I know what you're thinking. There's no way that that's real. He's faking it just like Bo Burnham did. Well, unfortunately for me, this is... this is real. I decided to actually turn 30 on camera for content. So let's watch that happen, shall we? I shouldn't have done that. Over the last six months, I have made many references to a review I was writing about John Green's collection of critical essays, the Anthropocene Reviewed. It was supposed to complete a spiritual trilogy of filmed existential crises, beginning with my videos on Derrick DelGaudio's In and of Itself and Bo Burnham's Inside. It was a massive undertaking longer than both of those combined that would perhaps serve as the week air reviews series finale, or at least it's Aventures Endgame, a video whose contents would forever change the channel as a whole. If nothing else, it would be the closest thing to a memoir I would ever write. My numbers never really recovered from the hiatus I took to finish a draft of that script, which was made all the more frustrating by the fact that I didn't like it. 22,000 words, the longest thing I had ever written, and when I read it, start to finish, I felt nothing. I began asking some new questions, harder ones. What did it say about my writing that a work so personal felt so insubstantial? What did it say about me? I'd originally hoped to get that video out on the third anniversary of this channel back in August, where it would also serve as the retrospective I wanted but didn't have time to do otherwise. Then I thought maybe I could fix it in time for this birthday I'm having right now, but no. I'm not even really convinced that I'll make the current plan of next May when it could celebrate the anniversary of the book's release.  By the time I'm ready to dive back in, there may be nothing left to say. I don't know. 2021 has been a deeply weird year in a different way than 2020 was. Fear has been replaced with confusion, pure stasis with general unsureness. Every step forward also feels like half a step back, but then again, I'm not even sure what forward means right now. Can you tell that I'm turning 30? I feel like even if it hadn't been in the title and probably the thumbnail too, you can just tell. For a long time, I thought I wasn't going to care about this arbitrary milestone of completing three decades as a variably autonomous entity. Certainly, it did not hit me like it did an old friend whose same birthday was last week. He couldn't even make it through inside. He got to that song, shut it off, and never went back, whereas I ended up in the top two percent of Bo Burnham's listeners on Spotify this year. Honestly, both of those are pretty bad. I obviously knew it was coming, but it's only been in the last couple of months that I really found myself ascribing any sort of meaning to it. A 30th birthday is just one day that represents one year that represents one decade, but it's just a day. Am I fundamentally different than I was yesterday? Of course not. Milestones stopped mattering five years ago and stopped affecting me long before that. To be honest, nothing has changed about my life as a result of a birthday since I was 18, when I could suddenly vote and die from my country, and also feel really uncomfortable with the two-and-change-year age gap that I had with my then-girlfriend. But I don't drink, so 21 was a wash, and I rarely rent cars, so those extra fees incurred by being a driver under 25 were purely theoretical. The moments that defined the last 10 years of my life centered around times of active choice. The reality is that while people make dozens or hundreds of choices each day, they're mostly subconscious and rarely meaningful. And inertia is a powerful force, and our brains tend to keep us on a track until we hit something and are forced to confront exactly where we've gone. But when you're young, you're also hugely limited in the choices you can make. Like, if you're not going to just straight up leave your situation, anything you do will ultimately be determined by the authority figures with whom you live. I only made one real decision before I turned 20, and I had no idea how far-reaching its impacts would be. My attending Sarah Lawrence College was the catalyst for everything that has come after. A research project I was doing for a film history seminar resulted in me reaching out to the editors at Flixes.com, which eventually resulted in me coming on board there, which resulted in me getting other writing opportunities, which set me up for the day job that I have had for more than six years, and also this YouTube channel. The co-ed dorms meant that I lived next to the person who became my significant other for more than five years, and their mother's apartment on the Upper West Side was my home during the summers and also after graduation until I finally made another decision and blew the whole damn thing up three days before Christmas 2015. Being able to live in that apartment quite cheaply gave me a level of flexibility and freedom that was critical as I found my feet in post-collegiate life. Sarah Lawrence was also the only school I applied to in the New York metro area.  Like, it's so foundational that it's not even worth thinking about. Who cares what my life would have been like if I had gone to Brandeis, which was the other school I was seriously considering? There's no lesson in that.  But maybe you can learn from my mistakes. Sometimes love isn't enough. Always communication is key. I loved my partner well past the end of our relationship. I don't know that I was in love with them at the end, but I unequivocally loved them. It didn't matter. We'd been together for five years. I needed to know if our lives were going in the same direction, if we were going to be together in 50, because if we weren't, what were we doing? We met as college first years. We started dating three weeks later, and they moved into my dorm room with my two other roommates pretty much immediately. Am I a U-Haul lesbian? Five years later, I was unhappy. I didn't know how to say that. But I never really tried. I can justify that in any number of ways, but the fact is that they had no idea it was coming, and that is fucked up.  Anyone who lives without regrets does so by convincing themselves that they are in the best possible timeline. Certainly all of those mistakes made them the person they are today. Does that mean they're better? I knew about Bitcoin by 2012. Similarly, I actually considered putting money into Shiba Inucoin like a year and a half ago as a joke. And the latter hurts more because I did have some money then that I could have burned in a way I kind of didn't back in 2012. Am I better off for not being a crypto millionaire? Maybe? I do make myself feel better with a reminder that I forget passwords on a near daily basis and have lost account backup codes before.  And the reality of that would be far more depressing than the hypothetical that I'm in.  And I think I would finally make that feature film that I keep talking about, you know, Daylight, the cabin in the woods story that I started writing all the way back in 2014. Sure would like to make that someday. The only male character in his early 30s, one of the chances that I get to make it before I'm older than he is. Zero. It's weird for me to think that the first 52 weeks of this YouTube channel made for unquestionably the most creatively prolific time of my entire life. Because when I think about my high point there, I always go back to April's 2014 to 2015. In my final semester of college, I shot a martial arts psychodrama that was originally intended as just a funny little side project because a then friend had said, I want to be in an action movie. And I said, okay, and wrote one. But it got more and more complex until I delayed the whole thing a year so that I could make it into a thesis of sorts. I also shot someone else's heist movie, which was when I learned many of the fundamental lessons about cinematography that I still carry with me. I was very run and gun back then, only one scene in my film used artificial lighting, and the practicals weren't particularly well considered if I'm being honest. Sam was the opposite. He had worked as a PA on real sets, and he wanted to do it like they did. My camera was handheld, and we put his on a real dolly with actual tracks. The heist movie came out okay. I like to mind more, but his certainly looked nicer. He told me after that he learned basically nothing in the process but paid $10,000 for the privilege. I learned a lot, and it didn't cost me anything. I shot real that fall. Sam helped out, actually. It wouldn't be done for several more years, but actual production on the thing happened that same year. And that wasn't even all. Before I officially became a guy with a day job in April 2015, I shot Not Too Young, which remains in many ways my magnum opus. After I became a guy with a day job, things turned for the worse. Over the next few years, I killed the follow-up to Not Too Young, which was tentatively titled Shooter after filming about a third of it. Then I stopped the in retrospect needlessly complicated rap EP I had been working on called Suicide Note. I did do two performance art pieces, and those went well, but also literally no one saw them. So did they really happen? I started working on another show in 2019 called Hunger, and had shot a good chunk of that before my frequent collaborator, and the closest thing I've ever had to amuse, just stop talking to me. For a while, I was mad.  I don't know. I was just there to support her, and her response was nothing ever again.  So it's karma, I guess. I'm not mad anymore. Time heals wounds, but it mostly dulls emotion. All of the grudges that I had at 20 and 22, and even 27 are just gone now. Hating people is so much work. Being sad is exhausting, but it's also effortless. That whole thing represented a broader issue though, which is that she had always been a pretty bad friend, but I just let that be the case because I didn't and still don't have many of them. I have lots of acquaintances with whom I will talk about far too many things because if I'm willing to talk about all this shit on YouTube, imagine what I'm willing to talk about when there's not a permanent record. But those interactions are about as real as this is. I am not playing a character on YouTube, but I'm also not giving you the raw, unfiltered version of myself. I'm not even sure I know what that looks like anymore. But true authenticity is overrated anyway. You can be vulnerable without being boring. That's what I tell myself. A couple months ago, I was watching videos about what makes Gen Z humor interesting, and one by Ola Sunvia heavily referenced this other video by a channel called Dreg, maybe, about post-truth satire and the different forms of irony that have developed as comedy has gotten weirder, specifically what he calls post-irony and meta-irony. Regular irony is straightforward. Say something that you don't mean. Post-irony is the next level. Say something you do mean like you don't mean it. Meta-irony is when you've gone so far that it is impossible for an outsider to tell if you mean what you're saying. The section of Inside where Bo Burnham is putting a projection of himself saying you shouldn't kill yourself over his disinterested future self is a good example of that last one. I know there's a joke, but I don't know what it is. Watching those videos, I realize that I have ended up with a habit of speaking post-ironically. I almost always say what I mean, but I often don't say it like I mean it. This is especially true when I am talking about myself, and I think it's part of that whole need to turn my problems into a show under the assumption that no one would care otherwise. Dang. But like, why should they? I'm a lot to deal with, and maybe that's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and I would be less a lot if I didn't need to perform my emotions. But that's not something I want to think about right now. Fortunately, or maybe exactly the opposite of that, I haven't given myself a lot of time to think that deeply. In the last two months, I have attended five concerts, eleven plays, three comedy shows, one YouTuber show, and seen almost but not quite 30 movies, many of them in theaters. I've also completed several YouTube videos and worked on several others that I didn't complete. I also traveled for Thanksgiving to see my family, and there were some other social events scattered in there. And again, I have a day job, which has been more stressful than usual over the last few months. Altogether, it is an even more hectic version of the life I lived in the before times, the one that made the week I reviewed possible in the first place. Almost all of these things that I saw are interesting enough to merit their own reviews. And had I seen them in a more spaced out fashion, maybe I'd have been able to do that. But with things as they are, it is getting harder and harder for me to finish anything. I indirectly predicted this in my second year retrospective when I described the channel as built on hot takes and noted that the further away I get from the initial experience, the less I believe I have to add to the conversation. Virtually every video now takes at least a week for me to write versus the day or two it took in 2018 and 2019, which means I increasingly reached the point where my opinion feels superfluous, and I end up just scrapping it. By enforcing that Monday schedule in my first year, I was able to put out 52 weeks worth of videos without too much trouble, because I never had time to second-guess myself. Those reviews are worse in pretty much every way than the ones that I'm doing right now, and there are plenty of arguments to be made that quality is more important than quantity to anyone who isn't an algorithm.  But this channel is called The Week, I review. And though I did try to get back to that after my hiatus and got a few consecutive weeks in, I think it's time to admit that I will never get back to that place. Sometimes I have a fully written script, and I stare at this part of my living room and think absolutely not. I'd hoped to move into a place where I could just leave my equipment set up so that it wasn't such a hassle anytime I wanted to shoot, but we didn't do that. For every other part of my life, it was the right move. For the channel, not so much.  So there is arguably a creative upside to this, which is that no two videos will ever look exactly the same because it's going up from scratch every time. And a key aspect of this whole enterprise was a desire on my part to practice filmmaking in general and lighting in particular. But to do that, I have to really practice. I have to take more time to try different setups. The one for my last night in Soho Review was radically different than any that came before it, but it also took more than twice as long to set up. And do you remember what I said a couple minutes ago about all those things I've been doing? I don't really have time, and when I do, I don't typically want to spend it making light plots. Sadly, I am not sure my general lighting ability has improved all that much. Sure, I can make one of my YouTube videos look good, but could I make someone else's? What about a movie? Could I light a scene in a way that would make you feel something?  It was completely unusable. I spent $700 the next day on this light right here so that I could never fail like that again, but it was too late.   I need to get better at things. I want to, but despite paying for Skillshare since May of 2020, I haven't watched a single class to completion. There's just, there's too much. It's overwhelming, so I don't do anything. The one time I tried, I also got overwhelmed.  It won't.  And that said song was only the second I have released, period? I've had the exclusive license to a third track from the same guy who did those first two beats as well as multiple other non-exclusive instances for the entirety of 2021. What have I done with them? Nothing. I tried, and it always went nowhere. Every time I've had an idea that was maybe interesting, I just couldn't stick the landing. A couple weeks ago, Netflix dropped Tic Tic Boom, an adaptation of the late Jonathan Larson's breakout musical before rent blew up the entire dang world. It's good, I liked it a lot. And if you know what it's about, you're likely unsurprised that the next day I listened to its opening song for three straight hours, and have done many more since. Had Spotify not stopped tracking on October 31st, it would have been in my top ten for the year easy. For those who don't know, well, 3090 is a song about turning 30 in the year 1990. The show is about Larson's conflict between his justified belief in his own talent against his inability to succeed with his first big musical, Superbia. My mom was friends with Jonathan Larson in high school, and she and my dad actually went to a reading of Superbia on one of their early dates. As he approaches 30, which he likes to remind people is three years older than Stephen Sondheim, R.I.P., was when he broke out as the lyricist for West Side Story. The movie didn't make me feel better about turning 30, but it did make me glad that I never thought I would be a prodigy. I certainly hoped that I would be creatively successful at some point, but there was no real time marker there, and so the fact that I have officially missed the boat on prodigy as a designation isn't as psychologically damaging for me as it is for some people in my position. The movie did make me feel worse about my inability to write music, though.  I want to be able to make my own music.   That sounds fun. You think that I've learned by now? After graduation I wanted to join a gym, but having lived on a campus with a gym that I rarely went to, I knew I needed some sort of incentive. Ultimately I decided to go with a stick rather than a carrot, an absurdly high monthly cost that I would look at and think, fuck, I need to do something about that. And I couldn't do it until I had some kind of employment, so it was a few years, but eventually I found one. The Sports Center at Chelsea, Pierce. Why? I don't know, they had a pool, and I wanted a pool. Problem was, they only had annual contracts. $1,928 hurt a lot, but as soon as the money left my account, what difference did it make? It was already gone. I went six times and gave up. To get any sort of refund, you had to prove that you had moved more than 20 miles from the location, so I temporarily changed my bank address to my parents' house so that I could provide the gym with a statement showing a different address out of state. There was still a $300 penalty though, so in the end I wasted somewhere between $800 and $1,000. I haven't paid for a gym since, so like good for me I guess, but a financial millstone just doesn't seem to be the motivation that I'd hoped for. Then again, I don't really know what it's like to face true financial hardship. I had very little spending money in college and was unemployed for five months at the start of 2015 and needed to cut way the heck back on spending, but I was being supported in ways that meant I was never at serious risk of hunger or homelessness.  I am very lucky. I was also taught to treat every credit card like a debit card and never spend money I don't have, and to date I have never paid interest on a credit card bill. But I do wish I spent less, and specifically less on stuff for this YouTube channel. I already mentioned how much that light cost, and while that is the most expensive item in my kit other than the camera lens, it's not my much. There are thousands of dollars of stuff just off-screen right now to make this video look nice. Plus I just decimated my savings account to buy this, which will be a better editing machine than the desktop that I have been upgrading myself over the last 10 years. And there's something sad about that, but it means I better keep editing videos to justify the largest purchase I have ever made. And all of this other stuff is just sitting around in my closet or next to my desk or even under this couch I'm sitting on. If I don't have the channel, what is the point of any of that? Sure, maybe someday I'll be able to use some of them on a set and feel vindicated because I don't have to rent anything, but will I though? It's classic sunk cost fallacy, right? I have come too far and spent too much money to give up. Just a few months ago, I paid the fees to make the week I review an actual business like I should have done the day I entered the YouTube Partner Program. Last week, I finally got the business certificate notarized while working on this video. It would be ridiculous to stop just as I was legally starting, but I'm also unhappy again. I really wish I could say that I don't care that my recent return to interesting but niche subjects in the wake of New York's broader reopening has resulted in a notable drop in views. After just one video missing my desired 1000 view floor in the first two thirds of the year, four of the last six have. I wish that didn't bother me because no matter how much I care, it doesn't matter. My caring doesn't make people click. I think they're good videos, whether you have seen or are even really interested in the subjects I'm discussing and I want people to watch them.  And so that's already swirling in my head and suddenly I'm coming up on this new decade and those two things together are just making each other feel so much more dramatic. I started this channel in August 2018 when I was 26. I was already pretty old for YouTube, but that was okay. It was fine that I didn't know where things were going to go because I was starting off on a new adventure. It's not new anymore. A lot has changed in other parts of my life and I think there's a decent chance that if I hadn't spent all of this time on YouTube it might have changed even more. I have definitely sacrificed more than I would like to admit to do all this, especially in that first couple of years when I locked myself to the schedule. But despite all that, I still don't know where things are going to go. Or maybe I do and just don't want to admit it. I've got three videos with more than 100,000 views, two of them arguably hit and got those views in a short period of time, but to what end? I don't really believe I deserve success, but the fact that my channel has more than a million views and fewer than 15,000 subscribers says something. The fact that nearly 90% of this channel's watch time has come from people who are not subscribed definitely says something. They say things about me personally and they're not good. I always knew that the premise of this channel was flawed and have said as much, but now I think it runs deeper. The truth is that I'm just not as interesting as I need to be for this to work. That is definitely what I got from my read-through of that review of the Anthropocene Review. And in a different way, it's what I'm getting from this. Now let's be clear about something. I decided from day one to make myself the through line in these videos. And that was clearly a divisive choice, but that's not all I'm doing here. Outside of these retrospective type deals that are all me all the time, I am only a piece of the story I'm trying to tell. I use my experiences and beliefs as a way to explain my reaction to an understanding of a work. I do this in hopes of furthering your understanding of it and ideally some broader idea that it represents. And like, I probably don't need to convince you, the person who has gotten this far into the video of that. But I get frustrated when people tell me to get to the point because it is all the point. When I interned at The Daily Beast, I had it impressed upon me that every story needs an angle, even a review. Have an intention and make sure that everything you say is in service of it. And despite how it may seem to some people, that's what I do here. Every video has to justify its own existence to me before it sees the light of day and if slash when I eventually realize I've got nothing to say, I just stop. This doesn't feel like burnout the way previous periods of frustration did. The idea of doing another video doesn't fill me with dread and exhaustion and make me feel like I need to go sleep. But it's clear that something's wrong. It used to be so straightforward, writing so many reviews, and it's not anymore. Maybe I'm just bored. The basic process of the week I review video hasn't changed in roughly three and a half years of the 157 videos I've done, how many don't follow the exact same formula? It's a rhetorical question. It's not enough. And a depressingly large percentage of those that don't come from the early days of the channel. I realized this when I went to actually count the number of experiments that I was so much more varied at the beginning and it made me so upset that I stopped counting. I know, those videos weren't great. My vlogs on Nuevo Vallarta and Islands of Adventure weren't even good, though I do think I'd gotten a bit better for my two California-based subjects, eating the moon pies and chocolate pies doing that faux screen recording thing for searching. Literally all of that was in the first two months of this channel. And now I just follow a routine. It's most frustrating with the editing. I have come to loathe editing these things. It's boring finding assets, putting them in a timeline, setting up the little fly-in-and-out situation for each. None of that is fun or even interesting. I guess I never really thought about how I would feel at Video 158 when I chose this style. I don't know if things would have been different if I had. It's not like I've ever enjoyed any part of editing that isn't the actual cutting and assembling. Like, going back to my own short films, my least favorite part was reviewing the videos reviewing the footage. So often I didn't. I would routinely do any given shot a dozen or several times and when choosing a take I just went with the last one. Like why would I have stopped if it wasn't good? Sometimes I would check the one or two previous, but typically not. During the initial editing of Reel I was working on the big two-on-one fight with the stunt folks and there was a moment where one of the performers kind of missed a kick and you couldn't even tell what was supposed to have happened and I knew it looked bad but I pretended that it didn't until someone else said, hey, the fight's great except there's this one part I don't know what happened and so I tried to figure out a way to just cut it entirely and go on to the next move but that didn't work and then I thought for the first and hey, maybe we got it in a different take and we had literally the one right before it. I just never thought to check. Classic Alec. More complex videos are more pleasurable to make because they require more thought and effort. When I say that my favorite videos are my reviews of I Can't See, Hamilton, I'm thinking of ending things, etc. It's not because they're the most profound it's because I had the most fun making them. While I was frustrated about the eye lines and some other technical mistakes I made while shooting it I actually really enjoyed putting together the Socratic Dialogue that is my recent review of Thoughts of a Collard Man. I had to create a conversation by myself and I know it is not unique on this platform but it was still an interesting challenge for me.  What I mean is that it would be awesome if I had a little group that I could just do stuff with Patrick Willem style. My favorite find on this platform in quite some time is a channel called Climate Town and host Raleigh Williams having that camera guy who can go around the city with him allows for just a totally different kind of vibe than I could ever do. Would it make sense for me to do a video in that style? Probably not but I'm jealous. All of these are new thoughts by the way. When I was younger I wanted to do everything myself because I thought I could do everything myself. And putting aside your opinions on my capabilities in any given field I was wrong. A producing partner someone who could handle all of those logistics that I am mentally and emotionally incapable of would be a complete game changer but even just someone I could bounce ideas off of to work through some of these conversations that I currently only have with myself would be amazing. Like it wouldn't make sense for a typical the week I reviewed video to have a co-writer like Sarah Zed or James Summerton do but I can maybe do different types of videos especially if that person had a meaningfully different background than me. And it's to be clear this isn't a subtle call for applicants or anything honestly I'm probably a nightmare to work with and there's no money in it to smooth all that out. I'm just complaining about all of the things that I now understand the value of that my younger self never even thought about. I probably could have found that partner in college but not as I was.  And it's not entirely not that wisdom does not confer superhuman cognitive function nor is it necessarily a good thing but it does exist and it does matter and so does the difference between it and knowledge which is really the same difference between content and context. When you're young you can know a lot but the longer you're living in a society the more things you know mutate. A lot of things I knew at 20 are still rattling around in my head but I sure do think about them differently. Those 10 years of context shaped the form of the content in a way that if nothing else helped me improve as a critic my reviews now are better than they were not just because I've had practice though that certainly helped but because I've had another decade of life experience that I can pull from and put into my work and most people don't do so as explicitly as I do but everything is informed by your context and thinking about wisdom in that way is useful going back and also forward. I knew at 20 with an ignorant piece of shit I was at 15 it took a lot longer to understand that I was that at 20 as well and only in the last few months have I really come to understand how I'll feel that way about myself right now in 10 years and that if I don't feel that way it's because I stopped growing as a person and that would be worse which isn't to say that I had nothing of value to offer at 15 or 20 or 30 or etc context is a double-edged sword sure a wise person may give excellent advice because they had been around the block a few dozen times but the world's changing fast and it's very possible that that context stopped mattering because the block has changed and so has the way people get around it this is the problem with conservatism as an ideology it rejects the reality of change it's also why so many people get more conservative as they age a lot of older folks just don't know what it's like to live in the world anymore and they are mad that no one is asking them for advice because they are now the ones with nothing to offer it's a joke I saw on a tiktok what is the easiest way to destroy a boomer's worldview make them apply for an entry-level job in 2021 I spent a lot of time on tiktok less than I did during the height of quarantine when I would scroll literally hours a day but still more than any platform that isn't youtube and while my for you page has a fair number of people in my generation it is also full of those who would have described me as old yesterday and probably think I am ancient today and so I think about my relationship to those people not the literal children really but folks in their first few years of adulthood like my sister who is only eight years younger than me but by being born right at the turn of the century grew up in a radically different world I am part of the last generation to have ever lived without the internet it existed when I was born but the majority of Americans my family included wouldn't have access for a few years yet I didn't get a phone until middle school and that was in the days of limited minutes and texts and no other capabilities the iPhone launched when I was 15 I didn't get my first smartphone until I left for college and I remember coming home from break and seeing my sister and her best friend sitting squeezed right up next to each other on a mattress looking at their phones I asked what they were doing they were texting each other it was deeply bizarre to me and was actually probably the first time I ever felt old but it also felt like a perfect encapsulation of the existence of a digital native that's what they are that's what Gen Z is the first generation of digital natives being a younger millennial I can pass but I will never really be one and I kind of like having that perspective and context I like being an adult I still have some fond memories of childhoods and I wish my mom would continue to set up my doctor's appointments but youth is overrated and sure there is a lot of societal stuff behind that as outlined in Khadija Embo and Saint Andrewism's excellent new video on youth liberation but that's the world we live in and so being in my 30s will inherently grant me a modicum more respect from the people who are in charge even if it will take some respect from the people who are doing things I'm actually interested in and that's really the core of my conflict I am not concerned about getting older or being older I'm not excited about actually being old but I have got to get through literally a whole other one of these lifetimes first instead I'm concerned about being that weird guy at concert venues and the like Spotify says my number two artist of 2021 was one of those pop punk TikTokers my number three genre was hyperpop good for you was my 15th most played song I genuinely love what kids these days are making and I am thoroughly uninterested in arguments about who is derivative of whom blah the fucking blah new music is great but I understand that it is not for me just as so many of these TikToks I excitedly send to unexcited friends aren't I can appreciate the gays and buys and enbies and trans folk all up and down my for you page but I've never been a part of that world obviously I was an angsty teen though I sang to Paramore with the exact same fervor that many now sing to Olivia Rodrigo Sour is a great album but the emotions it's tapping into are ones I've long since moved past heartbreak means something very different now than it did then and I just know that I'm going to be the oldest non-parent at the Jaden concert in May the same way that I was at the Danny Gonzalez and Drew Gooden show I saw a few years back though they are much closer to my age than Mr. Hossler and I'm going to feel weird about it I just have to accept that as long as I continue to like new things I will be increasingly the exception and then the day will come when I too am just not cool enough for the hot new trend but it is important to me that even then when I no longer understand the appeal I don't look down on the people who do then I never think that what I had as a kid was so much better because it wasn't it was just different my biggest fear is that ultimately none of this matters that 30 comes and goes and a year from now nothing will have changed that I could read the last 7100 words again on my next birthday and minus some specific numbers it will be just as true I hope not and I'm not even looking for huge change I really just like some clarity I want to figure out what I really want from YouTube and start to move in that direction I also want to put myself out there in other ways I mean in the most literal sense of the word I recently acted in a horror film that required full frontal nudity I certainly felt vulnerable lying naked on the floor while a half dozen people leered over me but it was also kind of liberating to know that I've got nothing left to hide I want to creatively push myself in other art forms on other platforms maybe I will write another short perhaps even one I could actually finish maybe I've got another performance art piece in me I don't know if nothing else I'd like to release some more gosh damn music actually um let's do that one right now memories like stories that are told to kids before the medication I'm taking made me complacent with hindsight 2020 plus one they're still painting it but even with this decade of life what have I made of me 40 blocks south down an aisle of concrete dream is not the issue I just couldn't commit my bed will be a list of shit I wouldn't make fit I'm on the EVA 30 I've been scrolling 40 minutes seeing 50 fucking kids making 60 what I did and it's feeling like 20 was my chance to be at 10 but as I'm looking at the mirror I'm a zero instead fuck but I guess that's today a third of kids unquestioned want influence this way youtuber, tiktoker or whatever's coming next and how could they not want to preach hashtag last it's the best yes well for most a bit less just a fraction making money smaller fraction making rent all the rest are out here drowning in an ocean of content dragged on dirt I'm a zero instead fuck but I guess that's today a third of kids unquestioned want influence this way youtuber, tiktoker or whatever's coming next dragged on dirt screams full of thoughts they were godsend younger generations taught to want to make a difference awesome meaning from a world that regards them with disinterest getting harder every year the population just keeps growing waters rising species dying no signs or climate slowing is it hopeless I gotta know this I need a way to show my future self there's something to roll with her else what's the point that I wrote this and spoke this gotta hold onto something and this void I'm enrobed in I'm at the edge of 30 I've been crying 40 minutes over 50 guys just like me flexing 60 what I got had I thought to start by 20 maybe could have been at 10 but I didn't get out of bed so I'm a zero instead I'm at the edge of 30 I've been crying 40 minutes over 50 guys just like me flexing 60 what I got had I thought to start by 20 maybe could have been at 10 but I didn't get out of bed so I'm a zero instead well age is just a number right that bullshit motivation or justification for crime inspiring with impact font black borders and a cat pick convince the younger dumb or me that somehow I had this but the decades culminate cynicism cuts through idealism begets realism it's pessimism but new jaded glasses looking forward with neuroses looking back the longer that I keep going the more it feels like a trap 24 I had my crisis saw diverging paths before me emerging options span horizons but the fact is I chose boring early mornings with a bedtime I'm still 30 years sober friendships withering on vines and no one cares when it's over rollercoaster's getting slower I can get off anytime just clock the 9 to 5 with fuck all else inside of my mind but I won't live that way truly anything's better so bring me in cut me up I can bleed out in letters


Hey guys, how you doing? This is your boy rich from rich TV live and you too can join the club at rich picks daily calm Where you can learn how to win and trade? How you doing?  It's now at a dollar five Congratulations to investors all over the world. We told you it was a winner. We told you was undervalued Underappreciated underexposed we broke the news that they're working with maple leaf sports and entertainment Mind boggling now. They're working with I foods Who is enormous in Brazil and they're going to be expanding into? Columbia, let's take a look at this news huge breaking news Okay, guys, so there's some huge news from give X give X expands I food partnership to launch I food cards in Columbia, this is enormous.   I wasn't kidding about give X first gift cards experience the experience of a global industry leader and an all-in-one gift card solution you can see this is their gift card guide on the bottom left you can get your guide and This is why this deal is happening a huge deal and I'm gonna go through I foods But man, like I've been doing my research on I foods. These guys are huge Break this news down with more than 10 million gift cards sold in two years Give X and I food aim to replicate Brazilian success in the Colombian market So these guys are huge over the years I food has been experiencing huge growth by the end of September 2019 the company processed 21.5 million orders in Brazil alone This shows how I food has progressed overall, but this growth has also been quick I feud currently delivers food to 822 Brazilian cities and that number is up from 662 cities in July of this year that's increase of 160 restaurants or 24% in about two months time over 100,000 restaurants are now partnered with I food This is huge. This is so big for give X. Can you guys imagine? We brought you give X first and now look at what they're doing Take a look at this news give X information technology group Give X GI VX on the Toronto Stock Exchange a global leader in omnichannel processing of gift cards loyalty and digital merchandise credit with more than seven billion Riaz already traded on its platform and I food one of the most innovative and this is the I food website once again right here This is I food.com Dot BR huge huge huge news huge partnership enormous and I food one of the most innovative food tech companies in the world are pleased to announce the launch of their highly successful I food card program in Columbia a brand new country a brand new opportunity This could be absolutely enormous look at this Brazilian startup I food raises 500 million in Latin America's largest funding round. This was November 13 2018 Imagine where they are now. I've been doing my research on I food. This is absolutely enormous This is huge news. You guys got to put this news on your radar put on your watch list from discook to the largest food delivery company in Latin America I food Brazil this is I food Brazil and This is give X and they are now moving into Columbia I food is a leader in online food delivery in Latin America. Once again, this is their website We can scroll down all the way to the bottom and you can see all the different countries that they are Right here explored by cities London, Brasília Campinas You can see all the different countries here all the different cities here all the different places and areas of focus So now they are going to be moving into Columbia despite the fact that they have been hugely successful in Brazil and all over Latin America Now they are going to move into Columbia with the partnership with give X huge huge huge news and Once again, I food is a leader in online food delivery in Latin America Driving more than 60 million monthly orders as well as providing business intelligence and management solutions to over 170,000 restaurants in 1200 cities across Brazil. So I was showing you guys these articles I was reading at the time of these articles were written When we scroll up here 2019 they were servicing 822 Brazilian cities and They are now at 1200 cities across Brazil I food has sold more than 10 million gift cards to Brazilian customers since migrating its I food card to the give X platform in 2019 and is eager to repeat the success in Columbia This is huge for both give X and I food We brought you guys give X first and we told you guys they have an opportunity to be absolutely huge We told you guys that we felt that they were undervalued under Appreciated under exposed and I'd love to know what you guys think if you like the video Please smash the like button comment them below share the video everywhere and subscribe Give X is making big moves and here at Rich TV live We love to discover undervalued under Appreciated under exposed opportunities first if you have a comment on the video Please comment on the video give X serves as a central platform for give X hub Connecting all major business to consumer and business to business sales channels in Brazil with integrated business intelligence Tracking the real-time performance of the I food card program in each channel Give X says we are partner We are the partner that supports our clients even as they grow and their needs change We look forward to working with I food in this exciting new market and building on our mutual success in Brazil Said give X CEO Don Gray who I should be speaking to very very soon Stay tuned to that interview about this big breaking news and hopefully some other huge news That just continues to roll through with give X take a look at this give X acquires Loyalty lane this news just came out on February 17th So the news just continues to come for give X This is why I think you need to be extremely aware of them put them on your radar Put them on your watch list the I food card has made Benefits and once again, this is the website here for I food The I food card has many benefits for the business to business market in Colombia Businesses can use the card to attract and retain talent Foster team engagement and increase customer loyalty Clients appreciate the many uses of the card such as promoting virtual and physical happy tours celebrating team achievements and Marking employee milestones the I food card is exclusively redeemed for food in Colombia and is accepted in 40,000 restaurants bars and markets that are on the I food app in just one month of operation The number of companies buying the I food card in Colombia Tripled said Polo Rebello director of growth for I food by the end of March We expect to sell 100,000 gift cards in the country and today on average 3500 small businesses already use the I food card She added through give X I food transformed I food card into an omnichannel product sold in mobile wallets so Utilizing the technology of give X and you can see here all the huge companies and brands that are using give X Including Swiss L.A. Wendy's 7-Eleven Fairmont hotels and restaurants Marriott International Lone Star, I mean the Phillies we're talking some big big big names and that doesn't even mention Their relationship now with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment the Toronto Maple Leafs the Toronto Raptors So there are so many exciting things that are happening here with give X And that's why I believe everybody needs to put them on their radar put them on their watches right now. So Through give X I food transformed the I food card into the omnichannel product and Into an omnichannel product that was sold in mobile wallets and other digital market places by the end of 2021 companies were distributing the I food card to more than 60 million users of digital wallets and over 100,000 points of sale This is huge and to better engage your customers and streamline your operations you too can use give X and This is exactly what they are doing now in Columbia and it is enormous We are always looking for partners to contribute to the innovation and pioneering of our operation Counting on give X as a technology partner in the evolution of the I food card was fundamental once again this is the I food website right here was fundamental and Huge huge huge so big Fundamental for us to reach the results and continue the successful work Emphasized Rebello Give X is leveraging the technology and experience it developed over many years While supporting clients locations in more than 100 countries to scale the expansion of the I food card program quickly and securely in Columbia key features such as 24-7 Spanish support and currency conversion are already in place because of give X is Existing global footprint, so they already have everything they need give X is very proud to be chosen by I food To support this expansion They have proven to be a real innovator in the food tech space and we are glad to help their ideas Make their ideas a reality and offer our technology and business intelligence tools to achieve these incredible sales numbers For the I food card said Maria Costa Managing director of guilt give X LAT AM which stands for give X Latin America by bringing the I food card to Columbia Give X and I food look forward to building on past success and many more years of partnership And this is just blowing my mind They're literally opening up new countries creating new partnerships and it seems like it's happening on a weekly basis So if you're looking to increase your customer acquisition engagement You should be thinking about give X if you're looking for communications and rewards for your members and your community You should be thinking about give X if you're thinking about customer insights and operational efficiency You should be thinking about give X. They are absolutely blowing up give X on the Toronto Stock Exchange on The TSX under the symbol GI vx. I want to show you guys How give X has been doing we brought them to you guys first at 73 cents Hasn't even been that long and they've been performing extremely well in a very tough market the market has not been performing well overall and give X has been a Bright spot in a really tough market. So let's just take a look at give X All right, here we go on the TSX there we go and there they are At a dollar five Congratulations to investors all over the world. We brought you this pick at 73 cents believe it or not right around here and it has been an Absolute winner for our members and for our community Congratulations to everybody who got in for the win on give X now officially at a dollar five at an all-time high Since we brought them they have been as high all time as Right here. Let's say about a dollar 24. That's their all-time high They're all time low is About 60 cents and they're currently at a dollar five and we brought them to you at 73 cents And this is a stock that's performed extremely well in a really tough market Where most stocks some of the biggest stocks in the world have tumbled over the last month or over the last couple months to begin 2022 give X is is doing extremely well is now at a dollar five And it was up nine percent today in a really tough market give X is a global technology company designed to simplify business sufficiencies through an omni-channel platform with a high level of security and innovation the company has processed over two 20 billion transactions has client operations in more than 100 countries and has operated in Brazil for more than 12 years Where it traded more than 7 billion reyes in the Brazilian market alone since its founding in 1999 Give X has provided technological intelligence to a wide variety of industries from restaurants and once again, this is their website from wider range of industries from restaurants and retail to hospitality and the service sector Offering a range of integrated and customizable products including gift cards digital exchange vouchers loyalty and point-of-sale systems Now one thing you need to understand is you need to understand how big I food is these guys are Enormous they are absolutely huge They are a giant and they are give X's partner and they are now moving into Columbia. So what will this do for give X? I told you guys they were going over a dollar when they're at 73 cents. They are now officially over a dollar Congratulations to all investors. Now. Let's just hear a little bit about I food I food is the leader in online food delivery in Latin America has 60 million monthly orders for nine years in the market the company of Brazilian origin is also present in Columbia And this is where I food and give X are going to make it big. It works alongside partners with Initiatives that bring together business intelligence and management solutions for the approximately 170,000 restaurants registered in more than 1200 cities throughout Brazil I food Counts major investors such as Moville a global leader in mobile marketplaces and just eat one of the world's largest online ordering companies What do you guys think of this news now? Remember rich TV live is strictly for information and education purposes Please do your due diligence do your research before you invest in anything we talk about or discuss here on rich TV live And saying that we believe this is a project that is extremely undervalued Underappreciated and underexposed. We think the upside is tremendous now that they're opening up in Columbia That's going to generate more revenue for the company. We told you they were doing 51 million a year now They've got deals with MLSC. They've got now opening up in Columbia This should enhance their revenue at 51 million a year I think a company should be priced at around five dollars with a tight float give X has a tight float 150 million shares currently priced at a dollar five I think that they are undervalued underappreciated underexposed based on how I look at companies and They are one of the only companies that did well today Well, not only but they're one of a few companies that did well today in a really red market Bitcoin's down stocks are down and give X is up So love to know what you guys think of this video two thumbs up if you like it comment on the video Share it everywhere give X is the slump buster if you're in a slump the market's red And you don't know what to do think give X. It's a winner It was up 9% today in a red market and it's been going up all month long Is your boy rich and wish to be live and I'm out peace


On the breakfast, floods are ravaging different parts of Nigeria, including Kogi State, with Lokoja Highway affected. We'll discuss the situation and the way forward with the next part. Also on the breakfast, we'll discuss women's football looking at the female national teams, the Super Firecons and the Famingos. And as always, we'll also be taking an in-depth analysis of today's major newspaper headlines. We call it Off the Press. It's a beautiful Friday morning. Thank you for joining us. And as always, a lot of persons will say thank God it's Friday. It's good to be back on your screen and it's also good to know that you're here with us this morning. It's going to be an amazing conversation, as always. I mean, from now until the hour of 9 o'clock. Not exactly, but just before 9, we'll call it a wrap. So yes, we'll have a lineup of conversations that would interest you. But always, we start with issues that are making the rounds. I mean, issues that you have people talking about. And on the front burner, we have ASU, you know, planning to sue the federal government over a registration of a factional academic union. The academic staff union of university, called ASU, has approached the National Industrial Court over the federal government's registration of two factional unions, or unions, if you want to say. ASU is going to court and is saying that, first of all, they are going to have the very popular and famous lawyer, Femi Falano, on their side. If you follow very well, on Tuesday, the federal government had registered two factional academic unions, the Congress of the Nigerian University Academics and the National Association of Medical and Dental Academics. The registration of these two factional unions took place as talks between ASU and the government broke down and meet, you know, a period of time where they went and strike, seven months of strike by lecturers of public universities. However, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, had explained that two bodies will exist alongside the ASU, adding that the two associations will enjoy the rights and privileges accorded to other academic unions in the tertiary educational system. Now, this is one thing that has gotten a lot of people talking. It's generated various, I mean, and different reactions and that's been going on for a very long time. But, so really, some persons have said, is this really, you know, a very brilliant move by the federal government? I mean, this is something that you can write to them about. This move by the federal government, the fact that you have an agreement that was met at the time, agreement that has not been implemented 2009, you're talking about 2022 here, and then there's a creation of a faction. Does it even really make any sense? What's going to happen? So this union that's been created now, are they also going to be void of the problems that ASU is faced with? Because these are lectures and so it's more like a duplication of channel for reactions and that's what a lot of persons think that this is not, you know, a very smart move and a way. But does it also mean that, you know, the lectures would actually be called of? I mean, students would get back to the classrooms and lectures. So now that you have lectures that belong to ASU and you have lectures that belong to another union, will there be some uniformity in terms of resumption and what have you? But it is what it is. ASU has said that they're suing the federal government going to an industrial court, approaching it, and they have a lawyer already, a very prominent one at that. But let's see if the odds will be for them or against them, what becomes of them. But at the end of the day, there's, you know, a local phrase or, I mean, a phrase, parable if you like to say, they say when you have two elephants fighting, the grass will suffer. In this context, you know who the grass is. Well, let's move away from that. Another one that's getting people talking and having a lot of reaction is that the police have actually knocked an oddly carrying Attico's wife's handbag. So this is not new. We have complained about the number of police officers. That's a picture that I saw yesterday. And you have a lot of people who are very, very on the spot, especially when they're on social media. There's a lot of investigative personnel. You can see that. That's the wife of the former vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And you can see her right there. That's her orderly. And then, or police officer, really, she has the bag. Whose bag would he be? Would he be her bag? Because usually it's suspected that you travel lights. I mean, you're there to be ready for any kind of attack. But it's what's the police. I mean, so this is no longer news because this is something that's been going on for a very long time. And until we understand, until we place premium on the security personnel that we have in our country then, I'm not sure that it will be different. So it's just a state. It shows the premium. It shows our thoughts. It shows where we place our police officers and those people who are responsible for ensuring that lives and properties are protected. So it's a lot and it's really saddening, really, that you have.  Which you have a security personnel. That's the police officer. So what happens if there's an attack right now? Will she be combat-ready? That's the point. Let's imagine that you have someone somewhere who's about to take a shot at you. Don't you think that her hands are too busy already for her to defend you? What's the essence? How did we even get to this point? Because the complaint over time has been that we do not have enough personnel. We don't have enough police officers to please the entire country. If you look at the number of police officers, yes, we know that recently the government had talked about employing about 10,000. The president made that very known, especially in his speech, talking about progress. But if we're talking about 211 million peasants in Nigeria, approximately, that's statistics from the United Nations. So do we even have up to 100 million police officers policing this population? Now we have an issue where we have the same police officers policing a group of peasants in the society, the elites. And at the end of the day, it doesn't even end at that. They're not even being respected. So we see a lot of, I mean, something has been going on for a long time. Well, until we actually put our foot down and we're ready to ensure that we have a different outcome, a different result, this will definitely continue. It's just a reflection of what we think about the security personnel in the country from the military, the air force, the police. It's really embarrassing. And the big question for me is where lies police professionalism? Because we contribute to making nonsense of our security personnel. It doesn't even add up. So I want to even understand why would you hire a police officer? What would you ask a police officer to be an orderly for you? Is it that she should carry her bags around and wash her clothes and all of that? Was it not for, you know, security and safety purposes? And if there's a security threat where you are, will she be able to, you know, swing into action? We hope that we get answers from all of that. I mean, I don't have to say anything, but I'm sure you understand what the answer will be already. Another asset, it broke the Internet yesterday. So now let's not forget that the flag bearer of the All Progressive Congress, Shiowajirubola Matunubu, has been on the news for a very long time. I mean, consistently, there's been a lot of talk around him. First of all, his non-availability during the time where the campaigns have been flagged of lack of his presence around and all of that has gotten people talking. But surprisingly, it's the fact that pictures actually made it to the round from the pictures where we saw him, you know, on a cycling machine, you know, exercising. So the fact that pictures yesterday were shared of him playing with his grandchildren and you can see all of that. But this is not it. There's someone who's actually spoken about that because when he gets the period of election, it feels like everyone should brace themselves up. We see different actions. We see different pictures.  There's also a picture of the president, the current president playing with his grandchildren. So this is also another one. You also find pictures of politicians who are eating maybe on the roadside, visiting the market and playing with the less privileged or some persons in the society. And this is supposed to do what? Send a certain message and at the end of the day, winning the election is just a priority. But what happens to the genuine interest of the people? These are some of, you know, the things that we see politicians engage with. So it wasn't really different and surprising for a lot of Nigerians, but the reactions have been different. And you have some people are saying, hey, this is not that time where, you know, pictures would actually come up online and Nigerians would be deceived and, you know, act differently. But I think we need to do better. So as a Friday morning, we take a breakdown when we return. It will be time for us to go through the front pages of a National Daily. So we call it off the press. Please stay with us.


Signal gasoline.  Yes, you do go farther with signal. The Signal Oil Company and your neighborhood signal dealer bring you another curious story by the Whistler. Tonight, I'll trade you murder. I am the Whistler and I know many things for I walk by night. I know many strange tales hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows. Yes, I know the nameless terrors of which they dare not speak.  For example, take the case of Henry Reichman, 55, unmarried, employed at the Dover Bookshop on High Street. Who would suspect that behind Henry's very ordinary, very meek and mild exterior, there burns boundless hate for people. People who are successful, who have never known disappointment. On a rainy evening surrounded by the printed thoughts of other men, Henry's own thoughts seem more fruitless than ever. And so when the door opens, this hatred envelops the man who enters. Just another customer, Mr. Eugene Parker, but he's someone else to hate. Mr. Parker stands inside the door in his streaming raincoat, shaking his umbrella. A jeweler by trade, no bigger than Henry. But he has a house of his own, a sense of his own importance in the world. In a nervous manner, Henry always finds annoying. Good evening, Mr. Parker. Oh, hello, Henry. Hello.  Yes. So where is Mr. Dover? At his desk, back behind the partition. Henry, Henry, would you come back here a moment? There he is now. Hey, yes, Mr. Dover, coming. I'll come with you, Henry. Yes, Henry, come in. Henry, it just occurred to me what... Good evening, Mr. Parker. Hello, Dover, hello. I thought I'd get in out of the rain. Well, I'm glad you did. As a matter of fact, you look as if you ought to be home right now. Yes, that's what I'm headed, but I stopped at the doctors and he gave me another prescription to get filled. So I thought I'd do that first before I took a cab home. Only trouble is I didn't know that the weather would be so bad. Is it your old trouble? Yes, yes, it is. But the prescription will fix me up if I get it filled. Why, Henry could do that for you easily enough. You just wait here and he'll run down to the drugstore. I'm sorry, Mr. Dover, but I didn't bring my raincoat with me today. Oh, you could use mine, Henry. Of course you could. You're both about the same size. And my umbrella too. If you'll be good enough to do it. Of course he will. Won't you, Henry? Yes, sir. Good. Here's the prescription and the money. It's always exactly four dollars. Thanks very much, Henry. Yes, sir. You're entirely welcome, sir. You must take care of yourself. Not so fast, buddy. I didn't see you in that doorway. Don't move. I don't get any funny ideas just getting that car. Who are you? What do you want? Go on, move over to the curb. What do you want? What's the meaning of this? Find out. Get inside. No, no, I won't. You've made some mistake. That's a gun. Now will you put arguing and getting that car? Yes, yes. All right. Yes, of course. Come on in. You heard him. Get inside. I had to wait for him, Max. But here he is.   What's the matter, Max? What are you looking at me like that for?  You picked up the wrong guy. But I couldn't... Take a look at him. He looked like the guy I told you to tell. Gee, I don't know what happened, Max. I thought I could depend on you. Well, sure you can, Max, but anybody can make a mistake. Now I've got to keep out of sight. I don't want anyone knowing I ever came near this town. That's why I hold up in this two-bit hotel. And you've got to pull a smart one like this. If you're the boss, Max, I'll go back after the right guy if you say the word. What do we do with this prize package? Where'd you pick him up? He came out of a bookshop on High Street. I worked there. My name's Henry Reichman. Forget it. I'm not interested. I don't know what this is all about, but I can promise you I'll never say a word. You bet you won't. Get rid of him, Floyd. Get rid of me. You can't meet your...  You know too much, Reichman. Well, I don't know a thing about you. I never saw either of you before. I don't know what you're trying to do. Just saying me is more than enough. When the news breaks, lady, you put one and one together and then go to the cop. No, I wouldn't. I'll never tell a soul about it. Reichman, I just don't take chances. It's too bad, but you stumbled into something that didn't concern you. Take him out, Floyd. Come on, you... No, wait. Wait. I'll do anything you want me to. Anything at all. Quit stalling, buddy. You put us behind schedule already. No, please. Listen to me. I'll make a bargain with you.  What?  The man you intended to kill. That's what you were going to do, isn't it? I'll do it for you if you'll let me go. What do you say? Is it a bargain? Tonight's the night, friends. For news, I've been waiting four years to bring you. New Signal Ethel is here. Post-war Signal Ethel. The gasoline of tomorrow that you can enjoy today. Many signal stations from Canada to Mexico already have it, and the rest of being supplied just as fast as deliveries can be made. I could tell you about the pep and pickup and anti-knock of New Signal Ethel. Oh, but that'd be spoiling the surprise. Just get a tank full of New Signal Ethel and make that wonderful discovery for yourself. Touch your foot to the accelerator and feel that old motor get young again. Feel that performance you never dreamed was built into your car. Oh, there's real driving fun. New Signal Ethel driving. So keep up that good habit of stopping at the friendly station in your neighborhood with signals, familiar yellow and black circle signs. Be among the first to find out how much fun driving can be with New Signal Ethel. I repeat, many stations already have it. Others are being supplied as fast as possible. And now, back to the chiseler.   It's unthinkable, monstrous and insane slip of the tongue. Yet in the same instant you know you've met it. For the hatred that has slowly festered in you has suddenly found an outlet, hasn't it? Perhaps if you had resorted to murder many years before, but Max is about to answer you slowly licking his lips, he looks intrigued. Maybe he's the kind of a guy who will take a chance on a proposition like this. You're not very funny, right, men? I mean it. I'm quite serious. How long are you going to listen to him make with the words, Max? Let me do it. I'm a failure. I'm a coward and nobody but now. Now for the first time, for the first time in my life, I...tell me the name of your...your victim.  You've got to tell me. Tell me his name. I don't think so. You know too much already. Then what harm will it do after all if you're going to kill me anyway? Yeah. There's something to that. Of course it is. If I'm going to die, I have the right to know why. Whose place have I taken by accident? You ought to be able to figure that out for yourself. No, no. Kill me. Why do you think Floyd picked you up? Well, I've already told you. I don't know what this is all about. Whose raincoat are you wearing? That's the answer. You mean...you mean Mr. Parker? Sure. Mr. Eugene Parker. But that's impossible. Why, he's a respectable man. Mr. Parker's a jeweler. Repairs watches, things like that. Things like that are what get him into trouble.  Oh, I'm sure you made a mistake. Everybody knows Mr. Parker. He dropped into the store tonight because he didn't feel well. I say he didn't feel well. And you always tailing him. But he couldn't. He asked me to go to the drugstore to get a prescription for him. It's right here in my pocket. Ah, never mind. But I just don't understand. I think you do, Reckman. Mr. Eugene Parker knew Floyd was following him.  He knew Floyd would stop you or pick you up. Maybe even plug you and run. But that means he knew I might be murdered by mistake. Little thing like that wouldn't stop Parker. His own skin always comes first. How do you know about him? What's your connection with him? You know what a fence is? A receiver of stolen property. That's Parker. But his arithmetic isn't too good. In fact, it's so bad we came into town to subtract Mr. Parker from our schema things. Let me do it for you. I have a reason now. Are we going to listen to this chump all night, Max? Wait a minute. Let him talk. He interests me. You understand why, don't you? He was willing to let me die in his place. Now I have a right to kill him. Okay. Let's say we let you do it. Then I'm free to go.  To double-cross, Max? I better take care of him. But you haven't anything to fear. The risk is all mine. Do you think I dare tell anyone about you? I couldn't. You didn't mean my own neck? Sounds pretty good, Reckman. It's ideal for you. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. You will eliminate him at no risk to yourselves. He's right, Floyd. Yet it put us in the clear. Nobody could touch us, yeah? How do you do it with Parker still back in that bookshop? Well, let me call up the shop. I'll see if he's still there. Keep away from that phone. Well, then call the number yourselves. The Dover bookshop. Look it up in the directory, Floyd. I can tell you what... I'm not taking any chances. Look it up, Floyd. What do you want to waste time for, Max? I'll take him out and then go find Parker. Get that number, I said. We'll find out where Parker is first. Then we'll decide what to do. Floyd looks for the number with infuriating slowness, doesn't he, Henry? You could have dialed in a moment, but they don't trust you. Of course, Mr. Eugene Parker trusted you.  Strange, isn't it, Henry? And a little frightening how all the passive hate you've ever known seems to shrink and harden and focus on that respectable citizen, Mr. Eugene Parker. That pompous little man that would be murderer. But perhaps it isn't wise to want a rush towards murder. What's the matter? No answer? No, not yet, Max. Want me to keep ringing? Yeah, hang on a second. I suspect Mr. Dover decided to close up for the night. He'd expect you back. You got Parker's raincoat and umbrella. Or maybe Mr. Dover left a note tacked on the door for me. What about Parker? He's going to take a cab home. Maybe he got tired of waiting. Yeah, I guess you're right. All right, forget it, Floyd. Now what? I think maybe we'll make a bargain. You're nuts. I don't think so. Come on, likeman. We'll make sure they've left already. We're driving back to the shop. Mr. Dover's closed up. There it is. You can see for yourself. The lights are out. Pull up, Floyd. Now what? We're going to sit here and look at the dump? You talk too much, Floyd. I told you there wouldn't be anybody here. Didn't expect to find them. Only wanted to make sure. Well, now what? You know where Parker lives, right, man? Oh, yes, in a little house on the outskirts of town. About 10 minutes from here, he lives all alone.  He's got a housekeeper. She's in the hospital. She's been there since Sunday. Ah, OK, then. We're driving over to the house. And what happens after we get there depends on you. You're on the way to Mr. Eugene Parker's house now, Henry. But you've made your bargain, Henry. Your life for Eugene Parker's. And you intend to keep your life, don't you? If only there was some way you could get rid of Parker and not have to pay the penalties. And at the same time save your own skin. But that's just wishful thinking. Well, this is the back of the house. It's dark. Looks like he's turned in already. Yeah, maybe he didn't get home yet. He's home. He told Reichman he was going straight home. Look, light just came on upstairs. Yeah. I guess he just went up to bed. What do you want me to do now? You still want to go through with this, Reichman? If I say I don't. Brother, that's just too bad. I didn't ask. Don't give me none of that. Easy, Floyd, easy. Not trying to back out, are you, Reichman? Oh, no, no, no, of course not. But you must promise me. You're not in any position to make demands. Take care of Parker. That's all. Where's the gun I'll use? Give me a shoulder-automatic, Floyd. It's got a silencer.   Come on, unload it. What for? Do what I say. What good will an empty revolver do me? I don't take chances, Reichman. You can load it inside the house. Now, come here. Watch the way Floyd does it. He's like this. And this here's the safety catch. All right, all right. I understand how it's done. Well, now it's empty. Give it to him. Max, I still- Give it to him. All right. I'll leave just one cartridge in the clip. Why, just one? We're not taking any chance on you barricading yourself in there and using that on us. Put it in your pocket, Reichman. All right. Now, listen to me. Floyd will get you in the back of the house. Are you sure? The door will be locked. I know it'll be locked, but Floyd will get you in. He'll give you five minutes to do the job after Floyd comes back into the car. Well, that may not be long enough. I won't know my way around the house. I'll have to move around pretty carefully. All right, here. Here's a flashlight. You can use that. Thank you. Just five minutes? It'll be enough. If you're not out, we're coming in after you. And the cops couldn't get clear out here in less than 15 minutes. Remember that. I'll do it. I'll do it. You don't have to worry about me. Just worry about yourself, Reichman. Don't try any double-crossing. You've seen what happens to double-crosses like Parker. I know what to expect. I know our bargain. See, you don't forget. Okay, Floyd. Get him inside. The rain has stopped, but the sky is still clouded as you and Floyd move silently through the darkness to the back of the house. What's that noise you hear, Henry? Oh, nothing really. Just your heart thumping. It seems even louder than the scraping noise Floyd makes as he opens the back door with a key from his pocket. Then you step into the darkness of the house and close the door quietly behind you. And then you're alone, Henry. As if you're really alone for the first time in your life. A life that will remain yours only if you take another man's life without delay. You've got to go through with it now. You're trapped here. That thought makes you switch on the flashlight, doesn't it, Henry?  Henry, softer. Suppose Mr. Eugene Parker should hear you. But he hasn't, not yet. You can see the light from his bedroom slamming into the hall. And then in another instant, barely a footstep away from his door, you suddenly remember. You haven't loaded the automatic pistol in your pocket. Really, Henry? If every murderer went about his business so carelessly, but they're not all murderers are so intent on preserving their own lives at the expense of others. That's it. That's more like it. Now you may enter, Mr. Eugene Parker's bedroom. What? Good evening, Mr. Parker. Oh, it's you, right? Were you expecting someone else? What are you doing here? I wanted to return your raincoat and umbrella. They, uh, they're downstairs. My raincoat? Just how did you get in my house? I walked in. What's the matter with you, rightman? What's wrong? Why didn't you come back with my prescription? I was delayed. You didn't even go to that drugstore. Now you've broken into my house. What's got into you, anyway? I'm here about to get, Mr. Parker. Well, if it's the $4 you mean, I could have picked them up from you tomorrow. I'm not thinking of your $4. Well, what do you mean? What kind of debt are you talking about? I'm here to collect the debt, not repay it. What kind of nonsense is this? You don't know what you're saying. The debt, Mr. Parker, is your life. Your life or mine. I have listened to enough of this. I'm going to call the police. I wouldn't advise it. I said I would not advise it. Do you think you can... leave all of it? From certain friends of yours. The friends you knew would see me wearing your ring coat and carrying your umbrella. I don't know what you're talking about. Yes, you do, Mr. Parker.  Kill me? Well, does that surprise you so very much? I don't know what you mean. I can't imagine what's got into you. You only waste time by lying, Mr. Parker. You see, I've met Max and Floyd. You do know them, don't you? What are they? What have they told you about me?  No, you can't. You can't. Why shouldn't I? You'll be caught. You have no reason to kill me. Well, you expected Floyd and Max to murder me. No. No, I didn't. I swear I didn't. What I wanted was a little time. I knew they'd learn their mistake right away. And you knew they'd rectify their mistake by killing me. Or perhaps you hoped they'd kill me and not realize they'd made a mistake. That was it, wasn't it? No. That's exactly what you were counting on. No. No, I was desperate. But I didn't mean you any real harm. When I came into the shop, I thought I could slip out the back way. And Dover insisted you get the prescription for me. I didn't really think about you, Henry. Yes, I know. You can't gain anything by killing me. Not a thing. I stand to lose my life if I don't. If it's money you want. No. I'll pay you well. I know Dover pays you starvation wages. I'll give you enough so you can leave the bookshop. You won't have to work that again. I don't want your money, Mr. Parker.  Nobody need ever know about tonight. I'll certainly never tell. Five thousand dollars, Henry. I'll give you five thousand dollars if you'll simply walk out of here now. Ten thousand. I have the cash in the house. I can get it for you now. Don't move, Mr. Parker. But if you'll only let me get it for you... Don't move. You can't shoot me, Henry. You can't do it. You can't. I think I can, Mr. Parker. Because I must. No. No, Henry.  You know I'm not well. If you had me mercy, I... No. No. No. He's dead. All right. Get in the car. You promised me... I'm still keeping my bargain. I'm making sure you don't get picked up or we're out of this burg. But he's dead. Nobody will know I ever had anything to do with it. Get in the car, I said. And give Floyd the gun. All right. Here you are. Thank you very much. What's so funny? You expect me to mourn the saving of my own life? We can talk about that at the hotel. Let's go, Floyd. Haven't you kept me in this room long enough? Maybe you're right. Maybe it's time we all get out. Am I free now? You will be when we get to the street. Just remember what I said.  I will. I will. Nobody should ever know. All right, Floyd. Open the door. Are you Reikman? Follow Floyd. Wait. What's up? He's the cop at the end of the hall. What? A cop? I told you, Max. You should have let me take care of him in the first place. I know. Nothing's going right for me since I hit this rotten town. But he's dead. Parker's dead. I don't know anything about any policemen. I didn't think you'd have nerve enough to cross us up, Reikman. What?  It's too bad you can't prove it. But I can. Maybe you can at that, Floyd. Open the gun. That's it. You'll see. Oh, no. No, don't. What's the matter, Reikman? Phew. You've got to believe me. Sure. We'll believe you. Pull the clip out of the gun, Floyd. How about it? Double-crossed us. No.  This rod hasn't been fired since I gave it to him. No. Now, wait. Wait. Let me explain. Kind of late to explain, Reikman. You made a deal with Parker, didn't you? No, no. No, he's dead. He's being fired. Yes.  Now they're outside. Next, I told you. No, he couldn't have called the police. He was dead. No, Reikman. You turned us in, Reikman. But it's the last double-cross you'll pull. Wait a minute, Floyd. Wait, love, and what the record I've got?  No, please. Please, don't. The announcement I made at the opening of this program is so important, I want to repeat it. Tonight's the night, friends, for news I've been waiting four years to bring you. New signal Ethel is here. Post-war signal Ethel. The gasoline of tomorrow that you can enjoy today. Many signal stations from Canada to Mexico already have it. And the rest are being supplied just as fast as deliveries can be made. Now, I could tell you about the pep and pickup and anti-knock of new signal Ethel, but that'd be spoiling the surprise. Just get a tank full of new signal Ethel and make that wonderful discovery for yourself. Touch your foot to the accelerator and feel that old motor get young again. Feel that performance you never dreamed was built into your car. Ah, there's real driving fun, new signal Ethel driving. So keep up that good habit of stopping at the friendly station in your neighborhood with signals, familiar yellow and black circle signs. Be among the first to find out how much fun driving can be with new signal Ethel. I repeat, many stations already have it. Others are being supplied as fast as possible. And now, back to the whistler. Well, Henry, the police broke down that door, but not quite soon enough for you, did they?  You're dying, Henry, dying. And all for what? A murder you didn't commit, a misunderstanding. Yes, it was a misunderstanding.  Well, not with a gun anyway, but he was dead. Yes, Mack and Floyd found that out at the police station a little later. Look, you got nothing on me. It's because Floyd here loses his head and plugs a guy you could have known me on. Hey, good easy, Max. You were there, and if we can't hang a wrap on you as an accomplice, we get plenty of other charges. We've been looking for you a long time, Max.  Why'd you have to go and lose your head? Difference, did it make? They had us anyway, right when Double crossed us and Parker phoned the cops. They had us cornered. What are you talking about? Who's Parker? Ha, if you didn't know. Mr. Eugene Parker, who tipped you off where we were. Nobody tipped us off where you were. What? Eugene Parker, who lives out on Elmhurst Road. He couldn't have tipped us off. We just had a call out there. He's been dead for a couple of hours. Dead? Yeah. Neighbors thought they saw somebody snooping around and got suspicious, so we went out. Found Parker dead. From a heart attack. A heart attack? That's what the coroner says. Looks like he had some sort of a shock. What do you know about it? Nothing at all. We must have gotten the name mixed up. Yeah? And what was that about Parker calling us? You thought that was why the patrolman came to your room at the hotel? Well, yes.  In this town it's a five dollar fine. But I guess it's going to cost you two a whole lot more than that. Next Monday at nine o'clock the Whistler will bring you another strange tale. The Whistler is broadcast for your entertainment by the marketers of signal, gasoline and motor oil, and fine quality automotive accessories, and by your neighborhood signal dealer. This program directed by George W. Allen, with tonight's story by Les Edgeley, music by Wilbur Hatch, is transmitted to our troops overseas by the Armed Forces Radio Service. This is Marvin Miller speaking, and suggesting that you let every traffic signal remind you that you do go farther with signal gasoline. Yes, you do go farther with signal. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.


Hi again, in this lesson we are going to talk about recursive function in Python programming language and we will make a simple example. A recursive function is a function that calls itself. In this example we are going to write a simple function countdown which will count down numbers from provided number as an argument to the number 0. So in this function we will provide as an argument number from which we want to count down to 0, then we will say if our provided number is bigger than 0, then we are going to print that number and we are going to call that exact same function but with argument that is n-1 and this function will be called if our provided argument is bigger than number 0 and this function countdown will call itself until this argument is equals to 0. Ok, now let's call our function countdown and let's count down to from 10 to 0. That's all in this lesson. Thanks for watching. Bye bye.