Ep. 205: a death cat and well-trained worms

[00:00:04] Speaker A: I tell you what we're gonna do, right? I tell you what we're gonna do about this, right? We, you and I, we are gonna do. We're gonna do what we do. We're gonna fucking record Joag, right? And sure, I'm gonna open this up, right? [00:00:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:18] Speaker A: I'm gonna open us up. [00:00:20] Speaker B: Okay. [00:00:21] Speaker A: And I'm gonna open us up with a detective story. I want you to play detective for me today, Oregon. [00:00:29] Speaker B: Okay. [00:00:30] Speaker A: All right, listeners. [00:00:30] Speaker B: You know, I enjoy this. [00:00:32] Speaker A: Yeah, listeners, let's do this. Don't think about that. Think about this, right? We're gonna. Come with me, will you please, to Providence, Rhode Island. Will you please come with me? [00:00:53] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. [00:00:54] Speaker A: No, we didn't go there. [00:00:55] Speaker B: I've been there. I've been there a time or two. [00:00:56] Speaker A: You been there? Describe it for me. If I'm, you know, taking a jaunt along the fucking avenue in Providence, Rhode Island. What can I. What would I see? How. What's the vibe? [00:01:08] Speaker B: Lots of big houses, water. [00:01:11] Speaker A: Is it quite well to do? Yeah, yeah. [00:01:14] Speaker B: At least, like, parts of it are. I mean, I'm sure that there's plenty of lower income people in Rhode island as well. But like, Rhode Island's kind of known for being like a bit conservative and a bit wealthy and like some of the, like all the, like really huge guys, like the Vanderbilts and stuff like that, like they had homes out there. Not necessarily Providence, I don't think, but like Rhode island, so. [00:01:39] Speaker A: Well, if you were in Providence, Rhode island, it's very possible that you might chance upon Steer House Nursing and rehabilitation center. [00:01:51] Speaker B: Sounds quaint. [00:01:52] Speaker A: Very possible. You might. Steer House, it's a nonprofit kind of nursing home, right? [00:01:59] Speaker B: Sure. [00:02:00] Speaker A: It provides palliative care, long term care for dementia patients, Alzheimer's patients, other kind of terminal illnesses. Been around a long time. It's been around since the 1800s. Established in the kind of late 1800s, it was opened as the Steer House Home for Aged Men. [00:02:24] Speaker B: Why is that funny? [00:02:26] Speaker A: It's just. I can just picture the sign above the gate. I mean, the huge wrought iron gate, like Arkham Asylum. Steer House. [00:02:33] Speaker B: Okay. [00:02:34] Speaker A: Home Aged men. [00:02:35] Speaker B: Can I ask a question, please? Sorry, just before you go on. This is like a non sequitur, but it just made me think of something like. You know how we always say like. Like any building in your town is probably older than this entire country, right? [00:02:49] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. Well, maybe not Bicester, but I feel you. [00:02:52] Speaker B: Yeah, well, sure, not Bicester. Bicester is a mall. But you know, in Oxford, for example, however, I'm Curious, like, when it comes to how long, like, businesses and stuff like that have been around, are they usually older than ours or are they pretty? Like, because we have a lot of them that is like, yeah, this has been around since the 1800s or whatever, things like that. Like, is that. Do. Are. Do you have businesses that. It's like, this has been around since 1642 or whatever. [00:03:22] Speaker A: Oh, listen, there are for sure, like, ancient family businesses. [00:03:27] Speaker B: Okay. [00:03:28] Speaker A: In the uk. I mean, I. Look, you're asking the wrong guy if you want any kind of educated or informed answer to this. [00:03:40] Speaker B: Right. Let's get. Just go, like, on a. I don't even want educated or informed. Like, if you're obviously, again, not bister, but let's say you're in Oxford, like, and you're walking down the street, would it be typical for you to see, like, businesses that are 100, 200 years old, or is it pretty much like, everything's newish? [00:04:00] Speaker A: Put it like this. In the. In the last town I lived in, in Wales. Right. [00:04:07] Speaker B: Mm. [00:04:08] Speaker A: There is a company called Sedoli and Sons Ice Cream. [00:04:13] Speaker B: Okay. [00:04:14] Speaker A: Okay. And they've been around since the 1920s. They've been around since, like, 1920. Odd. Right? [00:04:19] Speaker B: That's like. Yeah, that's within America's lifetime. [00:04:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:04:23] Speaker B: That's. I'm just kind of. That's what I'm curious about is, like, you know, I always think about, like, when it comes to structures, obviously we haven't been around that long compared to you guys, but in terms of, like, you know, how long a business has been around, everything's probably within a similar span of time. Right. Like, you don't have a ton of stuff that's like, oh, yeah, this business is a thousand years old. [00:04:47] Speaker A: Well, take the Royal Mint, for example. Right. Which is in Llantresant in the Valleys. Do you have Polo mints in the States? [00:05:02] Speaker B: Is that a. Is that a food or do you mean, like, money? [00:05:06] Speaker A: A polo is a. Is a little round mint. Sweet. Think like an alcohol, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Strong peppermint. And they are circular. [00:05:17] Speaker B: Right, okay. [00:05:18] Speaker A: And marketed as the mint with the hole. Right. [00:05:23] Speaker B: So a lifesaver. [00:05:25] Speaker A: No, a polo. [00:05:27] Speaker B: Sure. I'm trying to figure out what our analog is. That would be like a mint lifesaver. [00:05:33] Speaker A: Yes. So, okay. Apollo was marketed as the mint with the hole. [00:05:38] Speaker B: Sure. [00:05:39] Speaker A: Llantricent is known as the hole with the mint. [00:05:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I like it. [00:05:46] Speaker A: Isn't it good? And the Royal Mint has been operating since 886 AD continuously. Yes. [00:05:54] Speaker B: It's never shut down. It's just been running for. Literally. [00:05:58] Speaker A: It's been a going concern since 886 AD. It's where all of the coins in the UK are struck. All legally acceptable coins struck in the Royal Mint. [00:06:10] Speaker B: I'm confused. Are we talking about money or candy? [00:06:13] Speaker A: We're talking about money. It's a mint. It makes coins. The Polo thing was just to bring a little bit of local color, you know, a bit of. All right, fair enough. I zigged a little bit hard. Maybe. [00:06:25] Speaker B: A mint. Being around for that long, that, like, makes money make sense. Yeah. I was thinking this candy had been around since 800, and I was like, jesus Christ. [00:06:36] Speaker A: Look there. There's a fuck ton of ancient businesses in the UK. Cambridge University Press has been around since the 1500s. Sure, sure. There's a bell manufacturing company, the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. They've been around since the 1500s. So. Yes. Twinings Tea, for example, they've been going since the 1700s. So. Yes, yes, there are. [00:06:55] Speaker B: So somewhere. Yeah. In the. I mean, the 1700s, again, there's businesses here that are that old, but 1500s is probably about as old as you're gonna find. Like, an actual, like, business being, as opposed to, like a government body. [00:07:08] Speaker A: We've got the Royal Mail, been around since the 50s. [00:07:10] Speaker B: That's a government body. [00:07:12] Speaker A: Well, not any more, really. Kind of. It's. It's. [00:07:15] Speaker B: It was a government. [00:07:17] Speaker A: Okay, fine. All right, fine. How about a porters? A shore Porter Society in Aberdeen? They've been around since 1498. Does that for you. [00:07:24] Speaker B: A shore porter. [00:07:26] Speaker A: They're called the Shore Porter Society. They're a removals company. Haulage storage. [00:07:31] Speaker B: Ah, okay. They've been around since when? [00:07:34] Speaker A: 1498. [00:07:35] Speaker B: Hooey. [00:07:36] Speaker A: Yes. [00:07:37] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:07:38] Speaker A: Yes. Does that suit your curiosity on that? [00:07:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So I feel like basically, on balance, probably you don't have, like a ton of businesses that are like a bajillion years old. Like, they're probably all within the past couple hundred years. But there are some that are old as fuck. [00:07:56] Speaker A: Well, no, there are more. I mean, there's Weavers of Nottingham. Right. They are a fabric producing company that it would seem, have been around since 11:30. [00:08:08] Speaker B: Wild. [00:08:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:08:10] Speaker B: I'm not. I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not saying there aren't some, but I'm saying, like, it's not typical that your businesses, like, when you're walking through town like, this shoe store's been here since 900 or like, you know, things like that, like, there are of course, going to be some legacy places. But, like, in general, it's not typical for your stores to be older than America? [00:08:32] Speaker A: No. [00:08:35] Speaker B: That was the question I was asking. I was wondering if they're like, everywhere. It's like, oh, yeah, you can't throw a rock without hitting a shop that's been in business for 800 years. [00:08:45] Speaker A: I don't know. That's not typical, I don't think. [00:08:47] Speaker B: Okay. But that is interesting. Thank you for telling me about those, because that is fascinating to me. [00:08:53] Speaker A: Good. [00:08:54] Speaker B: Everyone is like, what does that have to do with a nursing home? [00:08:56] Speaker A: Do you want to hear more about. [00:08:59] Speaker B: Tell me who founded this nursing home? Let's. Yeah, let's get. [00:09:02] Speaker A: Listen, that's by the by, but it was Henry Steele and Lucy Buckland. They founded this in 1874. And over the years, it kind of expanded its remit in that, hey, women are now allowed and. [00:09:17] Speaker B: Hey, did they change the sign, you think? [00:09:20] Speaker A: I would hope so. If anyone's in Rhode island and you can pop along, I'd love to know. Okay, let me tell you something about Steer House. And this is where the detective part starts to come into play. Right. I want you to lick through the tip of your pencil, start to take. [00:09:34] Speaker B: Some notes, paying close attention here. [00:09:36] Speaker A: All right? 2005, if you will. And as part of its kind of palliative care program, Steerhouse adopted a number of cats. [00:09:49] Speaker B: Sure, Okay. [00:09:49] Speaker A: A number of therapy cats, a number of comfort animals. You know, stroke a cat. What the fuck else are you gonna do while you're eating your pudding? You know, just. [00:09:58] Speaker B: We don't say stroke here. And every time you do, I'm like, ugh. [00:10:02] Speaker A: Why? [00:10:03] Speaker B: Why would you do that? [00:10:04] Speaker A: So if you've got a dog, what do you do with. Pet it, Walter. [00:10:08] Speaker B: Then I pet my dog. [00:10:10] Speaker A: Give him a little stroke. [00:10:13] Speaker B: I'm gonna stroke my dog. [00:10:15] Speaker A: Well, I've. I've stroked your dog, even if you haven't. [00:10:20] Speaker B: Go on stroking cats. [00:10:24] Speaker A: So, yeah, six cats. One amongst these cats was Oscar. [00:10:30] Speaker B: Oscar. [00:10:30] Speaker A: Oscar the cat. Oscar the cat. Oscar was a tabby, kind of gray and white, lovely little cat. Initially, not particularly friendly, but he warmed up, of course, and he became a, you know, a fixture of the hospital. Right, sure. But here's the thing. Oscar started exhibiting very interesting behavior. [00:11:01] Speaker B: Okay? [00:11:02] Speaker A: Very fucking interesting behavior. Let me tell you something. Staff noticed some six months after getting Oscar in this. In the. In the place, in stier house, staff noticed that he would often curl up quietly, still silent, nuzzling up next to patients who were then about to die. [00:11:35] Speaker B: Oscar's a murderer. [00:11:37] Speaker A: That certainly won potential, you know, thread of reasoning here. [00:11:46] Speaker B: He's going and sitting on faces in the night. [00:11:51] Speaker A: He's a. Yes. Demanding to be stroked. But check it. No, seriously. Oscar would enter a patient's room, curl up on the bed, often ignoring other patients in the room that he would otherwise have an affinity with. [00:12:06] Speaker B: Okay. [00:12:08] Speaker A: And within hours of his visit, sometimes within two hours of Oscar nuzzling up next to this patient, that patient would then pass away. Damn right. [00:12:18] Speaker B: I would be so nervous if that cat came into my room. [00:12:20] Speaker A: Oh, yes, you fucking would. [00:12:22] Speaker B: Keep that cat away from me. [00:12:24] Speaker A: It became a kind of informal joke amongst the staff. Oh, Oscar's doing his rounds. You know Oscar. [00:12:32] Speaker B: Oscar's the Lucy Letby of the steer house. [00:12:36] Speaker A: Oh, you didn't. [00:12:37] Speaker B: I'm sorry. It's right there. That is right there. She's an innocent woman, Corrigan. I don't know. Ask Oscar. [00:12:49] Speaker A: But look, there's, there's, there's, there's way more to tell here, okay? On the. It was on the third floor mainly the. Oscar's incredible talent started to make itself known. Right. In the dementia unit, known as the third floor. A very calm, somewhat somber environment. [00:13:09] Speaker B: Sure. [00:13:10] Speaker A: A lot of the residents on that floor had advanced kind of degenerative conditions, intensive, kind of around the clock support. And as I said, while they were initially quite skeptical, the nurses on that ward often, you know, then found themselves watching Oscar very carefully, I would imagine you'd think. Yeah, of course. [00:13:30] Speaker B: Watch the death cat. This is a. That seems like a wise thing to do. [00:13:34] Speaker A: But not, not just nurses. This. This got the attention of doctors as well. Right to the point where it became so reliable that when the staff noticed Oscar doing his thing, lingering near a particular patient, they would call the family in. [00:13:52] Speaker B: Oh, interesting. [00:13:55] Speaker A: It was that fucking reliable. Right? [00:13:58] Speaker B: How many was it? Do you know, before they were like, this feels like a thing. [00:14:03] Speaker A: Well, let me tell you this. Oscar came into the steer House in 2005. [00:14:10] Speaker B: Right. [00:14:11] Speaker A: By 2010, Oscar had done his thing and predicted it quotes the deaths of more than 50 fucking patients. [00:14:23] Speaker B: Jesus Christ. Yeah, Just as a side note, that is so many deaths. It must be like bananas working at that place. [00:14:31] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Do not be detached. [00:14:34] Speaker B: I don't know if anyone who listens to us like works in hospice or any of those kinds of things, but my goodness, you. You deserve your crown in heaven or whatever. For like how just going into work every day and just people dying, just all. [00:14:51] Speaker A: Well, it. Well, look, you know how if we, if we drive one point home on this Fucking cast. It's. It's a part of life. That's all it is. That's all it is. [00:15:04] Speaker B: Yep. [00:15:04] Speaker A: Dust in the wind. [00:15:05] Speaker B: But it's still going to be, you know, difficult if you work in that kind of environment. I remember when I was a freshman in college, we had to do this thing called city serve, right? And it's like the whole school at my university, like your floor basically that you live on because everyone lives in dorms. Your floor that you live on will go and do some sort of community service project. And so, you know, like one year it was like digging up invasive ice plants at Back Bay or things like that. Sometimes it's like manual label labor or whatever and other times it's like doing something with people. And so my freshman year we went to like an old folks home in town and you know, because they don't get like a ton of visitors necessarily and they love having like a bunch of like 18 year old kids come in and you know, liven up the joint. We did like, we sat, did like chair yoga with them and stuff like that. We literally just hung out. And there was one lady there who was like in her 90s and she was still like very sharp and everything, but she, the phrase that she said that like, and it's a common phrase, but this was the first time I'd ever heard it. She was like, I don't even buy, buy unripe bananas anymore. Because she was just like, any day I can fucking drop dead, you know, like, this is. You gotta be ready for that. And I just thought, you know. Yeah, it was like such a, like healthy little like, is that. [00:16:33] Speaker A: I find that very healthy. Yes. [00:16:34] Speaker B: Right. Like, I know I'm here, I'm present, I'm sharp, I'm having a good time. But like, listen. [00:16:43] Speaker A: I've done something similar myself, as has Peter. I mean, when I was in school, I was in the choir, we would go and sing for the fucking, you know, sing for the old guys. Yeah, Peter's done it. He's gone and played his clarinet and sang for the, for the old geezers. It's good shit. It's good to do. [00:16:58] Speaker B: I feel like at the, like at this point now like the really old people are like almost like hippies. It's like you're gonna have to start going in there and playing like psychedelic rock or whatever for them. They're like, why are playing a clarinet? I'm not. 120. [00:17:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it is, it's fulfilling. It's good to do. [00:17:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Anyways, Go on. [00:17:24] Speaker A: So listen, Oscar. Back to Oscar. [00:17:26] Speaker B: Back to Oscar. [00:17:27] Speaker A: Six months old. More than. More than. More than 50 patients by the time. By the time he was five. Right. And as I said, it wasn't just nurses who'd noticed this. An actual. A physician, a doctor, Dr. David Dosa, who was fantastic specialism here, a geriatrician. [00:17:45] Speaker B: Nice. [00:17:48] Speaker A: Whilst a professor at Brown University. Word reached him of Oscar, and although initially skeptical himself, of course, he was watching this fucking cat like a hawk. Wrote an article about him, right, in the New England Journal of Medicine. [00:18:02] Speaker B: So he didn't work there, but he came and he observed the cat. [00:18:05] Speaker A: Yes, yes, indeed. [00:18:07] Speaker B: Okay. He was like, I got to see what's going on here. Everybody's telling me about this cat. [00:18:11] Speaker A: Exactly. And chronicled his Oscars talents and eventually wrote a book. He's written a fucking book about this cat called Making Rounds with Oscar. The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat. The book by all accounts is, you know, a touching look at palliative care and end of life and dementia. But using Oscar as a framing device. Now what Dr. Doeter observed, what he saw was that Oscar almost had a ritual when he sensed the fucking cold finger of death stalking the halls. What he would do is he would enter the room, like I've said, often to the complete disregard of other people who he knew. He would climb onto the bed, he would curl up, typically around the patient's kind of legs or chest. He was still, he was patient. And he would stay right up until the very end. Even if it took hours, he would just stay there. [00:19:15] Speaker B: Hmm. Was it always within hours? It wasn't like days or anything like that. [00:19:19] Speaker A: It's like. [00:19:19] Speaker B: No, this is imminent. [00:19:20] Speaker A: Inevitable, yes. Imminent death, yes. A lot of families came to find Oscar's presence comforting. You know, they would view him. They would. [00:19:31] Speaker B: I wouldn't. [00:19:32] Speaker A: Well, no, but the simpletons among us might view him as like a, you know, spirit animal. [00:19:38] Speaker B: Sure, yeah. [00:19:38] Speaker A: You know, something fucking wanked like that. And right. He was off the. [00:19:45] Speaker B: Let's not call spirit animals wank because that's actually a Native American practice. When white people say it. Let's. [00:19:50] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I speak from, you know, the live, laugh, love fucking contingent. Right. But again, it's the accuracy, it's the consistency. Just to talk about some of these patients. Right. Obviously, you know, specifics are quite hard to come by, but there are, there are specifics. Mary, for example, she was a steerhouse resident with advanced Alzheimer's. And you know, Oscar did his thing and the family were comforted. The Family felt that Oscar's passing was a little, that Mary's passing was a little less lonely, you know? [00:20:29] Speaker B: Sure, yeah, yeah. [00:20:32] Speaker A: There was another resident who simply went by the name of Mr. T. No name, no full name. But his family found it quite difficult to come to terms with the presence of this death predicting cat by his side. But they, right, they came to see Oscar as a kind of a guardian angel. And when T's moments finally drew to an end, Oscar came curled up next to him on the bed while the family were kind of sitting around there in a quiet vigil. And they described it as almost a spiritual kind of experience, you know. [00:21:03] Speaker B: Right. [00:21:04] Speaker A: And the cases just mount up, Ruth. Advanced dementia. Oscar did his thing. [00:21:10] Speaker B: Were there like, were all of these people basically so far gone that they like couldn't interact with the cat at this point or were there people who like the cat came in and they. [00:21:19] Speaker A: Were like, ah, I see, ah, I see you being. I see you've got your detective hat on here. So what is beyond what is in a saleable here, right, is the numbers involved. Right. This happened all the fucking time. [00:21:42] Speaker B: And he didn't go and do this normally. He didn't just like sit on people's heads with them. [00:21:47] Speaker A: From what I can gather, he was normally an ambulatory cat. He would, okay, you know, he would prowl and play and whatnot. But when he sat down next to you mate, when he curled up, dong, you know. So what was going on? There have been theories. Was Oscar picking up on maybe patterns of a lack of movement in patience? Was he noticing. Oh, hang on. They've gone very still, very quiet. Oh, I'm going to curl up next to them. Oh, bang, they're dead. Right. You know, was it, was Oscar perhaps sniffing chemical changes, right? Yeah, in, in, you know, in, in his, I'll say victims, you know, was he picking up kind of biochemical signatures, Dying cells giving off some kind of aura, some kind of presence undetectable by human eye or nose? [00:22:42] Speaker B: Sure. [00:22:43] Speaker A: But this is all speculation, Corey. So I throw it to you right now, right? [00:22:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:52] Speaker A: What do you think was going on there? [00:22:54] Speaker B: So there's, those are like the basic theories. There's no like nobody has figured it out per se and they've never had like another cat that did it? [00:23:04] Speaker A: Nope. I mean Oscar, are there other cats. [00:23:05] Speaker B: Anywhere that do this? Oscar, is Oscar the only cat that's ever done this? [00:23:09] Speaker A: Oscar's the most famous of the death sniffing cats. [00:23:13] Speaker B: Sure. [00:23:14] Speaker A: And he, he left us in 2022 at the ripe old feline age of 17. [00:23:22] Speaker B: Hey, nice. [00:23:24] Speaker A: Yes, that's old. [00:23:25] Speaker B: Gaucho was too. [00:23:27] Speaker A: There you go. And. Yeah, and he was the Methuselah of dogs, wasn't he? [00:23:33] Speaker B: Indeed, indeed. Interesting. I mean. Yeah, that's a. I guess I would say. I'm just thinking about cats. You know, often we joke about how like, cats would eat us when we die and stuff. [00:23:49] Speaker A: And they will. They will. They would. And they will. [00:23:51] Speaker B: They certainly will. And so would dogs, for that matter. But, you know, any animal, if you left them unfed, would eat your body. But, you know, that makes me think like, you know, maybe there's. Maybe there is a smell and the cats are kind of like, you know, hey, what's, you know, what's going on over here? Is this about to expire? But also, I mean, I think the idea that like, a cat would be. Because cats are also notably standoffish compared to other animals. The idea that like, someone who, like their. Sorry, my mom. My mom was like yelling. But there. The idea that like a body is warm but it's still feels like it might, you know, appeal to a cat. [00:24:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:43] Speaker B: Like, I don't think. I think it is unlikely that the cat was like this. These people are going to die and they need comfort or anything like that. Probably not an emotional thing that I'm. [00:24:54] Speaker A: Going to completely disavowed. That is not happening. [00:25:00] Speaker B: Yeah. I think it's, you know, it's not an angel. It doesn't have the emotional intelligence to realize that a dying person needs comfort or anything like that. Yeah, yeah. I guess my, like, my assumption would be that something about a dying body spoke to this cat that was normally standoffish but did, like the warmth of human contact. [00:25:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:23] Speaker B: And so it was like, ah, this human is not continuing to move or anything like that. I'm a chill here. [00:25:31] Speaker A: Warm and still and safe and comfortable. It's cat magnet, isn't it? That's what that is. [00:25:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Right. That makes sense. [00:25:39] Speaker A: My. My instinct is that it's a mixture of that and with the fact that everybody in Steer House was ours from death. Right, right. [00:25:50] Speaker B: Well, yeah. I mean, that's why I asked the question of, like, does it not, like, does it not do this ever anywhere else or stuff like that. Because, yeah. If you're in a house where people are dying all the time, like weekly. [00:26:03] Speaker A: We are talking Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, all manner of. [00:26:08] Speaker B: Right. It feels like, you know, there may be a degree of kind of ignoring when he would just curl up on people's beds regularly. Like, you know, the odds of this cat curling up on someone's bed who's about to die are not that slim. [00:26:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And that's where I fall on this. And. All right, fair enough. By the time. You know, by the time he was 5, he'd predicted 50 deaths. How many people did he lay next to who got up the next morning. [00:26:36] Speaker B: Right. Who were just fine, you know, went. [00:26:39] Speaker A: For a shit and ate their oatmeal, you know? [00:26:41] Speaker B: Right, exactly. Those people were asleep. There was no one in the room to report the cat had been there. Because that's the other thing. Like, if the cat is looking for, like, a warm, motionless body, then, like, 90% of the time, there's not gonna be other people around when it goes and it hangs out with them, so. And I'm just quite a few warm, motionless bodies in, like, a hospice. [00:27:05] Speaker A: Yes. It occurs to me that there's one. There's one particular listener of ours who I'd like to weigh in here. [00:27:13] Speaker B: Ooh. Okay. [00:27:14] Speaker A: And I think you know who it is. Eileen does. Does with, like, eight E's in the middle. Does a body in the minutes and hours before death exude, you know, anything below the human kind of rate of perception? Is there anything, you know, do cats or dogs or other animals have they. Do they have perception beyond what, you know, color and smell and what. [00:27:46] Speaker B: Obviously, you know? Yep. [00:27:48] Speaker A: So is it. Is. Is that it? Were they sniffing death somehow? [00:27:54] Speaker B: Hmm. I like that question. [00:27:58] Speaker A: What caused me to laugh about 30 seconds ago? Was it suddenly hit home? There's a. Our openings to this podcast are very different, aren't they? [00:28:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, they are. [00:28:15] Speaker A: What if a cat could smell death? That's my input here this week. [00:28:20] Speaker B: Oh. And I'm happy to have you, Marco. [00:28:23] Speaker A: That's all right, then. Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may. [00:28:28] Speaker B: Yes, please do. [00:28:29] Speaker A: Fucking look at these nerds. Oh, mise en scene. [00:28:32] Speaker B: I don't think anyone has ever said mise en scene in such a horny way before. [00:28:37] Speaker A: The way I whispered the word sex. [00:28:38] Speaker B: Cannibal receive worst comes to worst. Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science. [00:28:43] 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 leg it. [00:28:49] Speaker B: You know how I feel about that, Mark. [00:28:51] Speaker A: I think you feel great about it. [00:28:56] Speaker B: At least. You know, this week, I was just as distractible over the course of your cold open as you often are for mine. So we do have that balance running for us. [00:29:05] Speaker A: Yeah, we do. I like it. [00:29:09] Speaker B: There's just every now and again, it's like, I just need to know this cultural thing, like, right this instant. [00:29:15] Speaker A: Yeah, no, we are in the age of immediacy. [00:29:21] Speaker B: Mmm. True. [00:29:22] Speaker A: We are not in the age of going down the library, opening a book, licking a finger. You know what I mean? But when it comes to information, we want it now. [00:29:34] Speaker B: True. I would say. Listen, that feels like a cynical take on it. I look at it as the fact that, you know, we're in community here, Marco. We are in conversation, and we are leaning upon each other's knowledge as people who live in entirely different parts of the world. And so I would like to know from you, you know, right now, while we're. While we're here, what. What? That's what that's like. [00:30:05] Speaker A: It's what makes this such a successful podcast. It's what. It's what generates the revenue. You know what I mean? It's what keeps the fucking dollars, keeps. [00:30:16] Speaker B: The lights on, rolling in. [00:30:18] Speaker A: It's what puts food on my fucking table. Right? [00:30:22] Speaker B: Listen, on that note, I have to say, you sent me a listener created shirt. [00:30:31] Speaker A: Jesus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:30:32] Speaker B: Yesterday. [00:30:32] Speaker A: Gotta talk about this. [00:30:34] Speaker B: Holy smokes. Because this makes me think of it. Because this shirt perfectly captures you and me on this podcast. This was. Tell me. Tell everyone about it. Because you have more backstory on what this is than I do. [00:30:52] Speaker A: Yeah. So what we have here is a brand new shirt design made completely. Like, I didn't ask anyone to make this right, but yeah, a really, really fucking hell of a guy by the name of Richie has. Has designed a brand new shirt for us which is gonna go up on our merch site in the next couple of days. I've got to talk. Just. Right, It, I think, is the mark of. Can you judge a person by the fucking company they keep and the people they know in their circle and their orbit? I think you can, right? [00:31:34] Speaker B: Oh, totally. [00:31:36] Speaker A: And not for the first time, I think about all of the creative people that I know, right? All of the creative fucking talented, just hard fucking grafting good people in my. In my life, right? And what came. What. What was brought home to me by this act of just creativity and charity. Thanks, Rich man. The jog journey, right? We don't walk it alone, right? People are along on this journey with us every fucking step of the way. And gestures like this. Gestures like this piece of art which Rich created. It's very, very touching. A. It's a fucking brilliant piece of art, right? [00:32:24] Speaker B: Yeah, just. It's super cool for one me Being. [00:32:26] Speaker A: Manic as fuck wearing a Freddy glove has got you reading from some kind of ancient reading from a book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:32:33] Speaker B: With a big smile. [00:32:34] Speaker A: Grave with some fucking zombie coming out of. It's fucking. That's so cool. [00:32:39] Speaker B: We can't wait to show it to you. [00:32:40] Speaker A: Yes. It has the essence of Joe fucking bursting from the threads. And Rich is a talented motherfucker. Legit as fuck as well. He's also legit as fuck, does graphic design and designs. You know, like when you watch a soap opera or like a drama or whatever, and there's like, mock products in the background. Websites. He designs that kind of thing on the. On fucking BBC, for fuck's sake. On Casualty and Hobby City and shit like that. [00:33:09] Speaker B: So rad. [00:33:10] Speaker A: Rich has turn that immense talent to helping us with. With our shirt design. So, yes, just. I am humbled and I am grateful and I'm honored. Thanks, dude. [00:33:21] Speaker B: We really appreciate it, 100%. So many thanks. And I echo everything that you said. It's just. Yeah. Very, you know, constantly just floored by the people who have chosen to spend their time with us and share their gifts with us and all of those kinds of things. It just. It means a ton. So thank you. [00:33:41] Speaker A: It's cool as fuck, is what it is. Cool as fuck. [00:33:43] Speaker B: We can't wait to show it to you. [00:33:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. [00:33:47] Speaker B: Guam, I was just gonna say, you know, obviously, we'd be remiss not to acknowledge. It's been a bit of a week in America. [00:33:54] Speaker A: Yes. [00:33:55] Speaker B: Hasn't it now? [00:33:57] Speaker A: Yes. [00:33:58] Speaker B: We talked last week about the electoral college and all of that kind of stuff and how voting works in America, only to then end up with Trump actually taking the popular vote here. [00:34:10] Speaker A: A lesson in real time. A lesson in real time. Real time unfolding before us. [00:34:15] Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, it's been bananas. And listen, we know this is a podcast that's on dark things and stuff like that. [00:34:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:24] Speaker B: But we're not gonna waste a ton of time on this. I think, you know, everybody has been sitting in their misery or whatever over the course of the past several days, and we're not. We're not about wallowing in misery. Right. Like, that's not what we do here. [00:34:39] Speaker A: We are about celebrating it. We're about enjoying. [00:34:42] Speaker B: We're about enjoying the misery. And I don't think anyone is at enjoying the misery just yet. What I will say is, if you do want to sort of hear about it, Kristen and I, on the Kofi this month, we talked about the purge election year, and Kind of processed what had just happened. And in that, again, we're not wallowing in it, we're giving suggestions, concrete suggestions on like, how to not be a doomer, right? Like, what do you do now? Because I think one of the things that has really struck me, and I talk about this in that podcast episode of the Fan Cave, is that, you know, I live in a black neighborhood for the most part, right? The vast majority of people I see on a day to day basis are black. And you know, going out and being around them, like, yeah, everyone's kind of in like a this sucks mood or whatever. But also there's like a, you know, a sense that, like, it's, it's. I don't want to be toxic positivity here. There's nothing positive about this, but there's a sense of like, we've been in the struggle, right? This is nothing new. The America sucks for a good chunk of the people who are here, right? Like, this is. There's a. There are people who have been living in comfort who are having their tree shaken right now, right? Like, if you have not been under attack forever and you are now seeing rights slipping away from you, then this can feel like it's super hopeless and all of that. But what I see from the black people in my neighborhood, what I see from trans folks, what I see from people who have been persecuted here and that it's never gotten better for is like, fucking go to work. You know, that's, you know, not a time for whining, not a time for wallowing in your despair over things, but a time to learn what community means and stop isolating yourself, stop thinking individuals can do anything, because we can't. It is about community and actively getting outside of your house, outside of your nice little suburb, all of these kinds of things. And finding people who are doing shit. If you, if you have any form of privilege, you know, this is the time to spend it. You know, use that shit. And the people who have been at the bottom without that, with all those burdens, have been doing their best with what they got all this time. So it's time for everybody to get in that struggle. So that is what, you know, if you want to hear more of that concrete steps, all that kind of stuff, get on our Ko Fi and listen to Kristen and I talk about that. But that's all, that's all I want to say about this is simply use your anger. [00:37:35] Speaker A: There is the only part of this topic that I just want to give voice to, right? [00:37:40] Speaker B: Do it. [00:37:43] Speaker A: News I mean, one of, one of the fuckhead's big kind of things that he shouts about is, I can end all wars within 24 hours. I can end all wars. First day one in office, I'm going to end the wars. [00:37:56] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:37:58] Speaker A: And even though this has been denied by Trump himself, news this week talked about calls already having taken place between Russia and the incumbent president. [00:38:14] Speaker B: That what has taken place. [00:38:16] Speaker A: Calls, talks. [00:38:17] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, right. [00:38:18] Speaker A: Conversations. But what is, what I, what I'm really struggling with is that Elon Musk is on these calls. He is present on these conferences. [00:38:30] Speaker B: Fucking insane. Yeah. [00:38:33] Speaker A: I. I can't, I can't, I can't. I can't allow it in my head. I can't work out why or how that guy, that guy now has a seat. [00:38:45] Speaker B: Right? And this is, I will say this is what I talked to my neighbor across the street who used to be a Black Panther, and he was like, you know, hey, listen, we know how to organize all that kind of stuff. But what he did say was, but we gotta watch out for Elon Musk. [00:38:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:00] Speaker B: Much more dangerous is the fact that that guy is reins off now. [00:39:04] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That's worrying. That's just another layer on top of all these other fucking layers of bizarro, you know, flying in the face of all that seems logical and right and tangible and fucking, you know, solid in the world. [00:39:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:26] Speaker A: You've got Elon Musk on, on calls between fucking warring nations insanity with the ear of the most unhinged and dangerous man ever told that office. That's fucking terrifying to me. That is terrifying to me. [00:39:43] Speaker B: It is. We'll see how long that lasts, though, because nobody lasts with Trump. [00:39:47] Speaker A: That's another good point. [00:39:47] Speaker B: Elon Musk is the kind of person who irritates the shit out of Donald Trump's. We'll see. You know. Yeah, that's a horrifying prospect. But also, I don't know how long that's gonna, that's gonna last. [00:40:03] Speaker A: And there's where we'll end that. [00:40:07] Speaker B: There's where we'll end that and we will move on. A moment for Mr. Tony Todd. [00:40:15] Speaker A: Oh, please, look. Oh, God, I'd almost forgotten. So upsetting. It is horribly so upsetting on a few different levels. Right. Not just because we've lost a fucking real one. [00:40:30] Speaker B: Yeah, big time. [00:40:31] Speaker A: Prolific. Just a voice and a face and a fucking presence that reached way beyond his genre. I did share this on Blue sky, but Radio 4, right? Radio fucking 4. Nothing could be more emblematic of white Middle England, right, than Radio 4, Gardeners, Question Time, the Archers, you know what I mean? The most fucking button down medium in Britain, probably. [00:41:08] Speaker B: Okay? [00:41:09] Speaker A: But on the six o'clock news, the fucking six o'clock news. They gave five minutes to Tony Todd on Radio 4, for fuck's sake. [00:41:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:18] Speaker A: That tells you all you need to know about the impact. Yep. Jinx. The impact that guy had outside of his genre. So there's that. That sucks. Right? I fucking hate it. But I'm certain I will have said this on the cast before, but what better reminder is there of your own lengthening years? You know, Gunna Hansen's gone. Tony Todd is gone. [00:41:44] Speaker B: Mm. [00:41:45] Speaker A: It's gonna just keep happening more and more often now. [00:41:47] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, he's so young though, you know, it's only 69. [00:41:51] Speaker A: Nice. Yeah. No age. No fucking age. No age. [00:41:54] Speaker B: Yep. I was thinking, you know, today's my dad's birthday and that he, he died when he was 60, just short of his 61. His 60 onest. [00:42:05] Speaker A: It's not a word. I'll allow it. [00:42:09] Speaker B: Birthday about a month before his 61st birthday. I like it. Any note, I like 61. [00:42:14] Speaker A: I like one stuff. [00:42:15] Speaker B: We're going with 61. And I was thinking about that because today he would be 74, which is like a wild thing to think about when, like you haven't seen someone since they were 60. Like that's such a huge leap from there. But thinking, you know, that's only like he was only eight years older than my husband is now when he died, you know? Right. Isn't that crazy? And like. Yeah, 69 is so young in this day and age to pass and you know, when you're looking at some of those guys are like ancient. But you know, we shouldn't be losing Tony Todd at this point, you know, and someone who is by all accounts just like great with fans, a wonderful person. Everyone has nothing but wonderful things to say. I think once he responded to something I said on our Jack of all graves Twitter and I was like, wonderful, wonderful. So stoked on it. I'm sure I have a screenshot somewhere. I should pull it up, but I. [00:43:16] Speaker A: Would love to see that. [00:43:18] Speaker B: Yeah. But yeah, I think, you know, it's, it's unfortunate to lose someone like him who is just a, an asset in every, every way. A great person, great actor with a huge legacy behind him. And to be so young, he would have, he would have had so many more things that we would have all been able to enjoy. Should be another two decades of Tony Todd. [00:43:45] Speaker A: I agree on all Counts. So we had a little impromptu on the day watch along which was really well attended, which was a really nice turnout watching really. [00:43:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Especially considering, you know, nobody. Everyone would have been well within their rights to not trust you with another watch along after a few weeks ago. And yet people showed up. [00:44:09] Speaker A: I think everyone is allowed one wildly offensive puppet movie. Come on. I'm not gonna do it again, am I? [00:44:17] Speaker B: I think my friend Cynthia was in one. [00:44:20] Speaker A: Alright. [00:44:22] Speaker B: It was like the Happy Time Murders or the Happy Town. [00:44:27] Speaker A: Happy Town Murders. That rings a bell. That rings a bell. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Around the same time as those fucking Happy Tree friends. That kind of. [00:44:36] Speaker B: No, no, no, no, no. It's more recent than that, like, because Happy Tree. [00:44:39] Speaker A: Oh, it's Happy Time. It is Happy time. Yeah, you're right. [00:44:42] Speaker B: Murders got like Melissa McCarthy. I think it does. Melissa McCarthy. [00:44:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:46] Speaker B: And Cynthia was like. Oh yeah, like Melissa McCarthy was really nice. And who was the other person in that? [00:44:52] Speaker A: Your friend Cynthia. [00:44:54] Speaker B: Well, right, but aren't there two women who are like the leads? I just. Was it Maya Rudolph? I don't know. I just remember that like, you know, shooting it. She had like the absolute best time and then that movie was like just people weren't like offensive puppets. Let's go for it. [00:45:09] Speaker A: Yeah, well, Maya Rudolph is in it as is Elizabeth Banks. [00:45:13] Speaker B: Oh, that, that adds up. [00:45:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:15] Speaker B: Elizabeth Banks is just like. Oh, is there like a comedy with women in it? [00:45:20] Speaker A: Elizabeth Banks, yes. [00:45:23] Speaker B: Anyways, but yeah, no, we watched the 1990 version of Night of the Living Dead which is a banger if you haven't seen it. [00:45:32] Speaker A: I mean it's superb. And look, I know with Tony Todd, where do you go? You go to Candyman, obviously. But for me, Night of the Living. [00:45:40] Speaker B: Day, that's the obvious answer. [00:45:42] Speaker A: Absolutely his best role. He is a full on leading man in that role. [00:45:45] Speaker B: Oh, 100%. [00:45:47] Speaker A: He absolutely exudes authority and fucking just solid believability. He in, in that movie before he utters a fucking word, you know, he has turned up to take charge of the situation and you, you will do what he says because you know he's got it on lock, you know. [00:46:06] Speaker B: Yeah, or he doesn't, but it seems like he does. [00:46:09] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes, yes. It's also just a brilliant, brilliant fucking remake. There was a point during the Watch along where I just kind of checked how long was left and fuck me, there's 20 minutes of this film left to go. How on earth did that happen? It just goes in the blink of an eye. [00:46:25] Speaker B: Rockets. [00:46:26] Speaker A: Tom Savini. Not fucking about at all in any of the subtext. Acab. White men are fucking idiots. [00:46:36] Speaker B: Rich people suck. [00:46:38] Speaker A: Rich people suck. Absolutely. Yes. [00:46:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the women can. You know, women should be handed the helm. You know, progressive. It's great because you. Yeah, it's a super progressive movie. Far beyond where we really were as a culture in 1990, I think. [00:47:00] Speaker A: And it's just. [00:47:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it's phenomenal. And just like, you know, as we were watching it, it's just like the really, like, the details in this movie that really get you, which is like, what Savini is so good at in his, like, craft. When you're used to him, like, doing your effects and stuff like that, he brings that to directing. So just like, even little things like the first zombie we see being like, in a suit that has been cut open in the back, you know, with Y cut from the autopsy and everything. It's the funeral suit, right? Like, they don't put you in a full suit. They cut the back out of it so they can slide it onto you. Or the fact that that, like, that one couple is like, clearly dressed. Like they came from a gala of some sort, you know, like, so you have these, like, little clues to who people are and what. [00:47:49] Speaker A: Full of stories that movie. It is absolutely full of stories. I said this at the time, but it bears repeating. Right before the Internet or fucking Zack Snyder got a hold of zombies, they were fucking great because, you know, that's true. A big ticket zombie movie was a rarity. They weren't popular. They weren't, you know, a meme. Yeah, totally. And this is. This is up there with the best. Every part of this movie has a story which branches off elsewhere. From the costumes that the walkers are in to the home itself, the house that they hold up in itself. Full of character, you know, full of, like, pictures and little kind of details. It's beautifully shot long. Long shots of people moving around the set in different places and, you know, doing shit on what feels like a real working set. [00:48:44] Speaker B: Right. And even, like, I think, you know, one of the things that I kind of joked about in the chat, but I think is intentional too, is this like Sisyphean nature. Yeah, yeah, that house. Right. Like that. No matter what they do, they're always pushing that rock uphill. Every time they've, like, made it 10ft outside that house, they end up back inside that house again. [00:49:03] Speaker A: Love that. [00:49:04] Speaker B: Oh, I just. It's so great. It's like they have all this space and yet it's claustrophobic. And you know, which is a constant reminder of what Barbara is saying throughout this whole movie. That like we can just walk past them. We're making it harder for ourselves. [00:49:19] Speaker A: Yes. It's even like, it's even self referential, you know, because she's right. One of the first things she says. [00:49:25] Speaker B: Right. [00:49:26] Speaker A: They are so slow. We could just walk the fuck out of here, right? [00:49:31] Speaker B: Oh, it's so good. It's so good. And you're, you're right. I don't think I've ever really thought about this before. But I always say I don't like zombie movies. And then every time we watch like a 30 year old zombie movie, I'm having a good time. I don't great stuff. I don't like zombie things made since dawn of the Dead, basically. Like, yep, 2004 or thereabouts. 2004, dawn of the Dead. Yeah. From that point forward, I am not interested in zombies. But you're absolutely correct that the ones that you know came from the old days. I pretty uniformly actually quite like them. [00:50:08] Speaker A: What the remake is also great at is putting it in beautifully beautiful context with the other two, dawn and Day. The makeup is of a kind of a fashion of the other movies. And you just, you see TV stations going to shit. By the way, that's a trope of early zombie movies that I adore, man. Seeing scientists argue it out on panel shows and seeing disheveled looking news people with like sweat stains on their shirts being handed sheets of paper. This can't be right. You know what I mean? I fucking love all this guy in. [00:50:42] Speaker B: This one is one of the best. [00:50:43] Speaker A: Oh, he's great. He's fantastic. [00:50:45] Speaker B: He really nails this with his kind of odd disheveled hair and the incredulity as he's being handed the reports of what's going like. I can't believe I'm saying this out loud. [00:50:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:58] Speaker B: Oh, it's so good. [00:50:59] Speaker A: Just the unraveling is really good, isn't it? [00:51:02] Speaker B: Oh, it's like elsewhere there is life is still going on. Except that it's like this shit's going down. Yeah. Yeah, it's so good. Watch if you have not watched do. [00:51:15] Speaker A: Yes. [00:51:15] Speaker B: Night of the living dead from 1990. [00:51:18] Speaker A: Whether you want to pay homage to Double T or not, it's a hell of a movie to seek out. [00:51:22] Speaker B: Why wouldn't you? [00:51:23] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. [00:51:25] Speaker B: Come on. [00:51:25] Speaker A: I'm just worried. [00:51:26] Speaker B: We know you're all watching Candyman, but go watch this one. You won't, you won't regret it. [00:51:32] Speaker A: I'm worried about who's next? If you really want to know. [00:51:36] Speaker B: Well, I feel like that's a thing that, like, I constantly, like, if I think about an older actor that I like at all, I will find myself calculating, like, how much longer they could possibly have. And then it's like some people, you're like, I mean, realistically, could they have more than like 10, 15 years? Yeah, it's not likely. [00:52:01] Speaker A: It's gonna happen more and more often, isn't it? [00:52:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's true. I mean, at the exact same rate. It's just, you know. [00:52:09] Speaker A: Well, yeah, right. From our perspective. [00:52:11] Speaker B: From our perspective, it's. It's more and more. It's the same rate all the time. [00:52:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it is, it is. But no, huge thanks for everybody turning up. [00:52:20] Speaker B: It was a great time. [00:52:22] Speaker A: Turned a shitty day into something a bit less shitty. [00:52:25] Speaker B: Hear, hear. Now, shall we get into what we watched? [00:52:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd love to. Let me, if I may. It's not a movie, but I've got to just talk briefly about the Penguin. [00:52:39] Speaker B: No spoilers. Though I am going to watch it. [00:52:42] Speaker A: No, not a single spoiler. Other than what a success that fucking was. [00:52:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I've heard only great things about it. [00:52:49] Speaker A: What a absolute fucking home run that eight weeks has been for the Penguin. Fantastic. And you know it. It almost makes me wistful, the knowledge that, that Gotham is very much a time bound thing, you know what I mean? There's a movie left, maybe another show, and then it's gonna get swept away in. Listen, I love James Gunn as much as the next Nutter, right? I really do. I fucking adore him and I love his work. [00:53:22] Speaker B: I'm a James Gunn. Early adopter. [00:53:24] Speaker A: Same mate, same. I've been there all the way since fucking trauma. [00:53:31] Speaker B: PG porn. [00:53:33] Speaker A: Aye? But this Gotham, this beautiful, gritty, fucking fleshed out crime scarred war ground of different fucking mob families. And Penguin is great, man, because you know all of the Gotham crime families, right? You got the Maronis and the Falcones and the Gigantes, they're all playing a part. You know, it's this beautiful turf war with Penguin pulling the strings. It's so great. And it's not gonna last much longer before it's all swept aside for whatever fucking mad shit is in store next for Batman. [00:54:08] Speaker B: I do get Peacemaker coming in. Maybe James Gunn's been tweeting. You don't like Peacemaker? [00:54:14] Speaker A: I love Peacemaker. Right? I love Peacemaker and I love the Suicide Squad. But Cena has fucking all but ruined it for me, okay? [00:54:24] Speaker B: I think this is like the one case in which I can, you know, push this. I don't know, maybe that's wrong, but maybe I'm wrong. And I'll watch it. I'll be like, no, I'm fucking sick of this guy. [00:54:36] Speaker A: But for you, I'll swallow it down and I'll take my medicine. Right? But Cena, you fucking coward. You fucking absolute craven coward defending that, man. You piece of shit. [00:54:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, like I said, I used to watch the. What's it called, Total Bellas when he and Nikki Bella were still together. And, yeah, he's a fucking tool. [00:55:05] Speaker A: Of course. [00:55:06] Speaker B: Like, if there was anything I got from that show is that guy is a giant tool. And, you know. Yeah, that's what I expect from him, is that kind of coward. Cowardly behavior. [00:55:18] Speaker A: It's a shame, indeed. [00:55:21] Speaker B: But I do. I love Peacemaker so much. So, you know, think about all those other characters. [00:55:27] Speaker A: Think about it. Do you like Peacemaker in spite of John Cena? [00:55:33] Speaker B: Right. I mean, that's the thing is it's, you know, he's given funny lines or whatever and things like that, but it's like. It's an ensemble show. [00:55:41] Speaker A: Yeah, very much so. [00:55:42] Speaker B: He's not holding up the whole thing. The things that you think about when you think about Peacemaker are often other character arcs. [00:55:48] Speaker A: Exactly this. I think about Robert Patrick. I think about the CGI bird. For fuck's sake. [00:55:53] Speaker B: The bird. The bird. So good. Yeah. There's so many great things about that show. Aside from actual Peacemaker. [00:56:02] Speaker A: Yes. So obviously, I'll take my medicine and I'll watch it, and I dare say I'll love it. [00:56:08] Speaker B: Hopefully. [00:56:09] Speaker A: Yes. But in spite of Cena, not because of him. [00:56:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that's fair. So Penguin I am going to watch. Absolutely. Just haven't been in the. I mean, listen, now that Halloween is over, the leaves are falling off the trees, all that kind of stuff. It's Christmas season. And so I have leaned into Hallmark Christmas movies at this point. So I don't have a lot of time for. Yeah, I don't have a lot of time for the other TV shows and things like that. Every time I sit down, I'm just like, well, what's on Hallmark? And I start watching. [00:56:45] Speaker A: No, I. [00:56:46] Speaker B: It's like the commercials change, and it's like. It's just the cue in my brain to like, okay, it's Christmas season. [00:56:53] Speaker A: That's it now, isn't it? That. That's. That's culturally it now. As soon as Halloween is over, we just roll straight into Christmas and it. [00:57:00] Speaker B: I Especially because like, like here we have Thanksgiving in between. But Thanksgiving is like Christmas Junior. You know, it's like the, you know, the prep yourself and then the next day you have Black Friday where you go Christmas shopping. So it's like, it's all. Yeah, it's Christmas season. Basically starts November 1st. [00:57:19] Speaker A: I just, I feel as though this should be a beat, you know, I feel as though there should be a little breath late November, early December, just to gather your thoughts and just go, right, here we go, right, Christmas, let's do it. You've got to have some space. You can't just roll from one end to another. [00:57:34] Speaker B: You know, I almost think that like someone mentioned this on Blue sky and I think this was smart. Like when you get into this time so the clocks went back a week or two ago or whatever and your world becomes very bleak as a result of this. And so like having like basically the holiday season for this entire time, it like keeps you from like going crazy from the bleakness of being in the dark all the time. The real problem is that span from like January to April where you have no. It's just as dark and you have no holidays. It's like it's all front loaded in this part. And then you get into there and then you're like the world is perplexed. [00:58:16] Speaker A: January to April, right. I invariably have no annual leave left from work. I've got no days off. [00:58:23] Speaker B: Right, yeah. March hits and you are always miserable every year. [00:58:28] Speaker A: Oh, it's so true. [00:58:29] Speaker B: Broke ashter in March. [00:58:31] Speaker A: You know what I mean? I fucking hate it. And I look forward to being exactly the same way again this March. [00:58:36] Speaker B: Right? Not going to change. [00:58:38] Speaker A: Suck it up this year. [00:58:39] Speaker B: Suck it up. So I don't know. I think my argument is we need more holidays in the dark of winter and not fewer. This several months of Christmas keeps us all from going insane. [00:58:52] Speaker A: Can we maybe create a holiday for like end of January? Let's create something cool for like end of Jan to look forward to. Yeah, yeah. [00:59:01] Speaker B: And like everybody does it and there's like TV shows about it and like we all dress up. I don't know, like there's gotta be something we can do with the energy because then you get like the holidays that are all based on like, like it's like MLK Day. That's like, oh, it's a guy who was murdered. Like President's Day. It's like, oh, it's like a guy who was like murdered and then like a political guy. Like there's like all of the Holidays are like sad or boring as well. [00:59:31] Speaker A: The thrice blessed. This is going out to you. Right? Take the mantle, seize the challenge. [00:59:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:38] Speaker A: I want you to suggest for us a holiday or some kind of event or fucking something to mark our calendars with end of January to just stave off the despair and just be sad. Yes, please. I'd love that. If you have any ideas. [00:59:57] Speaker B: Yeah, please do. [00:59:59] Speaker A: I'll design a card. [01:00:02] Speaker B: Love it. Yeah, we'll. We'll have a party. It'll be a grand old time. [01:00:06] Speaker A: We'll have a grand old time. What have you watched? You do one? You go first. [01:00:10] Speaker B: I watched Frankie Freako yesterday. [01:00:13] Speaker A: All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:00:15] Speaker B: Which is a Stephen Kostanski joint who of course we love from the Void and from Psycho Goreman, naturally. [01:00:25] Speaker A: I keep forgetting that connection. I keep forgetting he made the Void because. I know, because it's very different film to Psycho. Goemon and Frankie Go. Very different movie in that. It great. [01:00:38] Speaker B: Too. It's just a totally different kind of movie. [01:00:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Like whiplash inducingly different. They are completely different works. It's almost like they're almost nothing in common. I can't think of a single thing they do have in common. [01:00:53] Speaker B: In fact, I guess practical effects in these. I mean, there's a lot of practical effects in the Void. A lot of blood, a lot of gore. That's. [01:01:03] Speaker A: Yeah. But yes. Frankie Frico didn't. Didn't. Didn't really connect with me. If I. It's a pastiche, isn't it? It's a homage to, you know, your puppet creature features. Your ghoulies, your gremlins, your crystals, specifically. [01:01:21] Speaker B: Kind of the, like bad ones, you know. [01:01:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And D and C tier. [01:01:28] Speaker B: Right, Exactly. The lowest of budget kinds of creature features. Your Charles Band type stuff and things like that. And that's. I'm just not into those. That's not my jam. But like Frankie Frico is. [01:01:44] Speaker A: We watched Ghoulies together and you quite enjoyed it, didn't you? [01:01:46] Speaker B: I did. I don't think Ghoulies is quite the same vibe as this. Like, I mean it's like surface level, like the creatures and all that. [01:01:55] Speaker A: Do you know what? It's Ghoulies 3 is what it is. [01:01:58] Speaker B: It's Ghoulies 3. [01:01:59] Speaker A: It's Ghoulies 3, which I lasted about 15 minutes through. Right. Ghoulies 3 and the Hellrankers aficionados will no doubt know this already, but Ghoulie street takes some awful choices in that. The puppets, the fucking Monsters start. They can talk and they do. Like they've got a Three Stooges shtick going on. This. This is that, isn't it? Frankie Freako is Ghoulies 3. It's not Ghoulies. [01:02:22] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So it's very good at what it's doing and if you like that kind of thing, it's going to absolutely tickle you. Didn't really connect. I appreciate that. You know, he's always going to be good at what he's doing. The puppets are. Are great and all that. It's just. I was playing my duolingo after a while because I was like, this is not. Not really for me. [01:02:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I quite like the puppet who just continually says Shabadoo. That was quite fun. [01:02:49] Speaker B: I did like the Shabadoo. That was one of those things that made me giggle, like every single time he did it. Shabadoo. [01:02:55] Speaker A: That's the one. That's the one thing I took away from it the first time he did Shabadoo. Oh, that's good. [01:03:02] Speaker B: That's good. Let's see. Oh, I went to the cinema. I hadn't been in a minute. Did you go to the pictures? That's not true. I went to the pictures. I went to the pictures last week and we'll talk about that. But I did go. [01:03:16] Speaker A: Fascinating to me that you always thought that me saying I'm going to the pictures was me doing a bit. But now that's what I call it. That's what I call going to the pictures. Good pictures. [01:03:25] Speaker B: I didn't know. Apparently Brits say the pictures seriously and not to pretend that they are in the 1930s. [01:03:33] Speaker A: It makes me think of my nan and it makes me think of my mother. Should we go to the pictures? [01:03:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So for the past four years, I've thought we. We've been doing a bit together and I was the only one doing how I talk. [01:03:44] Speaker A: That's literally my vernacular. [01:03:49] Speaker B: Well, now it's part of mine as well. From this bit that we were totally both doing. And I went to the pictures on the other day. I don't know, whatever. Whatever day it was. And I saw Heretic, the new Hugh Grant led horror movie. As soon as I saw the trailer for it, I was like, in, yes, let's do this. I love Hugh Grant. Fucking love Hugh Grant. So that's always going to sell me something. And sinister Hugh Grant. Sign me the fuck up. [01:04:21] Speaker A: I like Hugh Grant to a lesser extent, but in the same kind of way that I love Nic Cage in that you've made Some choices that I really approve of lately, sir. [01:04:31] Speaker B: Yes, totally. I think he's, like, really leaned in. I feel like the rom com era of Hugh Grant happened by accident. That was not the guy he expected to be, but it made him bajillions of dollars. So he's like, fine, I will be your leading man or whatever. But now he's a weirdo. Yeah, he can be the guy that he actually is and, like, do weirder stuff and whatnot. And he's leaned into that, and I find that delightful. So Heretic is. I had a lot of fun with that. I feel like this is a very joag movie. [01:05:11] Speaker A: You know, I don't want any spoilers because I'm really looking forward to it. [01:05:14] Speaker B: Yeah, but I mean, from the trailer, you know, it deals with, like, religion and belief, specifically. It's a movie about belief and what it means to believe and. Yeah, that's kind of the theme of it. Hugh Grant is phenomenal in it, and the two girls who are in it are amazing. I feel like. No, not at all. No, no, no, no, no. They're Mormon missionaries. And I think, you know, one of them is like a, you know, a little bitchy, I guess, you know, but in a. With this sort of Innocence tour as well. And they both. I think they just play their roles so fucking well in this. It's like they get overshadowed by the fact that, like, you're gonna come out of that like Hugh Grant, but they're both incredible in their roles. So then there's basically only three people in this movie. Topher Grace is in it for probably 2 1/2 minutes total over the course of the movie. But it's essentially these three people, and it's a delight. So go see Heretic. Big recommend it. The other thing that I went and saw, we both saw last week. [01:06:35] Speaker A: We haven't talked about Smile 2, have we? That's what you're referring to, I think. Smile 2, listen. Fucking hell, man. Yes, yes, yes. [01:06:45] Speaker B: Very much so. [01:06:46] Speaker A: All I can say is. Well, I can say more, but I'll start with just yes, yes. [01:06:53] Speaker B: I think that was like, basically what our text messages were afterwards. We went, normally, you guys know, we sit in our own homes and we press play, play on a movie at the same time. But Mark was like, what if we both went to the movie theater at the same time? And so we did that in our respective countries and got out of the movie like a. Like five minutes apart from one another. And I think it was basically just yes all around afterwards. [01:07:22] Speaker A: Way to start so not. Not to the art, not to the kind of limit exploring extent of your terrifiers, but for a mainstream kind of high end, high budget horror movie, this fucking pushes it. [01:07:49] Speaker B: It does, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. [01:07:52] Speaker A: It doesn't cut away. It is very graphic and it is very frightening. Yes, right. [01:08:01] Speaker B: Yeah, big time. [01:08:03] Speaker A: I'm certain I will have said this before, but I really value being scared these days by a movie because it's such a rarity. It never ever really happens. So when a movie gets me clutching my seat and goosebumping me, I'm like fucking great. You know what I mean? I will immediately respect a film that makes me feel that. And Smile does. [01:08:26] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. I think I said to you this is basically. It's the substance in a different genre, which I think is very cool. It's like a very similar kind of story and theme, but done in an entirely different genre. So how that unfolds is completely different. [01:08:46] Speaker A: I will. I was struck while watching it about how self aware it is. It knows its genre inside out. Do you remember Lee Juanel's Invisible Man? [01:08:57] Speaker B: Yes. I almost watched that the other night. [01:09:00] Speaker A: Almost or you did? [01:09:01] Speaker B: I almost watched it. I ended up falling asleep. [01:09:05] Speaker A: All right. I remember that film being really smart in its use of negative space and setting you up to expect scares and then not giving you them. Right. Smile 2 does that. There are lots of open cabinets and open doors and dark spaces and you're. [01:09:24] Speaker B: Thinking there were moments in it, she would open something and you're like, yeah, here it comes. [01:09:29] Speaker A: And then it just doesn't do it. And you know that it knows that you know that it knows and it's really fucking thrilling. I love it. [01:09:38] Speaker B: And then there are some moments where it delivers the scares and genuinely like, my stomach dropped. Yeah, just like. No, no, no, no. This is so horrifying. I can't. [01:09:49] Speaker A: Performances are amazing. Uniformly. Performances are amazing. I can't recall the actor who plays Miley Cyrus. [01:09:58] Speaker B: Oh, Naomi Scott. [01:09:59] Speaker A: There you go. Fucking unreal. What? [01:10:02] Speaker B: Have I seen her in anything Power Rangers. [01:10:05] Speaker A: Okay. [01:10:06] Speaker B: I think she's in other things, but I always think of her from Power Rangers because I love that movie. But she's phenomenal. [01:10:13] Speaker A: Heart rending, heart fucking rending. Damaged, Unreliable, fucking needy. Neurotic product of the fucking fame machine. [01:10:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:27] Speaker A: It gets. Hey, sorry. But it gets drugs, right? It gets drugs. Bang on. Numerous scenes of class A drug use. Very well observed. The paranoia, the fucking edginess, the skanky, horrible sweatiness of prolonged drug use. The psychosis. Did it escape your attention? That the ending is identical. In fact, you could describe Smile 2 and Evil Dead 2013 in exactly the same way. [01:10:58] Speaker B: Interesting. Yeah. Okay. [01:10:59] Speaker A: Think of the ending of both of those movies and how they. [01:11:02] Speaker B: I feel like this is. But don't. Don't talk anymore. [01:11:04] Speaker A: I'm not going to do it. That's as far as I'll go. But, yeah, that. That. That actually knocked off half a star. It would have probably got a 5 if it wasn't so derivative of a particular kind of plot in another movie. But it's impossible to not give this film as many stars as you feel, you know, you're able. I think whoever was the nasal Mucus Wrangler on Smile 2 needs some kind of award. Such a lot of nasal mucus in this film. That's true. [01:11:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a very good point. [01:11:41] Speaker A: Just every character who cries and a lot of characters cry. [01:11:44] Speaker B: There's a lot of. It just. [01:11:47] Speaker A: It's wealth of nasal mucus in every other shot. It's fucking great when you watch. [01:11:52] Speaker B: Yeah. I think it's just. Yeah. One of the great things about it is just very bold in that. [01:11:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. It is. [01:11:59] Speaker B: It is. Yeah. I think for something. Because it is Blumhouse. Right? [01:12:05] Speaker A: I thought it was neon. Is it not neon? [01:12:07] Speaker B: Oh, is it neon? You're right. I think it is neon, actually. But, yeah, it goes. You know, I appreciate Naomi Scott and this movie for sort of being willing to just go that hard and be ugly and unhinged and everything. If you saw Smile and you were like, meh. Like I think both of us were, go see Smile too. And you're gonna be pleasantly surprised because it is. Takes it up 9,000 notches. [01:12:39] Speaker A: I just wanna super briefly revisit the Substance. Right. I'm gonna read something to you. Okay. A cousin of mine is a horror fan. Right. [01:12:50] Speaker B: Okay. [01:12:51] Speaker A: And obviously I recommended the Substance to him super hard. Watch the Substance. You'll love it. The Substance is great. You'll love the Substance. And he did, but he watched it with his partner. And I'm just gonna read the text message that she sent me afterwards. Wtaf. Did I just watch Mark Monkey emoji covering its eyes? Absolutely disgusting. I'm going to have a shower now and wash that film off of me. Omg, sick emoji. Yes. [01:13:22] Speaker B: But did she like it? No. Oh, okay. Well, this is the thing that I keep going through with Kristen right now that we've been watching all these horror movies and everything is the. Listen, I know maybe you were scared or grossed out or things like that. But was there part of you that liked it? And she's sort of starting to feel that like. Yeah, yeah, I guess I can't explain it but like beautiful, you know, something extremely violent happening in a movie sometimes now like kind of gives her a little giggle and it's like haha. And she enjoys the feeling of tension. I'm like, there it is, you're coming along. [01:14:01] Speaker A: Tell you a performer who is gradually working their way up my cool books is Kyle Gallner. Like him a great deal? [01:14:10] Speaker B: Oh, I love Kyle Gallner. Yeah, he's been around like he's been doing the horror thing since he was like a teenager. And listen, I'm always happy to see him. [01:14:18] Speaker A: It was only, I think, is it called Passengers? Is that what the film is called? Yeah, that's the one that brought him. [01:14:25] Speaker B: Really put him on your radar. [01:14:26] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And ever since then, everything I've seen him in, he really stands out. I think he's great. [01:14:31] Speaker B: Yeah, he's phenomenal. Also, when I went to see that movie, can I just say that a family behind me brought like a five year old and like a three year old. [01:14:44] Speaker A: Whoa, that's not cool. [01:14:48] Speaker B: Right? And I mentioned this on Blue sky and someone was like, well like with a name like smile, maybe they thought it was a kids movie. And I'm like, yeah. When someone immediately started like screaming profanity at a drug dealer and then was like violently smashed into a thousand pieces by a truck five minutes later. I think that would cue you that like, nah, it's not a kids movie. They stayed the whole time, the kids talked through the whole movie. Like they, you know, it's not like I'm like they're old enough to see the screen. This isn't like, you know, like if you bring a baby to a horror. [01:15:23] Speaker A: Movie, they don't focus their eyes yet. [01:15:25] Speaker B: Yeah, there's no and like these kids are like old enough to actively be watching this movie. What the fuck is wrong with you? [01:15:35] Speaker A: This was a thread of conversation that came out in the watch along the other day. You know my opinions on horror movies where kids are only they're as powerful as you make them as a parent. [01:15:46] Speaker B: Sure, of course. Yeah, absolutely. [01:15:48] Speaker A: You instill power into horror movies. If you tell your kids you should never watch this, it will shit you up. You will be driven insane. How fucking scared you're gonna be. That is just. That just causes problems. You approach them as pieces of art, as creative fucking endeavors by human beings. Much like a book or a painting. It's just a fucking piece of fiction. [01:16:09] Speaker B: That said, that said, this is different. Yeah. Like there's that and you know, maybe easing your kid into it with, you know, some things more geared at their age or things like that. And then there's just being an irresponsible. [01:16:24] Speaker A: Smile is right column. [01:16:26] Speaker B: Yeah. It's firmly right column. This is. If you showed this at a party, your friends might be like, I'm not coming to your house anymore. It's like it's firmly a right column movie and not appropriate for a small child by any stretch of the imagination. This is not keeping your kids from being afraid of things. It is like just bad, bad parenting. [01:16:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Contains material likely to harm and offend. [01:16:51] Speaker B: Right. Yes. Stuff that. It's like they could take that with them. They're not old enough to process what they are seeing on this screen. Especially when it's about like a pop star. They like Taylor Swift and shit like that, you know, like this is. Yeah. So inappropriate. Thankfully I had earplugs. [01:17:11] Speaker A: But there's. There's so much more to enjoy about Smile 2. It's just how just fully it commits cinematography wise to just the right. What can I do as a filmmaker to get across to the audience that weird shit is happening? I know. We'll fucking turn this shot upside down. We'll just fucking. There's one particular shot. Oh my God. Came out of nowhere, right. Where Miley Cyrus is in a lift and the doors open and bang. You're in a completely different part of the city. She walks out of a totally different part of the city. And I was bowled over. This is fucking brilliant. And not the sort of thing that you normally see in a multiplex horror, you know? [01:17:55] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. Go see it. Obviously. We have so many good things to say now. I just want to. I want to watch it right now. [01:18:01] Speaker A: Same here. That I can't wait to see it again. And the last thing I will say, the last thing I will say in a similar way to how validatory it's been in the last week or so seeing Blue sky take off. Right? I knew it would. I always knew it would. I knew it was the one. I knew, right? I've always known horror was the one, right? [01:18:24] Speaker B: And true story. [01:18:26] Speaker A: Being in such a fucking wonderful era of horror right now, it just feels so good, right? I tell you fucking. There's no dangerous ground being broken in the fucking romantic comedy genre, right? There's not very little kind of fresh. There ain't much to say in like the action comedy fucking arena right now. Not much new is going down horror. New and exciting and cool as fuck. Things are happening all the fucking time, and it feels so good. [01:19:02] Speaker B: Constant innovation. [01:19:03] Speaker A: Yep. [01:19:05] Speaker B: Hear, hear. We both, on a sort of. After that, a sort of meh note. We both also watched Woman of the Hour. [01:19:15] Speaker A: Oh, you saw that too? Yeah. [01:19:17] Speaker B: Yes. Which is fine. [01:19:22] Speaker A: It is fine. Yes. But, you know, set your expectations very much to the middle of the road here. [01:19:30] Speaker B: Mm. [01:19:31] Speaker A: Welcome to Netflix. [01:19:32] Speaker B: Yes. [01:19:34] Speaker A: You know you're not gonna see much here to challenge you, Right. Except maybe Anna Kendrick's transcendent, ethereal beauty. [01:19:45] Speaker B: Sure. [01:19:45] Speaker A: Challenges. [01:19:46] Speaker B: Yeah. I'll give you that. [01:19:47] Speaker A: She challenges me. She challenges me just by existing. I can't believe that something so beautiful can exist in three dimensions. How can she be real? [01:19:55] Speaker B: I do love Anna Kendrick. Yeah, she's great. Her book is delightful. Scrappy little nobody. She's just. She's a delight. [01:20:04] Speaker A: She is so beautiful, Anna Kendrick, that she feels as though she should be fictional, like she should be a painting or a sculpture. But she exists, and I can't quite. [01:20:18] Speaker B: And yet she walks amongst us. [01:20:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And yet she's a living creature of flesh and blood. [01:20:26] Speaker B: So you've got that going for you with Woman of the Hour, but it's a bland movie. [01:20:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Nothing else to write home about there. Yeah, I think we did also. Oh, go ahead, Joker 2. [01:20:42] Speaker B: Yeah. I was trying to remember, did we talk about Joker 2 or not? But, yeah, regardless, you're enough said. [01:20:47] Speaker A: You know what I mean? [01:20:48] Speaker B: Enough said. [01:20:49] Speaker A: Enough said. [01:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah, indeed. [01:20:53] Speaker A: That's a shame, isn't it? You know, of all the people who was geared up to be forgiving towards Joker 2. [01:21:00] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. You were very on board. [01:21:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And it disappoints and mystifies at every stage. It is dull. It is just a head scratcher. It's like, you know, there's a conspiracy theory out there that it was like an act of protest on Todd Phillips. [01:21:17] Speaker B: Right. Yeah, that's. We did talk about this movie, but I don't think we mentioned that. It's just. Yeah, there's like, a whole contingent of people that think it's like. Even Quentin Tarantino said this. Like, you know, it's supposed to be like a middle finger, but it's, like, intentionally like this. [01:21:33] Speaker A: Nope. Studios don't fund middle fingers to the tune of, you know, tens of millions. [01:21:38] Speaker B: Of however many bajillions of dollars they gave to this movie. Yeah. Like, this was. Yeah, it was just a flop, plain and simple. Look. [01:21:51] Speaker A: Hey, for every joke or two, there's a penguin. [01:21:55] Speaker B: Well, there you go. So it is what it is. I did a couple old flicks this week. Have you seen Eyes Without a Face? [01:22:09] Speaker A: Yes. [01:22:11] Speaker B: You have? [01:22:13] Speaker A: No, I haven't. I've seen Eyes of my mother. [01:22:17] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. No, different movie, both black and white, but Eyes Without a Face. It's from, I want to say, like 1959. 1960. Eyes without a Face. It's a French movie. [01:22:32] Speaker A: Sedoli's ice cream were trading then. They could have gotten themselves a Sedoli's ice cream from above. [01:22:37] Speaker B: They sure were. Eyes Without a Face. A French movie that I have heard of by reputation for ages. I could have told you beforehand what the COVID looks like and everything. A woman in a white mask. Yes. Yeah, that is what it's called. Le son Visage. But yeah, Woman in a white mask on the COVID and everything. But I didn't know anything about the plot of this movie. And listen, I'm going to keep it that way for you, dear listener, because I think I really benefited from going into this and being like, what in the actual it is for a movie made in 1960? Like, I'm gonna call it gory. It's not like what we would call gory now. But watching something like this for then you're like, yikes. There is some stuff they are doing in this that you absolutely do not expect. It's horrifying. It is. It's an incredible movie. Watch Eyes Without a Face. I'm going to tell you no more about it than that, but it is very much worth your time if you have not seen it. [01:23:52] Speaker A: I want to watch these movies. I want to watch these old movies. I know, but I need forcing. I sat down to. I actually sat down and I pressed play on. What was the one you fucking recommended. [01:24:04] Speaker B: To me on Night of the Hunter? [01:24:07] Speaker A: Night of the Hunter. I've got it downloaded. It's on Plex. I sat down and hit play, but I. Something pulled me away and I just couldn't commit to it. I simply couldn't do it. But I want to. I want to be better. I want to do this. [01:24:21] Speaker B: Yeah. For the record, Eyes Without a Face I think is shorter than Night of the Hunter. Night of the Hunter I think is only 90 minutes, though it's pretty short too. You just gotta, yeah, hunker down, fight past the barrier and watch. Because some of this stuff is so good. And I thought a face was. Yeah, it's a scary movie for sure. So off putting and it's great. And then another old one that I watched was 1962's Carnival of Souls. Which I hadn't even heard of before. Have you seen Carnival of Souls? [01:24:54] Speaker A: No. [01:24:56] Speaker B: It's basically, you know, this. It starts, we open on, like, a woman who is riding in a car with these guys and they get into a. An accident. They're like, drag racing or whatever. They get into an accident and the car goes over into the water. And she's the sole survivor. Everybody else drowns as a result of this. And so we follow her. Shortly after this happens, where she's now relocated, moved to another town, where she becomes the organist for a church. However, she is not religious. This is just a job she does, basically. And as she's sort of settling in here, she's seeing these, like, creepy things and people around her, and we're not entirely sure is there. Are they ghosts? Like, what's going on? Is she. Is it in her head? Is it really happening? And you're watching her sort of come unglued throughout this movie. It's also a great ride. Yeah. I recommend Carnival of Souls wholeheartedly. I just think, you know, it's fun to watch these kinds of old horror movies and how they work within not having, like, the ability to use gore the way that we do and having to work around, like, you know, what they were allowed to do and still somehow make like. [01:26:18] Speaker A: Sure, sure. [01:26:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And this really deals with, like. Like, this is real psychological horror when you're watching it. This deals with so many things that are, like, heavy themes. Absolutely worth your time to watch Carnival of Souls. [01:26:34] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. I gotta. I've gotta just fucking force myself to do it. [01:26:39] Speaker B: I've gotta fight through it. [01:26:41] Speaker A: Okay. [01:26:41] Speaker B: Okay. Grab the kids. You know, see, like, we're gonna do something educational, watch some old horror or something like that. [01:26:50] Speaker A: I did check in with Pete to see if he wanted to watch Night of the Living Dead the other night, but he was good. He didn't fancy it. [01:26:56] Speaker B: Oh, well, fair enough. [01:26:58] Speaker A: Yes. But he is still bugging me to carry on, scream with him. So, you know, we'll get that finished. We'll get him on before Christmas for sure. [01:27:07] Speaker B: Okay, good. Finish it up and let's talk to him about it. Because I am very much looking forward to that. [01:27:12] Speaker A: Yes. [01:27:14] Speaker B: Mark, let's talk about your thing. [01:27:16] Speaker A: Wait, just on that. Just while I mentioned. [01:27:18] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, go ahead. [01:27:24] Speaker A: Upsetting is the wrong term. Right. But okay. I had something happened this week that I think happens probably to all parents at some point, but I wasn't prepared for it. I wasn't expecting it. [01:27:35] Speaker B: Okay. [01:27:36] Speaker A: And it. I didn't let on, but it hurt. It hurt me. Pete was in his room playing Minecraft on a group call with his friends. And I went into his room, knocked on his door, went into his room just to say. I forgot. What? I was just saying hi. And he. He muted his call, and I said, how come? Why are you moving? And he went, because you're embarrassing dad. [01:28:02] Speaker B: Oh, no. Oh, Daggers. [01:28:08] Speaker A: It was. It really sucked. [01:28:12] Speaker B: Oh, that's awful. You've finally reached it. Suck that phase. [01:28:17] Speaker A: It's really horrible. [01:28:19] Speaker B: Just being a parent is embarrassing to a child. [01:28:23] Speaker A: Yeah. But, I mean, it just kind of brought home that, you know, he's 13. [01:28:28] Speaker B: Yeah. He's growing up. He's got a. He's finding his autonomy by being embarrassed by you. [01:28:35] Speaker A: Yep. And he is. He is. He is. His voice has deepened. It's wild and it's. And it's. It's beautiful, you know? He's such a beautiful fucking guy. Yeah. But, yeah, that was a little moment where some things kind of clicked into place. [01:28:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, sweet boy. He still loves you. He still listen. [01:28:56] Speaker A: Of course he does. We hang out all the time. We hang out all the time. And we. We, you know, we. We talk a lot. We converse a lot. Yeah. We share ideas. I ask him opinions, he asked me mine. We kind of. We meet, you know, rather than just kind of how school. Okay, great. Here's dinner to you. I do my best to engage, to talk to him and to talk to Owen, and that hasn't changed and will never change. But, yeah, the dynamic is evolving, right? [01:29:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it's that, like. It's the balance of seeing a kid grow up and how the cool elements of that. Now you've got a little peer in some ways, someone you can really talk to and who you share opinions with and stuff like that. But also the kid thing of being. Dad's lame. [01:29:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe he's right. [01:30:01] Speaker B: Well, you know, in fact, as is our right to be. [01:30:04] Speaker A: I should have strutted over there, unmuted his calling. One. What's up, guys? I'm here to serve cunt. That would have. That would have fucking sorted that out. I would have fixed that right up. [01:30:14] Speaker B: No, can you imagine? [01:30:17] Speaker A: Minecraft, is it, boys? All right. I'm here to serve some cunt to the group chat. [01:30:22] Speaker B: That's, like, at, like, 16 or 17. That would be, like, very funny. You know, at 13, he would just, like, never live that down on the playground. Like, absolutely horrifying. [01:30:38] Speaker A: Anyway, look, sorry, what? [01:30:40] Speaker B: Let's talk about your thing. [01:30:41] Speaker A: Ooh, all right, great. [01:30:44] Speaker B: Let us talk about the thing that has been like two months in the making at this point. [01:30:49] Speaker A: Listen, don't build it up, right? [01:30:52] Speaker B: I didn't build it. Listen, okay, that. Listen, a period of time has passed. It's not build up, merely stating we've been trying to discuss this thing and we have not gotten to it for many minutes. So let's do it. [01:31:07] Speaker A: I can't remember what it was. Maybe it was two weeks ago, maybe it was three. Maybe we've never talked about it. Maybe I've just made this up. But I seem to recall us having a conversation quite recently about the Christian certainty of more after death and how it robs, from my perspective, it robs life of its essence. It robs life of its magic. If this is just a waiting room for whatever's next, then why the fuck. [01:31:38] Speaker B: Is just unintentionally quoted a Christian song? [01:31:42] Speaker A: Are you kidding me? [01:31:44] Speaker B: This is just a waiting room and waiting. No, it isn't. [01:31:48] Speaker A: This is it. This is it. This is the fucking. [01:31:51] Speaker B: This is it. [01:31:51] Speaker A: This is all of it, you know. But that said, right? That said, there's a mystery that I can't quite resolve. Right? [01:32:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:32:03] Speaker A: And that is. That is. That is consciousness, right? Yes, yes, that is. This ability seemingly, that for all we, you know, as far as we know, only we have. [01:32:18] Speaker B: Right. [01:32:19] Speaker A: To evaluate and to question and to wonder and to ponder and to lie. [01:32:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:32:28] Speaker A: You know, and to imagine and to plan. I. I am eternally fascinated and will be eternally fascinated as to the seat of that. The. The core of that. The. The start of that. Right there. There has to be a point during gestation, right. When it switches on, surely. [01:32:58] Speaker B: Right. [01:32:59] Speaker A: When is that? What is the catalog? [01:33:01] Speaker B: Totally like, okay, the heart has formed, the brain has formed. Like, when does. When is consciousness formed? [01:33:07] Speaker A: Yep, yep. Ping. So like 5 minutes ago I couldn't reason. And now because I've arranged some proteins in a particular, you know, a particular fucking order in an organ. Oh. Now I can make sense of the noises I'm hearing and the thoughts. I'm having thoughts now. So I've been kind of on that for a while. Right. Reanimator 2 deals with this briefly. [01:33:35] Speaker B: Oh, good. [01:33:36] Speaker A: About the seat of consciousness when he's building that kind of Bride of Frankenstein thing and, you know, during West's fucked up kind of experiments using humans as canvas, just sticks an eyeball and some fingers together and it creates its own little life form and runs away, scurries away. And I'm fascinated by the idea, right? And it makes me wonder. It makes me look to elsewhere in the animal kingdom. And are there. Are there examples of creatures, other examples of life forms that the call into question our understanding of what it is to be conscious, what it is to. To be aware? Right. Because if I said to you. If I said to you, where does all of your reasoning happen, right? You would say, my brain. The brain. Fantastic. [01:34:33] Speaker B: The brain. The brain. The center of the. [01:34:35] Speaker A: Where it all goes on. That's where it all happen. But not if you're an octopus, right? [01:34:43] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. [01:34:43] Speaker A: Not if you're an octopus. Octopuses have what is termed a decentralized nervous system, a distributed nervous system. If you're an octopus, you've got two thirds of your neurons are in your arms, Right? [01:34:59] Speaker B: Right. [01:35:01] Speaker A: Every one of your arms. If you're an octopus, each one of those eight arms can independently sense, make decisions, can almost act with autonomy from the central brain. There have been. There have been. There's been findings that even if you cut the octopus's arm off, if you sever a tentacle, it can still react to stimulus, it can still sense around it and act accordingly. So what is that like for the octopus? [01:35:33] Speaker B: Right. It's like having, like, all octopuses have. Did they all have, like, all these disparate personalities in each arm? You've got eight guys just hanging out on you. [01:35:48] Speaker A: Yes. [01:35:48] Speaker B: I guess it's like with. Like you're a colony, like a jellyfish, except with thinking, which jellyfish don't do. [01:35:56] Speaker A: So is that octopus a bunch of guys? [01:35:59] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. I don't know. [01:36:03] Speaker A: Tell me. [01:36:04] Speaker B: By the way, this also brings to mind that someone asked if plants. If grass is like, each blade is one planter, like, or if it's a bunch of guys. And that's been bothering me for a while as well. [01:36:18] Speaker A: Well, mushrooms are just one guy, aren't they? [01:36:21] Speaker B: Well, no, aren't they. I mean, they're like networks, right? Like, if I'm in. [01:36:27] Speaker A: If I'm in a field and I see a bunch of mushrooms, those aren't individual mushrooms. They're all one guy. They're a network of guys. There's just one massive guy. [01:36:34] Speaker B: They're. I think they're a network of guys, but that. [01:36:39] Speaker A: That network is one. That's my understanding. I'm sure Rich will chime in, and I hope he does. [01:36:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:36:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:36:46] Speaker B: Richard will have an answer to this. I have read several mushroom books, but I haven't retained enough to. To know that for sure. Like, I don't think it's. I mean, that would. That sounds more like a hive mind. Right. Like where they're all one thing that's being controlled and if you were to take out the central thing, then the other ones would cease to do their thing. But I don't think that's the case with mushrooms. There's not like a, you know, a mother shroom, I don't think. [01:37:13] Speaker A: No, well, no, exactly. That's what I'm talking about. When you see the kind of the, the flush of mushrooms growing in different parts of a field. They're all connected. They're all one guy. They're all the same dude. That's my understanding. Maybe I'm wrong. [01:37:30] Speaker B: I don't know. Yeah, I think it's like. I think it's a network. Like they're, they're different guys, but they all can receive like, messages from one another, I think. Which sounds very. Woo. I know I'm sounding like, like, yeah, all the mushrooms, they receive massive frequencies. Like, you know, they're just like guys. But no, I mean, like, I think that's. So let's, let's leave mushrooms out of mushrooms. [01:37:57] Speaker A: Mushrooms to one side. [01:37:57] Speaker B: Because mushrooms are crazy octopuses if every. [01:38:02] Speaker A: Octopus is a bunch of guys. Right, right. Let's just. Let me pull on that a little bit more and talk about planarian flatworms. [01:38:14] Speaker B: Oh, I remember learning about those in seventh grade. [01:38:16] Speaker A: Right, let's talk about flatworms. There are studies. There's a guy, James McConnell, right. In the 60s, he conducted an experiment where he trained flatworms, planarian flatworms, to respond to light. [01:38:33] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, I remember this. Yeah. [01:38:36] Speaker A: Now this isn't the one where you powder them up and feed them to one another. This isn't that one. [01:38:40] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. [01:38:42] Speaker A: But what McConnell did was conditioned flatworms to associate light with pain. Right. He would shock these flatworms with an electric shock, causing them to move towards the light. Right, right. And then he would then cut the flatworm into two pieces. One side had the brain, one side was just a tail without the brain. Now, the head side would regenerate a tail and vice versa. The tail would regenerate a new head, complete with a brain. But both sides of the new flatworm would exhibit the same behavior of moving toward that light. Post conditioning. [01:39:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:39:26] Speaker A: Right. So don't tell me that it's all going on in the brain in those animals, because it clearly isn't. [01:39:32] Speaker B: Right. It can't. And that also when we think about like, like actual, like the concept of generational trauma, not just like on a psychological scale of handing down cycles, but that like, you know, Supposedly research has found that, like, you can inherit trauma. Right. That it's somewhere in the brain. You store trauma that has occurred to people, your ancestors or whatever before. It's like, if something like that's happening, then clearly there is something. [01:40:03] Speaker A: I don't believe that at all. [01:40:06] Speaker B: Okay. I would have to research Grace. [01:40:09] Speaker A: Memory. I don't remember. I don't believe that one bit. Something. On that note, though, I added a bit of therapy a year or two ago, and the therapist who I was working with was superb. And her take on it was that the body remembers trauma, not necessarily the mind or the brain, but your body remembers. [01:40:34] Speaker B: Right. Well, that's. I mean, and that's a controversial concept too, that like. And there was a book, the Body Keeps the Score that, you know, had that concept. But yeah, that is one of the things that people say is possible. Also the thing with the. That I was talking about is epigenetics that neuroscientists have studied. And again, they don't know. Like I said, it's a theory, but they. Yeah, so that's the idea of it is epigenetic genetics. It's the idea that potentially stuff like that can be passed down. I'm just looking, like scanning through something here. And so I'm not going to attempt to explain it, but if people want to Google what that is, you're looking for genetic trauma and epigenetics. [01:41:24] Speaker A: I actually think. I think Ray mentions it in Ghostbusters. I think he remember. I think he mentions collective memories stored in the racial unconscious. I think he mentions that. [01:41:33] Speaker B: I think that's a. Yeah, that's a concept that's been around for like collective conscious or unconscious things like that have been around for ages. [01:41:41] Speaker A: But surely that. That experiment, the McConnell experiment in the 60s, that gives such credence to the fact that it ain't just the brain, or at least not in that species, because if you can regrow a brain in a completely separate half of a worm, which remembers what you've conditioned the other half to do, that's fucking huge. That's huge. [01:42:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Right. [01:42:02] Speaker A: And you know, does that have implications? Does it have implications for us? Does that have implications for neuroscience? But I'll continue, shall I? [01:42:16] Speaker B: Please do. [01:42:17] Speaker A: Try this on for size in a similar vein. Right. If I were to use just a string of words here, it doesn't sound like it should be a sentence, but it is Tokyo slime Mold experiment. Have you ever heard of that? [01:42:32] Speaker B: It sounds familiar, but I could not tell you what that is. [01:42:35] Speaker A: Okay, There's a Particular species of slime mold. Single cell organism. Right? It's. It's literally fucking monocell slime. [01:42:46] Speaker B: Right? [01:42:46] Speaker A: It's one fucking type of cell and it is literally slime. The species called Fiserium polycephalum. [01:42:53] Speaker B: Okay, okay. [01:42:55] Speaker A: Now, in 2010, at Hokkaido University, a professor by the name of Atsushitero was looking into how. Fucking hell. How slime molds can plan and reason in much the same way as humans do when it comes to structures. Okay. [01:43:21] Speaker B: Okay. [01:43:22] Speaker A: So the. The experiment was based on the Tokyo. The system of rail. The underground rail system. [01:43:30] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, this is familiar. Yeah, go on. [01:43:33] Speaker A: So putting a substrate of a kind of liquid for the slime mold to live on. What this guy did was place grains of oat oats for food for this slime mold placed in relativity in the same kind of distance as the major kind of rail stations in Tokyo. [01:43:56] Speaker B: Right, okay. [01:43:58] Speaker A: And then just let the slime mold do its thing. Yeah, the slime mold. Fucking hell. I'm gonna send you something to your signal. Check this out. [01:44:07] Speaker B: Okay. [01:44:07] Speaker A: Give me a sec. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. When you compare the pattern the slime mold made with the Tokyo rail network, you get this. What do you see there? [01:44:28] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [01:44:29] Speaker A: It's the fucking. [01:44:30] Speaker B: It's. Yeah, it's like there's a few differences and where lines close or things like that, but it is essentially the exact same shape. [01:44:39] Speaker A: It's the same. This guy. The geographical map of Tokyo, strategically placing these oat flakes to simulate major cities, including Tokyo, it says. [01:44:49] Speaker B: And. [01:44:52] Speaker A: The. The slime mold designed something identical to the rail network that we designed. [01:44:58] Speaker B: That's bananas. I mean, that's so. Yeah, that's wild. And so these. And. And explain again what their system like the slime mold structure is like. [01:45:12] Speaker A: So the guy. Let me see, what is it called? He used like a seaweed based agate base. Right. For the slime mold to work on to allow it to be ambulatory. [01:45:27] Speaker B: But like, what is the slime mold again? Like, so what are its components? Does it. It doesn't have a brain. [01:45:34] Speaker A: No, it doesn't have a brain. It doesn't have anything. It doesn't have anything. [01:45:37] Speaker B: It's just literally just little balls of slime. [01:45:40] Speaker A: Yes. It's. It's. It's made of one single type of one cell. It's primordial almost. [01:45:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. [01:45:48] Speaker A: It doesn't have anything. It doesn't have any circulatory system. It doesn't have any brain. It doesn't have any kind of Nerve endings. It, you know, and yet it uses kind of trial and error and efficiency to map out the shortest and most efficient possible distance to these goal points. [01:46:07] Speaker B: Right. [01:46:08] Speaker A: And what are the fucking implications there? That's absolutely bananas, you know, no redundancy, no kind of waste, no repetition. It just. It adapted and drew just the most efficient possible distance between all of these points. Yeah, surely that's got fucking applications. Can we not be using that? [01:46:36] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. [01:46:41] Speaker A: The term that the experiment uses is that the slime mold uses a biological foraging strategy to seek food, branching out protoplasm in all directions. And when it finds the source, when it finds the oats, it kind of strengthens that connection. And you end up. You end up with something pretty much identical to what we would have designed also. [01:47:03] Speaker B: Right. I mean, it kind of, you know, raises the question of, like, are we so big for our britches that we think we're so. You know, our consciousness is something incredible and different from everything else when. When things that have one cell can. Can do similar things to what we do. Yeah. I mean, consciousness is such a strange concept. And I don't know. I'm not a scientist. Right there. Yeah. Right. Neither of us are scientists, not neuroscientists, not epigeneticists or anything else of that nature. So I don't know, like, how close or far people are from understanding if, like, what kind of mechanisms are. Can place what consciousness is. Right. The fact of the matter is, as far as I know, we don't know for sure though. Right. How this whole thing works. But it's one of those things that's, like, you kind of understand why people believe in souls and things like that, you know, because it is so mysterious, the idea that, like you said, like, where in the process of, you know, growing from a fetus do we. Do we gain this? [01:48:34] Speaker A: What's the point at which it begins? [01:48:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Which. And I do think that, you know, I've never had a kid, so it's not something that, like, I've thought deeply about, but I do think there is a sense that, like, we know when a fetus starts to, like, think or whatever, but, like, what that means for consciousness or whatever. Like, because a brain developing or something like that. How different is that from an octopus arm? Right. Like, you can't. You can't do philosophy in utero or things like that. Right. Yeah. It's so mysterious and it makes you kind of understand, like, why people reach for something and why, like, it's so hard to just accept, like, it. Something in its Electricity, it's whatever it feels like it has to come from somewhere or and go somewhere, which maybe it does. And that's not necessarily a spiritual concept. I think I've, I've talked about that before, like ideas of where consciousness goes and you know that, that work from physics and stuff like that. But yeah, it's a, it's a thing that we don't totally understand about ourselves. And I think you've brought up before too, just how wild a concept it is that we are using our brains to think about. Our brains. Yes, yes, that's it. [01:49:58] Speaker A: That is it. It's this circular fucking puzzle, right? [01:50:01] Speaker B: We're trying to understand ourselves with ourselves. That's the only tool we have in our toolbox is our own brain trying to understand itself. And that is a bizarre concept. [01:50:14] Speaker A: There's one more situation I'll, I'll just outline for you, right, because this is, this is just my favorite, I'm going to use the term here. Organoid intelligence. Okay. [01:50:27] Speaker B: No, I don't think that's familiar. [01:50:28] Speaker A: Do you know what an organoid is? [01:50:32] Speaker B: No. [01:50:33] Speaker A: Okay, so 2013 is when this kind of research began in Vienna. A professor by the name of Madeleine Lancaster. An organoid is a kind of a culture which is grown from a pluripotent stem cell. Right? So this particular type of stem cells that has the potential to grow into any organization. [01:50:59] Speaker B: Okay, okay. [01:51:00] Speaker A: You with me? [01:51:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Following. [01:51:02] Speaker A: So stem cells up to a certain point before the DNA fires and tells them what to grow into. They are multi potential. [01:51:10] Speaker B: They can't be anything else. [01:51:11] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly, exactly. Now what Lancaster and her team did was cultivate brain organoids from these stem cells. Okay, okay. Not a brain, right. Not a brain, but a proto brain. So incapable of, you know, not aware, incapable of awareness, incapable of rationalization. Ethical considerations are out the window here because it simply isn't a human organ. Right? It's, it's, it's almost like a 3D kind of culture. It, it has kind of, it has structures in common with an early developing human brain. Great for studying brain development. Great for studying, you know, neurological kind of diseases and disorders, not intelligent in any real sense that we'd recognize, but a living tissue nonetheless. Right. [01:52:07] Speaker B: Okay. [01:52:08] Speaker A: Now in 2022, a completely different team, right, A team, a private company, I believe they are called Cortical Labs, developed something called dish brain. [01:52:27] Speaker B: Dish brain. [01:52:29] Speaker A: Dish brain. [01:52:30] Speaker B: Which branding could use work. [01:52:32] Speaker A: No, I love it. Which involved growing brain organoids and integrating them into an array of microelectrodes. Right, okay, right. Literally growing proto Brain tissue and weaving it into an electrical array to allow those neurons to form networks which. Which were capable of interacting with that digital system. Okay, Right. [01:53:06] Speaker B: Yes. [01:53:07] Speaker A: And they taught this dish to play po. [01:53:15] Speaker B: What? [01:53:16] Speaker A: Yes, bro. Wow. Yes, bro. Through. In a. In methods that seem quite similar to the planarian flatworms, you know, electrical stimulation and reward feeding and so on. Taught this brain through its. Through its electrical interface to move the paddle to reflect the bowl. [01:53:42] Speaker B: That's bananas in it. [01:53:44] Speaker A: Right. [01:53:46] Speaker B: Absolutely crazy. Now we've taken like the organism out of it entirely. There's. [01:53:54] Speaker A: Yeah, it is no nerves, no sensory input. [01:53:58] Speaker B: Right. There is no animal involved. There's. It's purely just the. It's just the unattached stuff. [01:54:09] Speaker A: Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. And see this, this opens up areas of research into using kind of biological computing, you know, so if the kind of the computational capability of the brain is wild. [01:54:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:54:30] Speaker A: You know, we still. You know, earlier on today on the news, I heard ChatGPT described as having like an IQ in the high hundreds, 100. But Chat GPT and generative AI burns resources as we know it is a absolute ecological nightmare for this planet. [01:54:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:54:49] Speaker A: So what if we could grow our computers instead? [01:54:54] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, totally. [01:54:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you see what I'm saying? [01:54:59] Speaker B: Renewable computing. [01:55:00] Speaker A: Yes. Why can't we? Who. Who the fuck is gonna say no to fucking organoid farms instead of server farms? Brain farms, mate. [01:55:13] Speaker B: Which. It's a great like sci fi horror image, but also is such a. Yeah, I mean, but if that were possible. [01:55:22] Speaker A: I would even push back on it being sci fi. Right. Because dish brain demonstrated what can we call it? Plasticity. Right. The ability to recognize connections, improve its performance over time, iterate its performance, improve what it's doing. That. That feels like a foundation of something quite seismic. [01:55:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, big time. That's a paradigm shift is what that is. [01:55:53] Speaker A: Yeah. I've seen it referred to as hybrid bio computing. If you can cultivate the matter that we carry around in our heads, that does our thinking for us. Hello. Say goodbye to God, mate. Say goodbye to fucking little baby Jesus at this point. [01:56:16] Speaker B: Well, that's. And when you said like, who would. Who would argue with that? I'm like, well, I know exactly who would argue with that. Yeah, yeah. The same people who argue with stem cells generally. Well, yeah, as a thing probably would have some issues. [01:56:32] Speaker A: ExxonMobil would probably have a few things to say about it. [01:56:35] Speaker B: Well, yeah, that's true as well. But what a. What a concept. Again, it just keeps bringing me to the idea that, you know, in our Minds, we consider ourselves like this, you know, we're the only ones who are capable of XYZ when it comes to consciousness. And then how. [01:56:53] Speaker A: Just doesn't feel true. [01:56:55] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. When you see these, these interesting ways in which that it can be replicated, whether in something that is, you know, like you said, almost primordial or whether it's something that we create in a lab or whatever the case may be. Yeah. I think that what you said just now about, like, well, there goes God. Like, honestly, that's the thing is one of the ways in which we tell ourselves that God exists is because, like, well, we couldn't do this. [01:57:27] Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly. [01:57:29] Speaker B: What if we can? [01:57:30] Speaker A: Bullshit. [01:57:31] Speaker B: Yeah. What if we absolutely can do that? [01:57:35] Speaker A: And I guess I would draw a line under this by saying, I'm certain you will have heard the refrain, you know, that a life without God is a life without, you know, a life without faith is a life without wonder and dreaming. If this is all there is. This is all there is. Fuck that. There is so much mystery left. [01:57:59] Speaker B: Yes. [01:58:00] Speaker A: Just in this. [01:58:00] Speaker B: It becomes way more mysterious when you take that out. [01:58:04] Speaker A: Yes. When you fucking put God out of the equation and you start to read. [01:58:11] Speaker B: Your consciousness into you. Where the fuck did that come from? And now we have a lot more questions and wonder and all of that stuff in the world. [01:58:19] Speaker A: And what can we do with it if we just take the brakes off, you know? [01:58:23] Speaker B: Yeah. It's. It puts us at an interesting point in history. Right. Because, you know, in history past, until the past century or so, you know, when it came to science, so much of it was controlled by the Church. And to this day, I mean, there's still pushback against what science does by the Church. But being at a place at which the church doesn't actually have power to enforce that. Oh, you can't say that. You know, the sun does this, the Earth does this, the whatever else. And being able to actually delve into that stuff without that, without anyone being like, no, now we burn you heretic. [01:59:09] Speaker A: Yes. Heresy. [01:59:10] Speaker B: Yeah. It puts us in a place where we can explore stuff that just simply you would not have been allowed even if the technology had existed with which you could have experimented with it. It's like now we are at a point in history where we not only have the technology, but we have the freedom to try that kind of stuff and, you know, low key, kill God or whatever. [01:59:35] Speaker A: Before we, before we round this off, I just want to say how proud I am of both of us. Yeah. During our brief little sojourn, there into talking about mushrooms and whether they're one guy or loads of guys. Neither of us. Neither of us did the obvious joke. [01:59:53] Speaker B: What was the obvious joke? [01:59:56] Speaker A: Well, they're fun guy, aren't they? Oh, neither of us did it. And I'm proud of that. [02:00:03] Speaker B: That's because I am bad at puns. But I'm proud of you as a. As a dad for refraining from doing. Although you didn't, did you? [02:00:13] Speaker A: But I did. I didn't say it. I just drew reference to the fact that we didn't say it. Different things, friends. [02:00:22] Speaker B: Are mushrooms one guy? Are they many guys? Where does our consciousness come from? Should we run computers on cute little squishy fake brains with all the wires? [02:00:34] Speaker A: Yep. How can we stay there? [02:00:36] Speaker B: Are we killing God? [02:00:37] Speaker A: Suicidal ideation at the end of January? [02:00:41] Speaker B: Yes. [02:00:42] Speaker A: Do I. Does Corey. Do you serve cunt? And if so? And if I don't, how can I. [02:00:50] Speaker B: Teach us, dear friends? [02:00:52] Speaker A: Oh, cunt servers of the joach dun. [02:00:55] Speaker B: Here, here. And while you're thinking through all those things and serving all that cunt and what whatnot, go ahead and stay spooky. [02:01:04] Speaker A: Yes.