What The Frock

This week’s episode begins, as all great philosophical inquiries should, with an own goal in English football and a mild existential crisis over sports loyalty. From there it accelerates briskly into questions that polite society generally agrees are best left alone before breakfast. Is Jesus more likely to return as a carpenter from Nazareth or as a server rack humming quietly in a data center? Can a computer be more virginal than a virgin? And if artificial intelligence becomes all knowing, all powerful, and mildly condescending, does that make it God, or just tech support with delusions of grandeur?

Rabbi Dave and Friar Rod tackle Joe Rogan’s now infamous speculation about an AI Messiah with the seriousness it deserves, which is to say, they examine it carefully, poke it repeatedly with a stick, and then stand well back to see what explodes. Along the way, listeners are treated to discussions of free will, miracles, moral perfection, golden calves, USB ports, firmware updates, and the deeply unsettling idea of Jesus 11.0 requiring a hotfix. The theological stakes are high, but the tone remains gloriously irreverent. This is not a sermon. It is a thought experiment conducted with coffee, sarcasm, and the firm conviction that wisdom does not automatically appear just because you have read every bad sermon ever uploaded to the internet .

As if that were not enough, the episode then swerves hard into the real world, where Washington State is underwater, bureaucratic incompetence floats serenely to the surface, and seven hundred commercial driver’s licenses have apparently achieved spontaneous generation. The contrast is deliberate and biting. One moment humanity is imagining an omniscient AI king to fix everything, the next it cannot manage a DMV without losing track of who is legally allowed to drive a truck. If you were looking for a clearer illustration of why “we just need a king” is a dangerous idea, you will not find one wrapped more neatly in gallows humor.

The episode also checks in on the continuing saga of What the Frock: The Musical, a project that has become equal parts creative triumph, logistical nightmare, and metaphysical argument for why humans should never be trusted with merchandise platforms. There are reflections on creativity, obsession, AI as a tool rather than a god, and the rare joy of feeling more artistically alive than one has in decades. There is also Zazzle. Zazzle is less joyful.

In the end, this episode does what What the Frock? does best. It refuses easy answers. It mocks certainty. It treats ancient questions with respect and modern solutions with suspicion. And it reminds us that whenever someone claims to have built God out of code, the correct response is not worship, but questions. Preferably asked after unplugging the device for ten seconds, just to see what happens.