BONUS The Friday Show - Did I Break Your Concentration?
Marc:Hey.
Marc:Hello.
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:Good.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:Hang on one second.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sorry.
Marc:I'm being the IT support for my mom who is not receiving emails on her AOL account.
Marc:Well, that's probably a good thing.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:I mean, you have no idea what I do to sort of firewall her from just, I don't know, her awfulness.
Marc:Like she was telling me, like, I went to her house once and I had to like, she was like, oh, I can't comment on YouTube videos.
Marc:I'm like, that's the best thing I've ever heard in my whole life.
Yeah.
Marc:And she's like, no, no, I want you to fix it.
Marc:Like, well, what if I don't?
Marc:And you just comment to your friends about the video.
Marc:And she's like, no, no, I really want it.
Marc:And so I'm in this precarious position where I'm like,
Marc:Okay, do I let my mom comment on this QAnon bullshit and have her voice be seen out in the internet?
Marc:Or do I just say, nah, I don't know what to do.
Marc:That's weird.
Guest:It's like your mom being like, hey, I can't get crack from that guy downstairs anymore.
Guest:Could you get the crack for me, please?
Yeah.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:So I'm just in this weird spot.
Marc:Oh, you know what?
Marc:She has the email.
Marc:She called Amazon to get a return slip, and it wasn't coming through.
Marc:Who calls Amazon?
Marc:God damn it.
Guest:Can you do that?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:Like, what are you calling?
Guest:That's what I want to know.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Is she talking to a human at this point?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Maybe she called the Amazon.
Guest:What?
Guest:What package?
Marc:What package?
Marc:We got snakes.
Guest:You want to get eaten by a crocodile?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:All right.
Marc:That's taken care of.
Marc:Thankfully, my mom's QAnon nonsense still not on the internet, which is great.
Marc:All right.
All right.
Marc:Hello, Chris.
Marc:Brendan, our Miracle Mets season is over.
Marc:It is over.
Guest:But I did say, didn't you hear me say two weeks ago, I said it to all the people listening, I said if it ended tomorrow back then, it was a success.
Guest:And it sure was.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:100% it was a success.
Guest:Which which we don't we don't find ourselves in that position very often.
Guest:We're used to very, you know, down endings.
Guest:We're used to, you know, not accomplish it.
Guest:Hey, we haven't gotten a world championship for our team in 38 years.
Guest:So that's a long drought.
Guest:There's a lot of other teams that have had one since then.
Guest:And, you know, we have a kind of reputation as an underachieving team and a fan base that doesn't get a lot to celebrate.
Guest:Well, there was tons to celebrate this year.
Guest:And it's like it's funny, Chris.
Guest:I don't know about you and other people, you know, who follow the Mets.
Guest:But like to a person, I have heard nothing but happiness.
Guest:Like, people are very happy and satisfied despite, you know, not making it to the World Series.
Guest:So we're two games away from the World Series.
Marc:Yeah, this team, this season, we sort of crossed the Rubicon.
Marc:And it's...
Marc:It's not a downer.
Marc:I'm not crushed that we lost.
Marc:I'm just sort of, you know, I think there's like, what is it?
Marc:It's a phrase.
Marc:It's a, don't be sad that it's over.
Marc:Smile because it happened.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Basically how I feel right now.
Marc:Like, I love that team.
Guest:It's the friends we made along the way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yes, totally.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:But I will say there were signs that the season was going to end on Sunday.
Marc:I don't know about you, but did you see the signs that the season was going to end?
Marc:That we had no pitching?
Marc:Yeah, that was a pretty big sign.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, sure.
Marc:There's that.
Marc:There's the Dodgers offense.
Marc:But for me, what I saw earlier on Sunday, that was a sign that
Marc:And what I'm talking about is the angel of death himself, Donald motherfucking Trump, put on a fucking apron, went to a McDonald's in Pennsylvania for a photo op.
Guest:Oh, like he killed Grimace.
Guest:He was like a succubus of Grimace's energy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, he went to Grimace's house and just made a mockery of the whole place.
Marc:So that, for me, was a sign.
Marc:I didn't want to believe it.
Marc:I was like, no, no, no, no, just a coincidence.
Marc:But it is so...
Marc:So obvious now looking back, just like when I see that picture of 2006 of Carlos Beltran looking at a curveball from Adam Wainwright and Molina is jumping up in the air and in the stands standing is Donald Trump.
Guest:You know what's so creepy about that picture is that it was raining at the end of that game, if you remember.
Guest:I mean, I remember it pretty well because I walked out of the place we were at and it was raining.
Guest:It was raining, yeah.
Guest:And so it's raining in Queens at the end of that game, 2006, game seven, and the Mets lose on a called strike.
Guest:Watching it happen, this picture shows the moment, and you can see the people in the stands, and everyone is wearing ponchos.
Guest:These are all the rich people, you know, in the low bowl, right?
Guest:Right behind home plate.
Guest:They paid thousands and thousands of dollars for these tickets or they're the owners, family and friends or whatever.
Guest:So they're all wearing ponchos.
Guest:They don't want to get their hair wet.
Guest:They don't want to get their clothes wet.
Guest:The only person there with no poncho on was standing there like the slender man.
Guest:Like, like he looks like he's from the omen.
Guest:Like, remember in the omen when you'd see a picture of yourself and it would have like a black line across your throat and you're like, Hmm, that's weird.
Guest:And then one scene later, your head gets cut off.
Guest:Like that's what it looked like.
Guest:in his picture it's just like wait is that photoshop donald trump's just standing there like the most untouched person he has no poncho the rain doesn't seem to be hitting him but he's standing there presiding over the death of my team totally
Marc:So that was Donald Trump again in 2024.
Marc:In his fake McDonald's.
Marc:Fake McDonald's, destroyer of hope and dreams.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There he was again.
Marc:So, yeah, it was a great run.
Marc:And I wouldn't change anything, honestly.
Marc:It was great.
Guest:Yeah, well, I got this comment here that came in from Brett and I wanted to read this because it's it's very fitting that, you know, you know, it's not just us.
Guest:And I saw somebody saying this about the Mets run.
Guest:And then like John Mayer, he wrote this very like eloquent reaction to it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:John Mayer, the guitarist.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Uh, that he was, he was like, you know, this was an inspiring team for me.
Guest:Cause I was, I, I started following along with what they were doing right when I was going into the sphere, right.
Guest:The, the thing in, uh, uh, Vegas, you know, doing a residency there.
Guest:He, you know, he does shows with the grateful dead.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think they called dead and company or whatever.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:He was like, I was, you know, nervous.
Guest:I didn't know that I would have my fastball to, you know, mix a metaphor here.
Guest:And he was like, I looked to Francisco Lindor and what he was doing to kind of like, you know, put it all on his shoulders and be a leader.
Guest:And I found inspiration in that.
Guest:So like the team really gave me that.
Guest:And I saw this comment come in here from Brett, and it was like the same thing.
Guest:It was like, you know, you look for signs in things.
Guest:You look for like, oh, this is inspiring to me.
Guest:It might not even be my thing, but maybe someday my thing will work.
Guest:And the thing I'm invested in will pay off, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, growing up near Chicago, my dad made sure I was a Cubs fan.
Guest:So as an eight year old in 1986, I naturally hated the Mets.
Guest:Gooden, Strawberry, Darling, Backman, Carter, all the rest of that team were the enemy.
Guest:However, my mom grew up in Queens and my grandparents still lived there.
Guest:Imagine my surprise one night in 1986 when I was talking to my grandma on the phone and discovered that she was rooting for the Mets.
Guest:in the World Series against the Red Sox.
Guest:My very own grandma rooting for the Mets, but I love my grandma and I hate the Mets.
Guest:The contradiction almost made my eight-year-old head explode.
Guest:Was my grandma evil?
Guest:I cried when the Mets won, but the Cubs...
Guest:own World Series victory in 2016 healed many old wounds I'm still not fond of the Mets but I'm happy that Brennan and Chris get to experience the joy of their team's success I won't root for them but you've made it easier not to root against them let's go Cubbies see I love that
Guest:I love the idea that you can pinpoint someone else's joy and relate it to yours, take some form of inspiration in the idea that people are out there just trying to get through their lives and finding something that gives them a little hope, a little encouragement.
Guest:It's all the reason why.
Guest:Look, there's plenty of negative stuff about sports, about organized sports, about the
Guest:industry of sports, it's real shitty in a lot of ways.
Guest:And there have been plenty of times where I have noped out, right?
Guest:But the good stuff is there.
Guest:And when it hits, it hits.
Guest:And I think for us this year, it really hit.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:That's a great comment.
Marc:That was great.
Marc:See, I love how inspiring this Mets team was.
Marc:That's awesome.
Guest:Well, this question came in from Lorenzo and we should address it here since we're talking about these teams.
Guest:He says, I've always been curious as to how New Yorkers are very strongly either Mets or Yankees fans and don't seem to root for the other at all, despite being in the same city.
Guest:How does one become a fan of one versus the other?
Guest:Is it a regional thing or you just become a fan of one as a kid and stick to it?
Guest:P.S.
Guest:I hate the Yankees too, but I am not a New Yorker.
Guest:I live in Vancouver.
Guest:And Lorenzo also recommended the Pacino movie Scarecrow, which we hadn't seen.
Guest:He went on about how good that is.
Guest:So we should probably give that a shot.
Guest:But yes, Chris, I mean, obviously I have very strong thoughts and opinions on this, as I'm sure you do.
Guest:But I should say, I think Lorenzo like hit the two biggest ones, right?
Guest:It's regional.
Guest:And also like...
Marc:what happened when you were a kid like those are the two biggest things yes yeah it's like if the team was great in whenever you were like 10 to 15 or younger like for us it was younger yeah i guess so and like also if you had family members who were fans but also like your friends so it's a lot of mixed influences and you sort of
Marc:You know, wind up where you are.
Marc:I remember, like, my brother saying that he liked the Yankees because of, like, at the time they had that logo where, like, they had, like, a bat with the little Uncle Sam hat on.
Guest:Yeah, exactly, in the 70s.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And, like, that was cool to him.
Marc:I was like, okay, cool.
Marc:But, like, yeah, I'm a Met fan.
Marc:And, yeah, I think it just comes down to your friends.
Marc:But for me, it came down to who weren't my friends, who were, like, the schoolyard bullies, who were the dicks in school and in my life.
Marc:And those were usually always Yankee fans.
Marc:Yes, yeah.
Marc:99% of the time, the guy who was being a dick to the teacher was the Yankee fan.
Marc:So, I don't know.
Guest:I think it was bred in the idea of, like, the Yankees were the dominant team in New York for this century.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, it's like Yankee fans to this day will do the like, oh, we got 27 rings.
Guest:And it's like, well, the vast majority of those are for before anyone in your family is alive.
Guest:And and they didn't let black people play in the sport.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So but it's like still they have this mentality about like we have the we have the numbers on our side.
Guest:This is the legacy organization.
Guest:And that kind of mentality, you know, the very like dominant personality mentality.
Guest:And like, I think, you know, for me, when I grew up and I grew up in Queens, I grew up five minutes from Shea Stadium.
Guest:So it was very logical to be a Mets fan.
Guest:But, you know, it was, you know, a ton of Mets fans that were my age because it was a popular team.
Guest:All those people that were mentioned in Brett's letter there, you know, Strawberry Gooden, Gary Carter, Mookie Wilson, all these like very lovable personalities.
Guest:Lovable, some of them were horrible people.
Guest:But like...
Guest:at the time uh but still it was they were it was like pro wrestling like you were like rooting for hulk hogan or macho man randy like it was like it was like oh look doc and daryl these are the superheroes right right so you know you for a little kid it captured your imagination and i think that happened again for the yankees uh it for another gen the next generation you know once that late 90s yankees team took off and you had
Guest:Jeter and Mariano and Tino Martinez and all those guys, Paul O'Neill.
Guest:Like these were identifiable characters in New York.
Guest:And now I don't think it's just New York.
Guest:This is, in my experience, any city that has two teams.
Guest:You don't find people in Chicago that are like, I mean, for both.
Guest:Like, no, it's a holy war.
Guest:Like, like there's a north side and south side.
Guest:And that is that like you do not mix those two.
Guest:Yeah, I remember there's a documentary about the I think it's one of those ESPN 30 for 30s.
Guest:And it's about the Bartman game, which is the game where the Cubs on the verge of, you know, going to their first World Series since 1906 or whatever was, you know, there were one out away and a ball was hit toward the outfield.
Guest:And a fan reaches over, hits the ball, and it's not an out.
Guest:And that fan was like a lifelong Cubs fan sitting there listening to the radio broadcast at the game.
Guest:This guy named Steve Bartman.
Guest:And basically he became the guy who everyone blamed for the continued curse of the Cubs.
Guest:And I'm watching a documentary about this.
Guest:And Michael Wilbon, you know, from ESPN, pardon the interruption.
Guest:He is a lifelong Cubs fan as well.
Guest:And he was like, I do not blame Steve Bartman.
Guest:I blame Bernie Mac.
Guest:because they do the take me out to the ball game thing at the Cubs games.
Guest:They have a famous person come and do the sing-along from the booth and sing take me out to the ball game.
Guest:And when it got to the part that says, rude, rude, rude for the home team, he said, rude, rude, rude for the champs.
Marc:Oh, not the Cubbies, yeah.
Guest:And they go back to Michael Wilbon and he's like...
Guest:This guy, a South Sider, came into our place and said, root for the champs before we had won anything.
Guest:It's his fault.
Marc:He did it.
Guest:It's not Steve Bartman.
Guest:That's just the guy watching the game from the stands.
Marc:That's amazing.
Guest:But yeah, I think you'll find it.
Guest:You find it in, you know, the Bay Area.
Guest:There's there's Giants fans.
Guest:And well, there were Oakland fans.
Guest:The team's gone from there now.
Guest:But but that was definitely a thing.
Guest:I mean, I'm sure like there's some places like in a general state where they don't have those dividing lines.
Guest:Like nobody really cares whether you're a Rays fan versus a Marlins fan because they're both in Florida.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But like, I just think if you're in a city, it becomes part of your identity.
Guest:And I know that like the identity of New York, it's like, it's very much like the Mets are the like scrappy, like can-do spirit underdogs.
Guest:And the Yankees are, we dominate.
Guest:We are the dominant like champions.
Guest:Don't tell us what to do, New Yorkers.
Guest:That attitude, I think, winds up shaping, you know, whatever the sports fandom is.
Guest:It's here the same way in football.
Guest:Like, I don't think you find Giants and Jets fans like someone who's like, I just root for both.
Guest:Like, there's either or.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:The Yankees are, for me, the white-collar team and the Mets are the blue-collar team.
Guest:And it's the same in Chicago.
Guest:It's like the Cubbies are the white-collar team and the White Sox are the blue-collar team.
Marc:Well, now I hear that this World Series is really going to split these Cowboy fans.
Marc:Because that's the thing.
Marc:Cowboy fans are also Yankee fans.
Marc:It's like this thing where, oh, this team was dominant when I was a kid.
Marc:And it was the Cowboys for the NFL.
Marc:And it was also the Yankees at the same time.
Marc:So I'm a fan of both of those no matter where I live.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, I think that's what Lorenzo is IDing there saying.
Guest:He also hates the Yankees because I think the Yankees wind up becoming a national and in his case, international signifier of baseball.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So like if you're like, you know, you go either way on that.
Guest:If you don't have an alliance, an allegiance, you can be like, well, that's my team now.
Guest:I see them all the time.
Guest:I'm interested in them.
Guest:Or you go the other way where you're like, get these guys out of my face.
Guest:Like, I don't want to see anything more about this team.
Right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So this week you had some pretty amazing guests on.
Marc:You had Bobby Z, as I like to call him, Robert Zemeckis.
Guest:That's how you talk to him on the phone?
Marc:Yes, yeah.
Guest:Hey, Bobby!
Marc:But Robert Zemeckis, who I personally have a mixed feeling about.
Marc:I like his early movies, like all the Back to the Futures.
Marc:I love Back to the Future 3.
Marc:Hugh Free and Roger Rabbit, I actually watched after Mark was raving about it with Robert Zemeckis.
Marc:And I got to say, that movie's fucking great.
Guest:yeah it's i mean that that whole thing of mark raving about it was because i said to him you have to watch who framed roger rabbit before you talk to this guy like oh yeah i was like there's this like i didn't say anything else to him i was just like part of your homework is to watch back to the future which he hadn't seen and he said he didn't think he ever saw it when he watched it i was like that's impossible that's insane
Guest:But he was like, I don't think I've ever watched it, but he watched it.
Guest:And then I was, and I said, you have to watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Guest:All the other things, if you have them in your head, that's fine.
Guest:Like you remember parts of Forrest Gump or you remember stuff about Castaway or whatever.
Guest:You know, he saw this new movie and then I was like, just, you know, definitely watch Back to the Future and watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Guest:And yes, like Who Framed Roger Rabbit is absolutely up there in the top greatest movies ever made.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:It's wild how good it is.
Marc:And it's so adult, but also like all this cartoon stuff.
Marc:It's fascinating.
Marc:Really, really.
Guest:Absolutely, absolutely timeless.
Guest:Works in any era.
Guest:Anybody can watch it at any time.
Guest:Although it definitely, I showed it to my kid the same age I was when I watched it.
Guest:So I think I was like eight, right?
Guest:And I showed it to him around the same time, which I thought he would love because he loved all the characters that were in it already.
Guest:Like he loved Bugs Bunny and he loved, you know, he loved any Disney, old school Disney Goofy and Mickey Mouse.
Guest:So I knew like, oh, this is great.
Guest:He's going to watch this movie.
Guest:It's a great movie.
Guest:It's got all these characters he already knows.
Guest:I don't know what it is.
Guest:Maybe I'm just a sick fuck from going back to my childhood.
Guest:That movie never registered to me as in any way scary.
Guest:Oh no.
Guest:It scared the shit out of him.
Guest:He said it was the scariest thing he'd ever seen in his life.
Guest:And, and I just like, I never, and I was like, Oh my God, did I scar my kid?
Guest:And then I looked it up like online.
Guest:Like there are bountiful YouTube videos about people being like, what are, what were the scariest movies you ever saw as a kid?
Guest:And oh,
Guest:Over and over and over again, Who Framed Roger Rabbit comes up as number one.
Guest:I still don't get it.
Guest:I do not get what's scary about it.
Guest:There's nothing about the Christopher Lloyd character that read as scary to me.
Guest:He's a cartoon.
Guest:I was never scared by him.
Guest:Never.
Guest:His eyes come out okay.
Guest:I was like, that's a bad guy.
Guest:You can kill that guy.
Guest:Put him in the dip.
Guest:Oh, that's what they do.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I also love the idea that you just went upstairs to leave your kid watching.
Marc:Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Marc:And like Faces of Death came on.
Guest:I was so thrilled.
Guest:I was like, we're going to watch this together.
Guest:This is the greatest movie.
Guest:You're going to love it.
Guest:I talked it up.
Guest:Like usually I'll talk things up.
Guest:I was like, you're going to love this.
Guest:It's the greatest.
Guest:And it was over.
Guest:I was like, what did you think?
Guest:He's like, really?
Guest:It's too scary.
Oh, no.
Marc:You got revoked.
Marc:All your movie privileges?
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:I lost my L.A.
Guest:privileges.
Marc:Yeah, it's like, nah, I don't think I'm going to like that one, Dad.
Marc:Thank you, though.
Guest:I had a friend of mine, the same thing happened to him with the movie, and I never would have done this just because I don't think it's a good movie, but he showed his kid the never-ending story.
Marc:You don't like the never-ending story?
Guest:I don't give a shit about it, no.
Marc:What?
Guest:It's silly to me.
Marc:Oh, man, I love that movie because the kid reading the book has a green apple.
Marc:I just love that.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:oh that sounds great what a great reason to like a movie but i should go back i forgot all about the green apple jesus fuck my face is red but but no the the funniest thing about that was she she's he's showing her this movie and if you remember what's the villain in the the never-ending story
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's like a thing, right?
Guest:No, it's, it's the opposite.
Guest:It's the nothing.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:The nothing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It is literally nothing.
Guest:So like they'll, they'll just be like there.
Guest:And then they go back to a place and they're like, ah, the nothing came and took everything.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said that fucked her up so bad.
Guest:Like she was like, nothing.
Guest:What is nothing?
So literal.
Yeah.
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:Nothing.
Marc:Nothing's happening.
Guest:It was like this metaphysical, just total mind fuck that killed.
Guest:And he said she brought it up for years afterwards.
Guest:She was like, well, that terrible movie dad made me watch and scarred me because of the nothing.
Guest:The nothing.
Marc:I would have thought maybe the horse like gets.
Guest:Oh, she was gone well before the dead horse.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like she was like, oh, fuck this.
Guest:Nothing shit.
Guest:I'm out of here.
Marc:Nothing.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I would never have thought that.
Marc:Oh, crazy.
Guest:Yeah, you don't know.
Guest:Kids' brains, they're weird.
Guest:They get freaked out by things.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:I liked Mark asking about Back to the Future rights because Bobby has this stranglehold on the Back to the Future franchise where I honestly think it's the last time –
Marc:someone who executive produced the movie has the licensing rights to something.
Marc:It's wild.
Guest:Yeah, and they're very protective of it.
Guest:I will say this.
Guest:This is a little behind-the-scenes thing.
Guest:Okay, a guy like Robert Zemeckis is totally my bag.
Guest:If I were interviewing him, I'd have like a thousand questions.
Guest:Now, that would be bad because that's not how you get a good interview.
Guest:Mark does a good interview.
Guest:I do not.
Guest:But...
Guest:I gave Mark so many notes on this, that being one of them.
Guest:I was like, this dude is super protective about the rights of Back to the Future.
Guest:They have like defied the odds in terms of keeping it within their purview, him and Bob Gale.
Guest:And like, that's interesting because like-
Guest:not everybody gets to do that like look at how much stuff is just like kind of you know regurgitate rebooted whatever and that one which is still massively popular all it's got to show for it aside from the original three movies and a ride that's no longer around is the broadway musical which he was happy about like he's like oh we got this musical that's cool um which bob gale wrote like it's not like they found that out to somebody else huh
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:And so Robert Zemeckis says in the interview, he's like, oh, we never planned on this being an ongoing story back to the future.
Marc:And like, wait, you're talking the movie that has to be continued?
Marc:It did not.
Marc:It did not.
Marc:What are you talking about?
Guest:When it first came out, it didn't say to be continued at the end.
Marc:I have a VHS copy.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:It is on the VHS once they decided there will be sequels to this.
Guest:Oh, no shit.
Guest:But it initially did not end with a to be continued.
Guest:I never knew that.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Like he said, he never would have put her in the car had he known that they were going to continue to write a sequel.
Marc:That sounds silly, though.
Marc:Why?
Marc:You can just have the girlfriend there for the next movie.
Marc:But they didn't.
Marc:They wrote her out.
Marc:Yes, they wrote her out because that actress quit showbiz.
Guest:No, but he put Elizabeth Shue in.
Guest:They went and redid the whole scene in the first movie.
Marc:Yeah, because that...
Marc:Yes, that actress wasn't there anymore.
Guest:So if you think, if that's your logic on it, then you'd want her in it a ton.
Guest:You've got a new actress who's a more known actress, right?
Guest:You'd plan to use her, but he knew you can't now, like, look, Mark didn't press him on this, but I know exactly what he would say.
Guest:When you're dealing with these time jump things,
Guest:Every little detail you make is so delicate on what it does to the rest of the timeline, right?
Guest:And so now you have a third character that you've got to account for in all these different time eras and what they do.
Guest:And so the smartest thing to do once they were forced with having a third character in the car with them is...
Guest:put her in the closet or whatever they did with her to get her out of the way.
Guest:So you don't have to worry about any logic or a paradox happening.
Guest:That's going to screw up the timeline of all the other things.
Guest:So like, it totally makes sense to me that if they had intended from the start, Oh, we'll, we'll have a sequel where they go into the future that you would just have it be doc and Marty.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then with a way that they actually, if you actually also think about it,
Guest:The way the movie ends, where he says, what happened to us?
Guest:You know, in the future, we become assholes or something.
Guest:And Doc says, no, it's not you guys.
Guest:You guys are fine.
Guest:It's your kids.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They're already handcuffing themselves there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that is clearly just supposed to be a quaint little joke.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, like.
Guest:OK, we're going to go into the future now and help your children as opposed to in the past.
Guest:And, you know, whether they were thinking about maybe someday we'll have a sequel and we'll deal with this.
Guest:We can.
Guest:But they clearly weren't thinking it through because if they were thinking it through...
Guest:the logic there is that they're fine.
Guest:Their kids are in trouble.
Guest:Well, when they actually do go to the future, they are not fine.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They have a breaking down marriage.
Guest:They, he's like, like a guy who's failing at work.
Guest:He's right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's like, he's trying to, you know, go around his boss and do illicit activities or whatever.
Guest:Like there's nothing good about Marty in the future.
Guest:And the kids, it's not even really the kids who are a problem.
Guest:The one kid is,
Guest:Gets into an incident because he's a dweeb and gets bullied into committing a crime.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's not like, oh, your kids are messed up.
Guest:We got to go save them, which is if he were talking to Marty in that driveway, say, no, we got to go into the future.
Guest:Your kid is about to have a terrible accident.
Guest:accident or a mistake happened to him like it's not like something's got to be done about your kids which is the actual line he says to him like so everything that comes in that second movie is not intended from that line that he says in the first movie
Marc:Well, I also wonder how much the the script changed because Crispin Glover didn't want to do the movie.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That's true, too.
Guest:I mean, you got to think, too.
Guest:It was five years later that the thing comes out.
Guest:It's not like they were like, great, we'll get done with this first one.
Guest:We'll get right on that second one.
Guest:No, like it had to develop.
Guest:And one of those developments was they don't get Crispin Glover.
Guest:So it's like there's just all this stuff that leads to the very obvious conclusion that, you know, no way there was no second movie planned.
Guest:They just ended.
Guest:They ended it.
Guest:I remember thinking that at the time.
Guest:That's a cute way to end.
Guest:Instead of now you're in the past, you're going into the future.
Guest:Very correct.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, for me, I was like, oh, great.
Marc:Now, now the, you know, the girlfriend gets to be our our audience character into this whole time traveling thing instead of Marty, who's already done it.
Marc:But yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So back to the future.
Marc:Great series.
Marc:I think the third one is my second favorite of the series, by the way.
Marc:I know I'm in rare company when it comes to that.
Guest:Do you think so?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Are there people that don't like the third one?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:The cowboy one?
Marc:No one really likes the old west one.
Guest:Well, I've always heard it the other way.
Guest:I've heard more people don't like the second one.
Marc:Oh, interesting.
Marc:I mean, the second one's great.
Marc:I like all three of them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's the perfect trilogy.
Marc:I think there's something for every one of those characters.
Marc:So it's great.
Marc:Your bonus episode.
Marc:Can I just say...
Marc:The stuff you cut out of Mark's monologues when he is just he's like, yeah, this is my brain.
Marc:Dude, it's so exhausting.
Marc:I'm so exhausted just hearing it for just a little a little window open.
Marc:I am exhausted by that.
Marc:And I can't believe you have to cut that out each and every week, you know, to to some extent.
Marc:Like it is wild to me.
Marc:Do you ever do it?
Marc:Are you ever exhausted after hearing that?
Guest:I mean, I don't think of it as exhausted.
Guest:It's just the edit.
Guest:It's the work.
Guest:I'm not absorbing him personally.
Guest:I think what I would say is that I become more attuned when he's in a certain place or in a certain place in his head to know going in, I'm going to have to be on the lookout for trimming this down.
Guest:I'm going to have to know...
Guest:uh you know my guard is up on like i i can't put the audience through a ringer you know and uh i have to be aware of how to do that so but that's just the job it's not like i'm like oh man i'm out there on the front lines this is the war so does things to men
Marc:It's an apocalypse now.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:So Chris Robinson, I loved all the stuff that you had to cut out.
Marc:And I understand why you did.
Marc:But I love like the whole Dan Aykroyd of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The whole Keith Richards story.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, see, that's the thing.
Guest:That's why I want to repurpose it because it's like, it's like, that's a good thing.
Guest:I didn't work.
Guest:Like, so in an ideal world, when I released that Chris Robinson episode, it has that story in there about the stones and everything.
Guest:But in order to get to that story, Mark has to tell a story he's told previously.
Guest:dozens and dozens of times and the listeners heard it many times chris robinson's only heard it once so the idea is you do these things and something might break through with the guest and then they go off on a place and then i can find a way to stitch it together but in this it was like encapsulated right
Guest:It's like it opens with the story and then he tells his own story and then Mark closes with another story everyone's heard before.
Guest:And so it's like, well, I just got to pop this whole thing out of here like a module.
Guest:But what we do in doing that is we lose that fun thing that nobody's ever heard.
Guest:So that's why I afford ourselves the opportunity to put it back into, if not the full public, then the paying public here who pays for the subscription.
Yeah.
Marc:But I do love that the button on that Keith Richards smoking at the NPR studios ends with a full-on coughing fit, like full smoker's cough.
Marc:That was perfection, honestly.
Marc:Also...
Marc:You opened this this week with Mark cryptically talking about this movie and, you know, talking about, you know, the scene that he did.
Marc:And then the same day, news breaks that this movie and all the actors that are in it is out.
Marc:What was that?
Marc:Why couldn't could you guys not have said?
Guest:Yeah, it wasn't announced yet.
Marc:Okay, so it just happened to be—it just happenstance or coincidence that, you know, this stuff was announced the same day that your episode was released?
Guest:Yeah, it wasn't even like—it was just we knew it was going to be at some time.
Guest:I think that the—I mean, the movie's obviously already been in production, so it's not like they're announcing something before it's being made.
Guest:They're making it.
Guest:They're shooting it.
Guest:Sharon Stone is already acting in it.
Guest:But I think the deal is sometimes, you know—
Guest:Even though production is underway, and I don't know this to be the case, I'm not saying this is exactly why, but a lot of times it's just that all the T's haven't been crossed on someone's deal or whatever.
Marc:And they're still acting in it, though?
Guest:Well, sure, but it might be like, it's absolutely done.
Guest:You're going to get...
Guest:do what you need you know whatever needs to happen for this to happen is happening it's just like certain lawyers haven't signed a paper yet right and so that once all that happens then you can make an announcement and and and sometimes it's also like a pr rollout strategy right like they announced this movie and they announced mark being involved with the movie a couple weeks ago and
Guest:But I don't think they had announced the they don't think they had like told the plot of the movie.
Guest:I don't think Lily and Sharon Stone were announced, you know, at that initial time.
Guest:So it's like they're rolling these things out.
Guest:I don't know if it's strategy based or if it's legal based, but it was, you know, we just knew, OK, you can't talk about these people until they're announced.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He could say he was in a movie.
Guest:He could say who was making the movie.
Guest:He, I think he probably could have said like what the title of the movie was and what it was about.
Guest:But he just was like, eh, they're not done with stuff yet.
Guest:So I'll just stay vague on it.
Guest:And then the timing was that we knew it was getting released soon.
Guest:It was just a matter of when, you know, he records these things for a Monday on a Sunday and then it's out and it comes, whatever that release came out was Monday, I guess.
Marc:Gotcha.
Marc:I also loved his, his utopia of Vancouver was punctured.
Marc:It's like, oh, really?
Marc:That place that you visited and was like, wow, this place is amazing.
Marc:And then you live in it for like more than a day.
Marc:And it's like, oh, no, it's the same sort of issues, just a different scenery.
Marc:I loved his utopia of things.
Guest:I feel like any place that is appealing to Mark is a place where if he's there for a little while and he can be like, hey, there's no Mark here.
Guest:Like, he doesn't feel Mark.
Guest:He's like, oh, wow, this place is wild.
Guest:I could really see myself living here.
Guest:Then he's there for a little bit.
Guest:He's like, there's fucking Mark all over this place.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Gotta get out of here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:And then Keith Urban was on your show.
Marc:And first thing, I have a question for you.
Marc:And I should just Google this.
Marc:But what is patchouli?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:know exactly what it is but i always know it as a hippie scent it's you know it's some type of oil that comes from whatever you know specific uh uh ground down stuff and blend and uh i've just always known it as shorthand for hippie smell
Marc:Okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Now, are you a cologne person?
Marc:No.
Guest:I have a standard cologne that I will use if I'm wearing a suit at a wedding or something.
Guest:Everybody's going to have a scent.
Guest:Everybody's going to be all powdered up and smelling nice.
Marc:What is it?
Marc:Is it CK1?
Marc:What do you got?
Guest:No, it is Gap Blue.
Guest:And I've had it since I was 19 years old and I've never changed it.
Okay.
Guest:And by change it, I mean it's a cube of cologne.
Guest:I've had two of them because I got one when I was like a teenager.
Guest:And then people got me another one for like a gift or something.
Guest:I've got two of these things that will never run out because I probably spray it once every two years.
Guest:And it just kind of sits around.
Guest:Although I will say there have been times where I've put it on.
Guest:And, you know, like left the house or whatever.
Guest:And my son comes into the room and tells my wife, is dad around?
Guest:Still smells like him in here.
Guest:And it's like, no, no, he left.
Guest:But yeah, he put that cologne.
Marc:Oh, that's nice.
Marc:Well, like Keith Urban apparently has a scent as well.
Marc:I wonder what cologne he was also wearing.
Guest:I have not gotten any email or call about that, but I was a little concerned about that part.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:Why?
Why?
Guest:I just didn't know if they would take it as a, it was obviously meant in good spirit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I, you know, you just never know.
Guest:And I'm like, are they going to be pissed about this?
Guest:Like, you know, what is he saying?
Guest:This guy smells, you know, like, I don't know.
Guest:You just never know.
Guest:But I, you know, that was one of those things where it's like, Hey, I'm just going to bite the bullet on this.
Guest:Cause like I, if I had to feel the call, which I haven't, and somebody's like, no,
Guest:We didn't like that.
Guest:I'd have to be like, go back and listen to it.
Guest:He, you know, says over and over again, he has his own scent.
Guest:These were competing scents.
Guest:You have a comedian who's trying to make something amusing out of this, which I did think it was very funny.
Guest:The fact that he was like, I don't know when he's going to leave.
Guest:Maybe, maybe he's going to leave when I post this episode.
Guest:I love that.
Guest:Maybe that's what he's waiting for.
Guest:And it just like, it was like the perfect way to get into the interview that he was like, and now here's me with Keith Urban and his scent.
Marc:Just perfect.
Guest:Also, have you ever seen Keith Urban?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:I imagine he smells really good.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Like, I look at him and I'm like, oh, I bet that dude smells awesome.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You know, like, you want to kind of hang around to see what that scent is like.
Guest:So, I have no problem envisioning exactly what Mark is saying.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's not a B.O.
Marc:It's like...
Marc:I imagine Keith Urban having the cloud, the cologne cloud and walking through it.
Guest:Maybe, but with Mark, I know Mark's scent too.
Guest:Mark has a scent, absolutely.
Guest:And that patchouli, it's like a little glass vial and you press it against your finger, tip it over, and then you dab a little bit on you and your whole body smells of it.
Guest:It's very, very strong.
Marc:Weird.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I do not do any of that stuff.
Marc:It sounds frightening, honestly.
Marc:I bet Keith Urban's reps, when they listen to that episode, they are going to chuckle because they're like, oh man, I know that scent too.
Marc:You know, like I feel like they also took a meeting with Keith and like, oh, yep, Keith is here.
Guest:Nobody's saying it's a bad scent.
Guest:They're not saying like, oh, here comes the garbage, man.
Guest:Here comes...
Guest:This is the worst day of our lives.
Guest:Keith's coming by.
Guest:It's going to smell here forever.
Guest:It's like that Seinfeld episode with the car where you can't get the scent out.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like the sewage overflow or is Chris here?
Guest:I actually thought the best part of that Keith Urban interview was, you know, he was talking about what his sponsor said to him.
Guest:It's such a great thing where he was like, hey, Keith, how often do you think people think about you?
Guest:And he's like, I don't know.
Guest:And he goes, rarely.
Yeah.
Marc:Just so humbling.
Guest:Everybody needs to hear that.
Guest:That's a great thing.
Marc:I also loved Mark's thing, like, don't kill yourself in the first five years because you're killing the wrong guy.
Marc:That's such a great expression.
Guest:I like how they were both getting off on those little aphorisms.
Guest:Each of them were like, oh, yeah, that's a good one.
Guest:Oh, that's a good one.
Guest:Keith busted up at that one about you're a guy on the couch.
Guest:That really hit him in the zone.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:What I love about your show is that I'm sure Keith did not wake up and go to Mark's house thinking that he was going to be talking about hereditary patterns and addiction.
Marc:It was just so cool for that guy to be in an interview and not have to talk about the same old shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I'll tell you, it's interesting because I don't know that like they didn't say that certain things are off limits.
Guest:Like, don't talk about this.
Guest:Don't talk about that.
Guest:That's very rare.
Guest:Frankly, I should let people know that people, I think, often speculate like, oh, are they told they can't talk about this?
Guest:Is that why it didn't come up?
Guest:And it's like, no, a lot of times things just don't come up.
Guest:And, you know, there's it's very rare that we are told do not talk about X, because if that's the case, oftentimes we'll say, well, we can't do the interview then.
Guest:Because it's not like Mark is going to be gunning for something to say, like, I'm going to bring this up and it's going to be big.
Guest:But a lot of times it's like, well, that might come up in conversation.
Guest:And he doesn't want to be sitting there like on pins and needles like, oh, no, did I cross a line or whatever?
Guest:Totally.
Guest:so it's like it's totally fair if someone's like hey uh you know the the discussion about a dead relative or whatever makes this person very uncomfortable can you avoid that you know it's like oh of course we'll be sensitive to something like we don't they're not going to be dicks but when people are like uh you know what he doesn't ever like to talk about you know where he was from age uh five to twelve we're like well that fucks us you know so
Guest:So anytime you're listening and you're like, oh, they didn't talk about that.
Guest:Is that because they were told no?
Guest:Uh-uh.
Guest:It's just because it didn't come up.
Guest:So now with this interview, nothing was told to us, you can't talk about it.
Guest:But in my research, I found...
Guest:He specifically has said in the past that once he got sober, and I would guess particularly once he married a movie star, he decided that there would be public Keith and private Keith.
Guest:And he found it like very helpful to him in his life to have those boundaries.
Guest:So I said to Mark, like, you know, you got to be a little...
Guest:aware of the fact that he might not go to certain places because of the boundaries he's created for himself and he can handle it himself we're not being told don't ask about this don't ask about that but if you notice if you listen to that talk there are a lot of times where mark brings something up to him and he's like what what about you how'd it work for you and he avoids it like he's trying to like get around it and i think it's just the
Guest:Typical thing with Mark where he gets it to a point where the person's like, well, fuck.
Guest:I mean, this guy shared so much.
Guest:I should share something because it's like three times when he says to Keith, like, what about you?
Guest:Where was your bottom out or where did you?
Guest:And it's only like after about the third time that he tells that story, which is a crazy story about, you know, the cop coming because the girlfriend was like, please get my boyfriend some help.
Guest:And like, I don't think that comes out in the typical People magazine interview he does because he's like, I have the public Keith and the private Keith and that's private Keith.
Guest:And I'm not telling this People magazine person this.
Guest:But here he just sat with Mark for 50 minutes.
Guest:They've been talking about everything.
Guest:Mark told him all about his cocaine psychosis.
Guest:So it's like, well, fuck, I got to at least be reciprocal with something.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:And yeah, I think you're totally right.
Marc:And like the way Mark framed that and got into that, he's like, when did that start to destroy you?
Marc:It was such a great line.
Marc:I just love that.
Marc:Also, I made a sonic playlist for this episode as well.
Marc:And I got to say, doing these is so much fun.
Marc:I mean, I personally don't know country music all that well.
Marc:So this was really fun to kind of get into some more country music since I've been to Nashville.
Marc:And really a great sort of exercise.
Marc:Really, really, what's the word?
Marc:Mellows me out to do it because it's like a scavenger hunt.
Marc:So yeah, I hope everyone enjoys that.
Marc:I'm sure you'll put that on the liner notes for this episode.
Marc:Crazy that Keith Urban moved in with that family when he was a kid.
Marc:Like, what?
Marc:Like, what was that about?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I get I mean, I wonder if it's partially once he revealed later in the episode that his dad's an alcoholic.
Guest:I wonder if it was out of, you know, a escape, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, you know, so Mark is now one.
Marc:What is it?
Marc:The Kevin Bacon thing?
Marc:Six degrees.
Marc:Oh, he's one degree now from Taylor Swift because Keith Urban recorded a song with Taylor Swift.
Marc:Oh, OK.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So now he's had that a few times.
Guest:I mean, I guess so.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's even Mark's on like text basis with Jack Antonoff.
Guest:Oh, OK.
Guest:But, you know, he told me we talk about this because, you know, he's trying to figure out how he can get that song so he can use it in his special.
Guest:And I'm like, here's an idea.
Guest:Pay for it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like he's like, Oh, it's going to be a lot of money.
Guest:I'm like, yeah, it's going to be a lot of money, but like, that's what you pay for things for.
Guest:It's like, you know, you hear about like people who are making, make a movie and the budget is limited at something and they want a particular shot.
Guest:And so the star of the movie is like, well, fuck it.
Guest:I'll pay for that shot.
Guest:We definitely want to have it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it's like, you're the star of your special pay for the song.
Guest:Like they're not going to not let you license it.
Guest:right you just have to pay for it like anybody else who wants to put it in something yeah absolutely uh so yeah i guess i guess that's the that's the truth right i guess what i guess instead of asking for a favor just pay for the damn thing yeah well that's what i was telling him like the favor shit ain't working like the favor stuff like like you don't get like that would be like me being like i i know a lot of people who know obama and
Guest:So I am going to call in a favor and be like, hey, do you think I could get Obama to do a cameo for me and send that to somebody for their birthday?
Guest:Like, no, the answer is you cannot cash that favor, right?
Guest:So I think it's like the same thing.
Guest:Oh, I'll call in a favor to get the most famous pop star in the world to give me a song to use in my comedy special.
Guest:Like, that's delusional.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, true.
Marc:Also, love that Keith Urban liked The Joker 2.
Marc:That was a shocking admission from him.
Guest:I wonder if that's one of those things like Paul Thomas Anderson said to John Krasinski about like, don't shit on movies.
Guest:Like everybody's trying to do their best work or whatever.
Guest:It's like he's got a wife who makes movies and this and that.
Guest:And it's like, I mean, I'm not saying he's lying about how he feels.
Guest:He probably liked the movie.
Guest:But it's also I could see very easily that he's like, I'm only going to say good things about this art that I don't make that somebody else does.
Guest:And they put their they put their, you know, skills on the line to make it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Also, maybe he's just in a good mood seeing a movie because he's sitting next to Nicole Kidman.
Marc:I mean, that's pretty fucking rad, man.
Guest:Like he's sitting next to the woman who's on the movie theater screen telling him he's about to watch the movie.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:It's so fucking cool.
Marc:And he just probably just appreciates the form.
Guest:Do you think they deliberately don't go to AMCs?
Guest:Like, or do they go to them on purpose?
Yeah.
Marc:I mean, first of all, you would think they just have a card where you just get free, you know, AMC tickets, right?
Guest:Well, no, actually, I would think that they just watch movies in their private screening room.
Guest:That's my guess, is that they don't go to the movies.
Guest:But maybe they do.
Marc:If I would guess, I bet Nicole Kidman has a favorite AMC and she goes to that one with her husband and family.
Marc:That's what I'm guessing.
Marc:Because, like, you can mimic...
Marc:The theater experience all you want.
Marc:But then there's the popcorn.
Marc:There's the seating.
Marc:And there's the idea of watching a movie with people that you cannot replicate.
Marc:And I bet Nicole Kidman loves that aspect.
Marc:And I'm just speculating here.
Marc:But I'd love to know.
Guest:Well, it's funny that you say that.
Guest:Because when I was out in LA at the beginning of the month, I made a point to go to the movie theater.
Yeah.
Guest:And the movie, the specific movie theater that I wanted to go to was The Vista, which is an old movie theater in Los Feliz on Sunset Boulevard.
Guest:And it is now owned by Quentin Tarantino.
Marc:I'm so jealous of this.
Guest:Well, I mean, you can go anytime you want.
Guest:When you're in L.A., go to, there's no, this was not a privileged moment.
Guest:This is buy a $15 ticket to a movie theater and go to it.
Marc:Is it only 15 bucks?
Marc:That's pretty good.
Guest:It might have been less than that.
Guest:You have your choice of going to the Vista or the New Beverly, which are both owned by Quentin Tarantino, which is so appropriate because I remember a buddy of mine, when he moved to LA, this was like back in like 2005 or maybe the beginning of 2006, he went to the Arclight Dome Theater, you know, the Cinerama Dome is now closed.
Guest:And he went there to see Peter Jackson's King Kong.
Guest:And he said like one row in front of him,
Guest:He sits down in his seats and then one row in front of him, a guy comes and sits like right in front of him.
Guest:And his big head was unmistakable.
Guest:And it was Quentin Tarantino.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:And like, he looked like, you know, like sat down and then like turned around and was like looking around the theater.
Guest:It caught eyes with a buddy of mine.
Guest:And he says to my friend, he goes, these are like the best seats, aren't they?
Guest:No way.
No way.
Marc:Just fanboying out about seats.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:And I have since heard him on like, well, first I heard him on the rewatchables talking about movies.
Guest:He, you know, obviously talking about movies when he was on with Mark.
Guest:He wrote that book, Cinema Speculation, about movies.
Guest:He has his own podcast with Roger Avery about stuff they watched when they worked at Video Archives in California.
Guest:Oh, cool.
Guest:And I...
Guest:What I can't get over is that this guy just loves the movies.
Guest:And we've been watching his movies now for going on nine months.
Guest:And we have been working our way through.
Guest:And I did think, listen, I know I've watched Pulp Fiction already.
Guest:And it is at the top of my list of his rankings.
Guest:We are about to watch his most recent film.
Guest:And we will have a complete look at...
Guest:at the rankings and so i thought let me watch this again but let me also watch it in an environment where it would be absolutely perfect and not only was the environment perfect because it's like it's like going to his house to watch something and you know imagining that this is what his living room would be like anyway like you'd like how how uh peewee's playhouse was his house
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like he lived there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like that's the same thing here.
Guest:And the, the version we saw, they told us they come on the microphone before the movie.
Guest:And they said, this is a brand new 35 millimeter print of Pulp Fiction for,
Guest:for the 30th anniversary of this film and he had it made for the vista theater and we were the first showing of the first day that they were doing it so obviously he had run this print before probably to see it himself or whatever but this is as close to a virgin print as you're ever going to get of a movie that was made 30 years ago uh and last week uh
Guest:october 14th that was when it came out in america so it was like the most you know robert zemeckis was talking about this with mark that movies are the best time travel vehicle and that's exactly what it felt like it felt like teleportation like i am back to when this movie came out i am watching i was sitting there with my rc cola in a cup that said tasty beverage and
Guest:And I was there like it was a perfect experience.
Guest:Not to mention, you know, also one of the very great movies.
Guest:And because it's such a great movie, I also saw, as I mentioned last week, this piece in Variety by Todd Gilchrist.
Guest:That was essentially a 30 year anniversary oral history of Pulp Fiction.
Guest:He talked to more than 20 members of the cast and crew.
Guest:And so, Chris, you know, we recommended that you read this just because, you know, we're closing this out.
Guest:This has been like almost our year of Tarantino films.
Guest:And we're right about at the end.
Guest:I thought this was a perfect opportunity to to read this and and to reflect on it.
Guest:And I'm wondering what you thought, both what you thought of the actual piece and what it has made you think about in terms of our experience for the last several months.
Marc:Well, first of all, I love an oral history.
Marc:We had about SNL, this, like, I'm just a fan of an oral history.
Guest:We had that Fugitive one a little while ago.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, Fugitive one.
Marc:There's one about the 86 Mets.
Marc:I mean, I just love an oral history.
Marc:So, you know, this was right in my wheelhouse.
Marc:And it's always fascinating to me to hear, like...
Marc:The stories of like, oh, well, how this came about and like, oh, I took a meeting with this young Quentin Tarantino and like Danny DeVito just being like, yeah, no, whatever you want to do, I'm in.
Marc:Like, I'm making you an offer.
Guest:And it was very interesting that Danny DeVito, based on his experiences as a director at that time...
Guest:Like he had worked, you know, he had directed some movies.
Guest:He had a deal at TriStar, I think.
Guest:And he made sure that in his production deals, Jersey Films, that Jersey Films would have the final cut of the movie.
Guest:And he did that to protect new directors like this guy.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:And he says, I gave it to him.
Guest:right and so it was uh uh who who was it that um uh harvey weinstein wanted to put in the movie uh you wanted you wanted daniel day lewis daniel day lewis right and and and devito was like well my guy wants john travolta and that's that he gets it he gets what he wants for this and he said he called me every name in the book he was fucking pissed but that's that that was the deal
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that sort of stuff is fascinating.
Marc:I loved just like the music supervisor, like having to like come over to Quentin's house to actually get the album that he was talking about, like Urge Overkill, because like he was just bad at spelling and everything.
Marc:I just, I just, I just, I just thought those sort of details really stuck out to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The music supervisor looked at like a list that he gave her and was like, there's no song called this.
Yeah.
Guest:so they had to like they had to like decipher what he meant because he knew exactly what song he meant but he just is like i don't know i call it this i mean it's literally his whole life he like would call au revoir les enfants the reservoir movie the
Guest:Cause he didn't know how to, what he's like, Oh, you know, that was what he would recommend to people at the store, which is literally where the title of reservoir dogs comes from.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, or at least that's the supposed reason for it.
Guest:Uh, but yeah, he's famous for that.
Guest:And I love that it came up in this.
Guest:I also, I mean like that is such a testament to his brain of the music that he just knows is going to work.
Guest:Like,
Guest:the producer Roger Avery says when he was writing the movie, he would like meet up with Quentin and he's like there with headphones on while he's writing it.
Guest:And the thing he's listening to on his headphones is the Dick Dale surf album.
Guest:That is the opening song, famous song of the film, which is just so crazy.
Guest:Like again, I thought it when we went to see it earlier this year, I thought it when I was just there at the Vista, but,
Guest:That opening with that guitar lick that comes in like a bullet, like it's the most perfect thing to find.
Guest:If you like, I would retire.
Guest:I would find that and be like, that's all I need to do for the rest of my life is to find that one sound cue.
Guest:This guy then continued on for an entire career.
Guest:Like I just can't get over how perfect that is.
Guest:And it's just because he's sitting around listening to surf music.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it was, like, basically his opening salvo.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You know?
Marc:Like, it's just really wild.
Marc:Also, I didn't realize, like, Quentin went to the Groundlings in L.A.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Like, that was fascinating.
Marc:And that's where he met, like, Kathy Griffin, who he was dating, sort of.
Marc:Like, they would basically snuggle on the couch.
Marc:But I love that.
Marc:I didn't realize that Kathy Griffin in Pulp Fiction was her character is Kathy Griffin.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I didn't know that.
Marc:That is great.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And he said he did that to her as a favor.
Guest:She said he did that as a favor.
Guest:Like that he was like, I know you're trying to, you know, become more well known.
Guest:So I'll just put your name in the credits as the character.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just fascinating.
Marc:Also, Julia Sweeney Bloom.
Marc:She didn't watch Pulp Fiction again because her ex-husband is in it.
Marc:Yeah, he's the gimp.
Marc:He plays the gimp.
Marc:It's not like you can see his face or anything.
Guest:Well, I don't know.
Guest:I feel like if anyone I knew was the gimp and I no longer talked to them, I'd be very upset that that person was the gimp.
Marc:Also love that they filmed Marvin's, you know, death in the back of the car.
Marc:And they basically filmed it because they wanted to give the ratings people something to cut out so that we can keep the gimp in.
Marc:And like, you know, they were fine with both of them.
Guest:That's a standard thing.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:I can't tell you how many times I've read about that or heard somebody talk about they put something in the movie that was so objectionable that they knew they could easily lose it and it would count as a win for the ratings board and then they would leave them alone for other things.
Marc:Oh, that's so funny.
Marc:Yeah, I didn't realize that.
Marc:I want to know other ones that are just in there, you know, and get cut or make it.
Guest:Yeah, like the one I always remember was in Total Recall, there's a bunch of scenes where they cut a guy open and his guts spill out.
Guest:It happens like twice.
Guest:And they were like...
Guest:you know, your movie is rated X. They were literally going to rate the most expensive movie ever made.
Guest:And it was going to be rated X. And he was like, well, we'll cut out the guts falling on the ground.
Guest:And they're like, okay, that's better.
Guest:And he was like, yeah, never intended to put the guts in the movie.
Marc:That's awesome.
Marc:Amazing.
Marc:You mentioned Roger Avery.
Marc:He has this great like line where he's just talking about Butch and his wife.
Marc:What's his wife's name?
Marc:Fabienne.
Marc:Yeah, Fabienne.
Marc:And I just love that, like, here's this sweet French girl, but she's actually really annoying.
Marc:He's been through absolute hell.
Marc:And she's like, they didn't have blueberries for my pancakes.
Marc:Her problems are so small, but they're the most important problems he has to deal with.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That is like, yes, that is what makes this movie so great.
Guest:I got to tell you this.
Guest:Every time I've ever seen this movie with an audience, which is many times, including just a couple weeks ago, one of the biggest laughs in the movie.
Guest:Big laugh.
Guest:Like, not like, you know, a few titters.
Guest:People laugh very hard at...
Guest:uh fabian telling him you know she you know asking him whose motorcycle is this and whatever and he's getting tired of all the questions and he's like baby get on the fucking bike we gotta go and she starts crying and his tone changes he's like i'm sorry baby okay oh okay did you get your pancakes uproarious laughter
Guest:at that every time because a it's a catharsis on the fact that you're like okay we can finally like unwind the tension that we're in like he him talking softly to her is also him talking softly to us the audience that just watched this gimp scene and everything else that came before and
Guest:And, and also it's like exactly what Avery's saying there.
Guest:It's like the most relatable thing is people's small problems intruding on your life too.
Guest:And their small problems becoming your big problems.
Guest:Like there's just something.
Guest:I remember seeing that movie and an uncle of mine being like, you know, I was like, Oh, you saw that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I saw that.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:He's like, Oh man, that part where the girlfriend wouldn't get on the bike.
Marc:Like it was the first thing he mentioned.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So relatable.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:Also, I was shocked to know that the next My Sharona was going to be in that Gimp scene.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And because of Reality Bites, it wasn't.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Which was fascinating to me.
Marc:In the Gimp scene, it was supposed to be.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's totally better to have just that surf music.
Guest:Totally better.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like it winds up being like that surf music becomes like the inadvertent score of the film.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, inadvertently.
Marc:And you're just coasting on the wave.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And that's basically what Quentin's doing.
Marc:You're just riding this wave for two hours and so minutes, for sure.
Guest:I mean, I thought it was very interesting that only Harvey Weinstein bid on it.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:How is that possible?
Guest:I mean, it's not only possible.
Guest:It's not only weird.
Guest:Imagine a world in which that was different.
Guest:Like, you know, imagine what happens if like just some other studio does that and then they wind up having the same relationship with Tarantino, let him make the same films, et cetera.
Guest:Like, I bet that's a world where Harvey Weinstein never really rises to the level that he, that he was at, you know, like this was the thing he wrote on.
Guest:right um you know becomes the most profitable indie film ever at the time that it was made so i like that's a huge sliding doors moment totally totally um i also think it's notable that that travolta if you go back i i don't i'm not going to give anybody homework here but if you happen to be listening to the pulp fiction episode that chris and i did back in in march and
Guest:The thing I was taken by was how good Travolta's performance was in it and how I felt no one ever did him justice again like this movie did.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I thought it was very telling that Travolta says in this movie.
Guest:oral history he says he gave me a second chance at a high-end career one he always wanted for me and that's exactly what it is it's like tarantino was in tune with the fact that this guy was not just barbarino right this guy was not just a disco dancer shook his hips and you put him in you know saturday night fever sequels and stuff like that right right
Guest:this was a serious actor who had layers and, and should be talked about the way we were talking about Pacino, right?
Guest:Like he wanted him up there.
Guest:And for whatever reasons, I don't think anybody got him back to that spot, but it's absolutely true that like he, he was a high end actor who should have had a high end career.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:Speaking of people who had a high-end career that were on the set, during when they were building the Jackrabbit Slims set, Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson showed up.
Guest:Which then made me go like, why were they there?
Marc:And I was trying to find it out and I never could.
Marc:That's wild to me.
Marc:And not only that, but they were shopping, basically, Bottle Rocket.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And they basically got Bottle Rocket because they gave it to this guy, David Wesco.
Marc:They made Bottle Rocket then.
Marc:Like, how is that possible?
Marc:Like, that's baffling to me and also explains a lot.
Marc:Like, if Wes Anderson is seeing Quentin making this...
Marc:absurd like diner with all these cars and this music.
Marc:And like, Wes is like, Oh my God, this is what I want.
Marc:I want complete control of my environment.
Marc:You know, like I can see the little seeds, you know, happening in Wes Anderson's head.
Marc:Oh, totally.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:And there's also like, there's a lot of, um, things that happen that like, like, um,
Guest:I don't want to call them missed opportunities for people, but like what could have been type of things.
Guest:Like apparently he didn't want Uma Thurman at the start.
Guest:And it was only like after meeting her that he was convinced.
Guest:And that's crazy because she essentially becomes his muse for several projects.
Guest:Also that they almost didn't cast Samuel L. Jackson.
Guest:Like he had to come back and re-audition because...
Guest:Now, the article just says another actor gave him a run for his money.
Marc:But it was Lawrence Fishburne, right?
Guest:No.
Guest:Lawrence Fishburne was the guy that Tarantino had in his mind and they never could get.
Guest:So then they auditioned.
Guest:people and they audition sam jackson he does a good job but the guy who then auditions after and they're like oh maybe we give it to him is the actor paul calderon who is the bartender at oh the club the guy who's like hey i'm paul and this is between y'all right yeah that guy you ask me yeah he is almost jules
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Yeah, that is crazy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Another sliding doors.
Marc:And I'm not one of these people.
Marc:It's like, oh, you know, I want to recast a movie.
Marc:But that that's wild that I can see that guy in this movie.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:As much as as indelible as Sam Jackson is like that guy would have been good.
Guest:yeah oh man that's that's fucking why i also think it's so funny the difference between certain people's attitude in this oral history like john travolta understandably it's just like lavishing praise on it it's like every time there's a quote of him and then there'd be ving rames and he's like it was good i like this so matter of fact about it
Guest:Although he had a great, he has a great quote.
Guest:It goes going back to that scene, the gimp scene.
Guest:He says, Quentin brought up the contents of the scene the day of and asked me if I was okay to do it.
Guest:I had no trepidations because I am not gay and comfortable with my masculinity.
Guest:Such a weird thing to put in there.
Guest:I also like it's a great note on Tarantino as a as a director of actors is that the guy who plays I forget his name Maynard is that the guy who's not Zed the guy who's at the counter and he says that he was doing it a few times and
Guest:He he didn't like it himself, but he was just kind of locked into this way of doing it.
Guest:And it sounds like he was probably doing it more like a real like hillbilly.
Guest:And yeah, Tarantino said to him, no, no, no.
Guest:Think Orange County Sheriff, not deliverance.
Guest:and he was like boom i got it but totally totally clicked in with him yeah yeah and uh that that character is menacing and terrifying because he is so restrained and just a matter of fact matter of fact it's exactly that idea of like sure like it's like the uh the less comical version of the guy in the big lebowski the malibu sheriff yes right like it's the same type of thing though like you know throw we'll throw a coffee cup at your head just because you cracked wise to him or whatever
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:By the way, I'm bummed that a lot of these places aren't there anymore.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Like the location for the Big Kahuna Burger scene was apparently fell down in the 94 earthquake.
Marc:But I also – I love that Marvin, you know, he created his own sort of backstory to why his character is there.
Marc:And he's like, well, maybe, you know, maybe my auntie is –
Marc:is Jules's vegetarian girlfriend that he references.
Marc:I love that idea.
Marc:Whatever you got to do, right?
Guest:Get yourself in the zone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's also, there's this great story, which I never heard of before.
Guest:And I've heard a lot of lore about this movie that when they took it to the New York Film Festival and-
Guest:there was the scene where you know they do the adrenaline shot to uma thurman that a dude fucking passed out and they said they had to stop the movie they had to like get an ambulance there to help this guy out he just like he was had low blood sugar or something and this like put him over the edge just like the anxiety of it they didn't have an ambulance they had harvey weinstein was like yeah right take my limo limo yeah take him home
Marc:They didn't want anything to do.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:No ambulance because they didn't want anything to indicate.
Guest:The leak.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:But the crazy thing is like I'm reading this like I didn't realize that was the end of the story as they're telling it.
Guest:I'm thinking it's leading to a thing where that became this great publicity for the movie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, oh, it's the movie that shocked people in the New York Film Festival.
Guest:And they were like, no, we don't want that to get out at all, because then all anyone will do is focus on the violence and it'll become this geek show.
Guest:And like, you know, hey, who knows?
Guest:Like, because the other option didn't happen.
Guest:But it is a weird thing, and I'm not going to praise Harvey Weinstein, but these were battle-hardened movie producers, and they had instincts, and their instinct was, do not let this get out.
Guest:So they were like, we are going to...
Guest:like deal with this guy.
Guest:We're going to help him out.
Guest:And, and whoever was telling this story in this piece was like, yeah.
Guest:And then no one reported on it the next day, which 30 years ago is possible.
Guest:I mean, today there'd be cell phone videos of the guy getting wheeled out of the place or whatever.
Guest:But like, I just thought that was crazy.
Guest:And like,
Guest:There's just so many things of like, imagine the world where this doesn't hit, like all the things that changes.
Guest:It's, it's a, it's a remarkable thing.
Guest:Like, especially thinking about how not just Tarantino's films, but how we've been talking about, there were so many Tarantino spawned careers after this, not just actors, but other filmmakers and other writers.
Guest:And it's just this crazy ball of wax.
Guest:And you're, you're thinking about like these little things that could have happened to make it go differently.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And even in this article, like, you know, Tarantino was thinking about, you know, a studio movie where, you know, he takes some, you know, kind of like what Chris Nolan did with Insomnia, right?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That could have been his career.
Marc:Just like, yeah, I'm just making movies that the studio wants.
Marc:And like, no, he went back to Pulp Fiction and thank God he did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, if you if you want to read the rest of this, it's a two part piece.
Guest:One piece focuses specifically on the actors and the, you know, in front of the camera people.
Guest:And then the second piece is almost exclusively crew and technical staff on the film.
Guest:I will put the link again in the episode description here.
Guest:And we will continue next week with our final Quentin Tarantino film, at least for now.
Guest:He intends to make another one.
Guest:But the final one in this journey for us, which is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Guest:And then Chris and I will have our final rankings of the Quentin Tarantino films.
Marc:It's just been a joy.
Marc:We're at a great exercise.
Marc:I hope people have been following along, watching along with us because it has been such a nice journey.
Marc:And especially with all the noise that's outside.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:It's so nice to come into this world, this filmmaker's world, and just experience these movies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I like the way we've been doing it.
Guest:I, you know, never really thought it out that much, but doing it one movie a month has given, I think, us a better perspective on them all in total, more than if you watched it like right in a row, one day after another or anything like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, this is great.
Guest:It's been a good experience.
Guest:I am very happy that I went and watched Pulp Fiction again in a theater before watching the final film, just because I have it ranked as my top-ranked film.
Guest:So do you.
Guest:And, you know, I think that that's important.
Guest:It's important that I feel confident about it being in that position before we make our final judgment.
Guest:So we will do that next week.
Guest:If you have anything to add, please drop us a line in the comments section.
Guest:The link is there for you, along with that link to the Variety article.
Guest:to Chris's Sonic playlist for the Keith Urban episode.
Guest:And until next week, I am Brendan and that is Chris.
Guest:Peace.