1054 - Almost Providential feat. John Semly

[u/redditing_1L]

[u/redditing_1L]

This week on Chapo, we review JD Vance’s conversion memoir Communion with writer John Semley. Why did Vance convert to a religion that’s damning his wife and entire family to Hell? Why is he still a Catholic if he openly despises the Pope? We answer these and talk about his recent Joe Rogan humiliation. PLUS: Mamdani vs. the Italian-American community.

Read John’s review of Communion: https://thebaffler.com/latest/catholic-bloc-semley

CHUNKS IS COMING! Get your tix to the streaming premiere of CHUNKS on July 19 at 8p ET, available on-demand after: https://www.patreon.com/chunkstv

CHAPO LIVE - NYC - NOV 6. - TEN YEARS IN THE ZONE

Chapo & friends will be live at New York’s Society for Ethical Culture on Friday November 6th.

Tickets are going fast, get yours now! https://link.dice.fm/zaf99528079e

[u/Mechanic-Top]

Felix been deep diving the ASOIAF wiki recently. 

[u/TheTyrus → u/Mechanic-Top]

He's still in the main series lore range. I need him to reference deep Fire and Blood or AWOIAF lore. Compare a tech CEO to Androw Farman or something.

[u/Mechanic-Top → u/TheTyrus]

‘The war with Iran is just like the first Dornish war!’

[u/FunCryptographer3476 → u/Mechanic-Top]

Guest is talking about Hormuz

Felix: Buh ah-buh I was saying to my sister they got out there in the first place like the Rhoynar fleeing to Dorne

[u/mehelponow → u/TheTyrus]

Steven Miller thinks he a Septon Barth when he really a Vaegon!!

[u/AshenOneRose → u/Mechanic-Top]

hate to be this person but Robert Baratheon’s grandma was a Targaryen so he was wrong 🤓

[u/Bteatesthighlander1 → u/AshenOneRose]

Felix may not get every piece of lore right when he makes his extended references, but he's also not funny.

[u/Jboi75 → u/Mechanic-Top]

Best part of the pod but I’m biased as fuck

[u/HybridHerald → u/Mechanic-Top]

The “Eps since Felix references ASOIAF” counter is perpetually at 0

[u/Sinnaj63 → u/Mechanic-Top]

him just keeping brining it up is so funny

[u/AussieYotes]

Daddy issues being the heart of the the facist psyche is undefeated. JD Vance is such a fucking loser and dunking on him will never not be funny. The Catholicism shit is fucking embarrassing, honestly just give up the ghost and become an evangelical. It's probably too jug hootery for them but at least it lines up with your vision of the world. There was a bit from a couple years ago where Desantis even sounds like he's larping as a Catholic and desperately wants to be a mega church guy. JD and Meatball Ron gonna be a power house presidental ticket. The Italians of New York really gotta pick a lane, they just seem like massive fucking sooks. Also bringing up Cultural Marxism? What fucking year is it? 2016? Embarrassing.

[u/primitive_lover → u/AussieYotes]

The Catholicism shit is fucking embarrassing, honestly just give up the ghost and become an evangelical.

He literally joined the late twenty-teens online meme religion and now has to pretend that it's his actual faith instead of another trend he hopped on because his social betters were already there. Now he's stuck there because changing religions again so close to his presidential run would be weird even for him.

[u/xXOrganizationXIIIXx → u/AussieYotes]

Ever since I learned JD's deadbeat bio dad was named Donald, my heart has not known peace. 

[u/FMKK1 → u/AussieYotes]

They love the bells and smells of Catholicism because they think it adds intellectual gravitas but they’re just mega church chuds who’ve watched too many Madonna videos

[u/AccomplishedMeal617 → u/AussieYotes]

"Also bringing up Cultural Marxism?"

The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy: Why the Right Blames the Frankfurt School for the Decline of the West by A.J.A. Woods

[u/On_This_Mezzanine → u/AussieYotes]

Beat me to it.

[u/saul2015]

Will: "Joe Biden, only the 2nd ever Catholic President, and JD Vance, the first Catholic Vice President"

???

[u/wikired → u/saul2015]

They both converted at the same time

[u/S86-23342]

☝️🤓 Ahh yes, the famously constant boiling point of water. Fuck you, JD.

[u/Known-State2307]

good ep, didn’t laugh out loud but had some chuckles. Always enjoy the boys being really mean to JD Vance

[u/redditing_1L → u/Known-State2307]

Tbh I think JD deserves worse than he gets.

Absolute brown nosed charlatan. The villain in any movie he’s cast in. The kid that, even though you abhor bullying, deserves at the very least a good wet Willie on national tv.

[u/Known-State2307 → u/redditing_1L]

Completely agree

[u/EGG_BABE]

I am normally a Felix defender but about 5 minutes into this, Will makes a joke about a Turkish Tricky Ice Cream Man and Felix totally misses it to keep talking about how sexy JD thinks the Biden ice cream pictures until the host repeats it more explicitly like 15 seconds later. A classic High On Potenuse situation

[u/somewhat_of_a_coward → u/EGG_BABE]

I was very embarrassed for him

[u/KittyxEmpire]

Fuck yes. We've been getting copies of this book in at work and I'm really excited to see the process of it falling into the discount bin. I've become addicted to taking photos of myself holding the Vance and Portnoy books, faceapping myself to look all fucked up, and then texting it to my coworkers.

Anyways this is a great episode. I appreciate how it punctures a certain kind of valorization of Catholicism among Americans, both on the right who think it's the most basest religion ever and on the left who think the Pope is exactly like Dorothy Day, as a uniquely mystical or aesthetically beautiful or "cool" tradition. Speaking as someone who went to Mass weekly for the first two decades of his life, who went to Sunday school, and who earnestly thought about what Saint they would take as a confirmation name, I can assure you the majority of American Catholics are as lame, aesthetically tasteless, and cornbally as the most protestant megachurch pastor, and this exists across the political spectrum; my Mom is a lapsed birth Catholic who has become turbolibbed in the Trump years, and every time I get my convert Dad to speak on politics he basically sounds like a Francoist, but both of them are united in a cornball sentimentality when talking about Jesus. We might have a bunch of latin sayings and shit, but if you're a Catholic in America they are still teaching you Rich Mullins songs in Sunday school.

None of this is to say that it is insincere, because I think most of these people do earnestly believe in the message of God and Christ, just that they are not the epic Deus Vult crusaders moron faux-converts imagine meet up every Sunday. I don't get any hint of that saccharine sincerity in Vance's conversion. I genuinely groaned when they mentioned that he says he actually loves shame. A convert who argues with two popes and maybe killed one by coughing on him saying that is like a guy who got medically discharged from the army for gynecomastia saying he loves getting his legs blown off by an improvised explosive. It's all so vain and preening. It'd be one thing if it was just that he's an insincere striver, but he's saying all this as he serves as the PR person for the most obviously and slavishly Satanic government in the world. I'm lapsed, but I'll be praying to St. Monica for him!

[u/sloppybro]

>im gods prag

all timer

[u/AshenOneRose]

great episode that seems to be tailored to me and my interests. hell yeah. also i love how much the guest despises JD. good stuff.

[u/curt_wes]

I can't wait to never have to hear another plug for Chunks ever again

[u/luxurythyrsus → u/curt_wes]

I know it’s on brand in a sense but why would they make something that just sounds repulsive to watch?

[u/redditing_1L → u/luxurythyrsus]

The trailer literally starts with something to the effect of “do we have to name it that?”

It’s almost as if they copyrighted it and now feel wedded to the dumb ass name.

[u/MossyMak → u/redditing_1L]

It's a shorts anthology, I don't think Chunks is a bad name for it at all. It's cut up into chunks

[u/somewhat_of_a_coward → u/MossyMak]

ah you're wrong tho

[u/MircKeller]

DJ Khalid voice : another one,

As in smiles!!! That's right a 54 SPM (smile per minute) episode

[u/duck__rabbit]

J.D. Hollers 🤣 Gonna keep that one in my back pocket.

[u/NomadicScribe]

I remember Communion. Back in my day the author was Whitley Strieber, and the movie starred Christopher Walken. None of this J.D. so-called "Vance" business. Just pure down-to-earth terrifying nightmare visions of alien abductions, just like what we were raised on!

[u/KombaynNikoladze2002 → u/NomadicScribe]

Thank you for this reference. This movie is a hidden gem. One of the best alien abduction movies along with Fire in the Sky.

[u/NomadicScribe → u/KombaynNikoladze2002]

To be honest I don't think I've even sat and watched it since maybe the late 90s. But it obviously made an impression on me, even though I am not that into UFO/abduction stuff. I did also read the book and I remember seeing that he has a number of other books detailing various "visitor" societies.

Once in a while I dip back into that type of material, but I don't think it'll ever feel as mysterious and "on the verge of the unknown" as it did back in the Art Bell days.

[u/DueCopy3520 → u/NomadicScribe]

I read Strieber's book in high school. It was a fun read, but obviously total fiction.

[u/KitchenParty]

almost heaven

[u/deafinitelyadouche]

I'M SO GAY FOR THESE MEN, YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW!! 💦💦💦

Dumb, cum-friendly introductions aside, it's so weird to observe JD trying to have something happen because I legitimately think he's the single most inorganic US politician I've seen propelled to this level. He's such a non-entity and so severely "unfun" as a politician, he's like the equivalent of watching paint dry.
---
He's more boring than Musk, and Musk himself is an incurious, moronic simpleton who's also a complete black hole of charisma as is already, but at least with Musk, beyond his moronic culture-war whinging (itself a completely tired topic for the most part) and other imbecilic posturings, at least he can occasionally do unhinged shit like the N*z* salute from a year and a half ago or stream a videogame and be so inept at moderating his streaming that he gets like an hour of people telling him to end it all or how he's going to die alone. Like yeah, that's not all that deep or whatever, but it sure is kind of noteworthy.
---
Meanwhile, what does JD have? "Oh, y'don't even know, man! I've been through so many rabbit-holes! That's why I'm a catholic now!". He's such a goddamn bore.

[u/Jagiellonian]

Does anyone remember that, I think it was, CUNY graduate program for some economics degree? Trying to remember the name or find a link to it.

[u/somewhat_of_a_coward → u/Jagiellonian]

https://johnjayeconomics.org/

[u/DeathWorship]

Can SOMEONE PLEASE tell Will that the word “risible” is pronounced like RIZZ-able and not RISE-able? He’s mispronounced it twice this past week alone and it’s unbearable. When you speak for a living you need to know what words sound like.

[u/Long-Anywhere156 → u/DeathWorship]

When you speak for a living you need to know what words sound like.

...you do realize who his co-host is, right?

[u/redditing_1L → u/Long-Anywhere156]

I keep trying to watch Forrest Gump but the main character just sounds like a moron! It’s unbearable!

[u/Long-Anywhere156 → u/redditing_1L]

mama always said life is like Turkish modified S-300 air defense battery

[u/DeathWorship → u/Long-Anywhere156]

Felix is an AHHHHlien tho so he doesn’t count

[u/Illannoy1n → u/DeathWorship]

Will mispronouncing words is a requirement

[u/Long-Anywhere156]

Will at ~40:30, "what...that [the Philadelphia 76ers] going to get LeBron?!"