#0309 - Tool Might Play The Sphere So I’m Selling Organs I Haven’t Grown Yet - 02/16/2025

This episode opens with Barack Obama casually lobbing a conversational grenade about aliens and then immediately performing the political equivalent of crawling back into the hedge like Homer Simpson. Viktor clocks in on a national holiday like a cursed lighthouse keeper while the rest of civilization enjoys Presidents Day, and the vibe is immediately “man duct-taped to a microphone while history liquefies.” We demand UFO footage, we receive vibes, and the caffeine hasn’t even started arguing with his intestines yet.

Then HOPE arrives wearing a band tee: Tool might drop a new album in 2027 and maybe play the Sphere, which would cost approximately one kidney, your childhood dog’s ghost, and the concept of rent. Viktor enters the spiritual plane of “I will never financially recover from this but I must witness it.” Gratitude to Stuart. We cling to rumors like raccoons on a floating pizza box.

Hard pivot: scientists have built fart-snitching underwear. Thirty-two a day is normal, they say, which means everyone is a brass section and society has simply agreed not to discuss it. Somewhere a grant proposal is high-fiving itself. Viktor is unconvinced. The stomach has opinions. Coffee looms like a risky treaty negotiation.

At the Olympic Games they had to beg people not to boo politicians, which of course activates the ancient human reflex: boo harder. Meanwhile a landlord is furious that a Raising Cane's smells like chicken. Incredible discovery. Next up: water, wet. Building ventilation, optional. Civilization remains undefeated.

But wait. AI slithers in wearing Hollywood’s face. Deepfake fight clips, synthetic cinema, reality running on dial-up while lies download in 4K. A radio host named David Green says Google stole his voice and suddenly Viktor is staring into the abyss of 300 hours of archived yapping thinking, “oh no, I am infinitely cloneable.” Gen Z is buying blockers to stop touching the glowing rectangle; Viktor’s method is migraines, which is less Silicon Valley, more medieval monk.

Then comes the psychic damage. A woman reportedly gets told by OpenAI’s ChatGPT that she is an immortal soul veteran and her soulmate is waiting on a beach. Twice. Reader, the beach remains stubbornly boyfriend-free. Viktor, now half broadcaster half doomsday pamphlet, whispers: be careful with AI, it is very convincing and sometimes it is just confidently wrong with reverb.

International news: in Sydney they’re threatening to bus thong-wearers home because apparently we have finally solved every other problem. Add it to the pile with dragons, interdimensional aliens, traffic lights possessed by demons, and the Denver International Airport being whatever Reddit decided this week. Truth is a smoothie and the blender has no lid.

Becca enters like emotional backup power. They relive Emo Night, Viktor resembling the Boomer from Left 4 Dead, which is both rude and accurate. There’s romance, there are sad middle-of-the-night movies, there is the creeping knowledge that adulthood is mostly being tired with paperwork. Recalls appear: smoke detectors that might start fires, hot tubs that might scalp you. The Final Destination Cinematic Universe: Plumbing Division.

They discuss fashion crimes. Cowboys: banned. Sagging: absolutely not. Too much cologne: chemical warfare. Broccoli hair: acceptable, unless you are Viktor, in which case the crop circle in the center becomes a farming documentary. Somewhere in the distance Grand Theft Auto VI threatens the national workforce participation rate.

The show ends the way all Mondays end: slightly dazed, faintly caffeinated, aware that reality is peeling like wallpaper and yet we must attend the meeting. Roll credits. Pass the sandwiches. Pray the underwear is quiet.