#278 – Unveiling Themes and Characters in The Penguin Series and Perfect Days as well as a GOATs doing GOAT $hit Addition - Spun Today with Tony Ortiz

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
That scene in and of itself. It like underscores his
moral descent into just pure evil.
And it also highlights a common writing trope and
narrative narrative convention that we often see in
the the stories of villains, which is them severing all the
personal ties that they have, severing those ties

(00:22):
and it becoming a turning point for them to become the absolute
worst versions of themselves.

(00:46):
What's going on folks? 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 278 of the Spun Today
Podcast and in this episode I'm going to break down watching
the Penguin series. I'm also going to share

(01:08):
about watching a beautiful little slice of
life film by the name of Perfect Days.
And last but certainly not least, I am going to
add yet another inductee into
the Spun Today Goats Doing Goat Shit list.
Stick around to find out who made the cut this time. But before we get

(01:30):
into all that good stuff, as always, wanted to give you all
a profound thank you for taking the time to listen to this show. I
hope you're enjoying it as much as I enjoy putting it out,
and at the very least hope it helps you pass some time throughout your busy
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(01:53):
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The Penguin I'm going to tell you guys all about this amazing
series. I'm going to share my favorite takeaways in terms of like, dialogue and

(03:19):
scenes and background to the creation of the show itself,
and also break down certain writing devices used within the
series as a takeaway to my fellow writers out there. Spoiler
alert. There will be spoilers. So if you haven't
watched the series, which I highly recommend that you do, and you're not into
spoilers, definitely skip past this segment. But if

(03:41):
you've watched the series or if you don't mind spoilers, please stick around so
the Penguin is an HBO original series
that was released in 2024 and as we like to do here in the Spun
Today podcast, I would like to first and foremost shout out the
writers. The character of the Penguin was created by
Bill Finger and Bob Kane. This show specifically

(04:04):
was created, developed and written by
Lauren Lefranc, with additional writing credits going
to and apologies in advance for butchering anyone's name.
Vladimir
Gibson, Erica L. Johnson, John
McCutcheon, Shea Agbona, Nick Town,

(04:25):
and Noel Valdivia. Shout
out to each and every one of the writers that
put this series together. And here's the official
synopsis. Following the events of the Batman,
which is the film that was released in 2022, Oz Cobb,
aka the Penguin, makes a play to seize the reins of

(04:47):
the crime world in Gotham. Now, very
interestingly, which I feel sets the tone for the show,
the Penguin, which we all know as one of the iconic villain
characters within the Batman universe, this takes place
within that same world of the Batman, specifically the Batman
film where Robert Pattinson played Batman.

(05:09):
It's that specific Penguin character, that same character. And
the series actually picks up, I believe like two weeks after
where the film ended. But very interestingly, there's only two mentions
of Batman throughout this entire series. In the very, very
beginning, we hear a mention of him during a
news reporting that's speaking to a terrorist

(05:32):
attack orchestrated by the Riddler where bridges and tunnels and dams were
exploded and very large flooding ensued. And
there's one mention of Batman there helping to rescue
folks that are that are in need. Then at the very,
very very end, before the series
or the season fades to black, there is

(05:54):
a bat signal shown in the sky. Besides
that, everything in between zero to do with Batman,
which by the way, I am personally a fan of. But it
was really cool to see them take this
direction and not rely on that iconic
character Batman to kind of like lift the show. And it made it like something

(06:17):
else completely Entirely. And you've probably heard
it referred to and compared to, for example, shows like the
Sopranos. And it's definitely more
leaning in the direction of that type of show than a superhero
show or film because it has to do with this,
you know, organized crime underbelly of Gotham City.

(06:39):
And it's really cool to explore that world from, from that
vantage point. So first, I want to touch
on a couple of themes that we see throughout the
show. Privilege versus hunger is a throughline
theme in the show. We have the contrast of the Falcones,
which are the number

(07:01):
one, two, depending on the episode, throughout the
series. Organized crime family in
Gotham, the ones that are quote, unquote, born full.
And then you have characters like Oz who fought their way and scrapped their
way up to and for everything
that they have. So on one side you have the privileged side,

(07:23):
you have the mob families, which are at the top of, again,
this organized crime world, the Falcones, the Moronis. But you
also have within that group of the privileged, the crooked cops
that are on the take, the corrupted politicians and folks like
that. Then on the flip side, characters like
Oz, AKA the Penguin, Vic, which

(07:44):
we'll learn more about later, Squid, and all
the smaller gangs and cliques, which are the
underlings of those powerful mob
families, but the ones that are like nickeling and diming.
And also on the hunger side of that equation, you have
poor civilians which are, you know, just trying to live their lives in these crime

(08:06):
ridden neighborhoods, the folks that are addicted to the drugs being
sold, so on and so forth. And this dynamic
shapes and motivates the actions of each of the characters that
we get to know where the privilege, for example, take a blind
eye to the people that they addict with their drugs
and turn a blind eye to the people that die due to the related

(08:29):
violence associated with them and, and their criminal
enterprises. Because to them it's just a bottom
line profit motive thing, right? And that profit and
accumulation of it is what allows them to hold on
to their privileged lifestyles. Then on the flip side, you have the have
nots, if you will, which are driven by the

(08:50):
hunger to become part of that privileged group.
And they're willing to do anything and everything to get to that level,
including lying and cheating and stealing and murder. Key
takeaway for my fellow writers out there related to this theme is
that as writers, we can craft compelling
disparities like this between groups of folks with

(09:12):
varying levels of privilege to heighten the conflict and
deepen the characters that we create. A dope line that I want to share from
the series is relating to this theme is
when Oz Cobb, speaking with Vic, tells him
that in relation to the Falcones, you know, kind of like
badmouthing them behind their back, says that

(09:34):
they don't even know what they got because they always had it. Never
hungry, Born full. Another theme we see play out
throughout the series is family and legacy. And
we see a lot of different family dynamics throughout the series
and start to learn how each of those dynamics
influence the characters and

(09:56):
their respective character arcs. For some,
family is an anchor, a sense of
strength, and for others, it becomes a weakness.
And you'll see as the series goes on how that dynamic even switches within
characters themselves. For example, the character of Oz,
AKA Oz Cobb, AKA Oswald Cobb, AKA the

(10:18):
Penguin, which is our main character of the
series, he has a really strained
but loving, caring relationship with his mother, his mother,
Francis Cobb, played by Deidre
O'Connell. And it's in the sense that he looks after her.
She's older, and we see that she. She's ill, she's on

(10:40):
a lot of medications, she has some sort of dementia going
on, and he's. She, rather, is the only
person that he's, like, really soft with. And we also realized very early on that
he's motivated by a
desperate need for her approval. And he uses that approval as, like,
a strength to drive his ambition. And we see that play out in

(11:02):
a myriad of different ways throughout the series. And later, we're going to see how
that relationship in and of itself is rooted in a
deep betrayal. Kevin Bray, who
directed episodes 106 and 107, he highlights this
juxtaposition within the character of Oz of how
despicable of a person Oz is, contrasted with

(11:23):
how soft and caring he is with his mom. Now, another character in the series
who definitely explores this theme of, like, family and legacy
is Sophia Falcone, played by Kristen
Melody. And on the flip side, Sophia grew up
idolizing her family and putting them up on a pedestal.
And she was desperately seeking her father's approval, and she really

(11:46):
wanted to be seen as an equal. Her father, Carmine
Falcone, played by Mark Strong, was the head of the
Falcone family, and he has two kids that we know
of. Alberto Falcone, played by Michael
Zegan, who is the heir, apparently, to take over the
family in his father's absence. But we later find that

(12:06):
he's a bit of a loser. And Sophia.
But Sophia is the one that's sharp. She's the one
that could lead the family forward into
the future, but she's a female and that's not how things work
in the mob. So she's both seeking her father's approval while at the
same time trying to overcome this, you know, customary hurdle

(12:28):
of the male son is the one that takes over the family business.
But this whole family dynamic that she has completely gets flipped
on its head when she's betrayed by her father and
the family after uncovering something unfavorable about her
props. And he uses his influence and crooked
controls to get her arrested and

(12:51):
sentenced to Arkham insane asylum and
ultimately frames her for the murder of
like nine or 11 women that he
himself seems to have killed. And now her yearning,
like, for the family and to be loved by the family and seen as like
a strong, strong enough figure to take over the family business,

(13:13):
that yearning for family becomes a weakness for her. And
ultimately what she wants is nothing to do with her family
and just to burn the entire legacy to the ground. And that's what
her character, from this perspective of family and
legacy theme wrestles. With throughout the series. And we
also see throughout the series how both Oz, Sophia and other

(13:36):
characters that we're going to meet are layered characters throughout the
series, meaning they're not two dimensional characters, you know, like,
I'm possessed by the devil and just want to do evil for evil's sake type
characters. Each of them exhibit traits of
humanity and also ruthlessness. They
show love and also complete callous disregard for life.

(13:58):
And these type of gray characters, morally
gray characters, are the ones that resonate most with
audiences. So that's definitely a takeaway for my.
Fellow writers out there. So a little bit more about Oz, our main
character, let's speak about his characterization through action
or his. The representation of his

(14:19):
character. So most characters are going to have an internal
want or need versus an external want or need. Oz's
internal desire is validation mainly from his
mother, but also from the higher ups within the organization, his
peers. He wants to be loved and respected. His external
drive is to become the kingpin and just take over

(14:41):
everything, which in and of itself is in
contrast to that internal desire of validation and being
loved and stuff like that. Because he has to be, you know, a ruthless,
don't give a fuck who's in my way type of person to become the kingpin.
And that definitely helps to layer the character. And that need for
validation that he has definitely makes him more relatable as a character. Now, a

(15:03):
key takeaway for my fellow writers out there is that
we can learn how to create more complex characters
by introducing this type of internal versus
external Conflict and use those to help drive our
characters decisions within the stories that we create. So Oz is
part of the Falcones, right? He's a worker, he's not family, and he's not

(15:26):
a made man. He starts off actually as Sophia's
driver, but he has this underlying ambition, this external
drive to take over it all. And early on,
we get a glimpse of how duplicitous and
unhinged he can be. For as calculated
as we learned that he is when very early on he winds up

(15:48):
killing Albert Falcone in like, a fit of rage, which is
again, the heir apparent who is about to take
over the family after his father's assassination.
And episode after episode throughout the series, we see how Oz
begins to rise and take over things
by joining up and then double crossing

(16:10):
anyone and everyone that'll work with him on anything. But also by
manipulating the smaller gangs that were always
stuck in. In fighting and positioning them against
the Moronis when it was convenient for him, and then the Falcones when it was
convenient for him. And kind of playing like this double agent role
within this criminal underbelly to sort of divide

(16:32):
and conquer. This is a crazy scene, actually, where he goes to
visit Salvatore Maroney, played by Clancy Brown,
who's in prison and the head of the Maroni crime family. And he
does his little, like, teaming up and manipulation there. Winds up setting
up for him to get shanked in prison, and then on the
outside, burns his wife and son

(16:54):
alive when they have this, like, drug trade gone
awry and just does so with. With this, like,
dead behind the eyes look and smirk on his face.
But that's a little bit about how we see his internal verse, external desires.
At play throughout the series. Now flipping back to Sophia.
So she goes to Arkham Asylum. She's there for, I want to say, 10

(17:16):
years or so. She comes back out and
she has been obviously betrayed by her entire family. Her
father's now dead. Her brother was the only one that,
you know, visited her while she was in there. You know, didn't know
about how the father was gonna frame her and kind of like stuck,
stood by her. So she trusted the brother, but everyone

(17:38):
else in the family turned their back on her and all see her
as this, like, batshit crazy serial killer,
essentially, that killed, you know, allegedly seven or nine people. Now
when she's back, she finds out that the. Her uncle assumed the role
of head of the family because again, the. The
father was assassinated and the

(18:00):
brother was killed. Alberto, although she doesn't know that. Nobody
knows that. They just Think he's MIA because, again, he was a bit of a
loser. He was on drugs. The only one that knows that he's dead
is Oz at this point. And also Vic, which I'll circle back to in a
bit. But she comes out, you know, she has this chip on her shoulder. She's,
you know, playing nice with everyone, but at the same time, can't wait to give

(18:21):
them all a you. She's kind of sort of feeling out who she can trust,
who she can't, while also feeling that that
position of running the family is rightfully hers. Because that's
another thing before the whole framing thing. And when the. The father turned his back
on her, he actually told her that he was
considering not letting the son take over and instead putting her

(18:42):
in charge, even though it goes against, like, all the customs and stuff like that,
but that he's powerful enough to make it happen and that he
knows that she's the rightful heir to the throne. So one of
the alliances that she made early on was with Oz, her ex driver, who
also was the person that knowingly
or unknowingly at the time, betrayed her by telling her father, his

(19:05):
boss, that Sophia, you know, learned about
some of these murders and was speaking to a reporter about it, which
is why the father turned his back on her, essentially. But they formed
this, you know, little trepidatious type of alliance.
Trepidatious? Is that a word? And Oz, true to being Oz,
uses, you know, whatever leverage he has in any given situation

(19:28):
to get in the situation or out of the situation, so on and so forth.
Now, one of the things Oz knows is that Johnny Beatty,
played by the great Michael Kelly, who is the underboss
of the uncle who took over the family. The uncle
being Luca Falcone, played by Scott Cohen.
Johnny Viding is having an affair with the boss's

(19:49):
wife. So in an attempt for
Sophia to get what she wants, which is, you know,
breaking up and taking over the family and ask to get what he wants,
which is, you know, he's still on his personal divide and
conquer thing, but now Sophia is back in the picture, so he has to play
nice. And also, she's kind of sniffing around because she knows

(20:10):
that Alberto, who's been missing for days, the last person that he saw was
Oz. So he uses this information
about Johnny Viti, which he was kind of keeping in his back
pocket, to blackmail him and
essentially get the family to turn on Uncle Luca
and support them in a coup.

(20:32):
Essentially, Johnny, they. They literally walk into the hotel
room in the middle of Them and, you
know, kick the wife out. And there's a hilarious line that Oz
says because Johnny vd, He. He just starts
talking, you know, in his, like, assertive underboss
tone, while he's, like, in bed naked. And Sophia and Oz walk in

(20:53):
the room, and he goes, you guys
say one word of this to Luca. And then Oz cuts him off,
like, very nonchalantly and laughing and says, what? Your ghost
will haunt me? That line was incredible. And then essentially
they manipulate Johnny Viti into getting
all the soldiers behind him in favor of

(21:16):
Sophia to cut out Uncle Luca. And
after doing so right there at the table where everybody's there
to have this meeting, she pops Vidi in the head,
just shoots him in the head. No need for him anymore. He's gone.
And then she goes on to change the family name to her mother's maiden
name. Her mother, who she also suspects that she.

(21:40):
Her mother supposedly hung herself. But now
with all these other women that were strangled and hung, that hung themselves, that she
got framed for, she strongly believes that her father
killed the mother. And, you know, just to honor the mother, goes
back to the mother's name, changes the family name to the mother's
maiden name, which was Gigante. Now, all that

(22:02):
happens, I believe, slightly
off sequence. I don't remember if this
happens right after or right before, but essentially
there's this, like, big family get together where all the family's
there. Oh, it was before. It was before, actually. So
before that happened, with her popping Vidi at the table and taking over the family,

(22:24):
there's this big family get together at the house. Uncle Lucas there, you know, all
the wives, cousins, kids. She winds up taking
the vents from, or like the exhaust
from the boiler and putting into the central air
vent of the house and then walking out
the house and essentially the next morning going back in,

(22:46):
and the entire family is
dead from gas. From the quote, unquote, gas leak
poisoning, which was a brilliant, ruthless
move, and to Sophia's ruthlessness. So this is
a bit of her, you know, characterization by action,
killing her entire family through this gas poisoning just

(23:08):
highlights how, like, cold and calculated in nature she is. And
his way, from a creative perspective, just, you know, actions speak louder than
words type of situation. Now, in terms of, like,
symbolism and metaphors I wanted to touch on, related to that
is the gas poisoning can be seen as kind of a
metaphor for her life and how she felt within that

(23:29):
family, how she felt suffocated, how she felt like she was in a
toxic, you know, family environment and dynamic and A key
takeaway for my fellow writers is using
actions as metaphors for the different relationships
and themes that we're going for. The director
of episodes 104 and 105 did

(23:51):
something super interesting that I found I had never
heard of before and I found to be, like, a really impressive, like, visual storytelling
technique. And as. So as
Sophia's character, the arc of her character goes
from, you know, it's completely privileged living off
the family person being bred to potentially take

(24:12):
over, to getting flipped on its head, being
backstabbed and just evolving into the chaos
that was her time at Arkham Asylum, to coming back,
getting her vengeance, and essentially taking over control of the
family. They visually showed that
arc by switching. From handheld

(24:35):
cameras to steadicams and dollies. Now, the
handheld cameras, they're a little bit more, like, shaky and kind of give
the impression of, like, chaos going on, whereas
steadicams and dollies are completely still.
No shaking, but kind of shows the audience an angle
of calm, of control, which is what the director was

(24:57):
aiming for to indicate how, you know, she's out of the.
The chaotic time in her life and now she's
in complete control of her surrounding and situations. And I thought that was,
like, really cool. On the flip side, with Oz, whenever they shot scenes with
him, he's dealing with this, you know, gritty, unpredictable
underworld, backstabbing, people making deals. They

(25:20):
continue to use the handheld cameras with him. And when you watch the
series, if you. If you notice that it's a pretty cool, again, visual
storytelling technique. Now, a key takeaway for my fellow
writers out there that we can think of is how can
we mirror that type of
technique but with writing prose. So, for

(25:41):
example. Or an example can be changing
the tone and pacing of a
sentence to reflect what we're going for. So if we want to depict,
like, chaos and, you know, craziness going on, write shorter,
choppier sentences versus if we want
to depict a sense of calm and

(26:03):
control, have, like, longer, more flowing,
calm language and prose. Now switch to one of my favorite
characters of the series, Victor Aguilar,
played by Renzi Felice. So in the very
beginning, when. When Oz kills
Alberto Falcone, he's completely alone in his

(26:25):
nightclub. That's closed down. When he does so now when he
leaves and, you know, he's working on, working through
rather, how to hide the body, how to get rid of the evidence. And like
that, he's going towards his car and he sees
a bunch of kids trying to steal his rims. Remember,
remember the setting of Gotham. You just had these like massive floods

(26:48):
that happened that they mentioned in the
beginning where Batman was busy, you know, helping, trying to save
people. And Gotham is this gritty, dirty,
dingy, dark, poverty stricken
neighborhood. And these kids are, you know, stealing rims, trying,
trying to make some money. Oz comes out and confronts

(27:09):
them. They all start running away. He shoots at them, misses,
but catches one kid. That kid is Victor Aguilar.
He's about to kill him outright. But Victor, he's like super
nervous. He's like, please don't shoot me. And
Oz sees that he has a stutter and kind of
has like a bit of an affinity for him because Oz himself

(27:31):
is or has rather a handicap. He has
like this up foot that makes him wear this like metal
brace on, on his shoe to kind of sort of straighten it out
as much as he can to walk, but he walks with a limp. Hence,
you know, that's how they created this character of the Penguin, you know, this waddling
character instead of like the, you know, overly dramatic

(27:53):
caricature that was Danny DeVito, although I love that
movie also Batman Returns. But you know, in that
movie they made the Penguin, this like half
man, half penguin person that was born with flippers
and a human head. And you know, they didn't go that route in
this series. Again, much more realistic. He just has this, this

(28:15):
waddle in the way that he walks and this beak like nose,
this huge scar on his face and you know, hence the
AKA Penguin that some folks call him. So he decides not to kill
him outright and makes him help
him get Alberto Falcon's body and put
it in the trunk of his car. Then he makes Victor drive

(28:38):
his car while he's in the passenger seat and has his, you know, keeps his
gun on Victor, you know, takes his wallet, looks up his name, his
address, and they go to like stash the body, get rid of it
somewhere. And his intent is to kill Victor after he's
done with that. You know, he was just going to use him to, to hide
the body. But Victor flips out, pleads with him, says he can help him.
He'll, he'll work for him, please not kill him, he won't tell

(29:01):
anybody, so on and so forth. And you know, kind of appeals to
that, to the humanity in, in Oz. And Oz
decides to let him live and essentially
becomes Oz's protege, which he
also likes having because again, he wants this
feeling of, you know, feeling powerful, having people look up to him,

(29:22):
admire him, you know, work for him. And he kind of has that in
Victor, you know, through fear versus love, but, you know, has
it nonetheless. Now, later on in the series, we meet Victor's
family, which definitely seemed Dominican. It's the first time that I've ever
heard Sioma on screen, which to the
uninitiated, Xioma is like, short for

(29:44):
vendicionma obedisio mami, which is
when our Dominican culture, and I'm sure other Latinos as
well, it's a, like, a sign of respect for your
elders and close family, whether it be your parents,
grandparents, aunts, uncles. You say Wendy Siogma or AKA
Siogma, and they'll ritualistically respond,

(30:07):
God bless you. So you're like, asking for their blessing, and then they say, may
God bless you. And Victor, you know, he walks in his house. It's the first
thing he says, yo Ma. And I'm like, oh, he's Dominican.
And then I found that the creator, Lauren Lefranc,
she's actually half Mexican. And when she originally wrote the character
Victor, she wrote him as Mexican and gave

(30:28):
him the last name Aguilar, which is a family name of hers. Then when
they cast Renzi, which is Dominican, to the role, to
honor his heritage, she made the character half
Mexican and half Dominican. And it was cool to
hear, to hear that. It definitely adds
some cultural authenticity to the character. It

(30:51):
made me resonate more with the character, and that's definitely a key takeaway for
my fellow writers out there, right? Explore while you're
creating your characters, how you can incorporate different cultural
elements or dialogues that just make your character more
relatable. Now juxtapose that to
my guy, Peoples from Shaft back in the day, played by

(31:13):
Jeffrey Wright, which actually
was Jeffrey Wright, who actually played Commissioner
Gordon in the Batman film that
this series, you know, takes place
within the. The same world. Rather, he played this
character called Peoples from Shaft, which was

(31:34):
dope to see. He portrayed a Dominican dude, a drug dealer from
Washington Heights. You see mad Dominican flags everywhere. And he did
a really good job. Jeffrey Wright, by the way, one of my favorite actors, probably
like top 10. But in this character, you know, did you know
he had the accent down in certain spots and things
that he would say which were, you know, culturally. Culturally

(31:56):
relevant. But then there were certain things where the accent would
break and certain things that he would say to it that it was kind of
like, wait, what? And that type of thing definitely takes. You out of it.
So it's definitely a good takeaway to, you know, make sure that you add
elements and. And dialogue from specific cultures that you're looking to
represent. So definitely good on. On Lauren Le Frank for that. And

(32:17):
we also find out from the series
that Victor lost his entire family, his
mom, his dad, his sister, in those floods
caused by the Riddler's terror attack.
And from a writing technique or, like, construct perspective, we see
the Riddler terror attack and ensuing floods

(32:39):
from the very first opening news report that we see
on the tv that. That gets cut away from it, like, subtly
foreshadows the tragedy of Victor's family,
which is another key takeaway for my fellow writers out there. We can
consciously seed elements of our story earlier
on to then create this emotional type of payoff later

(33:01):
on. So we learned about the flooding. We learned about, you know, a lot of
tragedy happened in the very beginning. And then it's paid
off emotionally when we find out that in those floods that
were previously mentioned, Victor's entire
family drowned and died, which definitely informs his
character and the decisions that we see him make. I also want to highlight

(33:23):
dialogue specifically as a way to
give our characters distinctive voices. There's a scene where Oz
takes Victoria to, like, a fancy restaurant for. For
lunch. And what he says has nothing to do with anything from, like, a
plot perspective. He doesn't move the story forward in that way, but it
definitely adds subtext and further

(33:44):
layers the character. And essentially, they order tacos. They come back, he
takes a bite, spits it out because there's cilantro on it. And he
specifically asked not to have cilantro. But the way he says
it is, he tells the waiter, you might as well put a fucking bar of
soap in my mouth. Or maybe it was Vic ordered the food for
him and he forgot to tell him to hold the cilantro or something like that.

(34:06):
But he says those words, and there are people, maybe some of the folks
listening to this, some people who, you know, love or hate
cilantro. The folks that hate it taste cilantro
differently. They taste it as, literally soap. Like, it tastes like
soap versus folks like myself who actually enjoy
cilantro. You know, it doesn't taste like soap at all, but it

(34:28):
kind of adds that context to his character of, you know, he's one of those
soap cilantro people, which, again, has nothing to do with anything,
but does layer and, you know, add a little complexity to
the character, a little context to him. And a key takeaway for my fellow writers
out there is to practice writing
dialogue that could exhibit, you know, this type of subtext

(34:49):
or, like, character quirks. Now in this
series also, which I like and enjoy, there's a bunch
of flashback scenes and they help fill in the
gaps of the characters lives that we
see. You know, we. We know certain things have happened to them,
but don't know the details of it. Similar to, you know,

(35:11):
Victor's families, like Mia, we don't know what happened to them.
And then we later find out through a flashback scene that they died in the
flood, like that type of thing. Similarly, we know that
Oz's brothers died and we have no idea
why until we get to episode seven and it's revealed that
Oz as a kid is like this really jealous kid

(35:32):
in terms of his mother's attention.
He wants and needs more attention than his brothers. And he kind
of resented his brothers whenever they got any attention from the mom. He wanted
her all to himself. And they wind
up going to like these underground tunnels that they used to
play, like hide and seek in and stuff like that. And

(35:54):
it started raining, so, you know, to wait out the rain, they decide to
go into these tunnels and play for a while. Long
story short, the two other brothers hide
somewhere where Oz can't go because of the handicap that he has with his
leg. Like, he has a hard time going like up and down like ladders to
like catch them. And then he gets pissed off at them and he's like, oh,

(36:15):
you guys went there on purpose because, you know. I can't go there. And they
were like, no, we, we didn't. We were just trying to hide. And he
winds up, out of spite, just locking them in there.
And then he goes home and tells the mom that they
went to the movies, the other brothers, meanwhile, he knows where they are.
And the rain intensifies and these tunnels get filled with water when it

(36:36):
rains. And essentially he's at home, you
know, with the mom, completely happy to have all her
attention and being completely conscious of the more
it rains, the more chance there is that these guys are gonna
fucking drown. But he is okay with that because
then all the attention from the mom will go to him. Now the actor that

(36:58):
played the young Oswald Cobb Ryder Allen
said that from his perspective, this is the moment that
he rises into the villain that he is
in present day. And that he feels a bit of guilt
though, in what he did, but that he like emotionally takes
care of that by caring for his mom. That's

(37:21):
his way of trying to like, make up for what he did. Now ultimately,
you know, after the mourning and the depression and stuff like that,
that came from, you know, losing to your children once
they found that they did drown, the mom winds up Piecing
together that it was Oz
that was responsible for them drowning and that he

(37:43):
may not have wanted them to drown or known for sure that they were going
to drown, but that he did let it happen and didn't say where they
were in time for them to, you know, be able to
be saved. And what's crazy is that, you know, she saw this as,
like. Just like, who is. This is the devil that's living
in my house. This little kid who's acting like nothing

(38:05):
happened, literally killed both his brothers or caused their deaths.
And she doesn't know what to do. So she turns to the
local mob boss at the time that she kind of worked for in
terms of, like, doing. Doing his books, like, doing some accounting stuff for him. She
confides in him on what happened and
ultimately agrees that she was gonna go out with. With him, with the son,

(38:27):
take him out to that gangster's club, show him a good night, and
then tell him to go home with the gangster guy. And then the gangster guy
was gonna pretty much kill young Oz. But then she
winds up backing out at the last moment and not going through with that.
And she holds on to this throughout the entire series, throughout
the. His entire life growing up. She holds on to the fact that she

(38:50):
knew what he did, but never tells him
that she knew. And then he, on the opposite side, holds on to the
fact of what he did and never letting her know what he
did, even though obviously she knows. And as
a little kid, he kind of. He gave her, like, mad lavia, like,
told her, like, mad shit of how he's going to become somebody one

(39:12):
day and he's going to get her a penthouse and he's going to do it
all for her. And that becomes, like, the seed of this
driving motivational force to, like, please his mom and, you know, become this
kingpin to be able to live up to that promise that he
makes to his mom. Something else I took away from this series is
the complication of relationships. The

(39:33):
deliberate complication of relationships. So the closest
thing that Oz has to a love interest
in the series is with a character
called Eve Carlo, played by Carmen Ijogo.
She's like, the head prostitute of this, like, ring of
women. And Oz pays

(39:56):
her to kind of sort of have her in
that girlfriend type role. It's a transactional
relationship from her side and by definition, from his
as well. But they do have a bit deeper of a bond, and
their relationship winds up evolving into something even
creepier towards the end. But there's a scene in the series where Eve

(40:18):
meets Sophia for the first time. Sophia is doing everything she can to,
like, track down, you know, once she's betrayed for, like, the umpteenth time by
Oz, to track down where Oz is and where he's hiding
out. She lands eventually on Eve, his
quote unquote girlfriend. Eve is terrified of Sophia because of. The
whole, you know, the hangman woman Persona

(40:40):
that precedes her. You know, this serial killer that hung
and killed nine or 11 women. And, you know, via pillow
talking, Oz confides in Eve, and he.
She knows a bunch of his business. Sophia shows up to her
apartment. She thinks she's for sure dead.
But in their conversation, Sophia winds up clarifying

(41:02):
that she's not the hangman, that she was framed by her father, and the whole
backstory, but most importantly, highlighting that Oz knew
that all along. Eve felt betrayed by this because that's. Something
that Oz kept from her to kind of sort of keep her scared of
Sophia for whatever reasons. And because of that
betrayal, she winds up offering up

(41:23):
Oz, letting Sophia know where he's hiding
out and where he is. And that, to me, from a writing. Perspective, which is
a key takeaway for. My fellow writers out there, is that sometimes it makes sense
just to complicate things, complicate relationships. Make a left when
you think the relationship is going right. That helps ratchet up the
tension and just keeps folks engaged, you know, makes

(41:45):
richer, more dynamic characters and
storylines. You create conflicting loyalties and
betrayals, and. It just raises the stakes. So
Sophia then winds up using that information to track down where
Oz is hiding out and where he's hiding his mom. Winds up
kidnapping the mother to draw Oz

(42:06):
out to come save his mom, but winds up in doing
so, setting the scene for, like, a
huge emotional climactic moment throughout the
series, or in the series, rather, where
a lot is brought to light. Before we get there, though,
is the whole hilarious line that

(42:28):
the mom, Francis. Her character, says to Sophia,
which is. Did you bring me here to feed me or are you gonna kill
me then? So Sophia gives this, like,
monologue about her family and betrayal and stuff like that, and
how she's a Gigante now, not a Falcone.
And then Francis defiantly responds, what are you gonna

(42:50):
do next? Dye your hair pink and get a ass tattoo that'll really show
your dad? Which is a funny line in and.
Of itself, but also speaks to, like. The psyche of
Sophia because she, in many ways, is rebelling against her
father. But the scene that I was speaking
to earlier that this ultimately sets up is where

(43:13):
Sophia forces the hand of both the mom and
of Oz to confront each other in terms of
those truths that they've been holding all their
lives. On one hand that Francis knew
all along that Oz was responsible for the deaths of
his brothers, her other two sons, and that she really thinks that. He'S

(43:36):
a piece of shit. And then on the flip side, Oz having
to come to that realization that she knew all along,
plus that she was planning to get him
killed for doing so. And it's this huge
emotional climactic moment that ultimately result
in the mom stabbing Oz in the stomach while also

(43:59):
having like this trauma induced stroke.
And a fight breaks out and they. Oz ultimately picks up
his bomb, runs out of there and gets
away. What's really cool about that scene is that it
takes place at a fictional club
where the mom, once upon a time took Oz, young

(44:21):
Oz, to show him like a nice night out, which is where she was gonna
have the, the gangster guy take him home and kill him, which is now, you
know, run down and abandoned. Monroe's, it's
called. But that was filmed here in
Queens in Richmond Hill, an area that I'm familiar with. It's
like a town two over for me, right there on Leffords and

(44:42):
Jamaica Ave. For anybody who's familiar with the area, it's like where that
old theater slash bingo hall slash flea
market place was or is. That's
what, that's what they used to shoot. And you can,
if you pause the scene, you can see like when he gets into his car
and like screeches off and it shows a little bit of like

(45:04):
the storefronts and stuff. You see the J Train,
you see Alfie's Pizzeria, which I've eaten at a bunch of times, I used to
work around there. It's just like really cool to see. Now let me
pause for a minute and shout out the acting in
the series. Across the board.
Phenomenal. The mom, Francis Cobb is

(45:26):
so believable in being a tortured soul
that has this kid that she knows to be evil,
losing her other two sons, having to
shoulder the burden of raising him anyway. Depicting these bouts of
like, dementia and, and slipping in and out of, of lucid,
lucidness, lucidity. Victor Aguilar's character

(45:48):
that he plays with. With the lisp and just does a
phenomenal job, knocks it out the park. In being the mentee
of Oz that steps up to the plates, willing to do anything, but
is hesitant to do so at the same time and wants to prove
himself. Sophia Falcone, who Plays this
cool, creepy, calculated, yet

(46:11):
unhinged, mysterious kind of character.
And by the way, her flashback scenes of her, like, getting committed into Arkham
Asylum when you start meeting all the other
inmates within the asylum, the crazy ladies.
Fucking wow. They are like such
disturbed, tortured, crazy

(46:32):
characters. And then we have the cherry on top of the entire
series. Oz Cobb, played by Colin
Farrell. Colin Farrell is so good in this. The
prosthetics are so good in this that I knew
after watching the Batman, or found out, rather, after watching the Batman, the
film, that Colin Farrell was the one that played

(46:52):
Penguin in the smaller role that he had in that
film. And I was blown away. Then I forgot
again that Colin Farrell played that role, remembered
again when watching the series, and was equally blown away.
That's how good he fucking is in this series. And the prosthetics, by the way,
were created by Mike Marino, who.

(47:15):
There's montages of this online that you guys can check out, but they have Colin
Farrell in makeup for
three hours each. And every time they have to add the
makeup. And that's. Now they have it down to a science of the three hours.
But before, it was like many hours more in time, you
know, they get. They get better at doing it and more used to it and,

(47:37):
you know, whittle it down to three hours. But that's how long it takes to
transform Colin Farrell into the Penguin, into Oz.
And Colin Farrell himself says that the show definitely would not exist if
it weren't for Mike Marino and. And the mastery of what he did with these
physical manifestations of this character and just his accent
and his mannerisms. He has to win some.

(48:00):
Whatever the top tier award, which I guess it would be like an Emmy for
a show, is. He has to win that. That totally
is. There's a funny episode of JBP Shout out to the
Joe Budden podcast, where. They'Re speaking about the show. Like, when
it first came out, and. I think it was like, ish and.
Ice or Parks or a few of. Them, they were all talking about

(48:22):
it because they all watched it, and a few of them were like, you know,
Colin Farrell was, like, really dope in it, so on and so
forth. And Joe Button is a little lost. He's like, I haven't seen that episode,
though. You know, don't spoil it or whatever. And like, what episode? What are you
talking about? With Colin Farrell? I haven't seen him. And they were like, Colin
Farrow is Penguin. And he just. And Joe's just

(48:42):
fucking mind blown. That's how
ill Colin Farrell is in this and how he
disappears into this character. Now at the end of the
series, before I wrap up,
huge spoiler coming. There's a
shocker scene that happens which ties

(49:03):
to Oz's characterization that we spoke about earlier and how
he's becoming, you know, the worst parts of himself.
He's delving deeper into that after seemingly
getting away with everything, getting his way, dividing and conquering and being
at landing at the top of the game, he finds himself at a hospital
where his mom, he finds out, is going to be in a vegetative

(49:25):
state, but she's still alive after the
stroke. He's going to survive from the stab wounds.
Victor's there, finds him, you know, his right
hand man. They're going to be on top of the world. Their plan to take
over is bearing fruit finally. And then
while sitting in a park by the water,

(49:49):
Oz puts his arm around Vic, tells him that they're family
and that family is strength, but that it's
also a weakness and that he can't go. He
can't take him where he's about to go, and he strangles
and kills Vic. That scene, in and of itself, it, like,
underscores his moral descent into just

(50:11):
pure evil. And it also highlights a common writing
trope and narrative convention that
we often see in the. The stories of villains, which is them
severing all the personal ties that they have, severing
those ties, and it becoming a turning point for them to become the
absolute worst versions of themselves. And by the end of the

(50:33):
series. Our main character Oz, you know, gained that
external want of becoming the kingpin, but he
absolutely lost the internal want of
his mom's validation because she's, like, stuck in a vegetative state.
He buys the penthouse and has her in a
hospital bed, you know, completely immobile, just like with

(50:56):
her eyes open, being fed by a home attendant
looking out of a window, and you see. A tear drop from her
eye. So he got the external want, lost the internal want,
and he got himself a Rolls Royce. He has the penthouse.
And from a symbolism and metaphor perspective,
the penthouse represents Oz's like, climb to power.

(51:18):
But it loses that meaning of what it was supposed to mean
because he lost that validation from his mom because she's in a
vegetative state. And it's interesting from a writing perspective how we can
use settings like that to symbolize
either successes or failures or some sort of personal
transformation. And last but certainly not least is. A touch of

(51:39):
speculation. What I think they're setting up for season
two, which I hope they do. In the historical
character of the Penguin, you know, he was this villain that he became this
like person of the people. Then he ran for
political office a la Pablo
Escobar. And they kind of set the stage for his political ambitions

(52:01):
because they said things that I remember as a
slogan, I believe from Batman Returns, which is Oz Cobb, a man
of the people. Somebody said that he also had, you know, he walked through
city hall and he was looking at the mayor, like
in awe or the mayor elect. And he was also wheeling and dealing
with the city councilman. So I feel like they're kind of setting the stage for

(52:24):
that to be like a major through line in. In
season two. Then something super interesting that just came out of left
field for me. Sophia winds up back in Arkham. Oz gets
her locked up and framed again.
And so she's essentially out of the. Way from his perspective. She gets a
letter while in Arkham from

(52:45):
her quote unquote half sister whose
name is Selina Kyle. Selina Kyle,
historically in the Batman series is Catwoman.
So I think she's going to factor into to the next season as
well. And that, folks, was my little recap and
review of the HBO original series the

(53:07):
Penguin. I highly recommend it. And it's streaming now on
hbo. Max.
Perfect Days is a beautiful slice. Of life
movie by Wim Wenders, which explores the beauty and
tragedy of a minimalist existence. First and foremost, shout
out to Chris Stuckman, who has a great YouTube channel where

(53:29):
he breaks down all types of movies. This was
on his top 10 list of movies for
2024 and it piqued my interest. So I checked it out
and definitely appreciated it. Also, shout out to Chris
for that. Phraseology of slice of life
movie. I had never heard that term before. As soon as he said it, I

(53:51):
knew exactly what it meant and instantly. Applied it to a bunch of
movies. And shows and stuff like that that I've seen. So think of movies that
are, I wouldn't say plotless, but
that not much is going on. Like there's not
a firm beginning and end and climax, but picture
like a person's life, you know, full life and us. You get

(54:13):
to see a slice of that life. A random point within their
lifetime is the beginning and then it ends at a certain point
and you have a lot of unanswered questions. That's a slice of life
style movie, which this one is. And it resonated with
me as a writer and from a writing perspective because it
inspired to like reflect on routine and

(54:36):
consistency and just different ways of storytelling in
general. In my little recap and review here, I'm going to
speak about different themes in the film.
Characterization, symbolism, narrative devices
used, and as always, some practical writing
lessons and advice for my fellow writers out there.

(54:57):
But first, as we like to do here on the Spun Today podcast, let's shout
out the writers. Perfect Days was written and directed by
Wim Wenders, with an additional writing credit
to Takuma Takasaki.
Shout out to the writers that put this film together. Here is
the official synopsis. Hirayama cleans

(55:20):
public toilets in Tokyo, lives his life in
simplicity and daily tranquility. Some encounters
also lead him to reflect on himself. So in the movie it follows the
life of our main character Hideyama, played
by Koji Yakusho, who is a janitor
that cleans public toilets in Tokyo. In Japan. We

(55:42):
follow him throughout his day and then the next day and then
the next in a way that allows us to see a few
things. He's not a person of many means. He seems to find
like joy and happiness in simple things,
whether it be photographing trees or reading a good
book. He's very methodical and repetitive

(56:05):
in what he does from the moment he wakes up, he folds
his car a very specific way. Wakes up at the
exact same time, drinks the same iced coffee
beverage from the same vending machine every single day before going
to work, and takes immense pride in what he does. What's
interesting about the narrative device of

(56:27):
this slice of life approach is that it's
really observational in style. There's not a lot of dialogue going on, not a lot
of speaking, and it emphasizes
small, everyday, mundane moments
as opposed to like dramatic plot lines and plot points.
And a key takeaway for my fellow. Writers out there is that this

(56:49):
style. Of storytelling can help create
the intimacy that you feel when watching this film by
focusing on these seemingly minor details
that kind of reveal deeper truths about the characters that we're
following. One of the themes that we see in this film is
the main character living on his own terms. He lives this

(57:12):
modest life as a janitor and we see this
deep personal choice to live simply
to have a very minimalistic existence. And a key
takeaway for my fellow writers out there, something I definitely took away from this
is just thinking about how characters choices, however
unconventional they may be, help define

(57:34):
their identity and communicate backstory
for those characters. Because as the viewer, I felt like. I knew a lot about
him without knowing anything besides just
following his routine on a day to day basis, which made me think of another
theme that we see throughout the film, which is routine and
like the beauty that you can find in that. And it

(57:56):
reminded me of this Japanese concept of
shokunin, which I believe I
first heard or learned what that was in
the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi, which is a great doc if you
haven't seen it. But it's a concept essentially of pursuing
perfection through repetition. There's an interesting duality there

(58:19):
between the beauty of mastery
that comes with repetition versus the
monotony of routine which comes with repetition.
And I really appreciated his almost stoic existence.
But on the other hand, I also couldn't help but feel
sadness for how isolated and alone he

(58:41):
seemed. And a key takeaway for my fellow writers out there is that
there's an interesting way to embody
philosophical ideas like stoicism, for example, within
characters to help explore the tension
within those ideas. Now switch gears to the characterization
of our main protagonist here. He had

(59:03):
this very modest, outer, outward facing
life, but his inner world seemed. To be the complete
opposite of that. He has tons of books, and
he would routinely go to the library or a bookstore
and take out these books that he would read every single night.
Again, in the same exact way, the same exact routine. But it's books

(59:26):
on, like, highbrow poetry and
deep philosophical books about life that you wouldn't
necessarily expect a janitor to be into.
And he has this eclectic taste in music
and has a ton of cassettes. That's what he listens to his music
on, and VHS tapes as well. So he

(59:48):
seems to, like, technologically be locked in the
past somehow with books and cassette tapes
for music, chess tapes for visual
verse. His professional life, where, you know, he uses his own
gadgets and tools and different solutions
to do his work of cleaning bathrooms. And that all

(01:00:10):
adds to the depth of the character and makes him
multi dimensional. And that's a key takeaway for my fellow writers out there
to add complexity to your characters by giving them
passions or hobbies that you
wouldn't expect to go with them. So one thing that does happen
that disrupts his. His life as it normally

(01:00:33):
goes, is that his niece shows up at his
doorstep and she. He has. He hasn't seen her in a while,
seemingly because he's like, oh, my God, you've grown so much. And she
essentially ran away from home, you know, beefing with her mom,
some, like, teenage angst type of thing going on. And she winds up spending a
couple days with him and going to work with him. And they have, like, a

(01:00:55):
nice, loving relationship. But you clearly know that they're
estranged, or at least he is from
her mother, which is his sister. A couple days later, the mom shows.
Up to pick her up. And you can tell
that the mom is very well off financially.
She has a driver, they're coming in this fancy car, she's

(01:01:18):
like, well dressed. And we get a touch of insight
into his backstory that could
inform why he is the way he is, why he's living the life the way
he's living it. And apparently there's some sort of unresolved
conflict with his father. And the sister tells him, you know, he's
not like before. You know, he's very, very ill now,

(01:01:39):
you should go see him. And you know, he, he
denies to do so, but we don't get much more than that in terms of
resolution with what happened between them. What's the issue?
And it was interesting to me from. A writing perspective that you can
use relationships to add unresolved
tension to a character or to the backstory of the

(01:02:02):
character without completely providing the details of
it, without the exposition. And just that single interaction
between him and his sister is the only interaction they have in the movie.
A few lines of dialogue helped convey like
decades of emotion and trauma that our
main character has been dealing with. And then we get kind

(01:02:24):
of a little bit more clarity of why he's such a
perfectionist maybe when it comes. To his work, why some of his colleagues, you
know, just do like a random wipe down job. And he
is using mirrors and making. Sure every tiny dot or
speck of. Anything is completely cleaned from every bathroom that he
cleans. And it's like the public restrooms themselves

(01:02:46):
are being used metaphorically. He takes
pride in taking care of and cleaning these
overlooked spaces. Maybe he feels overlooked himself
within his life, within whatever issue happened with his
pops. And to contrast between the spotless bathrooms
versus his messy seeming personal

(01:03:07):
life. That could also be why he is so
nostalgic from a technological perspective. He
uses cassette tapes for his music, the VHS tapes for
video. He has a camera that he uses and every day at lunch he takes
a picture of this tree. And the camera is a film camera. And he
goes on weekends when he does his laundry to go develop the

(01:03:28):
film. Then he takes the film, goes home. And in
Serial Killer ish passion like logs the
photos in these boxes that. He has the, adds
the date on. And he has tons of boxes with. Like years worth of dates,
all of. Which have pictures of the same
tree. They he takes a picture of every. Day at work

(01:03:51):
when he takes his lunch break. But he's kind. It kind of shows him being
like angered to that time period of, you know, cassette tapes, VHS,
etc. And how he may have something unresolved there in the
past or some sort of attachment to the past that he doesn't want to let
go of. His routine is definitely symbolic of
discipline, but also of obsession or of

(01:04:13):
isolation. From a writing perspective, we may be able
to show that same type of
thing by repetition of prose,
by repeating dialogue and reinforcing
that same type of. Routine that we see visually in this. Film, but on
paper. And this is the type of story that kind of holds a

(01:04:34):
mirror to the audience. It makes us, as the viewers, reflect on our own
lives, on our own routines, on our own values, which is definitely a
creative way to foster engagement from your audience. You
could definitely take parts of his life and how dedicated he is with. His work
as like, the symbolism behind his work is how he
expresses himself personally, how he

(01:04:56):
exhibits his pride in what he does. It adds
definitely that symbolic or thematic weight to an
otherwise everyday task. And last but certainly not
least, another great takeaway for my fellow writers
out there, which I didn't think I would
personally like if I thought of it objectively

(01:05:18):
prior to seeing this film, but it's just the open ended backstory.
Like after watching the film, you still don't know exactly
what happened with his dad, what's the dynamic with the sister?
And that somehow gave like a depth to the
character without having to explain it.
And from a writing perspective, we can attempt that in

(01:05:40):
purposely leaving gaps within our character's history so that the
audience can fill it. And in doing so
making them more intriguing and relatable
to each individual audience member because they're going to fill it with their own thoughts
and biases. And I thought that was done interestingly. And that,
folks, was my little recap and review of the film Perfect

(01:06:03):
Days, which came out in 2023. Streaming
now on Hulu.
Goats Doing Goat. This is the segment of the Spontane podcast
where I like to highlight goats within their respective fields.
Goats, the acronym greatest of all time that go
above and beyond in some way or do something. I just think it is

(01:06:25):
cool. Impressive dope, worthy of praise if you
will. And this episode's inductee into the Goats Doing
Goat shit list is none other than
businessman, renowned investor and
philanthropist Charlie Munger. RIP to
Charlie. I recently read Charlie Munger's

(01:06:45):
biography, which I'm gonna do a breakdown of, but it's
called Young Charlie's Almanac or Charlie's Almanac which
corroborated this story. But this story actually comes
from a great video that I'll link to in the episode Notes
by the Investor center, which is
titled Charlie Munger, how to make your first million in

(01:07:07):
broken down in five steps, Charlie Munger, for those of you who don't
know, may know the name Warren Buffett. You know
his financial investment wizard, multi
billionaire, the Oracle of Omaha. Charlie Munger
is his partner in Berkshire Hathaway. But I decided to
add Charlie to. The spontane goats doing goat shit list because

(01:07:30):
something that he did early on, which just in my
opinion, highlights his framework
of out of the box thinking that
seems to have served him well throughout his
lifetime. So he started off as a kid working in a grocery
store for 20 cents an hour, which was actually Warren

(01:07:51):
Buffett's grandfather's grocery store.
He was a hardworking kid, winds up becoming a lawyer.
And one thing that he does so geniusly is
that he decides not just to charge his
clients for his legal services, but but he gives them the
option to, instead of paying him in cash, paying him

(01:08:13):
money to pay him in equity stakes of
their young companies and then being, you know,
strapped for cash or, you know, as young
businesses usually are, many of them wind up taking that
route. But his equity stake in those businesses
means ownership, means that as those companies

(01:08:35):
grow, he gets that percentage of money
from them in perpetuity, forever. When those
companies sell, if they sell, he gets that
percentage of the sale because he owns the company
or a portion of them as opposed to just taking the one
time fee for his legal

(01:08:57):
services. And apparently he did that with several different companies
while he was a lawyer. And I just thought that to be. A
genius out of the box move. That many folks wouldn't think to
do, many folks would rather have the money up front instead
of the ownership, which could backfire if the company
goes to zero. He could lose money. You know, he'll never get paid

(01:09:19):
for those legal services, but I'm sure enough of those
companies made it or became profitable or
sold that it made up for any of the ones that did
not. And because of that, I wanted to add Mr. Charles
Munger, aka Charlie Munger, officially,
to the goats doing goat shit. Welcome, sir.

(01:09:41):
And RIP.
And that, folks, was episode 278 of the Spun
Today podcast. Thank each and every one of you for taking the time to
listen. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I definitely had fun putting it together.
I tried to enrich my recaps and reviews
that I normally do with highlighting as

(01:10:04):
many pieces of writing advice or just dissecting the
different narratives and writing choices implemented
not just for my fellow writers out there, but for myself to kind of
further my education within this writing game. And also
of course for folks that just find that kind of how the sausage is
made type of information interesting as I do, there's

(01:10:26):
a few ways you can help support the Spun Today podcast if you so choose.
One of the ways is Follow me on Social Media
Fun today on everything IG, Facebook, Twitter,
slash X, YouTube, so on and so forth at
Spun Today. Visit my support page where you can see my merch and all
types of affiliate links@spun today.com

(01:10:47):
support and here is a bit more about a few
different ways that you can help support the. Pod if you so choose. I'll
check you guys out next time. 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

(01:11:10):
podcast financially by going to spuntoday.com for
forward/ 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
sponsorate.com support you'll see my affiliate
link to Amazon. Click on it and it will take you to Amazon's website

(01:11:32):
where you can do your shopping like normal. This will not cost you anything
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(01:11:54):
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(01:12:15):
available@ sponsorday.com support similar to
Patreon at that same location. You'll also find my Ko Fi link as well
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Patreon and are different ways that you can help support the show financially.
And last but certainly not least, you have the good old fashioned PayPal
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(01:12:37):
appreciated. It all helps me do more of what I love, which is writing and
podcasting. Again. Go to spunteray.com
support. You can also support the Spontane 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 Spun Today

(01:13:00):
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(01:13:22):
Today podcast and also upgrade that stale wardrobe of
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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
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(01:13:44):
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(01:14:06):
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If not, they'll replace it with something else and if so, they'll mail it to
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(01:14:26):
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(01:14:49):
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(01:15:11):
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(01:15:56):
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(01:16:21):
I love you Aiden. I love you Daddy.
I love you Grayson. I love you Daddy.

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#278 – Unveiling Themes and Characters in The Penguin Series and Perfect Days as well as a GOATs doing GOAT $hit Addition

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#278 – Unveiling Themes and Characters in The Penguin Series and Perfect Days as well as a GOATs doing GOAT $hit Addition