Ep. 159: park the panic

[00:00:03] Speaker A: What's the most punishing outdoor experience you've ever had? [00:00:08] Speaker B: Oh, Jesus Christ. [00:00:10] Speaker A: And that can include, like, terrain or weather or just amount of physical exertion, like, whatever that strikes for you. [00:00:19] Speaker B: So there's been a few. I've probably mentioned this on the cast before, but I used to camp quite a bit as a kid. Me and my budies would. Would grab tents and go to the fucking quarry and camp. And that was often quite difficult. [00:00:30] Speaker A: Sure. [00:00:31] Speaker B: A couple of years back, I did an obstacle course of five K called Tough Mudder, which was really fucking difficult. [00:00:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Is that only five K? [00:00:42] Speaker B: There's a ten K version, but I did the five K version. But I'm so glad I didn't do the ten K version. But do you know what? I came out of that secretly very proud that I accomplished it, because I did shit that I didn't think I could fucking do. But it was grueling, man. It was like a 20 foot fucking plunge into freezing cold water, climbing up shit, jumping over shit, under shit. One particular obstacle had it. Electric shocks. You fucking sadistic fucks. [00:01:10] Speaker A: That's where it loses me. Because I have done a mud run before, and it was very hard, but it was not the kind. There's no barbed wire, no electric shocks. I draw the line at some things. [00:01:22] Speaker B: All things of that nature. You know what I mean? The element. But at the end of the day, because I am a Western male, I was able to go back into my cozy home and enjoy a nice mug of malt fucking beverage. [00:01:39] Speaker A: And you're training for, like, a half marathon or something, aren't you? [00:01:42] Speaker B: I am, yes. I am going to have another run at the Cardiff half next year, raise some money for fucking the mental health charities and give it another crack. Because running is such a fucking weird one. [00:01:58] Speaker A: It is, as far as I'm concerned, yeah. [00:02:00] Speaker B: Such a strange one, right. Of all of the things to stick in my head about running. Right? I remember as a kid, there was a Nike advert. Right, sorry, Nike. Thank you. There was a Nike advert that said, even though running hurts, you know that all you've got to do to stop the pain is just stop running. But you don't. [00:02:18] Speaker A: That was an advertisement. [00:02:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:20] Speaker A: Okay. [00:02:21] Speaker B: As a runner, we know that to make the pain stop, we just have to stop running. But we don't. We carry on. And that's a strange state of mind. [00:02:29] Speaker A: It is, isn't it? Why'd you ask? [00:02:31] Speaker B: I'm very curious as to why. [00:02:34] Speaker A: I will explain to you why I asked that question and actually, your answers work very well with what I'm about to tell you about delective. Delective. I have no interest in running long distances, nor crawling through barbed wire and getting electrocute and all that kind of stuff. But a lot of people, like yourself, really go for that kind of thing. And some people take it to extremes. It's hard for even many of the most hardcore amongst us to fathom. And one example of this is the. Sorry. I started reading it the English way and then was like, this is French. The marathon DeSabla, or the Marathon of the Sands. An ultra marathon through the Sahara desert that is punishing on multiple levels just. [00:03:26] Speaker B: Super quickly because the marathon of sand sounds fucking horrible. But I am amidst the least hardcore, right? There's a girl I work with. There's a girl I work with who runs ultramarathons and started doing so after a fucking kidney transplant. What the fucking hell? [00:03:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Couldn't be me. But I will say you're not amongst the least hardcore. I mean, a good chunk of people are more of the couch and soft couch to five K. So doing any of this stuff, whatever it is, is a lot more than most people do. So of course there's levels of the extremeness of this marathon of the Sands, like you said, sounds terrible. While participants have the option to walk or run the grueling trail, any way you slice it, there will be suffering. I think I said, this is also an ultramarathon, like your friend runs. This race lasts a week, consists of six stages and covers 156 miles. [00:04:35] Speaker B: That's disgusting. [00:04:37] Speaker A: It's horrendous. And as the official UK website, how many? 156 miles. [00:04:43] Speaker B: Fucking idiot. [00:04:45] Speaker A: Right. That's a long way to drive. [00:04:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:49] Speaker A: The UK. [00:04:50] Speaker B: I don't think I've covered that distance on foot in my life. [00:04:54] Speaker A: YOu mean in total? [00:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah. In the last 44 years, I have not. [00:04:57] Speaker A: I'm pretty sure you've gone at least 156 miles by foot. [00:05:01] Speaker B: I don't think so, but please, go on. [00:05:02] Speaker A: It's so fantastic. UK website. And it's French because it's in Morocco. Oh, yeah, I get it. That's a valid question. I did not address that. So this website explains that it takes you across endless sand dunes, rocky jebbles and white hot plains. [00:05:25] Speaker B: Rocky what? [00:05:26] Speaker A: Jebbles. I had to look this up. It just means, like, mountains. [00:05:31] Speaker B: Why say mountains when you can say rocky jebbles? It feels French on it. [00:05:40] Speaker A: Looks like a good euphemism for your balls. Kicked them right in the rocky jebbles. [00:05:45] Speaker B: Exactly. Oh, ouch. [00:05:48] Speaker A: But yes, and white hot salt planes carrying what you need to survive on your back. It's considered the toughest foot race on earth, and the website promises that your feet will swell, crack and bleed. [00:06:02] Speaker B: Oh, so good. [00:06:04] Speaker A: Deeply. Not my idea of a good time. And I am like, you know, I am a person. You mean joys of physical challenge? [00:06:10] Speaker B: Let's do the Rocky Jebbles 2024. [00:06:13] Speaker A: The Rocky Jebbles 2024. It's happening. It's on rock of all jebbles. No, I love a challenge, but I'm also about that. Listening to my body life and all of those things that website just described is your body's not so subtle way of saying, stop fucking doing that. It's like that old joke, like, Doctor, Doctor, it hurts when I do this, so don't do this. Anyway, I didn't know if you wanted. [00:06:45] Speaker B: Me to do the bit. I learned that joke, in fact, from Dr. Beverly Crusher. [00:06:49] Speaker A: Ah, I love that. Listen, she's not all she taught me. [00:06:54] Speaker B: Let me tell you. That's not the only learning that I got from the family show, but that's another fucking story. [00:07:01] Speaker A: Anyway, so runners are expected to be self sufficient over the course of the race, meaning they carry nearly everything they'll need for the whole week in a rucksack, with the exception of water rations that are handed out daily and goats hair, Berber tents to sleep in communally each night. [00:07:23] Speaker B: Christ. [00:07:24] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Also, do you know what a Berber is? [00:07:27] Speaker B: No. [00:07:28] Speaker A: I had to look this up. All this stuff was talking About Bedouins and Berbers, and I was like, I feel like I don't know anything about this area. [00:07:36] Speaker B: I thought a Bedouin is more of a person than a thing. [00:07:41] Speaker A: Yes, a Berber is as. Yeah, Berbers are people, the indigenous people of Northern Africa who actually predate the Arabs for being in that region and are known for being able know because they're indigenous to that region, survive in the incredibly harsh and difficult terrain. And they're often nomadic, obviously, because there aren't a lot of resources in, well. [00:08:05] Speaker B: Of course, desert areas. The dwellings that you are offered are made of goat hair. [00:08:10] Speaker A: Did you say goat hair? Yes. So made by Berbers of goat hair. And everyone at the end of the day goes and sleeps in these tents. So the run is so intense that if runners use more than their daily ration of water, they're actually punished with a time penalty. Oh, they don't fuck around, man. These days, about 1000 people participate each year. So while the desert can be vast and desolate, you're also likely to have a few buddies in the vicinity that you can keep an eye on and feel less like you're journeying on Mars alone. Mark Watney. [00:08:49] Speaker B: So it isn't even as though this is like a couple of hundred year old torture practices. [00:08:53] Speaker A: No, this isn't. [00:08:55] Speaker B: People continue to voluntarily do. [00:08:58] Speaker A: Yeah, this is a current thing. Yes, that folks do has been around for about 40 years, or a little less than that. And yeah, the thousand people thing wasn't always the case. The race started in 1986 with just 23 runners at the time. And in its first decade or so of existence, it didn't get vastly larger than that. And with participants only in the dozens spread out over 156 miles, the landscape felt much more sparse. [00:09:30] Speaker B: Wow. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Whereas now it's kind of like you see the photos of people going up Mount Everest, and it's just like a line of folks. Once people find out about a hard thing, they have to do it. [00:09:41] Speaker B: I'm thinking, what kind of fucking body type do you need to be able to accomplish that? [00:09:48] Speaker A: These are some stringy folks. [00:09:50] Speaker B: Sinew Tendon. [00:09:52] Speaker A: Sinewy is exactly the word for what these people look like. And that'll kind of come around again. [00:10:00] Speaker B: Just human jerky. [00:10:02] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Which is a, that's the thing I never want to look like. One of the many reasons running doesn't appeal to me is the human jerky look. But in 1994, there were about 80 participants who made their way to Morocco for the marathon of the Sands, one of which was former Italian police officer Mauro. And Mauro was an interesting dude, to say the least. He'd started his career as a pent athlete at the age of seven due to a family friend who was a trainer in Rome at the time. And eventually he'd go on to represent Italy at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984, where apparently he won the gold medal. And I say apparently because, weirdly, the fact that he won gold is not mentioned on his wiki or in almost any of the articles about him. And I had to seek it out. He's not modest. This dude is not a modest guy. It's just like a weird, like, I think the story I'm about to tell you outweighs anything else that he did in his life. Some articles were like, he meddled at the Olympics and things like that. And then I finally found in the caption of a BBC video from 2014 that he won the gold medal. I was like, wow, okay, interesting. [00:11:41] Speaker B: Did he come out as, like, a child abuser or something afterwards? Is it that he's a bad guy? [00:11:46] Speaker A: No, just the story I'm about to tell you is more interesting than a gold medal, believe it or not. [00:11:51] Speaker B: Fair enough. Hit me. [00:11:53] Speaker A: So Mauro had clearly grown up accustomed to intense physical activity and discipline. But he also had a uniquely focused, logical and analytical personality. And these things, taken together, would end up saving Mauro's life when a wayward sandstorm caused him to wander off the marathon trail and find himself lost in the Sahara Desert for over a week. [00:12:18] Speaker B: Just Mauro on his own in the Sahara for a week. In a sandstorm. [00:12:22] Speaker A: In a sandstorm. It was the toughest stage of the race. The day characterized by tons of small sand dunes. And anyone who's ever walked on a beach knows running in sand sucks. But doing it up and downhill, over and over sounds like a special hell to me. [00:12:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:40] Speaker A: As he ran, little windstorms kicked up causing spirals of sand to dance in the dunes in ways that were actually quite rhythmic and mesmerizing to look at. He was enjoying it at first. A neat little spectacle in what could otherwise seem a pretty monotonous land. [00:12:54] Speaker B: Even though there is fucking absolutely just like, negative chance of me doing something like an ultramarathon at all. The zone of which you speak is one that I've kind of touched the fringes of. It is mesmeric. It's singular. Yes. It's unique. [00:13:14] Speaker A: Yeah. The longest I've ever done is a ten K. I've never gone anywhere to the point of getting the runners high that people talk about where you get that weird euphoria and just like, enjoying it kind of thing. No, every single second of it sucks every time. [00:13:33] Speaker B: But Mauro didn't give a fuck. [00:13:35] Speaker A: Mauro was into it. Yeah, he was enjoying these cute little mini sandstorms. But then the wind picked up and before long he was stuck in a major sandstorm completely inhibiting his ability to see where he was going. He ran for as long as he could, thinking he could still see the path and unable to find anywhere in the dunes where he could shelter, which is what you're supposed to do. The race organizers had said that runners who got lost should look towards the clouds that gather at sunset to figure out their position. By the time the sandstorm had cleared, it was dark and there were absolutely no markers around him to figure out where he was and which way he should go to get back on the trail. He knew that if he were in the right place, he should at least see some of the walkers who would have come along later. [00:14:24] Speaker B: Yes. [00:14:24] Speaker A: But no one ever caught up to him. So it became clear that he was lost, but he wasn't super worried about it. He was already thinking about it as a funny story to tell his friend Giovanni back home. Silly mouth, lost in the desert. [00:14:40] Speaker B: When he gets home. [00:14:46] Speaker A: He even enjoyed his night out under the stars, which I can imagine would be pretty cool with like no light pollution at all. He described the sky as being so white with stars that it almost suffocates you, which is kind of a weird way of putting it. [00:15:04] Speaker B: Mauro, the poet. [00:15:07] Speaker A: Sort of a morbid poetry to that. [00:15:09] Speaker B: Fucking love that guy. [00:15:12] Speaker A: Now, before the race, knowing about the whole time punishment for drinking water thing, Mauro had been practicing running long distances while drinking as minimally as possible. Yeah, he had drunk about half of his one liter ration the day before, and when he finished it, he immediately remembered something his dad had told him about his war days. That when things turned dire and they were drink pest without supplies, drink. Drink their own urine. Drink piss. So Mauro figured, look, I've recently downed water, this is the best quality my urine is going to get. And he immediately pissed into his canteen, describing the urine as close to clear, which is, I guess your best case scenario, how you want it if you're going to find yourself drinking this. [00:16:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:01] Speaker A: Now, multiple articles that I read made sure to add the caveat that we know now that drinking urine is not recommended in survival situations. It actually has a similar effect to seawater because of course, yeah, the salt and the urine content. [00:16:20] Speaker B: Direct. [00:16:21] Speaker A: Yes, dehydrating you. Precisely, yeah, you got it. [00:16:26] Speaker B: What the ultramarathon runners call piss fever, where you can't stop drinking piss even when somebody offers you a really nice cold bottle of water, you're like, nah. And they have to physically stop you from pissing in your mouth. It's like a piss mirage. [00:16:46] Speaker A: I really thought you were serious for a second there. No, like, wait a minute. No. [00:16:55] Speaker B: You'Ve only done three K. [00:17:00] Speaker A: I drink can't stop. That's sterile. And I like the taste anyway. So while it might seem like a smart thing to do out of desperation, you might actually be hastening your doom. I don't know that this is a thing any of our listeners will ever have to know, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point it out there. If you're ever in a situation where water is scarce, avoid the piss. There are probably other sources you can squeeze out a little hydration, as we'll see with Mauro. But yeah, he stored up a nice little stalk of urine and he made his way across the desert, doing the vast majority of his journeying during the cooler parts of the day to avoid things like sunburn and heat stroke, which could obviously absolutely be big problem. [00:17:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:46] Speaker A: Unfortunately, for the first day or so, the race people had no idea Maoro was missing. Given the sandstorm, it made sense that he never made it to their tent camp and they figured he'd just kept on trucking. Once it cleared up again. You've got 80 people spread out over 150 plus miles. Nobody's got a cell phone, there's no drones. Each runner was equipped with a small flare about the size of a pen. And that was it in the Sahara Desert. In the Sahara Desert, yeah. When you started the race, you signed forms that told them where to send your body if you died. [00:18:23] Speaker B: Oh, that's so cool. [00:18:25] Speaker A: It sounds like that's submersible. But anyway, it was simply understood that there are perils out there and it'd be really hard to communicate if you met one. So as he walked, he saw a helicopter fly overhead and assumed that it was looking for him. It was so low, he said, that he could see the pilot's white helmet. He shot his tiny flare in the air and waved his Italian flag. But the pilot didn't see him. Even when he ran after him to try to flag him down. The helicopter pilot simply wasn't expecting anyone to be down there, so he wasn't paying attention. And Mauro, well, he just kept walking. [00:19:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:09] Speaker A: At this point, most of us would be in a bit of a panic, but not Mauro. He just looked at it as being a different challenge than the one he signed up for. And he was super fucking proficient at challenges. [00:19:23] Speaker B: It's an incredible state of mind, isn't it? That's an incredible kind of. [00:19:26] Speaker A: And his state of mind will get more and more incredible and difficult to fathom as this goes on. On day two of his sojourn, he came upon what's called a marabout shrine, which is basically a structure built in honor of A Muslim holy person. Inside this shrine was a sarcophagus containing the corpse of just such a holy man. Ton of bats. I see. [00:19:56] Speaker B: Don't you dare, Mara. [00:19:57] Speaker A: No. [00:19:58] Speaker B: Okay. [00:19:58] Speaker A: So he affixed his flag to the top of the shrine and he sheltered inside, figuring someone would see it if they were to fly overhead or pass by and they'd know he was in there. In the meantime, he had to eat. His bag contained mostly dehydrated food, obviously, and, well, bruv didn't have any fresh water, so he cooked it up in fresh urine, not the stuff from the canteen, just peed right into his travel pot. He was. He was obviously concerned about dehydration, though, and he knew he had to conserve his rations. So he looked to the bats. He caught about 20 of them and then squeezed them to death in his bare hands. He then drank their blood rather than cooking them up, which was the right choice because blood is hydrating and at least somewhat nutritious, while too much protein apparently can contribute to the dehydration. [00:21:02] Speaker B: Listeners, my face right now, you didn't. [00:21:05] Speaker A: See that one coming. You were worried about the sarcophagus. You didn't think about the best. [00:21:08] Speaker B: I thought he was going to eat the remains of this fucking Muslim holy guy, not bring out 20 living bats. Fucking hell, Mauro. Right, I'm sorry. I'm jumping ahead. I need to know if this guy still lives. [00:21:25] Speaker A: He's still alive? Yes. [00:21:29] Speaker B: The scourge bat kind. [00:21:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Really? He said he figured that cooking them on his little stove would have dried them out, which is obviously the opposite of what he wanted. In one interview, he described what he'd done to the bats as a repellent thing to do. But I was crazed with hunger. However, in another article, he said that he'd only done to them what they do to their prey, which he's not wrong. He buried their little bodies in the sand outside of the marabout as a gesture of respect. He told the Guardian, quote, that's how I am, very ordered in things. And it seemed just to me, if I have to kill an animal to live, I will bury the remains. [00:22:13] Speaker B: I gotta tell you, I cannot remember being as into a fucking story on Joak as I am right now. This guy is my patron saint. [00:22:22] Speaker A: I fucking knew you'd like this dude. Soon he heard the sound of another aircraft, so he quickly shoved all his stuff in his rucksack and ran outside to light a fire. But as he did, another sandstorm blew through, rendering him invisible to the airplane passing overhead. Needless to say, he was frustrated. And after two different aircraft had failed to rescue him, he started thinking about his mortality. And you'll not be shocked to find that as with everything else, he thought about it. Not emotionally, but practically, yes. [00:23:00] Speaker B: I'm just envisioning him waving his arms to try and get the attention of this aircraft. Like a wing hanging out of his mouth, bat blood, piss all over him. You pick up Mauro, you know what I mean? [00:23:14] Speaker A: The plane's just like, nope, whatever that is. [00:23:19] Speaker B: Keep going, keep going, keep going. [00:23:22] Speaker A: Well, at the time Mauro was married with three kids. And as a former policeman, if he died, they were entitled to his pension. But there was one caveat. In Italy, you needed a body. If someone simply disappeared, there'd be no pension for the family. [00:23:41] Speaker B: I see. [00:23:42] Speaker A: He said, quote, I felt a bit guilty. I thought maybe it would have been better if I didn't come, because if I walk towards the clouds, I don't know if I'll arrive. And if I die, they'll never find my body in the desert. Within a few days, everything disappears. Only the skeleton remains. So better safe than sorry. He decided if he died in the marabout, someone would eventually find the body and his family could get the payout. Thus, he decided he'd slit his wrists and get it over with, since he didn't want to slowly and painfully die of thirst and starvation. The way he talks about this is, like, so matter of fact. Were you worried? Were you bothered by doing this? He's like, no, I made a decision and I did it. [00:24:27] Speaker B: When you think about all of the guys we've spoken about in the past who've hacked off something or other to save themselves from some situation, it is that very cool, very flinty pragmatism. It was cut off my arm with a penk all day, and I'm not. [00:24:41] Speaker A: You know, it's just usually the other way. Right? Like, it's a practicality about, like, I need to live, so I have to do this, as opposed to, like, oh, guess I need to die for a very specific. Abstract, but specific. You still don't know for sure this is going to work, but okay, yeah. [00:24:58] Speaker B: What's he going to cut his wrists with, by the way? [00:25:00] Speaker A: He had, like, a small knife with him. Keep in mind he has a rucksack full of everything he might need over the course of a week, right? So he had a small knife, but that's the thing. It was, like, not meant for wrist cutting. So, bit of an endeavor. But by this time, he was severely dehydrated to the point where he'd stopped urinating. So when he cut his wrists, the blood had coagulated too much to actually drain from his body. He was, in fact, too dehydrated to die. [00:25:28] Speaker B: His blood had coagulated internally. He was pumping nothing but scabs. [00:25:34] Speaker A: Yeah, just like a gross thing to think about. I can't even imagine you just cut. Imagine you cut yourself and you're looking at it and waiting for it to bleed and just nothing comes out. [00:25:46] Speaker B: This is the outer edge that we talk about on Joanne, isn't it? This is a fucking. Not many people get to experience that level of consciousness or unconsciousness or whatever it is. I'm so fucked, I can't even bleed right now. [00:26:01] Speaker A: That's fucking wild, right? Yeah. When he woke up in the morning, not dead, he was like, all right, well, must be some sort of sign or whatever. And it's not time for me to go yet. Guess it's off towards the clouds, then. So he had a little swig of his canteen urine and off he went. [00:26:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:22] Speaker A: As he headed toward what he hoped was the direction of the race, or at least civilization, he found snakes and mice under trees, killed them and mashed them up in a cup he had found in the marabout. I didn't see any details of how he did this in the articles, but maybe that's for the best. No one needs that mental image of the mashed snake process in the cup. I'd love your face right now. Just like, complete bewilderment, like, holy crap. [00:26:55] Speaker B: Ringing out bats with his bare hands, making a fucking snakes. [00:27:00] Speaker A: Yes. [00:27:00] Speaker B: Snake, snake and mouse. Snake and rodent compot. [00:27:05] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what it is. He also ate large ants and chewed on the leaves of succulents for the water they contained. Yes, this method seems to be approved by all sources. Don't drink the pea, chew the succulents. [00:27:21] Speaker B: Okay. [00:27:22] Speaker A: And in spite of all this, he wasn't having that bad a time. He loves the desert. He explained he was getting an incredible view every day, probably stuff he wouldn't have had time to appreciate had he simply been running past trying to get the best time. [00:27:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:36] Speaker A: He even went so far as to say he wasn't afraid. Quote, I don't fear death. It's suffering that makes you scared. If you don't suffer, you don't feel fear. And I mean, for most of us, wandering through sandstorms and subsisting on bat blood and crushed up mice would absolutely be considered suffering. [00:27:57] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Something's gone wrong, hasn't it? If that's happening. [00:28:03] Speaker A: Right. But that's the thing. Like I said, he was looking at as a challenge, and it was one he was finding himself meeting consistently. He went on to say, I lived with death arm in arm next to me. Every day. Death became a friend of mine. It was close to me, was with me always. Every day I looked to survive, and death kept me company. Positively, not even negatively. It gave me the force, the strength to not succumb. And he further explained that he sought to survive the situation by normalizing it, seeing it as the most normal thing in the world, that he was there, and acting accordingly. [00:28:40] Speaker B: So are you getting these quotes from a book or from a website? [00:28:45] Speaker A: From interviews. [00:28:46] Speaker B: Wonderful. I'd quite like to read some of Maro's musings. [00:28:53] Speaker A: Well, lucky for you, I really would. [00:28:55] Speaker B: I really would. I think that's. [00:28:57] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's a great idea. Lucky for you. The sources are, of course, on the blog and in the description of the podcast. But yes, I will. [00:29:06] Speaker B: I won't do it in my marrow voice either. I'll do it in like. [00:29:09] Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, that would make a great little snack. [00:29:12] Speaker B: I eat in a bat, a mash. [00:29:14] Speaker A: And a fucking snack. Love it. But, yeah, so I think that's fascinating, the idea, like you said, right, all those things should be signs that something's gone wrong. His method was to not think that. To think this is normal and proceed like it was normal. And that was how he kind of kept himself going. Yeah, straight up, he's, this is fine dog, for sure. [00:29:38] Speaker B: This is fine meme, isn't he? [00:29:39] Speaker A: Yes. Finally, he saw something moving in the distance, which he at first mistook for camels, but then realized were goats and a young girl tending them. She ran and got the adult women. The men were all at the market at the time, and they gave him goat milk and set him up in a shady veranda since they couldn't bring a man inside their homes. [00:30:01] Speaker B: That's a time penalty right there. [00:30:03] Speaker A: That is definitely goat's milk in the veranda is for sure a time penalty. After nine and a half days, it turned out that he had walked 180 miles, turning up in a Berber village in Algeria. And because of the tensions between the two countries, he'd been lucky, as he'd been traipsing through an area scattered with landmines. [00:30:31] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:30:35] Speaker A: The military police came and they blindfolded and detained him, thinking that he was up to no good coming from Morocco. [00:30:43] Speaker B: Just look at the fucking guy, for fuck's sake. Look at him. [00:30:47] Speaker A: If he's up to no good, you don't have to worry about. Yeah, he's like reverse Tahre, basically. [00:30:57] Speaker B: We should cover that guy. [00:31:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that'd be a good story to tell. But they found his race papers and realized he was the lost runner that people were talking about. So they took off his blindfold and they celebrated that they had finally found this guy. He spent a week in the hospital there, unable to eat solid food, his liver near failure, and having lost 35 pounds over his ordeal, weighing in at just 99 pounds. [00:31:28] Speaker B: The pound, pounds, and ounces mean nothing to me. [00:31:32] Speaker A: How many? [00:31:33] Speaker B: 99 pounds. [00:31:34] Speaker A: I believe it's 43. [00:31:39] Speaker B: Number stone guy. [00:31:41] Speaker A: Come on, man. How can you got seven so many? Yeah, and starting at like. So look for what 134 pounds is, I don't know how tall he was, but he was already clearly a wisp of a man even before that. I weighed what he weighed when he started. When I was, like, 15. [00:32:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Fucking seven stone. That beggars belief. That is incredible. [00:32:16] Speaker A: Right? And there were naturally many folks who didn't believe this, including the founder of the marathon, Patrick Bauer, who claimed that it was a fabrication and that it was physiologically impossible for him to survive the way he did. People assumed it was a publicity stunt. And while if anyone could pull off that kind of thing just for attention, it'd probably be Maoro prosperity. But it seems there's plenty of evidence that he did just what he said he did. For example, there are scars on his wrists from attempting to take his life. He went back to the Marebout with a news crew, and they were able to dig up the corpses of the bats that he'd eaten and buried. And they also found some of his effects that he'd left behind. Yeah, there's certainly no disputing that he did turn up in Algeria and that he'd gotten there severely hydrated, dehydrated to the point of near liver failure and experiencing extreme weight loss. It honestly would make less sense for him to have faked it, because literally, how? What would that even mean? [00:33:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:24] Speaker A: To what end? And how are they proposing that someone drove him there and then he just sat on the edge of the desert until he was dehydrated? And Wade's little enough. [00:33:37] Speaker B: What's the end game? How would you do if you pull on that thread? [00:33:40] Speaker A: Right, just what's the process? How would that work? They saw him nine and a half days ago weighing 134 pounds, and now he's 99. Okay. But anyway, Mauro was able to return home to his wife and kids in Italy, where it took him two years to fully recover physically from his desert adventure. [00:34:01] Speaker B: But I bet he did another one, didn't he? [00:34:04] Speaker A: Yeah, he didn't stay away from the desert for long. He returned to the Marathon of the Sands in 1997, finishing this time, and ran it an additional nine times before retiring in 2017 at the age of 62. [00:34:21] Speaker B: The fucking King of Joag. That's what he is. [00:34:23] Speaker A: King Joag. [00:34:24] Speaker B: Absolute ruler of us all. [00:34:26] Speaker A: I mean, he's a cop, Acab, obviously, but other than that, give it up from our man. [00:34:37] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I shall be seeking out more on this man. I am enthralled. I am inspired. I am once again Corrigan in awe. Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may. [00:34:55] Speaker A: Yes, please do. [00:34:56] Speaker B: Fucking look at these nerds. Oh, miserable. [00:34:59] Speaker A: I don't think anyone has ever said misel said in such a horny way before. [00:35:04] Speaker B: The way I wish that was. That's cannibal received. [00:35:06] Speaker A: Worst comes to worst. Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science. [00:35:10] Speaker B: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. It's hot outside, but my pancreas is soaking. I'm going to love it. [00:35:16] Speaker A: You know how I feel about that, Mark. [00:35:19] Speaker B: I think you should think about it. Right, Corey, is this coming through? Corey, is this. Can you hear us? Can you hear us, listeners? Is this coming through? I think I've done it. I think I've done it. Right, this fuck. I've done it. I've unentangled the quantum fucking graviton subspace omni transmission matrix. I think I've done it. Corey, can you hear me? [00:35:47] Speaker A: I can hear you, Mark. [00:35:48] Speaker B: Yes. Good. And I can hear you as well. Great. So we've done it, listeners. Oh my fucking God. This episode of Jack of All Graves is coming to you live from the fucking. The fucking Nega universe, right? The Mirror universe, opposite World. I have done some Sci-Fi shit to garage band and you are talking to Mark Lewis and Corrigan Edmondson, but not the ones that, you know. We're opposite versions of ourselves. And this jack of all graves that we've been hosting in this reality for the past three years is a positive, upbeat podcast full of reasons to feel optimistic and renewed and strong and validated. Word has reached us, hasn't it, Corey, that you've been listening for the past three fucking years to a version of Joaqu where everything is fucked permanently. [00:36:52] Speaker A: That sounds absolutely awful. I don't know why anyone would listen to that. [00:36:54] Speaker B: Isn't that weird? [00:36:56] Speaker A: The world is full of magic and joy. [00:36:59] Speaker B: We're on the right path. Everything is going to be great. And this podcast, Jack of All Graves, where we're from, Mirror universe. Mark and Corey, we meet every Sunday to talk about just how much and how hard we're nailing. Know exactly. So I thought this week we'd give you guys over there in what we see as kind of Nega World, opposite world, a Jo AG, just for one week, where you get to feel like things are cool, you get to feel like things are okay. You get to feel like we're on the way. The right path, the right future awaits us. And that's what you're tuned into right now. I don't know how you're doing it. I don't know how you're hearing this broadcast, but the fact that you're here means my experiments have worked. [00:37:52] Speaker A: Listen, I'm really excited. [00:37:56] Speaker B: There we go. It's worked. It's worked. The dial up has worked. [00:37:59] Speaker A: Fantastic. [00:38:00] Speaker B: So listen, welcome, everyone. Welcome to a very special jack of all graves in which we fucking dust off the despair for a week. And we park the panic and we bench the fucking. The worry and the terror and the dread. And we dare to ask and we dare to look and we dare to fucking believe that there's a way forward and that we might be okay and that the world is actually going to fucking sort itself out. Because there's proof, right? There's evidence. There are things we can look to. There are metrics and fucking lines and charts and graphs and maps that we can look at that give us hope, because hope is the dimension that me and Corey come from, right? Not like those other fucking weirdos that you keep listening to week in, week out. Who the fuck would listen to a podcast like that? Jack of All Graves is a celebration because we're nailing it. We're getting it right, and we're going to talk about that this week. What do you say? [00:39:01] Speaker A: I'm excited to expose this Mirror universe to the joys of our times. [00:39:05] Speaker B: Yes. How are things in Mirror Universe where you live? America? [00:39:16] Speaker A: Like a different name or something over on this side? Listen, I just got back from visiting friends, which was delightful. Just like the most wonderful Little kids that I love to hang out, had, you know, marshmallows and s'mores in the backyard, all kinds of stuff. Got to see friends that I love so dearly. One of the kids, Jade, is Jade. Yes. Hence the little tattoos. The ruby and the jade on my arm. Yeah. The kids are Ruby and Jade. Jade is a sleepwalker. She has the night terrors and things like that, too, but those have calmed down a bit, and she's mostly a sleep talker. And Walker. [00:39:58] Speaker B: Yes. [00:39:59] Speaker A: This ended up activating a new fear in me that I had no idea I had. That was honestly comical. So I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, sleeping on the couch, go to the bathroom. I go to open the door. It's pitch dark in the house, right? It's like two, three a. M. Open the door, and there is just a child standing silently in the doorway, staring in. And I screamed because I was not expecting this. There had not been a child when I went in there and I went, oh, you scared me. And she just repeats back, oh, you scared me. And then walks into the bathroom and closes the door. I was like, jesus Christ. Her mom comes out and is like, is everything okay? And I was like, yeah, no, Jake just terrified me. Sleepwalking into the relate. [00:41:00] Speaker B: I'm certain I will have told this on jog before, but Pete also is a sleepwalker and he hasn't done it in a while. But we now bolt the door as. [00:41:09] Speaker A: Well at night, just in case, because it's terrifying, right? So this is the thing, is, I'm sleeping in the living room, so there's no door. And for the next several days, I simply could not sleep until I hadn't heard Jade sleep talk or anything for at least, like an hour. I was like, she can appear at any moment. Stress level is through. And I would like. Once I fell asleep, I'd, like, wake up every 20 minutes just like, is Jade here? [00:41:40] Speaker B: I'm certain that there's been research done into this, right? But that fucking wacky, kind of bendy, malleable reality, kind of not quite where it should be. Kind of buffer betwixt the sleeping and waking worlds, man. Fucking. It's amazing. Just this week, right? Just this fucking week, I woke up. Laura was busy getting ready for work. She had showered or whatever, and I was like, oh, thank you. Because I was convinced. She'd said to me, all right, Mark, we can get a wrestling ring in the garden. And this was just as I was waking up. I'd clearly been having some kind of wrestling related dream. And I was like, oh, great. What fuck you on about? I was convinced that we were getting. [00:42:24] Speaker A: A wrestling ring that was probably leaked over from the other universe. Other Mark is getting a wrestling ring? [00:42:30] Speaker B: Oh, maybe he is that lucky bastard. Yeah. But he's also getting angsty with all of the fucking weird shit those guys talk about every week. [00:42:42] Speaker A: It's a good balance, I guess. That is amazing, though. So, yeah, this is a fear I didn't know that I had, apparently, is sleepwalkers. It had never occurred to me how terrifying. Well, there was one time when I was in high school, I was sleeping over at my friend Nick's house, and I was on the couch and he was on the floor and he had night terrors, which he had never mentioned before. And so all of a sudden, in the middle of the night, he starts just screaming bloody murder. Like, just as if someone was taking an axe to him. It was horrifying. And I just remember that afterwards, I was just sitting there because he stopped, and it was like nothing had ever happened, and I was just lying on the couch, like. [00:43:23] Speaker B: Incredible. That's definitely one for a future. I'm sure we will have done that. [00:43:28] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I don't think we have. [00:43:30] Speaker B: Years back, I'm sure we talked about people on ambient getting away with stabbing. [00:43:34] Speaker A: We did talk about the ambient defense, for sure, but not in a natural way because that's because of drugs, not because it's just what your brain is doing. [00:43:46] Speaker B: You'll be shocked to learn absolutely no research into the topic. But it feels to me as though it's always kind of on the way in or on the way out of sleep. [00:43:52] Speaker A: Well, there's something to that, right? Like the liminal space or whatever between sleeping and waking, where it's like, for. I think we have mentioned before, I can kind of control my dreams at that point that there's, like, a little dream warrior made. Like a dream warrior, right, exactly. There's always something about that little in between. [00:44:12] Speaker B: You'd be the wizard master, wouldn't you? [00:44:14] Speaker A: Oh, for was. But otherwise, it was delightful week. I got to see my friend Cynthia on the day that her show premiered, which was very cool to get to. [00:44:28] Speaker B: Pose me a way that, you know, a famous. That's so know. [00:44:31] Speaker A: I know a few famouses, but Cynthia's my favorite, you know, got to celebrate with her. That sag strike is over, and she's been working so hard. She became during this, like, she's now a delegate for SAG, which she's always trying to do her best to be a part of any kind of action for anything when she sees a cause, she really wants to actively be a part of. Know. And so over the course of this, she became a SAG delegate, which is very cool. And so it was great to get to catch up with her. Just a lovely little jaunt. And now I'm happy to be home in autumn, New Jersey. How about you, Mark? [00:45:13] Speaker B: Look, things are fine here. In the realm of the fucking level of the Dark tower that we reside on, work is fine. My family are fucking a wonderful bunch of lads went to see my darling, darling, darling mother this weekend and spent some time hanging out with her. Look, we find ourselves, as we do every Sunday, back together, you and I, face to face, separated by a screen and a fucking ocean and nothing else. You know what I mean? We think as one mind, we speak as one voice, and we bring you this week just the fucking. The truth, the message that you are. You have the fucking right to exist. And as we do, as a fucking species, right? So let's fucking keep that vibe for this week's jack of all graves. [00:46:03] Speaker A: You know what I think about we could fucking do? [00:46:05] Speaker B: Yeah, go on. [00:46:06] Speaker A: I wanted a potato, and now Kio is making jacket potatoes. [00:46:12] Speaker B: Okay. Right. Show me ten different people. I'll show you ten different ways to have a jacket potato. You've got a full fridge. What are you going to do? [00:46:22] Speaker A: Butter, sour cReam, chives and cheese. [00:46:27] Speaker B: Boring. [00:46:30] Speaker A: That's how I like it, man. [00:46:31] Speaker B: Fair enough. [00:46:32] Speaker A: Yeah, you guys go kind of nutty with your, like, you put, like, whole meals in your baked potatoes. [00:46:38] Speaker B: Yeah, beans mainly. You're going to get a load of beans in them. You're going to get maybe some tuna. [00:46:43] Speaker A: Mayo, beans and a potato. That's just, like, a lot. [00:46:47] Speaker B: I fucking hate them. I'm texture boy, as you know. [00:46:50] Speaker A: Yeah, you don't like a big potato? [00:46:52] Speaker B: I love a big potato, but, oh. [00:46:54] Speaker A: You don't like beans in your. [00:46:56] Speaker B: If it even touches or goes near or carries the fucking whiff of bean on it. You know what I mean? [00:47:04] Speaker A: Do you generally not like beans or just in a potato context? [00:47:07] Speaker B: All beans. [00:47:08] Speaker A: All beans. [00:47:09] Speaker B: Don't like them. Don't like the texture. Don't like the texture. The texture just absolutely gips me right out. [00:47:15] Speaker A: I can get. That's, like, soft in the middle with a weird jacket on it. [00:47:18] Speaker B: Exactly. The mush. C also peas, C also corn. It's the one texture I cannot have anything to do with other than that I'm quite low maintenance. [00:47:29] Speaker A: I don't know. That's entirely true. But. No, it is. No, definitely very low maintenance. Good. Well, anyways, go on, Mark, I'm sorry I interrupted with my potato, but I'm very excited about the potato. [00:47:42] Speaker B: Good. As now am I? And as now are our listeners. But what I thought might be a nice start for us this week, right, since I've put such a lot of work into tuning the frequencies, getting it on quantum vibration and the subspace fucking shangha langs, I thought it might be a good idea for us to. Because in this universe, we still watch horror movies, don't we? [00:48:08] Speaker A: Oh, obviously, yeah. [00:48:10] Speaker B: In this universe, we're still big consumers of that fucking genre we love called horror. But I thought it might be a nice idea to kind of just reaffirm. Why? Right, because, fuck's sake, if horror is damaging and has depictions of fucking abuse and missing limbs and fucking monsters and dead stuff and blurs. [00:48:31] Speaker A: Are you just quoting your blue sky profile? [00:48:33] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a story to that. There's a story to that. One time years back, I don't even know why the conversation started or where it was going, but one of my oldest and best friends, Ang Harrod, is thinking, have you met Ang Harrod? Have you ever spoken? [00:48:49] Speaker A: I haven't actually met, but I have heard many wonderful things about her. [00:48:53] Speaker B: I asked her to sum up what my movie taste is, and those were the words she replied with. [00:48:58] Speaker A: Okay, gotcha. [00:49:00] Speaker B: Horror abuse, dead stuff, monsters and missing limbs. And that has been on every single social media profile I've had since then, because she nailed it. [00:49:08] Speaker A: Very nice. [00:49:09] Speaker B: But if it is that minging, why do we watch it? Why do we get so much out of it? [00:49:12] Speaker A: Getting your little thumbs down thing. [00:49:15] Speaker B: You're still doing that. Have I taught you all of the other you? [00:49:18] Speaker A: Have. You showed me your other one. Sorry, go on. It's just twice in a row you got the thumbs down. [00:49:25] Speaker B: And it is. If horror is a genre which seeks to portray the dark, the nasty, the horrid, the icky, the creepy, the fucking, the uncanny, the unusual, why do you. [00:49:40] Speaker A: Ever call her Ang Horrid? [00:49:42] Speaker B: No, but if she was going to do a Halloween username. [00:49:49] Speaker A: Yeah, if she's going to change her, you can just throw that out, too. If she ever needs a Halloween name for something, I. I shall. [00:49:54] Speaker B: Shall. I'm seeing her in a couple of weeks, so I will do just that. What do you get out of horror? [00:49:59] Speaker A: I love the way that you framed this. I love the way that you framed this as the joyful element of horror. Because we have talked before about why we watch horror, even some of the catharsis of horror, and distancing yourself from the things that are scary by watching them, that kinds of thing. There's a lot of reasons many smart people have talked about when it comes to why people are attracted to horror. But I love this idea of the joy of it because I don't feel like that gets enough credit. Right? So, like our dear Boffin, Eileen just watched a movie. I absolutely love last night that I've been struggling to get you to watch for years because you reject the premise outright. But she watched Veloci Pastor, and as I've said, I'm like, it is made as if it's a bad movie, but it's actually really good and it's really well made. The cinematography is good, the editing is great, the music is good, all this kind of stuff. And when I think about the joy of horror. I think of, for example, something like that that takes a genre that we watch and has certain tropes and things that we love about it and stuff like that and certain things that people botch all the time and taking it and being able to celebrate all of that in a way that also is funny. It makes us laugh and just points to the things that we love and hate about the genre. Like stuff like that or like things like killer clowns from Outer Space or all of this stuff is about having fun. [00:51:42] Speaker B: Yes. [00:51:42] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. A lot of people can't process it. It's just not fun to watch a horror movie. I don't like watching your list of limbs and dead things and abuse and whatever, stuff like that. But it can be and often is a lot of fun to watch. And I feel like we don't necessarily recognize that enough. [00:52:06] Speaker B: Exactly. And while over in your universe, your mark and Corey every know chat about what they've seen, chat about what they've been listening to, talk about what it did for think, you know, because we're bringing you this fucking pan dimensional good vibes show this know. I thought it was a good idea to kick off with just exactly what it is that we're loving right now about horror. It's almost a language that you learn, isn't it? You learn the fucking. The tricks and the tropes. We've talked plenty of times about how we are fucking so sick to death of somebody closing a fucking bathroom cabinet and seeing a fucking gribbly behind and blah, blah, blah. You'll know that I am on a personal quest to trace the earliest instance of the no signal trope. Right. And I didn't mention this the other week, but we found an instance from 1987. [00:53:02] Speaker A: Yeah. What was it that we were watching that had that? [00:53:04] Speaker B: It was House two. [00:53:06] Speaker A: That's right, House two. [00:53:07] Speaker B: House two, the second story. And it happens off camera. It's a character off camera just offhandedly saying, goddamn car phone doesn't work here. 1987. [00:53:23] Speaker A: Definitely a contender for. It's got the earliest. [00:53:26] Speaker B: It's got to be. I thought Red Eye in 2005 was the earliest one, but no, there's one almost clear decade before that from 1987. And I swear to God, 87, 90, you fuck. That's amazing how you do that. But that. Right. I'm not exaggerating for a second. When I hear that line, I experience joy. [00:53:50] Speaker A: Yes. [00:53:51] Speaker B: Something that has just become in every horror movie. Because of course, there is no situation that couldn't be solved in a horror movie. By having a working mobile phone, right? There's nothing that couldn't be fixed with it. So I love it. It gives me a little fucking dopamine hit whenever somebody goes, oh, man, no service. Or. You know what I mean? Yeah. I love seeing a creative writer or a creative cinematographer work that into a movie in a way that doesn't make you go, fuck, there it is. You know what I mean? It's a little way that horror has come to reflect society, but also has to really just eliminate a problem that society has given it. Society has got tech has gone and fucking killed a genre. [00:54:34] Speaker A: That's the thing, is it could very well, right? It is so easy for technology to where it stands right now, just make most of our storylines obsolete. Kind of like how we were discussing last week that it's super hard to. There maybe are not as many serial killers now because it's just really hard to get away with it. Which, by the way, just on that note, I actually did watch an episode of DaTELINE this week about a serial killer known as the Gilgo Beach Killer from New York, and he killed four sex workers. And it was like this whole thing that took, like, it was like the 90s, like the early ninety S. And they only found him recently with DNA stuff and things like that. But the story is wild. I'm sure there will soon be like a Netflix documentary about it. But they just found him like six months ago or something like that, which. [00:55:30] Speaker B: Is another thing, you know, killers. There are killers out there right now who were fucking sitting pretty and they're about even do a couple more. You know what I mean? I got away with the others so fucking expertly and smoothly just waiting for that knock on the doors, DNA, fucking tech and other kind of tech catches up. So cool. So, so cool. Gives me joy. Not the murders. [00:55:52] Speaker A: Not the murders, no. [00:55:54] Speaker B: The fact that society always nipping at the heels and distance in time does not diminish blame and fucking crime and punishment and whatnot. [00:56:05] Speaker A: Yeah. But even on that note of when there's certain tropes that are super annoying or things like that, there's also just that little, like, it can be fun even pointing those things out. Like, I remember when we were miserably watching Bly Manor and there was one of those mirror jump scare type things. Whatever. Being able to be, ah, they did the thing. Or like, getting to know a genre so deeply and intimately that you can predict those moments and stuff like that is fun in and of itself. Even when something is bad, there's a degree of recognition exactly. [00:56:38] Speaker B: And even though our Jo AG is all about positivity and building up the. And moving forward into the future with bright eyes and big smiles and open hearts, I don't think fucking romcoms just ain't as textually rich. Maybe action is. Yes, definitely. Horror is. Yes, definitely. But I mean, if horror as a genre, I think, has so much fucking protein to it, it's substantial, man. And to write it off has just been a fucking weirdo watching that weird shit. The fuck is wrong with you? I think, is to do it such a disservice. It is a broad church. It is a wide umbrella, and you're never finished. You've never completed horror. There's always more to just learn and dive into. And it's been a lifelong love affair. [00:57:35] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. You could see, I think, coming out of the Halloween season, it's just like the epitome of watching people experience the joy of horror for a month straight. Just having a joyful time with. Even the kinds of stuff that I watch during Halloween season are sort of intentionally the kinds of things that they don't make you feel bad or anything like that. It's just like, maybe about murders and stuff, but it's fun. Even like, one of my favorite horror things that we had an episode on early on. But is that kind of like an extreme kill that is just so absurd that it makes you laugh. [00:58:16] Speaker B: Applaud. [00:58:17] Speaker A: Right that moment where you're just like, I can't believe that just happened. [00:58:24] Speaker B: And I guess, again, I don't have anything in particular against Rom coms, but I keep going back to them. [00:58:31] Speaker A: I like a rom.com. [00:58:32] Speaker B: You're not going to watch a romcom and see something that you physically have never, ever seen before. Yes. [00:58:38] Speaker A: Maybe not. Yeah. I don't know. [00:58:41] Speaker B: There's still fucking space in horror to show you stuff which you'd never imagined. I don't think there's an upper limit on ways to dismember another human. [00:58:51] Speaker A: Sure. And the thing being, I think, I can't remember if it was you and I who were talking about this, but the fact that there's room to put rom.com in horror or things like that. Right. You can overlap it with other things in ways that you can't. So, yeah, you might see something. There are rom coms that are, you know, one of my favorites. Pride and Prejudice and zombies. [00:59:12] Speaker B: Yes. [00:59:13] Speaker A: Phenomenal horror. Rom.com. Very good time. [00:59:18] Speaker B: The little scene, British kind of independent genre flick. Sean of the Dead. [00:59:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I think you might have heard. [00:59:26] Speaker B: Of it if you can find it. If you can lay your hands on a copy, it's a tough one. [00:59:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:34] Speaker B: Crossover with romcoms, with that genre. It does it brilliantly, but it is quite hard to pick up. So you might have to kind of. [00:59:42] Speaker A: Have your library order it specially. [00:59:45] Speaker B: Exactly. Hang out at some movie fairs or maybe use the way back machine or something like that. If you can find it. Yes. Great crossover potential, great creativity. And it's just an absolute joy to have a lifelong love affair with a genre which is still to this day delighting, surprising and enriching my life. [01:00:07] Speaker A: You're here. So what horrors did you watch this week? [01:00:11] Speaker B: Well, you've been away, haven't you? So you don't. [01:00:13] Speaker A: I have been away. I have only watched one movie this week. Yeah. Because I didn't even watch anything on the plane back, I TALKED ABOUT WHAT I WATCHED ON THE PLANE THERE, BUT I HAVE BEEN ITCHING TO REWATCH TRUMAN SHOW, WHICH I HAVEN'T SEEN IN PROBABLY, I DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT IT IS, BUT IT'S ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT JUST KEEPS ON COMING TO MIND THAT I'M LIKE, I JUST REALLY WANT TO WATCH TRUMAN'S SHOW. I HAVEN'T SEEN IT IN PROBABLY 15 TO 20 YEARS. IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME. And I was just like, yesterday, we were tired, had just gotten home from California. We're like, what are we going to do? AND JUST IDLY OPENED PArAMOUNT PLUS. AND TRUMan SHOW WAS ONE OF THE FIRST SUGGESTIONS. I was like, just fucking putting on Truman's show. And the show is, I mean, the show, the movie, most people have probably seen or heard of it. IT'S BEEN REFERENCED OR THINGS LIKE THAT. But on the off chance you're like a Zoomer whose parents have never introduced you to this or whatever. The basis of the Truman show is that Jim Carrey plays a guy who was born on television and has lived his entire life in this big dome under the watchful eye of TV as people have just watched him grow. EVERY SINGLE SeCOND OF HIS LIFE HAS BEEN AIRED ON TElEVISION WITH PEOPLE WATCHING IT, BUT HE DOES NOT KNOW THIS. So everyone around him are actors, which is like, when I saw it when I was a little kid, I used to think that was what life was. [01:01:44] Speaker B: WOW. [01:01:45] Speaker A: AND I WOULD TURN AROUND PICTURES IN ROOMS AND STUFF LIKE THAT BECAUSE I THOUGHT THEY WERE LIKE, CAMERAS AND THINGS LIKE THAT. SO WHEN THIS MOVIE CAME OUT, I WAS SOMEWHAT CONVINCED THAT THEY WERE FUCKING WITH ME. And I was like, they're telling me what they're doing. [01:02:01] Speaker B: ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME RIGHT NOW? [01:02:02] Speaker A: NO. I'M NOT FUCKING WITH YOU. I GENUINELY. It stressed me out when I was a kid because I thought life was a TV show and that people were secretly watching my every move. AND THEN THIS MOVIE CAME OUT AND I WAS LIKE, WELL, IS THIS CONFIRMATION TELLING ME THAT I'M BEING WatCHED AND NOW EVERYONE'S WATCHING A MOVIE THAT I'M WATCHING AND THEY'RE MAKING FUN OF ME WHILE I WATCH THIS? YEAH, SO IT STRESSED ME. [01:02:30] Speaker B: I DID NOT KNOW THAT ABOUT YOU. [01:02:33] Speaker A: HERE'S A fun little Corey fact. Yeah, I don't know. I was a paranoid little kid. I was just afraid of people watching me. So anyways, it is very funny that now I have a podcast and stuff like that. I do a lot of public things when I was like, I don't want to be observed or perceived at any point when I was a kid. Like, hide under the table if people came over. But Truman show, incredible cast. Like, every time someone wanders into a scene, even as a side character, you're like, it's Paul Gimatti. [01:03:09] Speaker B: Can't claim to have seen it since it came out. [01:03:13] Speaker A: Okay, so, like 1998 or whatever. [01:03:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:15] Speaker A: If you watch ten years ago, you'd be like, yeah, ten years ago in 1998. If you watched it now, every scene you're just like, oh, all of these people are very famous now, but it's an interesting movie on many. Obviously, at the time, it was sort of like the early days of reality TV, and that was kind of what it was like talking to and about our culture of surveillance and our culture of sort of voyeurism and how we were taking in these kinds of things. And what would it mean if we extrapolated that to someone who's an unwilling participant in it? Right. And today, watching it, I was just like, this is functionally no different than family influencers on TikTok, which I am deeply against. And there are kids who have grown up as part of influencer families who now are talking about the fact that this was basically abuse. They're working and not getting paid. [01:04:17] Speaker B: A term that I'm certain you would have seen and I'm seeing, and I don't know if I'm seeing it more and more, but it's a term which I deeply, deeply, deeply fucking. It makes me very uncomfortable, is when individuals refer to others as NPCs. Fuck about entitlement. Talk about main characters. [01:04:39] Speaker A: Terrifying. Yeah. And obviously Elon Musk famously has said that. And for those who don't know what an NPC is, a non playable character. [01:04:49] Speaker B: It's a non playable character. So, like, when you're walking around Vice City or, you know, Spider Man's New York, it'll be a character who walks past you. Hmm. Gotta get home, feed the cat. You know what I mean? [01:05:01] Speaker A: Just somebody with a quest that you have to go, you know, whatever. [01:05:05] Speaker B: Six pre recorded lines of dialogue. Essentially, you're not me, so you don't matter, right? That's exactly the vibe. And I'd like to think, but don't. That anyone using that term does so with self awareness and knows how much of a massive fucking prick you sound when you use it. [01:05:30] Speaker A: Well, it's like as if I never grew out of my Truman show mentality is what that is. Right. The thing about me as a child thinking this is, like, to a degree, it's just growing up in a stressful household, and I didn't want anyone to see me, that kind of thing. But it also entails the childlike narcissism of not being able to quite conceive that you're not the main character and that everyone around you kind of is an NPC as far as you're concerned. Once they're out of your view, you can't kind of understand that they have a life that they're doing too. [01:05:59] Speaker B: Inevitably. Sorry to dive in. Quite recently, I'm pretty sure I read a story where a fucking prankster YouTuber got capped, got fucking shot in the stomach by a guy who was packing, felt threatened, shot. The kid survived, and the guy was just got off, no charges. He was know you're good, mate. Double tap next time. [01:06:27] Speaker A: Maybe that's inevitable. But the thing is, with the Truman show, this idea of an unconsenting child growing up in front of the camera like that just made me think of all these families that six months or so ago, there was one interview, I think it was in, like, teen vogue or something like that, but with an anonymous child of influencer family who's basically waiting till she's 18 and can emancipate herself from her family, but telling the story of basically how she's been used by her family and manipulated and all this stuff of my dad telling me if I decide I don't want to be on camera anymore, then we're not going to be able to afford our house anymore, and things like that, and putting all of this on kids who cannot consent to this, and just the crazed things that people say about children on TikTok and stuff like that, when families put them out there. There have been TikTokers who started as family influencers and then were like, absolutely not, I'm taking my kid off this. And people have freaked out at being denied access to their children. Watching the Truman show, I was like, this is what you're doing to your kid. And this was 25 years ago or whatever, that basically, while commenting on another thing, predicted a thing that's normalized now. No one thinks of it as Truman show. And it is Truman Show. [01:07:56] Speaker B: What I would also say on the flipper, though, because we're from the realm of positivity. [01:08:01] Speaker A: Sure. [01:08:04] Speaker B: There is some kid, and by kid, I mean teen, mid teen, early to, you know, mid early, late teen YouTubers who are fucking so good, right? [01:08:15] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Kia went to some gaming thing like a week or two ago, and he has not stopped talking about these 217 year olds who started, I think it's a Minecraft YouTube. And now they are running a little business. They put out like four videos every single day. They have a team working for them. They're like loving life as best friends, working together on this thing with money rolling in and all these people who work for them to help them create this content that's like, that's awesome. [01:08:50] Speaker B: Owen is super into a channel called Jack Sucks at Geography, right. Which is just a kid setting himself kind of ridiculous geography challenges. Like, where earth is this screenshot from? What's this flag of this obscure fucking island nation? And it's had an incredible effect on Owen's. Just the geography knowledge this kid is carrying around with him. He's incredible at geography. And it's all from. Yeah, tell me about it. But all because of the connection that he's, albeit maybe parasocial without him knowing it. [01:09:29] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. [01:09:31] Speaker B: It can be good. [01:09:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think being old enough to consent to it. And if the kid says, I would like to do this, that's one thing. As opposed to the fact that most of these family Instagram influencers start when their kids are babies or very young and don't really have a sense of. What does it mean if you share all my embarrassing moments on TikTok and things like that forever. Right, exactly. So, yeah, Truman show was an interesting watch. Just to know it's a movie that is reflective of the time it was made and then has a whole. [01:10:09] Speaker B: Who directed it? [01:10:11] Speaker A: This was the weird. The director is Peter Weir. Who I was like. I was like, what else has this guy made for a movie that had such impact and was absolutely huge? I was like, I could not tell you off the top of my head things he's made, but he's made a ton of stuff. [01:10:27] Speaker B: Yes. [01:10:27] Speaker A: I wouldn't say he retired like ten years ago, apparently. [01:10:30] Speaker B: Did you make a big submarine movie? [01:10:33] Speaker A: Well, he made master and commander. It's not a submarine. [01:10:36] Speaker B: There you go. Right? [01:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah, but he made a bunch of stuff and Kia was telling me because I was like, who is this guy? So we looked him up and he was given like a lifetime achievement award at the Oscars or something like that, like last. [01:10:49] Speaker B: Beautiful. Well done, Pierre. We are good work, man. Yeah. [01:10:53] Speaker A: And if you haven't seen the Truman show, watch it because it is actually super fucking good. [01:10:58] Speaker B: Why does Jim Carrey not work anymore? [01:11:01] Speaker A: I think he's like, in his own world know. He started doing art and he made that little documentary about his art and stuff. [01:11:08] Speaker B: Was there a thing, though? Wasn't there some unpleasantness? [01:11:11] Speaker A: I mean, I don't think there was a thing that people canceled for. He's been like Antivaxx for like 20 years or whatever. But I'm sure there was a thing. [01:11:20] Speaker B: With a girl or a kid or something. [01:11:21] Speaker A: Was there? [01:11:22] Speaker B: Give me a moment. [01:11:23] Speaker A: If there was, I definitely never heard about that. [01:11:26] Speaker B: Okay. [01:11:28] Speaker A: This must have happened in the other universe. [01:11:32] Speaker B: Maybe it didn't. Yeah, it didn't take place in our realm. I'll circle back because I don't want to have said something heinous about Jim Carrey that I can't back up. [01:11:42] Speaker A: It's like, no, he's fine. I mean, he, again, the anti vax thing is a pretty sucky thing about him, but, yeah, I don't think I've heard anything that's know. [01:11:53] Speaker B: Yeah, he's been accused of by Several partners with drugs. [01:12:03] Speaker A: That's right. And didn't one of his partners take her life after. Once you mentioned that. Yeah, no, I do remember that now. Yes. But again, take that with your. As you choose whether or not to watch Truman's show. You can keep that in mind as well. But what have you watched? That's all I watched this week. [01:12:25] Speaker B: Well, I've gone in. Right. I'm a big advocate of giving yourself a little treat when it comes to films. Right. [01:12:33] Speaker A: Indeed. [01:12:34] Speaker B: Because they can be. Everybody's got their pet movies that they will endlessly go back to and treat themselves to. And I gave myself a little treat this week with Elm Street Three. [01:12:47] Speaker A: Yes. [01:12:49] Speaker B: 7 November. This was so post Halloween Spooky season in the Rearview Mirror. But I just had to. I just fucking had to. I think it was after getting that Elm street flavor in my mouth after we spoke about Robert Eglin. [01:13:05] Speaker A: Oh, House of Usher. That was it. Yes. [01:13:07] Speaker B: Gotcha. [01:13:08] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense. [01:13:09] Speaker B: Yes. I had to go back and watch the best one again, and it was just wonderful. Just wonderful. [01:13:16] Speaker A: Is Dream warriors your number one? [01:13:18] Speaker B: Yes. [01:13:19] Speaker A: Nice. [01:13:20] Speaker B: Yes, it is. Everything about it works. Everything about it clicks just into place beautifully, which makes sense when you look at the staggering talent that are involved in that fucking film, even just on a soundtrack level. And hello. Battle Amenti doing the soundtrack. For fuck's know, longtime David lynch collaborator Frank Darabont co written the screenplay docking on the fucking soundtrack. Everything in that film works, and it contains my favorite moment in the entire series. It is a moment which will give me goosebumps whenever I fucking see it. It makes me. It gets me right in the fucking pit of my stomach. It's when Kristen has just realized that she's got this power to pull people into her dreams. She's having a bad one. She's in this fucking locker room, and the walls begin to shake and the floor begins to undulate, and this fucking horrific fucking worm with the head of Freddie bursts through the floor and starts to eat on her. And she subconsciousLy, almost as a reflex, action, pulls Nancy into a dream and fucking this horrific snake like thing breathing steam catches eyes with Nancy and just fucking. Oh, my God. I love it. It's the greatest moment in all of cinema. [01:14:52] Speaker A: Amazing. [01:14:54] Speaker B: Oh, so good, because. Yeah, Freddie, don't forget. So there was that. Loved it. I wanted to fill a gap in my watch history, right? I'd never seen Bram Stoker's Dracula. Right? Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula. Never seen. [01:15:14] Speaker A: Which, as you know, I also watched for the first time, like, three or four months ago. [01:15:19] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't remember us chatting about it because. [01:15:25] Speaker A: Of course not. [01:15:25] Speaker B: It was a certain time. [01:15:28] Speaker A: Yeah. What's hilarious about you watching it and me watching it is having the same reactions and coming to the opposite conclusions about it, because you were texting me as you were watching this, and at one point, you were like, this is either a onener or a four. It's one of those. You landed on the four, and I gave it two. Honestly, that was generous of me. [01:15:53] Speaker B: How do you go middle of the road? [01:15:56] Speaker A: I probably like it less than that. I think I probably just didn't want to give it one star, and so I gave it two stars, because in hindsight, I'm like, I don't think there's a single thing I like about that movie. It just more feels like you're like, well, a lot of work went into it, so one doesn't feel quite right. It's kind of a like, oh, it's a recognition of my preference, I think, is what it is. Because it's like, it's. I mean, I think it is kind of a bad movie. As you were talking. [01:16:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:16:26] Speaker A: The accents are from space, and all of it is, like, bananas. But, yeah. I don't know. I think part of me won't accept that it is as bad as it is. [01:16:37] Speaker B: But then when you add into the mix again who it's by, who made. [01:16:44] Speaker A: It, who's in it. [01:16:48] Speaker B: You'Re left with more questions than answers. At the end of Bramptoker's Dracula, like, how the. Holy shit. It's a high end, kind of high production. Fucking money. It's a money movie with the sensibility of something like Psycho Gore, man. I'd say that kind of more is more sensibility of just fucking. I don't give a fuck. Chuck it all up there. The voices. Nothing new can be said about the accents in Bram Stoker's Dracula, right? But when you've got Cariel's cast known. [01:17:28] Speaker A: For the worst American accents on the. [01:17:31] Speaker B: Planet, bless them, English actor of some. [01:17:36] Speaker A: Good. [01:17:36] Speaker B: He's good people as Carrielles. [01:17:38] Speaker A: Right? [01:17:39] Speaker B: So what we'll do instead is we'll cast him as an American, and we'll cast Keanu Reeves as the Brit. [01:17:45] Speaker A: Yeah, totally. [01:17:47] Speaker B: Honestly, I had to see it for myself recently. I referred to a film as, like, a fucking rich beef Wellington, right? And Dracula. Bram Stoker's Dracula is a fucking rich beef Wellington, but it's badly made. It's been dropped on the floor. It's gone. [01:18:08] Speaker A: Yeah. It's a beef Wellington from, like, Chuck E. Cheese. [01:18:11] Speaker B: Yeah. If our boy Mauro had made a beef Wellington out of bats and fucking mashed up mice. [01:18:16] Speaker A: Exactly. [01:18:18] Speaker B: And I had no idea that Tom Waits was going to show up. For fuck's sake. As Renfield, I had no clue. Tom Waits was doing some really good work. He. Oh, same. Good God. [01:18:31] Speaker A: But maybe that was where the extra star came from. [01:18:34] Speaker B: Possibly, yeah, possibly. But Tom Waits isn't in the same film as everybody else. Tom Waits actually wants to turn up and do good work, whereas everybody else seemingly just wants to do coke and spend money. [01:18:43] Speaker A: I think that's 100%. [01:18:46] Speaker B: But you know as well as I do, you know me by now, right? You know, Marco and I will go to bat and celebrate just a massive, massive, colossal failure. And that's what Bramstoker's Dracula is. It's a head scratcher, man. It is a big old dose of. What the fuck was that? [01:19:06] Speaker A: That's why I think ultimately, you and I have the same opinion on this movie. Just manifest. [01:19:14] Speaker B: It comes out differently. [01:19:16] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. A head scratcher is a good word for that. And I think neither of us were prepared in going into it for that. Yeah. I just feel like no one quite prepared me for how fucking awful. [01:19:31] Speaker B: Much like another of Keanu Reeves'movies. No one can explain to you what Bram Stoker's Dracula is. You have to experience it for. [01:19:38] Speaker A: It's true. Yes, correct. [01:19:41] Speaker B: I'm not going to waste any time talking about suitable flesh. [01:19:45] Speaker A: Okay. [01:19:46] Speaker B: But because we're from the positive realm, I will say that. Holy fuck. [01:19:50] Speaker A: What was that? Thank you. [01:19:53] Speaker B: Is that your baked potato? [01:19:55] Speaker A: It's a drink. Thank you, Keo. [01:19:57] Speaker B: Thanks, Ansie. [01:19:58] Speaker A: Kyo. My door, when you open, it opens really jarringly. And so when it came open, it just scared the crap out of me because I didn't hear him come up the stairs. [01:20:09] Speaker B: What do you have? What do you have to drink? What are you drinking? [01:20:12] Speaker A: I think it's an old fashioned. [01:20:13] Speaker B: I thought it would be. All I would say is, it's great to see Heather Graham. So there's your star. Otherwise, the movie itself is turgid. It is awful. Boy. It is about, you know how in Jason goes to hell they take the bold move of retconning Jason into, like, a little worm thing that goes in your mouth in splendid skin or whatever it's called. What's it called? Fantastic skin. [01:20:45] Speaker A: Beautiful skin. [01:20:46] Speaker B: There you go. It's kind of like that. It's Jason goes to hell, but with a little bit of. It follows. You pass on the crazy madness through sex. I don't know. It was quite explicit, but I hated it. I don't even know why. [01:21:04] Speaker A: I just didn't enjoy, like, that's interesting because Ben from dead and lovely really loved it and kind of was just basically, he was like, you know, it's very Brian Usna. [01:21:15] Speaker B: It is very Brian Usna. It is. And in fact, it's another one of Barbara Crampton's fucking mischatonic series. [01:21:23] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. [01:21:25] Speaker B: So, yeah. [01:21:26] Speaker A: Do they leave her alone? Does no one try to molest her in this one? That's all I want to know. [01:21:31] Speaker B: She does not escape unmolested, I'm afraid. But that's what. [01:21:37] Speaker A: Always trying to molest Barbara Crampton. [01:21:39] Speaker B: I know. Hands off Barbara Crampton for five minutes. Stop it. Or then, you know, past a certain point, if you're going to keep going to mischatonic, fool me know. I don't know. [01:21:51] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. So, interesting. In between, I think the horny nature of the movie is probably not in my. So probably not for. But yeah. [01:22:01] Speaker B: Are they good sex horrors? I mean, you'd think Cronenberg has probably done one or two. [01:22:07] Speaker A: I'm going to say, like, probably people who like Cronenberg a lot more than I do would say. So, like, your crash and whatnot probably counts under that, but I would not. [01:22:16] Speaker B: I like Crash a great deal. [01:22:19] Speaker A: But yeah, in general, I don't think that's a. Like I've said many times before, I don't like sex and violence combined. I'm not going there for that. It's not what I'm here for. [01:22:29] Speaker B: Fair enough. Like sex, you like violence. But not in the same place. [01:22:33] Speaker A: Not in the same place. Yes. Not on the same plate. [01:22:35] Speaker B: Exactly. Yesterday, continuing what is fast becoming a tradition of going to visit my mother and watching weird movies with her. Last night, her and I sat down to enjoy Rise of the Planet of the Apes. [01:22:49] Speaker A: Nice. Okay, well, it is the first Planet of the Apes. [01:22:53] Speaker B: Well, yeah. Yes, she has. And enjoyed it thoroughly. So it's. Oh, go on, ma'am. Let's watch the second one. Does a load of things which I love in films, as you know. I love it when a movie is brave enough not to rely on dialogue. I love it when a movie is brave enough to let you piece together the fucking. What's gone on in between the chapters. It's all up there on the screen. I think that particular trilogy doesn't get half the fucking credit it should get. [01:23:26] Speaker A: I feel like people generally acknowledge those movies. [01:23:30] Speaker B: It's acknowledged as a banging trilogy. Yes, but when was the last time you had a conversation about the Planet of the Apes trilogy? [01:23:38] Speaker A: I guess that's fair. Yeah. One of that genre of movie of the. People love it, but it has no cultural impact. The weird one that Tim Burton came out with has more cultural impact than the actual. [01:23:55] Speaker B: Which I've never actually seen. [01:23:56] Speaker A: You've never seen it? [01:23:58] Speaker B: No, I haven't. I like me some Burton. [01:24:01] Speaker A: I mean, you're not missing anything. I saw that in the theater, and I must have been in, I don't know, like 8th or 9th grade or something when that came out. And I just remember being like, what? What was that? It was deeply confusing. [01:24:16] Speaker B: Does a non monkey have intimate relations with a monkey? [01:24:19] Speaker A: At least they kiss. I don't know that it was more than that, but it was weird. [01:24:23] Speaker B: Okay. [01:24:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like hell. [01:24:25] Speaker B: And that's not how you start a planet of the Apes. That's not how you do it. [01:24:28] Speaker A: No, it's not. You can't force it. Yeah, that was a weird one. But you watched that with your mom. [01:24:40] Speaker B: Yes, I did. We both enjoyed it. Huge action. And hey, who are the real. Who are the real baddies here? Who are the apes? Is it us or is it them? Think on. Think the fuck on. Let me see. Then there was the killer. [01:24:56] Speaker A: Yes. Which just feels like it appeared out of nowhere to me. I had no idea it existed. And then everyone on my letterbox was watching it. [01:25:03] Speaker B: But it's the good shit, though. [01:25:04] Speaker A: It's good. Okay. [01:25:06] Speaker B: Yes. [01:25:06] Speaker A: Nice. [01:25:09] Speaker B: See, I won't say this too loudly, right? So that they won't hear me back in our own dimension, right? But I really fucking like Fastbender a lot. Right? [01:25:23] Speaker A: I like to think in our universe, maybe he's not so shitty as he is in the other one. [01:25:29] Speaker B: I didn't realize he was. [01:25:30] Speaker A: Oh, he's bad. He's like a domestic abuser, for fuck's sake. Yeah, of like, multiple women. [01:25:39] Speaker B: Son of a bitch. Because on screen, I really like him. [01:25:42] Speaker A: Yeah. I was a big fassbender, Stan, back in the day. I cannot tell you how many times I've watched that. X Men Days of Future class. First class. First class is the one that I've watched a million times. [01:25:55] Speaker B: Yes. Well, the killer is very stylized. It leaves reality at the door. I don't for a second believe that there is this kind of unseen subculture of darknet fucking hit mannery, and it's more gross point blank than it is anything else. [01:26:20] Speaker A: I love gross point blank. [01:26:21] Speaker B: So do I. It's a fucking great film. But in how it deals with the Assassin game, the murder business, I felt it more hyper stylized in how globetrotting. Just wipe off the gun, drop the gun in an airport bin, get in your hire car, go do the next job. Bang, bang, bang. It's all that. It's all cool. Just another beautiful, kind of sparse feng shui kind of soundtrack from Trent Reznor. [01:26:56] Speaker A: I know this has like a big director, too. [01:26:58] Speaker B: Dave Fincher. [01:26:59] Speaker A: Fincher. That was who it is again. Because this came out of nowhere. I looked at it and I was like, whoa. [01:27:06] Speaker B: It does something I hate in that Fassbender gets a text message. [01:27:11] Speaker A: I was like, is he going to get a text message? [01:27:13] Speaker B: Yep. [01:27:14] Speaker A: I'm just going to have to acknowledge that not all of us can read on a cell phone, but it's fine. [01:27:20] Speaker B: Because it sets itself up as a movie with that kind of stylization you get on screen titles. It's as part of that visual palette of a movie. You accept it. It's fine. It's set up, so I'll allow it. Okay, so, yes, that was awesome. And I've also. Corey, I've been listening to podcasts now. [01:27:44] Speaker A: Right. [01:27:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I've been in the car quite a bit of late, so I picked up on a recommendation of your Scamander. Super enthralling. [01:27:54] Speaker A: Glad you brought this up. I wanted to, but forgot to. [01:27:57] Speaker B: An enthralling tale of the very, very worst that a human is capable of just a complete dearth of just accountability or honesty or morality. The fact is, some people are fucking hollow and can leverage that almost for their own personal gain. [01:28:22] Speaker A: Yeah. The story, if you haven't heard of Scamanda, I might have mentioned it, but I can't remember. Basically, it's a podcast about a woman who pretends to have cancer for like a decade and is fleecing her church members and all these kinds of people for money, living off this, getting cool, like make a wish benefits and all kinds of stuff. All the while, she doesn't have cancer, mistreating her family and all these kinds of terrible things that she's doing with absolutely no remorse, just with alacrity. [01:28:56] Speaker B: Yes. I've since moved on to your last recommendation earlier on, Stinky Mike, what was it called? [01:29:02] Speaker A: Dirty John. [01:29:03] Speaker B: Dirty Tom, whatever. It's called Dirty John, and I'm noticing a pattern. Right. And if podcasts are going to be like this, then I don't think they're for me. Right. [01:29:12] Speaker A: Okay. [01:29:16] Speaker B: Mike was a short man who wore lurid shirts and a bright green wig and a red nose that would honk. And he was often seen to wear a false flower on his lapel that he would squirt people with water. And then you'll cut to a girl going, we were so shocked. He turned out to be a clown. You know what I mean? I'm really sorry to go down this route. Right. But were I one of the fucking people in this podcast, I would simply have seen the deceit coming a mile away. Right. [01:29:52] Speaker A: Yeah. There was something else that, oh, when I had you watch that cult documentary, and I think this is fascinating because I find this to be. What's so interesting about these things is that I'm like, I simply cannot fathom it. So I want to hear and see the process, whereas you hate that. I do not want to know how these people were duped, because it drives me crazy, and I don't think it would happen to me. I am so interested in the psychology. [01:30:18] Speaker B: Of how I've listened to the first episode of Smelly Dave today, right? And they've spent the entire episode building up this obvious fucking huckster of a fella. [01:30:32] Speaker A: But you have to realize they weren't listening to a podcast when they encountered this. They mean have the information. [01:30:41] Speaker B: If the journalistic rigor is to be relied upon, then you're a bunch of rubes. I'm sorry if you fell for Dirty Dave. [01:30:52] Speaker A: The thing about that story is, to a degree that is sorry. Kind of what it's about. When someone really wants to believe in someone and is searching for something, how much you will let your guard down, even when there are red flags around you. And you see in that one, like her family catching on, people in the vicinity being like, yo, this is a problem. But this sort of woman at the center of this being like, I don't see it. And being willing to make bad choices in order to keep this guy in her life. [01:31:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I think you've hit the nail on the head there. It's just the size and the scale of the bad choices. [01:31:38] Speaker A: Right. You have to put yourself in the mindset of someone who's very, just desperate. [01:31:42] Speaker B: Yes. Someone who has a yearning. [01:31:44] Speaker A: Exactly. And so I find that kind of stuff fascinating. The other one that I had recommended to you is less like that and more just insane. The teacher's pet. Sorry, I think my caught. My allergy pill wore off, so now it was like a twelve hour allergy pill I took 12 hours ago. [01:32:06] Speaker B: We'll do that one. [01:32:07] Speaker A: I might, but crush it up and. [01:32:10] Speaker B: Rail it with your old fashioned. [01:32:15] Speaker A: THe teacher's pet one, I think is like super fascinating because that one revolves around the disappearance of this woman in Australia like 30 years ago. And then sort of what is uncovered over the course of trying to figure out what happened here is this strange relationship between these two twin men and then this weird school situation in which the teachers were having sex with the students, and it was just sort of an accepted part of the school situation, and this spirals into a whole bunch of bananas stuff. And the podcast, eventually I listened to it when it came out, so I was like, you didn't really know what was going to happen, but they actually ended up arresting and trying and finding this man guilty of this murder that has been unsolved for 30 years as a direct result of this podcast, which is pretty cool. [01:33:11] Speaker B: One day we'll get one of those. We're going to get a hit on one of those. [01:33:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it's definitely going to be us who finds out. Your own backyard was another podcast that did that thing from the early ninety S. The guy deep dived into it and now they have convicted the man who killed this girl. So that happens from time to time. But I think teacher's pet is more your speed than your own backyard is. [01:33:34] Speaker B: I'll give Smelly Eric another couple of episodes. [01:33:37] Speaker A: Yeah, give it a try. See if it warms up. But I do know that's a thing about you that you don't like is like with Scamanda, you can see how she deceived everyone, but it also feels. [01:33:51] Speaker B: Very know, which was a huge element. [01:33:56] Speaker A: Yes, of course, I've known people who have, maybe not to that degree, but done very similar things on a smaller scale in evangelical churches. Absolutely. That kind of sociopathy is huge in the church. [01:34:10] Speaker B: Huge. So much to cover. Do you know what? Three years under our belt and yet so much. [01:34:19] Speaker A: Still got so much more. [01:34:21] Speaker B: So much more to come. So that was my week in watches and listens anyway. [01:34:29] Speaker A: Amazing. [01:34:30] Speaker B: Yeah, it was good. [01:34:31] Speaker A: Great week. It's as if when I'm away and can't distract you by making you do snacks and things like that, you get to watch movies. [01:34:37] Speaker B: Watch movies. Just enjoy my life. [01:34:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:34:41] Speaker B: It's been fun texting back and forth with Alan as he is currently watching House of Usher. [01:34:48] Speaker A: Oh, nice. [01:34:49] Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, as each episode passes, he's given me his reactions. And, yeah, it isn't just us, it's universally acclaimed. He even said, and I don't think he's seen our snack on House of Usher. He even said, fucking hell, Mike Flanagan, he could really bring Freddie back into something. [01:35:09] Speaker A: There it is. [01:35:09] Speaker B: So that's two of us. [01:35:11] Speaker A: Come on. [01:35:15] Speaker B: So listen to our main topic. Okay. Now word has reached us here in universe C 1463 Sigma, that your version of Jo Ag over there is quite a downer and that your version of us talks a lot about how everything's fine if you just accept that, you're fucked. Yeah. If you can find just a space to work within where you're accepting of the fact that we've made as a collective, as a race, the wrong choices repeatedly now for hundreds and hundreds of years, and we have reaped, and now we're sowing. I guess that's what your version of Jo Ag speaks about a lot. [01:36:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:36:02] Speaker B: See, we come from a different place here in our realm and we think more about what we're getting right and what's improving. [01:36:12] Speaker A: Yes, definitely. [01:36:13] Speaker B: And I kind of thought that maybe you might like us to share that with you today as you hit play and as you go about your day and as you look around, there's a lot to be positive about, there's a lot to look forward to, there's a lot to feel optimistic about. And maybe, right, just maybe things aren't as fucked as those two jokers from your dimension would have you believe. [01:36:37] Speaker A: I think it's time we set them straight. [01:36:39] Speaker B: I completely agree. I mean, where to even begin, right? Even if you want to talk about just the basic things like life expectancy, right? Just a couple of examples, right? In the US, would you care to hazard a guess for me of what the current life expectancy is in the United States? [01:37:01] Speaker A: 70. Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. Give me. What's my 74? [01:37:09] Speaker B: It's actually 79. Don't you know? [01:37:11] Speaker A: 79. I was going 79. I knew which I was like, it's either twice my age, MiNus one, or plus one, something like that. [01:37:21] Speaker B: There's a little way of working it out, is there? I didn't know that. [01:37:24] Speaker A: No, it was just that I happened to look it up recently. [01:37:26] Speaker B: Oh, I see. Great mind. It's 81 over here in the UK. It's 72 in Egypt, it's 73 in Bangladesh. And that's all on an upward trend. Even developing countries, even Afghanistan, fucking Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, China, all of these everywhere pretty much is showing a marked increase in life expectancy between. If you go back from the right, and that's got to be a good thing. [01:37:58] Speaker A: Feel like that's a good thing. I think most people would like to live a little longer, as I'm sure. [01:38:04] Speaker B: You are, in that dimension. If you're treating your planet great, like we are over here, obviously, and you've kept your resources, like obviously you're going to do that. That's a great thing. Not ridiculous, but things as fundamental as clean air, right? Indoor fucking air, pollution. If you fucking your air, the quality of the very air we breathe has just, again, since the 90s, increased massively. Things like just increased income in your low income countries, global economic growth, that transition that the world is currently in from things you burn to make things go, to things that you don't have to burn to make things go. That is increasing the quality of the fucking. The very air that we breathe, like. [01:38:55] Speaker A: Globally, also sort of brings back a thing that we have discussed before, the idea of lead, right? I mean, think of that, since the fact that our brains are better off now than they were for our parents, simply because there isn't lead in our gas and in our paint and in all those things that gets into the air, gets into the water, and literally changes our brains, changes our brain chemistry. Fundamental and terrible ways. We don't deal with that. That's pretty cool. [01:39:31] Speaker B: The life that we live, the air that we breathe, the fucking food that we eat. Famine is globally reduced. The way that we look at disease vaccination. I love this fucking stat. Vaccination, as a science, is credited with saving over a billion lives. And just the smallpox vaccine alone. Right? Just the smallpox vaccine. Saves estimate around 5 million lives every single year. [01:40:00] Speaker A: Incredible. [01:40:00] Speaker B: Just that. [01:40:02] Speaker A: Wow. [01:40:04] Speaker B: That's a good thing because that's what we talk about here on Jack, of all graves. We talk about the fucking good stuff that we've done. Literacy. Isn't it great to be able to pick up and read a book? I don't know about your Joag, but Corey runs a book club in ours, and everyone who attends can read the books. Is that right? [01:40:21] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. [01:40:23] Speaker B: It's a wonderful thing. What if I told you that. Go on, please. [01:40:26] Speaker A: Is this a literacy fact? Because I can wait after you deliver. Okay. Tell the literacy fact, and then I'll. [01:40:30] Speaker B: Tell you just this. That go back to 1800. Right. And I could tell you that global literacy was 12%. [01:40:38] Speaker A: Wow. [01:40:39] Speaker B: In 1800, across the planet, 12% of people could read. [01:40:45] Speaker A: Amazing. [01:40:47] Speaker B: Which is a nice, healthy 87% in 2020. [01:40:50] Speaker A: Wow. The thing I wanted to mention is that, again, looking back fairly recently, I remember literacy still being in America, a thing that we were fundamentally trying to tackle when I was a kid and my dad started a program that does still exist in Western Massachusetts called the Literacy Project that your dad did. My dad did, yes. That the whole point was to help with adult literacy and sort of fill the gaps for people who had managed to make it into adulthood without the ability to read. And, yeah, the program still exists, but obviously much smaller than 30, 40 years ago when he started it. And you had people from who had grown up in the 40s, things like that, who might have been able to get by without it. So it's a much lesser problem that even I have seen in my own life from having my dad be a part of that. [01:41:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I never knew that. I'd like to talk more on that at some point. The only adult I've ever met who was unable to read was my Uncle Sid. [01:41:59] Speaker A: Oh, interesting. [01:42:01] Speaker B: Have we ever spoke about Uncle Sid? [01:42:04] Speaker A: No, this is the first I'm hearing about Uncle Sid. [01:42:07] Speaker B: Interesting. We'll talk off Pod about Uncle Sid. [01:42:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm very interested in Uncle Sid. But on this note specifically, could he not read at all? [01:42:20] Speaker B: No, he couldn't. And he couldn't speak Welsh either, right? Yet he would religiously watch a Welsh soap opera over here called Pob Olicum. I'm familiar in Welsh language with English subtitles. He got very little from that. [01:42:34] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean you don't understand language it's spoken in and you can't read the subtitle. Yes, that's fascinating, isn't it? [01:42:43] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. Again, there's a fucking episode to be had on Uncle Sid, I'll tell you. Okay, so, yes, just fundamental cool stuff like that. Everyone's reading the air that is broadly cleaner to breathe. Broadly, people are living longer. Broadly extreme poverty. Fucking hell. I mean pre industrial extreme poverty, by which we say people are living on like a dollar a fucking day, you know what I mean? That kind of super poverty that's gone down from pre industry 90% globally extreme poverty to mid two thousand and ten s. Nine point five percent. [01:43:25] Speaker A: Wow. [01:43:26] Speaker B: Just plummeted. [01:43:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:43:30] Speaker B: We're getting stuff right? We are getting stuff right. There's a lot to be fucking positive about. I mentioned energy earlier on the transition that we're on towards burning stuff to make stuff go. To not burning stuff to make stuff go. The adoption globally of renewable energy has outpaced even some of the most, the most optimistic tradition predictions, right? Wow. The International Energy Agency, right, we globally exceeded their forecast for solar energy generation by 2030. We exceeded that in 2018. [01:44:13] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [01:44:14] Speaker B: Yes, solar. And there are loads of costs driving that down, the falling costs of building solar panels. Right. The transition is tough, but it's fucking happening. [01:44:29] Speaker A: And I know we get like, I don't know about over there, but here in New Jersey and probably in a lot of states around the United States, you get a lot of discounts and tax breaks and things like that if you do install solar. So there's more incentives for people to do that as well, along with how much you save on bills and all that kind of stuff. So I'm sure all these things put together has helped to speed up the adoption of that in ways they weren't. [01:44:51] Speaker B: Necessarily expected just in the space of a decade, right? So in 2010, wind and solar combined accounted for just less than 2% of global letty generation. Right? That is that 2010, okay? By last year, by 2022, it's now 8.7%. And that's outpacing so many predictions. It's almost as though, is it a social contagion thing? Is the message fucking landing is the message fucking landing. I'd love to think it is in your dimension, because it certainly is in ours. So I bring to you a message of hope and peace. [01:45:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Because that's the thing, I think, amongst people, largely, we're all on board for this, right? If it was offered apart from Shell. Apart from. Well, that's exactly it, right? Like, if you take the corporations out of it, who are insistent that we keep on relying on fossil fuels, if instead what was being offered to us for the same prices and stuff like that was solar, was things that were cleaner, I think most people would be like, yes. Aside from those people who just knee jerk think like, oh, you're trying to take away my gas stove. Over my dead body. There's always going to be the people who think it's fascism to clean up at all. [01:46:15] Speaker B: Did we talk about the Fortnite fucking debacle? [01:46:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Was it Shell? [01:46:21] Speaker B: It was. It was Shell. It was Shell, yeah. In the game, paying influencers and designing a Fortnite map with a little shell garage in the middle. [01:46:31] Speaker A: And it's even like, earlier this year, there was that whole thing with influencers, like TikTok influencers going to the. What's that huge sheen factory. [01:46:46] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:46:47] Speaker A: They paid all of these influencers, especially, like, queer and influencers of color and stuff like that, to make it look really cool. Invited them to the factories and had them walk around and talk about how amazing it is, and they are really ethical and responsible and look at how happy everyone is who works here. And you're like, bro, what? You really think they showed you the real stuff for real? [01:47:11] Speaker B: Oh, you think that's why you're paying like eight pounds 99 for a fucking jacket? Really? [01:47:17] Speaker A: Right, exactly. Come on, get your shit together. But it's like, I think given the opportunity and ethical stuff is never going to cost what Sheen does or what that new one with the purple packaging that everyone's using costs. Clearly exploitative thing that people don't want to acknowledge is exploitative. Like, no, it's fine. You can totally get a computer for nine cents, and that is definitely of above board. But, yeah, I think most people would rather do the thing that is going to be better for the environment when given the chance. We understand we all have to live here. We've got these growing life expectancies. We would really like for the end of those to be super chill and cool. And I think for the most part, yeah, if you give us the chance to do the solar energy, to have the good things without burning fuels and making a mess of stuff we choose that. [01:48:30] Speaker B: Sometimes one can give into optimism. It's nice sometimes to look outside of, to take off the fucking. The dread blinkers, and to wonder that maybe we might not be that inexorably fucked. Maybe we are unraveling it slowly. Maybe we are. [01:48:53] Speaker A: I like that idea. And I think we do need that reminder. [01:48:58] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, let me ask you this, if I may. We know that at least our Joag, it's as much about us as it is about the topics that we talk about, right? We've unpicked a lot with one another on this podcast. We've talked through a lot. I'd love to know what you're proud of, what trajectory you're happiest about in your life currently. What do you think you're nailing and what gives you optimism, Corey, right now? What gives you cause to go? Do you know what? Fucking hell. I think things are going to be know. [01:49:38] Speaker A: I think in my personal, like, it can be stressful to look outward sometimes. And, you know that I'm a kind of person who has to speak up and be activist about things and all that kind of stuff. I can't sort of sit quietly with things and that can get really stressful. But I consider that to be my social responsibility or whatever. And that's a thing that I am proud of that I think is good. I think that it is a plus that I'm willing to lose it all or whatever and take risks for the things I think are right. I think that that's a good thing. [01:50:16] Speaker B: It's one of the things that first made me a friend of yours. It's one of the things that leapt out at me. [01:50:25] Speaker A: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. [01:50:26] Speaker B: True. [01:50:28] Speaker A: But on a personal level, I think we've talked over time of how I've said how it's so nice to be able to be like, I'm a writer when I actually am. It's not aspirational. That's my job, things like that. And just overall, I think the world is crazy and there's a lot going on that bothers me and all that kind of stuff. But in my actual life, I am very content. I live in a home that I really like. Everything is not perfect in here. My mother drives me crazy, things like that. But I love my house. I love the town that I live in. I love that I get the opportunity to travel and that I get know, go to England and see my friends over there. That I get to see my friends here scattered around the. That, you know, I am very content to not do anything, really. Maybe occasionally go out to a pub quiz, but mostly just sit at home and read and hug my dog and watch a movie and play a video game or whatever, and that I just feel in a good place in general. That's the kind of thing that makes me feel like that things are okay. [01:51:51] Speaker B: There were one or two moments in, like, the first year or so of Joag where it felt to me as though your anxiety was kind of really leading you by. The leading you by. It was behind the wheel, it was taking control, right? [01:52:09] Speaker A: Yes, very much so. To the time that I had a panic attack while we were talking and you had to talk me off the ledge. [01:52:14] Speaker B: Exactly. But, I mean, hey, we had COVID, for fuck's sake, come on. If you can't allow yourself a little bit of anxiety during, then when can you? [01:52:23] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And I think I've learned to through all of that, and I think, honestly, talking like this every week has been a big help. Kind of work through it to the point where I can approach the world and be passionate about trying to change it and passionate about the issues that are going on without that meaning that I fall apart. Yes. [01:52:42] Speaker B: And I think that's of you. [01:52:44] Speaker A: Yeah. I think that's what the balance that, ideally, we all want to strike is to never stop being angry about the things that matter, never stop being passionate about things that matter, but to be able to recharge and be okay so that those things don't cause you to be having panic attacks on the Internet. [01:53:04] Speaker B: Completely. [01:53:05] Speaker A: What about you? [01:53:09] Speaker B: It's a hell of a question. I mean, I get a lot of satisfaction and a lot of pride out of the fact that we are now over three years on and still running. Right. [01:53:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:53:24] Speaker B: The fact that pre Joag. Right. I thought of myself as quite a creative guy, but I actually demonstrably am now. Yes. You know what I mean? [01:53:36] Speaker A: Very much so, yeah. [01:53:37] Speaker B: Putting this together and broadcasting this and maintaining this over these years through some peaks and troughs, through some personal fucking highs and lows, this constant that we've managed to maintain and sustain here. I get no end of pride out of the fact that we've hosted fucking panels. The circle of people I know has expanded globally. I'm super proud of Joak. I'm super fucking proud of it. And alongside the pride I feel in my family and just keeping myself together, often with fucking cellotape and string. But this has been a North Star for me, this podcast, and I'm really, really proud that we're still going on here. [01:54:28] Speaker A: 100% agree with you on that. [01:54:30] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. [01:54:32] Speaker A: Oh, go ahead. [01:54:33] Speaker B: No, please. [01:54:34] Speaker A: No. I was just going to lead you towards your story. You had one more thing you wanted to tell us about here. [01:54:44] Speaker B: The tale, which I'm about to weave, carries a whiff of Apocrypha about it. [01:54:49] Speaker A: Right, okay. [01:54:50] Speaker B: But there are lots of sources here which back up everything that happened to a Croatian fella by the name of Freno Selak. Right? [01:54:58] Speaker A: All right. [01:54:59] Speaker B: A guy who could be seen as either the luckiest guy you've ever fucking heard of or not, or the unluckiest guy you've ever fucking heard of. He's had a lot of brushes with death, right? Freyno Selak, starting way back in 1962 when a train that he was on crashed on his way to Dubrovnik. The train derailed, plunged into a river, killed 17 people. Oh, yeah. But he swammed ashore with minor injuries. Right? Literally walked away. [01:55:32] Speaker A: Do you know how old he was at the time? Was he an adult? [01:55:35] Speaker B: He was young. He was young. He was young. I think he's still alive. But the very next year, he survived a fucking plane crash. [01:55:45] Speaker A: Oh, what? [01:55:46] Speaker B: Yes. On a plane that was en route from Zagreb to Rika. And despite being depressurized and having fell a fucking huge distance, he landed on a haystack in a barn and fucking survived. [01:56:03] Speaker A: Right? [01:56:04] Speaker B: This is where it gets credulity. Right? But this isn't just this guy saying this. This plane crash happened. That train wreck happened. Some years later, our boy Freyno was in a bus accident. Right? He was on a public transport. [01:56:20] Speaker A: He did the whole planes, trains, and automobiles. [01:56:23] Speaker B: The trifecta. [01:56:24] Speaker A: The trifecta. [01:56:25] Speaker B: The trifecta of transport tragedy. Wow, that was some J. Jonah Jameson shit right there. [01:56:32] Speaker A: Pretty impressive. [01:56:35] Speaker B: He was on a bus which skidded off the road into a river. Again, four dead, four drowned. He swims to safety, walks away. [01:56:42] Speaker A: Wow. [01:56:44] Speaker B: Years later, like 1973, and then, like a decade or two later, in 1995, he was involved in two separate car accidents. Two separate kind of large scale cars. [01:56:54] Speaker A: Like, I'd just be walking at this point. [01:56:58] Speaker B: He was hit himself. He was hit himself by a bus in 1996. [01:57:02] Speaker A: Oh, well, okay, yeah, guess that takes walking out as well. [01:57:06] Speaker B: But here's the thing. In 2003, he won the fucking Croatian lottery, dude, and wins thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars, which he used to enjoy his retirement, chill out, help his friends and family. [01:57:29] Speaker A: He's got himself locked in a room, like, clear from final destination, like Magneto. Yeah, nothing's going to touch me. [01:57:37] Speaker B: So, yes, if your hosts of Joag often tell tales of tragedy and bad coincidence and things that go wrong for no reason. The world being just cruel for no fucking reason. Keep in mind that the opposite also is true, and that the world can be fucking good to you for no reason at all. It can bestow just as much as it can giveth away. Luck is a thing, yes, and it sometimes goes your way. And I'd like to end, if we may, with a quote. The Desidorata is a fucking. A trope by now, right? A poem by Max Ehrman from 1921. But it's got one particular quote which resonates with me at this fucking time in my life and this day of my life, this evening. And it just simply says, be gentle with yourself. You're a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. [01:58:42] Speaker A: I love that. [01:58:45] Speaker B: So, friends, as our signal fades, as our interdimensional link becomes unstable, and as I fear we are soon to lose the broadcast, there's one thing that I'd love you to do, if you can, for Corey and I across the subdimensional fucking space Network. And that Corey is stay lucky.