March 21, 2023 • 58 mins
What if a podcast ran for three years? Scientists around the globe said it couldn't be done and yet...here we are! So today we raise a glass to you the listeners, us the podcasters, and (most importantly) to our perfectly curated brand in this episode that is part brand summit, part wedding, and even part earnest. Here's to another incrdible year of calling some things gay and some things straight. Hootie hoo!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Well, George, Cheers. Cheers podcast starts now. Podcast starts now
to three beautiful years. Sorry, I already drank. I'm five
Martini's in. Okay, Okay, sorry, we do, we do, Okay, Okay,
I didn't know you were going to do a whole bit.
Oh I had. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, No, I should have. Yes,
handed I panicked. No, it's start again. I just after
(00:42):
three years, I never want us to lose the excitement
and the rush of, you know, coming up with an
hour of comedy on the spot. Um So, I guess
I want everyone in this podcast, you and me to
raise a glass to three years of casting excellence. Here.
(01:07):
I can tell this is from New York. Yeah, that
is good water. Wow. Yeah. Did you like the bit
I did? But guess what it did? Make me wish
we had Martinez? Yeah, imagine doing this with Martinis. Oh
my god. I mean I'm almost like, let's literally pause this,
go get pre batched martinis, bring them back, pour them out.
(01:28):
You know. Actually, I'm like, it's New York City. Can
they not deliver a Martin? Right? Postmates? Wait? Can I
tell you something? Yeah, there's a trailer for that new
movie where Nick Cage plays Dracula, okay, and Aquafina goes
she's talking to Nicholas Holt, whose job it is to
bring food to Dracula, and she has a line where
she goes, you're like the dude that brings the villain
(01:49):
his postmates. And it makes me laugh every time because
it's like such a type of contemporary joke, you know
what I mean. It's like, so you're the guy that
gets the uber to hell. Well, there's something so funny
about trying really hard to be contemporary where you almost
it has to be self parodying for it to actually work,
(02:11):
like because it's so clearly like the script is written
with like insert like topical joke. Yeah, and it's like
like no one even says like, no one would say that,
no one would say that. That's not which, by the way,
is not a reason enough to not say something, because
of course it's art and Nick Nick Cage playing Dracula
in a sort of self referential way is the highest
(02:32):
form of our one can produce. Of course we're not
arguing there, but to have a like just to see
what it is unnatural you're the guy that delivers the
post it's web serious humor. Wait, this is web serious
humor is now mainstream humor? Oh my god? Well, because
web series humor then became like Marvel humor. Yes, and
(02:53):
now that's like the dominant form of humor. Actually, the
guy that delivers the Illini's Postmates is Marvel humor at
its finest. Yeah. Well, and god, it's weird to do
a podcast and where you want to shit talkum. But
I could sense you tense up. I will say that
right now, but I literally am like, like, are you
(03:15):
friends with Nick Cage? Are not Runs in the Cage?
I'm not runs with Aquafina and not friends with Nicholas Holt. Okay, Well,
Nicholas hold and I are actually very close and Aquafina's
coming over for dinner later. It's not her fault. You
didn't write it. No, but she's like she's like the
canary in the coal mine for that type of humor.
When you see her, you're like, oh, I know what's
going to happen. And by the way, that's not her fault. No, Gods,
(03:37):
it's because it's because she is a comedy. She's a
comedy relief. She's someone you call for comedy relief. Yeah,
and usually when you didn't have an idea. Yes, exactly,
so you're like, yeah, people are sort of like, all right,
put her in, do your thing, come on, norah, ham
it up, ham it up. Yeah exactly. Wow that's dark. Yeah.
(03:59):
Thank we turned down all those all those roles and
only take starring roles in Marvel films. Thank god. We
refused to be put in a box AKA refused to
be put in a movie, AKA refuse careers, AKA refused
to book any auditions. Yeah. When we do an audition,
of course, we get it and then we say no,
I don't want to be seen as that do I'm
waiting for the perfect role. I'm really sorry to derail
(04:20):
the conversation when we were talking about martinis, because I
do want to say I know we've both been feeling
this very recently, the way I specifically need a martini
at all times. I mean, I absolutely relate. What is
that and don't say alcoholism it's close. It's not because
(04:41):
I actually never I don't. I barely even need. I
needed the single sip. I need basically like looking like
touching a glass, feeling that it's cold, and then having
a single sip. I'm not even creating the alcohol. It's
a beautiful ritual. Yeah, you also know that within five
minutes you're going to be feel a little loopy in
a way. That's like, you know, in this um attention economy,
(05:06):
like who has the time to sort of sip a
glass of wine and like wait it out. Yeah, Like
a martini is like let's get this started. Wait, So
are you saying a martini is pro attention is like
a way to resist the attention economy? Or because it's
so fast, I think it's part of the it's part
of the attention economy. So actually you would think a
(05:26):
martini is a sort of nostalgia play. It's a way
to resist the attention economy. It's a way to go
back to basics that actually you're playing right into the
hands of Mark Zuckerberg exactly. A martini is the drink
equivalent of scrolling through your Twitter feed for like two
seconds because you need a hit of dopamine. That actually
is actually is who what is the alternative? So what
(05:47):
does the alternative drinks? Wise? Here's what I'll say. It
is not mocktails, because let me tell you something, there
is nothing more capitalist than mocktail. Is the way they
are pushing them on everyone. And I am pro sobriety,
and I am pro getting a soda embitters, and I'm
pro having a glass of water. But the mocktail lobby
is out of control. It's insane, and it should actually
be free and act guess like the way that it's
(06:10):
not free or at least like a soda price drives
me crazy because it's like, well, I know it's expensive
in a drink. It's the alcohol, I know. But here's
a thing, it's not even like it actually goes all
the way to the top because you because then you're like,
wait a minute, your eyes open for the first time
in your entire life, like the matrix. Alcohol shouldn't be
that expensive either at tequila. Soda should also not ever
(06:31):
be like nine dollars. Wow. I mean you're right, but
at least because in fact, sorry, no go ahead, I
was just gonna say, I have nothing, no financial figures
to back this up. But part of me is like,
guess what a well drink in terms of just making
it probably cheaper than a complicated mocktail that has like
(06:52):
elder flower essence, Like genuinely wow, it's like we're offended
that a mocktail that has like ginger, herrot and mandarin
is more. I'm not ordering a juice. Well that is
I mean, honey, what is a mocktail if not that. Also,
they've done like years of scientific research to create like
(07:12):
things that taste like alcohol that aren't. They don't even
they they're always too sweet. Yes, that's true, they're They're
not a cocktail. It's like a different thing. It's like,
this is a fancy soda, and like, thank you, sometimes
I want a fancy soda. And by the way, a
fancy toda is better than a mocktail. Just call it
a fancy soda. I had. God, I wish I am
would remember the brand. I had the most incredible root
(07:32):
beer the other day, okay, end of story, And I
was like, am I going to start just ordering root
beer constantly? I was like, this should be illegal. This
is like having a slice of cake. Yeah, I mean,
soda is truly illegal. It is like you remember my
famous job from my past where google Coca Cola every
(07:52):
morning and then find ways to be positive about it.
You're like, well, they would send like health experts to
local station a lie and then they would be like,
have a salad maybe with a soda. Oh, and you
know it goes great with that. It's like a small
diet coke. Do you know what I've noticed recently is
that I have been consciously going to the movie theater
(08:13):
more to order a diet coke. The luxury of a
soda at the movie theater is like peak. I mean,
talk about that's the Martini of the movie. Yes, that's
the Martinia of the movie theater. Actually want to Martina,
you know what I'll say? Okay, So one time I
went to a Regal movie theater. I'm actually a Regal member.
Oh congratulations, and yeah, it was a very selective process.
(08:37):
And I get there and I was my friend had
already been there. Now Regal has a full bar. I
get there and my friend had surprised me by buying
me a tequila soda. Now, I of course had to
act like I was excited about that. It was a gift.
You're not ungrateful? What was I thinking? Inside? Though? I
wish I didn't have this. I wish I had a
(08:58):
diet coke. We need to talk about this because a
movie theater is like one of the few public spaces
where it's like, I actually don't need or want alcohol,
it is, yes, exactly, and so it's like, can I
just enjoy this? Like this was the one space where
I was like, a drink is not needed, and like
(09:20):
I'm not talking like I'm just taking something in like
I don't want like sometimes I want to be able
to be like I don't want to drink, and it's
not like a big move. And now that bars are
in all movie theaters, suddenly everyone's like, well, are you
gonna get a drink? And it's like, no, I don't
want to, but I don't want to imply that I'm
like not present, Like I don't want to imply that
I'm like thinking of this as work of course. And
(09:40):
by the way, I'm not getting cauliflower either, so don't
even think about asking that as a funny. I'm not
even getting popcorn, and I'm sorry, no, I actually sort
of agree I popcorn. Listen, if someone gets popcorn, I'll
have a little handful one. I'll have exactly one handful.
And by the way, being hungry at a movie theater
there's nothing more beautiful than that, because guess what after that,
(10:00):
you can go to dinner. You can have dinner. Let
yourself be hungry. And I don't mean that in a
sort of eating distorted way. I mean that. I mean that.
I mean that in a delayed gratification way. Have a
diet coke, let yourself be hungry, Go get a burger.
You know what I wish? Actually, I wish I want
more nuts at movie theaters. That's genius, because a popcorn,
(10:22):
if I'm actually hungry, popcorn doesn't do anything for me. No,
And by the way, popcorn is one of the most
overrated foods in the history of mankind. We need to
look into the popcorn lobby and how they establish themselves
as like the thing to eat during a movie, right, yes,
And can I say something, in what world is popcorn good?
In what world it is? I would say it is
strictly medium. I'm not saying, oh god, it's disgusting, I'm
(10:43):
gonna throw up, but it's like to pretend it's anything
other than a five out of ten is madness. The
only form of popcorn I like is like heapcorns, stay
at home, pop own where you like make it yourself
and you're like, you know, costplaying like nineties girl of course, like, well,
when you're making a popcorn, by the way, when you're
making popcorn yourself at home, you are in a commercial
(11:05):
for Blockbuster. You are literally in a commercial that's like
take the movies home. Yeah, well, little did they know
that that would be the death knell for movie theaters
by the way, in the streaming age? Yeah, who knew
Blockbuster would literally kill cinema. The way they keep trying
to reinvent the movie theater is so frustrating to me.
Alamo Drafthouse, and I would never wish ill on any business,
(11:29):
and on any small business, especially one that started in Austin, Texas. Yes,
but Alamo Drafthouse needs to take a long, hard look
in the mirror, because if I wanted to, I could
go and check their tax documents and see which party
they are funded by. And let's just say it's not
the Democrats. Yeah, they are like doing it's almost psyop.
They're like doing what they think a liberal wants and
(11:52):
it actually is so see through and we know there's
dark money in there. I have to say, this is crazy.
We're actually just OK, sorry, no, I actually like it.
I like that we're like turning into a conspiracy theory podcast.
Like within the three year Anniversal episode. I mean The
thing is like pretty much everything is a conspiracy. Let's
start there. Like, I'm not kidding, and I don't even
(12:13):
mean that as a joke. I'm like everything is dark money.
Everything is dark money. Nothing. The idea of supply and
demand is a farce. Literally, nothing is popular because of demand.
This is truly the most genius thing I've ever heard.
But do you know what I mean? Of course a
number one lie we are told. Do you know that
chart that's like an X and it's like one line
is supply, one line is demand. Yeah, that is essentially
(12:37):
like people will look back at that and be like
this is where it all went right, Like people believe this?
Can you believe? It's like when people talk, It's like
how people think Jesus turned water into wine. It's like, well,
it's sort of a metaphor if blind demand is a metaphor,
and on top of that is built a corrupt economy. Yeah.
I mean I even look at like a restaurant in
New York City. It's like a restaurant opened in New
York City and it's like, oh, well that's a small business.
(12:59):
I've never heard this restaurant before. Yeah, and it's like, well, no,
because it takes a shit ton of money to open
a restaurant in NY City, and like, so something's going
on here, something bigger exactly. And then you hear you know,
no one makes money in restaurants. You're like, like even
famous chefs like are not that rich. You're like, okay,
there's no money in restaurants, like blah blah blah. But
the thing are like, wait a minute, the investors are rich.
(13:21):
Somebody's doing they're in restaurants unless they're doing it for
free drinks, doing it for free drinks, which respect Yeah,
I mean I would do that, I guess. Yeah. I
would love it if the restaurant industry was actually a
good industry, because I feel like I could do a
really good job opening a fast casual Greek spot. Oh
my god, you and you actually mentioned opening a cafe
(13:42):
in our previous episode. Well it's my biggest drink. Is
that true? Well? When I was in high school, there
was this one girl who was a terrible student, and
I was always sort of like, she's kind of a flop.
Not to say that you can be you have to
be a good student to not be a flop, but
she specifically, I was like you're sort of full ship.
She was a bad student and had flop energy, flop energy,
bad student and also just sort of like I mean,
(14:03):
there's really no other way to describe it than just
like full of shit. Like you know when someone is
like always talks a big game and you're like, say
one thing that's true and interesting and they're like, oh,
the wires are coming out of their ears. It's literally
like there's smoke coming out of their ears because the
wires are crossed. So her whole thing was like that.
She her dream was always to open a cafe on
(14:23):
a Greek island, and she like wanted to be like
a cafe dream the day and then like a dance
club at night. And I was always like, sweetie, you'll
never do that. You'll never amount to anything in your life.
And now that's literally my dream. So you stole her dream. Yeah,
but she didn't achieve her dream. No, So I guess what,
neither will I. There's no way I will ever actually
(14:44):
do that. But the dream transferred to you. Yeah, what
would your dream be if you weren't doing comedy? What
would my dream be if I wasn't doing comedy? I
mean that's a tough one. Well, okay, there's it's a
few things. One. I've always said that if I didn't
have internalized homophobia when I was a teen, I would
(15:05):
have been a dancer. I actually feel there was a
point in my life where I was like, oh, I'm
gonna sign up for a dance class. And then I
was like, well, that's not what boys do, and I
was like, right, good point. Really, yeah, what kind of dance?
I don't know. I think I wanted to like take
like a classic dance class and like get the basics
and then sort of figure out my specialty. You have
to pay your dues first. It's like how I cut
(15:27):
my teeth and boss them doing stand up comedy so
that now I can be a queer podcast exactly. And
so I was really sure, like like definitely, you know,
I was going towards sort of the modern modern dance.
It would be like more conceptual. It would be kind
of fun. You could put it in a music video,
but but it wouldn't be like it's not like hip
hop and it's not like ballet. It's somewhere in the middle.
(15:48):
What level of nudity, Well, obviously I would play with that. Yeah,
there'd be cutouts, of course, cutouts in weird that you
wouldn't expect, and there'd be specific moves that would like
reveal the cut out that would be like, oh wow,
that's shocking. Yeah, So there's the dance dream I feel
(16:10):
like as an adult, obviously, the dream is like the
dream is to have written a book and have it
one thousand percent and just like I'm I see myself
like old I beard, and I'm like living in the
woods and no one has access to me. Yes, but
I have written a book, and every once in a while,
(16:30):
like a weird fan will come to the house and
will like, like the lore of me will be like
I actually do always like have a tea with the
weird fan that comes, and that is such a beautiful
little image to me. And the way that I crave
quiet in that way is so deep. But I also
it's it's not real because I also crave loud and
(16:51):
crave socializing at all times. Well, obviously the only way
to do that is to invest in real estates so
that you can be both in the city and in
the country. Yeah, it sort of all goes back to location. Location, locations,
tell me about it. Okay, interesting, Yeah, I think it
sucks that the dream of like a book being your
(17:14):
thing is dead. Exactly. That is exactly what I was.
It is. Okay, here's the thing with books, and I
say this as we're both readers. Of course, here's the
thing with books. They in our current society, they are
purely symbolic. When you think of a book, it's simply
like something that denotes intelligence, denotes reading. Oh, you wrote
(17:38):
a book, you're someone who writes it. The idea of
a book on its own as an object that someone
interacts with and reads and then takes gets something out of.
That's like point one percent of what a book is
an occur in society. Yeah, books are decor books are
sort of personality signifiers. Books are a blueprint for a
(18:01):
TV show or mini series or mini series, of course,
and books are a brand extension. Books are also the
like the the idea of authorship is just fully dead.
I would say conservatively ninety eight percent of books are
ghost written. So books are something that like the Star
of and not even the star the third supporting character
(18:25):
in Vanderpump Rules, will write and then they will go
to promote it, and then they will be photographed a
like one of the mid tier fashion weeks. Yeah, and
honestly that sounds like a dream. Yeah, I guess. Do
you know what's the other thing is with books? Wait,
this is another another thing like along these lines of
like what books represent is books are also a tool
(18:48):
for celebrities to enter a new space and so to
have like Natalie Portman's book Club, Indycaling's book Club, Reas
Witherspoon's book club. It is a way to, by the way,
do fraud because what you're doing is making a book
popular with your celebrity so you can adapt it correct.
That is literal fraud and you should be in prison,
Reese Witherspoon. So it is a way to extend someone's brand,
(19:10):
do fraud, create more prestige miniseries and like so that yeah,
you can. It's literally an in house production team. It's
a way to like build hype for the thing that
you're going to make. Well. Mindy Killing the other day
posted on Instagram about a book and she said, the
newest from my book studio. Now I don't even I
(19:31):
actually think it's beneath me to look into what a
book studio is. But the idea, yes, I've never heard
this term before. Of course, it is an exclusive partnership
with Amazon. Book studio. Yeah, I just let that sink
in because I have nothing more to say. I did
not google it. I actually immediately closed Instagram and then
bought property in the woods. I bought property and a gun.
(19:56):
The idea that Mindy is like, she's having this busy day.
And by the way, I have watched many of her
shows and I support her. Of course, she's having this
busy day, and she's like, Okay, what do we have now?
Book studio? Got it? Takes a photo of the book
airbrush to perfection, of course, and then she's like, newest
from my book studio. Checks her bank account, she has
another thirty million dollars. I mean, this is the supply
demand thing being fake again. It's like, she has a
(20:17):
book studio. It means nothing, but it is a brand
partnership and she will be richer for it, right, and
why so she invented the concept of a book studio
something no one has ever heard of. Anyone who is
the least bit intelligent, let's say you or I is
so traumatized by the phrase book studio that they won't
look it up. So we'll never be exposed for the
fraud that it is. Yeah, so she just has a
book studio. It's sponsored by Amazon. The two people getting
(20:38):
richer are Mindy Kaling and Jeff Bezos. The book, by
the way, maybe not even written by a human author.
I sort of like did a little click CLICKERU on
Instagram and could not find any previous publications. And there's
no one, literally, not a single person will read this book.
The idea that this book will be printed, sent to
you and then read is is a joke. It's false.
(21:01):
It is, And so money will be printed by the
federal government for only Mindy Kaling and Jeff Bezos. And
this is happening out in the open, this is on Instagram.
You should at least be quiet about it. I know,
at least have the this is sort of okay. One
thing I respect about old fashioned white card criminals is
at least they didn't also want to be reality television stars. Yeah,
(21:24):
it was a more respectful time, and there was like
a surprise, like when you found out they were bad,
it was like, oh, but they presented themselves so well, right,
they donated to the ballet, Yeah, and they like we're
part of new York High Society exactly. And by the way,
why aren't Mindy Kaling should donate to the ballet so
that she can find your dance career. She could single
(21:45):
handedly make me the biggest dancer in all of New York.
I had a george esque tweet I feel like in
my head about Mindy Kaling the other day. Okay, that
was along the lines of like something about like I
just found out Mindi Kealing is vapid and I'm pissed. Wait,
I feel like that's very you. Yeah. Yeah, Well, of
course the premise of calling something vapid is very me
(22:08):
because it was just like, I know there's like other
elements to her backlash, Yeah, but it was also like
a lot of it does them from like she's really
like materialistic and climy, and it's like, yeah, like yeah,
she's in Hollywood and has been for her whole life.
So I gotta say I've always been sort of a
knee jerk defender of Mindy Kaley. It's based on nothing.
(22:29):
First of all, her shows are very watchable. Politics aside,
I have been binging the sex lives of college girls.
Really yeah, wow, her shows are very watchable. I do
sort of think it's cool that she's a woman of
color that came up in this comedy world and is
now a power player. Having said that, I just want
(22:49):
everyone out there to know I have done no research.
I actually sort of don't know what people are mad
at her about. And so if it's something that I
disagree with politically, then I'm on your side and I
will be picketing her mansion. I'm not none. Like with
all my ideas, it can change on the top and
the drop of a hat. And if you, for some
reason are new to this podcast on you know, the
three year anniversary, which it currently is, you should be warned.
(23:12):
We don't believe in anything we say. Actually that is
something that we should talk about, and what is the
status of that it's still true? Yeah, well it's like like,
of course we're going to have strong opinions. It's fun, right,
and then when someone's like that's actually wrong, we're gonna
be like, okay, well I don't believe it then, right,
It's like I'm not married too. It doesn't define me
or every episode we are building a tower using little bricks. Yeah,
(23:38):
those bricks are opinions, and let's say each brick has
a little opinion on it. One is like Mindy killing
his mother, another one is capitalism is bad. We are
using those as a means to an end. Yeah, if
it makes sense to take the brick that says Mindy
killing his mother and put it on the tower in
order to build the tower that is the episode, I
(23:58):
will put it there. Yeah. And if it helped the
tower to just randomly be like, well, actually there's a
capitalism is good brick too, exactly, it's like, oh, then
I'll use that exactly. You know what is funny? Um,
I know we've talked about talking about the podcast when
we make the podcast. I've been seeing these like tiktoks
that have like leaked on a Twitter of this, like
these two straight guys that do a podcast and they
(24:20):
I'll just say, like the most insane stuff ever, and
then they're like kind of dumb, but it's like part
of the appeal, and people share it, and it's like
they share it just both to be like these guys
are dumb, but also be like this is charming, and um,
it would be my dream for anyone to say that
about us. And I actually I'm so like, as we're
recording this, I keep thinking about, like, are we saying
(24:42):
anything that is extremely dumb that he'll be taken out
into like a twenty five second clip and we'll like
be shared in this way, and it's actually hindering my performance,
of course. Well, well this is the thing. Okay, First
of all, I mean, you raise approximately a million excellent points,
but let me let me grasp on to two of them.
First of all, one of the foundational sort of elements
(25:04):
of this podcast, I think is that through delving into
idiocy you can find something smart. It's like you have
to one up each other's dumbness, like over and over
and over and over again, until it's almost like offensively dumb,
until you're almost like making fun of a child because
of you're like doing an impression of like a first grader,
like dumb, dumb, dumb dumb. And if you are dumb enough,
(25:27):
you can get to the elemental aspects of human language
and human life and then rebuild from the ground up
something smart like the only way like and I actually
think this is all of the comedy that you and
I like in different ways. It's sort of like being
as dumb as possible as an entryway into saying something smart. Yeah,
(25:48):
that's one thing. Okay. Now the other thing is for
any of that to work, it has to be in context.
So what stresses me out about our recent foray into
into video, yeah, is that basically, if I say the
dumbest possible thing, anyone could say, I'm saying that in
the context of this larger project. But if someone takes
(26:09):
out that clip and post it on YouTube, maybe I'm
going to jail. I mean they need Okay, here's what
I propose to the team. Here's what I proposed to
the team. Okay, every clip that's shared on social media,
there's big scrolling red text over our like over it
that says like, there's other context for this, there's something
for this, like taking out of context, taking out of context.
(26:30):
You know, it's crazy. That could be applied to literally
anything that we get mad about on social media, and
yet we only only see no, that's righteous anger. Yeah,
you're right, No, you're You're completely right. Of course, context
is key. Some people say context is even more dead
than cinema. Wow. Wow, call the T shirt printers literally
(26:54):
ranking things that are dead. It's like context is number one. Yeah, um, civility,
it's a three seeds. Context civility and cinema and books
are four and books are four. Books are just a
different thing now. Yeah, they're no longer like things you read.
They're just like fetish objects. They're actually in that sense,
(27:15):
they actually are definitely relevant. Still, they're more relevant than
ever as fetish objects. Fetish objects. Yeah, okay. I actually
so when we started recording this, we were like, you know,
we're sort of just gonna do like an extended intro
and like feel it out, and it's like the three
year anniversary. But it's like also it's whatever we want
it to be because you know, borders, what's up with that?
We don't need to be can't be tamed, etcetera, etcetera.
(27:37):
And I actually think I know what the theme of
this episode is. I figured it out halfway through. It
is Stradio Lab redefining the brandow And you know, now
that it's been made explicit, I'm nervous. Yeah. Yeah, And
I think because we were doing a lot of like
(27:59):
saying what our central tenants are ye in a way
that really felt both necessary sort of like a reintroduction. Yeah,
it felt necessary and it felt fun. Yeah. I guess
my question is like, are we read defined, well, what
is the brand Well, okay, maybe it's a brand summit. Okay, okay, okay.
(28:25):
I'm sort of like, I guess the what's at steak
is our ideological what is at steak is the ideological
framework on which the podcast takes place. So when does
that make sense? So it's like all these things that
we're talking we're talking about like where the state of
the world, but the state of the world from our perspective. Correct,
(28:47):
that is the framework on top of which we can
have an episode that is about you know, bachelorette parties
or about gender revealed parties, or about like fraternities. We
have to first like lay the groundwork. Yeah, and so
I guess we're sort of relaying the groundwork. Interestingly, that
is not engineering wise sound because the building already exists,
(29:08):
so you can't just go back and redo the groundwork.
It's a renewing avows. It's a renewing avows. Yeah. I
vow to um always answer emails. I vow to bring
a unique perspective and UM sort of you know, keep
(29:31):
it light and keep it fun, but still be able to,
you know, every once in a while, delve into something
true and not be afraid of that um raw truth
hidden underneath the silly, the wacky, the polite, even m
and to always um order seamless. When you are cranky
(29:59):
and always order Postmates, you are order the dude that
gets the villain. As Postmates, we're getting a standing ovation.
People are applauding, Oh, all of New York. I can
see them coming out of their windows and they're like,
they're like waving flags and stuff. That's amazing. What you Yeah, well,
I vow. I vow to never get complacent and to
(30:26):
always dig deeper. Yes, and to do it together. True. Okay,
so we've redefined the brand, We've re enforced the ideological framework. Yeah. Yeah,
(30:47):
and we have diagnosed most ills of the world. I
have a question because I was thinking about what I
actually would like to do as a topic sometimes. Okay, yeah,
and I want to hear what yours would be, but
I also want to say what I think my would be. Okay,
if I were guests on this podcast, And this is
sort of we're like kind of planning ahead to maybe
doing more episodes without guests where we like analyze a topic.
(31:08):
There's the two of them. Yeah, it's like because guests
are like a lot of them are like, really dumb.
We have to address that. Like we had these guests
on and they're like, oh like I like made this
TV show and like, oh like, I'm like, you know,
one of the greatest authors of the generation. It's like, okay, then,
like be funny. I actually the thing is, like, to
(31:30):
be clear, it's not their fault. No, we are expecting
them to come in and act as though they have
been with us from the start, ei though they have
been with us in the meetings we had in mid
twenty nineteen where we were deciding whether or not the
podcast would be called Straighter Things Stradiology or Stradio Lab
Streology is still funny, Yes, funny and like that simply
(31:53):
is never going to be the case. Well no, and
for context, put the big right over this. I'm kidding
everyone we have on as a genius and a legend.
I mean, the thing is like I think too, I
sort of like that we've done this. We've resisted categorization
is either like an improv podcast or an interview podcast
(32:17):
or a culture podcast, and I think that is sometimes
Troy detriment. Like I do think if we committed to one,
we would certainly perhaps have more listeners. I think if
we like Randon and we were like, this is a
podcast about movies, and each episode is about a different
the least successful movie of a specific gear, and we
(32:39):
talk about why it didn't do well or something. Somebody
just stole that idea or actually that's a terrible idea
because then people wouldn't have heard of that movie. So
it's you have to like meet people where they're at,
Like you're sort of like, you know what, you know what,
it's like, here's an idea for a podcast. Each episode
is about the defining movie of a different actor's career,
(32:59):
and some of them are sort of unexpected. Yeah, so
it's like some of them for Robert Downey Junior, for instance,
you know, it's like soap dish or something. It's like
someone one that you wouldn't expect, but you're like, well,
this is where you proved you could do comedy. You know.
It's like and that that led directly to Iron Man.
So so that but that's like an example of It's like,
that's a podcast that is easy to pitch. It's easy
to do whatever. I would even say our podcast easy
(33:22):
to pitch, harder to listen to. Well you know what
I mean. Yeah, because like there's a version of our
podcast where someone comes in is an expert on a topic,
and we from beginning to end do an analysis of
that topic. It's like very literal. It's a very literal reading.
And by the way, it could also be like even
(33:44):
something like so some of our guests come in with
a topic they are an expert, and some of them
come in with a topic that they literally know nothing
about but think it's funny to talk about. Even that range,
it's like, already, what are the expectations? Then you have
some thing like you know, the segments are like commentary
on segments. Yeah, we're commenting on a podcast, but here's
(34:07):
a thing sometimes we're not. And that's where it gets
That's where it gets tricky. Yeah, that is tricky. But
I like the option. No. No, to be clear, I
would change not a single thing. I think I never
made a mistake in our lives. Um, why did this?
Oh so the topic that I would think, yeah, I
thought of a good one that I would want to do.
Um standing still wow, Okay, jewel, that's jewel, right or
(34:33):
I am standings? I don't know, it's jewel. Probably Okay.
If not, people are gonna be mad at us. I
don't care. Okay, it's jewel now, um, I'm sorry. I'm
loving those standing look into a camera. Yeah, you love
looking to the kid. It's like I feel very like, yeah,
I can punctuate any joke. Like I can say anything
and look at the camera and it starts to read
the jewel you're getting fleabag? Do you believe him pointing
(34:58):
to not where I am? Wait? Okay, so um so
standing standing still. I love that. I was thinking about
it because I was like, we as gay people, love
to sort of the joke. You know. It'll be like
like you look at a fashion shoot and like they're
being weird on a chair and it's like they told
the gay person to sit and it's what they did
or whatever. Yes, And I do feel like as gay people,
we like, we like to dance, we like to fidget,
(35:21):
Whereas I feel like a straight guy is like the
only person I know who can just be like yeah completely,
Like like they'll be in like at an event and
they'll be like and I'm to say that straight people
don't move. I do see them. I see movement, tol,
but I think they're just much more capable of, like
fully standing still. And the tension is that you see
that and you're like, oh, that's quote unquote awkward, But
(35:42):
guess what, from their perspective, they've never been more comfortable
in their lives. Yeah, there's no just like they are
comfortable in their own bodies, so they don't need to
sort of do one hip out. Sorry, I'm addicted. It's
really good. Okay, So I love standing still. Yeah. I
(36:02):
think it also points to serve conservativism, like standing still
is refusing to pass new legislation. It is it is
like the status quo is good. Why would I move
when I am standing on my two feet. It's also militaristic. Militaristic.
They are literally like on guard to go into battle
at any given time. Yeah yeah, and they're like listening
(36:25):
to them who's above them, who's like, don't move, and
they're like okay, easy, Yeah, okay, I love that. Yeah.
Do you have one? I'm I'm now, I'm I really
feel like I came unprepared. Let me think, um, and
to the listeners at home, you know we didn't have
this prompt beforehand. Well, I do think something like okay,
(36:46):
here's here's mine advertising as art. Like, I think that
that can be a lot of different things. It's like,
you know when people give industry awards to advertisements, yes,
or when people like back on an advertisement and think
of it as like iconic in a way that you
would think of a work of fiction or a work
of art as iconic. I'm not even saying I disagree
(37:08):
with it necessarily, because sometimes it is true that, like
the Got Milk ads are iconic. Yeah, there's no way
around it. I mean, bud Wiser, Yeah, come on, But
I do I mean what that should be in the moment.
But I have to say I do think it is.
I think the mad Men era, and this is coming
from someone who's never seen mad Men, so bear with me.
The mad Men era advertising boom led to so much.
(37:34):
Like it's a direct line from that to unboxing videos
and sponsored content. Like there is something about like mixing
art and commerce in that way and advertising becoming a
cool thing. It's like, the coolest thing you can do
as a creative type is make an advertisement for a
new tequila. I just think that's like the foundation of
(37:55):
so much of this stuff we maybe talk about. Yeah,
I have I have a so you know how I
have straights all over the world. Um, you know, straight
guys that are touchy with me and make me think,
you know, maybe something could happen, and I know them
for decades, nothing ever does, and it's sort of like,
I guess you're my closest friend now. And so my
(38:19):
Chilean straight um he works in advertising there and it
is that vibe and it's like he like makes like
big neons that are like promoting yeah, you know, Coca Cola,
and it's like but he like shares it like this
is so cool. I mean, do you know what's the
sort of a very quintessential millennial version of that painted
(38:40):
ads in like Bushwick, Like when there is like a
painted you know, a mural that is a that wait,
oh my god, there's literally do there is literally a
Zadie Smith essay about this, It'll find your Beach, and
she describes maybe I'm butchering this, but I think I
think she's just driving a Corona ad that is painted
(39:01):
onto like the side of the building that's like find
your beach. And she's talking about like how that appeals
to a certain kind of consumer compared to like a
less quote unquote sophisticated or like whatever kind of consumer
I wish. I like remember the details, but I promise
it's a good as say, Okay, it doesn't matter. The
point is I think it's like a fascinating I think
like the painted the painted ads in Williamsburg. I think
(39:25):
like also the way that advertising is like so sort
of instilled in everything. Now, It's like, what is a
brand activation? What is like if you go somewhere, you know,
when we went to Vulture Fest, for example, and I
don't say this to as a you know, to judge anyone,
but you went to Vulture Fest, every single room was
(39:45):
like had a branded name sponsored by three brands. Yeah, which,
like I get it. You have of course, that's how
you pay the bills. What do you I mean, listen,
We're not bringing in money for a Vulture Fest. It's
not It's not like the straight at brand is not
strong enough. That's why we need to read a which
is why we need to read fine It. And and
also the darkest thing with a lot of this is like,
in some ways, ads are so much more influential than
(40:09):
some of the great art of our time. Got milk
is more influential than moonlight? Wow. Um. The idea of
winning an award for an ad yeah, is like that
was like the childhood idea of like that's what a
successful person is. Yes, like you working advertising, so your
(40:33):
job is good and you win an award because you're
creative and better at it when most people was really
having your kike and eating it too imber. Not maybe
not as a kid, but as like a fifteen year
old when you're like, maybe I'll be an architect. Like
it was like it was like, oh, yeah, that's the
key work in advertising and win an award for it.
(40:54):
Did you watch Queer as Folk? I have seen quartis Folk,
but like very much sort of compilations of the sex
scenes on dailymotion dot com, right, but I have seen
whole episodes of it. Well because Brian the horny hot
one huh he works in advertising of course and the
most classic day job yeah, which which also complicates the
idea of it being straight culture of course, but like
(41:17):
it stems for I mean the Madmen era you could
argue is like extremely straight like self evidently of course,
but I think it's straight because it is it's a
saving straight men to be creative. Yeah, It's like it's
like your kid tells you I'm creative, and then the
parents are like on the verge of tears. They're like,
oh no, please don't say cabaret. Please don't say cabaret,
Please don't say sabaret. I think it is like, so
(41:37):
I want to do advertising, and they're like, oh, thank God,
thank Jesus God. Um okay, So yeah, I think I
really uh yeah, I think advertising as an art form, yeah,
I think that's very res is a topic. It's also yeah,
(41:58):
it's also like the only art form where it's like
you don't inherently get like a boost when you are gay.
Like I feel like in fashion it's almost like, oh,
you're gay, so that means it's imbued with more power, right,
even when it's not necessarily And like same with art.
I feel like it's like, well he's a queer painter
and she's like, oh, well I didn't know that. Well,
oh he must be good. But in advertising it doesn't
(42:21):
boost you at all, And it's like interesting, do you
know what? I think? What in terms of like queer
artists and queer what was the other thing you said? Um,
what was the other thing? I said? Fashion? Queer fashion?
I almost think sometimes it's the opposite where it's like, well,
you're gay, so like you're naturally an artist, but this
person straight, they have to work to be inspired and
(42:43):
to like feel a sense of uh, you know, feel
out of place with the world, like they are like
and they're they're a real genius. You're just gay. You're
one hundred percent right. And especially there's no truer version
of this than in acting. Yeah, when you're gay, in acting,
it's like well yeah, but when you're a straight actor,
it's like, oh my god, Yeah, how did you get
(43:03):
to do this? Yeah, that's interesting. You are one of
God's perfect little kids. I'll say this, Jeff Koons could
never be a gay man right quite simply well because yeah,
because the game man would be like, I'm not doing this. Yeah.
(43:25):
It's funny if he got bunked in the head and
like woke up gay and he was like looking at
his own pieces and he was like no, like, oh,
time to pivot. I'm turning a podcast. It's about movies
that defined actresses. So what do you think the future
(43:45):
of the Stradia Lab brand is. I don't know, you know,
I've always felt like there needs to be an element
when we like go out in the field. M There's
something about the four walls. There's something about, you know,
discussing all this stuff only theoretically only with friends or
(44:05):
acquaintances of ours, only with other people who you know,
not always share our sensibility, you know, let's say, ideally
share our sensibility. That feels almost cowardly. Sure, we're in
our bubble. We're in our bubble. We're in our bubble,
and I am not sure what the solution is. However,
(44:26):
I think that is the next frontier. Wow. Reporting to
you live from you know, the restaurant from the bear,
the real one, right, reporting to your life from even
and it can be a gay it can be fashion week. Sure,
it can be the you know, a therapist office, okay,
(44:50):
anywhere other than a podcasting studio or our bedrooms. Really,
so you're saying you need to keep expanding, keep expanding.
You know, this podcast of course started in pandemic and
then you know, now we can even do in person.
And your saying, let's just keep going and actually thank
you for bringing up the pandemic, because don't you sometimes
feel that like, okay, when you start any project, your
(45:12):
mindset when you're starting it is sort of what defines
what it can be. And I think the fact that
we started it like literally during lockdown, I'm sure, has
prevented us from thinking outside the box in various different ways,
because in our minds it's like, well, this is a
podcast we do on zoom, right, this is our zoom call.
Is there zoom call that we do with friends that
(45:33):
we can text and ask them to be on? Yeah? Yeah,
so that would be my I'm like expansion, but not
in a not in a capitalist sense, in an artistic sense,
in a physical in a physical sense literally just be
in any other room, just go places. And actually, on
a very literal sense, I am really excited to like
(45:56):
literally do shows in other cities. Sure, it could be
a slave not to put you on the spot. Oh,
I have felt, oh that you are slightly less excited
(46:17):
about the prospect of touring than I am. I think
I am. I would love to know. I would love
to know why. I'm genuinely like, I'm genuinely curious. I
I know, okay, a few things like I would like doing,
like an out of town show here or there sounds fun,
but like a full tour, I worry about getting stressed
(46:38):
about being like out of my routines for too long. Um,
I would get stressed about like being like away from
you know, the dog in Mishaum. But I also I
also I'm scared. I am scared of like like if
(46:58):
they're not fully fun, then I'm like, it's not worth it.
And I don't know, I don't know if we are.
I don't know what because we've never done it. I
don't know what are like out of New York or LA.
Reach is sure and we can like look at the
numbers somewhat, but I'm still like, what if we go
to Pittsburgh and there's like ten people and we're like
(47:21):
huh and like and like, I know there's beauty in that,
of course, Like I have done out of town shows
that have been flop flop flop, and they are some
of my greatest memories. But at some point I am like,
but maybe I don't want that anymore, that that flop
feeling interesting. But I'm warming up to it. I think
(47:41):
I was. I was more hesitant about like a full
tour tour, but if it's like, you know, a few
dates here and there, that sounds fun. I also love
my summers and this thing we were talking to the
person that is hopefully planning out of town shows for
us so and she was like, when would you like
to do these? And I was like, well, you know,
(48:02):
it's a couple of months ago. I was like, well,
spring might be too soon, so let's maybe plan for summer.
And you were like, well, no, summer is off the table.
I didn't say fully on the table, but I was like,
Summer's Summer is such a special time. This is like
I couldnot. I mean, summer is a special time. And
that's why you want you would want to do something
(48:22):
like that, because it's like the audiences will be so
happy and it'll like the weather will be nice. You
won't be like, you know, doing a show when it's
like snowing or raining and people have to like trudge
to the like you know, bar or whatever. Like imagine
how fun it would be to like look out at
a sea of tank tops. Sure I can see it
being fun, and like, you know, like Chicago is a
(48:43):
place that I would love to go in the summer.
Sure it is fun, but summer is such a beautiful time.
I'm just like, so in I guess I think what
it is is I sort of have a sense of
urgency where I'm like, we have a sort of momentum going.
I feel like I feel really good about out honestly,
like all our recent episodes, I feel really good about
(49:03):
like our audience growing and whatever else where. I'm like,
if we wait a little bit, we'll be Yesterday's news.
You know what I mean. Yeah, this is some honesty.
I'm sorry, No, I respect, I know what you mean,
and I think you also, you know, after like recently
I'm not working at Gawker, you feel like, No, that's true,
that's true. Agency absolutely right. I do think that's a
bigger part of it than I am willing to admit that.
(49:25):
It's like I feel sort of restless, like I've now
been sort of self employed, let's saying for like a
month and a half. Yeah. And actually, the idea of
someone tomorrow calling me and being like, great news, You're
going on tour fifteen cities you start tomorrow, I would
be in heaven. I get a little souvenir from each city,
a little magnet that said Detroit. I would go to
(49:45):
all the museums. Yeah, it could be beautiful. But like summer,
I'm literally like I'm planning so many things already, and
I'm like, what are you planning? You have no idea? Okay, well,
there's so many destinations that are actually close by. Sure,
(50:05):
I want to go to the gay swimming pool in Vermont.
You are gay, gay gay. I want to go to
the gay campground in Pennsylvania. Not believe it. I want
to go to Fire Island. I want to go to
jacob Reeze. You were literally like like amish for being gay.
It's crazy like you and you only to do these
(50:29):
things in the summer, and it's like get up, you know, fall, winter, spring,
I'm I'm straight, I work in advertising. I'm I'm completely
stripped of my um raw homosexuality. And then summer is
when I really let loose and am I true and
honest self at LEAs summer weekends, of course, like a
summer weeks, like I but a summer weekend there's only
(50:53):
like how many of them are there? Twelve? I see
what you're saying. You are You're like, yeah, if you
really count them, and it's just the weekends, not talking
about like taking time off, you're talking about the weekends, Yeah,
then yes, the tour would take up at least two
of those for instance, Yeah, well we can do Chicago
and then we can go visit my parents in Michigan.
I would love that. That would be fun. Wow. Okay,
(51:17):
So I feel like we naturally At first, I was like,
I don't want to be earnest. That sounds like daunting. Yeah,
I feel like we naturally transitioned into a like half
earnest discussion. I think that was juicy, and I think
it's sort of I think it's interesting. I think our differences.
I think we're so often on the same page in
a way that I, I mean knock on a little
bit in a way that I'm very grateful for that.
I sort of think when we have even even very
(51:38):
slight slight disagreements like this one, it's like productive because
you can sort of take the temperature. Yeah. Yeah, but
I'm down, no, I know, And I'm also and I'm
not going to like force it either. It's not by
the way, I'm not trying to be like on Tour
twenty four seven, but I do actually in a weird way,
I sort of like crave feeling a little more unmoored,
(51:58):
like what you're talking about in terms of your routine
and stuff. I think I thrive a little more than
you do in a more chaotic Yeah, I can see that.
I mean when we went to La it was really fun.
That's the thing. At the same time, never mind, I
don't want to do Okay, well, well, do you have
(52:21):
any final thoughts. We've redivied the brand oos and c
our vows. We've said what our dream topics would be
if we're we're doing the podcast together. It's the podcast
without a guest. We've talked about um expanding the podcast
both in a capitalist sense and in an artistic and
spiritual sense. I think I've never felt more connected as
(52:42):
co hosts. Of course, I think it is once in
a blue moon that you can take a leap with
someone and have it be like as generally seamless. I
was like, even even saying generally, I was like, I
don't even know what I'm like referencing like, yeah, it's
you know, um lord knows. We know many people in
great partnerships that do not have that blessing. No Queen Um.
(53:07):
I actually have an idea for a final segment. In
the spirit of expanding physically and in a capitalist sense,
I think we should um do we should end on
a fake ad read and okay and and um to
show you know, potential partners out there, like how how
(53:27):
few crumbs we would leave after eating it up? Um?
Okay we can sort of do you want to do
like you know, you start and then we'll go back
and forth. Oh very improv right, I love the Yeah, okay, okay, um?
Are your teeth too yellow? Are they too white? The
(53:50):
perfect teeth study show are somewhere in the middle, and
no one will tell you that because that's right. The
dentist lobby wants you to think the correct color for
your teeth should be white. But more studies show that
people with super white teeth die unexpectedly very young. And
that's why we are both huge fans of Colgate's medium
(54:12):
white whitening toothpaste. Colgate has partner with Haley Bieber to
release a toothpaste that will get your teeth to be
the exact right color. Haley is in the lab and
she created this color in collaboration with Pantone. And you know,
I know what you're thinking, a salm collab. How much
(54:32):
did she actually work on this And the answer is
a hell of a lot more than you work on something.
She got a full full PhD at Caltech. Yeah, in
color science, which is in the chemical engineering department, and
it was really hard for her to get in, and
she was judged anonymously. She gave a pen name. She
gave a pen name and a male pen name actually,
(54:53):
because yeah, that's right. Even in this day and age,
it's easier to get into the color science program in
the chemical engineering department as a man, as a woman,
even if your last name is Bieber or Baldwin. So,
needless say, she has flipped the scholastic community on its head.
She is changing science and she is so thrilled to
(55:14):
be announcing this product in partnership once again with Colgate Caltech,
the university, Hailey Bieber, and Pantone, the color company. I
never sort of get what they do. I guess paints
now for your teeth, not for your teeth. And of
course it wouldn't be a product on Stradio Lab if
(55:35):
if it wasn't also in partnership with the US military,
who it was tested on first, and they reported that
it doesn't even hurt that much exactly, and I believe them,
and I believe them. I choose to believe soldiers. And
so today go on Colgate dot Haley Bieber dot Caltech
dot us Military dot Pantone dot com, slash Stradio lab
(55:55):
and with code yes god, you can take an exclusive
test that where you give them your information and they
tell you. Obviously we said before there's one sheet of yellow.
We lied, we were trying to oversimplify it. There's actually
many shades and you have to give you have to
take a quiz and they will tell you what exact
shade micro shade of yellow that all fits into this
(56:17):
general shade of yellow. Your teeth should be to match
your skin tone, and that's right. We're skin tone inclusive
to match your skin tone, gum tone, lip tone, and
facial hair tone because they're also gender inclusive. Yes, and
it only costs fifty cents for an unlimited lifetime supply
(56:41):
if you use the coach sure you'll have. It's fifty
cents for a lifetime supply of toothpaste and it comes
all at once. So you better cleaned out that closet. Yeah, Mondy,
you come out of the closet, Come out of the
closet and put your toothpaste at your lifetime supply of
yellowing toothpaste in there. So work now, wow, that was
a beautiful as it's good. I actually thought that was great. Yeah, okay,
(57:04):
well I think advertise it's going to be impressed with that.
I know. And actually, like I always go back and forth.
We don't do a lot of our own rad Actually
we don't do any of our own yeah, currently zero,
currently zero. And I go back and forth because on
the one hand, I'm like, well, that doesn't sound fun,
like I don't want to read ads, But then I'm like,
what's so so we're not as good as the people
who read their own ads. I know. It's such a
funny thing of like wanting what other people have even
(57:24):
when you know you don't want it. Yeah, and also
wanting to be like, well, if we did read our
own ads, at least we would have the opportunity to
be sort of like self satirizing about it. So even
if we were advertising like something truly apparently evil, we
could sort of like do it with a wing. Yeah,
we'd be good at it, I actually think, um and
uh yeah, and also sorry about bad ads that have
been on the podcast. We're working on it, yeah, and
(57:48):
we have no control, but sometimes we can't, but we
are working on don't do this. Yeah, we are working
on some of them. Are some of the bad ones.
Um okay, well, like subscribe and subscribe to our pa. Actually,
we would love it if you could subscribe to our Patreon,
and we would love it if you would actually post
some new reviews on Apple Podcasts. And that's pretty much it,
(58:11):
pretty much. Happy three Easter, Happy Easter, happy and happy easy,
happy three years, and happy Greek Easter. Oh okay, well goodbye,
Well, George, Cheers. Cheers podcast starts now. Podcast starts now
to three beautiful years. Sorry, I already drank. I'm five
Martini's in. Okay, Okay, sorry, we do, we do, Okay, Okay,
I didn't know you were going to do a whole bit.
Oh I had. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, No, I should have. Yes,
handed I panicked. No, it's start again. I just after
(00:42):
three years, I never want us to lose the excitement
and the rush of, you know, coming up with an
hour of comedy on the spot. Um So, I guess
I want everyone in this podcast, you and me to
raise a glass to three years of casting excellence. Here.
(01:07):
I can tell this is from New York. Yeah, that
is good water. Wow. Yeah. Did you like the bit
I did? But guess what it did? Make me wish
we had Martinez? Yeah, imagine doing this with Martinis. Oh
my god. I mean I'm almost like, let's literally pause this,
go get pre batched martinis, bring them back, pour them out.
(01:28):
You know. Actually, I'm like, it's New York City. Can
they not deliver a Martin? Right? Postmates? Wait? Can I
tell you something? Yeah, there's a trailer for that new
movie where Nick Cage plays Dracula, okay, and Aquafina goes
she's talking to Nicholas Holt, whose job it is to
bring food to Dracula, and she has a line where
she goes, you're like the dude that brings the villain
(01:49):
his postmates. And it makes me laugh every time because
it's like such a type of contemporary joke, you know
what I mean. It's like, so you're the guy that
gets the uber to hell. Well, there's something so funny
about trying really hard to be contemporary where you almost
it has to be self parodying for it to actually work,
(02:11):
like because it's so clearly like the script is written
with like insert like topical joke. Yeah, and it's like
like no one even says like, no one would say that,
no one would say that. That's not which, by the way,
is not a reason enough to not say something, because
of course it's art and Nick Nick Cage playing Dracula
in a sort of self referential way is the highest
(02:32):
form of our one can produce. Of course we're not
arguing there, but to have a like just to see
what it is unnatural you're the guy that delivers the
post it's web serious humor. Wait, this is web serious
humor is now mainstream humor? Oh my god? Well, because
web series humor then became like Marvel humor. Yes, and
(02:53):
now that's like the dominant form of humor. Actually, the
guy that delivers the Illini's Postmates is Marvel humor at
its finest. Yeah. Well, and god, it's weird to do
a podcast and where you want to shit talkum. But
I could sense you tense up. I will say that
right now, but I literally am like, like, are you
(03:15):
friends with Nick Cage? Are not Runs in the Cage?
I'm not runs with Aquafina and not friends with Nicholas Holt. Okay, Well,
Nicholas hold and I are actually very close and Aquafina's
coming over for dinner later. It's not her fault. You
didn't write it. No, but she's like she's like the
canary in the coal mine for that type of humor.
When you see her, you're like, oh, I know what's
going to happen. And by the way, that's not her fault. No, Gods,
(03:37):
it's because it's because she is a comedy. She's a
comedy relief. She's someone you call for comedy relief. Yeah,
and usually when you didn't have an idea. Yes, exactly,
so you're like, yeah, people are sort of like, all right,
put her in, do your thing, come on, norah, ham
it up, ham it up. Yeah exactly. Wow that's dark. Yeah.
(03:59):
Thank we turned down all those all those roles and
only take starring roles in Marvel films. Thank god. We
refused to be put in a box AKA refused to
be put in a movie, AKA refuse careers, AKA refused
to book any auditions. Yeah. When we do an audition,
of course, we get it and then we say no,
I don't want to be seen as that do I'm
waiting for the perfect role. I'm really sorry to derail
(04:20):
the conversation when we were talking about martinis, because I
do want to say I know we've both been feeling
this very recently, the way I specifically need a martini
at all times. I mean, I absolutely relate. What is
that and don't say alcoholism it's close. It's not because
(04:41):
I actually never I don't. I barely even need. I
needed the single sip. I need basically like looking like
touching a glass, feeling that it's cold, and then having
a single sip. I'm not even creating the alcohol. It's
a beautiful ritual. Yeah, you also know that within five
minutes you're going to be feel a little loopy in
a way. That's like, you know, in this um attention economy,
(05:06):
like who has the time to sort of sip a
glass of wine and like wait it out. Yeah, Like
a martini is like let's get this started. Wait, So
are you saying a martini is pro attention is like
a way to resist the attention economy? Or because it's
so fast, I think it's part of the it's part
of the attention economy. So actually you would think a
(05:26):
martini is a sort of nostalgia play. It's a way
to resist the attention economy. It's a way to go
back to basics that actually you're playing right into the
hands of Mark Zuckerberg exactly. A martini is the drink
equivalent of scrolling through your Twitter feed for like two
seconds because you need a hit of dopamine. That actually
is actually is who what is the alternative? So what
(05:47):
does the alternative drinks? Wise? Here's what I'll say. It
is not mocktails, because let me tell you something, there
is nothing more capitalist than mocktail. Is the way they
are pushing them on everyone. And I am pro sobriety,
and I am pro getting a soda embitters, and I'm
pro having a glass of water. But the mocktail lobby
is out of control. It's insane, and it should actually
be free and act guess like the way that it's
(06:10):
not free or at least like a soda price drives
me crazy because it's like, well, I know it's expensive
in a drink. It's the alcohol, I know. But here's
a thing, it's not even like it actually goes all
the way to the top because you because then you're like,
wait a minute, your eyes open for the first time
in your entire life, like the matrix. Alcohol shouldn't be
that expensive either at tequila. Soda should also not ever
(06:31):
be like nine dollars. Wow. I mean you're right, but
at least because in fact, sorry, no go ahead, I
was just gonna say, I have nothing, no financial figures
to back this up. But part of me is like,
guess what a well drink in terms of just making
it probably cheaper than a complicated mocktail that has like
(06:52):
elder flower essence, Like genuinely wow, it's like we're offended
that a mocktail that has like ginger, herrot and mandarin
is more. I'm not ordering a juice. Well that is
I mean, honey, what is a mocktail if not that. Also,
they've done like years of scientific research to create like
(07:12):
things that taste like alcohol that aren't. They don't even
they they're always too sweet. Yes, that's true, they're They're
not a cocktail. It's like a different thing. It's like,
this is a fancy soda, and like, thank you, sometimes
I want a fancy soda. And by the way, a
fancy toda is better than a mocktail. Just call it
a fancy soda. I had. God, I wish I am
would remember the brand. I had the most incredible root
(07:32):
beer the other day, okay, end of story, And I
was like, am I going to start just ordering root
beer constantly? I was like, this should be illegal. This
is like having a slice of cake. Yeah, I mean,
soda is truly illegal. It is like you remember my
famous job from my past where google Coca Cola every
(07:52):
morning and then find ways to be positive about it.
You're like, well, they would send like health experts to
local station a lie and then they would be like,
have a salad maybe with a soda. Oh, and you
know it goes great with that. It's like a small
diet coke. Do you know what I've noticed recently is
that I have been consciously going to the movie theater
(08:13):
more to order a diet coke. The luxury of a
soda at the movie theater is like peak. I mean,
talk about that's the Martini of the movie. Yes, that's
the Martinia of the movie theater. Actually want to Martina,
you know what I'll say? Okay, So one time I
went to a Regal movie theater. I'm actually a Regal member.
Oh congratulations, and yeah, it was a very selective process.
(08:37):
And I get there and I was my friend had
already been there. Now Regal has a full bar. I
get there and my friend had surprised me by buying
me a tequila soda. Now, I of course had to
act like I was excited about that. It was a gift.
You're not ungrateful? What was I thinking? Inside? Though? I
wish I didn't have this. I wish I had a
(08:58):
diet coke. We need to talk about this because a
movie theater is like one of the few public spaces
where it's like, I actually don't need or want alcohol,
it is, yes, exactly, and so it's like, can I
just enjoy this? Like this was the one space where
I was like, a drink is not needed, and like
(09:20):
I'm not talking like I'm just taking something in like
I don't want like sometimes I want to be able
to be like I don't want to drink, and it's
not like a big move. And now that bars are
in all movie theaters, suddenly everyone's like, well, are you
gonna get a drink? And it's like, no, I don't
want to, but I don't want to imply that I'm
like not present, Like I don't want to imply that
I'm like thinking of this as work of course. And
(09:40):
by the way, I'm not getting cauliflower either, so don't
even think about asking that as a funny. I'm not
even getting popcorn, and I'm sorry, no, I actually sort
of agree I popcorn. Listen, if someone gets popcorn, I'll
have a little handful one. I'll have exactly one handful.
And by the way, being hungry at a movie theater
there's nothing more beautiful than that, because guess what after that,
(10:00):
you can go to dinner. You can have dinner. Let
yourself be hungry. And I don't mean that in a
sort of eating distorted way. I mean that. I mean that.
I mean that in a delayed gratification way. Have a
diet coke, let yourself be hungry, Go get a burger.
You know what I wish? Actually, I wish I want
more nuts at movie theaters. That's genius, because a popcorn,
(10:22):
if I'm actually hungry, popcorn doesn't do anything for me. No,
And by the way, popcorn is one of the most
overrated foods in the history of mankind. We need to
look into the popcorn lobby and how they establish themselves
as like the thing to eat during a movie, right, yes,
And can I say something, in what world is popcorn good?
In what world it is? I would say it is
strictly medium. I'm not saying, oh god, it's disgusting, I'm
(10:43):
gonna throw up, but it's like to pretend it's anything
other than a five out of ten is madness. The
only form of popcorn I like is like heapcorns, stay
at home, pop own where you like make it yourself
and you're like, you know, costplaying like nineties girl of course, like, well,
when you're making a popcorn, by the way, when you're
making popcorn yourself at home, you are in a commercial
(11:05):
for Blockbuster. You are literally in a commercial that's like
take the movies home. Yeah, well, little did they know
that that would be the death knell for movie theaters
by the way, in the streaming age? Yeah, who knew
Blockbuster would literally kill cinema. The way they keep trying
to reinvent the movie theater is so frustrating to me.
Alamo Drafthouse, and I would never wish ill on any business,
(11:29):
and on any small business, especially one that started in Austin, Texas. Yes,
but Alamo Drafthouse needs to take a long, hard look
in the mirror, because if I wanted to, I could
go and check their tax documents and see which party
they are funded by. And let's just say it's not
the Democrats. Yeah, they are like doing it's almost psyop.
They're like doing what they think a liberal wants and
(11:52):
it actually is so see through and we know there's
dark money in there. I have to say, this is crazy.
We're actually just OK, sorry, no, I actually like it.
I like that we're like turning into a conspiracy theory podcast.
Like within the three year Anniversal episode. I mean The
thing is like pretty much everything is a conspiracy. Let's
start there. Like, I'm not kidding, and I don't even
(12:13):
mean that as a joke. I'm like everything is dark money.
Everything is dark money. Nothing. The idea of supply and
demand is a farce. Literally, nothing is popular because of demand.
This is truly the most genius thing I've ever heard.
But do you know what I mean? Of course a
number one lie we are told. Do you know that
chart that's like an X and it's like one line
is supply, one line is demand. Yeah, that is essentially
(12:37):
like people will look back at that and be like
this is where it all went right, Like people believe this?
Can you believe? It's like when people talk, It's like
how people think Jesus turned water into wine. It's like, well,
it's sort of a metaphor if blind demand is a metaphor,
and on top of that is built a corrupt economy. Yeah.
I mean I even look at like a restaurant in
New York City. It's like a restaurant opened in New
York City and it's like, oh, well that's a small business.
(12:59):
I've never heard this restaurant before. Yeah, and it's like, well, no,
because it takes a shit ton of money to open
a restaurant in NY City, and like, so something's going
on here, something bigger exactly. And then you hear you know,
no one makes money in restaurants. You're like, like even
famous chefs like are not that rich. You're like, okay,
there's no money in restaurants, like blah blah blah. But
the thing are like, wait a minute, the investors are rich.
(13:21):
Somebody's doing they're in restaurants unless they're doing it for
free drinks, doing it for free drinks, which respect Yeah,
I mean I would do that, I guess. Yeah. I
would love it if the restaurant industry was actually a
good industry, because I feel like I could do a
really good job opening a fast casual Greek spot. Oh
my god, you and you actually mentioned opening a cafe
(13:42):
in our previous episode. Well it's my biggest drink. Is
that true? Well? When I was in high school, there
was this one girl who was a terrible student, and
I was always sort of like, she's kind of a flop.
Not to say that you can be you have to
be a good student to not be a flop, but
she specifically, I was like you're sort of full ship.
She was a bad student and had flop energy, flop energy,
bad student and also just sort of like I mean,
(14:03):
there's really no other way to describe it than just
like full of shit. Like you know when someone is
like always talks a big game and you're like, say
one thing that's true and interesting and they're like, oh,
the wires are coming out of their ears. It's literally
like there's smoke coming out of their ears because the
wires are crossed. So her whole thing was like that.
She her dream was always to open a cafe on
(14:23):
a Greek island, and she like wanted to be like
a cafe dream the day and then like a dance
club at night. And I was always like, sweetie, you'll
never do that. You'll never amount to anything in your life.
And now that's literally my dream. So you stole her dream. Yeah,
but she didn't achieve her dream. No, So I guess what,
neither will I. There's no way I will ever actually
(14:44):
do that. But the dream transferred to you. Yeah, what
would your dream be if you weren't doing comedy? What
would my dream be if I wasn't doing comedy? I
mean that's a tough one. Well, okay, there's it's a
few things. One. I've always said that if I didn't
have internalized homophobia when I was a teen, I would
(15:05):
have been a dancer. I actually feel there was a
point in my life where I was like, oh, I'm
gonna sign up for a dance class. And then I
was like, well, that's not what boys do, and I
was like, right, good point. Really, yeah, what kind of dance?
I don't know. I think I wanted to like take
like a classic dance class and like get the basics
and then sort of figure out my specialty. You have
to pay your dues first. It's like how I cut
(15:27):
my teeth and boss them doing stand up comedy so
that now I can be a queer podcast exactly. And
so I was really sure, like like definitely, you know,
I was going towards sort of the modern modern dance.
It would be like more conceptual. It would be kind
of fun. You could put it in a music video,
but but it wouldn't be like it's not like hip
hop and it's not like ballet. It's somewhere in the middle.
(15:48):
What level of nudity, Well, obviously I would play with that. Yeah,
there'd be cutouts, of course, cutouts in weird that you
wouldn't expect, and there'd be specific moves that would like
reveal the cut out that would be like, oh wow,
that's shocking. Yeah, So there's the dance dream I feel
(16:10):
like as an adult, obviously, the dream is like the
dream is to have written a book and have it
one thousand percent and just like I'm I see myself
like old I beard, and I'm like living in the
woods and no one has access to me. Yes, but
I have written a book, and every once in a while,
(16:30):
like a weird fan will come to the house and
will like, like the lore of me will be like
I actually do always like have a tea with the
weird fan that comes, and that is such a beautiful
little image to me. And the way that I crave
quiet in that way is so deep. But I also
it's it's not real because I also crave loud and
(16:51):
crave socializing at all times. Well, obviously the only way
to do that is to invest in real estates so
that you can be both in the city and in
the country. Yeah, it sort of all goes back to location. Location, locations,
tell me about it. Okay, interesting, Yeah, I think it
sucks that the dream of like a book being your
(17:14):
thing is dead. Exactly. That is exactly what I was.
It is. Okay, here's the thing with books, and I
say this as we're both readers. Of course, here's the
thing with books. They in our current society, they are
purely symbolic. When you think of a book, it's simply
like something that denotes intelligence, denotes reading. Oh, you wrote
(17:38):
a book, you're someone who writes it. The idea of
a book on its own as an object that someone
interacts with and reads and then takes gets something out of.
That's like point one percent of what a book is
an occur in society. Yeah, books are decor books are
sort of personality signifiers. Books are a blueprint for a
(18:01):
TV show or mini series or mini series, of course,
and books are a brand extension. Books are also the
like the the idea of authorship is just fully dead.
I would say conservatively ninety eight percent of books are
ghost written. So books are something that like the Star
of and not even the star the third supporting character
(18:25):
in Vanderpump Rules, will write and then they will go
to promote it, and then they will be photographed a
like one of the mid tier fashion weeks. Yeah, and
honestly that sounds like a dream. Yeah, I guess. Do
you know what's the other thing is with books? Wait,
this is another another thing like along these lines of
like what books represent is books are also a tool
(18:48):
for celebrities to enter a new space and so to
have like Natalie Portman's book Club, Indycaling's book Club, Reas
Witherspoon's book club. It is a way to, by the way,
do fraud because what you're doing is making a book
popular with your celebrity so you can adapt it correct.
That is literal fraud and you should be in prison,
Reese Witherspoon. So it is a way to extend someone's brand,
(19:10):
do fraud, create more prestige miniseries and like so that yeah,
you can. It's literally an in house production team. It's
a way to like build hype for the thing that
you're going to make. Well. Mindy Killing the other day
posted on Instagram about a book and she said, the
newest from my book studio. Now I don't even I
(19:31):
actually think it's beneath me to look into what a
book studio is. But the idea, yes, I've never heard
this term before. Of course, it is an exclusive partnership
with Amazon. Book studio. Yeah, I just let that sink
in because I have nothing more to say. I did
not google it. I actually immediately closed Instagram and then
bought property in the woods. I bought property and a gun.
(19:56):
The idea that Mindy is like, she's having this busy day.
And by the way, I have watched many of her
shows and I support her. Of course, she's having this
busy day, and she's like, Okay, what do we have now?
Book studio? Got it? Takes a photo of the book
airbrush to perfection, of course, and then she's like, newest
from my book studio. Checks her bank account, she has
another thirty million dollars. I mean, this is the supply
demand thing being fake again. It's like, she has a
(20:17):
book studio. It means nothing, but it is a brand
partnership and she will be richer for it, right, and
why so she invented the concept of a book studio
something no one has ever heard of. Anyone who is
the least bit intelligent, let's say you or I is
so traumatized by the phrase book studio that they won't
look it up. So we'll never be exposed for the
fraud that it is. Yeah, so she just has a
book studio. It's sponsored by Amazon. The two people getting
(20:38):
richer are Mindy Kaling and Jeff Bezos. The book, by
the way, maybe not even written by a human author.
I sort of like did a little click CLICKERU on
Instagram and could not find any previous publications. And there's
no one, literally, not a single person will read this book.
The idea that this book will be printed, sent to
you and then read is is a joke. It's false.
(21:01):
It is, And so money will be printed by the
federal government for only Mindy Kaling and Jeff Bezos. And
this is happening out in the open, this is on Instagram.
You should at least be quiet about it. I know,
at least have the this is sort of okay. One
thing I respect about old fashioned white card criminals is
at least they didn't also want to be reality television stars. Yeah,
(21:24):
it was a more respectful time, and there was like
a surprise, like when you found out they were bad,
it was like, oh, but they presented themselves so well, right,
they donated to the ballet, Yeah, and they like we're
part of new York High Society exactly. And by the way,
why aren't Mindy Kaling should donate to the ballet so
that she can find your dance career. She could single
(21:45):
handedly make me the biggest dancer in all of New York.
I had a george esque tweet I feel like in
my head about Mindy Kaling the other day. Okay, that
was along the lines of like something about like I
just found out Mindi Kealing is vapid and I'm pissed. Wait,
I feel like that's very you. Yeah. Yeah, Well, of
course the premise of calling something vapid is very me
(22:08):
because it was just like, I know there's like other
elements to her backlash, Yeah, but it was also like
a lot of it does them from like she's really
like materialistic and climy, and it's like, yeah, like yeah,
she's in Hollywood and has been for her whole life.
So I gotta say I've always been sort of a
knee jerk defender of Mindy Kaley. It's based on nothing.
(22:29):
First of all, her shows are very watchable. Politics aside,
I have been binging the sex lives of college girls.
Really yeah, wow, her shows are very watchable. I do
sort of think it's cool that she's a woman of
color that came up in this comedy world and is
now a power player. Having said that, I just want
(22:49):
everyone out there to know I have done no research.
I actually sort of don't know what people are mad
at her about. And so if it's something that I
disagree with politically, then I'm on your side and I
will be picketing her mansion. I'm not none. Like with
all my ideas, it can change on the top and
the drop of a hat. And if you, for some
reason are new to this podcast on you know, the
three year anniversary, which it currently is, you should be warned.
(23:12):
We don't believe in anything we say. Actually that is
something that we should talk about, and what is the
status of that it's still true? Yeah, well it's like like,
of course we're going to have strong opinions. It's fun, right,
and then when someone's like that's actually wrong, we're gonna
be like, okay, well I don't believe it then, right,
It's like I'm not married too. It doesn't define me
or every episode we are building a tower using little bricks. Yeah,
(23:38):
those bricks are opinions, and let's say each brick has
a little opinion on it. One is like Mindy killing
his mother, another one is capitalism is bad. We are
using those as a means to an end. Yeah, if
it makes sense to take the brick that says Mindy
killing his mother and put it on the tower in
order to build the tower that is the episode, I
(23:58):
will put it there. Yeah. And if it helped the
tower to just randomly be like, well, actually there's a
capitalism is good brick too, exactly, it's like, oh, then
I'll use that exactly. You know what is funny? Um,
I know we've talked about talking about the podcast when
we make the podcast. I've been seeing these like tiktoks
that have like leaked on a Twitter of this, like
these two straight guys that do a podcast and they
(24:20):
I'll just say, like the most insane stuff ever, and
then they're like kind of dumb, but it's like part
of the appeal, and people share it, and it's like
they share it just both to be like these guys
are dumb, but also be like this is charming, and um,
it would be my dream for anyone to say that
about us. And I actually I'm so like, as we're
recording this, I keep thinking about, like, are we saying
(24:42):
anything that is extremely dumb that he'll be taken out
into like a twenty five second clip and we'll like
be shared in this way, and it's actually hindering my performance,
of course. Well, well this is the thing. Okay, First
of all, I mean, you raise approximately a million excellent points,
but let me let me grasp on to two of them.
First of all, one of the foundational sort of elements
(25:04):
of this podcast, I think is that through delving into
idiocy you can find something smart. It's like you have
to one up each other's dumbness, like over and over
and over and over again, until it's almost like offensively dumb,
until you're almost like making fun of a child because
of you're like doing an impression of like a first grader,
like dumb, dumb, dumb dumb. And if you are dumb enough,
(25:27):
you can get to the elemental aspects of human language
and human life and then rebuild from the ground up
something smart like the only way like and I actually
think this is all of the comedy that you and
I like in different ways. It's sort of like being
as dumb as possible as an entryway into saying something smart. Yeah,
(25:48):
that's one thing. Okay. Now the other thing is for
any of that to work, it has to be in context.
So what stresses me out about our recent foray into
into video, yeah, is that basically, if I say the
dumbest possible thing, anyone could say, I'm saying that in
the context of this larger project. But if someone takes
(26:09):
out that clip and post it on YouTube, maybe I'm
going to jail. I mean they need Okay, here's what
I propose to the team. Here's what I proposed to
the team. Okay, every clip that's shared on social media,
there's big scrolling red text over our like over it
that says like, there's other context for this, there's something
for this, like taking out of context, taking out of context.
(26:30):
You know, it's crazy. That could be applied to literally
anything that we get mad about on social media, and
yet we only only see no, that's righteous anger. Yeah,
you're right, No, you're You're completely right. Of course, context
is key. Some people say context is even more dead
than cinema. Wow. Wow, call the T shirt printers literally
(26:54):
ranking things that are dead. It's like context is number one. Yeah, um, civility,
it's a three seeds. Context civility and cinema and books
are four and books are four. Books are just a
different thing now. Yeah, they're no longer like things you read.
They're just like fetish objects. They're actually in that sense,
(27:15):
they actually are definitely relevant. Still, they're more relevant than
ever as fetish objects. Fetish objects. Yeah, okay. I actually
so when we started recording this, we were like, you know,
we're sort of just gonna do like an extended intro
and like feel it out, and it's like the three
year anniversary. But it's like also it's whatever we want
it to be because you know, borders, what's up with that?
We don't need to be can't be tamed, etcetera, etcetera.
(27:37):
And I actually think I know what the theme of
this episode is. I figured it out halfway through. It
is Stradio Lab redefining the brandow And you know, now
that it's been made explicit, I'm nervous. Yeah. Yeah, And
I think because we were doing a lot of like
(27:59):
saying what our central tenants are ye in a way
that really felt both necessary sort of like a reintroduction. Yeah,
it felt necessary and it felt fun. Yeah. I guess
my question is like, are we read defined, well, what
is the brand Well, okay, maybe it's a brand summit. Okay, okay, okay.
(28:25):
I'm sort of like, I guess the what's at steak
is our ideological what is at steak is the ideological
framework on which the podcast takes place. So when does
that make sense? So it's like all these things that
we're talking we're talking about like where the state of
the world, but the state of the world from our perspective. Correct,
(28:47):
that is the framework on top of which we can
have an episode that is about you know, bachelorette parties
or about gender revealed parties, or about like fraternities. We
have to first like lay the groundwork. Yeah, and so
I guess we're sort of relaying the groundwork. Interestingly, that
is not engineering wise sound because the building already exists,
(29:08):
so you can't just go back and redo the groundwork.
It's a renewing avows. It's a renewing avows. Yeah. I
vow to um always answer emails. I vow to bring
a unique perspective and UM sort of you know, keep
(29:31):
it light and keep it fun, but still be able to,
you know, every once in a while, delve into something
true and not be afraid of that um raw truth
hidden underneath the silly, the wacky, the polite, even m
and to always um order seamless. When you are cranky
(29:59):
and always order Postmates, you are order the dude that
gets the villain. As Postmates, we're getting a standing ovation.
People are applauding, Oh, all of New York. I can
see them coming out of their windows and they're like,
they're like waving flags and stuff. That's amazing. What you Yeah, well,
I vow. I vow to never get complacent and to
(30:26):
always dig deeper. Yes, and to do it together. True. Okay,
so we've redefined the brand, We've re enforced the ideological framework. Yeah. Yeah,
(30:47):
and we have diagnosed most ills of the world. I
have a question because I was thinking about what I
actually would like to do as a topic sometimes. Okay, yeah,
and I want to hear what yours would be, but
I also want to say what I think my would be. Okay,
if I were guests on this podcast, And this is
sort of we're like kind of planning ahead to maybe
doing more episodes without guests where we like analyze a topic.
(31:08):
There's the two of them. Yeah, it's like because guests
are like a lot of them are like, really dumb.
We have to address that. Like we had these guests
on and they're like, oh like I like made this
TV show and like, oh like, I'm like, you know,
one of the greatest authors of the generation. It's like, okay, then,
like be funny. I actually the thing is, like, to
(31:30):
be clear, it's not their fault. No, we are expecting
them to come in and act as though they have
been with us from the start, ei though they have
been with us in the meetings we had in mid
twenty nineteen where we were deciding whether or not the
podcast would be called Straighter Things Stradiology or Stradio Lab
Streology is still funny, Yes, funny and like that simply
(31:53):
is never going to be the case. Well no, and
for context, put the big right over this. I'm kidding
everyone we have on as a genius and a legend.
I mean, the thing is like I think too, I
sort of like that we've done this. We've resisted categorization
is either like an improv podcast or an interview podcast
(32:17):
or a culture podcast, and I think that is sometimes
Troy detriment. Like I do think if we committed to one,
we would certainly perhaps have more listeners. I think if
we like Randon and we were like, this is a
podcast about movies, and each episode is about a different
the least successful movie of a specific gear, and we
(32:39):
talk about why it didn't do well or something. Somebody
just stole that idea or actually that's a terrible idea
because then people wouldn't have heard of that movie. So
it's you have to like meet people where they're at,
Like you're sort of like, you know what, you know what,
it's like, here's an idea for a podcast. Each episode
is about the defining movie of a different actor's career,
(32:59):
and some of them are sort of unexpected. Yeah, so
it's like some of them for Robert Downey Junior, for instance,
you know, it's like soap dish or something. It's like
someone one that you wouldn't expect, but you're like, well,
this is where you proved you could do comedy. You know.
It's like and that that led directly to Iron Man.
So so that but that's like an example of It's like,
that's a podcast that is easy to pitch. It's easy
to do whatever. I would even say our podcast easy
(33:22):
to pitch, harder to listen to. Well you know what
I mean. Yeah, because like there's a version of our
podcast where someone comes in is an expert on a topic,
and we from beginning to end do an analysis of
that topic. It's like very literal. It's a very literal reading.
And by the way, it could also be like even
(33:44):
something like so some of our guests come in with
a topic they are an expert, and some of them
come in with a topic that they literally know nothing
about but think it's funny to talk about. Even that range,
it's like, already, what are the expectations? Then you have
some thing like you know, the segments are like commentary
on segments. Yeah, we're commenting on a podcast, but here's
(34:07):
a thing sometimes we're not. And that's where it gets
That's where it gets tricky. Yeah, that is tricky. But
I like the option. No. No, to be clear, I
would change not a single thing. I think I never
made a mistake in our lives. Um, why did this?
Oh so the topic that I would think, yeah, I
thought of a good one that I would want to do.
Um standing still wow, Okay, jewel, that's jewel, right or
(34:33):
I am standings? I don't know, it's jewel. Probably Okay.
If not, people are gonna be mad at us. I
don't care. Okay, it's jewel now, um, I'm sorry. I'm
loving those standing look into a camera. Yeah, you love
looking to the kid. It's like I feel very like, yeah,
I can punctuate any joke. Like I can say anything
and look at the camera and it starts to read
the jewel you're getting fleabag? Do you believe him pointing
(34:58):
to not where I am? Wait? Okay, so um so
standing standing still. I love that. I was thinking about
it because I was like, we as gay people, love
to sort of the joke. You know. It'll be like
like you look at a fashion shoot and like they're
being weird on a chair and it's like they told
the gay person to sit and it's what they did
or whatever. Yes, And I do feel like as gay people,
we like, we like to dance, we like to fidget,
(35:21):
Whereas I feel like a straight guy is like the
only person I know who can just be like yeah completely,
Like like they'll be in like at an event and
they'll be like and I'm to say that straight people
don't move. I do see them. I see movement, tol,
but I think they're just much more capable of, like
fully standing still. And the tension is that you see
that and you're like, oh, that's quote unquote awkward, But
(35:42):
guess what, from their perspective, they've never been more comfortable
in their lives. Yeah, there's no just like they are
comfortable in their own bodies, so they don't need to
sort of do one hip out. Sorry, I'm addicted. It's
really good. Okay, So I love standing still. Yeah. I
(36:02):
think it also points to serve conservativism, like standing still
is refusing to pass new legislation. It is it is
like the status quo is good. Why would I move
when I am standing on my two feet. It's also militaristic. Militaristic.
They are literally like on guard to go into battle
at any given time. Yeah yeah, and they're like listening
(36:25):
to them who's above them, who's like, don't move, and
they're like okay, easy, Yeah, okay, I love that. Yeah.
Do you have one? I'm I'm now, I'm I really
feel like I came unprepared. Let me think, um, and
to the listeners at home, you know we didn't have
this prompt beforehand. Well, I do think something like okay,
(36:46):
here's here's mine advertising as art. Like, I think that
that can be a lot of different things. It's like,
you know when people give industry awards to advertisements, yes,
or when people like back on an advertisement and think
of it as like iconic in a way that you
would think of a work of fiction or a work
of art as iconic. I'm not even saying I disagree
(37:08):
with it necessarily, because sometimes it is true that, like
the Got Milk ads are iconic. Yeah, there's no way
around it. I mean, bud Wiser, Yeah, come on, But
I do I mean what that should be in the moment.
But I have to say I do think it is.
I think the mad Men era, and this is coming
from someone who's never seen mad Men, so bear with me.
The mad Men era advertising boom led to so much.
(37:34):
Like it's a direct line from that to unboxing videos
and sponsored content. Like there is something about like mixing
art and commerce in that way and advertising becoming a
cool thing. It's like, the coolest thing you can do
as a creative type is make an advertisement for a
new tequila. I just think that's like the foundation of
(37:55):
so much of this stuff we maybe talk about. Yeah,
I have I have a so you know how I
have straights all over the world. Um, you know, straight
guys that are touchy with me and make me think,
you know, maybe something could happen, and I know them
for decades, nothing ever does, and it's sort of like,
I guess you're my closest friend now. And so my
(38:19):
Chilean straight um he works in advertising there and it
is that vibe and it's like he like makes like
big neons that are like promoting yeah, you know, Coca Cola,
and it's like but he like shares it like this
is so cool. I mean, do you know what's the
sort of a very quintessential millennial version of that painted
(38:40):
ads in like Bushwick, Like when there is like a
painted you know, a mural that is a that wait,
oh my god, there's literally do there is literally a
Zadie Smith essay about this, It'll find your Beach, and
she describes maybe I'm butchering this, but I think I
think she's just driving a Corona ad that is painted
(39:01):
onto like the side of the building that's like find
your beach. And she's talking about like how that appeals
to a certain kind of consumer compared to like a
less quote unquote sophisticated or like whatever kind of consumer
I wish. I like remember the details, but I promise
it's a good as say, Okay, it doesn't matter. The
point is I think it's like a fascinating I think
like the painted the painted ads in Williamsburg. I think
(39:25):
like also the way that advertising is like so sort
of instilled in everything. Now, It's like, what is a
brand activation? What is like if you go somewhere, you know,
when we went to Vulture Fest, for example, and I
don't say this to as a you know, to judge anyone,
but you went to Vulture Fest, every single room was
(39:45):
like had a branded name sponsored by three brands. Yeah, which,
like I get it. You have of course, that's how
you pay the bills. What do you I mean, listen,
We're not bringing in money for a Vulture Fest. It's
not It's not like the straight at brand is not
strong enough. That's why we need to read a which
is why we need to read fine It. And and
also the darkest thing with a lot of this is like,
in some ways, ads are so much more influential than
(40:09):
some of the great art of our time. Got milk
is more influential than moonlight? Wow. Um. The idea of
winning an award for an ad yeah, is like that
was like the childhood idea of like that's what a
successful person is. Yes, like you working advertising, so your
(40:33):
job is good and you win an award because you're
creative and better at it when most people was really
having your kike and eating it too imber. Not maybe
not as a kid, but as like a fifteen year
old when you're like, maybe I'll be an architect. Like
it was like it was like, oh, yeah, that's the
key work in advertising and win an award for it.
(40:54):
Did you watch Queer as Folk? I have seen quartis Folk,
but like very much sort of compilations of the sex
scenes on dailymotion dot com, right, but I have seen
whole episodes of it. Well because Brian the horny hot
one huh he works in advertising of course and the
most classic day job yeah, which which also complicates the
idea of it being straight culture of course, but like
(41:17):
it stems for I mean the Madmen era you could
argue is like extremely straight like self evidently of course,
but I think it's straight because it is it's a
saving straight men to be creative. Yeah, It's like it's
like your kid tells you I'm creative, and then the
parents are like on the verge of tears. They're like,
oh no, please don't say cabaret. Please don't say cabaret,
Please don't say sabaret. I think it is like, so
(41:37):
I want to do advertising, and they're like, oh, thank God,
thank Jesus God. Um okay, So yeah, I think I
really uh yeah, I think advertising as an art form, yeah,
I think that's very res is a topic. It's also yeah,
(41:58):
it's also like the only art form where it's like
you don't inherently get like a boost when you are gay.
Like I feel like in fashion it's almost like, oh,
you're gay, so that means it's imbued with more power, right,
even when it's not necessarily And like same with art.
I feel like it's like, well he's a queer painter
and she's like, oh, well I didn't know that. Well,
oh he must be good. But in advertising it doesn't
(42:21):
boost you at all, And it's like interesting, do you
know what? I think? What in terms of like queer
artists and queer what was the other thing you said? Um,
what was the other thing? I said? Fashion? Queer fashion?
I almost think sometimes it's the opposite where it's like, well,
you're gay, so like you're naturally an artist, but this
person straight, they have to work to be inspired and
(42:43):
to like feel a sense of uh, you know, feel
out of place with the world, like they are like
and they're they're a real genius. You're just gay. You're
one hundred percent right. And especially there's no truer version
of this than in acting. Yeah, when you're gay, in acting,
it's like well yeah, but when you're a straight actor,
it's like, oh my god, Yeah, how did you get
(43:03):
to do this? Yeah, that's interesting. You are one of
God's perfect little kids. I'll say this, Jeff Koons could
never be a gay man right quite simply well because yeah,
because the game man would be like, I'm not doing this. Yeah.
(43:25):
It's funny if he got bunked in the head and
like woke up gay and he was like looking at
his own pieces and he was like no, like, oh,
time to pivot. I'm turning a podcast. It's about movies
that defined actresses. So what do you think the future
(43:45):
of the Stradia Lab brand is. I don't know, you know,
I've always felt like there needs to be an element
when we like go out in the field. M There's
something about the four walls. There's something about, you know,
discussing all this stuff only theoretically only with friends or
(44:05):
acquaintances of ours, only with other people who you know,
not always share our sensibility, you know, let's say, ideally
share our sensibility. That feels almost cowardly. Sure, we're in
our bubble. We're in our bubble. We're in our bubble,
and I am not sure what the solution is. However,
(44:26):
I think that is the next frontier. Wow. Reporting to
you live from you know, the restaurant from the bear,
the real one, right, reporting to your life from even
and it can be a gay it can be fashion week. Sure,
it can be the you know, a therapist office, okay,
(44:50):
anywhere other than a podcasting studio or our bedrooms. Really,
so you're saying you need to keep expanding, keep expanding.
You know, this podcast of course started in pandemic and
then you know, now we can even do in person.
And your saying, let's just keep going and actually thank
you for bringing up the pandemic, because don't you sometimes
feel that like, okay, when you start any project, your
(45:12):
mindset when you're starting it is sort of what defines
what it can be. And I think the fact that
we started it like literally during lockdown, I'm sure, has
prevented us from thinking outside the box in various different ways,
because in our minds it's like, well, this is a
podcast we do on zoom, right, this is our zoom call.
Is there zoom call that we do with friends that
(45:33):
we can text and ask them to be on? Yeah? Yeah,
so that would be my I'm like expansion, but not
in a not in a capitalist sense, in an artistic sense,
in a physical in a physical sense literally just be
in any other room, just go places. And actually, on
a very literal sense, I am really excited to like
(45:56):
literally do shows in other cities. Sure, it could be
a slave not to put you on the spot. Oh,
I have felt, oh that you are slightly less excited
(46:17):
about the prospect of touring than I am. I think
I am. I would love to know. I would love
to know why. I'm genuinely like, I'm genuinely curious. I
I know, okay, a few things like I would like doing,
like an out of town show here or there sounds fun,
but like a full tour, I worry about getting stressed
(46:38):
about being like out of my routines for too long. Um,
I would get stressed about like being like away from
you know, the dog in Mishaum. But I also I
also I'm scared. I am scared of like like if
(46:58):
they're not fully fun, then I'm like, it's not worth it.
And I don't know, I don't know if we are.
I don't know what because we've never done it. I
don't know what are like out of New York or LA.
Reach is sure and we can like look at the
numbers somewhat, but I'm still like, what if we go
to Pittsburgh and there's like ten people and we're like
(47:21):
huh and like and like, I know there's beauty in that,
of course, Like I have done out of town shows
that have been flop flop flop, and they are some
of my greatest memories. But at some point I am like,
but maybe I don't want that anymore, that that flop
feeling interesting. But I'm warming up to it. I think
(47:41):
I was. I was more hesitant about like a full
tour tour, but if it's like, you know, a few
dates here and there, that sounds fun. I also love
my summers and this thing we were talking to the
person that is hopefully planning out of town shows for
us so and she was like, when would you like
to do these? And I was like, well, you know,
(48:02):
it's a couple of months ago. I was like, well,
spring might be too soon, so let's maybe plan for summer.
And you were like, well, no, summer is off the table.
I didn't say fully on the table, but I was like,
Summer's Summer is such a special time. This is like
I couldnot. I mean, summer is a special time. And
that's why you want you would want to do something
(48:22):
like that, because it's like the audiences will be so
happy and it'll like the weather will be nice. You
won't be like, you know, doing a show when it's
like snowing or raining and people have to like trudge
to the like you know, bar or whatever. Like imagine
how fun it would be to like look out at
a sea of tank tops. Sure I can see it
being fun, and like, you know, like Chicago is a
(48:43):
place that I would love to go in the summer.
Sure it is fun, but summer is such a beautiful time.
I'm just like, so in I guess I think what
it is is I sort of have a sense of
urgency where I'm like, we have a sort of momentum going.
I feel like I feel really good about out honestly,
like all our recent episodes, I feel really good about
(49:03):
like our audience growing and whatever else where. I'm like,
if we wait a little bit, we'll be Yesterday's news.
You know what I mean. Yeah, this is some honesty.
I'm sorry, No, I respect, I know what you mean,
and I think you also, you know, after like recently
I'm not working at Gawker, you feel like, No, that's true,
that's true. Agency absolutely right. I do think that's a
bigger part of it than I am willing to admit that.
(49:25):
It's like I feel sort of restless, like I've now
been sort of self employed, let's saying for like a
month and a half. Yeah. And actually, the idea of
someone tomorrow calling me and being like, great news, You're
going on tour fifteen cities you start tomorrow, I would
be in heaven. I get a little souvenir from each city,
a little magnet that said Detroit. I would go to
(49:45):
all the museums. Yeah, it could be beautiful. But like summer,
I'm literally like I'm planning so many things already, and
I'm like, what are you planning? You have no idea? Okay, well,
there's so many destinations that are actually close by. Sure,
(50:05):
I want to go to the gay swimming pool in Vermont.
You are gay, gay gay. I want to go to
the gay campground in Pennsylvania. Not believe it. I want
to go to Fire Island. I want to go to
jacob Reeze. You were literally like like amish for being gay.
It's crazy like you and you only to do these
(50:29):
things in the summer, and it's like get up, you know, fall, winter, spring,
I'm I'm straight, I work in advertising. I'm I'm completely
stripped of my um raw homosexuality. And then summer is
when I really let loose and am I true and
honest self at LEAs summer weekends, of course, like a
summer weeks, like I but a summer weekend there's only
(50:53):
like how many of them are there? Twelve? I see
what you're saying. You are You're like, yeah, if you
really count them, and it's just the weekends, not talking
about like taking time off, you're talking about the weekends, Yeah,
then yes, the tour would take up at least two
of those for instance, Yeah, well we can do Chicago
and then we can go visit my parents in Michigan.
I would love that. That would be fun. Wow. Okay,
(51:17):
So I feel like we naturally At first, I was like,
I don't want to be earnest. That sounds like daunting. Yeah,
I feel like we naturally transitioned into a like half
earnest discussion. I think that was juicy, and I think
it's sort of I think it's interesting. I think our differences.
I think we're so often on the same page in
a way that I, I mean knock on a little
bit in a way that I'm very grateful for that.
I sort of think when we have even even very
(51:38):
slight slight disagreements like this one, it's like productive because
you can sort of take the temperature. Yeah. Yeah, but
I'm down, no, I know, And I'm also and I'm
not going to like force it either. It's not by
the way, I'm not trying to be like on Tour
twenty four seven, but I do actually in a weird way,
I sort of like crave feeling a little more unmoored,
(51:58):
like what you're talking about in terms of your routine
and stuff. I think I thrive a little more than
you do in a more chaotic Yeah, I can see that.
I mean when we went to La it was really fun.
That's the thing. At the same time, never mind, I
don't want to do Okay, well, well, do you have
(52:21):
any final thoughts. We've redivied the brand oos and c
our vows. We've said what our dream topics would be
if we're we're doing the podcast together. It's the podcast
without a guest. We've talked about um expanding the podcast
both in a capitalist sense and in an artistic and
spiritual sense. I think I've never felt more connected as
(52:42):
co hosts. Of course, I think it is once in
a blue moon that you can take a leap with
someone and have it be like as generally seamless. I
was like, even even saying generally, I was like, I
don't even know what I'm like referencing like, yeah, it's
you know, um lord knows. We know many people in
great partnerships that do not have that blessing. No Queen Um.
(53:07):
I actually have an idea for a final segment. In
the spirit of expanding physically and in a capitalist sense,
I think we should um do we should end on
a fake ad read and okay and and um to
show you know, potential partners out there, like how how
(53:27):
few crumbs we would leave after eating it up? Um?
Okay we can sort of do you want to do
like you know, you start and then we'll go back
and forth. Oh very improv right, I love the Yeah, okay, okay, um?
Are your teeth too yellow? Are they too white? The
(53:50):
perfect teeth study show are somewhere in the middle, and
no one will tell you that because that's right. The
dentist lobby wants you to think the correct color for
your teeth should be white. But more studies show that
people with super white teeth die unexpectedly very young. And
that's why we are both huge fans of Colgate's medium
(54:12):
white whitening toothpaste. Colgate has partner with Haley Bieber to
release a toothpaste that will get your teeth to be
the exact right color. Haley is in the lab and
she created this color in collaboration with Pantone. And you know,
I know what you're thinking, a salm collab. How much
(54:32):
did she actually work on this And the answer is
a hell of a lot more than you work on something.
She got a full full PhD at Caltech. Yeah, in
color science, which is in the chemical engineering department, and
it was really hard for her to get in, and
she was judged anonymously. She gave a pen name. She
gave a pen name and a male pen name actually,
(54:53):
because yeah, that's right. Even in this day and age,
it's easier to get into the color science program in
the chemical engineering department as a man, as a woman,
even if your last name is Bieber or Baldwin. So,
needless say, she has flipped the scholastic community on its head.
She is changing science and she is so thrilled to
(55:14):
be announcing this product in partnership once again with Colgate Caltech,
the university, Hailey Bieber, and Pantone, the color company. I
never sort of get what they do. I guess paints
now for your teeth, not for your teeth. And of
course it wouldn't be a product on Stradio Lab if
(55:35):
if it wasn't also in partnership with the US military,
who it was tested on first, and they reported that
it doesn't even hurt that much exactly, and I believe them,
and I believe them. I choose to believe soldiers. And
so today go on Colgate dot Haley Bieber dot Caltech
dot us Military dot Pantone dot com, slash Stradio lab
(55:55):
and with code yes god, you can take an exclusive
test that where you give them your information and they
tell you. Obviously we said before there's one sheet of yellow.
We lied, we were trying to oversimplify it. There's actually
many shades and you have to give you have to
take a quiz and they will tell you what exact
shade micro shade of yellow that all fits into this
(56:17):
general shade of yellow. Your teeth should be to match
your skin tone, and that's right. We're skin tone inclusive
to match your skin tone, gum tone, lip tone, and
facial hair tone because they're also gender inclusive. Yes, and
it only costs fifty cents for an unlimited lifetime supply
(56:41):
if you use the coach sure you'll have. It's fifty
cents for a lifetime supply of toothpaste and it comes
all at once. So you better cleaned out that closet. Yeah, Mondy,
you come out of the closet, Come out of the
closet and put your toothpaste at your lifetime supply of
yellowing toothpaste in there. So work now, wow, that was
a beautiful as it's good. I actually thought that was great. Yeah, okay,
(57:04):
well I think advertise it's going to be impressed with that.
I know. And actually, like I always go back and forth.
We don't do a lot of our own rad Actually
we don't do any of our own yeah, currently zero,
currently zero. And I go back and forth because on
the one hand, I'm like, well, that doesn't sound fun,
like I don't want to read ads, But then I'm like,
what's so so we're not as good as the people
who read their own ads. I know. It's such a
funny thing of like wanting what other people have even
(57:24):
when you know you don't want it. Yeah, and also
wanting to be like, well, if we did read our
own ads, at least we would have the opportunity to
be sort of like self satirizing about it. So even
if we were advertising like something truly apparently evil, we
could sort of like do it with a wing. Yeah,
we'd be good at it, I actually think, um and
uh yeah, and also sorry about bad ads that have
been on the podcast. We're working on it, yeah, and
(57:48):
we have no control, but sometimes we can't, but we
are working on don't do this. Yeah, we are working
on some of them. Are some of the bad ones.
Um okay, well, like subscribe and subscribe to our pa. Actually,
we would love it if you could subscribe to our Patreon,
and we would love it if you would actually post
some new reviews on Apple Podcasts. And that's pretty much it,
(58:11):
pretty much. Happy three Easter, Happy Easter, happy and happy easy,
happy three years, and happy Greek Easter. Oh okay, well goodbye,
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