December 24, 2024 • 40 mins
Welcome back, Spun Today listeners! I’m your host, Tony Ortiz, and you’re tuning into episode 276—our final episode of 2024. Today we’ve got a jam-packed show celebrating creativity, ethical influence, and a look back on some standout moments from the past year.
First up, we'll also journey into the supernatural with a deep dive into Beetlejuice 2, the Tim Burton-esque sequel we've all been waiting for. From its returning stars to new additions like Jenna Ortega, this film has stirred up quite a buzz. We’ll unpack plot points, character arcs, and those signature Burton elements that make it a must-watch.
It wouldn’t be a Spun Today episode without some comedy! I’ll share my thoughts on Tom Papa’s latest special "Home Free" and other comedy hits of the year. We’ll talk themes, standout bits, and the unique comedic styles that make each special worth watching.
In our "Goats Doing Goat $hit" segment, we’re highlighting Mr. Beast again, but this time for his incredible philanthropy. We dive into the world of sustainable chocolate with Mr. Beast’s (Jimmy Donaldson) venture, Feastables. We’ll explore how his company is setting new ethical standards in cocoa sourcing, and his mission to push Big Chocolate toward more responsible practices.
And finally, I’ll reflect on the ups and downs of 2024 and look ahead with optimism to 2025.
Stick around to hear how you can support the podcast—whether through our merch store or by rating and reviewing the show. Plus, I’ll share some tips for budding podcasters inspired to start their own journey. Let’s get those creative juices flowing, and dive right in!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:19):
What's up folks? What's going on? Welcome to the Spun Today Podcast,
the only podcast that is anchored in writing but
unlimited in scope. I'm your host, Tony Ortiz, and I appreciate you
listening. This is episode 276 of
the Spun Today Podcast and it's the final episode of the year.
The final episode of 2024. In this episode,
(00:42):
I'll break down watching beetlejuice, Beetlejuice
or Beetlejuice 2. For the uninitiated, Tom Papa's
latest comedy special, Home Free, as well as an
honorable mention of a few other comedy specials. Stick around to
find out which those are. And last, but certainly not least,
a new addition to your favorite segment in mine,
(01:04):
Goats Doing Goat Shit. Stick around to find out who made the
list in this final episode of the year. I want to thank, as always,
each and every one of you who take the time to listen, who have been
listening throughout the year. This year has been filled with ups and downs
and unfortunately more downs than ups, at least on my
side of things. If you and yours have had a similar
(01:26):
year, definitely looking forward to 2025 turning
things around for us all. I'm definitely optimistically
looking toward next year and beyond, but I'll definitely expound
on that during the next episode, slash first episode of
2025 when I do the
2024 or prior year, look back
(01:48):
and reflection on goals that were met that were not met and
establish some for the following year. So definitely
stick around or look out rather for that episode in a couple
weeks. And without further ado, here are a few
ways that you can help support this podcast. If you so choose,
your support means a ton and it's much appreciated. There's a bunch
(02:11):
of different ways that you can help support, whether it be by using affiliate
links to get discounts on things they may already be shopping
for, all of which you can find that Spuntaday.com
support, or whether it's purchasing some merch, some of my
books, so on and so forth. But here is one of those ways you
can help support and then we will jump right into the episode.
(02:33):
You can help support the Spun Today podcast by shopping my merch
section. Go to spunter.com support and navigate
to the merch section. Here you'll find the iconic
Podcast versus Anybody tee, which comes in many different color
schemes and all different sizes. There are a bunch of other designs
available as well, including riding themed shirts,
(02:55):
cycling shirts, and the classic Dominican escudo, and
much, much more. And if T shirts aren't your thing, all
designs also come in pullover hoodies, zip up hoodies,
sweatshirts and tank tops. You can also shop the
spontane coffee mugs, which has the spontane logo on one side and
the tagline that I end every episode with on the other, which is
(03:17):
start taking steps in the general direction of your dreams.
Once again, for all spun today merch go to
spuntaday.com support and navigate to the merch
section. Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice, aka Beetlejuice 2 was
released in 2024 and is the sequel to Beetlejuice, the
(03:39):
original film from
1988. So decades
later, and I personally thought it was a great watch, it's definitely one
of those sequels that does not disappoint. You know, as
of late, as of the past few years, there's been a lot of remakes and
reboots and things of that nature, some of which hit,
(04:00):
a lot of which missed. I've spoken about something I
enjoyed here on the podcast in the past, and this
one I thought was dope because it was most if not all of the
main characters and from the first
movie. And it was a like, where are they now
all these years later? You know, they didn't CGI it and keep
(04:21):
them all young or, you know, try to do a storyline that was
not consistent with the actual timeline of how much time
has passed between this sequel and the first
film. And it was a cool movie in and of itself. But
here is the official synopsis. After a family
tragedy, three generations of the Deets family
(04:43):
return home to Winter river, still haunted
by Beetlejuice. Lydia's life is turned upside down
when her teenage daughter Astrid accidentally opens
the portal to the afterlife. And as we like to do here on
the Spot Today podcast, because if we don't, who will? Let's shout out
the writers. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is
(05:06):
based on characters created by Michael McDowell
and Larry Wilson. The story is by Alfred
Go, Miles Millar and Seth
Graham Smith, and the screenplay is by
Alfred Go and Miles Millar.
Shout out to each and every one of those
(05:28):
writers that put this film
together and got it from the pen to paper,
text to script, and allowed it to become what it
became when the iconic Tim Burton
directed the out of it. So the movie, if you're a fan of the first
one, definitely checks off all the nostalgia boxes. Again you
(05:49):
have all the main characters coming back. Michael Keaton playing Beetlejuice,
Winona Ryder playing Lydia Dietz, Catherine O'Hara
playing Delia Deetz. You have a great addition in Jenna
Ortega playing Astrid Deetz which is the daughter
of Lydia. And we enter the world with all of
them, you know, grown and older. Astrid's character
(06:11):
is very similar to Lydia's character in the first film.
You know, like the misunderstood goth ish teenager.
So you see that dynamic replaying itself consistent with the
first film. And then you have the relationship between
Lydia and Delia being in a bit of a better
place than the contentious, you know, stepmother type. I remember if she
(06:34):
was her stepmother or adopted mother. But the contentious type of relationship
that they had growing up. And Delia who was an
artist, like, you know, she used to do sculptures and I think paintings and
stuff as well. But definitely sculptures like these weird
tacky ones in the, in the first film becomes this world renowned
artist. She's big time now.
(06:55):
Delia is also has her own television show.
She still sees ghosts and is able to see folks from the afterlife. So
she has this Ms. Cleo type of, you
know, speak to the dead or help your audience
members, you know, see, speak to their past relatives and stuff
like that. Just like that type of show going on which the daughter
(07:18):
is completely embarrassed about and thinks she's full of essentially.
And then the father from the first film is
noticeably not around in the picture and they address it fairly
early on and you find that they killed
the out of his pedophile ass
in Claymation. So if you don't know the
(07:40):
backstory behind it, the father from the first
film, which is played by an actor named
Jeffrey Jones, was one of the main characters in the first film. He's the,
the principal in Ferris Bueller's Day off, if you're familiar with that.
He back in 2002, 2004, pleaded no contest
and was found guilty of having being in the possession
(08:02):
of child pornography. He also allegedly I don't want to get sued.
Paid 14 or 13 or 15 year old
boy to pose for nude and lewd pictures.
And you know, he's a registered sex offender. You know, pretty much obviously
fell out of the Hollywood scene thereafter. Then in a couple
years, years later moved to a different state, either
(08:26):
Florida or California. Forgot, quote unquote, forgot to register as a sex
offender. So after being on five years of probation, I think is
what he got. Wound up also being sentenced to community service
after that infraction and then moved again to again either
California or Florida, I forget the order of it a few years later and quote
unquote, forgot again to register as a sex offender, so
(08:49):
on and so forth. So that being said in the movie,
they kill him off, you know, he was literally one of the main characters of
the first one. They couldn't just not reference him, you know, from a
story perspective. But it was pretty funny how they did it. I.
I thought. So they made it that he
was on an airplane. As Delia, the mom, is telling the
(09:11):
story to her daughter of how he died. She says that, you know, he
was on a plane, he was gonna go, you know, bird watching some safari or
something like that. The plane crashes, and Lydia's like,
oh, my God, he died in a plane crash. And then the mom is like,
no, actually, he didn't. He survived the plane crash somehow
and was floating along on a piece of
luggage after almost drowning. And then there was this
(09:35):
big explosion and he got, you know, super hurt in the. In the
explosion. And she was, oh, my God, he died. You know,
he burned to death. And then the mom was like, no, he still didn't die.
Then he was almost going to shore or to safety or something like that. And
then a shark came out of the water and.
And just bit half his body off. And then that's how he dies.
(09:56):
So they fucking killed him like three times. And they. While she's
telling the daughter the story, the way they did it in the film was that
she's describing everything that happened to the daughter and they're
showing it visually, but in claymation form,
which was an interesting Tim Burton touch to the whole
thing. So, going back to the dynamic between Astrid and
(10:18):
Lydia, which, again, is very similar to the dynamic between Lydia and
Delia in the first movie. She's a rebellious teen, you
know, once distanced from her mom, I think she's full of shit and
kind of a grifter in terms of speaking to the dead. And the TV
show that she has, she doesn't like that fame and is dealing with
the loss of her dad, who. Who died after
(10:41):
her parents had gotten divorced, I believe. So she kind of resents her mom a
little bit for that as well. And they all come back to the hometown where,
you know, the original movie takes place for the funeral and
arrangements and stuff like that. She doesn't want to be there. Winds up
riding her bike and getting into an accident. The brakes don't
work, crashes into a tree type of thing. And this kid named
(11:02):
Jeremy, played by Arthur Conti, helps her
out, befriends her, invites her over for Halloween so they can, you
know, give candy to the kids together. And they pretty much hit it off.
So now all of a sudden has the. This pseudo
love interest slash friend. And now she does want to stay
in the town. You know, she wants to hang out with this guy. Her mom
(11:25):
begrudgingly gives her permission to do so to hang out with him. She
finds out from a realtor that she's speaking to
in the area that her daughter went to hang out with, with a boy
that she met on, you know, XYZ Street. She says the
name of the street. I forget what it is. Roots is like, oh, I hope
it's not anywhere near that house where that horrible incident happened.
(11:47):
I had her on the market for years and nobody's ever been willing to. To
purchase it. And she's like, what house? She's like, oh, you don't know the story
of so and so. This. This kid essentially murdered both his
parents and then wound up falling out of a tree and breaking his
own neck or some wild like that. And then Lydia. Wait, what's the. The
address of the house? Because she had previously dropped her daughter off at the house
(12:08):
to hang out with the boy. And of course, same address. So she
rushes over there, but is essentially too late.
By this point, Astrid realizes that
Jeremy is a ghost. He comes clean to her and
lies to her, though, becomes clean about being a ghost and that
he found this book that, you know, if he goes with her
(12:31):
to the. To the afterlife, she can help him get
his soul back. And she. He gave him. He gave her this
sob story of what happened to his family, which is obviously not
the real story, but essentially so that she
would agree to go with him into the afterlife to do him this
favor. And she agrees because she likes the guy. She's also
(12:54):
having the mental, you know, dilemma slash realization of, oh, shit, my mom was
telling the truth. She can't see dead people because now I can too.
But Lydia gets there. The kid, you know, takes her into the
afterlife. There's a spell that they do and, you know, draw the
door on the wall and go through. But the real
way for the kid to get a soul back and, you know, become living again
(13:16):
would be to take her soul, Ashford soul. So that's what
he essentially is trying to do under the guise
of, you know, she's just going to help him type of thing. And the rest
of the movie from there on out is pretty much Winona Ryder following them into
the afterlife, invoking Beetlejuice, having to
get him to help her go into the afterlife
(13:37):
to get her daughter back and to prevent this whole soul
swapping thing from happening. Michael Keaton, of course,
steals the show, as he does in the first movie. He's great
throughout there's also a dope character called
Dolores, played by Monica Bellucci.
She plays Beetlejuice's wife that
(13:59):
was chopped up into a bunch of different pieces by Beetlejuice because she was
a soul. Literally a soul sucking monster.
Beetlejuice married her once upon a time and then she just wanted to
take his soul. He winds up killing her and chopping her up, but
keeping her body separate so she could never come back together. She
gets loose somehow and staples
(14:22):
herself back together together in this really cool scene
where her body parts are literally coming back together and she's using a staple
gun to staple herself. And then she just wants to find Beetlejuice to
get her revenge. So he's dealing with that while
also trying to help Lydia get her daughter
back and running his whole, you know, afterlife services. And
(14:44):
he has Bob, the guy with a shrunken head. He had a ton of those
working for him in this afterlife office
setting. They show at the end that Bob dies. RIP
Bob, he lives from the year 1372 to
2024 and dies at the hand of actually Dolores, the
soul sucker. Danny DeVito is in it. He plays the
(15:06):
janitor. He's in it for for a few minutes. Also dies at
the hand of this soul sucking lady. Willem Dafoe is in it, does a great
job and it was just a dope watch. I definitely
recommend it, especially if you were into the first movie. It's a no
brainer. You'll love this one as well. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Streaming
now on HBO. Max
(15:29):
Tom Papa's latest comedy special, Home
Free was released in 2024.
Tom Papa I've broken down prior specials of
his. At least one, probably two or three in the
past. He's a hilarious comedian, apparently a great baker. I
got into his his YouTube bread baking
(15:51):
show that he was doing during the Pandemic
does these sourdough breads and super nerdy
into that world, which is pretty cool. He is a
cleanish comic. I want to say. I've heard him curse
before. I wouldn't say he's as clean as a Seinfeld or Nate
Bargazi, which are hilarious comics that I that I also
(16:12):
love. So I'm definitely not saying that as a pejorative.
It's a clean comic. I just see it as a different style
of delivering laughs, just as effective as any other
style of comedy. But his latest special, Home Free, which is available on
Netflix, did not disappoint. Here are a few
of the bits or jokes or lines
(16:34):
of writing that resonated with me, you know, he's a family
man, married, two daughters. I want to say maybe three.
I think two has a bunch of pets. And his
comedy is themed around
that lifestyle. And the whole home free concept
ties to the fact that he and his wife are now empty nesters. I think
(16:56):
his last kid just went off to college, so a lot of what
this special is about is around that. And he says
in it that he dropped his youngest at
college and that nobody tells you how hard it's gonna
be to pretend to be sad. This other one I jotted down, but
I do not remember the joke too well. I wrote down that
(17:18):
he said something to the effect of driving at night and mistaking garbage cans for
people, I think being paranoid, being high or drunk or something like
that. He said that as a. As a dad, you have to
pretend to be Superman. You can't just cry.
And then when your kids ask you what's wrong, say everything.
Everything. I can't figure this out. He spoke about inner
(17:39):
dialogue that you have as a. As a dad, as an
adult, and that your brain holds on to insults
and just plays them over and over in a loop in your head.
And you just tell your things yourself. Things like, I'm not gonna get that
promotion. I'm not gonna get a pay raise this year. Everyone knows
I smell like ham. He just slipped that in. I thought it was hilarious.
(18:01):
This one definitely hit close to home. He goes, you know, you wake up
early every morning, you start making breakfast for your kids. It's in,
it's still dark, you're tired. You drive them to school,
and then you go back to pick them up 20 minutes later. @ least that's
how it feels like. And then you take them to all these activities like
you're some sort of Uber driver, and you're taking them to all these activities that
(18:23):
they can't even do. I. I just love the inflection of
his voice and how he. He repeats the
last, like, couple words and sometimes sentence of
what he says often, and you kind of get in. He lulls you
into the cadence of. Of how he talks. Definitely an enjoyable comic to
watch. But yeah, those were just a few My. My
(18:45):
takeaways from watching his special. I definitely recommend it. Tom
Papa's latest comedy special, Home
Free streaming now on Netflix.
I saw a few other comedy specials recently, a few honorable
mentions that I wanted to shout out, starting with
Anthony Jeselnik's latest, Bones and all.
(19:08):
Anthony Jeselnik is the king of
misdirect. You often usually don't know where he's
going. He takes sharp, sharp left turns
in delivering his comedy, you think he's speaking about one thing, he flips it on
his head and then it's usually something just like provocative and
holy. I didn't see that coming. Really funny comic. And I
(19:30):
enjoy his comedy. Even with the shots fired at Rogan,
not so much, but Rogan. Other comedians within
Rogan's immediate orbit that he spoke about actually on Top Papa's
podcast as well as on this special. But he has a
couple funny bits I wanted to mention here. He's speaking to sibling rivalry
and he says that his brother, when they were little, he let his
(19:52):
dog run away. So for
retribution for that, he poisoned his fish. And he said that he
won in the end because he got his dog back,
but his brother died from the salmon. Said a friend of his started
talking about premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction and things
that. And he advised his friend to start talking about baseball.
(20:15):
And his friend was like, don't you mean start thinking about baseball?
And he was. And he replied, I don't give a what you think about. Just
don't talk to me about premature ejaculation. Then the last one I'll share
is he said that he stopped listening to Kanye when Kanye went
Christian and that his manager used to keep him up on things that
that Kanye would say and when he was in the news all the time
(20:37):
and he, his manager told him that Kanye started wearing White
Lives Matter T shirts and saying anti Semitic things.
And Anthony Jesel Nick's response was, oh, so he went super
Christian. And that is an honorable mention to Anthony Jeselnik's latest
special Bones and all streaming now on Netflix.
The next honorable mention comedy special that
(20:59):
I wanted to speak to is Jamie Fox's what Had
Happened was also available on Netflix.
Jamie Foxx, for those who don't know, is like a
triple quadruple threat. He's a
hilarious comedic actor and dramatic actor so you can
act his ass off. He can sing, he plays
(21:21):
instruments, he does stand up. Super,
super talented dude. I always compare him in terms of just being
multifaceted hyphenate as they say to
John Leguizamo I feel has skills that as
well when it comes to I guess within the
comedic and able to play dramatic roles as
(21:42):
well. The one man shows that he does and things
that never never heard him sing or play instruments or anything that. But
yeah, Jamie's the man and he went
through big medical scare
about a year or two ago where people thought that
he died. People thought that he was about to die, that he's going to die.
(22:04):
And this was the first time that he was going to speak to it publicly,
this special. So it was very much anticipated because of that. And also it's
Jamie Foxx acute. I feel nobody has ever had a bad thing to say about
Jamie Foxx. One of those celebrities that everybody reveres and nobody has a
to talk about. It was a super emotional special. He had one
of his daughters bring him out. He had another of his daughters who plays the
(22:26):
guitar and sings, come on stage and do a song with
him. He detailed what
happened the, the day that he got sick. And
it was super emotional. He was in Atlanta. He had a really bad
headache and he asked for, for aspirin or
Advil or something and before he was able to even take it, he just blacked
(22:48):
out. Then he, he wakes up. It's like days
later he can't walk. And essentially he had a
stroke. And in the special, which is not just like straight
stand up comedy, he walks you through that
journey while sprinkling in jokes, while being super
emotional. You know, him crying, the crowd crying, what
(23:09):
folks watching at home crying, getting all choked up. I'm not
crying. You're crying. He recorded the special in Atlanta, which is where,
where it happened. And he has this ability to bring you
into the moment. He has so much charisma, you get drawn into the
story. He sprinkles jokes throughout the whole thing. He has
this family moment on stage and it's
(23:31):
somehow very intimate while being completely, you
know, out in the open for the audience to see. And
flexes all of his dramatic and
comedic talents through characters that he's played like Willie
Beeman, Ray Charles. And he embodies
those characters to tell parts of the story. And it's so
(23:54):
ill. It's not. Again, just traditional straight stand
up, but it's a dope experience. Definitely
worth the watch, especially to support Jamie Foxx. That's my
honorable mention for Jamie Foxx's what Had Happened was
streaming now on Netflix. Last but certainly not least
in my honorable mentions section of recent
(24:16):
stand up comedy specials that I saw single lady
Ali Wong, who I think I've definitely broken down
her specials in the past, but I think that she is the
pioneer of filming comedy specials. While
pregnant, she did it with her first daughter and her second
really funny comic recently got divorced. You know, she was
(24:39):
married and pregnant throughout her other specials
and this is the first special that she filmed post
divorce. And she's a raunchy, funny
Definitely worth the watch. Comedian and if you follow, haven't
followed her comedic career thus far. You're kind of invested in
what happened. Why'd they get divorced? She was like so spoke so
(25:02):
highly of her, her ex and he made made his
way into her comedy specials and how, you know, he's this big finance guy, but
somehow she's the rich one and wound up paying student
loans. So she feels that she got over in that sense. She's
had stuff like that in the past, but now they actually divorce. Divorced. You
know, those were all jokes. But a couple things that she mentioned that were
(25:24):
hilarious were that she has a divorced mom energy
and all she wants is to just get dicked down and
she doesn't care if you pronounce hors d'oeuvres as horde
devourers. And she said she feels that her heart
is like Swiss cheese and that she needs different
sized bespoke dicks to fill all those holes.
(25:48):
And another one that she said that I thought was hilarious is that she trims
her daughter's hairs every single day. And she said that,
that they're like her little bond. They are like her
little bonsais. And I thought that was hilarious. And that is
my little honorable mention of Ali Wong's Single lady, her
latest comedy special streaming now on Netflix.
(26:12):
Goats Doing Goat Shit. This is the segment of
the sponsored a podcast, your favorite and mine, where I like to highlight
goats within their respective areas that go
above and beyond and do something dope, do something honorable that I like
to credit here in the Goats Doing Goat Shit segment. Things that they
don't have to do but decide to this episode's
(26:34):
inductee and the final inductee of 2024 to the
Goats Doing Goat Shit list, none other
than Mr. Beast, aka Jimmy Donaldson.
For those that don't know Mr. Beast is the largest YouTuber
on the planet. He also has this. He's
gone viral, you know, tons and tons and tons of
(26:57):
times. Again, biggest YouTube YouTuber in the world. And
he does things create his own games, which he actually has a
dope one on Prime Video
as of late that I just saw a couple episodes of. I think they're streaming
one episode every every week or every few days or something like that. And it's
broken a bunch of Guinness World Records for
(27:19):
most contestants on the game show. He had a thousand most cameras on a game
show. Over a thousand. He built a city
to host these games. Literally built from the ground up and
just a ton of records and stuff like that. But he this Is that's a
huge skill thing that he's doing. But he's done things. He gives away like a
quarter million dollars all the time. A million dollars holds a sign on the side
(27:40):
of the road that says house for sale, $1. And people actually stop, you know,
actually sold them the house for a dollar after buying it. Does a bunch
of games. You know, there's a huge circle in the middle of a field and
you know, 50 people will be in it. The last one to leave the circle
gets a million bucks. Like weird, crazy interesting videos like
that that just grab your attention. But he has this philanthropic arm
(28:01):
that I've highlighted in the past, definitely on my newsletter, in the video
of the week section, which folks can subscribe to. Absolutely. For free at
sponsoreday.com forward/subscribe. Where he's done things
like built a hundred water wells in
Africa, paid for LASIK surgery for like a thousand
people that otherwise were blind. And
(28:23):
I'm sorry, not LASIK surgery, cataract surgery that, you know, people that were
blind, they just couldn't afford the surgery for it.
Give them their sight back and just really cool dope, things like that.
But the reason why I'm adding him to the goats doing goat
shit segment today is because
of the play
(28:45):
against, for lack of a better choice of word against
big chocolate, quote, unquote. So
he has this company called Feastables which makes chocolate
bars, which are actually pretty good. And the whole idea is that, you know,
candy bars don't have to be, you know, chock full of and chemicals
and stuff like that. You can make them with just a minimal number of ingredients.
(29:08):
Kids, I believe, just have chocolate and sugar and like sea
salt and then whatever else. You know, if it has peanut butter or
peanuts or almonds or whatever, you know, it doesn't have yellow number five
and Zenith and gum and this and that and the other and a list
of shitload of ingredients. It's a small
company, right, that he has been scaling, it's called Feastables.
(29:30):
And he was getting the cocoa for his chocolate
from a sustainable ethical source,
sustainable farms, you know, family owned farms in Peru. But he said that
70% of the world's cocoa comes from West
Africa. That's where all the big players get their chocolate because they're
such huge companies, they need tons and tons and just a very large
(29:52):
supply of chocolate. His beef with that is
that 46% of
the labor of those that source
of cocoa in the world. So 70% of all the cocoa in the world comes
from West Africa. From two countries called
Devour, Devore and Ghana. And
(30:13):
of that 70 source of chocolate, 46 of them,
so almost half of them all employ child labor. And he said
that he knew he would have to move the operations for Feastables, his supply
chain rather for Feastables, over to West Africa
because it would outgrow what Peru is able to supply.
And that, you know, the sustainable chocolate source
(30:36):
that he was getting from Peru, he can't really say to
the big chocolate players, you know, you should source your,
your chocolate sustainably and not employ child
labor because look, we can do it. He said that
wouldn't be a good argument because from their perspective they'll just say, oh, you don't
know how it works, you're too small, that's good for you, but not, you know,
(30:58):
not sustainable for us. We can't do that at this level. Now
what he's found is that a big reason that there is child
labor is because the farms don't make enough money to be
able to afford to hire adults. But there's this thing
called the Living Income reference price scale
where it breaks down that if a farmer sells
(31:21):
you a metric ton of beans, if they don't get paid X,
then they won't be able to make a living wage which essentially
forces them to turn to child labor in order to survive. Now what
Feastables is doing is using that metric and
guaranteeing farmers that price contingent
on no child labor. So he said theoretically, if they sell it to
(31:43):
him for less, Feastables will pay them a premium on
top of what they sell it to them for and say no, this is what
you need to actually live, etc, and you know, break it all down for
them. They also have form farm coaches that are helping them
get more yield out of their farm. So he says 5 to 10% more
yield of hectares, more yield out of the hectares that they
(32:05):
have and getting them supplies, etc and teaching them how to make
more out of what they have. And you know, he went out there himself, spent
the week on working the farms, figuring out how to do the ethical
sourcing thing the right way. And his long term
goal, which is why again, I'm adding him to the goats doing goat
shit segment, is that he hopes to prove the concept
(32:28):
once Feastables does scale up to the levels of Big
Chocolate, that Big Chocolate can also
be ethically sourced, AKA no child
labor and profitable. It doesn't have to be either
or. And then he can use that proof of concept
as well as his, you know, huge platform to essentially
(32:49):
bully Big chocolate into following
suit. And he said, you know, there are currently over
a million kids in child labor in cocoa farms in that
area and obviously he can't get all million of the kids out,
but he says if he can put a dent into a couple thousand
and then with his influence get one or
(33:12):
some of those big chocolate companies to follow suit or do the same,
it can lead to tens of thousands of kids or 100 thousands of kids
not having to be working in cocoa farms in West
Africa. And for that I'm officially inducting Mr.
Beast aka Jimmy Donaldson into
the Spade Goats doing goat list. Good
(33:35):
on you sir and welcome to the club.
And that folks was episode 276 of the Spun
Today Podcast. Thank you once again for each and every one of you who
take the time to listen. I really do appreciate it. And like I said
in the beginning of the show, this year has had a lot of ups
(33:55):
and downs, more downs than ups for some of
us. But try and keep an optimistic outlook, stay
positive and it's let's all aim toward
a 2025 that is filled with much more ups
than downs and let's work towards making that happen, not
just wish for it. I wish you and yours happy and healthy
(34:17):
holiday season. Peace out to 2024 and I will check you guys
out in the new Year. Peace.
What's up folks? Tony here. I hope you're enjoying the Spun Today
Podcast as much as I enjoy producing it for you. Here are a few
ways you can. Help support the show. You can support the Spun Today
(34:38):
podcast financially by going to spuntoday.com
support. There you will find a couple different ways that you can do just that,
some of which will actually not even cost you a dime, such as
using my Amazon affiliate link. When you go to
spuncerday.com support, you'll see my affiliate
link to Amazon. Click on it and it will take you to Amazon's website
(35:00):
where you can do your shopping like normal. This will not cost you anything
extra, but Amazon will pay me for driving traffic to their
website. If you'd like to support the podcast more directly, you
can do so by becoming a patron@spuntoday.com
support. You'll also find my Patreon link. This is where
creators such as myself can be paid directly by patrons like
(35:22):
you. You can either make a one time donation or schedule
recurring donations if you so choose. There are also different tiers of
support and depending on which you decide to go with, you'll also receive some perks
in return, such as early access to content, free digital copies of my
books, free bookmarks, etc. That is again by
supporting via my Patreon link available@
(35:44):
sponsoreday.com support similar to Patreon at that same
location. You'll also find my Ko Fi link as well as my Buy me
a Coffee link. They work very similar to Patreon and are different ways
you can help support the show financially. And last but certainly not least,
you have the good old fashioned PayPal donation button. Any which way
that you choose to support is greatly appreciated. It all helps me do
(36:07):
more of what I love, which is writing and podcasting. Again, go
to spunterday.com support.
You can also support the Sponsor Day podcast by rating and
reviewing the show. Wherever it is that you're listening to. This episode,
I'd really appreciate it because it really does help. Also, follow me
on all socials. Fun Today on X Formerly
(36:29):
known as Twitter, Spun Today on Instagram
and spun today on YouTube where you'll not only
find full length episodes of the podcast, but also chopped up
clips and additional content. And of course you can follow the
Facebook page at facebook.com forward/spun
today. Another way you can help support the Spun Today podcast
(36:51):
and also upgrade that stale wardrobe of yours is by going to
Spun Today.com support and clicking on
the banner for Stitch Fix. Once you do, you'll enjoy a
$25 discount to your first purchase. And the way Stitch Fix works
is pretty cool. I use it and I've never been disappointed. You'll set up a
profile. You'll put in all the sizes for your clothes as well
(37:13):
as all the different brands and types of clothes that you like to wear.
It's really simple and intuitive to set up. They'll show you pictures and pretty much
give you a thumbs up or thumbs down option on if you would wear something
or not. And you get to select all the brands that you already are
used to wearing. With this information, there are thousands of
passionate trend setting stylists will curate
(37:35):
a. Stitch Fix box for you. They'll send you five items that you get to
preview before they mail it to you and you'll get to select based on the
image if you like it or not. If not, they replace it with something else
and if so, they'll mail it. To you absolutely for free. You can try
everything on and you have a few days to send everything back or
keep the stuff that you want to keep. Then you can use that $25 credit
(37:56):
that I mentioned towards your purchase of those items again to
freshen up your wardrobe and Also support the Sponsor Day podcast. Go
to sponsor day.com forward/support and click
on my affiliate link banner for Stitch Fix and enjoy your
$25 credit. Do you want to start your own podcast?
Have a great show idea that you want to get out into the masses but
(38:17):
don't know quite how to get it from your head out into the world?
Well, here's how. Use the podcast host
Libsyn. That's who I use to bring the Spun Today podcast to
you. And now you can use them the same way. Using the
promo code spun s pun, you can open up your
Libsyn account today and get two months of free
(38:39):
podcast hosting. Here's how it works. Once you record
your show, you upload it to your Libsyn account where you can fill in
your episode notes, upload your podcast art, and
schedule when you want your episodes to release. Once you
do that, Libsyn will take care of the rest. They'll distribute your show to
Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and all the
(39:02):
other podcasters that you choose instantaneously and
seamlessly. Again, go to Libsyn.com and use the promo
code SPUN S P U N to get two months
free. Or use the affiliate link that's in the episode notes.
Again, that's Libsyn.com promo code SPUN.
Take that great podcast idea from out of your head and put it out
(39:24):
into the world. And as always, folks, substitute
the mysticism with hard work and start taking steps in the general
direction of your dreams. Thanks for listening.
(39:49):
I love you, Aiden. I love you, Daddy.
I love you, Grayson. I love you, Daddy.
What's up folks? What's going on? Welcome to the Spun Today Podcast,
the only podcast that is anchored in writing but
unlimited in scope. I'm your host, Tony Ortiz, and I appreciate you
listening. This is episode 276 of
the Spun Today Podcast and it's the final episode of the year.
The final episode of 2024. In this episode,
(00:42):
I'll break down watching beetlejuice, Beetlejuice
or Beetlejuice 2. For the uninitiated, Tom Papa's
latest comedy special, Home Free, as well as an
honorable mention of a few other comedy specials. Stick around to
find out which those are. And last, but certainly not least,
a new addition to your favorite segment in mine,
(01:04):
Goats Doing Goat Shit. Stick around to find out who made the
list in this final episode of the year. I want to thank, as always,
each and every one of you who take the time to listen, who have been
listening throughout the year. This year has been filled with ups and downs
and unfortunately more downs than ups, at least on my
side of things. If you and yours have had a similar
(01:26):
year, definitely looking forward to 2025 turning
things around for us all. I'm definitely optimistically
looking toward next year and beyond, but I'll definitely expound
on that during the next episode, slash first episode of
2025 when I do the
2024 or prior year, look back
(01:48):
and reflection on goals that were met that were not met and
establish some for the following year. So definitely
stick around or look out rather for that episode in a couple
weeks. And without further ado, here are a few
ways that you can help support this podcast. If you so choose,
your support means a ton and it's much appreciated. There's a bunch
(02:11):
of different ways that you can help support, whether it be by using affiliate
links to get discounts on things they may already be shopping
for, all of which you can find that Spuntaday.com
support, or whether it's purchasing some merch, some of my
books, so on and so forth. But here is one of those ways you
can help support and then we will jump right into the episode.
(02:33):
You can help support the Spun Today podcast by shopping my merch
section. Go to spunter.com support and navigate
to the merch section. Here you'll find the iconic
Podcast versus Anybody tee, which comes in many different color
schemes and all different sizes. There are a bunch of other designs
available as well, including riding themed shirts,
(02:55):
cycling shirts, and the classic Dominican escudo, and
much, much more. And if T shirts aren't your thing, all
designs also come in pullover hoodies, zip up hoodies,
sweatshirts and tank tops. You can also shop the
spontane coffee mugs, which has the spontane logo on one side and
the tagline that I end every episode with on the other, which is
(03:17):
start taking steps in the general direction of your dreams.
Once again, for all spun today merch go to
spuntaday.com support and navigate to the merch
section. Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice, aka Beetlejuice 2 was
released in 2024 and is the sequel to Beetlejuice, the
(03:39):
original film from
1988. So decades
later, and I personally thought it was a great watch, it's definitely one
of those sequels that does not disappoint. You know, as
of late, as of the past few years, there's been a lot of remakes and
reboots and things of that nature, some of which hit,
(04:00):
a lot of which missed. I've spoken about something I
enjoyed here on the podcast in the past, and this
one I thought was dope because it was most if not all of the
main characters and from the first
movie. And it was a like, where are they now
all these years later? You know, they didn't CGI it and keep
(04:21):
them all young or, you know, try to do a storyline that was
not consistent with the actual timeline of how much time
has passed between this sequel and the first
film. And it was a cool movie in and of itself. But
here is the official synopsis. After a family
tragedy, three generations of the Deets family
(04:43):
return home to Winter river, still haunted
by Beetlejuice. Lydia's life is turned upside down
when her teenage daughter Astrid accidentally opens
the portal to the afterlife. And as we like to do here on
the Spot Today podcast, because if we don't, who will? Let's shout out
the writers. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is
(05:06):
based on characters created by Michael McDowell
and Larry Wilson. The story is by Alfred
Go, Miles Millar and Seth
Graham Smith, and the screenplay is by
Alfred Go and Miles Millar.
Shout out to each and every one of those
(05:28):
writers that put this film
together and got it from the pen to paper,
text to script, and allowed it to become what it
became when the iconic Tim Burton
directed the out of it. So the movie, if you're a fan of the first
one, definitely checks off all the nostalgia boxes. Again you
(05:49):
have all the main characters coming back. Michael Keaton playing Beetlejuice,
Winona Ryder playing Lydia Dietz, Catherine O'Hara
playing Delia Deetz. You have a great addition in Jenna
Ortega playing Astrid Deetz which is the daughter
of Lydia. And we enter the world with all of
them, you know, grown and older. Astrid's character
(06:11):
is very similar to Lydia's character in the first film.
You know, like the misunderstood goth ish teenager.
So you see that dynamic replaying itself consistent with the
first film. And then you have the relationship between
Lydia and Delia being in a bit of a better
place than the contentious, you know, stepmother type. I remember if she
(06:34):
was her stepmother or adopted mother. But the contentious type of relationship
that they had growing up. And Delia who was an
artist, like, you know, she used to do sculptures and I think paintings and
stuff as well. But definitely sculptures like these weird
tacky ones in the, in the first film becomes this world renowned
artist. She's big time now.
(06:55):
Delia is also has her own television show.
She still sees ghosts and is able to see folks from the afterlife. So
she has this Ms. Cleo type of, you
know, speak to the dead or help your audience
members, you know, see, speak to their past relatives and stuff
like that. Just like that type of show going on which the daughter
(07:18):
is completely embarrassed about and thinks she's full of essentially.
And then the father from the first film is
noticeably not around in the picture and they address it fairly
early on and you find that they killed
the out of his pedophile ass
in Claymation. So if you don't know the
(07:40):
backstory behind it, the father from the first
film, which is played by an actor named
Jeffrey Jones, was one of the main characters in the first film. He's the,
the principal in Ferris Bueller's Day off, if you're familiar with that.
He back in 2002, 2004, pleaded no contest
and was found guilty of having being in the possession
(08:02):
of child pornography. He also allegedly I don't want to get sued.
Paid 14 or 13 or 15 year old
boy to pose for nude and lewd pictures.
And you know, he's a registered sex offender. You know, pretty much obviously
fell out of the Hollywood scene thereafter. Then in a couple
years, years later moved to a different state, either
(08:26):
Florida or California. Forgot, quote unquote, forgot to register as a sex
offender. So after being on five years of probation, I think is
what he got. Wound up also being sentenced to community service
after that infraction and then moved again to again either
California or Florida, I forget the order of it a few years later and quote
unquote, forgot again to register as a sex offender, so
(08:49):
on and so forth. So that being said in the movie,
they kill him off, you know, he was literally one of the main characters of
the first one. They couldn't just not reference him, you know, from a
story perspective. But it was pretty funny how they did it. I.
I thought. So they made it that he
was on an airplane. As Delia, the mom, is telling the
(09:11):
story to her daughter of how he died. She says that, you know, he
was on a plane, he was gonna go, you know, bird watching some safari or
something like that. The plane crashes, and Lydia's like,
oh, my God, he died in a plane crash. And then the mom is like,
no, actually, he didn't. He survived the plane crash somehow
and was floating along on a piece of
luggage after almost drowning. And then there was this
(09:35):
big explosion and he got, you know, super hurt in the. In the
explosion. And she was, oh, my God, he died. You know,
he burned to death. And then the mom was like, no, he still didn't die.
Then he was almost going to shore or to safety or something like that. And
then a shark came out of the water and.
And just bit half his body off. And then that's how he dies.
(09:56):
So they fucking killed him like three times. And they. While she's
telling the daughter the story, the way they did it in the film was that
she's describing everything that happened to the daughter and they're
showing it visually, but in claymation form,
which was an interesting Tim Burton touch to the whole
thing. So, going back to the dynamic between Astrid and
(10:18):
Lydia, which, again, is very similar to the dynamic between Lydia and
Delia in the first movie. She's a rebellious teen, you
know, once distanced from her mom, I think she's full of shit and
kind of a grifter in terms of speaking to the dead. And the TV
show that she has, she doesn't like that fame and is dealing with
the loss of her dad, who. Who died after
(10:41):
her parents had gotten divorced, I believe. So she kind of resents her mom a
little bit for that as well. And they all come back to the hometown where,
you know, the original movie takes place for the funeral and
arrangements and stuff like that. She doesn't want to be there. Winds up
riding her bike and getting into an accident. The brakes don't
work, crashes into a tree type of thing. And this kid named
(11:02):
Jeremy, played by Arthur Conti, helps her
out, befriends her, invites her over for Halloween so they can, you
know, give candy to the kids together. And they pretty much hit it off.
So now all of a sudden has the. This pseudo
love interest slash friend. And now she does want to stay
in the town. You know, she wants to hang out with this guy. Her mom
(11:25):
begrudgingly gives her permission to do so to hang out with him. She
finds out from a realtor that she's speaking to
in the area that her daughter went to hang out with, with a boy
that she met on, you know, XYZ Street. She says the
name of the street. I forget what it is. Roots is like, oh, I hope
it's not anywhere near that house where that horrible incident happened.
(11:47):
I had her on the market for years and nobody's ever been willing to. To
purchase it. And she's like, what house? She's like, oh, you don't know the story
of so and so. This. This kid essentially murdered both his
parents and then wound up falling out of a tree and breaking his
own neck or some wild like that. And then Lydia. Wait, what's the. The
address of the house? Because she had previously dropped her daughter off at the house
(12:08):
to hang out with the boy. And of course, same address. So she
rushes over there, but is essentially too late.
By this point, Astrid realizes that
Jeremy is a ghost. He comes clean to her and
lies to her, though, becomes clean about being a ghost and that
he found this book that, you know, if he goes with her
(12:31):
to the. To the afterlife, she can help him get
his soul back. And she. He gave him. He gave her this
sob story of what happened to his family, which is obviously not
the real story, but essentially so that she
would agree to go with him into the afterlife to do him this
favor. And she agrees because she likes the guy. She's also
(12:54):
having the mental, you know, dilemma slash realization of, oh, shit, my mom was
telling the truth. She can't see dead people because now I can too.
But Lydia gets there. The kid, you know, takes her into the
afterlife. There's a spell that they do and, you know, draw the
door on the wall and go through. But the real
way for the kid to get a soul back and, you know, become living again
(13:16):
would be to take her soul, Ashford soul. So that's what
he essentially is trying to do under the guise
of, you know, she's just going to help him type of thing. And the rest
of the movie from there on out is pretty much Winona Ryder following them into
the afterlife, invoking Beetlejuice, having to
get him to help her go into the afterlife
(13:37):
to get her daughter back and to prevent this whole soul
swapping thing from happening. Michael Keaton, of course,
steals the show, as he does in the first movie. He's great
throughout there's also a dope character called
Dolores, played by Monica Bellucci.
She plays Beetlejuice's wife that
(13:59):
was chopped up into a bunch of different pieces by Beetlejuice because she was
a soul. Literally a soul sucking monster.
Beetlejuice married her once upon a time and then she just wanted to
take his soul. He winds up killing her and chopping her up, but
keeping her body separate so she could never come back together. She
gets loose somehow and staples
(14:22):
herself back together together in this really cool scene
where her body parts are literally coming back together and she's using a staple
gun to staple herself. And then she just wants to find Beetlejuice to
get her revenge. So he's dealing with that while
also trying to help Lydia get her daughter
back and running his whole, you know, afterlife services. And
(14:44):
he has Bob, the guy with a shrunken head. He had a ton of those
working for him in this afterlife office
setting. They show at the end that Bob dies. RIP
Bob, he lives from the year 1372 to
2024 and dies at the hand of actually Dolores, the
soul sucker. Danny DeVito is in it. He plays the
(15:06):
janitor. He's in it for for a few minutes. Also dies at
the hand of this soul sucking lady. Willem Dafoe is in it, does a great
job and it was just a dope watch. I definitely
recommend it, especially if you were into the first movie. It's a no
brainer. You'll love this one as well. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Streaming
now on HBO. Max
(15:29):
Tom Papa's latest comedy special, Home
Free was released in 2024.
Tom Papa I've broken down prior specials of
his. At least one, probably two or three in the
past. He's a hilarious comedian, apparently a great baker. I
got into his his YouTube bread baking
(15:51):
show that he was doing during the Pandemic
does these sourdough breads and super nerdy
into that world, which is pretty cool. He is a
cleanish comic. I want to say. I've heard him curse
before. I wouldn't say he's as clean as a Seinfeld or Nate
Bargazi, which are hilarious comics that I that I also
(16:12):
love. So I'm definitely not saying that as a pejorative.
It's a clean comic. I just see it as a different style
of delivering laughs, just as effective as any other
style of comedy. But his latest special, Home Free, which is available on
Netflix, did not disappoint. Here are a few
of the bits or jokes or lines
(16:34):
of writing that resonated with me, you know, he's a family
man, married, two daughters. I want to say maybe three.
I think two has a bunch of pets. And his
comedy is themed around
that lifestyle. And the whole home free concept
ties to the fact that he and his wife are now empty nesters. I think
(16:56):
his last kid just went off to college, so a lot of what
this special is about is around that. And he says
in it that he dropped his youngest at
college and that nobody tells you how hard it's gonna
be to pretend to be sad. This other one I jotted down, but
I do not remember the joke too well. I wrote down that
(17:18):
he said something to the effect of driving at night and mistaking garbage cans for
people, I think being paranoid, being high or drunk or something like
that. He said that as a. As a dad, you have to
pretend to be Superman. You can't just cry.
And then when your kids ask you what's wrong, say everything.
Everything. I can't figure this out. He spoke about inner
(17:39):
dialogue that you have as a. As a dad, as an
adult, and that your brain holds on to insults
and just plays them over and over in a loop in your head.
And you just tell your things yourself. Things like, I'm not gonna get that
promotion. I'm not gonna get a pay raise this year. Everyone knows
I smell like ham. He just slipped that in. I thought it was hilarious.
(18:01):
This one definitely hit close to home. He goes, you know, you wake up
early every morning, you start making breakfast for your kids. It's in,
it's still dark, you're tired. You drive them to school,
and then you go back to pick them up 20 minutes later. @ least that's
how it feels like. And then you take them to all these activities like
you're some sort of Uber driver, and you're taking them to all these activities that
(18:23):
they can't even do. I. I just love the inflection of
his voice and how he. He repeats the
last, like, couple words and sometimes sentence of
what he says often, and you kind of get in. He lulls you
into the cadence of. Of how he talks. Definitely an enjoyable comic to
watch. But yeah, those were just a few My. My
(18:45):
takeaways from watching his special. I definitely recommend it. Tom
Papa's latest comedy special, Home
Free streaming now on Netflix.
I saw a few other comedy specials recently, a few honorable
mentions that I wanted to shout out, starting with
Anthony Jeselnik's latest, Bones and all.
(19:08):
Anthony Jeselnik is the king of
misdirect. You often usually don't know where he's
going. He takes sharp, sharp left turns
in delivering his comedy, you think he's speaking about one thing, he flips it on
his head and then it's usually something just like provocative and
holy. I didn't see that coming. Really funny comic. And I
(19:30):
enjoy his comedy. Even with the shots fired at Rogan,
not so much, but Rogan. Other comedians within
Rogan's immediate orbit that he spoke about actually on Top Papa's
podcast as well as on this special. But he has a
couple funny bits I wanted to mention here. He's speaking to sibling rivalry
and he says that his brother, when they were little, he let his
(19:52):
dog run away. So for
retribution for that, he poisoned his fish. And he said that he
won in the end because he got his dog back,
but his brother died from the salmon. Said a friend of his started
talking about premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction and things
that. And he advised his friend to start talking about baseball.
(20:15):
And his friend was like, don't you mean start thinking about baseball?
And he was. And he replied, I don't give a what you think about. Just
don't talk to me about premature ejaculation. Then the last one I'll share
is he said that he stopped listening to Kanye when Kanye went
Christian and that his manager used to keep him up on things that
that Kanye would say and when he was in the news all the time
(20:37):
and he, his manager told him that Kanye started wearing White
Lives Matter T shirts and saying anti Semitic things.
And Anthony Jesel Nick's response was, oh, so he went super
Christian. And that is an honorable mention to Anthony Jeselnik's latest
special Bones and all streaming now on Netflix.
The next honorable mention comedy special that
(20:59):
I wanted to speak to is Jamie Fox's what Had
Happened was also available on Netflix.
Jamie Foxx, for those who don't know, is like a
triple quadruple threat. He's a
hilarious comedic actor and dramatic actor so you can
act his ass off. He can sing, he plays
(21:21):
instruments, he does stand up. Super,
super talented dude. I always compare him in terms of just being
multifaceted hyphenate as they say to
John Leguizamo I feel has skills that as
well when it comes to I guess within the
comedic and able to play dramatic roles as
(21:42):
well. The one man shows that he does and things
that never never heard him sing or play instruments or anything that. But
yeah, Jamie's the man and he went
through big medical scare
about a year or two ago where people thought that
he died. People thought that he was about to die, that he's going to die.
(22:04):
And this was the first time that he was going to speak to it publicly,
this special. So it was very much anticipated because of that. And also it's
Jamie Foxx acute. I feel nobody has ever had a bad thing to say about
Jamie Foxx. One of those celebrities that everybody reveres and nobody has a
to talk about. It was a super emotional special. He had one
of his daughters bring him out. He had another of his daughters who plays the
(22:26):
guitar and sings, come on stage and do a song with
him. He detailed what
happened the, the day that he got sick. And
it was super emotional. He was in Atlanta. He had a really bad
headache and he asked for, for aspirin or
Advil or something and before he was able to even take it, he just blacked
(22:48):
out. Then he, he wakes up. It's like days
later he can't walk. And essentially he had a
stroke. And in the special, which is not just like straight
stand up comedy, he walks you through that
journey while sprinkling in jokes, while being super
emotional. You know, him crying, the crowd crying, what
(23:09):
folks watching at home crying, getting all choked up. I'm not
crying. You're crying. He recorded the special in Atlanta, which is where,
where it happened. And he has this ability to bring you
into the moment. He has so much charisma, you get drawn into the
story. He sprinkles jokes throughout the whole thing. He has
this family moment on stage and it's
(23:31):
somehow very intimate while being completely, you
know, out in the open for the audience to see. And
flexes all of his dramatic and
comedic talents through characters that he's played like Willie
Beeman, Ray Charles. And he embodies
those characters to tell parts of the story. And it's so
(23:54):
ill. It's not. Again, just traditional straight stand
up, but it's a dope experience. Definitely
worth the watch, especially to support Jamie Foxx. That's my
honorable mention for Jamie Foxx's what Had Happened was
streaming now on Netflix. Last but certainly not least
in my honorable mentions section of recent
(24:16):
stand up comedy specials that I saw single lady
Ali Wong, who I think I've definitely broken down
her specials in the past, but I think that she is the
pioneer of filming comedy specials. While
pregnant, she did it with her first daughter and her second
really funny comic recently got divorced. You know, she was
(24:39):
married and pregnant throughout her other specials
and this is the first special that she filmed post
divorce. And she's a raunchy, funny
Definitely worth the watch. Comedian and if you follow, haven't
followed her comedic career thus far. You're kind of invested in
what happened. Why'd they get divorced? She was like so spoke so
(25:02):
highly of her, her ex and he made made his
way into her comedy specials and how, you know, he's this big finance guy, but
somehow she's the rich one and wound up paying student
loans. So she feels that she got over in that sense. She's
had stuff like that in the past, but now they actually divorce. Divorced. You
know, those were all jokes. But a couple things that she mentioned that were
(25:24):
hilarious were that she has a divorced mom energy
and all she wants is to just get dicked down and
she doesn't care if you pronounce hors d'oeuvres as horde
devourers. And she said she feels that her heart
is like Swiss cheese and that she needs different
sized bespoke dicks to fill all those holes.
(25:48):
And another one that she said that I thought was hilarious is that she trims
her daughter's hairs every single day. And she said that,
that they're like her little bond. They are like her
little bonsais. And I thought that was hilarious. And that is
my little honorable mention of Ali Wong's Single lady, her
latest comedy special streaming now on Netflix.
(26:12):
Goats Doing Goat Shit. This is the segment of
the sponsored a podcast, your favorite and mine, where I like to highlight
goats within their respective areas that go
above and beyond and do something dope, do something honorable that I like
to credit here in the Goats Doing Goat Shit segment. Things that they
don't have to do but decide to this episode's
(26:34):
inductee and the final inductee of 2024 to the
Goats Doing Goat Shit list, none other
than Mr. Beast, aka Jimmy Donaldson.
For those that don't know Mr. Beast is the largest YouTuber
on the planet. He also has this. He's
gone viral, you know, tons and tons and tons of
(26:57):
times. Again, biggest YouTube YouTuber in the world. And
he does things create his own games, which he actually has a
dope one on Prime Video
as of late that I just saw a couple episodes of. I think they're streaming
one episode every every week or every few days or something like that. And it's
broken a bunch of Guinness World Records for
(27:19):
most contestants on the game show. He had a thousand most cameras on a game
show. Over a thousand. He built a city
to host these games. Literally built from the ground up and
just a ton of records and stuff like that. But he this Is that's a
huge skill thing that he's doing. But he's done things. He gives away like a
quarter million dollars all the time. A million dollars holds a sign on the side
(27:40):
of the road that says house for sale, $1. And people actually stop, you know,
actually sold them the house for a dollar after buying it. Does a bunch
of games. You know, there's a huge circle in the middle of a field and
you know, 50 people will be in it. The last one to leave the circle
gets a million bucks. Like weird, crazy interesting videos like
that that just grab your attention. But he has this philanthropic arm
(28:01):
that I've highlighted in the past, definitely on my newsletter, in the video
of the week section, which folks can subscribe to. Absolutely. For free at
sponsoreday.com forward/subscribe. Where he's done things
like built a hundred water wells in
Africa, paid for LASIK surgery for like a thousand
people that otherwise were blind. And
(28:23):
I'm sorry, not LASIK surgery, cataract surgery that, you know, people that were
blind, they just couldn't afford the surgery for it.
Give them their sight back and just really cool dope, things like that.
But the reason why I'm adding him to the goats doing goat
shit segment today is because
of the play
(28:45):
against, for lack of a better choice of word against
big chocolate, quote, unquote. So
he has this company called Feastables which makes chocolate
bars, which are actually pretty good. And the whole idea is that, you know,
candy bars don't have to be, you know, chock full of and chemicals
and stuff like that. You can make them with just a minimal number of ingredients.
(29:08):
Kids, I believe, just have chocolate and sugar and like sea
salt and then whatever else. You know, if it has peanut butter or
peanuts or almonds or whatever, you know, it doesn't have yellow number five
and Zenith and gum and this and that and the other and a list
of shitload of ingredients. It's a small
company, right, that he has been scaling, it's called Feastables.
(29:30):
And he was getting the cocoa for his chocolate
from a sustainable ethical source,
sustainable farms, you know, family owned farms in Peru. But he said that
70% of the world's cocoa comes from West
Africa. That's where all the big players get their chocolate because they're
such huge companies, they need tons and tons and just a very large
(29:52):
supply of chocolate. His beef with that is
that 46% of
the labor of those that source
of cocoa in the world. So 70% of all the cocoa in the world comes
from West Africa. From two countries called
Devour, Devore and Ghana. And
(30:13):
of that 70 source of chocolate, 46 of them,
so almost half of them all employ child labor. And he said
that he knew he would have to move the operations for Feastables, his supply
chain rather for Feastables, over to West Africa
because it would outgrow what Peru is able to supply.
And that, you know, the sustainable chocolate source
(30:36):
that he was getting from Peru, he can't really say to
the big chocolate players, you know, you should source your,
your chocolate sustainably and not employ child
labor because look, we can do it. He said that
wouldn't be a good argument because from their perspective they'll just say, oh, you don't
know how it works, you're too small, that's good for you, but not, you know,
(30:58):
not sustainable for us. We can't do that at this level. Now
what he's found is that a big reason that there is child
labor is because the farms don't make enough money to be
able to afford to hire adults. But there's this thing
called the Living Income reference price scale
where it breaks down that if a farmer sells
(31:21):
you a metric ton of beans, if they don't get paid X,
then they won't be able to make a living wage which essentially
forces them to turn to child labor in order to survive. Now what
Feastables is doing is using that metric and
guaranteeing farmers that price contingent
on no child labor. So he said theoretically, if they sell it to
(31:43):
him for less, Feastables will pay them a premium on
top of what they sell it to them for and say no, this is what
you need to actually live, etc, and you know, break it all down for
them. They also have form farm coaches that are helping them
get more yield out of their farm. So he says 5 to 10% more
yield of hectares, more yield out of the hectares that they
(32:05):
have and getting them supplies, etc and teaching them how to make
more out of what they have. And you know, he went out there himself, spent
the week on working the farms, figuring out how to do the ethical
sourcing thing the right way. And his long term
goal, which is why again, I'm adding him to the goats doing goat
shit segment, is that he hopes to prove the concept
(32:28):
once Feastables does scale up to the levels of Big
Chocolate, that Big Chocolate can also
be ethically sourced, AKA no child
labor and profitable. It doesn't have to be either
or. And then he can use that proof of concept
as well as his, you know, huge platform to essentially
(32:49):
bully Big chocolate into following
suit. And he said, you know, there are currently over
a million kids in child labor in cocoa farms in that
area and obviously he can't get all million of the kids out,
but he says if he can put a dent into a couple thousand
and then with his influence get one or
(33:12):
some of those big chocolate companies to follow suit or do the same,
it can lead to tens of thousands of kids or 100 thousands of kids
not having to be working in cocoa farms in West
Africa. And for that I'm officially inducting Mr.
Beast aka Jimmy Donaldson into
the Spade Goats doing goat list. Good
(33:35):
on you sir and welcome to the club.
And that folks was episode 276 of the Spun
Today Podcast. Thank you once again for each and every one of you who
take the time to listen. I really do appreciate it. And like I said
in the beginning of the show, this year has had a lot of ups
(33:55):
and downs, more downs than ups for some of
us. But try and keep an optimistic outlook, stay
positive and it's let's all aim toward
a 2025 that is filled with much more ups
than downs and let's work towards making that happen, not
just wish for it. I wish you and yours happy and healthy
(34:17):
holiday season. Peace out to 2024 and I will check you guys
out in the new Year. Peace.
What's up folks? Tony here. I hope you're enjoying the Spun Today
Podcast as much as I enjoy producing it for you. Here are a few
ways you can. Help support the show. You can support the Spun Today
(34:38):
podcast financially by going to spuntoday.com
support. There you will find a couple different ways that you can do just that,
some of which will actually not even cost you a dime, such as
using my Amazon affiliate link. When you go to
spuncerday.com support, you'll see my affiliate
link to Amazon. Click on it and it will take you to Amazon's website
(35:00):
where you can do your shopping like normal. This will not cost you anything
extra, but Amazon will pay me for driving traffic to their
website. If you'd like to support the podcast more directly, you
can do so by becoming a patron@spuntoday.com
support. You'll also find my Patreon link. This is where
creators such as myself can be paid directly by patrons like
(35:22):
you. You can either make a one time donation or schedule
recurring donations if you so choose. There are also different tiers of
support and depending on which you decide to go with, you'll also receive some perks
in return, such as early access to content, free digital copies of my
books, free bookmarks, etc. That is again by
supporting via my Patreon link available@
(35:44):
sponsoreday.com support similar to Patreon at that same
location. You'll also find my Ko Fi link as well as my Buy me
a Coffee link. They work very similar to Patreon and are different ways
you can help support the show financially. And last but certainly not least,
you have the good old fashioned PayPal donation button. Any which way
that you choose to support is greatly appreciated. It all helps me do
(36:07):
more of what I love, which is writing and podcasting. Again, go
to spunterday.com support.
You can also support the Sponsor Day podcast by rating and
reviewing the show. Wherever it is that you're listening to. This episode,
I'd really appreciate it because it really does help. Also, follow me
on all socials. Fun Today on X Formerly
(36:29):
known as Twitter, Spun Today on Instagram
and spun today on YouTube where you'll not only
find full length episodes of the podcast, but also chopped up
clips and additional content. And of course you can follow the
Facebook page at facebook.com forward/spun
today. Another way you can help support the Spun Today podcast
(36:51):
and also upgrade that stale wardrobe of yours is by going to
Spun Today.com support and clicking on
the banner for Stitch Fix. Once you do, you'll enjoy a
$25 discount to your first purchase. And the way Stitch Fix works
is pretty cool. I use it and I've never been disappointed. You'll set up a
profile. You'll put in all the sizes for your clothes as well
(37:13):
as all the different brands and types of clothes that you like to wear.
It's really simple and intuitive to set up. They'll show you pictures and pretty much
give you a thumbs up or thumbs down option on if you would wear something
or not. And you get to select all the brands that you already are
used to wearing. With this information, there are thousands of
passionate trend setting stylists will curate
(37:35):
a. Stitch Fix box for you. They'll send you five items that you get to
preview before they mail it to you and you'll get to select based on the
image if you like it or not. If not, they replace it with something else
and if so, they'll mail it. To you absolutely for free. You can try
everything on and you have a few days to send everything back or
keep the stuff that you want to keep. Then you can use that $25 credit
(37:56):
that I mentioned towards your purchase of those items again to
freshen up your wardrobe and Also support the Sponsor Day podcast. Go
to sponsor day.com forward/support and click
on my affiliate link banner for Stitch Fix and enjoy your
$25 credit. Do you want to start your own podcast?
Have a great show idea that you want to get out into the masses but
(38:17):
don't know quite how to get it from your head out into the world?
Well, here's how. Use the podcast host
Libsyn. That's who I use to bring the Spun Today podcast to
you. And now you can use them the same way. Using the
promo code spun s pun, you can open up your
Libsyn account today and get two months of free
(38:39):
podcast hosting. Here's how it works. Once you record
your show, you upload it to your Libsyn account where you can fill in
your episode notes, upload your podcast art, and
schedule when you want your episodes to release. Once you
do that, Libsyn will take care of the rest. They'll distribute your show to
Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and all the
(39:02):
other podcasters that you choose instantaneously and
seamlessly. Again, go to Libsyn.com and use the promo
code SPUN S P U N to get two months
free. Or use the affiliate link that's in the episode notes.
Again, that's Libsyn.com promo code SPUN.
Take that great podcast idea from out of your head and put it out
(39:24):
into the world. And as always, folks, substitute
the mysticism with hard work and start taking steps in the general
direction of your dreams. Thanks for listening.
(39:49):
I love you, Aiden. I love you, Daddy.
I love you, Grayson. I love you, Daddy.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com