Fancy living comes at a steep price, as our hosts discuss the exorbitant HOA fees that have reached unbelievable heights. From building amenities to internet speeds being affected by CloudFlare outages, the conversation delves into everyday annoyances that provoke strong listener reactions. A glimpse into the phenomena of ‘Safety-ism’ dissects how we have overly cocooned ourselves under the guise of being cautious.
Go ahead. $2,000 a month. That’s for my HOA dues. Isn’t that crazy? I mean, it’s a nice building. It’s a beautiful home.
SPEAKER 01 :
I love the condo.
SPEAKER 02 :
But for $2,000, they ought to come and give me a back rub every month. It’s insane. It’s insane. And it went up. It was like $1,900 last year. It’s going to be like $2,050, I think, in 2026. So at least I get the stupid internet included. Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
I was going to say, there is a bonus.
SPEAKER 1 :
$60.
SPEAKER 01 :
Except yesterday during the CloudFlare thing. I think the CloudFlare thing is what screwed up our video hookup.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. That’s exactly what happened because I couldn’t get email. My pillow couldn’t take orders. It was crazy. It was, you know, Roger came in and reported that, you know, some doofus somewhere in some back room pushed the wrong button. And here we go. Down goes. What’s this do? I know.
SPEAKER 01 :
I know. There is a word. There’s a word for what you for the phenomenon you just described. I don’t think Bill Maher coined it. I just mentioned it, though, in this past episode. I guess the club random podcast or something. There’s a word for it. It’s called safety-ism. No, it was talking to Scott Galloway, I think. Safety-ism is the ramping up of safety, a wonderful concept, to such a lofty level that it runs our lives. We take no risks. Every condo has to go through 57 hoops because one of them collapsed in Miami. Every kid is going to get abducted because one kid gets abducted. every playground has to do this and that. And I just love some of the old nostalgic Twitter feeds. I think there’s one called Super 70s Sports that’s about lots of other things other than sports about how, man, we used to swing around on this sweet son of a gun and it’s surprising we didn’t die monkey bars where you could die in 47 ways. Not that that was exactly the way to go, but safetyism like wokeism is an oversensitivity to certain things.
SPEAKER 02 :
We have a capability of overreacting with the best of them. I mean, our culture, we overreact And we say, we’re going to fix this. By the way, I always love the text line because we get instant feedback. You have your text line. I’ve got mine. Let me share two different, very unique perspectives I just got. And always give us feedback. 800-655-MIKE. Like this person in Ohio who’s listening to the M&M Experience right now on the app. Mike, in regard to Mark’s defense of HOAs, be sure to remind him that Mussolini also made the trains run on time. So there’s that. Oh, wow.
SPEAKER 01 :
You’ve got to play the Mussolini card. Yeah, play that play.
SPEAKER 02 :
When you go to Benito Mussolini, and then there’s this lovely person. And then there’s this lovely, mild-mannered, good-humored person from Dallas. Okay, I’ve finally had enough of the high school girl whining from Mike. Life is too short. I’m happy to get my news from somewhere else, or I’ll just avoid the Eminem half hour on the Mark Davis show.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, dear.
SPEAKER 02 :
What a lovely person.
SPEAKER 01 :
So sorry.
SPEAKER 02 :
I mean, can you imagine being that miserable in life? A couple guys joking around, and this jerk writes an email. May you get a rash in places that no eczema cream can reach.
SPEAKER 01 :
May the sewers of Rangoon back up into your breakfast. No, you know the best line?
SPEAKER 02 :
I love this line. I got this from the internet, and I’m going to write this jerk back. I’ll type it back to them, and then I’ll block their- Don’t engage. Oh, I am going to engage.
SPEAKER 01 :
You know what I’m going to say? Well, first of all, because you know he loves us. That’s why he’s listening. He’s annoyed for the moment by our propensity for going down a rabbit hole.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, I finally had enough of the high school girl whining. Hey, why don’t you go put my whining where the sun don’t shine?
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, stop.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey, here’s my message to you, jerk. This is an airport. You don’t need to announce your departure. Goodbye. Goodbye. I love that line. That’s my new line when somebody says, I’ll never listen to you again. Can you imagine waking up on a Wednesday, a couple guys joking around, and I’m teasing about something. Oh, I’ve had enough. I will go to another state. Oh, don’t threaten me with a good time. Don’t let the door hit you in the rear end on the way out. Dork.
SPEAKER 01 :
Did you indicate a few minutes ago that you were in a good mood? I was.
SPEAKER 02 :
I was until all this happened.
SPEAKER 01 :
Don’t threaten me when you’re testing. Wow.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, what a jerk. It’s funny. Somebody else was emailing the show from Dallas. They’re all mad garland because I admitted that I’m in the Christmas spirit early. This is outrageous. This makes me sick. Mike is not acknowledging Thanksgiving. You need to… I’m not going to miss Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER 01 :
I just admit I’m kind of in Christmas mood this year. And with deference to Hobby Lobby, where they’ve been playing Christmas carols since the 4th of July, there is a post I’ve seen a couple of places where let’s not immerse ourselves in all the Christmas music, at least until Thanksgiving. I know. I know. Which is a point of view I can respect. But I got to tell you, I think I’ve been in a couple of stores. I think I’ve just had, you know, done a little Sirius XM. I got 13 channels, you know, devoted to Christmas music already. I confess that I’ve dipped my toe in a little bit knowing that Thanksgiving is next week and I’m somehow able to keep both those plates spinning. I kind of love it. Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
We can keep both. I’m going to enjoy Thanksgiving, and I’m blessed, and I appreciate being thankful. I just admitted that, and I’m normally one of these miserable people that gets all mad. Oh, Christmas is too early. And I shake my fist. Oh, there’s a Hallmark commercial. How dare they? But the way, and honest to goodness, all kidding aside, with this texture, and I want to just point this out. The person said life is too short. Yeah, that’s the point. Life is too short. Don’t be so miserable. It’s a couple guys on the radio. For crying out loud, get a life. This is why you would text somebody and be mad and get upset.
SPEAKER 01 :
It made them feel better for three minutes.
SPEAKER 02 :
I know, but does that really make them feel better?
SPEAKER 01 :
Doesn’t that make them feel more miserable? Sometimes a release valve, sometimes just venting a little bit is helpful to some people. It is always better to take a look at the things that make you vent and see if they’re worth getting that worked up about. That is better, but you know, you know.
SPEAKER 02 :
That is the wildest thing.
SPEAKER 01 :
You know he loves us. He loves us. We’ll be back tomorrow. I don’t love him. For him and everybody else, you want to give me 30 seconds on Epstein?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, you’ve got the right – look, hey, if I have ever been vindicated in my life, it’s the Epstein file story. It’s the ultimate crap file. They got their butts whipped on the government shutdown. They had – hey, they had four years to do this. And P.S., Marjorie Taylor Greene had years to do this. Thomas Massey, these virtue signaling folks that are running around spiking the football. Why didn’t you go all out two years ago? Why didn’t you do this? Now it is. That’s why Trump is frustrated. And he is clearly frustrated. Look, you won’t find a bigger Trump supporter than you or me. I’ve got my MAGA tree outside the studio. I’ll take some pictures for you. We got a little red Christmas tree.
SPEAKER 01 :
There’s a MAGA tree?
SPEAKER 02 :
I have a MAGA tree outside the Mike Gallagher studios. top instead of the angel oh there are red hat there’s a red hat on top there’s trump doing the happy dance there’s trump in the oh it’s hysterical i mean i’ll take pictures of it i was going to do it at home and invite people to send me ornaments and then i had people say mike you probably don’t want people to send you crazy i know just send things that you’re going to hang in your living room the guy on the text line will send you an ornament you don’t open that one imagine the texture and sending me yeah i’ve got i’ve got you’d be but this what yeah what what do i have here but this is did you hear trump call the reporter piggy the other night i i did mark quiet piggy quiet quiet piggy Did you realize if the texter that just made me mad was a woman and I said, hey, quiet piggy, it’d probably be my last day on the show. I don’t think I could get away. Could we get away with this? I don’t think so. Quiet piggy? And by the way, for the record, she’s a very attractive woman. Have you seen her picture? The reporter?
SPEAKER 01 :
This wasn’t Mary Bruce, was it?
SPEAKER 02 :
No, no, that was the, then he got mad at her, too. He went off on ABC and Mary Bruce, too. No, this was the Bloomberg and her name, I forget her name, Catherine something. But he literally, she was interrupting him and he got annoyed. He said, quiet, piggy. What say you, Mark?
SPEAKER 01 :
I say the border is fixed and job creation is energetic and we have gender sanity and environmental sanity. And if I had the chance to flip it and have somebody who practiced perfect etiquette and decorum every day in the presidency but was wrong on every issue, it is not a trade that I would make. Anyway, 60 seconds. You were in the middle of a story about Epstein and Massey and it’s all about them and et cetera, et cetera.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, you said what’s next. They’re going to move on to the next thing now. They’ve expended all their energy on this. Like you said, it’s going to cause a lot of headaches for a lot of people. Larry Summers is just the first of many. And by the way, Larry Summers, oh, I’m stepping down from public life. He’s not stepping down from teaching. He’s in front of his big classroom saying, oh, well, you know, I know I’m ashamed. I mean, Hakeem Jeffries’ campaign begging Jeffrey Epstein for money. Everybody knew this guy.
SPEAKER 01 :
The Virgin Islands non-voting delegate texting with Epstein back in 2019 during a hearing.
SPEAKER 02 :
Exactly, exactly. By the way, final note to put me back in a good mood. Susie says, I tune in for Mike’s whining. If he doesn’t whine, I’m not having a good day. There you go. Boom. This is an airport. Don’t announce your departure. Go away already. This is not an airport or not a train station.
SPEAKER 01 :
What’s funnier? You know what’s kind of funny is we were talking about jingles and positioning statements and stuff. Thoroughly, unintentionally, at the close of yesterday’s Eminem experience, I said, that’s Mike. At 10 o’clock, he’s going to rock. And I was like, I just wrote a jingle.
