Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to We The Beeple, the podcast that disappears for months on end and then casually strolls back in like nothing happened.
Speaker: So our last episode was in February.
Speaker: We're still here.
Speaker: I'm Tiege, your co-host, and I'm broadcasting once again from Belgium.
Speaker: And I'm joined, as always, by two very wonderful co-hosts.
Speaker: They are, of course, Dr Conservative Prof and Kurgel.
Speaker: How are you guys doing?
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: So good to be back.
Speaker: It's been way, way too long.
Speaker: I hate to break it to you, Tish, but you look a lot older than the last time that we visited.
Speaker: So it has been a while.
Speaker: Yeah, a little bit more gray.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: The stress of studying, but we'll talk about that in a minute because we've actually got someone else we wanted to talk to with us today.
Speaker: We're really excited to have her on.
Speaker: It's someone with actual podcast qualifications.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know about that.
Speaker: We're thrilled to have Robin with us today.
Speaker: She is one of the writers at the Babylon Bee, but she's also a host of a really cool, relatively new podcast called Beyond Parody.
Speaker: Robin, thanks for being here.
Speaker: I think for anyone who hasn't tuned in yet, can you just tell us what Beyond Parody is all about, how it came to be, and what kind of stories you've been diving into lately?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I am so excited to be here with you guys.
Speaker: Over here, I eat, drink, sleep the bee.
Speaker: And now I eat, drink, sleep, not the bee.
Speaker: So Beyond Parody is a podcast that I co-host with Not the Bee co-founder Dan Dillon, who's the brother of Seth Dillon, who
Speaker: is also the CEO of the Babylon Bee.
Speaker: And we have a lot of fun.
Speaker: If you haven't listened in, we release an episode every Friday morning.
Speaker: It's on YouTube, so you can watch our faces and see what we look like in real life.
Speaker: And it is one of the most fun shows I have ever had the honor and privilege of co-hosting.
Speaker: I've been in radio for 20 years now.
Speaker: I have hosted a lot of news shows and on Beyond Parody, we keep it light, which is hard in light of the news these days.
Speaker: There's a lot going on, but we mostly cover news stories.
Speaker: We do a lot of reactions to crazy videos.
Speaker: We have a reaction, a segment we call the blue haired breakdown where we watch movies.
Speaker: Well, you can, it just, you can take it from what it is.
Speaker: It's crazy people, usually with blue hair, pink hair, uh, saying crazy things.
Speaker: And then we react to it.
Speaker: Um, and we've had conservative prof has been on our show before, and that was very fun to have him on, but yeah, listen in Friday mornings.
Speaker: Um, it's me, uh, Dan Dillon.
Speaker: We have our tech guru, Mr. B and Travis is going to be joining us more and more regularly.
Speaker: Travis of the B. Um,
Speaker: And then we have a bunch of guests.
Speaker: We've had Megan Basham on.
Speaker: We've had Spencer Clavin on.
Speaker: We've got some really awesome people in the works.
Speaker: So I would love as many people as can to tune in.
Speaker: It's been a great show.
Speaker: I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: Data Republican was a really good host.
Speaker: That show, that was really enlightening hearing her insights into what's been going on lately and just the information she has.
Speaker: I did not know she existed until that.
Speaker: So I'm following her, of course, on X. I did not.
Speaker: So if you didn't listen to that show, Data Republican has a hearing impairment and we had an interpreter on.
Speaker: when we were recording it, it was such an interesting conversation back and forth because everything went through the interpreter and the sign language interpreter and talking to her.
Speaker: But the way that it was edited was just masterful by our producer.
Speaker: And it really flowed so well.
Speaker: And the thing she had to say, that was two or three weeks ago.
Speaker: You can find it on YouTube.
Speaker: I think it's called Data Republican versus the Big Beautiful Bill on YouTube.
Speaker: And that was a really fun conversation.
Speaker: I'm glad you liked that.
Speaker: Yeah, I did.
Speaker: It was great.
Speaker: It's Robin, your professionalism shows in those.
Speaker: And so here, here, you got three amateurs in you here today.
Speaker: So I don't know about that.
Speaker: You know, my, most of my career has been spent working at studios and, and in sound booths.
Speaker: And then now I work from home and I'll tell you recording live,
Speaker: radio or podcast from home is a whole different experience than being in a studio.
Speaker: I think last week, if anybody, I don't, I don't, I have to go see if we cut it out, but there was a moment where I forgot to lock my office door and the dog comes in and you just see his tail.
Speaker: Cause I use a green screen.
Speaker: That made it.
Speaker: going back and forth on the back of the green screen and I'm talking about the Iran, you know, bombings or whatever.
Speaker: And I'm trying to push my dog away.
Speaker: I've had kids come in because I just don't think they lock the door.
Speaker: I've had kids come in, you know, in the middle of recording things and
Speaker: I love it, though.
Speaker: It's real.
Speaker: If you want to know who I am as a person, you have to understand I have five kids and I am a stay-at-home mom.
Speaker: That is my first, you know, I work in the cracks of my day.
Speaker: I don't, my work is kind of the sand that falls in between the pavers of my children, if that analogy makes any sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, it is definitely a family, uh, a family project here.
Speaker: My kids all pitch me headlines all day long.
Speaker: Um, and I think one of the pitches they, they gave me, we finally published, I don't know which one it was.
Speaker: It was, it was a few months ago.
Speaker: It was like my 10 year old pitched me something and I reworked it and pitched it.
Speaker: My kids love the B they love it.
Speaker: I get pitches from my kids as well sometimes, but I can't always use them.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, well, yeah, 99% of them, they're cute, but they're a little bit knock-knock joke level.
Speaker: I've been pretty impressed with, you know, is your podcast hasn't been out that long and you've already had some pretty good guests.
Speaker: Who are some dream guests that you would love to have on?
Speaker: That's a really good question because I keep pitching these ideas to Dan Dillon.
Speaker: He's like, whoa, pie in the sky.
Speaker: I have been listening to Joe Rogan for many, many years and he has definitely had a spectrum of views.
Speaker: I don't agree with everything that he says, but I would love to have a conversation with him.
Speaker: I think he would be,
Speaker: a really, really interesting guest to have on.
Speaker: So that's one that I've pitched that maybe we could try to get.
Speaker: I would love to talk to him.
Speaker: I would love to talk to Tulsi Gabbard.
Speaker: I think she's really interesting.
Speaker: I think Tulsi would be a very interesting conversation.
Speaker: Elon Musk, of course, he loves us anyway, but we've talked about trying to squeeze a minute of his time out.
Speaker: So that's a great question.
Speaker: Those are just some, I mean, if we're talking, you know, top of the world, I would love to
Speaker: If we could go back in time, I'd love to talk to some historical figures, Teddy Roosevelt, absolute heroes.
Speaker: In fact, I think it's in this room that I'm in.
Speaker: It's called The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Speaker: If anybody out there has read it, have you heard of that book?
Speaker: I've heard of it, and I know of Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Speaker: Yeah, I've heard of it, and I know of Doris, and she writes about presidents quite a bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a 36 hour audio book.
Speaker: I actually listened to it and I feel like I should get a certification.
Speaker: If you listen to a 36 hour audio book and finish it, I feel like Audible should send you like something you could put on the wall.
Speaker: But that was a phenomenal read and it really contextualizes a lot of modern day politics.
Speaker: I actually had the honor of meeting Doris Kearns Goodwin a while ago at work when I worked at the radio station years ago when we interviewed her and she's probably one of the leading minds.
Speaker: So I recommend that's a recommendation for me.
Speaker: I do h ave a question for you, Robin, regarding guests.
Speaker: If you could get a certain Ayatollah on, would you take it?
Speaker: No, sure.
Speaker: I don't know if you speak English.
Speaker: Is he Farsi or Persian?
Speaker: I did take two years of Arabic at BYU, but I don't think the Arabic I learned is anything.
Speaker: But I would love to.
Speaker: I was going to say his Instagram, his Twitter account or his X account has been really interesting to follow.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: If anybody has PR connections there, let me know.
Speaker: He wouldn't say no.
Speaker: I think pure teach lives closest.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Oh, this is true.
Speaker: I have no idea who we're talking about.
Speaker: The leader of Iran.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: I, of course I know who you're talking about.
Speaker: He's 86 years old.
Speaker: Yeah, it's surprising Jill Biden hasn't tried to fly over to Iran and help him lead the country.
Speaker: That's been my question.
Speaker: Yeah, he's very old.
Speaker: I don't think he's running his actual X account.
Speaker: Someone else is posting for him.
Speaker: I don't know if Biden ever actually used his own account either.
Speaker: So I think that's right.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Remember the day that I think it was Kareem Jean-Pierre posted something from her account.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it was the same thing that Biden or whatever.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It was like in his voice or something.
Speaker: It was not great.
Speaker: I think it was a Biden tweet from her account or vice versa or something.
Speaker: So it was hilarious.
Speaker: It was so funny.
Speaker: Yeah, those were the, you know, I don't, I miss the Biden president.
Speaker: I don't miss the Biden presidency, but as a comedy writer, there were definitely some gems in there.
Speaker: And I miss some of the hooks that we had for comedy during the Biden era that have gone the wayside.
Speaker: There was plenty, plenty of headline material.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: We still throw one out there every once in a while because it's only been six months, guys.
Speaker: It's only been six months.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: It seems like each in history.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Listen into Beyond Parody.
Speaker: It's growing.
Speaker: We're really growing our audience.
Speaker: We're growing our numbers.
Speaker: And just keep an eye out there.
Speaker: We'd love to have everybody tune in.
Speaker: It's on YouTube and then Spotify, Apple Podcasts, if you just want to listen to the audio, or you can watch the video feed.
Speaker: And that's always a good time too.
Speaker: Cause I, I learn, I watch myself as we all do.
Speaker: And I, I drink coffee the whole time I'm recording.
Speaker: And it's like my tick.
Speaker: Every time I like have to think of something, I take a sip of my coffee and set it down.
Speaker: It's like become my, you know, whatever that is, my nervous tick.
Speaker: And I've been watching that thinking I should stop doing that every two seconds.
Speaker: That's the, that's the advantage of an audio only podcast.
Speaker: We can just edit out any, any, any ticks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Most of the time.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: This is phenomenal, though, that you guys have been doing this.
Speaker: I've been listening to your show here and there when I can.
Speaker: I know it's few and far between, but tell me what you guys are all up to.
Speaker: I want to hear about, you know, I'm not as plugged into the forum as I used to be, and I miss it.
Speaker: I miss, I just, I only have the bandwidth to really work at the B, and I miss the community over on the forum because it's such an amazing community.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I have exactly the same feeling, Robin, as you, and since I started working for The Bee, it does zap a lot of time and energy and focus.
Speaker: So I see a lot of things passing by and I'm like, oh, it looks like we're celebrating another user's user points or something.
Speaker: So I think Prof or Kirgo can probably fit us in more.
Speaker: I think you guys have got your ear closer to the ground.
Speaker: what can you guys tell us?
Speaker: Is there anything exceptional that's happened in the forum over the last few weeks?
Speaker: Oh, there definitely has been a lot of celebrating.
Speaker: The people are definitely not tired of winning.
Speaker: They keep logging in every day, points after points after points and like, okay, here's another one we're celebrating.
Speaker: But it is a lot of fun, just real busy schedule.
Speaker: But yeah, it's cool to see the whole community coming together and
Speaker: Some really, really good friendships over the past few years have really grown and it's pretty cool place to be.
Speaker: Who has the highest number of points right now?
Speaker: Is that you, Kirgel?
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Well, I see you have a plaque.
Speaker: So what is the high?
Speaker: I think I'm at like 2 million, which is really sad.
Speaker: 25 million?
Speaker: Yeah, I was the first one to hit 25 million back.
Speaker: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker: And then, Prof, you have one too now, don't you?
Speaker: I do.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm actually not at my home right now.
Speaker: I went to an indisclosed location because I have three dogs who would bark.
Speaker: So that's why I had that.
Speaker: See, someone thought ahead.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But yeah, they're really, really cool.
Speaker: So everybody keep working.
Speaker: When you hit 25 million, SDH will send you a really cool plaque.
Speaker: Oh, I didn't know this.
Speaker: I think it's only been four people, maybe.
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: MRF is coming up pretty soon.
Speaker: I'm about to hit 10 million.
Speaker: And I've been on the forum for about five years.
Speaker: So maybe by 2030, I'll be getting my plaque.
Speaker: So we must have joined right about, well, let's see.
Speaker: Six years, actually.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I think I'm coming up on four years now.
Speaker: from the forum because I just hit two years at the B. I don't know.
Speaker: I have to go.
Speaker: I can't.
Speaker: Maybe it's three years.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I'd have to go look up the dates, but I loved, I was on the forum every day, all day.
Speaker: And we actually, we have a, I have a 15 year old son who does not have access to any social media.
Speaker: He does have a smartphone, but it's a dumb, it's a dumbed down smartphone.
Speaker: And we finally gave him access to the B and he was posting very regularly, but he
Speaker: school kind of took over and he said he hasn't been on there, but it's kind of a family project, thinking of headlines, pitching them.
Speaker: And we all joke as writers, sometimes if we pitch a headline and Teej, I know you'll really relate to this.
Speaker: If you pitch a headline to the writers on the writers group, like on Slack and you love it and nobody reacts to it, I'll go over to the forum and pitch it on the forum because I know people over there will appreciate it.
Speaker: And we've all talked, even as writers, like how we need that validation.
Speaker: Sometimes from our headlines, when it doesn't get the reaction we think it should get from our other writers, I know there's like three or four writers that say they do that quite frequently.
Speaker: And I do it too.
Speaker: I'm like, hey, you know what, this was good.
Speaker: I want somebody to acknowledge that it was good.
Speaker: I remember that feeling.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I do that.
Speaker: I do that all the time.
Speaker: I need to do it more often to boost my confidence a little.
Speaker: Robin, can you tell us what your son's username is on the bee?
Speaker: Or is that if you don't want to, it's okay.
Speaker: No, it's, I think it's son of a bee.
Speaker: Son of a bee.
Speaker: Oh, that's good.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: I think that's his, his, his handle, which is a little tongue in cheek.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: son of a B-E-E because I'm Rabalon B. It's funny.
Speaker: I've had so many people over the years tell me they thought that I was a man because I used the Rabalon headline, which is my husband came up with that and I thought it was cute.
Speaker: And then my profile picture is a picture of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons.
Speaker: So maybe I should change it to make it look more feminine or something.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Mr. Burns in drag or something like that.
Speaker: Mr.
Speaker: Maybe just Marge Simpson.
Speaker: I'm a big, big Simpsons fanatic.
Speaker: So maybe I'll put a picture of Marge or Maggie or Lisa or something up there.
Speaker: But Mr. Burns is my favorite Simpsons character, bar none.
Speaker: So that's why it's Mr. Burns.
Speaker: I most relate to his personality profile, I should say.
Speaker: But you joined, I'm just checking out your profile here, Robin.
Speaker: You joined on September 28th, 2022.
Speaker: So three years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nearly.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: First of three.
Speaker: Geez, it feels like longer than that.
Speaker: Huh.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: It's been more than six years for me.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: I wanted to work for the Bee, and I've told this story, and I'll tell it very briefly.
Speaker: I have been trying to work in comedy my whole adult life.
Speaker: I tried to write for The Onion, which must not be named.
Speaker: I got pretty far into their hiring process years ago.
Speaker: This is before they...
Speaker: kind of turned a corner, I probably wouldn't be able to work there anymore ideologically and didn't make the final cut.
Speaker: And so I've been sending scripts and all sorts of stuff all over the world, trying to get, you know, a toe in the satire world as I was working as a journalist.
Speaker: And I listened to Seth on,
Speaker: Rogan.
Speaker: I think it was the summer of 2022.
Speaker: And in the podcast, he mentioned that some of their employees, I think even Joel, had started in the forum as a writer.
Speaker: And at that point, I thought, oh, I don't want to go do that.
Speaker: That sounds too tedious.
Speaker: I'll just start cold sending headlines to whoever has open DMs on Twitter.
Speaker: Twitter or X, sorry, Elon, on X, I just started spamming.
Speaker: Joel had open DMs and he actually responded to one of the ones I sent him.
Speaker: And Dan Dillon, I sent him like walls because he had open DMs, walls and walls.
Speaker: And finally, after like a week of this, he responded back to me and said, hey, you know, there is a forum.
Speaker: where you can pitch these headlines.
Speaker: And so that day I went and joined the forum and it turned out, I was just kind of like, oh, I just going to join and try to get hired.
Speaker: But it turned out to be a lot more fun to get to know people.
Speaker: I ended up working on the mega dude, up dude team and went to be live and met everybody there.
Speaker: And it was a blast.
Speaker: And I, and I miss, like I said, being more involved in the forum.
Speaker: Didn't realize she works on the Megadoot.
Speaker: So that was with Little Jedi, presumably.
Speaker: I was like the first.
Speaker: And he posted about it a few weeks ago.
Speaker: Yeah, we recently had the 1000th Megadoot.
Speaker: Oh, that's right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was like Tuesdays and sometimes I take Saturdays.
Speaker: I would do the roundup.
Speaker: You can go find those old posts.
Speaker: And that really helped me get to know everybody.
Speaker: And it was so much fun.
Speaker: I just, again, I just don't have bandwidth or I would still be helping out, but I'm a part, part, part-time worker and a full, full, full-time stay at home mom.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Well, that's a lot about me, but I would love to hear what's going on with everybody else.
Speaker: Well, since the last time we recorded an episode, if I were to tell you everything that has gone on and how many ways my life has changed, we'd be here for the whole entire rest of the show.
Speaker: So just keep it real brief.
Speaker: We are about to become empty nesters.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: So August 15th is college move-in day.
Speaker: Oh my goodness.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I will tell you that having a senior in high school stinks on ice.
Speaker: Every single thing you do, everything.
Speaker: Oh, this is the last time we're doing this.
Speaker: This is the last time we're doing that.
Speaker: And she did so many things, but she had a really good year, won a lot of awards, a lot of accomplishments, was valedictorian.
Speaker: Oh, my goodness.
Speaker: She had everything she could get out of her last year.
Speaker: She got it.
Speaker: So we went through all of her school, and then two weeks later, she had her last ever dance recital that she's been doing since she was four years old.
Speaker: And she got to be Jasmine.
Speaker: And so she was really, really happy because she always wanted to be a princess and she got her senior solo dance exactly how she always wanted it.
Speaker: So, so it was really cool to see all that, but really hard, but you know, it's going to be exciting to see what she does next.
Speaker: Cause I think that the next few years, there's going to be a lot of things going on with her, but I do have a life hack for anybody who has, who is going to have a senior like next year in the coming years.
Speaker: Right before you have to go like to graduation or anything really big, get yourself a ginormous kidney stone and that will distract you just enough so you don't become a complete blubbering.
Speaker: Oh no.
Speaker: When did that happen?
Speaker: The week before her dance recital.
Speaker: Oh, geez.
Speaker: How are you doing?
Speaker: I'm feeling great now.
Speaker: Oh, I bet.
Speaker: At the time it was horrible, but I'm feeling great now.
Speaker: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker: It was an experience.
Speaker: You've done both now.
Speaker: I've heard that kidney stones are more painful than childbirth.
Speaker: Do you have an opinion on that?
Speaker: I think it could really go either way.
Speaker: Oh, gosh.
Speaker: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker: Oh, I am so sorry.
Speaker: That is miserable.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I will take that into account because I have a 15 year old who will be a senior in three years.
Speaker: So I will.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: It's great advice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Change your diet now because it does take a few years for those to grow.
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker: Oh my goodness.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well you win.
Speaker: That's, that's impressive.
Speaker: Um, uh, prof, can you top that or, um, I'll try, but I doubt that I can, but I'll try, but I'm kidney stone free.
Speaker: Um, I've also, also been, uh, um,
Speaker: happy, happy empty nestor for six years now.
Speaker: So it's, uh, it's been a good phase of our life, my wife and I, so we've really enjoyed being empty nesters for the last six years.
Speaker: So, um, so just FYI, Kurgle, if that does give you any solace, I don't know, but, um, it's been, it's been good for us.
Speaker: Um, but so for me, I've just been doing, let's see, um, this summer, I'm just sticking around.
Speaker: I have, um, all online classes.
Speaker: So I just get to work from home.
Speaker: I have a ton of flexibility and,
Speaker: And looking forward to that.
Speaker: And in the fall, I took a full-time position at a school that's 70 miles away from where I live.
Speaker: So I'll be commuting four days a week during the semester.
Speaker: So I'll be doing that.
Speaker: But this summer, I've been doing a lot of traveling.
Speaker: I just was in near the Minneapolis area, not in Minneapolis, because I would not do that, at an 80s night concert.
Speaker: The headliner was Rick Springfield, but I also got to see John Waite and Wang Chung and Paul Young.
Speaker: So it was a really fun night.
Speaker: I know one of those.
Speaker: Yeah, the entire audience was...
Speaker: 50 something white people.
Speaker: So I thought that was kind of funny.
Speaker: So there was zero diversity at all, but that was okay.
Speaker: We all had a good time and nobody cared.
Speaker: And so did that.
Speaker: My oldest son ran a marathon in Fargo.
Speaker: He was 11th place, which he was actually happy to do that.
Speaker: So he normally would do better, but he's been coming off some health issues.
Speaker: And let's see, what else have we done?
Speaker: We're going, I am personally going to be going to Dallas this week.
Speaker: So I'm teaching a class there for a university over the weekend.
Speaker: I'll be going to Washington, D.C.
Speaker: in July to do the same thing at a different location.
Speaker: And I got to meet Surf Duck, who hasn't been on the B a lot lately.
Speaker: He's been here and there, but he came through my town.
Speaker: We had a nice dinner one night.
Speaker: And then he lives in Dallas.
Speaker: So the Sunday afternoon that I'll be there when my classes are finally done.
Speaker: He's going to take me to Lockheed Factory where they make fighter jets.
Speaker: And so we're going to get to do a tour of that.
Speaker: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker: I want to go there.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: So I'm also going to spend a day.
Speaker: I fly Wednesday.
Speaker: So on Thursday, I'll be in Fredericksburg, Texas at a museum.
Speaker: I'm a big World War II history nut, so I'll be at a museum called the Museum of the Pacific War.
Speaker: That's where Admiral Chester Nimitz is hometown, and so it was the Nimitz Museum.
Speaker: So that will be there all day Thursday.
Speaker: So whenever they kick me out at 5 o'clock or whatever time they kick me out, I'll leave, but I'll be there for the whole day.
Speaker: Then I've got to drive back to Dallas.
Speaker: So that's my week so far.
Speaker: So it's a busy week, but I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker: I teach these classes over the weekend.
Speaker: It's, it's, we do 20 hours in three days.
Speaker: So we have to be in the classroom.
Speaker: So I'll be toast after that, but yeah.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I haven't talked that long though, but I just, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, that's, I, that's impressive.
Speaker: Oh no, I'm sorry.
Speaker: I'm going to cut you off.
Speaker: I was going to ask Teej if he could top fighter jets and kidney stones, but.
Speaker: Well, I was just thinking about the pain of kidney stones and it made me think about the fact my, my Elvis teenage daughter now has officially has a boyfriend.
Speaker: Oh, my goodness.
Speaker: I'm not sure what's more painful.
Speaker: Prayers.
Speaker: Boyfriend for your daughter or kidney stone, which is more painful?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Good question.
Speaker: But in all seriousness, he's actually a good kid.
Speaker: They met at like a Christian.
Speaker: They go to like a during the term time, they go to a Christian.
Speaker: It's like every month they get together.
Speaker: I always want to say YMCA, but it's not YMCA.
Speaker: It's the other acronym.
Speaker: FCA?
Speaker: That's a thing here.
Speaker: FBI.
Speaker: FBI.
Speaker: CIA.
Speaker: It'll come back to me.
Speaker: It'll come back to me.
Speaker: But it's something that's organized every month and they met there.
Speaker: And he's a good kid.
Speaker: He's met his parents from a good family.
Speaker: Can't complain.
Speaker: You know, she's going to be, she's still quite young.
Speaker: She's going to be 17 in the summer.
Speaker: So kind of borderline.
Speaker: And we keep a very strong eye on them.
Speaker: So they'll be all right.
Speaker: They'll be fine.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: But yeah, apart from that, I have, with the exception of one tiny, well, not that tiny, but one exam I have to take in August, I am now almost officially done with studying.
Speaker: We need to pop a bottle for that.
Speaker: Martinelli's in Utah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's been a crazy, it's been like three or four years I started a study.
Speaker: I started, I did like a year in sort of distance learning in the fall of 2021.
Speaker: That didn't really go very well.
Speaker: I just delayed everything and put everything off until the summer of 22 when I had like a whole load of exams to take.
Speaker: So then I decided to step over to actual classroom-based classes.
Speaker: And that kept me busy from September 22 to now.
Speaker: So I've been a full-time student all that time.
Speaker: Talked about it a few times on this podcast.
Speaker: Blood, sweat, and tears, literally.
Speaker: Teach, remind me what your discipline is, what your area of study is.
Speaker: I know you said it, but I...
Speaker: Yeah, that's okay.
Speaker: So I'm going to be a qualified high school teacher.
Speaker: So I'll be able to step into the system here in Belgium.
Speaker: So kind of from the age of 11, 12 up to 15, 16, something like that.
Speaker: And teaching English as a second language and also...
Speaker: Not sure I'll do it, but I can also teach kind of IT informatics, you know, basic Word, Excel, PowerPoint, that sort of thing to kids in the first years of high school or middle school.
Speaker: I don't know what you guys call it over there.
Speaker: Both junior high, middle school are kind of interchangeable.
Speaker: And then high school is usually grades ninth through twelfth.
Speaker: Okay, so whatever the equivalent over here is.
Speaker: So yeah, I'm going to be looking for a job.
Speaker: And yeah, just enjoying a bit of a break now, if I'm honest, I'm going to have to start studying pretty soon for this exam I've got, which is a bummer, but plenty of other things to be getting on with around the home otherwise.
Speaker: But yeah,
Speaker: Otherwise, just continuing a bit like you, Robin, living and breathing the bee.
Speaker: Otherwise, it is all consuming, even though it's officially part-time.
Speaker: Mentally, it does.
Speaker: On the forum, when you're thinking of headlines, you do it too.
Speaker: You'll be walking down the street and see a squirrel run across the road.
Speaker: In your head, you're going, squirrel dodges.
Speaker: You're just already writing a headline.
Speaker: Whatever you see, you start thinking of a headline.
Speaker: We've talked about it before.
Speaker: You just think and breathe it.
Speaker: You can't.
Speaker: You know, I'm sitting in my kids messy room right now thinking of 1000 different ways you can make jokes out of messy kids rooms.
Speaker: And that's one thing that I noticed, since I became a subscriber, it changes the way your mind works.
Speaker: You think differently.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: And then for the better and for the worst, sometimes you'll be like at dinner, my husband, I'll be like on a romantic dinner and I'm like, Oh, one sec.
Speaker: I just, I just thought of something.
Speaker: If you don't write it down, it's gone.
Speaker: It's gone.
Speaker: Like you have to write the headline down.
Speaker: My worst, I'll be drifting off to sleep and I'll think of something I think is funny.
Speaker: I'm like, okay, I'll remember it in the morning.
Speaker: And then it's just, it's gone.
Speaker: It's gone.
Speaker: It's just vaporized.
Speaker: Or I'll remember it in the morning and I go, that wasn't actually that funny.
Speaker: That wasn't, that was a late night twilight sleep.
Speaker: Sometimes one of the writers just drops like this random headline and they're like, yeah, I thought of this at three in the morning.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But it's true.
Speaker: And it's not just the case for writers.
Speaker: I think, you know, I remember like Kurgle said, at the moment you become a subscriber and you start pitching those headlines, it does really change the way that you think and whether you're
Speaker: work for the bee or not.
Speaker: I think if you're in the headline forum, it's, uh, it can be all consuming and it definitely, yeah, definitely changes your perspective on the, everything that you see happening around you.
Speaker: You're like, ah, can I put them the amount of times my wife, um, gets cross with me because I'm just, she's trying to talk to me and I'm like thinking of a headline and I quickly pick up my phone and try and note it down before I forget.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: And my family's gotten pretty tolerant.
Speaker: I'm like, guys, it'll be literally two seconds.
Speaker: I just have to, I just,
Speaker: I'll just put key, I'll put keywords in my notes.
Speaker: Like this morning I woke up and I, I can hear all read just so everybody wants to know my creative.
Speaker: I'm sure the world is just dying to know Robin's creative process, but I have putting movie on when people are talking and,
Speaker: And that was because we were watching a movie last night, but everybody was talking, which is like one of my biggest pet peeves.
Speaker: If I'm going to watch a movie, you cannot be like, we're either watching a movie or we are talking, but we are not doing both.
Speaker: So I was trying to think, I haven't come up with a headline yet, but I was trying to think of some joke about someone wanting to murder people because they were talking during a movie or something.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: But if I don't even write, I mean, that's not a headline idea, but so much of my notes section on Slack is just,
Speaker: words like algorithm gets specific.
Speaker: Like that was something a couple I'm just like scrolling through cool beans, make fun of this phrase.
Speaker: Because if you don't, if you don't get at least that, like the, the LaCroix of the idea, you know what I mean?
Speaker: Like the just sort of the, the taste of it out there, then it's gone.
Speaker: And yeah, it's a process.
Speaker: I can sympathize.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The LaCroix of an idea.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: The LaCroix of an idea.
Speaker: I drink a lot of LaCroix.
Speaker: So it's like, you know what I mean?
Speaker: It's like not actually a soda.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: kind of wants to be a soda.
Speaker: Do you have La Croix's where you live, Teej?
Speaker: Has that made it across the pond?
Speaker: I don't think we have that.
Speaker: No, I'm not sure what that is.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: It's a French word.
Speaker: It's just sparkling water, flavored sparkling water, but it's like we keep them in the fridge.
Speaker: They don't have any calories or sugar.
Speaker: They kind of taste like what it says on the bottle, but kind of not, or on the can.
Speaker: um like grapefruit or lime or whatever but we drink a lot of them because my husband got off soda a few years ago like caffeinated soda um diet soda and in the summer i just like a cold drink so we keep probably hey oh diet mountain too see if you get along with my teenagers i just drink water well there we go way to one up everyone
Speaker: in the course of this conversation, which has been so fun, I have literally seen like things probably on fire running past my vision, which is fine.
Speaker: It's just a normal Monday in my house, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna go see if I can put out some of those fires and maybe get in some lunch, but this was super, super fun.
Speaker: You guys are awesome.
Speaker: And I'd love to join anytime.
Speaker: It was great to have you on Robin.
Speaker: Thanks so much for giving up some of your time.
Speaker: Yeah, it's great talking to you again.
Speaker: Beyond Parity, Friday mornings, everybody listening.
Speaker: I do.
Speaker: I always do.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: See you later.
Speaker: Bye guys.
Speaker: I'll figure out.
Speaker: See you soon.
Speaker: I'll leave.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: Bye-bye.
Speaker: Bye-bye.
Speaker: Robin is the current host or one of the hosts of the Beyond Parody podcast.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: That's all right.
Speaker: That was like the most, this is my life.
Speaker: Hang on just a sec.
Speaker: Come here, you.
Speaker: I am Robin and this is like as real as it gets.
Speaker: And I told the kids to be quiet but forgot about a very important child in my life.
Speaker: And just like that, we have our first bonus material.
Speaker: I was just thinking the same thing.
Speaker: It couldn't have been more on cue if we'd have tried to get it.
Speaker: If anybody thinks that the Babylon Bee writers are all sitting in cubicles somewhere, recording in very sterile environments, you know, like in an office.
Speaker: For my part, whenever I'm writing a headline or editing the podcast or doing anything, it is me in my house with five kids running around.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: people knocking on the doors, coming in and out.
Speaker: It is like the realest of the real.
Speaker: I'm going to move into a different room.
Speaker: Sorry, you guys.
Speaker: But yes, I'm so thrilled to be on with you guys.
Speaker: So thank you.
Speaker: Sorry for that introduction.
Speaker: Do you want to stick around for a bit, Robin, or do you want to, do you need to head off?
Speaker: I probably have 10 minutes.
Speaker: I've got a baby who's just waking up in the next room.
Speaker: So I can, she can chatter for 10 minutes and then she'll start crying.
Speaker: She can survive on her own for a good hour.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: I've got a, I've got a video baby monitor that I, that I watch.
Speaker: It's,
Speaker: This is modern.
Speaker: This technology, I'll tell you, this baby monitor video stuff has been life-changing.
Speaker: I can just like watch my babies all over the world.
Speaker: We actually went to London two years ago.
Speaker: Let me talk quickly.
Speaker: My husband was home.
Speaker: I'm not saying I flew to London and left, but I could watch my baby sleep in London over this video monitor and it was fantastic.
Speaker: Is there a way of changing the participant view?
Speaker: Because every time
Speaker: someone talks, their face pops up.
Speaker: It'd be nice to keep everyone.
Speaker: Oh, hang on.
Speaker: I think I can change that here.
Speaker: Maybe you can do it.
Speaker: Yeah, I can.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: Showing my age now.
Speaker: And my face looks really red.
Speaker: Because that big glowy thing was in the sky today.
Speaker: Yeah, I hear it.
Speaker: It wasn't.
Speaker: It was raining in Belgium.
Speaker: I got caught in rain today.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I'm going to give this a try.
Speaker: I've just got a short monologue and we'll see how it goes.
Speaker: Try and be as enthusiastic as a British person can be.
