And during the Saba Saba demonstrations, an elderly woman was caught in the crossfire of police brutality while carrying out her daily activities. Now as law enforcement clashed with protesters who had set bonfires and blocked roads, the woman was captured on camera and was seen fleeing by an officer who felt compelled to lash out with a whip. This incident drew widespread condemnation from Kenyans, including M.C.S.K. boss, Ezekiel Untua. And of course we have photos, they are right there. And of course shout out to your standard media for the, you know, for the photos. The photos are courtesy of standard digital. And those are the photos on your screen, by the way. You can see that Ezekiel Untua said, even in the time of war, women and children are protected. The officer could have helped Mama cross the road and lead her to safety. You know, taking pleasure in, you know, branding are, okay, branding the rungu, I think.  Imagine that. Why can't I grind it though? Like that was so unfair. I don't know if you can see those pictures again, just to have them, like the photos, so that people can actually see what you are talking about. Look at that. Honest. What are we thinking? Honest. I'm going to start with you on this one. I've never seen that kind of guy in a man Gustav. He had a geckos show. I've never seen him on the street, I was telling him I shouldn't. But I've just seen him on the street. I've seen him on the street. I've never seen him, I've seen him on the street. But, he's the boss I know, he's the boss I know. I've never seen him on the street, I guess. But I knew we were a small street where you could see men, in the US. So don't don't. Can I tell you this for free? There are people who literally do not have access to information.  There are people who don't have all those privileges. I look at them and they say, it's Friday and I am in Shamba. They say they are not allowed to go home before Monday morning. So by the time she is coming back, she will be able to say, we are not allowed to go because it's a raja. So there is a possibility she didn't know it was going to be like that. Yes, we are not allowed to go to the church on a Sunday. We are not allowed to go to church because my people will suffer because of lack of knowledge. We are the sufferers because lack of knowledge. We can suffer and it's like buying a boy and saying, let's not be a rada, let's not be an inch in and end. We are the ones who are trying to gain the politics, that's the vision. We are the ones who are trying to gain the politics, and the ones who are trying to gain the news, they will say, G.S.S. But you don't need to be in news, you can say, what if you want to earn the money. I used to have a lot of friends, they say, K.S.S. is the end of the base, K.S.S. is the end of the base, it's not like you want to do anything, it's just relative, K.S.S. is the end of the base. If you want to make people watch, then you can protest. I used to be a rada in the past, when I came to Kenya, K.S.S.S. was trying to end it, and they were like, no, it's not. They are trying to gain the money, they are trying to gain the money, and there is lack of knowledge.  Yeah, because I'm like, I'm listening to Bantam like, yeah, all that is true. But I think the person we're talking about here is a grandma. You know, I do not understand where this policeman comes from. Where this policeman grew up from. But that is, how do you even, you know, the work of a police officer is to offer protection. Whether someone is under a man or not. Not in Kenya. And that, that is one thing I feel we should stop doing as Kenyans. Let us stop settling for just, for mediocre things because this is Kenya. That is unacceptable. That is wrong. That's like my own grandma. How do you do that? That police officer should have taken that grandma if, if fine. How can that information, gulgana, manda, manda and all that, it could have happened. But the work of, why we pay tax for that police officer to get paid is to protect such people. But Kenyans, that is out of this world wrong.  That happens. No, that is wrong. Completely wrong. Okay. Do you want me to jam, by the way? Sit, sit. Do you want me to catch? Do you want me to catch? Do you want me to catch? Do you want me to join in soft, soft, join in softy? No, but she's right though. No, but she's right. We have bad non-stats. We have bad respect for the elderly. Okay, you can get my point, right? I'm not saying it's bad. I have to fight for her as well as to come out. But Kenyans would expect, some of you would say, you know, you're not here. Some of you would even think you're not here.  And some of you would say, why change police? You're not here, you're not here. There's no police here. They'll just be there. They don't want to end up here. So I'm here with the police. I'm going to the police station. And it's soft, I'm not here. No, we are not advocating for that. I'm talking about you.  Yeah, I'm a personal. Okay. Because I'm the one who's here with the police. I need to have faith. So as in the other story, I'm not here to show you, but I'm here with the police. All right. Let's move on to another story because of that. But we'd love to hear your opinion on that story. We'll sample it later on. But right now we move to an international story. Britain Spears expressed her frustrations on social media and filed a police report after allegedly being slapped by her security personnel, accompanying NBA player Victor Wombenyama. Now, fans of Spears were disappointed that the player did not acknowledge her or even look back to check who had been assaulted. However, the police investigation has concluded without pressing charges against anyone involved in the incident. That is Britain Spears. That is the NBA player. Brittany is a wild, wild pop star. Everybody knows who Britain Spears is. She's a legend. She's 41 years old. She's been in the industry too long. Brittany has gone through it. That is her. Like, from, you know, the meltdown. You remember how she shaved her own head? That's a way. She didn't have access. Like, when you're super rich, you have a millionaire, but it was a guzzardoy. That is number two. Number three, because they said she's mentally and stable, her husband, who is now an ex-husband, took all her kids. When I got to school, I was a guzzardoy. And then after school, I was a guzzardoy. I was supported, and I was a guzzardoy. I was a guzzardoy. I was a fundlifter, but I was a guzzardoy. I was a guzzardoy. So she has been through it. So finally, she's okay now. She won the case against her parents. She now has her own money. Now she's 41. She got the money when she was 40. She actually got married. Last year, actually. So at least I didn't go to school. I didn't go back to school. I was watching her because she said, Oh my God, I know me, but let me just go talk to this guy. I'll pick a slap. Bro. Anyway, so they didn't know that the NBA player, C. L. Impega, it is his security personnel, but they thought I wanted to join in Brittany. Obviously, they just thought I was a fan. They thought I wanted to protect the player. The guy is 19, Brittany is 41. So my question to you guys is, have you ever met your celebrity and got disappointed?  I don't know. Wangare is in the industry.  You've met this, you go to events. You've got functions and you meet these people. They are saying, don't meet your idols. So have you ever met your idols? How did it go? Were you ever disappointed? One. I don't have idols. I just have people. I admire their work. And I have seen actresses that on TV, on TV have been like, wow, this actress is like really, really good. But then I've had an opportunity to be on set with them and the reception that I got, oh my God, I'm like... Tell us, tell us. The only difference between me and you is time. And the fact that you have opportunities to be out there.  You know, I have met certain celebrities I'm like. Why? Oh God, oh God. But I always say this, the only time I was crushed by a celebrity is when my only crush quotes my rate and I didn't know. Who? Nya Shiski. Yes. I think he's like... Nya Shiski was like that. He was like the bachelor. He was everyone's love of my life. So he got married and people didn't even know and then they found out on social media they're like what? You know, anyways. Men are, you know, men are that thing. Men will live in the desert without water. I don't know, women can be dramatic sometimes. I know, I know, I know. But I don't know, I'm honest. If you are like... Some guys love their own softener, they don't think it helps. – Really? – Yes, they do. You don't think it helps too? – You know, people can be like oh God, I'm a god. – Then I can die. They can get up when I call them. There's just a Cinnamon. So they pick me up. Someone will just ask me if I'm a secretary and because they like to defend themselves about me. But the thing is, I'm just saying, imagine the way you are always, you've been very supportive of him. You vouch for OGK. What are you going to do about that? I'm going to ask him, if anyone asks me, this is the, in Yoleta, if anyone asks me, I'm going to ask him, you're different OGK, I'm just saying, I'm just saying. I'm a celebrity, I love it. You know what to do, they just look up to them. No, so, fans are just, there are fans who are biased here. You know the way you are very aggressive. Yeah, you know the way. I know the way. But I'm just saying, I'm just trying to listen to someone. You know, I'm just saying, I'm just saying. Imagine feeling, I'm going to be like, I'm a person who is 69, you know what to do about that. I'm just saying, I'm just trying to look up to them. OGK has got studios. No, no, no. See when they've got studios. I don't know what to do. But I just, I just, because of this, Scar and Willy Paul, they're going to complain like they're like, I don't know what OGK has the last time and he's also there this time. Like Radha, there are other artists who deserve the platform. Kwarni. You know what I'm saying? Willy Paul is like, I'm going to be at OGK's studio and they're going to have a cartel. And then, you know what OGK said? The only cartel in Yoko is the only cartel. Imagine. Omolo. Omolo. Omolo Epantamua. Yeah. But anyway, who would you have loved to see there? Like Nikita, none is complaining about Nikita. Everybody else is complaining about OG. What do you take on that, by the way, as we even talk about this story? Okay. Why not? Why not? Why not? I think what Bantu is saying is that he doesn't like to eat. That's what he's saying. Yeah, he doesn't like to eat. You're hating on your tea as well. No, no, no. I'm saying what Bantu meant to say is that he doesn't like to eat. Okay. Yes. He doesn't like to eat. He doesn't like to eat. He doesn't like to eat. He doesn't like to eat. Bantu, what would you say is that he doesn't like to eat? Me? Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I was in a place where I used to go to projects. I would always go to the gate. I would take the gate and I would go away. I would go to the entrance. I would say, bro, I'm going to marry you. I'm a prince. You are going to marry me? I'm not going to go to the gate.  I'm going to be a genie. I'll work for you. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. We want to have another story in a video of women gathered and blessed their phones together. They followed an instruction to beep their boyfriends and wait for a response. The ones whose boyfriends called first celebrated. The ones whose boyfriends didn't respond in time were mocked. Now the video captures the playful competition among the women highlighting the varying levels of attention and affection received from their significant others. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. We are catching. So when you find a missed call, maybe you were busy. So you call back when I say, Hi, will you come and pick me up when I'm gone? Will you pick me up when I'm gone? If you don't want to pick me up, come and pick me up when I'm gone. Who are you calling right now? Joy. Which category do you belong to? Which category do you belong to? I'm a window and I have instructions. Which category do you belong to? I belong to the ones that are listed. Why are you calling me a window and I'm going to pick you up? The category I'm in. Why are you listening? That's a joke though, that's a joke. But you know what? I am so sure there are so many women who will try that and it's a risky game. We will try that. But it's not always a man sitting waiting for your call. You know, sometimes when you are busy, I know this is unlike me. But sometimes, sometimes these people are busy. I deserve a clap. I don't have the money. It's bad. But listen, listen. You know what? I'm a level guy. Some of you might think I'm the best team. But I'm not. I'm a bigger bro. You know what? I had a meeting with a boss and he said, excuse me boss, let me check this. That's all. You know what? Level. Level. They're levels to these things. Where's the team? Where's the team I'm talking about? You know what? I'm asking you to go to class and tell me who I am. And you guys are like all over each other. You know, texting all the time, calling all the time. Okay, sometimes there are people who live in 10 years later. They still do that. But you know what? This is rush. This is rush. This is rush. So I'm not going to go out. So that thing happens. When guys are new. But my advice to women, because we can be dramatic sometimes. Eye-toping the list. Don't make decisions based on such a game. Because if you don't know how to play, let's try that game. The boyfriend, and she takes that personally and creates all my calls. Let me tell you something. If you have money, if you don't know how to play, let me tell you, if you don't know how to play, call me. Especially during morning hours. From around 7 to 11. But I don't know how to play. My phone is usually on silent. Not vibration, nothing silent. The amount of time my sister and I fight on phone because she called me 20 times and I didn't pick. And she's so mad. And my mom, like my family knows this. I don't know how to play. But let me tell you. It's just like that. No, let me tell you. If I call him and I'm supposed to earn some money on him picking, it doesn't pick. He'll give me that money. You know how to do that? If you spend the money, I'll take your money. Honestly, you're not like your mom. She's not like her mama. That's why she's a person who is very happy. She's got money through her money. The story is great, but she's got joy too. Me too. Me too. Because you're not married and you don't have money.   What's the risk? What's the risk? Do you have a job? I have a job I have a job I have a job I can survive if I can I get a job I can get a job I can get a family So I can have a job I can get a job Unless I'm to raise a pig I will have to get a base I will have a base I will have a base You said that we have aRepeat Who is the person who decided to raise a pig?  I don't think I agree with that. I think it's how your relationship is. How? Because Bantu is so busy, but she will tell her baby, can I call you back later? How long will that take? And in a healthy relationship, communication, communication should be so clear to a point where you, as the woman, you know, at such a time, most likely, your cousin will not be able to sit at home. At such a time, you will be able to go to a meeting for two hours, most likely to sit at home. But if you're just there... Communication. Communicate. What do you say? I can communicate, but I can't go to work. Communication will end. But you don't know what communication is. Bantu will be able to go to work because that is what we are saying. I can go to work, but my wife is young, that's why I can go to work. I can go to work, but if I want to go to work, I can go to work. I can go to work because that is how my work goes. That's how she is. But, I can go to work. Because I have someone who is busy, and I am far from that, and I have to take care of the job that I wanted to do, I'm busy, but can I call you back?  And I will love and respect such a person to you money But it depends again on a date You don't want to date me You need to date me at your own risk I don't want to date you Who are you guys dating? Who are you dating? I don't want to date you It's not I love I don't want to be mad I'm too crazy I don't want to see you today, you are with me No, my pens are tight There's time for everything. I don't know. There's time for everything. There's time for everything. There's time for everything. There's time for everything. There's time for everything. Why do you guys think? What do you guys think? The guys at home, what's Pepe's opinion now? Now, please, I want to support Bantu. Please tell me you're supporting me on this. Like, put your woman first. All right, all right, all right. Away from that. Let's actually cover another story, an international story. Now, Asha serenaded Kiki Palma at his Las Vegas show, prompting her boyfriend, Darius Jackson, to criticize her outfit. Jackson wrote, it's the outfit though.  Jackson's comments sparked controversy due to his conservative views and past problematic tweets. Despite the backlash, Palma and Asha remained unfazed because after Palma shared a photo of herself in their outfit on Instagram, Asha liked it, supporting her. Ha, that is the outfit on the screen, the outfit you are talking about. And if you just maybe might have missed this story, we actually have a video for you. Okay, now, Asha, seriously, how are you supposed to act?  It is Asha, unless you're not a fan of Asha, then understand, I mean. Asha Raymond. Asha Raymond. Ha? Or say what, 2000s, they understand. Now, millennials understand. Millenials understand. Millennials understand. But Gen Z, maybe not so much. Gen Z, maybe not so much. I don't know. Kiki, she's 28, I don't know, 28. So she grew up in that era. Asha Raymond. So I'm just asking, joy, do you see any problem with that? So Kiki was in that video with Asha, with Asha and tout sase now that she is posing like that and she's out to have fun, because it's a mom, it's a dead sentence. But I don't know. People have different opinions. I'm honest. I'm curious. Okay. Oh, it's the stage. It's a performance. And you're still a man. So I'm just saying. So I assume event. Are you going to feel bad about that? No, I won't. No, I won't. No, I won't. No, I won't. No, I won't. No. But as long as stage. My name is Mongotea. It's going to get a little tricky. We are just dating. We are not going to make up with other people. But everyone else has to be very patient. They can smile on the phone. They will never talk to you with deep emotions.  She will give you her own way to drive you crazy. So you depend on me. You are my killer. people are different. Okay is it is it an insecurity joy is it an insecurity like for someone to say that and if you had a problem with her, I was listening to Burnt and I'm like who do people date because personally I think the kind of man I will date is not the kind that would not not him allowing me but seem being in my life will didn't allow me to get on stage and get her needed by another man.  You've been away for a minute. How was it? I was really happy for that. I had to go to the gym to train and I was going to give a lecture to the principal. I was going to go to school and I was going to show my students how I was doing. I was really happy for that. Thank you, ma'am. I'm still not sure if I'm going to be able to tune in. I'm not sure. All right. We have Joy right here. Joy, do you have an Islam? Well, guys, thank you for always, always tuning in. And today, my entire family is watching. My mom, my dad. I'm sure it's going to be new. My siblings, Terry, Kate, Mac George, I truly, truly love you guys like now up to in the sun. And what about your primary school? Oh, my God, those kids love Chichatzana. And of course, the group that I direct Pacific Arts Production was a new water. I love you guys so much. Ryan Sheriff Motunga. What about your mother too? Oh, my God. Now up in the sun. Those guys love Chichatzana. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the love. We did not take it for granted. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for always, you know, watching the show. I want to sample some comments right here on socials in Tanzania, Twitter, Kiddogo, and then Facebook. Miss Alamutu, as we go by because of time. I have DJ Greenlight too for a first shout out to you for tuning in. I want to see your tuning in from Matasia in Gong. What's up? Hey, what's up? Hey, what's up? Hey, what's up? Hey, what's up? Hey, what's up? What's up? Hey, what's up? Hey, what's up? Hey, what's up? Let me see who else is right here on Facebook. You're going to chop it, chop it, chop it. What do you do? What do you do? Superstar, Grisiu, VHG Finest. VHG Finest official, we are watching all the way from VHG County, Grisiu. Myna Frances, Pomodza Kirinyaga, Kianjeghe, West Tunday, and Santasana. Myna Frances Karish, Grisiu, Chicz Ray, your number one. Thank you, Chicz. Thank you for the love. We appreciate that. We're representing you. We're going to do a live stream. I have Album Cateliki Salano, VHG Magosenta, the Camakawa, thank you. Thank you. Thank you and love to see you in Camakawa. You guys look great. Thank you. I have Jem Munda-Cini. My favorite singer. Thank you. I always love... What's the link to the thread? Oh. Okay. I'm on thread. I told you guys... I'm on threads. It's threads. I'm on threads. We're going to have to check on that. I'm so sorry. We'll check. We'll check on that. Oh, I know there's a link here where 254. We'll check on that. We'll check on that. I think it was being fixed. It had a problem and it was being fixed. So we'll address that. And I said, my shout out to your girl. We're sure we're looking good and it's fun too. At the same time, we're going to... We're going to get married. We're going to get married. Okay, I don't know. Yes, you get. Okay, I don't know. Yes, you get. Thank you. That's an inside joke. I feel left out, but it's okay. I know. I'm a bit like... Me too, right? I have two more things. Good evening. Welcome from Kitale. Shout out to you and your Shingonga family. Yes, I'm Tessana. Victor Vex. Good to see you. That's Bashir. We're from Busea. Anthony Mwenda Foundation. Great. I'm Santan. I'm Nathan Marseille. Welcome from Las Vegas. Shout out to you. I have Vincent Ogutu. We are looking from Athe River. Shout out to you. Pendawa E Town. Count me in. We already did. And champion. We're going to get a new trend. We're going to go to Palais. And we're going to watch the entire show. We're going to watch the entire show. We're going to watch the entire show. No, we're not going to watch the entire show. We're going to watch the entire show. Footprints. We're going to watch this show. Now, we should just get started. Right away.달인 posses. Music We're going to watch this show. We're going to watch the whole show. I should just get started. The entire show. Alright and friends that are in this beginning to get to you too. I have Mr 30. Raster Garry watching from Narroka, Santesana. Iman James. Go to see you. YouTube. Views. audio winding up facts and numbers. My fans. I think it's talking about the hair. Oh, we are talking about Brazilian. Yeah, the kind of hair you have. We are talking about Brazilian. We don't think. Do you want to have a black one? Okay, because of time, let me just finish the comments. We don't have time to discuss. We have a lot of friends from around here. We have been here for a long time. We will be here next week. I have a friend from Lebanon. I will be here next week. We will be here next week. Let me thought I'm leaving now. We will be here next week. I have been here for a long time. to my G and look and go learn honor you've decided to take shifts in keeping warm I'm telling you it is it is too too cold a lot of us have you didn't have um oh joy okay I'm trying not to read the whole comment section but thank you thank you okay so let me just mention names because I want to thank you for making the show possible we do these again next Sunday have an amazing week ahead shout out to Maurice right here I want to shout out to Rajula I want to shout out to Yvonne I want to send my love to Hilary as well for holding us down today shout out to Ariel and uh Rona he couldn't be here today but we'll see him next week shout out to the horse gang gang oh Philim sorry one thing uh there's this school that watches chit chat even like on weekends Saint Mary's uh Saint Mary's high school is called Matoo and Akiteta girls literally literally I sent Mary's hi Akiteta so shout out to Saint Mary's Akiteta girls thank you so much girls we appreciate that a lot right we'll see you next week with another amazing show have an amazing week ahead all right love you


Hi, my name is Richard Scheer and this is the Montpelier City Forum where we talk about Town Meeting Day and we've talked about races for city council contested in all three districts. We have the mayor's candidate Anne Watson, we have city budget, we have school budget, we have the bonding issues and today we have the city clerk's office where we have our sole candidate, John Odom, our incumbent. Well, thanks for having me. John, how long have you been city clerk? Six years. So this will be, what is that, my third term assuming there isn't a big write-in campaign that... Well, assuming there is anyway, you're a lot better known than whoever would write in. Let's take us back six years ago. It was a contested race, Charlotte Hoyt, the former city clerk had just retired. And what caused you to want to be city clerk? How much did you know about the office at that time? Well, I had a pretty good sense of what the office did just from, you know, I was a justice of the peace for a while so that, you know, they work obviously very closely with the clerk's office. You know, I had sort of had a bit of an eye on it for a long time and quite frankly I'd been doing consulting for the year before and the beginning part of that year I had more work than I could do. By the time the election came around I was having a hard time putting it together and I actually had a couple people come to me and say, you should do this. And I thought, yeah, all right, well, that would work. It's a tricky thing to run for, right? Well, so... Well... You're not running against a long-time incumbent, it's an empty office. But I mean, it's a tricky thing to actually be prepared to win because it is a full time job and there's a lot of moving pieces. Is it a full time job or is it more than a full time job? Well, it's interesting. During the election years it's a more than full time job. On these off years where we just have town meeting I actually have a little bit more time and that's where I've...and those are the years that I've worked on upgrading the system or some extra things for the city like the museum but in terms of the trickiness of running the problem is whoever wins you have to be able to be prepared to start full-time the next day and not a lot of people in a position to do that. I mean, what do you tell your employer? So, you know, I was down to 10 hours a week in consulting, mainly working for the bridge. So, you know, I was in a position...it was just a perfect timing for me to be in a position to run. Now, it's not quite the next day. I mean, figuratively speaking, it's not the next day but it's close. No, it's literally the next day. Oh, is it literally the next day? Yep, the day after election day. Oh, my goodness. I was clerk, Charlotte wasn't, and I walked to work. But you already knew the people in there. Well, I was acquainted with... Crystal and her group. Yeah, I was acquainted with Crystal. I didn't really know the other folks, though.  But I'd already had a sense of Crystal and one of the...you know, when I... and Crystal is the deputy clerk at the time, the assistant clerk.   Right, but also just to feel out, you know, how did they feel about me running? They hadn't had a lot of contact with me and to the extent they had. It was, you know, really around election things, collecting lists. And, you know, I didn't know what sense they had of me. And I...if, you know, if they thought, oh, that guy, you know, I didn't want to inflict myself upon them. But it was, you know, it was good. It was very positive and starting out was great. I mean, the folks are...they know what they're doing. What's your role with City Council? With City Council, I'm the secretary. So, you know, I'm there at meetings. I'm taking minutes. I'm not formally the parliamentarian. The tradition is for them to appoint one of their bodies as the parliamentarian. But I become the sort of de facto parliamentarian. And I also consider myself a resource for them when meetings aren't going on.  So, and that can...you know, there's often somebody who's in touch with me about one thing or another, but usually it's just informational stuff. But you have to sit through those marathon sessions. I do. When there's a lot of discussion, you'll see me with two computers and I'm working on other stuff during the day I need to get caught up on. And it's kind of like if they don't hear from you, things are going well. Yeah, yeah. And when they do, it becomes the dog ordinance. What happened with the dog ordinance? You know, I'm not entirely sure. But the vote on the dog ordinance. Well, the vote, it had been delayed for some time, the second reading. The first reading had been pretty far back, months back. So it became this process of continuing the second reading, just, you know, in terms of keeping it correct under parliamentary procedure. And during that time, I mean, often between first and second reading, you'll see tweaks done and some, you know, the council will approve little adaptations and corrections. And there was, although, you know, the base ordinance stayed the same. There were definitely quite a few tweaks. There had been a citizen group working on it to come up with a base idea. And then between that first reading and that delayed second reading, there was, you know, there was a little bit more done. And there was even a push from some folks to extend the second reading again this last time, but the council was ready to vote. And they took out the parks in the final, that the parks would be separate? Yeah, yeah, they distinguished the parks, you know, because in the sense that the parks have their own rules and, yeah. Now, before that, actually, I was referencing the dog vote. Oh, oh, the special meeting. Exactly, that was one where there was a problem. There was a problem. And I am very, very conservative. Well, I'm conservative in everything I do. I'm conservative with the land records. I am neurotically dot my I's and cross my T's. And that conservative nature, it got me in a little trouble. First, I made a very conservative choice and leaned on the council a little bit to follow that really worked in the favor of the folks who were opposed to the vote. Which was to kind of deal with dogs in the park, right? Yes. And then the second decision I made when, unfortunately, the Times Argus screwed up the printing of the warning, which put us in a bad situation. Because I had a backup warning ready to go. We were going to fire it off because they were going to amend or even eliminate that item. And then the warning got printed prematurely. And I got a sort of a mixed reaction from talking to the city's attorneys. And it just wasn't firm. So then I had to advocate, you know, the conservative thing to do is just to go forward with this, which then made some of the folks who were very happy with me a couple of weeks before very angry with me. I mean, that's a good illustration, I think, of some of the positions you might get put in in this role when you're really a guardian of the process.  And perhaps that's one of the most important roles of the city clerk. Oh, it's my favorite. Besides collecting our water bills and our tax bills. Talk about that one for a second. How is that different six years ago than it is now? Other than the fact that you can get your petitions online. Well, yeah, you can get a lot of that information online. A lot of things have changed sort of top down in policy since then. Probably the biggest thing is the same day voter registration. When was that put in? That's a state law, isn't it? That state law that was put into place a couple, maybe a couple years ago, that put me in an interesting situation because that's something I feel very strongly in favor of. And why? Well, part of it is there would there will be people who will say that it puts the system's integrity and jeopardy. Well, I look at this as a balance, right? You've got to maintain a balance when you're talking public policy between looking out for that voter fraud and essentially keeping the government out of the way of folks performing their most fundamental right in any democratic society, and that's to vote. That brings out the libertarian streak in me. I don't think government should be involved in that unless there's a problem. And there has not been a demonstrated problem with fraud at this point. So the scale, the balance was like this. Now, if you see that balance start to go this way and fraud starts to become a problem, you're going to see me justice vehemently go the other direction. But it's just not there yet. The balance isn't there. So I was very much in favor of this. Now, have we seen any cases in the last six years of people trying to vote for other people? You mean as far as like voting twice or something like that? Yeah, voting twice or saying that I'm, well, I suppose your neighbors are the ones who are checking you in. But has there been anyone who said, I'm Gabriel, I'm my son? Anecdotally during the process of hearings before the Senate House government operations, you had a lot of clerks, and most clerks were opposed to this.  There was only one, I think, where there was actually a call to the Attorney General's office, and it was a definite issue. How do we deal with F&T ballots to assure the integrity of that system? Well, that's largely helped by the other big change we have, which is so much of this process going online. In the last six years, we've got a new common voter registration system, a common, you know, we're all feeding into a statewide database. So the Secretary of State's office completely overhauled that system. They took it from one that was stone age into something very modern. And because of that, we're all able to track absentee ballots in a common system. So once someone gets tagged at that, they're not going to be able to go and vote somebody else. And with the same-day registration, too, we can immediately tag them as having participated. So then if they try to go to another place and participate, that clerk's going to bring that up, going to look at them and say, oh, you've already voted. What's last day I can vote absentee and still have it count for town meeting day? Well, in Vermont, and this is different than other states, we expect that all ballots that are going to be counted have to be in by that common deadline, by 7 o'clock when polls close on election day. So you're sort of at the, you know, whereas other states, they're going to look at the post mark, they're going to keep that final tally open. In Vermont, we just look at that as a hard deadline. So you're somewhat at the mercy of the post office. So we advise people, you know, if they're going to get an absentee ballot and mail it in, and you've got three or four business days, mailing days left. If you're going to have a friend deliver it by hand to the clerk's office, when does it need to be delivered by 7 p.m. on election day? Oh, okay. When the polls close. Sealed and everything is signed. Everything that's in at that point gets counted. After that, it is not. How reliable are those machines that you feed the piece of paper in to get the little sticker? They're actually really, really reliable. This is, you know, this is different than like the touch screens and things that you hear about that have sometimes gone a little wrong. This is really reliable technology. It's this, you know, scanner technology that's been around for 25 years. It's tried and true and tested. And those machines, they're that really solid technology. I could just about throw one across the room and it would still work. But we do test them. I mean, there's a rotating. Well, we test them all before we, before we test them. Just throw a certain number of, yeah. We make a lot of fake ballots every imaginable way possible and put them through. And then there's also an auditing procedure that the Secretary of State does. Not to every polling place, but it's rotating. I think it's like, you know, 6, 10 a year, they'll audit. And I think, actually, a modular system is coming up for an audit here in the next couple.  We saw in Virginia, in the special election of Virginia, that intent came into question as to what is this paper about? What was the intent? You had intent come into question once in the Ashley Hill Francis Brooks State Senate race. What was that like? Can you walk us through what it's like to try and figure out intent? Who is sitting in that room with you trying to figure out intent? Well, that was interesting. During the recount, which was really overseen by the Secretary of State's office, it was easier because it was within one party. Actually, it was very simple. So then it was just a matter of turning people out who identify within that party to do the recount. If it had been multiple party, then you've got to make sure you get folks of both. And the intent is actually generally fairly simple. I mean, even if people screw up their ballots and intent rules, we really do want to make it as a system. Now, can you walk me through an intent? Well, what it looked like, can you paint a word picture of what one of those ballots that was under question in that race looked like? Well, there were a lot when we went from beginning to end, where we would have to look where somebody fills in like one oval, and then they cross it out, and they put an arrow to the other one. Something like that is pretty easy to tell. Or somebody has a hard time with their hand and holding it still, and there's a sort of scribble outside one. It's easy to tell. The last, I think it came down to three ballots in that primary that you're referring to. And looking at the ballots, I think I and most of the folks there felt like they made the right call. There was a ballot that I think the oval wasn't quite fully filled in, so the argument could be made that it was intended to be left blank if I recall it correctly. But I think objectively, I think it came down to a judge because there was some finality, a handful, I think three ballots that needed to be reviewed that the volunteers couldn't come to a consensus on. So the judge made the decision. Who were the volunteer counters? Well, that's folks who came from the sort of democratic infrastructure. Because it was just the party. Because it was just the party, which made it a whole lot. Yeah, that made it a lot easier. But it was still no fun. Now, you're cut into the national issues of voter fraud, I suppose, voter integrity, no matter which way you look at it. What are you talking about on the national level? Is that a spirited discussion? And do you feel that the national system is secure for 2018? Well, I mean, of course, what we're talking about is tampering, electronic tampering, hacking, that kind of thing. And that's a complicated question. I mean, our system is very decentralized, although that became a lot less true with the passage of the Help America Vote Act after the. What year was that? That would have passed in 2002. It was the sort of collective response to the Florida debacle in the 2000 presidential election. That created some common standards, which went a long way to making the state's processes a little more uniform. It's still decentralized. So that's a plus for hacking. It means if you can't get in and mess them all up, but it's state by state. And for the most part, voting machines are not networked and not connected to the internet, for the most part, which means the actual vote tallies at the polling place are going to be, the integrity is going to be complete. So the big problem that cheer folks talking about is that the voter registration roles often are accessible from the internet. I mean, I think probably as a rule, they're accessible through the internet. So that's where you could get the easiest target for tampering. How clean are Mount Piliers' roles in terms of having only people who you believe are going to actually live where they live and actually vote? We just made a massive cleanup last year. It was very satisfying. We get a lot of people coming in and out a lot more than you'd think that move in and out. And since the process is slow to take people off, our voting list tends to bloat very quickly. I mean, you had people registering to vote in Mount Piliers, I think they'd never registered to vote before during when Bernie was on the ballot. And then they moved out to some place else. But we have challenged a lot of voters. So in terms of active, unchallenged voters, it's at about 5,700 right now, which feels good. Out of how many adults? What percentage of our adult population do you believe is actually registered to vote? Oh, I think most of them, by far. Because the other major change that's happened is that we now have, when you go to get your driver's license renewed or get a new driver's license, instead of opt-in devoting, it's opt-out. So you're automatically registered, unless you specifically say, don't register me. And nobody does that. So that's been great for making sure that a much higher percentage of folks who should be registered are registered. And it's also been an extraordinary tool for us to clean up our data. Because a lot of our data is, it tends to be out of date. People move and they don't, I mean, even across town. They don't necessarily let us know. If you move across town from District 2 to District 3, and you vote in District 2, is your vote going to be valid? Will the vote be captured? Technically, we make people, we ask that people come and adjust their registration to reflect their correct district. Can you do that? If I show up on election day and I realize, oh my god, I think I'm on the roll still for District 2 and I live in District 3, can you make that change on the fly? You can make that change on the fly, although legally, and I'm not a big fan of this, you can vote in the district that you're still registered in. I don't love that. But so that's why we try to encourage folks to get in the right districts. Do you have any problems with the gerrymanders that create three districts in this town that are so unusual that District 2 goes all the way from town, from the edge of Town Hill Road down to Barrie? Oh, I. And at District 3 includes some very unusual slenders and slices. I don't think that's a fair characterization at all. I remember when they did that redistricting process. The trick was you have to have the same amount or roughly the same amount of people in each one. And if you look at it, I mean, you make it sound like it's North Carolina or something. It's a pretty even three, except there's this sort of thumb of District 3 that sort of pokes up there downtown. And I'm actually in that thumb. So that's the weird part. I think the rest is pretty straightforward, but that little. And that was just in there to balance out the population. Now, most people know you for elections. Talk about our property taxes and what do you collect? Well, technically, it's not my responsibility to collect that anymore. It's in the finance department. It's just that it comes into my office. OK, what comes into your office for collections? I run on the file side of a parking ticket. Where do I take it? You take it into my office. It's interesting, since the finance, well, since the clerk and the treasurer split up into two different offices, the clerk's office is actually sort of a combination of staffers from both. But most of us, including myself, will work on both ends of things, just to make sure the service works and people aren't waiting in line. So what are you collecting? So we collect parking tickets. We collect the utility bills, the water and sewer. We collect property taxes. Then more specifically, to the clerks, we collect business licenses, marriage license, dog license. We collect money for recording of land documents. Boy, I'm sure there's more, and I'm just not thinking of it. Marriage licenses? Yep, yep. Now, you've got to measure on the ballot in one of the articles. Yeah, I guess it's sort of like mine. I mean, I'm the one who put it out there and pushed for it. Would you explain that? Because most people have no idea what that's about. Yeah, and I'm going to get all that stuff on the website here and send out something. So to try to clarify, because there's four charter changes on the ballot, and we seem to be changing the charter every year or two now. The one that I pushed for, a complaint I hear a lot is folks, very, I don't mean small business people.  And a lot of them, a perfect example, I think I was someone who was a masseuse and came in and she has to come in and pay this tax based on her massage table and a few things. And it's so small that it amounts to a nuisance tax. It's like the city isn't really getting anything from it. She has to remember to do it. And she comes in and pays her $12.  So I worked with the assessor's office and the assessor's office felt the same way. And the charter change, because this stuff has to be changed through the charter, because it's so defined. Well, it's so defined by statute. And the charter, of course, is its own statute. But this would, so any business that has up to $10,000 of taxable business property, business equipment, would be exempt from having to pay any. So that, you know that. How many remain left, roughly? It's actually. Other than national life. Actually, at that level, this is really thumbnail. But if you've got about $4,000 to $5,000, technically, about 2 thirds of them are cut right off. So it's just leaving that 1 third left. The hit on the city budget is going to be about $11,000, $12,000. Minimal? It's minimal. I mean, it matters. It really matters. I mean, when we're down into those budget discussions, the department heads, where we're literally clawing out $500 here and $500 there. But there's also the expectation that even with tax stabilization, we've got some big businesses coming in. What is tax stabilization? Oh, just one of these methods and there's several options under state constructions. And this is more of a municipal construction that allows for tax incentives for businesses that might come in. You can promise them that their business personal property tax isn't going to go up for a few years. But I mean, the point is we've got some big ones coming in that theoretically this next year, when it takes effect, will more than offset that $11,000. So we should be fine. So I see it as sort of a tax shift under the folks that can afford it more off of the folks that may be struggling. Now, your office oversees land records and property records. Six years ago, how is that process for the public changed accessing land records and property records? It's very different now. I changed the electronic vendor we were working on to one that was about a third the cost, maybe more, but also just allowed for much quicker, much easier access, which enabled us to bring what was traditionally a roughly three month backlog of getting those things indexed to zero.  So it's in instantly. The indexes are available online. And all the actual images of the actual documents back through 93 are available online. And all the indexes of everything, including the book and page number for reference, are available back into the beginning of time, rather. Now, that's from your house or from your office? From house office. If you come into our office, if you use the system remotely, then the vendor's going to charge a certain amount of extra money for that access. And if you come into our office, you don't have to pay that. But yeah, we don't have nearly as many folks coming into the office doing title searches as we used to, because it's so easy now for them to access it remotely. So that's been great. What's coming up automation-wise in the next year or two in your mind? What are you headed to next? Well, it's interesting, because the LAN records end of things. I feel like I've hit all my goals on that. So now I'm going to take stock and see where we can improve it and sort of try to keep with the times and also see if I can shave off a little expense, which I just had. Is there any online payment that you haven't made yet that you haven't automated yet that you're looking at? Well, I was all set to automate our requests for vital documents, for vital records, birth certificates, marriage certificates, things like that. But then a couple of months ago, this state announced they were going to do it for us. Well, that's fine. So I'm glad I didn't spend a lot of time and money on that yet. So your office is looking forward to your USS Montpelier Museum. Oh, well, the USS Montpelier Museum is the one upstairs. What is your museum? My museum is a total overstatement. So I refer to it as the clerk's collection. That brings it down. That's a very salacious sound. But it's just, I mean, the thing was I realized we had some really amazing stuff in the vault that was largely gathering dust that people would love to see, but not enough to fill a room.  We really opened up that research room that folks use. And we painted it, put in some new tables. We made it nice. And I thought, why don't we put some of that stuff on display? And that sort of maybe thinking, well, if I put that stuff on display, it's great stuff, but it's going to cover about half a wall. So I put out the word to folks in town, let's bring in some more. And I've had all kinds of amazing, it's a little bit of an eclectic museum. Does anyone go there? People trickle in. I mean, every now and then we'll get somebody every few days who wants to come in and look at it. I actually have gotten. Does anyone look at the USS Montpelier Museum? That happens a little more rarely. But I guess that we have folks who show up to march during the 4th of July. So that'll always bring a few more people in. So we get a handful of people a year who want to go up there. And that's a little different. That's a little more run like a private collection. The door is locked.   But it's a really well-maintained. It's a great collection. I wish more people knew about it. Now, I'm going to go to the secret task of the Montpelier City Clerk is to maintain the Montpelier City flag. Would you explain how we came about to have a new Montpelier City flag? Oh, that's hilarious. And how the old one got into being. Yeah, well, again, one of those things that could only happen on an off-election year, where I had a little more time to breathe. But there, I can't remember. It's just a very well-known person. It was one of these TED talks that you hear that I think they played on public radio and such, where this well-known, I think he's sort of a jack-of-all-trades, but he's a vexillologist, which is, you know, someone who studies flags. No, I don't know that. Now I do know that. Yeah, I didn't know either. So one more time. That is a vexillologist. OK, you know that now. So there was this TED talk about flags, about what makes a good flag, rules for a good flag, what the qualities of good flags and the ones that have lasted over the years. And then he talked about what makes a poor flag. And his example was the Montpelier flag. So that hurt, right? Partly it hurt. It stung, but it was also educational, because as you heard folks on the council were like, we have a flag. And we do. There was one flying outside, which wasn't really thought of as a flag. And it's because many years back during a.  Well, it was a white flag with what was clearly a logo. It said, City of Montpelier established had a little background, and that's what it was. The Rose Parade wanted to have representations from all the state capitals with their flags. Montpelier didn't have a flag. And there was like no time to work one out. So they took a logo that had been designed for signs and just stuck it on a white background. What year would this have been, roughly? Oh, boy. It was in the 2000s, that's all I can tell you. Oh, OK. Fairly recent. Yeah, yeah. I think it was like 15 years ago, something like that. But I'm pulling that out of thin air, so don't pay any attention to me. So anyway, we were advised by local flag aficionados, or the city was advised, no, we wasn't, that this does not make a good flag. And it was just sort of like, well, we got to have something. Now we have something to put on the pole, and everybody forgot about it. So once we were publicly shamed in that way, and even speaking to the person who designed the logo, she was like, I wasn't supposed to be a flag, right? Then we decided to have a contest. How many entries? We had about 60 entries. We did it on the cheap, and the cheap and the quick. It was all, because I had said that I would throw it together. I've done a lot of work on the web. So I was like, I can slap something out there. What did the winner win? The winner won our undying gratitude and some nice pictures of the flag with his parents posing next to it. Now, could you describe our city flag? I know it's hanging outside. It is. I mean, it's very reminiscent of the EU flag because it's a dark blue background within the middle of Circle of Gold Stars. Now, I would say that that's our design from our original flag, the US up in the corner, that blue background, the Circle of Stars. So they got it from us, so we're just bringing it back home, right? So it's, and it's got 14 stars, which 14 is an interesting number in Vermont. There's 14 counties. We were the 14th state. So that 14 number comes up, and you know, the description. I imagine there are 14 Illuminati, someone would say. And I mean, the description from the designer, you know, he said the Circle is reminiscent of the dome. But you know, I don't see that, but it was his idea, let's go with it. And then underneath it is just a very simple sort of waving overlay of green to symbolize mountains. And it's very, very simple, but it is very evocative of mountains. You look right at it and you know what it is. And that, I think, is really what sets it apart. And I think it's really nice. We had three finalists, and that was the overwhelming winner of, you know, we had about, what was it, about 300 votes, something like that. Okay, and one of them is in your office on the wall, on the clerk's office? Yes, we have a big banner of it for events. And I believe when we're flying. Yep. Is there a third anywhere, or is it just two in existence? When we're flying, there's another one inside, because we had replaced the, there was also, by the city manager's office, there had been one of the old flags flying, so we replaced it with that. So there's three right there. But there's quite a bit more over the Montpelier flag works that can be ordered. I bought one. I have one that I fly in front of my house. Is there any discussion that that will be marched in the July 3rd parade, that the city of Montpelier will march its flag? Boy, it should be, especially since we have that big banner. We ought to, you know, yeah, hope so. I didn't really thought about that yet, but yeah. Well, that's my citizen recommendation. Well, it was last Independence Day celebration that we unveiled the winner, so it would be only appropriate to have it back out there. John, thank you so very much. I appreciate your time here, and I appreciate the fact that you're running again. It would be terrible if no one ran for city clerk. I would, that's tricky. And I want to thank everybody for watching this, but what's really important is that you watch the other shows where the races are contested because we have all of the candidates for city council. We have Anne Watson, our candidate for mayor. We have a discussion of the city budget. We have a discussion of the school budget of all of the other articles, besides John's article on personal property for businesses, and get yourself knowledgeable. Nat and Michael at the bridge have an entire issue where they're devoting to the candidates, good issue, and Times Argus is covered. Please, take your time to read this, but more importantly, get out on town meeting day and vote and have your friends vote and have your neighbors vote because that's the strength of our democracy is the participation, hopefully, of nearly 5,700 voters, which we won't have, but as many as we can have to help us make the right determinations and feel good with our determinations. And just to back that up, it's a pretty good metric, usually, to get a sense of what turnout is gonna be based on the early votes. Right now, the early votes are very low, so folks need to come out because we're looking at an embarrassingly low turnout and we can't have that happen. Absolutely. So tell your neighbors, we don't want an embarrassingly low turnout. We don't want to disappoint our city clerk, John Odom. Thank you so very much for watching.


Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss materials, as you can see, and it's about it. It's pretty simple. That said, this is a really fun game. It's very high energy. The pacing is great. This is made by Konami back in the old days. 1991 is when this was made. Let's get going here. I've got this set up where I can play as each character here.  Maggie catches it in her mouth. Apparently that's a good enough pacifier for her, for some reason. I don't know why Smithers would be stealing a freaking diamond. I don't know. Maybe he wants to impress Mr. Burns, but then again Mr. Burns appears to be behind this whole plot here, whatever it may be. This is a really fun game. It's got all sorts of fun little arcade kitchiness to it, like Mario. Like Marge getting pressed up against the screen there. Let's see if I can hit someone with this. Marge has got her trusty vacuum cleaner.  Apparently not. We do run away appropriately though. I'm lucky enough to live in an area here in Albuquerque, where we have a bar in downtown Albuquerque called Sister. They had this game, the four-player cabinet, for a short period of time. My girlfriend and I both took $2 worth of quarters each to try and beat it. We got to the second to last level, so I have beaten this game before. There's not much to it, etc. To beat them up, it's not that exhilarating or anything like that. It's just a good time. With beat them up, it's all about pacing and not knowing what to expect next and that sort of thing. The sound of Marge's vacuum, that squeaking cartoon sound effect. You know, when I did the X-Men, let's play.  They have X-Men because I can hear the Colossus. Well, this is kind of the same deal where if you hear that cartoony squeaking sound, I can't do it. But if you hear that, you knew there was an arcade nearby and it had at least one good game. So yeah, this game had its own summoning horn, so to speak. But yeah, we are chasing Mr. Smithers, Waylin Smithers, who is now floating away in a hit button. Good idea. Big time. I think that just gets you extra live or something. I don't know. But yeah, if the typical, wow, I won by one. If the typical, yeah, if the typical Simpsons stuff here looks a little different and if you don't recognize a lot of the enemies or characters here, that's because some of them were seriously just made up for this game. Like whoever this guy is. Oops, didn't mean to do that. But yeah, this game was made in 1991. I think it was March 91. At least that's when it came out in North America. And so yeah, this would have come out in the middle of season two for the Simpsons. So yeah, that's how quickly this became a hit. It was the middle of season two and you're already getting like a high-profile developer like Konami. Hey, I can't grab this.  There's Marvin Monroe, psychiatrist at large. He was a big part of the first couple seasons and then he was just kind of forgotten about after that. But yeah, this would have come out, I think season two ended in sometime in, I don't know, September, I think? Or no, it ended sometime in May or something like that. So this came out smack dab season two. So yeah, they must have already been making this as season two was still in production. The TV show itself started in December of 89. Whoa, what the heck? I don't know when the Tracy Ullman show clip aired, but the Simpsons, the first episode aired in December of 89. So they can just barely get away with saying it spans however many decades, even though it's a matter of weeks, but whatever. But yeah, back then, the TV show, people talk about the glory days of the Simpsons and season two is definitely the beginning of that. Season one is a bit rougher on the edges, at least for my taste. There's still some laughs and some funny stuff, but it's kind of weird to watch now because it's like Mr. Burns is practically a regular cast member. He's in every episode seemingly, which is kind of weird. I think they wanted him to be the bad guy every week, but instead, the Simpsons grew to be like this big thing. It's funny, you'd think that would be like a power-up, but instead it's something you throw. I should really be utilizing the jump more often because that's what I do with the actual arcade, but instead I'm playing this any way I can. I should mention the home ports very quickly. Yeah, this game did get home ports, and none of them were to any home consoles. No Super Nintendo, no NES, no Sega Genesis, no TurboGrafx, but instead it got ports on Commodore 64 and DOS, and they're both pretty bad. They're both choppy and goofy and just not good. All right, here we got our second boss fight, and it's this, it's uh, what do they call him? Oh, it's Dancin' Pete, or Handsome Pete, or Dancing Pete. I can't remember.  I think it's Dancing Pete from when Crusty takes on an alias. Okay, let's play as Homer, and Homer just uses his fists like a brute in a cool-looking jump kick. In fact, for some reason I think his jump kick is a lot better than Marge's. Marge's is a bit quicker, but Homer seems to do a little more damage, I think. Yeah, I believe all the original voices, Dan, Castle, and Edo, I can't say his name right, but yeah, Nancy Cartwright, all those folks are all here in this game, I believe.  It's hard to play, even to beat him up, it's hard to play and do this at the same time, and now he falls and he dies. It would have been a funny touch if he bounced along the cliff, like when he tried to skateboard over the canyon in that one episode from season three. Yeah, anyway, like I was saying, the glory days of the Simpsons, as people call them, are called as such because they had an amazing riding staff back then.  Oh, does that take away life when I do that? I forgot. Ah, screw you. Who else did they have? I remember David Isaacs was part of the Simpsons for a little bit. I don't think he did a whole lot, but he wrote for Mash, he wrote for Cheers, he wrote for Frazier. He was always a very good TV writer. And of course Conan O'Brien showed up in season four, and he wrote some of the very best episodes ever, like Homer Goes to College, A Marge vs. the Monorail. I think the one where Bart has a crush on the on Pastor Lovejoy's daughter, I think he did that one too. I can't remember. But yeah, just the writing back then was just head and shoulders above anything else on TV. I think I maintain that's what made the Simpsons so much fun was because it was, it really was different in that it wasn't coasting on the novelty of like, oh, it's a cartoon, but for adults. And it's not like the Flintstones either. This is like more than a sitcom. It became, you know, like, oh, with animation we can do all sorts of other stuff that we couldn't normally otherwise. And they really took advantage of that. And the show was a lot of fun from day one, at least especially for me. I didn't get every reference, I didn't get every joke. But the stuff I did get, I laughed really hard at. Especially, you know, since we're in the Halloweeny, you know, this ghoulish environment, the Treehouse of Horror episodes were absolutely must watch, appointment viewing. My girlfriend still talks about to this day she missed out on Trick or Treating deliberately. She skipped Trick or Treating one year so she could stay home and watch Treehouse of Horror. This would have been like 94, 95, something like that. So it was just so she could, I think that year was like the Shinnon, the Simpsons Parody of the Shining, which really, which holds up today as one of my favorite episodes ever. Let's see, what are some of my other favorite Simpsons episodes? You can't go wrong with Last Exit to Springfield. That's one where Homer unknowingly or, you know, kind of bumbles his way into becoming a Union Leader for all the workers at the Power Plant. That one is just like one laugh-out-loud joke after another. I love that episode. I think everybody loves that episode. And of course, there's like Hank Scorpio is a really funny one. You gotta love that. And of course, the discussion has to come up like, oh, the Simpsons used to be so great. What happened? What went wrong? And every, you know, everybody's got their own cutoff point to when it started to, you know, to slip a little. For me, it's Season 10 is when it stopped being like every episode being must watch and it was every other episode. Then it was every third episode and then it was one out of every six or seven episodes. And one reason I don't hear a whole lot of people talk about is is just the voice acting that really went south. They started to phone it in. I really believe that. But, you know, like, oh, anything I say is funny. Okay, then I'll just, who are these people? Not a clue who these folks are. Yeah, I could really use a second player here. That would be ideal. Oh, that reminds me, if you do have a second player, at least one other player, you can do combination moves between the two between the two characters, which is always fun. Any sort of interactivity between two characters. All right, let us move on to Bart and he hits people with this skateboard. And he's interesting because he's a bit smaller.  He's easier to hide. Was there ever a Simpsons fighting game? Don't answer that. I honestly don't know if there was like a one-on-one fighting game between. Yeah, I guess the Simpsons universe can lend itself to like a lot of different games. It could be, you know, a game like this.  Anyway, yeah, this game came in two cabinets. There was a two-player one. There was a four-player one. Good stuff. And I think this game actually was available for a short time on Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network, but like several years ago it got taken down. I think it was up there for like just a little bit, but maybe a few months, maybe a year. And then it just mysteriously vanished. I don't know. I guess Konami maybe plays hardball with these with these kind of properties. I think there was like a quote-unquote remake of the Simpsons Arcade, but it's like one-player only and it's just, damn it. It's just not that good and it doesn't have the same charm, whereas this has the goofy pixel art. Hey, there's Moe. Yeah, Flaming Moe is another great episode. And at Aerosmith, I remember seeing that one when it first aired. That was a lot of fun. I was a huge Aerosmith fan when I was growing up. So, love that. Good stuff. Oh, gotta get this slingshot over here. Yeah, there's plenty of weapons in this game. Can I pick that up or no? There we go. Yeah, who are these guys? Who's this guy? Okay, I think, yeah, Bleeding Gum's Murphy. And I want to say like he was a big part of the first couple seasons, too. Not a big part, but he was in more than one episode, I think. All right, I think I can throw this, but I have to run out of this stuff first. What does this guy think he is? Koomlao with throwing his hat? Ooh, check it out. Aliens. Simpsons. Aliens was another Konami game, although that is not the same aliens. I'm gonna play some Simpsons. Yo, Doug, you like Simpsons? Well, now you can play Simpsons in your systems. Here we got a Crap Stable roulette wheel. Actually, that's just a roulette wheel. That's not a Crap Stable. That's just the roulette setup. Yeah, a lot of unrecognizable characters here. Who's asleep back there? Is that Barney? Oh, no. This is the next boss. Whoever this guy is. Drunk guy. I forget what Lisa uses. Does she use her saxophone? Or what? I don't know. Yeah, Simpsons was a pretty regular part of my childhood. I watched it any time it was on, any time the reruns were on. Another one of my favorite episodes was the parody of Rear Window, where Bart breaks his leg. They get a pool. It has a fine barn, but it is no pool-ish. Or no, it has a fine barn-ish, but it is no pool. Do it! And yeah, Bart ends up breaking his arm. Hang on a second. Oh, there we go. My thing came undone. Oh, yeah, since I have both, I didn't realize I could do that. Hey, we can play this multiplayer, but it's the same freaking player doing the same thing. Okay, so I could conceivably play this with all four players. I'll do that later. I didn't even realize I could do that. By the way, here in Albuquerque, I'm recording this on a Wednesday and it's just snowing. This is like the fourth day out of the last five that it snowed. We're in the middle of February. I'm not used to this. It's not what I moved down here for. Anyway, yeah, what was I saying? Rear window parody. And then Bart turns it in. Marge says he's turning isolated and weird. And he starts writing a play and all this sort of stuff. It's like, hey, that sounds familiar. I remember when I was a kid, when I got really overly isolated and weird, it was... I started doing stuff like I would try and invent my own Magic the Gathering card system. And of course it had to be all fantasy-based. It wasn't anything special. It wasn't anything unique, that's for sure.  All in all, it was really bad. It wasn't really worth it, but it was fun to make. It was fun to invent something like that. All right, let's get to... Yeah, actually, let's bring... Let's get Homer in here. I think my main character is Lisa. Because when I try and control this, Homer... Okay, now I control it. There we go. Yeah, anybody else out there listening or watching, let me know what your weird little projects were like that you haven't... You don't tell anybody else about them. You just work on them because they're fun. That's like what Bart had going on in that episode where he was like... He was going to force Lisa to listen to his play or whatever it was. And it's just tacky and dumb. And he's doing all the accents and the voices and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, mine was to try and invent a Magic the Gathering type thing. Hey, there's the three-eyed fish. That was a big thing from the early seasons. Was that season one or season two? I want to say that was season one. Yeah, in my opinion, the show didn't get really good until season three. That's when it was just like every single episode has at least three or four laugh out loud funny gags. Now we got squirrels that are all... Now we got Sideshow Bob. Can I get this? I can, nice. And Lisa got it. Do I fight Sideshow Bob? No, I do not. I wonder if Flanders appears in this game or no. I don't remember if he does or not. Okay, now we fight a bear. Okay, sure. Yeah, I remember my girlfriend and I, when we played this at the bar, we just used right through this part. So I don't really remember this. Let's get Marge in there. Yeah, I can only have two players at the same time, unfortunately. I'm trying to get everybody else in, but it's not working. Yeah, it's just a battle of attrition. You just, I don't care about the falling rocks or anything like that.  That's how most beat-ups end up anyway. Except for stuff like Final Fight or, you know, other stuff like stuff that actually where you can actually do moves and there's actual movesets and stuff like that. Oh, there goes Maggie. The waterfall reminds me of when the cops are after Millhouse for some reason and they trap Millhouse at the end of the waterfall. And I didn't do anything because the Tommy Lee Jones, I don't care. I'm not the fugitive. The fact that it's Millhouse always cracked me up.  It's really weird. Can I bring Homer back? I think I didn't take coins. Oh, Bart's in there. Okay. And here we've got donuts and it's like a cloud world. We've got Marge. I don't know. This is very strange. Everything's in black and white. I'm somehow controlling two players. It's an LP. I'm being lazy instead of making a video. So just bear with me. You can shut the door if you want. Okay, so this is kind of a boring stage. Can I throw these? I can. Now we've got nuclear power plant workers that lose their heads and basically fall apart like Lego figures. If you hit them too much, it's just like, what is this? I don't know. If this follows any kind of structure that's reminiscent of the show, let me know. I don't know what any of this is. The thing is though, is that the art style is so spot on and the colors are so spot on. You know, it's got the Simpsons theme and all that and it's got the fact that you can play that player one is Barth and all that sort of stuff is perfect or player one is Marge rather and like each player is a different Simpsons character. It was a really good touch. And yeah, anything that makes fun of old people, you know, I'm 38 now. Gonna be 39 soon. So anything that makes fun of old people, I'm okay. Now we fight a giant bowling ball. Okay, yeah, because that's the natural conclusion here. Yeah, anything that makes fun of old people I'm all in on and the Simpsons does an awesome job making fun of old people with Mr. Burns and his musty old references and all that sort of stuff. And of course, so I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Give me five bees for a quarter, they'd say all that sort of stuff. I mean, okay, now we're getting into like Perotius territory, like what I guess Konami just can't help themselves when it comes to certain stuff like no, we can't have typical beat them up bosses.  Just die. And it shoots bowling palm missiles. Why wouldn't it? Can it please be over? It's more fun to play as Bart Lisa, I think. It feels like they're a little bit quicker. I'm just kind of stuck over here. What forms does this thing have? It'd be cool if I could get Bart in on the action. There we go. It's just kind of meandering around. And finally, apparently there was supposed speaking of animated TV shows, there was supposed to be a Beavis and Butthead arcade game that was kind of sorted in a similar vein to this game. But the exception was that it was on some kind of like CD hardware or something like that. It had a really strange hardware setup. Three player and four player. That was easy. Did they tie or what? 84. Damn. Channel six news, Kent Brockman and the eye in the sky, whatever that Ernie Pyle Ernie Pie. I forget his name. Anyway, hopefully we'll see Kent Brockman here shortly. Yeah, see, there's it's at this point where it's like I kind of wish there was a little more variety in this game. But at the same time, I really appreciate all the different settings, visiting different parts of the Simpsons universe, even if, you know, I don't recognize who these people are. But still, it's still fun. Yeah, I like the Maggie Mr. Burns on the TV in the background there is a nice touch. We got Kung Lao Simpsons Edition back here. Kung Lao Moons. Yeah, some of my, you know, I don't do a lot of good impressions, but some of mine are two of my best are from the Simpsons. The first one, of course, is Barney Gumbel. Where, you know, that's that's where I get the SNES drunk. Oh, SNES drunk. That sounds like a terrible name. You know, that's not that good of a one put on the spotlight, put putting myself on the spot like that. SNES drunk. But that's where that kind of came from. Because saying the acronym SNES, like a word, sounds makes you sound like drunk. Who's the most prolific drunk in pop culture? To me, it's Barney Gumbel. Ooh, I forgot about this thing. Since we're in a TV studio, we fight TV people, TV characters made for TV things. Reminds me of that robot from Futurama whose name I'm drawing a blank on at the moment. But yeah, the other the other impression I do from the Simpsons, of course, it's Auto Man.  All right. You know, I used to do a lot better one. I do it better in the morning when my voice is a lot deeper. What? He's not the boss? So let me think. What are the only other impression that I do that I that I think is kind of funny is Harry Carey. But I kind of have to hold my nose for that one. So I'll wait a bit here till I get an opportunity to do that. Okay. Harry Carey here is having another beach monage. That's the extent of that. Flaming Fosu is the box here. That's my Harry Carey. So Harry Carey, Barney Gumbel and Auto. Those are like the only impressions that I can do. Can't really do Mr. Burns. When I was going through puberty, I could do Beavis pretty well. The Beavis laugh especially, but then the rest of puberty happened and now I can't do it as well. Oh, I can also do the dude in the Simpsons who the pimple-faced teenager with whose voice is always cracking. Here's your taco, sir. You know, that guy. That's another one. And I guess the nerd voice that people are asking me to do. I do it all the time on the podcast. I stole it blatantly from my girlfriend. It's kind of her thing. But are these power-ups? Yeah, the nerd voice is a combination between one of Martin Prince's friends and the older kid. I don't know how to describe him. He's like a math nerd. But it's like a cross between him and Professor Frink. Basically, that's what I'm saying. Well, actually, it should be obvious to me, you know, the most, the biggest moron, the most, the most dim-witted person that the Simpsons arcade game is one of the very best beat-em-ups ever developed on the arcade platform. It should be obvious, you know. And if you don't believe that, then you don't have valid opinion on anything that's ever existed. Because if you don't believe that, then how can you be trusted to believe anything?  I don't remember any of this. It's been a long time since I've played this. I just kind of spur of the moment decided to go for it. I don't know how long this video will be, actually. I have no idea how long it is right now. But who is this character? They do look strangely familiar. Some kind of ninja master dude. But yeah, I feel like doing the last few, you know, the next couple levels and nothing but your voice. When I talk about the hit detection in this game, I really do believe that this game is, you know, you're doing yourself a disservice if you're not playing this game. It's pretty obvious. If you don't play the Simpsons arcade game, you're not getting the full Simpsons experience. You can't call yourself a real Simpsons fan.  We fall victim to your own ignorance.  I don't know.  Exactly. I just said that. Boy, it is snowing really bad outside here. Holy cow. Oh, there goes Smithers. Get him. I remember. Okay, this is about how far we got in the bar. I think we got to the power plant. But after that, it was tough times. I used to do a pretty good Mr. Burns, but that kind of went by the wayside too. Smithers. Smithers. That doesn't sound like him at all. Okay, so we must have gotten, I don't remember. Yeah, we didn't get this far at the bar. God, this is like not Mr. Smith. This is like way before they fleshed out the character of Wayland Smithers. Interesting. That sound dial will be useless coming up with this Smithers line from over the years. Did I get him? How come he's not flashing like a Ninja Turtles villain like everybody else here? Anyway, yeah, this is pretty much just an excuse to talk.  Look at all those CRT TVs in the background. All these. Give me those TVs. Again, that does not sound like Mr. Burns at all. It sounds closer to freaking a character from Violent Storm or something. They got all the voices for the Simpsons family, which is cool. I keep getting distracted by it's snowing sideways outside. This is, I mean, I live in Albuquerque. It's ridiculous. All right. Boy, that skateboard can sure take a lot of abuse. I think it would snap in half by now or something. All right, let's see if I can. All right, he's going to grow tank treads. Yeah, all of a sudden it's Armored Warriors. Another awesome game, by the way. Really fun one. It's part of the Capcom beat-em-up bundle. Does anybody still play the Capcom beat-em-up bundle online by any chance? Because I'd love to play that with somebody, but I have it on Steam. But the lobbies are usually pretty barren.  Which, you know, that's the more popular one because, number one, it's really insane. And number two, it was never released. So, you know, people are pretty curious about that one. But when it comes to stuff like Armored Warriors and Final Fight, I'd rather play that stuff. Even what is the Warriors of Fate or something like that? I think it's called. I forget what the feudal Japan one is called. Let's see if I can line them up here. There we go. Uh-oh. Lisa's almost out of... Oh, actually, that's cheating and you're cheating yourself. You didn't learn any lessons. Like, yes, because that's the only reason people play video games, is to better themselves or whatever.  Everything needs to be a personal challenge. Otherwise, you cheat yourself. You didn't improve. You didn't gain anything. It's a shooting nuclear bombs at me. Geez, a little reckless, don't you think? Gotta be close to the end here, I think. How many forms is this for Mr. Burns? Let's go say he's not moving, but gotta be close to the end here. Running out of things to say here. There we go. Oh, now it's just him. Oh, there's Maggie. Can I move? No, I can't. Much better.  So, yeah. Yeah, I just wanted to show off this game. I think this does a better job rather than do a two-minute video, because that's all it would be, is just being like, yeah, it's the freakin' Simpsons arcade game. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of craziness. You never know what's gonna come next. It's four-player compatible. Even if you're... You can even rig it like I just did and inadvertently play two-players. Yeah, I love this game. A lot of good memories, and you could still make more memories since this game. It's not a common arcade cabinet, but it's a popular one. It's in-demand, wouldn't be surprised if it's still, you know, out there somewhere. So maybe post-pandemic, you can go looking for this one. It's a lot of fun. And if you can't find an arcade, you can always, you know, play it any way you can. All right, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. Cheers!