Pope Rob of Princeton

This month on GLoP: Rob has an important announcement to make, some unfortunate serial killer names, The Last of Us, Andor, Wolf Hall, and various other cultural non-sequiturs.





Head to http://lumen.me/GLOP for 15% off your purchase.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Where's your frock?

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Rob?

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Where the frock is your frock?

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Of stop believing me.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'm wondering now that you're at the seminary, are you,
like even point oh one more in the running to
replace the pope?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
You know, I really shouldn't. I mean, I promised I
wouldn't break the news here.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Well, we're nearing the end of April and this is
the Globe Culture podcast. I'm John popcor It's in New York,
not not elsewhere in New York any longer in Princeton,
New Jersey seminary and Rob.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Long, Hi, Rob, Hi John?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
That see it again?

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Both portentous, sue it again? Do it again.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
I was too mpr to say hi Rob Hi, Rob,
Hello my son.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
That's better, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
It's very very moving and in and in Washington, Hello
my son, Joanah Goldberg.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Hello John.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
You should know we were just as we're coming to
the air, discussing the the transition of the Catholic Church. Rob,
as as people know is is at seminary training to
become a an episcopal or a Church of England. I
don't know do you call it episcopal? Yeah, you're going

(01:38):
to be an episcopal? You were you were you're going
to be a priest.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Eventually, as we say in faith.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yes and uh, and so you have no particular insight
into the into the papal conclave. We leave that Edward
Edward Berger's film Conclave, in which A and I think
we know a person becomes pope. I think a spoiler

(02:07):
alert spoiler. Well it's been out for six months anyway.
But I was going to say that what I remembered
from like forty five years ago was there was this
period people don't don't don't remember. There was this astounding
moment in nineteen seventy nine, I believe, unless it's seventy

(02:27):
eight seventy nine, when the Pope died, Pope Paul the
sixth died. Lovable excuse me, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
What I'm hope John Paul died.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
No, I was about to get to that.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Oh sorry, Hope Paul.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
The Sixth dies and a lovable scamp of an Italian
gets the papacy, takes the name John Paul the First
is sworn in or whatever you are as Pope invested
and lives for I believe thirty four days and then

(03:06):
drops dead.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Now he's being naive.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
And so there was this astounding thing, which is there
had not been a new pope in I think fifteen years,
and uh, and this guy becomes pope. And then and
then William Henry Harrison's itt up to heaven. And the
most consequential thing happened in the course of the you know,
one of the most consequential geopolitical events of the last

(03:35):
half century of the twentieth century happened, which is that
Karl Boytila the right, what cardinal.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Cardinal he's giving us a history of the papacy.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
No, but I'm going to say this was all this
all took place in six weeks. One pope comes in,
the smiling Pope covers the magazine's huge news store, right,
I mean, have a much bigger news story than it
is today, that that the the papacy had turned over.
And then this absolute shock that he dies right immediately upon,

(04:11):
almost immediately upon exceeding. And then and then the double shock,
which is that a was the first non Italian pope
was chosen in right ever?

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Right? Yeah, yeah, maybe pretty much, well there.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Like eleven hundred years or something, right, because there.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Were fake right, that was a you.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Didn't have an Italy you didn't, you didn't. It was
Italy was really age and sixty eight, so.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Okay, so anyway, uh.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
And then there was a holding with Mobiari, which Michael
Corleoni was trying to sure, yeah right.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Right, yeah, the.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Vatican.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Right, but you can't imagine unless you live through it,
how huge world events this to the two months without
precedent in my my lifetime, that the most important position
on the planet Earth, aside from the leaders of the

(05:12):
now and now and now.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
And your point is that now it was it's it's
gonna take four weeks.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
Now, right, it'll take four weeks. But some of it
just doesn't have the size and scope. Well, I mean
it will late seventies.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
And I think I disagree. I think actually this one
is that in the late seventies it was really a
style change from Italian tradition to you know, an a
representative of just a Eastern Europe right now, I mean
the actual pope. It's like if if you if if

(05:49):
if the this is the cardinals or the people that
that that France is put in place have a choice.
They're either going to to sort of continue the kind
of you know, two steps forward, three quarters steps, three
hundred three quarter sets back press progressive move that France

(06:11):
has made in certain areas, or they're gonna lose Africa.
Africa is the fastest growing part of the church pretty
much of all of Christens, but especially the Catholic Church.
But they could also maybe you know, they're they're doing
exactly what they did in the sixteenth century. They're trying
to balance the losses in one region in the sixteenth

(06:32):
centuries Europe with gains in another region.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
And that's that.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
I guarantee you that they're all looking at the math
like risk.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
They may not say it, but not Actually I have
much more momentous I have literally no understanding of the
politics inside the Catholic Church or of the of the
stuff that you're talking about. I'm not just talking about
this from a cultural pop cultural media perspective that the

(07:01):
Pope was one of the three or four most important
people on the planet Earth, and he doesn't. It does
not feel like that is the case any longer, and
that the passing maybe maybe because his passing took so long,
because we, I think, had thought that he was going
to depart this Vale of Tears three months earlier. We

(07:21):
were told basically that he had even has received last
rites around Christmas time or maybe the beginning of the year,
but that just like every newspaper and every new telca
and everything, there was ten minutes on the papacy for

(07:42):
two or three months. Because here in the United States,
Catholic Church's most largest denominate religious denomination in the United States,
enormously powerful, politically, socially, culturally, and here we are in
twenty twenty five. The Church's power has been greatly diminished
by the chain the rapid secularization of the United States,

(08:04):
combined with the scandals that afflicted have afflicted the church
over the last thirty thirty five years, and it just
doesn't feel it doesn't have the size and scope that
when I was eighteen or something like that, that was
when I realized, oh my god, this the as a
as a Jewish kid in New York City, that the

(08:25):
pope was like a figure of gigantic meaning. And I mean,
I'm sure he is, and I don't mean to belittle
the idea that it matters who the pope is, but
it just doesn't have that same quality.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
What it has to matter who the pope is because
otherwise gend Vans wouldn't have killed him.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Did you see that?

Speaker 3 (08:48):
To hit him with the Heisman trophy? But he dropped
the Heisman.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Trophy and then somebody passed around me.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
We had to basically put the poison on his fingerstips.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
I guess somebody passed around a mean that had a
truth social host from Trump and and and drew circles
around the words, you know, kill JD. Kill pope like
it was. It was pretty good if.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
You played if you played it backwards on your on
your turntable, yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Circle the words that it was a code.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
Uh well, I'm sure. I'm sure this will be a
plot of twenty five different novels now in the next
five years, anti Trump conspiracy novels that will involve Vance
and the Pope and why the Pope was about to
blow the whistle on something and all of that. But
it is true that JD. Vance broke the Heisman trophy

(09:41):
and then two days later finally gets to see the Pope,
who doesn't want to see him, right, was avoiding him,
like does it? We're told had basically refused an audience
with him, then decides he got to meet him, meets Vance,
and he's dead six hours later. So Vance has had
had a good week and bad week at the same time.
He met the Pope as a as a Catholic, very

(10:04):
exciting for him. Pope dies, so he's the last person
basically see the Pope alive I'm sorry to laugh, and
destroys the Heisman trophy. But he keeps saying, like Ukraine,
he's about to destroy Ukraine. So he killed the Pope,
he destroyed the Heisman trophy and he's going to take
Ukraine down here.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
But I thought he broke the national championship trophy. That's
not the Heisman.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
Not the Heisman trophy. Then actual chance that's later in
the year he'll break.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
The Okay, I was I always like, I mean, I
know I'm not a super sports guy, but I was
pretty sure the Heisman trophy was a different thing.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
So well, you know, all sports trophies are a Heisman
trophy to me, and everyone gets that's how evolved matter sports. Yeah,
but as I say, I think, you know, who knows
where he can turn next, where he can where he
can he can you know, he said, you know, like
the death Star, Well.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
He's the tariffs are now, so like you know, he's
oh yeah, yeah, not since Joe Biden appointed Kamala Harris
as a president.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
Yeah, well he's have to do something.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Uh, you know, he may have.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
He may end up taking over the Defensive Arment because
as far as I can tell, nobody works at the
Defense Department anymore. And this is not because Dose laid
them off. They're all basically like they are. Literally, it's
like the same Valentine's Day massacre. They're just all killing
it or it's or it's Michael. It's Michael on the
day of his son's baptism. Like they're just everybody's getting

(11:26):
mowed down there at the Pentagon. They're all killing each other.
It's amazing.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Nephew's bench is no on this podcast. You keep us accurate.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
People expect us.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
I'm going to make my sister, O will going to
make your sister a widow.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
So Joe actually just brings it up. We didn't discuss
talking about this beforehand, and our are literally seconds of prep.
But you and I were texting about this and it
was just this. It was a great pod moment. I
will often read text from you to my lovely wife.
And I was watching Godfather the other morning, like I
guess last Saturday Sunday morning, and and I had this.

(12:11):
You know, what I thought was a pretty good insight
about part of the genius of the movie was their
willingness to cast basically thugly people like not that attractive
women and men in the secondary roles. Mostly if you
just look at the wedding, they're just a lot of
unattractive or not attractive people. But and I texted this
to you, and of course I get back this extended

(12:34):
tweet about the casting agent and the documentary about her
and all this kind of stuff. And I read it
to my wife, and I like, see, this is this
is why stuff we would talk to John about movies.
Because I come in with like this banal sort of
I thought I discovered this point thing.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
I just speak wildly pedantic because you just triggered me. No,
so yeah, yeah, no, wow, No, it's an interesting Jonah
was plating out something very interesting, which is that The
Godfather is a movie in which people who look like
people are in the.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Cast terrible but like the arid bridesmaids would be super hot.
They would all be like underwear models except for one
yea token overweight girl.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Right, and some we have to make a very sad phone.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
Call that Clemento would be on Izentic.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah, I'd be like, hey, we love we loved your audition.
You read so great. It's just we're kind of trying
to go a different way.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
It's Glenn Powell. We liked it.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
We're thinking Glenn Powell, Timothy Shallamy, you know that young actor.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
Yeah, so so but it but it brought me in
mind when you pointed this out, that there was this.
And I think about stuff like this in part because
my my wife works in show business, so she talks
about things like casting and casting agents and people like
this all the time at home, and so it's it's
front of mine for me in a way that it

(14:01):
isn't for you.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
Somebody tells me that you talk about it more. Actually
it's her job that this is.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
Not actually true, but I will I will go for
it anyway. And the weird thing is that the.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Ayalla talks more about the Congress of Cultural Freedom and
the role of video kinds, and then I.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
Got nothing to talk about that I want to I
want to talk about Agent. No. But there is this
great story that explains one of the reasons that movies
got so good suddenly in the mid sixties. For about
fifteen years until until they sort of sloughed sloughed off again,
which is that there was this moment the studio system

(14:38):
started to crack. People started to make movies on location.
And this New York City casting agent named Marion Doherty,
who would go to off Broadway shows and things like
that looking for good, good actors and good performers, started
taking on as clients these people who did not look
like Hollywood you know, you know, like halfaway shirt models

(15:03):
or you.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Know, I mean, there was those people existed before. I
mean especially if you watch old movies now, for the
forties and fifties, you realize that that old man, you know,
Ray Collins is an old man, and he but when
they shot he was thirty.

Speaker 3 (15:16):
Three, right, just so you looked younger.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
You know, like Larry Tait and Bewitched was a twenty
seven year old man.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
Right. So she she found seventy five people who then
went on to be the movie stars and the leading
actress of the next two generations. This one casting agent
married to already found Dustin Hoffman, John Voight, Gene Hackman. Uh.
You didn't have to be hot, no, what they had

(15:47):
was character or they were they were riveting whatever they
had they had president.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
I was once casting a TV show and uh, and
I will tell you the actress she she went on
to like do, she went on to be she just
kind of me a TV starts for Star Wars TV
show for a long time, not not mine. Mine was
canceled very early. And she was really good and and
she was clearly more attractive than than who she was
testing against. And when you test for you and cast

(16:13):
TV show, you go, you see everybody, and then casting
record sees everybody. They and the cast director brings you,
you know, her his or her choices and then you
look at them and then you call it down and
you get it down to like one or two choice,
two choices usually for each role, but that you be
happy with. And then you go to the network in
the studio in one horrible day for the actor and
they read for the network at the studio. So everyone's
got to agree. And there were two two actresses for

(16:36):
this one role. And the one who when we wanted
was was she was good, and the other one was
good too, but the one we wanted was actually much
more attractive, like monsterly more attractive, so much more attractive
that the one who wasn't more attractive, knew that this
was not going to be her day. But in the meeting,
you know, then then they leave and you sit around,

(16:57):
You're talking to everybody. You're in a little theater, get
CBS a little theater. And I'm making a case for
the more attractive when we wanted and I think I'm
over compensating, trying to make it like and she's got
a certain guam. And the head of the network sort
of reached out and held me like you do to

(17:19):
a child, hold my arm, said Rob, we don't have
to apologize or putting a pretty girl in television. Yeah, okay, Yeah,
that's what I want. Now you would, yeah, apologize for
saying that.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
Okay. So this then makes a nice segue to something
I wanted to bring up with you guys, which is
Matt Bellanie Puck has gotten his hands on The National
Research Group, which is a firm that collects data on
the world of entertainment, surveys three thousand Americans ages twelve
to seventy four to ask them whom would they like

(17:59):
to see on the big screen, like who attracts them?
But in theory, if they see a name on a
poster or in it that they would want to go
see in a movie. All things being equal, and the
list of the top twenty five theatrical stars is fascinating
because it is dominated by stars of thirty years ago.

(18:22):
In twenty twenty five, the top names are Denzel Washington,
Tom Cruise. Those are one and two, four as Brad Pitt,
six is Tom Hanks, seven is Will Smith, nine is
Keanu Reeves.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Wait, Will Smith is above Keanu Reeves.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
Yeah, this is when you ask people who would you
like to see? That's that's all, because it doesn't mean
that oh I see, I say okay. Samuel Jackson is fifteen,
Meryl Streep is eighteen, Harrison Ford nineteen, Julia Roberts twenty one,
Morgan Freeman twenty four. Now there, it's not that there

(19:04):
aren't a bunch of other younger people here, like you know,
Ryan Reynolds and Duayne Johnson, who's not that young, but
it's not and has been in the movies for third,
you know, for almost thirty years, but only really became
a star twenty years ago. Leonardo DiCaprio, of course star
in ninety seven. So Adam Sandler, the old that is

(19:29):
not that unusual. No, but the only people at the
top here that are young but are Margot, Robbie and Zendayah,
that's it, in the top twenty five.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
That makes sense though, because if you're doing a survey
and the survey is sort of a multi generational survey,
the names that are going to rise to the top
are going to be the names that have the most
famed for the most years. So that older people, if
you're fifty or you're sixty, you're like, yeah, Tom Cruise.
Now Tom Cruise is up there because he was also
in a huge billion or movie a few years ago.
So and the five mentioned impossible one, So like that

(20:05):
actually makes sense.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
Okay, it's just interesting because the point here is if
you did such a survey in nineteen sixty seven, right,
and would Henry Fonda and James Stewarts and uh you
think they would be yes?

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Because if you're yes, but barthe okay, yes. If you
do a survey and it's a it has a wide
variety of ages survey, Okay, you're gonna act, You're gonna
collect people who aren't.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
It would be interesting if they had a breakdown of
respondents by age.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
They do, and that's what I was about to go to.
So here are the actors under forty in the top
one hundred. Okay, these are actors that isn't there. I mean,
you're and no, but they, they and the ones who
are in this are all. They are also the ones
that younger people are responding to and giving their names to. Okay.

(21:02):
Zendiah Margot, Robbie Jennifer Lawrence, Tom Holland, Timothy shallome Emma Stone,
Ariana Grande, Jenna Ortega, Michael b Jordan, Florence Pugh, Lady Gaga,
Robert Pattinson, Anya Taylor, Joy Gaga, Dote, and Keiky Palmer,
who is the star of Nope at number ninety eight. Okay,

(21:23):
so what does this tell me? I don't know what
it tells me. It doesn't tell me anything. I think
it's interesting, by the way, that Timothy Shallomey who started
three huge movies in the last two years, the Two Dunes,
four movies, the Two Dunes, Wonka and they're complete unknown.

(21:46):
That's four hits, two of them huge, three of them huge. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yeah again.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
Okay, all you ever do when we talk about this
is go eh, well, I guess I think.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
You're making it. I think you're trying to dig here
for a meaning, which is what I think Maloney's trying
to do, And there isn't really a meaning unless you
can tell me what how it would be different.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
I got a meaning for you. Okay, it doesn't work anymore.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
Stars aren't But you're basically on evidence that isn't. Relying
that isn't doesn't indicate that.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
What I mean when I say that stars aren't stars
anymore is that there the grandeur of being a Hollywood
star is very much.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yes, complimented.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
And do you know who who said that with great
articulate of the drama, Joan Crawford in like nineteen sixty four.
People have been saying that. Every actor has been saying
that since the beginning. I guarantee you, I guarantee you
Ramon Navarro if he was not Deet Dead or any

(23:01):
of those people were saying that about Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy Stewart, you.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
Know the principle of improv Yeah, and I hate it, Okay, I.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
Hate it.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
We're trying to have a conversation, but the conversation here
we are on a desert island, a conversation.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
The conversation is two people with differing points of view
having a convers It's not me not against saying yes,
please continue reading this. I don't think it's right. I'm
adding to it.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
So tell me, you tell me? Do you tell me?
In the last five years, I would know, I don't. Okay,
when you were okay, when you were eighteen years old,
look and put it this way.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
But here's here's here's a data point for you. An
actor who starred in the biggest movie ever. Yeah, Mark Hamill,
Mark Hamill, Okay, okay, and what.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
The movie was the star because the movie he was
the sun.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Okay, all right, all right? Or maybe he's just Timothy.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Shall I mean Harrison.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
Fortunately, Harrison Ford was the star of the biggest movie ever,
and he is the list. He was one of the
two stars of the biggest movie ever. And the difference
between him and Mark Hamill is then he was in
Raiders and he was in he was a movie star.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
You could tell he was a movie star. Yeah, a
little it factor.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
But Jonah, when you were a team m hmm. Okay.
So it's the mid eighties, you're a teen. There are
all these people you're probably really excited to go see
at the movies, right, John Cusack. Maybe after the Reynolds.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Uh uh. I don't think it's the movie Star for Fighting. Maybe, yeah,
but that was a little earlier. It wasn't in the
late eighties.

Speaker 3 (24:50):
I don't know. I'm just saying, like now, I'm not
sure that people my kids ages like my kids, you know,
like love Stranger Things. Yeah, yeah, so they love they
like Billy Bobby Brown. But I don't think when they
saw that she was in another movie on Netflix that
they were like, oh my god, Billy Bobby Brown is
in the Electric State.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
I got to watch that.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
In fact, they didn't, and nobody actually watched The Electric State,
or you know, they really like Yellow Jos.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
I have no idea who Benny Bobby Brown is, but
I just like the idea there's nobody fabously Billy Bobby Brown.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
Millie Bobby browne star of Stranger Things, and she made
forty million dollars making The Electric State for Netflix, and
she's twenty years old.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
Than good for her. She's happy. So I'm looking at like,
because it's funny you say this, because like I I'm
struggling to think of actors that were a huge draw
regardless of the movie they were in for me back
when I was in my late teens.

Speaker 4 (25:55):
Bill Murray, Okay, so Bill Murray, Yes, Eddie Murray, Ednie Murphy,
Bill Murray, Rodney, Dangerfield, danger Field interestingly enough.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah, yeah that you would go see in anything.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
Yeah. So it's the SNL, but the comedy people bigger
for us there they like there aren't comedy people anymore.
So the whole category of star that does that, Like
in the last thing, you have not been minted, Like
there are no new young I gotta go see so
and so in that. Yeah, there's no like SNL person
who has become a movie star in the last fifteen years.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Robin Williams. He got on my nerves pretty quickly. But
there was a while there where I think he was
a good draw, fantastic.

Speaker 3 (26:50):
You know, he had his moments who was huge Untouchables
you know, no exit, Well, he had he had a
he had a run there for like five or six years. Yeah,
but then the Untouchables, uh dances with wolves.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
He was huge, like he was. Fans are I actually
I want to I'm one of six people who like
the Postman.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
I kind of like the Postman myself.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
But you know, and uh, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
The thing I watched about all those apocalyptic movies is
what when when Earth, when civilization crumbles and and and
everything falls apart? Why do why did the people get
more pompous?

Speaker 5 (27:30):
There's the Postman, you know, like in Mad Max, they
were all like, let me, it was complete pomposity, Like
would you think you just be more like more basic,
like to stop it with the portentous language.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Let's just get this thing going.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
Well, Okay, so I'm going to read that Jonah speaking
of post apocalyptic things. Jonah sent this to me, and
it is really interesting. The futuristic movie Timeline. You sent
this to me over the Okay, So here here's what's
so imagine the world. This is what in the past
they thought life would be like in the future.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (28:10):
So Blade Runner famously takes place in twenty nineteen when,
as you know, as was the case in twenty nineteen,
Los Angeles is permanently coated in acid rain. People are
living in two hundred story apartment buildings. There are robots

(28:30):
mining the Saturn.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
And we all speak of pigeon.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
Patois Chinese and the Japanese control everything. And that was
nineteen eighty two, and that was their vision of twenty nineteen.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Because you know, in twenty fifteen, maybe twenty sixteen, I
was at the Gelson's supermarket in the Marina, was behind
Rutger Howard.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
Howard this start, Yeah, who gives the one of the
great all time science fiction performances.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
That's what I was doing.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
Then we know that his place in twenty eighteen, Soil
and Green twenty twenty two, which is really strong.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
Each other. In twenty twenty two, according a Children of Men,
which is a really.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Remarkable that's a good movie.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
May not have seen, but according to Children of Men
in twenty twenty seven, that seems like a great people.
No person had been born on Earth for eighteen years,
so people are still being born? In fact? Are they?
In fact? I can't believe you.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
Skiss was asked to escape from New York John Well,
you know nineteen ninety seven, ninety seven, right.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
Well, two thousand and one is the ultimate, right, two
and one is there?

Speaker 2 (30:01):
My question is, you know, my question is in any
of these movies that predicted this glorious future, did any
of them depict a device that could measure and guide
your metabolism properly. I mean, because you guys know that
when your metabolism is working properly, you will feel that
benefits in literally every aspect of your life.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
And I have found in.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
Twenty twenty five a valuable tool that gives me insights
to create a healthy metabolism for my body, and it
is called Lumen. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach.
It's a device that measures your metabolism through your breath
and on the app, it lets you know if you're
burning fat or carbs. It gives you tailored guidance to
improve your nutrition, workouts, sleep, and even stress management. All
you have to do is breathe into your Lumen first

(30:45):
thing in the morning, and you'll know what's going on
with your metabolism, whether you're burning fats or mostly carbs
or whatever. Then the Lumen device and the app gives
you personalized nutrition plans for that day based on those
measurements that day, So you can also breathe into it
before or after workouts, so you know exactly what's going
on in your body in real time. And Lumen will
give you tips to keep you on top of your
health game. Then too, your Metabolism is your body's engines.

(31:09):
It's how your body turns the food you eat into
the fuel that keeps you going. But because metabolism is
at the center of everything your body does, optimal metabolic
health translates to a bunch of benefits, including easier weight management,
improved energy levels, better fitness results, better sleep, stuff like that.
Lumen gives you recommendations to improve your metabolic health. That's
why you need to get Lumen. The future is now,

(31:32):
the warmer months are coming spring back into your health
and fitness. Go to lumen dot me slash glop get
fifteen percent off your Lumen. That's Lume e n dot
me slash glop for fifteen percent off your purchase. And
we thank Lumen for sponsoring this and many episodes of blop,
but also for bringing our health into the future.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
You know what I think is that would be a
great piece. Maybe I'll get someone to do it for
the dispatch is just go around and talk to different
companies and different organizations where news or pop culture events
make their names problematic. So Luman is the name of
the company in severance, right, Yeah, And like remember when
isis burst on the stage and all Yeah, like a

(32:15):
think tank had.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
To change its name organization and then the diet pill
aids a y d S and it adds the only
way I could lose weight was I couldn't lose Wayne
until I got AIDS. AIDS helped me drop thirty pounds.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah, you remember that Great had the Killer that on Seinfeld.
The guy had the same with David Rifkin.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
But what was it? The no, the Great, the Great
American Hero his original name that played by William cat
the guy who finds the space suit and then doesn't
know how to use it but can fly and stuff
like that.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Didn't turn out to be a movie star.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
Alph Hinkley and the Week and like the week that
the show premiered whatever, John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan and
they had to go back and redub it so that
his name became Hanley rather than Hinckley. So there is
and there was that great sketch. There's that great sketch
on the SNL right after nine to eleven where they

(33:17):
had all these panelists. There was like a guy named
Ben Lawden and somebody else named al Jazeera. Remember Dan
Ackroyd played al Jazeera.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
Brought here before. But my Dad was convinced he knew
the last Jew in America named it all, it all.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
It's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, time to bring it back.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
The guy who the Atlanta Spa shootings, what was it
four years ago? You know the guy was going on
a killing spree in the Atlanta Spas. His name was
Robert Long.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
My god, Yeah, well that's you know what. That's never
gonna happen to me unless I do it. There's no
other person with my name, with my name on earth,
so therefore, really they got me dead to rights if
if it happens. I was thinking George Santos got sent

(34:19):
sentenced today for his for his fraud eight years and
jail apparently sobbed and wept in the courtroom, and I
was thinking that where George Santos, Like, where did he go? Right?
This this is literally the Producers right. If he had
lost the congressional election, the fact that he had stolen

(34:39):
all this money from his campaign to do stuff, nobody
would ever have found out about it. It's like if
the campaign had opened and closed in one night, like
the Producers was supposed to being the the Flop Show,
George Santos would be in the clear. He would have
gotten his massages, and he would have stolen, you know,

(34:59):
a couple hundred dollars from the campaign fund and nobody,
nobody would have been the wiser, because nobody looks into
failed congressional campaigns to see how the money has been spent.
And so his downfall was winning winning. Feel he didn't
mean to win. I don't think you want and it
was only running. It was only running to steal the money.

(35:23):
That's a pretty Joel Rifkin is the guy who was
a serial killer. Rifkin.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
They had a Seinfeld bit about where Elaine's dating a
Joel Rifkin and she begs him to change his name
because she's dating Joel Rifkin. Yeah, and yeah, is it?

Speaker 2 (35:37):
For some reason, it just seems extremely unlikely that there
would be a serial killer named Joel or Joel Rifkin.
That just doesn't seem a serial killer's name. Was it really?

Speaker 5 (35:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (35:49):
No, there really was. I looked it up. He was
a bad dude. He was a American serial killer sentenced
to two hundred and three years in prison for murdering
nine women between nineteen eighty nine nineteen ninety three. Yeah,
it is believed he killed as many as seventeen, and
I gotta say he kind of looks like a Joel Rifkin.

Speaker 3 (36:07):
Well sure, yeah, well my one of my best friends
in high school. So I graduated high school in nineteen
seventy eight, and in nineteen seventy I believe, actually, no,
actually it may have been the fall of seventy eight
or the fall of seventy nine, because I was in
Chicago that the movie Halloween opened, and of course the
killer in Halloween, the killer is Michael Myers, and my

(36:30):
friends in high school's name was Michael Myers. So he,
you know, I don't know what he would have done
what he did. I really never saw him after high school,
but you know, he there's that there's always that kind
of thing where, yeah, like what if your name were
Freddy k Krueger.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
You know, I'm sure somebody, I'm.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
Sure if somebody has actually changed their name to Freddy Krueger.

Speaker 3 (36:51):
Actually yeah, Okay, well there's there's there's that. Yeah, but
you know, you have this on like there are these
people on the Internet, you know, or on Twitter or something.
It's like, I'm not that Michael Cohen. I'm Michael Cohen,
but I'm not that Michael Cohen. That's the other Michael Cohen.
I'm not Jeffrey Goldberg, but at least your name is

(37:13):
not Jeffrey No. I know. Yeah, well that can happen
to anybody, you know. That's like it's like how people
you know, think I'm Bill Crystal because our parents knew
each other. You know, it's like that, oh you're Bill Crystal. No,
and this is the you know, so there is Did
people think you were Dan Staley? That's what That's what
I want to know. Okay, So Dan Staley was your

(37:34):
writing partner for twenty five years or something like that,
a long time, you know time. Yeah, but you were not.
No one ever confused you and Dan and.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
No, No, they pretty much well, you know, when I
was just starting out, I realized that I was that
when you're young, that no one knows your name. You know,
none of the important people on the stage know your name.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
They just don't know it.

Speaker 3 (37:55):
And sometimes you want to go where everybody knows.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
Right, That was the irony. And even my bosses didn't
know my name. The guys who ran who created the show,
the Cheers, by the time I started as a staff writer,
they were like already long gone. They were like living
in their in their palaces and Sun Valley and Carmel,
and and they would come down. And even when I
was an executive producer of the show a few years later,

(38:22):
I was still convinced that they were. You could still
see them, kind of not knowing. They would only come
down like one day every couple of you know, ever
you have twice a year. And so what I would
do is I would get my script for that day,
and it would always have my name on it, you know,
you have your and I would write it in a
bigger black magic marker, and I would kind of curl
the script up and hold it in my hand, kind

(38:43):
of looked real casual like, so that my name was
kind of showing underneath my face because I just didn't
want to. It would be one thing if if if
they didn't know my name, it would be sort of
deflating or embarrassing to me. But if they didn't know
my they didn't know my name, it would be devastating

(39:04):
to them. Because I was the one running this giant
money bags for them, they the least they should, they
should know who I am. And so I would do that,
And I think that actually is that that that's that's
a huge reason for my longevity, if you can call
that in show business, what's my ability to put my name?

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Maybe this is the explanation for the director's chair. Maybe
the reason that the director's chair in Hollywood had the
names of people on the back was so when Harry
Kohane or Louis V. Mayer or one of these grandees
came down on set, you could know who people were
by reading the backs of their chairs.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Yeah, except it was considered, in general, considered, at least
in my experience, was considered bad luck to sit in
your own chair. You try never to sit in your
own chair, but you but you would you sit in
a chair it's commensurate with your levels. It's not like
you sit in the you know, the I don't know,
somebody's the associate producer's chair. You wouldn't do that. But

(40:06):
you'd sit in somebody's chair was at your level. That's
what you'd do.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah, I'm sorry I missed that. You guys were talking
about why John, do you think it was considered bad luck?

Speaker 3 (40:16):
No?

Speaker 1 (40:16):
I don't, which, like, what are the origins of it
being considered bad luck?

Speaker 2 (40:21):
No?

Speaker 1 (40:23):
No, I'm fascinated by where ideas for things being bad
luck come from because there's usually a really interesting history.
You just you guys are just ignorant of it, but
there must be I mean, like the the you know,
there's a superstition against bananas on boats. And they're like
four or five really interesting explanations for why, and I

(40:43):
shouldn't say all really interesting. Some are sort of obvious
you slip on bana peoples kind of thing. But the
most interesting one or two are.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
One is.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
When they were first bringing like breadfruit and all that
stuff back from the you know, the South America bananas,
as you know rob because you know some culinary science,
you can hasten the ripening of other things by putting
them with bananas. Like if you wanted to get your
apples or avocados riper, you put them by the bananas
because they give off this ethyl chemical death right. And

(41:13):
so the problem would be that they would put all
of this produce in the hold of the ship, and
by the time they got halfway across the Atlantic, it
was everything would be rotted except for the bananas, so
that they thought was bad luck. The other one is
when ships would go down at sea, the only thing
that would float to the top were the bananas. So
it was associated with like this kind of curse kind

(41:36):
of thing. Anyway, there are a bunch of these different
reasons explanations for it. I just think it's really kind
of interesting.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
Well, there is the greatest theatrical superstition, right, or the
greatest theatrical thing is this idea that Macbeth is cursed,
and that if you're in Macbeth, if you're acting in Macbeth,
if you're talking about Macbeth and you were a professional
in the theater, you'd never say McBeth if you call
it the Scottish play, the Scottish player, say the term

(42:03):
Macbeth because supposedly it's haunted and cursed. Now, why would
that be? Could it be that it's a play that
has three witches in it who levy curses and people
that it's the one Shakespeare play that actually has, aside
from Midsummary, has like a deep like supernatural wick and
element in it. Or is this you know? But then

(42:26):
there are there are there are like rumors over time,
like there's somebody died playing ladye once on stage and
and then now we.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Have a bunch of like drama kids in high school,
you know, doing the Pippin and also referring to the
Scottish play. So it's a little bit, I mean, UH.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Has a whole bunch of different theories. There's not one
accepted reason for that either.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
If you go to the Players break a leg, if
you go to the Players Club in UH in New
York City, which was started by Mark Twain and Edwin Booth,
who is the you know, the Brad Pitt of his
age and the brother of John Wilksbooth who is also
a famous actor, and the dad was a his age,
Yeah right, and you uh and you and then on

(43:09):
the wall there's a lot of paintings the walls like
some of the role there's a couple of there's a
couple of sergeants there, and there uh of the Edwin
Booth and other actors of that age in character in
costume hands Hamlet, and there's a there's a Prospero and
a few others. And if you you look at those
portraits of them in character, you just realize how awful

(43:32):
those plays must have been, how terrible they must have been.
This thing just the declaiming. And there's one with Edwin
Booth is staring with one arched eyebrow, a you know,
in a dark cloak and he's holding a skull and
you know that's the last for York. I knew him
our rage, So it's like it's you just can imagine
the excruciating boredom of those overacting hands.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
Well, and also all those dudes like William, like Wilford
Brimley in address playing women.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Yeah right, by the way, it was thirty.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
Yeah, yeah, we've all crossed the Brickley line.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
The dress and that, the cloaks and the drama. It's amazing.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
And I was I caught a little of the Firm
the other night, which I have I have very mixed
feelings about the Tom Cruise movie, but I got to
give him props for casting Wilfred Brimley as a villain
and he's really good. Oh yeah, you know, yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
I think that movie is very is shockingly interesting in
it holds my interest and and and because it's it's
this it's a thriller, but it's languid and and the
thing that's interesting is it's got a different ending from

(44:48):
the book. For sure, it's a better ending. M hmm.
I think it's a better ending, because the whole notion
in the movie is that Cruise gets himself out of
trouble by playing the I'm your lawyer. I can never
you know, as long as you hire me, I can

(45:08):
never get into trouble, and you can never get into
trouble for me. And I can't get into trouble from
you because of lawyer client confidentiality. And I can therefore
get myself out of this horrible that that your your
current lawyers have screwed you. And I'm allowed to tell
you this because I tell me I'm your lawyer, and
then I can we can all, we can all get

(45:30):
out of this. Yeah, I thought, I thought that was great, actually,
and that had that movie had the cast of that movie,
it was a great cast. When Gene Hackman is in
a character role as he was, you know, seven or
eight times in his career as a as a major star,
it's that's when you saw his true greatness. When he

(45:51):
would when when when he was not carrying a movie
on his shoulders, and he could just be this incredibly vivid,
real person, you know, and take somebody who was, you know,
a ridiculous figure and then somehow make him completely convincing
as an actual person like this corrupted lawyer, you know,

(46:11):
who is tricked into trying to seduce Tom Cruise's wife
and all that. I don't know, that's a that's a
I think it's a great movie. You are You seem
to be more troubled by it than I.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
Well, the soundtrack annoys me.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
It's a bad because they went with the Jacks movie.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
With this sort of like light triakily jazz, you know,
thing going on, and I don't know, I see its
sort of as the beginning of Tom Cruise being Tom
Cruise has a similar problem to like Sean Connery. He's
always got to be like superhuman in any movie that
he's in, and that's like where it starts for me.

(46:49):
There's some of that, and.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
I think that's the running right. I think that's the
first movie in which get the Tom Cruise running through
Memphis or whatever the hell he's doing right and that
now and then I just saw the trailer for the
new Mission Impossible movie that's coming out, and the trailer
centers on him once again. He's running across Blackfriars Bridge,
where he's running across the bridge, the you know, the

(47:14):
bridge that was built for Yah for the Jubilee or
something like that, or in London. You know, he's always
you see him running and now I'm like, is he
actually running or is he running? Is he walking and
they're speeding it up?

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Or what?

Speaker 3 (47:26):
What the hell is going on there? But now he
has to run in every movie.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yeah, but but there's a guy, you know, give him credit.
There's a guy who made a billion dollar movie and
made him put put it in theaters when you weren't
supposed to, when the idea was not And he's also
if you mean for the people I know who work
with him on the on Fish, on the on the
Mission Impossible movies. Is it's the last. He's the last

(47:50):
of the old time movie making entities where you go
and everybody stays the Dorchester and everybody like that's like
this giant per diem and there's money is no object
for the weeks that you're on the project and there's
no none of It's.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
Like hosting glop and he sends everybody a coconut cake
at Christmas time. There's apparently this cake. He loves this cake.
And there's some baker in Los Angeles who bakes this cake.
And he has now become the source of this guy's
business because at Christmas time he sends fifteen hundred cakes
to everybody on his Christmas list, the Tom Cruise coconut cake.

(48:31):
This is like a real thing. And so this is
this guy's living now, is making this cake.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
It's the sacrament of scientology.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
Yeah yeah, yeah, but thank god. You know, he's very
nice to people, you know, because he's got all these slaves,
you know, like building his eighteen houses in America but
from Sea Org. You know, can never forget who his backers,
you know, who's holding him aloft on their shoulders and

(49:00):
giving obviously also giving him the secret of eternal life.
So maybe maybe there is a goal to scientology, which
is that you know, you could be sixty two years
old and like holding onto planes at thirty thousand and eight.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
But also I mean the operating Thetan seven yeah, ok,
seven for seven. He's a some is pretty high. Actually
I don't I know people who are actually higher.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
But they have since left.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
But all of those people to get there, it's almost
proof that you were in the past during the Great
Intergalactic War. You were a great warrior, general strategist, and
you helped win the war, which means that Tom Cruise
and you know, Christiality rip Ye saved the Earth nine

(49:49):
billion years ago, which is where it's where the myth
of scientology breaks down for me.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
Yeah, I don't think. I don't think. I yeah, I
don't expect to be you know. Yeah, I loved her.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
She's great, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful person and a lovely,
lovely woman and incredibly gifted Kirsty. But I'm not one
hundred percent sure she saved the Earth nine million years ago.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
Okay, so there's another sign. I want to shout out,
since we're now being positive out scientologists, a shout out
to another scientologist, a scientologists from birth, the actor Giovanni Ribisi.
Why am I shouting out? Because it turns out Giovanni
Rabci had a lifelong dream of being a cinematographer and

(50:38):
collected cameras and collected thirty five millimeter cameras, and this
guy named JT. Mueller had this idea for a serial
killer movie called Strange Darling, and he and Giovanni Ribisi said,
you can use my cameras and all this if I
can be the cinematographer movie came out last year. It

(51:01):
is fantastic, featuring one of the best performances of the
decade by an actress named Willa Fitzgerald. It's a remarkable movie.
I recommend it to everybody. And Givanni Ribisi it's his
first credit as a cinematographer and it is beautiful. It
is beautifully shot.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
Like it is.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
It's it's called Strange Darling. I think it's on Max
now it's somewhere free streaming and and and again. It's
a serial killer movie. So if you don't like those
and it's violent, don't don't watch it. But but it's
it's really what is Yes, it could be okay Jonah

(51:46):
as a zombie guy, Yes, because you you have watched
every iteration of The Walking Dead. And I'm I'm very
very I'm very I don't like not not a big
fan of the zombie but I but I but I
have been watching The Last of Us and I have
to say that I guess we can't spoil it, even

(52:06):
because it's only been a week. But the second episode
of the second season, The Last of Us, was a
corker of an episode, like an absolute jaw droppingly great
piece of storytelling. And filmmaking within incredible.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Like plot twists.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
Yes, do you agree?

Speaker 1 (52:32):
I agree, I you're right. It's difficult to talk about
too much because we don't want to do a spoiler thing.
I if you only seen the last season, and if
if you haven't even seen that, then you know we're
gonna have some spoiler stuff here. I worry that because

(52:52):
of the way the last season ended, the the apocalyptic
stuff is going to take a back seat to the
taught emotional tension. And it depends how they pull that off,
you know what I mean. I don't want to care

(53:12):
about the zombie stuff, but I like the apocalyptic stuff,
like zombie actual zombies kind of bore me. But the
way that's the thing I loved about World Wars E
the book was dealing with Like Max Brooks, son of
Mel who wrote it. He gave an interview once where
he was explaining where he got the idea was. He said,

(53:34):
you know, whenever they have these zombie movies, I like
the first ten minutes before the rest of it is
just shot in the mall where they're where the societal
breakdowns going on, and like what's on TV and how
the military fall part. That's the stuff I really like,
and I would rather watch a zombie movie all about

(53:55):
like the Situation Room in the White House and just like, yeah,
those conversations. If he could do it like seven Days
in May kind of thing, I think that would be
so much better. And so anyway, I I think I
do think Last of Us is a real improvement on
the zombie or adds real value to the zombie genre.

(54:16):
I think they've done some good things in it. The
episode with Ron Swanson guy whatever his name is, from
the first season was just really kind of brilliant. I mean,
I could have used a little less of the gay
part of.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
It, but whatever, you're getting more, You're getting more of
the gas. There's gonna be there's gonna be a lesbian
triangles coming up. Well, so that's that you got a
good guy in a villain and they're both I think lesbians,
and they're something's gonna happen where they're gonna have one
of the ultimate and then they're gonna write like an

(54:49):
undercover brother. They're gonna kiss instead of killing each other.
But also another question again, Rob has to be left
out of this because he doesn't watch any watch and stuff.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
I know, I'm not a fan.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
I just you know, I think I agree with the
I agree with the general idea of the that Max Brooks.
I like the first ten minutes, but afterwards it just
becomes people staring at a field looking sad, and no
one ever makes a joke or anything. It's all just

(55:22):
very quiet and like The Walking Dead, My god, that
thing just wouldn't end. It just kept going and going.
In this episode, people staring at each other and then
staring into the camera and then staring at the landscape,
and you could hear the cicadas.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
It was so daring.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
Rance.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Now it's pretty good, Okay?

Speaker 3 (55:43):
And Or? What about and Or? Have you seen and Or?

Speaker 1 (55:47):
I I told you I'm saving it for a flight.
I'm going to California this weekend.

Speaker 3 (55:51):
All right, and so so and Or has I'm not
going to spoil it, but I'm going to say so.
Apparently the secret of and Or in the second season
is that it's It's going to be released in three
episode tranches, and each of them is a somewhat self
contained story, and it travels over time. And so, knowing that,
which I did not know when I was watching it,

(56:14):
it builds to the third episode of this first tranch
of episodes is again like a mere masterpiece, like maybe
the best Star Wars thing since the Empire strikes back
just that one episode. So I can, I can heartily
recommend that. Let me ask my final question and Rob

(56:35):
maybe so I think I said the last show or
I've been saying, I've been watching this show called Hell
on Wheels, which was on AMC fifteen years ago, and
it's about the building of the Union Pacific Railroad and
it begins right after the Civil War is over in
eighteen sixty five, and it's like it's a sort of

(56:58):
Deadwood t you know, sort of like World of No Rules,
you know, hostile groups of people interacting and shooting each
other for no reason and stuff like that while they're
trying to either build this town or build this railroad whatever.
And here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
It's mud.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
They're in mud, Like it's the whole thing is mud,
and like Deadwood was mud. And I'm thinking this takes
me out of the show because I'm thinking, God, this
must have been awful to film. Like imagine you get
you're walking around in mud and then like you're supposed
to fall in the mud while you're having a fight
and then something goes wrong with the shot. Then you

(57:41):
got to get up, you got to take a bath,
you got to be washed off, you got to get clothing,
and you're in the mud and it's probably cold, and
you're out there making these westerns, that American Primeval show
or whatever. It's like, who could take the mud?

Speaker 2 (57:59):
Like when you have people, I'm.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
That's sure I want to. I'm not sure i'd want
a job on one of these shows, because like, you
have people, you have people to be in the mud guy,
you have the mud guy.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
You call them my guy. You get you fill in
the mud, and then you stand up and somebody comes
and takes care of me the best. It's really the
optimal mud experience.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
His mother was a mutter, his mother was his father
was a mutter.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
But to say you share this with me, like every
night when I see like I have something said in
medieval times, so that I am like, if you know,
like it's just covered in mud the whole time. Well,
we've been watching the Viking shows.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
So this I do like Viking shows. I've been watching
wolf Hall the second season.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
Yeah, I haven't watched the Hillary Mantling.

Speaker 1 (58:48):
Yeah, which I think is great. It really annoys me
that it's going to end with the second season, with
the end of Cromwell, as if like the story of
Henry the Eighth isn't interesting after Cromwell. But like my
wife is just constantly saying, oh, it must have been
so cold because everything was drafty. And what I think

(59:13):
about with a lot of those things is how bad
everybody must have smelled. Oh the smell. The smell just
must have been horrendous.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
But you know, you read like British literature of the
nineteenth century, you read you know, like the Bronte's or whatever, right,
Thomas Hardy or something, and you know you've seen where
we've been there, and you've seen where Great Britain is
on a map. I mean it is very far north,
you know, it is not you know, it's not like

(59:44):
where New York is. It's you know, six hundred miles
further north than New York and the North Sea. And
you read these books and they're like they're freezing in
these houses like you know, weathering heights, no wonder, they're
all in a horrible mood or Jane Eyre or something
like that. They're all meeting each other up and yelling

(01:00:05):
at each other and being mean to the servants and
everything because they're freezing to death. I mean, they're freezing
to death.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Well, it's actually I think it's there. It's that just
that they're cold, they're freezing. They're freezing. They their clothes
are uncomfortable, and they have diarrhea.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
And it's constant.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Yeah, and it is there's no way out.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
Yeah, I mean, this is nineteen twenty three, another show
we've talked about before, right, which you watched all of right, Yeah,
I really liked that show so right, it's really good.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
I have complaints, but I really liked it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
But I mean, but I mean it also has the
holy crap, you could actually really freeze to death. Yeah
if you if you make a mistake and keep driving
through the Dakotas in the winter when somebody at the
gas station says you better not drive now because like
you could get stuck in the snow, and they get

(01:01:08):
stuck in the snow, and like two people freeze to
death in nineteen twenty three.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Sure, And it's like, yeah, sure that could happen.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Like what, It's funny.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
I much have told you this. So when I first
got married and we moved to the house, that I'm
in now. My wife was making dinner and she said,
we're out of butter or something like that. Can you
go to the store and get butter? And I said sure.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
And it was like February.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
I'm wearing a sweater. I'm running out of the car
and Jess comes up behind me, comes out behind the
door and says, Jonah, what are you doing. I was like,
you just asked me to go get butter. I'm getting butter.
She says, where's your coat? And I was like, I'm
just getting in the car and go into the safeway
a mile and a half away. And it's like in Alaska,

(01:01:56):
where my wife is from. If you get out, if
you go in the car, remember it in winter, it's
just dark like eighty five percent of the time. Right,
if your car breaks down, you you could and you
don't have a coat, you could die walking to a
gas station a half mile away in something some weather, right,
and or you can get hit by a car because
people can't see you on these unlit roads. I mean,

(01:02:18):
it's just it's like it was just a complete culture
shift for you know. It was interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
On the other hand, in the cold, odor which is particulate,
it just doesn't. It's not as intense.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
So you only really in the North Sea, is what you're.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
Saying, exactly right, You only really starts to see. You
only really start to stink in the summer, ring into.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
You know where they must have really stunk on those
cargo ships bringing bananas back from like Brazil. You know it,
you know it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
I mean the smell, sell all that stuff. Every time
you think about, yeah, the time travel, the whole, where
would you like to go in time travel? I always
end by wanting to go back in time and time
travel around nineteen fifty because you know my play. I
think we've talked about like I would like to see
New York in nineteen fifty. I would like to see
post war New York City as at its height. And

(01:03:18):
you know what was there There were places that had
air conditioning in nineteen fifty. You go to a movie
theater to it would say air cooled. So if you
were really hot the summer, you could go into air
conditioning or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
Really really big ones had they had the Marquee over
the street. Yeah, certainly on Broadway in Los Angeles. The
Marquie itself, when you're under it, it was air. The
ac was blasting out and the heat in the winter
like to entice you in.

Speaker 3 (01:03:47):
Yeah, yeah, so, but I think if you go much
further back than that, you're going to get out of
your time capsule and you're just gonna throw up violently.
You know, every day from the from the the odor, right,
just like every.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
I think you get used to it, right, you just.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
You get used to it. Yeah, but you know, I
went to Pompeii at Christmas time, and the streets in Pompeii,
you know, they had stores. You know, it's a completely
preserve except for the roofs and there. So you're on
these streets and there are these shops or houses and
then in them and there's a street, and then there

(01:04:33):
are these sort of gutters which are six feet deep,
and then there's like an island between these two gutters
on either side of the street. And I was like,
I don't really understand how this works or what it's for.
Can you explain it to me? And it was like, well,
that's where people threw.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
Yeah, well yeah right, they threw.

Speaker 3 (01:04:54):
It into the gutters, and so there had to be
places where you could walk.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
And also the streets for the Lower East side.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
Right, No, but I understand the gutters are where, but
like this was a very highly developed like system. And
then you could then of course run water. You could
pour water down these gutters and the and the refuse
would raw, would would pour a stream down the streets
into the into the sea, so that you could actually

(01:05:25):
wouldn't just sit there forever. And you're like, man, they
were smart, like there's seventy nine a d like they
weren't you know, they were yeah, you know they just
had you know, figured out electricity. Who knows what would
have happened.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
Who knows what they could have accomplished exactly that might
have accomplished.

Speaker 3 (01:05:46):
Instead of like you know, killing Cicero or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
It's interesting about what people think. I mean, there's a
little stu remember hearing somebody telling me about the Donner
Party that after the Donner you know, the survivors stayed
in the area like that you could into into like
the twentieth century, I think, and you you could see
them in the little market and like it was one
of the Donner Party, you know, like you can you know,

(01:06:09):
and so somebody once said, what what what was?

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
The people it's always new to people and near the
end of one of the guy's lives who was in
the dinner parties like, well, it was really cold, you
know it was it was easy to eat because it
was cold, and I think that made sense. You didn't
have to smell your your your your gastronomic experience was

(01:06:33):
not the same as you know, sitting down to a
really really great you know, Brenzeno or something, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
It's like and as cold as the Irish say, hunger
is the best sauce. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
I mentioned this before, but there is a not very
good parody of disaster movies from the mid seventies called
The Big Bus, which is that way. But I mean,
like then Airplane came out like four years later and
really did it, like pitch perfectly. So this is sort
of like a proto airplane. And the idea is it's

(01:07:08):
like an atomic powered bus and all these things happen.
And the captain of the bus, Joe Bologna, who best
known probably for playing Sid Caesar in the My Favorite
Year movie about your Show Shows with Peter O'Toole, Joe
Bologna is the is the driver of the bus. You know,

(01:07:28):
the captain of the bus who has been disgraced because
he had gotten into a terrible situation in which there
had been some Yeah, the survivors of a crash had
had to right right. So and his line is, you
eat one lousy foot and they call you a cannibal.

(01:07:51):
One of the great lines of all movies, of all
movie though, one lousy foot and they call you a cannibal.
Worth remembering that one movie fifty years later, just for that,
that one, that one line. So, uh, I got nothing
more to say. Anybody reading done, anybody reading anything?

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
Well, I'm reading a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:08:14):
I know you're reading about the you know, the Abillard's
adversities and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
Like that in the original Aramaic.

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
Well, no, I'm not going that far, by the way.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
That's an amazing thing I had to read in college
was the was the the Story of Abillard's Adversities because
you may know, Abilard was a It was a friar
who had an affair with a woman and uh and
uh had to sacrifice his manhood and describes it graphically
and the story of the Tale of Abbilard's Adversities, which
I which which I still remember vividly.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
To this to this day.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
And a couple of the Desert fathers did that voluntarily.
It wasn't considered it was not considered a punished.

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
He was punished, but he was he was punished for
his adult read was was what had happened? Or is
using another came off? Yeah? He uh. But my my
parents tell this one story. They met Dorothy Parker once
or twice, the late Dorothy Parker, you know, famous wit.

(01:09:18):
And they were playing and she loved to play games,
and this is toward the end of her life, and
they were playing some kind of a word game, and
it was you were supposed to do something to get
people had to guess who you were who who your
celebrity was, right, it's I guess it was the game celebrity.
So you had to use very few words, or you

(01:09:40):
were allowed to use four words or five words and
see if people could guess who you were doing. And
of course the secret was to be clever. And my
mother said that she realized that Dorothy Parker was as
clever as everybody said she was, even though her work
didn't quite justify the opinion. By what by her clue,
which was he gave two for one And the subject

(01:10:03):
of that clue was able Ard he gave two for one.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
Yeah, So that's my Doris, that's my Algonquin.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
Is that the most table?

Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
But yeah yeah, all right, well so that's all we got, Yeah,
I mean, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
We're getting what they paid for.

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):
If we're getting you value, you can't complain. See you later, yeah,