Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: You can think of this little tail that I'm about to weave, weave, spin, spin a yarn, weave a tail. Fuck it, who cares? You can think of this as a kind of spiritual sequel to an opener of yours from some point last year. Remember the guy who nearly started a wall with a wrench? Dropped a wrench in a fucking nuclear bunker. Remember that guy?
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Yes. This was like two or three years ago, so. But, yeah, yeah, go on.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Look at my cognitive functions, man. Look how remembering synapses and neurons just so good. It's probably. I know, I think it's really good to know that for every dickhead with a wrench, there's somebody else who is preventing wars by the seat of their pants, you know, by the tips of their fingernails. Um, so come with me. That said, come with me, if you would, all of you. Welcome, listeners. Welcome, welcome. Come with me, if you would, to, uh. September 1983.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Oh, I think I know what you're going to talk about now.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, let's see.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Go on, go on.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: We're in the tense heart of a cold war here.
Um, humanity was kind of laboring, mostly unaware, with the sort of damocles of nuclear war fucking dangling over them.
And one night, for one night in September 1983, one single fucking dude stood between the world and nuclear Armageddon. Nuclear fucking all out intercontinental fucking nuclear war, if you can believe that shit.
I'm gonna introduce you to a fellow by the name of Stanislav Petrov.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Good name. Good name. Strong name.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Strong name to give him his full name. Stanislav Yevgrovich Petrov.
Born 1939. A military family. His dad was a world War two pilot.
His mother was a nurse. You know, contributing, helping the war effort.
Just an entire life spent in the military. He enrolled at the Kiev military engineering Academy in the soviet air force. And after he graduated in 72, he joined the soviet air defense. And he found himself in a role overseeing a brand new early warning system, which was designed to detect ballistic missile attacks globally. Okay, okay.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Now, September 83 was tense as fuck, right? It was. We are talking knife edge shit.
At the start of September, right at the start of September, a passenger plane, a south korean passenger plane, strayed into soviet airspace, which they shot down.
Yes, indeed, 269 people died, many among them Americans.
Obviously, as you'd imagine, international outrage, fucking already fractious relationships between the US and the soviet republic. At the time, the kind of nuclear arms race on both sides was in full flight as well. The states have deployed new. You know, the states had deployed nuclear missiles in Europe, which were able to reach soviet territory, the Soviets were doing the same. They were modernizing their own kind of nuclear arsenal negotiations. There was a pact called start strategic arms reduction talks that had completely died on its ass. No progress in arms control. Things were fucking.
Things were super tense. Super tense military exercises. Everything felt like it was escalating.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: Mm hmm.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: So on a frigid, crisp night in September 1983, Stanislav, our boy at the time, a lieutenant colonel, like I said, in the soviet air Defense force, he was on a routine morning shift.
And this system that he was monitoring, a early warning kind of satellite system, like I said, detecting inter ballistic missiles launched from the United States using high orbit satellites, picking up heat signatures, right? Super fucking at the time, space age stuff. And at exactly 20 to one Moscow time, am, the fucking early warning system starts blaring an alarm. Right?
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Telling Stanislav that a single us intercontinental ballistic missile launch was in progress towards the Soviet Union.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: What would that like? Do you have any sense of what that would mean? Like, are we talking about something that, like, you know, this destroys all of Russia if it hits? Or, like, you know, what, what would, what kind of missile are we talking about here?
[00:05:08] Speaker A: Well, based on the. The kind of the arms that the states was deploying and based on the kind of arms that, you know, there's that phrase mutually assured destruction, isn't it? Right? Yeah.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Yeah. The issue is not necessarily the one missile, but it's the missiles that fired.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: Back and forth and all that kind of stuff. The protocol. The protocol would have meant that Stanislav would have immediately have to have escalated this up to the chain of command. Like, straight away. Straight away, pick up the fucking red phone.
You know what I mean? That kind of fucking thing.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: But cool. His cool fucking head took charge, right? Because he knew a fucking what. Something didn't sit right. The fact that it was a single missile. The fact that it was a single missile launch scenario at 01:00 a.m. At fucking quarter to one in the morning. That just didn't sit right. He knew from the modeling, from the exercises, from the training, that any attack from the US would be much more likely to involve fucking a barrage, shock and awe. You know what I mean?
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. Cause if you're gonna, like. That's the thing about mutually assured destruction. Like, if you're gonna push the button, you better be sure they can't push a button back. So it would make absolutely no sense to just be like, pew, and cause nuclear war.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: To quote starship troopers, the enemy cannot push a button if you remove his hand or paraphrase exactly.
So he's considering the climate. He's considering the fucking. Hang on, this seems fucky.
Launching. He knew that launching a nuclear response based on a single fucking indicator didn't seem logical. But it escalated. Right? Just minutes after that first alarm, the signal pinged again to indicate four more ICBM's were on their way.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:06:58] Speaker A: Which all that did for sanisab was to think, hang on, this. This. Why would they just launch one and then another four, right? The weight of pressure on this guy's shoulders at this point, the potential.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: Fucking.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Imagine the consequences.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
Cause you're talking about like an entire judgment call here at this point. You know, like, do I trust the machine? You know, that it's supposed to be telling me these things? Or do I trust my training that says this doesn't fucking make sense? And if I'm wrong, oh, boy.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: If I'm wrong, nuclear fucking winter and the end of society as we know, right?
[00:07:40] Speaker B: We would not be worrying about climate change right now if we certainly wouldn't. If that had happened, we'd be fighting.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: Off cockroaches the size of cows, right?
We'd be in fallout at the, which starts next week. And I'm so hype.
So, um, thank fuck for all of us. The Petrov made that call, made that critical decision, chose not to report the warnings to his superiors.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: So did he just straight up not say anything? Or did he. He make a call and go like, there's a thing, but I don't think it's a thing. He just didn't.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: He chose to not report it at all.
And as we now know, thank fuck no missiles were ever launched. That satellite system, that early warning system, had misinterpreted signals from sunlight reflecting off of cloud cover.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: Jesus Christ.
[00:08:33] Speaker A: How fucked is that?
[00:08:34] Speaker B: That's insane.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: How fucked is that?
[00:08:38] Speaker B: The text, like, this is, what was the thing when we talked about the. The wrench that almost nuked Arkansas? If you. It's on YouTube. If you want to look that up and just hear that story again. Cause it's crazy.
But the thing being that it's like one person makes one mistake or avoids one mistake, and this is the fine line between our total destruction and life as we know it moving on without us being any the wiser, that happened.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: Corrigan listeners, that is exactly the takeaway from this.
When the stakes are so high, when the stakes couldn't possibly fucking be any higher. The highest stakes often depend upon ropey equipment.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Mm hmm.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: And on in the moment, fucking improvisational judgment of individuals and you'd really hope it's someone like.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: What was his name? Stanislav.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: His name is, I believe, Stanislav Petrov. I believe he's still alive. He was born in 1939.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: I think he still draws breath today.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I think there was something. I don't know if it was like an anniversary or something like that, but like a year or two ago, I remember there being, you know, sort of a revitalization of his story and hearing he was still, still around. And he did interviews and all that kind of stuff about it.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: Let's go ahead and call it a staniversary.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: Stanniversary.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: It was a stanniversary. And just as a little kind of, you know, bookend to this, he was fucking heavily reprimanded, of course, after the event, you know, it was perceived by his superiors as a fail in the chain of command that he didn't support it. Obviously, he was recognized hugely. Later on, he won awards. He won the future of life award, the Dresden Peace Prize. It was recognized what he'd done.
But at the time, you know, you gotta follow those orders.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think what's amazing about that, too, is that, like, of course, he was reprimanded at the time for. Yeah. Breakdown of the chain of command and all that kind of stuff. And making a judgment call that absolutely wasn't his job to make. But also as a result of that, that this is a person like a Soviet who the Americans recognize as a hero. We don't talk a whole lot about, like, soviet heroes these days.
Like, you know, a guy that, like, I mean, the whole world, obviously, but particularly that the United States recognizes as, like, you know, this guy. This guy saved all of our asses. And that's worth celebrating is, you know. Yep, it's kind of a big deal.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: It's a yin to the yang of your other story, isn't it? You know, I mean, one dude can drop a wrench and fuck the world, and one guy could make a fucking call in a heartbeat, which saves it. Crazy stuff.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: We're on a knife's edge. Dear friends.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Yes, please do.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Fucking look at these nerds. Oh, mise en scene.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: I don't think anyone has ever said mise en scene in such a horny way before.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: The way I whispered the word sex cannibal routine.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: Worst comes to worst, mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. It's cold outside, but my pancreas is talking to me. I'm fucking. I'm gonna leave.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: You know how I feel about that, Mark.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: I think you feel great about it.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: Mark.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: Hello.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: Have you. Have you felt, like, a little, like, off lately? Like a little wonky or out of sorts? You know, past week or so.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: Oh, right. Okay. I mean, if by lately you mean like the last kind of 30, 35 years. Yes.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: Short. Yep.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
Well, in the last week or so, I wouldn't say any more than usual. No, I'm actually. I've had a week off work. I'm feeling pretty good, actually, if you must know.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: Interesting.
Why'd you ask?
[00:12:39] Speaker B: A lot of people have been having, you know, just like a real fucky sort of week behind them. You know, just like a lot of bad stuff seems to be happening to a lot of people. And there's, you know, there's a really simple explanation for that.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Well, hang on. Let's just.
I mean, to break this down. Gigantic earthquake in Taiwan. Two earthquakes in the States. States.
[00:13:03] Speaker B: True.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: An eclipse for you guys tomorrow.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: It's hard not to ascribe this to the upcoming rapture. That seems to me to be what is going on.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: I mean, listen, anything is on the table between April 1 and April 24.
So maybe the rapture is coming because Mark Mercury is in retrograde.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: Ah, fuck. No, not again.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Yep, yep. Merch Mercury is in retrograde in Aries right now. According to the. In Aries on top of everything. I mean, fuck, man.
According to the astrologers. So, you know, all of these kinds of things, this. These earthquakes. And if you lost your keys or, you know, fell on the sidewalk or got dumped, you can go ahead and blame that mischievous little planet for all of these shenanigans that have been happening.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: It's a phrase I've heard, obviously. I've got no fucking clue what it means.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. Neither do astrologers, because they don't science.
You know, I hate astrology in general. I have no time for such, obviously not real superstition.
And I get that there's a cultural practice to this, and that's fine. Practice what your ancestors practice. But all of these fucking white people who are into astrology and stuff, I'm just like, why? Why is this a thing? Grinds my gears. But all that aside, I'm sorry, you have something to say?
[00:14:42] Speaker A: Nah. No, I don't really have something to say. But, I mean, astrology is.
I'm putting all of this in one bucket, right? And I think it's fine to have believed in astrology when we didn't know what electricity was.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: Right, yeah.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: You know?
[00:15:00] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:15:01] Speaker A: And when we were, like, you know, tanning animal hides with piss.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: For our clothing, and we all had boils.
You know what I mean? That kind of thing.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: Right?
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: You had to explain that shit somehow. Like, yes. You know, and that's the thing, is, like, there are various cultures that have something akin to astrology. And I remember, like, my best friend from high school, Chelsea, like, her dad was hindu, and, you know, he had, like, a birth chart made for him when he was, you know, born, which apparently said that, like, he was going to die in water, so he was, like, terrified of swimming his whole life. He had a pool in his backyard and, like, never went in it.
I think eventually he finally kind of got over that. I can't remember if I've ever seen him in the pool or not, but I feel like maybe he'd at least get into his waist. But it exists in various societies. It's a cultural practice or whatever. And there's a degree to which I'm like, if you're carrying on your cultural traditions, fine, but like you said, the.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: Day and manner of your passing, would you want to know in advance?
[00:16:15] Speaker B: I think if my thought process is, if it were like, I might want to know the day, if it was going to impact how I interacted with the world, if it's like, I'm going to die at 39, then I might want to get all Tim McGraw on it. Live like you were dying. Go out there and go skydiving, rocky mountain climbing, you know, all that kind of stuff.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: Like, I don't know that song, but I love it.
[00:16:52] Speaker B: You know, all that. That kind of stuff. But, like, if I'm going to die like a normal age, then it's like, yeah, let it, let it, let it ride. We'll figure it out when we get there.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: I'd want to know. You're probably not surprised to hear that, but.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: No, I'm not surprised.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: I'd be like, tell me, tell me, tell me.
I think it would be hilarious. I think it'd be really funny to know.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: I think you think that, but I think your stress would be through the roof about that.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: I wouldn't tell anyone. I'd find out, and I'd totally keep it to myself.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: I could definitely see that you do tend to keep things pretty close to the vest in that way.
Yeah, I don't know, but either way, an astrologer can't tell us that kind of thing.
[00:17:40] Speaker A: No, an astrologer can't tell us shit about shit.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Including about Mercury retrograde. Because what really gets to me about Mercury retrograde is that it's literally not real. Planets are real, right? Like you know, you can, you can say like oh the planets tell me this or whatever and it's like fine, like Earth exists, Venus exists, things like that. Mercury retrograde does not exists.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: Just a couple of words together.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: That sounds weird, at least not in the way astrology folks think it does.
It's literally an optical illusion. It's like saying you looked at a magic eye and all of a sudden you had bad luck. Only even more ridiculous because the vast majority of the people worried about it aren't even out there looking up and seeing it, nor would they recognize the difference.
[00:18:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: Let me read you this explanation from the Atlantic.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Yes please.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: Mercury in retrograde doesnt mean theres anything funky happening with the planets actual orbit. Its all about the way it appears to us in the sky as a tiny white dot in the dusky hours after sunset and before sunrise, says David Rothri, a planetary scientist at the Open University in England. Most of the time, Mercury moves from west to east relative to the stars in the night sky. But several times each year, the steady progression changes, moving from east to west instead. The reason has to do with the relative positions of Mercury and Earth around the sun. Mercury orbits closer to the sun than Earth does, which means the small planet travels much faster around the star, circling it in just 88 Earth days compared to our 365. Obviously that swiftness means that Mercury occasionally laps the Earth on our planets own journey around the sun, overtaking us on the inside track. And when that happens. Okay.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: That tiny white dot in our sky appears to reverse course and move little by little each night in the opposite direction.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: Mercury retrograde.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: Eventually Earth catches up and Mercury appears to switch direction again, becoming prograde.
Mercury because the orbit is 88 days, this happens three to four times every year. That suddenly Mercury looks how many times? Like it's going the wrong three to four times a year.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: All right. Okay.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: So it's about our vantage point. It looks like something has changed from our vantage point on Earth when nothing has actually changed in Mercury's orbit. If its orbit actually changed and started moving backwards, that would be concerning when planets orbits should not change.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it's father Ted explaining to Dougal about the cows, isn't it?
[00:20:23] Speaker B: I don't remember that one. I haven't watched Father Ted since I was like twelve.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Arthur. Ted. Famously written solely by Arthur Matthews. Obviously. It's very famous. It had a big Internet footprint. His explanation of cowsdougal, you see, those cows are near and those cows are far away. To explain the difference in size of some cows to others. It's that.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Right, exactly. And further, this happens with other planets too. Too, because of the different orbit speeds of the various planets in our solar system. Like I said, if it's closer, it's going to go around it much quicker, farther away. It goes much slower. So at some points we overtake Mars, for example, which makes it look like it's moving backwards. Discover magazine likens us to when you overtake a slower car while driving and it looks like the other car is either not moving or moving backwards.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: Yes. We don't say car retrograde, do we? It's just sitting there moving at a distance car. We just.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: Yeah, we are two different objects moving the same direction at different speeds, right?
So, like, literally the only way it could even plausibly affect you is if you are just sitting every night staring at the sky and suddenly realize, hey, that looks like it's going the opposite direction.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: I can easily believe a lot of people are doing that at night, but.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: They'Re not just gulping at the fucking sky. And then imagine that, like, somehow that, like, deeply disorients you or something to the point where, like, now, you know.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: You'Re crashing your car into things and.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Like, you know, you can't communicate with people anymore. Like, a lot of the stuff with mercury retrograde is about communication. The idea in astrology is that mercury is connected with, like, messages, you know, and communication. So, like, this is why people break up and, you know, work. Shit goes wonky. No, I know it's not.
I'm telling you what people believe within astrology, not what real life is.
But this is, you know, this is the belief behind it. But one of the really interesting things that I read that was just like an aside in one of these articles, which also, like, I was reading various things. And what, again, this really grinds my gears. Like, I read one article that was like explaining mercury retrograde. And it first was like, now the orbit doesn't change. That's what happens. Or whatever. Like, but then it went on to say. It went on to say that, but mercury speeds up at this time of year. And I was like, refinery 29, bad job. Really bad job on that.
And there was one, like, on howstuffworks.com that was talking about how, like, you know, yeah, there's a lot of myths about mercury retrograde, but things we do know is that, like, this is a really bad time to change jobs because of blah, blah. And it's like, are you fucking kidding me?
[00:23:17] Speaker A: I. I've used info from how stuff works in the past.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: I've used them as a source that's. I've considered them reliable. And I read that article and was like, oh, my God, that's. Holy shit.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: All right, let's try and be charitable. Is there an element of self fulfilling prophecy to it? Much like, you know, birthday?
[00:23:37] Speaker B: That's not what the article was saying, but okay.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That was the point I'm going to make. But in this discover article, they pointed out that astrology is based on the classical planets we knew at the time it was developed. So this goes back to what you were saying about when we didn't know what was going on and why weather was doing what it was and all that kind of stuff. Sure. This was science to people who didn't understand how the world works.
We now know there's a shit ton of minor planets and such that were not factored into astrological charts. And we continue to learn more about the universe all the time. That should completely rewrite astrology as we know it.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: Yes. And yet.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: And yet it does not. Because astrology is not real. Mercury is not doing anything different than it does the rest of the time. And if more bad things happen to you when it's in retrograde, just like you just said, that's self fulfilling prophecy. That's not a real thing.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: I am no longer surprised or I am no longer kind of.
It stopped pissing me off how.
How sluggish we are to change course.
Do you know what I'm getting at? How even though we've got all the facts, like, all the time, people will still cling on just of ways, even though they just simply don't work or have, you know, have died, man.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: I mean, that's on the other side of that. I think that's the stuff that really pisses me off is, you know, like religion and stuff like that. Like, I don't like it and I don't believe in it, but at the same time, like, it's the.
It functions off of the not knowing, right? Like the faith, the idea, like this is all bigger than we could possibly acknowledge. So, okay, if we can't know, then fine. But when it comes to stuff like astrology, we can know.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: We can.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: We very clearly can.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: Religion fills in the gaps, doesn't it? It fills in the gaps of what science can't yet clearly fucking empirically demonstrate.
But astronomy, right, quite clearly fucking just puts a red old line right through.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: Astrology, as does just the everyday experience of like being a person. Like they have to. For astrology to work, you have to have so many caveats about things, right? So it's like whenever someone like, you know, if you say something and someone like tries to guess your sign, right? Like, oh, you're a Scorpio, aren't you?
And you say, no, I'm not.
Then they're like, oh, it's because it's your rising, but you're absolutely whatever. And it's like there's so many caveats you have to use to finally make it match up to the fact that in fact, people's personalities are not determined by this.
That's not how it works. It's like, oh, well, it's like, yeah, you may have been born at the exact same date and time as this person and be completely different from them, but it's because you were actually born this part, part of the world, so. Or like, you know, yeah, you know.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: Different vector there, right?
[00:26:58] Speaker B: There's so many things that you have like hoops you have to jump through to make something make sense that actual science can show you isn't real.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: I enjoy, you know, I enjoy it.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: I hate it. I hate it so much. And like, even things like, I think we may have talked about this before, but there are arguments to be made of stuff like, like moon phases having an impact on people. And we understand that that could be possible because like gravity is impacted by the moon and stuff like that. Surely people would be influenced by a physical change.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, this I at least can pull on a little tiny thread of credibility of plausibility if gravitational. If moon gravity can affect the earth's seas, right. Why wouldn't we comprise so much of liquids? I can certainly tenuously follow a little crumb trail of.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: Right. Cause it's like, you know, if. How much sun you get can give you depression.
Like, you know, like, certainly physical changes. Yeah. You've heard of sad, right? Seasonal affective disorder.
[00:28:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: Okay. Just because you don't believe in it, this is a very valid real thing.
So, you know it is though. Like you can decide you don't believe in it, but science believes in it. So like there is actively science behind that whole thing.
And so, yeah, we know that like physical changes in the environment absolutely can impact us.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:28:36] Speaker B: Astrology doesn't have to do with physical changes in anything.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: No. Mars ain't affecting shit on Earth.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: No.
[00:28:44] Speaker A: Or is it? Hang on. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Is it. I'm talking.
[00:28:47] Speaker B: Let's maybe not put it that far. There could be things that other planets affect us, so let's not stay that far. But these are not physical changes that astrology is talking about.
It's just, it's, you know, out of nowhere stuff people decided hundreds or thousands of years ago and for some reason we're still following it.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: You know how I crave any proof of non earthbound life, whether it's microbial or fucking tardigrades or whatever. I yearn. I just.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: I mean, tardigrades are real.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: Oh, they are, yeah. But, you know, can they be found elsewhere or some kind of comparable bug that exists in fucking thermal vents or whatever?
One, I think.
In fact, I'm sure one of the reasons I crave that so much is to see how, how, how you figure God into that. How religion will try and talk their way around fucking that one.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: And they will.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't wait for it. I really want to see it.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: I want to see what mental gymnastics will be required. Yeah, absolutely. There it. There's always a way. I mean, this is, I've told you about this before, but that's an entire field of Christianity called apologetics. Right. That, like, the whole point is to take stuff that, like, very clearly disproves the Bible and explain how it doesn't.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: Yo, if you have told me this before, I either wasn't listening or I've forgotten because that's their options. That's cool as fuck.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Apologetics is like a whole field dedicated to that. So, like, for example, there aren't dinosaurs in the Bible.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:30:33] Speaker B: But we have dinosaur bones.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:30:36] Speaker B: So how do you explain that? People who do apologetics will find ways to justify the fact that dinosaurs existed, but we don't have any record of that being a thing. And science says that they existed millions of years ago, but the world is only, you know, 6000 years old. What do you do with that? Apologetics comes in to explain that to you, they'll find a way to Bill.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: Hicks bit about just that.
Just God being a little trickster.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: Yeah, well, exactly. Chucking him down.
Yeah. There are people who believe that it's a test. Dinosaur bones are a test to see if we truly have faith in God and we can be tricked into thinking that these are, you know, a thing that actually existed. It's bullshit. But anyway, listen, yes, apologies. I may have alienated some of our listeners here dogging astrology so much. So I think we should make up for it, don't you?
[00:31:38] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. I mean, I.
Listeners, Corrigan gave me a little bit of advance warning of this. So just right before this episode, I downloaded biometric data on every one of our supporters, in particular, palm prints. You might not know that we have access to this kind of information, but we do.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: When you sign up for our Ko fi, this is something that comes through to us.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: Yes. So I've gone all deep state and I've pulled all of that info. I have steeped a particular type of tea, which I've swilled the grounds of, and I've been looking at that quite intently. I've scattered some chicken bones here next to me on the sofa looking at that. Delicious. It was wingstop. In fact, heavily advertised on WrestleMania night one. Oh, so heavily every fucking third.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: Do you have Wingstop?
[00:32:30] Speaker A: No, we don't have Wingstop, not that I know of. Okay, well, and looking at the sky, looking at the stars, looking at my feet, just I've been doing all of the things which are proven to give really accurate, personalized, rigorous intel on you, your situation and where it's going and what to look out for and what to celebrate and what to dread. So this is what's gonna happen now.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: Yeah. You're about to get an individual horoscope if you support us on Ko fi. So let's just hop right into it, Mark, and I'm really excited to see what you found out about each of our supporters. So first, let's welcome back James. James came back as a supporter.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: Hello.
[00:33:16] Speaker B: Lovely to see. See you, Jimmy.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: Welcome back, amigo.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: Welcome. Welcome back. So what is in the stars for James?
[00:33:24] Speaker A: Right, James, nothing but. Nothing but positive things to say about the next 90 days for you. It falls off sharply after 90 days, so I'm not going to talk about that. But for the next 90 days, whatever you do for work, there are people right now, right now, as I speak, 20 to eleven on a Sunday night, there are people in a room talking about how much they love you, and they're gonna give you just gifts over the next few days. So look forward to that, buddy.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: Oh, that's so good to hear.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: I'm really happy about that.
[00:33:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Also came back to us, dear Anna Martin.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: Amazing. Ah. So good to have her back. So good to have you back, Anna. Not so good for you, unfortunately.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: Oh, well, yeah.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: Much like a mirror of James's, there's a. There's a cabal of people just plotting just really fucking petty, erring grievances against you, and they're gonna use that to just piss you off mildly. They're gonna put a stone in your shoe. They are going to. If you ride a bike, they're gonna deflate one of your tires. Just the one. And they are gonna just ruin your cell phone service for the next three days. But other than that, really good. Really cool.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: Okay, well, you watch out, and I think you can handle it.
[00:34:45] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: What about for Dan, down under in Australia? Down under. Dan.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: Dan Gaday.
Just to use your language there for.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: A second, he can fully understand what you're saying here.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: G'day.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: Can I just say, this is one of. Dan is in the book club. You know, I've mentioned it before, but this is one of my favorite lads. Yes, great bunch of lads. He just. I've said this before, but he's so australian, and every phrase that comes out of him is like an australian stereotype in the best possible way. And so, Dan, you know, before whatever Mark has to tell you, I just want to repeat for the millionth time how much I appreciate you and your australianisms.
[00:35:30] Speaker A: I love to hear that. Dan, what you need to be doing, mate, is the media are trying to communicate with you specifically. So over the next few days, whatever you're watching on tv, just listen for hidden messages. And whatever they fucking tell you to do, act on them. Whatever it is they tell you to do, you've got to act on them.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: That's important. Yeah, yeah, yep, yep. For our dear friend Nick.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: Right, Nick, who's that character in peanuts that always has a cloud over them?
[00:36:02] Speaker B: What, is there one? Yeah, there is. Pigpen.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: Pigpen. There you go. Much like Pigpen. You've been walking around with a cloud around you.
[00:36:12] Speaker B: Oh, dear.
[00:36:13] Speaker A: But I'm gonna tell you this, mate. Great news. Oh. According to the planets and their particular alignment regarding you specifically, that cloud is gonna dissipate. And it's all sunshine, my friend. All sunshine for you for the next nine weeks.
[00:36:29] Speaker B: Great news it, isn't it? What about Lee out there in Wales?
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Ah, all right, Lee. How's it going? Leroy? So you're gonna get a message from an unlikely place telling you that you need to move to an unlikely place. Disregard it. It's full of shit. Stay where you are. You're doing great.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: Okay? If he moves, is he gonna, like, get hit by an asteroid or something?
[00:36:57] Speaker A: Do not fucking listen to the message. You're doing great where you are. Keep on keeping on, son.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: All right? That's. That's important to listen to as well. What about for Steven? Mister Steven Root.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: Right, so, ruth the numbers six and nine are important for you, but not how you think.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:37:17] Speaker A: All right. I'll just leave that there.
[00:37:20] Speaker B: All right. Do with that what you will.
[00:37:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:37:23] Speaker B: Keep an eye out.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:37:24] Speaker B: For Satania.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Satania, right. So old. I'm getting old books.
If you're gonna come across, like an old book or some old literature soon, and in it, you're gonna see the name of your future lover.
[00:37:49] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: Yes, that's. That's exactly what's gonna happen. Hope you had a good birthday, by the way.
[00:37:55] Speaker B: Oh, very nice. Yes. Happy belated, dear Satanya. What about for Boff and Eileen?
[00:38:03] Speaker A: Right. Okay, so, physical one here. Aileen, your health is just about to become so much better.
Whatever's been troubling you, I'm thinking something in your legs. I'm looking at the planet, and you've got, like, a leg issue.
Magically that is just gonna go the fuck away. And one of your legs is gonna become significantly longer than the other.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: Is that a positive horoscope?
[00:38:35] Speaker A: No. It is. Wait until it happens. You're gonna love it.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: There's. It's more useful than it sounds, honestly.
[00:38:41] Speaker A: It comes with a lot of upsides, let me tell you.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: How about Rialda?
[00:38:47] Speaker A: Rialda, right. So now your very talented and skilled in the sciences, okay.
Biological sciences, creatures, critters, evolution. That's gonna come in really handy in a combat situation. Soon you're gonna be able to exploit the weakness of an animal that is hunting you. I'll say no more.
[00:39:09] Speaker B: Is it a Komodo dragon?
[00:39:11] Speaker A: I'll say nothing else. You'll know it when the time comes.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: Okay. Please keep us updated.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: For sweet. Emily.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: Uh, Emily, you are too. Oh, God, I'm getting this so strongly. Oh, go on. Avoid sporting events.
[00:39:30] Speaker B: Oh, shoot.
[00:39:31] Speaker A: Was that me? What did I just speak?
[00:39:35] Speaker B: I don't know if it was you.
[00:39:41] Speaker A: There we go. I don't know if that was the planet's trying to communicate through me. I don't.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: Well, you heard it from the void. Emily, you be careful around those sporty types.
What about Brienne? What's. What's in the disguise for her?
[00:39:56] Speaker A: Right. Brienne, I'm strongly getting a intuition that you've had an idea recently.
Something that you've just been carrying around. A really cool idea that you think might make you a couple of bucks or you think might make a couple of people happy. I cannot emphasize enough. You should do that idea right to the point where cancel whatever job you've got. Quit, walk the fuck out.
Family members. You might worry about alienating them. Fuck them, man. This idea that you've got recently, just go for it. Go all in on it and let us know how it goes, because it's gonna be a lot of fun. A lot of fun. A lot of money. A lot of fun. Real good.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: How about for canadian boy Ryan, CBR.
[00:40:39] Speaker A: Um, now, a bearded man like myself, I think. Yes.
[00:40:49] Speaker B: You think you're bearded or you think.
[00:40:51] Speaker A: The man is a bearded gentleman?
[00:40:53] Speaker B: Oh, he is. Yes. Okay. Gotcha. Mm hmm.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: Now, I looking at the outcomes of my various experiments tonight.
They seem to revolve around that beard becoming. You've just got to push it and grow it as much as you can because you're soon gonna be called upon to donate beard hair. I think he just did that, actually donate beard hair.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: I. Or, like, I mean, I don't know if he donated beer hair, but I think he shaved it off, like, for a. Or maybe he cut his hair off and he shaved his face at the same time. Like, he donated his hair.
[00:41:24] Speaker A: Fuck out of here. Fuck out of here.
[00:41:26] Speaker B: Yeah. So the stars were really telling you something. I mean, it was belated.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: Do it again. Do it again. Do it again.
[00:41:33] Speaker B: Do it again.
[00:41:34] Speaker A: Yeah, do.
[00:41:36] Speaker B: Okay, this time, donate the beard, not.
[00:41:38] Speaker A: The hair, specifically beard, here, to a beard foundation for girls.
[00:41:44] Speaker B: There you go. Yep.
How about for Richie?
[00:41:49] Speaker A: Richie, right. Richie.
Just get tuned in. Let me just dial in.
Backpacking, you need. If you go backpacking, if you go on a backpacking holiday this summer, take your partner, put your pet in the back. I think you've got a cat. Take your cat with you. Good fortune will come your way. You're gonna meet someone who is gonna influence you, and that's gonna pay off really, really well for everybody concerned, you know?
[00:42:18] Speaker B: I think you just did it again.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: What?
[00:42:19] Speaker B: I think Richie just went, like, on a camping trip.
[00:42:23] Speaker A: No, I'm not doing this. I'm not doing anything.
[00:42:26] Speaker B: Okay, well, Richie, if you met someone on that trip, get.
[00:42:30] Speaker A: Stay in touch with them. Get in touch with them. Remain in touch with them.
Gonna be real good friends. Real life fun. A lot of fun.
[00:42:38] Speaker B: Excellent. What about James B?
[00:42:42] Speaker A: Right. Sorry. Right.
The stars are telling me that you should drink heavily just this week. Just whatever your favorite alcoholic drink is, hit it the fuck hard this week, because, you know, like, drunken kung fu, where, you know, your body stays fluid and you're kind of. It's gonna be like that. Whatever situations you find yourself in this week will only benefit from you being shit ass, rat face drunk.
[00:43:10] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:43:11] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:43:11] Speaker B: Interesting advice. We'll see how that works out.
[00:43:14] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:43:15] Speaker B: How about for Joffin in chief, Jerry Oke.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: Jerry, love you, man. Pursue your creative muses this week. Right? I want you to sit down. I want you to grab anything that comes to hand, whether it's charcoal or a paintbrush or a musical instrument. You know, one of those things you put in your mouth that goes like.
[00:43:36] Speaker B: One of them.
[00:43:37] Speaker A: What?
[00:43:38] Speaker B: Jaw harp.
[00:43:41] Speaker A: Sorry? Ja harp. What the fuck are you saying?
[00:43:44] Speaker B: Ja, ja harp. Is that what they call Jaw Harp?
Yeah, I think that. Yeah, I think that's what's called.
[00:43:55] Speaker A: Actually, you know what? One of them grab a ja harp and whack out some tunes, put her on band camp or soundcloud, and you are gonna make a fuck ton of money.
[00:44:07] Speaker B: Yes. This is the zeitgeist, Jerry.
[00:44:09] Speaker A: Yeah, let's do it.
[00:44:11] Speaker B: Up the karaoke.
[00:44:12] Speaker A: Taylor Swift is gonna be opening for you, mate.
[00:44:14] Speaker B: That's right.
How about brother Al?
[00:44:19] Speaker A: My brother Alan. Now, then, everything's gonna be great for you, dude. All you have to do is just.
Just chuck a fucking dart at the wall and wherever it lands, that's what you gotta do, right? Just roll a fucking dice, spin around in a circle and point at something. Just implement the element of chance into your life.
[00:44:44] Speaker B: I feel like everything you just said would just result in him pointing at a wall or having a dart stuck.
[00:44:50] Speaker A: In a wall, but with pictures around you.
What I want you to do is to. What I'm saying is go dice man for a week. Right?
[00:44:59] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:45:00] Speaker A: Make all your decisions based purely on random luck for a week. And I can tell you categorically that nothing but good will come of it.
[00:45:08] Speaker B: I like it. That feels like good advice to me.
[00:45:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:11] Speaker B: Good job, stars.
[00:45:12] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:45:13] Speaker B: How about Richard?
[00:45:15] Speaker A: Right, Richard. Now, this is a really strange one, but there is someone who has cut their hair exactly like you and who has kind of been following you and who's bought identical clothes to you.
[00:45:31] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: And they are going around to all your mates just spreading bullshit.
And all of your mates think it's you. So I don't know how you deal with this. I wouldn't know where to begin, pal, but you've got to stamp that out.
[00:45:47] Speaker B: I like that you didn't say that this person looks like him and it's just like they're just wearing his clothes and have the haircut. And all his friends like, oh, that's Richard.
[00:45:56] Speaker A: But they're really good at voices, you see, and that goes a long way. And just. They told. They told one of your close friends that you were part of a group on telegram commissioning monkey torture video, which is fucked up, that is. I know you would never.
[00:46:15] Speaker B: You gotta put a stop to this.
[00:46:16] Speaker A: So I. I'm just giving you a heads up, right? You gotta fucking sort this out.
[00:46:21] Speaker B: Mitigate that shit.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And do you know how I found out about that, uh, mercury retrograde, mate?
[00:46:27] Speaker B: That's right. It's the only way you could know such things.
[00:46:29] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:46:30] Speaker B: How about for Keo Edmondson?
[00:46:32] Speaker A: Keo, um, odd news for you, the age that you've always thought you were, you're not. Oh, shit. You were actually born six weeks later than everyone told you, and they. They all got together at your birth and said, this will be a laugh. And they've all just told you that your birthday is six weeks earlier. Why? I don't fucking know. But cross your birthday off the calendar, count six weeks forward, and it's then, oh, big news.
[00:47:01] Speaker B: Very big news. It's gonna shake things up in this household.
What about for Paul?
[00:47:07] Speaker A: Right? Paul, soon you're gonna start watching a new show on tv, and you're gonna notice that one of the characters bears an uncanny resemblance to you in their story. Right? You're gonna see this character having gone to the same school as you and having, you know, the same kind of lifestyle and likes and dislikes that you do. Don't worry about it. It's all a complete coincidence. Nothing fucking going on there. It's all good.
[00:47:34] Speaker B: Great. Oh, I'm just gonna take a huge load off.
[00:47:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:47:39] Speaker B: What about Sam?
[00:47:40] Speaker A: Sam gonna get bitten by a horse. Sorry, that's all I got for you.
[00:47:45] Speaker B: There is what it is.
[00:47:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Can't tell you when or where it's gonna happen, but it is definitely gonna happen.
[00:47:52] Speaker B: It could be anywhere. Who knows?
[00:47:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:56] Speaker B: How about for bookseller Ryan?
[00:47:59] Speaker A: Oh, God, I'm so sorry. Because the next one I've got lined up is you're gonna get bummed by a horse.
I'm really sorry.
[00:48:11] Speaker B: Oh, dear.
[00:48:13] Speaker A: And I don't know when it's gonna happen.
[00:48:16] Speaker B: Geez Louise.
[00:48:17] Speaker A: Don't know.
[00:48:19] Speaker B: Everybody just.
[00:48:21] Speaker A: I'm so sorry, dear.
[00:48:22] Speaker B: Clear is what I'm saying.
How about Colin?
[00:48:29] Speaker A: Colin? Yeah. Really difficult one this was. Colin. Really difficult one to tune into.
All I'm getting, and this might sound really vague. I'm sorry.
Next time you meet someone for the first time, next time you meet a stranger, what I'm feeling is that you should just really subtly get a name wrong and fucking stick to it, right? Like, if it's. If it's Jonathan, call them Jonathan.
[00:49:01] Speaker B: Jonathan.
[00:49:05] Speaker A: But the thing is, they after, like, three or four times, they won't correct you. And then you can just carry on doing it. So that's what you should do, Colin.
[00:49:15] Speaker B: It's just pranks from the great beyond at this point.
[00:49:18] Speaker A: That's what sometimes that's what. That's how it goes.
[00:49:21] Speaker B: Yep.
How about the Latours? What's in the guard for the Latour family?
[00:49:26] Speaker A: Right. The Latours.
Now, there is a coven of Bene Gesserit witches.
Who have maneuvered you all into the position that you're in. And what you have always thought to be your free will.
Has, in fact, been the direct outcomes of machinations. From a centuries old, interplanetary, kind of double dealing, politicking group of spice witches.
[00:50:03] Speaker B: Do we have any idea of, like, to what end, or make fun of it?
[00:50:08] Speaker A: Listen, even if I knew, I couldn't say, I don't want the fucking gom Jabbar. You know what I'm saying?
[00:50:14] Speaker B: Obviously.
How about for Kevin?
[00:50:20] Speaker A: Fuck. Um, Kevin. Kevin. Interesting. Interesting. Imagine for me, if you will, uh, what a, you know, you know how, like, a fly has these domed eyes. With loads of hundreds of little reflectors on it? They can kind of see 360 vision, so they're really difficult to catch. Right.
You're gonna get that power somehow.
You're gonna be able to see behind you, in front of you, like, you know, like a gecko can move their eyes independently.
[00:50:51] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:50:52] Speaker A: Something's gonna happen to you, and you're gonna develop that particular skill.
[00:50:56] Speaker B: It's a chameleon that does that.
[00:50:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:00] Speaker B: Or two geckos do it too.
You know.
[00:51:03] Speaker A: Who know?
[00:51:03] Speaker B: Who would know? This is Demi. Demi. Demi.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: Demi.
[00:51:08] Speaker B: I don't know how you pronounce your name, dear one. Please tell us. But she's got a crazy little gecko. And apparently likes going to lizard shows and whatnot. So, please, if you're listening right now.
[00:51:20] Speaker A: Tell us what lizard shows like Liz.
[00:51:24] Speaker B: Con well, see, what happened was I said something about wanting to, oh, petting the hedgehogs. A couple weeks ago, we talked in here about my deep and abiding love for hedgehogs. And she was like, if you go to some exotic reptile shows, they'll often have a non reptile exotic animal section. And you can hold a hedgehog.
[00:51:49] Speaker A: The kind of thing. Maybe that's how it'll happen. I don't know.
[00:51:52] Speaker B: Maybe.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:54] Speaker B: Finally for Jason, right, Jason.
[00:51:58] Speaker A: You, sir, from the planets and the stars. I am getting the clear news that from this day forth, you can walk about the world without any worries about coming to any physical harm? You ever seen unbreakable? That's you, mate. You can walk through accidents. You can fall off shit.
[00:52:20] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:52:20] Speaker A: And you are from here on, specifically from today, from the second you hear this, you are completely impervious to all physical damage. And just to be sure, probably test it out.
[00:52:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a really good idea. Jump off a roof or something and.
[00:52:38] Speaker A: Give it a crack. Let us know how you get on.
[00:52:40] Speaker B: Do you know how much stuff I would climb if I had that?
[00:52:44] Speaker A: Oh, I would, yes.
[00:52:46] Speaker B: You would never get me off of, like, roofs and trees and statues and shit like that.
[00:52:50] Speaker A: More to the point, do you know how much stuff I would fling myself off?
[00:52:55] Speaker B: Obviously, I think that's a given.
[00:52:57] Speaker A: All the fucking time. I would just.
[00:53:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:53:00] Speaker A: You know, I enjoy just getting the fuck out of places right up. I'm sick of this. Let's go. You know what I mean? To share his own style.
[00:53:07] Speaker B: You just do it like she hulk. You know, the. The guy who keeps on faking his death for divorces, and he just throws himself out of the window.
[00:53:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd be doing that. If there was something I didn't want to be at, even if it was on, like, the 19th floor, I would just be like, all right, see ya. Yeet. And just f cking curl myself out.
[00:53:24] Speaker B: Of windows and walk the fuck all the time. This is. I I always say, like, I don't have a fear of heights at all, but I like. But I do have a sense of self preservation. So I stay off of high things without railings and stuff like that. Because, like, I know I would fall, right? Like, it's not necessarily that I look down. I'm like. It's just that I'm like, that's unsafe. That's not a good choice to be made.
If I couldn't break, I would just be on the edge of every high thing.
[00:53:55] Speaker A: See, you're the opposite, aren't you? You're mister glass. You're not unbreakable.
[00:53:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I am very much mister glass. I am so breakable, everything breaks me when I walk. My hips dislocate.
[00:54:05] Speaker A: M. Night Shyamalan's so breakable.
I ever told you about my deep and deep abiding love for unbreakable, by the way, have ever talked to you about how much I love that film?
[00:54:15] Speaker B: I don't know, but it's a great movie.
[00:54:17] Speaker A: I absolutely fucking love unbreakable, man. God damn, what a film. That's why I still, you know, have such fondness towards M. Night is largely because of my, my, you know, my enduring love for unbreakable. I think it's just a stunning film.
[00:54:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that is a. That's a great movie. And listen, you know, I loved split as well. It's unfortunate that glass was so fucking.
[00:54:42] Speaker A: Bad, but didn't watch it.
[00:54:44] Speaker B: Didn't see it. Oh, you didn't see it?
[00:54:46] Speaker A: Nah.
[00:54:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Don't. You saw split, though, right?
[00:54:50] Speaker A: Yes, but I don't think I enjoyed it because I thought it was stupid.
[00:54:54] Speaker B: Oh, I liked split a lot. I enjoyed that one. Like I said, it was just on tv and I was like, oh, maybe I'll watch that later. It was on after collision, like, the. What it flowed into. I was like, oh, man, I like that movie. And I remember seeing that in the theater and being by myself and not having anyone to go ah to when I realized it was in the unbreakable universe.
[00:55:17] Speaker A: What is, am I. Am I like, I'm not like a fringe case for living unbreakable still? Am I. Is it. Is it.
[00:55:24] Speaker B: No, I think it's a pretty. No, I think that's a well regarded movie. I don't think that that one's. I don't think there's a revisionist view of that. I think people still like that movie. But I also feel like it's weirdly under the radar. Like, when it came out, I don't remember it at all. I saw it on DVD, like, years later. I don't know why that one like, that flew under the radar, but, like, 6th sense was everywhere.
[00:55:47] Speaker A: No, I loved it at the time. I caught it at the movies and loved it at the time. I just love the pace of it. I love how fucking, it's so quiet and such a soft film, you know? And you don't even. You don't even know what it is until, like, two thirds in, and then you go, holy fuck, is that what this is? Oh, God, it's good.
[00:56:08] Speaker B: Yeah. That'd be a good one to revisit as well. It's been. Been a while.
[00:56:12] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:56:13] Speaker B: So thank you, dear listeners, for doing the right thing and subscribing to the Ko fi. We appreciate you.
[00:56:19] Speaker A: So grateful.
[00:56:20] Speaker B: You know, listen, you're paying for this. To all those words from the stars here.
[00:56:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Heed every single one of them, because they came from the planets, they came from the chicken bones, they came from the dice, they came from the tea, they came from the very lines upon your palm.
You know exactly all the things you should be believing in.
[00:56:37] Speaker B: All that biometric info that you have uploaded to our website, and hopefully soon you'll get some more content. In fact, this Thursday, you're gonna get a new Joag fan cave where we'll be discussing frailty. So watch frailty if you want to be up on what we talk about. I just watched it the other day. Still love that movie and excited to talk about it and probably some. The historical element that I'm gonna bring into this episode is gonna be full of pentecostal snake handling craziness, so it should be a good time.
[00:57:16] Speaker A: Very nice.
Apropos of note, I'm really looking forward to the first omen or the omen beginnings or whatever the fuck is called.
[00:57:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm cautiously optimistic on it.
[00:57:29] Speaker A: Yes. Yes.
[00:57:30] Speaker B: You know, it seems like it's headed in the right direction.
[00:57:34] Speaker A: Yes, it does. And I think. I think late night with the devil doesn't count, because it was, you know, you know, it wasn't. It wasn't real Satan. I'm all. I'm really down for a proper fucking satanic horror movie right now.
[00:57:52] Speaker B: Nice. It's not necessarily my vibe usually, but I do love the og omen, I think, because, as we've talked about many times, I'm, like, religious horror doesn't really do it for me. I find demons and all that kind of stuff super corny and not scary or interesting in the slightest.
But I do love something extremely creepy. And the omen was so creepy. And you can get a lot of mileage out of that for me. The Exorcist, super creepy, you know, stuff like that. Like, I like the spookiness factor. So hoping for that.
[00:58:28] Speaker A: If demons and demon worship and demon cultists don't do anything for you, I've got a movie that I think might turn you around on that.
[00:58:37] Speaker B: Okay. What's that?
[00:58:39] Speaker A: Uh, it's. I want to say, like, 2012, 2013 by a guy called Ari Astor. It's an a 24 movie.
[00:58:50] Speaker B: And it's.
[00:58:50] Speaker A: Got all of those things, but it kind of presents them in a really kind of. It's almost. It's almost like elevated horror.
[00:58:58] Speaker B: Uh huh. Yeah.
[00:58:59] Speaker A: Not to want to coin that term for the first time, but new one to me.
And I think you'll really dig it.
[00:59:09] Speaker B: I'll have to check that out sometime.
[00:59:10] Speaker A: Should. You should. I think definitely.
[00:59:12] Speaker B: I just think you get a fifth time or whatever. I can't remember if it's three or four times.
[00:59:17] Speaker A: It's one of those that you've got to watch seven, eight times before.
[00:59:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And then it really is bang fucking boom. Then that. That 7th time I'm going to be like, I get it. I get it now.
[00:59:28] Speaker A: You will.
[00:59:29] Speaker B: You will.
What'd you watch this this week?
[00:59:34] Speaker A: Right. Let me just consult ye old fans.
[00:59:38] Speaker B: Actually, I want to start somewhere before you consult that, because one of the movies we watched together this week, well, we only. We happen to watch. We watched three of the same movies. Only one of them did we watch together this week, which was the mutilator from. What was it? 1983?
[00:59:54] Speaker A: 84, I believe.
[00:59:56] Speaker B: 84, yeah, that's right. Because I said it was a year older than I am when you said it was an old movie.
And so we watched the mutilator, which we'll get into great time. But you told me in the beginning of this movie we see a hooked object, which was called a gaffe.
[01:00:21] Speaker A: Context wise, right? Context wise, the mutilator is a 1984 slasher, which I had the lowest expectations of going in.
[01:00:34] Speaker B: This was after he suggested two movies that I would have absolutely hated to watch.
[01:00:38] Speaker A: Nope.
[01:00:38] Speaker B: Just never suggest a french movie to me. There's like, let's just take that off the table. In general, I hate french movies.
[01:00:43] Speaker A: What if you go against the French.
[01:00:45] Speaker B: You fucking their entire worldview, francophone. Everything about the French, I speak it. I don't want anything to do with it. I just don't like their worldview at.
[01:00:55] Speaker A: All, the French, but.
[01:00:58] Speaker B: So this was like a third, you know, this was a third effort at trying to get a movie I would watch.
[01:01:04] Speaker A: Third time's a charm, right? Keeps you on your toes. Because it is tonally fucking just an absolute mess.
[01:01:09] Speaker B: It's all over the place.
[01:01:11] Speaker A: A mess.
[01:01:12] Speaker B: See, a mess feels like it implies that it's not on purpose. Like, whoa, we accidentally put slapstick in this here drama or whatever. Like, on purpose.
[01:01:22] Speaker A: I disagree. I don't think it was on purpose at all. I think the tonal music, they put.
[01:01:26] Speaker B: Like, benny Hill music in it.
[01:01:28] Speaker A: Yeah. They cranked up the fucking speed of a particular just like a three or four second shot and did a little like a vaudeville piano track. I don't think the tonal kind of atonality of the mutilator, aka fall break. Fall break, fall break.
I don't think.
[01:01:48] Speaker B: I don't think it has multiple theme tunes, you guys.
[01:01:52] Speaker A: I don't think it was. It was intentional at all. I just think it's a messy film made by messy people and. And it completely comes across. But there's a lot to recommend. Fall break. Fall break. Oh, right. Because the vibe. The vibe is OG evil dead when it gets.
[01:02:07] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:02:08] Speaker A: Where it's going. You've got four or five, say four or five.
You know, college age kids fucking drinking.
[01:02:15] Speaker B: Those gotta be six, doesn't it?
[01:02:17] Speaker A: Is it sex in my.
[01:02:18] Speaker B: Because they were each in couples.
[01:02:20] Speaker A: There you go. Yes. Yes, they were. Yes, they were.
And, you know, they, they find themselves through various plot contrivances in a deserted condo by the beach where said mutilator is hanging out in the basement. Just ready to mutilate each of them. Yes.
As the credits were rolling, as the opening credits were rolling, I saw a special makeup effect by Mark Shostrom. And straight away I thought, I fucking know that name. Mark Shostram. Bit of googling. He's only the fucking makeup effect artist on evil Dead two. The best horror film ever made.
It is. Sorry. And he's, you know, he's doing great work.
The, the, there's mutilations in this fucking film.
[01:03:08] Speaker B: There are big time.
[01:03:09] Speaker A: Oh, you know, fingers get chopped off. Heads get, you know, heads roll.
There are piercings, puncturings, fucking wounds. There are fucking chopping reputation. It's great. It's great. It's super gory. To get to the gore, you've got to go through. You've got to twist and turn through a couple of, like, what the fuck sort of moments.
But when it gets words going fucking solid. Three star wreck. The mutilator is a good laugh. And what it, what it has is a fanta. It's got a, just, just a fantastic Chekhov's gun. Like Corey says as they're exploring this condo when they get there, hey, what the hell is this? Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. They find this fucking huge fish hook, which, you know, obviously later on in the movie, gets used as a tool.
[01:03:52] Speaker B: Of mutilation in a, in quite a way. Quite a manner.
[01:03:59] Speaker A: Quite a way. Quite a way.
[01:04:00] Speaker B: Didn't see it coming.
[01:04:01] Speaker A: Just for those who might have heard that term Chekhov's gun and wondered where it came from, I just want to fill you in because it's, it's finally, it's a fucking, it's a topic I can answer the fuck out of.
A playwright. Russian turn of the 18th, 19th century playwright Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. He was kind of late, 18 hundreds born in Russia, prolific dramatist and a titan.
Somebody whose plays I loved and continue to love. Uncle Vanya, three sisters, Cherry Orchard. Just really cold, you know, lacking in emotion. Family stories often dealing with themes like, you know, unrealized ambition and finding a purpose to life in a rapidly changing world.
Disillusionment, disenchantment and just cold, cold, cold plays so fucking good. And he's often quoted as saying, you know, which gave rise to this fucking conceit of Chekhov's gun. If. If a gun is on your stage in the first act, in the third act, it must fire.
Now, that's over. The years, particularly with cinema, come to be taken very literally.
I mean, but he was talking about themes. You know what I mean? If. Right, if you're not. If you're. If you're. If you're talking about shit in the first act and you're not interrogating it, pull on the fucking threads of your themes. If you don't see those themes, fucking dig under the skin of your topic, because if you don't, your audience do. You know what, in fact, fuck your audience. Your work. Your work is gonna be hollow. Your work is gonna be unfulfilling. If you're gonna find a fucking theme, then you'd better get to the fucking core of it by the end of that show, or you're a piece of shit. That is what I. That is what Chekhov was really saying. Um, but what it. What it's come to mean in films is you better. You better use that fucking fish hook, mate. If you're gonna show it to me, you better somebody with that fucking hook or. Or your cunt.
[01:06:14] Speaker B: It's exactly how he would have put it, too.
[01:06:16] Speaker A: Yes, yes. So, yes, when. When you hear of Chekov's gun, please do remember Anton Pavlovich Chekhov and what he really meant.
[01:06:26] Speaker B: Love that. So, the mutilator. Also, we recommend three stars.
Okay.
What else did you watch?
[01:06:34] Speaker A: Right. Don't talk about Ghostbusters.
[01:06:36] Speaker B: Ghostbusters.
Frozen kingdom.
[01:06:41] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:06:42] Speaker B: Frozen Empire.
[01:06:44] Speaker A: Frozen Empire, yes. Was it kingdom?
[01:06:50] Speaker B: I don't know.
[01:06:51] Speaker A: That's a fucking. That's a damning indictment right there, isn't it?
[01:06:54] Speaker B: Yeah. It's almost as if that wasn't really developed very well in that film, frozen Empire.
[01:07:01] Speaker A: All right, what are your thoughts? Because I got some.
[01:07:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll mostly let you talk on this one, but, you know, it was fine, I guess, I think so. I haven't rewatched afterlife since I saw it, and I loved it. At the time that I was listening to dead and lovely, they did not like afterlife. And so I was listening to their critiques of it and thinking about some of those critiques and going into frozen Empire, those were on my mind and sort of irritated me a little in this movie. So, like, amongst those things being, like, the way that the family interacts with each other is like they all hate each other.
And it's like they're so unnecessarily mean all the time. They're so adversarial to each other all the time.
And that really, like, with that in my mind while watching, I was like, yeah, Jesus Christ, they are such dicks all the time. The mom is a bad mom on every level. She's such a jerk and so dismissive of her children, you know, and so. And then having the plotline of being like, now Gary has to learn to be kind of mean to the kids, too. It's like they're getting enough meanness already from their mother. They don't really need it from you. So, like, that was kind of irksome through this movie, just being like, not to dismiss.
[01:08:27] Speaker A: I did not get that.
[01:08:28] Speaker B: I think if you were thinking about it and you watched it again, you would notice it, because I didn't really think about that in the first movie. And then when I watched this one, I was like, yeah, they never say a single, single kind thing to one another. Everything they say is some sort of cutting joke at the other person's expense.
[01:08:45] Speaker A: I think that speaks to a need because this film certainly suffered from every other line being a fucking quip, every other line being a second.
[01:08:57] Speaker B: And especially with, like, Paul Rudd, I think in this movie is almost at Ryan Reynolds level of just being Paul Rudd.
[01:09:05] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:09:06] Speaker B: Where it's just kind of like, he's just. This whole movie runs on him being like, this is what Paul Rudd does. Yes. And you're like, okay, well, that doesn't really add any. Like, it's too quippy. I felt like the resolution comes very quickly. It's not very rewarding, the fight with your baddie in it. That said, there were, like, some things that I enjoyed. A lot of people have been like, eh, we can get rid of the old team now. But I actually liked a lot of the stuff with the. The OG Ghostbusters in it.
Maybe not as much Venkman. I felt like this is kind of useless in it, but I think Dan Aykroyd is really a highlight of this movie.
[01:09:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't disagree with that at all. I thought Dan Aykroyd was great and clearly having the time of his life.
[01:09:49] Speaker B: I mean, exactly.
[01:09:51] Speaker A: You know, how is Tom Arnold alive? Yes, he is. You know how seemingly for decades he kept going. Yep. True lies, two. Definitely happening. Definitely happening.
[01:10:03] Speaker B: Right.
[01:10:03] Speaker A: Dan Aykroyd has waited, did his whole fucking life for Ghostbusters to get back off the ground.
[01:10:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:10:09] Speaker A: And he is clearly. Clearly having a great time on that screen.
[01:10:14] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%.
[01:10:16] Speaker A: Now, in complete contrast to that. You know what I often say about always sunny, and one of the things I love so much about always Sunny is that every single character is always in the fucking scene, even if they're not doing anything right.
[01:10:30] Speaker B: Right. Yeah.
[01:10:30] Speaker A: Danny DeVito in always sunny, even if he hasn't had a line for, like, fucking four minutes, he's still off to the back or to the side. He's reacting. He's just being fucking present dramatically. Fucking, you know, he's always in the fucking scene.
Bill Murray couldn't give a fuck about this movie.
[01:10:54] Speaker B: Not at all.
[01:10:54] Speaker A: Not necessarily radiates from him. He's in it for all of, like, eight minutes.
[01:10:58] Speaker B: Yeah. This is the same with his cameo. And answer the call as well.
Does not give a shit. He's getting a paycheck, whatever.
[01:11:06] Speaker A: He is a single shit. He's obviously, you know, you get quite clearly that he's being told to look at a tennis ball on a stick.
[01:11:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:11:14] Speaker A: And there's this one particular scene after the fucking, you know, after the special effect fight at the end when he's off to the back left of the fucking frame and he's thinking about what he's gonna get for dinner that night.
[01:11:27] Speaker B: Right.
[01:11:28] Speaker A: He's literally just looking around, doo doo doo doo doo. Couldn't give a fuck. Fuck. Yeah.
[01:11:34] Speaker B: Exactly.
[01:11:35] Speaker A: However, Ernie Hudson is great. Yeah. Ernie Hudson is old as fuck.
[01:11:38] Speaker B: Delightful.
[01:11:39] Speaker A: Ernie Hudson is.
[01:11:40] Speaker B: He's super old. And he is built.
[01:11:43] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:11:43] Speaker B: Like, fuck me. It is ridiculous. But I need to put an. I need to put something like a picture of him on my wall as, like, a goals situation.
[01:11:53] Speaker A: He is jacked as shit. For those of you who don't know, I'm gonna give you a second to think about Ernie Hudson. Winston from Ghostbusters. Right. How old do you think Ernie Hudson is? I'm gonna give you a pause. Ernie Hudson. Break. Consider Ernie Hudson.
He's fucking 78.
[01:12:13] Speaker B: It's wild Winston. You would never know this. You would never know this.
[01:12:19] Speaker A: He stands fucking tall and straight. He is built like a brick shit house. And he looks.
[01:12:24] Speaker B: He looks a decade younger than Bill Murray.
[01:12:28] Speaker A: And he is also clearly pleased to be in Ghostbusters, frozen Empire, as is stance.
[01:12:34] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:12:36] Speaker A: Okay. My, my, my. Read on the film. Uh. Too much going on, man. Too many fucking people in that movie.
[01:12:44] Speaker B: There's so many characters.
[01:12:48] Speaker A: So many characters who do shit all. Um. Nathan Lane does nothing. Why is he in it?
[01:12:54] Speaker B: Nathan Lane was in it?
[01:12:56] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:12:57] Speaker B: I don't even remember that.
[01:12:58] Speaker A: No, he wasn't.
[01:12:59] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:13:00] Speaker A: Who am I thinking of?
[01:13:01] Speaker B: Who are you thinking of?
[01:13:03] Speaker A: Not Nathan Lane.
[01:13:05] Speaker B: What does he do in this?
[01:13:07] Speaker A: He works in the library. In the real library downstairs.
[01:13:09] Speaker B: Oh, Patton. Oswald. Patton Oswald. It's so different.
He's small.
[01:13:16] Speaker A: Just googling. Nathan Lane.
Yeah, they're the same guy.
[01:13:21] Speaker B: What?
[01:13:22] Speaker A: Yeah, same guy. But he does nothing. Why are you in the fucking film?
[01:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah, there's no.
[01:13:28] Speaker A: All you do is take it up. Run time. Giza from the eternals. Really funny guy.
But his, you know. You fucking know.
[01:13:38] Speaker B: You're killing me right now.
[01:13:40] Speaker A: I don't do names very well.
[01:13:44] Speaker B: Yeah, this is a problem.
[01:13:45] Speaker A: The guy's name is. Everybody's probably shouting at us.
[01:13:53] Speaker B: I'm innocent in this. I have no idea what you're talking about.
[01:13:56] Speaker A: Kumali Nanjiani.
[01:13:58] Speaker B: Oh, I actually, here's the thing. I liked him in this. Again, there's too many characters and all that kind of stuff. And also the fact that it's like he's the fire master or whatever. And so that makes three movies where they've just done the original movie.
[01:14:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:14:13] Speaker B: Again.
[01:14:14] Speaker A: And.
But that. That whole plot with him being, oh, okay, you're the, you know, you're the firebender.
[01:14:21] Speaker B: It does nothing. It's completely unnecessary.
[01:14:24] Speaker A: Nothing to the film.
[01:14:26] Speaker B: It's just unfortunate that he's very fun in the movie. One of the brighter spots of it, but his character is completely unimportant.
[01:14:34] Speaker A: That entire plot thread of his ancestry and what his Leighton skill is. It's.
[01:14:41] Speaker B: You've got podcast and the little marshmallow guys too, like, running through this. You've got no need. Stranger things, kid and slimer. There's all of these threads. And then your bad guy fight is like, five minutes.
What? What's going on here?
[01:14:57] Speaker A: They. They try their best to instill this fucking bad guy with so much lore. He can.
[01:15:01] Speaker B: He can.
[01:15:02] Speaker A: With fear.
[01:15:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:15:04] Speaker A: Kills you with fear. The coldness of fear. No, he fucking doesn't. He freezes you to death.
[01:15:08] Speaker B: He does not. He just very literally freezes you.
[01:15:11] Speaker A: He always said that he can kill you with fear. Puts his horns back on.
Bollocks. None of that makes any difference at all.
[01:15:22] Speaker B: I wanted more out of, like, the ghost girl, too, because I actually was very invested in her and Phoebe in this. And so, like, her kind of just being like, ok.
Was like, all right, well, there's that story. It just. Nothing really went anywhere. That said the theater that I was in was pretty much all people in their sixties, which, if you look at it, that's like, people who would have been in their twenties and thirties when the OG came out and they were having the time of their lives, like, the laughter and all of that kind of stuff during this movie.
They loved it.
And so I feel like there's maybe a degree of too much of a critical eye on this and not being able to just kind of, like, take it for what it is.
[01:16:08] Speaker A: But I'm not. I'm not being a Ghostbusters fan who hates Ghostbusters, that is.
[01:16:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Obviously, we've talked at length about not being those people.
[01:16:15] Speaker A: That ain't me. That ain't. Absolutely. Listen, I was just. I went to see it, like, two weeks after it opened in the middle of the day and the place was fucking packed.
[01:16:21] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Same.
[01:16:23] Speaker A: Um, so look, all right, now, you spent two fucking films passing the torch. Now cut it the fuck out, strip it back, lose 20 minutes. Do what. You know, that.
[01:16:35] Speaker B: Focus.
[01:16:36] Speaker A: Focus that shit, please. Because I think you've probably got one more shot at this.
[01:16:40] Speaker B: Mm hmm.
[01:16:41] Speaker A: Right.
[01:16:47] Speaker B: You know, it didn't fuck it up, though.
[01:16:49] Speaker A: What?
[01:16:50] Speaker B: Monkey man.
[01:16:51] Speaker A: Oh, go on, talk to me. Can't wait. Cannot wait.
[01:16:53] Speaker B: Went and saw monkey man. Um, this. Listen, indians do revenge flicks really well.
I'm a sucker for that. I have watched rr five times. Love that shit. This is a great indian revenge movie. It's, you know, it's gonna obviously get comparisons to John Wick. It's got a lot of John Wick ishness to it. I think we're seeing, like, the development of Dev Patel's style.
And I like it so far. He loves a moving camera. You know, things are always moving. There's not a lot of still shots in this movie. It's. It really what I felt like with this movie was that I am in it, right? Like, I feel like I'm being like, all kinds of moving shots. It's just the camera's always moving.
[01:17:44] Speaker A: You know, I adore a fluid camera. I really do. But not that kind of chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, cut, cut. When you can't see what the fuck is going on when there's no kind of facial continuity, right?
[01:17:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. No, on the contrary. I felt like he was putting me in the scene. So it was like, if we're in a fight, I'm in this fight. You know, if we're zipping through the streets on a motorbike, I am zipping through the streets. And I felt like that was really excellent. But one of the things. So this movie kind of follows this guy who we sort of are introduced to as, like, he's a down and out sort of fighter who wrestles in a.
Or boxes in a monkey mask and is sort of the heel, essentially. So everyone hates him, and he's supposed to get knocked out every fight or whatever. That's kind of his lot. But we get this backstory that unfolds throughout this about something horrible that happened in his childhood that he is now trying to avenge. And one of the things I really liked in this is that it's ultra violent. Like, there is some crazy shit in this. There is a stabbing in this that just made everyone laugh with how incredibly violent it was in this movie in just the best way.
But he also shows restraint in a way that I really like. That speaks me, because I've said all the time, like, I don't like graphic rapes in movies. I don't like, you know, seeing, like, victims of things. Like, marginalized people just get, like, the shit beat out of them. Like, this sort of the tragedy porn kind of thing. Look at these poor people. Get this stuff happened to them. Like, he. The way that he shoots things is so that, you know, horrible things have happened, but what it's happening to, like, a marginalized person, um, if someone's being taken advantage of sexually, things like that. Like, you don't have to show a woman's tits, right, to know that she's being taken advantage of. Like, there are other ways you can shoot these things to show that there's, like, a lack of consent happening in the thing that's happening.
[01:19:55] Speaker A: Morally dialed in. It's morally away, right?
[01:19:58] Speaker B: Like, yeah, because that's, like, my thing is always, like, you know, no straight man has ever been watching a movie and seen, like, a woman being taken advantage of and being, like, I didn't get how bad it was until they showed me her tits, and then I really got it, you know? Like, that's not how that works. That's there to make you sexually excited, you know? And so, like, I really felt like, the restraint of, like, also, like, if terrible things are happening to, like, poor people, impoverished people who can't fight back against a government, I don't need to see, you know, them being ripped to shreds by these people or whatever, you can show me that without that being like, you know, oh, look at how sad and tragic this violence against them is. Like, no, I get that.
[01:20:41] Speaker A: I get it completely.
[01:20:42] Speaker B: And so he shows a lot of restraint with those kinds of scenes, and then when it comes to, like, fight scenes, then shit is, like, very, very gory.
And so, like, it really, like, when I was watching, I was like, this is. You don't see that kind of restraint paired with this kind of ultra violence very often. And so I really loved that. And also it's, you know, a movie with a band of trans warriors in it, which is super cool as well, who get to kick some ass in flowy, shiny garments. So that was pretty. Pretty chill, too. So, monkey man, I recommend it.
[01:21:20] Speaker A: I can't wait for that. Yeah, wonderful.
It's one of those ones I'm prepared to travel for. I fully expect view Bista to give it a pass, but I'm.
I'll jump in the car for that one. Yeah, it's worth it. I think I'm gonna just super quickly talk on Michael Clayton. It's. It's. It ain't outside of our remit because we talked about assassinations, corporate and political, a week or two ago.
[01:21:41] Speaker B: And also it was recommended by a listener.
[01:21:44] Speaker A: Yes, indeed. And listen. Nailed it. Just what a fucking solid. Built like a brick shit. How solid piece of fucking movie this is. Oh, it's solid. It's fucking solid.
[01:21:58] Speaker B: I saw this in the movie theater when it came out. I was like a junior in college or whatever, but I remember zero things about it. What is just like the basic.
[01:22:07] Speaker A: It is bulletproof, two sentence plot I can't give you in two sentences. I can maybe do six. So George Clooney works as a law firm. Ostensibly. He, you know, he handles, like, corporate affairs, but in reality he's more of a fixer. He's more of an equalizer. He's more of the guy beneath the guy under the guy sorting things out, maybe on the. On the fringes of legality.
He's got his issues himself. He's a gambler. He's working off huge debts thanks to, you know, a bar that he's funded that has gone wrong. A brother who's an addict. He's got a brother who's a cop. He's. He's. He's a troubled kind of, you know, kind of problematic morally guy himself. But another partner, another fucking lawyer at his firm is taking on a case for a chemical company, a pesticide manufacturing company.
And they. This guy played by Tom Wilkinson, played beautifully by the british Tom Wilkinson.
[01:23:02] Speaker B: So good.
[01:23:03] Speaker A: He's fighting the case on behalf of this petrochemical company, on behalf of this pesticide firm. And he has to prove that, you know, it isn't causing cancer when it is. It isn't destroying livelihoods when it is. It isn't killing people when it is. And the moral torpor of having to fucking work for the bad guys drives him fucking nuts with kind of cycling depression with manic episodes on the down low. He's actually working as a double agent and building a case of his own against the firm that he's supposed to be representing. Who are, you know, in the movie, who are represented by their head of litigation, Tilda Swinton. Again, doing what she's so fucking good at. Everybody in this film is doing what they're great at.
[01:23:50] Speaker B: Nice.
[01:23:51] Speaker A: And, you know, they're tailing him. He's fucking working on the down low, and he's going so crazy. And it is.
Richard likened Wilkinson's performance and some monologues he delivers as being on the level of network. And it's right up there. It's fucking wild, and there's skullduggery and there's double dealing and there's murders, and it just is so satisfying and tasty and edible. It's like a fucking chicken dinner.
It's a chicken dinner over film. This is when all the gravy is the right fucking thickness and you got your Yorkshire puddings and Clooney is the Yorkshire puddings. Nah, Clooney is like the roast chicken.
And, you know, the score is mint sauce and the fucking. The city, the fucking photography is lush and beautiful. Michael Clayton is fucking brilliant, and I'm so glad I saw it.
[01:24:49] Speaker B: Love it.
[01:24:50] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:24:51] Speaker B: I have to have to rewatch that. Obviously, you should revisited identity. It was a rainy night. Identity is one of my favorite rainy night movies, and it's just a lot of fun. I mean, you know, if it's been a minute since you've watched identity, it's just as fun as you remember it being. And, you know, full of horrific, violent deaths. Well, you know, the. The baseball bat shoved down the throat and the car severing and all those kinds of things.
You know, fun, little twisty short, you know, 90 minutes. Gets its work done. Cusack. And a cast in general, that's phenomenal. Ray Liotta, all that kind of stuff. Great flick. Watch. Identity, have you seen it?
[01:25:37] Speaker A: Wait, what if I have? It's what I've forgotten.
[01:25:42] Speaker B: Oh, identity is a fun dime. Yeah, I would recommend it if you. If you haven't seen it. Identity, you know, premise is basically these people, all, for various reasons, end up stuck at this rundown motel during a rainstorm, and someone starts killing them off one by one, and they're trying to figure out who and why this is happening.
And it's. Yeah, it's a good little ride. It's a fun time.
[01:26:16] Speaker A: Don't much of John Cusack now.
[01:26:20] Speaker B: I see a lot of them on Instagram and things like that because he's a super leftist. But no, I think he's just chilling. Mostly.
[01:26:25] Speaker A: Good. Good.
[01:26:26] Speaker B: Yeah, he's just doing his thing.
[01:26:28] Speaker A: Good for him. I'll certainly watch that if it's one you recommend, because I'm in my, you know, acting recommendations era.
[01:26:34] Speaker B: Exactly. Mostly in a literary sense. But yeah, no, it's a, it's a fun ride. I think I would predict three stars from you.
[01:26:42] Speaker A: Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And a first watch for me. In a rewatch for you, a girl walks home alone at night.
[01:26:49] Speaker B: Yes, yes, indeed. Which like, breaks several of my sort of rules when it comes to things. It's subtitled. It's vampires.
[01:26:58] Speaker A: Iranian.
[01:26:59] Speaker B: Very vibey. It is iranian, yeah. Filmed in California, but it's iranian.
[01:27:04] Speaker A: Oh, now I did not know that because one of the, I mean, it's, it's a four and a half star for me. It, and, and just to recap on my rating ethos, four and a half and five, those are special. Those are saved very, very specifically for movies which elicit emotional responses from me. And girl walks home alone at night was right there in that zone. I fucking connected with this film. I fucking loved it.
This sounds trite, right? But it gets drugs, right? It features scenes of drug use and they're all very, very accurate and well filmed. Beautifully done.
You write its vibes, it's sparsely emotional. There's no, you know, it's, again, I would, I would categorize it as quite a cold film.
It is loaded with the most beautiful visual symbolism, the most beautiful visual kind of conflict dichotomy that our fucking guy, you know, for example, goes to a Halloween dance, a Halloween party kind of rave, for want of a better word, dressed up as Dracula. You know, and he's in it. He's in like a ruby's Halloween fucking dime store Dracula costume with a plastic fans, fangs, and finds himself face to face with the titular vampire. You know, you've got a fake vampire versus the real deal, neither of whom, you know, neither, both of whom are hiding their true identities from one another. It's beautiful.
There's a. The visual symbolism in this film is so just, again, I keep coming back to this word edible. There's this wonderful scene where our protagonist and his addict father, who's in the process of going clean, of drying out, and they're both sharing breakfast together. And there's this lovely lingering shot of him almost teasing the membrane of the yolk of his eggs with a fork just not quite piercing it, you know?
Oh, it's so rich, it's so beautiful and great. You know, you're rooting for the vampire. She only kills scumbags.
[01:29:17] Speaker B: It's fucking beautiful.
I always appreciate that. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. If you've never seen it, it's a really good watch. Like I said, even coming from me, who, this has so many of the things that normally are very difficult for me to sit through.
[01:29:32] Speaker A: What else you said subtitles. What else does, what else troubles you about the kinds of things a girl walks home at night does?
[01:29:38] Speaker B: I said, it's, it's subtitled, it's vibey, it's, um. What else did I say? It's vampires. Yeah.
Yeah. Like, those are things that I generally do not want.
[01:29:51] Speaker A: I would never in a million years have thought that it was the US subbing for Iran.
[01:29:56] Speaker B: If you've been to Taft, California, you can tell that that is, that is where it is. But, like, you know, what's supposed to be like a vampire western, right?
[01:30:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:30:07] Speaker B: You know, they're, they're using it because, like, the houses are very american looking and things like that. It did make me wonder because, I mean, I think one of the things I also find fascinating about this movie is that, like, you know, when you think of the Middle east and stuff like that, you don't think of, like, sex, drugs and, you know, chaos like this, you know. And so it really kind of challenges your idea of that kind of stuff. And I wondered how much, like, the reason it's filmed in California, if that's just because that's where the director lives now or what, or if there are, like, restrictions on the kinds of, you know, nudity and all that kind of stuff that you can film there. I don't know anything about the iranian film industry, so, you know, it brings up questions. I'd be interested into looking.
[01:30:50] Speaker A: It does look a million bucks. Again, there's a wonderful scene where, you know, our guy and our vampire meet at a power station and the monochrome just works so beautifully. They're kind of. The neon lights in black and white just burst out the screen at you. And the smoke against this neon. Oh, it's a fucking treat. What a great movie. And the soundtrack is banging.
[01:31:15] Speaker B: Yeah, the soundtracks, great. It's like shazaming things the whole time.
[01:31:19] Speaker A: And one of those films where you leave it thinking it was gorier than it was. There's very little actual on screen. Yeah, very little.
[01:31:28] Speaker B: Right.
Which, again, works for me, because one of the things I don't like about vampires is that I don't like necks and, like, anywhere where there's an artery, I just don't. I'm not really into seeing people violate. And so it actually didn't activate my reaction.
[01:31:46] Speaker A: Maybe that was the. The black and white.
[01:31:49] Speaker B: It might have been, yeah. I feel, like, a lot that covers a multitude of sins. But on the subtitles note, I watched Pan's labyrinth last night. Finally, 21 years later, never seen it. You've never seen Pan's labyrinth?
[01:32:04] Speaker A: Oh, no. I'm asking you.
[01:32:05] Speaker B: Oh, I've never. Yeah, I've never seen it. No, I've never seen it. Because here's why. Someone spoiled the ending for me on Livejournal in 2003, and it made it so that it's, like, the only thing I thought of every time I thought about watching the movie. So it was just like, ugh. I could. I could watch it, but I already know a pretty key thing that is going to happen in this movie.
And so I've just never gotten in the zone to watch it. But I finally, last night was like, fuck it. You can deal with it. You can watch this movie despite the fact that. That you know what's going to happen in it. And I. Oh, so the subtitles, obviously, I hate subtitles on things. And for whatever reason, the version that my friend had on Plex, the subtitles just gave out like 15 minutes into the movie. And it took me, like, five to ten minutes to realize that had happened. But I realized I was enjoying the movie more.
I was like, oh, it's better if I just listen to the Spanish because I speak Spanish instead of putting on subtitles. And I just always do that by default, like, oh, it's in a foreign language, I guess I'll do the subtitles once they turned off. I was like, oh, this is a way better movie. But how much Spanish do you speak?
[01:33:24] Speaker A: Are you fluent?
[01:33:25] Speaker B: You're completely comfortable speaking wise? Because I don't do it. Not great hearing wise. Pretty fluent.
[01:33:32] Speaker A: Nice.
[01:33:33] Speaker B: Yeah. So watching a movie, there's really no reason for me to keep the subtitles on. It's just like habit, I guess.
But, I mean, there were some things that I didn't catch just because they're like fairy tale things, you know? So I'm like, I don't totally know what that word is, but that's fine.
But with Pan's labyrinth, I didn't love it as much as I loved the. What was the one that I watched a few like, a month ago. It's another devil's backbone, I think. Devil's backbone?
[01:34:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:34:05] Speaker B: Yeah. But I thought that I enjoyed this movie. What I will say about Pan's labyrinth is that I think we need more of Guillermo del Toro's sensibilities right now with movies where it is very clear that the bad guy is very bad and that we need to fight and kill him at all costs, especially when the bad guy is a fascist. Yes. Because I think one of the things that, like, the past 15 years or so of movies has done is made it so that everybody needs to be nuanced. Right? Like, nobody is, like, a bad guy. Nobody's a good guy. The bad guys have trauma in their past. The good guys have, like, dark backstories, too. And it feels like. Feels to me like it. Like watching something where it was just like, no, it's very clear that whatever this guy's story is, it doesn't matter. Like, you know, like, you need to murder him and everyone who thinks like him, you know? Like, these people are intensely bad. They want you to die.
[01:35:10] Speaker A: So as opposed to something like zone of interest, he's a family man. Hey.
[01:35:17] Speaker B: You know? And it's like the end of Pan's labyrinth, which is not the part that I think is. I mean, it's a 21 year old movie or whatever. Give me 45 seconds or whatever to spoil this one brief moment in it. Not the one that was spoiled for me, but here I go. The. The bad guy at the end of it, it's like, you, you know, he's got this kid, you know, who he wants to be safe and all that kind of stuff, and he gives it, and he's like, tell my kid, you know, blah, blah, blah about them. They're like, no, he'll never know you existed and just kill him. You know? Like, so even the humanizing moment of this guy take it away from you?
[01:35:56] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:35:57] Speaker B: Yeah, right? It's like, no, you've murdered a whole bunch of people for your fascist. Cause you do not get that. You know? And I think that there's, like, just, I. There's something about that that I think is, like, necessary, because we've kind of taken that out of things. And as such, it's like, gee, is punching a nazi bad? I don't know. They're a person that's like, you've.
[01:36:19] Speaker A: You've struck a chord there. You've, like, bub has gone on. I mean, El Conde. You know what I mean? August Pinochet, for fuck's sake.
[01:36:30] Speaker B: Right? Like, I mean, you know, he's human, even though he's a vampire or whatever. Like, you know, there's. I think that this is.
Yeah, we've just been doing so much of, like, the gritty backstory for a good guy and the complicated story of the bad guy for so long that, like, it becomes hard for people in real life, too. Fully clock that, like, some people just want you dead.
[01:36:55] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:36:55] Speaker B: And they are bad, and we don't need to reason with them. We don't need to try to convince them. We don't need to think about their families or things like that. Like, we need to see them for what they are. And I think that's, like, Guillermo del Toro often makes kind of morality tales in the vein of Twilight zone and things like that. Like, watch cabinet of curiosities. Right. Which was fantastic. Like, those are morality tales. You know, these are bad people getting their comeuppance for being bad people, and we've kind of turned against the morality tale at this point. You know, we don't want things to be that simplistic, but sometimes I think simplistic?
[01:37:36] Speaker A: I've seen not a whit of a whisper of a series. Two for cabinet of curiosities, by the way. And it pains me.
[01:37:43] Speaker B: I mean, it's Netflix.
[01:37:44] Speaker A: Yeah. But I wanted to just super quickly, just. I have to. I know I'm way late to the party on this, and I'm gonna just breeze through this, but I have to talk about how much I'm all in. Up to the fucking elbows on the bear. Oh, the bear. The bear. Oh, it's so good. And I know everybody in the world knows that the bear is great by now, but I've finally got my ass in the gear and watched it, and you'll know that anytime somebody says to me, yeah, man, you gotta try this show. It's a bit of a slow start, but it's really good. Halfway through season two, it really picks up. Fucking. Fucking. Fuck you and your season two warm ups. Bollocks. The bear is how you tv straight away. Straight a fucking way. 28 minutes episodes that grab you by the fucking throat from way minute one. And it's. It's so good. So fucking beautifully written and beautifully performed. It's. It's very damaged, very imperfect.
People thrown together in insanely high pressure situations.
Right. And it is sharply scripted, and the performances are stunning. Stunning, I tell you. And it takes a lot to stun me, a trained dramatist. I don't stun easily. Right. But there are. There are elements of the bear that that grip you and stun you into submission. It's a phenomenal series and funny is shit. So funny and quotable, right? There's one particular character in there, Kami's cousin Richard. Just such a fucking quotable, hilarious fucking character. Just opens up a scene that he walks into, hey yo, what is good, you fucking replicants? Just funny shit. Just stuff that really appeals to me.
I'm just kicking off season two now and I fully expect to have it done by the end of the, you know, by the end of next week. It's great.
[01:39:53] Speaker B: And I think like, I think if I remember correctly, people like season two even better than season one. So I think you're in for a treat.
[01:40:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Alan just finished it last week and told me that it was staggering.
[01:40:04] Speaker B: Amazing. Yes. As I've told you, the only reason that I haven't watched the bear is not for like any huge, like, oh, I don't think I'd like it per se except that multiple people have been like, there's too many people yelling and it's too stressful. You're not gonna have a good time. Yeah, like, yeah, that adds up. I don't need that level of stress in my life.
[01:40:22] Speaker A: All of that pays off in the glimpses of light in the show, right? You know, all of these people are shitty and, you know, abrasive for a reason. You know, they've all been fucking damaged by various events in their lives and it's, it's, it's that fucking striving for something better. So when it comes, if it comes, it's, it's, oh, it's like rainbows. It's so good. It's so good. And the soundtrack is incredible. And Chicago looks amazing.
It's a great piece of fucking tv, yo.
[01:40:57] Speaker B: It's like rainbows.
[01:40:59] Speaker A: It is, it is, it's like rainbows. When the fucking, the clouds part and there's a rainbow, that's what the, the high points, the good bits in people that you see glimpses of during the beer. It's like seeing little fucking rainbows. It's so good.
[01:41:13] Speaker B: It's so good.
Now, Mark, I'm gonna actually hijack this because we've had so much to talk about this whole time and I feel like we would not be able to do justice to our main topic with how much we have talked already and it's nearly midnight for you. However, I don't want to just go out like that. So I want to talk about a thing that I watched and just sort of spiral with you.
[01:41:42] Speaker A: I'll just quote Cypress Hill, we ain't going out like that. We ain't going out like that. We are going out, you know, everyone knows that.
[01:41:52] Speaker B: Yep, exactly.
So I watched a docu series that I'm much like you and the bear. I'm a little late to the party on this docuseries, and it's called bad vegan.
Have you seen bad vegan?
[01:42:07] Speaker A: No.
[01:42:09] Speaker B: So this is the story of a woman named Sarma who was, like, basically at the center of the raw food movement and had this basically a high end raw vegan restaurant defined in New York City.
[01:42:31] Speaker A: Raw vegan? Are we talking unpasteurized dairy products? Oh, no, because that's not.
[01:42:35] Speaker B: I don't know about that because that's not legal. But literally as an uncooked vegetables and things like that. But, you know, you can do stuff with them. That doesn't mean you can't, like, you know, do interesting things with it. Turn them into mooses and things like that. You know, like, you can do shit with it, just not cooked.
And this was, like, a thing for a moment. I remember, like, one of my friends got, like, very into that and, like, was, as you can imagine, just, like, skeletal as a result of this, but insufferable too.
[01:43:06] Speaker A: I can imagine, yeah.
[01:43:08] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. I have empathy, though, because later on, she came to terms with the fact that she just had an eating disorder. And the raw diet very much speaks to people with eating disorders. You can, under the guise of health and doing the thing for your body, be like, oh, no, this is actually a really good thing for me to do when really you're just trying to starve yourself.
[01:43:30] Speaker A: I dated a bulimic girl for a while. I don't know if I've spoken about this in the cast, and I've seen a lot of that up close. And it's.
[01:43:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that, like, that's like, there's so many things to talk about. This. This is why I'm like, we can. We can kind of spiral on bad vegan for a minute because, like. Like, orthorexia is, like, one of the more insidious types of eating disorder.
[01:43:54] Speaker A: That's orthorexia. O r t h. Orthorexia.
[01:43:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Which basically refers to, like, exercise and, like, health anorexia. So this is. It's really easy to get away with orthorexia because it presents itself as being healthy. This is, you know, you're eating clean foods, right? You're exercising every day for long hours and things like that. And there's no one's going to stop you from doing that, because those look like good habits. But what you're doing in your head, and to be clear, this isn't everybody. Like, eating healthy and exercising is not an eating disorder. It's about your mental state while you're doing it. The point being, I am trying to control my body weight and make sure I stay as thin as possible by restricting my calories and working out tons and tons and tons. It's not really about health. It's about your body image.
[01:44:54] Speaker A: There's also a hard relate from me for this. I mean, you know, I count calories just every day. It's part of my habit now. I. It isn't something I do anymore, is. It isn't something I do kind of consciously anymore. It's just something I do as part my life. If I eat something, I fucking write it down.
But I look back on pics of myself maybe three, four years ago when I was deeply, deeply, deeply into that, really limiting my calorie intake and running, running, running all the fucking time. And God damn, I look gaunt, right?
[01:45:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Like, and that's the. You know, when you are in the throes of that, just like anorexia, your dysmorphia looks in the mirror and goes, I look great.
[01:45:41] Speaker A: Oh, and it felt great. It felt great.
[01:45:44] Speaker B: You're controlling your body, which is so much of what that's about.
[01:45:47] Speaker A: Like, I did this, seeing the scales go down and down and down and. And reaching new air quotes, personal bests on my weight was. Oh, it was everything. And seeing them creep back up again, I had, like, a horrible fucking reaction when I would gain weight.
[01:46:02] Speaker B: Right.
[01:46:03] Speaker A: It was. And with hindsight, yeah. Wasn't. Wasn't good at all.
[01:46:08] Speaker B: Right?
[01:46:09] Speaker A: So I. Yeah, but it's hard to.
[01:46:11] Speaker B: See that because it looks like good habits. Yeah, like, all of those things. Yeah. And I'm sure, like, people, like, commended you on it and things like that, too, right? Like, you get. You get good feedback from others. No one criticizes it because you have outwardly healthy habits, you know? But these things, like. Like, I log food sometimes for, like, weeks or months at a time because I'm trying to make sure that I'm getting enough, like, vitamins and things like that, you know? Like, am I. Am I getting enough protein in my day and stuff like that. Like, none of these habits inherently make you have disordered eating, but it's those spirals that you're talking about of being, like, now, if the scale goes up is, like, my entire self image.
[01:46:54] Speaker A: Like, wrapped up, double down, spend a few days on subsuvians fucking rations.
[01:46:59] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[01:47:00] Speaker A: And it's the thing that, like, subsistence rations, not subservience.
[01:47:03] Speaker B: Yes, subsistence rations. Right. So it's a thing that I think, like a lot of people, like, do and maybe aren't necessarily aware that of. This is part of a disordered eating pattern. And nobody tells you that from the outside because it looks on the surface like you're doing something healthy for you.
Everyone's just gonna congratulate you on how well you've done losing weight and things like that. When inside you're mentally in a really fucked up place. It's the same people congratulate people with cancer for losing weight and shit like that, too. We're such a weight obsessed society in western culture that it's like, it doesn't really matter how you lose it, as long as you lose it. That's cool.
So, yeah, the raw foods movement, I think, covered a lot of that orthorexic behavior for people. And certainly this woman's sharma. I'm not going to make assumptions about her, specifically whether she does disordered eating or things like that, but she's obviously someone who, you know, eats clean, as they say. There are no dirty foods. For those of you listening, it's fine, but clean eating and lots and lots of exercise and stuff like that. She's very skinny, you know, all that kind of stuff. And she was really. But, like, she is presented in this documentary as someone who's, like, very caring her whole life, someone who, you know, wanted good things for people. Maybe one of those, like my, you know, the. My weakness and my strength are both empathy kinds of people, you know?
And she ends up in a relationship with this guy who proceeds to basically convince her that he is, like, some sort of, like, I don't know if it's, like, CIA per se, but he's like some sort of ops kind of guy who, like, constantly needs money from her for various things, and it's all gonna pay off eventually. Like, amongst the things he told her was that he could make her dog live forever.
And, like, she bought this, which is like, another element of, like, these kinds of communities is like the. The woo element of it. The people who get really into, like, these crunchy, like, weird things that then go into, like, conspiracy theories and like, all kinds of, like, bullshit science, pseudoscience and things like that, which really.
[01:49:37] Speaker A: Yeah, also, as we know, are susceptible to, you know, conspiracy theories and crank ism.
[01:49:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, you know, all of these kinds of things come together. So, like, his weird, like, you know, they're a part of something, like, very special, you know? And he can't tell her details of things, but she needs to, like, trust him and trust the process and the organization and all this kind of stuff. And also, you need to wire me $100,000 and things like that. And, like, basically, he ends up taking, like, millions of dollars from her, causing her business to go under, her workers to strike because she doesn't pay them. They end up going on the run and end up in, like, pigeon forge, Virginia, or Kentucky or something like that. Like, in the middle of nowhere, where, like, she's lying in bed every day and then sometimes going to Chipotle because there's nothing she can eat anywhere as a raw vegan in this town that's basically, like a carnival.
And the whole thing was, like, fascinating to me because, like, on multiple levels. But this is, like, it's a Netflix documentary, right? And I think this is one of the things that, like, fascinates me this whole time. We're getting her, like, sort of side of the story, and even people talking about her that makes it sound like she's a victim in all of this. And, like, she was just, like, this really nice person that was really easy to take advantage of and all this kind of stuff. But you watch this whole thing, and it's like, okay, you, like, you went on the run, you, like, hosed your staff. You sent them these, like, you know, emails and things like that that were very confrontational.
And, like, you're. You're clearly on the wrong end of this. You knew you were being. You were hosing people. Whatever. What drives me crazy when it comes to a lot of these documentaries and things like that is like this. Like, if they have access to a person who is involved in it, all sense of, like, objectivity goes out the window because they want that access.
[01:51:56] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:51:56] Speaker B: Right?
This drives me absolutely up the fucking wall, because you know how many documentaries I watch and how I'm constantly complaining about them?
I think I like documentaries, but actually, 99% of the time, I'm, like, mad. And this just brought this particular element to mind for me. Do you know what I mean? Like, just the way these things don't follow any journalistic ethics.
[01:52:29] Speaker A: Journalistic rigor. Yes.
[01:52:32] Speaker B: Yeah, rigor. Think that's what I'm looking for journalistically.
[01:52:36] Speaker A: I was brought up in an era, uh, where I'm. I'm sure that history will bear out what I'm saying, but the kinds of documentaries that I grew up watching on tv was something like, uh. There was a show on tv in my youth called World in Action. Right. Brilliant theme tune. And it was always.
It always felt airtight in the investigative work that the staff would do, it was always researched.
And when they would present their findings to the, you know, to the wrongdoers every week, it was always watertight.
[01:53:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:53:17] Speaker A: And, you know, made with the.
Made with the. The, you know, the involvement of the wronged. The people who'd been wronged, but kind of on their terms. And always with the remit. Exposing something and doing. Right.
[01:53:35] Speaker B: Right, yeah, totally.
[01:53:37] Speaker A: And I don't watch anywhere near the amount of documentaries that you watch, particularly on Netflix, where the. Where the remit isn't to expose an injustice or to blow the whistle on a social ill, but to maintain engagement and to maintain subscriptions and keep people clicking. That's where the focus has shifted. So a documentary these days is little more.
At least the kind of documentary that you're talking about doesn't feel like any attempt to break open, you know, an institutional ill.
[01:54:13] Speaker B: Right.
[01:54:14] Speaker A: It's just content.
[01:54:17] Speaker B: That's. You know what? That's exactly it. And it's like, I made, like, a flippant tweet about this recently in terms of, like, I've started watching a lot of just, like, you YouTube videos before bed. Like, just video essays. There's a couple of those, those youths who make funny little commentaries on things. Just before this, I was watching one where this, like, guy was talking about Elon Musk's interview with Don Lemon, you know, and just ripping that apart and stuff like that. But every now and again, I will watch something that's like, a video essay about, like, a person or something like that. Like, oh, this. Like, you know, this YouTuber who got busted for something or things like that. And the, like, the voice, the talking head, the. Whoever, the, you know, youtuber in charge of the channel or whatever will call it a documentary. You know, welcome to my documentary on so and so. And I'm like, this is not a documentary. This is. You, like, googled some things and you gathered some, like, videos from their. Their page, and then you commented on them. You have created a commentary, a video essay, even.
[01:55:26] Speaker A: Exactly. You've. You've kind of precede a load of information and work done by others and chewed it up and made it a 30 or 42nd fucking bit.
[01:55:35] Speaker B: It's like, me, like, calling, like, my cold opens like a textbook, you know? That's not what this is. This is. I went on the Internet and I learned a bunch of shit about something, and I, like, regurgitated it or whatever, you know, like, this is not. It's not the same thing. And I feel like the youtubers call their shit a documentary because of exactly what you're talking about with what the Netflix stuff is. It's content that's not a documentary. This is, you know, people getting on there and making something that, yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna keep watching it. I'm gonna see where this goes or whatever.
[01:56:08] Speaker A: You know, if you have to tell me right at the start of your peach, if you tell me right at the start of your piece to watch to the end, it will shock you right off. Sorry. I know, I know I'm getting nothing from this.
[01:56:21] Speaker B: Exactly.
And that. It's just.
I think you've really just hit the nail on the head of what bothers me so much about this, because then I watched a documentary on TCM that was kind of boring, but it was about.
It was about an actress in the 1930s or whatever, who, during a custody battle, her diaries were brought up in the divorce proceedings or in the custody battle for their kid, in which she talked about having sex with people and stuff like that. And this was a real big issue because, a, it's like the thirties, and women aren't supposed to be like that, even though they totally are. You're not supposed to. People aren't supposed to know. Maybe it's like, oh, what kind of mother is she gonna be if she's the kind of person who does this? And, like, c, she's a Hollywood figure, so this is not just gonna be in their proceedings. Everyone is going to know about it.
But, like, as boring as this documentary was, it's like, it was kind of like just explaining, like, what were the conditions, like, at this point? Like, what was it like to be a woman at this time? And, like, the kind of person that you needed to be in order to be worthy of. Of your place in society.
[01:57:40] Speaker A: And so that's exactly it. That's, you know, again, you've hit the nail on the head yourself there. Process and rigor and standards aren't always thrilling.
[01:57:51] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, exactly.
[01:57:53] Speaker A: They aren't made.
[01:57:54] Speaker B: It's not necessarily gonna keep you watching next episode. Right?
[01:57:56] Speaker A: No. If you're doing the work and if you're. If you're illustrating your process and that you've applied journalistic thought to this and you've dug, just, you know, like I was saying earlier on, pull on your fucking thread, for fuck's sake. Interrogate your thread. Fully. And the results will. Will become satisfying in and of themselves.
[01:58:17] Speaker B: Right. It's, you know, they're making documentaries for people who don't like documentaries. They want just, you know, they want a YouTube video. Yeah, essentially. And, yeah, I think maybe in pointing that out, you've kind of spoken to something here and what. I mean, I'm. I'm still gonna keep on fucking watching these things because I can't stop myself. But at the same time, maybe that's a way of managing my expectations.
[01:58:41] Speaker A: You need to make content of this. You need to make disposable, fucking trite trash documentaries.
You need to watch these so we don't have to. Cory, it's your calling. It's what you need to watch it so we don't need to.
[01:58:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I gotta get on that or whatever. But I just. Thank you for letting me process not at all that. Because I think that has actively shed light on why I'm so frustrated every time I watch these things. As someone who likes to know things, as someone who enjoys a scandal here and there, why am I so mad when I watch these scandalous documentaries? It's because it's all scandal and no documentary.
[01:59:20] Speaker A: But think of. Just to keep the hereditary nature of information, right. If I'm. If I'm consuming these sources of Cliff's notes compressed, commodified. Click, click, click. Keep going. Next. Next. If that's where I'm getting my information, I'm already. I'm getting the cliff's notes. I'm thinking that I've got the topic down. I'm thinking I've learned something where I've not. I've just seen somebody else crush a topic into a, you know, into an easily consumable portion. And I think I've seen that and I think I've. I think I've got the topic down. I think I've got the nuance. I think I've got the detail and you haven't. You've got nothing.
[01:59:58] Speaker B: Yeah. I think, you know, to your point, like, when it comes to watching a documentary, like you were saying, it usually is, like, supposed to do some sort of social good, right? It's exposing something or explaining something, like, what was a cultural context, like at a time. Why are things like this and stuff like that after watching bad vegan?
This explains nothing to me about the world that I live in or, you know, the labor practices that can lead to someone doing something like this or the vegan or raw food movements and the ways in which people within it are often led into these, like, weird, conspiratorial worldviews that would allow for someone to get taken like this. It doesn't. It doesn't interrogate any of that. It's just a, you know, walking through one story as if it has no connection to the broader world. And that's. Yeah, that doesn't. That's not what a documentary does.
[02:00:56] Speaker A: And if nothing else, it's standing on the shoulders of people who've done the work.
[02:01:02] Speaker B: Right, exactly.
[02:01:05] Speaker A: You know, and pulling the illusion that you've, in fact, done the work yourself, which is, you know, pretty fucking trite.
[02:01:11] Speaker B: Mmm. Don't like it, Mark?
[02:01:14] Speaker A: I don't like it, either.
[02:01:16] Speaker B: You know what I do like?
[02:01:17] Speaker A: Tell me what you like.
[02:01:19] Speaker B: I like this podcast.
[02:01:20] Speaker A: I like this podcast. I love it.
[02:01:22] Speaker B: I love our listeners.
[02:01:23] Speaker A: I do. I fucking love it.
[02:01:26] Speaker B: All of it. It's all. It's all good. And, you know, sometimes we have to have those choag therapy sessions with a little bit of catharsis.
[02:01:35] Speaker A: I was told recently that I do a very good Brian Cox doing that particular line in succession.
[02:01:40] Speaker B: Oh, wait, do it again. I wasn't.
[02:01:42] Speaker A: I fucking love it.
[02:01:45] Speaker B: It's pretty good.
[02:01:46] Speaker A: Thank you.
[02:01:48] Speaker B: Now say girlfriend in an american accent.
[02:01:54] Speaker A: Girlfriend. No.
Girlfriend. Girlfriend. Which kind of american accent that was.
[02:02:03] Speaker B: I mean it. Like, I was open to interpretation. That last one. I felt like you. You were on the right track.
[02:02:09] Speaker A: Girlfriend. Girlfriend.
[02:02:10] Speaker B: Hey, there it is. Yeah.
[02:02:13] Speaker A: My girlfriend.
[02:02:14] Speaker B: Oh, it's that first r that trips everyone up.
[02:02:20] Speaker A: Girlfriend.
[02:02:22] Speaker B: Girl.
She's a girl.
So, dear friends, have a wonderful week. If you know any brits, go ask them to say girlfriend in american accent, and you will not be disappointed. And while you're at it, there's one more thing you ought to do.
[02:02:47] Speaker A: Stay spooky this week. Oh, look, as the podcast has gone on, I felt worse and worse and worse by telling. Right. And she's going to get bummed by a horse. You're not.
And I'm sorry, I take it back. The stars. I've had. I've had something else. As the podcast has gone on, you're gonna buy a scratch card because you're gonna win big.
[02:03:09] Speaker B: There we go. Hey, that Powerball's at, like, 1.9 billion or something, right?
[02:03:13] Speaker A: So invest big in that.
[02:03:15] Speaker B: Invest big.
[02:03:16] Speaker A: You're gonna pay off big.
[02:03:18] Speaker B: But stay away from horses, just in case.
[02:03:20] Speaker A: Yeah, it can't hurt.
But when you get your winnings, Ryan, just like everybody else, please do stay spooky.
[02:03:29] Speaker B: Bada bing.
