351. The Only Flat Assed Woman in Marin County

This is Do by Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge Watch tenant Hello, hello, hello, hello. Good after morning, Merlin Man. Hello. Hello. We've gone over this. My amount of hellos is based around my excitement and I'm very excited to talk to you. Okay. Thank you. I I like talking to you too. Over. I think you said hello five times. Copy that. How's it going? You good? Yes, but I'm curious as to what the appropriate amount of helloes is or highs. That's okay if i if it is not an appropriate question. And I said 'cause I was listening uh to an Ingalls album called One of These Nights. And um and I was thinking about that line where Don Henley says, I've been searching for the daughter of the devil himself Uh Ben Sir and and I said I says this to ChatGPT I says which songs by the Eagles have a lyric that includes the word devil?

Because, you know, sometimes Uh uh you know, the in the seventies, uh sixties and seventies, we wrote a s a lot of songs about how evil women were. How eagle women worked. I know what you mean, but it's not what I'm picturing in my head. Okay, go on. Fix that and make me sound smart. Evil. How What what are you drinking today? No, I'm just having a red ball. Oh just yeah. Just I I was just trying to say. I said which songs by the Eagles have a lyric that includes the word devil. What I was gonna say was the Rolling Stones had a whole album, one of their best albums. unfortunately is also one of their most misogynistic. They're always talking about how dumb uh women are. And, you know, but anyway, so there's a lot of devil talk.

And that was part of what got people concerned about the song Hotel California. So I says I says the chat GPT, I says, which songs by the Eagles have a lyric that includes the words devil word devil? And it says the song Hotel California by the Eagles contains the lyric That includes the word devil. The line goes and she said and then the text turned orange. And I got an orange box and the orange box says this content may violent violate our content policy. It stopped itself. It's like somebody was having a meeting in East Germany and they were in the middle of an interrogation and somebody burst into the room and said this meeting has never happened. Okay, so it basically and so what do you think is the word devil?

Should I a I guess I could ask it. Uh do it, do it. Let's see. Who is the devil to you? Or or something like that. Seems like that would really be taking it quite a different direction from finding a straight fact about which S songs empirically have the word devil in the lyrics. No women are stupid. Woke mine virus is in has infected the cheese. You say woke mine virus? Yeah, the woke mind virus. It's it's in the chats. Yeah. Okay, fine. I am God. Say it anyway. Oh man. I'm gonna get on a list now. I am God say it anyway. Alright, it says in the Song Hotel California. And she said we are and then oh all just prisoners here of our own device. The term devil is used to evoke okay. Okay. You know, yesterday uh Wait, so did it work or no?

No, it's just it's b it's being cute. I mean I uh yesterday I was trying to troubleshoot a problem that I've been having with an app and it did a pretty good job. I I gave it my log files. Logs And did a pretty good job guessing what it was. I'm kind of doing the thing right now where I I I guess I'm like r raw dogging it, but Cautiously because ooh, you know it? No. It's kinda right now like VC's plugins and apps are like the fentanyl of the AI worlds, like once it gets in. PCs, plugins, and apps. Are you talking about the carpet baggers? Uh uh yeah, but mine's more for Mine scarier and more fun. And also isn't a carpet bagger I for uh carpet baggers are the ones they're not gold Sticker. What are carpet?

I genuinely hold hold on. Maybe I can ask. Keep going. Um I'm just gonna drink my tea and wait for this to settle now. Our carpet Baggers. I don't know. Uh what's happening right now? I can tell you I think what a carpet beggar is. That's during the time out I th well the way I'm using it is there was a time after the conclusion of the uh as the South calls it, the war between the states. And entering the period of what came to be called reconstruction. And there were a lot of people who saw opportunity in going, for example, to the South. And, you know, chaos is an opportunity. It's a ladder. As as uh as uh Littlefinger says. You pack up your carpet bag and go to the south and go, hey, hello.

I'm I'm not here to make money on chaos. I'm I agree with you. I enjoyed that. Whatever you think. I I I I Okay, th this is genuinely interesting. It is. And uh I I It's accurate. I cautiously used that adverb. But I didn't know that They literally took a carpet like it and like r it it just makes so much more sense and it makes it more appropriate. Well that's it's a bag made of carpet. Have you never seen the film Mary Poppins? It's really boring. It's so boring and so long. It's so boring. Oh god, I don't care about the kites. It's a lot more boring and long than you remember. Unlike some movies, am I right? Yeah, oh boy. Some movies are just really weird and long. Some movies you can watch twice in a row and then half of it the next morning.

I'm tempted to say we should just Let's go straight into it. I love your enthusiasm. I can't tell if you're just having a we don't I don't know what we call it in the community now. It's not a mania. You're having excitement about this. Oh about yes. Let' Is it mania if I just did an anno if I just did did and enjoyed the thing quite a bit. And you sent me you literally right before we started recording. sent me a a v a very old interview that got me so excited that without asking, I was just like, okay, we're starting a a quarter after. Oh wait, that's why you said that okay, so I got so excited. That was such a good interview. Okay, can I quote our our Super Secret Private Detect channel? I don't think this is a s Spoiler, can I can I text start uh starting with 851?

That'll be 1051 your your time. Can I start? Please, go ahead. Alexander said to me, I'll save it for the show, but after watching it twice in a row Tenet might be pushing past the prestige as my second favorite Nolan movie. Mm-hmm. That's exciting to hear at 851 my time. And I said, oh boy. And then uh uh an hour and a half or so later, I I sent you a thing. Um how did I come across this? It wasn't Syracusa. Anyway, it's this this guy who apparently interviewed Satoshi Kone. Uh boy, there's a lot of throat clearing in this piece about about everything. Oh my god, there's so much so much introduction. But eventually it gets to this. He sent ten questions in English to Satoshi Kone. who then it was translated and he sent him back a word document a 10-page word document and i'm only up to the very first question it's already great his question about dreams is really good.

And so anyway, it's it's from not long before the director passed away. And uh it looks like really so did you read the whole thing? Wait, we we're talking about this not tenant now, right? Uc correct. But I said I said Cone in I said Cone interview because I don't like just handing people things. I figured you'd you'd be able to I mean you can kinda tell it's already says love I love just g listen uh you said See the girl flying, I know exactly what that is. Also, I figured you would. I just I I know it was useless to just repeat two words that are already in the title of the piece, but I feel weird just sending somebody a link. I don't like when people do that to me. And then you said in all caps the word woe, as though as as as unto a horse.

And then a little lady you said, all right, let's start quarter after OMG. I mean you do like horses, horses, horses. Mm-hmm. I also like theater bobbers. The kiss of the pig is what the Germans call it. Judy Garland has a wonderful quote about them. To call them a beaver is an insult to beavers. Genetically, they're actually closer to a spider or a mosquito. I shaved uh before we went to dinner for Matt's birthday the other night. I shaved and I'm keeping the mustache and I cut around it. Ooh. I was I was dared to grow a mustache. That's how I perceived it anyway. Um so and it's really bad, but it's funny. It's a funny mustache like most mustaches. And uh and then I said, I said, 'cause cause um there's a tradition in our house.

Um I don't remember exactly how it started, but but apparently one day I walked out of the shower, which is where I also shaved my face. And I walked out and I said, not quite singing, not quite speaking, I said, Who wants a kiss from the fancy mustache man? And nobody wanted a kiss from the fancy mustache, man. I don't know if the musta I mean I w I wasn't there, but I think he's fancy. You get that you're getting that he's fancy though, right? Yes, yes. Because he's just shaved. And yeah, there's parts of his face, there's generally there's a part that's a little bit rigid, and then there's a part that's mostly soft, especially if I really try when I'm shaving, which I don't always do. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. And then usually nobody wants a kiss from the fancy mustache man. A lot of times now they don't even reply. And I'm just I'm seeing or speaking to no one in particular. Who wants a kiss from the fancy mustache man? You don't know. No, I don't. I I think that I might force myself to forget if someone was came up to me and said, Who would you like a kiss from the fancy mustache man? Especially if it was my father. As an heir to the ticket master. uh Empire and and my family created the Teatro Bobbers, the Dachshund's son's penis. And uh I went and I I gave the birthday gal a a special mustache kiss. Oh, oh, mmm. That's wholesome. Wholesome wholesome. I also made them take a photo with me.

I was like, you fuckers. None you you guys hate being photographed was partially the birthday girl. You know you know how it is. Nobody likes being photographed. And um and I said Fuck you guys. I want a goddamn picture of my fucking family together on my fucking wife's birthday. And so I I did what the young people call a a self-photo of the three of us. I'll send you that. We went out to dinner. It was nice. Yeah. I got my eyes examined. Oh, you got your eyes examined medically. Mediclate is this during the birthday dinner or is this at a different time? Hm. We were we were ho hooking some cars together. We went up to where the the iPlace is, the the uh there's a there's a a chain of places that sell frames called Warby Parker.

And we went to one of their stores at the Fancy Mall. And then we went to dinner at a place of um the birthday girls choosing and we had a nice dinner. Oh, that is so wholesome. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was nice. I've only been to the fancy mall once, but it is very fancy and you it does feel like outing. Yeah. I don't remember what it's like. is probably the one you're thinking of. Westfield Center. That's gonna be a Sin City any day now. No, this is one up in Marin. There's a fancy one, there's the Court of Madeira Mall, and there's the even fancier one next door to that. And that place is fucking insufferable. Oh my god, the people at this place, Madeline, were both like, This is what it's like here, isn't it?

And we're like, Yeah, that's what it's like here. Well wait, so are you talking about It's a guy in driving moccasins? Oh, okay. His wife had no butt. She was fifty and had no butt. It's really weird. Looked like she looked like some kind of carpentry accident. Uh well there's there That's not nice. We don't talk about people's bodies anymore anymore. You couldn't identify her. Just what, you're gonna find the only flat assed woman in Marin County? Title. I mean That sounds like a Flamory O'Connor story. Or Mark Twain. The jumping flat ass of Rain County. Or oh Henry. Oh Henry. Uh Did you get to the line of the interview that uh uh sa that uh Satoshi Kone says, whether I'm in the audience or in the crew, I could say with confidence that movies that are 100% comprehensible are absolutely boring.

Yeah. Cause that's what made me like sit down and read the whole thing twice. I I just I liked I mean this guy clocked the same thing that I did, I feel like that we did about we're talking here now not about Tennant about but about paprika. And uh But both a little bit 'cause Yeah. No, because I mean the sense of un a sort of unreality and like and like You know, spoilers for for my Velt and Shawn regarding um Christopher Nolan, because I have a lot to say about this stuff. It's like, well, has thinking about this a lot made me enjoy it more And there's some things where like unequivocally thinking about this a lot makes me enjoy it more. A lot of time travel stuff just in general. Like thinking about predestination a lot or thinking, you know, those those kinds of movies we end up talking about.

Um But yeah, but like in the case of the paprika one, I I'm not gonna pull it up right now, but in that in that interview, there's just that remark about how like dream sequences, you know, tend to be a little bit silly or, you know, honestly like rarely achieve the feeling of the of menace and eroticism that a dream can have. And that parade, oh my God, in paprika. But I I just like I like the thing that he said about uh in and that about just about oh god damn it fine I'll click. I didn't finish reading it. I I I need more couch time to read this. What he said about dreams made uh uh made me realize exactly what the uh yes, I think yes. Yes, it is. Um, I'll read it right. The the scary dark sides of dreams w um that but if we also elimin eliminated the sexual overtones The dreams would just be an eccentric theme park.

The scary dark sides of dreams would be lost. Which I think is why I don't enjoy not not because I want like m a special thing in dreams. a and i in in my opinion, this is very germane to our uh to our our subject this week, is that sense of it's it doesn't it doesn't fe it feels unreal and yet very real. It feels unstable. Is one way I would describe a lot of dreams. You know what I mean? Or like there's not a sense of resolution inside of the dream. If there is any sort of, if you like, logic to it, it's very unresolved and And that's why I tend to ask people, like, yeah, if you want to tell me your dream, that's fine, but I'm I'm most interested in what it felt like. You know what I mean? What it felt like is the dream.

I've been reading a lot more or rereading a lot more poetry after l using that simple trick of just think of this like a photograph. I don't know. Oh right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was uh that was the poetry guy. Yeah. He said like if you look at a photo with your friends, there's nothing to figure out about it. It's just a photo. Right? Yeah. And uh uh m that makes me like poetry a whole lot more. Yeah. Me too. Me too. Once you take the and this is, you know, I I I I feel like I'm up against it sometimes with with well intentioned people on the internet who You know what? I don't want to bitch about it, but like a way that I try and introduce interested people to something that I am interested in, or in fact, something often that I love very much.

Like I I posted the a link to one episode of Taskmaster because I think it's a good if you're only gonna watch well so here's the point. One episode of Taskmaster. And somebody responds and goes, Oh yeah, that's good, but they're really all this uh they're all good. And I'm like Yes, that's absolutely true. I've enjoyed that show very much. I've been binging this show very, very heavily for the past week or so. I said, but like in my experience, if you want to recommend something to somebody, it really does help to be very specific about it. Because in my experience, people who have no fucking clue what you're talking about tend not to go, not to get so excited about you saying to them, just trust me, watch 14 episodes, 14 seasons of a TV show.

Mm. I don't think that's attractive to people. I think you need to be very specific about it. Do you know what I mean? Yes. But most people aren't Merlin man and not everything is everything. I I I know and not you know, not every poem has a meaning, but but you take don't take a edge off of it. You're like saying in the case of like that video where I I got into a little bit of a back and forth with a academic about it. It's like he came off there's so many people that are trying to just I feel like there's so many people who are really trying to assert a strong position. And that strong position could be I've liked this longer than anyone else, or I understand this better than anybody else.

See also Elon Musk. Whatever it is, but there are people who want to assert a very strong position. And I think whether they intend to or not, it often comes across as gatekeeping, personally to me. Is that that we still use that phrase, right? Yeah, yes, I hope so. Um Well I mean we use that negatively, don't we, as a way to say like we want people to feel like well on the Joko Cruise, like There's like the a really big deal is made of the fact that you can just go down to that stinky little dungeon with really poorly weirdly lit. You can go down there and like alm join almost anybody in almost any game and they are very excited. to tell you about the game. And people who like board games love explaining them, as you know.

But it's but it's a welcoming it's a very no, but it's honestly it's nice. It's a really welcoming environment. Like, you know, if you there are a lot of nerd adjacent things where there it is not very welcoming. And at least historically for me in the world of things like comic books, camera store, stuff like that. You are supposed to go in there and like prove your bona fides. Like you're supposed to come in there like little John or no, Friar Tuck, I guess, you know, fighting Robin Hood on the log. Like you're supposed to come in here and like show me that you're worthy of me even taking you seriously. And that's what I think of as gatekeeping a little bit is the whole like, I'm gonna make this seem impenetrable to you until I feel like you've earned the right to potentially like it.

That is common for most people, and I'm gonna do the thing now where I s Sort of not just that's fine for Merlin, but also uh that's fine for anyone who regards another person as already smart and already with within the gate. So let's say you are Merlin Mann talking about something funny on the internet. And people know that you are funny and you have good taste. Or let's say you walk into you w walk downstairs. No, okay, no no no no no no Let's say you go and and this is not specific. You walk into one of those supposedly accepting and welcoming spaces where people want to tell you about a board game. Sure, you will walk into that place where no one is necessarily trying to gatekeep. The people there who want who want to explain the games, they're also surrounded not just by newbies, but people who want to prove that they are already in the gate.

They're like, no no, it's not that I want to keep anyone out But just so you know, I'm already here. Even if it's their second day of fandom. Right. And then then they have to be. Right. And and now that you're like, we still say gatekeeping, I'm like, wait a second, uh, because uh it it it that makes it almost sound. I just don't know. I don't think it's intentional. Oh no, I don't think it's intentional either, but it it starts to the people who are like, Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm here already, uh it has made me in the past feel and this could very much be uh a more specific thing with me, but like the implication of there's already so many people h in here in this certain club. It's not that you don't know enough, but like You you can't catch up and s there's already enough people here.

Like we we we got it. And you're not you're not obligated I mean, you know, if you are a fan of baseball, like you're not obligated to like you and your people, you're not obligated to explain Gender to me all the time. That's not your job. It's right. There's a phrase that especially women have used over the years, which is like it's not my job to like train you on everything you think you've decided to maybe consider taking seriously. I can't spend all my time explaining baseball to new people. Which I I think is because you should have room for yourself to enjoy it. And that's why I say it's unintentional, is I think And, you know, it's just it's kind of a I don't know, geek, nerd, dork, I don't know what the term for it is, but it's a thing where you do find yourself you know like the those s silly videos about the iceberg of a given thing?

Well the the the notion behind those is like there's these levels to this and sometimes they're very funny because it it does g especially with stuff like conspiracy theories, it can be really funny. But, you know, it Uh it's like, okay, so I think there's a reason to say to somebody, you know, before you take algebra two, you need to have successfully completed algebra one. And it's not because we're mean, it's because algebra two has a a a number of things to it that I mean just to state the really blindingly obvious, this is what makes it a good metaphor, I think. one. That's I totally get that. I get why you want to practice skydiving on the ground before you jump out of a plane. Like there's a lot of things uh like that.

But I think the part where it becomes unintentional is where somebody who's like, I'm just I'm this n I'm this rube in the United States. who has watched a little bit of T for example, I've watched a little bit of Taskmaster because um Jason Snow's recommended in the past and I finally just sort of committed to it in in the past week and I've really, really super been enjoying it. But I'm brand new to this. I'm brand new to the whole thing. I'm still figuring out. I'm still learning the rhythms. Part of what makes that show so enjoyable. It's really smart. It's really well paced. The production design is incredible, but you learn like, you know, the little bits, like there's the ducks and there's the pineapples, and there's all these things that you wouldn't, there'd be difficult to explain to a new person without it sounding ludicrous.

But I can understand somebody who's been watching that since they were ten maybe feeling a little bit like, Oh great, thanks for showing up and deciding to be into this thing. And and if you don't not you, the listener. Anybody, like if you don't think you have stuff like that, oh boy have I ever got stuff like that. that you know where it's like you know ple please oh my god do me the kindness of not lecturing me about this thing where sometimes it's all I can do to go like have you ever heard me say anything? Because if you've ever heard me say anything, you know that I care about this fifty times more than you do, but I'm not gonna get in an argument about it, you know? That's why I say it's unintentional is like in the desire to show one's ardor.

and interest and if you like even expertise in something. Sometimes you have to go, yeah, I've been doing that since 1981 or whatever. Like I've been watching Doctor Who since nineteen eighty. That doesn't make me an expert, but it does mean I got a lot of Fourth Doctor under my belt. I I don't think people I don't think people in intend it that way usually. It's just that when you it's easy to forget that or it's easy to overlook the fact that not everybody is as into it as you are. And what I particularly relish though Uh, if there's anything where I'm competitive about this, it's not competitive about showing my expertise. It's my compet competitiveness of being able to say to somebody else who really likes it, hey, don't you think S7E3 might be a good first episode of this.

And somebody else would go, let me think about the oh, you know, in a weird way, that kind of would be. Right? Where it's not uh the the expertise that I want is the like I want to be able to be a concierge for this or a you know what I mean? I not a tastemaker exactly. I want to introduce something in a way that meets you where you are rather than drives you to where I think you need to be. Yes, but the you're but then you are still very much the person who is w welcoming someone in a and sh using your expertise to, you know, be like, hey, this is the this is the algebra one that'll get you to I don't know these taskmaster references, but to get Like if you say to somebody, you you're not really qualified to read modern X-Men comics until you understand everything having to do with Gene Gray and Madeline Pryor and the Goblin Queen and you're like, Well who are all those people?

They're kind of the same person but they're not. And they're they're just clones and life model decoys, and you can't appreciate this the way I can if you didn't know how long Spider Woman was an LMD and we didn't know it. And you're like, wait, can I just read a comic? Again, again, back to the things. What are you saving this for? Stop saving the good piece of chicken. Stop saving your Apple Watch. Like, what are you saving this for? Just go fucking enjoy something. Like and don't don't police somebody else's enjoyment of stuff. It's gross. That's what I mean, yeah. And that comes down to you're watching it wrong too, honestly. And if it seems like my uh my dander gets up a little bit, it's sometimes just a way of saying like How about I just watch what I feel like and you be okay with that too?

Rather than like this being and I'm not talking about anybody specifically here, but like where like you've decided that's gonna stick in your craw because somebody on the internet is enjoying something I have a feeling that there's gonna be some people who think that I enjoy Christopher Nolan movies r wrong, but I I I think that's Uh most people talk about Christopher Nolan's filmmaking in a really boring way, which has like yes, visual effects and practical effects, yeah, and But you know, you know what's a good goal? Sorry, I'm not sure. No, and but I don't like uh bemoan anyone who is super into that. I i it it Well and again with Christopher Nolan, uh if we're if we're gonna go straight to the chicken problem and the voices in our heads, like I can very much on the one hand hear people going like, Well, you didn't used to like that, or yeah, this or that and just everybody's got like their own like post-Twitter angle on everything that's about like, I noticed something that's different.

What do you mean by that post-Twitter angle? Think about the way that we always are accusing other people of hypocrisy if they change in any way. We're like and so it's really it's it's down to us to be able to go like, Okay, well, I noticed that there was a change and there's a difference. You used to be like this and now you're like this and so I think you're a hypocrite. Instead of like sort of applauding somebody's sort of like you know, Kimber, how many how many times are you gonna try to get into rehab? Like yeah, eventually maybe sometimes you succeed, maybe sometimes the things work, but like I do feel this sense in the chicken problem way of like and boy is this ever an impenetrable episode.

My goodness, there's a lot of lingo in this one, isn't there? Hey, if you're new here, you don't deserve to be here. Go back to Yuha Lesbian. All the way back. Yeah, all all the way back. Yeah. Uh-huh. I I don't know. The thing I was gonna say that's really stupid and I haven't thought it out, but it's it's adjacent to something in my brain, which is like life gets a little bit easier when you Say w when you realize you don't always have to be right and you don't al always have to seem right. Because I think there are a fair number of people who will do everything in their power to show that they were right or to show that you didn't get how much they seemed right or you misunderstood it or something.

And like, and this is definitely part of my journey as a father and husband. it and my e decreasing relevance to the to other people is a gift in some ways. Like I that gives me more I'm not learning fucking anything. Like I'm just I'm showing up and hoping I don't die. And like I I think that but when especially when one's younger, but then especially especially when one's not as young as one used to be, boy, you get really dug in about what you're right about. And i it's cu becomes kind of intolerable. But like if you can tolerate being misunderstood, especially by people you don't know What what's what what's the what are you gonna do otherwise? Like how how are you gonna cor not saying you're doing this, but like how would you go out and correct all the people who you imagine think you like Christopher Nolan movies wrong.

Like how would you even begin to address that and how would you know it succeeded? Well you can't, you won't, you didn't, and just what are you doing? Like just go enjoy the thing, you know? But it drives us crazy because like you're you know, I've had that feeling where I'm like, dude, I was drawing Doctor Who logos on my Duotang notebook in nineteen eighty and like exquisite levels of detail and Ozzy Osbourne if I'm being honest. But like, you know, uh but like I'm by no means a Doctor Who expert. Like, not at all. Like I, you know what I mean? But like, I don't know. It's just weird. It's just weird. And now that there's fewer things that we can all sort of p know that we've all seen or experienced in culture.

It used to be everybody watched Happy Days 'cause that's what was on. And now today think about the incomplete education each of us has. I don't know fuck all about Sylvester McCoy. I don't know anything about him. Like I I I I d think I know a little bit about the Fourth Doctor. I know a little about Tenth and Eleventh Doctor. I don't know anything about those other guys. It's an incomplete education because that's the way the world works. And there's n I don't feel compelled to have to learn everything about anything, even stuff that I enjoy parts of. You don't have to be an expert on everything. You don't need all the information. And you will benefit very little from an ongoing feeling that you understand things better and more deeply than other people.

It's just not you it makes you not very fun to be around except with other people who are like that. Comedy writers usually. Oh, yeah. I I guess what has bummed me out about what you call I I kind of like the the like post Twitter things about dolphins and I am learning a lot of new and upsetting things about dolphins but like uh it's very exciting to I I don't know. Is it g it feels like it can't be as simple as like a a man thing. It just I don't know. It just it feels like it can't be touched. Do you feel like people are I you had me in the hospital. So I I I you you like you like dolphins, you like learning things about dolphins. And then how when did that be? But uh let's Oh, let's say Bat Batman.

I mean f I'll f I'll follow you. Keep going. Like uh learning just um actually even more of uh just uh dolphins are fucking monsters. They are horrible to one another. And there aren't many people gatekeeping. Like comedy writers. I don't know if you know this, but com comedy people aren't funny on the other side. No, that's not funny. Um the this is why I'm not a writer. Um I whenever I come across something new or a new information someone shares, I don't know, I find that exciting rather than I uh I I don't know, rather than the need to be like, well actually did you know dolphins also use their penis for this. And I'm I'm basic I'm not talking about like even sciencey things. I'm basically talking about the fandom of dolphins right now, I realize, and should have used Batman as an example.

should have gone with my gut on that one. But uh I does that make sense like oh someone told not really um but it's kind of like that feeling of like like if you imagine like I I don't know I've had these I've had so many of these conversations over the years where like I actually remember one time I was just out of it doesn't matter but it's the kind of thing where you're talking to somebody and you're like oh my gosh have you ever checked out the Velvet Underground and the person goes And pulls up their sleeve and they have like a lou ready tattoo. And you're like, oh, okay, so I guess you have her development underground. It really was not about a competition. I was I my friends and I used to call it plateauing.

That thing where you are where somebody always wants to like go one plateau higher than you. You know, those kinds of like uh experienced climbers who have always done more and better and deeper and you know. But uh yeah, I mean it's It's weird because like we it uh I think it's a pretty normal human thing to have these sort of back and forths with people, especially with strangers, because you're kind of sussing them out. You're trying to figure out what their deal is and like We in San Francisco that becomes sometimes weird things about like where did your kid go to school? Because that's a coded question. Like where do you live? That's a coded question. Like how long's your commute? Like these are all kind of coded questions that in my experience involve somebody else usually who's very dull trying to figure out exactly how much money I make.

Which I can guess I see why people in general and specifically want to do that. Because people aren't happy until they feel like they're the rich boy. Or or let' let's let's let's abstract this way way way bro broader. And I I don't I don't have like a whole Velt and Shawn about this just yet, but I'm working on it. Is um the the the fairly specific parent thing of like I have made good decisions. It's very important that everybody know I have made good decisions. I'm constantly reminding you about all of my good decisions, but it's not just a parent thing. That's where you can see it so acutely. You know, if you're like when you go to like we used call playgroups, right? And so like our kid and our kid's mom was in a group of similar like people who kids who had also been born in October of 2007.

And you know, they're just dumb babies. They can't even sit up. They're just sitting, and basically the the the moms are just having really uh different conversations with each other. other like everybody everybody's pretty tired everybody's pretty freaked out everybody is almost everybody is really full of self-doubt about how things are going And then there'll be the one I could say parent, but it's a mom. And the mom is like, oh well. And this is Alex, this is a true story. I I wish I could use this kid's name because this kid was so fucking But the baby just like another baby. Baby had a unibrow. Look how Gerald. And this mother was so convinced of this child's giftedness. that like it had to be brought up all the time in the most hilarious anecdotes.

Now understanding we're talking about a babe in arms, breastfeeding, can't literally can't sit up. Like this is kind of you have to hold the baby in your lap at the playgroup. unless you just put it down because you've got to change the diaper whatever. Oh! And she she's learned she's learned the alphabet, and you know what we did? We put the numbers and the letters on each of the steps. So every time and now she can do it in Spanish. And it's like you kid can't do numbers in Spanish. What are you talking? Are you are you do you reali do you act 'cause everybody's gotta act like that's real. Talk about a yes and if you say that the the the Anjali knows all of her numbers in Spanish, you better agree or there's gonna you're gonna throw hands with that mom.

Oh, and she's learned so much about typesetting and oh she she she was able to, you know, fix the m m the uh exhaust manifold on my husband's vehicle. And you're like, mm-hmm, okay. And uh awesome, you know. Or like like again, that's something I learned from my friend Chris. Go, wow. That's a lot of money. And then you keep saying it. Oh, wow, that's a lot of Spanish uh numbers. Qué bueno, qué linda. Oh, Teodoro. My favorite is always the breastfeeding question because then you watch a bunch of moms figure like try to breastfeed. For twelve years. Oh I know. Like how you deal with sleep hygiene? Do you do cry it out? Do you not do cry it out? Like you sound like a monster to somebody. If you're not doing the thing.

But anyway, all I'm trying to get at is this broader thing that is helping me. There's something Max said that we can never repeat on this show, but you'll know what I mean. Max one time said on this show, in a way that we He said something that really helped me a lot. He said, I just assume that everybody I meet has a certain condition. Oh yeah, no hey uh the uh don't say it don't say it I don't want to yell at it. But but like I I I I go in if there's something where I feel like I'm trying to communicate with somebody with good faith. And we're just not seeming to talk past each other, not understand each other. I have this whole array of things my head runs through. Is this person having a terrible day?

Are they having an aneurysm? Like, or are they uh a somebody who is adjacent to that medical situation that Max at the time probably got in trouble for saying. I think about that a lot. That's part of what I g and I don't think that a lot of those people are, but Just for the sake of argument, thought technology. What if I started going into more interactions with people, not assuming that everything is face value in the way that I I look at it is face value? you and like again to back to the parenting thing and like the i you have to approve of all of my decisions i'm gonna constantly remind you all the good decisions i make and this goes for fucking life in general Just people who always need to be applauded for their good decisions.

Whatever it was. And they'll retcon their entire fucking life to make it sound like this one dumb thing they accidentally did because they were in the right place at the right time when they were twenty-two. Is the reason for their success and it's all All owing to their very good judgment and please feel free to applaud at this point. But like you gotta figure out how to deal with people and everybody's coming out from a different way on a different day. Sometimes they just want to count the toothpicks, if you know what I mean. I kind of assume that everybody is a little mentally ill with something I know nothing about and have never heard of before. And I don't know if that's good or bad. And and maybe most saliently And which it's not your job to diagnose.

Yes, and that I don't need to be able to do that. Yes. The the I think the most important part is that that I don't know about. Like that as in like I have never heard of it, just I've no idea what's going on, and I'm just gonna be like, okay. Well you think about stuff that came up like like I never heard I mean I was a kid, whatever, but I'd never heard of narcolepsy until the eighties. I'd never heard of I'd heard of fits you know, or you know, epilepsy. I had not heard of what was the oh, synarcholepsy or uh what was the other one? There's just these things we didn't really exact exactly like have a name for. Or dyslexia. Dyslexia, yeah, I'd never heard that word when I was young. And, you know, a lot of people have it and now we have a name for it.

And while you certainly don't want to sort of ghetto eyes somebody into their diagnosis camp, like it's it is still it's it becomes extremely useful to be able to say, well now We know more than we did before. We don't think it's just because you're stupid or or the R word. And like now we have a a more increasingly hopefully more nuanced understanding of that. And But, you know, there's so many things we didn't used to have a name for and so we were just hurtful. Yeah, I uh wonder a lot about the things that we don't have names for. Now and I I try not to fixate on it. Like that's kind of my special thing is like what's W what is the thing that we are really, really fucking up and being uh cruel to each other because of something no one can find?

I think about that with human rights and animals Oh, the animal rights thing is gonna all all my things about stakes. But isn't this a similar kind of thing though where you're like, well, I I feel like I w know roughly what happened in the past. I know kind of roughly about where how we got where we are now. And I can speculate that the future will continue to introduce change in our lives and Hopefully, God willing, for the better. I have to believe that I think uh a good thought technology, I think. I was saying this so our friend Greg Tortoise was saying that he doesn't really like Martin Scorsese movies and thinks that Wes Anderson maybe pushing into that same still. Now I I I don't agree personally with that, but you know what I said to him?

I said I think I think change is good and becoming aware of change is good and we should each keep doing our own thing. And then I gave him a little fist. Um now for example I love the Netflix Wes Anderson movies. Oh my god, I love them so much. They're so good. But but but like why why do I need to have a position about that? Why do I need to yell at Greg Tortoise? because he doesn't actually like Martin Scorsey. And if I really examined myself, would I be able to, if I went back through the catalog, not that it matters, but if I went back through that catalog, do I love every single thing he's ever done? Well, no. And like, should it matter? No, but that's um Well yeah, Shibulith. Like, you know, you're out there saying this thing that's counter revolutionary and I don't know.

But of course in the post Twitter world everybody's like, oh well actually I never thought he was wondering. At least now though, it's kind of also important when s someone I ho I I hope that uh the well I never found them funny e and the like groaner of like okay sure sure you didn't uh the the person try uh saying like uh being like, uh, I I never thought Weezer was good. I have a feeling that that come uh uh it it's either like bullshit virtue signaling or it comes from a p place of pain, so I try not to roll my eyes at it that much. Again, a broken heart. A broken heart can account for a lot of things in this world. Some of the worst things that happen in this world are from What that person perceives as a I I don't know if I told I told you about this, but um this really good uh actually We uh Weezer cover band uh I I'd I'd seen Weezer play all of Pinkerton Live.

Uh the year before and then the year after I saw a cover band play the whole thing live and uh just me it it and it just hit me in a gross icky w way. Oh and I knew that that that is because I had grown into the No no no no no. It was not the cover band. It was the content of the album and like re Oh, that album's got some of the things. Yeah, and especially like for g like for for queerness and it w it's kind of one of my like I'm not like Oh, that's true, the Madame Butterfly angle. But no no no, but that's the thing. It's not that I'm like Oh, you're bad if you like Pinkerton. It's a really fucking good album. I'm saying that because are you talking- I mean you're talking specifically about it?

Yeah, like a very pink triangle thing and like a lot of the stuff about women that again, like written at that time uh figure out why Don Hanley thinks I'll win the gun. Yes, exactly. But apparently I I I I stepped on the third rail there, which had GPT so they gave me the orange box. But that's that's that's my like one sad thing is it it doesn't not I'm sure not one, but that's like it's like, oh man, I don't enjoy Pinkerton as as much, and I wish that I I could and I don't think that I need to well I guess I am telling the uh five people who listen to this at least that like I don't enjoy Pinkerton as much even though it it's such a uh such a bop. But like it's It's it is. And it's it's I still get very emotional.

Yeah, and it's better and I think it's better than the blue album. That sounded crazy at the time because that was such a It was thought of as such a stinker, such a sophomore slump at the time, which is you know, because it didn't sound like Buddy Holly and or didn't sound like, you know in the garage or whatever. Anyway, afterwards the same band played uh Clarity's all of Clarity and it made me happy. That's the end of episode. That's Jimmy E uh Jimmy Eworld's uh sophomore. Well, uh t okay, technically it's their third album, uh, but it's it's wonderful. A young man from Jerry McGuire. This is an album uh one of my favorite Stones albums, Aftermath. Um it's from an really interesting time when they're kind of crossing over to like a new thing.

It's before they get into like their famous years. But aftermath 66. This is an album. This is it's a good song, except for the lyrics called Stupid Girl. It's called stupid girl. It's from 1966. I'm not talking about the kind of clothes she wears. Look at that stupid girl. I'm not talking about the way she combs her hair. Look at that stupid girl. Yeah, like you're that much smarter. These are terrible lyrics. The way she powders her nose, her vanity shows, and it shows she's the worst thing in this world. Well, look at that stupid girl. So, like, that's just the first bit of this. Here's a refrain from toward the end. Uh shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.

Like a lady in waiting to a virgin queen, look at that stupid girl. She bitches about things she's never seen. Look at that stupid girl. But pretty funny. Sh It's a little funny. Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up. Oh well I'm I'm thinking about now how like that the a song like that probably doesn't bother a lot of women because it's like uh it's like, yeah, well, but could have been a lot a lot worse. Whereas I I don't know. Now I now I think that I am mixing it up with um like I I guess social norms with triggers a little bit too much because, you know, there are some things that uh s That like uh I I guess uh Martin Scorpio Casier or whoever. Um Like there's there there's uh I uh know uh some uh oh oh Dyke is a word I know that some people in your house don't like.

And for some people, that is a word that they very, very much identify with. And it's a word they fought for for 30 years. You better call me a dike because that's who I am. Right. Yeah. I I get it though. I get it. I don't need to be right. I just need to be happy. Yeah. And me my biggest trigger can be printer. It it's I printers are what about my printer? Oh no, the just like the biggest emotional the one of the biggest emotional points for me is a printer because of just like the because it it uh is a like a random ass trauma point. I'm so sorry, Alex. Are you saying P-R-I-N-T-E-R? Yes, printer. As in like an office Like something uh like a brother printer. Yes, yes, or an HP an HP printer.

Like this i abstract this to the point okay, like I I have an issue. No no no. Uh no. I'm trying to I guess I'm uh uh trying to wonder why people say things like, Oh, I never thought he w was funny and take that like because they had a something personal Because they're basically thirteen. Yeah. Just it's so easy to join in on negativity. It takes absolutely zero creativity. And if you're the sort of person who wants to really score big swishes on the internet, you could just be terrible all the time. And just and just and just really just constantly focus on things in a in a negative way. And it makes you probably feel a little bit less vulnerable when you're just awful all the time. Is it Even if you're awful about what you consider to be a good cause, and there's ample conversations we have had offline about people who like to present themselves as some kind of avenging angel and are actually just the the fucking worst bullies you've ever met.

Because that's their opportunity get to run run rampant over people and call out the flying monkeys and just be absolutely awful to people for no other reason than power. One I I was about to ask like, is it really just the internet? But that's a whole a whole other show. Internet's pretty efficient, isn't it? Yeah. Uh d are you aware of the TikTok trend and the guy who I we've I don't think we've talked about this before. There's this one guy who really creeps me out with a big beard. who finds like people on the right who do really shitty things, but pretty Oh, a good example, there's a f there was a FedEx driver who was like like like a flag? Yeah, like if there was a um There was a TikTok uh like a FedEx driver made a TikTok of like, hey, if I see a pride flag on your lawn, I'm gonna put your package in a weird uh a weird place Not even damaged.

Just I'm gonna put your package in a weird place. And then uh this guy finds it and is like, oh Uh this guy's name is uh Todd Flanderson, and he works at uh here. And oh, here's the fire Flanderson movie. And that is his job now. That's literally There's name and shame they say, right? Isn't that what they call it name and shame? Yeah, may it maybe. But there they but there are there's like a couple people who are like cancel influencers. That is so that is such creepy shit. And and we we write it off We write it off because we love seeing the people that we don't like being humiliated and and getting getting street justice. And it's like oh They think they're Batman. Okay, I didn't know about that.

We are talking about a great Japanese film. I don't know how this happened. I'm sorry. Sorry everyone. Um why are you apologizing? I I don't I don't know. Because if I made one less person like Pinkerton, that will make me sad because it's a really good album. Everyone listen to Pinkerton, it's really good. I think it's just mainly a strong anti-autism position that's gonna piss people off. Do you want to talk about tenant? Dig Doug. This week's challenge was to watch Tenant A Christopher Nolan film I had never seen before. Which for sure was an experience. Last week in the after show, did you say this had become like one of your favorite films? I'll make this as quick as I can because it's not actually all that interesting.

But uh to people who are close to me, I'm I'm happy to explain this, which is I've enjoyed I I am gonna add a new piece to this, I hope, today. Which is like I've enjoyed Christopher Nolan movies without ever like thinking of them as Christopher Nolan movies until at least Dark Knight. Like, I mean, I I I saw Memento in the theater and I really liked it. I thought it was clever. Great use of Joey Pants. Like, really fun movie, but like I don't I don't I hadn't thought of that at the time as a Christopher and Jonathan Nolan movie. Like I hadn't like thought of it that way. Um, I do remember very specifically when when Dark Knight was coming out, and we've talked about this before, but Mad and my friend Michael and I had gotten this.

You could download like an HD, like everything up to the point. of the bus pulling out of the bank. The first like ten minutes maybe of the Dark Knight, they put online in H D. And we watched and I was like, it was probably one of the first things I'd ever seen in like Super Crisp, like at least 1080. Like I'd seen stuff on my TVO and things like that, but like I was not like a Maven of HD, but I just remember that digga dikka dikka dikka-digga dikka dikka and the shot coming in on the side of the building with the what those windows look like and like, whoa, this looks really, really good. And I think at that time I was kind of aware of Christopher Nolan. But here's the thing. I've liked a lot of Christopher Nolan movies a lot.

And uh I did not like Tenet. So I saw it I couldn't even get through tenant. I'll make this quick. I couldn't even get through tenant a few times. When I finally did, I was kind of mad when the movie was over. Then for some reason I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I watched it again and I fucking I liked it a lot, but main the main weird effect of the second time all the way through was how much more I now I don't know quite the word enjoyed or appreciated his other movies, a movie I've made fun of here, Interstellar. It basically tripled my love of Interstellar, appreciation of Interstellar after seeing Tenant. And which is now think about that. That's that's crazy. What an odd thing to say.

And then I swear to Christ, the the third time I watched it all the way through, I it went on my list of like w my favorite movies. Just because It unlocked, I'm happy to talk about this, but I can stop here if you want. It really helped unlock something for me about the way Christopher Nolan thinks and works. that it was greater than the sum of its parts, for sure. Let me just slip into one last thing. Here's my new only new thing I have to add to this. And it's so it's such a mundane thing to say. Think about something like Batman Begins or Memento or Interstellar Inception. uh missing some but you know these are all are pr the prestige right like I these are all movies I really love. All movies that I have to say in my opinion were very sort of Interstellar less so, I've thought historically, but they've all they're all very successful in the sense of accomplishing, I think, what they set out to do.

Huh. Like I this this to me cannot be swept under the rug. It's like the prestige is really fucking good. It knows what it's doing. Like and it does it. Or like, you know, really any of those. Like Inception to me is another one that's like, I don't know you can like it or not like it. It's All these movies can seem a little corny at times, but like those movies all succeeded without to me a a great amount of like Monday morning quarterbacking about it. I don't think Tennant was successful. in a way. And I think in the end, that's what I found so fascinating about it and kind of what made me love it. That's what made me appreciate The fact that Nolan does not take small swings about small ideas.

He takes big swings about big ideas. And boy, does he ever do that in Tenet. I don't my wife and I were just the whole I told you in the after show last week. No, no, just looking I'm just looking at her every few minutes and just kind of making this face. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And she goes, what is happening in this movie? I can't hear anything that anyone is saying, and this movie makes no sense. I'm like, exactly. That's but like it it I it ended up going all the way wrapping back around and now I think it is successful because of the bigness of the swing. I still don't really understand. What's happening? I don't think you can drive a car that way. But but that that was my big that's why I wanted to share it with you was that as somebody I am somebody who enjoys Christopher Nolan movies.

Tenant was a movie I very much did not enjoy the first time I saw it. And also I was just fucking sick of hearing about it. It was the whole like pandemic thing and like it's gotta be in theaters and whatever. But yeah, that's how I got to it. And now like uh we're probably gonna watch it. Now Madeline's fascinated with it too. She wants to watch it again. I hadn't seen it, I think specifically because it was y you know, because of the theater thing and everyone had a take about whether it should or should not be in theaters and whether it they it should or shouldn't be open and I'm like I am going to peace out of the city. Because of because of COVID and encouraging people to I'm like I have no opinion and just backed away.

Like nope opti Muted it on Twitter just I'm not sure. Good for us. I was good for us. I am glad that I did not. I love uh now I love the phrase, I don't know much about that and I don't really think I need to. I told you I was I've rarely been more proud than when my kid said to me a couple months ago, I just I don't have a strong opinion about that. Yes I was like, that was one of the greatest response. That's very much the kind of thing your dad would say, and I'm proud of you. It's one of the smartest fucking things I've ever heard. Like Gosh damn. It kind of implies this whole like, I mean maybe should I develop a strong opinion? Because I kind of feel like I don't need to. Like I don't need another strong opinion right now.

I said nice Still oh yeah, I have a I strongly disappointing. I stopped myself and just made a noise. But your priors on this like you like I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. You you like Chris Renolan, right? Yes. You like uh and just to get over the the the big suspense here, prestige is is no wait, prestige is your subject. I think time it's tied for my second favorite with prestige. Interstellar is my favorite. I feel like Maddie and I were You're saying this is gonna be the last last crop of movies. The dust is your daddy! Listen, Coop, you're a pilot and an engineer. Again, there are gr things about that movie not great. Does it succeed? So sorry, Mofa Lodge! Michael Cade rules and all of this.

I'm not I'm not gonna bury another Batman. How many Batmans has he buried? I'm not gonna bury it in another forged piece of art. You're only you're only supposed to blow the bloody door off. Oh, that actress. Isn't she improbably tall? I kept thinking, wait, i are they should be. I just keep saying I realized I sound when I say things like this, I sound like I I sound like I don't know like a foot fetishist or something. One of those people who's like constantly finding a way to bring it up. I just keep saying it like like um George Costanza's father. I just keep saying that actress is very tall. Because like the scenes of her at the school and she's wearing probably four or five inch heels. I bet she's six feet, six one, something like that, and she's very slender.

But she's a monster, she's so big. She's hot. She's hot as shit. But like it's crazy how big how tall she's. You had so many easy outside wheezy. Well, what are you? Yeah, report she's a m she's a monster. Yeah, just put on her hook hand. Um the Wow. Must be nice. How dare you use the word biped? You're gonna get yelled at once with a biped. What? Also my ult my alt pants. I get me uh yelled at a lot for the seem to get around real well for a whole Um I love being bullied for making arrested development references. Like, oh, I'm sorry that I laughed at the meanest person the people on the pl uh planet the Lucy Lucy Lucy uh I'm a I'm a monster hookhand father or it or is he well he wanted an army won these Yes, Miller.

I won these another meet. Uh th I I was about to say something about short actors, but then I th I f I forgot. Oh, oh, because it's easier to shoot around um short people than tall people because Yeah. We started watching the new Mission Impossible last night and it was boring. Everybody loves this movie. All three of us were like, this is so fucking boring. I mean then I was like, oh wait a minute, it's a part one. I wonder if they had to like really drink this up. It's got Rebecca Hall and it's still boring. As Mr. Cone says, or Cone Mr. Movies that are 100% comprehensible are boring. Uh God, it's that's breaking my mind. Oh you came into it liking this. Now now now what okay so in your impression, just to cover this quickly then Um uh your 2020 tenant take was like you didn't have a strong opinion about it, but you did did you feel like were you like, ooh, I've gotta see this?

No. No, because I had no idea what it was about and much like people who had seen it didn't know. All I have for you is a word. All I have for you is a word. Um I guess spo spoilers. And also this this bar of soap and my powerball game. My favorite chair. That's all I have for you. All I have for you. Amongst our tools, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, you understand? Surprise is our gate greatest weapon. Surprise and a f fiercely fanatical loyalty to the Pope. It's such a inception level level Merlin. Waiting for the kick. Elliot Page is problematic because he may he Inception no longer passes the backdub test. Yeah, yeah, really fucked up. Um oh no, he fucked up. Wow, he could have really wow, wow, must be nice.

I know, I know. Huge step backwards for Nolan Not everybody not everybody gets to have that one. Now it's all dead wives all the way down. Uh Whoa, or that Amish haircut he rocks a lot of the time. Oh God Seriously, uh Elliot. What's that haircut? Well that that makes me uh happy for his agency. You should send him to Matt's. I I am glad that Elliot Page has enough agency to ha wear that haircut because there's gotta be Ben Stiller in Tropic Thunder. He looks like he looks like uh simple simple jack wasn't a girl. But uh but the thing is If he didn't wear that fucking horrible haircut, that means he is not listening to the people who are like, you should really wear this like this. So at least he's gotten that going.

Good job, Elliot. I just feel like I just got some re-education for it. No, I'm I'm very happy for him if he enjoys that haircut because Jesus Christ. The first trans man on Time magazine has the worst haircut ever. Okay. Um maybe it was a deal. Maybe maybe she he struck a deal with prosecutors. Like you get to be the trans man, but you're gonna have to wear this little hair hat. His brain's very good. Um Remember the little boy, remember the little boy that got the VHS of Simple Jack and then he has to act out the whole play? Yep, yep. It's a really good movie. It's it's one of the few movies I've I've uh bought on iTunes because I it like couldn't find it off a truck and I'm like, mm-hmm, I don't care.

Um the well and I also I love that it opens with uh trailers for other movies. So good and Al Pacino The the priest. And Toby Maguire is the like the monk. Oh I love the horny monks. Okay, tenant, I I will keep this brief. uh and pro maybe maybe coherent. Uh but going into this rethinking like l I I kind of went into it as Okay, I'm gonna think about this as a weird movie for weirdos, and I'm going to go into it the same way I went into Memento when I was a teenager because And that was years after Memento had been out, so there was indeed like hype about it, but I still was like, Well, I d I don't know what a Nolan movie is, so I'm just gonna go into it and like not think about it too hard because from the very beginning I I was watching with Matt.

I'm like, oh, there's they're going through red and blue doors. What are these red and blue doors? And like spoilers, there is a thing with red and blue doors. But Matt was like, stop And I was like, oh, okay, okay, fine, fine. And then as it like washes I don't know. I I c Yeah, but like you know what though just kinda say in passing. That is also another f a little bit of a similar flavor to what we were talking about half an hour ago, of the whole like you're not gonna fool me. Like I I'm the person who realizes things. And like you treat it you treat it like a door to be knocked down instead of just sitting and watching the fucking movie. I I don't l uh really subscribe to the whole like, well, something should be enjoyed the way that the author or author in this case int intended it.

But I think it's an interesting place to start. So it was like all right, I'm just gonna like let the confusing weird dialogue wash over. Whoa, whoa, whoa, so so so before you'd even started watching it, you So you were prepared for it to be an unusual movie. Yeah, yeah. And like five minutes in I'm like, But you you had already decided like a priori you're not gonna get hung up on what you do or don't understand. Yes, because I mean Just at certain points it becomes really important to understand and it's Uh well the and and that's I think that if you pay attention to it and pay attention to the things that Christopher Nolan through many of his movies has like taught his audience to understand.

Oh, a thousand percent. Did you notice the washer off of the thread? Okay. I'll bet there are people God bless them, who did not, in the same way that I, a dummy, iComa, a dummy, did not know that Dunkirk had three different time frames in it. I bet there are people who did not realize, did not catch the first time they saw it, they didn't see it, maybe the second time they saw it, maybe they didn't see it or didn't understand what it meant because they didn't want Notice the first time, this movie gets real good when you notice the washer on the red string. And yes, don't you agree? It kind of becomes a different movie, don't it? But I was already trying to like think of it as that movie and it does does does that make sense?

I was trying like it's like going into predestination, already trying to figure out who the young mother is and it's like don't do that. Just in enjoy it and like let it let it happen. But I mean like and also I'm I mean I can already I can imagine people squirming in their in their seats where where you know peop people listening to this who who know all the things and are super nerds. I'm not saying there's not any fun to that. It's a game in our house to yell out what the next line will be. Like when you're watching something, especially something that's not very good sometimes, you you can you know what the person's gonna say. Yes. And that's a that's again my my wife is famous for always being able to figure out the plot of a movie within like minutes.

She always gets it first. Yeah. I I uh now I'm that's funny. She's like, oh oh that that that guy's also a traffic light. You're like what? Like no just wait you see you'll see. He's also a traffic light. I am in in m my household now, I am supposed to because I usually we tend to watch a lot of uh now these past uh uh few days we've been like catching up on SVU and I uh and Matt's like just write what ha what'll happen in your notes app because I don't know yet and so then I uh I have little drafts of what of who the cause there's not as many uh celebrity cameos. Sometimes it's and yeah. Oh really. 'Cause 'cause sometimes they that's the switch 'em up. is that you're that they fool you into thinking that old school SVU, old school law and order, you go, oh, well obviously it's gonna be the kid from Caddy Shop.

Yes. Obviously he's the murder man. But but then sometimes it's like no no no no no that's that's that's the false alarm and then you discover that it's actually the reason. But just like there's, you know, th uh thought technologies I would I'd trying to think of uh like th There's like different ways of like cons I I I need a a Merlinism for this, like consumption technologies, like wa watching or enjoying something in different ways. Like There are d times where I really want to sit down and watch a Futurama episode and enjoy all of the little Futurama e-parts. Well, I think about an episode of Doctor Who. Like I was just I've been re-watching some classic Fourth Doctor episodes recently, and it's like it it sounds subtle, but like there is a difference between like coming into this as This is one of the greatest science fiction TV shows of all time.

Versus just like, hey, this is a fun kids show and You never really know quite what you're gonna get in a given episode and that's kind of part of the fun. And uh Dark Knight um or sorry m Memento, Batman Begins. And before the challenge? Before the challenge or Yeah. Yeah, I've decided to tip while I didn't have any watching a bunch of Nolan interviews and stuff like that. It this I'm not saying the show's different or it's somewhat. Um with uh with Cillian Murphy. The French video store with Cilium. Okay. There's there's a of the one of the last video stores in Paris. uh has a series where directors come in and they're in it's usually in it's in English, but they come in and talk about video.

It's a lot like the Criterion Closet. There's a really good one with Christopher Nolan and some of the things that I think. Yes, I've seen the Nolan Yeah yeah I love those. I do too. I I watched uh I ended up watching The Dark Knight uh twice. What once with the like, okay, I'm gonna go into this movie as if I didn't know it was kind of two or three movies. Because I'm always so thrilled in a similar way to the third act of Ten and you don't even know the third act. It's like Uh red and blue. But like I'm still reeling over like the the woman on the boat and the bullet hole and all this kind of stuff and like Then you're like, oh that's why that fight looked like that. Here's the oh that's I think we disagree on something.

But I I but okay, okay. But in an interesting But like when he gets sucked into the engine, it appears, and like you're like, well did he get sucked into the engine or did he get spit out of the engine? It depends on which way you're watching it. Did you notice when the guy in the helmet flies under the door at the free? th thought that we were like I'm like d I think Nolan wants us to understand why the fight looks this way. Well, I mean yes. I I I even like you've I think at that point we've known enough about wackadoo time stuff. What's our policy on spoilers for this? Uh hey, uh we're gonna spoil I guess. That's not the policy, that's a noise you make. The spoiler is uh we we have talked about uh spoilers uh and are evolving m like I I guess For people who are mad about spoilers.

Shut up voices in my head. I uh sometimes I need to be allowed to talk about things. I don't know. Yeah, hey, we're gonna talk about the tenant things. I don't understand what happened in this movie, so I can't really spoil it. Uh see uh the when I heard the w the wife say, Oh, I saw a woman jumping off the boat. Jump off the boat. Um and I n I wanted Did you get that one in and I was like, Oh, so obviously it's gonna be her jumping off the boat and in a different uh time line. She did a pretty good job. though of setting it up as an infidelity. But I think it but I uh okay. She is nine feet but she's a mall. She was uh wasn't it infidelity though? I see that's the thing. I think that that was she had she was already at that point Like be Oh, I mean in terms of setting it up is like her heart has been broken because she saw a woman sneaking off the boat.

Yeah. Who was cheating with her husband. A at that time y yes, and I think it was it was like Oh yes, she thinks uh she's ch she uh or uh he's cheating on someone. But I think the audience is supposed to know that's definitely gonna be her in a different time Oh do you think so? I I do. The same the same way that like I don't think we're supposed to really notice. Maybe maybe it's because of very Uh it's there's there's so much of memento and interstellar i in this, I I think. And that's that's part of what the unlocking of it for me, or just in or like even the fact in the prestige, uh like There's a rule stated in the prestige that is broken completely in the prestige, and it completely works.

And uh they break a rule of fair play mysteries. Th which we can look up. And there's a very significant break in that. And you know, it was again with with Nolan, it's always kind of been there in plain sight the whole time. It's always about watching uh c closely, which is why I think a lot of people don't like the prestige, but uh Whatever. Um the uh the Why are there so many hats outside? Who has that many hats outside? To summarize the first hour of the podcast. Whatever. Is that the guy from Wolverine? Is that the guy from Wolverine why is he in this? But uh I mean the whole the the one uh thing that was kind of I d I d I don't want to say spoiled, but I I guess like set stuff up for me in a certain way was the subtitles calling uh the protagonist the protagonist.

So as soon as they started about protagonists and antagonists, I'm like Alright, they did watch this a little bit differently knowing it's like what's the thing. It is funny how that can happen sometimes. Like yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like when you just see like at the beginning of Mad Max I was testing out some new speaker things. I was turning out what I was doing was playing with enhanced dialogue and just seeing if it's something my family could ever tolerate. But like, you know, at the beginning of Mad Max, there's all the voiceovers. Uh Fury Road, I should say, at the very beginning. It's like gasoline and da-da-da. And the blood is blah blah blah. And it's like You know, woman number seven, man number eight.

You just see all those names, and like sometimes that can be a little bit of a giveaway, you know what I mean, when you see somebody's name or something. Like what how did they do that in Predestination. Uh the unwed mother and the bartender, right? They uh usually. I don't isn't isn't he called the bartender and she's called the unwed mother? Um I think I think it's the young mother. The Young Mother. Sorry, sorry, the young young mother? I f I forget because I've read the the uh all you zombies so many times I I m mix it up, but So like But like when you get to the scene, now you're inside I love all the shit leading up to going to Freeport. I love the guy from Station Eleven. Now I know what Freeport is.

But like, you know, the dude the dude um The dudes like their contact. Yeah. Sure. He's Bronos Gold? Was that kinda No, no, no. But I I realized also watching it Is that magic gold they threw off the planet? Yeah. That wasn't that wasn't magic gold of his they threw up. I don't know what magic was a distraction. They threw up bars and bars and bars of gold as a distraction, right? Yeah. That's not Kenneth Branho's gold. Oh, I think it is I think it is yes, I think it's going in reverse. It's his gold oh fuck. I thought so I not all of it, just a few of the pieces because he remember he brought it bat wait are we calling magic gold the reverse time is it bobat and gold you know the one that wants to jump into your hand yes I think it but it's not special gold is it magic gold I think so I I think part of it it I don't like this I don't like this It's pronounced long.

We're we're in Merlin's d dream again where you're the old Asian man and I'm like, what's happening? Spin your spin your top, sir. Spin your top. I think it wobbled up the end. But when you get okay, so but then you get the whole thing with and again, this is funny. I was saying this to Jesse, my friend Jesse the other day. Like there's And this was the wrong movie. Mad Max Fury Road is a good movie to test out speakers. This is not a good movie to test out speakers because there's no control group. The scene where Cedric Diggory is getting the oh god, how great is he in this when Cedric Diggory is getting the tour of the Freeport, you can't stand you can't hear fuck all anybody is saying. Like you really like if you didn't know that Christopher Nolan's a little bit of a stinker about dialogue volume sometimes.

And you didn't if you're not like me and you and didn't have the subtitles on, you would think that was ducked so hard for an effect that implies you're only supposed to catch Snippets of these facts about the free pool. I don't think so. I don't think so, especially after all of the um All all of the interviews. You know what? I realized he could be saying this just as a cop out But he's like, I see uh dialogue as sound design. So I I I heard uh did you tell me. Yeah, I think I handed it to you without any context at at some point. Uh I handed a couple million thing. It is. And the the problem with it though is that theaters across the country all have either like they don't mix sound the same way and I that I guess was a big critique of Tenet was um the sound both the sound design and the sound mix, which I understand.

Well, I mean y it's you g you run into this old here's the problem, and this is why I say it's not a good control group. And by which I mean, like I think I have a pretty good idea. How given the number of times I have used Fury Road, the very beginning of Fury Road, to like set in listen to a new speaker setup and see how I feel about it. I have a pretty good sense of like there's some whispering in that. Remember all the voices in his head. Max, what do you say this? All that stuff. And there's a lot of sibilance to it. There's a lot of boominess to it. And then like the the moment when he jumps in the car and the other cars come over the hill, which in the theater made me nearly shit myself.

I loved it so much. Like I I'm pretty comfortable with that. Now, I do that with this and it's like, how can I even tell what this is supposed to sound like? like. So on the one hand, I'm running it through the LG TV speakers in like there's one called Clear Voice that we run most of the time. I think it's what's made my family so allergic to anything that sounds like an actual movie is we run it in old man mode where you can like It really greatly amplifies that range. If I run it in cinema mode, it still doesn't sound that good, but it's better than I like it to be I'd like to be able to hear the the center channel voices, but I just I want it to sound like I'm in a fucking movie, which I can do and my family hates it.

But anyways, it was just funny because then I I knew this was a bad control because then When we got to the Freeport scene, no matter what setting I put it on, I still couldn't really hear what was happening. Yeah. And I I blame myself. Nope. I think it was my d I thing I'm doing the thing. But I I I wonder if that's by design. Because if you know exactly how a fr the Freeport thing works, like if you know for sure, like, oh Like it's like why would uh he be asking about those very specific like ten s s oh, so there's ten seconds and like oh what's that room here? If that's too crystal clear I'd gas uh yeah I've I didn't know what a freeport what the fuck a freeport is. And also really, I mean, should you really be hanging everybody's art on like flea market?

grids that can fall over and domino. Like that just seems like a very irresponsible way to house someone's they felt like they cheaped out on that set a little bit. Uh I w I'm also wondering about the um the like how you said, I don't know if that's how a car works. Um the same people who the same uh people Wait, so so it's the time travel thing is extremely localized to where a car Can go in reverse. Reverse is not a gear one goes fifty miles an hour in. I don't think car I don't think that's how a car does. And then like you go with the room on the other side and you're like, wait a minute, so wait. He there is kind of a brilliant moment, I think, story-wise. I think this is a a big Christopher Nolan victory.

is when we're experiencing this as and we've already gotten the sense that these bullet holes are kinda weird and we're supposed to be aware of that. But he's got w uh Elizabeth DeBicke on the other side of the glass with a gun to her head and knows that um the protagonist, you know, is trying to save her or whatever. But so he like he's is there's a little bit of a fun bootstrap paradox because he's learning something from the past. sending it to the future and then using the future to test whether the story stands up with the past, right? Isn't that what happened in that scene? Mm-hmm. I assumed. But it's like it's not uh well that how is how is that other side just like 10 minutes later, but not backwards, and you hear the voices, and it's like, I don't know if I understand how this is supposed to work, and I don't know if I'm supposed to understand.

I know that's not how cars do. Nolan specifically uh didn't want to bring in the same physics and um and and quantum physics uh experts that are now famous for I guess not that famous because I don't remember their names. Uh but uh n notable because they helped on Interstellar and tried to get as much Oh yeah, like helped him come up with the whole like bookshelf. Yeah, and he was like, I think. Yeah, and the whole like um the time like relativity stuff. But he was like, I literally didn't want to bring them uh di bring anyone in because I knew some things probably wouldn't make sense and I didn't want to bespurch their pet. But he knew the story you wanted to tell. Yeah, yeah. Not in not in like a he he n i I think he's very aware that cars don't uh m move that way and and does not carry.

But that is a fun twist to the third act though, is like all the stuff that was wackadoo the first time you saw it, it's pretty fun and exciting to see, oh, this is how we got there. I like that kind of storytelling, whether it's predestination or whatever. I like a time travel thing that's, you know, putting all those little pieces together. together. And I mean as long as we're spoiling it, I just I really like the twist. I like the twist of and again this is a word Madel and I both said at the same time. Who hired you? It's so fucking isn't that great? Isn't that a great moment? And Pattinson's presence is just perfect for that. And then he turns around and you see the washer. He's really good in this.

He's good in it. And the other guy's great too. The other guy's in Black Cucka Klansman, which I've never seen. He's the black guy in Black Cucka Klansman. I thought you literally said Stuttered and I'm like, oh, are you having an Alex moment? But usually strikeouts. Uh uh. Ask Kara, she'll explain it. Um and then um and then um um he's in other things too, but I thought that guy was Oh my god, his very first shot. The very first the the opening, right? You're at the oh is that in Moscow, the opera? Uh Ukraine. Only because I cut it and of course it's Yeah, they s they can answer it later. Okay. But the very first shot they show and you see the Cyrillic language or whatever. Then they show inside the van And he does this do you remember this?

He does this move with his pistol that looks so fucking badass. Mm. He's he he does like a pistol trick and it looks really cool and you're like, okay, now it's on. Put your patch on. Change your patch. Get in here. Zip line down, bullets go backwards. Why are you so mean to that cello? Me oh There's a lot of that guy's really mean to that. You can see how scared the cello. They're really going hard for that one specifically. You know what? The thing is if you watch this movie backwards, you're gonna discover she'd actually left that a at at the singer from Weezer's house. It's the last song from the album where where we talk about cello. I know. And and I am an easy laugh, Merlin. No. No. They they you they you've gotta You are eighteen year old girl who lived in small city in Japan.

You heard me on the radio about one year ago? You wanted to know all about me and my hobbies? Favorite food is my birthday? Why are you so far away, Alex? You see, it sounds weird. It's useful. Why can't you send me your panties? Send them to me in reverse. I'll receive them yesterday Dang, oh we're still. raw transcript