Announcer: The David Pakman Show at www.DavidPakman.com.
David Pakman: Welcome to the show. www.DavidPakman.com is the website. Hello to everyone watching
live on Ustream.tv as well. Superbowl. Lot of stuff to talk about with the Superbowl.
Later on the show, we'll be talking to Dave Zirin from "The Nation", and he'll talk to
us about the corporatism and militarism that happened. He... I actually didn't think it
was as bad as I think Dave Zirin will say, but we'll see. We'll talk about that later.
Also later on, I argue with atheist... American Atheists President David Silverman, who was
recently on the Bill O'Reilly show. I don't think I'm an atheist; he says I'm an atheist.
Hopefully we can figure it out. I would love to know what I am.
Louis Motamedi: I'd love to know what you are, too.
David: [Laughs] Thank you, Louis. What's going on with your hair, by the way? People have
been asking. Louis's hair wet on occasion, and then now, apparently just a huge, curly
mess.
Louis: It is.
David: Are you growing it out or something?
Louis: Yeah.
David: Really? I mean ,this is the... I've known Louis for probably 20 years, and this
is the longest I've ever seen his hair.
Louis: I'm just going to let it go until I can't take it anymore.
David: What's the... what, are you going to get a ponytail going or something?
Louis: I don't know. I mean, I think... it's kind of just turning into an afro, really.
So we'll see what happens.
David: All right. Maybe like a samurai-style thing.
Louis: Maybe. We'll see.
David: I got a voicemail... let's go to the Superbowl. I got a voicemail about the Christina
Aguilera singing. Now, when we were... Louis and I and a bunch of other people were watching
it together, I was insisting that the standard practice is to pre-record the National Anthem,
and a couple people said it doesn't look like it, some people said it does. I thought it
was pre-recorded. It was last year, with, I think it was Jennifer Hudson last year.
It clearly was not, we now figured out, because Christina Aguilera got the lyrics wrong. And
within minutes, I had a voicemail from a listener wanting to know about it. Let's take a listen.
Caller: Hey, David. Danny Levins here calling from Boston, Massachusetts. I just want to
get your thoughts on Christina Aguilera's terrible performance of the National Anthem
tonight before the Superbowl. I could see this going viral on Fox News, you know, having
a hissyfit about her messing up the lyrics, and I'm sure if you're anything like me, you
don't think it's that big of a deal. But I just want to get your prediction, see if you
think Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, whoever's going to go crazy about this.
David: Yeah, well, Louis, this is an attack on Americans, this is an attack on the Constitution.
Louis: It's domestic terrorism.
David: The... [Laughter] That's right. The Founding Fathers would be rolling over in
their graves if they knew Christina Aguilera messed up the lyrics. What else is on the
list? The Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal is probably at least indirectly, probably directly,
responsible for Christina Aguilera messing up the lyrics. And what else? I mean, what
else can we add on to the list? Green Bay Packers' cooperative ownership system contributed,
the Communist nature of it, contributed to Christina Aguilera not singing the anthem
right.
Louis: Right.
David: What am I missing here? I feel like I'm missing something.
Louis: I'm sure that Glenn Beck will be able to find all sorts of things in this.
David: That's right. I think so.
Louis: And I do expect people to jump all over this. But what do I think about it? I
think, I'm not really surprised. So what? She messed up. I mean...
David: This is evidence that it should've been pre-recorded.
Louis: Clearly, yeah. I think it just shows that she is not as talented an artist as people
think she is.
David: Aguilera? That sounds Mexican to me. That's the next thing we're going to hear,
right?
Louis: You might be on to something.
David: What's she doing singing the anthem?
Louis: How do you get that wrong?
David: I don't know. I don't think I'd be... without lyrics in front of me, I couldn't
sing it.
Louis: Yeah, but you would practice it before you have to sing it in front of everyone in
Dallas at the Superbowl.
David: Not if I'm un-American, which obviously, I don't know, Christina Aguilera must be.
Louis: I don't know.
David: The other thing was the half-time performance, the Black-Eyed Peas.
Louis: Oh, so bad.
David: Disaster. I remember Tom Petty was good recently, I liked Bruce Springsteen.
Who else? Prince was great.
Louis: Yeah, Prince actually wasn't that bad.
David: But this was just terrible. And again...
Louis: Better than last year. The Who were awful.
David: Yeah, that's true, they weren't good. And everything is auto-tuned now. I mean,
I sound now like John McCain, a.k.a., an old man yelling, "Get off my lawn," but what is
going-- every song now has to be auto-tuned? I really don't get it.
And then there was the ads. Even the ads I didn't think were particularly funny. When
I first saw the Tibet ad... actually, let's play the Tibet ad. I'll play that for you
and then I'll give you my initial reaction, and then now why I disagree with my initial
position. I'm flip-flopping too.
Timothy Hutton: Mountainous Tibet, one of the most beautiful places in the world. This
is Timothy Hutton. The people of Tibet are in trouble. Their very culture is in jeopardy.
But they still whip up an amazing fish curry. And since 200 of us bought at Groupon.com,
we're each getting $30 worth of Tibetan food for just $15 at Himalayan Restaurant in Chicago.
Announcer: Save the money.
David: All right. So when we were in the room, a couple people said that's very offensive
to... it's just making fun of the situation in Tibet. And at the time I said well, you
know what, how much exposure do problems in Tibet normally get?
Louis: At least it's getting some.
David: At least it's getting some, that was my initial reaction. And now that I've thought
about it more, I'm embarrassed, honestly, to say that I even thought that. And more
embarrassed I am that Louis agreed with me at the time. You said yeah, I think you're
right. What on Earth were you thinking agreeing with me?
Louis: I still think that at least they acknowledged that there's a... there's something going
on in that part of the world.
David: The-- it was completely belitting. And I don't want to get into it more because
I want to talk to Dave Zirin about it later. I think he will agree with me. I... my initial
instincts that any publicity is good publicity for something like what's going on in Tibet,
I was wrong. And I apologize to everybody who was in the room with me at that Superbowl
party for even mentioning it. It was the wrong thing to say, and I'll personally call everybody
who was there and tell them, if you're... I know everybody's obviously still thinking
about what I said after that ad, why, what else would they be thinking about? And I'll
call each of them to say please, I take that back, and I'm a flip-flopper on it. I think
it was the wrong ad.
Louis: That's probably what they're thinking about. I mean, they're certainly not thinking
about what they're going to have for dinner tonight.
Transcript provided by Alex Wickersham and www.Subscriptorium.com. For transcripts, translations,
captions, and subtitles, or for more information, visit www.Subscriptorium.com, or contact Alex
at subscriptorium@gmail.com.