BONUS The Friday Show - Another Bite
Guest:All right.
Guest:How's your little beanie there?
Marc:Oh, yeah, well, I'm cold.
Marc:It's cold in my house.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I do the same thing.
Guest:Do you?
Guest:I mostly walk around the house with a beanie on.
Guest:Yeah, it's just too damn cold to not be, and I want to be comfortable.
Guest:Well, it's also...
Guest:You know, you just, all you got to do is warm your head and your whole body is warm.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So it's like, what do you want me to walk around with a fucking blanket around me the whole day?
Guest:Right.
Guest:No, I put a beanie on.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I don't need a sweatshirt or anything.
Guest:It's not like my house is not heated.
Guest:I have a heated home, but it's so cold that I would like to stay warmer than even the baseline of what this house is right now.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And yeah, just need the top of that head to be warm and I'm all set.
Guest:Well, now you've got some more hair up there too.
Marc:It's keeping everything in.
Guest:I love this running gag of just me having more hair.
Guest:That's a good gag.
Guest:It's true.
Guest:You should be like, anyone who wants to ever make jokes about that, please start.
Guest:They've been bald jokes for the last 20 years of my life.
Marc:It's true, true.
Marc:Man, Maren just stared at my cue ball being like, look at you, you're going to be fucking bald.
Marc:And look at me now.
Guest:he used to say that to you oh yeah all the time all the time and i was like i don't think i am bald but okay but uh he was right oh he'll find those things like an inner city teenager like he is like you'll find your insecurity and you'll just yep he he knows exactly where to get it
Guest:Hey, Chris.
Guest:Hey, B-Dizzle.
Guest:So this is a tricky week for people, very tough for people out on the West Coast and in California in particular.
Guest:But I think everybody's kind of been dealing with these fires.
Guest:And it's just also the news is terrible.
Guest:There's all these awful things.
Guest:But I did think at one point this week that I was very happy for you.
Guest:For me?
Guest:Yes, you were vindicated.
Guest:Please, please elaborate.
Guest:Because on Monday night...
Guest:In front of like nearly 20,000 people.
Guest:And on worldwide global streaming television on Netflix for the very first time was WWE Monday Night Raw.
Guest:And Hulk Hogan came out and was booed out of the building.
Guest:He sure was.
Guest:And Chris, going back to his childhood, was finally vindicated.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For his lifelong hatred of Hulk Hogan.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:Did that feel good?
Marc:And also, I was like, where have you all been?
Marc:I've been on this corner for the longest of times.
Marc:You and Bobby the Brain Heenan were very lonely.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And to see that guy get booed out of that building just warmed my heart, honestly.
Guest:Well, I'll tell you, it's funny because I had...
Guest:normies texting me people who know that i like wrestling but would never dare to watch it in their lives right and they're texting me they're like what happened with hulk hogan like people this was like like wwe thought they were going to have this big premiere on netflix it was they hyped it for months they got i
Guest:I don't know, they're doing it for 10 years and it's like $5 billion to have Monday Night Raw on Netflix and their big premiere.
Guest:The only thing people were talking about from it, the only thing normal people were talking about was Hulk Hogan coming out and getting booed.
Guest:But it was interesting because I found that most people who were like talking to me about it were confused.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because they were like, aren't like wrestling fans like, you know, like meatheads and jocks?
Guest:And don't they like this stuff?
Guest:Don't they like MAGA?
Guest:And wouldn't they cheer him because he's supporting Trump or whatever?
Guest:And I was like, hang on a sec.
Guest:You're making the same mistake that WWE is making.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And that is because WWE is now owned by the same holding company that owns UFC, right?
Guest:It's called TKO.
Guest:That's the umbrella group that owns UFC, the MMA group, and WWE.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Trump goes to these UFC events and he's treated like a God and they love him.
Guest:And Joe Rogan is the commentator and they love him.
Guest:And they show any number of unsavory characters sitting in the crowd and they all get cheered.
Guest:They love all these scumbags at UFC fights.
Guest:And I think WWE was just like, it's all the same bunch of assholes that watch all our shit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Same soup.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And what they didn't know is the same thing that Mark didn't know when we went to the wrestling.
Guest:And he showed up to the wrestling with me and was like, oh, I thought this was going to be all meatheads.
Guest:And it's a bunch of theater kids, essentially.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's like theater kids on steroids and wearing, you know, athletic gear.
Guest:But like they're just performers and nerds and geeks.
Guest:And the whole audience is made up of cosplayers and people on the spectrum and like sensitive people, minorities.
Guest:Lots of minorities go to see wrestling.
Guest:And Hulk Hogan famously...
Guest:caught on tape being tremendously racist not like he accidentally said a word but just being a straight up racist he says i hate racial slur in the tape that they they have him on so like this is a bad dude that sensitive people are like i don't want anything to do with him right and those are the people sitting in the wrestling audience and it warmed my heart that they were all like boo
Marc:the the the equation is there though right like you can see the wwe higher-ups being like well i think we can get by with this this is like gonna be the most eyeballs on this product and we have to have the guy that in the 80s and 90s was the top guy
Marc:Right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But I'm going to tell you, I'm going to stop you right there because they made this calculation mere weeks ago and chose the opposite.
Guest:And that was, they had premiered on NBC.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:A show called Saturday Night's Main Event.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which,
Guest:Which was a revival of a brand that they did in the 80s.
Guest:It used to air during weeks when Saturday Night Live wasn't on.
Guest:So 1130, you'd get 90 minutes of wrestling once every couple of months.
Guest:And Hulk Hogan was undeniably the star of that show.
Guest:He was the featured person in all the marketing.
Guest:And so they're reviving this thing.
Guest:They do all the 80s things to revive it.
Guest:They use the original theme song, which is an emotion.
Guest:They use... The belt.
Guest:They went and got the old belt.
Guest:They brought like Coco Beware and the Birdman and Greg the Hammer Valentine.
Guest:They're showing those guys in the crowd.
Guest:Hulk Hogan was...
Guest:nowhere interesting he was nowhere to be seen not even in clips not even when they were showing like look at what we used to do in the 80s this dude that would it would be like if you were like oh check out this show with Kramer and George and Elaine and Jerry is not on and they never mentioned that it's called Seinfeld like that's what it would be like so they knew huh and they were going on network TV they were like Hulk Hogan he's kind of toxic right now guess what happened to that show
Guest:What?
Guest:It's severely underperformed in the ratings.
Guest:And I think they just thought, ah, fuck it.
Guest:We should have had Hulk Hogan on.
Guest:He would have given us that little extra boost.
Guest:Fuck it.
Guest:I don't care.
Guest:Let's put him on this thing.
Eh!
Marc:Well, you also have to wonder, like, Trump is in the WWE Hall of Fame, right?
Marc:He is, yeah.
Marc:I mean, you would think they would incorporate clips of him at all, you know, but I guess because he's also, when he was on, he was, like, feuding with Vince McMahon, so that's probably-
Guest:But also you're talking about this guy was on WWE programming and they put him in their hall of fame because he did a WrestleMania back in 2007.
Guest:That's when he was just clown Trump.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like he was going on David Letterman back then.
Guest:And, you know, Letterman make fun of him and shit.
Guest:Like that guy was a clown and he knew his role in the culture was as a clown.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Although my favorite story, there's two amazing stories that come out of Trump being on WWE back then.
Guest:What was that?
Guest:The one is that there was an episode that they did where they were literally going to kill Vince McMahon.
Guest:They were going to kill his character off.
Guest:And it would start a year-long story of who killed Vince, like a who shot JR thing.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Well, who shot Mr. Burns for me?
Guest:Yes, there you go.
Guest:And that whole idea got shit-canned because an actual wrestler killed his whole family and himself the week later.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Marc:That's when they were going to start doing that?
Guest:They had done the murder.
Guest:They'd done the scene where Vince got into his limousine and it exploded.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:I remember that angle.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And so they were ready to do a whole, start a whole thing that who knows where, ultimately I'm sure would have gone to like Vince faked his own death or something.
Guest:He would come back.
Guest:He didn't really, you know, they're going to keep him off TV forever.
Guest:But Donald Trump called the WWE headquarters and was like...
Guest:is Vince okay?
Guest:He thought it was real.
Guest:What a mark.
Guest:Total mark.
Guest:That's ridiculous.
Guest:And then the other thing that's amazing is then...
Guest:Then the storyline that got him on to WWE programming was this idea was he was going to fight Vince for control of the WWE.
Guest:And it was like Vince had a guy and Trump had a guy and the Trump guy won.
Guest:So Trump in storyline took over WWE the next day.
Guest:The stock cratered because Wall Street thought it was real.
Marc:Man, Wall Street, also a bunch of marks.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Go look at Netflix.
Guest:The thing is $10 billion in debt.
Guest:It's funded forever.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Yeah, so I felt happy for you, Chris.
Guest:You're finally vindicated.
Guest:Yeah, welcome aboard, everyone.
Guest:I also wanted to say the other thing that made me very happy today.
Guest:I don't know, maybe happy or maybe depressed.
Guest:It's a fine line these days.
Guest:Yeah, seriously, it's a razor's edge.
Guest:But I saw something that told me, oh, Chris and I are going to have an episode on this.
Guest:What do we got?
Guest:And that was a poster and trailer release for the new movie, A Working Man.
Guest:There's a trailer for this?
Guest:There is, although I did not watch the trailer yet.
Guest:I feel like we should watch the trailer together at some point, before this comes out.
Guest:But A Working Man, starring Jason Statham, and right there on the poster, brought to you...
Guest:By the team that brought you the beekeeper.
Guest:And the tagline for this is human traffickers beware.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Like, first of all, he's he's crouching down and he's he's holding a sledgehammer in his hand.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Hammer time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, as you mentioned to me on text, you know, he's doing that because the you know, if he's standing up, the sledgehammer would probably go up to like his shoulders.
Marc:So.
Guest:It would probably be bad.
Guest:Is that a human-sized sledgehammer or a sledgehammer-sized man?
Guest:I'm not sure.
Marc:This, just from the beekeeper, you can extract what's going to happen here.
Marc:I see what you did there.
Marc:It's going to be...
Marc:It's going to be bad news.
Guest:Well, it's like, if you remember when we were talking about the beekeeper, I said that I was afraid the beekeeper was going to be like total like right wing agitprop that like it would have some like covert QAnon messaging.
Guest:Because I saw David Ayers.
Guest:I know he's like a very conservative, you know, military oriented guy.
Guest:And then it wasn't.
Guest:It had incoherent politics.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:This one, they are just putting it on full blast.
Guest:They're like, this is a QAnon movie and Jason Statham is going to kill those pizza gators.
Guest:And oh, man, it's going to be a pizza gate thing.
Guest:I got to read to you the description.
Guest:What movie does this sound like to you?
Guest:Levon Cade left his profession behind to work construction and be a good dad to his daughter.
Guest:But when a local girl vanishes, he's asked to return to the skills that made him a mythic figure in the shadowy world of counterterrorism.
Marc:Okay, hang on a second.
Marc:So the counterterrorism guy is now just a construction worker?
Guest:This is the beekeeper.
Guest:It's just he changed the job.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:He changed the job and it's not an old lady anymore.
Guest:It's the girl.
Marc:He just did control F and find the place bees with human trafficking.
Guest:Replace Dwight with Samuel J. Fong.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:What a joke.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:First thing you sent me, though, when you showed me the poster, what was your comment?
Guest:Oh, I said being on.
Marc:There it is.
Marc:Being on.
Marc:Perfect.
Guest:good god it actually makes me feel a little dirty now knowing that this movie is in the works yes this movie written by someone named chuck dixon who i looked up and he is a comic book writer who writes punisher comics so there you go on that one and uh and sylvester stallone
Marc:Why?
Marc:Also, not a full writing credit.
Marc:He's sharing it with this Chucky Dixon.
Guest:Well, my guess.
Guest:OK, so here's exactly why that happened.
Guest:Because Sly clearly wrote this for himself.
Guest:And it's like, I'm not going to make this now.
Guest:And he just threw it in the trash.
Guest:And now somebody else is making it.
Guest:There's no chance that like Chuck Dixon and Sly are like sitting around doing a collab over Zoom.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:You're totally right.
Marc:You're like, you know, Jason Statham is getting the scraps of what Sylvester Stallone would have gotten probably 30 years ago, I'm guessing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, you know, that famous story of him making Rocky was that they wanted James Caan to be Rocky.
Guest:And he was like, if you do that, I'll bury it in the ground and let the worms eat it.
Guest:And I like to imagine that he's just got dozens of screenplays buried in his yard.
Yeah.
Guest:And this is when he dug up and was like, here you go.
Guest:You guys could have the work of man.
Marc:I can't wait for Sylvester Stallone to put his house for sale.
Marc:There's millions of scripts here.
Guest:You can find a whole streaming catalog of Sylvester Stallone's backyard.
Guest:It's like the new Tubi.
Marc:Hey, Ma, I found Rocky 8.
Guest:It's under the bird feeder.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Well, another actor who I'm sure doesn't have to struggle very much anymore, you've seen the film that he's in, is Adrian Brody, who is on our show this week.
Guest:You love The Brutalist, and you told us about that last week.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:I...
Guest:agree 100% with Mark that this guy is not over his thin red line thing.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:First of all, Agent Brody, amazing character actor.
Marc:Wouldn't you say?
Marc:So this, this gentleman, um,
Guest:did did was mark fishing did he know the about the thin red line controversy that was it was a it was a perfect example of mark having no idea because because i don't think mark had any idea of who adrian brody even was in the movie right i think he probably was like oh yeah thin red line i saw that two decades ago 25 years ago and
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And OK, yeah.
Guest:Adrian Brody, he's one of the guys in it.
Guest:I'm sure he had no knowledge of it.
Guest:And Adrian Brody's in it for like five minutes.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And the the interview takes a turn at that moment.
Marc:And like it really does.
Marc:Like where Adrian Brody is now court sort of.
Marc:you know, defending.
Marc:He's like, you know, I don't, I haven't really thought about it.
Marc:I was like, bullshit.
Guest:You were, you know, he keeps bringing it.
Guest:He keeps bringing it back up.
Guest:That was the thing that I noticed.
Guest:I was like, it was, it was like Carlos Mencia where I was like, dude, he let you off the hook already.
Guest:You can leave.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And he just keeps on coming back to it.
Marc:It was fascinating, honestly.
Marc:So yeah, that was shocking to me, as was the character actor of the whole piece to it.
Marc:And man, oh man...
Marc:does Agent Brody think of himself as a leading man and wants everyone to think of him as a leading man?
Marc:And his question to Mark being like, well, can you name a character actor?
Marc:And Mark just rattling off a bunch of character actors.
Marc:And he's like, well, yeah, yeah, no, those are pretty good guys.
Guest:But it was like one of those things where I wish I was in the room with a blow dart that I could blow into his neck that would pump him full of truth serum.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:And so that when Mark said Ned Beatty, Adrian Brody would be like, yeah, but he's a little fat guy.
Guest:Totally.
Marc:I love the part.
Marc:He's like, you know, a little funny looking guy.
Marc:He's like, whoa, okay, whoa, whoa.
Marc:You took it a little too far.
Marc:Took it a little too far there.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:So look, Adrian Brody is not one of my guys, I got to say.
Marc:Just not a person I've ever connected with.
Marc:I never saw The Pianist.
Marc:I saw Roman Polanski.
Marc:Oh, I saw it, right?
Guest:It was good.
Marc:Was it good?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Good.
Marc:I saw Roman Polanski.
Marc:He was like, okay.
Guest:I mean, I love him in the Wes Anderson movies.
Guest:He's great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:See, I don't love him in those Wes Anderson movies.
Marc:And I pinpoint him as being one of the reasons why those Wes Anderson movies, I start to not enjoy his movies.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:I mean, look, what was the one that he was in with the hotel?
Marc:That one was very good.
Marc:Grand Budapest Hotel?
Marc:Yes, that one was great.
Marc:But the Meteor movie, which, boy, Agent Bird did not enjoy that characterization.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I just feel like there were time and time again, Mark was just kind of like, just like twisting the knife, so to speak, to age your birth.
Guest:Well, it's like, it's one of those things where it's like, are you going to play or not?
Guest:Right.
Guest:We're here.
Guest:This is not a guy who's trying to write the epic profile of you.
Guest:So either you're going to have fun with the stuff he's saying or not.
Guest:And he just wasn't going to get there.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't think he had a bad time.
Guest:I don't want to mischaracterize it.
Guest:I don't think he was rude to Mark.
Guest:I think he was just having the kind of conversation he would have with someone like that.
Guest:But I don't think he was...
Guest:coming into it with the idea of like, Oh, this is just like a, a shoot, a shoot the shit session.
Guest:I mean, it's like the way that that clip I played of Paul Giamatti at the end of the episode is like, that's the, the, the one 80 degree opposite of this talk.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And also a guy who is on a best actor campaign last year and came over and he was like, I just want to like kind of hang out and have fun and we'll say stuff and it'll be funny and whatever.
Guest:And like this guy, like, okay,
Guest:Again, I don't think Adrian Brody came to this with a bad attitude.
Guest:I don't think he was like deliberately being he wasn't stonewalling or anything.
Guest:And so I'm not trying to like besmirch him.
Guest:But if I were his publicist.
Guest:I would advise him to remove from his prepared stories, remove the section where he compares the work he did on the thin red line to the actual guys coming back from combat after being in the Pacific theater.
Guest:Like, what are we doing there?
Marc:Like, what are we doing there?
Marc:You were cut from a pretend movie.
Yeah.
Marc:like what what is happening right now like i was i was kind of like a mouth agape for that like is this guy this serious and honestly when you said campaign that's exactly what this was this was a campaign stop like right but so like if you were if you were in the democratic primary and you were like well i kind of feel like me running for this is like my 9-11 right your campaign manager would be like no
Marc:no 100 holy shit also he mentioned something that i personally find the most irritating thing about film festivals and granted i don't go to film festivals i just standing ovations he was talking about his movie getting a standing ovation and how
Marc:leave while it was still an ovation so they don't know how long it could have been they could have been nine minutes or could have been ten minutes it was seven minutes that's what they said but we left like give me a fucking break with the standing ovation stop who's who is clocking it
Guest:is there a person is there an usher no no i also want to know i want to be like the one person who's like can i sit can i sit now oh no oh we have to keep standing oh oh all right now can it get us in now oh fuck it's five minutes man i i only wanted to get i only wanted to give this six minutes right this is a six minute film for me you guys this is not an eight minute film right we're all agreeing six minutes right like
Guest:what a joke i find it so pretentious you'll send you'll send that you look like you'll a movie will come out or something and you'll be like oh what do you think this was a four minute ovation oh we got a niner we got a niner
Marc:holy shit i and the fact that they actually care is also the thing it's like you care about people standing up and applauding you pretending on the screen i don't know man also um mark you know going into the asteroid city and actually kind of like
Marc:digging deeper into it, and him just not wanting anything to do.
Marc:He's like, oh, you know, it's kind of like a play, you know?
Marc:And he's just like, yeah, sure.
Marc:But, you know, at least he got to have, you know, lunch with Francis Ford Coppola on the set of those movies.
Marc:And that might be a problem.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Like, I saw Megalopolis, and I don't know, Wes, maybe less time with Francis Ford Coppola, more time with Owen Wilson, and we'll have a good time.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:Well, you know, I couldn't stop thinking about Francis Ford Coppola when I was listening to Mark talk to Mike Lee.
Guest:Because they're contemporaries, roughly, you know, 85 and 82.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:you watch that megalopolis and you know, I've seen Francis out there speaking about it.
Guest:He's, you know, he did a lot of interviews.
Guest:He did a lot of appearances as the movie came out.
Guest:I don't question his like mental acuity as an elderly person.
Guest:I think he's with it.
Guest:I think he was, you know, this was the movie he wanted to make and he made it over the course of 40 years or whatever it was.
Guest:And it's just total dog shit.
Guest:And that like, that's,
Guest:I feel terrible saying that in a way because it's like, I don't do that.
Guest:I'm not a, I don't put my, he put his money where his mouth is.
Guest:He sold his vineyard.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so he, this is what he wanted to make and he made it.
Guest:And so it's like, good, good.
Guest:You do that.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:That is a net good in the world, but there's just no way you'll ever convince me that that movie is the work of a sophisticated artist.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like it's, it's a, it's not just a mess.
Guest:It's like a juvenile mess because,
Guest:But also like at the same time, like thinks it's very serious and like earnest in what it's saying.
Guest:It's like sad.
Guest:It's sad.
Guest:It is sad.
Guest:It is a sad experience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I listened to Mike Lee talk, not just about any particular movie, but just his like overall philosophy about art and about making movies and about today, like how it all still works today.
Guest:And I was like,
Guest:Oh, it's not age at all.
Guest:It's like it's not age.
Guest:And it's not like, you know, for in the case of Francis, it's not like he's deteriorating, you know, or at least he isn't visibly or he isn't in the way he communicates in interviews and in in press events and that he's he does not communicate that there's something deteriorating within him.
Guest:I just think he's that's it's like it happens.
Guest:You can be done.
Guest:You can be out.
Guest:You'll be a very creative, very wise person who then loses your juice.
Guest:The spark goes out.
Guest:Your fastball.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's more amazing when it doesn't, quite frankly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like, you know, to sit there and listen to Mike Lee or as we've talked about Scorsese a million times, it's like, God, how do these guys keep it up?
Guest:That's the impressive part.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And yeah, Mike Lee just with it the entire time.
Marc:Now, again, Mike Lee, not one of my guys as as, you know, you know, a phrase that's thrown around here.
Marc:Like, are you a big Mike Lee fan?
Guest:Not in the sense that Mark has watched all the movies and, you know, watched them recently, but has seen them throughout his life.
Guest:But I will say every Mike Lee movie I've ever seen, I've thought is excellent.
Guest:Topsy Turvy came out in 1999, which is like one of the great years of film.
Guest:Period.
Guest:And you can like make a list.
Guest:We've talked about that on the show before.
Guest:You can make a list of like 20 films that could be the best picture of the year.
Guest:And you probably wouldn't even be scratching the surface.
Guest:And I think because of that, Topsy Turvy gets ignored.
Guest:But it is a remarkable film.
Guest:I absolutely love it.
Marc:It's probably the best known film.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I think because it's more of a it's a costume drama.
Guest:It's a period piece.
Guest:You know, it's it's about source material that a lot of people do know.
Guest:People know Gilbert and Sullivan.
Guest:They know the Mikado.
Guest:So I do think because of that, it is kind of breaks through.
Guest:Although I think his movie Secrets and Lies.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:probably because it was the first of his movies that got a lot of Oscar attention.
Guest:I feel like that movie is well known as well.
Guest:And that was another movie of his that I saw.
Guest:And I really liked, I really loved a movie he made called happy go lucky with, um,
Guest:What's the name of the actress from The Shape of Water?
Guest:Sally Hawkins.
Guest:That was really probably the first time I'd seen her in anything.
Guest:And that's a that's an amazing movie and a very Mike Lee movie, like the type of movie he was talking about and what his aesthetic is and how he makes these tragic comedies that just like look at life.
Guest:That's a really like good example of his work.
Guest:But yeah, I'm not a huge Mike Lee obsessive.
Guest:I wouldn't know half of his catalog.
Guest:And I still found the interview to be fantastic.
Guest:I love when Mark interviews sharp with it directors like that's probably my favorite style of interview on this show.
Marc:And they don't come on often, right?
Marc:Like I want... Yeah, it's hard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I hope the Brutalist guy comes on.
Guest:Like I hope... Well, unfortunately, he was supposed to be on today, recording today, but fires.
Guest:Son of a bitch.
Guest:We had to have canceled interviews with five people.
Guest:We had five people that bowed out.
Guest:And I'm not sure we'll get them again because a lot of them were like, are not LA based and they're out here because of like Golden Globes, Critics' Choice Awards, all that stuff.
Guest:So maybe hopefully...
Guest:Fingers crossed, like when the Oscars happen and, you know, people are back out here again, but that becomes harder with scheduling.
Guest:So, you know, we'll try.
Guest:But yeah, that bummed me out.
Guest:The least of the worries of things that have come out of the fires out there in L.A.
Guest:Like our scheduling capabilities are no one's problem.
Marc:not even really ours.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I, I think that was my takeaway from the two episodes this week, whereas the intros for each episodes, uh, they were, uh, poignant and, uh, telling like on Monday, Mark, Mark talking about hitting two parked cars.
Marc:I could listen to that for another 15 minutes.
Marc:Like it was delightful.
Guest:I'll give you the 20 that he gave to me right after it happened.
Yeah.
Marc:But the fact that he kept on trying to park the car and the person being like, hey, you're not going to fit into that spot.
Marc:And he's like, yeah, yeah, that's clear.
Marc:It just cracked me the fuck up, man.
Marc:The lesson is never go to the gym in January.
Guest:Well, okay, that is one lesson.
Guest:My other lesson, which I've pointed out to him when I'm in the car with him, is there's spots over there.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:I have literally said those words to him when he's like, fuck, there's no spots.
Guest:I'm like, there's spots right over there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You have to walk literally...
Guest:18 paces more than at the spot that you keep circling and thinking that you need to have your car parked right in front of the store.
Marc:That's what I do at the mall.
Marc:When I go to Costco, I park the furthest away.
Marc:You know why?
Marc:I don't want to mark.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:We have a saying in my family.
Guest:We call it the ding-free zone.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Where are you going to park?
Guest:In the ding-free zone.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And it is perfect.
Marc:And it is lovely.
Marc:You get a little more fresh air.
Guest:Everybody's got to get their steps in.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:There's no person these days that doesn't know how many steps you're supposed to have.
Guest:So, like, what are we doing here, people?
Guest:Take a walk to the car.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Also, I loved Mark's original garage, just deeply cluttered garage.
Marc:That was a history of his life.
Marc:I just enjoy thinking about that.
Marc:I'm kind of bummed I never got to see it.
Marc:Did you guys ever post a photo?
Marc:You're looking at it.
Marc:Oh, that's your background?
Marc:Yeah, you look at it every time we talk.
Marc:So that's what Obama was seeing?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, you could see in the Obama photo.
Guest:No, you're seeing what Mark would typically see because the chair is where Obama would have been sitting.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Marc:Yeah, the guest always sat in the orange chair there.
Marc:Why the orange chair?
Marc:Was that the better chair?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I mean, it's just a chair, I guess.
Guest:It's got a little pillow on it.
Marc:That's a little bit.
Marc:So it's just a wooden chair or wooden chair.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:That's crazy.
Marc:Sorry.
Marc:I'm now gawking at Brendan's background right now.
Guest:So that I use, I use the background and you know that this is, it's a, it's a great zoom background because there's a window at the side of the, of the frame and it makes it look like sun is coming into my shot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At all times.
Guest:So even in the dead of night, I look like I'm in a nice sunny spot.
Marc:See, that's nice.
Marc:See, I have on my wall photos that I've taken.
Marc:There's a photo there of a blue-footed booby in the Galapagos Islands that I took.
Marc:And can I tell you that photo was supposed to be like, I submitted it to the Galapagos islands, whatever foundation.
Marc:And they, they were like, we, some of us really liked this photo.
Marc:Some of us don't enjoy the photo at all.
Marc:So we're going to like put it to a vote and whichever like photo gets more votes on social media.
Marc:That's the photo we will use for this year's cover calendar.
Marc:And, and so like,
Marc:I don't have much of a social media campaign.
Marc:So I was just like, hey, like this photo, please.
Marc:And I did not win.
Marc:However, I was featured in the calendar itself.
Marc:And they asked if Japan could use it for their cover.
Marc:So I was in like 2014, one of those years, the Japanese Galapagos Islands Association cover cover.
Guest:image is that crazy so you're like you're like uh marge's husband in fargo like you didn't win the stamp uh contest but they you got the three cent stamp that's right with your duck drawings that's that crazy
Guest:The craziest thing of that story is them telling you, some of us liked it a lot.
Guest:Some of us did not like this photo.
Guest:And then looking at the photo, and it's literally just a very nice nature photo of a blue-footed boobie on the rocks.
Guest:Like, the idea that people would react so strongly to it in a negative way is like, I would love to interview those people.
Marc:Like, what?
Marc:Can I tell you, though, I feel like that's my entire life.
Marc:Some people really enjoy me.
Marc:Some of them, not so much.
Marc:They can't put their finger on it.
Guest:It reminds me of a line in Uncle Buck when he says to the two little kids, do you think your sister hates me?
Guest:And they're like, yeah, she totally does.
Guest:And he says, do you think it's my hat?
Guest:And they're like, no.
Guest:He's like, a lot of people don't like this hat.
Guest:Really angers them.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Oh, shit.
Guest:Well, Uncle Buck brings me to a segue here because of the great John Candy, who is known, I know he's Canadian, but is known very prominently as a Chicago denizen, a big Second City guy, a guy at a lot of Chicago sporting events.
Guest:And Chicago came up a lot.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:in the prompt that I gave to our listeners this week in terms of food you have eaten in places around the world that you think is the best thing you've ever had.
Guest:And I will get into those in a moment, but I would like to turn this over to you, Chris, because everyone I think kind of is aware of you as a world traveler of sorts.
Guest:And just, you know, right there behind you at the Galapagos, although I don't think you ate any blue-footed boobies.
Marc:No, no, I don't think I ate any food, you know, any like meat items.
Marc:And I can't imagine there was good food in the Galapagos.
Marc:I don't recall any.
Guest:No, there probably shouldn't be.
Guest:No.
Guest:It's not what you want to encourage.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So what is what is your takeaway from that prompt?
Guest:As we as we lead up to next week, we will have a much more thorough food conversation with our former morning sedition co-worker at Air America Radio.
Guest:Our friend of 20 plus years, Dan Pashman, who is the host of the podcast, The Sporkful and the inventor of the pasta shape, Cascatelli.
Guest:Dan will be our guest next week for the full hour.
Guest:And we will talk about the 15th anniversary of his podcast.
Guest:We also talk about our beginnings with him and when he first started working with Mark and the two of us, as well as what he's been working on ever since he became a pasta maven.
Guest:And so to tee up that food conversation, I thought we would go to the spirit of Dan's show, The Sporkful, which is always encouraging people to eat more better.
Guest:And what do you, Chris, have as suggestions for the citizens of the world when they are out there traveling around, the can't-miss food items throughout this globe?
Marc:Well, I think, so food obviously is very particular to every person, like, you know,
Marc:People aren't going to like the same dishes, that sort of thing.
Marc:But there are particular places that just do a great job.
Marc:And I'm not talking about like French laundry and, you know, all these like five star places.
Marc:I'm talking about places where you can just go in.
Marc:Maybe you'll probably need a reservation for some of them.
Marc:You can almost touch God and not have to pay like a million dollars.
Marc:And one of those places is in London and it's this Otolenghi restaurant called Rovi.
Marc:And Otolenghi is the name of the chef.
Marc:It's a Mediterranean restaurant and it is some of the best food I've ever had.
Marc:And he is just so inventive.
Marc:He has a team of chefs and they are pumping out like cookbooks all the time.
Marc:But at Rovi,
Marc:was one of the best meals I've ever had.
Marc:So if you're in London, seek out a reservation at, and he has many restaurants in London.
Marc:So please seek that out.
Marc:So that is probably one of my favorite places in all the world to eat.
Marc:I would go back to London just to go there yet again, Anna.
Guest:Now that's the kind of thing that I, that I want to hear.
Guest:And I think, you know, a lot of the people who wrote in had a similar thing.
Guest:It's like, these are the things that I would go out of my way to go eat in a particular location.
Guest:And like, I'm wondering for you, are, is there anything where like, whether it's like, you know, a bit of street food or, you know, a park, like some particular thing you had at like a small hole in the wall place or anything like that?
Marc:I mean,
Marc:Over near me, if you're ever out in Montclair, New Jersey, there is a ramen shop that I really love called Ani Ramen.
Marc:I don't think they take reservations, and it is just – you get a bowl of soup, and the ramen is –
Marc:absolutely delicious it is like what and like i used to think oh i have to go to brooklyn or i have to go to japan which i've done and get ramen no you can go and go to montclair new jersey go to ani ramen and it is just a delicious bowl of of love in it is just great how about how about you
Guest:Well, I agree with you in that I always kind of want to make sure I'm checking myself with this stuff because food is very emotional and you can have a very kind of like emotionally connected response to food.
Guest:And that doesn't necessarily mean someone else will help.
Guest:have that same reaction to the actual taste of the food.
Guest:They're not going through your emotional experience in getting that food.
Guest:So I was always kind of like careful thinking about this.
Guest:What are the places that are kind of removed from like, oh man, I went here, I was having such a great time and then I sat down, I had this food and it was awesome.
Guest:You know, that happens a lot.
Guest:I can't think of how many... There are so many of those, like, you'll see, like, a list in a magazine or on, like, you know, Grub Street or something that's, like, the best this in whatever city.
Guest:And I'm like, oh, I gotta try that then.
Guest:And I go and try it, and it's fine.
Guest:Like, there's... It's not even fine.
Guest:It's good.
Guest:It's very good.
Guest:But there's nothing about it that differentiates that hamburger from, like, a good one that I would have anywhere here, right?
Guest:So, like...
Guest:that emotional response i'm always like wary about and i was thinking about it and like the one time i remember eating something where i had that same feeling about you you would go back to london for this dish it was well into a trip that i had made into ireland so i can pretty steadfastly
Guest:assure myself i was not just reacting to the like fun emotion of newly being in a new location right like always tell dawn she will go out to dinner and when it's over she'll say like oh what was your favorite thing and whatever we'll talk about what we liked at the meal and almost always when she says her favorite thing i'll always point out to her that was the first bite you had like you know you're of course your hot response will be heightened and
Guest:Right.
Guest:To the very first thing you ate.
Guest:So I was very clear in my mind, no, this was on like day six in Ireland.
Guest:And we were out in a part of Ireland called Doolin, which is the western side of Ireland.
Guest:And it's where the Cliffs of Moher are.
Guest:And you go on these tours.
Guest:It's where all the islands are, where it's like Inishir, Inishman, like those small islands.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And so you're just there.
Guest:It's farm country.
Guest:There's nothing around.
Guest:And we went to a place called McGann's Pub, M-C-G-A-N-N, in Doolin, Ireland.
Guest:And if you are ever there, that is where I had the greatest food I've ever had in my life.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Which was a steak and Guinness stew.
Guest:And I believe it's good enough that now I went and looked on their website and looked at the menu and the item they have on the menu is called Tony's Famous Beef Stew.
Guest:Oh, funny.
Guest:And I'm guessing it was so good, they no longer call it the Steak of Guinness Stew.
Guest:It's the Tony's Famous Beef Stew.
Guest:And that was one of those things where I was like...
Guest:When can I come back here?
Guest:This is our only day here.
Guest:This is unfair.
Guest:I can't eat this again?
Guest:You're telling me I have to go across an ocean after this.
Guest:This can't just be a thing I order and it's delivered to my house.
Guest:This is a possibly once in a lifetime thing that I'm eating.
Guest:I was thinking that while I was eating it.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:That is that is that sounds amazing.
Marc:And I'm going to I'm going to bookmark it.
Marc:So here's a pro tip.
Marc:I bookmark on Google Maps because I use Google Maps with my wife and we can collab and we have tons of lists.
Marc:of restaurants and we even like have subcategories for like tacos and like you know cocktails and stuff so i am i'm making a list i have a brunch list um so i'm i'm adding that to my restaurants list and i want i need to go to ireland so uh so yeah i'm going to seek this definitely uh you dig it the most yeah yeah
Marc:That's great.
Marc:By the way, in New York, there's a dosa cart in Washington Square Park.
Marc:That is fantastic.
Marc:Oh, I love to hear that.
Marc:There's always a line.
Marc:So you can hopefully go in like the springtime or the fall shoulder season because it can obviously get really hot and really cold in New York, but this dosa cart has delicious dosas.
Marc:So I highly recommend that if you are in New York and over near Washington Square Park.
Guest:In the food truck category, I will say that the greatest recommendation I could give in my life in terms of a food item to get out of a food truck is something that's going to be very rare for people to get because it is in a small hamlet called Greenville, New York.
Guest:maybe about 20 minutes south of Albany.
Guest:If you're driving on, if you've come off the New York State Thruway and you're heading through some of the backcountry roads, this is at the intersection of Routes 32 and 81 in Greenville, New York.
Guest:There is a truck called Tommy's Hot Dogs.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And this sounds silly, right?
Guest:Oh, a hot dog truck.
Guest:You got hot dogs everywhere.
Guest:And, you know, you get them in New York.
Guest:You get a hot dog anywhere.
Guest:What's so great about a hot dog?
Guest:I have put this to the test because my family lives up near Greenville, New York.
Guest:And I've had many visitors with me in the area that I say, we're going to get a hot dog at Tommy's hot dog truck.
Guest:And I will talk it up.
Guest:I will say it will be the best hot dog you've ever had in your life.
Guest:So I already set the bar at best you've ever had.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You're doing yourself no favors.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, but I know that I can because it is.
Guest:And we, I have never once been let down.
Guest:I've never once brought someone to Tommy's hot dog truck, home of the mat dog and had them say, this was not the best hot dog I've ever had.
Guest:Really?
Marc:So, so wait, what, what do you get?
Marc:What's a mat dog?
Marc:Is it with the, like all the accoutrements?
Guest:No, the funny thing is, I think it's just that when the guy who originally worked out of the truck, his name was Matt.
Guest:And I think people just wound up.
Guest:The truck didn't used to say Tommy's hot dog truck.
Guest:It just said hot dogs.
Guest:When I was a kid, you'd go past and it was like a painted by hand that said hot dogs on this truck.
Guest:And so people to know exactly what you were talking about, if you said we're going to get a hot dog, they'd say I'm going to get a Matt dog, you know, like a dog from the guy named Matt.
Guest:It didn't matter what you were putting on it.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But I will say that there's only two ways to eat the Mat Dog.
Guest:It's with peppers and onions.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Peppers and onions.
Guest:Put that one to the side.
Guest:And then sauerkraut and mustard.
Guest:And put that to the side.
Guest:He offers it with chili.
Guest:He offers it with cheese.
Guest:All the things that people, you know, want.
Guest:But peppers and onions and sauerkraut and mustard are, to me, the only way to go with the Mat Dogs.
Guest:But the...
Guest:A plain mat dog with nothing on it is still the best hot dog you'll ever have in your life.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I'm serious about this.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And it goes to the same thing.
Guest:I've brought this up before about Nathan's in Coney Island.
Guest:That...
Guest:If you go down to Coney Island, there's Nathan's on Surf Avenue, the big Nathan's.
Guest:Everybody knows it's been there for over 100 years.
Guest:It's where they do the hot dog eating contest.
Guest:But then up on the boardwalk, there's tons of Nathan's.
Guest:And in fact, you walk around New York City, there are a bunch of hot dog carts that say Nathan's.
Guest:They're just doing.
Guest:you can go to your grocery store and get Nathan's hot dogs.
Guest:The only good Nathan's hot dog is at the original spot.
Guest:And it has nothing to do with the meat they're serving.
Guest:And it has everything to do with a 100 year old griddle.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so you go to Tommy's hot dog truck and you order a hot dog.
Guest:And what Tommy or whoever is in the truck does is takes a little metal cylinder that has a ladle in it.
Guest:And he takes that out and pours it over the griddle.
Guest:And it's all oil that goes on this griddle.
Guest:And they've been doing that since before I was alive.
Yeah.
Guest:so it is mixed with the flavors of all its ancestors right there and they make they will tell you what hot dogs do you use oh we you think it's a god god they must use some secret amazing hot dog nope cons hot dogs k-a-h-n hot dogs oh wow
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they don't want to hide that from you.
Guest:We use Con's hot dogs.
Guest:We use Arnold's Rolls.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:It's their griddle.
Guest:Crazy.
Marc:The griddle makes it good.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:That sounds great.
Marc:I bookmarked it.
Marc:And you know what?
Marc:It's a great little area because it's like the halfway point or not so much halfway, but it's like outside of Albany.
Marc:That's a good place to.
Guest:If you're here's what I would say, if you're ever heading up to Lake George or Lake Placid, you're going to do that run up the New York State Thruway.
Guest:There are much worse things that you could do than take the detour by getting off at the Cooksaki exit and you go through Greenville and then just head up to Albany and get back on the Thruway at Albany.
Guest:That's that's a that's a totally decent way to do it.
Guest:And you'll see some nice countryside at the same time and probably plenty of Trump signs.
Marc:Well, sure.
Marc:That sounds great.
Marc:And it actually reminds me of a place that I love in Maine.
Marc:So you've never been to Maine, have you?
Marc:I sure have.
Marc:You have?
Marc:And there's a lobster place there and like there's lobster places all throughout that area.
Marc:But my favorite is Red's Eats.
Marc:First of all, the line goes fast and they have like a little patio area with like white patio furniture.
Marc:And what's perfect about it is by the time you get there, it's not like,
Marc:You have to hold your seat or, you know, a seat for, for you and your, you know, family.
Marc:It's by the time you get there, someone is just leaving.
Marc:And like.
Guest:Oh, this is, and this is like a roadside thing.
Guest:It looks like it's right off route one in Maine.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:This is, this is in Wiscasset, Maine.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There it is.
Marc:See, a pro can say that name.
Marc:I cannot.
Marc:But they give you basically three pounds of lobster with claw and everything.
Marc:And I get it with butter.
Marc:But if you want to get it some other way, that's fine.
Marc:But it is...
Marc:like lobster.
Marc:And oh yeah, by the way, there's a hot dog bun somewhere under there.
Marc:And it is just a feast, a feast for yourself.
Marc:So I highly recommend going to Red's Eats if you're in Maine.
Marc:And I highly recommend that because it is a delightful little state or big state, I should say.
Guest:Well, put a pin in that because I'm going to turn to our listeners now and lobster roll does come up again.
Guest:But how about while I go through this, Chris, you stop me if what I'm talking about from our listeners here sparks any memories for yourself, because I know it definitely did for me in terms of things that are either similar or like minded suggestions.
Guest:Love it.
Guest:So Terry wrote this.
Guest:Terry says, I've lived in Bangkok for 20 years, and obviously there's lots of amazing Thai food everywhere, but also arguably the best Japanese food outside of Japan.
Guest:My number one choice would be chicken karage, or it might be said karage, I'm not sure, but K-A-R-A-A-G-E, if you're looking to spell that menu item, at Yoshi Bar on Fonglor 53.
Guest:Perfect, crisp, juicy fried chicken.
Guest:Did you have great food experiences in Thailand?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I mean, my wife and I, we love to travel.
Marc:And we also, we're very good with not getting food poison.
Marc:Like, you know, we...
Marc:We're not dum-dums.
Marc:We don't drink some water if the area doesn't have a good water system.
Marc:So yeah, we always eat good.
Marc:It's actually the number one thing that we travel for is the food.
Marc:Like we're going to Mexico City and we have like 10 food.
Marc:fucking taco stands that we're going to go to.
Marc:Just regular taco stands.
Marc:Can't wait.
Marc:I'm like salivating thinking about it.
Marc:We eat good.
Marc:So yeah, but luckily, knock on wood, have never had a problem with... Actually, that's not true.
Marc:I had food poisoning once and it was in Italy.
Marc:And it sounds just silly because obviously Italy has very good food, but
Marc:This was a trip that I planned with my wife.
Marc:I actually planned to propose to my wife on this trip.
Marc:And at the last minute, my wife's friends decided to come with us to this trip.
Marc:And look, I was dating my wife for like a year and a half.
Marc:And I was like, sure, why not?
Marc:And I...
Marc:Decided then I was not going to propose to my wife.
Marc:And we anyway went to Venice and we're in Venice.
Marc:And my wife and I were like, oh, well, look, in Venice, you go to bars and they have all of these little hors d'oeuvres that you get, you know, to pick on while you're at the bar.
Marc:And come on, we're all we'll all do this.
Marc:It'll be great.
Marc:Little little bar crawl.
Marc:And my wife's friend was like, no, I want a proper meal.
Marc:I want to go and like sit down and like have a meal and like have a steak.
Marc:So we were like, okay, sure.
Marc:So we went to a place that he wanted to go to.
Marc:And sure enough, I got food poisoning from it.
Marc:So that's the one time I had food poisoning was because I had to, you know, relent to someone else's desires.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, Jen is very similar to you, Chris.
Guest:She's a she's a traveler.
Guest:Jen says, as someone who travels frequently for work, I share your enthusiasm for wanting to try all the local food spots.
Guest:It's one of the best ways to get to know a place outside of the tourist destinations.
Guest:Here are a few places and dishes that stand out to me.
Guest:Chicago.
Guest:kuma's corner has delicious burgers and chicken sandwiches all built around a heavy metal theme and in terms of the pizza wars i'm a lou malnati's fan because the crust is so buttery that's the only one i've had i've had lou malnati's have you had any of the yeah yeah what are your feelings on the chicago pizza it's not really a pizza it's
Marc:it's fine it's it's a it's its own thing it's its own thing and it's fine um look i love all pizza like when when you're like hey what's your favorite pizza place i'm like i don't know like there's just who cares is it good is it good to come out of a hot oven exactly exactly but like those are like pies like that is like a like a casserole yes yeah casserole if you will
Marc:And they're fine.
Marc:I can have literally one slice and then I'm good.
Marc:I don't know people that have like a whole pie.
Marc:I don't even know what you do with that afterwards.
Marc:You're not eating that whole thing.
Marc:And then it's just like living in your life, in your fridge.
Guest:jen's list she says new orleans dama lisa's po boy and bar is pretty well known it's a bit off the beaten path and feels frozen in time which is all part of the charm order a fully dressed half and half which is fried shrimp and oysters and i will say i've been to new orleans once and i totally screwed up like everywhere i ate was substandard oh no kidding
Guest:And I've heard since having been there, there's just been many places where I've been like, ah, man, I wish I'd gone to that place.
Guest:And so I will mark down Domilese's po' boy.
Guest:I feel like I missed out on my good New Orleans food experience.
Guest:Yeah, I've never been.
Marc:And I always worry about like New Orleans because like you can get really good food and then you can kind of just get substandard stuff.
Marc:That's exactly what happened to me.
Marc:Yeah, that's a bummer.
Guest:But thank you so much for sending that in.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:All right, San Francisco.
Guest:She says, I don't usually like Chinese food, but I was blown away by House of Nanking.
Guest:Sesame chicken with sweet potatoes is amazing.
Guest:That's an interesting combination.
Guest:Sweet potatoes?
Guest:I've never heard of that before in my entire life.
Guest:I have not either.
Guest:I do know that restaurant, though, in San Francisco.
Guest:I also know that San Francisco, this reminded me of one of the things that I have eaten in my life and been like...
Guest:This one thing is amazing.
Guest:And I will come back to the city just to get this.
Guest:What's that?
Guest:So this is a small brunch spot in Japantown in San Francisco called Sweet Maple.
Guest:Remember that name, Sweet Maple.
Guest:And if you ever go to Sweet Maple, order the Millionaire's Bacon.
Guest:Ooh, what's the millionaire's bacon?
Guest:That is one of the greatest thing.
Guest:And you don't have to be a millionaire, Chris.
Guest:That's the great thing about it.
Marc:It sounds pricey.
Guest:Sounds like I can't afford it.
Guest:Millionaire's bacon, I believe, costs like $8.
Guest:Really?
Marc:That is a bargain, apparently.
Marc:What is in the millionaire's bacon?
Marc:Oh, I'm seeing it.
Marc:Is it, oh, is it one of those maple, like, dipped things?
Guest:It's one of those things where they lay it all out on a, like, a rack.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah, like giant racks that go into a giant oven and these thick cut pieces of bacon and they smother them with brown sugar and hot pepper, like crushed red pepper.
Guest:And they cook it like that.
Guest:God damn, that sounds good.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, that sounds good.
Guest:It's actually not as cheap as I thought.
Guest:It's $15, but still not 1 million.
Guest:You can also get the Millionaire's Bacon Sampler Platter, which gives you four different kinds of Millionaire's Bacon.
Guest:What?
Guest:That sounds like a little too much.
Guest:It might be, because really the one flavor is all you need.
Guest:And this is what they say.
Guest:It has thick, free-range bacon backed with brown sugar, cayenne, red and black pepper.
Guest:Hmm.
Marc:That sounds, okay.
Marc:So this place is a breakfast place, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's just a brunch spot.
Marc:Do they do a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich with these?
Marc:With the millionaire's bacon on it?
Marc:Hmm.
Marc:Let's see.
Marc:Cause that's all I want right now.
Marc:Like as we're talking, I want a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich with this millionaire's bacon.
Guest:Well, let's see.
Guest:Scrambles, Benedicts, omelets.
Marc:I find eggs Benedict kind of a waste of time.
Guest:Yeah, not a fan.
Guest:No, I don't see any breakfast sandwiches.
Marc:So I know bacon, egg, and cheese is like a New York staple.
Guest:Yeah, I think that's probably what it... Oh, wait, wait, hang on.
Guest:Okay, so no, they don't do it as like a bacon, egg, and cheese, but they do... The Millionaire's Melt...
Guest:which is like a fancy bacon, egg, and cheese because you've got the bacon, arugula, tomato, egg, gouda, and aioli.
Marc:It sounds great.
Marc:It sounds like an egg benny.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just like, look, it's so easy.
Marc:It's so simple.
Marc:bacon egg and cheese like on a roll like you you can't go hard roll hard roll yeah hard roll like i don't know man there there's some things that are just so simple and so decadent at the same time that do you ever do you ever do now that you're a new jerseyite do you or new jersey are you either an are you new jersey in or no jersey idea i have no idea and you're gonna ask me about pork roll aren't you
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Have you done it yet?
Marc:I did it once.
Marc:I ordered it once and I ordered it and I guess because I've never ordered it before, I told my place, I was like, hey, can I get a Taylor ham egg and cheese on a roll?
Marc:And when I got home, do you know what they gave me?
Marc:They gave me just ham, just ham and cheese on a roll.
Marc:And I wanted, why?
Marc:Cause are you in a pork roll district?
Marc:I don't, I guess, I don't know.
Guest:I've never desired for people who are not from the area.
Guest:This is a very specific product made in New Jersey.
Guest:called pork roll.
Guest:And there is a brand called Taylor's pork roll.
Guest:And the original pork roll and Taylor's pork roll had like a turf war.
Guest:And so half of New Jersey only has Taylor, which they call Taylor ham instead of Taylor pork roll.
Guest:They have Taylor ham.
Guest:And then the other half of New Jersey has pork roll.
Guest:And if you go into a store, it will say one of those two things on the menu, but never both.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Never the two shall meet.
Marc:So apparently I must have said the wrong thing.
Marc:You know, basically I called them a slur when I made my order.
Marc:They're like, hey, hey, hey, we can tailor ham here.
Marc:Not you, buddy.
Marc:Also, I'm pretty sure they could tell that I've never ordered it before because I was probably like stuttering and stammering over it.
Guest:One tailor ham, please.
Yes.
Guest:You run out of the store.
Marc:Just a waste of time.
Marc:Just give me some bacon.
Marc:You're like, I don't know.
Guest:You're missing out on that though.
Guest:That is great.
Guest:What?
Guest:On a roll, a round roll with egg and cheese, the Taylor ham, it's perfect.
Guest:Really?
Guest:It's a perfect thing to have with an egg.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I would say I'm going to get that, but I'm still stuck on- You just always fuck it up?
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like I got to order it online or some shit, but like, no, no.
Guest:Next time you're here in Brooklyn, we're going to go to there's, I have two places where I can get a, just as though I'm getting it in New Jersey, Taylor ham and cheese, which is, uh, the, uh, court street grocer.
Guest:Uh, there's is a little fancier than, than I'd like.
Guest:Uh, just, I, I think it should just be on one of those regular round rolls that you could get at a, you know, guy you're walking by on the street cart.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:And the place that's not far from where you used to live in Windsor Terrace, Terrace Bagels, they do the best one.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And do they call it Taylor Ham or do they call it?
Guest:They call it, they just call the sandwich itself the Jersey Boy.
Guest:So you know that if you get the Jersey Boy, it's on there.
Marc:See, that's what they, all these places in Jersey should be.
Marc:Just give me the Jersey boy.
Marc:And it's, it's a, you know, Taylor ham and cheese of whatever.
Marc:Also, Court Street Grocer is like some of my favorite food.
Marc:I think you turned me on to that.
Marc:And I did.
Marc:I have never stopped.
Marc:Like their Brooklyn, sorry, their broccoli Reuben.
Marc:It's so good.
Marc:Sometimes I just eat like, you know, I don't eat meat.
Marc:So they have a delightful selection of food that is not, doesn't have anything to do with meat and is just delicious.
Guest:Well, speaking of New York locations, the last thing I have here from Jen is that she said, a local New York City rec for the two of you, Cherry Valley Deli in Whitestone, Queens.
Guest:uh and she says you can get your usually usual deli fare or go all out with a crazy sandwich favorites are the tcs which is a fried chicken cutlet gravy and american cheese the bomb which is steak gravy cheddar bacon and motz the bullet fried chicken cutlet special sauce bacon pepper jack and fries it's taken years off our lives
Guest:But it's worth it.
Guest:So, Jen, I totally get what you're saying.
Guest:I know this type of place.
Guest:I've never been to this one out in Whitestone, Queens.
Guest:But, Chris, there is one not far from you in Hawthorne, New Jersey, called Bogies Hoagies.
Guest:And they do roughly the same types of sandwiches.
Guest:Lots of chicken cutlet with various things incorporated in it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Any deli like this, I used to have one when I went to school up in the Bronx, a place called Butchie's.
Guest:We all went to Butchie's for subs and they did stuff like this.
Guest:That type of place, having a favorite like that is worth its weight in gold and artery clogging cholesterol.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:very good that reminds me of da fonti's uh sandwich shop they oh yeah in red hook yeah yeah they used to have one in like midtown but now it's just in red hook but yeah i always i always um re-watched 30 rock and uh there's there's an episode where uh where they the the teamsters get sandwiches and like these delicious sandwiches and like yeah it's brian dennehy right and they have to like negotiate with him for the sandwiches
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And the dipping sauce.
Marc:And anyway, they're like, we don't know where they get them from.
Marc:I'm pretty sure they get them from DeFonti's.
Marc:If I had to guess, I bet that is where they got these sandwiches.
Guest:Well, back to the idea of the Chicago style pizza.
Guest:Marianne said, I grew up in Trenton and the very best pizza, but we call it tomato pie, is at DiLorenzo's.
Guest:Family business.
Guest:And it's since moved to Robbinsville, New Jersey.
Guest:They took the original ovens there and it has another location in Yardley, Pennsylvania.
Guest:She says it has spoiled me for any other pizza ever.
Guest:So that's crazy to me.
Guest:Like if you're saying that the tomato pie is better than any other pizza, I.
Guest:I will have to try it because I have always seen the tomato pie when we've been like vacationing down in like the Jersey shore.
Guest:And I know it's like a South Jersey Philly thing, but I've never had it.
Guest:I'm going to have to try it out.
Guest:And maybe the best thing to do is to go to this place, DeLorenzo's.
Marc:Yeah, that sounds great.
Marc:I kind of want to make a pilgrimage out there.
Guest:I want to give a shout out to Jamie, who wrote in about something else.
Guest:She was writing in about, you know, Mark's standard question of who are your guys.
Guest:And she wanted to say, like, I think Mark is my guy.
Guest:Like, I've been listening to him for so long and I have him in my head.
Guest:And then she said...
Guest:I even named a sandwich after him at my vegan store in Brooklyn.
Guest:And that store is called Yo To Go.
Guest:And that's Yo spelled like dough, but with a Y. Y-O-U-G-H.
Guest:To Go.
Guest:And it's in Bushwick or Bed-Stuy.
Guest:I'm not really sure, but you could go check that out.
Guest:Yo To Go.
Guest:And yes, the Marc Maron is a sandwich on their menu.
Guest:I have no idea if it's something that Marc would actually eat, but...
Guest:This was, I guess, Jamie or her team's creation and thought it was suited for Mark.
Guest:It's got some feta cheese, got some tofu.
Guest:Definitely feels like something Mark would eat.
Guest:Maybe next time he's here, I'll have to take him by.
Guest:totally like mark ordering a mark marron sandwich it sounds yeah he took me to a place in in uh his old neighborhood highland park where we had the mark marron it was like a burger joint and they had one of their burgers was a mark man was it good yeah it was a burger topped with crazy shit so of course it was good
Marc:Crazy shit.
Guest:Yeah, like it had brisket on it or something, something that should not have been on it.
Guest:Good lord.
Guest:Yeah, it made it much better and much more likely to kill you.
Guest:Okay, Ryan, our Tarantino friend, said, and this goes back to lobster rolls, if you're in Halifax...
Guest:Now I would think there's a million things in Halifax that have to do with seafood, but he's saying you have to have a lobster roll, but not any lobster roll.
Guest:The one at the arms, which is the restaurant at the Lord Nelson hotel is the best one to get.
Guest:And this sounds a lot like what you were saying, Chris, they pack the bun with as much lobster as possible.
Guest:And then they add a little more.
Guest:So that's that idea of just completely covering the whole thing.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:And so, yes.
Guest:And he said, a lot of lobster rolls have so much mayo that they may as well be called mayo rolls.
Guest:Not this one.
Guest:Just enough mayo to provide moisture or whatever that stuff is supposed to do.
Guest:And so that does sound amazing to me.
Guest:I love a lobster roll.
Guest:And you are both right about this, is that usually they're pretty standard, right?
Guest:It takes an exceptional one for you to remember it.
Guest:Because all these lobster rolls are going to be pretty good.
Guest:But then people screw them up.
Marc:do all sorts of stuff put stuff i i hate when i get one that's got like celery and stuff in it that i'm like oh no that's the worst yeah yeah you know at my wedding we had a lobster truck uh a lobster you did yeah so so yeah we were we're very much a fan of lobster rolls and uh and yeah like i like when they have like chives like i i i'll i'll enjoy chives but uh celery is a bridge too far
Guest:Well, Seth was writing to us while he was eating.
Guest:He said, listen to the show.
Guest:Thought of your call out about Dan Pashman while having excellent lunch at the historic Charlie's Sandwich Shop in Boston's South End neighborhood.
Guest:Basically a diner, but I would put blueberry pancakes and the grilled Rachel from there on the list.
Guest:But then Seth also sent a picture of the wall at the Charlie's Sandwich Shop in South Boston of Terry Funk in the restaurant.
Guest:that's awesome it was like a side autographed terry funk photo on the wall hell yeah that better be framed that's oh it was it was definitely framed awesome okay i'm gonna run through the rest of these because these came from people uh without putting their name but that doesn't mean they didn't make good recommendations uh this one says the best breakfast taco in the world whoa
Guest:Would have to be found at Maria's Cafe in San Antonio, Texas.
Guest:And I got to say, I looked this up.
Guest:This place has actually been written up in the New York Times in like one of those, like, we can't believe we found this place articles.
Guest:Like, you know, like we found crazy food all over the country that you'd never know about.
Guest:It's this tiny hole in the wall.
Guest:And sure enough, these breakfast tacos look fucking crazy.
Marc:San Antonio.
Marc:I have to go to San Antonio again.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:I love this one.
Guest:I don't know that the food is going to be any different than any other place, but I like the rationale from this listener who sent it in.
Guest:They recommend Gus's Gyros, or Gyros, if you will.
Guest:I'd say Gyros in Racine, Wisconsin.
Guest:You know it's going to be good when the website says, cleanest bathrooms in town.
Ha ha!
Guest:and the bag is greasy.
Marc:That's why it tastes good.
Marc:Oh man.
Marc:I have heartburn just thinking about that.
Guest:It does look good though.
Guest:And then this is a very interesting thing that I never really thought the two existed, but this person sent them in as though like, well, of course I have to narrow this down.
Guest:Best soul food in Sacramento.
Yeah.
Guest:and they said the place the best place to go to is fixins says don't mess around get the fried chicken smothered in rue brown gravy with collard greens turkey necks and mac and cheese go ahead and add a cornbread muffin with purple butter on the side and don't deny yourself peach cobbler
Marc:Wow, that sounds great.
Marc:Now, there's a fixings in Detroit.
Marc:I wonder if it's a chain.
Marc:Oh, maybe.
Marc:That sounds good.
Guest:Well, I think on that note, my stomach and brain and ears and mouth and olfactory senses can stand no more.
Guest:So, yes, it is time for us to go have our own meals.
Guest:It will not include any of this stuff.
Marc:No, I'm planning to make like raviolis with like some...
Guest:No, we have impossible meat sitting in the fridge there that's going to get turned into something fake.
Marc:It's going to be so disappointing compared to what we were just talking about.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I thank you to everyone who contributed and the list continues to grow and I would keep.
Guest:ask you to keep sending them in we'll do this again uh although it won't be next week next week we will spend the full hour talking to dan pashman to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the sporkful podcast uh which he started right around the same time as wtf so there's a lot of overlap there's a lot for us to talk about if you want to send us anything about food any of the reactions to the stuff we've been talking about today the link is in the episode description and i'll be a buddy and
Guest:and put in the episode description the names of all the places that we mentioned on this episode.
Guest:What a guy.
Guest:So definitely check those out if they're in your area or where you live or places that you plan to go.
Guest:And in the meantime, we will talk to you next week with Dan Pashman here on the show.
Guest:And until then, I'm Brendan and that's Chris.
Peace.