It's Just Banter.

On Smoking Pot For The First Time as An Adult. Plus: Tort Reform, The Inspiration For The Shield.

If you're a listener of KTCK 1310-AM or 96.7-FM, you probably feel like you already know TC Fleming and Jake Kemp well. And if you're not a listener of The Ticket? Well, whatever. You're about to get real familiar with these two just the same through their own channel of this podcast called It's Just Banter. Wanna hear past episodes? You can check out IJB's archives here and on our Soundcloud page. Wanna subscribe to the podcast on iTunes? Do so here.

Hey, gang! So, this is actually an off-week for IJB this week. Basically, Jake and I each get 10 days of vacation a year each and, this week, it just so happened that we both took them and couldn't make it work to get a podcast in. I do feel bad about that, though. So, to do the very best I can, I threw together some of my favorite scraps frm podcasts past to give you all something that will hopefully sate you until we return next week.

These are three different segments from previous podcasts. They all ran separately, but I've stitched them together into one piece here.

The first segment is the time I talked about trying pot for the first time as an adult. Just to give full background and make sure everyone is on the same page here: I smoked marijuana when I was 14, and my parents found out; that, combined with a long list of other problems we were having, caused them to send me to a boarding school that specialized in drug treatment. That is where I graduated from high school, and as a result of that influence, I did not return to drug use for many years. Over time, I started to think I could probably use some light stuff recreationally without too much trouble. So when my family planned a trip to Seattle to cheer on my dad and brother in the Seattle Marathon, I sat down with the folks and told them that, since we would be in a place where pot was newly legal, I thought it would be an appropriate time to dip my toe back in. They were actually cool about it and recognized my right to make my own decisions, saying that it was my call to make. More than a year later now, I can say it has not led to a heroin habit, so I feel good about that! In this segment, I went into a good amount of detail about the whole experience.

In the second part, Jake and I talk about the New Yorker article on the Rampart Division of the LAPD. This is the real-life inspiration for the FX series The Shield. That's one of Jake’s favorite stories, and he does a wonderful job of telling it here. In turn, it's become one of our most-requested segments for when people are looking through the archives. (It also includes a pretty regrettable take by me that seems more sympathetic to the Rodney King jury than I feel today. But, anyway, the focus is the CRASH unit.)

Then in the final bit, we review the documentary Hot Coffee. It's a very interesting and fairly exhaustive look at the push for tort reform. I'm not sure if it's good that the podcast has talked more and more about politics as it has gone along — I'm kind of inclined to think it's not, actually — but the whole point of the podcast is to talk about what we want to, so I don't worry too much about that. At any rate, I think this segment is kind of the start of that. It's one of the more deeper dives we've done into a legal/political trend in the country. Even better? It's not an oft-discussed national topic on the order of gun control or gay marriage, but it still has a lot of interesting angles. It's a microcosm of how some people are willing to vote against their own interests, really. It's also an illustrative example of how money affects the political process. Finally, it's got an interesting little plot twist, too.

So listen in, and catch up on the lore of IJB history, I suppose.