Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to The Better Half.
I am Bradley J.
(00:20):
Halverson, and here with me,she's my better half.
It's Carly Corio.
Hi, Carly.
Carly (00:25):
Hi, Bradley. H
Bradley (00:26):
Carly, we have a
podcast!
Carly (00:28):
We are doing it!
Bradley (00:29):
We're here live in the
studio.
I
Carly (00:31):
I know, I really love
this studio.
I'm really excited to be hereand to be doing this.
And I can't wait to telleveryone what we're doing and
why.
Bradley (00:39):
Yeah, so let's...
Let's break it all down.
So we're starting a podcast,which we know that there are an
infinite number of podcasts.
Carly (00:46):
So many.
Bradley (00:47):
They say it's the new
lower back tattoo.
Carly (00:49):
Who said that?
Bradley (00:50):
I saw it as like a
headline.
It might've been like an Onionarticle or something.
It was years ago where theywere like, having a podcast is
the new lower back tattoo.
And I do wonder maybe like 20years from now, will that be
true?
I
Carly (01:00):
I don't think people will
regret podcasts as much as
people regret lower backtattoos.
Bradley (01:04):
I would agree.
Carly (01:04):
a In my humble opinion.
Bradley (01:06):
Yeah, it's true.
Although we are putting thisonto the internet and there
it'll stay forever.
y
Carly (01:11):
You're right this could
cancel us.
Bradley (01:15):
Yep.
Carly (01:17):
And that's a risk where
I'm willing to take.
Bradley (01:19):
t So yeah, we both
agreed we wanted to do sort of
an introductory sort of episodeto our podcast.
Why are we doing this?
Who are we to each other?
Who is this for?
A
Carly (01:31):
A little who, what, when,
why.
Bradley (01:32):
Yeah.
And so Carly and I, we met 10years ago in grad school at
Kansas State University.
Go Cats or something
Carly (01:43):
s Yep, yep.
You're right.
good job
Bradley (01:47):
and it was basically a
platonic love at first sight
Carly (01:50):
at first sight I walked
into the room wearing a yellow
central perk shirt and Brad saidmy god
Bradley (01:57):
yep I this is my social
tactic in life I just need to
find one person and and go allin
Carly (02:05):
but I wasn't your one
person right away I don't think
Bradley (02:07):
no but um
Carly (02:09):
eventually I got there
and I won I won
Bradley (02:11):
yes after considering
all of my options and yeah you
were You were definitely a frontrunner.
Carly (02:16):
There's a story you've
said that we were in a room with
friends and everyone was reallylaughing at me and you had one
look and you're like, that's it.
Bradley (02:24):
That's
Carly (02:24):
it.
That's who I want to be bestfriends with.
Bradley (02:25):
Yeah.
I mean, really, that first day,because I mean, like, I had
never set foot into Kansas.
Like, this was going to be abrand new adventure.
I knew I was going to be therefor two years.
Yeah, I had interviewed.
I accepted this job, had seenthe university already.
But there was a lot of jittersthose first few days of like,
what is this really going tolook like?
It's Kansas, a place, you know.
I never thought I wouldwillfully go to
Carly (02:47):
them.
Bradley (02:48):
And for you, I know,
like born and raised in Ohio,
like choosing to come to Kansas.
I'm still kind of...
Carly (02:52):
If it wasn't Ohio, it
wasn't going to be.
But I did it.
Bradley (02:56):
You did it.
So I think as soon as I sawthat you were wearing a Central
Perks shirt, which Friends is ahuge influence for me, has huge
presence in my life for such along time, it was sort of like,
it was like a sign that I neededthat like, okay, she's safe.
She's going to be a safe one tobe around.
She gets it.
Carly (03:13):
And I'll say my first
impression of you was...
they sent out an email um withall of the new grads and i was
looking and i immediately waslike oh well i love any of these
people yeah and i think youwere like at the top because it
was like bees and but you wereone of the first people and i
was like oh my god am i gonna doi am i gonna love him
Bradley (03:29):
yeah
Carly (03:30):
and so i was like okay
i'm kind of excited to meet this
brad guy and of course i likeother people but
Bradley (03:35):
right
Carly (03:35):
um little did i know you
were the love of my life
Bradley (03:38):
yeah but you're right
just like instant instant
connection instant chemistry andwe really became a strong duo
uh in kansas like i don't knowhow much i i influenced this but
we really became a package dealand i made other people
perceive us as such too
Carly (03:51):
and actually call us that
package deal
Bradley (03:53):
it'd be one of those
things where like in the group
chat people would be like whowants to get lunch and i'd be
sitting at home being like idon't feel like going to that
and then as soon as carly wouldbe like yeah i'll go suddenly
i'll be like oh i'll go i lovethat idea
Carly (04:04):
oh lunch
Bradley (04:06):
People will be like,
okay.
And one of our favorite storiesto tell is like, you know, went
to grad school for highereducation to work at a college
university.
And big in higher ed isicebreakers, team builders, so
many different exercises and somany different meetings.
And there was one in particularwhere we were forced to all
sort of partner up, find apartner, and then sit back down
(04:27):
to demonstrate visually thatlike you had found your partner.
Carly (04:30):
And this was after one
year of grad school.
So this was right in the middleof our two years.
People knew us as a packagedeal.
Bradley (04:35):
Yeah, we're well
established.
Carly (04:36):
Yeah.
there was not Brad there wasnot Carly there was Brad and
Carly always
Bradley (04:40):
so Carly and I are
doing our due diligence of
finding our own partner andeverybody it's like that classic
high school example where likeeverybody partners up real quick
and they all sit down andsuddenly Carly and I just look
around and we're the only onesleft standing and then the most
unbelievable thing happened theentire room of our peers our
supervisors our colleagues booedus
Carly (05:01):
actual boos no boo not
you guys oh my god how could you
How could you do this?
How could you do this?
And then we looked at eachother across the room like, what
did we do?
Bradley (05:11):
Right.
Carly (05:12):
Oh, sorry.
Also, shame on them for no onepicking us.
You know?
Right.
Bradley (05:16):
Yeah.
Like, yeah, exactly.
So I like thinking about thatas a reflection of the fact
that, yeah, we were, I think, sowell established as a
partnership that people wantedto tear us down.
Carly (05:28):
You could say a power
couple.
Bradley (05:29):
Power couple.
So, but yeah, we did our twoyears in Kansas and we felt that
like, okay, like at this point,you know, you go through your
job search you never know whereyou might end up but thankfully
for us we just did a couplesearch.
I just followed you where youwent.
Carly (05:43):
In higher education
housing where we were often
times if you're a couple youknow you have to live somewhere
so you have to search with yourpartner and they call it a
couple search and Brad and Iboth knew Bradley knew he didn't
want to be without me.
I would have very sadly gonewithout Bradley but I knew I
wanted to come back to Ohio.
I have deep roots here.
My family's here.
(06:03):
I knew this is where I wascoming back to or at least as
close as I could get
Bradley (06:06):
yeah I think for me
it's a little easier because I
am a military brat I have Idon't necessarily feel at a
strong pull or an affinitytowards one place I've lived in
so many different places whichis why like going to Kansas was
I think easier for me becauseI'm like I know what it's like
to just live somewhere for twoto four years so I think for me
I had a lot more freedom to sortof follow you and I did try to
(06:27):
interview at other schools youdid but yeah you you had been
accepted at your dream schoolthe Ohio State University you're
heading out there andthankfully Ohio just has a
craptown A school.
I did not end up at the OhioState University.
I did end up at the Kent StateUniversity.
And now I live in Akron, Ohio.
And Carly has since left thehigher ed field.
(06:47):
And you are here really on theeast side of Cleveland.
Yeah.
And so really, I mean, for thepast like seven years, eight
years, we this is where we'vebeen.
In future episodes, you'regoing to hear us reference
Kansas and Ohio.
And you're going to wonder whywe care so much about that.
But so far, that is the settingof our entire journey is those
those two places so
Carly (07:08):
well and in Kansas we
hung out daily yeah like there
weren't very many days that wentby that we didn't see each
other yeah and when we movedhere I think we've done a really
good job it's when what yousaid seven about seven years
we've both lived in Ohio wenever lived more than a couple
hours apart and we've alwaysdone a good job of hanging out
monthly
Bradley (07:24):
making the time making
the commitment and it never
really feels like work it reallydoes feel natural and easy
which is my favorite thing aboutyou and about our friendship is
that it's not riddled withinsecurity I never feel paranoid
about you or that one of us isgreater than the other that
we're truly like just equalpartners and I love that and I
firmly believe that like gay manstraight woman dynamic is like
(07:45):
one of the most powerful ones onthe planet like even stronger
than like parent and childsiblings I think gay man
straight woman is the powersource of the universe
Carly (07:55):
absolutely absolutely
this is the strongest I am is
with you
Bradley (08:00):
Carly who loves her
family is a strong child just
readily agreed
Carly (08:03):
to that statement I'm
just looking at Brad blinking
and nodding an agreement.
Yeah, I'm not questioning anyof my other relationships that
I've had in my life, just thisone.
But we are coming up on, Imean, in July, July 2nd will be
our 10-year anniversary ofmeeting each other in person.
Bradley (08:19):
Yep, yep.
So we met in 2015.
At the time we are recordingand launching this podcast, it
is 2025.
Bit of a bleak time.
So we were really looking for away to celebrate 10 years of
just pure friendship.
And we had ideas of maybe, youknow, traveling abroad, going
somewhere exciting.
but ultimately like we wantedto do something that felt maybe
more impactful and would um lasta lot longer so here we are at
(08:44):
a podcast and it's
Carly (08:45):
something we could afford
more
Bradley (08:46):
yeah yes
Carly (08:49):
we were gonna do a world
cruise but
Bradley (08:51):
please send us money
listener so yeah so we uh we
settled on a podcast and we alsodecided like this this podcast
really is it's for us we knowthat there are again like an
infinite number of podcasts outthere covering every topic you
can ever imagine even the onethat we are doing I'm sure is
covered by other gay malestraight female
Carly (09:11):
pairs out there
Bradley (09:13):
so but Carly and I one
of our connecting points is our
love of movies our love ofcinema our love of television
shows we often in our weeklyFaceTime chats we're just
debriefing about each show thatwe are both watching and what's
going on and how we went to somany movies in Kansas and we
loved it because they you pressa button and somebody just would
(09:34):
deliver food to you you couldhave get a wristband get beer
like we love
Carly (09:39):
we loved this place
Bradley (09:40):
loves that movie
theater even though you know we
have different favorite genresof films and you know Carly
certainly has her taste inmovies and I have a much better
taste we love we love movies soreally when it came to like what
do we podcast about I've alwayshad it in my head too and
something that's been on myto-do list is like I have always
just wanted to watch all thebest picture winners and in fact
(10:01):
you Carly like introducedreally watching the Oscars and
like caring about it the firstOscar I watched was with you
when, you know, La La Land wonand then they were like,
actually, sorry, it's Moonlight.
Carly (10:11):
A true pop culture moment
in pop culture and we were
there for it.
Yeah, exactly.
Everyone always says, like,where were you when La La Land
won and then unwon the BestPicture Oscar and I'll always
say it was with Brad.
Yeah.
But yeah, I mean, the Oscarshave always been a huge thing
since I was young.
I can remember the first one Iever watched was with my mom and
she was such a Tom Cruise fiendand we, like, rushed home to go
(10:32):
watch them and I just remembersince then I've always loved
them.
I've always loved movies inlike in college my family would
text me like happy Oscar Sundayand it was just like a big day
so I had I don't watch them asreligiously anymore just because
life and stuff but love movieslove just pop culture in general
and that's always been a bigpart of our relationship is pop
culture movies actors mostly TVis ours our thing but so it's
(10:54):
cool to talk about something andhave this to be just something
we're doing together
Bradley (10:57):
yeah and I think you
may not watch the Oscars or look
forward to it as much I thinkI'm the opposite I think I'm
like yeah I'm getting into eachyear I try to like anticipate
which movie movie could benominated could win I try to
watch it before it actually winsjust to I guess glow about it
to my cat my cat
Carly (11:17):
haha I knew it
Bradley (11:17):
but I really do think
it's fun and it's I've had the
feeling twice now of seeing likea movie that I really loved and
to like win with everythingeverywhere all at once and
Oppenheimer was rooting for bothof those and those were back to
back and I'm like wow we'rekilling it in the Oscars so I'm
getting really into it I reallyenjoy it so it's always been on
my i just think it's fun thatthere's like a list of literally
(11:38):
like 90 plus movies um that wonbest pictures and not i'm a
little dubious that the bestpicture winner is necessarily
the best picture of that yearbut i don't really know because
i haven't seen half of them orreally the majority of these
movies so i just thought itwould be fun and a lot of the
podcasts i consume now arerelated to reality tv and like
they go over each episode ofsurvivor or big brother and like
(11:58):
these recap in a podcast
Carly (12:00):
recaps are everything
Bradley (12:01):
i i was like if i'm
gonna do this and commit to it i
i personally need need to beexcited about it so I think
that's where we landed onwatching every best picture
winner recapping each one
Carly (12:11):
yeah and I think Brad
came up with the idea and I mean
it was like yes like that'ssomething I could do would love
to do and then our next thingwas what do we call it
Bradley (12:19):
took us a very very
long time
Carly (12:22):
a very long time but it's
weird we kind of and I think
this is what happens a lot itkind of ended up being what we
originally like one of our firstideas yeah you know we and we
went through I think we talkedabout like the award goes to
like Oscars best or somethingand we quickly realized we would
probably be sued by Oscars andAcademy Awards of America or
whatever so yeah we and then wekind of turned to let's make it
(12:42):
something that relates to one ofthe best picture winners and we
looked up quotes from a lot ofthem and we as in our friendship
I think I've always said thisbecause it's one of my and my
family's favorite lines fromTitanic is the better half when
she's right Rose goes up andsays to evil cow half of the
(13:03):
half of the people on the shipare going to die and then And
Cal, the villain, says, not thebetter half.
And so we've always just kindof said not the better half to
random stuff in our friendship.
And we were like, what aboutthe better half?
And it just kind of like endedup working.
And I think we really like it.
Bradley (13:19):
Yeah, yeah.
Certainly we are referencing avery unlikable character.
But yeah, it is a bit of aninside joke.
But yeah, we can really kind oftwist its meaning to whatever
we need it to work.
Carly (13:29):
Like we are each other's
better half.
Bradley (13:30):
Yep.
And these movies were deemed,you know, in the better half
of...
movies that year so we make itwork but yeah that that took us
probably the longest i i figuredout how to actually like do a
podcast find the recordingequipment that we need like how
we actually do this and thencarly's like let's get going i
was like but we we need to knowwhat
Carly (13:49):
we need a name we can't
not call it what it is
Bradley (13:52):
we're we're very
excited about this project and
we imagine you know for the mostpart it's gonna be our friends
and family who you know careenough who who know us and know
our relationship and are bigfans of us because i know we
have fans
Carly (14:03):
we have them out there
love you
Bradley (14:04):
love you thank you for
being here
Carly (14:06):
send us money
Bradley (14:09):
our venmo
Carly (14:12):
is no that's not why
we're doing this yeah
Bradley (14:13):
no we're this is truly
a celebration of 10 years of
friendship me personally i ineed something to just brighten
my day a little bit and hangingout with carly always does that
so i'm doing this podcastgenuinely this project has been
like the most fun i've had in along time yeah um it's been
super cool to like learn the insand outs of podcasting there's
(14:34):
still like more to learn i thinkbut it's been like and I'm even
someone to it who's never likeloved hearing the sound of my
own voice but like it's justnobody is funnier to me than
Carly and I and like listeningback to our episodes like I just
giggle to
Carly (14:47):
myself this is truly the
better half of podcasting yeah
100% we do and I know it'sprobably gonna be the funniest
to us too but that's totallyfine but I do think we just like
to spread joy and if thisbrings any joy to anybody at all
that would be so awesome yeahbut also if not we have these
for us and I I agree.
It's a very bright part in myweeks when we decide to do this.
(15:09):
I love recording them.
I love listening to them.
Yeah, it's just a very coolthing that we're doing and I
love it.
Bradley (15:15):
Yeah, yeah.
We're not here to change lives.
We're not here to even leaveyou better informed in some
ways.
Carly (15:22):
We can't stress this
enough.
We don't care what you get fromthis.
Bradley (15:26):
It's for us.
The target audience is the twopeople recording
Carly (15:29):
it.
The two people that are here.
We just hope some people enjoyit and listen and it brightens
your week so little bit but ifnot we totally get it but it's
also a fun thing
Bradley (15:39):
yeah i'm excited to see
where it takes us you know you
know we got 97 movies to getthrough um currently and of
course every year a new one
Carly (15:46):
because the longer we put
put off the movies the more
movies we'll have
Bradley (15:49):
yep we have a lot of
war movies we have a lot of
musicals uh we have to get tobest picture winners love being
you know three hours plus andthat's okay because i'm here
with you
Carly (15:59):
yeah i wouldn't want to
do with anyone else
Bradley (16:01):
oh no
Carly (16:02):
and even i mean at this
rate we'll be doing it when
we're 45.
Yes,
Bradley (16:06):
which is a very long
time away for both of us.
Just to be clear.
Carly (16:10):
We are not close to 45 at
all.
But if we at this rate thatwe're doing them, we'll be here
for a long time and so will thepodcast.
Bradley (16:18):
Yeah, I can't wait to
see what this looks like.
If people do take anythingaway, I'm curious to know what
that is and who knows, therecould be even further
opportunities that can be spunoff from this idea.
Brad
Carly (16:32):
and I have thoughts and
feelings on everything so the
more you want, the more we'llgive
Bradley (16:35):
yeah that's what's so
great there's like literally so
many movies we could we could dothem all yep tackle this list
and then we'll go on to likebring it on and just the first
one
Carly (16:43):
that well we had talked
we had talked about doing the
the razzies which are like theworst movies of the year and do
it going through and doing allthose but i don't know we'll see
yeah we'll see what the fanswant
Bradley (16:52):
so yeah um every
episode you can you can expect
to hear us going in depthsuperficially with high level
thought over one best picturewinner we are not going in
chronological order we arestarting with the very first
best picture winner winner justto really kick us off and then
from there we are going to bejumping through time tackling
these one at a time so
Carly (17:12):
and at the end of each
episode we will tell you what
movie we're doing next episodeso if you want to follow along
with us you can watch the moviebefore we do it or if you don't
want to watch movies we'll fillyou in on everything you need to
know and more
Bradley (17:24):
yeah the the first half
of the podcast episode the
better half is me recapping themovie you'll hear my voice a lot
and then the second half of thepodcast we go in in depth as to
what happened at that year'sAcademy Awards.
Did anybody get slapped onstage?
You know, did anybody havetheir Oscar rescinded after
winning it?
And then I like to do a littlebit of a director spotlight.
We answer important questionswhether or not this movie is for
(17:47):
the gays or for the girls.
And then Carly fills us in onour leading stars and any juicy
gossip.
Carly (17:53):
They're just like us.
Sometimes.
Bradley (17:56):
So that is basically
the structure of our podcast.
Carly (17:59):
There will be spoilers
too.
We are not going to hold back.
If there's a movie if you stillhaven't watched Titanic.
You should watch it becausewe're going to spoil it.
We're going to tell you whathappens.
Yeah.
Same with every other moviewe're going to talk about.
So don't come here wanting aspoiler-free zone.
This is not it.
Bradley (18:16):
Yeah.
Go watch the movie if you'rethat invested to listen to an
hour-long podcast about it.
Right.
But yeah, I think that's a lotof it about us and about this
crazy adventure that we're on.
Carly (18:28):
Yeah.
We're excited.
We hope you're excited.
And if you're not, we don'tcare.
Bradley (18:31):
We don't care, but
please pay us.
Carly (18:34):
Please listen And yeah,
if you have thoughts, if you're
listening and you have thoughts,you probably have one of our
numbers.
So text us, follow us onInstagram and comment below and
subscribe.
It'll only help us get moremoney out of this.
Bradley (18:50):
And at the time you're
listening to this, episode one
should already be out andavailable to you.
So
Carly (18:55):
go listen to Wings.
Bradley (18:56):
Go listen right now.
All right.
Anything else, Carly?
Carly (18:58):
I don't think so.
I love you.
Bradley (19:00):
Yeah, love you too.
And love you, audience,especially if you pay
Carly (19:02):
us.
Bradley (19:03):
Bye.
Bye.