May 31, 2023 • 70 mins
This week the boys discuss the ‘Boss Swift Act” which is a congressional bill proposing transparency to the and recualtion to the ticketing world as Live Nation and ticketmaster continue to receive monopoly accusations while the company make record profits each year. Later, Sia’s movie “Music” controversy is back in the news after the singer states that she has been diagnosed as neurodivergent as well as explaining what she went through after the dust settled… or did it? This and more every week on The Biztape!
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Sources:
Ticketmaster Legislation:
“Music” Movie:
https://variety.com/2023/music/news/sia-autism-spectrum-1235628381/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen lead to congressional ticket.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Baster legizations and see US movie controversy.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to the BIS tape. Welcome to the Biz tape.
You're all things music, business and media podcasts. I'm your host,
Colin McKay, my lovely host. Coast to Coast Joseph Bozzweski, Joe,
(00:31):
thank you for joining.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Us, Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I feel like I'm always invited on, like Fallen start
that would be.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
It's like, I feel like.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Such a a amazing guest to be invited back.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I feel like Fallen does this thing where his intro
is always like you may have seen them on Photography
Worldwide and music Videos are Us. Welcome to Fabulous Joey
Wazil asking he's always screaming. I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, I like music videos rs. I'm gonna trademark that
music videos are get into any legal issues?
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Why that company fell down? I don't know who bought
that trademark. Somebody did I remember?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I feel like they still have.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I wonder, I mean, this is off topic, I guess,
but I wonder, like those companies fail, like do those
trademarks are are they still maintained at all. I feel
like they have to be because like there's still checks.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
They have to have to keep maintaining that you're still
using it. I mean, I'm sure if they're in the
middle of the trademark period, like you know, there's somebody
there's especially if it's a big company like Toys r US.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Welcome to the History of Toys RS. By the way,
this is our podcast about all Toys r US lore
and accurate things. What really happened to Jeffrey the Giraffe Anyway,
The point is is that the trademarks have to be maintained.
You know, you have to prove when you re register
your trademark that you've been actively using it. Obviously Toys
r US mostly hasn't. And also the other thing is
(02:07):
when they go out of business, even though it's a
failing business, people want the trademarks right, so they will
go after them and they will try to prove that
you did or did not. So I think honestly, Toys
rs trademarks may be one of the few things other
than you know, the properties themselves that they owned that
may have some value for them and it can probably sell,
(02:31):
which they would have to with Chapter eleven bankruptcy. Anyway,
moving on, so toys RS News. You can follow all
your toys rs News at the BIS tape pretty much everywhere.
Sorry it snuck that one in there. It's been a while.
Let's talk about some interesting things. First, Let's talk about
this law in Congress that is one of the most
(02:52):
wild titles I've ever seen for a law involving music.
We're doing the Boss and Swift Act. You heard that right,
Boston Swift Act. Almost two girls Boss pedals. We'll get
to what it means by boss. If you're from the
state of New Jersey, you can put together by it
Bosston Swift Act, who girl Boss? Too close to the Sun?
(03:13):
Congress is proposing this new act. Yes, it's called the
Boston Swift Act. If you hadn't heard me say about
twelve times. And this is being proposed by US Congressman
Bill Passerelli Junior and Frank Palone Junior. And they've introduced
into the House this bill, which is the Boston Swift Act,
to bring transparency regulation to what they describe as the
badly corrupt live events ticket market.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
You may have heard some a bunch of similar laws
that are going through. There's one in Texas right now
from Ted Cruz. There's another one that is in Massachusetts
that is actually called the Taylor Swift Bill. And this
is not the same bill as that. This is actually
in you know, the United States Congress, not just the
state local congressional governments, but they all are cup bring
(04:00):
around the same issues, and we're going to get into that.
So basically, the Boss and Swift act are named after
you could probably guess it based on my hints, Taylor
Swift and Bruce Springsteen, you know, not Boss Pedals. Sorry,
they could not get that one. That would be fun anyway.
These two artists we've actually talked about of multitude of
(04:21):
times on the show have experienced technical issues, specifically with
Ticketmaster and or Live Nation. Some of these issues, which
you've probably heard about so many times, so I'm just
going to rattle it off before we get into the law,
is that the technical issues of Ticketmaster crashing over and over,
people losing their place in line, Ticketmaster rapidly changing the
(04:42):
price on consumers last second, and dynamic pricing that took
some tickets to thousands of dollars from the get go.
The Boss and Swift Act will require mandatory all in
pricing to ensure that the true ticket price is displayed,
clearly disclosed, clear disclosures of refund pol he is transparency
on the total number and costs of the tickets that
(05:03):
will be offered for sale, and preserving ticket transferability, among others,
which that last one I am particularly interested as well
as all of them, but that is an issue that
not a lot of people bring up a lot. Notably,
these two congressmen with this bill have actually had a
career and this is the first bill in a while,
(05:25):
but they've had a career of critiquing Ticketmaster and Live Nation.
The pair has introduced a law like this all the way.
They've done it a couple of times. What the most
notable one is in two thousand and nine they tried
to have almost an identical law pass but it went nowhere,
and Pescrelli specifically was a huge advocate for opposing the
(05:46):
Live Nation ticket Master merger and urging the Obama administration
to reject it. But that would fail as in twenty ten.
It's a broken record on this podcast, but Live Nation
and Ticketmaster did join together. So this is an interesting
thing because we're seeing it on a congressional floor. A
lot of people had predicted, due to you know, I
(06:09):
guess the power of the Swifties, that this would eventually happen.
But don't forget the Boss. He's still here. You know,
he's just like everybody else, a blue collar guy, Am
I right? Joe?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Anyway, a blue collar guy with nine billion dollars?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Right, not nine billion but close now jegging, But anyway,
he's he's just a regular guy. He's he's got his
own legacy. He's good, he's he's made some really good
hits over the years. But the point is is that
those two were really some of the pinnacle cases of
this last year of an early or late last year
of you know, absorbitant ticket pricing. I mean, we had
(06:48):
a whole coverage on the show about it, and this
is the first time we're seeing it on a congressional
floor in close to fourteen years. Hopefully this will not
get you know, put under the rug like everything else.
But if you're wondering, let's take a little preview into
Live Nation before we kind of get into general discussion.
So what the hell's going on with Live Nation? I'm
(07:08):
glad you asked the point is is that Live Nation
president and CFO. Basically they talk to JP Morgan at
a JP Morgan conference about the state of their business,
and Live Nation, the extreme mom and pop company that
we all know them as, is doing nothing short of fantastic.
That's a joke if you don't understand. The point is
(07:30):
is that they are doing so well it is insane.
I remember looking at that ticket you know, stock price
way back when the pandemic.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Was and I was like, maybe I'll buy the shares.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
And never did, and now I'm kicking myself every day.
So the point, the point is is that let's get
into it. Let's get into the numbers. Uh. Ticket Master
is just a very small amount year over year up
in revenue. They are up eighty nine percent in revenue
year over year, so that means they made almost ninety
(08:04):
percent more money than they did last year in Q one,
making over two point two eight billion dollars in revenue.
We're not even at the summer yet, folks. Nineteen million
fans attended Live Nation shows in Q one, which is
up seventy three percent from Q one of twenty twenty two,
So there is no lack of demand. Uh, they are
(08:27):
making money hand over fists laughably, which I thought was hilarious.
Is this information, I'm going to say, is separate from
the information that I was talking about with the uh
Taylor and our Boston Taylor Act or Boston Swift Act. Sorry,
this is gonna get really confusing. I'm about to call
it the girl Boss Act and move on the Girl
Boss Act. Basically. Music Worldwide had this other article which
(08:50):
is where I'm pulling this information from, and they said
that the ticketing division is up forty one percent year
over year at six hundred and seventy seven point seventy
seven million dollars, so again making more than I will
ever see in my wife. Music Business Worldwide puts it
this was on the strength of some big name tours
by artists such as Beyonce Drake and Bruce Springsteen. Sound
(09:14):
familiar with the Boss is back? Who's the Boss? Anyway?
When asked about AI, which I'm going to go into
a non sequitor here because this actually goes straight into
one of the things that this bill might be hitting.
And honestly, I think maybe some of the root of
the problems of some of the things that Ticketmaster is,
you know, being accused of having and readily shown that
(09:37):
they have these problems. When asked about Ai birch Told,
who's the president CEO of Live Nation, said, we have
a lot of areas and Ticketmaster where we have used
what we call machine learning, Like that's not a term
we've never heard before in our lives. Quote. We take
a lot of data inputs and use them to figure
out how to make life easier forever. Everwoody was so
(10:01):
like a computer I did. I'm literally don't even get
that's crazy. So to me, it's more of an infrastructure
component that runs throughout Ticketmaster, which I'm one like a computer.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Program that every company uses. You're talking about Excel.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Right exactly, yeah, right. But the point is is that
like maybe we're seeing a reason why the ticketing experience
is not the best ever and specifically not even going
on the prices may crash a lot and do this stuff.
Maybe it's because of them trying to use this technology
more readily. That's just kind of my theory. There's no
(10:41):
evidence of that, but since they really hit on that,
they're heavily using it and it could be used for
a lot of different experiences, which I might get in
later when we talk about this generally. But yeah, that
was one. I was like, why are you talking about
machine learning like this is like nineteen seventy three. Anyway,
the point is is that AI is being used a
(11:04):
ticket Master. How intensively, I don't know. It could be
what Joe saying, I can excel sheet. The point is
is that they are very interested in it. And my
point is basically this may be where we are having
some problems moving to prices, because honestly, that's kind of
the thing at the end of the day that you know,
the experience of buying him is bad, but then when
(11:24):
you have a terrible experience buying them and then they
cost an arm and a leg to get, that's a
different story. Birch Stold reiterated that Live Nation's position is
that the company isn't against all attempts at regulating the
ticketing business. In particular, Live Nation's Rapino has said he's
in favor of efforts to introduce all in ticket pricing,
(11:45):
where the advertised prices include all fees. So Ticketmaster is continuing,
if you've been listening to the show for a while,
to defend the use of dynamic pricing, and actually has
moved to a place where they are outwardly saying that
the dynamic pricing is a necessity in today's world to
prevent scalpers the easy to go to blaming for everything
(12:08):
thing for ticketmaster. Birschtold even went on to state that
the multiple state bills which I was mentioning earlier, such
as in Massachusetts and Texas, that are being pushed to
ban dynamic pricing outright, are being pushed by scalpers allegedly,
which I was like, hello, and this is what he said.
(12:29):
He goes, what's happening at the state level again, these
are these state level bills that are trying to ban
dynamic pricing. Is obvious that the scalpers have figured out
that they're losing the federal battle, so they're trying to
go and run around the states in the hope that
they can sell a bill of some goods to some
senators who don't understand the full picture, and you get
(12:50):
some bills pop up. The vast majority of the time,
pretty simple conversations by sports teams, by artists their representatives
explained reality and that bills get killed, and I'm like, hello,
what was that slogan? He actually didn't say the bills
get killed. But I just love that they put that
in there to explain that music business worldwide anyway. So
(13:13):
let's let's get into this a little bit. Scalpers and
dynamic pricing. Joe, do you believe that dynamic pricing is
intended solely to prevent scalping of tickets?
Speaker 2 (13:24):
No, absolutely not. I think it's intended to make more
money for Live Nation, and that's it's it's kind of
killing two birds with one stone, where it's like it
makes it harder for scalpers, but then it also gives
them more money at the end of the day. And
I think out of everything, Live Nation is more worried
(13:52):
about their income than they are about user experience. And
it's kind of been shown time and time again, and
I feel like I feel like ticket like Ticketmaster and
Live Nation, like they understand that in the public perception view,
like everyone hates scalpers, Like scalpers are so vilified.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
They're also a vague, you know, faceless force that is
easy to.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Do the course.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
But what's crazy is Ticketmaster used to be a scalper
before it got bought up, and so that's like another
thing is like ultimately Ticketmaster got here because of scalping.
And now since they're not the scalper anymore, they're the
main promoter. It's completely shifted the way that their view
(14:41):
on scalping has happened.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
At the so many venues and promoters have a vast
ability to choose what ticketing site they use.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Right, Yeah, except they don't, Yeah, because every venue ever
has to use Ticketmaster and Live Nation, Like once you
hit a certain threat shold of capacity, all of those
venues are using Live Nation ticket Master if they're the venues, yeah, exactly,
(15:10):
which most venues in America are at this point. So
to to say that they're trying to avoid scalpers and
and and also to like, scalpers exist and it's not
hurting their bottom line at all with these numbers. I
(15:31):
mean you you just listed their quarterly numbers. It's like
they're bringing in record amounts of money. And so to them,
it's more of just like shifting the narrative in my
view of like, look, we're good guys too, we also
hate scalpers. Scalpers are bad. I just like, look in
that closet with all the records of us with scalpers
(15:52):
hanging out at the scalp scalper conference in Canada with
all this stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
It's just it's almost like insane the level of hilarity
that it feels like when they say it feels like
them as Ticketmaster are just going like, there's nothing we
can do. We have no control of these prices. It's
just the way it is.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
It's almost like it's almost like we we have to
change the coding of the website to reflect changes right
to the pricing, which we don't know how that works.
It's just it's the algorithm. All hail the algorithm.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
So okay, I guess I gotta play Devil's advocate as always.
Do I think that dynamic pricing does deter scalpers in
some ways? Yes? I can imagine that if you're trying to,
you know, you have a computer program, you got like
a thousand desktops just ready to go to click on
ticketmaster dot com, run a program go through all the
(16:51):
you know, different things to click on to buy Taylor
Swift tickets. Right. That is a problem, right man. If
only there was a huge force in the United States
that has a lot of money that could invest in
technology to work against anti scalpers. That isn't just a
money issue. Right, this is an IT issue at the
(17:15):
end of the day, Right, this is a technology issue.
If only there was a I don't know, a company
making two point two eight billion dollars in revenue for
Q one that had some money that could you know,
try to invest more in this technology in a very
structured and very succinct way instead of just saying AI
is a thing.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
What's what's crazy is it's literally what would take to
solve this issue would be point zero three percent. And
obviously I'm just like throwing this out there, but it
would be like that level of like the bigger chunk
of the pie, right of like how much money they're
bringing in.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
So it's like, god, dude, yeah, you're yeah, you're.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
It's it's insane because it is like they know that
it's a solvable issue. But the thing is they're so
obsessed with raking and more money that they are kind
of playing the game of like, well, let's see how
long we can just do this and prolong this to
where we don't have to fix this and all of
(18:22):
these like court cases and everything. They're like, oh, whatever,
you know, they can throw money at it. They can
throw money at lobbyists in order to get like to
kick the stone farther down the road, you know, because
they're holding out for they're they're hoping that people lose interests.
(18:44):
And so the American loss like court system, as we've
talked about many times, is so slow. The shit takes
years and years to get passed. And by the time
the shit gets passed, it's already, like, you know, the
problem has been persueing for like a decade, you know,
and so they're just hoping to hold out a little
(19:06):
bit longer just to squeeze a little bit more revenue, yeah,
out of your wallet.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
I just think here, here's my thing with like this.
I think you're exactly right. They're playing the long game. Here.
We're finally at some place where we're actually seeing legislation
really being involved, you know what I mean, actually putting
bills on the table, not just on the federal level,
even on the state level. And the thing that I
find interesting about it is you have this interesting kind
(19:38):
of game going on where I don't you know, look,
I don't know everything, but I get a few moments
when I get to stay I told you so on
the show, and this is one of them. So when
we talked about this last I said, I think ticket
Master is going to be all in for the ticket
transparency thing. Why because I guarantee you this is what
(20:00):
that's gonna happen. Let's pretend you're buying a ticket, I
don't care where. Let's say you're buying it for the Boss,
You're buying it for Bruce Springsteen. There's some law right
that says, oh, now we have to have ticket transparency, right.
And what I was saying and still holds true, is
that Ticketmasters for that ticket transparency. Repino, who's the CEO,
is literally for it too. You know why because it
(20:21):
looks really good on paper. But here's how that I
guarantee you this is gonna work. They're gonna put some
law that says, hey, you have to say how much
it is for these tickets to buy them, all this
kind of stuff, right, say add to tax, all this
kind of stuff, right. Cool, So you click on general
admission tickets for the Boss, and you know they're gonna
(20:42):
be expensive expensive they're the Boss, right, So let's say
that it's like three hundred dollars and then there's like
sixty dollars in taxes, and then maybe there's like a
twenty or thirty dollars fee. Let's just round it up
to four hundred dollars, right, okay, cool, you click on
the little seat that you want, four hundred dollars, your
will the ticket. Right. It's transparent, right, I guarantee you
(21:03):
when you get to the end, it's not going to
be four hundred dollars. Why because and they're probably gonna
go well, when you were trying to buy them when
they first came out, because everyone and their mother's trying
to get Bruce Springsteen tickets, it was four hundred dollars,
so we were transparent, but the dynamic pricing changed. And
now we're being transparent with you now that you're at checkout,
(21:26):
it's four hundred and eighty dollars. It's five hundred dollars.
So we've been transparent the whole time. And that's why
they want the ticket transparency stuff because they go, all right, cool,
we'll just throw you a bone here. It is right,
you get ticket transparency. Right? Is that really ticket transparency?
Do you think that's ticket transparency? Because I don't.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
I mean no, it's not. Because the whole purpose, the
whole problem with Live Nation and Ticketmaster's checkout sequence is
the head and fees attached to the checkout situation, right,
Like you you see that it's like one hundred dollars
ends up at the end of it when you're actually
paying for it off your credit card, that it's like
(22:12):
two hundred dollars because there's service fees attached, there's data fees,
there's blah blah blah, there's a fee for everything for
every click you do.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
I just tack.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And the other thing I was going to say is like, look,
I gotta be fair here. You know, my situation's one situation.
I feel like I can come up with ways around
transparency ticket stuff and saying that they were transparent like
all the time, Like I could you know, you can
make that argument, Oh it's the dynamic pricing whatever. What
if instead your ticket is locked in for two minutes
of four hundred dollars, right, or three minutes or four minutes,
(22:45):
and the web page just doesn't load fast enough because
Ticketmaster hasn't you know, had enough money into their infrastructure, right,
and then you're at three minutes and five and you're
trying to put in the whole you know, entirety of
your credit card and then ah, now it's six hundred
Oh we were transparent. It was three minutes, it was
five minutes. You know what I mean. This is what
(23:05):
I'm saying, is that that's why I think Ticketmaster is
for these kind of transparency bills, because it's very it's
a very low bar because you could say, at this
point in time, we were transparent. Right. There's nothing in
here that says, oh, you have to provide this amount
of time, you have to do that. No, none of
these laws say that. They say you have to be
just vaguely transparent because it's not going to be so
(23:28):
technical in how Ticketmaster has to show that. That's why
this is their concession. This is their get out of
jail free card. All right, we'll give you this and
then we'll walk away. I think that that's ludicrous, which
is why I'm really this is the thing that I'm
interested in the Boss and swift AC specifically that they
say they want clear disclosures of refund policies. I would
(23:50):
love for them to define that and have that. I
think it'd be great if it was required that at
the end it goes we're also sending you the refund
policy in a very clear, succinct way. This is how
you refund your ticket. Right. I think that the transparency
and the number of tickets and the cost of the
(24:11):
ticket that will be offered is another thing. How vague
is it? You know? If you look up how many
times have you tried to look up how many seats
are in a venue? Right? And then you try to
buy the tickets and you're like, that doesn't feel like
it matches up. It feels like a quarter of these
tickets are available. They don't tell you that kind of stuff,
you know, because it'll be like, let's look up Nissan
(24:32):
Stadium in Nashville. Right, Let's see Nissan Stadium. Nissan stadium capacity, right,
Nissan Stadium's capacity is sixty nine and forty three.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Let's say you put up a stage in there. That
means about maybe a fifth of the stage. A quarter
of those seats you can't sell, right because it's behind
the stage or it's really dirty, and they do sell it. Right,
that's less tickets. Let's how many credit card companies and
deals are there right where they just give company you
know stuff and be like, hey, every Capital one rewards
(25:08):
member can buy these tickets. So we're gonna reserve them
for Capital one members. Right, it's so vague because the
supply is there, it kind of makes sense at least
when you get to a smaller, you know, scenario and
it's a big artist, let's say, like a small feed
or like a residency stuff, and it's like abnormally expensive,
it's like three grand four grand a ticket. That makes
sense because the supply is so low, and you kind
(25:30):
of understand that. But what I think a lot of
people don't understand sometimes is that the supply could be
really low for the general public to buy tickets, right,
the amount of tickets that are reserved for just you know, hey,
we want to keep these seats open because we have
you know, special people that might come in and have
this or who we're offering a you know, our vendors,
(25:50):
like an opportunity to buy box tickets and so all
that kind of stuff takes away tickets from you, and
you should have the right to know that. I think
you don't have to know who it is. I think
you should have a general Oh okay, like there's only
like four thousand tickets here, right, there's only not to
be like Nissan Stadium. But like if you know, Nissan
Stadium was like, we only have thirty thousand tickets available.
(26:11):
That's half as much as I thought I was gonna
be able to buy, you know what I mean. And
then the last one I think is very important on
here is the transferability. Joe, have you ever tried to
transfer a concert ticket? It's the worst.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
It's the fucking worst.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I mean, it depends like I I it's easy when
it's like a ticketing thing like event Bright or Dice
or something like that, where it's more of like you
just have an email with the ticket on it.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Oh boy, guess what company I don't hear to here
saying that.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, you're not our boy Live Niche. He's not doing it.
He's holding on for dear life on those tickets. He's
changing those QR codes. He is saying, he's fighting the
good fight against the scalpers.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
I cannot believe it, Like it is so difficult do that.
And then like usually you got to go to like
other than calling Live Nation support. It's either that or
you got to go to Will call and just beg
and be like I have all of the things, help me.
This is the person, this is me. We are changing
and It's like, it should not be this difficult. It
(27:17):
should not be this difficult to do it, you know
what I mean, It's insane, Like why do I have
to you know, do I have to provide my passport
here to get you know, my ticket change? What is
going on? But yeah, that's the craziest part. And at
the end of the day, there's one thing I want
to hit on about this AI thing because other than
you know, the vagueness and how terrible the statement that
(27:38):
was of like ooh, we could improve an AI, I
think some of the other ways that they're saying are insane.
He said, Okay, I have to read this correctly, because
I was like, this sounds like a nightmare. He goes.
(27:59):
Take is a complicated and this is Birch told who's
the president and CFO. He goes. Ticketing is a complicated
customer service because when fans need have a need, they
usually need it right now, like any other business on Earth. Anyway,
moving on, I can't wait till tomorrow because I've got
a show tonight, or I've got an issue that has
(28:20):
to get resolved. Using AI to help inform that will
be great. So these are some of the things that
they can help out with either more efficient or be
more efficient at our jobs. Imagine you're just trying to
get a refund and you have to go through a
robot computer that's like, welcome to Ticketmaster. Would you like
to hear all of our shows?
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Would you like to basically know every venue?
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Would you? This is where I'm afraid AI is going
is to going. Hey, we do have tools. You could
totally get a refund. You just got to go through
this terrible phone system that is not developed at all.
We're not putting money towards it because that's how we
get our eighty nine percent year of a year increase
in revenue, and it makes it hard for you to
(29:05):
take money from us.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Yeah, we expect you to give up before getting to
the finish line.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
And the best part of the whole thing is you
have no nothing. You can go, Oh, I'll just buy
tickets from somewhere else. No, you won't. There's nowhere else.
You know why, because you're not allowed to have all
these venues are not allowed to have other agreements with
ticketing companies that are either owned by lab Nation or
their ban or they play the politics game here and
they have been alleged before playing the game of being like, hey,
(29:37):
we're not going to you know, bring our lab Nation
shows which most of the artists are over there unless
you get this ticketmaster, you know what I mean. So
that's that's my issue here is I'm really afraid that
in the same vein as when I was talking about
the idea of being like, oh it was the correct
(29:57):
price at that time and using that as the scapegoat,
I feel like AI is the other one that they're
going to be like they're going to make some giant
robot that makes it so hard to you know, oh
you got to call on the phone to get ticketmaster
or oh you know what, you got to email this
robot and we're just not going to develop it.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Well, I just love that AI is the excuse for
all of these companies, Like it's like, oh, but like
AI is going to fix it, and it's just like
it's it truly is just kicking it down the road
even more well, And the funniest part about what's the
funniest part about it crazy for me is is like
(30:37):
AI is such a new construct, it's such a new thing,
and it might change the Internet. It might take a
lot a while to change it, you know, but these
companies are kind of diving headfirst into it and like
just acting like this is going to be the thing
that is going to help customer experience when we already
(30:59):
have kind of AI working in some of these companies
already and it's not really been the most pleasurable experience yet.
So it's probably gonna be better AI, but probably not
the best.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
You know, ticketing is a complicated customer service. That's what
Birchtol said, right, He's completely right. What is AI designed
to do? AI is designed currently unless Google or some
other company has some secret AI. AI is designed to
do capacity work that human beings can do, but usually
it's monotonous or you know, takes a lot of physical
(31:36):
toll to do. You know, something that can be algorithmic,
something that can be repeated multiple times. Right, Ticketmaster cannot
accomplish customer service with humans. What makes you think they
could do AI? Right? They cannot provide the basic necessity
(32:01):
that they already claim to, which is comparable customer service
and good systems that provide this. Right, these tools should
be used to make the worker's life easier at you know,
Live Nation and save the company money at the end
of the day, right, But they can't even do it
with human beings who have you know, a customer service
(32:23):
mindset and understand human beings. What makes them think that
they're going to solve this problem with AI? That's my question,
you know what I mean, That's the issue at play
is that we're not you're not even at the basic
level with human beings. You're not going to automate this, now,
you know what I mean? This is that's my issue here, right,
there's a reason where AI succeeds, right where hey, go
(32:45):
find this issue in this code fifteen hundred times a
human being might mess up whatever, but human beings can
do that, really, and a smart enough people can do it.
Live Nation can barely function of doing comparable customer service
when it comes to that, right, and being transparent when
it comes to that. So why do you think the
AI would be modeled on someone that is competent? Right?
(33:07):
So that that that's my issue at play, And the
vagueness of the whole thing is what is really getting me,
you know what I mean. They he's got it feels
like he has no idea. It feels like he is
just shooting from the hip and going, well, we could
do this with AI, that's great, but you can't do
it with humans. So until you can do that, I
(33:27):
don't want to hear about AI, right, I want to,
And don't don't come at me saying, oh, you know,
it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot
of resources when you're making two billion dollars in revenue
a year. Yeah, right, if it if it requires your
year over year increase to go to sixty percent instead
(33:48):
of eighty nine, you need to be doing it, right,
because that is that that is articulate customer service. If not,
what you're admitting to me is that there is no
need to innovate. There is no need to do it
because consumers don't have another choice. Why because you're a monopoly, right,
(34:09):
And so that is really to me one of the
biggest things of self admittance right here is the lack
of clear cut investment into solving these problems because there
is no reason for live Nation to even try to
compete because they have dominance already in a monopoly. So
(34:33):
I can barely speak, but you can speak better than me.
So Joe, tell me what we got. What's our next
story about?
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Well, it's gonna be a bit of an update and
kind of like a longer piece that we did we
did years ago, but it's an update on Sia's situation.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Oh yeah, this movie. Do you do you remember that?
Speaker 1 (34:54):
I remember it. It's we covered this when we were
still living together and it was a nightmare then. And
I hope it's gotten better.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
I don't know if it's gotten too much better. So
in fact, you're gonna get it to be getting worse.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
So let me. You're gonna give us a little bit
of a backstory about it for some of us who
haven't been listening as long.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
So recently, on an episode of Rob has a Podcast,
which is a podcast owned by People magazine, pop artist
Seas stated that she has learned recently that she is
on the autism spectrum now. The reason we are bringing
this up is because we covered CIA's twenty twenty one
movie Music, which was the center of controversy sparked from
(35:38):
the neurodivergent community, as the actor who was cast to
play a character with autism did not have autism, and
people who saw early screening stated that the work was
negatively impacting the community. Sias stated to Yahoo entertainment that
she actually tried working with a beautiful young girl nonverbal
(35:58):
on the spectrum.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Quote found it unpleasant and stressful because the character was
that was written was had like too much like physical
demanding takes. There was a lot of like dancing segments.
It was very much like it seemed like it was
just a music video, like a long music video with
(36:20):
like little bits of.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
From the clips.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yeah, so side note, Yeah, the character has very fantastical
dance sequences be very difficult to choreograph. But she went
on quote, the character is based completely off of my
neurotypical friend. He found it too stressful being nonverbal, and
I made this movie with nothing but love for him
(36:46):
and his mother, is what she stated. She later announced
that the movie would be released with a warning quote,
I promise I have been listening, she wrote on Twitter.
The motion picture music will moving forward have this warning
at the head of the movie. Music in no way
condones or recommends the use of restraint on autistic people.
There are there are are autistic occupational therapists that specialize
(37:09):
in sensory processing who can be consulted to explain safe
ways to provide like appropriate deep pressure feedback to help
with meltdown safety and what she's talking about there is
there is a scene in the movie that shows the
girl music being restrained by her caretaker and her sister.
(37:30):
There are two different scenes to which they pin her
on the ground in a very unsafe manner, and there
it's it's like in the movie, it's like shown as
like a teaching moment of like what to do, and
it's very much what you should not do because it
(37:53):
has led to a lot of people dying from doing so.
So it's it's pretty horrific. Honestly, it made it in
the film. But she then tweeted I'm sorry, which was
assumed to be speaking to the autism community directly, but
only after being very defensive on Twitter, even calling someone
a bad actor after they remember that movie.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Yep, that was right.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
So CEO went on a Twitter rampage with the movie
and basically just called people out who were basically saying
the movie was trash. And it was a hugely bad
look pr wise for Cia because she was getting decimated
(38:37):
online and she just kept doubling down and doubling down,
especially in a lot of press interviews, just completely avoiding
the topic and saying how it's sparking talking points, which
she said on Jimmy Kimmel that the movie which was
generating and quote important conversation to have, but she did
(38:58):
not touch on the Curtain Company coversation that was being
had online. But since the release, the movie completely tanked,
only making six hundred and forty five thousand dollars, which
a budget with a budget of sixteen million dollars.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
No, my god, that's so.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Right going straight to streaming. I don't even think the
movie lasted a week in theaters, and it was only
in Australian theaters. I doubt that the US had a
major release for it. Film critics did not like the
movie at all, with Matthew Rosa of Salon calling it
(39:38):
quote a baffling and patronizing cringe fest of ablest minstrelsy,
which is insane. I just that sentence crazy.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
But take a side note and say, that's like this
is one of my favorite things ever. Is film critics
like trying to use the most adjectives possible.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yeah, it's definitely like shit's an art, Like I got
this shit in there, I love it.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
It's an art.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah, Joseph sent Chair of Paste writing even doing research
and writing an essay on the film's problematic elements pre
release were not enough to prepare me for how harmful
music is to autistic people Jesus Christ. Last year, Seas
stated that she became suicidal and went to rehab during
(40:28):
the backlash and that it that is like since how
she became aware of her own dealings with neurodivergency, stating
on podcasts, quote, I'm on the spectrum and I'm in
recovery and whatever. This is truly what she said. I'm
in recovery and whatever. There's a lot of things. For
(40:50):
forty five years, I was like, I've got to go
put my human suit on. And only in the last
two years have I fully have I become fully fully myself.
She stated that she is found relief in quote knowing
about which neurotypicality she may or may not have, which
(41:10):
really clarifies a lot. You know, just that sentence, we
really understand what's going on for sure. But she then
went on to state that quote, nobody can ever know
and love you when you're filled with secrets and living
in shame. And when we finally sit in a room
full of strangers and tell them our deepest, darkest, most
(41:31):
shameful secrets, and everybody laughs along with us, and we
don't feel like pieces of trash for the first time
in our lives, and we feel seen for the first
time in our lives, who for what people, who we
actually are, And then we can start going out into
the world and just operating as humans and human beings
with hearts and not pretending to be anything, which okay,
(41:53):
all right, really really also clarifies so much of what's
going on now that I can say personally, me personally,
I haven't seen the movie. I watched the trailer.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
I remember watching the trailer.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
It's rough.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Yeah, it's so rough that.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
I can see how it sparked backlash. We're gonna include
the trailer again in the link below, so feel free
to click on it and check it out yourself. I
also watched there's this guy on YouTube. He's a big creator.
He like, he does a lot of movie reviews. He
kind of went through his whole take of the movie,
(42:39):
and to be honest, he does a pretty great job.
We'll also include his take as well in the link below.
But it is like, it's pretty it's rough, it's it's
it's rough and it's hard to it's hard to think
about them because they cut the movie a bunch of times.
(43:02):
Apparently like four or five times they were cutting this movie.
It got delayed for years because of the amount of
re edits that they were doing. Because, to be honest,
I think it just was horrible. It was a horrible
premise with a really really poorly executed, you know, narrative,
(43:25):
and I think that they were trying to shy away
from a lot of It makes me think of, like
what else was in the movie that they cut out,
because like what they kept in was was rough, So
I can only imagine what they what they kept out
of the movie. Yeah, some of the comments that I
(43:46):
was seeing about the about the film, one called rune
I commented, I'm an autistic female and god, it feels
like someone is just making fun of me. Everything about
this character is awful and hurtful. It feels so infantilizing
and like music isn't even her own person. Comments are
called murder me. Harry says, quote, I feel bad for
(44:09):
the actress. She has an incredibly unhealthy relationship with Cia
and literally started crying on set one time because she
said she felt like she was making fun of people,
which I double checked this and the actress who played
the character music is Mattie Ziegler really, which, yeah, Mattie
Ziegler is the one. She's also in all of Sea's
(44:30):
music videos. There's a lot of controversy on that of
like Sea tends to just throw roles towards Maddie. There's
a lot of like nepotism talk in some of that
as well, of like she's just kind of taken Maddie
under her wing. And to be honest, in my view,
Ziegler seems to be getting kind of typecast and to
(44:52):
see his works, so it's it's a bit of a
weird relationship that she has with Cea. But Ziegler is
someone who has has definitely had experiences with Siah, as
we've stated, but she's cried on set. She definitely did.
She stated that, like Cia stated this in a video
(45:15):
with Variety, that Ziegler came to set crying because she
felt like she was having a hard time with the
role and that she felt like she was just making
fun of people with neurodivergency and like it was just
not great. And basically CIA's response was, h It's fine,
(45:38):
don't worry, You're doing great, and they kind of just
kept going. A commentar named Helena said, quote, it's kind
of ironic that this movie, with all the bright colors
and loud sounds, might actually make it difficult for people
on the spectrum to even watch. And the movie is
(45:58):
currently rated one star. Are on letterbox how many stars
of their five? Uh yeah, okay, all right, you can't
go under one. If you're okay, you can't go under one.
This is the minimum?
Speaker 1 (46:12):
All right? Oh man, yeah, I'm no letterbox man.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
It's it's rough to say the least. It is, like
I'm Colin, I'm I'm just winning your take. Do you
think that this is bullshit? That she's saying this?
Speaker 3 (46:32):
So I like to give.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
People the benefit of the doubt. I've been known at
some points to be a little bit too nice and caring,
so I'm gonna I'm gonna still give it. I will
just say that it's very convenient timing. I'm hoping. When
we last talked about this, this was like before the
movie came out and all this kind of stuff, And
one of the main critiques for Sea was, you know,
(46:57):
you were making, you know, this movie about a community
that we don't think you fully understand about being you know, neuroatypical,
which we don't think that you have a solid grasp
on because you were currently at that time not neurolytypical. Right,
And even then, you know, people who make movies about
(47:18):
different communities that they're not a part of. It takes
a lot of you know, research and looking from the outside.
And I remember when we talked about it last time,
there was a lot of controversy with Sia basically not
listening to a lot of these different members of the
community that had come to help her with the filming
and stuff like that. And so here's my you know,
(47:43):
altruistic I hope everything is you know, better for humanity
brain going. I'm hoping that that had caused Cia to go,
why do I feel so drawn to this cause? Why
do I feel this way? You know, all this stuff
looked evenside. And then she decided, you know, along with
her rehab, which I don't know what her rehab was
(48:06):
for and nobody really needs to know, but maybe through
that self journey she figured out maybe part of the
reason that she is drawn to making a movie about
a character that's neuroatypical is because she found out that
she is neurootypical with you know, the help of some
medical professionals.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Right, Well, she found that out, it seems like after
all of this controversy.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
So that's what I'm saying, is like, I'm hoping that
before I'm hoping that in maybe a dire strait of like, hey,
I'm gonna go to rehab, I'm gonna do this stuff
that like she kind of dug deep and then talked
to medical professionals and they were like, actually, you are neurootypical.
Maybe that's why you had the drive in the first
place to make this movie. Right. That's what I'm hoping
(48:52):
is that maybe a positive from the controversy, let's say, right,
is that maybe that maybe one person figured out, oh wow,
I really am neuroitypical. Right, So that's what I hope.
Is it convenient as hell though, absolutely, and would very
much destroy the one of the biggest criticisms of Siya,
(49:16):
which is that she at that time was not, you know,
identifying as neuroitypical. Right, Regardless, it.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Would have been a good defense if she said that, right,
I mean, I feel like she would have been like, oh, guys,
like this is why I'm making this film, but instead
it was like, oh, my friends, my two friends who
are who are the only people I consulted to make
this movie? Are the reasons why I'm right making this movie?
(49:49):
And I have you know, like it just seems.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
And like you can't roll out. You can't roll out
that the decision making in the way that she went
about this maybe from you know, the way that she
views the world if she really is neuroatypical, right, But
at the same time to say that it's not convenient
after you know, it feels like and now let's go
(50:16):
into the more you know, conspiratorial side of my brain
to say that she had the defense of, well, I'm
just trying to make a sweet movie for my two
friends that had you know, who are neuroatypical and stuff
and celebrate them in the community. And then maybe eventually
having all the backlash, she's like, fine, that's not gonna
work as an accurate thing for this. What could I
(50:38):
do to step up? Like the reason why this is
personal to me? Therefore the reason why I have the
ability and right to make this movie? What if I'm neuroatypical, right.
Speaker 3 (50:49):
And.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Again, we can't we don't know for sure, right, but
to say that it's not convenient is insane. And to
be honest, she is a part of the movie, right,
Like she is, you know, the creator in the movie, right.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
But when she has a cameo.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
The point that I'm trying to say is like, what
amazes me is like she had to get funding for this,
she had other people involved, you.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Like it it feels to me, especially with the amount
of recuts, that a lot of people are like, you
need to put the brakes on this, right. And I
don't know where they were getting the money from. Maybe
see I had it personally, or maybe some other people
still believed in it from the beginning. I don't know,
but it's amazing to me sometimes, especially with media like
this that's perceived so badly as such a terrible portrayal
(51:42):
of a community, that it does get to the point
of being made right, because it seems like from step
one of this movie everyone was like no, like, don't
do this immediately, and it's amazing to me that it
got this far, you know, through all of these barriers
(52:03):
of I have to get funding, we have to do shooting,
we have to get actors, we have to you know
what I mean, Like all of these different points that
definitely could have been the plug, and clearly a lot
of people in this community would have been like, good,
good idea, you know what I mean. Like it wouldn't
have been like, oh, why did you get you know
it would it seems like from my mind, in the
(52:25):
public perception of this movie, it would have been very fast.
Oh thank god they're not doing the movie. So the
thing about this that's interesting from an artist perspective is
see's getting to the point with this movie that more
people are gonna remember her for this than the artist
ry yeah, like and that that is, honestly the part
(52:49):
that if I was an artist like that, it would
scare me that even if somehow I had this and
like could not move personality that I'm trying my best.
This is going to be a beautiful, you know, depiction
for the neuroatypical community, right, and I could not get
(53:10):
away from that. That's the thing that would bother me
the most is that, you know, everyone forever will remember
me as the person that made this movie, you know
what I mean, more than my other things, and like,
to be honest, like I gotta be real here Sea's
not had like a thousand hits. It's not like she's
everywhere all the time. I haven't heard about her since
(53:32):
we started talking about this, I think a year or
two ago, you know, with this movie and I went, oh, yeah,
see us coming back or whatever. And this is going
to be like from the allowed of fanfare and stuff
like that, the thing that most people when you go, oh, Cia, yeah,
she made that terrible movie, you know what I mean. Like,
and I don't think it's that big yet, but it
(53:53):
definitely is going to be a mark on her career that, like,
no matter what, if she's like I'm gonna go sing
shande we or somewhere else, it's been like twenty years,
people are gonna go up to the stage and literally go,
screw you, you made this movie. We hate you, you
know what I mean. Like, that's that's the thing for
Cia that she'll have to deal with. And I think,
you know, I haven't seen the movie. I haven't done it.
(54:14):
It may be such terrible depiction that you know, even
I would go right, rightfully, so right, But it's definitely
a noteworthy part of her career that's not going away
by any means. She had every moment to stop and
decided not to.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
Yeah, which I do want to touch on as well.
I think it's important for us to also touch on
the situation when it comes to public backlash and how
it can really hurt somebody as well, because it's obvious
that Sia had issues. I mean, she had to go
to rehab, she had to like figure that stuff out,
and like, I don't I don't necessarily think she's lying
(54:53):
about that stuff. I'm like, who know, you know, Like
I also agree with you goln like I like to
see the I like to give people to be of
the doubt, like maybe she did discover something. It's a
little worrisome to me that she's being so she's like
giving the information but not giving enough to where it's
(55:13):
like it's almost it's it feels good to say this,
but it's it's giving Like my girlfriend goes to another school,
you know, where it's like it's some information, but it's
not enough to be like reliable. And so I think
it's for a lot of people, especially if she's trying
(55:34):
to rekindle her relationship with the autism and neurodivergent communities,
it's really important for her to be transparent as a
public figure in the situation. But these statements, in my
mind are are very.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
Not helping, right, absolutely, And I think the other thing
is we want to get like real capitalism economics on it.
She was given sixteen million dollars in game back with
six hundred and forty five thousand, right, I'm sure she
had she had other people.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
No studio's gonna hire her to direct.
Speaker 1 (56:14):
Yeah, if she wanted to make another movie, ever, I
think that's dead the water. If she wanted to make
a TV show unless she wants to self fund it
or even this is going to spill into her music career, right, like,
because again this movie was really propelled by the fact
that Sia had made it and her you know, she
is behind it, right, So, like she's probably gonna have
(56:34):
more difficulty everywhere else. You know, Hey, we want a
couple you know, we want a couple more tens of
grand you know, of money, and so we could have
more money for tour support. No, we don't know if
you can give that money back. Right. We want, like,
you know, a couple more thousands so we can make
this record really nice. No, we don't know if the
Sea Records going to do well, right, Like, That's the
(56:57):
thing about it is that I think some people think
well and a lot of people think this with artists
is like it's so segmented, and I'm like, the only
reason that Sea has this opportunity is that she has
this inert fame from you know, being a musician in
the first place. Right, It's not like she's some indie filmmaker. No,
we that people know where to see. She's a girl
(57:17):
with the crazy hair and the chandelier. So I guarantee
you if some investments were made going well, she's got
a lot of weight behind her, you know, and everything,
and this will maybe go to this community and flourish show. Uh,
let's invest in her. And so I think what's gonna
happen too with this Chrisia for rightfully so, and you know,
maybe even not rightfully so, is that some people are
(57:41):
not gonna want to give her any chance whatsoever with
any sort of money at all, because one they don't
want to be associated with her, and two they don't
know if they can get a return at the end
of the day. So like that's that's kind of the
scary thing with sometimes of these artists, with like going
outside of your lane, like and not to be like
artists have to be in their wane, but like going
(58:02):
outside of the general media that you're famous for is
this is where it gets kind of rocky, right, because
you don't have the expertise in it. It's not tomatoes tomatoes.
Making an album is not making a movie. Making a
TV show is not making a movie, you know what
I mean. Like, and so it doesn't go hand in
hand like that, and so you can still ruin parts
of your image even though it's in a different medium
(58:24):
and consumers will associated together.
Speaker 3 (58:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (58:28):
I think that for Cia, she's gonna have a rough
hill from now on, you know, Like I think that
she's going to have a huge time. I mean, especially
given the financial situation. I don't know how much of
her own money was in this movie, right, you know
what I mean. She could have gone from a situation
where she was comfortable, she had a couple hits, you
(58:51):
know what I mean. She maybe made some records and
toured and made a good amount of money, but she
movies will bankrupt you, you know what I mean. I
don't know how much of the sixteen millions hers, right,
And not to be like, she doesn't have the money.
But like, also, she's not the biggest artist ever. She's
you know, a pretty famous name.
Speaker 3 (59:09):
I mean, she's she's very famous in the pop world.
Speaker 1 (59:12):
But sixteen million in hard cash in liquid.
Speaker 2 (59:17):
Yeah, you know, you have to also think she's been
touring for decades, Like there's a level there, right, and
you know how most cases, you know how much in
these situations these artists aren't. I mean, she might have
self funded, you might be right, but I'm sure a
lot of the majority of it is through a studio.
Because she's a big name and having a big name
(59:39):
writing the music for a movie called music, the studio
is probably gonna be like, yeah, fuck it.
Speaker 3 (59:45):
I hope come on board.
Speaker 1 (59:46):
But you know, like I could totally see if maybe
and you know, with the amount of recuts and stuff
like that, I could totally see people being like, yeah,
we're backing away from this, we're taking the money with us,
you know what I mean, or we.
Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Demand Yeah, it doesn't seem I mean, it's hard to say,
Like it seems like a lot of the back story
is I think I think a lot of the recuts
were happening because of some of the backlash. To be honest,
with the trailer coming out.
Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
Well, I would imagine because if I'm in it, like
not to be like just like, oh, we need to
do this because it's the right thing to do. Like
if I get really capitalistic on you, like if I'm
the studio making this money and all this is going,
I'm going see it. We got it. We gotta do
something with this movie. Like We're not going to make
any money on this movie if we don't recut it, right,
Like that's the other part of it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
And so yeah, and there's a level of that too,
of like where like which I didn't even touch on
when she partnered with Autism Speaks after all of the controversy.
Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Yeah, that was a huge dea.
Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
And then that was a.
Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Huge controversy in itself because for those of you who
don't know, Autism Speaks is like a lot of people
relate to it as like the pta of the neurodivergent world,
where it's like they don't It's like I would I
would say most people who are neurodivergent or in the
autism community do not like Autism Speaks. It's a very
(01:01:18):
polarizing like or like nonprofit. And she only did partner
them with them after the controversy, which is like another
it's just it's it it really, I hate to say it.
It like it truly was a train wreck. Like the
(01:01:39):
lead up to this movie.
Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
I just and I'm like literally looking at like the
cast and it's like insane. Like Kate Hudson is one
of the wead people. Yeah, like Leslie Odom Junior is
in this movie, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Like it's good, but I will say, you know, they're
great actors, horrible writing.
Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
You can even just tell in the trailer. Well of
course struggle.
Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
But that's what I'm saying is like, you know, it's
this is not you know, some indie film that was
like sixty million dollars. I was like there were big
names on here that thought, oh, this is gonna be
a big one. This is gonna be good for us,
you know what I mean? Now at all? You know
what I mean? Yeah, so I you know, I I.
Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Mean, you never know, I you know it it could
be a thing of like which you know, she could
have been trying to do something good and then it
just ended up twisting. I think what ultimately, and maybe
this is a lesson for any artists who are listening
who maybe will blow up. It's sometimes good to just
be silent for a little while, uh than it is
(01:02:47):
to just keep fight and be defensive.
Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
You know what I mean. I think as you're right,
I think it would have been interesting to and you know,
in a hypothetical if she you know, all the backlash,
all the stuff, and then she came back with more
of a succinct you know, period of silence and just went, hey, guys,
we took a lot of time and read edited the movie.
I found out some things about myself. I you know,
(01:03:12):
hope it's better for the community. I imagine this movie
probably would have been considered even more positive than it
was than.
Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
Done the work and reshot the movie.
Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
That would work too, Yeah, like something like you know,
just yeah, the perception given by you know, the person
almost narrating its creation is as important as the movie itself,
you know what I mean? So I god like, yeah,
there's nothing really more to stay here. I just think that, uh,
(01:03:44):
it's gonna be a rough ride for Sea for a while.
I think I think she's really done, I thinks for
her career, and she's clearly got her own problem she
needs to deal with as well. Still, so I hope
that she, you know, continues well in that recovery period
that she's trying, but it this is not going to
help with that recovery in any way.
Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
I almost am like, if you truly want to recover,
maybe just stay away from.
Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
The press, you know. Yeah, that's true, Like just don't.
Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Like, just you know, hang out for a while longer,
no rush to jump back in. But yeah, I mean, ultimately,
you know, no humans should feel the need to, you know,
have self harm. And if you're going through that or
you know people who are suffering from that, I'm so sorry.
(01:04:35):
And it's very much It's very important that people understand
that they aren't alone. And I do think we tend
we me and Colin are very critical of celebrities on
this podcast. We are, I think a lot of people are,
but we do have to remember at the end of
(01:04:57):
the day that they are people as well, who have feelings, family, friends,
and it's important to you can be critical, but I
think there's a fine line between criticism and just harassment,
and I think people should.
Speaker 3 (01:05:16):
Be careful, That's all I'll.
Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
Say, you know, don't go on SEEA's thing and just
like torment her that's you know, I think she's learned
her lesson hopefully, but yeah, you know, ultimately it's such
a complicated subject. I mean, fucking Harvard professors are talking
about like celebrity and dealing with you know, public backlash
(01:05:43):
in the modern age and how it really affects us,
because it affects both of us on the aisle at
the end of the day. So I don't know, anyway,
on that high note, what have you been listening to
this week?
Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
Let's see, I've been listening to. Uh. I don't know
if I talked about this before, but I was listening
to one of my favorites, which is Joe Jackson, which
I had mentioned before, But one of my favorites is
you Can't Get what you Want Until you Know what
you Want, which is a pretty good title. But the horn,
(01:06:23):
like it's such a clean recording, which is like one
of the things that I'm like blown away by. It's
just got like this really really big horn part in
the beginning, and he plays the saxophone on it with
the beat like if you watch a live video of
Joe Jackson he's doing it. It's very sassy and all
that kind of stuff, and just really funky, so one
of my favorites. And then I've been going back to
(01:06:44):
a Little Dark Age by MGMTE one of my favorite
of their albums wise, and I remember when it came
out when we were in college and one of our
friends actually turned to me and goes, have you heard
this album? No? And it was like one of my
it's like my epitome like college rock album. So I
just remember being in college and it feels like every
(01:07:04):
story where it's like. Then this dude turned to me
and was like, have you heard this record? Turned this
record on, and I was like, oh my god, baby,
you know what I mean, Like that's what it feels like. Uh,
but I like it a lot. I actually uh I
think uh Honestly, Little Dark Age, the song which is
on a Little Dark Age got like kind of murdered
(01:07:24):
by TikTok, so I'm kind of done with that song.
I just don't like it as much. I never really
liked it as much. I think the singles around them
have always been good, like the nut first one, she
Works Out Too Much is one of my favorite, and
then when You Die is also another of my favorite,
and then my third favorite on There is Me and Michael,
which is uh, you know Michael right exactly, And so
(01:07:46):
I always joke at to a song about the office,
it's about Dwight with Michael.
Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
That's what I always think about too.
Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
Anyway, Joe, what you've been listening to.
Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
I've been listening to a single called blue Jay from
Under which they're kind of blowing up right now.
Speaker 3 (01:08:03):
It's cool.
Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
It's like, it's like indie folk stuff. It's it's got
my favorite thing, which, like I I've always used to
hate banjo in songs, but recently like the ban Joe
delay like reverb thing is so.
Speaker 3 (01:08:22):
Sick reforms on his face.
Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
Yeah, I know, it's just coming back. It's really just
blazing through my chin right now. But it's it's really cool.
It's it's very Desjohnnie. If people like Dejon uh so
check it out. I've also been listening to a new
single called say Hi from Medium Build, which I got
(01:08:47):
the pleasure to shoot the cover for that. I'm very
proud of all the visuals coming out for that, so
you know, just a little little plug in there for myself,
but also amazing song.
Speaker 3 (01:08:59):
So Deef, we check it out.
Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
And then I've been listening to America has a Problem
by Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar, which is a sick track.
It's it's very like it's I feel like everybody's been
waiting for this combination to happen, like Beyonce and Kendrick
making a song.
Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
It's like, finally there.
Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
People manifested that people really did and honestly, it's kind
of like, man, this should happened years ago. But yeah,
it's sick. I mean, especially Kendrick's lines in it are
some of his best work. So you should definitely check
it out. It's very sick track. And yeah, that's about it.
Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
But yeah, I guess, uh, I guess we'll go.
Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
Now this is awkward.
Speaker 3 (01:09:59):
Do you believe first or me? I? Can you go?
Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
Versus verst all right? I want to talk to the
audience by myself. Second, Hey guys, if you like this podcast,
please subscribe the bsday podcast. Please leave a rating, maybe
even go to our YouTube page. I know we haven't
posted anything, but maybe we'll post something in the future. Also,
(01:10:24):
you can follow us at the Busday podcast wherever you
get your social media.
Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
Picks, and email us at the Thissday Podcast at jamil
dot com. Thank you so much and I'm pretty.
Speaker 1 (01:10:36):
Sure you're going to see you next week in my
underwear on that.
Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
Camera, my camera tied, fully transparent. Damn all right, I
know it's such a bummer.
Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
I'm gonna end it.
Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen lead to congressional ticket.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Baster legizations and see US movie controversy.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to the BIS tape. Welcome to the Biz tape.
You're all things music, business and media podcasts. I'm your host,
Colin McKay, my lovely host. Coast to Coast Joseph Bozzweski, Joe,
(00:31):
thank you for joining.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Us, Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I feel like I'm always invited on, like Fallen start
that would be.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
It's like, I feel like.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Such a a amazing guest to be invited back.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I feel like Fallen does this thing where his intro
is always like you may have seen them on Photography
Worldwide and music Videos are Us. Welcome to Fabulous Joey
Wazil asking he's always screaming. I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, I like music videos rs. I'm gonna trademark that
music videos are get into any legal issues?
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Why that company fell down? I don't know who bought
that trademark. Somebody did I remember?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I feel like they still have.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I wonder, I mean, this is off topic, I guess,
but I wonder, like those companies fail, like do those
trademarks are are they still maintained at all. I feel
like they have to be because like there's still checks.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
They have to have to keep maintaining that you're still
using it. I mean, I'm sure if they're in the
middle of the trademark period, like you know, there's somebody
there's especially if it's a big company like Toys r US.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Welcome to the History of Toys RS. By the way,
this is our podcast about all Toys r US lore
and accurate things. What really happened to Jeffrey the Giraffe Anyway,
The point is is that the trademarks have to be maintained.
You know, you have to prove when you re register
your trademark that you've been actively using it. Obviously Toys
r US mostly hasn't. And also the other thing is
(02:07):
when they go out of business, even though it's a
failing business, people want the trademarks right, so they will
go after them and they will try to prove that
you did or did not. So I think honestly, Toys
rs trademarks may be one of the few things other
than you know, the properties themselves that they owned that
may have some value for them and it can probably sell,
(02:31):
which they would have to with Chapter eleven bankruptcy. Anyway,
moving on, so toys RS News. You can follow all
your toys rs News at the BIS tape pretty much everywhere.
Sorry it snuck that one in there. It's been a while.
Let's talk about some interesting things. First, Let's talk about
this law in Congress that is one of the most
(02:52):
wild titles I've ever seen for a law involving music.
We're doing the Boss and Swift Act. You heard that right,
Boston Swift Act. Almost two girls Boss pedals. We'll get
to what it means by boss. If you're from the
state of New Jersey, you can put together by it
Bosston Swift Act, who girl Boss? Too close to the Sun?
(03:13):
Congress is proposing this new act. Yes, it's called the
Boston Swift Act. If you hadn't heard me say about
twelve times. And this is being proposed by US Congressman
Bill Passerelli Junior and Frank Palone Junior. And they've introduced
into the House this bill, which is the Boston Swift Act,
to bring transparency regulation to what they describe as the
badly corrupt live events ticket market.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
You may have heard some a bunch of similar laws
that are going through. There's one in Texas right now
from Ted Cruz. There's another one that is in Massachusetts
that is actually called the Taylor Swift Bill. And this
is not the same bill as that. This is actually
in you know, the United States Congress, not just the
state local congressional governments, but they all are cup bring
(04:00):
around the same issues, and we're going to get into that.
So basically, the Boss and Swift act are named after
you could probably guess it based on my hints, Taylor
Swift and Bruce Springsteen, you know, not Boss Pedals. Sorry,
they could not get that one. That would be fun anyway.
These two artists we've actually talked about of multitude of
(04:21):
times on the show have experienced technical issues, specifically with
Ticketmaster and or Live Nation. Some of these issues, which
you've probably heard about so many times, so I'm just
going to rattle it off before we get into the law,
is that the technical issues of Ticketmaster crashing over and over,
people losing their place in line, Ticketmaster rapidly changing the
(04:42):
price on consumers last second, and dynamic pricing that took
some tickets to thousands of dollars from the get go.
The Boss and Swift Act will require mandatory all in
pricing to ensure that the true ticket price is displayed,
clearly disclosed, clear disclosures of refund pol he is transparency
on the total number and costs of the tickets that
(05:03):
will be offered for sale, and preserving ticket transferability, among others,
which that last one I am particularly interested as well
as all of them, but that is an issue that
not a lot of people bring up a lot. Notably,
these two congressmen with this bill have actually had a
career and this is the first bill in a while,
(05:25):
but they've had a career of critiquing Ticketmaster and Live Nation.
The pair has introduced a law like this all the way.
They've done it a couple of times. What the most
notable one is in two thousand and nine they tried
to have almost an identical law pass but it went nowhere,
and Pescrelli specifically was a huge advocate for opposing the
(05:46):
Live Nation ticket Master merger and urging the Obama administration
to reject it. But that would fail as in twenty ten.
It's a broken record on this podcast, but Live Nation
and Ticketmaster did join together. So this is an interesting
thing because we're seeing it on a congressional floor. A
lot of people had predicted, due to you know, I
(06:09):
guess the power of the Swifties, that this would eventually happen.
But don't forget the Boss. He's still here. You know,
he's just like everybody else, a blue collar guy, Am
I right? Joe?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Anyway, a blue collar guy with nine billion dollars?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Right, not nine billion but close now jegging, But anyway,
he's he's just a regular guy. He's he's got his
own legacy. He's good, he's he's made some really good
hits over the years. But the point is is that
those two were really some of the pinnacle cases of
this last year of an early or late last year
of you know, absorbitant ticket pricing. I mean, we had
(06:48):
a whole coverage on the show about it, and this
is the first time we're seeing it on a congressional
floor in close to fourteen years. Hopefully this will not
get you know, put under the rug like everything else.
But if you're wondering, let's take a little preview into
Live Nation before we kind of get into general discussion.
So what the hell's going on with Live Nation? I'm
(07:08):
glad you asked the point is is that Live Nation
president and CFO. Basically they talk to JP Morgan at
a JP Morgan conference about the state of their business,
and Live Nation, the extreme mom and pop company that
we all know them as, is doing nothing short of fantastic.
That's a joke if you don't understand. The point is
(07:30):
is that they are doing so well it is insane.
I remember looking at that ticket you know, stock price
way back when the pandemic.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Was and I was like, maybe I'll buy the shares.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
And never did, and now I'm kicking myself every day.
So the point, the point is is that let's get
into it. Let's get into the numbers. Uh. Ticket Master
is just a very small amount year over year up
in revenue. They are up eighty nine percent in revenue
year over year, so that means they made almost ninety
(08:04):
percent more money than they did last year in Q one,
making over two point two eight billion dollars in revenue.
We're not even at the summer yet, folks. Nineteen million
fans attended Live Nation shows in Q one, which is
up seventy three percent from Q one of twenty twenty two,
So there is no lack of demand. Uh, they are
(08:27):
making money hand over fists laughably, which I thought was hilarious.
Is this information, I'm going to say, is separate from
the information that I was talking about with the uh
Taylor and our Boston Taylor Act or Boston Swift Act. Sorry,
this is gonna get really confusing. I'm about to call
it the girl Boss Act and move on the Girl
Boss Act. Basically. Music Worldwide had this other article which
(08:50):
is where I'm pulling this information from, and they said
that the ticketing division is up forty one percent year
over year at six hundred and seventy seven point seventy
seven million dollars, so again making more than I will
ever see in my wife. Music Business Worldwide puts it
this was on the strength of some big name tours
by artists such as Beyonce Drake and Bruce Springsteen. Sound
(09:14):
familiar with the Boss is back? Who's the Boss? Anyway?
When asked about AI, which I'm going to go into
a non sequitor here because this actually goes straight into
one of the things that this bill might be hitting.
And honestly, I think maybe some of the root of
the problems of some of the things that Ticketmaster is,
you know, being accused of having and readily shown that
(09:37):
they have these problems. When asked about Ai birch Told,
who's the president CEO of Live Nation, said, we have
a lot of areas and Ticketmaster where we have used
what we call machine learning, Like that's not a term
we've never heard before in our lives. Quote. We take
a lot of data inputs and use them to figure
out how to make life easier forever. Everwoody was so
(10:01):
like a computer I did. I'm literally don't even get
that's crazy. So to me, it's more of an infrastructure
component that runs throughout Ticketmaster, which I'm one like a computer.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Program that every company uses. You're talking about Excel.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Right exactly, yeah, right. But the point is is that
like maybe we're seeing a reason why the ticketing experience
is not the best ever and specifically not even going
on the prices may crash a lot and do this stuff.
Maybe it's because of them trying to use this technology
more readily. That's just kind of my theory. There's no
(10:41):
evidence of that, but since they really hit on that,
they're heavily using it and it could be used for
a lot of different experiences, which I might get in
later when we talk about this generally. But yeah, that
was one. I was like, why are you talking about
machine learning like this is like nineteen seventy three. Anyway,
the point is is that AI is being used a
(11:04):
ticket Master. How intensively, I don't know. It could be
what Joe saying, I can excel sheet. The point is
is that they are very interested in it. And my
point is basically this may be where we are having
some problems moving to prices, because honestly, that's kind of
the thing at the end of the day that you know,
the experience of buying him is bad, but then when
(11:24):
you have a terrible experience buying them and then they
cost an arm and a leg to get, that's a
different story. Birch Stold reiterated that Live Nation's position is
that the company isn't against all attempts at regulating the
ticketing business. In particular, Live Nation's Rapino has said he's
in favor of efforts to introduce all in ticket pricing,
(11:45):
where the advertised prices include all fees. So Ticketmaster is continuing,
if you've been listening to the show for a while,
to defend the use of dynamic pricing, and actually has
moved to a place where they are outwardly saying that
the dynamic pricing is a necessity in today's world to
prevent scalpers the easy to go to blaming for everything
(12:08):
thing for ticketmaster. Birschtold even went on to state that
the multiple state bills which I was mentioning earlier, such
as in Massachusetts and Texas, that are being pushed to
ban dynamic pricing outright, are being pushed by scalpers allegedly,
which I was like, hello, and this is what he said.
(12:29):
He goes, what's happening at the state level again, these
are these state level bills that are trying to ban
dynamic pricing. Is obvious that the scalpers have figured out
that they're losing the federal battle, so they're trying to
go and run around the states in the hope that
they can sell a bill of some goods to some
senators who don't understand the full picture, and you get
(12:50):
some bills pop up. The vast majority of the time,
pretty simple conversations by sports teams, by artists their representatives
explained reality and that bills get killed, and I'm like, hello,
what was that slogan? He actually didn't say the bills
get killed. But I just love that they put that
in there to explain that music business worldwide anyway. So
(13:13):
let's let's get into this a little bit. Scalpers and
dynamic pricing. Joe, do you believe that dynamic pricing is
intended solely to prevent scalping of tickets?
Speaker 2 (13:24):
No, absolutely not. I think it's intended to make more
money for Live Nation, and that's it's it's kind of
killing two birds with one stone, where it's like it
makes it harder for scalpers, but then it also gives
them more money at the end of the day. And
I think out of everything, Live Nation is more worried
(13:52):
about their income than they are about user experience. And
it's kind of been shown time and time again, and
I feel like I feel like ticket like Ticketmaster and
Live Nation, like they understand that in the public perception view,
like everyone hates scalpers, Like scalpers are so vilified.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
They're also a vague, you know, faceless force that is
easy to.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Do the course.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
But what's crazy is Ticketmaster used to be a scalper
before it got bought up, and so that's like another
thing is like ultimately Ticketmaster got here because of scalping.
And now since they're not the scalper anymore, they're the
main promoter. It's completely shifted the way that their view
(14:41):
on scalping has happened.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
At the so many venues and promoters have a vast
ability to choose what ticketing site they use.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Right, Yeah, except they don't, Yeah, because every venue ever
has to use Ticketmaster and Live Nation, Like once you
hit a certain threat shold of capacity, all of those
venues are using Live Nation ticket Master if they're the venues, yeah, exactly,
(15:10):
which most venues in America are at this point. So
to to say that they're trying to avoid scalpers and
and and also to like, scalpers exist and it's not
hurting their bottom line at all with these numbers. I
(15:31):
mean you you just listed their quarterly numbers. It's like
they're bringing in record amounts of money. And so to them,
it's more of just like shifting the narrative in my
view of like, look, we're good guys too, we also
hate scalpers. Scalpers are bad. I just like, look in
that closet with all the records of us with scalpers
(15:52):
hanging out at the scalp scalper conference in Canada with
all this stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
It's just it's almost like insane the level of hilarity
that it feels like when they say it feels like
them as Ticketmaster are just going like, there's nothing we
can do. We have no control of these prices. It's
just the way it is.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
It's almost like it's almost like we we have to
change the coding of the website to reflect changes right
to the pricing, which we don't know how that works.
It's just it's the algorithm. All hail the algorithm.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
So okay, I guess I gotta play Devil's advocate as always.
Do I think that dynamic pricing does deter scalpers in
some ways? Yes? I can imagine that if you're trying to,
you know, you have a computer program, you got like
a thousand desktops just ready to go to click on
ticketmaster dot com, run a program go through all the
(16:51):
you know, different things to click on to buy Taylor
Swift tickets. Right. That is a problem, right man. If
only there was a huge force in the United States
that has a lot of money that could invest in
technology to work against anti scalpers. That isn't just a
money issue. Right, this is an IT issue at the
(17:15):
end of the day, Right, this is a technology issue.
If only there was a I don't know, a company
making two point two eight billion dollars in revenue for
Q one that had some money that could you know,
try to invest more in this technology in a very
structured and very succinct way instead of just saying AI
is a thing.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
What's what's crazy is it's literally what would take to
solve this issue would be point zero three percent. And
obviously I'm just like throwing this out there, but it
would be like that level of like the bigger chunk
of the pie, right of like how much money they're
bringing in.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
So it's like, god, dude, yeah, you're yeah, you're.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
It's it's insane because it is like they know that
it's a solvable issue. But the thing is they're so
obsessed with raking and more money that they are kind
of playing the game of like, well, let's see how
long we can just do this and prolong this to
where we don't have to fix this and all of
(18:22):
these like court cases and everything. They're like, oh, whatever,
you know, they can throw money at it. They can
throw money at lobbyists in order to get like to
kick the stone farther down the road, you know, because
they're holding out for they're they're hoping that people lose interests.
(18:44):
And so the American loss like court system, as we've
talked about many times, is so slow. The shit takes
years and years to get passed. And by the time
the shit gets passed, it's already, like, you know, the
problem has been persueing for like a decade, you know,
and so they're just hoping to hold out a little
(19:06):
bit longer just to squeeze a little bit more revenue, yeah,
out of your wallet.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
I just think here, here's my thing with like this.
I think you're exactly right. They're playing the long game. Here.
We're finally at some place where we're actually seeing legislation
really being involved, you know what I mean, actually putting
bills on the table, not just on the federal level,
even on the state level. And the thing that I
find interesting about it is you have this interesting kind
(19:38):
of game going on where I don't you know, look,
I don't know everything, but I get a few moments
when I get to stay I told you so on
the show, and this is one of them. So when
we talked about this last I said, I think ticket
Master is going to be all in for the ticket
transparency thing. Why because I guarantee you this is what
(20:00):
that's gonna happen. Let's pretend you're buying a ticket, I
don't care where. Let's say you're buying it for the Boss,
You're buying it for Bruce Springsteen. There's some law right
that says, oh, now we have to have ticket transparency, right.
And what I was saying and still holds true, is
that Ticketmasters for that ticket transparency. Repino, who's the CEO,
is literally for it too. You know why because it
(20:21):
looks really good on paper. But here's how that I
guarantee you this is gonna work. They're gonna put some
law that says, hey, you have to say how much
it is for these tickets to buy them, all this
kind of stuff, right, say add to tax, all this
kind of stuff, right. Cool, So you click on general
admission tickets for the Boss, and you know they're gonna
(20:42):
be expensive expensive they're the Boss, right, So let's say
that it's like three hundred dollars and then there's like
sixty dollars in taxes, and then maybe there's like a
twenty or thirty dollars fee. Let's just round it up
to four hundred dollars, right, okay, cool, you click on
the little seat that you want, four hundred dollars, your
will the ticket. Right. It's transparent, right, I guarantee you
(21:03):
when you get to the end, it's not going to
be four hundred dollars. Why because and they're probably gonna
go well, when you were trying to buy them when
they first came out, because everyone and their mother's trying
to get Bruce Springsteen tickets, it was four hundred dollars,
so we were transparent, but the dynamic pricing changed. And
now we're being transparent with you now that you're at checkout,
(21:26):
it's four hundred and eighty dollars. It's five hundred dollars.
So we've been transparent the whole time. And that's why
they want the ticket transparency stuff because they go, all right, cool,
we'll just throw you a bone here. It is right,
you get ticket transparency. Right? Is that really ticket transparency?
Do you think that's ticket transparency? Because I don't.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
I mean no, it's not. Because the whole purpose, the
whole problem with Live Nation and Ticketmaster's checkout sequence is
the head and fees attached to the checkout situation, right,
Like you you see that it's like one hundred dollars
ends up at the end of it when you're actually
paying for it off your credit card, that it's like
(22:12):
two hundred dollars because there's service fees attached, there's data fees,
there's blah blah blah, there's a fee for everything for
every click you do.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
I just tack.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And the other thing I was going to say is like, look,
I gotta be fair here. You know, my situation's one situation.
I feel like I can come up with ways around
transparency ticket stuff and saying that they were transparent like
all the time, Like I could you know, you can
make that argument, Oh it's the dynamic pricing whatever. What
if instead your ticket is locked in for two minutes
of four hundred dollars, right, or three minutes or four minutes,
(22:45):
and the web page just doesn't load fast enough because
Ticketmaster hasn't you know, had enough money into their infrastructure, right,
and then you're at three minutes and five and you're
trying to put in the whole you know, entirety of
your credit card and then ah, now it's six hundred
Oh we were transparent. It was three minutes, it was
five minutes. You know what I mean. This is what
(23:05):
I'm saying, is that that's why I think Ticketmaster is
for these kind of transparency bills, because it's very it's
a very low bar because you could say, at this
point in time, we were transparent. Right. There's nothing in
here that says, oh, you have to provide this amount
of time, you have to do that. No, none of
these laws say that. They say you have to be
just vaguely transparent because it's not going to be so
(23:28):
technical in how Ticketmaster has to show that. That's why
this is their concession. This is their get out of
jail free card. All right, we'll give you this and
then we'll walk away. I think that that's ludicrous, which
is why I'm really this is the thing that I'm
interested in the Boss and swift AC specifically that they
say they want clear disclosures of refund policies. I would
(23:50):
love for them to define that and have that. I
think it'd be great if it was required that at
the end it goes we're also sending you the refund
policy in a very clear, succinct way. This is how
you refund your ticket. Right. I think that the transparency
and the number of tickets and the cost of the
(24:11):
ticket that will be offered is another thing. How vague
is it? You know? If you look up how many
times have you tried to look up how many seats
are in a venue? Right? And then you try to
buy the tickets and you're like, that doesn't feel like
it matches up. It feels like a quarter of these
tickets are available. They don't tell you that kind of stuff,
you know, because it'll be like, let's look up Nissan
(24:32):
Stadium in Nashville. Right, Let's see Nissan Stadium. Nissan stadium capacity, right,
Nissan Stadium's capacity is sixty nine and forty three.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Let's say you put up a stage in there. That
means about maybe a fifth of the stage. A quarter
of those seats you can't sell, right because it's behind
the stage or it's really dirty, and they do sell it. Right,
that's less tickets. Let's how many credit card companies and
deals are there right where they just give company you
know stuff and be like, hey, every Capital one rewards
(25:08):
member can buy these tickets. So we're gonna reserve them
for Capital one members. Right, it's so vague because the
supply is there, it kind of makes sense at least
when you get to a smaller, you know, scenario and
it's a big artist, let's say, like a small feed
or like a residency stuff, and it's like abnormally expensive,
it's like three grand four grand a ticket. That makes
sense because the supply is so low, and you kind
(25:30):
of understand that. But what I think a lot of
people don't understand sometimes is that the supply could be
really low for the general public to buy tickets, right,
the amount of tickets that are reserved for just you know, hey,
we want to keep these seats open because we have
you know, special people that might come in and have
this or who we're offering a you know, our vendors,
(25:50):
like an opportunity to buy box tickets and so all
that kind of stuff takes away tickets from you, and
you should have the right to know that. I think
you don't have to know who it is. I think
you should have a general Oh okay, like there's only
like four thousand tickets here, right, there's only not to
be like Nissan Stadium. But like if you know, Nissan
Stadium was like, we only have thirty thousand tickets available.
(26:11):
That's half as much as I thought I was gonna
be able to buy, you know what I mean. And
then the last one I think is very important on
here is the transferability. Joe, have you ever tried to
transfer a concert ticket? It's the worst.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
It's the fucking worst.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I mean, it depends like I I it's easy when
it's like a ticketing thing like event Bright or Dice
or something like that, where it's more of like you
just have an email with the ticket on it.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Oh boy, guess what company I don't hear to here
saying that.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, you're not our boy Live Niche. He's not doing it.
He's holding on for dear life on those tickets. He's
changing those QR codes. He is saying, he's fighting the
good fight against the scalpers.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
I cannot believe it, Like it is so difficult do that.
And then like usually you got to go to like
other than calling Live Nation support. It's either that or
you got to go to Will call and just beg
and be like I have all of the things, help me.
This is the person, this is me. We are changing
and It's like, it should not be this difficult. It
(27:17):
should not be this difficult to do it, you know
what I mean, It's insane, Like why do I have
to you know, do I have to provide my passport
here to get you know, my ticket change? What is
going on? But yeah, that's the craziest part. And at
the end of the day, there's one thing I want
to hit on about this AI thing because other than
you know, the vagueness and how terrible the statement that
(27:38):
was of like ooh, we could improve an AI, I
think some of the other ways that they're saying are insane.
He said, Okay, I have to read this correctly, because
I was like, this sounds like a nightmare. He goes.
(27:59):
Take is a complicated and this is Birch told who's
the president and CFO. He goes. Ticketing is a complicated
customer service because when fans need have a need, they
usually need it right now, like any other business on Earth. Anyway,
moving on, I can't wait till tomorrow because I've got
a show tonight, or I've got an issue that has
(28:20):
to get resolved. Using AI to help inform that will
be great. So these are some of the things that
they can help out with either more efficient or be
more efficient at our jobs. Imagine you're just trying to
get a refund and you have to go through a
robot computer that's like, welcome to Ticketmaster. Would you like
to hear all of our shows?
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Would you like to basically know every venue?
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Would you? This is where I'm afraid AI is going
is to going. Hey, we do have tools. You could
totally get a refund. You just got to go through
this terrible phone system that is not developed at all.
We're not putting money towards it because that's how we
get our eighty nine percent year of a year increase
in revenue, and it makes it hard for you to
(29:05):
take money from us.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Yeah, we expect you to give up before getting to
the finish line.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
And the best part of the whole thing is you
have no nothing. You can go, Oh, I'll just buy
tickets from somewhere else. No, you won't. There's nowhere else.
You know why, because you're not allowed to have all
these venues are not allowed to have other agreements with
ticketing companies that are either owned by lab Nation or
their ban or they play the politics game here and
they have been alleged before playing the game of being like, hey,
(29:37):
we're not going to you know, bring our lab Nation
shows which most of the artists are over there unless
you get this ticketmaster, you know what I mean. So
that's that's my issue here is I'm really afraid that
in the same vein as when I was talking about
the idea of being like, oh it was the correct
(29:57):
price at that time and using that as the scapegoat,
I feel like AI is the other one that they're
going to be like they're going to make some giant
robot that makes it so hard to you know, oh
you got to call on the phone to get ticketmaster
or oh you know what, you got to email this
robot and we're just not going to develop it.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Well, I just love that AI is the excuse for
all of these companies, Like it's like, oh, but like
AI is going to fix it, and it's just like
it's it truly is just kicking it down the road
even more well, And the funniest part about what's the
funniest part about it crazy for me is is like
(30:37):
AI is such a new construct, it's such a new thing,
and it might change the Internet. It might take a
lot a while to change it, you know, but these
companies are kind of diving headfirst into it and like
just acting like this is going to be the thing
that is going to help customer experience when we already
(30:59):
have kind of AI working in some of these companies
already and it's not really been the most pleasurable experience yet.
So it's probably gonna be better AI, but probably not
the best.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
You know, ticketing is a complicated customer service. That's what
Birchtol said, right, He's completely right. What is AI designed
to do? AI is designed currently unless Google or some
other company has some secret AI. AI is designed to
do capacity work that human beings can do, but usually
it's monotonous or you know, takes a lot of physical
(31:36):
toll to do. You know, something that can be algorithmic,
something that can be repeated multiple times. Right, Ticketmaster cannot
accomplish customer service with humans. What makes you think they
could do AI? Right? They cannot provide the basic necessity
(32:01):
that they already claim to, which is comparable customer service
and good systems that provide this. Right, these tools should
be used to make the worker's life easier at you know,
Live Nation and save the company money at the end
of the day, right, But they can't even do it
with human beings who have you know, a customer service
(32:23):
mindset and understand human beings. What makes them think that
they're going to solve this problem with AI? That's my question,
you know what I mean, That's the issue at play
is that we're not you're not even at the basic
level with human beings. You're not going to automate this, now,
you know what I mean? This is that's my issue here, right,
there's a reason where AI succeeds, right where hey, go
(32:45):
find this issue in this code fifteen hundred times a
human being might mess up whatever, but human beings can
do that, really, and a smart enough people can do it.
Live Nation can barely function of doing comparable customer service
when it comes to that, right, and being transparent when
it comes to that. So why do you think the
AI would be modeled on someone that is competent? Right?
(33:07):
So that that that's my issue at play, And the
vagueness of the whole thing is what is really getting me,
you know what I mean. They he's got it feels
like he has no idea. It feels like he is
just shooting from the hip and going, well, we could
do this with AI, that's great, but you can't do
it with humans. So until you can do that, I
(33:27):
don't want to hear about AI, right, I want to,
And don't don't come at me saying, oh, you know,
it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot
of resources when you're making two billion dollars in revenue
a year. Yeah, right, if it if it requires your
year over year increase to go to sixty percent instead
(33:48):
of eighty nine, you need to be doing it, right,
because that is that that is articulate customer service. If not,
what you're admitting to me is that there is no
need to innovate. There is no need to do it
because consumers don't have another choice. Why because you're a monopoly, right,
(34:09):
And so that is really to me one of the
biggest things of self admittance right here is the lack
of clear cut investment into solving these problems because there
is no reason for live Nation to even try to
compete because they have dominance already in a monopoly. So
(34:33):
I can barely speak, but you can speak better than me.
So Joe, tell me what we got. What's our next
story about?
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Well, it's gonna be a bit of an update and
kind of like a longer piece that we did we
did years ago, but it's an update on Sia's situation.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Oh yeah, this movie. Do you do you remember that?
Speaker 1 (34:54):
I remember it. It's we covered this when we were
still living together and it was a nightmare then. And
I hope it's gotten better.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
I don't know if it's gotten too much better. So
in fact, you're gonna get it to be getting worse.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
So let me. You're gonna give us a little bit
of a backstory about it for some of us who
haven't been listening as long.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
So recently, on an episode of Rob has a Podcast,
which is a podcast owned by People magazine, pop artist
Seas stated that she has learned recently that she is
on the autism spectrum now. The reason we are bringing
this up is because we covered CIA's twenty twenty one
movie Music, which was the center of controversy sparked from
(35:38):
the neurodivergent community, as the actor who was cast to
play a character with autism did not have autism, and
people who saw early screening stated that the work was
negatively impacting the community. Sias stated to Yahoo entertainment that
she actually tried working with a beautiful young girl nonverbal
(35:58):
on the spectrum.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Quote found it unpleasant and stressful because the character was
that was written was had like too much like physical
demanding takes. There was a lot of like dancing segments.
It was very much like it seemed like it was
just a music video, like a long music video with
(36:20):
like little bits of.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
From the clips.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yeah, so side note, Yeah, the character has very fantastical
dance sequences be very difficult to choreograph. But she went
on quote, the character is based completely off of my
neurotypical friend. He found it too stressful being nonverbal, and
I made this movie with nothing but love for him
(36:46):
and his mother, is what she stated. She later announced
that the movie would be released with a warning quote,
I promise I have been listening, she wrote on Twitter.
The motion picture music will moving forward have this warning
at the head of the movie. Music in no way
condones or recommends the use of restraint on autistic people.
There are there are are autistic occupational therapists that specialize
(37:09):
in sensory processing who can be consulted to explain safe
ways to provide like appropriate deep pressure feedback to help
with meltdown safety and what she's talking about there is
there is a scene in the movie that shows the
girl music being restrained by her caretaker and her sister.
(37:30):
There are two different scenes to which they pin her
on the ground in a very unsafe manner, and there
it's it's like in the movie, it's like shown as
like a teaching moment of like what to do, and
it's very much what you should not do because it
(37:53):
has led to a lot of people dying from doing so.
So it's it's pretty horrific. Honestly, it made it in
the film. But she then tweeted I'm sorry, which was
assumed to be speaking to the autism community directly, but
only after being very defensive on Twitter, even calling someone
a bad actor after they remember that movie.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Yep, that was right.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
So CEO went on a Twitter rampage with the movie
and basically just called people out who were basically saying
the movie was trash. And it was a hugely bad
look pr wise for Cia because she was getting decimated
(38:37):
online and she just kept doubling down and doubling down,
especially in a lot of press interviews, just completely avoiding
the topic and saying how it's sparking talking points, which
she said on Jimmy Kimmel that the movie which was
generating and quote important conversation to have, but she did
(38:58):
not touch on the Curtain Company coversation that was being
had online. But since the release, the movie completely tanked,
only making six hundred and forty five thousand dollars, which
a budget with a budget of sixteen million dollars.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
No, my god, that's so.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Right going straight to streaming. I don't even think the
movie lasted a week in theaters, and it was only
in Australian theaters. I doubt that the US had a
major release for it. Film critics did not like the
movie at all, with Matthew Rosa of Salon calling it
(39:38):
quote a baffling and patronizing cringe fest of ablest minstrelsy,
which is insane. I just that sentence crazy.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
But take a side note and say, that's like this
is one of my favorite things ever. Is film critics
like trying to use the most adjectives possible.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yeah, it's definitely like shit's an art, Like I got
this shit in there, I love it.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
It's an art.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah, Joseph sent Chair of Paste writing even doing research
and writing an essay on the film's problematic elements pre
release were not enough to prepare me for how harmful
music is to autistic people Jesus Christ. Last year, Seas
stated that she became suicidal and went to rehab during
(40:28):
the backlash and that it that is like since how
she became aware of her own dealings with neurodivergency, stating
on podcasts, quote, I'm on the spectrum and I'm in
recovery and whatever. This is truly what she said. I'm
in recovery and whatever. There's a lot of things. For
(40:50):
forty five years, I was like, I've got to go
put my human suit on. And only in the last
two years have I fully have I become fully fully myself.
She stated that she is found relief in quote knowing
about which neurotypicality she may or may not have, which
(41:10):
really clarifies a lot. You know, just that sentence, we
really understand what's going on for sure. But she then
went on to state that quote, nobody can ever know
and love you when you're filled with secrets and living
in shame. And when we finally sit in a room
full of strangers and tell them our deepest, darkest, most
(41:31):
shameful secrets, and everybody laughs along with us, and we
don't feel like pieces of trash for the first time
in our lives, and we feel seen for the first
time in our lives, who for what people, who we
actually are, And then we can start going out into
the world and just operating as humans and human beings
with hearts and not pretending to be anything, which okay,
(41:53):
all right, really really also clarifies so much of what's
going on now that I can say personally, me personally,
I haven't seen the movie. I watched the trailer.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
I remember watching the trailer.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
It's rough.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Yeah, it's so rough that.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
I can see how it sparked backlash. We're gonna include
the trailer again in the link below, so feel free
to click on it and check it out yourself. I
also watched there's this guy on YouTube. He's a big creator.
He like, he does a lot of movie reviews. He
kind of went through his whole take of the movie,
(42:39):
and to be honest, he does a pretty great job.
We'll also include his take as well in the link below.
But it is like, it's pretty it's rough, it's it's
it's rough and it's hard to it's hard to think
about them because they cut the movie a bunch of times.
(43:02):
Apparently like four or five times they were cutting this movie.
It got delayed for years because of the amount of
re edits that they were doing. Because, to be honest,
I think it just was horrible. It was a horrible
premise with a really really poorly executed, you know, narrative,
(43:25):
and I think that they were trying to shy away
from a lot of It makes me think of, like
what else was in the movie that they cut out,
because like what they kept in was was rough, So
I can only imagine what they what they kept out
of the movie. Yeah, some of the comments that I
(43:46):
was seeing about the about the film, one called rune
I commented, I'm an autistic female and god, it feels
like someone is just making fun of me. Everything about
this character is awful and hurtful. It feels so infantilizing
and like music isn't even her own person. Comments are
called murder me. Harry says, quote, I feel bad for
(44:09):
the actress. She has an incredibly unhealthy relationship with Cia
and literally started crying on set one time because she
said she felt like she was making fun of people,
which I double checked this and the actress who played
the character music is Mattie Ziegler really, which, yeah, Mattie
Ziegler is the one. She's also in all of Sea's
(44:30):
music videos. There's a lot of controversy on that of
like Sea tends to just throw roles towards Maddie. There's
a lot of like nepotism talk in some of that
as well, of like she's just kind of taken Maddie
under her wing. And to be honest, in my view,
Ziegler seems to be getting kind of typecast and to
(44:52):
see his works, so it's it's a bit of a
weird relationship that she has with Cea. But Ziegler is
someone who has has definitely had experiences with Siah, as
we've stated, but she's cried on set. She definitely did.
She stated that, like Cia stated this in a video
(45:15):
with Variety, that Ziegler came to set crying because she
felt like she was having a hard time with the
role and that she felt like she was just making
fun of people with neurodivergency and like it was just
not great. And basically CIA's response was, h It's fine,
(45:38):
don't worry, You're doing great, and they kind of just
kept going. A commentar named Helena said, quote, it's kind
of ironic that this movie, with all the bright colors
and loud sounds, might actually make it difficult for people
on the spectrum to even watch. And the movie is
(45:58):
currently rated one star. Are on letterbox how many stars
of their five? Uh yeah, okay, all right, you can't
go under one. If you're okay, you can't go under one.
This is the minimum?
Speaker 1 (46:12):
All right? Oh man, yeah, I'm no letterbox man.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
It's it's rough to say the least. It is, like
I'm Colin, I'm I'm just winning your take. Do you
think that this is bullshit? That she's saying this?
Speaker 3 (46:32):
So I like to give.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
People the benefit of the doubt. I've been known at
some points to be a little bit too nice and caring,
so I'm gonna I'm gonna still give it. I will
just say that it's very convenient timing. I'm hoping. When
we last talked about this, this was like before the
movie came out and all this kind of stuff, And
one of the main critiques for Sea was, you know,
(46:57):
you were making, you know, this movie about a community
that we don't think you fully understand about being you know, neuroatypical,
which we don't think that you have a solid grasp
on because you were currently at that time not neurolytypical. Right,
And even then, you know, people who make movies about
(47:18):
different communities that they're not a part of. It takes
a lot of you know, research and looking from the outside.
And I remember when we talked about it last time,
there was a lot of controversy with Sia basically not
listening to a lot of these different members of the
community that had come to help her with the filming
and stuff like that. And so here's my you know,
(47:43):
altruistic I hope everything is you know, better for humanity
brain going. I'm hoping that that had caused Cia to go,
why do I feel so drawn to this cause? Why
do I feel this way? You know, all this stuff
looked evenside. And then she decided, you know, along with
her rehab, which I don't know what her rehab was
(48:06):
for and nobody really needs to know, but maybe through
that self journey she figured out maybe part of the
reason that she is drawn to making a movie about
a character that's neuroatypical is because she found out that
she is neurootypical with you know, the help of some
medical professionals.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Right, Well, she found that out, it seems like after
all of this controversy.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
So that's what I'm saying, is like, I'm hoping that
before I'm hoping that in maybe a dire strait of like, hey,
I'm gonna go to rehab, I'm gonna do this stuff
that like she kind of dug deep and then talked
to medical professionals and they were like, actually, you are neurootypical.
Maybe that's why you had the drive in the first
place to make this movie. Right. That's what I'm hoping
(48:52):
is that maybe a positive from the controversy, let's say, right,
is that maybe that maybe one person figured out, oh wow,
I really am neuroitypical. Right, So that's what I hope.
Is it convenient as hell though, absolutely, and would very
much destroy the one of the biggest criticisms of Siya,
(49:16):
which is that she at that time was not, you know,
identifying as neuroitypical. Right, Regardless, it.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Would have been a good defense if she said that, right,
I mean, I feel like she would have been like, oh, guys,
like this is why I'm making this film, but instead
it was like, oh, my friends, my two friends who
are who are the only people I consulted to make
this movie? Are the reasons why I'm right making this movie?
(49:49):
And I have you know, like it just seems.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
And like you can't roll out. You can't roll out
that the decision making in the way that she went
about this maybe from you know, the way that she
views the world if she really is neuroatypical, right, But
at the same time to say that it's not convenient
after you know, it feels like and now let's go
(50:16):
into the more you know, conspiratorial side of my brain
to say that she had the defense of, well, I'm
just trying to make a sweet movie for my two
friends that had you know, who are neuroatypical and stuff
and celebrate them in the community. And then maybe eventually
having all the backlash, she's like, fine, that's not gonna
work as an accurate thing for this. What could I
(50:38):
do to step up? Like the reason why this is
personal to me? Therefore the reason why I have the
ability and right to make this movie? What if I'm neuroatypical, right.
Speaker 3 (50:49):
And.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Again, we can't we don't know for sure, right, but
to say that it's not convenient is insane. And to
be honest, she is a part of the movie, right,
Like she is, you know, the creator in the movie, right.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
But when she has a cameo.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
The point that I'm trying to say is like, what
amazes me is like she had to get funding for this,
she had other people involved, you.
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Like it it feels to me, especially with the amount
of recuts, that a lot of people are like, you
need to put the brakes on this, right. And I
don't know where they were getting the money from. Maybe
see I had it personally, or maybe some other people
still believed in it from the beginning. I don't know,
but it's amazing to me sometimes, especially with media like
this that's perceived so badly as such a terrible portrayal
(51:42):
of a community, that it does get to the point
of being made right, because it seems like from step
one of this movie everyone was like no, like, don't
do this immediately, and it's amazing to me that it
got this far, you know, through all of these barriers
(52:03):
of I have to get funding, we have to do shooting,
we have to get actors, we have to you know
what I mean, Like all of these different points that
definitely could have been the plug, and clearly a lot
of people in this community would have been like, good,
good idea, you know what I mean. Like it wouldn't
have been like, oh, why did you get you know
it would it seems like from my mind, in the
(52:25):
public perception of this movie, it would have been very fast.
Oh thank god they're not doing the movie. So the
thing about this that's interesting from an artist perspective is
see's getting to the point with this movie that more
people are gonna remember her for this than the artist
ry yeah, like and that that is, honestly the part
(52:49):
that if I was an artist like that, it would
scare me that even if somehow I had this and
like could not move personality that I'm trying my best.
This is going to be a beautiful, you know, depiction
for the neuroatypical community, right, and I could not get
(53:10):
away from that. That's the thing that would bother me
the most is that, you know, everyone forever will remember
me as the person that made this movie, you know
what I mean, more than my other things, and like,
to be honest, like I gotta be real here Sea's
not had like a thousand hits. It's not like she's
everywhere all the time. I haven't heard about her since
(53:32):
we started talking about this, I think a year or
two ago, you know, with this movie and I went, oh, yeah,
see us coming back or whatever. And this is going
to be like from the allowed of fanfare and stuff
like that, the thing that most people when you go, oh, Cia, yeah,
she made that terrible movie, you know what I mean. Like,
and I don't think it's that big yet, but it
(53:53):
definitely is going to be a mark on her career that, like,
no matter what, if she's like I'm gonna go sing
shande we or somewhere else, it's been like twenty years,
people are gonna go up to the stage and literally go,
screw you, you made this movie. We hate you, you
know what I mean. Like, that's that's the thing for
Cia that she'll have to deal with. And I think,
you know, I haven't seen the movie. I haven't done it.
(54:14):
It may be such terrible depiction that you know, even
I would go right, rightfully, so right, But it's definitely
a noteworthy part of her career that's not going away
by any means. She had every moment to stop and
decided not to.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
Yeah, which I do want to touch on as well.
I think it's important for us to also touch on
the situation when it comes to public backlash and how
it can really hurt somebody as well, because it's obvious
that Sia had issues. I mean, she had to go
to rehab, she had to like figure that stuff out,
and like, I don't I don't necessarily think she's lying
(54:53):
about that stuff. I'm like, who know, you know, Like
I also agree with you goln like I like to
see the I like to give people to be of
the doubt, like maybe she did discover something. It's a
little worrisome to me that she's being so she's like
giving the information but not giving enough to where it's
(55:13):
like it's almost it's it feels good to say this,
but it's it's giving Like my girlfriend goes to another school,
you know, where it's like it's some information, but it's
not enough to be like reliable. And so I think
it's for a lot of people, especially if she's trying
(55:34):
to rekindle her relationship with the autism and neurodivergent communities,
it's really important for her to be transparent as a
public figure in the situation. But these statements, in my
mind are are very.
Speaker 1 (55:54):
Not helping, right, absolutely, And I think the other thing
is we want to get like real capitalism economics on it.
She was given sixteen million dollars in game back with
six hundred and forty five thousand, right, I'm sure she
had she had other people.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
No studio's gonna hire her to direct.
Speaker 1 (56:14):
Yeah, if she wanted to make another movie, ever, I
think that's dead the water. If she wanted to make
a TV show unless she wants to self fund it
or even this is going to spill into her music career, right, like,
because again this movie was really propelled by the fact
that Sia had made it and her you know, she
is behind it, right, So, like she's probably gonna have
(56:34):
more difficulty everywhere else. You know, Hey, we want a
couple you know, we want a couple more tens of
grand you know, of money, and so we could have
more money for tour support. No, we don't know if
you can give that money back. Right. We want, like,
you know, a couple more thousands so we can make
this record really nice. No, we don't know if the
Sea Records going to do well, right, Like, That's the
(56:57):
thing about it is that I think some people think
well and a lot of people think this with artists
is like it's so segmented, and I'm like, the only
reason that Sea has this opportunity is that she has
this inert fame from you know, being a musician in
the first place. Right, It's not like she's some indie filmmaker. No,
we that people know where to see. She's a girl
(57:17):
with the crazy hair and the chandelier. So I guarantee
you if some investments were made going well, she's got
a lot of weight behind her, you know, and everything,
and this will maybe go to this community and flourish show. Uh,
let's invest in her. And so I think what's gonna
happen too with this Chrisia for rightfully so, and you know,
maybe even not rightfully so, is that some people are
(57:41):
not gonna want to give her any chance whatsoever with
any sort of money at all, because one they don't
want to be associated with her, and two they don't
know if they can get a return at the end
of the day. So like that's that's kind of the
scary thing with sometimes of these artists, with like going
outside of your lane, like and not to be like
artists have to be in their wane, but like going
(58:02):
outside of the general media that you're famous for is
this is where it gets kind of rocky, right, because
you don't have the expertise in it. It's not tomatoes tomatoes.
Making an album is not making a movie. Making a
TV show is not making a movie, you know what
I mean. Like, and so it doesn't go hand in
hand like that, and so you can still ruin parts
of your image even though it's in a different medium
(58:24):
and consumers will associated together.
Speaker 3 (58:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (58:28):
I think that for Cia, she's gonna have a rough
hill from now on, you know, Like I think that
she's going to have a huge time. I mean, especially
given the financial situation. I don't know how much of
her own money was in this movie, right, you know
what I mean. She could have gone from a situation
where she was comfortable, she had a couple hits, you
(58:51):
know what I mean. She maybe made some records and
toured and made a good amount of money, but she
movies will bankrupt you, you know what I mean. I
don't know how much of the sixteen millions hers, right,
And not to be like, she doesn't have the money.
But like, also, she's not the biggest artist ever. She's
you know, a pretty famous name.
Speaker 3 (59:09):
I mean, she's she's very famous in the pop world.
Speaker 1 (59:12):
But sixteen million in hard cash in liquid.
Speaker 2 (59:17):
Yeah, you know, you have to also think she's been
touring for decades, Like there's a level there, right, and
you know how most cases, you know how much in
these situations these artists aren't. I mean, she might have
self funded, you might be right, but I'm sure a
lot of the majority of it is through a studio.
Because she's a big name and having a big name
(59:39):
writing the music for a movie called music, the studio
is probably gonna be like, yeah, fuck it.
Speaker 3 (59:45):
I hope come on board.
Speaker 1 (59:46):
But you know, like I could totally see if maybe
and you know, with the amount of recuts and stuff
like that, I could totally see people being like, yeah,
we're backing away from this, we're taking the money with us,
you know what I mean, or we.
Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Demand Yeah, it doesn't seem I mean, it's hard to say,
Like it seems like a lot of the back story
is I think I think a lot of the recuts
were happening because of some of the backlash. To be honest,
with the trailer coming out.
Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
Well, I would imagine because if I'm in it, like
not to be like just like, oh, we need to
do this because it's the right thing to do. Like
if I get really capitalistic on you, like if I'm
the studio making this money and all this is going,
I'm going see it. We got it. We gotta do
something with this movie. Like We're not going to make
any money on this movie if we don't recut it, right,
Like that's the other part of it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
And so yeah, and there's a level of that too,
of like where like which I didn't even touch on
when she partnered with Autism Speaks after all of the controversy.
Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Yeah, that was a huge dea.
Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
And then that was a.
Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Huge controversy in itself because for those of you who
don't know, Autism Speaks is like a lot of people
relate to it as like the pta of the neurodivergent world,
where it's like they don't It's like I would I
would say most people who are neurodivergent or in the
autism community do not like Autism Speaks. It's a very
(01:01:18):
polarizing like or like nonprofit. And she only did partner
them with them after the controversy, which is like another
it's just it's it it really, I hate to say it.
It like it truly was a train wreck. Like the
(01:01:39):
lead up to this movie.
Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
I just and I'm like literally looking at like the
cast and it's like insane. Like Kate Hudson is one
of the wead people. Yeah, like Leslie Odom Junior is
in this movie, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Like it's good, but I will say, you know, they're
great actors, horrible writing.
Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
You can even just tell in the trailer. Well of
course struggle.
Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
But that's what I'm saying is like, you know, it's
this is not you know, some indie film that was
like sixty million dollars. I was like there were big
names on here that thought, oh, this is gonna be
a big one. This is gonna be good for us,
you know what I mean? Now at all? You know
what I mean? Yeah, so I you know, I I.
Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Mean, you never know, I you know it it could
be a thing of like which you know, she could
have been trying to do something good and then it
just ended up twisting. I think what ultimately, and maybe
this is a lesson for any artists who are listening
who maybe will blow up. It's sometimes good to just
be silent for a little while, uh than it is
(01:02:47):
to just keep fight and be defensive.
Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
You know what I mean. I think as you're right,
I think it would have been interesting to and you know,
in a hypothetical if she you know, all the backlash,
all the stuff, and then she came back with more
of a succinct you know, period of silence and just went, hey, guys,
we took a lot of time and read edited the movie.
I found out some things about myself. I you know,
(01:03:12):
hope it's better for the community. I imagine this movie
probably would have been considered even more positive than it
was than.
Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
Done the work and reshot the movie.
Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
That would work too, Yeah, like something like you know,
just yeah, the perception given by you know, the person
almost narrating its creation is as important as the movie itself,
you know what I mean? So I god like, yeah,
there's nothing really more to stay here. I just think that, uh,
(01:03:44):
it's gonna be a rough ride for Sea for a while.
I think I think she's really done, I thinks for
her career, and she's clearly got her own problem she
needs to deal with as well. Still, so I hope
that she, you know, continues well in that recovery period
that she's trying, but it this is not going to
help with that recovery in any way.
Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
I almost am like, if you truly want to recover,
maybe just stay away from.
Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
The press, you know. Yeah, that's true, Like just don't.
Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Like, just you know, hang out for a while longer,
no rush to jump back in. But yeah, I mean, ultimately,
you know, no humans should feel the need to, you know,
have self harm. And if you're going through that or
you know people who are suffering from that, I'm so sorry.
(01:04:35):
And it's very much It's very important that people understand
that they aren't alone. And I do think we tend
we me and Colin are very critical of celebrities on
this podcast. We are, I think a lot of people are,
but we do have to remember at the end of
(01:04:57):
the day that they are people as well, who have feelings, family, friends,
and it's important to you can be critical, but I
think there's a fine line between criticism and just harassment,
and I think people should.
Speaker 3 (01:05:16):
Be careful, That's all I'll.
Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
Say, you know, don't go on SEEA's thing and just
like torment her that's you know, I think she's learned
her lesson hopefully, but yeah, you know, ultimately it's such
a complicated subject. I mean, fucking Harvard professors are talking
about like celebrity and dealing with you know, public backlash
(01:05:43):
in the modern age and how it really affects us,
because it affects both of us on the aisle at
the end of the day. So I don't know, anyway,
on that high note, what have you been listening to
this week?
Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
Let's see, I've been listening to. Uh. I don't know
if I talked about this before, but I was listening
to one of my favorites, which is Joe Jackson, which
I had mentioned before, But one of my favorites is
you Can't Get what you Want Until you Know what
you Want, which is a pretty good title. But the horn,
(01:06:23):
like it's such a clean recording, which is like one
of the things that I'm like blown away by. It's
just got like this really really big horn part in
the beginning, and he plays the saxophone on it with
the beat like if you watch a live video of
Joe Jackson he's doing it. It's very sassy and all
that kind of stuff, and just really funky, so one
of my favorites. And then I've been going back to
(01:06:44):
a Little Dark Age by MGMTE one of my favorite
of their albums wise, and I remember when it came
out when we were in college and one of our
friends actually turned to me and goes, have you heard
this album? No? And it was like one of my
it's like my epitome like college rock album. So I
just remember being in college and it feels like every
(01:07:04):
story where it's like. Then this dude turned to me
and was like, have you heard this record? Turned this
record on, and I was like, oh my god, baby,
you know what I mean, Like that's what it feels like. Uh,
but I like it a lot. I actually uh I
think uh Honestly, Little Dark Age, the song which is
on a Little Dark Age got like kind of murdered
(01:07:24):
by TikTok, so I'm kind of done with that song.
I just don't like it as much. I never really
liked it as much. I think the singles around them
have always been good, like the nut first one, she
Works Out Too Much is one of my favorite, and
then when You Die is also another of my favorite,
and then my third favorite on There is Me and Michael,
which is uh, you know Michael right exactly, And so
(01:07:46):
I always joke at to a song about the office,
it's about Dwight with Michael.
Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
That's what I always think about too.
Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
Anyway, Joe, what you've been listening to.
Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
I've been listening to a single called blue Jay from
Under which they're kind of blowing up right now.
Speaker 3 (01:08:03):
It's cool.
Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
It's like, it's like indie folk stuff. It's it's got
my favorite thing, which, like I I've always used to
hate banjo in songs, but recently like the ban Joe
delay like reverb thing is so.
Speaker 3 (01:08:22):
Sick reforms on his face.
Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
Yeah, I know, it's just coming back. It's really just
blazing through my chin right now. But it's it's really cool.
It's it's very Desjohnnie. If people like Dejon uh so
check it out. I've also been listening to a new
single called say Hi from Medium Build, which I got
(01:08:47):
the pleasure to shoot the cover for that. I'm very
proud of all the visuals coming out for that, so
you know, just a little little plug in there for myself,
but also amazing song.
Speaker 3 (01:08:59):
So Deef, we check it out.
Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
And then I've been listening to America has a Problem
by Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar, which is a sick track.
It's it's very like it's I feel like everybody's been
waiting for this combination to happen, like Beyonce and Kendrick
making a song.
Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
It's like, finally there.
Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
People manifested that people really did and honestly, it's kind
of like, man, this should happened years ago. But yeah,
it's sick. I mean, especially Kendrick's lines in it are
some of his best work. So you should definitely check
it out. It's very sick track. And yeah, that's about it.
Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
But yeah, I guess, uh, I guess we'll go.
Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
Now this is awkward.
Speaker 3 (01:09:59):
Do you believe first or me? I? Can you go?
Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
Versus verst all right? I want to talk to the
audience by myself. Second, Hey guys, if you like this podcast,
please subscribe the bsday podcast. Please leave a rating, maybe
even go to our YouTube page. I know we haven't
posted anything, but maybe we'll post something in the future. Also,
(01:10:24):
you can follow us at the Busday podcast wherever you
get your social media.
Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
Picks, and email us at the Thissday Podcast at jamil
dot com. Thank you so much and I'm pretty.
Speaker 1 (01:10:36):
Sure you're going to see you next week in my
underwear on that.
Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
Camera, my camera tied, fully transparent. Damn all right, I
know it's such a bummer.
Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
I'm gonna end it.
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