a biomass thing, right? Mulch, fertilizer. Does it work as fertilizer? Underbrush makes the soil of the forest. Yeah, well yeah, I guess they do need soil. But do they always need more if you have enough for a tree?

Oh, the oak fire's out. All right. What about Zelenskyy? All right, I think that's all we've got for today. And I believe that we've done our job. Is this the best livestream you've ever seen? Am I mistaken or does it look exactly like it is? It is. It is. Now let me ask you something. So good it hurts. Let me ask you something. Do you think we make a difference like collectively? So I would have no impact on anything if I didn't have an audience. So the audience basically imbues me with whatever energy I have. I think we do. I think we do because I think we're approaching the point where if you and I collectively — all of you plural — if you and I collectively thought something was a terrible, terrible idea, I feel like it would be harder for a government to do it just because our opinions do have enough of a reach that it would be embarrassing to do something that was just a bad idea and it had been clearly described as a bad idea.

So clarity is one of the things I feel like we can add to the system. What do you think? Maybe that's the only thing. Maybe the only thing I add to the system is clarity and context. Because that's all I'm trying to do. I'm trying to only add clarity and context. If I add clarity and context, you should come to the same conclusion as me. So I'm not trying to necessarily change your mind with argument. I'm trying to make sure that you see the same things I see. And once you see them, I'm confident that you will end up with the same opinion. So I don't need to directly change your opinion. I'll just change what things you've been exposed to and it should be the same thing. Should be not every time, but it should be in the long run.

Scott, would you do your own show on Fox if offered? No, no I wouldn't. So the trouble is as soon as you get a boss you're useless. You all get that, right? The moment I have a boss I'm worthless because that is just the boss. The only thing you're hearing is what the boss allowed me to say. Do you think there's anything I said today that a boss would have let me say? Just think about today's show. Think about the livestream you just watched. How much of that do you think I could have put on a network show or even a cable show? Almost none of it. And I certainly couldn't do the level of emotion. I would have a set time limit and I guarantee you that I would have conversations about offending my sponsors. Well, first of all, who would sponsor this? I would probably already have sponsor offers even with this size of an audience. I would already have sponsor offers if this were not absolute poison to sponsors.

So one of the things that I can offer you is that I will continue to be poison to sponsors. I'm not trying to do that, but apparently if you're honest you can't get sponsored because the sponsors need you to be just generic and family friendly and stay on the political right side of things. So I'm not trying to do that. Ed products. All right. Yeah, it's hard to speculate under a major brand. You're right. So I do a lot of stuff that's pure speculation and I label it. I don't have a date yet for the Russell Brand conversation. Yeah, if I had sponsors they would influence me. I think they would.

So as you know, I do a comic strip for newspapers. Do you think that I can do in the newspaper and online — I mean probably more people see it online — but do you think I could do a Dilbert comic that's exactly the comic I would want to write and that the people who are my clients would be okay with that? The answer is no. No, they would not be okay with my honest opinions on stuff. They need something that is family friendly. So you may notice I'm pushing the boundaries in the past several months. I'm kind of making all of my editors and my clients uncomfortable with the content because I'm going after some of the woke stuff, etc. You know, some of the pandemic stuff. And there are papers that are not running me. So that my comic about the character Dave, I think there were some newspapers that didn't run it because it was too dangerous for them. So I do keep my content within the realm that I know the clients will allow, even though I'm pushing the edge. Which by the way, that's what they pay for. You know, if your client buys you as a cartoonist, especially my kind of cartoon, they're paying you to push the boundary but not too much, right? They need you to be a little bit edgy. That's part of the entertainment.

So you're going to see Dilbert getting a lot edgier in the coming year, I suppose. I'm breaking news now in a small way. So Dilbert is going to get cancelled, let's say by design. Because as I'm approaching my retirement planning years, I don't want to go out with a whimper. I want to go out in flames. And if I have to set something on flame that needs to be set on flame — and by the way, productively. I'm not talking about anarchy. I'm talking about setting on fire something that maybe needed to be set on fire. But yeah, Dilbert is going to get edgier and edgier until they won't let me do it anymore. So that will be my version of retiring.

And then you know what I'm going to do? I guess I'm breaking the news here for the first time. So this is a preliminary plan, but it's an actual plan. I'm going to be cancelled by everybody in the regular client business, and then I'll move my content to a subscription service called Locals. So there is a good chance that say five years from now that the only place you would ever see a Dilbert comic is on a subscription service. But then I can say anything I want. And you haven't seen that yet. You haven't seen that yet. So but I'm not going to do that unless I get cancelled. And I'm going to try as hard as I can to fly as close to the sun as I can. And by the way, I never do anything just to offend. Some people think I might, but I'd never do content that's meant for entertainment or maybe to provoke, but I don't do it just to piss people off. There's a reason for it.

All right, that's all for now. And I'm going to go do something else, and so are you. I'll talk to you later.