May 13, 2024 • 51 mins
"John Dies at the End," is a film that dances on the edge of genres and reality. Join us as we unpack its complexities, its comparison to David Wong's literary wit, and our enduring bromance that's withstood the test of time and questionable facial hair.
Navigating the labyrinth of book-to-film translations can be as perplexing as the existence of Paul Giamatti's character in "John Dies at the End." With a critical eye, we dissect the adaptation's successes and stumbles, sharing our genuine admiration for Wong's original work and the hilarity of unexpected fame. Amid this, we reflect on the influence of media at formative ages and revel in the delight of serialized stories that captivated our younger selves. It's a conversation that spans the humorous to the introspective.
To cap off our eclectic journey, we ponder the existential "what-ifs" of "John Dies at the End," tackling the film's interpretation of disability, its polarizing humor, and the satirical reflection of our own world. It's a wild ride that leaves us questioning our life choices and the concept of free will, especially if that "soy sauce" had seeped into our paths. So, if you're ready to indulge in a podcast that offers a cocktail of thought-provoking discussions, hearty laughs, and a candid recommendation for the narratively adventurous, then you're in the right place. Pull up a chair, grab your preferred indulgence, and let's celebrate the things about ourselves that we refuse to let die.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
James Crosslin (00:00):
I'm good to go.
Ryan Baron North (00:02):
All right, Well, let's do this.
Everybody welcome to the Highand Dry Podcast, the only
podcast keeping alive the fandomof Firefly that one season
there.
James Crosslin (00:15):
I think that that was an incredibly popular
cult show.
Ryan Baron North (00:19):
I don't know you still think it's a lot Fine.
How about the Zune?
Keeping alive the fandom of theZune?
James Crosslin (00:25):
A lot of people loved the Zune.
It was like open.
It was like an open media thing.
It wasn't as restrictive on howyou download it.
It wasn't tied to like Applemusic kind of UI and stuff,
Keeping Alive the fandom offreaks and geeks.
Ryan Baron North (00:49):
Judd Apatow has been wildly popular for two
decades.
I don't know, sure, all right,cool, all right.
So welcome to this podcast.
I'm your host, ryan baron north, with me, as always, james
crossland.
James, what's going on, not?
James Crosslin (01:01):
much.
Just just finished watching ourmovie.
Today.
I'm feeling all right.
I am excited to smoke some weedyeah, me too well not the, not
the weed, yeah.
Ryan Baron North (01:18):
So, uh, for those of you, uh, joining us for
the first time, um, we're a popculture philosophy podcast.
We're going to take today themovie John Dies at the End
there's a kind of dead fandomand we're going to break it down
into three parts.
All right, we're going to startdelving into our thoughts.
(01:38):
We're going to go into somedrunken thoughts and then we're
going to do some what ifs, andwhat makes it so fun and special
is that we're going to be doingit drunk and high.
So, uh, james, what are you?
What are you smoking this week?
James Crosslin (01:50):
Oh, I've got some Acapulco gold again.
It's my go-to nowadays.
Uh yeah, it's, it's.
It gives you a good head rushand a lot of energy.
Ryan Baron North (02:07):
I haven't smoked this morning, so, okay,
all right, I'm low energy rightnow, but I'll get up there.
Nice, all right.
And uh, I'll be joining youwith my go-to um, the old
forester.
But I'm doing it.
I'm not doing the uh, I'm notdoing the prohibition style, I'm
just doing the standard oldforester flagship.
This cost me 25 at a grocerystore.
Um, got it in my little decanterright there nice yeah, and it's
(02:31):
a uh, it's 100 horsepower, yeah, 100 horsepower.
So it's not the 115 that we'vebeen getting used to on this
show.
Good, good, yeah, so so itshould be a more, even, I guess,
keeled episode.
So this first one, this one,goes out to I don't know, I
(02:53):
guess, absurdism.
James Crosslin (02:57):
Sure.
Ryan Baron North (02:58):
Yeah, so here's to the film.
Here's to the absurdism Cheers,cheers.
Here's to the film.
Here's to the absurdism, cheers, cheers.
I just saw that picture ofmyself in the corner there.
I forgot to shave this morning.
It's all coming in.
Yeah, me too.
(03:19):
You miss one day and it's justforget about it.
Yeah, now I got this ruggedthing going on.
James Crosslin (03:30):
That was good.
I noticed with my beard hairthat I'm getting gray hairs.
They're actually like shockwhite Me too it's right along
the sides there.
Ryan Baron North (03:43):
What the fuck?
I don't even have a wrinkle,but all of a sudden all these
fucking whites are coming ineverywhere.
James Crosslin (03:51):
Yeah, fuck the whites.
Ryan Baron North (03:53):
Fucking whites moving in and just ruining
everything, gentrifying yourface, just gentrifying my face.
So this next one, it's going togo out to our newest listeners,
these ones, I mean, there's noway we haven't yeah, I don't
(04:16):
think we've hit them.
James Crosslin (04:19):
That's on my end .
Ryan Baron North (04:22):
Whoop, whoop Well our newest listeners come
from Sparta Illinois.
James Crosslin (04:29):
Sparta Illinois All right, I'm not familiar.
I'm not familiar either.
You know we lived in Illinoisor close to Illinois for a big
portion of our lives.
I have no idea where Sparta,Illinois is.
Ryan Baron North (04:42):
Well, here's to them, cheers ideal or sparta,
illinois.
Well, here's to them cheers.
James Crosslin (04:47):
They keep their whereabouts protected by a
cohort of mighty greek warriors.
Ryan Baron North (04:57):
Oh, man, I wasn't able to keep a straight
face on that second.
Go right there.
So it's uh, it's weird, it'snot as uh, I don't know it
doesn't feel like as smooth asthe 115.
Yeah, it's odd, I I don't know.
Maybe I've just grown used toit, maybe I'm using this old
dirty glass right here.
James Crosslin (05:17):
I don't know who's to say it's, it's, it,
it's toxins released by thebacteria that consumed the sugar
in the glass.
Ryan Baron North (05:29):
That's what you're tasting that second one.
That was that ashtray backwashthat I'm used to on a second
shot of this stuff.
All right, and this last one,oh yeah, this last one.
Speaking of fucking white hairsin your beard, it occurred to
me just earlier today that we'veknown each other for going on
(05:51):
20 goddamn years.
James Crosslin (05:53):
Yeah that's true , yeah, cheers.
Ryan Baron North (05:55):
Cheers to 20 years.
20 years, oh, that one came infucking hard.
James Crosslin (06:03):
Oh, I thought I'd be dead by now.
Yeah, I know Right, I wascounting on it.
Ryan Baron North (06:08):
Well, I was thinking about it like just
boomer economics kind of shiftedeverything.
So stuff that you were able toaccomplish in your 20s you now
kind of start accomplishing inyour 30s.
James Crosslin (06:22):
So we're going to die right in our 40s.
Got it.
Ryan Baron North (06:25):
Or so our our 27 club is actually 37, so we
still have ample time to justfucking spiral out of control
and do it like they used toclassic yeah, no, I'm excited
the way it's meant to be.
Yeah, no, I'm excited about it.
All right, everybody.
(06:47):
So it's time to dive into it.
I already went over it a littlebit, but we're going to break
this show down, this movie Johndies at the end.
We're going to do it in threeparts.
Right now, we're going to doour sober thoughts, then we're
going to jump into ourenlightened thoughts, since
we're on the golden path, andthen we're going to do some what
ifs where we throw ourselves in.
So let's jump on in.
(07:08):
So sober thoughts, john dies atthe end.
James, what?
James Crosslin (07:10):
do you think this is a little?
Ryan Baron North (07:10):
different.
This one's a little differentthan what we normally do that's
true.
James Crosslin (07:14):
This is not so much science fiction as it is
fantasy.
It's like, uh, it's likemultiidimensional fantasy and
there's a big distinction.
There's no actual sciencefiction concepts here.
There are more fantasy conceptsand there's a few philosophical
(07:39):
concepts.
And one thing I wanted to pointout while I'm sober, we get
through the boring stuff in thesober thoughts portion, which is
so.
So the lead character, the leadof the movie, is David Wong, is
the character's name and that'sactually the writer of the book
John dies at the end is his.
His pen name is David Wong, hisreal name is Jason Pargin.
(08:03):
He's a yeah, he's a comedian andwriter, and he used to work for
cracked, which is a crackcomand cracked magazine.
We're really influential for mewhen it comes to comedy.
So there was like 10 to 10 orso years there where cracked, I
feel really dominated internetcomedy and I still listen to the
(08:27):
people who came out of crackspodcasts and, like cody johnston
and robert evans who does thebehind the bastards podcast, we
had garrison from, uh, frombehind the pastors podcast on on
our podcast, yeah, gamefullyunemployed network.
They have a lot of podcasts, butthey.
There's a pretty popularyoutube show called uh, some
(08:48):
more news, where that codyjohnson does has like hundreds
of thousands of views everyepisode.
So these cracks, these crackedpeople, have been, you know,
semi-successful.
They're pretty successful.
They get to live their dream,which is nice, yeah.
But jason pargin is uh, he usedto work for them.
He works for 1 900 hot dogright now, I'm pretty sure is
(09:08):
the name of the very funny groupwith with other people from
cracked.
Um, he continues to write.
He has, uh, a lot of absurdistbooks out from a series called
uh, zoe, what is it?
Ryan Baron North (09:28):
It's called the Zoe uh franchise, but he, he
has a whole bunch of books, uh,but anyway, well we, we put
more effort into promoting himjust now than we do our own show
at the end of this fuckingthing.
James Crosslin (09:40):
Well, I really like him and I hate us, so
that's why, hell yeah, I reallyI think he's a, I think he's a
very funny guy and I think hiswriting is is really fun.
Uh, I don't know how well ittranslates to the screen if
we're just talking about soberthoughts like do you, do I like
this movie?
Uh, I hated this movie.
(10:01):
Okay, okay, interesting, go on.
Ryan Baron North (10:02):
I absolutely hated this movie.
Okay, okay, interesting Go on.
James Crosslin (10:04):
I absolutely hated this movie.
All right, I thought it wasbordering on incoherent.
I felt like the.
I felt like it was, you know,so the, the, the conversations
about tropes didn't didn'treally exist at the time, I
(10:24):
guess.
So it was like a just anintroduction of like hey, here's
all the movie tropes, which waskind of a new concept at the
time.
Ryan Baron North (10:32):
maybe I love that you built him up to tear
him down.
James Crosslin (10:39):
No, he didn't write this movie.
His work was adapted for thismovie and he's openly said like
I am not going to criticize thismovie.
You know, uh, his work wasadapted for this movie and I he
he's been.
He's openly said like I am notgoing to criticize this movie,
this movie.
Thank you anyone for making myworks into film.
I appreciate you.
I will never criticize thismovie and then paul giamatti
showed up yeah, paul giamattiwas was was the best part of the
(11:02):
movie.
Paul giamatti was the best partof the movie.
Paul Giamatti was the best partof the movie.
Ryan Baron North (11:07):
He always kind of is the best part of what
he's in he steals the show.
He really does.
Very hilarious guy.
James Crosslin (11:18):
He is.
What about you?
Ryan Baron North (11:30):
How did you feel about the movie?
So it was, it felt like a.
It felt like a cobbled togetherlabor of love.
Honestly, they, they found this.
They probably found this bookthat they enjoyed in a fucking
Barnes and Noble it was.
It was weird, it was sort ofout there and they're like, well
, let's see what we could dowith it.
It introduced some veryrudimentary philosophy.
A lot of it we've alreadytouched on in this show.
(11:51):
It starts with a thesis shipwith the X.
I mean which, knowing thatrudimentary philosophy, I mean
it's enough to get you laid at acollege party.
You?
James Crosslin (12:04):
know when did this movie come out?
Ryan Baron North (12:07):
In 2007?
I don't, I don't fucking know,it wasn't that late was it hold
on I'm gonna look at it.
Yeah, like the year wegraduated from high school, it
wasn't that fucking late oh mygod, apparently it was the year
of our lord, 2012.
James Crosslin (12:22):
Okay, you gotta be fucking.
No, this was way too late.
That that was way too late.
The book, of course, came outearlier.
Ryan Baron North (12:31):
Jason jason parsons book came out and it
still maintains a fandom.
Yeah, if I remember right, he'sgot one or two of them he's got
very he's got a very rabid fanbase for his stuff he's really
big on book talk.
I don't like tiktok, but yeah,but honestly so I'll give book
talk credit just because it'skeeping it is kind of keeping
(12:57):
alive the written word yeahmaking it sort of trendy and
holy shit.
Do we need that?
But um, uh, I mean, like I seethings about like just you know,
uh, like I.
so you know I own a motorcycleand so I'm targeted all the time
by douchebag biker dudes andlike half of them are like
(13:18):
riding down to barnes and nobleto pick up some book dot girlies
, and so you know, it's, it's,it's a trend, and you know I'm
happy that we aren't justcompletely abandoning you know
the particular art that I'vechosen to chase after my life.
But yeah, I forget where I wasgoing with this.
Oh, yeah, books are good.
(13:40):
Yeah, books are good, books aregood and yeah, so, like I said,
I think someone found this book, someone enjoyed it and they
kind of labored or loved it.
It was obviously a b movie.
I did enjoy, um, the two maincharacters.
I I thought they balanced eachother well.
I thought, uh, like the firstdude, like the main guy, not
(14:02):
john david, david david, he,david wong, he comes off like
sort of, you know, like talkingto a fucking shoe, but he, it
becomes his character andeventually you're like I've met
his character.
James Crosslin (14:16):
His character is the personality of his shoe.
Ryan Baron North (14:19):
But like I've met that guy and uh, I thought
he was well balanced by john.
I thought the guy who uh playedas john, I thought he was well
balanced by John.
I thought the guy who played asJohn I thought he was fun.
James Crosslin (14:30):
I do not think they were diametrically opposed
at all.
I feel like they were in factjust totally random.
Ryan Baron North (14:38):
There were a few lines that I enjoyed and I
liked the way John just sort ofplayed into it, like, um, my
friend John, here, he uh, he haspoor eyesight on the on the
account of his constantmasturbation and he's just in
the corner nodding respectfullyat the comment and like like,
all right, I can't even enjoythe cheekiness of it.
(15:00):
Um, I liked the bratwurst, umcell phone, um, I, you know.
So there were, there were a fewthings that I'm like all right,
that's, that's fun, that's funit.
It was like a, it was like aless fleshed out rick and morty,
yeah, like sort of thisuniversal cosmic nihilism.
(15:22):
But it's like fuck it.
It's funny instead of it'sdepressing and I'm divorced
right right exactly which I canappreciate.
James Crosslin (15:33):
Yes, I don't think it was.
In my opinion, it wasn't funnyenough.
It was neither.
It was neither this kind ofearly 2000s nihilism or like
(15:55):
what was it?
What's the word?
I'm looking for Aloofness.
It was like an aloofness fromthe characters about what was
happening to them.
That made them feel.
It made me feel uncommitted Towhat they were doing.
Because they felt uncommittedand it's like okay, if you want
to make a point about commitmentand about surrogates For our
(16:19):
viewpoints and stuff like that,okay, but also, you want me to
care about your piece of media I?
It's hard for me to care whenthey don't care well I?
Ryan Baron North (16:32):
it sounds to me like we may be on the golden
path.
Oh yeah, we're already therethat makes sense it might be
time to uh line them up one lasttime and get into the high
drunk thoughts of this thing.
So let's load them up, I'mgonna pour right there.
(16:53):
There we go.
It's only 100 horsepower.
I could afford a little bitextra here.
We are all right.
Um.
James Crosslin (17:02):
So yeah, let's, but I am, I am we normally we
kind of we have good opinions onwhat it was and so it's kind of
(17:23):
going to be interesting to sortof bounce like these negative
thoughts off of it too,especially from a guy that you
know we're obviously like inapproval.
Yeah, yeah, I'm in approval ofDavid Wong.
I think that his writing isbetter than this adaptation of
his movie.
Ryan Baron North (17:29):
Well, I'm in approval of David Wong.
I think that his writing isbetter than this adaptation of
his movie.
Well.
James Crosslin (17:33):
I'm going to have to pick up the book to
compare.
I think I own this book Forreal.
Yeah, I think so.
I think this was gifted to meand I read part of this book.
I don't know if I made it allthe way to the end, but I found
the writing enjoyable Okay.
Ryan Baron North (17:47):
Well.
James Crosslin (17:50):
I mean I just throw, I put down books and
movies and shit all the time andjust don't finish up.
Ryan Baron North (17:53):
Who's got the fucking time?
Yeah, I'm in the middle ofbuttfuck Missouri right now, and
so a bookstore around here?
No, not a fucking chance.
So I'm going to have to make ajourney.
So here's our final one, righthere, as written.
James Crosslin (18:08):
Lisa Dalgai.
Ryan Baron North (18:10):
As written.
Oh there it is, man I finallyspeaking, of which I finally
fucking worked through thatTitanic Doom episode we did.
That'll be coming out today.
James Crosslin (18:24):
Oh, awesome.
Ryan Baron North (18:26):
Thanks for doing that, man oh yeah, that
was, that was a, that was atoughie and I've been sort of,
uh, life has been coming at mewith its pants down and so it's
been tough, but I'm I'm spendingthis sort of week here just
knocking it out, getting thatcontent out there to the people
who've been uh, who've beendemanding it, knocking down the
gates for it, kind of thing, youknow yeah, just blowing up your
(18:48):
phone at 3 am.
James Crosslin (18:49):
When's the next episode?
Ryan Baron North (18:52):
yeah, oh it's, it's, it's exhausting, it's
exhausting, you know, and just,oh my god, the the women
throwing themselves at me Idon't want it.
James Crosslin (19:01):
Oh my god, oh my god oh, it's terrible.
Ryan Baron North (19:05):
I all this drugs and sex that I don't want
to be having.
James Crosslin (19:09):
But I have it for the fans.
There's expectations.
Uh, you know.
I tried watching the other guysagain.
Yeah, the way Farrell treatshis wife, yeah, like it is
(19:31):
unbearable.
I can't watch the movie.
I cannot finish the moviebecause of how like the violence
against the verbal violenceagainst a woman is, so it turns
my stomach so hard.
Every other part of the movie Ifeel is hilarious.
Ryan Baron North (19:47):
But that was just.
I haven't watched the movie inyears.
I'll have to revisit.
Yeah, Eva Mendes, I'll have torevisit.
See how we think about that.
James Crosslin (20:01):
She's in such an abusive relationship it's so
hard to watch.
Ryan Baron North (20:05):
Well, I mean, you mean, you know gators,
bitches and whatnot I'm supposedto be laughing, see this.
James Crosslin (20:11):
This really segues us into the point where
it's like the energy of a movieis really important and the
energy of this movie was likealoof and getting dragged from
place to place and not reallybeing engaged or excited or
driven, and the movie also feltthat way you know, yeah, it made
(20:36):
me feel that way and I wasn'texcited and I wasn't engaged and
I wasn't driven.
It has a lot of like it'srandom.
It's the I'm so random ofmovies, in my opinion.
Ryan Baron North (20:53):
Well, speaking of finding white hairs in the
beard.
I wonder are we too old forthis movie?
James Crosslin (21:03):
Is the fact that we have encountered many pieces
, of many more pieces of mediabefore this one affecting our
view of it?
Probably?
Ryan Baron North (21:12):
I mean, or could it, could it just be like,
like we talked about right offthe cuff, is they start this
with fucking theseus's ship?
It's super, um, rudimentary.
So maybe this movie isn't forus.
Maybe it's for us when we were17, starting to become the
(21:36):
future prolific hosts of highand dry podcast.
James Crosslin (21:40):
Right, and that may be true.
Right, that may absolutely betrue, because this started as a
serial release.
So it was, it was.
It was just written as a serialoriginally, before it was
compiled into a book, and I justread that it started in 2001,
which is, you know, around thetime where we would have been
(22:00):
just encountering opinions, andI have a note.
I have a note about thatspecifically.
I said this movie isintroducing emo kids to several
fleeting concepts like identity,predestination, causality,
inhuman intelligence, uh,without actual, any actual
(22:23):
discussion or exploration.
Yeah, it just really throws abunch of things out there okay,
well, I mean.
Ryan Baron North (22:34):
So I mean that may be it, because I mean I I
feel like you know watching this.
Just take me back to 2005 six.
You know that region rightthere.
This would have been right upmy fucking alley and I feel like
watching it.
I definitely saw sort of ayounger version of myself in
(22:59):
John and I mean he's in a shitband.
James Crosslin (23:05):
Yeah.
Ryan Baron North (23:06):
Hold on a second.
James Crosslin (23:07):
I have a quote here from the band.
It is camel Holocaust hair,hair, hair, hair.
Exactly.
I was like this is so fuckingstupid yeah.
Ryan Baron North (23:21):
Yeah, so that's what I'm saying and it
just wasn't for us.
But in that same scene Ithought it was also cool.
I liked the sort of the empathythat we were having for an
amputee they made jokes with herhand later, did they?
James Crosslin (23:42):
they made jokes about her hand, yes, like at the
very end when she lifts herprosthetic hand to his face like
yeah, you're right, you'reright they had a few scenes
where the prosthetic was a jokeand I was like, oh my god yeah,
well, I mean right off the bat,though.
Ryan Baron North (24:00):
She was talking about just the phantom
limb syndrome and the dude and,like the people who were coming
down on her were immediatelyviewed as assholes right so yeah
so.
James Crosslin (24:14):
But here's the thing, yeah.
So, yes, they did.
They were like, don't be anasshole about, you know,
people's disabilities, but whatit was really there to do was to
set up the phantom limb thing,and and the whole jason's
writing does this.
I've read a little bit of thezoe series.
Zoe's too drunk for thisuniverse, I think, was one of
the one I I I read quite a fewpassages from, and his writing
(24:39):
is a lot about non-sequitursthat turn out to not be
non-sequiturs, like they comeback right and but they're
without this cohesion of story.
They're without the cohesion ofthe story and therefore their
setups and callbacks that aremore non-sequitur and for a
(25:04):
young person who hasn'tencountered non-sequitur humor
before would would probably havea lot more of a fun time with
that yeah, okay yeah, sure,plant payoffs great, but a lot
of time there's story in there.
These are like hidden plantedpayoffs where the dude just
mentions phantom limb in thefirst like scene at that party
(25:27):
or whatever, and then and thenit comes back way later in the
movie but for like they're, theyjust like wanted you to think
about it for a second, yeah, andand then and then they brought
it back and sure, that's astorytelling mechanic where
you're like why the fuck wouldthey mention that?
Ryan Baron North (25:45):
well, yeah, that seems weird.
I mean they just stunned theshit out of it.
James Crosslin (25:49):
But but there's a bunch of things in this movie
that have no bearing on anythingthat they're just saying.
There are 6394.
Ryan Baron North (25:59):
Yeah, right, so he's just throwing down, yeah
, rudimentary philosophy thatthey, that, they, that they
picked up somewhere.
James Crosslin (26:09):
And again, I, I gotta, I gotta, read this book
now to see if it was the film orif it was the book, because I'm
I'm really curious I think so Ienjoyed the book more that I,
the parts of the book that Iread, which is most of the book,
uh, more than the movie, eventhough I didn't finish the book
(26:30):
and I finished the movie.
I just don't.
I, I have a hard time gettingthrough books.
I have a problem with it.
Ryan Baron North (26:38):
Oh, yeah, but uh you gotta get on that book
talk.
I like books, but I just likeit, it's it's feels strenuous to
do it, and I enjoy movies more.
Well and then.
So there were other parts ofthe the film than the film that
were cinema cinema I did likethe dog's suicide bomb.
James Crosslin (27:07):
I did like the dog's suicide bomb I was so I
had such a distaste in my mouthof the movie at that point that
I couldn't enjoy it, and I feellike I should have.
Ryan Baron North (27:18):
I feel like I should have.
I love the dog, just likeclosing his eyes, accepting his
fate and for like the greatergood of the universe.
I did enjoy that.
James Crosslin (27:28):
I felt like the movie wasn't funny enough.
That have been a like that's agreat premise.
Yeah, it's a hilarious premise.
Uh, that's too bad.
I'm glad.
I'm glad that that you're ableto cut through that and see,
like, get a lot of joy out ofthat scene.
It just sucks that it didn'tland for me.
Ryan Baron North (27:46):
Yeah, no, I think it was.
I think the main thing for mewas just being able to, I guess,
reconnect with how shallow andundeveloped I was when I was
(28:07):
John's age and so, seeing theway he acted and the way he
behaved and these very, veryfleeting glimpses of some form
of maturity and enlightenment,and then immediately going back
to fucking nonsense and all thatsort of things, I was able to
(28:30):
identify, at least at that stagein my life with John.
Remembering who I was back thenallowed me to kind of delve
(28:51):
into the film a little, thecinema a little more, yeah, and
I think it's just.
I think it's just, uh, this wasnot for 35 year old Ryan, this
was definitely for 17 year oldRyan, right?
James Crosslin (29:03):
Right, the, uh, the, the dreams.
The dreams were so dumb thatthey were recounted like Paul
Giamatti's mom whipping him witha lash made of penises and uh,
that's not what dreams are like.
Ryan Baron North (29:16):
Yeah, yeah.
James Crosslin (29:17):
Nobody has dreams like that.
Nobody has a dream where theirex is sitting on a big pile of
cartoon dynamite, yeah.
Ryan Baron North (29:24):
And then that that big pile of cartoon
dynamite, yeah, and then thatthat.
That pissed me off because Iliked the premise of asking how
did your mind know the thunderwas coming?
James Crosslin (29:38):
right, yeah, that's the philosophical concept
?
Ryan Baron North (29:41):
yeah, and it was.
It was muddled by cartoondynamite in a dream.
No one has ever, ever dreamt ofcartoon dynamite, you know, I
except for like the dude whoactually wrote Jason the road
runner for goddamn Warnerbrothers that guy, he's the only
one.
James Crosslin (30:02):
He dreams about it because he was sitting there
drawing it all day and his mind,his mind dreams the things he
encounters.
Ryan Baron North (30:09):
Exactly yeah, no, and oh, jesus Christ.
So, like they were, they Iwould say that that's the the
big thing about this was alwayson the cusp of touching on
something worthwhile, but thenfucking it up with cartoon
(30:29):
dynamite.
James Crosslin (30:30):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great, that's a great
way to put it.
Uh, uh, I feel like it trippedover its own feet a lot with
with being.
It took some things reallyseriously Like it.
It tried to have.
It tried to have big things tosay at times, or at least
emphasized it like big things tosay and I was like I didn't
(30:52):
think that was that big yeah, Ifeel like.
Ryan Baron North (30:55):
I feel like this is this is uh sophomore
shit, which is exactly what itis, which I guess, that's kind
of who it's for well, I mean, Ithink it was, wasn't it the
second episode ever of high anddry, when turk was the third
host?
Yeah, we did these, we didthese ship and that's all.
(31:20):
The axe was in the beginning,and we started with theseus's
ship and the trolley problem,because that's where you should
start.
James Crosslin (31:29):
Yeah, that's true.
Ryan Baron North (31:30):
Yeah.
James Crosslin (31:31):
That's true.
Ryan Baron North (31:32):
And that's where I hate.
Look this film.
This cinema had Paul Giamattisign off, all right, so if I can
put some respect, on it.
James Crosslin (31:41):
It had Paul Giamatti using a hard R yeah.
Paul Giamatti using a hard Ryeah, paul.
Ryan Baron North (31:48):
Giamatti drops a hard R In this movie.
He sat down read the script andwas like, yeah, the hard R for
a white man is a beautifulactress deciding it's time to
show her breasts.
James Crosslin (32:09):
Beautiful actress deciding it's time to
show her breasts and and paulgiamatti decided that john dies
at the end was his heart.
Our film wait.
Can I say the n word in thisone?
Ryan Baron North (32:19):
yes, and he did yeah that's what he.
James Crosslin (32:22):
He asked for it when they were like Paul.
We want you to play thischaracter.
Can I say the N word Then?
Ryan Baron North (32:28):
he's like yes, yes, because you can.
Actually, it's weird that youbrought that up unprovoked.
James Crosslin (32:35):
How did your brain know that you'd get to say
the N word?
And then the camera zooms in?
Holy shit.
How did I know.
Ryan Baron North (32:47):
So it's actually a very commonly known
thing in Hollywood that PaulGiamatti has always asked,
whenever he's offered a role, ifthis is the one, and he finally
got it with this B film.
Finally got it with this B filmBecause, I mean, for whatever
(33:10):
reason, tarantino has never beenknocking down Paul Giamatti's
door, and so he thought it wouldnever happen.
James Crosslin (33:19):
Paul Giamatti wanted he didn't want it to get
lost in the stream of hard R'sin the movie that's why he
couldn't do a Tarantino In aTarantino film.
Doesn't stand out at all.
That guy sucks.
Why, why?
In every movie.
Ryan Baron North (33:35):
He was actually originally put in to be
Leonardo DiCaprio in DjangoUnchained and he's like.
I feel like my hard R will belost.
James Crosslin (33:46):
I just want to say it once as a punctuation.
Ryan Baron North (33:51):
And that's how Leonardo DiCaprio got the role.
James Crosslin (33:54):
Yeah, because he was more comfortable.
He was like can I say it 40times?
Ryan Baron North (34:01):
Yeah, and this is why people come to High and
Dry is to find out all thisfucking dirt that you know
behind the scenes that only weare privy to.
Oh man, yeah, no, but that,yeah, he did drop that, though,
and he felt that this was thefilm for that.
But, uh, jesus Christ, wherethe fuck were we going with this
(34:23):
?
I?
James Crosslin (34:25):
I don't know.
This movie is like concepts.
It introduces.
Ryan Baron North (34:28):
I, yeah, I'd say that.
James Crosslin (34:29):
I would say that I would say that this movie, if
you watch it with friends,everybody would have questions,
right, everybody would be askingeach other questions and I
would say that it would, uh,definitely spawn conversation.
The problem is like we I as a,as a older person, I guess this
spawns very little conversationfor me, like I've seen, yeah, no
(34:54):
, I would be at that party.
Ryan Baron North (34:56):
I would be at that party where we decided to
watch John dies at the end andgoing like oh.
Oh boy, where were all these,where all these people I was
starting to talk to now are likebeing introduced to theseus's
fucking ship?
I'm like, oh my god, what's?
James Crosslin (35:12):
happened to me.
Oh no, why did they laugh whenhe didn't want to touch the dick
?
I thought that was stupid.
I thought you just touched thedick just over the door.
It's a dick, whatever they'relaughing like crazy.
Ryan Baron North (35:25):
Too much, too much.
Yeah, no, I'm in a room with abunch of joe rogan fans and I
didn't know that before Iwatched this film I wouldn't
touch a dick to save my lifeyeah, I didn't, I didn't ask
yeah.
(35:45):
Oh yeah, those are the people.
Those are the people,definitely.
James Crosslin (35:52):
And oh my.
Ryan Baron North (35:52):
God Dude, I got to tell you, living out here
in Missouri for work, it's forwork.
I have met so many of thosepeople.
James Crosslin (36:13):
And, dude, some of them are in their 40s.
Ryan Baron North (36:14):
Yeah, it's wild, they're all, oh, my god oh
my god, well, no I don't even,I don't even think they would
attach to john dies at the endbecause, uh, fucking john would
be awakening, like thisbisexuality that they've never
fucking dealt with.
You know, that's true, and andit would just be too much.
It would just be too much.
Um, it's, oh, my god, like, oh,I mean, it's just there's,
(36:40):
there's people out there whoreally really need to get and
just touch with themselves,think about something that makes
them uncomfortable, you know,and get to the other side of it,
do some fucking growth, yeah,yeah, yeah, all right.
Well, with that being said,it's time to delve into the
(37:03):
third part of this thing.
It's time for the what, if?
All right, it's time to insertourselves into this fucking paul
giamatti dropping hard r'snightmare.
How does this change?
So?
So, james, you've insertedyourself into Paul Giamatti dies
(37:27):
at the end, into John dies atthe end I mean he does, he does
actually Spoiler alert.
James Crosslin (37:36):
For this 12-year-old movie oh my God,
it's been that long and23-year-old old book,
essentially.
Ryan Baron North (37:46):
Wow, Well, that's crazy.
Well so, James, how does itchange now that that you're in
it?
James Crosslin (37:57):
I don't know, it's so.
It's so there.
There isn't anything here.
I don't know what to say.
Ryan Baron North (38:04):
There's nothing there.
James Crosslin (38:05):
There's nothing there.
There's nothing there becausethe the character doesn't make
any choices, it.
Things just happen to the maincharacter, the.
The choices don't make anysense by design.
He keeps getting calls fromfuture john, and, and it's.
It can be used anywhere as adeus ex machina, what.
(38:28):
What am I supposed to do withthis?
Essentially, I just I don'thave the time in this one to
write a new story, just write astory about myself story, yeah,
no.
Ryan Baron North (38:38):
Well, so are you?
Uh are you.
James Crosslin (38:42):
there's nothing here.
I would kill myself to denywhatever cosmic force wanted me
to take part in this terriblestory.
I would kill myself Out ofspite.
Ryan Baron North (39:05):
Solid.
James Crosslin (39:06):
Solid.
Well, are you David Wong or areyou?
Uh, are you david wong or areyou john, doesn't matter.
I guess I killed myself.
I killed one of us and then theother, and I annihilate our
friendship I shoot him and thenI shoot myself, all right.
Cool.
(39:37):
What could I have donedifferently?
They didn't make any choicesand just got dragged from one
thing to another.
They did.
Ryan Baron North (39:48):
They did just get dragged from each fucking
thing.
Oh, my god.
Oh, this is what happens when Ijust I message you in the
morning like I, I don't know,I'm seeing john dies at the end,
let's see what happens now forme.
Uh shit, well, I mean.
So if you take me right now andall of a sudden I get hit by
(40:11):
the soy sauce sure, apparentlyyou've got a plan, apparently
you've got a plan well, I meanit would definitely shit, I mean
it would definitely change, Imean it would definitely change
my trajectory hands down.
So just taking it that way, sostepping out of the film, I have
(40:32):
this syringe of cosmic entityand I've been hit with it.
How would that alter my life?
I mean, I'm definitely notgoing to work tomorrow, that's
for fucking sure.
James Crosslin (40:47):
Well, maybe you are, Maybe you're supposed to go
to work and maybe at work youknow that pig head that was
controlled like living.
It was the first livingcomputer that shows up in the
break room fridge at your work,and that's what I now have to
deal with it.
It's literally that's theentire movie, man.
(41:09):
That's the entire movie.
It's just things show up andthen they have to deal with it.
Ryan Baron North (41:14):
Yeah, yeah, well then.
So then here's my question foryou.
Then, so, instead of because wecan't put ourselves into this
film that wasn't made for us,right?
We can't put ourselves into it,so let's just take the soy
sauce and put it into us.
Ooh, okay, how does that changeour lives?
(41:37):
So, fuck, john dies at the endand we're just going to pull out
, I guess, the catalyst and putit into our lives instead of
this film.
James Crosslin (41:48):
Well, I'd have some fucking direction.
Let me tell you, if the soysauce hit me, I'd want to learn
about it.
They don't seem to want tolearn.
No, they don't seem to give ashit.
They're very anti-learning guys.
Well, paul giamatti's ghostsays that, listen, if you get
these hands in someone some kindof side, if you get these in
(42:10):
some kind of scientist's hands,they're going to lose their shit
.
What is this?
Let's figure out what this is.
It's crazy, that's what I'd do.
I'd go down to the communitycollege and I'd meet some
interesting individual who hasnothing better to do and I'd say
I need some help figuring outwhat this is.
It gives me psychic powers,demons, blah, blah, blah,
(42:34):
because things are popping upeverywhere.
I don't have to like try hard, Ianywhere I go, something's
apparently gonna happen to me.
So I have a bunch of evidence.
I'm just collecting evidence.
I got fucking crates full offull of spider leeches and shit
just just waiting to be figuredout what's going on.
They don't seem particularlyhard to capture or anything.
Yeah.
Ryan Baron North (42:56):
You're right.
No, so if I got my hands onthis soy sauce, I mean how it
would change my life?
Fuck, I don't even, Because Ithink my main.
I would say that my main issueis always trying to find the
(43:19):
knowing that happiness comesfrom inside, but always looking
outside to find it Right.
And now, all of a sudden, Iknow everything about the
outside.
James Crosslin (43:30):
Oh, that's interesting and.
Now there's nowhere else toturn Now.
Ryan Baron North (43:34):
there's nowhere else to turn now there's
nowhere else to turn, and so II think it would have forced a
confrontation like a personalmyself, yeah so all these things
that I chase after in theexternal um, whether it's a job,
(43:55):
a location, a relationship,whatever it is, you know, I know
how they all turn out andthere's no longer an excitement
within those things, and so thesoy sauce then in my life would
force me like absolutely forceme, inward, yeah, and so I think
(44:15):
it would have a very profoundimpact yeah, honestly, their
society at the end didn't seemtoo bad.
James Crosslin (44:22):
There's their alternate society with gorok
titties everywhere, tittieseverywhere.
We worship gorok, hell yeah,everybody's everybody's wearing
masks and shit, so it seems likea cool place.
They all have like a bunch oflike infinite knowledge and shit
seems cool whatever a fewpeople get thrown into the
(44:45):
knowledge machine.
Are you telling me that somehowour earth and system are better
than people getting thrown intothe machine to keep things
churning Well at?
Ryan Baron North (44:55):
least there they're up front with it.
James Crosslin (44:57):
Yeah, they're like we're going to take you to
the machine and it's going toassimilate you.
Ryan Baron North (45:02):
You're going to allow us to keep having all
these titties out and just enjoylife.
James Crosslin (45:09):
I know.
Ryan Baron North (45:10):
Yeah, the dog who killed itself wasn't really
thinking.
James Crosslin (45:18):
It was a, it was a libertarian extremist.
He actually uh, he was, uh, hewas a big fan of the Unabomber,
yeah.
Ryan Baron North (45:27):
The dog in this film was just a libertarian
extremist.
James Crosslin (45:30):
Left a manifesto on his hard drive.
Ryan Baron North (45:37):
Yeah, and he just had to destroy this other
world that he didn't have accessto.
He, his mind and hisinsecurities did not allow him
to be in a place where it wasjust about fucking titties and
chilling, yeah, whatever.
What a dumb ass.
Oh my god, libertarians, that'swhat we think of you, by the
(46:03):
way.
James Crosslin (46:05):
Yeah, yeah, but you know they're probably not
listening to this podcast they,they want to be the ones
grinding the people with theirown hands yeah instead of yeah
exactly instead of just outthere enjoying the titties it's
like I want to be the monstermachine.
And in the perfect world,nobody's responsible for
anything and they're justresponsible for themselves.
(46:28):
So if you which when you takethat to its logical conclusion
you're not responsible foranything that happens to anybody
else, and so it's, and so it'sa worse system.
Ryan Baron North (46:40):
Exactly, yeah, no, and uh, well, well to uh to
close out this final segment.
Or are in your life, um just,are there any other ways that
the soy sauce?
James Crosslin (46:57):
would change your life.
I don't know.
I feel like it'd be reallyoverwhelming.
I don't know.
Maybe, maybe the zest for lifewould go away if you knew
everything that was going tohappen.
I guess that.
I guess they didn't.
I don't know.
Did they know everything thatwas gonna happen?
Ryan Baron North (47:13):
john did?
James Crosslin (47:15):
john seemed to know everything that was gonna
happen yeah david didn't seem toknow anything that was gonna
happen.
Because, remember, he didn'tseem to know anything.
Ryan Baron North (47:27):
He only ever got pricked and then he only got
that little cheek wound.
He didn't take a full.
Another one flew down histhroat.
James Crosslin (47:33):
Yeah, I think, and it was in a whole.
It was in a whole thing.
So those two little flies cameout of a whole thing of it I
just think.
I just think that it's amcguffin right for this movie to
just make things happen.
Ryan Baron North (47:51):
The soy sauce just makes things happen.
I don't know.
So what would a MacGuffin do toyour life?
James Crosslin (47:58):
I don't know, I have no idea yeah, wow.
It doesn't matter.
That's the thing is.
It doesn't matter what it does.
This movie is so fatalist thatliterally nothing matters,
because whatever is going tohappen is going to happen.
Whatever is going to happen isgoing to happen.
Whatever is going to resolve isgoing to resolve.
Literally, I'd just be alongfor the ride, would I know that
(48:21):
I was just along for the ride?
I might.
And therefore it takes all theje ne veux away.
I don't feel the zest of lifebecause too much shit is
happening all the time.
And then I apparently know isgoing to happen and it's just
like I'm so I'll.
I'll feel how I did during thismovie, where I was like, yeah,
(48:46):
okay.
Ryan Baron North (48:47):
Yeah, you bring up a great point.
Yeah, no, and half of I feelwhat defines me personally is my
, I guess, adventurousness, andif you take away mystery, I
(49:07):
guess I'd lose half of myself.
James Crosslin (49:10):
You would have gone and helped those guys at
the end of the movie?
I would have yeah, probablyyeah, those guys at the end of
the movie.
I would have, yeah probably.
Ryan Baron North (49:15):
Yeah, I don't give a shit about this
basketball game, but if you hadsoy sauce, would you?
James Crosslin (49:20):
I don't know if you got, if soy sauce like was
just like.
Oh yeah, every dimension isgoing through this bullshit
their own shit and yeah,whatever, this is just a drop of
the bucket.
Who gives a shit?
Yeah, maybe, and I mean, ifthat's the case, then as you
(49:43):
walked away from them, like Iwas like all right, cool guys,
you guys seem great.
Yeah, you guys are awesome yeah, no, I'm glad you're the ones
yeah, right, well, I mean atthat, at that point I've.
Ryan Baron North (49:57):
I guess I died when I took that soy sauce
because all the things on me aregone.
Yeah, it's pretty weird and Ijust get trapped in.
Whatever the fuck.
James Crosslin (50:05):
This is paul giamatti, given the hard r,
forever one of the questionsthat I would end up asking at at
the college.
At the college uh hangout wherewe watched john dies at the end
and someone's smelly cumcovered dorm room, we would, um,
(50:26):
I would ask, uh, if, if thisguy was all a figment of, uh,
dave's imagination, david'simagination, if that, if that
detective was dead the wholetime and and you know, paul gmi
was just a figment of David'simagination, if that detective
was dead the whole time and PaulGMI was just a figment he's
been dead for weeks.
What about the dream with thelashing penises from the night
before?
Right, yeah Is that just youmentally masturbating about a
(50:49):
quirky thing.
I think so it's just mentalmasturbation at that point and
it's like, alright, yeah, thattells me about all I need to
know about this movie.
It's like it's mentalmasturbation for for, just for
just coming up with.
Wouldn't it be cool if?
Ryan Baron North (51:09):
and there you have it, folks.
So yeah, john dies at the end.
It's mental masturbation.
So thanks you all for listening.
I'm your host, ryan barronnorth with me, as always, james
crossland, hope you.
James Crosslin (51:24):
I mean you probably shouldn't watch that
one, but how did you know thatthis was the end of the podcast?
It just felt like it.
Ryan Baron North (51:32):
I saw the cartoon dynamite.
Thanks everybody, bye, bye.
I'm good to go.
Ryan Baron North (00:02):
All right, Well, let's do this.
Everybody welcome to the Highand Dry Podcast, the only
podcast keeping alive the fandomof Firefly that one season
there.
James Crosslin (00:15):
I think that that was an incredibly popular
cult show.
Ryan Baron North (00:19):
I don't know you still think it's a lot Fine.
How about the Zune?
Keeping alive the fandom of theZune?
James Crosslin (00:25):
A lot of people loved the Zune.
It was like open.
It was like an open media thing.
It wasn't as restrictive on howyou download it.
It wasn't tied to like Applemusic kind of UI and stuff,
Keeping Alive the fandom offreaks and geeks.
Ryan Baron North (00:49):
Judd Apatow has been wildly popular for two
decades.
I don't know, sure, all right,cool, all right.
So welcome to this podcast.
I'm your host, ryan baron north, with me, as always, james
crossland.
James, what's going on, not?
James Crosslin (01:01):
much.
Just just finished watching ourmovie.
Today.
I'm feeling all right.
I am excited to smoke some weedyeah, me too well not the, not
the weed, yeah.
Ryan Baron North (01:18):
So, uh, for those of you, uh, joining us for
the first time, um, we're a popculture philosophy podcast.
We're going to take today themovie John Dies at the End
there's a kind of dead fandomand we're going to break it down
into three parts.
All right, we're going to startdelving into our thoughts.
(01:38):
We're going to go into somedrunken thoughts and then we're
going to do some what ifs, andwhat makes it so fun and special
is that we're going to be doingit drunk and high.
So, uh, james, what are you?
What are you smoking this week?
James Crosslin (01:50):
Oh, I've got some Acapulco gold again.
It's my go-to nowadays.
Uh yeah, it's, it's.
It gives you a good head rushand a lot of energy.
Ryan Baron North (02:07):
I haven't smoked this morning, so, okay,
all right, I'm low energy rightnow, but I'll get up there.
Nice, all right.
And uh, I'll be joining youwith my go-to um, the old
forester.
But I'm doing it.
I'm not doing the uh, I'm notdoing the prohibition style, I'm
just doing the standard oldforester flagship.
This cost me 25 at a grocerystore.
Um, got it in my little decanterright there nice yeah, and it's
(02:31):
a uh, it's 100 horsepower, yeah, 100 horsepower.
So it's not the 115 that we'vebeen getting used to on this
show.
Good, good, yeah, so so itshould be a more, even, I guess,
keeled episode.
So this first one, this one,goes out to I don't know, I
(02:53):
guess, absurdism.
James Crosslin (02:57):
Sure.
Ryan Baron North (02:58):
Yeah, so here's to the film.
Here's to the absurdism Cheers,cheers.
Here's to the film.
Here's to the absurdism, cheers, cheers.
I just saw that picture ofmyself in the corner there.
I forgot to shave this morning.
It's all coming in.
Yeah, me too.
(03:19):
You miss one day and it's justforget about it.
Yeah, now I got this ruggedthing going on.
James Crosslin (03:30):
That was good.
I noticed with my beard hairthat I'm getting gray hairs.
They're actually like shockwhite Me too it's right along
the sides there.
Ryan Baron North (03:43):
What the fuck?
I don't even have a wrinkle,but all of a sudden all these
fucking whites are coming ineverywhere.
James Crosslin (03:51):
Yeah, fuck the whites.
Ryan Baron North (03:53):
Fucking whites moving in and just ruining
everything, gentrifying yourface, just gentrifying my face.
So this next one, it's going togo out to our newest listeners,
these ones, I mean, there's noway we haven't yeah, I don't
(04:16):
think we've hit them.
James Crosslin (04:19):
That's on my end .
Ryan Baron North (04:22):
Whoop, whoop Well our newest listeners come
from Sparta Illinois.
James Crosslin (04:29):
Sparta Illinois All right, I'm not familiar.
I'm not familiar either.
You know we lived in Illinoisor close to Illinois for a big
portion of our lives.
I have no idea where Sparta,Illinois is.
Ryan Baron North (04:42):
Well, here's to them, cheers ideal or sparta,
illinois.
Well, here's to them cheers.
James Crosslin (04:47):
They keep their whereabouts protected by a
cohort of mighty greek warriors.
Ryan Baron North (04:57):
Oh, man, I wasn't able to keep a straight
face on that second.
Go right there.
So it's uh, it's weird, it'snot as uh, I don't know it
doesn't feel like as smooth asthe 115.
Yeah, it's odd, I I don't know.
Maybe I've just grown used toit, maybe I'm using this old
dirty glass right here.
James Crosslin (05:17):
I don't know who's to say it's, it's, it,
it's toxins released by thebacteria that consumed the sugar
in the glass.
Ryan Baron North (05:29):
That's what you're tasting that second one.
That was that ashtray backwashthat I'm used to on a second
shot of this stuff.
All right, and this last one,oh yeah, this last one.
Speaking of fucking white hairsin your beard, it occurred to
me just earlier today that we'veknown each other for going on
(05:51):
20 goddamn years.
James Crosslin (05:53):
Yeah that's true , yeah, cheers.
Ryan Baron North (05:55):
Cheers to 20 years.
20 years, oh, that one came infucking hard.
James Crosslin (06:03):
Oh, I thought I'd be dead by now.
Yeah, I know Right, I wascounting on it.
Ryan Baron North (06:08):
Well, I was thinking about it like just
boomer economics kind of shiftedeverything.
So stuff that you were able toaccomplish in your 20s you now
kind of start accomplishing inyour 30s.
James Crosslin (06:22):
So we're going to die right in our 40s.
Got it.
Ryan Baron North (06:25):
Or so our our 27 club is actually 37, so we
still have ample time to justfucking spiral out of control
and do it like they used toclassic yeah, no, I'm excited
the way it's meant to be.
Yeah, no, I'm excited about it.
All right, everybody.
(06:47):
So it's time to dive into it.
I already went over it a littlebit, but we're going to break
this show down, this movie Johndies at the end.
We're going to do it in threeparts.
Right now, we're going to doour sober thoughts, then we're
going to jump into ourenlightened thoughts, since
we're on the golden path, andthen we're going to do some what
ifs where we throw ourselves in.
So let's jump on in.
(07:08):
So sober thoughts, john dies atthe end.
James, what?
James Crosslin (07:10):
do you think this is a little?
Ryan Baron North (07:10):
different.
This one's a little differentthan what we normally do that's
true.
James Crosslin (07:14):
This is not so much science fiction as it is
fantasy.
It's like, uh, it's likemultiidimensional fantasy and
there's a big distinction.
There's no actual sciencefiction concepts here.
There are more fantasy conceptsand there's a few philosophical
(07:39):
concepts.
And one thing I wanted to pointout while I'm sober, we get
through the boring stuff in thesober thoughts portion, which is
so.
So the lead character, the leadof the movie, is David Wong, is
the character's name and that'sactually the writer of the book
John dies at the end is his.
His pen name is David Wong, hisreal name is Jason Pargin.
(08:03):
He's a yeah, he's a comedian andwriter, and he used to work for
cracked, which is a crackcomand cracked magazine.
We're really influential for mewhen it comes to comedy.
So there was like 10 to 10 orso years there where cracked, I
feel really dominated internetcomedy and I still listen to the
(08:27):
people who came out of crackspodcasts and, like cody johnston
and robert evans who does thebehind the bastards podcast, we
had garrison from, uh, frombehind the pastors podcast on on
our podcast, yeah, gamefullyunemployed network.
They have a lot of podcasts, butthey.
There's a pretty popularyoutube show called uh, some
(08:48):
more news, where that codyjohnson does has like hundreds
of thousands of views everyepisode.
So these cracks, these crackedpeople, have been, you know,
semi-successful.
They're pretty successful.
They get to live their dream,which is nice, yeah.
But jason pargin is uh, he usedto work for them.
He works for 1 900 hot dogright now, I'm pretty sure is
(09:08):
the name of the very funny groupwith with other people from
cracked.
Um, he continues to write.
He has, uh, a lot of absurdistbooks out from a series called
uh, zoe, what is it?
Ryan Baron North (09:28):
It's called the Zoe uh franchise, but he, he
has a whole bunch of books, uh,but anyway, well we, we put
more effort into promoting himjust now than we do our own show
at the end of this fuckingthing.
James Crosslin (09:40):
Well, I really like him and I hate us, so
that's why, hell yeah, I reallyI think he's a, I think he's a
very funny guy and I think hiswriting is is really fun.
Uh, I don't know how well ittranslates to the screen if
we're just talking about soberthoughts like do you, do I like
this movie?
Uh, I hated this movie.
(10:01):
Okay, okay, interesting, go on.
Ryan Baron North (10:02):
I absolutely hated this movie.
Okay, okay, interesting Go on.
James Crosslin (10:04):
I absolutely hated this movie.
All right, I thought it wasbordering on incoherent.
I felt like the.
I felt like it was, you know,so the, the, the conversations
about tropes didn't didn'treally exist at the time, I
(10:24):
guess.
So it was like a just anintroduction of like hey, here's
all the movie tropes, which waskind of a new concept at the
time.
Ryan Baron North (10:32):
maybe I love that you built him up to tear
him down.
James Crosslin (10:39):
No, he didn't write this movie.
His work was adapted for thismovie and he's openly said like
I am not going to criticize thismovie.
You know, uh, his work wasadapted for this movie and I he
he's been.
He's openly said like I am notgoing to criticize this movie,
this movie.
Thank you anyone for making myworks into film.
I appreciate you.
I will never criticize thismovie and then paul giamatti
showed up yeah, paul giamattiwas was was the best part of the
(11:02):
movie.
Paul giamatti was the best partof the movie.
Paul Giamatti was the best partof the movie.
Ryan Baron North (11:07):
He always kind of is the best part of what
he's in he steals the show.
He really does.
Very hilarious guy.
James Crosslin (11:18):
He is.
What about you?
Ryan Baron North (11:30):
How did you feel about the movie?
So it was, it felt like a.
It felt like a cobbled togetherlabor of love.
Honestly, they, they found this.
They probably found this bookthat they enjoyed in a fucking
Barnes and Noble it was.
It was weird, it was sort ofout there and they're like, well
, let's see what we could dowith it.
It introduced some veryrudimentary philosophy.
A lot of it we've alreadytouched on in this show.
(11:51):
It starts with a thesis shipwith the X.
I mean which, knowing thatrudimentary philosophy, I mean
it's enough to get you laid at acollege party.
You?
James Crosslin (12:04):
know when did this movie come out?
Ryan Baron North (12:07):
In 2007?
I don't, I don't fucking know,it wasn't that late was it hold
on I'm gonna look at it.
Yeah, like the year wegraduated from high school, it
wasn't that fucking late oh mygod, apparently it was the year
of our lord, 2012.
James Crosslin (12:22):
Okay, you gotta be fucking.
No, this was way too late.
That that was way too late.
The book, of course, came outearlier.
Ryan Baron North (12:31):
Jason jason parsons book came out and it
still maintains a fandom.
Yeah, if I remember right, he'sgot one or two of them he's got
very he's got a very rabid fanbase for his stuff he's really
big on book talk.
I don't like tiktok, but yeah,but honestly so I'll give book
talk credit just because it'skeeping it is kind of keeping
(12:57):
alive the written word yeahmaking it sort of trendy and
holy shit.
Do we need that?
But um, uh, I mean, like I seethings about like just you know,
uh, like I.
so you know I own a motorcycleand so I'm targeted all the time
by douchebag biker dudes andlike half of them are like
(13:18):
riding down to barnes and nobleto pick up some book dot girlies
, and so you know, it's, it's,it's a trend, and you know I'm
happy that we aren't justcompletely abandoning you know
the particular art that I'vechosen to chase after my life.
But yeah, I forget where I wasgoing with this.
Oh, yeah, books are good.
(13:40):
Yeah, books are good, books aregood and yeah, so, like I said,
I think someone found this book, someone enjoyed it and they
kind of labored or loved it.
It was obviously a b movie.
I did enjoy, um, the two maincharacters.
I I thought they balanced eachother well.
I thought, uh, like the firstdude, like the main guy, not
(14:02):
john david, david david, he,david wong, he comes off like
sort of, you know, like talkingto a fucking shoe, but he, it
becomes his character andeventually you're like I've met
his character.
James Crosslin (14:16):
His character is the personality of his shoe.
Ryan Baron North (14:19):
But like I've met that guy and uh, I thought
he was well balanced by john.
I thought the guy who uh playedas john, I thought he was well
balanced by John.
I thought the guy who played asJohn I thought he was fun.
James Crosslin (14:30):
I do not think they were diametrically opposed
at all.
I feel like they were in factjust totally random.
Ryan Baron North (14:38):
There were a few lines that I enjoyed and I
liked the way John just sort ofplayed into it, like, um, my
friend John, here, he uh, he haspoor eyesight on the on the
account of his constantmasturbation and he's just in
the corner nodding respectfullyat the comment and like like,
all right, I can't even enjoythe cheekiness of it.
(15:00):
Um, I liked the bratwurst, umcell phone, um, I, you know.
So there were, there were a fewthings that I'm like all right,
that's, that's fun, that's funit.
It was like a, it was like aless fleshed out rick and morty,
yeah, like sort of thisuniversal cosmic nihilism.
(15:22):
But it's like fuck it.
It's funny instead of it'sdepressing and I'm divorced
right right exactly which I canappreciate.
James Crosslin (15:33):
Yes, I don't think it was.
In my opinion, it wasn't funnyenough.
It was neither.
It was neither this kind ofearly 2000s nihilism or like
(15:55):
what was it?
What's the word?
I'm looking for Aloofness.
It was like an aloofness fromthe characters about what was
happening to them.
That made them feel.
It made me feel uncommitted Towhat they were doing.
Because they felt uncommittedand it's like okay, if you want
to make a point about commitmentand about surrogates For our
(16:19):
viewpoints and stuff like that,okay, but also, you want me to
care about your piece of media I?
It's hard for me to care whenthey don't care well I?
Ryan Baron North (16:32):
it sounds to me like we may be on the golden
path.
Oh yeah, we're already therethat makes sense it might be
time to uh line them up one lasttime and get into the high
drunk thoughts of this thing.
So let's load them up, I'mgonna pour right there.
(16:53):
There we go.
It's only 100 horsepower.
I could afford a little bitextra here.
We are all right.
Um.
James Crosslin (17:02):
So yeah, let's, but I am, I am we normally we
kind of we have good opinions onwhat it was and so it's kind of
(17:23):
going to be interesting to sortof bounce like these negative
thoughts off of it too,especially from a guy that you
know we're obviously like inapproval.
Yeah, yeah, I'm in approval ofDavid Wong.
I think that his writing isbetter than this adaptation of
his movie.
Ryan Baron North (17:29):
Well, I'm in approval of David Wong.
I think that his writing isbetter than this adaptation of
his movie.
Well.
James Crosslin (17:33):
I'm going to have to pick up the book to
compare.
I think I own this book Forreal.
Yeah, I think so.
I think this was gifted to meand I read part of this book.
I don't know if I made it allthe way to the end, but I found
the writing enjoyable Okay.
Ryan Baron North (17:47):
Well.
James Crosslin (17:50):
I mean I just throw, I put down books and
movies and shit all the time andjust don't finish up.
Ryan Baron North (17:53):
Who's got the fucking time?
Yeah, I'm in the middle ofbuttfuck Missouri right now, and
so a bookstore around here?
No, not a fucking chance.
So I'm going to have to make ajourney.
So here's our final one, righthere, as written.
James Crosslin (18:08):
Lisa Dalgai.
Ryan Baron North (18:10):
As written.
Oh there it is, man I finallyspeaking, of which I finally
fucking worked through thatTitanic Doom episode we did.
That'll be coming out today.
James Crosslin (18:24):
Oh, awesome.
Ryan Baron North (18:26):
Thanks for doing that, man oh yeah, that
was, that was a, that was atoughie and I've been sort of,
uh, life has been coming at mewith its pants down and so it's
been tough, but I'm I'm spendingthis sort of week here just
knocking it out, getting thatcontent out there to the people
who've been uh, who've beendemanding it, knocking down the
gates for it, kind of thing, youknow yeah, just blowing up your
(18:48):
phone at 3 am.
James Crosslin (18:49):
When's the next episode?
Ryan Baron North (18:52):
yeah, oh it's, it's, it's exhausting, it's
exhausting, you know, and just,oh my god, the the women
throwing themselves at me Idon't want it.
James Crosslin (19:01):
Oh my god, oh my god oh, it's terrible.
Ryan Baron North (19:05):
I all this drugs and sex that I don't want
to be having.
James Crosslin (19:09):
But I have it for the fans.
There's expectations.
Uh, you know.
I tried watching the other guysagain.
Yeah, the way Farrell treatshis wife, yeah, like it is
(19:31):
unbearable.
I can't watch the movie.
I cannot finish the moviebecause of how like the violence
against the verbal violenceagainst a woman is, so it turns
my stomach so hard.
Every other part of the movie Ifeel is hilarious.
Ryan Baron North (19:47):
But that was just.
I haven't watched the movie inyears.
I'll have to revisit.
Yeah, Eva Mendes, I'll have torevisit.
See how we think about that.
James Crosslin (20:01):
She's in such an abusive relationship it's so
hard to watch.
Ryan Baron North (20:05):
Well, I mean, you mean, you know gators,
bitches and whatnot I'm supposedto be laughing, see this.
James Crosslin (20:11):
This really segues us into the point where
it's like the energy of a movieis really important and the
energy of this movie was likealoof and getting dragged from
place to place and not reallybeing engaged or excited or
driven, and the movie also feltthat way you know, yeah, it made
(20:36):
me feel that way and I wasn'texcited and I wasn't engaged and
I wasn't driven.
It has a lot of like it'srandom.
It's the I'm so random ofmovies, in my opinion.
Ryan Baron North (20:53):
Well, speaking of finding white hairs in the
beard.
I wonder are we too old forthis movie?
James Crosslin (21:03):
Is the fact that we have encountered many pieces
, of many more pieces of mediabefore this one affecting our
view of it?
Probably?
Ryan Baron North (21:12):
I mean, or could it, could it just be like,
like we talked about right offthe cuff, is they start this
with fucking theseus's ship?
It's super, um, rudimentary.
So maybe this movie isn't forus.
Maybe it's for us when we were17, starting to become the
(21:36):
future prolific hosts of highand dry podcast.
James Crosslin (21:40):
Right, and that may be true.
Right, that may absolutely betrue, because this started as a
serial release.
So it was, it was.
It was just written as a serialoriginally, before it was
compiled into a book, and I justread that it started in 2001,
which is, you know, around thetime where we would have been
(22:00):
just encountering opinions, andI have a note.
I have a note about thatspecifically.
I said this movie isintroducing emo kids to several
fleeting concepts like identity,predestination, causality,
inhuman intelligence, uh,without actual, any actual
(22:23):
discussion or exploration.
Yeah, it just really throws abunch of things out there okay,
well, I mean.
Ryan Baron North (22:34):
So I mean that may be it, because I mean I I
feel like you know watching this.
Just take me back to 2005 six.
You know that region rightthere.
This would have been right upmy fucking alley and I feel like
watching it.
I definitely saw sort of ayounger version of myself in
(22:59):
John and I mean he's in a shitband.
James Crosslin (23:05):
Yeah.
Ryan Baron North (23:06):
Hold on a second.
James Crosslin (23:07):
I have a quote here from the band.
It is camel Holocaust hair,hair, hair, hair.
Exactly.
I was like this is so fuckingstupid yeah.
Ryan Baron North (23:21):
Yeah, so that's what I'm saying and it
just wasn't for us.
But in that same scene Ithought it was also cool.
I liked the sort of the empathythat we were having for an
amputee they made jokes with herhand later, did they?
James Crosslin (23:42):
they made jokes about her hand, yes, like at the
very end when she lifts herprosthetic hand to his face like
yeah, you're right, you'reright they had a few scenes
where the prosthetic was a jokeand I was like, oh my god yeah,
well, I mean right off the bat,though.
Ryan Baron North (24:00):
She was talking about just the phantom
limb syndrome and the dude and,like the people who were coming
down on her were immediatelyviewed as assholes right so yeah
so.
James Crosslin (24:14):
But here's the thing, yeah.
So, yes, they did.
They were like, don't be anasshole about, you know,
people's disabilities, but whatit was really there to do was to
set up the phantom limb thing,and and the whole jason's
writing does this.
I've read a little bit of thezoe series.
Zoe's too drunk for thisuniverse, I think, was one of
the one I I I read quite a fewpassages from, and his writing
(24:39):
is a lot about non-sequitursthat turn out to not be
non-sequiturs, like they comeback right and but they're
without this cohesion of story.
They're without the cohesion ofthe story and therefore their
setups and callbacks that aremore non-sequitur and for a
(25:04):
young person who hasn'tencountered non-sequitur humor
before would would probably havea lot more of a fun time with
that yeah, okay yeah, sure,plant payoffs great, but a lot
of time there's story in there.
These are like hidden plantedpayoffs where the dude just
mentions phantom limb in thefirst like scene at that party
(25:27):
or whatever, and then and thenit comes back way later in the
movie but for like they're, theyjust like wanted you to think
about it for a second, yeah, andand then and then they brought
it back and sure, that's astorytelling mechanic where
you're like why the fuck wouldthey mention that?
Ryan Baron North (25:45):
well, yeah, that seems weird.
I mean they just stunned theshit out of it.
James Crosslin (25:49):
But but there's a bunch of things in this movie
that have no bearing on anythingthat they're just saying.
There are 6394.
Ryan Baron North (25:59):
Yeah, right, so he's just throwing down, yeah
, rudimentary philosophy thatthey, that, they, that they
picked up somewhere.
James Crosslin (26:09):
And again, I, I gotta, I gotta, read this book
now to see if it was the film orif it was the book, because I'm
I'm really curious I think so Ienjoyed the book more that I,
the parts of the book that Iread, which is most of the book,
uh, more than the movie, eventhough I didn't finish the book
(26:30):
and I finished the movie.
I just don't.
I, I have a hard time gettingthrough books.
I have a problem with it.
Ryan Baron North (26:38):
Oh, yeah, but uh you gotta get on that book
talk.
I like books, but I just likeit, it's it's feels strenuous to
do it, and I enjoy movies more.
Well and then.
So there were other parts ofthe the film than the film that
were cinema cinema I did likethe dog's suicide bomb.
James Crosslin (27:07):
I did like the dog's suicide bomb I was so I
had such a distaste in my mouthof the movie at that point that
I couldn't enjoy it, and I feellike I should have.
Ryan Baron North (27:18):
I feel like I should have.
I love the dog, just likeclosing his eyes, accepting his
fate and for like the greatergood of the universe.
I did enjoy that.
James Crosslin (27:28):
I felt like the movie wasn't funny enough.
That have been a like that's agreat premise.
Yeah, it's a hilarious premise.
Uh, that's too bad.
I'm glad.
I'm glad that that you're ableto cut through that and see,
like, get a lot of joy out ofthat scene.
It just sucks that it didn'tland for me.
Ryan Baron North (27:46):
Yeah, no, I think it was.
I think the main thing for mewas just being able to, I guess,
reconnect with how shallow andundeveloped I was when I was
(28:07):
John's age and so, seeing theway he acted and the way he
behaved and these very, veryfleeting glimpses of some form
of maturity and enlightenment,and then immediately going back
to fucking nonsense and all thatsort of things, I was able to
(28:30):
identify, at least at that stagein my life with John.
Remembering who I was back thenallowed me to kind of delve
(28:51):
into the film a little, thecinema a little more, yeah, and
I think it's just.
I think it's just, uh, this wasnot for 35 year old Ryan, this
was definitely for 17 year oldRyan, right?
James Crosslin (29:03):
Right, the, uh, the, the dreams.
The dreams were so dumb thatthey were recounted like Paul
Giamatti's mom whipping him witha lash made of penises and uh,
that's not what dreams are like.
Ryan Baron North (29:16):
Yeah, yeah.
James Crosslin (29:17):
Nobody has dreams like that.
Nobody has a dream where theirex is sitting on a big pile of
cartoon dynamite, yeah.
Ryan Baron North (29:24):
And then that that big pile of cartoon
dynamite, yeah, and then thatthat.
That pissed me off because Iliked the premise of asking how
did your mind know the thunderwas coming?
James Crosslin (29:38):
right, yeah, that's the philosophical concept
?
Ryan Baron North (29:41):
yeah, and it was.
It was muddled by cartoondynamite in a dream.
No one has ever, ever dreamt ofcartoon dynamite, you know, I
except for like the dude whoactually wrote Jason the road
runner for goddamn Warnerbrothers that guy, he's the only
one.
James Crosslin (30:02):
He dreams about it because he was sitting there
drawing it all day and his mind,his mind dreams the things he
encounters.
Ryan Baron North (30:09):
Exactly yeah, no, and oh, jesus Christ.
So, like they were, they Iwould say that that's the the
big thing about this was alwayson the cusp of touching on
something worthwhile, but thenfucking it up with cartoon
(30:29):
dynamite.
James Crosslin (30:30):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great, that's a great
way to put it.
Uh, uh, I feel like it trippedover its own feet a lot with
with being.
It took some things reallyseriously Like it.
It tried to have.
It tried to have big things tosay at times, or at least
emphasized it like big things tosay and I was like I didn't
(30:52):
think that was that big yeah, Ifeel like.
Ryan Baron North (30:55):
I feel like this is this is uh sophomore
shit, which is exactly what itis, which I guess, that's kind
of who it's for well, I mean, Ithink it was, wasn't it the
second episode ever of high anddry, when turk was the third
host?
Yeah, we did these, we didthese ship and that's all.
(31:20):
The axe was in the beginning,and we started with theseus's
ship and the trolley problem,because that's where you should
start.
James Crosslin (31:29):
Yeah, that's true.
Ryan Baron North (31:30):
Yeah.
James Crosslin (31:31):
That's true.
Ryan Baron North (31:32):
And that's where I hate.
Look this film.
This cinema had Paul Giamattisign off, all right, so if I can
put some respect, on it.
James Crosslin (31:41):
It had Paul Giamatti using a hard R yeah.
Paul Giamatti using a hard Ryeah, paul.
Ryan Baron North (31:48):
Giamatti drops a hard R In this movie.
He sat down read the script andwas like, yeah, the hard R for
a white man is a beautifulactress deciding it's time to
show her breasts.
James Crosslin (32:09):
Beautiful actress deciding it's time to
show her breasts and and paulgiamatti decided that john dies
at the end was his heart.
Our film wait.
Can I say the n word in thisone?
Ryan Baron North (32:19):
yes, and he did yeah that's what he.
James Crosslin (32:22):
He asked for it when they were like Paul.
We want you to play thischaracter.
Can I say the N word Then?
Ryan Baron North (32:28):
he's like yes, yes, because you can.
Actually, it's weird that youbrought that up unprovoked.
James Crosslin (32:35):
How did your brain know that you'd get to say
the N word?
And then the camera zooms in?
Holy shit.
How did I know.
Ryan Baron North (32:47):
So it's actually a very commonly known
thing in Hollywood that PaulGiamatti has always asked,
whenever he's offered a role, ifthis is the one, and he finally
got it with this B film.
Finally got it with this B filmBecause, I mean, for whatever
(33:10):
reason, tarantino has never beenknocking down Paul Giamatti's
door, and so he thought it wouldnever happen.
James Crosslin (33:19):
Paul Giamatti wanted he didn't want it to get
lost in the stream of hard R'sin the movie that's why he
couldn't do a Tarantino In aTarantino film.
Doesn't stand out at all.
That guy sucks.
Why, why?
In every movie.
Ryan Baron North (33:35):
He was actually originally put in to be
Leonardo DiCaprio in DjangoUnchained and he's like.
I feel like my hard R will belost.
James Crosslin (33:46):
I just want to say it once as a punctuation.
Ryan Baron North (33:51):
And that's how Leonardo DiCaprio got the role.
James Crosslin (33:54):
Yeah, because he was more comfortable.
He was like can I say it 40times?
Ryan Baron North (34:01):
Yeah, and this is why people come to High and
Dry is to find out all thisfucking dirt that you know
behind the scenes that only weare privy to.
Oh man, yeah, no, but that,yeah, he did drop that, though,
and he felt that this was thefilm for that.
But, uh, jesus Christ, wherethe fuck were we going with this
(34:23):
?
I?
James Crosslin (34:25):
I don't know.
This movie is like concepts.
It introduces.
Ryan Baron North (34:28):
I, yeah, I'd say that.
James Crosslin (34:29):
I would say that I would say that this movie, if
you watch it with friends,everybody would have questions,
right, everybody would be askingeach other questions and I
would say that it would, uh,definitely spawn conversation.
The problem is like we I as a,as a older person, I guess this
spawns very little conversationfor me, like I've seen, yeah, no
(34:54):
, I would be at that party.
Ryan Baron North (34:56):
I would be at that party where we decided to
watch John dies at the end andgoing like oh.
Oh boy, where were all these,where all these people I was
starting to talk to now are likebeing introduced to theseus's
fucking ship?
I'm like, oh my god, what's?
James Crosslin (35:12):
happened to me.
Oh no, why did they laugh whenhe didn't want to touch the dick
?
I thought that was stupid.
I thought you just touched thedick just over the door.
It's a dick, whatever they'relaughing like crazy.
Ryan Baron North (35:25):
Too much, too much.
Yeah, no, I'm in a room with abunch of joe rogan fans and I
didn't know that before Iwatched this film I wouldn't
touch a dick to save my lifeyeah, I didn't, I didn't ask
yeah.
(35:45):
Oh yeah, those are the people.
Those are the people,definitely.
James Crosslin (35:52):
And oh my.
Ryan Baron North (35:52):
God Dude, I got to tell you, living out here
in Missouri for work, it's forwork.
I have met so many of thosepeople.
James Crosslin (36:13):
And, dude, some of them are in their 40s.
Ryan Baron North (36:14):
Yeah, it's wild, they're all, oh, my god oh
my god, well, no I don't even,I don't even think they would
attach to john dies at the endbecause, uh, fucking john would
be awakening, like thisbisexuality that they've never
fucking dealt with.
You know, that's true, and andit would just be too much.
It would just be too much.
Um, it's, oh, my god, like, oh,I mean, it's just there's,
(36:40):
there's people out there whoreally really need to get and
just touch with themselves,think about something that makes
them uncomfortable, you know,and get to the other side of it,
do some fucking growth, yeah,yeah, yeah, all right.
Well, with that being said,it's time to delve into the
(37:03):
third part of this thing.
It's time for the what, if?
All right, it's time to insertourselves into this fucking paul
giamatti dropping hard r'snightmare.
How does this change?
So?
So, james, you've insertedyourself into Paul Giamatti dies
(37:27):
at the end, into John dies atthe end I mean he does, he does
actually Spoiler alert.
James Crosslin (37:36):
For this 12-year-old movie oh my God,
it's been that long and23-year-old old book,
essentially.
Ryan Baron North (37:46):
Wow, Well, that's crazy.
Well so, James, how does itchange now that that you're in
it?
James Crosslin (37:57):
I don't know, it's so.
It's so there.
There isn't anything here.
I don't know what to say.
Ryan Baron North (38:04):
There's nothing there.
James Crosslin (38:05):
There's nothing there.
There's nothing there becausethe the character doesn't make
any choices, it.
Things just happen to the maincharacter, the.
The choices don't make anysense by design.
He keeps getting calls fromfuture john, and, and it's.
It can be used anywhere as adeus ex machina, what.
(38:28):
What am I supposed to do withthis?
Essentially, I just I don'thave the time in this one to
write a new story, just write astory about myself story, yeah,
no.
Ryan Baron North (38:38):
Well, so are you?
Uh are you.
James Crosslin (38:42):
there's nothing here.
I would kill myself to denywhatever cosmic force wanted me
to take part in this terriblestory.
I would kill myself Out ofspite.
Ryan Baron North (39:05):
Solid.
James Crosslin (39:06):
Solid.
Well, are you David Wong or areyou?
Uh, are you david wong or areyou john, doesn't matter.
I guess I killed myself.
I killed one of us and then theother, and I annihilate our
friendship I shoot him and thenI shoot myself, all right.
Cool.
(39:37):
What could I have donedifferently?
They didn't make any choicesand just got dragged from one
thing to another.
They did.
Ryan Baron North (39:48):
They did just get dragged from each fucking
thing.
Oh, my god.
Oh, this is what happens when Ijust I message you in the
morning like I, I don't know,I'm seeing john dies at the end,
let's see what happens now forme.
Uh shit, well, I mean.
So if you take me right now andall of a sudden I get hit by
(40:11):
the soy sauce sure, apparentlyyou've got a plan, apparently
you've got a plan well, I meanit would definitely shit, I mean
it would definitely change, Imean it would definitely change
my trajectory hands down.
So just taking it that way, sostepping out of the film, I have
(40:32):
this syringe of cosmic entityand I've been hit with it.
How would that alter my life?
I mean, I'm definitely notgoing to work tomorrow, that's
for fucking sure.
James Crosslin (40:47):
Well, maybe you are, Maybe you're supposed to go
to work and maybe at work youknow that pig head that was
controlled like living.
It was the first livingcomputer that shows up in the
break room fridge at your work,and that's what I now have to
deal with it.
It's literally that's theentire movie, man.
(41:09):
That's the entire movie.
It's just things show up andthen they have to deal with it.
Ryan Baron North (41:14):
Yeah, yeah, well then.
So then here's my question foryou.
Then, so, instead of because wecan't put ourselves into this
film that wasn't made for us,right?
We can't put ourselves into it,so let's just take the soy
sauce and put it into us.
Ooh, okay, how does that changeour lives?
(41:37):
So, fuck, john dies at the endand we're just going to pull out
, I guess, the catalyst and putit into our lives instead of
this film.
James Crosslin (41:48):
Well, I'd have some fucking direction.
Let me tell you, if the soysauce hit me, I'd want to learn
about it.
They don't seem to want tolearn.
No, they don't seem to give ashit.
They're very anti-learning guys.
Well, paul giamatti's ghostsays that, listen, if you get
these hands in someone some kindof side, if you get these in
(42:10):
some kind of scientist's hands,they're going to lose their shit
.
What is this?
Let's figure out what this is.
It's crazy, that's what I'd do.
I'd go down to the communitycollege and I'd meet some
interesting individual who hasnothing better to do and I'd say
I need some help figuring outwhat this is.
It gives me psychic powers,demons, blah, blah, blah,
(42:34):
because things are popping upeverywhere.
I don't have to like try hard, Ianywhere I go, something's
apparently gonna happen to me.
So I have a bunch of evidence.
I'm just collecting evidence.
I got fucking crates full offull of spider leeches and shit
just just waiting to be figuredout what's going on.
They don't seem particularlyhard to capture or anything.
Yeah.
Ryan Baron North (42:56):
You're right.
No, so if I got my hands onthis soy sauce, I mean how it
would change my life?
Fuck, I don't even, Because Ithink my main.
I would say that my main issueis always trying to find the
(43:19):
knowing that happiness comesfrom inside, but always looking
outside to find it Right.
And now, all of a sudden, Iknow everything about the
outside.
James Crosslin (43:30):
Oh, that's interesting and.
Now there's nowhere else toturn Now.
Ryan Baron North (43:34):
there's nowhere else to turn now there's
nowhere else to turn, and so II think it would have forced a
confrontation like a personalmyself, yeah so all these things
that I chase after in theexternal um, whether it's a job,
(43:55):
a location, a relationship,whatever it is, you know, I know
how they all turn out andthere's no longer an excitement
within those things, and so thesoy sauce then in my life would
force me like absolutely forceme, inward, yeah, and so I think
(44:15):
it would have a very profoundimpact yeah, honestly, their
society at the end didn't seemtoo bad.
James Crosslin (44:22):
There's their alternate society with gorok
titties everywhere, tittieseverywhere.
We worship gorok, hell yeah,everybody's everybody's wearing
masks and shit, so it seems likea cool place.
They all have like a bunch oflike infinite knowledge and shit
seems cool whatever a fewpeople get thrown into the
(44:45):
knowledge machine.
Are you telling me that somehowour earth and system are better
than people getting thrown intothe machine to keep things
churning Well at?
Ryan Baron North (44:55):
least there they're up front with it.
James Crosslin (44:57):
Yeah, they're like we're going to take you to
the machine and it's going toassimilate you.
Ryan Baron North (45:02):
You're going to allow us to keep having all
these titties out and just enjoylife.
James Crosslin (45:09):
I know.
Ryan Baron North (45:10):
Yeah, the dog who killed itself wasn't really
thinking.
James Crosslin (45:18):
It was a, it was a libertarian extremist.
He actually uh, he was, uh, hewas a big fan of the Unabomber,
yeah.
Ryan Baron North (45:27):
The dog in this film was just a libertarian
extremist.
James Crosslin (45:30):
Left a manifesto on his hard drive.
Ryan Baron North (45:37):
Yeah, and he just had to destroy this other
world that he didn't have accessto.
He, his mind and hisinsecurities did not allow him
to be in a place where it wasjust about fucking titties and
chilling, yeah, whatever.
What a dumb ass.
Oh my god, libertarians, that'swhat we think of you, by the
(46:03):
way.
James Crosslin (46:05):
Yeah, yeah, but you know they're probably not
listening to this podcast they,they want to be the ones
grinding the people with theirown hands yeah instead of yeah
exactly instead of just outthere enjoying the titties it's
like I want to be the monstermachine.
And in the perfect world,nobody's responsible for
anything and they're justresponsible for themselves.
(46:28):
So if you which when you takethat to its logical conclusion
you're not responsible foranything that happens to anybody
else, and so it's, and so it'sa worse system.
Ryan Baron North (46:40):
Exactly, yeah, no, and uh, well, well to uh to
close out this final segment.
Or are in your life, um just,are there any other ways that
the soy sauce?
James Crosslin (46:57):
would change your life.
I don't know.
I feel like it'd be reallyoverwhelming.
I don't know.
Maybe, maybe the zest for lifewould go away if you knew
everything that was going tohappen.
I guess that.
I guess they didn't.
I don't know.
Did they know everything thatwas gonna happen?
Ryan Baron North (47:13):
john did?
James Crosslin (47:15):
john seemed to know everything that was gonna
happen yeah david didn't seem toknow anything that was gonna
happen.
Because, remember, he didn'tseem to know anything.
Ryan Baron North (47:27):
He only ever got pricked and then he only got
that little cheek wound.
He didn't take a full.
Another one flew down histhroat.
James Crosslin (47:33):
Yeah, I think, and it was in a whole.
It was in a whole thing.
So those two little flies cameout of a whole thing of it I
just think.
I just think that it's amcguffin right for this movie to
just make things happen.
Ryan Baron North (47:51):
The soy sauce just makes things happen.
I don't know.
So what would a MacGuffin do toyour life?
James Crosslin (47:58):
I don't know, I have no idea yeah, wow.
It doesn't matter.
That's the thing is.
It doesn't matter what it does.
This movie is so fatalist thatliterally nothing matters,
because whatever is going tohappen is going to happen.
Whatever is going to happen isgoing to happen.
Whatever is going to resolve isgoing to resolve.
Literally, I'd just be alongfor the ride, would I know that
(48:21):
I was just along for the ride?
I might.
And therefore it takes all theje ne veux away.
I don't feel the zest of lifebecause too much shit is
happening all the time.
And then I apparently know isgoing to happen and it's just
like I'm so I'll.
I'll feel how I did during thismovie, where I was like, yeah,
(48:46):
okay.
Ryan Baron North (48:47):
Yeah, you bring up a great point.
Yeah, no, and half of I feelwhat defines me personally is my
, I guess, adventurousness, andif you take away mystery, I
(49:07):
guess I'd lose half of myself.
James Crosslin (49:10):
You would have gone and helped those guys at
the end of the movie?
I would have yeah, probablyyeah, those guys at the end of
the movie.
I would have, yeah probably.
Ryan Baron North (49:15):
Yeah, I don't give a shit about this
basketball game, but if you hadsoy sauce, would you?
James Crosslin (49:20):
I don't know if you got, if soy sauce like was
just like.
Oh yeah, every dimension isgoing through this bullshit
their own shit and yeah,whatever, this is just a drop of
the bucket.
Who gives a shit?
Yeah, maybe, and I mean, ifthat's the case, then as you
(49:43):
walked away from them, like Iwas like all right, cool guys,
you guys seem great.
Yeah, you guys are awesome yeah, no, I'm glad you're the ones
yeah, right, well, I mean atthat, at that point I've.
Ryan Baron North (49:57):
I guess I died when I took that soy sauce
because all the things on me aregone.
Yeah, it's pretty weird and Ijust get trapped in.
Whatever the fuck.
James Crosslin (50:05):
This is paul giamatti, given the hard r,
forever one of the questionsthat I would end up asking at at
the college.
At the college uh hangout wherewe watched john dies at the end
and someone's smelly cumcovered dorm room, we would, um,
(50:26):
I would ask, uh, if, if thisguy was all a figment of, uh,
dave's imagination, david'simagination, if that, if that
detective was dead the wholetime and and you know, paul gmi
was just a figment of David'simagination, if that detective
was dead the whole time and PaulGMI was just a figment he's
been dead for weeks.
What about the dream with thelashing penises from the night
before?
Right, yeah Is that just youmentally masturbating about a
(50:49):
quirky thing.
I think so it's just mentalmasturbation at that point and
it's like, alright, yeah, thattells me about all I need to
know about this movie.
It's like it's mentalmasturbation for for, just for
just coming up with.
Wouldn't it be cool if?
Ryan Baron North (51:09):
and there you have it, folks.
So yeah, john dies at the end.
It's mental masturbation.
So thanks you all for listening.
I'm your host, ryan barronnorth with me, as always, james
crossland, hope you.
James Crosslin (51:24):
I mean you probably shouldn't watch that
one, but how did you know thatthis was the end of the podcast?
It just felt like it.
Ryan Baron North (51:32):
I saw the cartoon dynamite.
Thanks everybody, bye, bye.
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