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36: Joy, Rage, Repeat
20 Plays1 month ago
This episode is a little bit of everything.
I'm fresh off a cruise with a reminder that rest is not a reward, it's a requirement!
Then we're heading o the kickball field. Yes, kickball. What started as a random hobby has become an unexpected source of community, joy, and growth—and a reminder that adulthood needs play, too.
And because this is Geneva Says, we're also getting political. I'm talking about DC's recent primary, especially the mayor's race, and why Trump's ongoing interference in local governance should concern everyone who cares about democracy.
Finally, we need to discuss the collective amnesia happening around Elon Musk. Why are people celebrating his latest IPO as if DOGE never happened? As if the damage, chaos, and consequences just disappeared? The internet moves fast, but some things deserve a longer memory.
A little joy. A little politics. A little frustration. Just how we like it around here.
Time to say the quiet parts out loud. Let's get into it.
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Transcript
Return and Travel Experiences
00:00:00
Speaker
Today on Geneva says we're catching up. We're talking about some things going on here in D.C. And I'm going to share what I'm currently obsessed with.
00:00:23
Speaker
Welcome back. Oh, this is Brittany Geneva back with another episode of Geneva Says. So excited to be back after a much needed, well needed break. But I'm back.
00:00:35
Speaker
We're here. Wait, is it still playing? oh Lord. No, stop. Okay. Excited. Excited. ah I'm back.
00:00:47
Speaker
Really happy to get back into the groove after a month off. Let's catch up a little bit. First, I have to start with just ah the Virgin Voyages cruise I went on with my mom was absolutely amazing. We went the last week of May, like Memorial Day week.
00:01:06
Speaker
Um, sailed out of Rome and then did like a Mediterranean trip that was like the Southern coast, um, of Italy and then France. And then it ended in Spain and it was just absolutely beautiful.
00:01:20
Speaker
ah Such a great, like Virgin is a great cruise line, really nice ship, nice cabin. Food was nice. Like, I really have a lot of great things to say. i made a very detailed video or set of videos that will be coming out soon that goes into great detail about the cruises and the destin the actual destinations um that we stopped at. the different ports and excursions and stuff. And it was just really lovely. So TLDR, it was great. I loved it. I highly recommend it. And it was very black.
00:01:52
Speaker
That was the the most wonderful, pleasant surprise. It was a very black cruise with a lot of black people from America. So that was great. That was great.
Joining a Kickball Team
00:02:03
Speaker
like You know, i have been in my kind of like sporty girl era recently. Like I joined a kickball team, a new kickball team in March and started playing two leagues at the same time. So there's like a co-ed league with this team and a women's league and football.
00:02:21
Speaker
I've just like, I looked up one day and I'm like, why am I playing kickball like a hundred times a week? It's been, but it's really been great. I've really been enjoying getting to know new people, getting to, you know, build up a new skill.
00:02:34
Speaker
But here's the part that I really want to share because I don't gatekeep for my sisters out there. Fuck the run club. Okay. Fuck what they said about the run club, baby. The fine niggas is at kickball.
00:02:46
Speaker
Okay. Especially you live in the DMV. Join Goombe. Join Goombe Adventures kickball today and meet the fine niggas there.
00:02:59
Speaker
OK, I'm not doing run club. The run club propaganda never worked on me because I'm not a runner like I'm not running. And that's the whole activity. You got to run during and kickball, but then you stop, you know, but I'm not running. And then that's all we did for like hours. So I needed something else. And I'm like, I want to be active. I want to meet new people. I want to be outside. I want to do a thing.
00:03:21
Speaker
I decided on kickball because I knew a few people who played with this league in particular And it's been great. Like, I've loved it so much. And it is like building my confidence. Like, it's it's been wonderful.
00:03:33
Speaker
And the niggas are fine. I'm like, whoa, woa woa whoa, whoa. This is, and it's a Black league. So that matters a lot. There's a lot of kickball leagues, but this is a Black kickball league.
00:03:46
Speaker
um So if you don't live in the DMV, you might have Goombe because I think Goombe is in other cities. But if not, just look for the Black kickball league. i We need to start that propaganda.
00:03:58
Speaker
Bye to the run club. Hello to the kickball league. Okay. ah But yeah, it's been really great. And it's a really good way to get to know people. I know a lot of times people as adults, especially if you're moving to new cities or you're just trying to, you know, expand your network. A lot of times people have a hard time making new friends as they get older. But I think this is a really good way to do it. Anything where you have to keep coming back again and again. it's You can't do it just like going to a one off event or a one off thing. You have to find something and join it and then keep coming back again and again.
00:04:31
Speaker
And that is how you will make the friends and the connections as you get older. So that's happening for me now. And i highly recommend it.
DC Mayoral Race
00:04:40
Speaker
um Now let's get right into our topics for today.
00:04:46
Speaker
Geneva says, i wish these people would just leave me alone. ah Where do I begin? So obviously i live in D.C. and right now, actually, by the time this comes out, we will know who won the ah mayoral primary, which is coming up on Tuesday. And in D.C., the primary is the election because the Democrat is always going to win the general. So the primary is really the election.
00:05:14
Speaker
And the incumbent mayor, Muriel Bowser, is stepping down. And now we have new, you know, brand new candidates coming up. And the race is really between Kenya McDuffie and Janice Lewis-George, who are both Democrats. But Janice Lewis-George is much more progressive, maybe more, you know, in the Mamdani, you know, sort of mold, Right.
00:05:40
Speaker
and But I really don't know a lot about either of them. And I've been trying to do the research, trying to find out more information. Like I wasn't necessarily familiar with their political careers, even as a D.C. resident, because they were not, I believe they were both council members, but not of my ward. So I've been trying to do the research, which one has been really hard because all the information out there is put out there by the campaign or by their camps. And I'm like, where's just like the third party reporting? And then all of the news coverage is of the election. So it's like how much money they raised or how they're doing in the polls. And I'm like, I need a trusted voice.
00:06:22
Speaker
who is who doesn't necessarily have a dog in the fight to to chime in. So I'm putting that out um to folks, you know, for future reference, because it's going to be too late by the time you see this. But, you know, sometimes even politically engaged people need Need more information. I think it just sort of speaks to like where we are. Like I've talked about this on a past episode of my podcast, just how our media landscape is shifting to where like finding good, reliable information is getting harder and harder. And I've actually had a really hard time.
00:06:59
Speaker
finding information to help inform how I vote this election. I've had multiple people reach out to me. I had somebody reach out to me last week to say, Brittany, I know you're really politically engaged. Can you give me advice on how to vote in this election? And I'm like, sis, I wish I could.
00:07:15
Speaker
I honestly wish I could, but I'm like, I don't even have the amount of information that I wish I had about, you know, unbiased, like what, what should I know about these candidates? And like multiple people I'm talking to are like, you know, the elections like on Tuesday and this is now Saturday and people are like, I don't necessarily know who I'm voting for.
00:07:39
Speaker
And so it's been, it's been a very difficult sort of, um, time to sort of figure out which way to go. The thing that generally seems to be true about these candidates is that Janice Lewis-George is very progressive, like I said, more of maybe like a Mom Donnie type.
00:07:59
Speaker
um But my concern is that maybe she's a little too pie in the sky and not pragmatic enough. Like, can she get things done? And then Kenya McDuffie is more like in the mold of Bowser, who is our current mayor. And more moderate and maybe a little too moderate and maybe a little too establishment, you know, but he seems like he would know how to get things done. He's been around a long time and knows how to work the system. So it's, that's kind of the tension that I'm having of just like, and this applies beyond the mayoral race, as we think about national politics, state politics,
00:08:39
Speaker
Thinking about, you know, even the direction of the Democratic Party and those types of things. It's like, do we want the super duper progressives who have a really fresh new vision, but seem like it would be very challenging to get that vision done?
00:08:56
Speaker
or somebody who like is steeped in the system and really knows how to navigate, but probably isn't going to move us forward in a very progressive way.
00:09:08
Speaker
And I think that is like, that is the whole entire like Democratic Party challenge. And I think it's well represented in this DC mayoral race of just like,
00:09:19
Speaker
I don't know which way is better for D.C.
DC Statehood and Politics
00:09:23
Speaker
And then now you have Donald Trump. And this goes to me saying, can you all just leave us alone? We're here in D.C. trying to figure our stuff out.
00:09:32
Speaker
And I don't need Donald Trump now chiming in saying, well, if Janice Lewis-George wins, then we're going to interfere with D.C., basically. Because what we have to remember is that D.C. is not a state.
00:09:45
Speaker
So we don't have a governor. We have a mayor. And that is a lot less power and sovereignty than a than a governor. So at any point, the federal government can interfere with how D.C. runs itself.
00:10:00
Speaker
But they haven't very much up until now because of something called home rule. But that's just. That's like the honor system. ah You know, we think you y'all good, so we'll leave you alone.
00:10:11
Speaker
But that can be overturned at any time. And we know this orange man has no recognition of rules and customs. So he'll do whatever he fucking feels like doing. And if he feels like coming into D.C. and saying, I need to wield more power or I need to call on Congress to wield more power, he'll do it.
00:10:31
Speaker
And then what? And then what happens for us? So unfortunately, as much as I would not want that to factor into my voting, I have to wonder, would it be better to vote for McDuffie? Because perhaps he will be able to get along better with the administration or have a little bit more of a a relationship that doesn't cause the administration to to do the things that Trump's talking about doing.
00:10:58
Speaker
yeah. So it's just it's really hard. It's really hard to sort of navigate all those things. And ah Bowser was under immense scrutiny and people were really coming for her because she was kind of kissing the ring a little bit with Trump, especially with the whole National Guard stuff.
00:11:13
Speaker
But I'm like, y'all, she has a very fine tightrope that she has to walk because She's not a governor. She's a mayor. And that is just, I can't emphasize enough how different that is in terms of like what it actually means for like the amount of independence you can have. Like DC is a city, not a state.
00:11:34
Speaker
And If the administration comes in and says, we don't like how y'all run and shit, we've already been impacted. We've already had a billion dollars with a B taken away from our budget. The budget, I believe, is four billion dollars.
00:11:49
Speaker
So that's like one fourth of the shit was art was taken away with the big, beautiful bill. And then we've also had the federal government intervene with ah laws that have been created by our city council to basically say it's not tough enough on crime.
00:12:10
Speaker
So we've already had that happening during this administration, and that could just get 10 times worse. So I feel like this this D.C. mayoral race is very consequential.
00:12:25
Speaker
And I just wish I felt more confident about who to vote for. But by the time this airs, I will have voted for somebody and there will be a winner. So we'll figure that out and we'll go from there and and talk more about it.
00:12:37
Speaker
But it is just a reminder of how we still have. You know, it's difficult to sort of navigate like, yes, I'm I'm a Democrat. I'm on the left.
00:12:48
Speaker
But that looks a lot of different ways. And how can we, you know, make the best political decisions for our future while also. keeping in mind that we don't want to just maintain the status quo. The status quo sucks. The establishment sucks.
00:13:02
Speaker
So I want to move us forward, but at the same time, I don't want to put us in a situation where we're being targeted more by the crazy nigga down... Well, i' was going to say down 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but he don't ever be there. Down Mar-a-Lago.
00:13:16
Speaker
So I just... A lot to think about and an unfortunate, unfortunate like factors that we have to consider because I wish I could just think about what's best for DC within DC and not have to even consider him. But alas, here we are. So that's the first man I want to leave me alone.
Critique of Elon Musk and SpaceX
00:13:35
Speaker
The second man I want to leave me alone is Elon fucking Musk.
00:13:39
Speaker
Can we just like, okay, so SpaceX is coming out with their IPO. By the time this airs, we may have a better sense of like how that went, but they're going public with this massive trillion dollar valuation, which is crazy.
00:13:56
Speaker
And the reason why I want to be left alone or like why that matters is because it's like, this is now, I don't want to have anything to do with Elon Musk. Like, I really don't. This man has ruined lives, right? He came in.
00:14:12
Speaker
And by the way, all of this going public and trying to make SpaceX this huge company that's doing all these different things beyond just like rockets, right? SpaceX is like very big and goes in a lot of different directions.
00:14:25
Speaker
I guarantee you this effort was helped by the things that he did while he was creating efficiency, which by the way, no efficiency to be found. Efficiency is not in the room with us. But while he was gutting agencies and doing different things during that first year of the presidency, I'm sure he set himself up to be in a better position for this moment right now, where he can go public with a trillion dollar valuation and, and
00:14:59
Speaker
The Nasdaq is going to just let the stock be counted immediately instead of the normal three month waiting period. All these things are connected. And I'm frustrated with media who is not reporting that, who is just talking about the IPO without talking about the fact that this man ran crazy through government for nine months or however long Doge existed, ruined people's lives,
00:15:25
Speaker
killed people. People are dead. the Ebola ah outbreak that's happening now is worse because we don't have USAID. Elon Musk contributed to that. So we can never, we should never be talking about Musk without talking about that.
00:15:40
Speaker
Okay. But somehow people are just such a fucking fangirl of his that they just talk about him like he's this genius when he's just a piece of shit who has audacity, which is most CEOs. And all he does is just...
00:15:53
Speaker
the The damn ah little filing that they have to do when they put out the IPO was like, if we don't go to space, we're going to end up like the dinosaurs and we must have interplanetary connections in order to further the human race. Shut up. Like, he's just big talk. He's just talking big.
00:16:14
Speaker
And people are like, wow, what a genius. Wow. What a genius. Tesla's in the toilet. Twitter slash X doesn't make any money. where Where's the genius at? You know the the most genius part of his business, the damn Wi-Fi.
00:16:28
Speaker
What's it called? Spacelink or Starlink. satellite Satellites that so you can connect to the internet if you live in a rural area. Congrats. Genius. Anyways.
00:16:42
Speaker
When it comes to Elon Musk, when it comes to SpaceX shit, like I'm just frustrated that he was able to set himself up for for this moment right now. And basically use us, use government to be able to like make this happen.
00:16:58
Speaker
And now I like, i have a 401k and I don't know, you know, wherever it's invested in, I'm sure SpaceX is going to be a part of that portfolio. i Can I go in there? Hey, finance experts, can I go in there even if I have a 401k? And can I say like, but not that one? You know what I mean? Because I don't want to invest my money with him.
00:17:19
Speaker
Tell me if I can go in and just specifically say, please don't invest my money with this one company. Is that possible? Even if it's like in the the indexes or whatever, i I'm saying words that I don't fully understand.
00:17:36
Speaker
But the point I'm trying to make is I don't ever want to give Elon Musk money. so I feel like that's like gonna happen um because of this IPO, which is very frustrating. But I just want him to like, stop trying to be this like super, I don't know, like visible hip CEO, just go do the shit, leave us alone, do what you got to And I'm just going to stay as far away as I possibly can.
00:18:05
Speaker
And I really want media to not be reporting on him as if he's some genius when he actually is like responsible for the destruction of a lot of people's lives, the destruction of key ah economic drivers here where I live in the DMV. Like, fuck that guy.
00:18:23
Speaker
Fuck that guy. A lot. I just...
00:18:33
Speaker
I just want to exist. It's like, I just want to, I, me, I want me and my people to be able to just exist here in the DMV and just live and thrive the best way we can. And it's like, we have these billionaire, crusty, dusty, janky ass white men impacting our lives. Like, what are you doing here? Like, leave me alone. Like, go away from me with this. It's just like,
00:18:59
Speaker
Both of them are just like in that space of, you know, interference. And that's what they ever since this latest, you know, administration, that's the role that I feel like they've just been playing. It's just interfering and fucking shit up.
00:19:15
Speaker
So that's my rant on that. Fuck SpaceX and Elon Musk.
Love for 'Love Island'
00:19:22
Speaker
And last but not least, I have to share what I am currently obsessed with. And you already know, if you know me, you already know what I'm going to say. It is Love Island. ah the best worst TV I've ever watched, you guys. Like this show is so crazy and good.
00:19:45
Speaker
I'm not going to go too deep into it because I have a whole series of videos that I am creating with Misha, who was ah the first guest on the podcast probably about a couple months ago now. She and I have a series on TikTok and Instagram where we talk all about Love Island. It's called Villa Talk, so please be sure to watch that.
00:20:08
Speaker
But I'll just say, if you are judging the show or if you feel like, oh my God, why is everybody so into it? Please just give it a chance because it's actually such a smart show because it's not trying to be reality television. like It's a game show. It is like very contrived, unnatural situations that these people are in.
00:20:31
Speaker
But in their response to the situations and the way that they navigate and connect with people throughout the process is like helping them find who, you know, their partner could be.
00:20:44
Speaker
And so it's just very, it's almost like this, social experiment in a way. And then they do a good job of sort of finding a good cross-section of people from different walks of life and different races and all of that. I think they do an exceptional job much better than a lot of other reality shows and especially a lot of other dating shows. They do an exception exceptional job of finding Black women of all different sort of like shades and types. There's a lot of different types of black women, all beautiful and all different. And I really appreciate that because a lot of times it's just like, okay, we filled our quota of like the one light skinned black girl when there's really obviously a lot more to us than that. And even the men of color,
00:21:35
Speaker
The black men this season, i want them to mix it up a little bit more, which I, you know, we're only like a week and a half in. So there's a lot of time left. But generally speaking, they do a good job with the black men as well.
00:21:47
Speaker
So I just appreciate that. I think they do a good job casting black people. Um, and I just think it's like, it actually is a lot more relatable than you think that it would be because of just the different types of people, how they're reacting to the situations. I think you can sort of see yourself like in certain situations.
00:22:07
Speaker
Um, so i actually just really think it's like a fun, good show. And I think, especially with everything going on in the world and with all of the constant heaviness that we're having to deal with on like I was going to say a daily basis is even more than that. A minutely basis.
00:22:23
Speaker
What we deserve some nice escapism television, which I think Love Island definitely is. So i think it's a great show. If you've been watching it, please let me know. And definitely, like I said, be sure to check in on my TikTok and my Instagram for the Love Island Villa Talk series with me and Misha.
Upcoming Content and Social Media Engagement
00:22:44
Speaker
And with that short and sweet today, guys, that's all I have for you. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll be back in two weeks. I'll also be having my Love Island Villa talk every day on TikTok and Instagram.
00:22:59
Speaker
And we have the Virgin Voyages cruise vlog content coming soon as well. So there's a lot going on. Please follow me on social media to make sure you don't miss it. I'm Brittany Geneva on all of the things.
00:23:12
Speaker
And I definitely look forward to talking to you again soon.