BONUS The Friday Show - Laissez Bon Temps Rouler
Guest:I always love that the people who figure this out.
Marc:Oh, I know.
Guest:Figure this out.
Marc:Dude.
Guest:If you met this person, you'd be like, how does your brain remind you to breathe?
Guest:You're the dumbest person I've ever met in my life.
Guest:And it's like, they're always the one that figured it out.
Guest:I'm like, you?
Yeah.
Guest:Hey, Chris.
Guest:Who dat?
Guest:Hey, I am winging it today, buddy, because I am fresh off my New Orleans vacation.
Guest:Literally got in at 1 a.m.
Guest:So, you know, we are we are doing this.
Guest:It's the morning.
Guest:I am I am bleary eyed, but bushy tailed.
Guest:Well, how was your trip?
Guest:I didn't realize you were taking the whole family.
Guest:Yeah, it was interesting.
Guest:I had an invite to a birthday party for a friend of mine.
Guest:It's 50th birthday and it was on a Saturday.
Guest:And, you know, it was like, come on down to New Orleans.
Guest:OK, sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, this would be fun.
Guest:But, you know, I was talking to Dawn and what do we do?
Guest:You know, should we should it's it's the spring break for kids too right now.
Guest:So it was like, oh, should I go?
Guest:And then we meet somewhere else and do something like that.
Guest:And I just started looking into it and I was like, no, we're all going to go.
Guest:Let's go to New Orleans.
Guest:Let's have family New Orleans thing.
Guest:It's there's plenty to do.
Guest:So so they all came.
Guest:We all went.
Guest:And and yes, they till stay till yesterday.
Guest:And I had a blast.
Guest:uh i unfortunately uh dawn did not she got the flu while she was there no um so yes we kind of had to quarantine her off in the room and yeah she went we we took her to the clinic fully tested her for everything and uh you know came back full-blown flu no that's a bummer i'm so sorry to hear that
Guest:Yeah, I'm sorry for her, too, because she missed some fun stuff.
Guest:But she, you know, she got a taste, a little taste of New Orleans, which, frankly, you can get any minute that you're in the city.
Guest:Like, you don't have to be in there very long to get a taste of it.
Guest:Well, you know, I've never been there.
Marc:That's one of the places I haven't been yet.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Okay, well, now I'm excited because I get to talk to somebody about it who hasn't been there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'll just preface this to say that I, you know, I'd been there once before.
Guest:I think I mentioned this, that it was a work thing.
Guest:I was in and out for kind of like a 36-hour period.
Guest:I did not get to spend a long time there.
Guest:I felt like I didn't get to eat the right foods.
Guest:I went to Acme Oyster House, which is like a very touristy location.
Guest:I don't know what the equivalent here in New York would be.
Guest:I guess like going to like that, what's that, Carmine's in Times Square?
Marc:Or Junior's Steak, or Junior's Cheesesteak, or, you know, what is it?
Marc:Junior's... Cheesecake.
Marc:Cheesecake, that's what it is.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:No, you're mixing that up with Pat's Cheesesteaks in Philly's.
Guest:It would be like if you merge those two places.
Guest:Cheesecake, cheesesteak?
Guest:That's disgusting.
Marc:I'm sure someone's done it.
Guest:I'm sure that's a thing.
Guest:But yeah, I mean, I even knew that time when I was there, which was 2006, a year after Hurricane Katrina.
Guest:And I felt like the place was special even just then.
Guest:And I got to say, I feel like, you know, I've been to quite a number of American locations.
Guest:I feel like it is a top tier American city.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Wow.
Guest:absolutely like right up there for me with um new york washington dc um it it's a limited list when you when you really boil it down i mean like i i like some parts of other cities i like parts of philadelphia i like you know there's there's like charm to everywhere but i really find like new orleans is its own unique thing uh pretty special pretty interesting in the way it's
Guest:made up like the amount of like the people there the diversity there um you know it's kind of like it's got this weird mix of like hardcore slavery history right like there was a building there was a it was a restaurant we're like oh look at this they have this on the menu and then they're on the building like in a historic landmark placard it's like this was a building that was home to slave auctions oh wow
Guest:I'm like, I fucking eat your gumbo in this place.
Guest:Like they were selling people in here.
Guest:Jesus.
Guest:But at the same time, there's like entire neighborhoods that were made up pre civil war for free people of color.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:The Treme neighborhood.
Yeah.
Guest:and you know it was one of the earliest integrated neighborhoods i mean this is the telling of it there in new orleans i'm like please i also will preface all of this to say that like this is like my thing where i like show up to a place and take like the hop on hop off tour and like i'm like oh now i know everything about this place i do not i spent six days in new orleans i am in by no means an expert in fact if anyone's listening
Guest:this who knows more about new orleans about the history i'd love to hear about it and uh and frankly like this what i'm giving you is the is the impression someone gets or that i got after a week there and um and so i i felt both things frankly i felt this kind of like very strong history of white colonialism and
Guest:But also, like, a very integrated city currently, where, like, I do not feel that when I go to places like St.
Guest:Louis.
Guest:St.
Guest:Louis still feels very segregated to me.
Guest:And this felt like...
Guest:this felt unique for a Southern city.
Guest:Um, it, it felt like New York, frankly, in a lot of ways, um, much, many fewer, um, uh, minorities from, uh, other countries.
Guest:Like it didn't, I did not feel a strong, you know, central South American presence there.
Guest:Uh, but, but the integration between black and white cultures was
Guest:evident you know and and also evident in just like the the music the architecture the art everything um and obviously the food like the food is for real southern black roots ethnic food and uh and i i couldn't have had a better time eating uh and breaking every kind of like a prohibition i've had on myself for the last several years um
Guest:I had fried chicken three times.
Guest:It was fucking tremendous.
Guest:Do you have a po' boy?
Guest:No, I did.
Guest:Well, yes, I kind of did, but I didn't go out of my way to get one.
Guest:I did get a po' boy at a place we were at that basically they just, I was told they have a great eggplant po' boy, but it's just like having an eggplant Parmesan sandwich on a nice fluffy French bread.
Guest:Here's what I realized about po' boys.
Guest:people think, Oh, it's a, some unique thing.
Guest:It's just like, it's what they call a hero.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's what they call a sub sandwich.
Guest:You know, it's just any, by any name that that's the same thing you get there in New Jersey, you know, like there's plenty of great hero shops, sub shops, whatever they call them out by your neck of the woods.
Guest:And, uh, and you get a good sandwich and if they put it on nice crusty bread and fresh bread, it's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So like by the time, like, I don't know, I had my like third plate of fried chicken of the week.
Guest:I was good on like getting a sandwich with a bunch of fried shit on it.
Guest:Like also I've had plenty of good food.
Guest:How's that going to be that much better than anything else I get anywhere else.
Guest:And I remember that was the mistake I made the first time I went down there.
Guest:I had a po' boy at that Acme oyster house and it's like, Oh great.
Guest:I got fried oysters and fried shrimp on a bun, but right.
Guest:It's a hat on a hat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Everybody get that anywhere.
Guest:So obviously like the flavors are great and they do good, like, you know, all the fried food is like, you know, amazingly seasoned.
Guest:But, uh, but I, I was much happier not delving into giant sandwiches every time I went out to eat.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So did you have like a crawfish boil?
Marc:Is that a thing?
Marc:Or are you allergic to some
Guest:No, I can eat seafood.
Guest:I like seafood.
Guest:I didn't have a crawfish boil.
Guest:You get crawfish etouffee, which is kind of like a chowder.
Guest:And some gumbo, jambalaya, all the staples.
Guest:Red beans and rice is amazing.
Guest:Uh, any, anywhere you go, all that stuff is available.
Guest:Generally, anywhere you go, that stuff's on a menu.
Guest:Um, and you want to have it.
Guest:I, I will, I will do my one, uh, food recommendation, uh, for fried chicken.
Guest:I know that a lot of people, uh, tout a place called Willie Mays when they go down there.
Guest:And it, uh, it was, uh, you know, kind of the famous fried chicken place and it burned down and has recently reopened.
Guest:But I would recommend a place called Gus's.
Guest:Gus's fried chicken was in the warehouse district.
Guest:So it's a little bit outside of like the French Quarter.
Guest:And it was a it was a delicious like it was like a hot chicken without being overpoweringly hot.
Guest:But like also that was the only way to get it.
Guest:There wasn't like, you know, you get spicy, you get mild, whatever.
Guest:They were just like, no, here's our spicy fried chicken.
Guest:That's what we make.
Guest:And but everyone in my family had it.
Guest:So, and that we're all in varying degrees of tolerance of that kind of thing.
Guest:So yeah, it was really, that was amazing fried chicken, flavorful all the way through right to the bone and, and a great atmosphere.
Guest:Like, like go in, sit at these, you know, nice wide open tables.
Guest:Sometimes I think people were just sitting at long tables with strangers, you know, like it felt amazing.
Guest:Very comfortable and homey.
Guest:And that was kind of the vibe of the whole place, frankly.
Guest:It felt like a welcoming city.
Guest:Obviously, the tourist trade is huge there, and they've had a lot of revitalization over the last 20 years since the hurricane.
Guest:And there's a real push to get people to come to the city, and you can tell that.
Guest:I will say it was good to take a ride outside of the city to see that there were places that just...
Guest:got waylaid and never got redeveloped just giant swats where there's like empty space and uh the the driver we were with was like oh yeah that's that used to be a walmart and a sam's club completely gone and they never put it back oh that over there those were high-rise apartments they're gone never put it back and it was like a city of you know 700 some odd thousand people that's now down to 600 some odd thousand people that you know didn't return
Guest:so development has stalled you know they have not redeveloped the way that you know you would think a place with such a uh influx of tourists would but that's because these places on the outskirts didn't get the attention and uh it is crazy that it's 20 years later and you can still see plenty of hurricane katrina effects oh wow that's amazing uh so what did what did owen do like so you were at these uh birthday parties like
Guest:Well, birthday party was just at night and that was fine.
Guest:He's, you know, he didn't have to come to that.
Guest:We, we, uh, you know, there was a, we went to all the, you know, he came to all the restaurants with us.
Guest:He, uh, you know, try, he loves red beans and rice now and fried chicken obviously is a kid's favorite.
Guest:Nobody's going to turn down fried chicken.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Um, and so, uh, you know, we had, we had good food together as a family.
Guest:Uh, one day we decided we're going to take it easy today.
Guest:And instead of doing the hop on hop off tour bus, which, you know, I do in some cities, I felt like it wasn't necessary here because it's a pretty small city and you can see a lot, uh, just by kind of walking around or going around on the streetcars.
Guest:So we got streetcar passes and did, uh, a, a, a ride on the St.
Guest:Charles streetcar line, which is the oldest operating streetcar in the world.
Guest:Yeah, there is no older operating streetcar in existence and it operates on the same line it always did.
Guest:It goes through down Canal Street, which is like the main street of New Orleans, and then over through the Garden District and by like Loyola and Tulane Universities.
Guest:Beautiful ride and a lot of fun and a lot of great way to see the city.
Guest:So we did that.
Guest:We came back on another car and another street car went down to the market, French Quarter Market, and walked around down there.
Guest:Did a lot of walking around in like, you know, the French Quarter.
Guest:It was a there was something going on called the French Quarter Fest, which was like a lot of live music.
Guest:Now, to my tastes, I would actually prefer to go at a time where they weren't doing like a music festival like that.
Guest:Why is that?
Guest:Because it was like a lot of, um, I don't know.
Guest:I want to call them like jam bands or like, um, maybe at best funk bands, but you didn't get a lot of blues and jazz.
Guest:It was like, you know, the kind of things people would play in like, um,
Guest:you know music bars like a bar where they like you know you go to the stone pony down by you in asbury park something like that like i've definitely seen bands like this at at places in like on the jersey shore uh and so you know when when there's this influx of people and like you're you're in this festival where there's five six stages all around you're not getting like traditional jazz
Guest:traditional blues and like the one place that has traditional jazz every day it's called preservation hall and they do you know very standard um brass jet you know they have like a the preservation hall brass band and then like the preservation hall all-stars and they just do like traditional new orleans jazz because of the festival being in town and then jazz fest is coming up in a week and a half those were like completely sold out for the entire time we
Guest:there.
Guest:So, you know, we never got to go see that.
Guest:That's a regret.
Guest:I wish, I wish we could have seen something in preservation hall.
Guest:Um, but, uh, but there was a lot of music going on all around.
Guest:There's a lot of music just being played.
Guest:If you're in a restaurant, you know, somebody might, they might have a piano in there and somebody's playing the piano.
Guest:Like that's all great.
Guest:It's the city of music.
Guest:Um,
Guest:And so, you know, it's a cool place to walk around with a kid.
Guest:I would say that by the time we were done doing that on Sunday, like if I didn't have anything else planned, my kid would have been like, when are we going home?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like I'm done here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the following day on Monday, we went to, which is a fairly new attraction in New Orleans.
Guest:I think it was only, it's only been open within the last 10 years.
Guest:The National World War II Museum.
Guest:which i must say is a top recommended attraction by me in the united states of america like if new orleans had nothing else to offer and they only had this museum i'd say go to new orleans for this museum why would they have like biplanes and stuff no no dude this was like it's important to go to it now more than ever
Guest:Because like, I can't tell you how many times I like thought while walking through this museum or watching one of the movies they had, or, you know, one of the presentations, I was like, oh shit, this stuff's all on the verge again.
Guest:Like we, like, you know, the exact thing that we fought for is like on the line right now.
Guest:Everybody needs to realize this.
Guest:Like, you know, it's, it dude, it is crazy to watch these things where they're talking about like basically the entire motivations of the Axis powers and
Guest:And it's like, Oh, history of repeating itself.
Guest:But us now, we're those guys.
Guest:We got to fight this from within.
Guest:Like we're the bad guys.
Guest:So, uh, you know, but that makes it sound like it was didactic and, and, and not, um, immersive.
Guest:It was fucking immersive.
Guest:Like,
Guest:every exhibit had just tremendously involved, I guess you could call it like display or diorama or, or environment where like, you're like, they're like, now you're in a U boat.
Guest:Now you're in this.
Guest:And you're, you know, you, you walked into like Anne Frank's, uh, uh, uh, dining table.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And like, see where, you know, you feel like you're in the room and they're doing multimedia stuff around to, to show you what it was like.
Guest:It was terrifying.
Guest:There was an upstairs floor that was all European theater.
Guest:There was stuff downstairs.
Guest:There was all the Pacific theater.
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:It was like I could have spent two more days in that museum alone.
Guest:So I highly recommend anyone out there who is not interested in war, not just interested in World War Two specifically, interested in why you live here, why you don't speak German right now.
Guest:Why it's important to fight for democracy and that we are, you know, maybe because we're too comfortable being 80 years removed from when that war ended of understanding what it was all about, that we have lost a little bit of hold on it.
Guest:It's it was.
Guest:shockingly effective place and entertaining and enjoyable to be at, emotional.
Guest:My son called it beautiful.
Guest:He said this place was beautiful.
Guest:So yes, I think anyone going to New Orleans needs to block out a full day at least to go to the World War II Museum.
Guest:Awesome.
Guest:That's that sounds like I can't miss.
Guest:And then the other kind of can't miss thing.
Guest:Now, this might qualify as very touristy, but obviously that's why it exists.
Guest:If you're a tourist there, if you've like you and I have talked about this before, it's like go to the Statue of Liberty, do the things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So we took a swamp tour.
Guest:oh cool you were on a swamp boat like what are the one of those big fans no we didn't do the speed boat the fit okay you know those are those are like that's like a different thing that's like for a thrill ride right like you want to get you're not gonna hear or see shit like you're just going on this thing what's the one in the city in new york it's like a shark right a shark boat
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:There's the shark boats going up and down the river.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:This is like you go to the actual bayou.
Guest:They drive you out of town, 45 minutes out of the city.
Guest:And, you know, you're basically in Mississippi.
Guest:You're still in Louisiana, but it's Pearl River.
Guest:You're on the border of Mississippi.
Guest:And you're in the swamps.
Guest:And they just take you to a place where there's tons of gators, tons of all sorts of animals and that.
Guest:And, you know, it's a flat bottom boat.
Guest:They, you know, let the things come right up to the side, feed them and whatnot.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, I love it.
Guest:oh yeah yeah we we had a blast on that lots of pictures lots of animals you know and and it's great it's like you're never in that environment like you're never you know it's not like you can go to some other state and be like oh yeah i did one of those like you just brought up all that shark boat in the in the river here it's like yeah you could do that but it's nothing like the bayou tour you know yeah
Guest:um so that was that was a lot of fun and and again it's like all these things the kids like we went to an aquarium like there's there's plenty of stuff for kids uh don't let anybody tell you that new orleans is just like one big drunken bash like it's it's a great place the drunkenness oddly is like
Guest:kept to a minimum.
Guest:It's like one of those things where it's like a great example of like why permissiveness sometimes leads to moderation.
Guest:People can walk around with drinks and you're like, Oh my God, is this place good?
Guest:It's like a powder keg.
Guest:It's like, is this going to blow up any second?
Guest:And you're like, Oh no, like everybody's kind of okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Every now and then you see like a real drunk person or whatever.
Guest:And then there's like people taking care of them, like making sure they're like not stumbling down the street.
Guest:And you're like, hmm, I don't know.
Guest:Like, it seems like this is an okay place.
Guest:Like, yeah, I was expecting it to be much worse.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Not too much debauchery.
Marc:And you went during spring break.
Marc:Is that, well, I guess like.
Marc:This is like kids spring break though.
Marc:Like, you know.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:American, like U.S., you know, elementary, middle schools, high schools, they tend to have off like around Easter, Passover, that time of year.
Guest:But like college spring break is usually like dead middle of March.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:So you missed that.
Guest:And yeah, I wouldn't want to be there for that.
Guest:I don't know that I'd want to be there for Mardi Gras, frankly.
Guest:I mean, like, you know, we were there for this small scale festival and it was pretty crowded.
Guest:Like not in a, not in an uncomfortable way, but you could tell it was crowded.
Guest:Did you get any beads?
Guest:No, no beads.
Guest:I really don't think... Again, it's like this thing.
Guest:There's this picture of New Orleans that I think people have that's propagated by a very small number of things, right?
Guest:Like this... You asked me about the po' boys.
Guest:You asked me about the beads.
Guest:And it's like...
Guest:i i didn't see beads anywhere like i guess like in a gift shop here and there but they weren't like you know ostentatious about it it wasn't like come and get your beads and then you see people walking around with beads all the time like it was just it's like i guess that's probably a thing during mardi gras right they throw them off the floats yeah and uh and everything but like
Guest:I don't know, man.
Guest:I did not see, and it might just be me.
Guest:I did not see craziness.
Guest:I did not see people just going totally out of control.
Guest:I saw, you know, adults and families and people, you know, there were some people in their freak flag fly.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Like that was fine.
Guest:Like the guy in the fishnets with this, uh, you know, thong underwear on and walking around with the, you know, and this guy looked like, you know, a grandpa too.
Guest:He did not seem like a guy who would be, you know, doing that, but, uh,
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:Fine.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:He's having a good time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I would say everyone obviously should do their research before going to a place.
Guest:But I think if you have kids, it's a good place to go.
Marc:Oh, that's well, that's great to know.
Marc:Because like, I would not have thought that New Orleans was a kid friendly destination.
Marc:But yeah.
Guest:Well, I also think it's a Chris-friendly destination.
Guest:Just knowing how much stuff you like to do when you go to a place, you know, you like to do a lot of walking, you would walk the fuck out of this city.
Marc:I bet.
Guest:It sounds like a walk.
Guest:It's very walkable.
Guest:And then, like, for, like, you know, you get a little pass on your phone, and for, like, $3 a day, you can take any transit you want, the rail car, the bus, whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um, and you know, there's also ride shares and whatnot and they don't, because it's not a huge city, nothing ever is that far from another thing.
Guest:So if you did want to take a car, you can.
Guest:Um, but yeah, I mean, Hey, listen, like I said, I was there for six days.
Guest:I'm by no means an expert at,
Guest:I could get a lot of things wrong about this.
Guest:This is just my impression.
Guest:If people have been to New Orleans or from New Orleans that listen to this, have a connection there, they want to share any other things with me about it and with our audience, please write in.
Guest:The link is there in the episode description.
Guest:I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas and maybe what I got wrong about the place.
Guest:But I loved being there.
Guest:I would definitely go back.
Guest:And what did you watch on the flight?
Guest:Oh, nothing either way.
Guest:On the way down there, gosh, what did I do on the way down there?
Guest:I think I finished listening to something and then just did a little work on my phone, emails and stuff that needed to get taken care of.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And on the way back, I, you know, edited the Jillian Bell episode.
Guest:So I was it was doing fully work engaged and it's only a two and a half hour flight from New York.
Guest:So it's not like that at all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's not like I had a lot of time to kill.
Guest:I know my son watched some Lego documentary about Pharrell.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:That was it recently.
Guest:Yeah, that's my whole spiel.
Guest:I know that probably a lot went on.
Guest:I did what I typically do when I go away and I just totally turned everything off.
Guest:I didn't pay much attention to anything.
Guest:Of course, I saw some headlines here and there.
Guest:I was tapped in enough to the world.
Guest:especially while I was in the World War II Museum, knowing that we were having people sent to gulags in our name while I was in the concentration camp section of the museum.
Guest:But yeah, I did definitely black out the noise.
Guest:So I don't know...
Guest:Was there anything that I missed that I should know about that maybe wasn't as depressing as the rest of the news?
Marc:Oh, I don't know about depressing, but man, you picked a good week to have a blackout of news because it was a really dumb week of news, including Blue Origin.
Marc:That's the Jeff Bezos company.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They shot an all-female crew into space.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or did they?
Marc:So there's a conspiracy about this.
Marc:So Katy Perry, Hoda, Jeff Bezos' girlfriend, Oprah's pal, Gayle King, and three other women went to space this week.
Marc:And honestly, I mention their names like that because that's basically how it was widely reported.
Marc:It was like they went up with some real red shirts just in case something happened.
Marc:But apparently there's a controversy because this space capsule that went up there.
Marc:So let me just back up and say on April 15th, the Fox Force 6 went into the edge of space.
Marc:They crossed the Carmen line, which is the boundary separating Earth's atmosphere and space for like 11 whole minutes and then shot back down to Earth.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And now they did this in a rocket that was controlled entirely from the ground.
Marc:So no one on board was in control of anything, right?
Marc:So people were, first of all, kind of annoyed at this because they were stunned that this operation lasted shorter than the previews before a movie at AMC.
Marc:And people were also mad that as soon as they were up there, the flight control was saying that the women are now astronauts.
Marc:And so people-
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't say that.
Marc:And like, apparently people asked FAA, you know, like, hey, are these people astronauts?
Marc:And apparently, no, they're not astronauts.
Marc:An astronaut is defined as someone who not only travels 50 miles above in altitude, but also plays a key role in flight operations.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because there's footage of this Blue Origin flight door.
Marc:When it landed, it opened before the billionaire Jeff could open the door from the outside.
Marc:And apparently, and I did not know this, but apparently doors that go up into space need to be pressurized and they get pressurized from the outside, but not inside.
Marc:So people are like, well, how'd the door open without it from the inside?
Marc:Right.
Guest:I'm glad all the investigators are on this.
Marc:Oh, yeah, man.
Guest:The internet investigators.
Marc:We have our top people on this.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:By the way, these same people have been trying for 60 years to figure out that the actual space flight was a hoax, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why would you fake them going 11 minutes north?
Guest:Like, what's the purpose of faking that?
Marc:They didn't do anything.
Marc:It's so true.
Marc:And can I just say, the reason why the door can open that way and why there was a kerfuffle is, A, they were going to the bare minimum of space, so they don't need to have a pressurized cabin, so to speak.
Marc:It's not like they're in deep space going out to the space station.
Guest:I always love that the people who figure this out.
Marc:Oh, I know.
Guest:Figure this out.
Guest:Dude.
Guest:If you met this person, you'd be like, how, how does your brain remind you to breathe?
Guest:You're the dumbest person I've ever met in my life.
Guest:And it's like, they're always the one that figured it out.
Guest:I'm like, you, you did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're lucky you're alive.
Marc:I can't.
Marc:How did you figure it out?
Marc:Dude, my cousin's wife, I posted a video online and she's like, you know, there's all these measles things and I'm an anti-vaxxer.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:I did a lot of research on this.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:And I was like, oh, did you?
Marc:Did you do research?
Marc:What are you thumbing through medical records that you're not allowed to see?
Guest:I got a question for her.
Guest:What's her SAT score?
Marc:What research did she do for that?
Marc:Because I bet it sucked.
Marc:Yeah, she is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The less said about that, the better.
Marc:But I digress.
Marc:So this whole thing, there's this whole conspiracy about it.
Marc:But yeah, you missed Oprah's friend going up into space and Katy Perry.
Marc:People were mad about Katy Perry.
Marc:Mad?
Marc:Yeah, Wendy's, of all people, tweeted out in replying to Katy Perry going up
Marc:And coming back down, Wendy's tweeted saying, can we send her back, please?
Marc:Wendy's?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I don't know why the fast food company Wendy's is so bad.
Guest:Now Wendy's is scoring on me.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:It was quite a thing, man.
Marc:So yeah, you missed that, which is a bummer for you.
Marc:Not really.
Marc:No.
Marc:But another news story you might have missed, Linda McMahon, who you know from Monday Night Raw, but the rest of our audience knows as the current Secretary of Education, was speaking at a summit where –
Guest:she said hang on hang on this happened before i left because i did see this oh you did okay yes wait i i i'm gonna i am gonna say to lead up to what you're gonna say here because there's some there's some background info on this that's important okay this was a summit about
Guest:artificial intelligence learning, right?
Guest:It was about using AI in educational settings, right?
Guest:Okay, please proceed, Governor.
Guest:What were you about to tell us that Linda McMahon said during this conference?
Marc:Linda McMahon on stage says, and we should probably just play the clip of it, but she says, a school system that's going to start making sure that first graders or even pre-Ks
Marc:have A1 teaching in every year.
Marc:That's a wonderful thing.
Guest:I want to know what the people who are sitting there listening to that thought while it was happening.
Guest:Did they think this was some new thing that she's taught?
Guest:What's this A1 learning?
Guest:Is that new?
Guest:I want to know how long it took.
Guest:I wish I could feel the vibe of the room as it floated over them to be like, wait a minute.
Guest:She thinks it's A1?
Guest:Like, that's the element of the story that I'm missing.
Guest:Because I've seen the footage.
Guest:I've seen the clip.
Guest:But I want that, like, slow, sudden realization of these people in the room who had maybe convinced themselves, this is all right.
Guest:Like, she's a business lady.
Guest:Like, she'll know what she's talking about.
Guest:It'll be okay.
Guest:And then that A1 just punches them right in the solar plexus.
Marc:Like, blah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I was actually mad that the people on stage didn't grimace and were just like, honestly, she kind of got it.
Marc:She's, you know, just a little off with that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that's the other thing too.
Guest:Like you're not going to correct that.
Guest:Like your whole thing is like, we're educators, right?
Guest:And we're not going to, I'm not going to be like, I think you mean AI, which is artificial intelligence, which is the reason why we're here in this conference.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You fucking imbecile.
Marc:You wrestling idiot.
Marc:Brendan, WrestleMania is this weekend.
Marc:Dude, what are the odds that our current president makes an appearance?
Guest:Oh, he's showing up.
Guest:He's 100%.
Guest:100%, you think?
Guest:Let's put 99% because there's nothing that's 100%.
Guest:But I mean, like, I don't think you could have a surer bet.
Guest:It's two nights.
Marc:He'll go to one of them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, not only go, but I'm pretty sure he's going to get like the full jumbotron.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's a Trump company.
Guest:They're all Trumpers.
Guest:The parent company, TKO, it's, you know, UFC fights and Endeavor talent agency that owns the whole thing.
Guest:They're all Trump tied in full bore.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, it's it seems like all the the wrestling people are Trumpers like they whenever they're quoted about it, they love Trump and this and that.
Guest:So like, oh, he's like he likes to go places where like Mussolini is videos that I was just watching.
Guest:He gets paraded around and gets to make a big public show out of things.
Guest:And so.
Guest:There's going to be 40,000 people in a stadium.
Guest:I would, I would be, the only thing that's going to keep him from going to it is that it's in Vegas.
Guest:Like he'd have to travel through time zones.
Guest:And like, you know, I know that like the last couple of times he's done it, you know, it's been at stuff on the East coast, or I think he went to the Indianapolis 500.
Guest:So like going out to Pacific time zone, I don't know.
Guest:That would be the only thing that'd be your 1% where it's not a guarantee to happen.
Marc:Yeah, and look, recently Triple H has mentioned Trump and, you know, talks about him.
Marc:Roman Reigns recently did an interview where he talks about why he supports Donald Trump.
Marc:So, like, the seeds are being planted for a Donald Trump appearance.
Marc:And honestly, this is all just going to, you know, lead the way towards, like, a Monday Night Raw happening in, like, the Oval Office or some shit.
Guest:Oh, it'd be a Mar-a-Lago.
Guest:They'd do it in, like, his grand courtyard or whatever.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:By the way, if you want to go back to the beginning of us doing this Friday show, right, where we were talking about wrestling, there you go.
Guest:That's why we never talked about WWE.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Because it's a bunch of fucking scumbags.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That is the reason why, still, when I see headlines, I'm like, oh, thank God I don't watch WWE to be associated with that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Speaking of our current administration, one of those life imitating art stories for you.
Marc:J.D.
Marc:Vance, the guy one Big Mac away from being president of the United States, welcomed Ohio State's men's football team to the White House with their national championship trophy.
Marc:And he immediately fumbled the trophy, breaking it in two.
Marc:Did you see this?
Marc:No, you're telling me again, I was in a news blackout.
Marc:So, yeah.
Marc:So Vance was was up on the stage with the team and he goes to pick up the the national championship trophy and he breaks it in half.
Marc:And a part of it fumbles onto the floor where he has to pick it up and off of the floor and reassemble it.
Guest:But I never I never pegged him as an athlete.
Marc:No, no, that's for sure.
Guest:But I guess he's also got those jitters like his mama.
Marc:Well, Vance later wrote on Twitter or whatever the fuck he does that I didn't want anyone else to have the championship after Ohio State, so I broke it.
Marc:And as some have said, kind of like what his administration is doing to this country.
Marc:Yeah, there you go.
Marc:Good job, buddy.
Marc:He's walked right into that one.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Last thing to tell you is that recently, this week, Ryan Coogler released a video explaining all the different formats of his new movie Sinners.
Guest:Yes, you sent this to me.
Guest:I thought this video was great.
Marc:I love this video so, so much.
Marc:Like even my wife was watching it and it's like not a short video.
Marc:It's like 12 minutes long.
Marc:It's again, longer than those women went up to space.
Marc:And it's such a captivating story or a captivating video because it's just a guy in front of a bunch of whiteboards telling us about all the different formats.
Guest:The aspect ratios.
Marc:Yes, and it was deeply affecting.
Marc:And it was affecting to me.
Marc:I'm a Mark for stuff like this.
Marc:So look, I already had purchased my tickets to Sinners well before he was on with Mark this week.
Marc:And I got to say, I purchased my tickets and LIMAX in what not...
Marc:you know, in an aspect ratio that isn't what he recommended.
Marc:I mean, he recommends all of them.
Marc:He just says, you know, just go see it.
Marc:But there are 10 locations on planet Earth where you can see it in the intended format.
Marc:And I got to be honest with you, I canceled my ticket and I picked up a ticket at Lincoln Square IMAX to see it how Ryan Coogler wants me to see it.
Guest:Ah, so when are you doing that tomorrow?
Marc:Yes, I'm doing that tomorrow.
Marc:I'm taking a train.
Marc:Oh, very nice.
Guest:Well, you have to report back.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:And by the way, I'm seeing this movie and I don't love vampire movies.
Marc:Like I am like I was thinking back.
Marc:I've actually ignored all vampire movies.
Marc:Like it is not a genre that I give a shit about.
Marc:Like, do you like vampire movies?
Guest:I wouldn't say like or dislike.
Guest:I guess I don't have a care about them.
Guest:Like, I'm not like a vampire fan, but if there's a movie with vampires that's good, I will watch it.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:For me, I think I've ignored all of them.
Marc:I'm that way with zombies.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like if it's a zombie movie, I don't give a shit.
Guest:Like after the 28 days later, I have like, I'm like, that's it.
Guest:That's the end of zombies.
Guest:I'm done with zombies.
Guest:I don't like the walking dead.
Guest:I just find zombies very boring after, you know, once, once we got to fast zombies, then I'm like, I ruled it.
Guest:The rest of them out.
Marc:Yeah, well, for me, it was From Dusk Till Dawn.
Marc:That was the last time I can remember.
Guest:A vampire movie?
Marc:Yeah, watching a vampire movie.
Marc:And honestly, I flip off the movie once Salma Hayek.
Marc:Once the vampires show up.
Marc:Yeah, once Salma Hayek is done dancing on the table, I'm out.
Marc:You know, I can just turn that off.
Marc:So yeah, I'm very excited for this Sinners movie.
Marc:And I was very excited about this interview with Ryan Coogler and Mark.
Marc:That was a really fun time.
Marc:These two guys kind of just vibed with each other.
Guest:Yeah, I thought that my biggest takeaway from that is that Ryan Coogler has not left Oakland.
Guest:Like he is Oakland through and through.
Guest:Like he really comes across like an authentic guy who just happens to be a film director.
Guest:Like he's not trying to put on airs about his...
Guest:you know, his reasons for doing it.
Guest:He tells you straight up, this is why I started doing it.
Guest:You know, this is what I got, why I got into it.
Guest:I was on a football scholarship.
Guest:I was, you know, he, he was not thinking along these terms until he started doing, he was encouraged to do it and started doing it and saw it as a, a meaningful way for him to, you know, express himself.
Guest:And I, I think, you know, that that comes through as an authentic representation of who he is.
Guest:And, and,
Guest:None of it is a put-on.
Guest:He is who he is.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:And I'm excited to see this movie because a lot of blues music, which is fascinating.
Marc:I kind of feel like I need to bone up on blues music.
Marc:But it sounds like in this movie, I'll probably get a good education on it.
Marc:Also, you know, there were some light plot points that were being touched on.
Marc:Did you have to, like, ask...
Marc:Ryan Coogler, if it was cool to include that information?
Marc:No, no.
Guest:He's the director of the film.
Guest:So if he is in the interview and something is said and then he doesn't communicate to Mark or they don't communicate to me afterward, like, don't include this or that, then it's all fair game.
Guest:I, however, will listen to, you know, interviews.
Guest:And if I feel like something is, even if the director doesn't care, they might veer too closely toward like a spoiler territory or something revealing the end of the movie or something.
Guest:And I will cut that stuff out.
Guest:But I don't know my general rule of thumb.
Guest:First of all, I think people are ridiculous about spoilers.
Guest:It's like, if you don't, if your thing is like, I don't want to hear a single word about a film, then stop listening to all things or watching all things.
Guest:Like that's just, that's not how it goes.
Guest:I go by like Siskel and Ebert rule of thumb, right?
Guest:Like,
Guest:you can get a good sense of a story through what they're going to talk about.
Guest:They might lead you up to a certain point of like saying like, well, where it really goes is here.
Guest:And this is the kind of intriguing thing about the movie, right?
Guest:But they don't like spoil the ending or anything.
Guest:They used to go right out and say that.
Guest:Like, look, we don't want to give too much away here, but I will say it does take a twist here that's a little ridiculous or something like that.
Guest:And I always feel it's better for me to have not watched
Guest:the thing, whether it's movie, TV, whatever, when I'm editing the interview, because then I serve as the person who's like, whoa, whoa, I feel like that went way too far, right?
Guest:Or, okay, I can live with that amount of information.
Guest:So like, yeah, if you have a problem listening to an episode with the amount of information that's revealed, then you come at me because I'm the one who left it in there.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Well, can I just say something?
Marc:I, well, I like Ryan Coogler, right?
Marc:Like I bought a ticket to this movie because I like this director, right?
Marc:Like nothing to do with vampires, nothing to do with aspect ratios.
Marc:So when I hear him and I hear him stuttering a little bit and it comes and goes just like mine, boy, do I, I'm just like, I'm a fan for life.
Guest:yeah yeah like it is a just a common thing that i don't know i just can't help but feel compassionate towards this guy so oh yeah and you feel connected like i i've had that exact thing where i'm like oh that guy grew up like i did i'm i'm in on that guy yeah yeah totally uh i did not grow up with the fear of doppelgangers though that was an amazing thing i love that mark was like that's a specific fear
Marc:And like he has twins in his family.
Marc:So it's just like, like, does he go to like Thanksgiving dinner?
Guest:He hides under the table.
Marc:He like, he kind of has like a, like a steak knife, like at the ready, just in case.
Marc:Like, it's so wild to me.
Marc:I love that he was like, it's my one fear.
Marc:Also, Ask Mark Anything was great, as always.
Marc:I made a sonic playlist of all of Mark's Lynyrd Skynyrd songs.
Marc:Oh, no kidding.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It did go on for a while.
Marc:It went on for so long.
Marc:In fact, he said, I think this is the longest we've ever talked about something.
Marc:But yeah, he just listed all these songs that I do not know of.
Marc:I know the hits of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Guest:Yeah, you know that one song that seems super racist?
Yeah.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:That's why I've steered clear.
Marc:I'm like, I'm not sure if those are okay blocks.
Marc:But yeah, I put out a Sonic playlist.
Marc:I can share it in the liner notes for today's episode if you like.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, that'd be great.
Marc:And Jillian Bell was a delight.
Guest:She's great.
Guest:I love that they both recognize The Rock as a guy who is a person who everyone loves and you can figure has all things going the right way.
Marc:They really are the pulse of that one.
Guest:Yeah, the guy who has a 12-page Hollywood Reporter piece about how he pisses in bottles on the set and makes a nightmare out of every production he's involved with.
Marc:What a charming guy that rock is.
Marc:By the way, I'm pretty sure I stayed at the Doubletree Inn where she stayed when they had a panic attack on their way to Palm Springs.
Guest:Oh, right, right.
Guest:Oh, that's where you were the last time you were out there at Joshua Tree?
Marc:Well, I stayed there the night because I didn't want to drive to Palm Springs in the pitch darkness.
Marc:I just wanted to be there during the daytime.
Marc:But yeah, that was funny.
Guest:Well, I said to Mark, I thought it was pretty appropriate time-wise that this episode came up now when –
Guest:you know, he's going through all this stuff with his anxiety and trying to medicate and that.
Guest:I was like, oh, this was like good timing to have her in there and have this discussion.
Guest:Like, again, it's been happening lately where the intros kind of blend into the actual interview, even though they were recorded at different times.
Guest:I feel like this was very appropriate with Mark, you know, having come back from his most recent weekend away and he's dealing with the cats and dealing with the medication and thinking he's going to
Guest:take charlie off the prozac and then they go right into talking about it right at the start and it's like yeah i don't know about this with this prozac and the cats and now you're telling me this withdrawal symptoms and all i'm not thinking about you i'm thinking about the cat yeah incredible uh also of course mark doesn't know what pogs are i i enjoyed just hearing the word pogs come out of my headphones that was great
Guest:Well, another thing about Mark and his like, you know, age difference and the disparity between him and some guests and us, quite frankly, that I didn't really think about until they started talking about it is that the idea of the teen movie, particularly like the teen sex comedy or the teen romp, like just in general, teen movies as we know them, they really didn't happen till the 80s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Isn't it wild?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like when he was going through the list of like things that are considered teen movies from the 70s, like the weirdest thing about them is that the ones that kind of most closely resemble the format of a teen movie are ones that were period pieces in the 70s, like American Graffiti or Grease.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They were about older generations of teens.
Guest:But what is the breakfast club of the 70s?
Guest:There's not.
Marc:I don't think there is.
Marc:That's an interesting thing.
Marc:Did he just create a whole genre, John Hughes?
Marc:It's wild.
Guest:You know what I actually bet you it was?
Guest:If you go through what's the origin point, I actually bet it's Porky's.
Guest:oh you think so yeah because it's like so you have animal house and that's the end of the 70s right and so then then it's a huge hit and the idea is like oh you know people want to see raunchy r-rated movies like we got to give them more of those and but that's a college movie so like it's not teen i mean they're i guess some of them are teens but actually a lot of the guys in animal house are not right that's the whole joke they've been in college for seven years uh the
Guest:the idea of porkies was to try to like get some of that animal house juice but it was high schoolers and which is you know led to you know people saying was inappropriate or whatnot but i bet you that's that they the success of porkies is what made people start to think like well we've got this untapped market for the
Guest:teens it doesn't have to because like you think about that your possibilities are so much greater when you're not limited to like oh these are college kids on a college campus when they're teens they're still living at home there's still parents involved they're out there they live in their communities wherever they are it's not you know hermetically sealed like a college is so i think that that opened the door and yeah obviously john hughes then becomes the progenitor of like the format of this stuff but i
Marc:i don't know this is just me talking out of my ass right here as we discuss it i i really bet it's porky's yeah that's that's wild to me that it's it's it's doesn't have a longer like leash but like i kind of wish that i'll you know uh alfred hitchcock made like a teen movie or something you know like i bet he would have oh he would have crushed it
Guest:Well, yes, if anyone out there had a reaction to the stuff they heard on the show this week, please send it to us.
Guest:I've got the link in the episode description.
Guest:Definitely want to hear from you about that or anything else we've been talking about.
Guest:And like I said, anything about New Orleans, I would love to get information about since I just spent some time there.
Guest:And I hope you all will, too.
Guest:I really advocate taking a trip there if you ever have the ability to do so.
Guest:It was a great place.
Guest:Do you have any trips coming up, Chris?
Marc:Oh, Aaron and I are trying to finalize a trip to Africa.
Marc:We're trying to do a safari.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But Aaron's job, like, look, my wife's kind of a boss lady.
Marc:And like, she can't be away when like other people are away.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:She just found out that the time that we were trying to do, they can't, she can't go away.
Marc:So she's kind of upset about it.
Marc:So we're trying to look at alternatives.
Marc:So yeah, we're trying to plan an African safari because we are going to be married or we are now married for 10 whole years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Congrats, man.
Guest:Thanks.
Guest:Thanks.
Guest:We made it.
Guest:Well, that's great.
Guest:I hope that happens.
Guest:And when it does, we will obviously get lots of feedback from that.
Guest:But for now, we are just going to hear from you about anything we've been talking about on the show or anything you would like us to talk about in the future.
Guest:We're always happy to do that.
Guest:So send them in.
Guest:I promise next week I will have been more tapped into the world.
Guest:But until then, I am Brendan, and that is Chris.
Peace!
you