Ep. 248: one last hurrah at the ramen glory hole

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Right. Corrigan. Just not to want to get personal. [00:00:09] Speaker B: Oh, all right. [00:00:11] Speaker A: But would it be fair of me, or right of me, accurate of me to say that you are a person who experiences pain? [00:00:26] Speaker B: Yes. [00:00:27] Speaker A: Is that fair? [00:00:28] Speaker B: Say that this is true. Correct. [00:00:30] Speaker A: Okay. Is it, is it constant, this pain, this physical pain? [00:00:36] Speaker B: Oh, you meant like as, like a disability situation? Not just as a I, like, I'm not a novocaine situation. I can't feel pain. [00:00:43] Speaker A: No, no, I don't mean in general. You're capable, but you're somebody who lives with the sensation of pain. You experience pain. [00:00:51] Speaker B: I misunderstood the question. I took it a little too literally. But yes, yes, that as well. Sorry, yeah. What was your follow up question to that? [00:01:00] Speaker A: Would you mind describing it for me? [00:01:05] Speaker B: That's actually a really interesting question, isn't it? Because when you live with pain all the time, the thing is that I don't know what it feels like to not be in pain. Do you know what I mean? [00:01:20] Speaker A: So you've got no baseline I don't have a relation to. [00:01:24] Speaker B: Right. Like what would it feel like if something didn't hurt? Like right now, for example, my shoulder is like kind of sore. It like feels heavy. My soul elbow around here. Like my joints right now are achy. Yeah, achy. The arch of my foot at the moment. How would I describe that pain? It's sharp. [00:01:55] Speaker A: Sharp. Here we go. Yes. [00:01:58] Speaker B: Kind of feels like something is, is driving into it, I suppose. [00:02:03] Speaker A: Piercing. Are you saying. [00:02:05] Speaker B: I don't know if piercing is the same thing as sharp. When I say it, almost like I'm standing on. [00:02:11] Speaker A: Okay. [00:02:11] Speaker B: Something sharp. Like a pressure. Like a. Yeah, like a pressure. You know, something like that. My neck is stiff, heavy at the moment. [00:02:20] Speaker A: Pressure, aching. [00:02:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Those are some of the fascinating pains I would describe. [00:02:25] Speaker A: Fascinating but also very interesting in, by, you know, in your, in your own words, that you've got no, no comparison. No control. [00:02:32] Speaker B: Right. Like I try to think of like against. I can think of like a. I'm like, is there a part of my body that doesn't hurt at the moment? I don't know even like my thumb hurts at the moment. So I'm like, I can't even have a baseline at all. [00:02:45] Speaker A: Describe it. Describe the sensation. [00:02:47] Speaker B: It feels like there is a band aid on it. Too tight. [00:02:52] Speaker A: So tight. [00:02:53] Speaker B: Yeah. All right. Like pressured. [00:02:56] Speaker A: All right, all right, all right. I'll tell you why I ask. Right. I'll tell you why I ask. Fascinating stuff here. This is kind of a throwback to, to my ponderings from some weeks previous where I wondered or thought aloud about whether it was possible to measure the depth of physical kind of sensation to. To quantify suffering. [00:03:22] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. [00:03:22] Speaker A: Is it possible to find the very, very edge of the dial, the very upper limit, the very maximum decibel of. Of. Of emotional pain, but also physical pain? [00:03:35] Speaker B: Which, by the way, I did send you a link about this, but I do follow someone on Blue sky that this is his area of expertise. Do you know, I feel like we have to get him on here at some point. He's, like, kind of a big deal. Like, actually like a. I would adore. [00:03:53] Speaker A: I would adore a conversation with someone like that. And it just makes me all the more wary about what I'm about to talk about here, because there's nothing like a Marco science mangle, right? [00:04:08] Speaker B: Yes. [00:04:08] Speaker A: But I'm gonna feel my way through this. [00:04:10] Speaker B: All right. [00:04:11] Speaker A: Fascinating. That there is scientific. Much like the Schmidt pain index for, you know, wasps stings and poisonous venomous insects. We're in the realms of something called psychophysics here. [00:04:26] Speaker B: Okay. [00:04:27] Speaker A: What a fascinating term that is, by the way. Psychophysics. Psychophysics. You can kind of describe it as the attempt to almost quantify and gauge the physical sensations via subjective reports. Right. Via subjectivity, via verbal descriptions. So think. If you. If you. If. If you imagine I've got a pin and I'm pushing on your fingertip. Right. [00:05:02] Speaker B: Okay. [00:05:03] Speaker A: At some point, that sensation becomes uncomfortable. If I shine a lot, if I've got a light and I'm shining it into your eyes and I'm turning up the intensity of that light, there's a threshold somewhere where it becomes uncomfortable, where it's. So if I. If I. If I. If. If you rest your hand on a radiator or a heater. Turn it up slowly. Slowly, slowly, slowly. There will be a threshold between when it stops being pleasant and the sensation starts to register as pain. [00:05:41] Speaker B: Sure. [00:05:41] Speaker A: And psychophysics is the approach of. [00:05:48] Speaker B: Almost. [00:05:48] Speaker A: Mapping the features of pain in a qualitative, kind of scientific way based on. The descriptions of the individual. Right. This is an. Oh, this is like a. This isn't new. This is a German field of research, I believe, from the 1920s and 1960s. [00:06:17] Speaker B: It's kind of funny that, you know, how, like, the joke is that, like, is there a German word for that? Like, when you need something, like, really specific to describe something, like, there's this German word for that. So it's kind of, you know, goes along with that, the idea that they are researching how you can, you know, specifically find a way to quantify feelings. [00:06:39] Speaker A: Yeah. That's exactly what this is. That is exactly what this is. And fascinatingly, right into this field in the 19 kind of 1950s. Right, okay. Comes a pair of psychologists by the name of Ronald Melzack and a mathematician, a statistician by the name of Warren Torgerson. [00:07:06] Speaker B: Right, all right. [00:07:08] Speaker A: Who joined a general hospital in Montreal. Right. And started to study psychophysics, but mapped specifically to the realm of quantifying pain severity. [00:07:30] Speaker B: The 1950s, you said? [00:07:31] Speaker A: Yes. [00:07:32] Speaker B: Okay. [00:07:36] Speaker A: Now this, this hospital, Montreal, just such a broad, broad kind of range of clinics, access to such a broad range of patients. Burn victims, post operative patients, amputees, you. [00:08:00] Speaker B: Know, all whatever flavor of person in pain you could possibly want. [00:08:05] Speaker A: Everything, every flavor of pain that you could possibly choose. Right, nice. And in this institution comes Malzak and his partner to try and kind of find almost a scale, almost a, a way of, of using language, human language, human terms, as a way of medically quantifying pain that suffered using the, by the language that people spontaneously use to describe it. [00:08:47] Speaker B: Right, yeah. [00:08:49] Speaker A: The kind of methodology that they were using. They were visiting, they were visiting patients in all manner of fucking horrific conditions. Dental clinics, burns unit, chronic pain, neuralgia, phantom limb pain, those with kind of diabetic limb pain, just neural and physical pain of every single description. And his sample group, his patients were encouraged by him to describe their pain spontaneously. Right. So not using any programmed lists of language, but to start with at least, they were asked to describe the categorist, the characteristics of their pain in their own kind of language and as well as which, as well as with actual patient based data. What they also used was pain applied in an experimental setting. Right, okay. Volunteers? Oh no, volunteers, healthy student volunteers who underwent tests, for example, a cold presser test. So volunteers would put their arm into an ice water bath, kind of minus three, and were. And kept their arm in that ice water bath and were asked to report the changing qualities of the pain that they were experiencing. The long. [00:10:31] Speaker B: Saw something like that in a reel, did you? Yeah, it's like, I think it might have had something to do with like the Titanic or whatever. And there was like a box had water that was like the temperature that it would have been and people were putting in their hands and seeing how long they could hold it in there. And it's not long, as it turns out. [00:10:51] Speaker A: All other manners of experiments as well, as well as cold tests, there were heat pains. So like I just mentioned at the start, they had volunteers with heat pads and thermal kind of conductors applied to their skin for over long periods. Of time, which, with the temperature being increased with them describing their pain with each kind of notch up on the threshold. Mechanical pressure. So gripping devices, crushing devices applied. [00:11:22] Speaker B: I just, you know, I was at the doctor this morning and you know when they put the blood pressure cuff on you and squeeze that shit? I don't like that. [00:11:29] Speaker A: I love that. I love that. [00:11:30] Speaker B: Do you? [00:11:31] Speaker A: I really love that. [00:11:31] Speaker B: You love that. [00:11:32] Speaker A: I love what it does to my arm. I love the kind of tingly feeling. [00:11:35] Speaker B: Oh, no. [00:11:38] Speaker A: I, I always want to ask, did I win? I always want to ask, did I do good? [00:11:42] Speaker B: Well, you know, they always give you like your number at the end of. [00:11:44] Speaker A: It and I'm like, that means nothing. [00:11:46] Speaker B: 64 over 700. Do most people have an idea of what that. Oh, it's this over this. And then I have to go home and Google it and be like, am I dying? [00:11:57] Speaker A: There you go. [00:11:57] Speaker B: But I don't like that process. [00:12:00] Speaker A: Real in depth pain tests, right? Heat, cold, pressure, electrical stimulation. So on the healthy volunteers, they would generate electrical stimulus, brief kind of bursts. [00:12:15] Speaker B: That also seems like a thing you would like. [00:12:18] Speaker A: Never tried it. [00:12:21] Speaker B: Interesting. You've never been electrocuted in any way? [00:12:24] Speaker A: Oh, I have, yeah. [00:12:25] Speaker B: Okay. [00:12:25] Speaker A: But I remember it very vividly and very, I, I didn't enjoy it one bit. In fact, I've talked previously, I know, about being able, unable to physically recall memories of pain. Interestingly, the, the couple of times I've electrocuted myself are the only memories of physical discomfort to bring about a physical sensation. I'll get, I'll get like a tingle or I'll get goosebumps. [00:12:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I can, I can definitely feel like what it felt like when I was in the basement and like getting low level electrocuted. Like it for sure brings it right back. [00:13:00] Speaker A: But what, what was, you know, what was Mazak doing here? What was his point? What was his thesis, his goal here or his, his kind of, his, his methodology was to look at which words, look at the language that patients tended to use for similar pain states. Psychophysics tells us, teaches us that language is, you know, it can be translated into clinical data. So what he and his partner did is to identify the kind of, the underlying dimensions of the language which were being used and putting them in categories in different kind of clusters of descriptors. And got the point quite quickly that different types of language were used for different types of, of pain. Neuralgic pain, for example. You know, nerve pain often described as shooting as bright. You yourself there described joint and muscle pain as heavy, as dull, as restrictive, and this formed the basis of a diagnostic tool, you know, of an actual clinical diagnostic methodology which became the McGill Payne questionnaire. [00:14:29] Speaker B: Oh, I've never heard of that. [00:14:31] Speaker A: Beautiful, isn't it? Absolutely beautiful. The McGill Payne questionnaire. I'll tell you what this guy makes me think of. Do you remember Jeffrey Combs in the Frighteners? [00:14:42] Speaker B: Of course. [00:14:43] Speaker A: This fucking FBI agent who's made a fucking lifetime out of studying pain and fear makes me think of this guy. You're like a proper. I haven't seen a photo of him in my. In my reading, in my research. [00:14:53] Speaker B: I think that's good enough as. Yeah, your mental picture. [00:14:56] Speaker A: That's exactly what this guy makes me think of. So what? How this evolved was into putting the language used into different kind of descriptor groups. Okay, okay. And we ended up with three kind of major domains in the McGill Pain Questionnaire. Sensory pain. So that attributed to burning or thermal kind of pain. Neuropathic pain, the sensory dimension of pain. Then you have the affective area, which is if somebody were to describe their pain as. Makes me feel sick. [00:15:40] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. On an emotional exact level, it. [00:15:43] Speaker A: It wears me out. I'm tired by this pain. It makes. It's a terrifying pain that was put into the kind of effective realm and the evaluative realm. So overall, the kind of. The overall severity of the pain is fucking huge. [00:16:00] Speaker B: Right. [00:16:00] Speaker A: That kind of language and gave through, through kind of assigning, you know, algorithmic values to all of this stuff. A present pain intensity score, ppi, A categorical kind of severity rating that, that, that could be used just using a patient's language to describe their pain, which is fucking incredible. Take for example, burn unit research. [00:16:35] Speaker B: Right, Right. [00:16:38] Speaker A: That kind of scale would demonstrate this shift from surface level, skin level, surface level, descriptors like stinging or searing. Then the more severe it gets, the deeper the inflammation in a patient's tissue. It would become described as throbbing or aching. [00:16:58] Speaker B: During one of my least favorite kinds of pain. [00:17:01] Speaker A: Throbbing. Yeah. Oh, horrible. Like when a cartoon character hits themselves with a hammer, you know. [00:17:09] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Yeah, that's a good, good way of describing it. [00:17:14] Speaker A: He found that patients with nerve injury would always or consistently at least produce electric kind of terms. Tingling, shooting, you know what I mean? Electric pain. When the pain is related to sensory kind of nerve issues. [00:17:33] Speaker B: Right. [00:17:34] Speaker A: In patients that were post operative. So patients who are recovering from surgery, abdominal surgery patients, for example, always spontaneously, without guidance, would pick words from the groups related to kind of pressure, heavy cramping, pressure kind of language. You've got amputees who Would use very specific words from clusters about, about this, this neurophysiological kind of pain. So very specific and demonstrated really clearly that even though the, the kind of physiology might be different of a particular type of pain, it's got very clear, very separate dimensions that can be, you know, that, that you can use a patient's language to trace a clinical kind of cause. [00:18:35] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. And so this is less about like say you know, rating a pain. Right. Which is often what, like if you go into a doctor's office. Yeah. How sad face are you? Which, you know, one of the things that is often a problem is like if you are a chronic pain haver, like you know, like I said at the beginning, like I don't have a baseline for that. Like my baseline for a regular person. You know, if you were experiencing on a day to day basis, like if you one day had like my normal pain, you would probably be like that's a seven or an eight or whatever. But that's my like baseline. So when I look at that face, that's not helpful to me. Like that is someone else might come in sobbing with the normal happiness that. [00:19:21] Speaker A: I have might be someone else. [00:19:22] Speaker B: Right. You know, like my, my just like straight face is someone else's screaming, crying, throwing up. Right. And so this idea of instead of looking at it as, you know, a 1 to 10, sad face to happy face, whatever, things like that, as we can sort of look at the words you use to get to what might be the cause of this. [00:19:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:48] Speaker B: Makes a lot of sense to me. You know, if you're trying to diagnose and you come in there and you just ask me like on a scale 1 to 10, what's your pain here? I don't fucking know. But if you ask me what words I use and then go, okay, well that's usually people use that to describe xyz. That makes more sense as a diagnostic tool. [00:20:08] Speaker A: So fascinating. It's still often used today. It's employed a lot in kind of clinical trials, research. It's, it's, it's often used these days to kind of verify the difference between neuropathic and tissue related pain. So depending on how you describe your pain, that will give really, really strong indicators as to whether it's physiological, psychological, nerve based, tissue based. [00:20:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I get a lot of weird like neuropathy stuff and things like that. So sudden like kind of. Yeah. Either sharp shooting pains or tingling numbness are things that I will get. And that is indeed like when you're kind of trying to like Figure out what these things are before you go to the doctor. So you're like, how do I describe this to them? You're kind of figuring it out. Like, the kind of thing that you notice that distinguishes from some other. [00:21:05] Speaker A: Exactly. Type those kind of words your physician will be listening out for. Shooting pain, tingling pain, drilling pain, versus, you know, dreadful, dreadful, numb, pressure, strangling, suffocating pain. Even though, you know, language is so broad, there are still the same indicators that people keep coming back to for different types of pain, and those go in to the Miguel Pain Scale, still used widely today in a clinical setting. [00:21:39] Speaker B: It's so interesting. You know, I. I often think about that, like, what. How you describe a feeling. [00:21:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:48] Speaker B: Because, I mean, obviously I'm often trying to think about, like, what is. Like when you asked me, like, describe some of your pain right now or whatever. Like, oh, that's a tough question. You know, and so it's an interesting thing to think about. Like, the idea that we. Most of us, still will come to the same words eventually that we understand, you know, we're comparing it to some other experience. So, like, if we say there's a sharp pain, we are comparing that to the experience of, like, we probably cut ourselves at some point. Right. And we're comparing it to what it would feel like to be touched by a blade or if something is sore or, like, heavy. Like I said, you know, it feels like if I were to lift something heavy, but I'm not. It's just that weight is, you know, the feeling. Right. Like, the way that we use our other experiences that cause us pain to describe, you know, something that's otherwise, you know, indescribable to us, I think is fascinating. We all kind of come back to the same terms. [00:23:00] Speaker A: Had I my time again, right. Had I the chance to go back and knowing where, I know now this so fascinating, do I find this that I think I would have looked for a career in the study of pain, you know, interesting. God, it is fascinating to me. And it just. It makes me so curious to wonder if there is a version of the McGill Pain Index for the feels. You know, will people describe psychological pain in the same terms given a wide enough control group? [00:23:43] Speaker B: Right. Like, I think that that's also fascinating. Like, if you think about the way we describe a lot of especially, like, negative emotions, often it's like, you know, when you're talking about, like, your heart aches, you know, or sore, or if you're, you know, you have a crush on somebody and you. You have a fluttering Feeling or, you know, things like that. Like we. Yeah, we do describe stuff emotionally using the same kinds of terms that we do for physical. [00:24:14] Speaker A: Yes. [00:24:15] Speaker B: Like pain and things like that. [00:24:18] Speaker A: I shall look into this. I'm gonna look next. [00:24:21] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe there's something. [00:24:22] Speaker A: Next time we speak on the matter of pain. And we will. [00:24:25] Speaker B: And we will for sure. [00:24:28] Speaker A: I intend to come armed with answers about whether or not there is a clinical question and answer pathway, a linguistic pathway that will help uncover the root causes of psychological distress. [00:24:44] Speaker B: I'm into it. [00:24:46] Speaker A: I'm so into it. There's a couple of things. There's a few career paths I would choose where I have my time over again. [00:24:52] Speaker B: All right? [00:24:53] Speaker A: One would be just a. Just a voyager in the realm of pain. I would study and intimately get to know pain. The other is, of course, a wrestler. [00:25:05] Speaker B: Well, naturally. Sure. [00:25:07] Speaker A: You know what I mean? I'd be a wrestler. And those are those. [00:25:12] Speaker B: Those are the two. Those are the alternate universe, Marco. [00:25:15] Speaker A: Those two things. Yeah. Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may. [00:25:20] Speaker B: Yes, please do. [00:25:22] Speaker A: Fucking look at these nerds. Oh, mise en scene. [00:25:25] Speaker B: I don't think anyone has ever said measles said in such a horny way before. [00:25:29] Speaker A: The way I whispered the word sex. Cannibal routine. [00:25:32] Speaker B: Worst comes to worst, Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science. [00:25:35] Speaker A: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. It's cold outside, but my pancreas is talking to me. [00:25:40] Speaker B: I'm fucking. [00:25:41] Speaker A: I'm gonna leg it. [00:25:42] Speaker B: You know how I feel about that, Mark. [00:25:44] Speaker A: I think you feel great about it. [00:25:48] Speaker B: Bring us in, you weirdo. [00:25:50] Speaker A: Oh, look, I got nothing to say. Look, I hope everyone's good. I've been watching you. Oh, yes. And you all seem to be doing well, the. Whatever you've been doing recently. Keep it up. It's great. You all look lovely. You look really well. That thing you've been trying, that. The. The look you've been rocking the past week, the fit that you've been adopting these past couple of days has really been working for you. You look great. Just a little affirmation for you, you know, Just a little something to let you know that you're doing fine and Corrigan and I are richer for having you along. Listening to the Jack of All Graves fucking horror culture podcast this week. [00:26:34] Speaker B: Yeah, this Thanksgiving week here in these United States of America. [00:26:39] Speaker A: Right, right. Let's go on to that, then. I know very, very little you might be shocked to know about the Thanksgiving. Is it rooted in, you know, is there anything awful associated with it did you. [00:26:51] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, obviously, the colonizers coming here and killing off all the Native Americans. [00:26:58] Speaker A: That's what you're giving thanks for, is it? [00:26:59] Speaker B: That's not the myth. The myth is, you know, the Thanksgiving happened between, like, the Native Americans and the whites who came over here. And everybody was very happy because the Indians had taught them how to, you know, grow things and whatnot. And, you know, this was like, oh, we're so thankful, and we're all happy and we get along, and it just kind of ignores what happened. [00:27:23] Speaker A: Oh, dear. Look, even. Even I know that is fucking tissue thin. [00:27:28] Speaker B: Yeah. That's like. I mean, it's funny because when I was growing up, like, that is for sure how we learned it. I don't think that, like, that's what you would learn in school, at least not in, like, on a coast. You might still learn that in Texas or something like that. Like, but, like, I don't think in California or Massachusetts, the places I went to school, that that is how you would learn the Thanksgiving story. You would learn a little more context than that. But that's ultimately, you know, the idea behind this whole thing, and it's not super important to the gathering, really. Get her. You go and you. You get together with your family, and you sit at the table, and everyone says what they're thankful for. [00:28:10] Speaker A: Same with Christmas, isn't it? I'm ain't. [00:28:12] Speaker B: I'm nothing to do with no religion in any way or anything like that. Yeah. These things are so divorced from. From what they came from. Like, they're both shopping holidays at this point. [00:28:23] Speaker A: Yes. [00:28:24] Speaker B: Shopping and feasting. [00:28:25] Speaker A: Listen on that. I'm gonna. I'm gonna speak out loud. The idea that I shared with you in our daily, kind of ongoing text conversation last week, I think it was. [00:28:36] Speaker B: Uhhuh. [00:28:37] Speaker A: The very rich seam of joag content that I think Christmas has offered us on a plate. [00:28:46] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. [00:28:47] Speaker A: So I'm gonna lower my voice a little bit here because just in case he's listening. Right. Also sidebar. [00:28:58] Speaker B: You're giving us sidebar. [00:28:59] Speaker A: Sidebar. [00:29:00] Speaker B: Maiden bar here. Owen. [00:29:03] Speaker A: Owen is still continuing the jig of writing a letter to Santa, is he? He's. Today he's written his fucking letter to Santa. [00:29:14] Speaker B: I think he knows what he's doing. I think he. I think he's milking it. [00:29:18] Speaker A: Do you think? [00:29:18] Speaker B: You know, it's like, how. Like, I definitely pretended that I believed in the tooth fairy for longer because I was like, if I don't believe in the tooth fairy, I'm not gonna get money. So, you know, he's getting an extra Santa gift. [00:29:32] Speaker A: I, I thought it was a little bit late in the day, but as, as I was discussing with Laura, I'm the youngest of four brothers, right. So I had no Santa. [00:29:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I had no Santa. Nobody ever told me there was a Santa. That was the thing for movies. It was never a thing in our house. [00:29:53] Speaker A: Well, it is, it is in our house. I know. [00:29:56] Speaker B: Interesting. And he's, he's keeping with it at least outwardly. [00:29:59] Speaker A: At 11, with an older brother, he's still. [00:30:02] Speaker B: Let's get. He also has a nice older brother. That thing like he does. [00:30:07] Speaker A: He's lovely. [00:30:09] Speaker B: That was not like a thing in like the 80s to have like a nice older sibling who didn't go and tell you and ruin it for you the moment someone at school told them. [00:30:18] Speaker A: But anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway. So he has got it into his head. Right? [00:30:25] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. Okay, now I know where this is going. [00:30:28] Speaker A: That he really wants like a really cool kind of flight sim control stick for the PlayStation. Right. And a copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator which is like this ridiculously expansive and detailed flight sim game. Right. Like the, the deluxe version has like every plane you could ever name. Every fucking airport. [00:30:59] Speaker B: Is Laura stoked on this? Because I know she's like a, at least a plane crash enthusiast. [00:31:04] Speaker A: I don't know about. Yeah, she's super into the idea as well. And it occurs to me, the first thing I thought we could do is recreate Sky King. Right. I'm certain. The airport. [00:31:15] Speaker B: You want to describe this to our listeners? [00:31:18] Speaker A: Yeah, long term listeners will know this. The guy, I can't remember his name, but Sky King, A guy, a depressed guy who fucking switch flipped in his head. He worked in baggage handling, I believe, or something similar. And he just stole a plane and took it for a ride and then crashed the cunt into a mountain, you know. And it occurs to me that we could recreate that because there are detailed, detailed air traffic control conversations. You know, he had escort jets kind of trying to shepherd him into unpopulated areas, which he did. Happily. He wasn't. He wasn't. [00:31:54] Speaker B: Yeah, he wasn't trying. [00:31:55] Speaker A: It was only self destruction. He was, he was bend on. And it occurs to me that we could do that. We could plot the last journey of Sky King while doing the, the chat logs. [00:32:06] Speaker B: I don't know, friends. Is that distasteful? [00:32:10] Speaker A: I don't think it is. I think it's insightful. It isn't distasteful. It's insight. [00:32:14] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:32:15] Speaker A: Jack of all graves takes you closer to the pain. We take you closer to the tragedy. And you pull on that thread, okay, and think of the black box conversations there are and think of the crashes that there are. We could recreate so many aerial tragedies on flights. [00:32:36] Speaker B: I think you're forgetting that I'm terrified of flying. I'll do. I don't want. I don't want to hear about airline tragedies, like guy going and like crashing his plane on purpose. Fine. I don't want to ever hear about it having happening by accident. [00:32:54] Speaker A: Well, maybe I'll do a couple of my own then. [00:32:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't. That I am uninterested in that endeavor because I have to get on planes all the time and you do. [00:33:03] Speaker A: I know. [00:33:03] Speaker B: I am not. I don't wanna. I don't wanna think about it. [00:33:07] Speaker A: Maybe I'll do a couple on my own, but. [00:33:09] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe this is your. This is your endeavor. [00:33:11] Speaker A: Honestly, this is kind of an intersection. [00:33:14] Speaker B: To be your air traffic controller. [00:33:16] Speaker A: She wouldn't. She would. She would say, nope, not doing that. She wouldn't do it. But okay, maybe Owen, the more he'd love it. But the more I explore this, right, the more I realize that this idea is an intersection point between my training as a. As a. As a, you know, drama. Dramatist and the joag journey. It's where they meet. [00:33:40] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I will give you that. [00:33:42] Speaker A: Did I not say again? Some weeks or months ago, wouldn't it be cool if there was a VR game where you could go into crime scenes? [00:33:51] Speaker B: Yes, you did talk about that. [00:33:53] Speaker A: Does this idea with Flight Simulator not give us the chance to do just that? To reenact? [00:33:58] Speaker B: I think it's interesting. I'm wondering if there's going to be like a YouTube channel that pops up that does exactly this. Or if there is one already. No, I don't mean that as a like. I don't mean that as a like. So don't do it. I'm just wondering. It feels like such a. Like a thing. A lot of people probably think about that. I wonder if there's like. Okay, a whole bunch of people who. That's exactly what they do with this. [00:34:21] Speaker A: That's one way of phrasing it. Another would be it's a great idea. [00:34:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not. I'm just simply saying. I mean. Okay, I think, is it hacky? [00:34:31] Speaker A: Am I a hack? [00:34:33] Speaker B: Well, I don't think it's. I don't think it's hacky. I think it's a special interest thing. I'M not entirely sure how in good taste it is, but I do understand the draw, and I do think there could be something interesting to that, you know, getting up close and personal with something like that. [00:34:51] Speaker A: Okay. A little. Maybe we'll try one or two and see how it goes. [00:34:54] Speaker B: Right. [00:34:55] Speaker A: It'll be something because you know what the dark months do to me. You know, what the post Christmas months. [00:35:00] Speaker B: Maybe this is how we, you know, we work on leaning into it and staying. [00:35:05] Speaker A: You know, where I go in January and February. Right. You know what happens to me? Maybe. Maybe I buy myself a little pilot hat. [00:35:12] Speaker B: Oh, right. I think. I think. Yes, definitely. [00:35:16] Speaker A: Maybe I get myself a little pirate hat. And I. [00:35:19] Speaker B: How do we get pirate? That's. [00:35:21] Speaker A: I. I'm sure I said pilot. We'll go back to the tape, consult the tape. If I said pirate, I'll get a pirate hat. I'll give a. [00:35:30] Speaker B: You could do both. Listen, right? [00:35:34] Speaker A: And I'll do some research, and there's God knows how many websites about aerial disasters. Right? [00:35:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:42] Speaker A: Do some research and we'll plot in some routes and we'll get. We'll get the transcripts and we'll. We'll do it. We'll do it, man. That's a great idea. And I can't wait to. I can't wait. [00:35:54] Speaker B: Please provide us feedback, dear listeners. What do you think? [00:35:58] Speaker A: Is it in poor taste? If it is in poor taste, is there at least. Is there at least an artistic merit to this idea? What is. What is theater if not the desire to walk in another man's shoes, to inhabit someone else's life, and in doing so, learn about your own? [00:36:18] Speaker B: Well, you know, I do think that's. I think that's what I find so interesting about it, because, you know, you know, I love a museum and I love a little living history, and we do gain something from reenactment and from that feeling of being a part of a thing. Right? And I think for me, there's, like, what the. The fine line I think is. Is gawking at tragedy versus what insights do I gain from. I'm not putting myself into this situation. [00:36:54] Speaker A: I'm not rubbernecking here. What I'm doing is I am trying to understand. Exactly. I'm trying to. I want to feel it, man. [00:37:03] Speaker B: Right. [00:37:04] Speaker A: I don't just want to read about it and talk about it. I want to get close to it. [00:37:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And that I get. You know, I mean, I've been to the Titanic museum multiple times. You know, I've gone seen all kinds of things. That are certainly about tragic stuff. And, you know, talked to people who were in costume as going along for the ride or even, you know, getting. Anytime you go to stuff like this, you get like little passports. Now, like, imagine you were this person, right? Like, I went to a Titanic exhibit in Newark a few months ago and it was like, yeah, they give you, when you get in there, a little like, here's your ticket. You are this character, or not character, but this passenger. And as you walk through the exhibits, there's like these different places where you can find what happens. [00:37:51] Speaker A: We did it ourselves at the Point Port Museum in, in Plymouth a few months back or Portland or whatever it was. [00:37:57] Speaker B: It's become very common. I did something similar when I was in. In not Amsterdam, but somewhere near Amsterdam that had a museum like that as well. So I don't know, maybe. Yeah, I'm. I may sound like I'm dismissing you, but I am not. I. I think that there is potentially some, some value to. [00:38:21] Speaker A: We'll do Sky King and we'll go from there, right? See if you like it. [00:38:24] Speaker B: All right. See how it goes. Okay. [00:38:27] Speaker A: And I'll spend a bit of time over Christmas, like, because it's like quite, you know, it's not easy. It's not like a pick up and play kind of, hey, I'm flying a plane. [00:38:34] Speaker B: Yeah, you've got to learn how to use this. [00:38:37] Speaker A: Things like thrust and things like that. [00:38:39] Speaker B: Considering I've seen you drive, I'm very curious to see how this works out. [00:38:44] Speaker A: Did you die, though? [00:38:45] Speaker B: Well, not yet. Right. [00:38:47] Speaker A: You haven't just seen me drive. You've been in the passenger seat. We recorded a podcast from the Motorway, mate. [00:38:52] Speaker B: That's one of my favorite things, is that everyone was like, yeah, you can hear Corey, like gasping at times and things like that. [00:38:58] Speaker A: My favorite bits of video. [00:38:59] Speaker B: TAKES OF breath One of my favorite. [00:39:02] Speaker A: Bits of video is we're about to go onto the Motorway, we're coming out of our services or something like that. And I just drop my gaze and just kind of push a button on my phone and you can see your face going. You kind of reel in terror at me, just reaching. [00:39:17] Speaker B: That's one of the things that like stresses me out the most in the car with you is that you've always got your watch and then the screen on the like, navigation and your phone all going at the same time and you're alternating between which one you. [00:39:32] Speaker A: I'm gonna qualify this. I'm gonna qualify this. I listeners categorically. And this is for you as well. Corrigan I do not have my phone out open in front of me while driving. I do not. [00:39:42] Speaker B: Like, you had the map open, though. That's what I mean. Not like the. I'm scrolling Twitter. [00:39:48] Speaker A: No, no, no, it's like that. [00:39:49] Speaker B: No, no, no, I meant, like you had three different maps open at the same time that you were looking from one to the other. And I was like, oh, no, just pick one. Just pick one, buddy. You don't need to be looking at all these things. It's fine. [00:40:01] Speaker A: But I would also qualify because I, you know, I want to be absolutely clear here, because it's chump behavior looking at your phone while you're driving. [00:40:09] Speaker B: Yes, this is very true. [00:40:11] Speaker A: My current car has CarPlay in it, and all of my shit is now on one screen. That is in my dash. Like, all of my messages, all of my maps, all of that is on one fucking screen while I'm driving. And I do not ever pick up my phone while I'm driving. I don't fucking do it. [00:40:26] Speaker B: That is. Yeah, that's what I like to hear. That would. I think this would take away, like, 50% of my stress. When you're driving is now that you have it all in one app or whatever. [00:40:38] Speaker A: Well, next time we're together, we'll be in London and there will be, I don't think, any cause for you to sit in a car with me at the wheel. [00:40:46] Speaker B: No, I think. I think we'll be good. [00:40:48] Speaker A: But I will say. I will say, that last speeding course has done. [00:40:52] Speaker B: Yeah, it's such a. Yeah. Set you straight, huh? [00:40:55] Speaker A: It's done the trick. And I. I hope Alan would say the same thing, my brother. I am now absolutely religiously adherent to speeding limits. Well, that's the. I use the limiter, in fact. [00:41:06] Speaker B: Limiter? Oh, like cruise control? [00:41:10] Speaker A: No, not quite cruise control. No, it actually stops you accelerating above a certain limit when you've got it switched on. [00:41:16] Speaker B: Oh. [00:41:17] Speaker A: So if. If the speed limit is 70, I will set my limiter to 70 and I'll keep my foot on the accelerator. But it will stop at 70. It will not. [00:41:25] Speaker B: Oh, that's interesting. [00:41:26] Speaker A: Isn't that good? [00:41:28] Speaker B: Huh? Fascinating. [00:41:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:30] Speaker B: And it's now being something new every day. [00:41:32] Speaker A: Like three months without an incident. [00:41:36] Speaker B: Keep the countdown by the door. What kind of car do you drive? [00:41:40] Speaker A: Oh, just a piece of Fiesta. [00:41:43] Speaker B: Oh, okay. I don't even know. I don't know if we have those anymore here. No, no, I think they might have changed the name. It might be what I have, like. [00:41:51] Speaker A: A massive kind of Yacht sized. [00:41:54] Speaker B: Well, now, yeah, yeah, no, everybody, we all drive giant, you know, mid size SUVs now that are huge and they all look the same. So when I go into a parking lot, I'm like, oh boy, where's my car? [00:42:09] Speaker A: Lots of room in the back for your guns and burgers. [00:42:12] Speaker B: Exactly. Funny enough, I took a picture of this the other day and I forgot to send it to you. But in the back of my car, what has been there for the past year and a half is your target from when we went shooting. [00:42:24] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Please keep it. Please don't throw that away. I would like to reclaim that. [00:42:27] Speaker B: Oh, no, I mean, I'm keeping it. It's just. I figure if I bring it inside, I don't have a place to put it. So it's just sitting in the truck of my car. So when I go to get my groceries, I'm always like, oh. [00:42:38] Speaker A: I also love that. One of the first things I ever, ever, ever saw when, when we arrived in Montclair was a cybertruck just parked up there in the fucking car park. [00:42:48] Speaker B: There's. Yeah, that was at the Stop and Shop. But yeah, there's a ridiculous amount of cybertrucks in this town. I think like every conservative in Montclair drives a cyber truck. All different ugly ones. There was the one that we saw, I think that day was like a red colored one. There's like a one that's like camo. There's one that's like painted for someone's like house painting, build it business. It's like just all these different hideous cybertrucks all over town. It's very gross. [00:43:24] Speaker A: Driven by different hideous people. [00:43:27] Speaker B: Mm. I saw one that had one of those like anti Elon Tesla club stickers or whatever on it. [00:43:33] Speaker A: I was like, I've actually seen a few of those as well. I bought this before I realized Elon Musk. [00:43:39] Speaker B: Listen with some Teslas, that's true. There is no cybertruck that anyone purchased without knowing that Elon was a giant asshole. So sorry, but nay, I reject this. I reject this outright. [00:43:56] Speaker A: Denied. [00:43:57] Speaker B: Denied. [00:43:58] Speaker A: Sun jail. [00:44:00] Speaker B: My dog is trying to burrow in the carpet right now. [00:44:04] Speaker A: And how's it going for him? [00:44:06] Speaker B: He has not made any progress. [00:44:08] Speaker A: Okay, live updates as they come in. [00:44:13] Speaker B: Anyways, listen, we're keeping it light and breezy this week. I am, I am getting ready to go on vacation with Kio and my dear friends, Brianna, Kristen. [00:44:27] Speaker A: Portugal. [00:44:28] Speaker B: Portugal, Right. [00:44:30] Speaker A: That reminds me of something. Would I. I don't know how you would do this, but I have Conflicting views of Portugal's drug laws, drug legislation. I believe they've decriminalized everything. [00:44:47] Speaker B: I. I believe you are correct about that. Yes. There's, like, stipulations to that. [00:44:53] Speaker A: Yeah, of course, of course. [00:44:54] Speaker B: But, yes, I. From what I understand it, at least in certain circumstances and whatnot, I think, you know, there's things about where you can do them and all that stuff, but they are decriminalized. [00:45:06] Speaker A: Interesting. Keep an eye on that for me, please. Let me know if. If you notice anything interesting about that. [00:45:11] Speaker B: I mean, I've been there before and listen, I smelled less weed there than I do in a standard day in my neighborhood. So I would be. I would say that it seems like it's going fine. I didn't see, you know, people again, like, when I'm in, like, New York or something like that, there's plenty of people who are, you know, clearly tweaking on things and whatnot, but I would say that it seems like decriminalization has made it so, you know, folks have places to go when they do that tweaking. [00:45:45] Speaker A: The faculty. [00:45:48] Speaker B: I love the faculty. Let's go into what we watch, because that actually, I think, is a bridge to something. We watched this this week. [00:45:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. I had another thing there. I was gonna say. [00:45:59] Speaker B: Oh. Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to step on your toes. [00:46:03] Speaker A: It's completely gone. [00:46:06] Speaker B: Look at that. Can you see that right there? [00:46:08] Speaker A: Oh, I can. Your bald patch. [00:46:09] Speaker B: My bald patch? [00:46:10] Speaker A: What happened? Ah, it's come back to me. Listen, you may or may not be a supporter of ours on KO Fi, if you are not. Not to want to sound hubristic, but I really, really, really think we did a great let's play last night. [00:46:26] Speaker B: Yeah, that was definitely one of the most fun ones we've done. [00:46:30] Speaker A: A moment of triumph, broke through a barrier. A gaming roadblock that I'd been struggling with for months that I just couldn't fucking get my head past. I could not progress past playing the remake of Metal Gear Solid three. And all I needed was your coaching. That's true. All I needed. [00:46:52] Speaker B: It was, like, the perfect little, like, teamwork. [00:46:56] Speaker A: It was, wasn't it? Here it was. [00:46:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:58] Speaker A: You slipped right into the rules and the physics and the mechanics of that game. You did brilliantly as the voice in my ear of patience and temperance. And just you. You re. You added that little extra something that I needed to break through on that game, and I'm super back into it again. I've become really jaded and frustrated with it. So you really Corrigan, you really helped. [00:47:22] Speaker B: I'm glad. I'd love to bring that passion back. It was very fun. And I think, you know, we were saying before we started recording that there are. Obviously, I'm kind of known for being the impulsive one of the two of us, but there are certain ways in which, like, my tendency to slow things down and, like, think through something methodically plays out in the way I play video games more than the way that I, like, approach other things in life. And so it's kind of fun to listen to, like, the, the way that, like, my approach to this blended with yours and then kind of worked together to make this work, this thing that you'd been struggling with for so long where, like, my strategy was, like, all right, what if we slowed this entire process down and we took each of these things bit by bit and, like, don't rush anything. And, you know, I thought it was very fun. I'm always interested in how people play games, right? Like, this is one of the things that we talked about all the time on Men of Lore. Low moral fiber was like, how each of us. Yes, but how each of us played the games. And it was always so different how each of us did it, despite the fact that we'd all be playing the same thing. A game. Like what you were playing. If I were, like, holding the controller, fuck it. I would not, I would not last. But, you know, the way that I think about a game and strategy in a game and approaching a problem in a game. Yep, worked well. So I thought that was just. I think it was interesting to me to watch, you know, it was, it. [00:49:00] Speaker A: Was a blend, wasn't it? It was a blend of both of our inputs and our observations and our play styles and our psychology both came to the front. And just this alchemy just untangled the knot for me. And it was. Oh, it was beautiful. So if you're a sport, do please check that out, if you haven't already. It's, I, I, it's, it's a snapshot of both of us, both of our psychologies through the lens of a video game. Really enjoyed it. [00:49:26] Speaker B: This is also. Listen, the other thing is, I think I would encourage other people to do this, you know, like, not necessarily record it for everyone to see. But I've often talked to people about, like, the party thing on PlayStation and they're like, oh, I've never used it and stuff like that. But this is, it's just fun to, like, talk to a friend and work through a problem in a game. Together and like just hang out and do that and you know, if you already have a system, it's a thing that you can hang out with your pals without having to go and go anywhere and spend more money or anything like that. Just sit there and play a game together. [00:50:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:05] Speaker B: I highly recommend this. [00:50:07] Speaker A: Really interestingly, in the past couple of days a colleague of mine at work has been really, really accommodating in letting me kind of just co work. So dialing into a call together on, on teams. [00:50:21] Speaker B: Yes. [00:50:21] Speaker A: Body doubling, just doing fuck all, not really talking when we need to. [00:50:25] Speaker B: I've suggested this to you. [00:50:27] Speaker A: You have, you have, you have. I know, I know, I know you're skeptical. I can testify finally from experience that it works. I had a really productive couple of hours today. Not that the rest of my day wasn't productive, but I had a super productive couple of hours today pushing through some barriers that I was experiencing and that was simply made possible through somebody else just being there. Not really interacting or doing anything, but being there. Very, very interesting stuff. [00:50:51] Speaker B: Me and my friend Emily used to do that all the time when we lived together in Oregon. You know, we said it was a perfect sort of mix because she's like a super extrovert and she always wants people, she wants to be like, you know, with someone all the time. And I'm an introvert and I like don't really want to be around people all the time. But we would just sit quietly on each of our beds across the room from each other and work on things. And then occasionally, you know, she'd be like, I just gotta talk about this thing real quick, you know, and then we'd go back to what we were doing and it was like so productive. And yeah, that's I think list, that's my message today. I think we can both endorse this is like find ways to like just like hang out with people like this in low stakes ways. And you know, I feel I've been watching a lot of things lately that talk about how expensive everything is and how hard it is to like hang out with your friends and stuff like that. Because there's no third spaces. And it's like I think there is just value to using the ones that we have at this point, which can be your video game console, which can be Zoom, you know, all those like just occupying digital space with people is also really good for your mental health. You know, it's great to touch people and all that. [00:52:10] Speaker A: But I could not agree more. My boys do it. They play among Us with their friends still. And the conversation is lively and, you know, and authentic. Yeah, there's really something to that Corrigan. And I'm discovering that more and more. [00:52:28] Speaker B: Yeah. We look at it as a thing that you're supposed to grow out of. Right. Like, you know. Oh, like, that's a thing you do if you still live in your mom's basement and, you know, whatever. It's like, no, we have, like, if all of technology has to be, like, a nightmare right now, at least the one thing we've got is that we can, like, communicate with each other like this and maintain our friendships and whatnot. We all did it during lockdown because we had to. But, you know, hey, there's. There's value in still interacting and engaging with each other this way. [00:53:02] Speaker A: Yes, completely. Which you can do with us via any of our social channels. Mainly Discord. [00:53:09] Speaker B: Mainly Discord. [00:53:10] Speaker A: Mainly Blue Sky. We check in on the Facebook from time to time. But you can get. [00:53:16] Speaker B: Discord has gotten very lively. [00:53:18] Speaker A: It has, yes. [00:53:19] Speaker B: Finally, people are kind of making that switch. [00:53:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:22] Speaker B: And we're getting a lot more articles and insights and memes and things like that on the Discord. So that's really, you know, that's to be. [00:53:32] Speaker A: Help us continue to build that Discord community. I. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I took the big step of moving Discord out of a folder on my phone to the home screen. So I check in a little bit more from time to time. But yes, any and all contributors are welcome. And you know what I love? Every so often, a listener will contribute to the discussion. Who? You know, it was a new name, a new face for me. I can't tell you the joy that that provides me. I love it. I know you're out there, and I love it when you make yourselves known. So please comment or contribute to the discussion. [00:54:16] Speaker B: Right. And I just love when people do that and they just jump in like they've been there the whole time, you know? That is so fun for me when it's like, listen, this is. We're all friends here, and you just jump into the conversation and let's get going. [00:54:30] Speaker A: We'll get Shout out to Beyonce. [00:54:34] Speaker B: Yes. Lovely conversations this week about AI from last week's episode. Some really good insights on the Discord. So check that out. The link is in our link tree, of course. [00:54:48] Speaker A: Okay. So tweak and mix with the faculty. The faculty, of course, is a huge influence on one of the movies Corry and I saw together this week. [00:54:57] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. We watched A little flick called Ick this week. [00:55:02] Speaker A: Yes, Ick. [00:55:04] Speaker B: Yes. A 2025 film, I believe. Yeah. [00:55:08] Speaker A: Maybe. Maybe 2024. One or the other. 2425. Okay, now one of those frustrating movies. That is not a good movie. Right, right. [00:55:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:21] Speaker A: Because it isn't. Despite the absolutely stacked cast of Definitely. Brandon Routh, Mira Suvarian. Mina Suvari. [00:55:32] Speaker B: Mina Suvari, yes. [00:55:34] Speaker A: The Lawnmower man himself, Jeff Fahey. [00:55:37] Speaker B: Yes. As I put him, the guy from Psycho 3. [00:55:42] Speaker A: Yes. A. An attempt to occupy the space which you might think of as. There is. I think there's a. There's a. There's a space for a really well made. The Blob. Body Snatchers, the faculty kind of movie. Right. Think Robert Rodriguez. Certainly. It's got Robert Rodriguez written all over it, this movie. [00:56:09] Speaker B: Right. [00:56:10] Speaker A: Little bit of Little Shop of Horrors. It's a little bit. [00:56:15] Speaker B: It's like organic horror. [00:56:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. There's the. The fingerprints of Kevin Smith are all over this as well. It's kids, school kids, high school kids whose town is taken over by a kind of a fungal, parasitic, organic growth, this blight that is simply known as Ick. And where does it come from? Brandon Routh is an ex high school student football player who, thanks to injuries, life never goes in the path he wanted to. And he ends up back at his same high school some 30 years later as a science teacher. And he and the kids of that generation discover and fight against ick, which is a. A kind of a. It's. It's a metaphor for your ambitions not being fulfilled, for your dreams holding you back, for unfulfilled potential. [00:57:13] Speaker B: And also woke at one point. [00:57:15] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, well, look, it is. [00:57:17] Speaker B: It's a little confused. [00:57:19] Speaker A: This movie, I think this film signaled your final straw with woke jokes. You're done with woke jokes, aren't you? [00:57:26] Speaker B: I have got. It's all the same joke. And I think one of the things that annoys me the most about it is that it's making the like I identify as an attack helicopter joke kind of thing. Right. [00:57:40] Speaker A: There is also a little bit of transphobia in the environmental kind of humor as well. [00:57:44] Speaker B: And here's the thing, is that like, conservatives wore these jokes out for, you know, a decade or whatever, right? And then what liberals have done is go, we're self aware. We'll make the joke. And they're just making the same joke, but trying to like wink and nudge about it. Which makes it even more annoying where it's like. It's disingenuous is what it is. Right. Like oh, we can make fun of ourselves. We know some of our like, wokeness is annoying and blah, blah, blah, but we're. We're meta about it. And I'm like, off. Like, it's just not a funny joke. It wasn't funny when the conservatives were doing it. It's not funny when the liberals were doing it. And everything does it. Whether it's this or whether it's the Leonardo DiCaprio movie. All the white people, like, it's just everywhere that, you know, the one battle after another. [00:58:39] Speaker A: Okay. Which I have not seen yet. And I'm fucking desperate to. It sat on Plex waking for me. [00:58:44] Speaker B: You're desperate to. That's funny. You were. [00:58:46] Speaker A: Yeah. I really want to see. [00:58:47] Speaker B: I want to see this movie. [00:58:48] Speaker A: It's the discourse, Corrigan. I have to watch this movie. [00:58:50] Speaker B: It's the discourse, but it's full of woke jokes throughout this kind of thing. And I'm like, yes, God. Like all white men are the same guy. They're just all making the same movie and the same jokes from different angles. So that's. Yeah, it's was doing that. And that's one of the big things that was driving me crazy through this movie. Amongst its other issues. [00:59:12] Speaker A: The deck is completely stacked against this film. It. There's something post Covid, right, in that I crave physical authenticity in films these days. I crave a sense of location. I crave a sense of tangible effects and fucking environments and sets. [00:59:34] Speaker B: You may have seen this going around. I have to send this to you and I actually want you to watch it right now. No, not right now. [00:59:41] Speaker A: Okay. [00:59:41] Speaker B: I will send this to you though. But it's a YouTube video that's been kind of entered into the discourse lately. And I think it's called something like haptic versus optic. [00:59:49] Speaker A: That is it. That is it. That is it sensory? [00:59:53] Speaker B: Yes. This guy sort of goes through talking about, like, why movies feel so flat now and comparing it to, you know, films that feel like you can touch them. Right. Like you feel like this is a real place. These are real things that are happening. You could reach into the screen and feel water going down the rear view mirror of a car. And so, yeah, that's. I think this really. And he points out in it, like, this isn't just like a film versus digital things, because digital can do this. But it's sort of a style right now to take the hapticity out of films or to not know how to put it in. [01:00:33] Speaker A: There is no sense of location or presence in it. The entire thing feels like it was filmed in a garage against a green screen. Like sets, environments, props, vehicles, locations, backgrounds, effects, gore. Everything. Everything is digital in this fucking film. It's like two performers aren't on the same set, let alone in the same location. It feels, you know, again, back to Rodriguez, that feeling. At least Sin City was stylized intentionally, right? [01:01:08] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. [01:01:08] Speaker A: The entire thing. Digital, but intentionally so. This film just feels just paper thin because everything is digital. There's absolutely no physical basis for what you're seeing on screen. Everything is confected and. And it. It's just paper thin. And I hated it. Hated it, hated it. [01:01:30] Speaker B: But you didn't hate it. Which was what was like, we both determined was worse about this, is that. [01:01:36] Speaker A: It'S like I hated that feeling and. [01:01:38] Speaker B: Yeah, the feeling. Yeah, for sure. [01:01:42] Speaker A: Like I said at the start, this is not a good film. But it shows you a space where a good film can. Could be. Brandon Routh in this film gives Bruce Campbell so much. It. There's. It just makes me think if this film didn't exist, there would be a fantastic kind of Junior Evil Dead where this film is now. [01:02:03] Speaker B: Well, and that was one of the things I said too, is that if the ick or ick stayed in its lane, or picked a lane, rather, because it's too raunchy for kids. Right. Like, it. The whole beginning of it revolves around, you know, him and his high school girlfriend fucking too much and then getting pregnant potentially. And, like, there's like all kinds of things throughout it that kind of like a little too raunchy, but if it instead sort of went like a goosebumps direction. [01:02:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:34] Speaker B: This could be a really fun. [01:02:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:37] Speaker B: Movie, I thought. Or leaned the other way, you know, like the faculty does and, you know, goes more hard with it. But it's like, really. Yeah. What you're saying, there's the space where a good movie could be. [01:02:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And. And that isn't it. It isn't. It isn't this film. But all it does is show you, you know, shows you a world where this film doesn't exist, which is even. You know, it shows you a world where this movie, the good movie, doesn't exist, which is all the more painful, Right? [01:03:06] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. So that was it. And obviously we don't recommend it. Can I tell you, I watched. This is not a horror movie. But I just have to mention the horrors of a movie I rewatched the other day last week on. On. So every week on Sunday nights, they do, like, Wonderful World of Disney movies. Right. I've mentioned this before, and I usually, while I'm finishing grading, I watch America's Funniest Home Videos and then whatever is on Wonderful World of Disney. So this week it was Sweet Home Alabama. Have you ever seen Sweet Home Alabama? [01:03:46] Speaker A: Nope. I could sing it to you, but I have not seen it. [01:03:48] Speaker B: Okay. Sweet Home Alabama. It's a 2003, I want to say, Reese Witherspoon vehicle in which she plays a woman who has become a fashion designer. [01:04:01] Speaker A: Actually. [01:04:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you've at least seen clips of it. She plays a fashion designer who is from Alabama originally, but has moved to New York City and made a name for herself. And now she's marrying the mayor of New York City's son, played by Patrick Dempsey. However, the problem is, back in Alabama, she's still married to her high school sweetheart who has refused to give her a divorce for the past decade. And of course, over the course of this movie, she falls back in love with the high school sweetheart and leaves Patrick Dempsey on the altar. Now, when this came out 20 plus, 25 years ago, whatever, the way that I remember us all looking at it is like, oh, she's choosing between two good guys. And that was kind of like. The fun thing about this movie is, like, you know, normally you. You want her to leave the other guy, and you. You know, you're, like, rooting for one or the other, but you're like, oh, Patrick Dempsey's such a good guy, too. You know, I want her to be with both of them. And so it's like, a little bittersweet when she ends up with the. The Southern guy watching it now. Holy fuck. This is such a racist and insane movie. [01:05:17] Speaker A: No. [01:05:18] Speaker B: Where this whole thing revolves around, like, everyone in her Southern hometown. Like, it's super misogynistic. Like, basically everyone is, like, mad at her for having left this town and gone to, like, live amongst the Yankees. Everyone down there is a huge fan of the Confederacy, as in the people in the Civil War who wanted slavery and were willing to end the United States to get it. Her father is a Civil War reenactor who. For the Confederacy. And when she leaves her fiance and punches his mother in the face at the end, her father yells, the south has risen again. [01:06:00] Speaker A: Damn. [01:06:02] Speaker B: And, like, then you think, too, about the fact that, like, this guy has been refusing to give her a divorce for a decade, which is abusive. [01:06:13] Speaker A: Whole other movie underneath that movie, right? [01:06:17] Speaker B: Like, that's played as romantic throughout this. I was watching this, like, oh, my God. Like, I watched this so many times. I still like, know it by heart. But now it is a horror show to know this by heart. Every line I'm like, oh, no. [01:06:34] Speaker A: I think there's a lot of what were rom coms at the time. [01:06:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:40] Speaker A: That time will not have been kind to. [01:06:42] Speaker B: No. But it's usually in like, a very specific way. Right. Like it's a gender roles issue or. Yeah. Again, things being seen as, like, cute. That in hindsight, you're like, that is. [01:06:54] Speaker A: Not 50 first dates. [01:06:56] Speaker B: I saw that once and immediately wiped it from my memory, funny enough. [01:07:02] Speaker A: Fittingly. Yeah. [01:07:05] Speaker B: But it's like. Yeah, it's usually. I mean, when we look back at romcoms from that era, that's generally. Is that we're like, things are played as key cute that actually are like harassment and stalking and all these grooming. Yeah. Things like that. That you're like, e. Yikes. And that this one one ups that by adding it being super racist. Like, the only. There's like two black characters in this one is like the maid of the plantation and the other one is like a post. A mailman. [01:07:36] Speaker A: Okay. [01:07:37] Speaker B: And that's it. There's these two people in service positions and everyone else is white and super into the south and the Confederacy. And, you know, at the end, the south rises again, just as it should be. Holy moly. I just. [01:07:53] Speaker A: It was fascinating. Time tells a cruel tale. [01:07:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:58] Speaker A: Yes. [01:07:58] Speaker B: Yikes. It is not the movie you remember it being at the time. I mean, unless maybe you were a little older than me when it came out and you were, like, more aware of things. I was like high school senior evangelical at the time, so, you know, I don't think I caught what all of the, like, Confederate references were at the time. I think I was just kind of like, oh, yeah, the South. They like the South. That's cool. [01:08:22] Speaker A: Cute. [01:08:23] Speaker B: Like, oh, so, yeah, that. [01:08:27] Speaker A: Very nice. [01:08:28] Speaker B: That happened. [01:08:29] Speaker A: I will speak of abruptio, which I watched alone. Right. And I'll put this out there. You were affronted that I didn't invite you to watch this film with me because it wasn't. [01:08:44] Speaker B: I was not affronted that you didn't invite me. It was why you didn't invite me. [01:08:50] Speaker A: Well, I felt it would be with Skinnamarink still ringing in my ears and in my soul. Right. I didn't invite you because it is challenging and artsy. Right. [01:09:03] Speaker B: Yeah. You said it's weird and challenging. [01:09:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:07] Speaker B: And I think the word challenging is what I took issue with. Oh, you need little baby boobies. You got a little digestible. Give me a Little Gerber movie. [01:09:17] Speaker A: That isn't what I meant, but it registered right away as one that you wouldn't be into. [01:09:24] Speaker B: Okay, okay. [01:09:25] Speaker A: And I stand by that. [01:09:26] Speaker B: I took issue with your wording. You may well be right. It was simply that I felt personally attacked by the idea that I can't handle a challenging movie. [01:09:37] Speaker A: It was intentional. I was being cute. Abruptio. Wow. Though. [01:09:43] Speaker B: So, okay, yeah, let's talk about it. [01:09:45] Speaker A: A earnestly shot and well intentioned and sincere psychological horror movie. Right. From two years ago. Two, three years ago. About a guy who works in a. A grindingly dull job who is divorced and has moved back in with his parents and has a relationship which is crumbling around his ears and hangs out with the same old people he's hung out with for years, drinking beers. He's a recovering alcoholic. And he and his friends talk about the same old night after night. And the news is getting progressively more deranged. The government is falling apart and the economy is on its ass and he becomes embroiled in a plot. Our man and his friend discover simultaneously that they've got scars on the back of their neck and explosive devices have been planted in them. And our man is made to follow a series of increasingly outlandish and violent and deranged instructions from a mysterious source, telling him that he needs to kill and then he needs to steal, and then he needs to go different places and meet different people. The cast is wild. Jordan Peele is in it. [01:11:18] Speaker B: So far, nothing about this seems like it doesn't appeal to me. It feels like you've, like, you're giving me, like, upgrade meets, like, Battle Royale here. [01:11:26] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. And listen, there's also Lost highway in it. It's. [01:11:31] Speaker B: Well, that loses me a little. Yeah, okay. [01:11:34] Speaker A: It's beautifully shot. Robert Englund is in it. Sid Haig is in it. [01:11:40] Speaker B: Interesting. I thought he was dead. [01:11:42] Speaker A: No. Well, at least he wasn't two years ago. I think he might have died since. Okay, but Corrigan. Corrigan. [01:11:50] Speaker B: Yes. Marco. [01:11:52] Speaker A: They're all puppets. [01:11:55] Speaker B: That is a big plot twist. [01:11:57] Speaker A: There is. Every single character in this movie is a foam puppet. [01:12:02] Speaker B: Okay, that's interesting. [01:12:04] Speaker A: Some shots are humans with the puppet masks on and hands like foam fake hands. Every character. This is Marionette. It's a puppet movie. [01:12:16] Speaker B: Interesting. [01:12:16] Speaker A: Okay, fascinating. Jordan Peele appears in voice form, as does Robert Englund said, hey, these are all voices. It's a puppet film. [01:12:28] Speaker B: Hmm. [01:12:29] Speaker A: And it is progressively more outlandish. The story goes to fucking wild places of extraterrestrial invasion and the government is taken over and The Statue of Liberty explodes and heads explode and corpses. [01:12:44] Speaker B: This sounds great. [01:12:46] Speaker A: Oh, well, it is. [01:12:50] Speaker B: Everything you have just said sounds great. I think I need to watch this so that we can establish a better baseline for, like, what you think. I don't like. [01:12:59] Speaker A: I just feels like it might have been just a little challenging for you. [01:13:04] Speaker B: Specifically, because it's like. Like Skinamarink is such an extreme example to base my not liking weird things off of. Because that's not just like. That's a polarizing movie that soured me. [01:13:17] Speaker A: On ever watching anything artsy with you ever again. [01:13:22] Speaker B: No, see, yeah. The problem with that is it's just artsy. And it's not anything else. It's just. [01:13:28] Speaker A: But, yeah, this is a very, very big swing, this movie. [01:13:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:34] Speaker A: Had it been something like, sorry for invoking it, but like another puppet film, like Meet the Feebles, which is just farcical and out there and extreme. All right, that would be one thing, but this isn't. This is a. Like I said, a very well made, very clear vision of a movie. It just so happens it's puppets. [01:13:56] Speaker B: Okay. I'm gonna give it a watch and we'll. [01:13:58] Speaker A: Very unnerving. It's very uncanny. [01:14:01] Speaker B: Mm. [01:14:02] Speaker A: It. Yeah, it blends puppets with CG for a lot of the effects, but it's. Yeah, it's. It's. It's a very singular movie. The. You know, the only. It's puppets, but it may as well not be puppets. You know, there's no. At no point is there a reference to the fact that this is puppetry. It's simply the people are all puppets. It's fucking exactly the kind of vision I like. Was it maybe Sid Haig's last film? [01:14:34] Speaker B: Oh, interesting. [01:14:36] Speaker A: It feels like it might have been, you know, bear with so. [01:14:40] Speaker B: Abruptio. [01:14:41] Speaker A: Abruptio. Yes. Excellent, excellent, excellent. Lovely to hear Robert Englund's voice. It was indeed Sid Haig's last movie. [01:14:50] Speaker B: Fascinating. Okay. [01:14:51] Speaker A: Yep. Yep. [01:14:52] Speaker B: All right. So I wasn't imagining that. [01:14:54] Speaker A: No, you weren't. Phenomenal. [01:14:58] Speaker B: Beautiful. The only three and a half stops. I mean, I watched the Big Short this week. Out of our purview as well. And also out of our purview, but I think is worth mentioning is that I revisited a hot rod and was shocked to find that you have never seen it. [01:15:18] Speaker A: Nope. [01:15:19] Speaker B: This is. It feels, you know, as someone who's like a huge Step Brothers and, you know, McGruber, like a good, like, stupid. [01:15:27] Speaker A: Just named the two funniest films in the history of. [01:15:31] Speaker B: Right. Like, Hot Rod is like, just. Just A very dumb movie about a guy who has spent his whole life trying to become, like, an evil Knievel type because his mother told him that his father was a stuntman who died in a terrible stunting accident. And he's always trying to live up to the legacy of his hero father. [01:15:56] Speaker A: Okay. [01:15:57] Speaker B: But he's shit at stunts, and so him and his, like, ragtag crew are trying to help him to, you know, become, like, the big evil Knievel type guy that he knows he can be. [01:16:10] Speaker A: And I really enjoyed your use of stunting there. [01:16:12] Speaker B: Stunting accident, that was. I was thinking. I'm like. I don't know if that's a word, but, you know, at least not in that context, but you get the idea. [01:16:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:16:21] Speaker B: But it's very goofy and silly. You know, Lonely island guys and Bill Hader and it. Kenny, what's the. [01:16:32] Speaker A: Oh, Danny fucking. Kenny fucking powers. Danny McBride. Yeah. Yeah. [01:16:39] Speaker B: Yes, Kenny. [01:16:40] Speaker A: Kenny fucking Powers. [01:16:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Kenny Powers. Danny McBride. [01:16:44] Speaker A: That's coming back Eastbound and Down, by the way. [01:16:46] Speaker B: Oh, is it? [01:16:47] Speaker A: Yeah, they've announced that they're getting back together to do new Eastbound and Down, and I could not be happier because. Because it's. [01:16:53] Speaker B: Well, see, these are. Yeah, these are dudes. You like doing events? [01:16:56] Speaker A: I do. I really like all. [01:16:57] Speaker B: You like Pop Star, too, don't you? [01:16:59] Speaker A: I love Pop Star, yeah. [01:17:01] Speaker B: If you. You gotta watch Hot Rod, it's on your plex. [01:17:05] Speaker A: Is Owen appropriate? I mean, he watched Pop Star, so. [01:17:07] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. There's nothing. Nothing objectionable in this movie at all. It's just very stupid. [01:17:16] Speaker A: So good. I could watch that. [01:17:17] Speaker B: It's like, I don't even. Like, I don't even know if there's, like, bad language. No sex, no violence, no language. It's just stupid. [01:17:25] Speaker A: Next time it's movie time. [01:17:26] Speaker B: We're gonna put that on Hot Rod. Yeah. Yes. And I believe you've got one more movie you watched. [01:17:32] Speaker A: I will. I will speak of Revenge, that is. [01:17:34] Speaker B: More of a movie, you know, that I will not enjoy. [01:17:36] Speaker A: No, certainly not. I will speak of Revenge, the debut movie of Coralie Farjay. How'd I do? [01:17:47] Speaker B: Nope. Farja. [01:17:49] Speaker A: Coralie Farja. [01:17:51] Speaker B: You guys, we spent so much time before this, like, looking at YouTube videos, trying to figure out how to say. [01:17:57] Speaker A: It, who, of course, delivered last year's the Substance, an instant, instant occupier on my favorite movies of all time. I love the Substance of Death. And this is the first movie. It's on shudder. It is a stylish, over the top, oversaturated. Oh, Hyper violent, stylized rape revenge thriller in which a, a girl and the guy she's seeing on the side from his wife, he's having an affair with her and they go to a secluded getaway in the desert. His friends turn up for a hunting party. She is badly abused and then goes on to wreak horrific, painful, stylish, as revenge on everyone concerned. Enduring torture, heat and injury and gore and shooting and stabbing and drowning. It, it is, it is. I mean you've, you've all seen the substance, of course. Imagine, imagine that on a smaller scale, but equally as exploitative. Tell you what, this girl knows how to shoot an ass. Can I just say that it, it, I think it's going to become one of the, her directorial calling cards. One of her directorial signature moves. The way, the way Coralie Farjet can frame a female ass in the camera. It's almost Kubrick in what she does with an ass. Just ass is everywhere, man. That girl loves an ass. And there's a lot of ass in revenge. It skirts right up to the thing I know you hate in that it sexualizes the victim. The victim, the protagonist, the heroine of the movie, I guess, spends the entire movie very partially clothed. I wonder she's not on the podcast. She probably will never be on the podcast, but I can imagine that it would be empowering. Maybe from a certain angle she's more of a Ripley kind of figure. An avenging, toned, tanned, blood spattered, avenging angel type figure. At one point she tries to cauterize a stab wound with a torn open beer can and brands herself with the image of Phoenix on the can. Very symbolic. And, and look, I, I, I thought it was fantastic. It's a four star movie for me. But it's also, it has no relationship with cause and effect and reality at all. People walk off ridiculously devastating injuries, you. [01:21:10] Speaker B: Know, John Wick rules. [01:21:12] Speaker A: It's exactly well put. Yes, John Wick rules. But it's, it's again, a lot in common. There's a lot of Robert Rodriguez in this. There's a lot of Quentin Tarantino in this. Soaked with blood and excruciatingly gory and painful. And look, I'm a basic bitch Corry, and I'm about to turn 47. But I still love the juice, you know, I still love the guns, I still love the cars and the fucking directorial flourish and flair. I'm a mark. What can I tell you? [01:21:46] Speaker B: It's true. Yeah, that is true. [01:21:49] Speaker A: All accusations aside, revenge is a fucking good time. Yeah, super enjoyed it. And, and I For one. Cannot wait. I cannot wait to see more from Coralie. I really can't. I think she's fantastic. [01:22:03] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, obviously I love the substance, but I feel like people coming out of a rape revenge movie with it was a good time is exactly why I hate rape revenge. [01:22:11] Speaker A: Well, yeah, There we go. Yes. [01:22:13] Speaker B: That pretty much comes down to it, right? When your takeaways are great ass shots. Really fun, like. Yeah. [01:22:23] Speaker A: I don't know if you conflated my appreciation with the ass photography as my objectification of the subject of the ass photography, because that is not what I'm doing at all. Right. I'm basic, but I'm not that fucking basic. What. I'm. What I'm talking about there is. She's ob. She is clearly establishing a kind of a visual signature language. [01:22:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:46] Speaker A: And there's ass all over the substance and there's ass all over this movie. [01:22:50] Speaker B: It's true. [01:22:50] Speaker A: Come out. You know. Please don't. I don't use my phone in the car and I don't watch rape. [01:22:56] Speaker B: I think people know when I'm making fun of you. [01:22:58] Speaker A: Right. Okay. Okay, Okay. [01:23:00] Speaker B: I would. I think people know when I'm razzing you a bit here, you know? But that is, you know, ultimately just because of my complaint about, like, French movies and rape movies. I don't think the French have really figured out their shit when it comes to rape. [01:23:14] Speaker A: Is a French rape movie. So. [01:23:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, the French have problems when it comes to this, and they are not dealing with them well. They are dealing with them with extreme movies and not by changing society. [01:23:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Rape Corps. Le. Rape Corps. [01:23:31] Speaker B: Rape Core. Pass. Hard pass on that. [01:23:35] Speaker A: Okay. [01:23:35] Speaker B: But yeah, that's. I think that's everything that we watched. Right. [01:23:39] Speaker A: Good week. More of it. Let me see. I mean, I've got a night to myself on Saturday. Right? [01:23:43] Speaker B: Oh, all right. What are you playing? What are you gonna watch? [01:23:45] Speaker A: The family are all off at the annual Christmas party of their dance class. [01:23:52] Speaker B: Okay. [01:23:53] Speaker A: Right. Which. Fucking hell. Every year they. They've gone to this for the last three, four years, and every year they come back and they talk to me about it, and I. And I die just listening to it. I can't think of an environment I would rather be in less. [01:24:04] Speaker B: What's it like? Like, what's the. [01:24:06] Speaker A: They give out awards and they do their dancing and it's a horrible. [01:24:13] Speaker B: I mean, when you say it like that, that doesn't sound terrible, but, man, just. [01:24:19] Speaker A: It feels like a lot of competing for attention in that place. That. But anyway, I digress I've got a night to myself on Saturday and I want to watch capital M movie. Right. But there's all of the cinema. There's nothing. [01:24:31] Speaker B: Have you seen M? [01:24:35] Speaker A: No. [01:24:37] Speaker B: You want to watch a capital M movie? M. That's it right there. [01:24:42] Speaker A: Hey, yo. [01:24:44] Speaker B: I'm just saying. I think you would quite enjoy that. [01:24:46] Speaker A: All right, all right. [01:24:50] Speaker B: Let's do art. Let's do our ear. [01:24:52] Speaker A: It's not going to be too challenging for me. It's not going to. [01:24:55] Speaker B: I mean, it might be. Be a little. Yeah. If I'm going to give it back to you, I don't know. You might not have the attention span for it. You're gonna have to really, really struggle to put the phone down. But that are in cold blood, I would say. But because you said capital M movie, it just feels like that was a sign from. [01:25:14] Speaker A: You sent me a really interesting article that I haven't gotten around to yet that gives medical credence to my assertions these past couple of weeks that my attention span has improved. Improved thanks to my book era. [01:25:26] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. [01:25:28] Speaker A: I. I genuinely. I really can feel the benefit it's having on my cognition, on my memory. I'm sleeping. I'm on a run of sleeping quite nicely. I've got a really good balance of meds going at the minute that I think that I've got at the sweet spot. And I've had a couple of really encouraging consistent weeks of like five, six hours a night, which is really nice. And plus the book era. I can really feel the fog lifting a little. [01:25:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Your brain is, like, recalibrating at this point. Yeah. And that was. Neuroplasticity was talking about that. Yes, exactly. It's not in your head. A lot of these issues that we are having with memory and things like that are absolutely. Because we're scrolling and things like that so you can. It can bounce back. But you gotta. You gotta take that intentional time to focus on shit. Yes. Stay off the tiki talkies and whatnot. I went to, you know, I had a doctor's appointment, then I went to bagel shop afterwards as a reward for myself, my gyno. I hate going to the gyno. So I was like, I'm gonna go and reward myself with a really good bagel and coffee from Manhattan bagel today. And I brought my. I'm still reading my Paul Henrid autobiography. So I brought that with me. And it was me. And the waiting room was packed in there. There was. I counted, and there were 19 people in the waiting room when I got there, and me and one other lady were the only ones who had brought a book with us to read in the waiting room. And everybody else was scrolling the phones. [01:27:03] Speaker A: Very interesting. [01:27:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I thought that was pretty fascinating. Once upon a time. It was. I don't even think they had, like, magazines sitting out. They had a TV that had Food Network on it, but there weren't. You know, you used to go to the doctor and there would be magazines and people. [01:27:17] Speaker A: I still see a lot of books on the train and on the tube. [01:27:21] Speaker B: That's interesting. [01:27:23] Speaker A: I don't. I can't really judge if it's more or less than it would have been maybe a decade ago, but I. I still see a lot of Kindles. I still see a lot of paperbacks. Obviously, the flip side of that is there's still more people than ever just openly listening to stuff on this speaker and having video calls on speaker speaker and. [01:27:43] Speaker B: And, you know, Japanese train rules, man. [01:27:46] Speaker A: Oh. Which is what? [01:27:48] Speaker B: Silence. Nobody talks or anything. You just. Beautiful ride in silence. [01:27:54] Speaker A: But, yeah, I'm always. It is heartening that there's. There's still people just reading on escalators. You know what I mean? Stairs. I love that. [01:28:02] Speaker B: I mean, that's the best thing in the world, isn't it? When you're so invested in something that you take any little moment where you can quickly, like, open it up and. [01:28:08] Speaker A: Read it, you know, get in that world. [01:28:10] Speaker B: Let me get a couple more pages. [01:28:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:28:12] Speaker B: Into this. You know, I love. [01:28:14] Speaker A: That's very much where I'm at with the expanse. I just. Any time I spend in. In those books right now, I. I am really enjoying. It's good. Good shit. [01:28:22] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm so into that. And I. I'm right now, like, I'm finishing that one. I'm listening to Stephen Graham Jones, like, novella at the moment called Night of the Mannequin. I believe at the moment I've got a couple books on deck. Because I think I mentioned before, when I go to Hawaii, I always read, like, five books while I'm there because there's nothing else to do. Oh. [01:28:49] Speaker A: Meant to text you. In fact, Hawaii is erupting, isn't it? [01:28:53] Speaker B: I think so, yes. Yeah. [01:28:54] Speaker A: Does that. [01:28:56] Speaker B: It's a big island. That's the one we're going to. [01:28:58] Speaker A: Christmas plans? [01:28:59] Speaker B: No. No, it does not. So there's. It's actually quite interesting the. The volcano, Kilauea, that it erupts fairly often. [01:29:11] Speaker A: Okay. [01:29:13] Speaker B: And you. Like, the first time that I went to Hawaii, there was like, I hiked through the crater called Kilauea Iki. And you, like, you can walk across this big crater and then there's like, a gift shop and interpretive center. And so I have, like, pictures of me, like. Like there's like a steam vent coming off of it, and I'm, like, lying on the thing and pretending the steam's coming out of my mouth and whatnot. And then. [01:29:39] Speaker A: Is that not, like, super dangerous? Is that not, like, well, lethal? [01:29:44] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's okay. It's far enough away from the, like, visitor center that it's not like you're inhaling vog or whatever, you know? Okay, but the next time. Not the next time, but a few years ago we drove up because there's a zoo in Volcanoes national park called Panieva Zoo, and it's free and I always like to walk around in there. So we went up there and we went by the interpretive center. And Kilauea had recently erupted so violently that the gift center was closed. And there was, like, a huge crack. It had just broken the entire, like, platform that this thing was on. So it definitely does have, like, consequences. But from. So Kio's parents live up in a town called Honomu, which is, like, high elevation or whatever. And if you go down into, like, if you're going up to Mauna Kea, you can drive up and you can see when it's, like, really erupting. You can actively see, like, the, like, lava spitting out of the volcano. It's so cool. Like, the last time that we went there, I was like, we gotta drive up so that I can see the lava and. Yeah, you can. It looks just like, I would like to see that lava out of it. Yeah, it's pretty neat. But no, it doesn't. Doesn't really make a difference. I mean, I'm sure if people were, like, going on vacation. Vacation, it might be a problem because you do get. Especially if you're on, like, Maui, the vog gets really bad and then it's like everything smells like sulfur and it's gray and, like, nasty and you don't really want that, but it does not have that effect on the Big island. So it's nice. [01:31:25] Speaker A: Yeah, love that. And it's not going to fuck your Christmas plans up, which is. Which is fantastic. [01:31:30] Speaker B: My Christmas plan to read a bunch of books. No, it's going to be fine. [01:31:36] Speaker A: Just before we move on to Watches, right. Before we move on from watches, Right. It is incredible to read this week that Tim Robinson's the Chair Company has been renewed they're gonna do another fucking season of shows. Yeah, it's hbo. [01:32:02] Speaker B: I can see that. Yeah. Hell, man, I haven't watched it yet, so I don't want to know anything about it to know that. But they're pretty good with the kind of outsider comedy. Like, that's what. Nathan Fielder's shows are always on hbo, I think. [01:32:17] Speaker A: Of course, that is certainly what this is, is outsider comedy. It. It panders to no one, this show. It. It feels as though it's. It's. It's made for. For no one, really. It's very difficult, very inscrutable, completely singular. [01:32:39] Speaker B: Challenging. [01:32:40] Speaker A: It is challenging, Corey. Maybe not one for you so much, you know, but you earn every fucking joke in the show. It makes you really put the work in to get to the catharsis or even just a laugh. [01:32:59] Speaker B: Nice. [01:33:00] Speaker A: I. I genuinely can't think of anything like it. I think you should leave as funny as fuck, conventionally in parts while it. It pushes you back. It also, you know, it's. It's at least marginally accessible. There's conventional comedy in there, but the chair company is. It grinds you, man, into. Into the laughs. Wow. Just thrilling. Thrilling, thrilling stuff. Really, really mad shit that it exists and is being renewed. [01:33:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's on the vacation list, too. Lots to. To. Lots to get. [01:33:35] Speaker A: I think you love it. [01:33:36] Speaker B: You know, I. I'm excited about it. You know, so far, I think I pretty much. Obviously, Even the thing I don't love, I kind of love, you know, like, I don't love friendship, but I kind of love friendship. [01:33:47] Speaker A: Yes. [01:33:47] Speaker B: So I feel pretty. [01:33:49] Speaker A: Pretty positive. It's them. Not thematically, but spiritually, it feels like something like the music of Gigi Allen, where he's flinging at the audience. You know what I mean? It's V again. Almost doesn't want you to enjoy it. [01:34:09] Speaker B: Share company. [01:34:12] Speaker A: Wow. It's thrilling. [01:34:14] Speaker B: All right. [01:34:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:34:16] Speaker B: Gonna check that out as well. Not gonna hold you much longer. I just. Okay. Have, like, kind of a little conversation that I wanted to have. [01:34:23] Speaker A: I'm open to it. I'm open to it. [01:34:25] Speaker B: And I know in the past we've talked about, like, Death Row final meals, you know, you wonderful. You know, we've talked about last words, we've talked about final meals, things like that. And I came across, you know, on my. My YouTube algorithms recommendations, it had. I'm guessing this is like a regular show called Last Meals. Is it? Something like that? Right, right. And it had Brennan Lee Mulligan of Dropout on it, and it was talking about basically the meals that had been important to him throughout his life. And it gave him sort of the opportunity to talk about those with this kind of idea of this of, like, memory and death looming over. What a fantastic topic you were. [01:35:18] Speaker A: Rich topic, right? [01:35:19] Speaker B: And it's interesting to me because I just read. I don't know if you've heard about this, but Tatiana Schlossberg was an environmental journalist, and a granddaughter of JFK is dying. She's 35, and she has terminal cancer and has been given less than a year to live. And she wrote an article about this, and she was talking about memories as this, you know, comes up. And this idea of, like, sometimes she, like, a lot of childhood memories keep coming back and memories keep cycling. And she has this idea that I can take the memories with me when I'm dead. She's like, I know that's not true. But it's kind of, you know, this constant thought that she has. And so between that and this idea of this last meal show, talking about the movies that, I mean, the meals that were important to him, the question that it raised for me was kind of, you know, if you were. If you were given a year to live or whatever, and the memories kept flowing back of, you know, important ways in which, you know, food had played a part in your life and things that connected you deeply to place, time, people, things like that. Can you think of what any of those would be? [01:36:33] Speaker A: Well, the first one that leaps into mind, again, it's a lovely, lovely topic, but one that leaps to mind is my. A Sunday dinner cooked by my mother. Right. You would look at it and go, that's not really food challenging kind of. [01:36:54] Speaker B: Meal, you know, hers specifically, or roast in general? [01:36:58] Speaker A: No, hers. My mother's specifically. So some beef or some chicken and just how I like it. So all of most of the veg left off. No color in there at all, really. Beef, chicken, potatoes. Beautifully, beautifully. Roast potatoes. Crisp, crispy and fluffy. Loads of gravy, loads of salt, loads of mint sauce. Just spoon. [01:37:18] Speaker B: It's the thing that always gets me. [01:37:20] Speaker A: Sauce on fucking everything. A big glass of really cheap fizzy pop. Because that is very much how my mother demonstrates her affection is through feeding you the fuck up, right? [01:37:38] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [01:37:39] Speaker A: Absolutely. When I go around there or when my boys go around there, she will just throw calories at you almost. But do you want this? What about this? Do you want this now? Oh, should we have this? Do you want this? Oh, let me do this for you. How many of those do you want? Do you Want this and it just this. Because that's her loving you. That's her. That's her. That's how she expresses love for you is by making sure that you at all times are calorifically seated. [01:38:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:38:09] Speaker A: And it's all just no. No nutritional value in any of this stuff. Right. [01:38:13] Speaker B: This is just to feel good. [01:38:15] Speaker A: Freezer food, fridge food, processed sweets, ice cream. But all the time constantly like with our gaps. Right. What should we have? Oh, should we have something? And that's. That's her feeding. Feeding herself. But telling. Telling you that. That, that you were welcome and that you were loved. So that's. [01:38:35] Speaker B: Yes. Was there something that like whether your mom or someone else in your family, your grandparent, you know, whoever else always ate that makes you think of them like, you know, you have this connection to someone you love through like. Yeah, they were always. They always had this. [01:38:58] Speaker A: Yeah, probably. Yeah. Lots actually. I mean. [01:39:00] Speaker B: Oh yeah. [01:39:01] Speaker A: Pretty much most. Most of the people who've left kind of significant emotional resonance in me I can. I can. I can attribute to a particular food. Yeah, absolutely. [01:39:14] Speaker B: That's amazing. Like what? [01:39:16] Speaker A: Oh, all the time. So Laura just fish. Laura will cook and eat fish. [01:39:21] Speaker B: Fish. [01:39:21] Speaker A: She is a fish eater. [01:39:24] Speaker B: Amazing. [01:39:25] Speaker A: Growing up in a house with al Dried noodles. Super noodles. You'd eat super noodles a lot. [01:39:31] Speaker B: Like. Like dry ramen. [01:39:33] Speaker A: Yeah, but super noodles. Bachelor super noodles. I don't know what that means. We didn't call them dry ramen in the 80s. It was super noodles. That's what we would call them. [01:39:40] Speaker B: But that's like the concept, right? [01:39:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Same genre. [01:39:45] Speaker B: Okay. [01:39:48] Speaker A: For some. I mentioned again I might have said this before on. And you can still get them in certain wholesale shops. But growing up and on the days my dad would look after me where whether. I don't know if my mum. This was really, really early in my life. Whether my mother was at work or elsewhere. And it was just me and my dad and my dad was cooking meals. The most low effort dinners. Right. Of chips. Like British chips. Fat misshapen British chips. But Corey tinned burgers. [01:40:23] Speaker B: Oh gosh. Yeah. You mentioned these before. [01:40:25] Speaker A: Pinned. I remember the brand. Goblin brand Tin Goblin. [01:40:30] Speaker B: It's so on the nose. [01:40:32] Speaker A: Oh really? Goblin brand tinned burgers in onion gravy. And you were just un. Open the tin on these and it would just slowly emerge from the tin like dog food. Plop into a saucepan and heat them up. Tin burgers in gravy. That's some. A meal I associate with my childhood. My dad Whenever I. I spent a year or two living with a guy I don't know, many cut him out since a guy called Gav. And we shared a house for a few years. That was Chinese takeaway. Chinese takeaway was stoned. Yeah. Long answer. Short. Loads of them. [01:41:12] Speaker B: I love that. That's. I think, you know, for me, I'm like. I'm a big food person, you know, So I connect so many things to food. And obviously, when it comes to, like, thinking about, like, my dad, who thinking the other day, like, he's been dead for 14 years now, like, that's a long time. And thinking about a lot of times, he was very, like, specific in stuff that he liked, you know, which one of the many symbols of probably everyone in my family ever being autistic. So, like, when I lived with him for a summer in Riverside, yeah, he always. Every day he wanted to go to the diner. And he. He wasn't much of an eater. He was a smoker and a drinker. Those were more of where he got his sustenance. And so he would have, like. Either he would get huevos rancheros or he would just get a slice of apple pie a la mode. And that would be, like, basically all he'd eat all day. You just have that one piece of app Viola mode every day. And he was happy as could be. And the. He also loved. He didn't love sweets, but he would also have these things called chunky bars, which come, like. They're like, in quarters, square in quarters in a silver foil, and it has, like, raisins on the inside of it. The dog just charged in the door. Christ, Walter. But it's like, nobody eats these, but they were my dad's favorite candy on the planet. And so every time I'm at, like, a CVS or something and I happen to see, like, a chunky bar at one of these days, they're finally gonna discontinue this because no human being eats chunkies. But every time I see one, I have to buy it because I'm like, my dad would fucking love one of these things right now, you know? Wonderful. And there were a couple things that he made, too, including some, like, he always made what he called Russian macaroni. [01:43:23] Speaker A: Oh, God. [01:43:23] Speaker B: Was the kind of guy who, like, he constantly made up his own words and terms for things. And so oftentimes, as an adult, I try to, like, find anything that, like, he used to make. And I'm like, there is no record of this. What is this? And I figured out it's goulash he was making goulash and he just called it Russian macaroni because he knew his kids would not eat something called goulash. [01:43:45] Speaker A: Very smart, very smart. [01:43:48] Speaker B: I spent years trying to track down this meal that he was making, and it's just, it's just goulash. [01:43:55] Speaker A: Laura's dad, bless his heart, is the worst cook I've ever encountered. He is fucking awful. But he's got ambition, right? He's got dreams. [01:44:04] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [01:44:06] Speaker A: Vividly. I remember going around there for dinner one week and having what he called, and I quote, chinese chicken. Right? [01:44:13] Speaker B: Okay. [01:44:14] Speaker A: Okay. [01:44:15] Speaker B: Chickadee. China, the Chinese chicken. [01:44:17] Speaker A: You have a drumstick and I hate that song. I hate that song. So we had Chinese chicken, right? It was all right. I ate around the bit I didn't like. We went back there the next week, right? And he made Italian chicken. [01:44:32] Speaker B: Oh, no, Corey. [01:44:34] Speaker A: They were the same dish. They were the fudge. I, I, I think I probably did speak up. But the, the, they were the same ingredients cooked in the same way. It was, it was the same fucking. [01:44:48] Speaker B: Dish and bad both times. [01:44:52] Speaker A: So work that out. [01:44:54] Speaker B: There's something endearing too, though, and when you've got, like, family members and whatnot who are terrible cooks. Like, my grandmother was a pretty awful cook. She's very, like, 1950s, 1960s kind of American cook. Everything coming from a magazine, you know, like, when I was a kid, she straight up had those, like, jello molds with, like, weird shit floating in them in the refrigerator, you know, like, why are there grapes and saltines in this? [01:45:21] Speaker A: Kiwi slices, right? [01:45:23] Speaker B: Like, there's, this is unnecessary. She, Everything she made was terrible. I remember she made veal once when I was a kid. And yeah, on top of my being disgusted by it, my mother was also upset by this. She's like, you can't have my children eating veal. It's baby cows. What are you doing? And so, you know, she was, she was awful. But that's a thing that I, you know, remember of her, just her terrible cooking and, you know, getting through it so that afterwards I could get my little chocolate milk that she would make with a hot chocolate powder, you know, stir it up in the milk. So good. [01:46:07] Speaker A: Well, it's part of the experience, isn't it? It's the one thing we all have in common. You all gotta eat. [01:46:11] Speaker B: All gotta eat. Interestingly, this guy who hosts this thing feels very much like me because he's always gotta, like, shove a fact into these things, like, oh, actually, because Brennan Lee Mulligan said something about how the pickled onions that you get in a sandwich, like, you won't eat them out of a jar, but they're delicious in a sandwich. And he told this thing about how, like, eating is actually. It's like taste buds are like poison detectors, right? And so we. The way that we taste things has to do with us figuring out what we need. So, like, things like fat taste really good because we need fat. Proteins taste really good because we need protein. And then when you get to, like, acid and bitter. [01:46:51] Speaker A: Oh, I love acid. That's acidic. [01:46:53] Speaker B: Well, that's. It's a warning, though, right? Like, because a lot of things that. [01:46:57] Speaker A: Were not supposed to. Yeah, sure. [01:46:59] Speaker B: To eat, are acidic or bitter. You know, there's a lot of berries that can kill you that are bitter, things like that. But he's saying that there's, like, kind of a point at which when you eat that, so you're eating like the. The pickled onions or whatever, and then you hit it with, like, the pork fat in there, it becomes this great balance that then your body is like. Yes, this is exactly right. [01:47:24] Speaker A: Associating foods with people. A good colleague of mine who left my. My work two, three years back, I remember him as being a guy who introduced me to pickled eggs. And I've bought a few jars of pickled eggs. And I always think of Darren fucking Marley whenever I buy him. If I see him in the chip shop, I will get a pickled egg. And I enjoy it. I'm an egg king. I'm the king of eggs. [01:47:51] Speaker B: Anyway, I do love eggs. [01:47:53] Speaker A: Yeah, just imagine eggs, but acidic. [01:47:58] Speaker B: So your last meal, right, for whatever reason comes around, what do you pick? And is it sentimental, attached to someone you know or something, some memory from your past? Or is it just the thing you love the best? [01:48:15] Speaker A: I can think of no reason at all why for your last meal, your last meal, you wouldn't pick the one thing that you enjoy the most. It's going to be the last pleasurable physical sensation you ever feel as a living being. [01:48:29] Speaker B: So what is it? [01:48:31] Speaker A: It's basic, I'm afraid. It's either a burger. It's either a burger or it's a Domino's. [01:48:39] Speaker B: Interesting. Those are the. That would be it. That's the best thing that you. [01:48:45] Speaker A: When I am. [01:48:45] Speaker B: I want to go out on this note. [01:48:47] Speaker A: When I'm eating a double pepperoni Passion from Domino's, I. I don't want to be eating anything else. It is the most delicious food I can ever remember eating. [01:48:59] Speaker B: I love that. [01:48:59] Speaker A: And of course, a Burger Simple. Yeah, yeah. Perfect. Perfect. [01:49:04] Speaker B: That's phenomenal, friend. I want to know yours. Oh, me. This. Honestly, this changes all the time because, you know, I am a giant foodie. I think probably, you know, the thing that I would say for a long time is ramen. Like, real ramen. There's about nothing, nothing better than a good. Like the. Specifically, there's, like, a place called Ichiran, which I actually just found out. There's one in New York, but it's like a chain in Japan. And it's like, they. You go in, and there's, like, booths, and they're individual. Like, so you're. You get, like, a window, and you're sitting on a stool, and there's, like, blinders on either side of you, and you go in there and you mark down what you want and you slide it through, and someone whose face you never see slides you your stuff and everything. And their ramen is my favorite ramen. [01:49:59] Speaker A: Like. Like erotic ramen. [01:50:03] Speaker B: There is something about Glory Hole Ramen. Yeah, it's Glory Hole Ramen. It's exactly what it is. So my last meal would probably be Glory Hole Ramen. [01:50:12] Speaker A: Listen. Million podcasts out there, right? Million of podcasts out there, but only on this one this week. Do you get the fucking McGill pain questionnaire, threshold and Glory Hole Ramen? [01:50:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:50:27] Speaker A: In the space of two hours, right? [01:50:29] Speaker B: Why would you listen to anything else? [01:50:30] Speaker A: If you find another podcast covering those two, then you must tell us, because we need to wipe them out. But you won't. [01:50:35] Speaker B: Yeah, but you must also tell us what's your. What are your memory meals that you connect to people and what's your final meal? And do those things overlap? [01:50:48] Speaker A: Yep. Get on the Discord. You know where we're at. A lot of fun. Stay spooky. [01:50:52] Speaker B: Hell, yeah.