Episode 183 · April 23, 2020 · 01:23:23

183. Poppin’ Black Pills

This week's challengeWatch the first episode of The Sopranos.

dobyfriday.com Apple Podcasts Overcast Patreon

Show notes

This week’s challenge: watch the first episode of The Sopranos.

You can hear the after show and support Do By Friday on Patreon!

Edited by Quinn Rose

Engineered by Cameron Bopp

Show Notes

Transcript

Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakes

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Demkin. This week's challenge. Watch the first episode of The Sopranos.

MerlinHello. Hello. I'm on Skype. I'm on Skype. I'm on Skype too. Hey.

AlexI'm trying something new.

MaxI'm making a big change right now. Oh, okay. I'm just moving over to the couch. I'm sitting, you know, I've done the last month of these, sitting in my computer.

MerlinKind of the picture of someone laying on an analyst couch. Yeah, basically.

AlexI don't know why I'm laughing. It's not funny.

MaxI spent the last month doing these, like, in front of the computer, and then I'm staring at the computer. Yeah.

AlexYeah.

MaxThat's no good. And you guys are on the video. I like that we're not doing the video. That was a horrible idea.

MerlinTerrible.

MaxReally cursed.

MerlinWe can read. You know what? We're trying things. You know what I mean? We're like a couple who's been a little bit too long. You know what I'm saying? Are you bringing some toys and some butt stuff? You know what I'm saying? Just for fun. Happy birthday. It's your birthday.

AlexNo, I don't like it.

MerlinYou don't like the butt stuff?

AlexNo. That's where the poopy comes out.

MerlinYou know what? Let's go to the next topic on our list here.

AlexHey, how are we doing? Oof. All right. Oh. Oof. You know, I've decided I'm trying something new as well, and I'm just going to stop pretending that I'm okay when I'm not okay. I'm just like, eh, no, no.

MerlinI love this.

AlexI love this. Not good. Not good. Bad. Bad.

MerlinDo you want to talk about that? What's happening?

AlexNothing. Nothing. The world's just bad, and it's sad.

MerlinWhat's paining you right now?

AlexOh, I mean, my uterus.

MerlinI'm not being facetious. I'm just asking the question.

AlexOh, honestly, the big thing is it really sucks that I don't get to see my niece, who was born nine days ago.

MerlinWho's so cute.

AlexOh, God, I love her. I would already kill for her. And she's in Indianapolis, which is a terrible place. And this is the first time I've ever wanted to go to Indianapolis.

MerlinIsn't that funny?

AlexYeah, and more than anything, it's my mom's first grandkid, and she can't see her, and it sucks. And I know that there are so, so many problems in the world, but it shouldn't diminish anybody else's sadnesses.

MerlinI hope we eventually, I want to say I hear everything that you're saying, and I want to acknowledge what you're saying. And I really hope that people like me and you and probably Max get to a point where we eventually stop feeling like we have to recontextualize the terribleness. Right. By always, always like, no, the privilege, the privilege conversation is valuable. But also at a certain point, can't we just be a little sad and have that be OK?

AlexYeah. Honestly, Matty is turning 30 in a couple months. And he was really looking forward to bringing his parents to the game cafe. Because as we've talked about before, my mother and father-in-law are like, yeah, let's go to Applebee's. And, you know, that's fine for a bit.

MerlinYou'll get some gift cards, gift cards for the game cafe. Let me tap, tap, tap. I think I have some right here. We probably won't be out of business by the time you can go back out to eat. It's all good news this week. I'm with you, though. I'm with you, though, Alex. And I applaud this. I think you're doing a healthy thing. And it's just that, and I'm not trying to say PC police or anything like that, but like, I know I feel for myself, I feel very reluctant to talk about almost anything, whether that is the fact that I'm, as I just said on Twitter a minute ago, I'm really enjoying my 2 p.m.

nap every day. Like, am I allowed to enjoy a nap? Because isn't that privileged that I get to be at home? Yes, it is. It is. But like, also, God, can't we just be cool? I'm sorry. Alex, that sucks. I was watching Bon Appetit Kitchen last night, and there's this show I just discovered on there, probably the last person in the world. It's called One of Everything. And this dude and somebody else from Bon Appetit go to a restaurant in New York and order one of everything and take one bite. And I watched this 25-minute video of them having every item

on the breakfast menu at this place in New York, and I was dying. Of all the things to sweat right now I'm like holy shit I really want to stick some crusty bread into a wobbly egg right now

Alexso much and I also keep trying to remember that um the people who are sick and dying are also like man I would really like to go to a McDonald's right now and that's okay too it's I heard a nurse on Twitter, heard, read, whatever, being like, oh, some of these people just want to see their friends and play video games. You should be happy to be alive.

MerlinAnd I'm like, fuck you. Just come on. That happens a lot on. Well, how does one say? if one were acquainted with someone who's on calls with people who are doctors in different locations you would know that there is occasionally somebody who comes on these giant zoom calls comes in out of nowhere and says you know oh yeah i hope you're enjoying your three twins ice cream

Maxwe don't have any swabs it's like that is such a thing though if people go on if you go on social media and you're like i don't know what it is if you're if you're like uh yeah just like if you're like, I'm feeling sad or like, oh man, like it really sucks that my birthday party was, you know, I had made all these plans. My birthday party was impacted by this. Or, you know, for me, there's like business things or creative projects that I've been working on for, in some cases, like years that were, you know, disrupted, canceled,

whatever by this. And that sucks. Like you don't want to work for years on something and have all these people counting on it. And then you just sit there and watch it die on the vine. Yeah, and you can't do it, right? It's bad. It makes me feel bad. It's all around bad. But you're totally right. If I were to post that on Twitter of like, man, it sucks that we worked for really so long on this business thing, people would be like, there's people who can't even afford food. And you're thinking about a game that you worked at. And it's like, well, it's not diminishing.

their like the like the the fact that like they're immiserated is like it like like like to me the right the right thing should be like everyone should have the opportunity to make a game if they want like every like like it's not the idea is not that the best off people or the people that have that are are fortunate to like do something cool or have some success you don't want them to be like as immiserated as like the people who can't feed themselves the idea is that the everyone should be so lucky to get to do like what alex and i do which is like make fun stuff that makes

people happy if that's what you want like i just i don't it's like the the politics of that are so weird to me like we have the capacity for like nobody should have to be hungry during a pandemic or any other time also don't make jokes don't make jokes anymore okay jokes have left the room we have the resources for that and in fact these fucking people what about these fucking people who are going out and they're going reopen, you know, the reopen protests and they're fucking zombie movie people banging on windows and stuff. It's like, well, these are the same,

this is the same people. Like you just, and their message is, I need to work to feed my family. Like if I don't go back to work, I won't be able to feed my family. It's like, well, maybe you shouldn't have spent the last 20 years dismantling the social safety net that would have made it so that you didn't have to worry about that.

AlexDo you think these people are real?

MaxAre they real?

AlexI mean, they're extant.

MerlinThey're out there banging on windows of the Baskin Robbins. But it's total aspartirphing. Yeah.

AlexWell, and that's what I mean. I know there's some comparisons to the Tea Party and stuff, but a lot of it, I'm like,

Merlinare they? But then the media plays right into it by showing these tight shots.

MaxDid you see the one that I posted the other day that was the photo from up high?

AlexNo. popping into this hell's eye right now.

MerlinOh, right, right, right. Was it in Pennsylvania? Where they're doing these things and then the folks who report on this, and I'm not trying to throw shade at reporters, but it's such a Peter Baker kind of story to zoom way in on these fucking pork chop men in their red hats and go like, oh, this is a movement. And it's like, now let's go with a slightly less tight shot and see that it's not as many people as it looks like.

Maxsomeone photographed it from like the top of their apartment building or something. Like it was the people protesting in front of some state Capitol. And it was like 20 angry people in a tiny little circle. Like it was not, it was nothing. It was insignificant. Like I've been to like protests for crazy lefty causes that had 10 times that many people. I don't know. It is, it is, it's, it's total astroturf. And the other thing that's crazy is like, you know, the right has this big talking point where they go, Oh, all the protesters are paid by George Soros. They're all crisis actors. They're all being paid.

but that's a thing you know it's like a lot of things like the reason that they make that accusation is that's a thing that they actually do like yeah i actually don't think i i don't think the left i'm not aware of anyone who's ever been paid to protest on the left but i mean it's widely reported that that tons of like first of all trump's campaign announcement remember he comes down the escalator and there's all those people applauding in trump tower paid actors like there's receipts there's like literal pay stubs for it like remember remember hillary hillary

MerlinClinton in a cage, that whole thing, where like they had basically hired this circus of misfit toys to like do this big demonstration. And as it turned out, they were literally paid to like be Hillary Clinton in a cage or whatever. And it's like, one more thing with this economy part, though, that I feel like is not being well interrogated right now, which is that, you know, if you're the governor, if you're somebody like oh god who is it kemp the guy in georgia who's like and by the way i read the same

magazines you do um so there's no problems in georgia but um even though that's where the cdc is i'm sure it'll be fine um the um but the guy who's like hey we gotta go but you gotta get the tattoo parlors and the nail salons go on again and it's like well okay here's the problem like you know this with your cafe if you chose to have a socially distance like legitimately social distance safe cafe it would be so hard to sustain you could how many people could you seat

Maxin that environment and have it be 100 safe let me i mean now i feel i feel like i probably qualified to to like opine on this for a second but like it's not it's not just it's not just your cafe

Merlinit's just anywhere that's like a hole in the wall in an urban area is not is going to be able to seat three people at a time it's gonna be like a fucking thomas keller's apartment yeah let me

Maxlet me talk about this for a second so the business model of everything in in restaurants and most of hospitality is that basically you're sort of racing the rent right so the rent you know the rent at the end of the month and at and starting day one of the month your math is how do i pack the most bodies in this place so that at the end of the thing i can i can beat the rent because anything you beat the rent, basically that's your profit margin, right? That's how you make the juice.

That's how the juice gets made. The juice must flow. The juice must flow. The same is true of comedy clubs, right? Think of like UCB just announced that they're closing their last theater in New York and that's sad for all of their problems. I saw some pretty fucking great shows at UCB. But I have to imagine part of the reason there is they're thinking, well, even if we were to reopen next month, how could we ever get enough? Basically, they can only stay open if they fill every seat for every show. And what's the scenario where you

Merlincan do that? Everything you're describing, though, it's true of almost every business, which is, let's start from, you know, step zero is that there are a lot of people and businesses in this country that were already right on the edge and maybe a little past the edge. Let's say you went into this a month ago and you were a month behind on your rent. Well, now that is, whereas that was a problem that would pass a little bit or be not a huge problem, that's a giant problem. When you get, my understanding of, and I've been in restaurants and my family's in

the restaurant business, it's like your calculation includes that weird gamble of like, in the next six months, I need to pack this place with three turnovers every night. And that is the way that this is sustainable. And so you're hustling, you're buying ads, you're doing everything you can to pack everybody, to fill every table in that place. I feel like that's baked into the business calculation. If I could fit eight more people in the cafe, if I had everyone stand

Maxsideways, I would do that. I think we were already past the days in this country where you could support your family by owning a restaurant, like a Bob's Burgers. I don't quite understand how the math on that could work because the game we were only open for you know whatever a couple months but with the cafe before we we had to close for the the coronavirus thing but like there's just no way like it's just i mean it's a it's not a failing business but like if we didn't also make a card game that was profitable like there's just there's just no way like we couldn't have had the

capital to start it like it's just like it's not that good it makes a razor thin margin like razor thin like certainly like let like let's just leave aside cards and just say like i was the owner of this place like i'd be making less than anyone in that i'd be making less than the dishwashers

Merlinlike less than anyone you'd be clearing less clearing less right i mean you'd be no in the sense that like so the dishwasher shows up and washes the dishes and as long as the place is solvent they get the same amount of money for the same amount of hours regardless of how well the place is doing. You don't cut salaries by how, let's say it's a Monday night. Like in Florida, a lot of places close on Mondays, even in San Francisco. Mondays in Florida, many, many restaurants are closed, at least in the retirement communities that I came up in. And when you, it isn't like

you say, well, we're closed Monday, so, you know, or like, you know, because we're closed Monday, our profits are down 18%, and therefore I'm going to cut wages 18% this week, or whatever, Or like we didn't have enough turnovers tonight. So everybody, I'm taking a third off. Oh, no. I see what you're saying. Yeah. Payroll is like a fixed cost. Like you pay, you take care of your people. Yeah. And isn't that, I mean, you say rent, but I've always heard that the salaries end up being a huge part of your nut every month.

MaxYep. Yeah. You most, yeah. I mean, salary is huge. Like paying your food costs. Like we still have construction to do. Like pay, you know, you got to like, oh my God. It's like, well, it's like anyone who's ever owned any office or home or anything. It's just like everything's breaking all the time and you're constantly paying to fix this and deal with that. And yeah, it's a, it's a, uh, hospitality in general, you know, this is like, you know, everything I like in life is kind of hospitality, right? Like performance, comedy, magic, theater, food, games.

Like it's all sort of in the realm of service and hospitality with it, with a few, with a few notable outliers. Nobody's getting filthy rich on this.

MerlinThere's this paradox, though, to the we need to, I hate the phrase reopen the economy. That just doesn't make sense. You just can't add a verb to a noun and act like that makes sense. Okay, so let's say we reopen the economy. And Georgia is finally, as the president likes to say, there's pent-up demand, right? It's just going to pass through. One day it'll just go away, right? So what do you do? You're going to go to your nail salon. Okay, so here's the paradox. The paradox is that we are saying to people, you need to go out and get back to work because America was never made to be closed down.

Get back to work and you need to be cutting hair, doing nail salon things, serving food and doing all this. But there are certain strictures. And let's first you must solve my riddle, which is this. There has to be social distancing. OK, talk to me about how we do social distancing when you're cutting somebody's toenails. OK, fine. Whatever. We'll deal with that. Okay, so are you doing social distancing of like your operators are more than six feet apart from other people? Suddenly you're getting into, okay, so if this reopens and there is pent-up demand and people go, the paradox or riddle is that either it is necessarily going to be unsafe to have people in that area, and we will almost definitely see a huge return to the growth in the spread.

or you're in a situation where it is safe plus nobody wants to go because they're scared of

Alexgetting a virus that do you follow well that's the thing come come into this like black pills come play with my black pills uh space right now the play with me yeah last night uh you know i was just just popping popping those pills and could this be you're popping black pills could it could this okay all right moving on could this end up being like a reverse idiocracy situation and i uh i'm fine you know what i'm gonna say a thing the people sticking

their heads out of cars shouting at nurses i'm gonna say that their iq level a little bit lower

Merlinand i know that i can't but they have those they have those funny flags with pictures of jews on

AlexYeah. Yeah. And so let's say all of those people, economy reopens, they all go out, spend the spend money, all get sick and die. Because honestly, I'm not going to go get a haircut right away. I'm just kind of in here shaving my head. And what if all the smart people and and all the folks? Oh, God. The problem with that is also service workers who are, you know, hospitality workers who have have no choice. their bosses are like yep you gotta come serve service the karens and i don't want those people

Merlinto be hurt in any way but each one of them is going to then go pass it on to two or three other

Alexpeople yeah and and so i i don't know like what is it going to be a reverse idiocracy like i i don't like thinking about it and then you say they say they say oh you know the thing is all the

Merlinwas it McConnell's or whomever of the world are like, everybody's coming along saying, oh, so we're going to go pay all these people to just sit at home and not work. They're going to make more money staying at home than going to work. Yes, that is what we are going to do because if they go to work, we want to keep them on payroll because for a variety of reasons that we don't have time to get into, it's much more costly, as you know, to rehire, to hire or rehire, than to keep people on. And even if you kept them on at like 75, 80%, but that's the idea. The whole idea is, yes, they do stay home.

They do stay home. Let's keep the economy closed. Because their staying home is what prevents them from getting sick. Are you getting this?

AlexI truly don't think anybody is being paid to protest. In fact, the reason they're protesting is because their bosses aren't paying them. Like, that is, it's, I would, you know what? Come on, lefties in charge. Do you have money? I'll happily be paid to protest or whatever the fuck. No, these people are not being paid. That's why they're out there. and it's not okay. All right. Thank you for playing in the space.

MerlinYou know what I find useful? There's a form of meditation in Buddhism. It's called metta, which is a kind of loving kindness or it's a gratitude. And I find that it's hard to be unhappy when you're helping people and it's hard to be unhappy when you're expressing gratitude. So I wanted to talk about the first responders. Max, have you had a chance to see the image that I sent?

MaxOh, God. All right, let's start the show.

MerlinSo what I'm looking at here, who wants to describe this? It looks sort of like a painting by the great George Tooker from the 50s.

MaxIs it in a different...

MerlinHow do you... I put it in the dream team.

MaxMarilyn, let me ask you this. When you send a text, how do you decide which... Which channel? Channel to put it in. There's so many channels. Why would you have so many?

MerlinThat's a really good question. I should probably pare this down. Or just get some better names and icons. I just always try to think, like, who's going to love me more if I put this here? You know? And sometimes I need that. And I need Jen to like me a little bit or pretend to like me, which is really close enough for me. Please describe. God, this is just a nightmare. This is really this. I saw this. I woke up this morning. Do, do, do, do, do, do. I get out of bed. I'm micturated. And then I said, I've never maybe seen anything that's quite so much Max's shit as this image.

Speaker AThat's really good.

MerlinSo what are we looking at here? We're looking at a hallway at what appears to be a hospital and with some really strong perspective. It may be a mental hospital. Oh, oh. Oh, save it for the show. Save it for the show. Oh, my God. Oh, boy. This image should be passed far and wide. It will be in show notes for this episode. And what we're looking at here is... Oh, buddy, it's the show. It's the motherfucking show art.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinI can't handle it. So there's a woman who put... I don't know where this came from, but it's posted on a woman's Spanish language account with some emoji and the word gracias. And it's a picture of what I'm going to say are three medical professionals walking down a hallway, probably a doctor, nurse, whatever. And they're walking around, they're wearing masks. And on either side of the hallway is a pantheon of heroes from the world of DC and Marvel. And they're all bowing as the medical professionals walk down the hallway,

including Deadpool. Because you know Deadpool loves him, a medical professional. And what happens when the Hulk stands up? I guess his head goes through the ceiling? Yeah, that's so funny. Hulk not like low ceiling of medical facility.

Maxthat's so funny the Hulk is sort of stooped over in a bow but yeah that's as high as he can actually stand up the question the question many many people

Merlinare asking though on the DC side why is Dr. Manhattan Dr. Manhattan and his hog he's covered by Wonder Woman's head is covering his hog I think a little bit Alex points out that somebody's trying

Alexreally hard not to look at his dong he seems to be making eye contact with another with one of the male nurses and the only reason I say nurse...

MerlinYou know you'd check out that penis.

AlexOh, 100%.

MerlinYou know you would be scoping the penis.

AlexOh, absolutely. But I can't help but notice, this is the one guy without goggles. What the fuck? Like, why?

MaxIf there's a seven, eight, huge, glowing blue man and he's nude and his huge hog is hanging down to the floor, it's conspicuous. First of all, none of these people, am I to believe, let me ask you this yeah am i to believe that these that be see each one of these people has a different backstory right you've got you've got superman right he's an alien he's powered by the sun you've got spider-man he was bitten by the spider you've got thor he's just a god who is

travels i guess and then you've got you know and then you've got and then you've got batman and Batman's just a regular guy with gadgets. He's a rich sadist. Each one of them has a different set of powers. And I do not believe that they all have a super immune system. And yet, they're all just shoulder to shoulder here.

MerlinYes.

MaxAnd none of them have a mask. You're right. They're not being safe. They're not really respecting the troops. I call them warriors. Do you know how hurt I'd have to be right now to go into a hospital? I'm not going into a hospital. And if I did, I'd have like gloves and masks and I'd be all suited up. And Batman, he's just got his mouth right there.

MerlinYeah. There's going to be lots of droplets. And also, I mean, like if I were, God forbid, if I were in this mental institution and intubated and I walked out and the Hulk was out in the hallway, I think I would, I don't know if I'd feel safe.

Alexyou would either feel unsafe or just be like ah I am in here for the right reasons look at seeing all of this that's normal everything's fine

Merlinoh you're saying now it's been oh wait a minute you took it and you turned it what you're saying is that maybe we could improve the state of many people who've been briefly institutionalized maybe somebody could speak to this how would you feel if you had been put into an institution and you walked out in the hallway and the pantheon of superhero villains were bowing in the hallway. I'd be like, it's moved into my brain stem. I'm here for a reason. Yeah. No wonder they took my bathrobe away.

You think Epstein's in here somewhere?

So that'll all be in show notes.

MaxDeadpool, man. Deadpool's so reverent it's not very well drawn either and there's something a weird some sort of weird optical illusion where the more I look at it the more it looks like like for example doesn't it sort of look like Batman's head is on Wonder Woman's legs

Merlinyeah hot look at that look at that painting I just sent you I did a long one of my long essays in 20th century painting class on this painting I love called The Subway by George Tooker oh the museum's closed today that sucks sorry Whitney but look at that photo doesn't that kind of remind you a little bit of what we're looking at It's in the channel. Does that remind you a little bit of what we're looking at here with the superheroes? Oh, boy.

MaxThis is very... It's really... This has given me a bad feeling. I don't like looking at this.

MerlinUh-huh. That's supposed to. Look at all those angles and stuff. Yeah. You should read my paper about it. It's really quite good.

MaxAnd the facial expressions. Yeah. Well, it's very... It's a... I mean, I think the first thing is you've got a sort of a prison. Definitely there's a prison.

MerlinTo me, it screams Kafka in some ways. Where like, look at the... There's one guy who appears to be like crying down the hallway. And then another guy who's like in this little, is that a phone booth? What is he in? Like, ah, this painting is just, and then James Dean's in there for some reason, it looks like.

MaxIf you look off to the left, down the corridor that sort of goes out of frame to the left, it looks more and more like a prison to me.

MerlinYep. Totally. Totally. But for some reason, as soon as that popped up, yes, number one, I thought I've never seen anything more Max's shit. Then it also reminded me of this very depressing, uh, anxiety producing painting. So thanks to everybody, uh, who's in the hallways at the hospitals. What's the perspective is,

Maxreally upsetting too yes it's got sort of an escher i don't know something i don't like about

Alexit i feel like this is breaking your brain so much that you can't even critique the lunacy of the situation and you're just critiquing like how it's yeah the technical the technical components i mean the wrinkles in these uh scrubs too that's that's not how scrubs look

Merlinalex i'm looking at the subway subway the subway by george tooker 1950 did you get that i like this painting and then a good painting you should get that for your game cafe i should i kind of i like that and then like those but i mean it does look like a new york subway station it's got those those very upsetting turnstiles oh i see where we're at oh no damn i just thought of another

Maxthing that's gonna i just thought of another thing i like that's gonna that's not gonna survive this

Merlinthat's fun escape rooms those are fucking done tony sindalar says you can get escape room supplies delivered to your house if you want to escape your house

Alexuh

Maxthere is that's a fun there is like escape room in a box like I've always kind of wanted to make one of those but I know I know it's serious

Alexokay I'll do it it sounds kind of fun but I wouldn't mind

Merlinescape room in a box

Maxyeah oh fuck I loved escape I loved escape rooms god damn it they're all gonna go out of business the other thing that I'm worried about I think I'm I think this country I think our whole society was already on this trajectory of like crazy, you know, consolidation. So like this like grouping, right? Of like you had like a very small number of like super elite people on the top. And then the vast majority of people on the bottom who sort of had no mobility, no chance of escape. It's sort of this like permanent underclass.

And really all they could do is sort of do like drive Uber and do like gig work and things like that. Multiple, multiple gig works. yeah you just you're always you're just there's always some fucking carrot dangling in front of you that you have to chase but it's never like a job with any commitment from an employer you know that kind of like the type of job of like i think that's kind of already on its way you know middle class job is kind of already i think on its way out but any anyhow i really worry that what's gonna happen on like the the macro level over the next couple years is like any sort of like so like

Look at what happened with restaurants. You guys have seen the story that Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.

MerlinYeah, and something called Potbelly Sandwiches.

MaxOh, I love it. Potbelly is actually a wonderful...

MerlinWell, the point being that there are giant mega corporations that are taking SBA loans, and it's pretty lame.

MaxCorrect. So what's happening is they're taking the SBA loans, which they probably shouldn't be doing.

MerlinBecause as people said, including the man with the terrifying mouth, Mr. Mnuchin, is saying, you know, the thing is they do have... It's true. They have other means of capitalization that are not available to businesses that are failing in real time.

MaxCorrect. So what they did is they all have like these, I don't know, they have some lawyers who made the subsidiary companies that are technically small enough on paper to apply for the loans.

MerlinWell, they all have relationships with their banks. So they were able to walk right to the front of the line in a way that people who don't.

MaxYes, that's the other thing is that the federal government just sort of said to the banks, you guys figure out how to go ahead and implement this. And the banks obviously favored the customers that are profitable for them. So anyway, you have a couple of restaurant groups like Ruth's Chris and the maybe I didn't hear about Pop Belly, but that sounds plausible. And they're soaking up just tons and tons of money. Meanwhile, like cafe put in for a loan. We haven't heard back. Like, I don't know. I talk to chef owners all the time. I haven't even heard of anyone getting money for their like chef owned restaurant because it's not a because we're not a big client for the bank.

The bank doesn't really give a shit about us as compared to Popbelly, which in Chicago has dozens and dozens of locations. But anyway, I think what's going to happen is all the people that that PPP money is supposed to be going to, the independent businesses, your neighborhood coffee shop that's not a chain, stuff's all going to go under on a long enough timeline. Because even if they're able to reopen, the customers will not come back in force.

Merlinyou know the polling shows that this is widely supported by a broad bipartisan multi-partisan swath is like we're not ready to go back yet like 50 60 more percent of people listen like

Maxon the one hand to use the cafe as an example i would love if we could open tomorrow and it was packed like like before the pandemic like every seat full like that would be awesome for the books for the business for me making payroll like the business surviving like i i would love for that to happen like abstractly then i think of myself like would i want to go in and work let alone would i want to go to a restaurant that was that crowded and eat no and i the answer is no i would

not not not next week or maybe even in a month i don't i i don't know like it could be a long time for me personally before I feel comfortable going in that packed environment. Imagine going through the airport, going on an airplane, waiting in the customs line. It's weird. It's unsettling. It's scary. There was a thing

Merlinon local public radio news yesterday. It was just... Right now, there are so many moments of insane... Not paradox. What's the word I'm looking for? Just mixed message stuff. So like the San Francisco airport has been doing all this construction. They like are doing this new Harvey Milk terminal. I think where terminal one is, but in any case, they in rapid succession threw out the fact that like, yeah, they're going to partially open part of this new terminal. They're going to move, I think, United over there for some of this

stuff. And then they threw out this number that the number of flights in San Francisco is down something like over 90%. And really, I just thought about that for a second, like down over 90%. So like the people working at the rented DVD place, the people working at the, you know, at all the coffee places, at the places where you buy those dumb neck pillows, like all that and like, that's

Speaker Amassive. And yet at the same time

Merlinthey're still like, oh yeah, we're still moving some things around, doing some construction. It's like, what do you think, what am I to make of that?

MaxDisney, I mean, we've talked about, remember we read that Married to the Mouse book, like Disney World in Florida, just one company, one branch of one company one project of one company right i think they employ like 250 000 people at disney world yeah yeah like how long before you'd go to dis like personally how long before you'd go to

Alexdisney world a while for me i think maybe november at the earliest we were still we were still hanging

Merlinon we had our trip scheduled for the last week of march for spring break and even in the first week of march we were still like oh you never know could be real empty we could just really uh to take the place over you know uh but like that that's the before times i mean but what's his uh

Alexeiger came back to disney like he came back how do you he is a bajillion millionaire yeah it was

Maxpretty funny there was the press he did a press conference and someone was like are you coming back just to like positively affect the stock price and he was like no next question yep he's

Merlinlike no i'm it's fine then he takes the hand of the other the current guy who's supposed to be He keeps slapping him in the face with his own hand saying, why are you hitting yourself? I'm the Bob now.

MaxAnyway, let me finish my depressing thought for a minute ago. So I think all the businesses that are like a normal business started by a person. So like the neighborhood restaurant, the cornered coffee shop, all that kind of stuff. I mean, hard for me to see a scenario where they make it given the current trajectory, but maybe I'm being too pessimistic. But a lot of that stuff is going to go away. and then what you're going to have is as this stuff is the real estate becomes available the the value of labor gets lower and lower you're going to have people with money the capitalists

who own capital it's going to be a fucking field day they're going to buy everything you're going to have massive consolidation amazon's just going to buy out cities oh god yeah and and i mean to think of like coffee shops right like like every coffee shop is gonna if they cannot reopen and get back up to scale in some reasonable amount of time like all those coffee shops are going to fail people still need coffee so someone with capital will move in and start maybe it's starbucks maybe starbucks will buy all these coffee shops maybe it'll be some new thing we haven't thought of yet

i don't know but like the whole like we we all i don't know like to me like i that's the cool part of being in a city is that i like that there's all these little you know things out there and it's just like all the joy of of being in this being in this all the joy of my of all this shit that i love right that's what i love being in the city is like theater and like weird little restaurants and all that kind of stuff and like i'm just feeling so pessimistic that that shit's

Merlingonna survive well and you like you see i mean somebody told me once i i don't have no way of saying whether or not this is true but you know we're talking about businesses that aren't what they seem and not just mattress stores but somebody was saying that basically that um at least in the 90s, was it Walgreens or Eckerd's? It might have been Eckerd's. They said it's really less of a drugstore chain than a real estate holding company. That part of the strategy for some of these companies like that was to buy, you know, the way you'd have a Boston market in the parking lot of the shopping center. They would own that piece of real estate or have a

crazy long lease on that. And the one thing Walgreens or one of these stores had going for it was that they owned a ton. They were a corporate, not franchise, obviously, but their corporate-owned and that they owned the real estate under which the store was located. Now imagine these hedge fund dickheads coming in and being able to clean up. Just to pivot on what you're saying, Max, being able to come in with just redonkulous amounts of money for somebody who really needs it, whether that's buying out a lease or buying out that real estate. They're just going to be cleaning up. And if I were Amazon, I don't think it's Starbucks that should buy those coffee shops.

It's probably Amazon. Because then think of all the shit that they could do the same way that they put all the Amazon lady in a tubes in the Whole Foods. Like it's just – it is really wild to think about how we survive this in a way that doesn't just make Omni Megacorp everywhere.

MaxDo you know a really good example of how this is going to feel is like over the last decade as like all this different media failed, right? Think of local news failed and local newspapers failed and then major newspapers and national news sources failed. Basically, it was all bought up by private equity firms and they turned everything into a website that posts celebrity-

MerlinYeah, like people who ruin the ringer, like those kinds of people.

MaxYeah. But it's like everything just turns into ... They post disgusting recipes that they're farming clicks by just trying to make people mad at. Then they post celebrity gossip and things you're supposed to get angry at. it all becomes like this indistinguishable paste and then you have only two media companies that you can get the fucking news from it's the fucking whatever the Washington Post and the New York Times and you pick your

mediocre news source it all sucks and not to mention obviously what happened to local news is even more disgusting what's that company that bought all the local news stations and makes them say the same.

AlexOh, I didn't know about this. Yeah, right, Sinclair. Gross, gross, gross, gross.

MaxYeah, so like every local news station got bought out by this very conservative media company.

MerlinIt's like if MyPillow was a media company.

MaxYes, and they basically make local, and so local news is still, local TV news is still like widely consumed by a ton of Americans and also one of the most trusted news sources. And they make them say these conservative.

MerlinOh, they definitely have a high level of engagement. It's free on broadcast TV. so you can watch it in your nursing home or your apartment or while you're waiting for your hot dog. And it's how a ton of people get their news every day.

MaxBut it also has a higher relation to your life than CNN, right? Because it's like, here's the crime that happened in your neighborhood, in your city. Here's the weather for you. It's trustworthy. It's right there. It's local. It's close. And they make them repeat the same talking points and carry these very fucking Trumpian commentators. You can actually see if you go online and look at local news compilations, you can see these.

MerlinYeah, there's some super cuts of these and they're really gross.

MaxYep, it's very fucking like Invasion of the Body Snatchers because you have like 60 different media markets and they're all saying the same thing over and over and over, the same talking points. I'm sure that they're driving this like reopen the country bullshit right now. I don't watch local news, but anyway, That feeling of like the fucking body snatchers came and ruined the news, and now you can only get this disgusting slop, and even the slop that's your brand is not good anymore.

That's what's going to happen to everything. That's going to be food. It's going to be entertainment.

AlexI'm trying.

MaxWhere should we flee to? Where should we flee to? What about France? France seems like it might be cool. I can enjoy France.

AlexDo you think we'd have to speak French? Yes. They're grumpy people, I'm told.

MaxI heard they like it if you try.

AlexOh, yes. That's what I heard.

MaxI don't know that I have it in me to relearn how to do all of my magic tricks in French.

MerlinAll on Z. challenge the challenge this week comes from i want to say max uh it was a max challenge but it

Maxwas in consultation with a friend of the show matt we talked about it together we were talking about the sopranos and matt said you should make this a challenge and i was like you know what it would be a good challenge yeah so we did it i i did it i did it i did it oh shit alex you wait you were the one who hasn't seen the sopranos right correct and i watched the entire first season Oh shit

MerlinNo wait I'm doing it wrong Oh Oh

MaxIt's the best It's one of the best Hey dad pass me the fucking mashed potatoes Oh

MerlinHey did you hear what I said to him I said your mother was over here sucking my cock Did you hear that I missed Polly Walnuts So we did it It sounds like we all did I watched it with my kid Made her watch it

MaxWow Really was she

Merlinengaged? Yes, she super loved it. How old? Can I remind me how old she is? 12. But we got into, I want to say the second episode, and I was like, we should probably dip. I don't want to do too many of these. I tried to pivot hard to, well, if you like this, let's watch The Godfather. That was kind of a hard sell. I rewatched it, and I still think it's... I have so much to

Maxsay about this show. I remember, I believe that's when The Sopranos was on, I was probably about 12 and I remember like my dad would watch it and I would see it sometimes and I remember it was pretty frightening to me at 12 I mean it was very it's it's not it's not that the violence is scary it's menacing the show's menacing the show is so it's so nihilistic and yeah it's a very yeah right it's a it's a

Merlinyou know I mean like it's think about that scene in Goodfellas again with Christopher Maloney in a much earlier time but where he's shooting he's shooting that spider because he's not, you know, yeah, you step and fetch it and you're shooting at him. Like, it's that kind of thing where you're like, this could all go real bad at any time. There's so many things on this show that are, you know, I hope we'll really...

MaxBut it's also, it just has a mood, right? The whole show is, it's not even the content, the gangster stuff.

MerlinBut the setup of the first episode, I'd forgotten how well this is done. I think I might've even said this last week where Tony becomes like the giving tree. We're like, however you feel about Tony Soprano, The one thing you can say in that episode is that he feels besieged on all sides by change, by disloyalty, and by all the different ducks of his life flying away. That's why that moment is so powerful, because it is about family. You know what else is family? Family is family, and your family, your Cosa Nostra is family.

It's all about family, capital F, and lowercase f.

Maxthe opening you know scene is he's he's in dr melfi's office for his first appointment he comes and he sits down and it's it's very slow and it's punctuated by these long silences and and

Merlinshe's like breathing his exhaling should be second on the call sheet my god yeah and it's just like

Maxit's like there's like the the um the alex what's that called where it's the shot back and forth with the two faces like over the shoulder like what is that a 180 180 rule uh sorry todd i can't remember that shot but it's him looking at the art and it's just like very slow and she's like tell me about the time you're the first attack and then that that like techno music starts and he's walking down the driveway and he's like you know i feel like i came in at the end of this thing and it's like they're telling you the what the whole show is going to be about like it was

MerlinThe whole show is that this is, and so many of the great mob things we've seen over time is about that change. Where you think about in The Godfather, or I guess it was Godfather 2, where they're talking about, you know, well, you know, oh, no, actually it was in Godfather 1. They're talking about why we don't do these certain kinds of organized crime. And that continues then into Godfather 2, where they're saying, you know, oh, we'll do drugs, but we'll keep it with the colored people and that kind of stuff. There was an ethic, and you don't rat out your friends and all of those things. And at the same time, his kids are flying away like little ducks in the same way.

You know, Uncle Junior is a kind of duck flying away. All of his guys like Christopher trying to like make a little money on the side with the coke. There's all these things that he's got to deal with now. Yeah.

MaxAnd then, yeah. And then and then the end of that little sequence where he has his little opening monologue and that's like the whole thesis statement for the show base for the whole whatever seven seasons of the show. and then he's he picks up the newspaper and and starts walking back up to the house then it's this very abrupt like off off beat in the music like cuts back to the office with dr melfi and they they continue the conversation and there's just still probably never it's just so bracing and it's

Merlinso cool and it's it's fucking great and smart it's so good it trusts it trusts the the viewer and I have a lot to say about this, about how this really should be regarded as kind of the beginning of the Platinum Age TV. I'm not the first person to say that, obviously, but it's so smart and so complex.

MaxFor all the good shows and all the crazy filmmaking and all the stuff that's been done, that first five minutes of Sopranos just hits so hard. It's perfect. It's like the best writing, the best acting, and then it hasn't aged in a way that a lot of, I don't know.

MerlinSex in the City seems pretty dated now compared to something like Santa.

MaxIt's just like, yes, it still feels so fresh and bracing. Anyway, Alex, I'm dying to give you impressions. Yeah, Alex, talk.

AlexWatching this felt like it was a show about the late 90s or early aughts that was made today. I've always heard, oh, such a classic. And this is what started the golden age of television, which is all true. But wow, wow, it was remarkable. And the filmmaking as well as the storytelling, I'm just repeating everything that you guys are saying.

But I was led to believe that Tony Soprano was a very complex character in terms of like, is he good or evil? and he is you know one of the first antagonists that you know you're you're rooting for him because he's really you know the main character like it's but he is he is kind of a classic anti-hero in some ways i don't think so i think he's a really guy i don't i don't want to say

Merlinhe's a good guy you said antagonist you mean protagonist do you think he's the i think he's a

Alexa person that is there is such a decency to him that reminds me of the godfather what's his name Vito oh Vito Corleone yes Vito I don't know all of the complicated decisions he has to make are very godfather-esque or Godfather 1, really, of like, this is business.

And I am conflicted when it is, you know, I've got to whack somebody who is very close to me and is part of my family. Just in the same way, he's got to make a tough decision about do I put my kid on ADD medication? And, you know, he has the same side effects of Prozac and lithium as normal people. And I don't know. I wasn't having these huge qualms about like, is this guy a good person?

Or is he, he seems like a very nice human being. And at the heart of the route, like you get deep down of like, and this is later, later on in the season, but is he, you know, what's, what's the nature of good and evil and stuff like that. But the, you know, the show being about the dichotomy of these two families, his and the family. I don't know. There was, I love this guy. He doesn't feel like a Walter White.

He, you know, he feels like a fairly selfless person.

MerlinHe's very vulnerable.

AlexYeah. I mean, sure. Like, you know, he's fucking his girlfriend on the side. And I would say that that's not, you know, more or less evil than a lot. If you want to call it evil or indecency, then a lot of just men today who are who are kind of shitty. And I don't know. It's it's like someone's born into this life. And there's there's a certain type of privilege. But in the background, it's always looming of, oh, yeah, I think one of.

what's his name? Hesh at some point is talking to a black guy who's like, we were being killed by white people way before you were. And I learned a lot of new Italian slurs as well as slurs for Polish people that I did not know were slurs just because I heard them all growing up. Oh, good for you. You can use those. I didn't know Polak was bad. That's just something that... What? And I'm like, really? Really? um but uh i i don't know this whole maybe he he devolves through in later seasons i i don't know

the only reason i only watched the first season was because of time they definitely they definitely

Maxpush they definitely push your boundaries as it goes and also i don't think it's like a huge spoiler but like they the james gandolfini also um and david chase who is the show creator they they sort of wanted to see how far they could push Tony and stuff, because you have to understand like, and then I also want to come back to the idea of your, your, what you were saying about a nineties period piece. I'm really interested in that, but basically like this had never sort of been done before on like a big scale like this on TV. And I think they were sort of interested.

Tony, Tony Soprano became this sort of cultural icon. And, you know, I think he, he sort of was very influential of like American men. and I think there was like a big cigar smoking trend at the time that maybe was associated with The Sopranos.

MerlinBut it's also got a little bit of that Fight Club quality. It's got a little of that Fight Club quality where you're like, oh God, who was it? Oh, I was listening to that wonderful Blank Check podcast and one of the hosts was talking about why he loves Robocop so much and he said something, this is one of those movies where like it's going to be fun for the dumbest person in the room and it's going to be fun for the smartest person in the room. Oh, that's so good. Something you could also say about Fight Club, a movie that I have certainly heavily misunderstood in terms of intention, Ditto Here. It's like you're going to get out of this what you choose to get out of this about ethics.

MaxI think it drove James... From what I've read about The Sopranos, David Chase and James Gandolfini, it kind of drove them crazy, the cultural reception to Tony and the sort of maybe popular understanding of him as like a cool guy that men wanted to be more like or whatever.

Merlinand so as time

Maxwent on he put on

Merlina ton of weight he looks virtually slender in this first episode

Maxyeah he becomes just more like mean and slow and fat as it goes on he eventually looks like Kingpin

Merlinhe's just huge and his breathing is so labored and you're like oh my god how is this guy still

AlexWell, and that's what I kept thinking of. Is this, you know, the burden of am I good or evil? Or is this the burden of just everyday American? I mean, they're like upper middle class. They're not, you know, millionaires.

Maxit's it's that's to me that to me is a big theme of the show that aged just so fucking well which and it's it's a thing that is interesting about organized crime about you know grifting and racketeering and cons and things like that which is like that is sort of the foundation of like huge parts of our economy and our politics right right and like everything is fucking grift and racketeering. And they have

Alexthat conversation. It was a bit on the nose, but at, again, this is getting into much later on in the season, but, you know, there's that very waspy conversation of, you know, how is this different than Wall Street? And it's like, yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

MerlinBut, like, even the smallness of the grift of, like, oh, you know, there's these DVD players. Of course, everybody gets a DVD player that fell off the back of a truck. It's like, is it as good as a laser disc, you know, and all that stuff. And it's just, there's that, like, when you talk about the smallness of the grift, I mean, like, that's such a common element in so many of these movies is that all the capos, like, whenever there's a hall like that, the capos all get some little piece of it, whether it's a fur coat or a DVD player. And it's all just, it's just all so tacky, but real, like, so real.

MaxYes, and it's not, I mean, I'm not, I don't think what I'm saying is not quite like, oh, it's like, what's the difference between organized crime and Wall Street? Although, I mean, you could certainly there's that case but i mean more like fundamentally like there's like huge companies like facebook and to me their entire business model is fraudulent like at its core it's at its core it's fraudulent and history will look back at this moment of like these like mega corporations that that were worth a ton of money and they'll be like how i like i just don't

understand how they were how no one saw through it how they kept this illusion going for so long and that's the ones that are reputable but then you could talk about something like theranos right which was i mean fucking former secretary of defense was on their board and all these reputable people and they kept this outrageous scam going yeah it was it wasn't in spite of it wasn't in

Merlinspite of those influential people that they were seeing well it was like because of them because each one of them needed to get their nut back out of what they'd invested and it was never a good day for them to stop smoking crack. Like, it was never a good day for them to go, yeah, I'm not so sure about this one drop thing. That does seem a little far-fetched. And it's just the grift goes on until it doesn't, you know? Theranos,

MaxEnron, I mean, I'm just, these are the ones off the top of my head, but then you get into the whole, like, I'm sure you guys have read the same, you guys have read the same magazines I have, about the whole Trump, the Trump organization, and the way that it's kind of a money-laundering organization where essentially they license out their name, and they get involved

Merlinin these crazy sort of... It's a place where Russians can spend money. Can put their money.

MaxAnd the whole nature of, like we were talking about before, the conservative media, the media and ecosystem at large has a way of taking these insane stories and then laundering them through greater and greater layers of responsibility until you have to hear about it on NPR or the New York Times or whatever.

I don't mean to say, I'm in my message, like the thing that Sopranos makes me think of is not like, oh, it's all corrupt like Wall Street and that. No, I'm, that's not quite what I mean. I mean like.

AlexWell, like I said, it was a bit on the nose.

MaxYeah, but I mean like literal scamming, like scams. Like I know that I'm lying and I'm going to do it to people as a scam. Is it an all time? Like that has become a prominent feature of everyday American life. Like MLMs. Look at all the people get involved in MLMs.

MerlinYoung Living, any of that stuff.

MaxYeah. Like, it's such a feature.

AlexI mean, just data mining and, you know, we're constantly being... I'm sorry, I'm just repeating what you said. But people are not only going to look back and be like, how did Facebook get away with this? But also, how did we just sign over our lives and be like, oh, yep.

MaxEven leaving aside the privacy thing, the bigger scam of Facebook is that their shit doesn't work. Like, their ads don't convert. They don't make money for anyone. there's no value being created they're not providing anything of value no like the only people spending money are advertisers just throwing cash right into a black hole you got to just you

Merlingot to just keep churning the grift and like turn it over it's turning it over like compost and it's

Maxlike yeah and it's all fueled by vc and like you said merlin like with the vc it's like there's never a good day for anyone to stop smoking crack right like that no one's gonna be like wait a minute this is all fraudulent but but there is a certain i think if you live your life in that way there's a certain way that you look at the world and you look at other people as marks and suckers i think there's a certain way that you regard you know other people in your relationship to them and

there's a i don't know what it is this foreboding or anxiety uh this this that that is a very a feature of American life that everyone is very familiar with and the idea that the Sopranos was made you know whatever I don't know what 20 years ago wild wild because it's about that and that it's just everything all the themes of that show have just gotten in my mind bigger and more prominent to the point where we have fucking Donald Trump who's one of the later season characters you know

one of the villains of the season from the Sopranos these fucking oatmeal brained you know aging mobsters who who are too dumb to sort of follow the code, but they achieve some sort of status and then Tony has to contend with them, that's Trump to a T.

MerlinYeah, to paraphrase Annie Leibovitz, was it Annie Leibovitz? No, it was, what's her name? The lady in New York, friend Leibovitz. She said something, she had that line about how Donald Rich is the poor man's idea of a rich man. Yeah. But he's also how the middling successful grifter their idea of a successful grifter, like for sure. Can I mention one thing mechanical about the show that I do think about? Can I pivot to that?

MaxYeah, I had one last thought about that, which is part of Trump's grift is like by having the illusion of wealth, by creating this sort of brand of wealth where he like lives in a gold apartment and has Trump's stakes. What is that? that he's cultivating this brand of dumb luxury and opulence around him at all times.

MerlinHe's basically a licensee. He licenses his name to things. That's what he does.

MaxBut it's this constant—he always has to be seen in a certain way, and it's that that reinforces—what that is doing is sending the message of, oh, if what I was doing was fraud or ineffectual, I wouldn't live in a golden house.

MerlinOh, I see. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. But you can see a priori, I am successful because I am successful.

MaxCorrect. It's this like, well, how do you argue with this?

MerlinI live in a golden house, right? And I have more money than you. I shit on a gold toilet for some reason.

MaxAnd isn't that another huge idea explored with The Sopranos, which is the idea of buying legitimacy and that it's never enough and how it affects everyone in your life, right? the the the uh carmella tony relationship right like to me like i just there's that's gotta be kind of what it's like to be in trump's family and his fucking his fucking awful fail son his

Alexfucking awful fail sons are just like aj oh well um here's here's something that i kept thinking about though like the trump family and everything it's it's all an illusion but what the sopranos and and all of whatever the big mob family is doing like it's it's all fairly transparent though everyone knows what is happening to them like the unions know that yep we are being stolen

from because of this thing. Everything, while it's, it is almost above board in like a somewhat literal sense of like, yeah, we know what's happening.

MerlinBut it's a system in which you must participate.

AlexYeah. And it sucks.

MerlinYou don't get to opt out of this system. You pay off people because that benefits you. There's this whole like circle of life thing going on where we're like, yeah, of course it's a grift. But I need to make sure that my grift keeps running by keeping their grift running. And that's how we keep this whole thing moving.

MaxIt's that once you're on the inside, you always need to be performing a little bit. It's kind of terrifying and it's asphyxiating. It's like you can never let up for one second, right? Like Carmela can never not portray her life in a certain way and act a certain way and put this image forward because otherwise they have to have this illusion of legitimacy.

MerlinAnd the same is true for all the way down, though. It's true for Instagram influencers. Exactly. It's true for everybody.

MaxBecause Instagram influencers are doing an extortion racket. That's what happens. I get people who email me every day, and they go, hey, the game cafe looks so cool. I'd love to come in and do photos of it. And I go, great, come in and take pictures. and they go, what rates do you offer for influencers? Oh my God. Listen, Yelp. Good God. Yelp. Yelp. Yes. Oh my God. Yelp is a protection rocket for sure. Gives people a fucking special business card. If you're an elite Yelp reviewer, they send you business cards

and you're supposed to hand it to the host stand and it says, hello, I'm an elite Yelp reviewer and I'd hate for a bad review to be left on your restaurant, so please give me special service. You've got such a nice place here. And it's understood that the kitchen is supposed to send out treats and you're supposed to get better service But that's not, the place that that occupies in America is not like some dark recess of the American mind. That's like, it's like normal. It's like fully normalized. Like we just all are, that's what I mean of like, it's not like, oh man, the whole system is so fraudulent.

No, it's that fraud became mainstream. Everyone's running some fucking grift.

Merlinbut fraud but also alongside a certain kind of trump-esque branding as long as we're going through the greatest hits think about tiger king whether you're talking about joe exotic or whether you're talking about jeff um where they're like that once once the shit goes down they're like i don't have any fucking money what are you talking about that bitch carol that bitch carol

Speaker Abasket can sue me all she wants and you're like i don't have any money that's my purse i don't know

Merlinyou but no but he's like he's like i don't have any money and like and then just like i don't have any money and i'm like wait a minute wait a minute your entire fucking deal up till now is like how incredibly successful you are and like now you're basically you're borrowing or stealing money from your mom to keep this thing going but like once once you get caught dead to rights you go like

Maxyeah well because he was he was trapped in his so a lot of this feeling of grifting too i think is associated is um i don't fully understand this but there's like so definitely some people tend to get you get stuck in it in a certain way right like like once you take the vc funding you're sort of like you're sort of like uh uh tying off and now you just have to keep you got to shoot up with that vc money for the rest of your company that there's never you can never not take it right like you're you have this like you need to be be growing all the time once you opt into that

once you're doing some sort of like scam like once he bought the tigers he had to feed the old tigers so he had to have new tigers get made and then that added to his costs later he could never get out like he was as trapped as those animals in his fucking zoo well or like the restaurateur

Merlinguy in goodfellas where he's he's getting the guys come in there they're always eating there joe pesci never pays his bill and then paul's like paul is like oh yeah we're gonna help you out like we're gonna help you out but what does that turn into that turns into liquor comes in the back door goes out the front door like that kind of thing and then what do you do you light a match you you know yeah yeah yeah oh god syracuse is gonna kill me yeah yeah yeah let a match burn the joint out you know that kind of thing like finally yeah then then basically now we're talking we're back to the giving tree except now the giving tree is that your restaurant that you love so much is now just basically insurance money for poly well but here's here's the thing though

Alexthis gets into privilege honestly because everybody here is is sort of seen as you know like the There's that veil of we are an upper middle class family and we're trying for this legitimate legitimacy. But the Sopranos didn't opt in. I mean, at some point, somewhere along the line, someone made the decision to go into organized crime. But but this character already, he is constantly trying to fight against that.

And he just happened to be born into a family that didn't you know, they were poor because they had they weren't a part of this. And he keeps turning down help because he's like, I know that once I accept this, I am in it. And it's, you know, it's it is something I don't want because he recognizes that this is a choice and a lifestyle and he's going against the grain. And then there's what is his name? Father Leahy or some shit. I couldn't.

MerlinOh, the priest.

AlexHe's always hanging out with Carmela. And that is a man who has opted in and did not need to. And, you know, he's finally spoilers. He's finally called out, but who is the most manipulative?

MerlinYeah, he's an eel, you know?

AlexYeah, other than, you know, Tony's mother is a whole different thing. Oh my God, I love her so much. Wow.

MerlinThat scene with her and Uncle Junior in the car where Uncle Junior is kind of feeding her, the way that he's given her that side eye is so good. I love that scene. I forgot how much I love Livia.

Speaker AYou're using mesquite. It makes the pork taste peculiar. Okay, I got to get this out. I got to get this out. Yeah, yeah.

MerlinOkay, so there's a thing I remember reading, as it turns out, 15 years ago. Now, I just want to clarify. What I'm about to tell you, I don't 100% buy into this. It's a Stephen Berlin Johnson thing, but I do think he does make an interesting point. It'll be in show notes.

So he was really there at the birth of Turns Out back in the day, of course. One of his books, oh my God, what is it called? It's called Everything Bad is Good for You. The ultimate turns out book title.

AlexOh, I remember this.

MerlinBut he had a piece in the New York Times in 2005 that I've been thinking about since I read it. And this is what really kind of launched his big like, you know, cultural pundit stuff. But he's talking about, in this case, watching TV makes you smarter. You know, okay. there'll be other links and notes where you can go and join my incredulity in saying, well, that's a pretty broad statement. But he did say one thing that I am still thinking about 15 years later. And on the occasion of rewatching The Sopranos, I want to mention this, because I do think about this a lot. He's talking here about, in particular, Sopranos in 24.

This is in 2005. And he says, the explicit violence and the post 9-11 terrorist anxiety are not the only elements of 24 that would have been unthinkable on primetime network television 20 years ago. alongside the notable change in content lies an equally notable change in form. 44 minutes covers one hour. But I love this part. So he says, the episode connects the lives of 21 distinct characters, each with a clearly defined story arc, as the Hollywood jargon has it, a defined personality, a defined personality with motivations and obstacles

and specific relationships with other characters. This is the thing we must, I feel like we really got, yes, there had been Hill Street Blues, Yes, there have been many, many shows. Sopranos is the show that broke open a really big idea, which is that unlike the sitcoms of a previous age or the dramas of a previous age, it was about a family or it was about an office. And there were there was a main character. There's usually a friend. There's a girl. Right. There's there's this main. But it's really about everybody's relationship with the main characters.

And the lower you are, as I say, on the call sheet, the less likely you are to have your own arc unless you're the wacky neighbor. The Sopranos, I return to this, and it's just as I remembered, it's about everybody's relationship with everybody, which is such an ambitious idea. The kind of thing Robert Altman would do in the 70s in some ways. I was like, I'm going to give you the messiness of human life. It's not just how Tony gets along with people and how people get along with Tony. it's going to come down to like Christopher and Polly and how they're doing this week in their relationship.

And I feel like that just that's it's so masterful that they can get through all these different relationships with people. Bring in Melfi's dumb boyfriend and what that means that he's seeing Tony doing this. And the way the restaurant guy greets Tony this way and says, oh, I haven't seen you in so many months. There's not it's not just get my back on this. It's not just the relationships with the main character or the main family. it's everybody's relationship with everybody and it all has consequences that's what i would get

Maxthat to me that's world building like the sopranos was really ambitious in its world building and it would put these minor little things and these little characters or you know things in and they

Merlinwould have a huge payoff like three years later yeah yeah i mean that takes assuredness confidence

Maxan example is um in the run of the sopranos there's sometimes where you see fake movies and tv shows that exist in their universe. And they're so good. I mean, they're so well-conceived.

MerlinYeah. And doesn't, so, no, no, no, no, so spoiler here, I guess. Remind me, because I only did watch the first episode and some of the second, you know. The, what's his name? The guy who's like dying of leukemia? What's his name?

AlexOh, Uncle Chimmy, I think.

MerlinBut you know, there's the one guy. Yeah. But like he's, the hook is, we're introduced to him, he is the current like head of the family, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's dying of leukemia, and that's his hook. But then doesn't he survive it, and that kind of fucks things up?

Speaker AIsn't that what happens? No.

MerlinWhat is it that happens with that guy? I just remember thinking at the time, this is a pretty ambitious way to show disruption in this family. What is that character's name, and what is his deal in season one?

AlexWell, I think his name is Uncle Jeff. I don't remember, but he is the acting. No, it's not Junior. No, not Junior. like it's it's not junior it's it's not um like he he you barely see him uh after the first episode not in a hospital bed so jackie jackie thank you um he when he passes away the reason that gets fucked up is because it's like is tony the next in line or is junior the next in line

MerlinJunior will Junior sand Olivia Junior's definitely feeding Olivia the intel to say like you know I'm the one who can bring the ducks back in some ways he won't even let me conduct my own business well and I think

Alexthe also the hitch in in this is the true boss of the family is in currently serving in time so that's why there's an acting boss and they don't exactly I remember at the time not being confused but obviously i can't convey exactly how the you know like i they literally show that you know typical police board of the pyramid of how everybody stacks up in terms of power like

the crazy wall of the crime family yeah yeah um but but that's sort of the main thing where tony is spoilers is like let's let's just let junior have his day you know he's he's an old guy

MerlinBecause he's got to keep everybody happy enough for now. It's the entire story of what he has to do to keep people loyal.

AlexHe's a middle manager.

MerlinHe is, but also it's the loyalty that he craves, that he feels like his father's generation God. He wants that loyalty, but also he's realizing to hold it together. I guess as ever, you've got to keep everybody happy. You've got to keep everybody not rebelling, not looking for a better deal, not looking for the opportunity to get out and end up fucking up your deal. The stress that guy must feel, the adjective.

MaxI want to go back. I have one thing. We should probably get to the after show. I had one thing that Alex mentioned that I was super interested in. Oh yeah, 90s thing. Some media ages. It comes out and it ages and you go back and you look at it and you were like, damn. A good example for me is like um i uh went back a while back and i re-watched the original iron man the first iron man from 2008 yeah yeah and i was like that's a very good movie oh it's it's great but it looks old like in

a way that i didn't expect because the marvel movies have have developed uh very contemporary visual language and then that one is sort of like doesn't it's not in the same visual language and it just i don't know it just looks old like if you go back and watch it to me it just yeah like

MerlinThe wonderful scenes at the beginning, which is such a wonderful way to start a movie. But him, and it's obviously Iraq era, wouldn't you say? It's not Afghanistan. It's Iraq, right?

MaxYeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, one of those. I don't know that they specified.

MerlinBut him with his weird comic book character beard and drinking in the car and don't put this on your MySpace and all that kind of stuff.

AlexI think I know where Max is going to go with this. but I think Iron Man ages poorly, not just because it's so of a certain time, but the language or the style guide of the MCU hadn't really been written yet. So you go back and watch like, sure Iron Man two and three aren't good, but it's,

MaxI picked a bad example. I picked a bad example because it's, it's a, it's a, it's in a ignore that it's in a, it's in a cinematic universe. I'm just saying like as a film, it just looks old. Like it's not bad. And you look at it and you're like, yeah, that looks old. I remember when I saw it in theaters and I was like, that's the freshest shit I've ever seen. And it doesn't feel fresh anymore. It feels old.

MerlinI made my kid watch a little bit of The Rock last night. We'd watch this documentary about Alcatraz. And there's just something like the woman, Nicolas Cage is so good in The Rock. And his girlfriend or wife in that. I was like, man, she has such great 90s makeup. But she looks so 90s.

MaxI have a perfect example of this. Total Recall. because I was reminded of it because it's in the Paul Verhoeven podcast that you posted. Yep.

MerlinTotal Recall. No, no, no, no. He puts the gun in his leg.

Speaker AI've listened to that podcast three times. It's two hours long and I've listened

Maxthree times. Total Recall. I would say one of my favorite movies, I mean, Paul Verhoeven, one of my favorite directors. This is a knock against the movie, which I think is like a brilliant, brilliant, amazing film. It just looks old. Like, I just rewatched it. I just rewatched it this weekend. Sharon Stone's hair is definitely up a ton. It just looks old. Like, the whole idea of how technology would work is old. Like, it's all just old. It looks like an old movie. It doesn't look like a period piece or anything. It just looks old.

Now, let me... There's a lot of... Most media ages that way. You look back on it and you're like, man, that's old. And if you were around to see it originally come out, then you feel old by extension. But there's something about some media, I don't know what it is, it's just a really good observation, Alex, that when you look at The Sopranos, it doesn't feel old, it feels like it was a period piece, like it was made today, but it was set dressed to feel like the 90s. What is that? Is that the quality of the writing? Is it the, is it, I don't, like, I couldn't tell you.

MerlinI see what you're saying. Well, like, how is it that, for example, you look at something, it's so, it's such like, it's like a spider web. You don't want to break the effect of it. But you look at something like 2001, A Space Odyssey. And for a movie that was made in 1968, it looks shockingly modern in some ways. Yeah, it's dated. Yeah, I guess maybe the outfits that people have in it or something. Or again, look at something like Dr. Strangelove.

Where Dr. Strangelove is very much like an early 60s movie. But it also just doesn't look old in that same way. How is it that a movie from 1968, let's say, of 2001 could look so much better than Space 1999? Was it just budget? Like how is it that some things capture an aesthetic and a feeling that doesn't age even though you could tell it's an older thing?

AlexWell, yeah. I think it's just because The Sopranos is very aware of what is happening and it's showcasing how life is in the 90s. And you're constantly, not constantly, but you're being reminded of what life was like before for Italian-Americans and how people are perceiving people like Tony Soprano at this moment in time. And also Mario Kart has a somewhat significant place.

I don't know. I just kept being like, yeah, look at that. And you see how, I don't know if this is intentional, but you see how psychiatry is perceived this way. And maybe, or I'm sorry, how people thought of Prozac in the late 90s. Like it was this new thing and it's kind of constantly.

MerlinIt was still kind of a punchline.

AlexYeah, exactly. And they're talking about it like, it's a thing. I hear it's it's fine it's it's fine and I just think that part of the show also you know this this was largely made by one person and this is um correct me if I'm wrong but this is one of the first times that like there truly was a showrunner and it was you know there was a writer's room but this is one person going full steam ahead with his vision their their taste it's it's more

Merlinthan writing and directing it's it's the the taste and tone in the book the bible of the show like

Alexthere's there's something there's an imprimatur on this yeah i well and i kind of think there's this there's a similar feel to the godfather that they specifically talk about where uh it's like oh it was made in the 1970s like no that's right but it's it is about the about the 40s yeah and and that has the same feel because it's very aware of its time i i didn't know as a kid that it was made in uh the 70s but it was about the 50s like that you know that just kind of goes

over your head and also it's it is shot very well i'm like is this wait is this 16 by 9 is or is my ipad fucked up like um and i didn't even look into exactly how it was shot or stuff like that But I kept thinking, wow, this is this is like a film. But I think more than how it was mechanically made in terms of filmmaking, it's much more the writing. And they also don't fall into the tropes that a lot of shows do with doing certain things with tech without some sort of explanation.

Like anything that happens with cell phones or beepers, like we know in the lexicon of crime that that's a thing that happens. kind of like in in the wire there are very few the pay phones yeah they sneak in some as you know bobs in in a easy like it it goes down easy kind of kind of like with prozac this very they don't use it as a punchline but it's like yes it is 1999 and we don't know how we feel about this yet but it it doesn't that there's a shot of him um i love this shot i just lingered on this

Merlinfor a while, where you see Tony out there hitting golf balls. And you're like, where is he? Is that like a municipal golf course? What is that? And then the plane flies over his head. And then we cut to the shot of him like taking out the bottle of Prozac. I just, I don't know. There's just something about that. I was like, oh my God. Did you know how cool that would look? How much that would place him in New Jersey? You know what I mean? And it's like without having to go like, oh, look, it's, you know, this is Delhi that everybody knows or whatever.

There's just some some inherent New Jerseyness to to a heavy mobster in a field hitting balls while a plane flies over his head. And it's like you located that so beautifully.

AlexAlso, the towers in the opening credits.

MerlinOh, too soon. That's a gabagool. That's a gabagool. That's a no good boss.

Thank you.

183. Poppin’ Black Pills

Show notes

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