339. Nubbins of Crisp

This is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge, watch the movie Brick. This is do by Friday. Do by Friday! Good afternoon, Merlin Man. Good afternoon. How are you? I am winded but great. Good. Good. Were you were you doing laps or uh like running benches or something? I was running from uh the train station, but uh Why was he chasing you? That would be Um, haha um boo, boo, boo, no, no. I know that what I did uh I know that this is why words matter, and there is a preposition there, but it still makes sense. Oh no, no, no. Believe me, the Washington Post is way worse. I just just just in the time that I've been preparing here at the office, I I have seen so many headlines that drove me crazy that I had to close the phone.

People just it's just it's so weird it's so weird how journalists and editors are so cleft to this really kind of just unnecessary idea of brevity of headlines. Like there's a reason headlines had to be short because they had to fit on paper inside of a yeah you know, a box But you know, you don't you don't ha you could choose to make things a lot clearer. In your case, I think that's fine. And I could also just imagine uh I'm thinking of a uh Hal's moving castle, uh Hal's moving train station chasing you Maybe. Oh, that'd be cool. No, I'm I'm a big you could outrun it? Uh um um no, I don't think uh it would be a worthy chase I I I I would just You're in pretty good shape, aren't you? It wouldn't chase me.

Uh no, I'm saying that like I uh oh and one, no. Uh two, what is shape? Really. Three. I don't think I'm even Well could you could you outrun a fictional running train station from Japan? No way. Not even fictional you can do. No, I no, no, not exactly. I would think about it. I I you know that's self-awareness and I admire that. Yeah. This It's kind of the same way uh people ask, like, if you could have, you know, any superpower, what would it be? I'm like, I don't want a superpower. Do you want me to have a superpower? Is that a superpower? Can I have that? Do you You don't want me to. I don't want me to. What's your favorite scene with the train station chasing somebody? I'll go first. Shh, I hate everyone right now.

Except you, I like you, I like I like I like all all of my fit friends. My frit my frit fit friends. Frit fit frit frit friend. The uh newspaper headline thing is interesting because I there is a sweet spot and r when Twitter was good There was a reason for wasn't it a hundred and f it was a hundred and forty characters for uh because it was the SMS. limit. I think it's 100. I mean I I didn't understand I always thought that was weird and arbitrary. And then I was like, oh yeah, it's SMS. But it was so that it could accommodate 140 characters plus, I think, the longest username they would allow. Yeah, right, right, right. And then 280 something metrics, metrics, and but that seemed to be the sweet spot.

And now it's isn't it any thing no I don't think it's anything. I think if you subscribe to their service you can make longer ones. Oh I have I occasionally we'll see some that are comically long but yeah I think it's still 280 all told but Also, you know, at a point, lots of things changed over time. This is not interesting, except to people who care about Twitter like I have, uh, which is it it at one point it stopped including stuff seemed to stop including things like most URLs. Yes. Like you'd get there were other times where it's like, oh no, I got I got totally creamed on this and in my, you know, in my counter, you know, back in drafts I was all good. And photographs I think count separately.

I'm not sure and it well and it also depended where you were posting from. Because it's not SMS anymore, right? Yeah. Because it would be like which API? And but I I sometimes I could get m away more with more words and links on Twitter or on Twitter Twitteric than the actual Twitter app. And it was sometimes fun to jump around and see what that was. Well it used this of course everybody's going to push up against the edges of that stuff in our own ways. I hope. I mean, like for me, I I know it drove a lot of people crazy. I don't care. I thought carriage returns were very funny. and the ability to put carriage returns. Other people, I'd love to know who today clicks on hashtags. People are like, you have to put in hashtags.

So people, it's like, you know, pound sign breaking. I w I I would like to meet and incarcerate whoever is out there right now clicking on pound sign breaking. Who would do that? That's so weird. I guess it's if it's machine language stuff, if it's like the equivalent of like uh, you know, uh poor man's XML title title. Then that 'cause I mean a machine can learn from that, I guess. But no, we all did that and I like things like that. But you know, I mean honestly, uh No, I never hashtags were always Uh hashtags now are all about the algorithm because these systems aren't smart enough to just have i internal tags or external tags. I mean it seems like they the the the the algorithm is not where Google was in say two thousand four of realizing the keyword stuffing and Um, you know, all the different tricks, the black and gray hat stuff people would do.

I mean, you can just do that now. But anyway, it's it's silly to argue about Twitter, but I have to say I I don't want to bring this up because I don't want to be a thing, but I started playing a video game this weekend. Um, but uh it occurs to me that my version of a video game in some ways was writing tweets. Cause I I knew exactly what I wanted, I knew how I wanted it to be, I knew what the voice was. I know that, spoiler alert, the joke always goes at the end And it sometimes it was so interesting and fun and challenging to get that down to exactly or fewer than 140 characters. And I would try to do it without cheating. I would try to write the way that I write. And if I couldn't write the way that I write, you know what I'm saying?

Like, I wouldn't do like, you know, again, it gets these these journalists. You know, I think I might be on a jag about journalists today. Welcome to the past decade of my life. Isn't it annoying? Um, Oh, because uh uh because I went to college in the time where there were literally class about how to write listicles the best way, and that's why I part of my job J Just at the art school? No, this was at Marquette when I was and I was like, Nope. I guess if you think of it as a vocation, I guess that's understandable if you're gonna be what we have, you know. I'm not trying to be do a big What's your vocation then? Like that's much different now. Well that's not a journalist. If it is now that's I I don't know.

See, welcome welcome to feeling old, I suppose, you know? I that's what I asked. And but uh or I I was talking to a younger person and the They have the same almost like Jon Stewarty thing of like, oh well that influencer there, like they're not a journalist. I'm like, but you only get their news from them. And it's like, yeah, where do you get your news from? Like boring people whose names I don't know um from the AP. And they're like, well, that's where they get their journalists from. And I think it is just more of a uh they were more aware than m my parents were that like, you know, uh Don la like um m Matt uh w Matt Closeddoor touchy touch. What's Oh fuck what was his name? The gross one that the Daily Show uh not the Daily Show Mm Matt Lauer, thank you.

Like Matt Lauer is much more of an influencer than a journalist, which I'm sure people would be a set about, but I I I don't know. You think words mean things? I hope so. Yeah, but it's you know, I mean uh not not to sound contrary, but I mean if there is a thing called journalism school, which is a thing that you go to because theoretically you want to become something related to a journalist. And you could call that a reporter. I can't tell you how many times 'cause I'm contrary. I can't say how many times like I just said, hey, just say I'm a writer or whatever. I always think I do I mean, I know w we all we all get mad at Steve Albini, but I always like the fact that he would say he's not a producer like he's an engineer.

He's he's the guy who does the work of getting the recording. It's and a producer can mean lots of things, as you know, in music. It can mean, you know, it could be that you have a role, it could be, you know, you've always got like the engineer who like records it or but you know, he did all of that stuff and like W I really believe in my heart he really wanted it to be good for the band. That's why he charges what he charges, that little bit that he charges, and he doesn't take points and all that kind of stuff. And He's the Berkeley of of m engineers. Like we need somebody at that edge of the culture doing something that everybody else thinks is a little too much. We need that. Um, but with journalism, I don't know.

It's just, you know, sometimes it does get in my hold and call field world. It does get a little frustrating how how much, you know. People like to cover themselves with glory and call themselves this and that. But like, you know, you're a grown person. Can't you just type out the word W-H-Y? It's not your notebook. Why don't you just type the letter Y? Or, you know, or and it's f because it's fun and it's in group talk and you say Reacts R-E-A-X and you say scoop and scooplet and you Do all of this stuff and you say to TK and you do all that kind of stuff that's like it's the way I've backed into almost every interest I've had, which is learning the paraphernalia and porn first and then eventually learning how to do it.

Like I I bought, you know, I mean my ex said something to me one time a bunch of times that really made me think, which is like, you know, you see 17 magazine. um you know on the rack at Barnes and Noble or Books Million or whatever. And you know by 17 magazine, 13-year-old girls And creeps. Oh yes. Thirteen year old days who are like, please I want to be like you. Make me like you. Right. But I didn't know that seventeen I I think it's important Um my fr remember my friend Dan Catalano telling me about he's like I just came back from the store and I I just saw a magazine called Cat Fancy. I said, you saw a magazine called Cat Fancy? He goes, yeah. And I was like, was it a prof was it like a zine?

And he goes, no, it was a professionally produced magazine called Cat Fancy. And I said, well, you know, w what's what's the magazine about? And he says, well, it's for people who like cats, especially fancy cats. And so they have a magazine called Cat Fancy. And then of course that led to a conversation about, you know. Well, you know, is it mainly is it grooming? Is it food? Is it lifestyle? You know, uh is it who is a good boy? You know, that kind of those kind of questions that those journalists answer. But then I the but the so you know you gotta understand, there didn't used to be that many magazines on the newsstand, even at a really big bookstore that were that weird. And then one day I maybe I heard about I can't even remember when this was, but hearing that there's something called like Millionaire Magazine.

And it was you know what I mean? Like th those magazines well I mean most magazines have like that, have the decency to give you a cover story that it's uh oh you by town and country. or, you know, a plant plantation an Apology or, you know, whatever magazine you put out. But that's an aspirational magazine. People who are millionaires don't buy magazines. called Millionaire. And and and I'm not saying that nobody who's 17 or older has never bought 17th magazine, but that's it's aspirational. Guitar for the practicing musician. Oh you know the best example, dude. And this is no shade, no lemonade, but since 1980 five, there's been all these magazines, um, not all these, there's a handful of magazines, including some wonderful magazines, about Max, right?

You have Mac World, you had Mac User, um, you have Mac Week. They're all these and I I I enjoyed all of them. I read we've had dear friends who worked there. But I think a big part of I know this with bikes. I'm pretty sure about this with computers. The people who buy those magazines are the people who m many of which are people who are new to it. People who've been riding a bike I mean, my wife gets runner gets runners world, I think, and she's a runner, so you know, that kind of is an exception that proves the rule. I don't know. I mean I'm sure there's stuff to get out of it, but I think a lot of the people who buy a magazine about bikes are people who are new to the world of riding a bike.

I think a lot of people who buy a mag magazine about the Macintosh computer are new to the Macintosh computer. And so even though it's not strictly aspirational, it still has this role in helping you inhabit this new thing and to feel like more like you know what's going on. And maybe that's Guitar World, Guitar for the Practicing Musician. Guitar for the Practicing Musician was great because it had all this great tablature. I've figured you know learned so many solos from that magazine. But You know what I'm talking about? Yes. I mean this is th this could be an entire media l literary class of like, why were people who are new to the Mac coming to whatever the la Mac life, whatever the last one was.

because they didn't know how to use the internet. Or th they were a 13-year-old they getting 17 and getting the new That was me in 1993. Yeah, buying books. I wanted to see the pictures of the iPods. They were so pretty. I I think I told you the first two books I bought two books about the internet in nineteen ninety-three that I can recall. When I first, you know, got a a Telnet account. And I was like, wow, this is really overwhelming. Like what is Pine? You know, what is Telnet? What is Gopher? What are all these things? And I got, I know I got a book by O'Reilly, who I was not familiar with at the time. I mean I'd heard of it, but like they weren't the thing. They weren't the O'Reilly that they became, you know, back in nineteen ninety-three.

Of course they were around, you got the Camel book and all that, but And that was a pretty straightforward like here's how the internet works sort of book. And another kind of I wanna say it was called something like the whole internet guide. And it was one of those phone book sized ones where like the last eighth of the the last eight eighth of it was just double spaced every news group that's available on Usenet. You know, shovel shovelware kind of stuff. Sometimes it came with a C D. But you're right. I Mac Addict was one I remember from late in the r run of magazines that always like came with a C D. Well, in the nineties anyway, like came with a CD with like shareware on it, stuff like that.

Mm-hmm. But anyway, I I I so you know, I'm trying to temper that and I'm trying you know, I'm trying lots of things. I wanna find something I read today and I almost I almost made a joke about this, and then I thought to myself, you know, we we you don't need to introduce any more like you know, acrimony and unhappiness into the world. I'm trying to do less of that, you know what I mean? Um, okay, this is an article from yesterday's issue of the New York Times. And I'm and I'm gonna I'm gonna do a thing here. I'm not trying to like tone police you or manage you, but I I am gonna probably herd you a little bit on what I want you to focus on with this. But I would like you to click on the article from the New York Times that says, title, headline for this article, What happens when you get so influential that you're bored by your own aesthetic?

All right, got got my Clydesdale blinders on. Uh go. Oh it's okay. No, but then you see a uh like a very, you know, uh uh a a very a pretty woman in like a tulip dress. Look looking great and then the deck is in search. See deck. You can tell I write because I use words like that. And no, it's not spelled where you think. In search of a refresh. Hmm. That is not a noun. In search of the paper of record, the the old gray mare, they call it, in search of a refresh. Oh, it's a joke. In search of a refresh. Athena Calderon, I believe, the queen of muted Brooklyn interiors, is moving to Manhattan, the deck continues. She almost went bro This is not funny. She almost went broke renovating the townhouse that cemented her place in the interiors world.

Okay? So I saw this. I don't know why I clicked on this. But this came up and I was like, oh my God. And of course my first thought and again I'm not I'm I'm trying to not be this guy. But just don't answer the phone. Never answer the phone. That the the this reporter is not here to make you look good They're gonna do everything that make they're gonna take everything that makes you a little bit absurd and make it so much more ridiculous. Ridiculous. And so Alex, I don't know if this will become the show art, but it's very important to me that you see this photo. You can take off your blinders in any second now, but I just want you to Okay, so is there anything you want to say at this point before I send this to you?

This next thing. Did did it grab you though? Isn't that sort of like, oh no. I mean my first thought is, ooh, I kind of hate this woman. And then I went, ooh, do I hate this woman or do I like I I kind of hate the the woman that they're presenting here and I actually feel kind of weirdly sorry for her She she looks like a she looks like an idiot in this. Uh this this is something that I am constantly s Surprise that people still do. Right. But I mean it's gonna get I mean if you want exposure and you wanna be covert, if you've got like just watch this wonderful movie last night about character actors, interviews with character actors called That Guy Who Was in That Thing And and it's like you're always looking your h oh, I highly recommend it to anybody um who knows, like you'll know like sixteen people in this movie, men, sixteen character actors.

And like you're gonna know well over half of them. Some of them you're gonna know very well and be like, well, Paul Gilfoy's a character actor, you know, Peter Davidson, not Peter Davidson, but um Uh, the guy from X-Men. Like some of these at Xander, uh like it isn't like anyway. Uh these are character actors? I think of these as like actor actors, but And like the hustle that they have to go through to do that job. So if you're, you know, it's a car it's a hustle, it's a side grind, right? You gotta get out there. You gotta get your name out, right? Uh this is where Queer pri my my queer privilege just rears its head because whenever no really like something you learn pretty quickly like I I was talking about student newspapers on Mastodon the other day.

Like literally as a student s a student uh g If you are gay, never let a m the mainstream press uh profile you. Never ever ever agree to a profile. Don't even agree to be interviewed unless you have a PR person. I don't even need to know why. I can I can in my head I can already think of at least two or three reasons why that's a bad idea. Yeah, there's a million reasons. Yeah, even hey, pe not queer people, anyone. Just don't, don't. I think I think an elephant in the room might be there's there's There's so many ways this can go wrong that are out of your control. Yeah. And there's so many ways that's you even if you are a P PR person, there's a lot of ways that it will probably go wrong that because you don't even know that they have created new ways to make it To make it bad.

They don't like there you you don't see I I don't know every new brand of bullet that comes out that can kill you, but I'm sure there's a lot happening and you don't need to know what they are to let them really hurt you. You shouldn't really participate in the in the discourse though unless you know, you know, exactly what all the terms are. I know. I'm sorry. All right. So anyway, and no, I have not I have not read the whole article. I don't want to read the whole article. And and I'm about to s I've got something in the chamber here that I'm about to send you. It's not a big deal. But for better or for worse, in my second and third years uh at at college, I had adjacency to the work of the post structuralists and semiotics and especially a wonderful class with um the French Lip Professor.

Um and who was a wonderful guy and that exposed me to stuff like Roland Barth and stuff like especially the book Sz, which I'm not saying that's perfect, but SZ is super interesting to pick up today for a million reasons. Um Roland Barth, I mean, I guess famously, he's like, oh, he's a French, like a post-structuralist who and some he's a semiotician who wrote about pro wrestling. What a weirdo. And kind of got lumped in with all that Derrida. deconstructionist, postmodernism stuff, whatever, blah blah. But he he wants to make a study of science and like and so he takes this book by um Uh who's the guy who ate a lot. I think it might be Dumas, Alexander Dumas, Pear or Field, I don't remember which.

But he wrote a he wrote a short story about seracine that, like in the text, there's a lot of kind of queerness and ambiguity. And Roland Barth like line by line goes through that and takes apart all you know what I mean? And so when we talk about things like deconstruction or we talk about things like a phrase we used to use was a close reading, and I know these are all douchey terms. But unfortunately my proximity to that then led to a thesis where I r where the the center of my senior thesis was writing about an a solo flex infomercial because I felt like it was so, as the Germans would say, prognons. With with so there's so much hegemony and meaning in like the way it's staged and this neon art.

And so I got broken for life. By that shit in college. And I don't really understand it. I don't know how many people really understand it. But then I scrolled down and I got to this photo, Alex, that I'm about to send you. And I'm very tempted to just spend like three hours on this photo. So we see this, so let's just real quick now, just let's just review that this is what happens when you get so influential that you're bored by your own aesthetic. Okay. And this this the the woman who's featured in this article, um she she made her made her bones in this all-white world, this Greek revival. Oh god, this place is so tacky. This furniture is way too big for this room. But anyway, so her whole thing is like she does this low-key like but like white interiors.

And then you scroll down a little bit and you get to this photograph. And the caption for this photograph says, the influencer who once extolled the virtues of white on white on white. My God, kill me. is moving into a home with lots of dark wood. Now, did you get the photo, Alex? Okay, I w when you sent this photo, I didn't think that the caption could even live up to how this is a photo. About how this photo came about. I mean the short version is it is it's a beautiful woo room. Um probably like oak, like you know, like it's pretty pretty dark stained wood, has a beautiful sort of I don't know, would you call it a parquet floor? It looks kinda like where the Celtics play. And there's light coming in through a side window into this very dark wood room.

It's a fairly high contrast photo. And this woman, we'll get to the woman in a minute. She's sitting on the floor in front of one of the big wooden doors. And she's she's wearing she's got pants and a shirt and of course she has no shoes on and uh and her her top's coming down just a little bit. But my favorite part of this is this And yet it's not attractive. How? How did someone This lady not hot. There's a triangle of light. What in the geometry of this photo, what comes across to us as a it was a rectangle when it started. Title. Uh a triangle of light that falls on her. But you know how like a window has the thing in the middle that when you lift it up, the jam? There's she's just just her face just just slightly in shadow.

It's very, very, very noir kind of, you know. This could be it's like Dr. Kaligari meets the third band and not in a good way. But and I'm just sitting here going like who who asked for this to be this way Like, oh yeah, and also take off your shoes. What? Oh, oh sit over here. There's oh that triangle of life's gonna be perfect. I want one fifth of your face to be in shot. I mean, you've been to these kinds of things. These photos don't happen by accident. They probably took 60 photos of this one shot to pick this one. And it just made me laugh so fucking hard. The influencer. who once extolled the virtues of white on white on white is moving into a home with lots of dark wood. And boy, whoever wrote this did this lady dirt.

Woof. Maybe she loves it. Who knows? She might have it framed already with dark woods. This definitely has to be show art and uh yeah it will I didn't uh hey everybody. Thanks for saying that you Maybe we'll give what in the art in the art community they call a detail. We'll do a detail. We'll zoom in a little bit. Yeah. You you uh peop people seem to like Uh nonsense chapters I be I do too, so I'm just gonna keep doing that as long as it doesn't take extra time. But uh this uh picture i if you're not seeing it like hey millennials this is the kind of place where we would go to like uh with our friends uh the sort of like empty buildings we would find to try to look fancy and then literally like Okay, open the door, like sit in this beam, let's try to make a rainbow.

And then Instagram came out and we made that all ten times worse. But what's really bothering me right now is I'm like, is the open window on the left, intentional, and I don't it it annoys me either way, honestly. See it I don't think it's op uh op open as in unshaded. I don't think I don't think the window is open as in the air's coming in. It's well it's or like this. No no no. It's literally like my whole monitor right now. But the To uh top left, like it looks like um i i is that a banister or is it the mantelpiece. Okay. See that's why I was trying to figure it out. He's very good at this stuff. It makes the light that much more fake. Cause that's just not how the light works. Well, I mean it's certainly very pretty and like I I'm not again I'm not trying to be your basic piece of shit on Twitter.

I'm not going, duh, these people suck. What I am saying is, uh, nobody came out of this looking good. New York Times. Okay. Doesn't look great. This woman in her dark woods, not coming off great in my estimation. I guess somebody looks at the photos of her house. I just think everyone has way too much furniture in their house. That's one of the things that made me envious and Bo is afraid is how empty his apartment was. I would like a radiator that big and almost no furniture. I agree, Merlin. Thank you. Yes, everyone, everyone has Everyone, all of you, everyone has too much furniture in your house. This is too much furniture. Too much furniture. On that episode on that wonderful episode I recommended, that wonderful episode of Queer Eye, where where they helped the fella, you know, in the wheelchair with his new accessible apartment.

Way too much furniture. Bobby should know about it. You can't have that much furniture in the house. That's Ugh too so c and everything's so balloon th You know, I think it's those fucking like couches that are actually recliners, the white trash by, God bless them. I mean, I think that has become like an anaesthetic. You know, anyway, and and like so anyway, like it's a job, everybody does it, it's fine, whatever. I'm being I'm being a sour puss about it. But the whole sort of intention Oh, sorry It's because I'm the trash. I'm I'm like, wait, what kind of like uh what kind of tr trash that uh I'm thinking you're talking about You think I called you wide trash? I'm gonna write that. No, no, no, white white trash.

I be because I am in indeed dr uh trash, but I know what you're talking about now. There's types of c couches that like completely that that they're l they recline like uh Barker Lounger or like lazy boys. Based on documentaries I've seen, there's a lot of people who like to be interviewed sitting in them. And it's got it's got like it's almost like you're sitting in like the Saddest first class. flight ever because there's like a little s little like table in between that you share with your mate. You'll probably both die in those chairs. The dachshunds will hop up into your lap and just start eating your tits. Like it's gonna be fucked up. You're gonna die in that chair. But if that's but if that is like your only piece of furniture, boom yes.

People are people. Oh you can have one. But everything else has to go. You can have one. Another piece of wisdom I learned from from my ex, makeup and jewelry. Take out all you want. And then put away half. Yes. Yes, yes. Use half half of the makeup you were thinking of wearing, half of the jewelry. If your jewelry makes a noise, you can have one piece, maybe. Um anyways, I I don't know. And I just saw this and I was like, oh, this is uh you know, and this is just a midst. I guess I've just been looking for more and more stuff to read lately. I've kind of been burning through a lot of stuff and I'm not really in the mood for like a new book. So I've been looking for like longer fun pieces to read and I just and I I torture myself by looking at Google Reader and Net Newswire and stuff and it all so stuff just and this is just my brain right now.

Wait, Google Reader I I'm not trying to be like pedantic like do you become I just wanted to make sure that something huge didn't happen. No, and so but like and I just keep running up against these same these these same things that drive me crazy over and over. And it's it's almost like you ever you you're not like a big snack boy. You know like you know what Gardetto's mix is. I do. I do. You know, I love Gardetto's mix. I think we might have talked about it on here before. This is not a perfect example. But like with Gardetto's mix, my absolute favorite part of the Gardetto's mix is the little rye crisps, the little like bagel boys. And I like it all. Uh there's nothing in there I dislike.

But at a certain point, I'm sitting there in the dark watching TV and I've gone through the Gardettos mix. I'm I'm fixing to go to bed and I know I've eaten all of the of the little crisps. I wh who am I fooling? And so I start root sticking my hand in the bag and like rooting around on fucking pretzels, more breadsticks. God damn it, where's the I just I should just I should just go to Amazon and get an entire case of just the crisps. And and then at a certain point I'm going, I wonder if there's any more. And I go to the kitchen, I turn on a light and I like pour it into a paper plate to see if there's any more little nubbins of crisp in there. Nubbins of Crisp. Title. And um it's not, but I still keep looking.

And then and then even though it's all out of the thing that I'm there for, Alex, get ready for the point. I just eat whatever's there that I'm not that into. And then I get mad. That's me in that's me in the news. Mm-hmm. I I pour the rest of the bag in my mouth just in case there's a crumb of it left. Because why that is an amazingly high quality snack for something that you can occasionally like even get out of a machine. That's a very good good good snack. You sort of uh b I uh you didn't bury the le you did so you you glossed over something, which is you can get those rye Gardetto chips just on their uh own and there's currently one in in my cabinet because Maddie was like You know what's going to happen.

Just take this. And he did have to have to go to like some cold. Sometimes they're not available like on Instacart. Like I don't see that. Yeah, but it's but that's the thing is that I'm not sure what I'm saying. as good. No, never, never. So it bec and that's why the sort of like me uh reading that Blackberry book and realizing, oh, the iPhone isn't w uh what like destroyed social media. We were going to be this way. Uh no matter what. What does that have to do with snacks? Because you are looking for that morsel that gives you just a little bit more dopamine than the other s stuff and you j you're you end up eating it anyway because it's it's there so I'm not sure. I am fine with dragging the concept of what the New York Times has become.

I j just uh use it to I w I wouldn't put my silly putty on the New York Times at this point. No. Okay. Huh. Oh, because of the the the trans health stuff. Well and um it's dirty and I don't want the silly putty there. But yeah, I mean not it not even just just like all comics. Once you use it as a ball, you're done. Because it's gonna pick up a lot of dirt. A lot of dirt. Yeah, they don't have comics. So it's like, what's the fun of putting your silly putty? Yeah, where's my bonnie? There's none. Where's my bonnie? Mm-hmm. See now I'm trying to find now I can't even find it. I'm usually I'm usually uh if I actually stopped and looked, I would uh be able to find my my my my my favorite dumb, easy to avoid error, I think, apart from all the obvious things of like is it spelled correctly?

D is there I mean, I think the one that we we talk about this fairly often is that in order to achieve that stupid fucking headline style that makes you sound like you're a journalist. And again, these generally now these are written by editors or perhaps even like SEO-inflected experts, but whatever. I was gonna say From what I know, editors wish they couldn't. I just want to clarify that writers don't at most outlets with professional writers, you do not pick the headline. You have input on it, but somebody else absolutely picks the headline, even if it's just antithetical to what you wrote, because and I'm not getting into the whole clickbait thing, but If unless you really want to. But the the main point I the the But that's what it is.

But that's not the part of the distinction I care about, Alex. If you wrote a perfect a perfectly cromulent like Paris Review style headline, your editor would still say, No, that's not your job, Monkey. I picked that out, not you. Whether it's clickbait or not is not the issue. It's that somebody else decides. what this thing is called. Okay, so that's somebody with a fucking job who's like an editor. And like, I'll give you an example from like and tear from literally tear from the literal tearing from the literal headlines. Um the the Trump documents case. As they refer to it. How about clarity and disambiguation? How about clarity and disambiguation are like what good writing Is stable stakes.

Is that you should not be confused. I learned this in poetry class, to my peril, which is like don't say thing that don't say things that could mean two different things unless you really know what you're doing. It's a version of literary version of a hat on a hat. But in a headline, for example, if the third word, let's see, something something Trump doc or like how about this? Trump documents. The problem is documents is at least two different parts of speech. And like the problem is I see so many headlines that will have maybe three words in it that could be uh either a noun, or in some cases, an adjective, or in some cases a verb. And it makes it so hard to read To understand, to to grok.

The whole point of a headline, guys, is you should be able to read this and understand what's in here at a glance. If you need to read the headline twice, that's probably not a good headline. So when they say Trump documents case, like your for your my brain goes, oh, like even though I know what that means, I read that as something, a case that Trump has documented. And that sounds silly, but if you don't start looking for this or your world will become as bleak as mine. But there's so many easy there's so many easy ways to avoid that that kind of ambiguity or silliness. I mean let's go with the big example. There there's a woman wrote a book about this, right? Eats shoots and leaves. Hmm. Stupid pandas.

Like if you don't put the comma in the right place, it sounds like the panda shock. The panda killed someone. It eats, it shoots, and it leaves. Or the famous one about Nelson Mandela and Dildos, that famous one with about, you know and I love me uh I love me uh an Oxford comma comma. I think it's I think you you gotta do 'em, but eh, it's just funny to me. It's just funny to me like that like and that sits right alongside all of the whole like oh cover myself with glory. I'm a journalist. I'm like a soldier for truth. And it's like, no, you're not. You're making fun of a woman whose house is made of wood. Like that's and I know it's style or whatever, but but everything's like commentary. So let's see, let's see if there's anything good on SF Gate.

But I am going to uh It's not that it's clickbait literally, but uh you don't the th those are I was just trying to say that's not the point I wanted that's the point you wanted to make, but that was not the point I wanted to make. You don't think that that's It doesn't matter if you written that way intentionally. Is it the TV show Leave it the Beaver? That's what I want to talk about. It's like no, all I wanted to say was that writers don't pick headlines. Now now you make your point of the thing. Uh like you you're getting set uh uh upset about these poorly written titles that aren't they're poorly written for you. So I'm upset wrong. It it got no no no because but it got like you said, you need to read it twice.

And then it l like it it it worked. Pre s social media, that's how a lot of headlines are written and so you really believe that. Do you believe so if you you you have made such a point of making this what we're gonna talk about that now No, no, no, not now you're in trouble because I'm gonna take what you just said seriously. Yes. So if I understand what you're saying, you believe that the way headlines are written are a deliberate attempt to get people to click or to uh uh well what is your point? Is is the point that to to to you because it sounds like you just said they deliberately make it so you have to read it twice. Because I don't think they're that good. Deliberately get your attention.

And I'm not uh why I'm saying not just clickbait. Because uh What you implied was that somebody deliberate somebody with probably a twirly mustache Maybe a Dickens character, you know, um uh Cockney Ink Black, uh fingersmith headline is out there going, hee hee hee hee, this will be difficult to understand and it won't tell you what's in the story. Is is that what you so like that? Uh huh But at at some places for some outlets that want a certain type of audience. SFK definitely does that for click. Bait. Okay. It hilariously because I mean their whole front page is always stuff like how buck this. I yeah, we've done this a million times, right? This hidden creek. is where San Francisco started.

B Alex, this hidden creek is where San Francisco started. I love this hidden creek. Um here's one under in their in their coverage of Central Coast. The tiny Santa Barbara Mini Mart sought out by celebrities. Um that's the headline. There's there's no, I mean sought out. I mean that's kind of they're not really that's not really doing any work for that right there. Um SF Celeb Chef's Dinner will be hardest table to get during Pride. Now, some of these headlines worked out great. Whoever, whoever's writing, whoever's there who's doing coverage of, let me see what they call it. Let's see if sports. You got politics. Oh, this is a um this person covers shopping. So whoever writes for shopping deals!

They say you can get a portable Coleman hot tub for 35% off right now. Now that's very easy to understand. And forgive me, law law students, uh actionable. Oh, the photo's great too. I'm gonna send you this. All I'm trying to say is I don't think I mean I do believe that there is something to understanding the psychology of what makes people want to read things. I'm just saying it does a little bit put a lie to the whole idea of like we're the fancy writer people. you know, who are always, oh how dare you s think this they're almost like the fucking Supreme Court at this point. Was it like how dare you? How dare you anything? Because we're out there doing this hard work and and it is hard work.

They act like cops. That's they're they're internet. But like that's what you chose. Yeah. Like, uh reporter. Yeah. Journalists' lives matter. They do. Ha ha! Oh man God, what's their flag look like? Yeah. It's got a scoop on it. Maggie Haberman angrily retweeting something with two equal signs and a greater than. I still don't know what that means. Is that supposed to be an arrow? Do the number of equal signs mean that it's like a a bigger arrow that's more important? I owe uh You can't just retweet it. You can't just like retweet it. You have to quote tweet it and then add equal signs in a greater than I I I think that just Journalism. Mm yeah, I Yeah. I can find some more. Do you do you think you might be interested in a hot tub, thirty-five percent off?

That's a deal. Is that deal an ad advertisement? Because that's a very Successful act. Barry a board member among missing on Titanic submersible. Oh god, is it still happening? I don't oh no. Um, let's see. The Warriors are leaking a ton of talent. That's actually not too bad. That's that's pretty clear. Oh, here's another one. Oh god, this shopping person's on fire today. City premiere card review. This is under shopping, Alex. City premiere card review, big rewards for everyday spending. Well, there you go. They gave you the nut of it all in that one. It's a deals. Um, so yeah. Okay, how do you like to title uh I'm I'm I'm not doing the b the the bit where I'm pushing back on this just to be the uh dick Alex.

No, no, no, no, no. No, actually Alex, I love talking I love talking about stuff like this. No, I know, but but uh one thing I've really j genuinely with you always wondered is how you when you uh used to write uh po posts, like whatever h you would write And how you would as into that question because I was pretty good at clickbait. Well no, that's but that's what I'm wondering. Not even so much how or uh or like um how you wrote them, but uh Like there are some pieces that you just would leave f I I don't even think you put a title on. I mean almost always, but I mean like I Uh you have a style guide, you just shared your style guide for tweeting, which is very very good. Uh if it were I mean like I I don't ha I don't think there's any one way.

I mean it would be the the worst kind of question to have posed to you by a journalist would be the kind of open-ended question that can mean a million different things. And as a As a retired liberal arts major, my answer to everything is it depends. But if I wanted to do what I you know, I I think about it's Hmm. I'm not gonna sound defensive. And this is why I'm good at documentaries, bitch. I watch someone wander and squirm and then they end up talking about what they want. Do and it ends up being the best. But then you also have to decide you have to decide where to cut, you have to decide how much silence to leave in. That that's the art of it, right? It's great. But like, I mean I I really admire I'm real, real basic.

I'm one of those really basic people who I really like strunk and white. And I think people who are really down on strunk and white, um, if you can afford To learn strunken white and then set it aside, good for you. It's just that most people really could use strunken white. And I see it every single day. There's so much stuff for every single day I see it, you know, omit needless words. I'll just I'll just see something and my my my brain just pops like this verb doesn't agree. And you could have you could have spent an hour or half you could have spent 10 minutes trying to get the verb to agree, or you could have done what any writing teacher would tell you, which is just rewrite it to say what you really want and be clear, right?

And so I really admire I admire I learned a lot from Struck and White. I learned more than I could say in a million years from William Zinzer's book. on writing well. Uh a a number of things that George Orwell has written have had a huge impact on me. Like the the the uh an idea that must have sounded a little crazy at certain points through through the since the forties, but the idea that a certain kind of meaningless buzzword, uh euphemistic speech is a form of fascism. That we obscure facts when we don't call something what it is. And and like I'm not gonna bring this up a ton 'cause who fucking cares. But that's why when people Alex, when you say content, not you, when one says content creator or creating content or calling what somebody makes content, I'm not I'm not doing that because I want you to think like I'm not trying to be cool.

I'm saying you have no idea how much you're harming yourself when you do that. You might as well call yourself like an like executive assistant shit shoveler. Like what the fuck what are the and so that kind of that kind of like or you know Hemingway I think gets overname checked. But th there are people who just have such an economy uh at being able to get at what it is we're trying to do here. And with a you can do that with your writing, you can do it with your essay, with your reporting, with your tweet. You can do it with any of that. But with a headline, this is straight off the dome and I'm not an editor and I didn't go to J School. But I learned recently that you were the editor in chief of your of your paper in high school.

Oh, I was indeed. I was indeed. Were you a good were you a good copy editor too? Yeah. told so by both management and employees. I don't know my writers. It's such a cute expression. You look so cute. Oh yes. But like I my first actual job, it became a the the part of the my big boy job with Dave, the marketing guy, in ninety starting in ninety one. The part of that that I play up a lot because it's the more in some ways the more important part historically is like that was my first job where I was regularly where my job involved regularly making Doing layout, you know, desktop publishing, and mainly doing, you know, graphics in that case for court cases. But the reason I was hired, I was in I was an editor.

So what that meant was I summarized depositions. So like I would read a deposition. Like a lawyer interviews somebody in court and it gets written down. I had to summarize that and highlight the key points. for the toxicologists to be able to review. And if we're doing um, oh God, I can't even remember what they're called anymore, material safety data sheets. Um, if we were like writing material safety data sheets or writing risk assessment things, my job, me and these two other guys who were all like Just a real grind about usage. Like that was we were hired to be a real grind about usage and to like have a style guide and do this consistently. You know what I mean? And so that like there's there's you don't want there to be a voice that you could identify as a specific person in the writing, but you do want a voice of somebody who you would trust.

You're not going to see anything in there that's going to, you're not going to see duplicated words. So one reason I get so hot The same reason, like when I go out to eat and somebody puts their thumb in the glass to set it down, or somebody disappeared recently in the wisdom document, never scoop anything out of an ice chest. or ice cooler using anything made of glass, that you'd be instantly fired at every job I've ever had as a busboy, a waiter or whatever. Because that b the every time you do that, like you're running the chance the glass is gonna break in the ice machine and now there's no ice at the restaurant for the rest of the night. You'll never forget that. John Patton's father said always take the keys out of the trunk before you close it.

It'll scratch the paint and you can lose the keys. Like there's these things that are just just in my brain. And what I learned and what I picked up at that job was the whole reason that I'm here, it's not to make people feel bad or to feel lesser about the way that they write. It's to Make it so that they can give me something they consider finished. I hopefully improve it anywhere that I wasn't clear about something, I can talk to them and we can work on it together. But I was really low man on the totem pole. But In the same way that I hate seeing an ice glass go into a you know I hate seeing a glass go into an ice cooler. Like it drives me crazy to see professional writing that has errors in it.

Like obvious errors that Microsoft Word can catch. That that drives me crazy. So off the dome. If I were gonna try and like I said this the other day, oh my god, we had such a crazy Father's Day dinner. It was so fucking crazy. And I was like, I would never in a million years open a restaurant, it's the nuttiest thing in the world. But if I did, XXX. And I had a joke about it. But like if I were gonna write headlines, here's the things. I think that I think a headline, let's just go with, you know, a typical sort of news story. A section of the paper, what we used to call a newspaper. I think the headline should accurately reflect a thing that is new or changed in the world, number one, um, that we can prove um and that will basically show you how something how how we can prove that something has happened that has changed.

Right? And so sometimes you can't do that. Sometimes you say, um Lack of progress in submersible rescue um raises anxiety. Or whatever, right? You you you say your story is there's really no story. Like that's n that's normal. Like in normal times, you just wouldn't write about it that day. Instead you just have to ha keep somebody standing there in a slicker going the hurricane, still not here. But I think a headline should uh an ethical and useful and intelligent, responsible headline should accurately tell you w what this is about. It should tell you, you know, and I g the W's and the H are all like in the the lead graph usually. But like you your headline should say like what happened. But it should say like if I read an article about this yesterday, tell me what's new that you can prove.

Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. So like food and wine names top pre-food and wine names top pizzerias in US, semicolon, Bay Area gets five on list. Sure, that's fun. You're you you're having fun with it. That's just it's a feature. It's a feature. But you know, it I I think it still should be grounded But then then you can take it way too far, you get way too cute, and another there's one version of clickbait which is I'm just not gonna tell you what this is, but I'm gonna arouse enough of an emotional response. uh you know in some part of your brainstem or for your forebrain even to like get you to click on this because blah, right? Think about Uh one of my favorite exercises I do is twice a week I look at Twitter trending topics and I don't click on anything because it's an exercise in control for me.

Because I know I don't want to know any of that. And yet I don't know how much I didn't want to know it until I clicked on it. Right? That's that's a very um whole the dying and killing thing in your mouth type of Uh the uh from Faultin your Fault in Our Stars, um, Fault and Stars. Okay. Fault in our Stars. It's a a very popular book. But uh the he also he also had a book named up to a phrase that I like and it really has screwed up Google for me to find. Uh the Frays. Oh then name me one on another one of his books, another green book. Oh looking for a Oh, um Uh it's a really good phrase. Um fuck, fuck, no, I know, because I've said it. Uh, an absolutely remarkable thing. No. Is it hacker jump?

No. That's that's Hank's book. John's um Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, An Abundance of Catherine's God I'm a fucking nerd. Uh Turtles All the Way Down. That's I was trying to find the exact reference. Is it I made a joke about this on Twitter last week. Is it Carl Sagan? Probably not. Is it um is it um Richard Feynman? Probably not. I uh I kept seeing it attributed to Bertrand Russell, so that's what I went with with. But good luck trying to find that when these green boys are out there. Um and so it's a lot like so you were saying that it's allowing me having Hank Green in my mouth? No, I but why are you um holding your Well you said that the reason is uh uh uh for self-control, but I uh one might argue hold up too many um fingers to flames and I You love pushing your boundaries.

You're always saying it. I No, I'm on three different occasions last week you talked about being pushed out of your comfort zone. And I think your comfort zone is really where you need to dig in much more deeply. I think it'd be good for everybody. If I'm being honest. I think finding a comfort zone is step one for me. Hmm. It's comfort zones all the way down, huh? Um and so I don't know, there's no there is not one one answer to all of those things. I mean, and again, it's not my job, but like it's it's just it's there is something I won't say hypocritical, but something ironic about uh all of these different narratives, all of which are true or partly true, about the world of publishing, about journalism, about media, and about the act of writing and the act of reading.

There are a lot of narratives out there that are all almost all at least partly true, and none of which are a thousand percent false. Because you can't be a thousand percent false unless you're you know Jordan Peterson. But they have a metric system up there. Mm-hmm. Actually, uh I still prefer to use pounds at cups. I still sound like a Muppet. Uh but I think I think that's and and again, like I I know that doesn't sound really useful and I'm not teaching a class, but like the for me the headline And I you know this does come up though. Okay, I'll give you can I give you as long as we're talking about me. Is it okay we're talking about me? I think a lot about me. No, that's why I brought it up.

Yes, please, please. So like sometimes I just wanna like I'm on Twitter at night. I'm usually not on Twitter during the day. And because I don't want to be. And then at night, that's when I'm basically just talking to myself in public. And but I do sometimes I'm like, oh man, this is really good. Barry is really good. Uh uh, Bose Afraid is very good. Like I'm I'm I'll be like excited about something. And then I had a moment last night where I wanted to share the fact that I was enjoying this movie called That Guy Who Was in That Thing. And I thought I would do the thing I do 75% of the time, which is go. Oh man, this is good. And then link to a trailer. Which is annoying and people hate it. And people like Dan Benjamin, like it it it makes him very sad when you do that.

And then I thought, well, what am I really doing here? Am I just celebrating the fact that I found this thing that's I watched this thing that's actually not that easy to find? And so instead of saying, This is good, or, oh my God, you guys Or fam, we need to talk about character actors, I wrote something short, and I said, that guy who was in that thing is marvelous. New paragraph. Smart and hilarious interviews with over a dozen character actors. You've seen in everything. New paragraph. Delightful and I'm learning so much. Not the greatest thing I've ever written, but I'm glad I took a little minute. to do that. I'm glad it took a little minute and I think more people probably would check it out as a result of that rather than me going OMG.

And that's a role that writing can have is to is to actually enhance the the thing that you're pointing at. It like the moon is great, but my finger's not so bad either. Over? Not title, but d ding. D-ing. I like that. You can get a portable Coleman hot tub for 35% off right now. That's a that's a pretty good deal. And there's four people. Did you see there's four people in the hot tub? Yeah, I you have to empty it for the portable though. Is it on it's not I don't think it's on wheels. Can you tell if it's on wheels? I don't think it's on wheels. I just look at pictures like this on it's not Howl's moving hot tub. It would have long legs. Wouldn't that be cute? Why would you say that, Alex? Because this is an odd picture.

This is It's California. People do all kinds of stuff here. It's a lot to keep up with. I know. Um I'm gonna send you one more and then we should do the do the challenge. This one, I I I kept getting this ad on SF Gate, and I don't know why I look at it. Bad on me. I kept getting this ad, and again, this is the person who I don't know the name of the author, but it's whoever covers shopping. And um this is an ad that I kept getting and I I I kind of couldn't stop looking at it over and over. So it's a woman at a desk in it looks like maybe the Brooklyn woman designed this white apartment. She's she's and she's a woman kind of middle-aged, you know, uh strawberry blonde woman with her eyes closed and her face an inch from a fan that's not turned on.

Like an oscillating fan. You know like a fan you had, like your your grandma's fan. You know, you got the little cage around it and it spins around and it's multidirectional, right? You understand what a fan looks like, all right? Do do we know what a fan looks like, Alex? Mm-hmm. Does it look like a fan to you? It's even got the dingus on the back to let it know whether or not to oscillate, correct? Looks like a fan. She's got a plan. Yeah. She's got a telephone. She's got a a a cup, but I'm almost certain is empty. And she's uh strawberry blonde has closed her eyes in this very uh, as you would say, zen way, and she has her n her face, her n her nose is about an inch away from the fan, and the fan is not turned on.

Okay. That's just that's just important to me that y'all know that. Yes. And and of course the books are also on the shelf um d uh what's the opposite of the spine? Uh not showing the s Spines of the book. I don't know. Doing the thing where you Yeah, the the the pit the the tree parts. So so and again, I I understand whoever covers shopping for the SFK, uh their their whoever's on the shopping beat. You know, um Henry Deals or whatever his name is. Uh probably didn't get to pick the headline or the photo. They just do the reporting. But the reporting they did in the in the section is says five best-selling portable air conditioners to keep your home cool. And now one thing that interests me about this is it says five best selling portable air conditioners to keep your home cool.

And then the photograph is of a woman with her eyes closed and her face in front of a fan that's not turned on. So maybe you could turn the fan on. You could you could get an air conditioner. Maybe dish does she think that's an air conditioner? Is it my concern? She could pick up that phone, make some calls. I'm just imagining right now there's an intern who organizes the clip art for SFK, like Hello m Mr. SF Gate. So like go go go go go up to go up to anybody on the street and say, should Merlin care this much about this question? Should anyone should anyone Hang on See, Mer should Merlin care this much about this graphic? And everybody anybody with any fucking sense would go, no. Merlin, why do you fucking care about this graphic?

Go to anybody who has a job at that organization and say, should I care about this? And I'll bet you they'll say yes. The story is that we should care about this. This thing that's being that is obviously SpawnCon is being present. And I'm I'm obviously seriously guys, I'm not deranged. I understand what this is. I use uh stop the madness ten times a day to block stuff like this, to like knock out just this one CSS class that will get rid of this kind of ad. You know what I mean? It's just that the again that's the thing that's sometimes I turn the madness on because I m sometimes miss photos like this and the swinging couples in a bull of the water. I mean like well then let's let's do the part that's not funny.

It's obviously stock stock card. It's obviously an ad. It's fine. Whatever. Why do you why do you fucking care? Just go past it. It's like, well, I do care. Because when we stop caring, what matters? Like if if you if you start with, oh so what? A model is sit sitting in front of a fan and it's a dumb ad. Oh we get it, you're really smart. Yeah, but like do you really just not care about this? Like do you just I mean like do you just not care that the headlines suck? You just not care that the that the reading, that the the writing is is empty and callo? and full of bad faith. And it's like, I'm the thing that will m make that could make a lot of people's life miserable if they chose to feel this way is that I can care about all that stuff a little bit.

Because I think it shows, and I'm not trying to get into this whole like, oh, good times, old times used to be better. Go to the last, go to the the the classified section of any newspaper or magazine for the last 50 years, and it's a full of bullshit. It's just it's just it's hard to all it it takes a negative capability to hold in your mind the idea that all these people out there, you know, waving the reporters' notebooks around who are so pleased with themselves because they're journalists. are creating content so that they can sell something that's not a fan. Which bums me out in every way. That got another ding. It's just very that was that was very good. I I have uh many more things to say, but we should we should d do our challenge because it's your Oh, it's okay.

It's okay. I'm just I got a lot to do. Well exactly. Um and I and I was late 'cause I was Uh no no I was watching cats. Um sorry. No it wasn't. Yeah. I'm sorry. No, because I I I think that you th I like that I'm saying I statements as if we're in couples therapy. Yeah, and I like that your I statements usually end with or the middle part of your I statements is usually I think that you I'm not racist. But uh I love that you care and that other people care about this. Do you know what a gift it is to have somebody care about shit you do? Do you know what a fucking gift it is? Well it g but that's That's the thing is I wish more people cared because right now specifically you are talking about the SF Gate, which is a local uh newspaper that is.

Which is now which is now about uh about thirteen inches wide and is three dollars a copy. The SF Chronicle. Uh oh okay, okay. So but I do care. I don't want to care about you. Yeah, and I I uh I hate that YouTuber is a career. Not because I don't think kids should want to grow up to I I what? I don't know the bit. I I'm I'm not sure. Oh once again, this is the thing where you don't know a tuber's a potato. I Uh oh I see. Yes. I d I don't mm mm. You can see what my friend Tony always used to say. Hmm, that's funny, Marlin. Mm-hmm. Never made him laugh. Yeah. That's funny, bro. That's funny, but I I w I wish that a kid was like, I wanna grow up and make um makeup videos on the internet. Like that seems Like there are some people who are really passionate about that and like that uh you're not saying makeup videos?

Videos about doing makeup? Yeah. Okay. But like the the like if you're No, I just wanted to clarify what you said. I didn't understand. Y who I YouTube, you to youtuber. Oh my god, just sad just said. Sometimes it makes me really sad. And I sometimes need you to just take a minute and explain something that you've decided is really obvious. So YouTube videos like a TikTok say here's how to put a mirror shadow or whatnot, right? Yeah, I w I wish uh you know someone uh didn't say, oh, I want to grow up to be a TikToker. I want to grow up to make things for the internet and uh But that's pretty that's pretty normal, don't you think, to like uh let's a first one to It is, but but but what's fucked up is the fact that like I'm like, no, you're really talented filmmakers or reviewers or critics.

It just so happens that it's on YouTube and that's the thing now. That's the medium But like, I mean, I knew I wanted to be a rock star before I was any good at guitar. And I th knew I wanted to write for magazines before I'd ever had anything published in a magazine. And not a lot. There were many, many different magazines. That's true, Cat Fancy. I love a byline cat fancy. This hidden menace in your cat box is making your pregnant wife crazy. Find seven ways to hack your box. Six takeaways from the latest litter robot. It would be fun to write uh a a a something pol guide for dumb is Mr. Pa a good boy. Experts our experts chime in at the top of the hour. Jill and Jeff Or or do you think that's a good one?

Whiskered away, vacations for pets and the humans they love. What? Deals. Okay. Maybe I should write headlines for Cat Fancy. Fuck it. Oh man. Savvy could have been my editor? Wow. Oh my I don't think she would be that that generous. Oh, ticket, ticket, ticket, ticket. Okay, let's get to the talent. There should be more music in headlines. Challenge this week was to watch The Joseph Gordon Biden Levitt movie brick. Star Ryan the Ryan Johnson movie bricks Starring of Johnson. Ryan of Johnson, your latest film is is quite toothome to me. People might know Ryan Johnson as the director of uh Star Wars S I don't know what number what it is, but it's Star Wars Last Jedi, the second in the most important thing.

I would say Glas or uh I would say Knives Out might be better known. I uh people know him more for Star Wars f unf I would say unfortunately, only because of the Yeah, because of the negativity found in that. Yeah. The what oh dear. Oh why m my thing is that the right thing. He did two um Knives Out movies, and uh he's also done interesting stu stuff. He's married to Karina Longworth from uh the woman who pronounces her T's really hard. And that's how he became friends with Natasha Leone, which led him to uh create that uh that that peacock show that's really good. Yeah. Colombo show. What's it called? What's it called? Poker Face. Black Mamba. That's it. Yes. Yes, that's it. Poker Face. Uh Brick was his first movie that w he he d wrote, directed.

And and edited. Um like he had been he actually edited the movie May, the the horror uh film, if folks know it's It's re it's off the walls. It's great. M-A-Y. Okay. And the um Well, so he he wrote, directed, and edited Brick. He did uh the year, Brick, Brick Brick. What year is it, Ryan? Johnson. Wow. Wait, really? Oh, two thousand seven is probably when I So yeah, okay, yeah. I'm like, I distinctly remember seeing this loop. Yes. He is probably my favorite director, and this was his first film. hadn't seen it. I had I owned it for years and I I bought it on the Apple thing and I it's been sitting there. Which is kind of a I don't know writers call it foreshadowing. But it's just sitting there for years.

I'm like and I kept hearing so much about it. And then I got uh no sorry, I I derailed you. But yeah, I I I Man, I I love Looper. Um, I thought what he did with that Star Wars movie was super interesting. Um, and I love both Knives Out movies, especially the first one. one. I mean I like them both a lot, but I can go back and rewatch. That's got Michael Shannon. Give me a fucking break. The first nine's out movie is I think fucking masterful. Mm-hmm. And he also did mystery. What is mystery? He did mystery. Oh no, sorry. No, no, it was a bad line break. Okay. You could put an on-breaking character in there and that would be I I'm I'm thinking uh you didn't uh s watch All of it. What the hell would you say?

Why would you say that? Because I told you that yesterday? Is that why you say it? You say it because I told you that yesterday? Is that why? I'm thinking that you're talking about how I Okay, well I didn't you seemed really excited about this movie but uh s uh but didn't finish. I've been excited about this movie for a long time. I've been excited all four times. I've tried to watch this movie all four times. I've tried and listen, everybody, shut your fucking collective whore mouth until you hear me out. Three times just this week. Uh I've I've tried and I'm gonna I'm gonna come back. Remember the whore mouth part? I've I've I've been excited to watch it because remember I said I was pitched to me as oh you should check this out Well, I don't think it was a Ryan Johnson endorsement.

It was just a way to say, hey, check this movie out. It's very interesting. It's very unusual. And in my head, I remember thinking somebody was like, oh, the language in it's really strange. And I thought I remembered some of them saying it was like Shakespeare, but really it's more almost like a no no no. You know like how Deadwood Deadwood kind of has the cadence of You know, that kind of thing. That kind of like uh elevated speech. But it's really what would you say, more like a gangster movie or like uh it's kind of is almost like a hard-boiled like a Raymond Chandler kind of. It it's specifically made to be like a a Maltese Falcon esque noir. Like he uh loves um what's his name? Uh who is the writer of the uh wait, wait, wait, wait.

Dashiell Hammett. I kept wanting to say uh David Mammoth, but no, Dashiel Hammett. Like uh He wanted that's basically what he wanted to make. I need to get the closers only. Um and so I want to just go on the record. I am i I I I I I I've had I'm having so much trouble getting into it with attention, with things turned up. I'm having trouble getting into it, and I would be happy to talk about the things that I found. A little hard to get into, but I would like may I for the record repeat what I said to you in our super secret private text channel just yesterday? Yes. Oh, maybe we could do a dramatic reading. I I think oh I'll read it. I sent you a thing about uh a woman whose last name is Irby.

I don't know her first name. I sent you an amazing New York Times article. You should read it. It's so I I did. She I she something. Why don't you like the beach? It's diarrhea, the water's diarrhea. Oh my god, I love her so much. It's okay to hate your body. Oh my fucking god. I feel so free right now. And said boys is never good in our shit. You said you love her. And why don't we start with uh yesterday uh with a will you have? The beta's not broken for me. This is a this is a dramatic reading. Hey listen, no you're not allowed to know um no no no descriptions or broadcasts of this without the express written uh consent of Alex Cox. TMTM TM. Uh will you have watched Brick by tomorrow? I only ask for show prep purposes.

There's no shame in peanut butter. I will have peanut buttered all of it, but I can talk about it. I really wish, and now here's the important part, Alex, I really wish that exact movie Being Brick by Ryan Johnson. I really wish that exact movie had existed in nineteen eighty-eight. It would have been my favorite thing ever. That's really all it. Wow, that was that was really a letdown. I mean I know. That's why I thought it would be funny. It wasn't. Cut that off. Uh no, no, no, no, no, no. It was It's it's a little lore, it's a little desaturated, it's a little it's not a little, it's very student film. Mm-hmm. Yes. There's a lot of like, oh look, I put the camera on the ground. stuff that like again if that this has been something I saw around the time of like I don't know fucking anything good in the 80s or Slacker or like in the when when movies were were fun and people were just going crazy.

I just And I can't I don't really I can't get the hook in and and to the thing is you really do have to pay attention. It's a lot of visual storytelling, I feel like. Don't you think? Ah yes, but in the last point I bounced was right after he had uh a very fun scene where he gets in a a little bit of uh Um look as a little bit of a a of a Barney with uh some some tough kids. And he kicks this kid's butt and like kinda threatens to kick the other kid's butts. And then he wants to go find the girl, wants to find M. And then he sees him talking to her by the car. And you know what I mean? It's like it's got a very you could tell this is somebody who loves movies that made this. And I I just wasn't, I just I'm never in the right mood for it.

Isn't that weird? It it is weird because you do need to be in a s like the state of mind to watch basically a uh uh a commentary on uh both high school movies and hard-boiled detective stories. Joseph Gordon Bryden Levitt is in high school in this, right? His character. Is he has he graduated or is he in high school? No. Okay they are in high school. Um I think a lot of free time just mosey around. Uh y yeah. Well and exactly. I was always in a rush to get the class, personally. I didn't have time to kick anybody's ass. I wish I could've. Wish I could've What I l what Ryan Johnson in initially um said about this movie b because I saw it uh before uh before I was a um film student, but very much was going to be was like he's like as I uh you know was following uh fall falling in love with old school noir m movies I realized how uh how many of the tropes line up with high school like high school movie tropes and uh we see that's even westerns right now I can't believe how many movies it's so many movies I've returned to after years where I'm like And there's all all kinds of famous ones, right?

There's famous Westerns. But there's lots of famous movies where you're like, oh, this is basically like a Western. Like, you know, there's a reason they call Star Wars a space opera. Like it's it's supposed to be kind of like a, you know But like there's so many movies where and not even just Kurasara, there's so many movies you're like, this is just this is basically a Western. Though like Mandalorian is a Western. That's like full stop. It's a Western. And that that's him with noirs. Well, no, no, no. He he but it he was like, what if I l made uh uh literally made uh a new art film, but all of the characters were r in high school. Like it's very, very literal. But not the uh but also not it's not a bit, it's not a joke.

It's not a parody. It's not like Bugsy Murray or something. Right. It is just it takes itself very seriously and uh it is played very straight. Uh, and and the ma because the main character who is supposed to be an eighteen year old high school student, um, like A lot of 18-year-old boys I knew and know, uh, he takes himself very seriously. He considers everything he does very important. He assumes everyone knows who he is and uh that you know it it is just like this true narcissism the and the narcissism is uh like a It he's not wrong because this world is a noir film where he's the detective and everyone does know who he is. He he has uh he doesn't need to fantasize. are, you know, kind of compatible with the affectations of people in high school in some ways.

Not not com well, I I wouldn't say the affect No, you when it comes with the plot stuff. No m no, no, more of like how, you know, like the the loner i k kid, he's it's not that he's like weird and a loner, he's It's because he's just dark and mysterious and he knows whatever uh n he just knows what's going on or needs to know what's going on and and it's the other people who, you know, he's the he's a holding caufield. The y you know, like he th he takes down. Kind of, yeah. But he's like he's he's sort of floating above it in some ways or like but he's also like it also has that noir thing of like, oh man, he's got some burden. Like there's something on his mind. You know, like he could tell that he's but he's very and he's very serious.

Yes. He he k I used to ba I used to bounce uh d Dunkin' Donuts, uh you know those little ones, those little donut holes. I used to bounce those off the walls o of uh of my school and see how far I could go up three stories and have it land in my mouth. That's what I did in high school. Oh, that sounds dangerous. It was, but I was good at it. Oh. I'm like Wolverine. I'm like the Wolverine of Donuts. I'm the best it is at what I do, but what I do is throwing donuts on the wall. You know, there's multiple uh stereotypes of of uh like Fenn Fetales and uh the y of course, like the the theater kids are like literally the the the like mysterious speakeasy uh uh type of characters. And it's it It's so literally uh that the speech is literally from uh n various noir films.

Like there uh and in in fact it's Even harder to understand if you don't have subtitles on because there's important characters and places that have similar names, like the pin a an important character and the pit an important place, but they're all talking real fast like they're in the 40s, see? And it's S lit literally difficult to understand. So that is a part of why uh it didn't get a ton of traction. after Sundance because, you know, if you you can really appreciate a movie that's like more movies that movie people like. S Like you could see like how somebody would see this and go like, ooh, you know And and you know, and so 2000, what was it, five? That's interesting. Two thousand five.

Yeah, so how's that f how does that fit like what had Joseph Gordon Lovett besides three I keep saying my family keeps mocking me. Because I say I say 30 rock when I mean third rock. It's Ted Leo and Ted Lasso all over again. I've never said Ted Lasso correctly. I was like, hey, you guys wanna watch Ted Leo? Like, yes, Dad, we wanna watch Ted Lasso! Ted Leo? You mean that guy from what I was doing? He was a bang. Oh, he fell's in a uh band I saw in uh uh 90s called Chisel. Uh is that Ted Lasso? Get you to bed, grandpa. If uh he um i i after third rock from the sun, Joseph Burden Levitt. Oh god, oh my god. No no no no no you were right. After uh Don't let anyone make you doubt yourself, Alex. You do a plane on your own.

Joseph Gordon Joseph Gordon Levitt um did uh the uh uh Start in a movie another like very indie not. Oh see, and like the thing I hate about you or something like that? One of those kind of like He was in Manic, which is a really dark movie about a psych ward, and that's initially why Ryan Johnson uh w wanted him. e because he's uh this like little uh d dark ps psychic uh little dark psychic. Psychotic. He was yeah, he was Yeah. He Stranger on my land, family too. I like this. I just I'm not in the mood for it. I'm gonna get in the oh he was on Quantum Leap. Oh, he was in Beethoven, he was student number one. Huh. He he did he was um wonderful baby actor a while. You like this movie, yeah. Oh he was the Ten Things I Hate About You.

That was a blind guess. Holy shit But he is he is the like a archetype of a teen. I'm I'm almost fifty-seven, Alex. I'm not entitled to know who any of these little fucks are. Uh movies and a lot of these people happen to uh c you're saying words and I don't know if it's the delay or if I'm saying nonsense words or something. I like movies and these people are movies and I agree. Those those people those it's the movies we movied all a movied. Sorry I cut you off on that one. That was cold. You just need to be thrown in a deeper part of the water. Water, water wet. Project project project. I hate it. That's you, I'm doing you. You want me to do me personally more? Yes. Whoop wob Licky loo train station drop drop drops ceiling came all no no no all the all all the way all choop choop Choo choo.

You're making my stammering sound more intentional than it is. Not doing your stammering, I'm doing your disordered thinking. The stammering is just a fucking crazy. That's like that's like going to the doctor and going Yeah, you know, I I maybe I should stop smoking. I keep getting these burns on my shirt. And you're like, well, that's true. Smoke, smoke. raw transcript