shrunk. I don't know. The point is where
they're sunk, but they're just not subject to be they're

(45:05):
not regrowing. They were shrunk and now they're not going
to be regrown. Or they were built tiny and they're
not part of this. But those we don't need to
know that because as readers we have no questions about
this kind of thing. Yeah, no, it's unimportant. We're we're
we're we're concerned about the abortion allegory that's going on
right now after halfway through the fucking short story. Yep. Oh,

(45:30):
so his interests are tiny. They're tiny toys in my hands.
All I've got left is my hands, too many hands,
and I can barely control them. I'm naked now thanks
to the growth my clothes. They're just unshrinking and naked
man in this guy's living room. Ah, that's funny. That's

(45:51):
good stuff. Well right, because like, why would you want
these little things left in your home when the people regrow.
That's filthy too. Also, now you've got a big naked
man in your you want that here? You'll clean freak. Ah.
The mechanical mites are climbing, but they don't get stuck

(46:13):
in the viscous stuff. Okay, I'm at the edge of
my seat. The mechanical mites are climbing. I take a
deep breath, grab the halo and rip with all my strength. Rip.
What mhm what does he riv? Okay, the mechanical mites
are climbing. I take a deep breath, grab the halo
and rip with all my strength. Is grabbing. He's ripping

(46:34):
the halo off of the thing. Nothing happens formatting air.
The liquid is holding the halo together. As the mechanical
mites climb, I can't get out. One of the mechanical
mites is faster than the others. It's natural selection and ship.
You know, there's always an alpha robot, the might that

(47:00):
was programmed to be faster than the other hundreds leading
the pack. Then it's not programmed them all super fast. Yeah,
I think you could make it all of them faster
than it seems like they would all be the same
speed as robots. But yeah, but it's a delicate pill.
They crammed a hundred over the men, and men were
like one super Might dropped in there. That's all we

(47:23):
have left for. We've got a doze and a half.
We can make one of these mites fast, but the
budget ran out for the others. Extended release on the others.
But this one's right there with you. One fast one.
Then it's on me, tearing at the halo with its
metal pincers. I scream, but there's no one to hear me.

(47:45):
My arms feel heavy, overburdened, as though I'm swimming in molasses.
The jaws close in. I it seems like he wants
the halo torn, right, I'm just trying to get in
the hall his his motivations um for his like his
basic motivation I guess makes sense, But the motivations for

(48:08):
the specific actions he's taking here um are pretty notice. Yeah,
he's just not giving us like and I don't expect
him be like my plan is to do this and
this and this and this, but he's not giving us
enough information to like follow along. There's also you know,
the thing that he never does in anything that he does,
because he's not a writer, is like set up and

(48:28):
pay off. So again, a writer trying to make action
feel meaningful, you would set up some aspect of how
this guy responds in stressful situations um in the initial
action sequence, and then there would be a payoff, either
him learning a lesson and doing a different thing, or
like this thing that he gets chided for winds up

(48:49):
being what saves him, like literally anything to to add
something to this but then has done nothing instead. Are
are you suggesting the stories require some sort of like change, yeah,
like not just physical growth yea, and even just beyond
that that, like there be a reward for I remember
this from before. Yeah, it's it's back like look, yeah exactly,

(49:13):
um but alas my arms feel heavy, overburdened, as though
I'm swimming in molasses. The jaws close in, and I
remember Phillips, Okay, I remember his eyes bugging out as
the mites closed on him, was in on him. I
remember the blood pouring from the stump of his leg,

(49:35):
and those eyes rolling back in their sockets. Those eyes.
Most of all, I remember the greedy, crunching noises from
the vile mouths of those mites. The real mightsy humans,
yeah are they? Yeah? The mites real mights at humans,
and I guess the mechanical ones and like mites are

(49:58):
able to like crunch even if they are tiny bones bones, Yeah,
because I would eat actually has anything at all to
do with people, Like it's like like skin flakes, but
not organs and bones and not like moving. The thing
about dust mites they do not eat blood or like

(50:20):
living like It's like, yeah, they're not dead, it's like
five and like five not stuff like. They don't do this.
They're not even really scavengers because they have no way
of even knowing that the stuff they're eating was ever
part of a living creature. They certainly don't eat corpses.
They're like they just kind of they're like those bottom
feeding fish, Like what's there, and what's their skin flakes?

(50:43):
Dead skin flakes and like and we're not like existing
in a world where there are monsters, sister, a rich
guy with a weird phobia. A whole bunch of wrong information. Yeah,
to the extent that like mites have minds, they don't
really hunt. They don't have like that capacity. I would

(51:05):
doubt that the capacity to like fight, right, yeah, like
person apart, that's not they don't. I don't think they
engage in collective behavior. Not a mite expert, but I
don't think so. I can't imagine that they do. And
you apparently these mites crave bone, Yeah, they grave bone

(51:28):
and blood an attack and like it would be maybe
he's referring to like another incident with mechanical mites, but
he didn't say mechanical mites. He said mites. And they've
been that hunt dust mites. But but they're but the
stories about dust mites, yeah, I think like he specifically said,

(51:49):
like the whale is afraid of dust mites. That tell
you what we really shouldn't need to be questioning and
wondering this much about it. Um, yeah, it seems like
the premise is maybe a bad one. Yeah, maybe it's
a whack premise. Huh huh um. But he's remembering the

(52:10):
mites tearing his friend apart and drinking on his blood. Uh.
And that's what the dust mites did. And I wait,
the pincer's rip tear at the halo. I wait, new
formatting air. The first mechanical might breaks through, the fastest one, probably.
I hold my breath as the poisonous air comes flowing through.

(52:31):
Then kick as hard as I can at the might.
It's just enough. The might loses its footing, plummets down
to the bottom of the stomach, is sucked out of sight.
Bad sense. So that was the fastest one, Um, I
I assume, so it got there the fastest. I have
to read this again real quick. It's just enough. Dash,
the might loses its footing. Comma plummets down to the

(52:53):
bottom of the stomach. Comma is sucked out of sight.
It's gonna pause on my face real quick for a listener. Yeah,
if you can see him right now, Okay, and I climb.
I leaped through the hole in the halo grab the
stomach lining and I thought you couldn't because of the

(53:14):
liquid on the walls. All right, and climb toward what
looks like a closed ring above me. I have to
get out. I have to get the hell out now.
It takes me a second to realize that the stomach
acid is burning away layers of skin. I'd scream, but
I need the air. Instead. I griped my teeth, breaking
a molar. As my shoulder muscle is exposed, the mites

(53:34):
are gaining. The liquid is gluing me to the walls too,
like a fly stuck in a web. That's how might
work either. I also, this is funny. Do we get
any idea of what state this is occurring in Cody
or city that I don't think? I don't think, so
that's fine. I did about a second and a half

(53:56):
of googling um. And it's funny because it's actually a
matter of scientific curiosity that the American West has almost
no dust mites. They're they're bafflingly lacking in the West.
There's like none in the Midwest or the Mountain West,
and the West Coast has some, but they're like a
third as many as on the East Coast um. So
obviously there's plenty of places in the US where there
would be dust mites. But it's just funny that it's

(54:17):
actually a matter of scientific curiosity how few there are
in the area that Ben lives in, and that will
be broadly writing about exactly we assume because also it's
like it's like abortion and lives and like all this
kind of Again, if you're doing like the again Michael
Crichton kind of thing where you're trying to make it
seem like hard science fiction, you might actually have a
character who's like talking about dust mites and explaining the

(54:38):
threat like a dress that you know, they're weirdly enough,
they don't live in this area that or they've become
more common as people have like sealed up their houses
more and because the because that is a thing. They
were almost known dust mites anywhere in North America until
we started doing more like climate control stuff that apparently
like made it an easier place for them to propagate.
And so like, you know, ironically, if he wasn't such
like a neat freak, there would be less mites in

(54:59):
his house. Like it literally anything or too much about
how do you know about I learned all of this
thirty seconds before I started reading it. That's how little
research it took to find a scientific American article that
made it all very clear. And then again, I'm not
talking about Ben should have done tens of hours of research.
If he had dedicated an hour to reading about mites

(55:22):
before this, he could have made this like it's not hard.
It is baffling. It is baffling. But he never published it. Oh,
he published it, but he unpublished it, right right right, Yeah,
it is no longer available on good reads, um or
anywhere else. Um. But this beautiful podcast, beautiful podcast to

(55:43):
find it. How much time we gotta wrap up? One
other option though, in this dust mite scenario, Let's say
it's in like the West, and like, oh, there actually
aren't a lot of dust mites. That maybe speaks of
the whales character, like even though there aren't a lot
of my he's still obsessed with them and hiring these
people like he's he's that he's that far gone or whatever. UM.

(56:05):
A lot of options. They're from a good twenty second
google um. But the point is he didn't google what
an esophagus does, so why would you google what dust
mightes do? Just above me is the ring of the esophagus.
Spelled it right, So hell yeah, there you go, hand
over hand, I grab my legs hang free. When he

(56:27):
grabbed the ring, is grab onto the ring of the esophagus.
I guess, um, that's my leg It's like, oh right,
because I forgot that. The newer models that have footholds, Yeah,
you gotta you gotta get that lots of rungs. Can't.
He can't use his tiny tools anymore. He's got to
use his hands, his fingies and picturing it like die Hard,

(56:48):
where he's somehow like using and again the strap of
the laser to like call himself up. You could have
you could have had him you need to climb or
fail to climb earlier. If he'd had to do a
climb to like save his buddy and like and that's
why his buddy had died again, that would be a
little bit of thing. It's like you brought up die Hard.
We have John McClane take his shoes off at the start.

(57:08):
It's not really a big deal for a while, and
then the glasses shot out and it's not even like
that doesn't really reveal anything about John's character. It's not
like it's not like a hero's journey thing. It just
actually makes things a little more interesting because you've set
up and paid off of things. And I've been thinking
about I mean in general, I think about Aard. We're
talking about the descriptions of like, oh, it's just hard

(57:29):
to follow what exactly it is that he's doing in
the stomach. Well, when I read die Hard, that was
one thing. These action sequences were very meticulously described, so
there wasn't almost not a sci fi but there's no
room for uh, misunderstanding what's happening. There's no room for
misunderstanding what's happening, and there's not there's not a single

(57:52):
gunshot in that movie that like doesn't advance the story,
and it means something like every time people do an
action it's meaningful, which is what you'll find in every
good action movie, right like that there's stuff doesn't happen
that doesn't need to happen advance the story or increase
your understanding of a character. Um, because that's a good storytelling.

(58:16):
And it's the same with fictions, like yeah, you don't
just have an action scene to have an action scene.
You have an action scene because it reveals something about
the character or the world. It advances your understanding in
some way that leads you to staying engaged with the story.
The action exists to make the story interesting. The action

(58:36):
doesn't exist because people want to read about folks shooting
dust mites with lasers, because no one does. We might
care about characters who are doing that, but nobody cares
about fighting dust mites with lasers. Does Maybe he absorbs
art differently than other people. Mhm. It's like if you
would if you had said to me, hey, do you

(58:57):
want to watch a movie about a cop fighting terrorists
in a in a skyscraper, I would say probably not.
That sounds boring. But but I like Die Hard because again,
from the very beginning, you're engaged with these characters. It's
not about the fact that they're having gunfights. It's about
the fact that John McCain McClain is an engaging character,
Hans Gruber is a deeply engaging villain, and I care
about them, and the action makes me understand them better,

(59:21):
and I'm engaged in the action because I'm engaged in them,
And that's how a story is told. We find Yeah,
that's I think that's a good stopping point. Yeah, guy terminating.
There's every literally every piece of fiction that has ever
been influential works the same way, which is that you

(59:42):
don't do a thing unless it matters to the story
because that otherwise it's boring. Like like like fucking James
Cameron is great at this because like as as silly
as sh it has true lies. Right, Like, there's never
even in fucking as many critiques as there are of
like Avatar. Whatever ship doesn't happen if it doesn't reveal

(01:00:02):
things about the characters or the world. Action doesn't have.
Gunfights don't happen because they're pointless. Otherwise, people don't care
about gunfights. People care about characters, and people care about
like characters in the gunfights and within those gunfights. Yeah, yeah,
we just But now we have this guy hanging from

(01:00:25):
an esophagus and he's remembering some other thing of his
friend in a h like a featureless place. I have
no idea where his friend Philip's got attacked. It's just
like in like some void. They're like he's like being
hound hounded by like these dust mites. Which again, like

(01:00:45):
if you were trying to do this competently, that would
have been the start of the story Philip's dying and
like maybe this guy fails and whatnot. You know, but
it's it's just amazing. It's like the this is the
thing where like, you know what, people wonder why as
a general rule, like the Star Wars prequels were like
less beloved than the originals. There's a number of reasons.

(01:01:06):
One of them is that, like there's a lot of action,
particularly in the second and third, where it's like, oh,
there's a billion guys having sword fights, and I don't
know who most of these people are. And when you
find people who actually do care about and really like
those movies, it tends to be because they've read all
of the books and so they know who those characters are.
And even though it's not on screen, and you can
argue that's bad filmmaking, they're engaged because those characters have
been built up elsewhere and so that's why they care. Um.

(01:01:27):
But if you look at like what made the original successful,
like a lightsaber, it doesn't get fucking pulled unless something
that deeply matters to a character is happening. They don't
just pull lightsabers because lightsabers are cool in the first
three movies, and that's part of why it's iconic, Yeah,
very rarely, and so it's always engaging when a fucking
lightsaber gets pulled. It's why they're iconic is because at

(01:01:49):
least at the start, you didn't see those things unless
something that you gave a shit about was going down.
Here and here's what a lightsaber is and telling you
about your dad. Here's me protecting you in this bar.
Here's how a lightsaber works and what it does. Here's
me training you with a lightsaber. Here's like the possibility
of the world having exposing you too. Here's and again,
this is fighting the villain with a lightsaber. That's it,

(01:02:10):
And it's a great mark of like the value of
good editing in a story, because George Lucas clearly does
not understand that as well as his editor in the
first three movies, which was his ex wife, understood that
because I think there would probably have been a lot
more lightsabers. But you don't, you don't like the especially
in that first movie, if you actually look at when
like they lightsabers show up the minimum amount of time

(01:02:32):
necessary for the action to happen. It's never gratuitous. And
that's why they're so cool, right, Like It's the same
thing with Jaws. Right, the less you see the shark,
the more you're engaged in was awesome character. You got
like five minutes of screen time and the entire trilogy. Uh,
you die like a punk, But yeah, you're cool looking

(01:02:54):
while you do it. And that's it. You're cool looking.
And there's that one line No Disintegrations where it's like
you're mind gets kind of opened up and oh, I
wonder what like this guy's whole story is, and like
you get a couple of scenes with him that make
it clear that he's good at like tracking people and
so folks, Again, it's not about showing or telling too much.
You actually don't ever want to do that. It's important to, like,

(01:03:15):
especially in science fiction, there's a lot of value in
just kind of dropping things, dropping like references to things
that that that the I wonder what that was about.
I wonder what that battle was, I wonder what that
piece of Like, you don't need to know everything. You
need to know enough that your imagination takes over. Right,
You gotta like prime the pump. You gotta put a
little fuel and to jump start the generator. That that

(01:03:37):
gets you engaged in the world and every every piece
of science fiction that has spawned a fucking empire. Was
great at that, you know, Dunes, great at that, Star Wars,
great at that Star Trek, great at that um Battle Stars,
great at that, every every piece of science fiction that
anyone has cared about, even if it later turns into

(01:03:58):
like we have to explain every single thing at the beginning,
it's all about getting you to wonder. You know, Um,
then is a bad writer. I am excited to keep
the story. I have to go. Yeah, gets back to Amy.
The one thing I know about the main guy, he

(01:04:23):
who also is not a character. Um. Another place you
might have opened this is like him and Amy having
a fight and then like he leaves in his buddy
who dies, picks him up in the car, and they
talk about why they're doing it, and then you cut
from that to his buddy dying right after his buddy died. Whatever.
There's a number of ways that this could have been
a story, but it's not other than just the absolute

(01:04:46):
laziest way. Yeah, yeah, next this all right, everything so
dull and it's not again. I tried. Daniel. Worst Year

(01:05:08):
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