BONUS The Friday Show - Killer Soundtrack
Marc:I love that Mark kind of used this interview as a bit of a job interview or rehearsal for Mark hiring a DP himself.
Marc:Totally.
Guest:As that was happening, I was like, I think this should cost money.
Yeah.
Marc:Hello, Chris.
Marc:Brendan, I got a question for you.
Marc:Oh, go ahead, shoot.
Marc:Do your dreams give you input that dictates how you do your job?
Guest:wow uh i will say generally no but i bet you that there are exceptions why why do you ask i mean mark ruffalo uh just you know came out of the gate with telling mark that he's like i dream about this and then i started and it's just like wow that's amazing also he he's like a dream about his uh his uh uh his brain tumor that was the scariest thing like what the fuck like yeah like
Marc:I'm pretty sure he might want to get into the fortune telling, because he is clairvoyant.
Guest:You think that'll go well for the multi-million dollar movie star doing the fortune telling business?
Guest:How crazy is it?
Guest:A lot of cash to rake in on that one.
Guest:I got an idea.
Guest:How about you tell whether or not you're going to win the Oscar, Mark Ruffell, and then we don't have to proceed with all this stuff.
Guest:Have a dream about giving your Oscar speech.
Marc:Does that happen or not?
Marc:I bet you he has had that dream and he does not win.
Marc:I'm pretty sure that's... He hasn't said anything?
Marc:I'm pretty sure.
Marc:That's what he was trying to get through to Mark.
Marc:He was like, I don't know.
Marc:I've been nominated four times.
Marc:That's like winning.
Marc:And Mark's like, nah, no, it's not.
Guest:Mark does that.
Guest:Spoiler.
Guest:Mark basically says the same thing to Lily Gladstone next week.
Guest:like he's like uh you happy about everything it's been good you know you might be a win and she's like yeah i'd be happy if i win but i'll be happy if i don't he's like will you though it's true but it's so funny it's like his thing like mark's whole thing it's like can you imagine if he's nominated for one of these things he'd be like
Guest:I'm not going to fucking win this.
Guest:Oh my God.
Marc:Like, God damn it.
Marc:I mean, just his reaction box, like when they have, like would be on all timer guy, God damn it.
Marc:Can't believe I lost.
Guest:He was, he was up for a SAG award for glow.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:I remember his mentality at the time.
Guest:I think also a Critics' Choice Award, but the SAG Award is a big deal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, that's one of those ones where you're on TV, they show your clip, you know, you get a smile and nod and that.
Guest:But I do remember beforehand, he was like, oh, there's no chance I'm winning.
Guest:So I'm just going to go.
Guest:I'm going to enjoy the night.
Guest:Who beat him out that year?
Guest:I was going to say William H. Macy.
Yeah.
Guest:There it is.
Guest:Yeah, it was William H. Macy.
Guest:I was right.
Guest:For Shameless.
Guest:William H. Macy, Anthony Anderson, Aziz Ansari, Larry David, Sean Hayes, and Marc Maron.
Guest:Yeah, because the SAG Awards, they don't do a supporting actor on TV.
Guest:They just do actor in comedy, actor in drama.
Guest:That's a rough one.
Guest:Mark was up against, you know, leads.
Guest:Heavy hitters, yeah.
Guest:Other shows, yeah.
Guest:I gotcha.
Guest:All right.
Guest:But, yeah, man, that Mark Ruffalo, like, it's one of those ones, like, with, like, Josh Brolin or Paul Rudd.
Guest:Like, they have these guys that come in, and I'm texting Mark while I'm listening to it, and I'm like...
Guest:are you sure you guys never met before or anything?
Guest:He's so familiar with you.
Guest:Some of that must just be the charm that they have that allows them to be good actors.
Guest:But just listening to it, I'm like, why is he talking to him?
Guest:He's known him forever.
Guest:I'm talking about Ruffalo.
Guest:He'll say something and he'll be like, oh,
Guest:Dude, of course not.
Guest:You know, whatever.
Guest:Like, I'm like, that's how I talk to my friends.
Guest:Like, not a random interview I've never met.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, is this what he was around recently, right?
Marc:So he was doing like the circuit, like the Oscars circuit.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:I'll tell you all of these guests, these Oscar guests were literally within the last week and a half because, which is why we had kind of a scheduling pile up because they all kind of were able to do it around the Oscar luncheon.
Guest:which was on February 12th, where all the nominees go, they have a lunch, they take a big picture.
Guest:And these actors who normally live in New York or something, we can't normally get them, they were all out here.
Guest:But so then we had to wind up getting a bunch of people all at once.
Guest:We got more guests booked than we had space to air them, which is why we did three this week, which I mentioned earlier on the bonus content.
Guest:So, yeah, it was it was a you know, it's kind of a whirlwind and it was all related to Oscar stuff.
Guest:It wasn't like Ruffalo was out, you know, because he is doing some other movie.
Guest:It's like publicists get them out into press opportunities so that they have some visibility going into the voting.
Guest:It's a it's a whole business.
Marc:I love that he won't host SNL because he doesn't want to let Lorne Michaels down.
Marc:Like, don't worry.
Guest:I don't know that it's that he didn't want to let Lorne down because he seemed pretty clear that like, I think Lorne probably pissed that I've turned it down.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But I mean, there have been some God awful hosts, you know, like the bar is very low.
Marc:Like Donald Trump was a host.
Marc:Like you can do this, you know?
Guest:Oh, Steven Seagal, the world's famous worst host.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, I mean, like your dyslexia, you know, will be fine.
Marc:Like, it's okay.
Marc:You can, you can, you know, they'll make the lettering really big on the cue cards.
Guest:Or they'll do something where he doesn't have to read the cue cards.
Guest:Like, I think they've done that for certain performers as well.
Guest:They, you know, keep them off the cue cards.
Guest:And then the cast regulars are the ones that carry the load.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But I really enjoyed just, like, the old guy talk and, like, talking about, like, getting an EU passport and stuff.
Marc:Really, it was just a fun time in the garage.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And, well, you know, it's, like, it's not a guarantee that's ever going to happen.
Guest:So it's, like, you know, guys like him and what happened with Paul Giamatti in there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's always, you know, a roll of the dice.
Guest:And when it pays off, it's great.
Guest:And, you know, I...
Guest:Well, Mark and I will talk about this coming up.
Guest:We'll do an Oscar show on the week before the Oscars.
Guest:But it's really interesting to me as the producer of the show how kind of desired as an outlet our show has become for people who are running Oscar campaigns.
Guest:And, you know, I don't shy away from it because that's a good thing for us.
Guest:And what it winds up providing is people who are willing to have a conversation about their life, their whole careers, you know, all the ins and outs of their work.
Guest:It behooves them to present themselves to voters as a real person, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I don't mean like a fake version of who they are, just like the idea that you can sit and talk to Mark and he will want to get into the actual stuff about your life and your journey.
Guest:That's a good profile, right?
Guest:That's a net positive for them.
Guest:But it's also it helps deliver on what like the promise of our show is like we get people and then they're not so bound to talking about their project or the 10 things they thought of before the promotional tour for whatever they're doing started.
Guest:And then they repeat those things every time they go out like this.
Guest:really opens the door for being able to you know have the type of conversation that you know mark likes to have which is the type of thing he always used to have with comics when they don't have something to promote they just want to be comics and come in and talk yeah and i and it's a win-win for everyone it's a win for the guest it's a win for the uh people who are voting and also the audience because like it's just like a straight shot of like okay
Marc:who is this person?
Marc:Great.
Marc:I'm just going to listen for an hour, hour and a half.
Marc:And, and I get to see their entire essence, you know, what, what makes them, you know?
Marc:So, so yeah, I dig that.
Marc:Now, have you ever like tried to get like Martin Scorsese?
Marc:Like, Oh yeah.
Guest:Many times he's, he's just, you know, I think, I think some people, the, the hour long commitment is a turnoff.
Yeah.
Marc:Why?
Marc:Did Marty want it to be longer?
Marc:Do you tell him you can have it be longer?
Guest:Three and a half hours if you want.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:No, I think it's just like sometimes, you know, and we've gone back to Scorsese even with, you know, him telling us it's too long.
Guest:He could do a half hour.
Guest:You want to do a half hour?
Guest:And we say no to that.
Guest:But we go back and say, we'll literally do one hour on just whatever it is he wants to talk about.
Guest:Like if he's like,
Guest:you know i'm i only want to talk about silence because i'm out doing that and our feeling has always been have you ever listened to this guy talk right he'll talk you say a million things right right like you can say okay we're just talking about this but he'll his brain can't hold it at that right so we've always been like look he can say you know just get him in the room exactly right yeah but uh has not happened and uh but i i i wonder if i should divulge this
Guest:Mark has not said it, so I will wait until he says who this person is.
Guest:You might be able to figure it out by me saying this.
Guest:We just interviewed someone this week, traveled to this person because this person is almost 91 years old.
Guest:And a person we have wanted to get on the show for a very long time.
Guest:And it was always tricky.
Guest:Like, it was always like, we couldn't get it to work out, couldn't get it to line up.
Guest:And it seems like the clinching thing is like age.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This person is very with it.
Guest:There's no sign of that age in terms of the conversation or in terms of cognition.
Guest:But I think that it's like you do get to a certain age, you meaning anyone in life, and you're like, hey, I do kind of want to talk about my legacy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:what i what i leave behind you know in the midst of still being active right and uh i i kind of hold that hope out with scorsese right especially as you see that he's not stopping like he keeps doing like he's doing this jesus movie and out there meeting with the pope and whatever like this guy is going right and so maybe at some point
Guest:point when he's slowing a little bit and having more thought about how he wants to be remembered, he can be like, I'll sit down for an hour with the people who've been bothering me for 10 years, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I think he's usually pretty on the ball in terms of giving interviews.
Guest:Like, uh,
Guest:You know, Jason Bailey, who we had on WTF and wrote that book, Fun City Cinema.
Guest:I used to listen to his podcast that was a companion piece to that book, Fun City Cinema.
Guest:And he talked to Scorsese about Taxi Driver on there.
Guest:It was like a phone interview that they ran on the podcast.
Guest:And Scorsese was like totally game to do it, you know?
Guest:But it's like he got...
Guest:15 minutes with him, you know, and said on the phone, we'll talk about taxi driver for 15 minutes.
Guest:And so, uh, that to me is why I've always been like, we'll talk about whatever he wants.
Guest:And, and it just seems so far the roadblock is the time.
Marc:Well, you know,
Marc:It's what you leave behind.
Marc:And Mark, with his pomegranate molasses, I guarantee you he will leave that behind whenever he moves.
Marc:I have made Muhamara myself.
Marc:I make a banger Muhamara.
Guest:Oh.
Marc:By the way, that is a dip that whenever I think of it, I'm like, oh, this is like if I was Lex Luthor and you are Superman, I would be like, hey, why don't you have this dip, Brendan?
Marc:Oh, because it's like full of nuts.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, just all nuts.
Marc:It's nuts and pepper.
Marc:So yeah, dude, it's your kryptonite.
Marc:But I too have pomegranate molasses in my cupboard that I'm pretty sure is like expired at this point, which my wife will probably just throw out because she's an expiration date policeman.
Guest:Oh, right, right.
Guest:We've discussed that, those expiration dates, those lies.
Marc:We have so many, so many arguments about expiration dates recently.
Marc:Well, what does she think is going to happen?
Marc:Does she think it's going to make you sick?
Marc:No, she thinks that like, oh, look, we've had this Aleve in the cupboard for four years and it's not going to be as powerful.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:You know, I thought it was funny.
Guest:This, you know, story of Mark and his dip, his Moroccan dip.
Guest:This was something we put in the producer cuts because, you know, it's funny.
Guest:It's like when I'm looking for things to cut out, I do realize that I am now kind of policing it in a way where I'm conscious of all the people listening right now.
Guest:Like, I've never had that before, but I definitely...
Guest:gear my edits especially of mark's monologue knowing that like well this might be a little more for the super fans oh right so i know oh i can cut this part out which is like stuff that if you're like brand new to the show you're listening to it for the very first time your reaction to it might be why the fuck is this guy going on and on about this dip
Guest:Who cares, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which, by the way, we've gotten that reaction for 15 years.
Guest:It's fine.
Guest:I don't have any real problem with it.
Guest:But in general, I do now have a conscious thought around this stuff to be like, oh, the full Marin listeners are going to love this, right?
Guest:Like, I need the space.
Guest:I need the real estate in the episode.
Guest:But I don't have to throw this away because I know those people who, you know, are big fans of Mark are going to like hearing him, you know, fret about this dip because
Guest:Which to him was more important than having a night performing with Adam Sandler.
Marc:I mean, that tracks, of course.
Marc:But yeah.
Marc:Oh, big time.
Marc:Also, I can't believe there was a producer cuts.
Marc:I figured, because America Farrer was going to be here, that you would skip producer cuts.
Marc:But no.
Guest:Right.
Guest:God bless you, man.
Marc:You are the hardest working man right now.
Marc:Like four episodes, five episodes a week.
Marc:We're doing the fifth right now.
Marc:What are you talking about?
Marc:Yeah, that's wild, dude.
Marc:You are.
Marc:Well, now look.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:You've had vacations, right?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:When, when I, when I've done vacations, I mean, this was a working vacation.
Guest:My son was off this week, so we went away, but I just worked the whole week.
Guest:Um, and, but I, we have had times where I have put the gone fishing sign out.
Guest:And usually what we do then is we do, you know, multiple episodes ahead of time.
Guest:And then I, I do not take a computer and,
Guest:I don't take any kind of equipment with me.
Guest:If there are any, I put a, you know, out of office thing on email.
Guest:If there are problems, sorry, the house will just have to burn until I get back.
Guest:And yeah, no, there are absolutely boundaries like that.
Guest:But yeah, I was thinking about it that this is probably the first time
Guest:Well, we did an Oscar one last year when we were, you and I were already doing the Friday show.
Guest:So no, it's not the first time now that I think about it, but it's been very rare.
Guest:This is maybe the second time.
Guest:And then we're going to do another one in two weeks where we have done five episodes in a week.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Now, like to be fair,
Guest:We used to do five episodes every week for our job.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:But it's a different product.
Guest:Animal, yeah.
Guest:Yes, totally different to do live things where, you know, your production is all pre-production and live just happens and then nothing in post because it's already gone, right?
Guest:So this is definitely a much different thing.
Guest:And it's, yeah, it's, hey, listen, I wouldn't do it if I couldn't do it, right?
Guest:I'm not pushing myself past my limits, but, you know, it's work.
Guest:Work is work.
Guest:There's no, there's nothing that I can say
Guest:that would make anyone feel any sympathy for me because I have one of the great jobs, right?
Guest:Like I always remember going back to an episode we did a few months ago, Siskel and Ebert used to say that to each other all the time, like on the air, when they'd be like complaining about a movie, Gene would be like, now look, Roger...
Guest:I want us to be clear.
Guest:We have two of the best jobs that have ever been created.
Guest:There's no doubt we hit the lotto with jobs.
Guest:But when you're sitting through a movie like this, it's hard.
Guest:You always want to preface it, though, to be like, look, look, I'm not complaining.
Guest:We have great jobs.
Guest:Uh, so yeah, that's how I feel when the work is hard, you just, you, you know, plow ahead and you do it and you realize like, well, you know, you should be happy.
Guest:This is the hard work.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And now was there a reason why Mark Ruffalo was Monday, America was Wednesday and Rodrigo was Thursday?
Guest:Yes, that's literally the order they happened in.
Guest:No, okay.
Guest:Because every person referred back to a person previous, right?
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:So the America episode started out with him saying, Mark Ruffalo was just in here.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:And they talk about that.
Guest:And then with Rodrigo, he had to air before Lily because Lily Gladstone and Mark talk about him.
Guest:So, and this is why, okay, you want some behind the scenes info here.
Guest:This is why there is a clip of Lily Gladstone for longer than you might have expected, about four minute clip in the beginning of that episode, because the Oscar voting ends on February 27th.
Guest:That's next Tuesday.
Okay.
Guest:So Lily Gladstone's episode has to air before then, but the only slot we were left with was Monday.
Guest:So it's not a ton of time and exposure for Oscar voting.
Guest:there were many conversations about trying to get episodes airing in different spots.
Guest:And all I could say is like, I got no more runway, right?
Guest:The plane can only take off from a certain point.
Guest:And now I've done, I've actually added a show to accommodate, you know, the number of guests we have that all need to be in before the Oscars.
Guest:And so, no, I cannot move Lily off of Monday, but...
Guest:I would like to be as generous as possible, make sure that they feel they're getting, you know, the best exposure they could possibly get on our show, you know, equal to people like Mark Ruffalo are getting and America Ferreira getting, you know, multiple days worth of exposure while people are voting, making their final votes for the Oscars.
Guest:So, uh,
Guest:I thought it was a magnanimous gesture to say, hey, we could play a clip.
Guest:We've done that before.
Guest:There's precedent.
Guest:There have been times, John C. Reilly is one that springs to mind, where he wanted to promote a particular movie.
Guest:We couldn't give him the air date he wanted, but we said, you know what?
Guest:We can air 10 minutes of the interview that we did, and that's going to air a couple of weeks later, but we'll air 10 minutes of it when the movie comes out.
Guest:So, you know, that's just part of the kind of, you know, dealing and placating.
Guest:And I don't want to make it sound negative.
Guest:It's just part of the job.
Guest:It's what happens.
Guest:And no one was upset or angry or threatening or anything.
Guest:It's just everyone was doing their jobs.
Guest:Right.
Guest:People were doing their jobs trying to get positioning on the show.
Guest:I was doing my job protecting the real estate that we had and basically just dealing with the constraints saying, hey, look, we got this number of guests.
Guest:We got this number of slots.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we're going in order.
Guest:There's no unfairness here.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:You know, it would be unfair if I moved someone to a different time, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so, yeah, that's basically the structural reasons behind this week and going into next week with Lily's episode on Monday.
Guest:Gotcha.
Marc:I really, really enjoyed America Ferreira.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I related so much to her, you know, basically, you know, saying like how happy she is without a family member in her life, you know?
Marc:And it's like not being stubborn.
Marc:It's about just how happy you are without that bullshit.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's a healthy outlook sometimes.
Guest:It's much worse in certain circumstances to think you are obligated
Marc:to making something work when it doesn't just because of the family tag that's exactly exactly and it's all it's all just made up stuff it's like oh you know what if you've removed that person from your life guess what your life gets so much better so yeah go with that
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:Well, you know, like with that America Ferrera episode, when that was booked, I thought, well, you know what might happen here?
Guest:You know, we're doing an interview with her.
Guest:We have other guests.
Guest:There's a possibility that we'll pair them together.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And when I heard that episode, I was like, I don't want to pair anything with this.
Guest:This stands alone, right?
Guest:I don't want anything to be compared to it.
Guest:I don't want it to seem like it thematically has to go with something.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Just because Rodrigo was the cinematographer for Barbie, they should share the episode together.
Guest:It didn't make any sense.
Guest:So it definitely made the most sense to just be like, air this on Wednesday.
Guest:It's an hour long.
Guest:It's a full episode.
Guest:Just give people an extra episode this week.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I loved hearing how much time she took as well as Greta with the monologue scene in Barbie.
Marc:That was another piece that like you could just put that on the Barbie DVD special features, you know, like they were just both chiseling away at it separately.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And together, and I just loved hearing that process.
Guest:Well, I gotta tell you, when those things come up on this show, like exactly what you said, you have that thought of like, this should be with the movie.
Guest:Like anytime anybody's watching the movie, they should have the option to hear this.
Guest:it's exactly what I always remember about like DVDs when they first started to come to prominence was you'd have that like Charlie Rose interview on there or, you know, some, some clip of the filmmaker at like the 92nd street.
Guest:Why in conversation or inside the actor's studio or something.
Guest:And they would put that on the disc because it made perfect sense to stop watching the movie movies over.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I want to hear somebody talk about it.
Guest:And it's right there.
Guest:And yeah,
Guest:That is fully in my mind.
Guest:When we book these things, when we research them, and when I edit them and we finally present them, I'm always thinking, does this make a good supplement to the thing that they're actually talking about?
Guest:Like, would this survive on the DVD?
Guest:And yes, it makes me very happy when the answer is yes.
Marc:I really loved the Thursday's episode with Rodrigo Pierto.
Marc:I also, I love that Mark kind of used this interview as a bit of a job interview or rehearsal for Mark hiring a DP himself.
Marc:Totally.
Guest:As that was happening, I was like, I think this should cost money.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:This is a consulting that you're doing.
Yeah.
Guest:But I did love how Rodrigo was like, uh-huh, uh-huh.
Guest:No, I'm not the guy.
Guest:That doesn't sound like it's for me.
Guest:I'm not the right guy.
Marc:I was listening to that and I just like to think of Mark having a notepad and pen next to him with possible candidates and him just crossing Rodrigo's name off.
Marc:Moves down, Roger Deakins, question mark.
Guest:Exactly.
Exactly.
Marc:Man, that guy can – when he was – there's a few moments in this interview, but man, when he's talking about that fire shot from Killers of the Flower Moon, and then he's going into Barbie, man, it was like –
Marc:talk forever, please.
Marc:Like this is, this is so good.
Marc:It's so inside, but it's also so like relatable.
Marc:I just loved it.
Marc:Loved everything about it.
Marc:It's like a, a film geeks, like, you know, paradise.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And, and I really think that like the kind of half hour, 40 minute prelude of his life and how he got into doing this was so great.
Guest:Like,
Guest:It did exactly what you want it to do in terms of contextualizing the guy, the person behind the craft.
Guest:The one episode that it brings to mind the most closely for me is Rick Baker, the makeup artist.
Guest:Another one of my absolute favorite episodes.
Guest:I got it.
Guest:Look...
Guest:We booked this episode, you know, basically we looked at the list of Oscar nominees.
Guest:We approved lots of them, but they only gave us, you know, access to the actors and directors and I think some of the writers.
Guest:And no one said, you know, pitch to us, you know, any of the below the line craftspeople.
Guest:And I knew that we couldn't do, you know, we weren't going to be able to have the space to do many of them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because you're getting all these actors and those are the big ticket people.
Guest:They're the ones who, you know, bring audience into the show.
Guest:They're the ones who, you know, casual listeners want to hear.
Guest:But I was like, we got to do this guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And there couldn't have been a better hook than he's nominated for Killers and he's also the cinematographer of Barbie.
Guest:Like, perfect hook.
Guest:But I didn't actually know that much about him other than, like, checking out a couple clips to make sure, you know, you always got to check, like, is this person talkative?
Guest:Will they have a conversation?
Guest:And it looked totally fine.
Guest:And, you know, I got Mark's okay on it.
Guest:And when that came through, and then I started watching interviews with him, I started reading about him, I started checking into all his work on all his films and his directors.
Guest:It was like, I was like, oh, I'm going to like luxuriate in this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I gave Mark so much research for this.
Guest:I was like, you know...
Guest:Mark, sometimes he knows, and he's not indulging me, because he, as you could tell by listening to that episode, he was as into it as he could get, right?
Guest:And he was, you know, it sparks his mind to start thinking about this stuff, to start talking about it.
Guest:But there is something very, and it's, I think, speaks to our working relationship.
Guest:There's something about guests like this where Mark wants to make me happy.
Guest:Like,
Guest:He, he did this interview.
Guest:Like we talked about it a lot.
Guest:We, we, you know, we, we put a lot into the actual trajectory and I could hear it.
Guest:I could hear it in the interview.
Guest:Basically our conversation, me and Mark turning into the, the trajectory of the interview.
Guest:Like, you know, it was like, yeah.
Guest:Almost like, you know, when they do the mock debates, like, you know, oh, this guy's going to play Trump.
Guest:So you can, you know, Biden can pretend that he's against Trump.
Guest:Like, that was kind of what we were doing.
Guest:Like, I was like, oh, you want to talk to him about this?
Guest:And then he might bring up this.
Guest:And it was happening in the interview.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:I had such a feeling of validation for it.
Guest:But as soon as he finished talking to the guy, he texted me and he was like,
Guest:you're gonna love it that's great and he kept saying it to me like throughout like you know when are you working tomorrow like ask me when i was gonna edit and i'd say oh you know probably in the early part of the afternoon he's like okay i i can't wait you're gonna love this one like he
Guest:He was excited for me to hear it.
Guest:He was proud.
Guest:He was proud that he delivered for you.
Guest:Oh, that's so sweet.
Marc:I love that.
Marc:Did you make Mark aware about the Paul Thomas Anderson rewrite rumors?
Marc:You bet your ass I did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I loved that moment so much.
Guest:Yeah, I was so happy he asked.
Guest:And, you know, I think the answer was take from that answer what you wish.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:It's, you know, it's right there.
Marc:So wait, so did Mark, did you prep Mark to ask him about Taylor Swift?
Guest:Yes, I did, but he didn't come up.
Guest:Ah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Darn it.
Guest:I was hoping.
Guest:I think, you know, it's just one of those things, you know, he talked to him for 90 minutes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:By the way, I will also point this out.
Guest:You know, anyone listening to these bonus episodes, particularly the producer cuts, you have a general sense of how I work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And probably the more you're listening to them, the more you're kind of seeing patterns and knowing the type of things I cut out and the type of things I think, oh, I need to save some time here.
Guest:And I think I've pretty explicitly said I'm always aiming for getting the episode in under an hour and 40 minutes, usually under an hour and 30 if I can help it.
Guest:But if it's necessary, I'll go between 1.30, 1.40.
Guest:That episode was pushing 150.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:And if you listen to the interview, you will not hear anything in it that you'd be like, hmm, I'm surprised that's in it, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's nothing in there that I was going to move into the producer cuts territory.
Guest:That was, to me, I was like, I want this whole thing out there.
Guest:This is...
Guest:totally satisfying from start to finish and frankly if it was longer i probably would have kept it as longer uh and another episode i can point to where we did that was william friedkin uh where again it was like are you crazy like i don't care that they talked for two and a half hours put all of this in right this is gold
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, uh, yeah, that, so, so it's not often, but on occasion something will happen where, you know, uh, my general sense of wanting to keep the show at a certain time that I know is manageable for listeners.
Guest:I'm like, you know what?
Guest:They're going to be happy with me for leaving all this stuff in.
Guest:It's not unsatisfying.
Marc:Right.
Marc:There's no fat.
Marc:It's all lean.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Gotcha.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was a big, long week.
Guest:We're doing this finally here on Friday.
Guest:And I mentioned this to you, Chris, mostly because I wanted you to carry the load on this.
Guest:And I knew that you could.
Guest:So with this long week of production, I did get to thinking about something we've talked about several times.
Guest:We talked about it last week on the Tarantino episode.
Guest:And then we've talked about it in the past in terms of, you know, things that you used to do often.
Guest:You said, you know, you were, you know, whether it was driving around on your jobs and the routes you were on or your exercise, your marathons that you've been running, you are a big fan of movie soundtracks.
Marc:Absolutely, I am.
Guest:So we got to the end of that Tarantino episode last week.
Guest:You talked about the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack.
Guest:And I thought, you know what?
Guest:Chris is very good at giving, you know, kind of his specific recommendations for things that apply to life.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like you've given your tips about like, you know, when you're abroad and you're by yourself and, you know, you have your tips about like, you know, Thanksgiving outside of your family, what you do and all that.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:I thought, how about applying these soundtracks to life?
Guest:And what are your choices for things that people can take away?
Guest:Your recommendations for movie soundtracks.
Guest:And we're talking about, it can be any soundtrack, right?
Marc:Yeah, we're talking about scores, soundtracks, TV show soundtracks.
Guest:And so that I'm not totally slacking, I have made a list myself.
Guest:But I would like to turn this over to you because I know that this is like your wheelhouse and your head gets wrapped around this stuff.
Marc:Well, look, I love a theme.
Marc:I also love mixtapes.
Marc:Like this is a thing that, I mean, I guess it's just like playlists that people send each other on like Spotify or wherever.
Marc:Like I loved making mixtapes as a kid.
Marc:I used to make mix CDs when I worked at the radio station at WNAW.
Marc:I used to have like...
Marc:Send my girlfriend a mix CD with like me talking on it sometimes like at the end as I got like a like a hidden track or something.
Marc:But yeah, I love a mixtape.
Marc:And that's what a movie soundtrack is.
Marc:It's the producers or director or whoever.
Marc:They made this mixtape for this movie.
Marc:but it was for you to enjoy, to embrace.
Marc:And yes, so I have an affinity for soundtracks in my life.
Marc:And I think the biggest thing that I do now, especially during the pandemic, is I like to cook a whole lot.
Marc:So my go-to, and actually I have a lot, but my go-to cooking soundtrack is The Big Chill.
Marc:Oh, look at you.
Marc:Okay, Boomer.
Marc:I know, I know, but there's Motown.
Marc:There's a whole scene in that movie of them dancing while cooking.
Marc:It's just a fun time while you're cutting an onion and chopping your greens.
Guest:That was such a soundtrack of my childhood, early childhood.
Guest:I can remember being like...
Guest:four, five, and hearing the Big Chill soundtrack in my house.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And learning all those songs for the first time.
Guest:That was absolutely a gateway to Motown.
Guest:And so when I hear the Big Chill soundtrack, I'm just instantly transported back to being a kid.
Guest:It's a very, very quick time machine.
Marc:So that's what I have.
Marc:I have cooking.
Marc:Do you have a category you would like to add?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, this is kind of general, but I do often listen to stuff while I'm working.
Guest:And what I've found is that it's very, very hard for me to listen to music with lyrics if I'm trying to get work done.
Marc:I mean, for you, it's probably impossible because.
Marc:Oh, well, yes.
Guest:In terms of editing work, sure.
Guest:But if I'm just like trying to burn through emails or what I will say earlier in my life when I was having to write scripts for news, it was very helpful to have music playing.
Guest:And, you know, sometimes you want it to be innocuous.
Guest:Classical music helps, that kind of thing.
Guest:You know, just something that gives you a bit of a buffer between your brain and the real world so you can kind of lock yourself into the work that you're doing.
Guest:And I found one of the great soundtracks to play is the score.
Guest:Not the soundtrack.
Guest:I have the soundtrack of this movie, too, and listen to it a lot.
Guest:But the score of Magnolia is a great score for getting work done.
Guest:And I would argue you could use that score to get the work done around your house, like cleaning up.
Guest:You know, if you're talking about cooking, doing the dishes, things like that, the Magnolia score, there's always feels like there's momentum, but you never know when it's going to wind up.
Guest:I also do feel like when I listen to it, I'm always like, you know, doing something.
Guest:I'm very intensely invested in it.
Guest:And I'm like one inch away from doing the Julianne Moore score.
Guest:uh monologue in the in the pharmacy like while i'm getting angry at my work i'm ready to be like don't you call me lady i come here yeah yeah that's i i'm saying that when people are sending me emails you send me this i get this
Guest:Uh, the Magnolia score.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I would, I would recommend that for working.
Guest:Do you have anything that's like work or anything like, you know, labor related?
Marc:Uh, Oppenheimer.
Marc:The score from Oppenheimer is really great.
Marc:I got to start doing that.
Marc:Cause it's.
Marc:What, did we listen to that?
Marc:Because, yeah, you get your shit done, and it is propulsive, and it is, like, building.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:I love the Oppenheimer score.
Marc:Yeah, it does that for the movie.
Guest:Like, the movie moves along at times where you would think otherwise it wouldn't, but it's just that score driving you through the whole thing.
Marc:Oh, yeah, it's like, that's the sail that's pushing the entire story, you know?
Marc:It's like, oh, look, these guys are doing math.
Marc:Like, you don't care about this.
Marc:another one for work is a soundtrack a score for this show called normal people which i don't is that a broadway musical normal people no oh no it's a tv show
Marc:Yeah, no, it's a TV show.
Marc:I've never seen the TV show.
Marc:I just found this score and it is transfixing.
Marc:It is really good for crushing emails or just focusing on work.
Marc:It just kind of snaps me, snaps my focus to where I need to be.
Marc:So yeah, that's one.
Marc:Another one is the Social Network soundtrack or score, I should say.
Guest:That's a great one.
Guest:And those guys have done a few that are really good.
Guest:The Killer is another one that I love putting on and just like trying to get stuff done.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, for when I want to go jogging, I sometimes put on the Watchmen HBO series score, which is also from those guys, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
Marc:Like it is great.
Marc:All right.
Guest:Well, so jogging.
Guest:Now, okay, this gets us into some other territory.
Guest:Now, I don't do a lot of running or jogging, but I would say, you know, there's a definite need for music when you're doing like an intense activity.
Guest:And that could be exercise, you know, working a speed bag or, you know, I can remember a lot of times when I was younger and doing a lot of fast cycling, you know, like just like...
Guest:tooling around on my bike and i would put headphones in and listen to music the one i always came back to was the aliens soundtrack james horner's alien soundtrack and if you could just take yourself back to that movie at those scenes where like they're trying to drive that car out of the alien hive right and they're busting through walls in that the
Guest:You will feel like you can do that to whatever it is you're doing at the time if you are listening to the Alien soundtrack.
Guest:That is really going to juice you up.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:One that I like to jog to, especially when I was younger, was the Days of Confuse soundtrack.
Marc:That is an all-time classic.
Marc:Just an all-timer.
Marc:Rock and roll.
Marc:Hoochie Coo.
Marc:School's Out.
Marc:ZZ Top.
Marc:I mean, Slow Ride.
Marc:I mean, it's Cherry Bombs in there.
Marc:Like, it's a great fucking album to exercise to, for sure.
Guest:I have a category, though, that's called For a Party.
Guest:Like a soundtrack you could put on during a party, and that's absolutely one of those.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I feel like I was at a million high school parties where they put the Dazed and Confused soundtrack on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I would feel like I'm just being so predictable and wrote if I said what I really think is the best soundtrack to put on at a party, because it's a double disc, and you could make it last long, and it's just so great, which is the Boogie Nights soundtrack.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I'm already so clearly a PTA fanboy.
Guest:Yeah, you're in the bag.
Guest:So I will take a different route with this.
Guest:A great party soundtrack because you'd be at a party and if this is playing, even if people aren't super familiar with the movie, and a lot of people are,
Guest:They will hear this and it will make them happy.
Guest:And you will have a happy party.
Guest:You will have song after song that's making people smile.
Guest:They might not even know why.
Guest:They're just having a good time because you have put on the Big Lebowski soundtrack.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That's a great one.
Guest:You get that Bob Dylan in there.
Guest:You get Elvis Costello.
Guest:You get these weird things that come in, these weird instrumentals that happen.
Guest:We were with my son.
Guest:We took him to the New York Botanical Garden train show up in the Bronx.
Guest:And it was the holidays.
Guest:It was very crowded.
Guest:We'd seen it before, so it wasn't anything new to me.
Guest:But happy to be there.
Guest:My son loves it.
Guest:We were up there at the train show.
Guest:And the Henry Mancini song, I think it's pronounced Lujon or Lujon, L-U-J-O-N.
Guest:And it is the song that plays in Jackie Treehorn's house.
Guest:Like when the dude, you know, uses the pencil on the pad and sees the guy with the dick.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was so happy.
Guest:Like it made me... Like I was like at this train show and this song starts playing and I'm like...
Guest:Oh, I feel so good right now.
Guest:This is great.
Guest:And I realized I was thinking about the dudes who were scribbling on that paper.
Guest:That's great that your mind just goes right there.
Guest:Oh, swept away.
Guest:It was like, yeah, it was like a wave just came and took me away, like Wilson the volleyball.
Marc:I love throwing on at a party the Life Aquatic soundtrack with Sue George, who I've seen him in concert at Town Hall, and he played that entire album live.
Marc:It was awesome.
Marc:And just him doing Bowie songs.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:It was, it's sublime.
Marc:And it's also really fun.
Marc:You put it on, people will be like, wait, is this, is this, you know, Bowie?
Marc:And it's, it's a good, good time.
Guest:You know, I'm very, you know, well, we're talking about good times and parties and that there's, I have like a little subset of this, that there's a category, I'm just calling this best to impress.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think that I feel like this goes to what you're talking about, about having mixtapes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, like one of the great things about mixtapes is you feel like you've hit on just the right, you know, concoction that the person who you're playing it for is going to be like, oh, I love all these songs.
Guest:You did it.
Guest:You nailed it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There is a soundtrack that is like that.
Guest:And it's so perfect that that soundtrack is like that because the movie it's from is about that.
Guest:And that's the High Fidelity soundtrack.
Marc:Oh, that's a great one.
Marc:That one's been on repeat.
Marc:Do you just repeat stuff?
Marc:Sometimes.
Marc:Do you repeat songs?
Marc:Okay, cool.
Marc:Because I do that often, and I always think that I'm a bit of a psychopath for doing it.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Especially if I haven't heard in a long time, and I'm like, oh, that felt so good.
Guest:I've got to get that dopamine hit again and just play it again.
Guest:Like everything you get hooked on, it's never as good the second or third time, but you do need it sometimes.
Marc:Yeah, you just get a little hit of it.
Marc:You know, that thing that you're saying, it's very reminiscent of, like, just being in an early part of a relationship, right?
Marc:And you're just trying to impress the person.
Marc:And, like, I feel like that's kind of what you were going with there.
Marc:And, like, look, I've dated a bunch before I got married.
Marc:I feel like you and Dawn have been married for, like, a decade now?
Guest:More than a decade?
Marc:14 years yeah oh uh no it was uh 19 years this good lord okay so yeah so i've i've been in relation you know like on and off relationships so this this soundtrack is for like an early part of our relationship and it's the rushmore soundtrack well great great great soundtrack
Marc:I mean, there's nothing like it.
Marc:It's about, like, falling in love.
Marc:You got, like, the kinks.
Marc:You got, like, you know, there's a Cat Stevens song in there that faces Ooh La La song.
Marc:John Lennon and the Oyoko song.
Marc:Yes, there's so much going on there, and you got a little bit of the score in there as well, and it's a great time.
Guest:Right, is it a Mark Mothersbaugh score?
Marc:That's right, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, which is also, that's another sign of excellence for a soundtrack.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:All right.
Marc:The next category I'm putting is road trip.
Guest:I was wondering when this was going to happen.
Guest:I have driving written here in general.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:This is my favorite way to listen to music.
Marc:It's the open road, and it's just me and some music, and I get to enjoy myself.
Marc:I mean, I kind of want to lead up to it, but I can't.
Marc:Number one with a bullet for me.
Marc:has been once upon a time in Hollywood.
Marc:That is what I got written down right here in front of my face.
Guest:And I felt bad putting it because I'm like, oh, we're going to talk about another Tarantino thing.
Guest:But I can't avoid it.
Marc:It's so good.
Guest:It's the greatest thing to listen to in a car.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:It is like the rambling gambling man, like hush.
Marc:There's even commercials.
Guest:He presents this soundtrack as though you are listening to the radio in 1969, and it is perfect.
Guest:It's a perfect driving soundtrack.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:How about he found a Neil Diamond song that we've never listened to?
Guest:Oh, God, that Neil Diamond song is so amazing.
Guest:Brother Loves Traveling, Salvation Show.
Marc:So good.
Marc:I mean, and it is just the perfect driving album.
Marc:Like, start to finish, we'll be like number one.
Marc:But there are others.
Marc:You know, I'm partial to the Almost Famous soundtrack.
Marc:Tons of good stuff on there.
Marc:Tiny Dancer by Elton John.
Marc:Like, it's just a lot of good stuff there.
Guest:I'm wondering where the Judgment Night soundtrack is.
Guest:I can't believe you didn't put that on your list.
Marc:It didn't make it.
Marc:I was like, you know what?
Marc:I've already talked about it.
Marc:I feel like judgment.
Marc:I mean, if I had to, if I had to be honest there, there's, there's a category for delivering newspapers.
Marc:So, so yeah, that can go down with delivering newspapers.
Marc:You should listen to the judgment night soundtrack and the crow soundtrack.
Marc:Cause that's, that's awesome.
Marc:All I did when I was an early teen was delivering newspapers.
Guest:The Judgment Night soundtrack falls into a subcategory of soundtracks where they grouped two bands together on every track.
Guest:Because in the Judgment Night soundtrack, it was like a hip-hop album.
Guest:uh yeah group and then a uh a rock group hard rock group and i remember also the spawn soundtrack did something similar yeah you're right but it was like electronic music and rockers like put together in each one
Guest:uh oh the 90s they were i mean you think about it it was like when they knew they'd be selling lots of cds right yes and so the soundtracks are always loaded with stuff that had nothing to do with the movie whatsoever which is why they they don't stand the test of time but you bought them when they came out because you were like oh hell yeah i'm buying the cable guy soundtrack it's got that uh
Marc:standing outside a phone booth song on it.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:I've bought many a soundtrack that had just one song.
Marc:Like the Mallrats soundtrack has like that Suzanne Weezer song that I love.
Marc:But there's like, you know, not too many other songs that I really love about it.
Marc:But yeah, I've owned that on cassette.
Guest:Oh, but I will say the Clerks soundtrack is very good and just definitely falls into the Tarantino category of a soundtrack to a 90s independent film where the soundtrack itself took on its own life.
Guest:And definitely the Clerks soundtrack, which also had, you know, sound bites from the movie in it, like we were talking about.
Guest:You know, the little quotes, no time for love, Dr. Jones, like all that stuff.
Guest:You get rattled around in your head forever.
Yeah.
Guest:uh all right the last one i want to bring up here because i feel like we talked about like work and exercise and parties but i have a soundtrack and this is consider this a gift and it's not just a it's not it's kind of cheating because it's not really a soundtrack but it falls into the same category and this i think is a great thing for productivity of any kind
Guest:You want to run really well?
Guest:Use this thing.
Guest:You want to get a lot of work done?
Guest:Use this thing.
Guest:You want to just sit and think and have something drive in your thoughts while you're doing it?
Guest:This works great.
Guest:And this is by LCD Sound System.
Guest:And it was created as a commission by Nike.
Guest:It is called 4533.
Guest:And that's the length of the whole thing.
Guest:And it is just LCD Sound System instrumental music
Guest:And it's designed to have the perfect ups and downs, peaks and valleys, so that you have the right build, the right cool down.
Guest:And I, as I mentioned, am not a runner, but have found this thing works great.
Guest:If you ever watched MSNBC and watched it at eight o'clock,
Guest:And you enjoyed what you were watching on there because you liked the way the host was presenting news.
Guest:That's because I wrote that news to that soundtrack almost every time.
Guest:Oh, you got to have to do an A block.
Guest:A blocks are really tough.
Guest:You got to put a lot of information in there.
Guest:You got to gather a lot of stuff.
Guest:I'm going to put this LCD sound system thing on and we're just going to scoot away.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So there's just three songs and four songs on it.
Guest:Well, I think now it's been separated because of streaming, right?
Marc:Oh, I see.
Marc:So it was just one track?
Guest:It was initially as it was sold as a thing you bought with Nike sneakers or whatever.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Guest:It was one thing that you put on.
Guest:I think it was an iTunes exclusive download.
Marc:Oh, I used to love this.
Guest:You got it from iTunes.
Marc:Gotcha.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:That's a good one.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I'm going to put that on tonight.
Marc:You will love it.
Guest:You of all people who likes this stuff and who wants a kind of sonic template for everything you do, this is a perfect one for you.
Marc:I dig it the most, huh?
Marc:All right.
Marc:You dig it the most.
Marc:Well, my last category, and it's, you know, not cheating.
Marc:It's just very, you know, personal to me.
Marc:But it's drinks by the fireplace.
Marc:I have a fireplace.
Marc:I'm very lucky to have one.
Marc:I like to enjoy drinks via coffee or cocktails.
Marc:I don't drink beer anymore.
Marc:But yeah, you know, those sorts of things.
Marc:Drinks by the Fireplace.
Marc:And there's a few of them that rattle around.
Marc:And, like, one of them is the soundtrack to Once.
Marc:That is a great soundtrack to just be chilling by the fireplace, just enjoying the night.
Marc:Another one, Good Will Hunting.
Marc:I mean, I'm a sucker for Elliot Smith.
Marc:And, yeah, you know, I mean, I could have put the Royal Tenenbaums on there as well.
Marc:But that's a good one.
Marc:But...
Marc:They're all pale in comparison to Inside Llewyn Davis.
Marc:That is such a great fucking album to listen to.
Guest:I'm just laughing because I'm like, well, what do you do though?
Guest:You're in the middle of that, enjoying yourself.
Guest:It's nice and chill, folk music.
Guest:You're by the fire.
Guest:And then Please Mr. Kennedy comes on.
Guest:Uh-oh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How do you deal with that?
Guest:That would make me, like, I'd just be laughing the rest of the night.
Guest:I'd be rolling around.
Guest:That's what I do.
Guest:Like, listen, I'm not a stoic person.
Guest:I'm not an Easter Island statue.
Guest:I need some giggles.
Guest:And man, that song, Mr. Cavity, is a banger.
Guest:You know what's the greatest thing about Please, Mr. Kennedy?
Guest:If you've never heard it, it's Justin Timberlake, Adam Driver, and Oscar Isaac singing this song.
Guest:Please, Mr. Kennedy, I don't want to go to outer space, right?
Guest:And it's in the vein of almost like a war protest song.
Guest:And it took me maybe the second or third time seeing the movie and hearing the song to realize, like, wait a minute.
Guest:No one gets conscripted into outer space.
Guest:You have to go to school for a very long time and be very good at that to go to outer space.
Guest:But it's so perfect with the movie.
Guest:That's absolutely how lousy those guys were.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, Chris, I do have to thank you for, as I said, carrying this one this week because it's a heavy-duty week, but as we talked about, very worth it.
Guest:And wherever the situation would call for it, for us to have an expanded bout of content like this, I hate saying it like that, but more episodes for your ears is what we had this week.
Marc:I'm going to have some expanded content, uh, battle content, uh, in the bathroom in just a minute.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's so aggravating because like, I do hate that stuff, but like everybody talks to me about it in those terms.
Guest:Like when I, like I have, Oh, do you guys have more content this week or this and that?
Guest:And it's like, it just gets hammered into me.
Guest:And then I wind up saying it myself and I'm like, Oh, I hate this.
Guest:This sucks.
Right.
Guest:But if you have any content you want to hear, go to the link in the episode description there, click on it and send us your feedback.
Guest:You know, we get a lot and sometimes we'll do whole mailbag episodes so we can get through your stuff.
Guest:There's there's some comments and suggestions piling up from from all of you here.
Guest:And we're we're almost out of time on today's show.
Guest:But I did want to address one thing before we go.
Guest:Because, as some of you know who have been with us on the Friday show since we started doing this just a little over a year ago, the whole reason we started doing it was because there was wrestling content—content again—
Guest:on the show with Mark meeting some wrestlers.
Guest:I was teaching him an understanding of wrestling because it's something that I enjoy and passionate about trying to get Mark into it.
Guest:This was our Wrestling with Mark series that we did on the Full Marin.
Guest:We got a lot of wrestling fans that
Guest:We wanted to keep them around.
Guest:We gave them wrestling stuff.
Guest:And, you know, we will gladly talk about things as they come up and as people send in their suggestions for that.
Guest:And the way we're looking at the Friday show now is more holistically.
Guest:This is your show for the full Marin.
Guest:You tell us the kind of things you want us to talk about and we will.
Guest:But one person wrote something in and I really felt like I need to address it.
Guest:And it was, I would love to hear your reaction to the Vince McMahon sex trafficking allegations.
Guest:And this is a serious thing.
Guest:If you're unaware of what it is, the Wall Street Journal broke this story that it broke the story two years ago that Vince McMahon had paid hush money to people in the WWE world.
Guest:For, you know, sexual impropriety was what was known at the time.
Guest:He was ousted from his job.
Guest:Then he was brought back into his job.
Guest:And now a lawsuit was filed by one of the people who claimed sexual impropriety.
Guest:And it is some terrible law.
Guest:awful, horrible details.
Guest:And you can see it because it's mainstream news.
Guest:You can read about it.
Guest:Wall Street Journal broke the reporting, but there's been lots of follow-up reporting.
Guest:Vice is doing excellent reporting on it, quite frankly.
Guest:And here's my reaction.
Guest:Vince McMahon is a long-standing scumbag.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And there is no ambiguity of that.
Guest:And there shouldn't be any ambiguity of that.
Guest:And there are many reasons...
Guest:beyond uh sexual impropriety and what is being alleged as sex trafficking in this lawsuit many reasons before those even come up that i wouldn't want to have anything to do with the company of vince mcmahon and anything he is presenting and his wife for a very long time
Guest:I stopped watching wrestling.
Guest:I think you can go back to one of our early episodes.
Guest:I kind of laid this out for someone who asked a similar question at the time, not involving the allegations or a lawsuit, but why do you like this stuff if there have been, you know, all these terrible things about Vince McMahon?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I am fully aware that as a kid, I watched wrestling and was unaware of this stuff.
Guest:But much like the same way I have abandoned my fandom of the NFL once I started to feel uncomfortable with watching and watching, knowing that the organization knew all about wrestling.
Guest:CTE and other head injuries and didn't do anything until they were forced to.
Guest:Many other reasons.
Guest:It's the same thing with the WWE.
Guest:And frankly, there are still many people in the WWE who have perpetuated the culture that allowed Vince McMahon to do this.
Guest:I don't patronize their work.
Guest:I don't I don't.
Guest:You haven't heard us talk about any of the modern WWE shows on this Friday show.
Guest:And that's the reason.
Guest:And I think, you know, Vince McMahon absolutely should pay for any crimes he's committed.
Guest:And so should anyone else who's still in the company.
Guest:I don't have tremendous optimism for that, considering the way that UFC handled allegations against Dana White, their president.
Guest:And now UFC and WWE are merged together, owned by the same company, TKO.
Guest:I'm not entirely optimistic.
Guest:I don't need to be optimistic, frankly.
Guest:I need to stay away from it.
Guest:I have no problem with anyone trying to enjoy wrestling and watching...
Guest:WWE, but to me, I can't shake the bad taste of Vince McMahon and what he is from my enjoyment of it.
Guest:And that was true.
Guest:The same thing happened to me when the wrestler Chris Benoit, he killed his family and himself.
Guest:I was like...
Guest:I don't want to watch this stuff.
Guest:This is there's no way for me to divorce what happened there from from from the reality.
Guest:So and from the product that they were putting on the screen.
Guest:So that's my take.
Guest:I wanted to bring it up because, frankly, I would feel hypocritical as a person who came on these microphones and talk to the audience about wrestling.
Guest:for which is this totally frivolous supposed to be fun enterprise and uh you know if i just pretended like this didn't exist it absolutely exists it is bad the industry should have an absolute reckoning around it and i think anyone who is uh disgusted by it should support products that are far removed from it that's how i would say uh chris do you have anything that you want to say about this
Marc:That was all really well said, and just fuck that guy.
Marc:It is definitely the biggest reason why I stopped watching WWE, and I do not patronize them.
Marc:And yeah, it just feels...
Marc:Better to watch AEW wrestling and know that they're not pieces of shit.
Marc:Like, I know it sounds silly, but, you know, they're not this circus carnival fuckery, honestly, going on behind the scenes.
Marc:Like, I don't know.
Marc:Just makes me feel better.
Marc:And yeah, just, you know, what you said is much more succinct and much more eloquent than that.
Marc:But that's how I feel about it.
Guest:Well, I think fuck that guy is pretty succinct.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:I'm going to give you the edge on that one.
Guest:But yeah, look, we've never shied away from the fact that the roots of this as a product are disreputable.
Guest:And you can watch the movie The Iron Claw and see a very similar trajectory with that kind of thing.
Guest:That is not to discount.
Guest:And I would hope that if you went back and listened to the Wrestling with Mark series and heard from people in AEW who are applying their trade and who really believe in the type of entertainment they do, you will hear creative people doing creative things.
Guest:And I support that wholeheartedly.
Guest:And I also think that, you know...
Guest:when you hear me and Chris talk about wrestling, a lot of times, a lot of times what we're doing is making each other laugh and having a good time with some camaraderie and friendship.
Guest:And that's what like good entertainment is.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you shouldn't be doing that while also trying to put out of your mind some terrible, awful transgression.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, uh, I, I, uh,
Guest:I really don't have any interest in litigating it beyond saying 100% condemnation of Vince McMahon is necessary.
Guest:But hey, that's my opinion.
Guest:That's Chris's opinion.
Guest:If you have a different opinion, I'd love to hear it.
Guest:And I'd be happy to read it here on the show.
Guest:Just click on the link that you see there in the episode description, which takes you to a comment page.
Guest:You don't even have to put your name on it.
Guest:We don't require an email.
Guest:Just send it in to us, and we will check it out, along with all the other stuff you've been sending in.
Guest:As usual, I get this stuff coming in.
Guest:We pile it up, and at some point, we will do a full mailbag episode.
Guest:But until then, we are mired deep in the Oscar season.
Guest:And I think with more WTF episodes around the Oscars coming up, Chris and I are going to have to do our very own Oscar Friday show.
Guest:Sweet.
Guest:That's a coming.
Guest:So until next time, I'm Brendan and that's Chris.
Guest:Peace.