Reading The Beginning Of Ben's Absolutely Worst Short Story

Today we continue our journey through the terrible short stories of Ben Shapiro, who apparently saved the worst for last.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything so down, Down Down, Welcome back to

(00:21):
the Worst You're Ever Nap. I was very professional going
for the big swings here on the worst Year Ever.
We are back, Baby, I don't know how are how
are you guys doing? How's everybody doing? Okay, yeah, it's
as well as anyone is these days. I had an

(00:42):
exciting day. I got up at ten, which is Sophie
will tell you very very um, and I got right
to work composing a new version of the song but Baby,
It's Cold Outside, starring Hitler and Nava Brown. Hitler takes
the ladies role in that um, which makes a lot
of s because instead of being worried about what his
family will say, he's worried about what the other members

(01:04):
of the Nazi High Command, who have turned him into
a sex sym and need him to be perpetually available
to the German woman, what they'll say if he goes
home and it's the one singing but Hitler, It's cold outside.
I'm just so impressed. See all that you can accomplish
when you wake up just a little bit earlier. Need
tap into those morning creativity juices. I still haven't recorded

(01:25):
those ads, Sophie. So yeah, there were priorities. I mean, honestly,
I accept that seems fair trade off. Yeah. Just let
the advertisers know what you were up to, Robert. Just
let the sponsors know. Hey, I'm trying to see if
anyone wants to buy my Hitler. It's cold outside, so
just and the When our adopts team messages me for

(01:49):
the I don't know if youth time asking for an ad,
I'll just say listen. Robert was very busy, okay, but
Hitler and they'll be like and Brown right right, they'll
be like a fair h uh. Do I want the

(02:10):
ending spoiled for me? Is it is this song? Is
it like go Places? Oh? Yeah, I mean well no,
actually Hitler Hitler leaves in order to plan further the
invasion of Poland. Um and Ava christ yourself to sleep.
Um it's a good song, yeah, like all good songs.
I think it's good to be the hit of next

(02:31):
winter when I when I get it properly produced, um collab.
I think Cody is always talking about producing music, So
send it over. Maybe a new theme song for our
well postal services. That's exactly right, um, I've always wanted
to be the postal service of reimagined Christmas songs featuring Hitler. Hitler,

(02:56):
Yeah great, specific right, um waving from such great Reichs.
Come down boy nine. Stuff happening? Is there news? Oh god, no,

(03:18):
why would you even ask that? No, we're on our
Ben Shapiro book Club trajectory. Still we are. Can we
talk about Josh Wedden for a second. I don't know.
I have a really narrow thing I want to talk about,
which is that, like within the car, one of the
things I think is frustrating is this this need to
when when it comes out that somebody has done like
shitty stuff, um, pretend that like you never liked. There's

(03:41):
like there's this this thing going on when now people
are being like, oh well he wasn't that big a
part of Buffy um or oh well he like and
it's like like there it's this attempt because they're fans
of the show he made, and also they find his
behavior unacceptable, which it is they feel this need to
be like, um, well he wasn't like you know that
much of this or that, Like it's this idea that

(04:03):
like if he turned out to be bad, he can't
have actually been good at making content that I liked. Uh,
And I think that's a misdirected impulse. Interesting, Um, I
would uh added that I think part of it is
also that, um, the one could like described like we
we didn't speak, you know, like the well that happened

(04:23):
of it all. Yes, And I feel like that it
was fine for the time when he did it, and
it caught on and so everyone does it now in
all the things, and so that is stuff part of yes,
And that's part of also the backlash of like he
created this awful thing that's everywhere now. Yeah, well not

(04:45):
be like you can watch Firefly and there's we didn't
speak in it, but it still fits the tone of
the show. Yeah. As opposed to other other works, I
would I would say, well, that's one of the things.
I think there's this this because we've gotten so like
exhausted from it. This in this I like tendency to
be like, oh it was always like it's a horrible

(05:07):
trend that he introduced, as opposed to like, well, he
wrote some stuff that people liked and everybody copied him.
It's like bullet time with the matrix, like it's he
really like weed and speak is like the verbal equivalent
of bullet time. And that's why it became exhausting, because
Hollywood is not very creative, and if they see something
that works, they run that motherfucker into the ground as
fast as they can. Yeah, there's a reason that caught on,

(05:29):
and there's a reason it got really bad. Yeah, because
it was. It was. It's the kind of thing that
if if Josh Weeden had always kind of stayed at
the level of fame he was when Buffy was on,
and the same thing of his shows, like he had
a bunch of one in two season shows with little
cult followings, I don't think anyone would have gotten exhausted
by the way he wrote dialogue. But it became it

(05:50):
ate everything, um, and it led to this kind of
inability within the Hollywood to have any kind of moment,
like this thing that's constant and Marvel, where like nothing
gets to have any weight because you have to have
like a crack every everyone say, yeah, it's very like
it created this thing that Marvel does specifically, but other
things do generally where you don't allow uh, you know,

(06:12):
the emotion of a scene or literally again to sort
of land which is actually again, I'm not even I'm
not even really a wedding fan. I've never even watched Buffy.
But it's not a thing that I think he actually
did in most of his I guess you could say
with like is more like like a Ventures, but like
you know, within Firefly at least, and even like stuff
like Dr Horrible, he had the ability to have like

(06:32):
a scene that was sad, not like he he didn't
do the thing that that people did when they started
ripping off, like the kind of the way he wrote Dialogue,
which I find interesting the genre of itself people start
to emulate, it becomes its own thing, not unlike Wes
Anderson type stuff. Yeah exactly, um or or what's his name?

(06:54):
The Nightmare Before Christmas guy, Tim Burton, a bunch of
stuff that Burton defied. Anyway, I think that like obviously
his behaviors sucked up in Horrible, But I find it
interesting the way in which I think when it comes
to like the stuff that people are now criticizing about
his his work, it's more just like, yeah, that's what
happens when your ship is popular, it gets it gets

(07:16):
turned into something insufferable within about four years, especially when
Disney yes, yes, anyway, you guys wanna do something fun
before Disney buys our senses of humor. This is quickly
become a highlight of my week that I look forward
to talking about Ben Shapiro's Yeah, reading these books and

(07:40):
I'm going to be sad when it's over. I'll be
honest too. This is a little o ways is in
the Sea, and I think maybe what we could do
when we finished this book is we could go back
to True Allegiance but find the Spanish translation and we
could all learn Spanish together in an attempt to read
True Allegiance like I did with the in It in
Latin when I was next Cool. That's a good idea

(08:02):
for an app, anyone, If any developers are listening a
teacher Spanish foreign language learning, UM, get on it. At
least three people will download the app. The three of
us we will not, and then I will travel to
Chiapas and tell everyone I meet take a bullet for you,

(08:25):
babe and Espanol. I see no flaws with this plan. Yeah.
Download promo code uh utopia h which is the title
of that short story we're about to read. Yeah, Um,
I I will say I will miss this. It is

(08:45):
really entertaining. I don't think he realized how entertaining his
writing is. Um in the in the way that it
is obviously who writes bad things on purpose and then
releases them. Um but um cult following Ben did it?
Um where we leave off, we haven't started. H that's right.

(09:09):
I think you read the first sentence, but you can
do that again. Um. So this is the final Uh,
this is the final short story, collection of three short stories.
It is fifteen pages. Um uh similar you know, it's
same presentation, similar font uh, similar frequency of formatting, issues

(09:31):
with the indentation on paragraphs. I feel like there's going
to be a lot of similarities, as there have been
through all of his writing, despite the genre, despite the message.
It's always kind of the same anyway. UM So yeah,
this is called Utopia. And as we discovered early late
last week, the very first sentence is in all caps.

(09:54):
It is a quote. Somebody is screaming all men are
created equal. Okay, that's the first. That's bad, even though
that's also a thing the founding Fathers wrote in Ben
Shapiro can't stop coming over the Adams right his favorite
musical seventy six, and that sounds right, Yeah, that sounds right.

(10:14):
I mean it does have Mr Feenie, and look, I
actually have nothing against seventeen. Mr Feenie is um oh
geez one second, I forget which one of them, but
he's he's gonna major role um which despite range the
fundamental problematic aspects John Adams, he's John Adams. Yeah, like,

(10:36):
obviously the deification of the Founding Fathers is problematic, but
just as a musical, pretty fun musical. Mr Feenie is
great in it. Yeah, also still alive. I just googled
that and found that out. That's right, William Daniels. Mr
Feenie still young on the Girl Meets World reboots. So again,

(11:00):
good it is. It is nice to know that that
Mr Feenie still guiding their lives, helping helping children meet
the world. Yeah, yeah, okay, we should probably so. I
guess I'll check out sent at some point. I've never
listened to it. If you want to see Mr Feenie
sing some ship as John Adams, that's basically your only
option as far as I'm aware. Yeah, we needed a

(11:23):
John Adams HBO show, needed more more show tunes in it.
You just had Mr There. We are, all right, never
going to get through these created equal first line new
paragraph formatting issue. Um. He had seen those words somewhere before.

(11:44):
They were hazy in his memory. They were a dream,
only partially remembered after waking up with bright morning light
hitting his eyes. Each day he thought he came closer
to remembering where he had seen them before, but then
he would shake his head and moving with the teeming
crowd past the enormous archway emblazoned with those words, past

(12:06):
the Ministry of Education. He knew what education was. This
is a parenthetical. He knew what education was, but I
had no idea what a ministry. This is going to
make me. Oh, he's trying to Yeah, he's trying to
do a nineteen eighty four. But again is bad everything
the liberals are bad. Bah, well just a also it's
it's just bad. It's not very good, very good writing. Uh. Yeah,

(12:28):
Like I think if you compare, if you, if you
want to go listener, grab your copy of nineteen four
and just kind of read the first page or two
how Orwell introduces the way in which their thoughts have
been like limited, it's it's it's you know, it'll be
a fun compare it's better. Yes, yeah, you might call
it like a masterpiece, as opposed to this, which is

(12:49):
clunky and and derivative, like the written like someone's bad
script for a television show that they're trying to sell
to HPO, which I'm sure Ben did. Did you say HPO?
Because because I'm also a hack in a fraud. Yeah,
that's why. That's how what makes you qualified to you know?

(13:10):
That's HPO. Is is Home Pox Office, and it's a
company that infects you with smallpox at home, pending on
what show you watch. Yeah, exactly, it beams, it beams
it into your blood. Yeah. Shockingly, they've they've they've gotten
four billion dollars in venture capital funding, so I think
they're gonna make it. Yeah, coming soon to a home

(13:30):
near you, with your at home using the gig economy
to spread pox. Give me the next sentence. All right,
we're in the second paragraph. Still, I'm gonna I'm gonna
go back like because like almost out of outbreak. Then.
The lovely thing about his writing is that he makes
you want to stop in the middle of a sentence

(13:52):
to talk about what a bad sentence? So many episodes
out of this exactly, and he he's done it again
because we stopped in the middle of that sentence. So
I'm going to start the sentence again. Uh, which the
sentence starts past the enormous archway emblazoned with those words,
which is a great sentence. That's a that's a clause,

(14:12):
we call it all right. Past the enormous archway emblazoned
with those words, Past the Ministry of Education. He knew
what education was, but had no idea what a ministry was.
Past the Ministry of Price Control. That's actually I think
that's not you editorializing. Okay, no, yeah, sorry, this is
a parenthetic. That was a parenthetical. He knew what education was,
had no idea what ministry was. This is all separated

(14:34):
from with semi colon's uh so, continuing past the Ministry
of Price Control parenthetical, he had no idea what price
control was, semi colon. Past the Ministry of the Chancellor parenthetical.
Everyone knew who the Chancellor was period. Who is he? Well,
I I hope, I hope we find out, because we

(14:55):
do not in this next sentence. Uh. Finally, he would
shuffle to his workstation at the Ministry of Energy, where
he would spend his day turning on an office pigot
sounds inefficient. Yeah, I mean I think the purpose of
the thing the point is making here is that like
it's some socialist state where everybody has to have a job,
but they don't have as like a poor man's poor

(15:16):
man's poor man's sucking Brazil. It's just like yeah, And
Ben doesn't really want you to think too much about
that bit, because if the point he is making is that, well,
actually there's not enough work that needs to be done
for all of the people that there are doing jobs,
then is the answer that people should have leisure time?
Like what is what it? Maybe there's another option there.

(15:37):
He's just trying to paint some disgusting version, you know,
the things that they want people to believe. That's it's
interesting to be because four again very chilling vision of
a society that's completely controlled. Um Or Well does that
by talking about the ways in which languages is changed,

(15:59):
fundamentally limit the ways people can think, the destruction of
like concepts of the family, all these different these different
things that make people feel inhuman when you get inside
their heads. Bins. One of the first things he focuses
on his price controls that's very funny to me, that like,
instead of the ways in which authoritarianism fundamentally restricts the
concept of human thought, He's like, they're gonna put price

(16:21):
controls in. That is very funny. It's very funny. There's
so much so quick in this text. It's dense, it's dense.
It requires a lot of close reading. So that's so
we're onto the third paragraph, which, in true Shapira style,
is one sentence long and has a formatting issue with

(16:45):
the indication, of course, every time the light turned green,
he turned on this pigot, new paragraph. Every time it
turned red, he turned it off, new paragraph, And with
each turn he was happy. Year all right, Okay, getting
into the mind of sounds better than a lot of

(17:06):
people's jobs, to be honest. Yeah, feeling feeling happy and
productive with the hard work you put in. Uh. He
was an older member of the city. City has capitalized,
but he didn't remember that. In fact, he had no
idea how old he was. He just remembered coming into
his spigot station each day, putting his ID card in
the machine, removing it, going back to his living space

(17:28):
with its clean white walls, and it's fully stuck refrigeration system.
And it's television reruns. Nice, no new content. Sorry, going
to sleep, waking up again another day older each morning.
He knew this spigot would need to be turned on
and off. It was comforting. He had no family. There

(17:49):
was a woman who came to his living space once
a week for sexual relations on Tuesdays. She spent it's
try Sorry, what means there's a medical you, I'm told
from the author. Also, well, it's moist. One hour is
longer cumulatively than all of the sex been Shapiro He's like,

(18:11):
I don't know why, right, And that's if you include cuddling.
M check out Ben's sex book on the pastors where
you get your podcasts. Actually, that's a good place to
point out. We need to break for an ad. Oh,
oh my god, we gotta go, we gotta find out.
Oh spoiler, Cliffhanger sex coming up. More details on the sex,

(18:36):
but probably not actually because I think he's not talking
about it. Oh, Dane together everything, So don't don't. You're back. Yes,
you're back. We're back in free so hot, I can't

(18:59):
even so hot. What happens next? There was a woman
came to his living space is what happened? She did?
She did, Yeah, she did once a week for sexual
relations on Tuesdays, just waiting for like more parentheticals, like
he didn't know what Tuesday was. She spent exactly one hour.

(19:22):
She was not beautiful and she was not ugly. She
wore the blue uniform of the Ministry of Personal Needs.
He did not know her name. Today was Tuesday, and
he was happy. Yeah again, you know, just as a
little like if you wanted to make this a good
a good piece of fiction, maybe something to do would

(19:44):
be like, in the midst of this woman who has
been you know, made to look and feel as bland
as possible by this government, he gets some sort of hint,
catches a whiff of, you know, the scent of her
hair or something about the way her skin feels that
like leaves this brief yawning moment of horror at the
fact that, like something terrible is missing from his life,
and then of course it's gone in another second, as

(20:05):
he returns his thoughts to the you know something that
makes it a story. Yeah, and like texture, you know
that helps you get into it kind of well because
stating this, well he said, I was happy that day
or whatever, that's the most insight we've got we get
into or his satisfaction at the work. Sure, but like

(20:27):
you're not actually giving context for this world. I don't
understand how this is affecting you anyway. Yeah, and we don't.
You know the thing, he's going to wind up breaking
free of this system he has to, and there's going
to be some sort of hackney bullshit. Um, but it
has so like you you want to give some sort
of hint that like there's there's elements of humanity, the

(20:49):
irrepressible nature of the human soul that are trying to
like slowly break through. And he had maybe sex. Again,
if Ben Shapiro had ever had a positive sexual encounter,
I think a normal person would be like, oh, well,
that might be a moment of like intimacy that they
can't quite quash out every aspect of it. He gets
some ghost of something that's missing, and that sets up
that like he's going to break out of this system.
I don't know. Again, if you were writing a story,

(21:10):
you might do that, especially a short story where you
don't have that much time. I was gonna say, like
you really want to move on that stuff? In my head,
I'm like giving him the benefit of the doubt. I'm like,
I'm sure that will happen later a little bit, right,
but like there's no time, there's no time. You gotta
do it. No, not with his size, fourteen times new

(21:31):
roman print, three paragraphs on this page long. Um, alright,
let's find out what else makes this fucker happy? Um.
He had no friends. He worked with others and once
every week, for this is an awkward sentence, he worked

(21:52):
with others and once every week, four new people would
come to his living space on Wednesdays. The five would
play cards together. Then they would never see each other again.
It was all in good fun, and it allowed him
to always meet new people. Wednesdays were not as happy
as Tuesdays, but they were happy. This is so bad.

(22:15):
This is this is this is bad. He's really hammering
on how happy is And I'm going to tell you, Ben,
I get it all right. Tonight was a Thursday night.
On Thursday nights, the members of the various ministries would
come together for a nighttime stargazing. It happened on the
well manicured lawn of the Ministry of Culture. When he

(22:39):
got to the lawn, there were already thousands of people
milling about. He did not look for anyone he knew,
He knew nobody, nobody knew anybody. There were no clicks.
There were just thousands of people happy to see one another,
and he was happy too. Yes, what a nightmare. So

(22:59):
bad well comprehensively bleak vision been places of this god
people are. He's still doing his thing where he um
just horrendously over uses the same word. Yes, if you
were a good writer, there's a way you could use

(23:21):
kind of repetition of words and doing. Yeah, he's not
because he's bad, it's just how he writes. Well, the
the the intention is there. He's trying to like reuse
the like the happy phrase, talk about how they're happy.
But he's doing it every other fucking sentence, so it
seems laborious to absorb. I don't know if he's doing
it on purpose. I think as I start, you think

(23:43):
he is. Okay, I think he's doing this on purpose. Uh,
it's just his habit is to do it anyway within sentences,
and so that the thing that he does that's like
a regular thing that happens is I think infecting our
view of what he's doing now. But the problem with
what he's doing now is that it's like every three
sentences instead of within the same sentence. So it still

(24:04):
seems like it's both poorly executed and maybe not on purpose,
but I think it is. It's just he's not very
good at it. Yeah yeah, like again like okay, like
a couple of pages and then you know, but he's
very happy, Like you can get the rhythm going without
it being so obvious what's going on. Um, he's just

(24:25):
not a subtle There's other ways to play with repetition
than simply repeating yes, uh he can, he can. Like
it's it's actually very funny because like you're you're so
right that like he took the simple like it's this,
it's like a shot the baby's first sentence exactly like

(24:46):
that emotion is such a simple emotion, and there are
more complex ways to describe it. Um. Truly, I truly
have written better short stories than these as a child.
There's any example here of just how limited Ben's imagination is.
Because again, if we go back to nineteen eighty four,
by this point in nineteen eighty four, where you're like

(25:07):
a couple of pages in, you've been introduced to an
entirely new language functionally new speak, and you you you
all you feel. He doesn't tell you how it's limited,
uh Winston's ability to feel you you feel it because
you you you as like within the book he immediately
like narrows the walls of perception around you by using that.

(25:29):
Ben wants to do that, but all he can think
of is just repeating that the person is happy and
no other emotions because to him, that's the city. That's
the same thing. Because he doesn't actually get what Orwell
was was really doing there um and he's not He's
also not capable of imagining anything. But like being in
an authoritarian regime is like being drugged and you're just

(25:50):
like this happy, doped zombie as opposed to what it
really is, which is these kind and what or Well depicts,
which is these kind of walls of fear and like
flex that kind of reflexively stop you from thinking and
acting in certain ways because you you're you're fundamentally a
machine that exists to survive, and you've been trained by
the regime that you just don't even even begin to

(26:12):
go down certain roads because of the danger. Um. Again,
Ben doesn't understand things like he doesn't get this. I
think over and over I come back to he's just
really lazy that you know, lazy probably with his education,
probably lazy with his reading and reading comprehension. Um, but

(26:33):
definitely lazy. And how he's approached all of this. I
get the sense from anything Ben does is that it
has taken the bare surface level of thought. Actually, you
can argue loud, he can argue and spin things around
and be confusing and the fuddle stuff, but he doesn't
actually dig deeper than the service. And that is reflected.
I mean I've probably I've already said this, but in

(26:54):
all of these short stories and in all of his
articles in Drew Allegiance, all of it. Yeah, it's I
think it's most apparent in his fiction writing. Um, but
it is everywhere. You're right, Well, I mean it's it's
it's just seemed in his whole ideology. It's he screams
as someone who just sits down and writes for twenty

(27:15):
minutes and he's like, yeah, I did it, yeah today.
It's there's no depth to it. It's like he is
sort of replacing, like he thinks that like density equal
stepth Yeah, and that's not true. Um, and so he
just yeah, I mean this isn't particularly dense either. I

(27:35):
mean it's dense in ways that we can make fun
of it. But yeah, but it's like I just mean
like the volume, like the volume, even the quantity of it.
Like there's so many aspects that he's sort of like
replaced with replaced thinking or about something like carefully, um
with anything else. Um. But the important thing is he

(28:01):
was happy too. The night was not too cold, nor
was it too warm. The climate control system made sure
of that. The people all sat in ordered rows with
enough distance between them to ensure personal space. Then hates
air conditioning and social personal space. It's personal space. Uh,

(28:26):
weirdly hates like that. They're like seats in rows, like
how seating is. Yeah, it's it's weird because it's this
mix of like things that like any person should hate,
like this this big stuff. They have personal space there,
star gazing. There aren't clicks like the people all sat

(28:48):
in ordered rose. I can't believe they're They lined the
seats up so that you can see. Yeah, very funny society,
it's so funny. Um and the stars. Wait, all right,
that makes me wonder. All of this does make me
wonder what been what brings ben joy in life? Is

(29:09):
it just owning the libs? Or actually ever like happy
and satisfied in a moment, a smug little bit. That's
that's certainly his chief love and life. I think it is. Yeah,
it is um and getting those sweet sweet likes you know, uh,

(29:30):
instead of getting his I don't know, stories published or
put on TV or whatever you know. Ah. But the
other important thing is the people all sad and ordered
rose with enough distance between them to ensure personal space,

(29:51):
and the stars too were in their orbits their distances
the same as always. I I'm gonna okay, will you
read that sentence again? Yeah, I'm going to read both
sentences again, because he's saying too as in also as
in just like I just said in the previous sentence.

(30:13):
So the people all sat in ordered rows with enough
distance between them to ensure personal space, and the stars
too were in their orbits their distances the same as always. Okay,
But that that's meaningless because people don't people don't know that, like,

(30:34):
like it's it's one thing to say that, like the temperature,
which is the thing that changes all around naturally, Like
it's been like telling us that the world is climate control.
To add something pointing out that the stars are the
same as they've ever been, Like number one, how do
you know you don't even know? Do you know what
stars are? Like they tell you what stars are fundamentally,
Do they let you know about the vastness of the
universe outside of the rate You seem to have certain

(30:55):
words and understanding of things. Yeah, consistent with like a
society is controlled as he's wanting, So you would have
to to know enough about the sky, Like maybe there's
like it's like a visual thing and like this like
they're blocking out the sky with like their version of stars. Ye,

(31:19):
stars move always constantly, they're whizzing through space. I mean,
I'm just taking it as like the stars every night
and you know, like the formations they keep their spacing
from each other. But also just on a grammatical level,

(31:42):
and the stars too were in their orbits. You didn't
say people were in their orbits. You said they were
in ordered rows, which is very much not like a star.
He's using the stars to refer to the distances being
the same, but like that's not how he wrote. It's
a great unimportant but whatever, because like you introduced the
fact that the world is climate controlled. I have no

(32:04):
other questions. I don't need to know how the climate
control works. I don't need to know how they power it,
Like this authority, you live in a bubble. Great, I
get that. That's that's perfectly fine. No, no further explanation needed.
That's world building. You mentioned this about the stars, and
now we have all these questions because again every time
Ben mention is something that's factual in any way wrong,
The stars are the same distance all like, none of

(32:25):
this work. Ben Shapiro's writing, Yeah, if if there's if
he attempts to make a factual statement, it will be wrong,
and it will be wrong in so many ways over
I've thought of it several times lately, like, well, it's
wrong in like five different ways are easily discoverable. Well,

(32:48):
and it's like it it brings up it does the
thing you never want to do in science fiction, which
is it brings up questions that take you out of
the story. Like for me, I'm wondering now, like, well, okay,
if this is really an authoritarian regime, like why do
they why are they find with people knowing about like
the wonder and majesty of outer space. Why is that
important to them? Because clearly if they're setting up stargazing,

(33:08):
then that opens up the possibility that they're going to
have some sense of like thought about the universe, thought
potentially about like higher other forms of life, or about
like a deity, like all these things people think about
when they look at the stars, And it could be
one thing you could do world building if you talked
about how he had been taught to view the stars,
or like you guys said, maybe they maybe they've put
their own false sheen over that isn't real. Stars are

(33:29):
like all this stuff that you could do that would
build the world around it. Like if you talk about
the way they educated him to view stars, and that
they taught him that stars all move in you know,
the like the same way that the people do in
these perfectly ordered things and as above, so below or whatever.
Maybe that could work if again, you were a writer.
But then is instead done nothing and now we're fucking

(33:51):
talking about what this goddamn star thing means. Honestly, if
any nothing else, this whole exercise has been a great
lesson in how not to write. Oh yeah, a lot
of people might listen to this and be like, hey,
I feel like I can handle writing my own work,
because you should. If you think you can write a

(34:13):
piece of fiction, your friend, you can it be than
have you gone into the world and experienced a thing
like joy or or or or even shame. Um, then
you two could write a piece of fiction better than
ben Japiros just beautiful. Um, they go right, just like,

(34:36):
take this premise and write something better, like go off
into the world, Like think about a time that you
felt something and then try to try to bring that
to other people feelings, you know, imagine emotions. Yeah, it
again like the thing like or Well and I four

(34:57):
creates this very like soulless, horrific world, but you never
cut off from feelings of the characters. Like that's such
an intense part. The way he writes this budding romance,
the way like you get into these people's heads and
like how they feel, is why the story has impact.
It's not because Orwell lists out here are ways in
which this is a bad government. It's because Orwell makes

(35:18):
you feel what it's like to live in this horrific
and human regime. Well, unfortunately, facts don't care about your feelings.
And also the facts are wrong, So the facts will
inevitably be incorrect. Um, I tell you, if you're wondering
about emotion though, A big surprise coming and it's corny

(35:40):
and we're excited for it. Do we want it? Do
we want it? Now? Yes? So, as we've discussed. And
the stars too, were in their orbits, their distances the
same as always, like all stars. Uh except one star. Oh,
it's shot across the sky, a bright flare in the

(36:03):
velvety purple black darkness, and he felt a disquietude move
through him. His stomach rumbled, his mind turned over. The
star blasted through the calm of the evening, leaving sparks
in its wake, and suddenly his hazy dream burst into consciousness.
He found himself standing, tears rolling down his face, gazing

(36:25):
up at the sky. A terrible longing filled him, a
feeling of dread and of hope, a new feeling, an
old feeling. The star tore the night upon leaving day
trailing behind it. So this is just okay, I need it,
we need hold on, hold on wait wait no, no, okay, no,

(36:48):
I mean it's just this is so that's all it
took for him. Now, Okay, there's a lot going on there,
like for example, again, why are they letting them watch
the stars? Why is this? Like never been a shooting star?
It was that easy for him to be like what
they wouldn't let you look at the fucking sky? Okay,
Cody finished the quote, and and why is it the one? Yeah,

(37:10):
we're gonna, we'll, we'll get into this, um, but a big,
a big break is coming. So the star tour of
the night apart, leaving day trailing behind it. When he
looked around him, he saw thousands of eyes in thousands
of faces staring at him blankly. The star hit the horizon,

(37:30):
he turned and ran, and there's a break of texts
because time passes. Um. So, yeah, so it's utterly ridiculous
that this is the first shooting star that has apparently
ever existed. And during they do everything, they do it
every fucking week. Every week, everybody gets together looks at
the sky, and it's the only time that has ever

(37:51):
happened to one guy. Um, and like, so there it's
this special boy syndrome. Everyone's staring at him blankly. Why
is he the one who is moved by this shooting star?
He's the only one who feels anything, He's the only
one who noticed it. Is there something special about him
that sees this shooting star? Uh old feelings? Right, shouldn't

(38:17):
they be staring at should they be incapable of noticing difference?
And yeah? Um, But also like again to keep going
back to night four, when we get a glimpse of
like what that society allows as a recreation, it's very fitting,
Like it's it's these like horrific, dank little bars where
people drink watered down beer and play the lottery. And

(38:38):
it again builds you It never you're never taken out
wondering like, well, doesn't this provide you know, an opportunity
for X or Y? And you see that like they've
got all these different like secret police agents in there
that are looking for sedition, and it builds. It's just
all very believable as opposed to immediately like why would
you let people look at the stars? Like like it's
just like every step of the away you're like did

(39:00):
you think of Because it's science fiction. If you're doing
science fiction or like a dystopian fiction or something like that,
that is like a huge part of it is that
world building and trying to make it make sense these
questions and like there's a way you could have built
a shooting star. Had that be key to this, You
could have it be not that there's like this dumb
idea of community enforced like stargazing nights, but you have

(39:23):
this idea that the government wants everyone to believe this
is the way human society has always been. There was
no before, there will be no after. And then one day,
on his way home from the late shift, he notices
a shooting star in the sky and he quite naturally
believes that it's a star falling out of the guy,
which suddenly sets off at him this chain of thoughts
that like, well, if the stars aren't or beyond the
control of the government or whatever, then like maybe like

(39:45):
and you could again and you can pay what that
experience was like a huge experiences unraveling this thoughts. You
can play with the sensations you're not just yeah, I imagine,
And that way it would be a explaining why the
star was meaningful. What is opposed to like it's pretty
and so now I'm I'm healed again, so lazy, so incurious,

(40:10):
and like a child wrote it. We do have to
take a quick break, right now, who else is a child?
The companies to paid money. We are entirely supported by children.
That's right, Cody, super cute m random kids. Cody, Katie
and I show up outside of schools with with with
blackjacks and threatened children for their lunch money. That's what

(40:33):
keeps us on the air. And that's what these ads
will describe. But more entertaining that people like they hire
people to write the copy for We don't ever get
in trouble for this stuff, do we. No. No, We've
paid off all the cops together and we're back. And

(40:58):
I think we can all agree that Ben Shapiro has
never looked up at the night sky and felt off.
We've never felt all all. Yeah, because again, you can't
really feel awe if you're convinced that you have everything,
that every single answer that was ever meaningful you had
handed to you when you were a small child. All

(41:19):
is fundamentally like uh an acceptance of the unknown and
wonderment at it, and feel like a regular thing that
goes Ben's head is unimpressed, Yeah, exactly, like because if
he's not, if he's if he's ever impressed. Whatever his
dad taught him about the world when he was nine

(41:40):
was not a complete it was not everything he needed
to know about life. Yeah, well, I can't wait to
find out what happens to this special man, special man boy. Sure. Ah,
so time has passed and he ran. It wasn't until

(42:02):
he hit the third street that he heard the humming.
The sound of the Ministry of Protection did not ululate
or waiver. It was a steady, loud buzz, growing in
intensity as it grew closer, fading into white noise at
a distance. Now the buzz grew more intense as he ran.
He could hear them approaching from his right and from

(42:24):
his left. He sprinted forward. Ah, some some Yang endorsement
in this short story. Oh yes, all right, this is
not a big deal, but also another lazy thing. Just
the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Education. Just be
more creative, yeah, I mean yeah, just come up with
something again, like orwell. Because he's a master for masterful

(42:49):
writer manages to create, managed to use words in such
a way that that enforces kind of the bnality of
this world. Will also being completely new to use the
readers so that you're never board. You know, you speak,
you feel the way. It limited limits his thoughts, but
it's also new to you as you're reading the book,
and thus you're engaged because again orwell was a writer.

(43:10):
Oh so you're not left incredibly bored because the lighter
did it? I see? Interesting. Yeah, the streets were not
numbered or lettered. The people knew their living spaces by
proximity from their workspaces, so there was no need for
any distinguishing features. Again, fine, like, there's a way to
make that entertaining. As he's walking to work the morning

(43:31):
before things break out, you can describe his walk to work,
not the way a normal person would is now I
took a left, Now I took a right. But like
the distance it is from his home because those of
you like, there's a way in which you But what
if he just explains it and once if he just
explains it rather you know what happens. Of course, that's
how you do it. They all looked the same, even

(43:52):
Beije buildings, covered over with evenly trimmed ivy and evenly
spaced balconies one per living space. They get balconies. No less,
you better than how he wants a lot of people
to live. Very funny, they have balconies. Okay, yeah, they
had balconies, and therefore the people who lived inside those

(44:14):
living spaces were happy with their standard issue artificial flowers,
their standard measured televisions, and they're carefully stocked ice boxes.
Okay again, been you have not yet made this sound
markedly worse than life for millions of people under capitalism.

(44:36):
At least they all have food. Yeah, yeah, they all
have food. They have flowers, Um, they have balconies. Honestly,
artificial flowers are all the rage right now. I keep
getting targeted ads for them because they don't die. Do
not give in? Well I don't, don't do it. Don't
do it, Okay, don't don't. Don't succumb to the dystopian left,

(44:58):
and they're artificial flowers. Um, then go ahead. It's free country. Um.
It's it's just remarkable to me that Orwell a leftist
so committed he got shot in the throat fighting fascists. Um.
Imagines a better clearly inspired by kind of left wing movements,
a more realistic authoritarian regime, um than Ben Shapiro, who's

(45:20):
professionally terrified of the left, who can only make it
seem slightly better than how a lot of people live today.
They get free stargazing nights every night. They can see
the stars from where they live. Balconies stars. Everyone in
Los Angeles, the people in this world can sit on
their balconies and watch the stars. Like the idea of

(45:48):
private space and whatnot. I don't know, it's carefully stocked
ice box again, And if he was, if he actually
wanted to make it unsettling in ways that we're consistent
with his beliefs, it would make more sense for them
to have like no senses of pub like space, like
shouldn't shouldn't it be like because sex and physical like
none of that matters at all. There's no differences between
men and women and so like everybody is just one

(46:08):
physically entangled like indistinguishable mass, right instead of so atomized
like random thought the ice box? What does he? Yeah?
What's weird? Specific? What a weird um choice again makes
it like as if it's more orwelly and written of

(46:31):
a different time, but just that just the word ice
box yeah yeah yeah again and like British or something,
I don't know if you're free that like just I
think they probably they probably do, I don't know, but
Ben's not British, uh, but also like describe him doing
this at home, like go to your like watch something

(46:53):
on your standard measured te It was like, wish the
show is more interesting, go to your carefully stocked icebox
and have like your taste is I don't know, like
just yeah, tell us what's because right now I'm just
imagining like, oh, so they've got like Netflix and as
much food as they need. It's like, right, imagine, I'm
sure horrible government, you know TV, and like the food

(47:16):
is all bland and not nutritious, but like we don't
get any of that. So because like nobody's starving and
everyone has a balcony and a television, well, right, because
he's operating from this sort of like this his whole punditry,
like I'm this right leaning like conservative libertarian, I guess uh,
And so his audience assumes these things because they know

(47:39):
the author, like I know Ben wrote this. Therefore I
bet it's like really bad food and like boring a
bad health, Like it's all stuff that we have to
assume because we know the writer instead of the writer
doing a good job. I think there's actually something more
insidious than that here, because I think the thing that
is supposed to be horrifying about this more than anything,
this is again a good example of like where he's

(48:00):
a friend than the guy he's trying to emulate with Orwell,
the thing that was frightening was the limitations on the
human ability to conceive of things, to even think about liberation,
to even think like independent, Like the the way in
which shutters were placed upon the human mind and thus
the confines of the human soul was the central horror
of nineteen eighty four. And or Well very ably depicts

(48:20):
that the horror with beIN is that nobody gets to
be rich. Like that's really what's going on here, is
that there's no rich people. He's not horrified, Like he's
not presenting the day to day life of these people.
Is it is particularly a nightmare. The thing that he
keeps going back to is that nobody has more, nobody
has bigger, a bigger apartment, everybody gets a balcony. There's

(48:40):
not like everybody. Yeah, Like that's the thing he's frightened.
That's that's scary to him, is that like nobody's rich
in the society. And it's very telling that like the
difference between nineteen eighty four a masterpiece and what's frightening
about it and what been clearly thinks is frightening, which
is there's no rich people. Yeah. Absolutely, you got hit

(49:03):
the nail ned Robert. Yeah, that's interesting, I think again,
just incredible writing when you have to stop and just
like question every single sentence. But now they were opening
their regulation compliance double pain windows to watch him run.
Oh no, double pain emphasized because of like ep energy exactly. Again,

(49:30):
we go from like that good. Yeah, that that's the
thing like Ben has been finds. Ben finds like mandatory
double pain windows for energy efficiency just as horrifying as
a regime that annihilates the ability of human beings to
engage in physical intimacy. Um uh, the the the elimination

(49:55):
of history is as frightening to Ben as requiring energy
efficient windows. It's very funny with an incredible sentence story.
But now they were opening their regulation compliant double pain
windows to watch him run. The horror of the double
pain windows unbelievable. Uh. He could feel the cement pound

(50:17):
beneath his rubber souls and that's not correct. He could
feel his feet, could feel his feet pound against the cement. Yeah,
cement stop pounding. Mm. He could feel the cement pound
beneath his rubber souls, all right. His breath started to
give out. It's an awkward sense, so like this is okay.

(50:38):
He could feel the cement pound beneath his rubber souls
semi colon. His breath started to give out. He breathed
in and out in dash and dash out, which I'm
I don't think that's bad. That's he breathed in and
out burger, trying to find a regularity, anything regular to

(51:00):
hold onto, trying not to panic. Too many regulars and
regularity and regulation was earlier in this paragraph. Come on, uh,
and you think regular to hold onto? He's just running
down the street, all right. He and the and the
sirens hummed closer. Then he saw them in the reflection

(51:20):
of the large mirrored glass panes of the Ministry of
Food Provision. The cube shaped and the cube shaped enforcement
pods were rolling down the street after him, gaining rapidly.
This is unimportant. It's very silly that their enforcement pods.
I would pose it that it's sillier that they're cube

(51:42):
shaped pods. Well, I think I know what he's doing there.
I'm trying to remember the name of the show. Um,
it's the Prisoners, right, But were bubbles, which you could
you could call those pods. I don't think you can
call a Cuba pod. You can call it well, no,
I don't think that's right. But I think he's literally

(52:03):
just doing He absolutely is just I don't even think
he watched The Prisoner. I think someone described it to
him and he decided to do what he He absorbed that. Yeah,
it's throughout like cultural losmosis. Right, we're like, oh, I
know the image of the guy with a number on
his chest the bubble comes after him. Um. Yeah, so
they're yeah, they're I mean a lot of things silly

(52:25):
about this. Um. I shouldn't harp on the cube shaped pod,
but yeah, but it's just it's very funny. Um. And
it's just like it's such a there's a there's a
uc B sketch from the Upper Sketch show they did
for like three seasons, and there's a sketch where it's
it's clearly l Ron Hubbard like an analog reading his
sci fi book that's like trying to get people to

(52:47):
a cult, and it's like terrible sci fi and every
word is like he put on his vision goggles to
eat his nutrition food, and I like it's such bad
sci fi writing, and I can't think of anything but that.
Every single time he'd like capitalizes something importment or something. Anyway,
the enforcement pods are after him. In the lead pod

(53:07):
Capital P he could see the slack jawed face of
a slightly bored enforcer Capital E, who leaned forward and
pushed a button. Suddenly, the pod jumped, as though spurred
with a cattle prod bucked and leapt toward him. The
distance shrink one block. His feet were giving way now

(53:29):
half a block. M hm ah. The pod loudspeaker opened
up with that pulsating rhythm. He'd heard the rhythm once before.
I shouldn't say rhythm again. He'd heard the rhythm once before.
You'd only seen God. He'd heard the rhythm once before.

(53:50):
He'd only seen one enforcement action before. It had been
a young girl ready for it. Okay, sorry keep going, Yeah, no,
I'm and I'm sorry for letting his writing trip me
up and trying to read this out loud. He had
heard the rhythm once before, He'd only seen one enforcement

(54:12):
action before. It had been a young girl ready for
recruitment to the Ministry of Personal Needs. She had his
word repetition and now has stopped being purposeful and oh, yeah,
this is just this is just not very I feel
I feel like I need to point that out here.
It's also funny to me that like the thing that

(54:33):
I'm sure one thing I'm sure that Ben finds horrifying
about nineteen eighty four, or at least the television version
of nine that I'm sure is what he's watched rather
than reading the book, is that there's like there's no
distinction between between men and women and their society right
as a desire to to to kind of exercise from
humanity the capacity to form families and fall in love
because it's a threat to the state. Um been still

(54:56):
has a very clear separation. Men do some sort of
job in women are just there for sex. Uh. And
that's that's yeah, just very revealing. That's consistent. No, it's
consistently good. And it says nothing about Ben. Is this
to wrap it up? Or yeah, So, like I was
gonna say, I'm actually like frustrated reading this now, and

(55:18):
I think we need to take a week break and
compare to you too. I feel like that's the general
we do talk about. Oh, I mean a week break
in like real time in that meaning in a week
we'll come back to Okay, we'll still come back then. Yeah, No,
we have to find out what happens. I just like
I can't read today, you know what. We've got to

(55:40):
digest what we've learned, and will finish now our trauma
and my request for all of you in this next week,
because we only have maybe one more week of going
over Ben's storybook. Maybe fight where he lives, break into
his home, steal his hard drive. There's got to be
a file on there that we need. More men, short
stories or scripts, you know, um, bring it, bring him

(56:03):
to us. There's other people we could read. There's other
people's work we could celebrate anyway, not as good as
there's something special and tasty about this. He is a
special boy. He sure is. Alright, guys, check us out online. Now,
where's your pod? We'll be back next week, keeping the

(56:25):
classy worst your enforcement pod. Ye cube shaped because he
didn't want to do fears because that's from the prisoner
and he couldn't do it the same way. Yea extremely
And there's no way he's watched the Prisoner. He can't
have like I can't imagine sitting down and watch is

(56:47):
this cute floating or is this cube on wheels? If so,
it's got to be floating. That's very funny. Floating cubes
is such a funny in the world. So here's the thing,
and we'll okay, we're the episodes not over yet, all right,
So uh in the sentence that introduces these enforcement pods. Uh,
in addition to the other things we talked about, the

(57:09):
cube shaped enforcement pods were rolling down the street after
him gaining rapidly. They were rolling down the street. Uh.
And so they can't they can't roll unless they're on wheels.
So I'm pretty sure the cube pods have wheels, just
like yeah, there's cyber trucks that we cleared this up

(57:34):
because obviously a sphere can roll down in different ways
or float or however you want to get it. Yeah,
but a cube can't. It needs wheels to roll. That's
what I was thinking. Okay, I'm so glad we cleared that.
I hope they're roller blades. Alright, Alright, the episodes actually
over now now we're done by Oh dome n It's

(58:01):
not against I tried. Daniel. Worst Year Ever is a
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.