BONUS The Friday Show - I'm With the Band
Guest:There's a reason why certain bands can tour as like nostalgia acts because they have their fans who built their identities around them and will still go to the shows.
Guest:And I'm like, did I have that?
Guest:And I gave it some thought and I realized that I absolutely did.
Marc:Hey, Chris.
Marc:Mac, it is cold out.
Marc:It is very cold out.
Marc:I do not enjoy this cold weather.
Marc:No, not a fan.
Marc:No.
Marc:Did you get any snow?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:We got about like three inches.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:Did you make Owen a shovel and everything?
Guest:You know, it was gone by the time like I got out there and shoveled early in the morning, which I always do.
Guest:You know, I live in pathological fear of getting sued for a slip and fall outside my house.
Guest:That happened to somebody I know once.
Guest:And so I'm just convinced it's going to happen to me.
Guest:So, yeah, I go out very early and shovel the sidewalk.
Guest:And because you live in New York City, that's your responsibility to shovel the city's sidewalk.
Guest:I don't own that sidewalk, but I have to shovel it.
Guest:And, uh, the, uh, but yeah, so I got it cleared off and then it was one of those snows where, although it's still very cold out, once you got the snow out of the way, just with big, because it's still sunny, that area never accumulated anything more on it than I shoveled.
Guest:So it was, uh, nice and clean.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:I shoveled and then it rained and then it went freezing.
Marc:So now I have ice, just a sheet of ice that I have to like salt the shit out of because I live right next to a school.
Marc:Little kids are walking by every day.
Marc:So yeah, I'm also in fear of them suing me.
Guest:I was listening to the Jonah Ray Rodrigues talk with Mark and all of a sudden Midnight Run and Buddy Comedies comes up.
Guest:I love that.
Guest:And here's the thing.
Guest:I know for a fact that Mark has never listened to this.
Guest:So, yeah.
Guest:So it's not like we said it and it got it in his brain and he started, went and watched Midnight Run and was talking about it or whatever.
Guest:And I don't know for a fact, but I'm going to guess that Jonah Ray was not listening to us either.
Guest:So it just happened to be some nice parallel thinking that we are all up on Midnight Run and buddy comedies and then those
Guest:Those two guys are watching as well.
Marc:Yeah, totally.
Marc:Also, that conversation was fantastic.
Marc:A guy who left comedy and Marco just having a pleasant conversation with him.
Marc:I don't know if they're best friends.
Marc:They sound like they're good friends.
Marc:They sound more like friends than the other time we had someone who quit comedy on.
Guest:But like... I will also, I would like to point out...
Guest:That Mark takes a brutal shot at Jonah in this.
Guest:And Jonah lashed at it.
Guest:And gave one to Mark later.
Guest:It was funny because it was a joke that didn't actually...
Guest:describe Mark but it was like a shot he had to take like Mark laid it there for him on a tee and Jonah had to take the shot at him and do you know what I noticed about that Mark did not get angry at it like he didn't take it as like
Guest:I got to tell you, I've heard that more often than not.
Guest:Even with people that Mark doesn't have resentment toward or whatever, but if they take a shot at him, he's then thinking in his head, like, all right, what's my volley back, right?
Guest:This one, it just happened, and he just let it happen, and it went away.
Guest:And I was like, yeah, there's something about that dynamic that's different than the other one.
Marc:Star contrast between the two, for sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that was a great conversation.
Guest:I was saying that to Mark.
Guest:I was very surprised that, you know, frankly, there's a little bit of a reveal.
Guest:Both of those conversations, Ed Begley and Jonah, were intended to be short talks.
Guest:They were it was like people had been on before who asked if they could, you know, come on and promote something that they were doing.
Guest:Mark likes the both of them, enjoys talking to them.
Yeah.
Guest:Ed Begley likes all his stories.
Guest:He liked the idea of going through some of the stories in the book with him.
Guest:And so the thought was, sure, we'll have them on and then we can put them in short spots on other episodes.
Guest:And that talk with Jonah just got far ranging enough that we were like, oh, well, that's a full episode now.
Guest:And the one with Ed, which kind of stuck to the plan, which was just like, let's talk about the stuff that's in the book.
Guest:that was still a shorter one.
Guest:So, but the Jonah one, it just surprised me that like, I kind of felt like he came ready to unburden himself of some things.
Guest:Like he was like, whether it was conscious or not, like I haven't really talked publicly about this feeling I had that caused me to pull back from comedy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they like had this conversation or I don't know, maybe he felt like the need to kind of,
Guest:have it on the record out there that like this was my decision to going back to bartending so that he doesn't have to deal with it every time like judd apatow texts him about like hey you're bartending again it's like this is now it's public it's out there in the world so i i thought that was great i did text mark while i was listening to it to make sure that it wasn't just stuff happening in the moment that they might have had second thoughts about but like you know there was a lot of joking about
Guest:kind of gallows humor reactions to people's deaths and grief and that.
Guest:And I was like, you guys are cool with this?
Guest:And Mark was like, yeah, hell yeah.
Guest:Like, what, you mean like about Harris Whittles and stuff?
Guest:He's like, fucking Harris would make those jokes.
Guest:Like, no, of course.
Guest:This is fine.
Guest:This is like comics stuff.
Marc:Comics are giving leeway on this stuff.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Well, that's cool that you asked about it.
Marc:And it was really cool, the bonus episode as well.
Marc:Ed Bagley Jr., fascinating life, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, really fascinating.
Marc:And I love that Mark now has an invite to his birthday party.
Marc:To his big parties, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're going to be a little calmer these days, eating vegan food and driving electric go-karts.
Guest:It's not...
Guest:It's not the 70s anymore over there at the Begley house, but still fun.
Marc:And I can't believe the guy had Parkinson's.
Marc:And because of like blows to his head and stuff.
Marc:And as he was describing like, whoa, yeah, I have Parkinson's.
Marc:And it's because all this other stuff happened to me.
Marc:I too was thinking about to all the times that I fell or hit my head.
Marc:And I'm just like, fuck, is this a receipt that's going to happen in like 20 years?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I was thinking that, but then as he kept talking about it, I was like, oh, that's way more than me.
Guest:Not me.
Guest:I was like, I don't know.
Guest:Wait, you hit your head like in excess of like 10 times or however many times he was saying?
Marc:What Ed was saying was that every night he would go on stage and hit his head.
Marc:He was selling that more than he was actually doing, you know, actually hitting his head, right?
Guest:Yeah, I guess.
Guest:I mean, I would hope so, but Jesus, he did enough drugs that that probably was probably...
Guest:That was probably something he didn't take the best precautions when doing.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:He's like Darby Allin out there.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Taking bumps when he shouldn't have.
Marc:I mean, I've ran full speed accidentally into a brick wall when I was in like seventh grade where like my braces popped out and like I chipped a tooth and stuff.
Marc:So that's why I'm like, oh no, like what's going to happen?
Marc:Oh, like a ticking time bomb.
Guest:What I also had to think about to myself was pretty much everyone has hit their heads at some point, and not everyone has a brain disorder.
Marc:That is true, right?
Guest:Uh, you know, even people who have been like in the NFL their whole career, like plenty of them come out.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Like there's ones that are really bad and it's not great to bang your head so many times against another human.
Guest:But, uh, yeah, it's not like a, it's not a one in one thing.
Guest:Oh, you hit your head.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:That's the end of you, buddy.
Guest:Done for life.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like, Oh, the baby.
Marc:Well, you dropped the baby.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, just, just get a new one, I guess.
Guest:Oh, she's finished.
Yeah.
Guest:Um, yeah, I, uh, but, but it was, I was glad that we were able to preserve that stuff in the, uh, in the bonus features.
Guest:But I also did like that in the regular conversation with Ed, the one that aired on the, on the episode, Mark's impulse now is to, if he finds out somebody, you know, was around Manson or whatever, is to go right to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Was it like that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, how was Vaughn Reg?
Marc:Like, yeah, that was great.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I'd be like, I would be doing the same exact thing.
Marc:Tell me everything.
Marc:Did you see any shit?
Marc:Did you see the people?
Guest:Was Tex riding a horse?
Marc:Right.
Guest:You were on a horsey.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I also like that, you know, we were talking last week about...
Guest:Winding up doing these Tarantino movies, and that obviously is a major one that we've watched a lot.
Guest:But I liked Mark and Jonah talking about the re-watching of movies and how they're feeling enriched by it.
Guest:And I started thinking about it to myself, like...
Guest:I kind of like that more than seeing new films these days.
Guest:But, and it's not a, it's funny.
Guest:It's like, there's, there's, I think a, a pigeonholing of that is like some kind of nostalgia or, or regression.
Guest:Oh, you just want to kind of revisit things you've already done.
Guest:And,
Guest:luxuriate in the fun feelings and the, of the past, get that dopamine hit from recognizable things.
Guest:And I was thinking about it.
Guest:I'm like, I don't, it's not, it's actually not that like taxi drivers playing near me this weekend.
Guest:I might go see it again.
Guest:I I've seen it so many times.
Guest:including in the theater.
Guest:And I just, I feel like it opens up my brain at different times based on whatever is going on in my life or in my, or my accumulated knowledge at that given point.
Guest:Like my reaction to Taxi Driver when we saw it, I don't know, three, four years ago in the theater was different than when I saw it 10 years ago or before that.
Guest:And I just, I like that idea of kind of growing with movies, treating movies, you know, in a real...
Guest:not just entertainment fashion, but in the same way that you regard popular art, take it in in a way that you can appreciate at different stages of your life and different stages of your own emotional maturity.
Guest:There's just something very appealing about that to me right now.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:I mean, the same goes for me with movies, but also, like you said, with art.
Marc:I would go to the Whitney, and I didn't go there for like five years.
Marc:I'm like, oh, look, here's the same work of art that I've seen a couple of times, and now I kind of have a better appreciation for it.
Marc:I just see different things about it.
Guest:Yeah, I had Network on the other night, and that's one of those movies where it's almost a cliche to talk about, like, how, oh, that movie was ahead of its time, and the things it talked about, it actually wound up predicting how, you know, television news was going to go, and the entertainment complex, and all this.
Guest:And so, like, I'm...
Guest:kind of well-prepared for that kind of read of the movie.
Guest:And what I was struck with watching it this time was how much I was keyed into the Peter Finch character going through a mental health crisis and it being not only ignored as a mental health crisis, but exploited and treated as a hot commodity.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm like, man, we see this all the time these days of like people who should not be the subject of mass attention, at least not in a very public way.
Guest:And there's just more outlets than ever to be able to do that, to be able to kind of gain some attention, gain some notoriety by behaving in a way that's probably detrimental to that person's own health.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was like a version of network that I'd never considered before in the YouTube era, in the era of live streaming and basically allowing yourself to be viewed and seen and participated with at any time under any condition.
Guest:And that part of it felt so present.
Guest:Whereas I remember watching it like...
Guest:20 years ago.
Guest:And everyone was like, look at this.
Guest:It's a news show with a cat psychic on it.
Guest:I've seen that on Anderson Cooper, right?
Guest:Like that was the, the framework where network was really standing out in a, from a contemporary mindset.
Guest:And this time I took it much more personally, like, Oh God, this movie is very astute at understanding how people's own personal, uh,
Guest:illnesses and mental dispositions can be exploited and ultimately used against them.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, that's true.
Marc:Last week, I actually watched 2001's A Space Odyssey.
Marc:And first of all, it looks great on my television.
Marc:And my wife was like, well, why are you watching this?
Marc:You've seen this.
Marc:I'm like, yeah, but I kind of have a new appreciation for it.
Marc:Here's this computer who is
Marc:Artificial intelligence and like something I wouldn't be thinking about 10 years ago.
Marc:And it's, you know, now something that is a part of our lives, right?
Marc:Like there is artificial intelligence, like writing articles and stuff and like just a new contemplation of the same story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All of this is to say, though, it's not a rejection of of modern film or modern art or anything like that.
Guest:In fact, I think 2023 was an amazing year of movies.
Guest:And there were lots of things that that I both saw and things I still want to see.
Guest:Aquaman 2.
Guest:I'm kidding.
Guest:Oh, of course.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But but I also want to point out that you and I saw a film that we will talk about at the end of the show.
Guest:And we're putting it at the end of the show today because it's a it'll be spoiler filled.
Guest:So we will warn you again when we get to the end of the show and we talk about it.
Guest:And that movie is The Iron Claw.
Guest:No surprise that Chris and I saw a movie about 1980s wrestling.
Guest:But I think it's worth much more of a conversation than just a conversation about wrestling.
Guest:It was a great movie.
Guest:I thought it totally delivered.
Guest:And so if you want to hear us talk about The Iron Claw in a spoilerific sense, it will be at the end of the show.
Guest:If you haven't yet seen The Iron Claw, we'll go see it.
Guest:And then you can go back to listen to this some other time.
Guest:But before we get to that, I did want to talk about the Billy Joe Armstrong interview.
Guest:What a great conversation, man.
Guest:Oh, good.
Marc:You like that one?
Marc:Dude, he's just a regular guy.
Marc:He's like a big rock star, and he's just a regular fucking guy.
Guest:You know, it's funny.
Guest:I deliberately didn't ask Mark.
Guest:And maybe that's a bit of a letdown for people if you're looking to me to give you some behind the scenes information.
Guest:But Mark was saying he made some decision at the beginning of the talk with Billy to ease him into the conversation.
Guest:And he was like, it was the right move on my part.
Guest:What was the move like though?
Guest:Well, that's why I didn't want to ask because I, I didn't want to feel like, uh, I kind of, when I listened to it because it didn't jump out at me, I figured it's not jumping out at the listeners and I would rather them not know just like myself.
Guest:So I don't know.
Guest:So I'm telling you personally, I do not know.
Guest:I have a guess.
Guest:I think it's probably, which is weird because people wouldn't think it's some secret or it's like something Mark hasn't done before.
Guest:But I think it was the Les Paul Jr.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I think it was, yeah, I think it was that he, that Mark took the guess that this would be this guy's like favorite guitar and brought it up to him first.
Guest:And once he did that, I think Billy Joe was like, oh, this guy gets me.
Guest:You know, or he at least is talking to me on a level that, like, he's not immediately sitting me down and being, like, interview guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's just, like, talking about one of these things I enjoy.
Guest:And that opened him up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it made for a very light conversation.
Marc:Yeah, like a security blanket.
Marc:He was like, oh, look, look, you have this thing here.
Marc:If you ever need to touch it, it's right there.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And I also think, you know, Billy Joe was talking about his, you know, addictions, his childhood, which is crazy.
Marc:He's the last of six kids, which is wild to me.
Marc:But, like, he also talks about, like, he just doesn't like kids.
Marc:to be talking in front of people, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was a really cool conversation with just a guy who happens to be like a rock god.
Marc:Did you ever listen to Green Day?
Guest:I did.
Guest:I mean, I was not a punk guy, so to speak, but I guess they, although they would reject this term, were like pop punk.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:uh particularly like once dookie got released but i definitely bought that album and i i remember more specifically than just you know getting that album when it came out uh there i think i when i bought that album uh the one big hit was out uh what is it called long view or the one that's just about jerking off
Guest:And that was getting a lot of MTV and radio play.
Guest:And that's what got me, you know, like that was like my entry point to Green Day.
Guest:I bought that album and I loved it.
Guest:And I loved the song Basket Case on the album.
Guest:And that was before they released it as a single.
Guest:So I was already like, there's just an amazingly poppy song on this album.
Guest:And then they released that, and that went huge.
Guest:That was just an amazingly huge hit.
Guest:And then they were, I don't know if you would consider them headliners or what, but they were one of the big bands that year, same year, at Woodstock 94.
Guest:And that Woodstock 94 was only about an hour from where I lived.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:Even less.
Guest:And we did not go.
Guest:Like I was, I was 14 when, when, when it was happening.
Guest:And so it was not, I would not have been allowed to go to that, but it was definitely like the talk of everything was what, you know, what was going on at Woodstock 94.
Guest:and uh the green day component of that that was i think definitely in my high school was like where they became legends to kids right like like they they would either have seen them there or they saw the the mtv uh feed of it and it was just like the green day performance and this is coming like right on the heels of like kurt cobain dying right that like
Guest:There was something people were looking for in like a new thing to put their like teenage energy and angst.
Guest:And like Green Day in that portion of the 90s, 94, 95, Green Day was as big as any identifying band for high schoolers from my age than anything.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:And yeah, they, they, for some reason that I still kind of, I'm not sure why they got labeled as like sellouts real quick.
Marc:And I never understood it myself.
Marc:I was like, well, what are they selling out exactly?
Marc:Like what?
Marc:Cause they didn't die when they were like, you know, young.
Marc:Like I just don't get it, you know, but like, I guess cause their, their music was a little bit more poppy than most punk music.
Marc:But yeah,
Marc:uh that that album dookie i you know and actually i talked to erin she used to play it on repeat all the time just the entire album because it was only a half hour long yeah it was so quick i loved it i loved that album uh i've also loved like i you know their nimrod album is good but i i used to play warning on the radio on ww as a bumper music like yeah it was just it's just good music honestly and uh
Guest:Well, you listen to that interview and you understand that his roots were in melodic pop.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, that's probably also why the sellout label got tagged to them because they were as popular for like, you know, 14 year old girls who, you know, were in the mall as they were for skater kids.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like that.
Guest:So, so there was this feeling like,
Guest:oh, you know, these guys, they're not for us.
Guest:They're not for the outcasts.
Guest:And they're like, well, they kind of were for everybody.
Guest:Like anybody could have glommed on to Green Day.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I did.
Marc:And I also listened to Blink-182.
Marc:I saw both of them in concert at, what do you call it, at MSG back in the day.
Marc:And somehow Green Day opened for Blink-182.
Marc:And I, to this day, I'm just like, how did Green Day...
Marc:how were they the opener?
Marc:Cause they blew the doors off.
Guest:That makes sense though.
Guest:At that time period.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like blink one 82 was huge.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In, in like the late nineties.
Guest:And I think that post Nimrod,
Guest:Green Day was selling, like, if you remember, American Idiot was marketed as like their comeback.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so that's 2004.
Guest:And then they get huge again.
Guest:But so I do think between that, Blink-182 was probably a bigger band.
Marc:Yeah, but man, their performances were, I mean, both bands were great, but Green Day was just like, wow, this is amazing.
Marc:Now we're going to see Blink-182, which is just like, I don't know.
Marc:It just, like, I felt bad.
Marc:It's kind of like Mark going on after someone who killed, you know?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:How do you get the audience back to this other level, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and I think there were also probably young people that much the same way with Green Day.
Guest:Like, they were, and maybe to this day still, like, identify themselves as, like, Blink-182 guys, you know, or girls.
Guest:Like, that was their thing.
Guest:And it's funny because I definitely remember that with certain people that they were, like, they were Green Day people.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like, Green Day stickers all over their stuff.
Marc:Or Pearl Jam person, you know?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Well, they were, I mean...
Guest:STP.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Nirvana.
Guest:It was an identity.
Guest:They all had huge groups that kind of associated themselves with them.
Guest:And, you know, there's lots of that band fandom and that.
Guest:And it made me realize that listening to the Green Day interview, the Billy Joe interview with Mark,
Guest:Then not only was I never like a Green Day person where I identified them, despite liking the music, never was part of my identity.
Guest:Then I was like, wait, did I have one?
Guest:I know lots of people even to this day who are still fans of a band that they were fans of and they still go to all that.
Guest:Like my brother-in-law, he goes to any Dave Matthews show that happens.
Guest:He's still a big Dave Matthews fan.
Guest:I know that's like a fish thing too.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I and, you know, there's a reason why certain bands can tour as like nostalgia acts because they have their fans who built their identities around them and will still go to the shows.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I'm like, did I have that?
Guest:And I gave it some thought and I realized that I absolutely did.
Guest:But it was... I was much younger.
Guest:But it was as equally important to me as someone who became a huge Eminem fan or whatever.
Guest:And that became their life to listen to Eminem and obsess about Eminem.
Guest:And I think...
Guest:you have to pin it to like, was this not just your favorite music, but also something you needed to learn everything about.
Guest:You needed to, you know, be able to, if somebody asked you a question about that band or artist, you'd have the answer.
Guest:You were, you know, volunteering information about them when it wasn't asked.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:These were developing during your formative years.
Guest:They maybe influenced your aesthetic or your style of dress or your way of involving yourself in other things.
Guest:Like, you know, you might have become friends with other people that were also fans.
Guest:And, you know, that would be like the criteria for that.
Guest:And because of that, yes, I have one.
Guest:Like much the same way like Mark has like the Rolling Stones.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like I have one.
Guest:So what's yours?
Guest:I mentioned it on here once before I realized, but it was absolutely, like, for a large portion of my life, a huge part of my identity was Weird Al Yankovic.
Marc:Ah.
Marc:Did you see Weird Al in a concert?
Guest:I did once, but it was more like a...
Guest:it was more like mark going to see the rolling stones when they were older like what what is this like now you know like are there kids that are enjoying this and this and that but but weird al was definitely the artist who most opened my brain up like i think a big reason i have this very like reference rich brain is because i became a fan of weird al and
Guest:And I just wanted all the time to be able to make connections pop culturally or musically or any way that he was doing it.
Guest:I want to do the same thing.
Guest:I wanted to be able to understand the jokes.
Guest:I wanted to be able to know what the references were.
Guest:And I think that Weird Al had a big...
Guest:You know, that was a big reason why I would start to, you know, collect Weird Al albums and want to know how he did these songs and where they came from.
Guest:And it didn't start till later.
Guest:Like, you know, when I think about it, like Eat It was probably the first time I ever heard of Weird Al.
Guest:And then I didn't become like a Weird Al obsessed fan until like the late 80s.
Guest:Like, you know, whenever the...
Guest:Well, it was when he came out with the album Even Worse, which was the one that had I'm Fat on it, which was the Michael Jackson bad parody.
Guest:And it was getting that.
Guest:I had already obviously known who he was.
Guest:And actually, what my brother and I were bigger fans of was just Dr. Demento in general.
Guest:And we knew Weird Al through that because he'd get played on Dr. Demento.
Guest:But we loved Dr. Demento.
Guest:That was like actually on the radio station where we lived.
Guest:We would listen to it weekly.
Guest:But I think by the time I was like picking up Weird Al stuff, my brain was like, this is good comedy.
Guest:But then that also started opening doors for me with music.
Guest:Because I would hear these parodies.
Guest:I'd go back and get Weird Al albums that were from five, six years before.
Guest:And there would be these songs in them that I didn't know the reference point to.
Guest:So he's singing about Yoda.
Guest:And I'm like, this is a great song about Yoda and Luke Skywalker and that.
Guest:And then I find out, no, this was a song called Lola.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so then I'm going back and finding the kinks.
Guest:And he used to do those polka medleys, too, that were all these songs.
Guest:I was like, what's that song?
Guest:What is this song?
Guest:And I would just then find my way through all the songs that were in the polka things.
Guest:I think that was the first time I ever really listened to the Rolling Stones was through the polka music.
Guest:So, you know, I kind of like was almost looking to Weird Al as this like guidepost for like not just understanding culture, but understanding music and understanding a certain way of having a sense of humor.
Guest:And by the time the UHF movie came out, I was just so thrilled, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And beyond that, I just then started to like always, I would always be aware of when he would pop up as the director of certain music videos.
Guest:And I was like always rooting for him, I guess, as a fan.
Guest:Like I was always wanted Weird Al to get his due.
Guest:I remember when he finally made the album that had the Coolio parody.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Gangsta's Paradise.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Turned into the Amish Paradise.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it went like, it was like an actual hit, like charted hit.
Guest:And I was like, this is so fucking great.
Guest:My man, Weird Al, like he's, it's a 1996 and he's got a hit record.
Guest:Like I actually like, like I, I think that's another time where it qualifies.
Guest:It's like when you're like, when you, when, when their success makes you feel like you achieved something because you've invested in them as a fan.
Guest:So, yeah, that was that was that was a big it was a big moment for me and a very big learning experience when we booked Weird Al for the show that I essentially had to realize not to do that anymore.
Marc:What do you mean?
Guest:Well, because Mark was not a Weird Al fan and not a detractor.
Guest:He just never, it was like a guy never on his radar.
Guest:And when it came the opportunity to talk to him, I was like, oh my God, we got to talk to Weird Al.
Guest:He's the greatest.
Guest:Like, you know, one of my heroes, basically.
Guest:Guy who formed my comedy brain, music brain, all this stuff.
Guest:And there was no way for me to translate that to Mark.
Guest:Nor should there be, right?
Guest:He's a different person.
Guest:And so to me, I always felt, you know, like the thing that really jumps out in that interview is Mark, you know, asking him about the death of his parents, which I think is a fine thing to ask, but it almost like got the interview reduced to that.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Oh, here's Weird Al, and he talks about the grief he went through with his parents.
Guest:And for me, like a Weird Al super fan, I'm sitting there going like, when is he going to talk about, you know... Eat It.
Guest:Polka Party.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I remember wanting Mark to talk about all these original songs that Al wrote that were not parodies, where I was like, this is his best song.
Guest:Like, this song here is one of his best.
Guest:It's based on nothing.
Guest:He just wrote it, you know, and...
Guest:They would never come up because Mark didn't know the song or have any reference to it.
Guest:And it was in that moment, I realized like, oh, don't do this.
Guest:Like, this might mean something for you that doesn't mean for Mark, and you're not going to be able to translate that.
Guest:So...
Guest:I think I mentioned this a couple months ago when Paul Rubens died.
Guest:I never pushed hard for us to get him on the show because I knew it would be too difficult for me to translate to Mark why I thought this was worthy.
Guest:and it would just not measure up.
Guest:Because, frankly, that happens a lot.
Guest:There are a lot of people who Mark, I know, does not have on their radar, and I think it would be a good interview, but it's not because that person means something to me, personally.
Guest:It's like Mandy Moore, who I know Mark will never have listened to a single thing she ever did, and probably didn't know what her
Guest:acting was like, but that if he spoke to her and got her story, it would be a good talk.
Guest:And it was, it was great.
Guest:But it's like, I'm also not like a Mandy Moore fan or something.
Guest:I wasn't like, oh, you have to talk to her.
Guest:She's the greatest.
Guest:It's just, I just knew as a producer, it would wind up being a good episode.
Guest:That couldn't get there with Weird Al.
Guest:And it made me realize like in that moment, like, okay, don't do that.
Guest:And it's frankly, it's why, like when we did the wrestling with Mark series, it was a different thing.
Guest:It was like me walking him through something that I found interesting and wanting him to see it from my vantage point.
Guest:It would not have worked if I was just like, here, go talk to these guys.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You kind of needed to be the shepherd, you know, there.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:So yeah, so that's my version of Green Day.
Guest:Actually, when I think about it now at this age that I'm at, it's very appropriate that the type of person I was as a kid and the type of adult I've grown into, it makes total sense that my corrupting influence was Weird Al Yankovic, the person I wrapped my identity up in.
Guest:You know who else it was?
Guest:Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:He has almost an identical story.
Guest:Weird Al was the one who entered him into worlds of music that he didn't know about, helped him to learn how to write songs, helped him to put humor in his songs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think when Lin-Manuel got his Hollywood Walk of Fame star, Weird Al inducted him.
Marc:No, we're kidding.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:So what about yourself?
Guest:Are you, are you, do you find yourself looking back and realizing that you identified as a particular music person?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I definitely had a particular band that I was like, you know, part of my personality, but I will say before we get to that,
Marc:Your show, WTF, I find myself doing what you did with Weird Al, where you guys would reference, you or Mark would reference something, like Mark referenced this Replacements album on the recent episode.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And I'm like, oh, cool.
Marc:And I searched to see the replacements and I'm bookmarking it because I just want to listen to it.
Marc:Like you'll mention to me like, oh, yeah, you should listen to, you know, these Richard Pryor albums.
Marc:And it's like, oh, yeah.
Marc:OK.
Marc:So like I'm constantly doing that with what your show is putting out there.
Marc:So I'm like.
Marc:That's very cool.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There are times where I'm just pausing your show because I'm like, OK, I'm going to see if this is streaming anywhere.
Marc:OK, it is.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Now I have to decide, do I continue the show or do I just watch this thing that was just mentioned?
Marc:So, yeah, your show has a lot of those moments.
Guest:Well, that's great that you just got the replacements out of that because that's going to be a good time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I know that one song.
Marc:Do, do, do, do, do, do.
Marc:I don't know what song that is.
Guest:I don't either.
Guest:Can't Hardly Wait.
Guest:That's what it is.
There you go.
Yeah.
Marc:But for me growing up, again, I did not have much of a vocabulary.
Marc:I was very quiet as a kid because I couldn't talk without stuttering.
Marc:So...
Marc:While I was going to speech therapy, there would be the ice cream man that would show up.
Marc:And ice cream man, very good guy.
Marc:And this guy named Tim.
Marc:And one day he was like, hey, who wants to come on the ice cream truck?
Marc:And all these kids raised their hand.
Marc:And I don't because I, you know, just I'm a very quiet kid.
Marc:And he's like, oh, you, you who didn't want to come.
Marc:Why don't you get on?
Marc:And I'm like, OK.
Marc:So I come on the truck and, you know, he starts talking to me.
Marc:I start talking to him.
Marc:Good guy.
Marc:He's like, hey, you know what?
Marc:If you want a job, like we can, you know, you can do this, you know, whenever your schedule allows.
Marc:So two days a week, I would be on the ice cream truck.
Marc:And it was great because we would talk.
Marc:I would talk to this 30-year-old man.
Marc:And I was like 15 probably.
Marc:And I would, you know.
Marc:have a conversation kind of for the first time.
Marc:And he would ask me questions.
Marc:I would answer them.
Marc:But I would also have to talk to the people that wanted ice cream.
Marc:So I would get my vocabulary up.
Marc:And he would talk to me about his love for Led Zeppelin.
Marc:And that...
Marc:went to me as well.
Marc:He transferred that information to me.
Marc:I was huge into Led Zeppelin.
Marc:This was in like the 1990s.
Marc:So it's a very strange time to love Led Zeppelin.
Marc:But I got to be a super fan of theirs.
Marc:When Page and Plant went on tour, he like dropped me off at Ticketmaster over into the bowling alley.
Marc:And I slept overnight to be the first person in line to get Page and Plant tickets to
Marc:So I was a super fan of Led Zeppelin.
Marc:And yeah, that's basically how I met my first friend, I'd say.
Marc:And then in high school, I would be wearing Led Zeppelin shirts.
Marc:And there would be guys that were also wearing Led Zeppelin shirts.
Marc:And we would strike up a conversation.
Marc:And I got some more friends because I had a Led Zeppelin shirt on.
Marc:So yeah, Led Zeppelin was my band growing up.
Guest:So that's interesting, too, because you got this appreciation for Led Zeppelin through a grown-up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so then you become comfortable, more comfortable than you were talking and kind of being social through this relationship.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you then wind up being a fan of a group that is almost inherently going to have older fans.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:In its circle.
Guest:So it was like this way for you to kind of keep yourself out of the dangerous territory of like socially perilous territory of like
Guest:teenage circles.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And to be like, no, no, no.
Guest:I hang out with the old guys.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Guys, guys outside fixing their cars.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you know, we just, we go talk about John Bonham.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like, what could have been in like four sticks?
Marc:It was amazing.
Marc:So yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That, that sort of thing.
Marc:But there were other phases in my life where I would, I would, you know, be a hardcore into this and it's not a band.
Marc:It was, I loved the,
Marc:jogging and doing my paper route with my little sports Walkman.
Marc:And I would love movie soundtracks.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Big into movie soundtracks.
Marc:And some random ass movies.
Marc:I liked Days of Thunder, the soundtrack.
Guest:You mean particularly the score, not necessarily the jukebox soundtrack.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:See, I, I liked the jukebox soundtrack.
Marc:Like Days of Thunder has like there, there's a, the album has like David Coverdale on it and Tina Turner's on there and Guns N' Roses is on there.
Marc:So like, just like, I loved, I loved listening to that sort of, I loved a curated soundtrack.
Marc:But there were also, you know, I would also listen to like the whole album of Far and Away, another Tom Cruise movie.
Marc:Like this is like John Williams and like the Chieftains are like making music together.
Marc:And I just loved it.
Marc:So I would listen to like the whole album of that while jogging or doing my paper route.
Marc:It was kind of bizarre.
Marc:But I, you know, I can go through times where I'm like, yeah, Batman with Prince, Days and Confused, Pulp Fiction, Empire Records.
Marc:Loved these movie soundtracks.
Marc:And I was just hardcore into them.
Marc:Oh, Judgment Night.
Marc:Remember Judgment Night?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Was that the one where they paired a rap group with a rock group on every song?
Marc:Yes, exactly.
Guest:I remember that.
Marc:Yeah, that was huge in my house.
Marc:So yeah, that was something that I just loved that sort of thing.
Marc:So yeah, movie soundtracks.
Marc:But at the end of the day, Led Zeppelin is my one true love.
Guest:Well, all right.
Guest:Well, hey, listen, I'd like to hear from listeners.
Guest:If anybody out there has a story about how they became a fan of a particular band or artist or group, what became your musical identity throughout life?
Guest:Was it Green Day?
Guest:Was it something else?
Guest:Drop us a comment.
Guest:Go to the link that's in the episode description.
Guest:Click on it.
Guest:You can send that to us.
Marc:I just want to say, I can't wait to listen to this new Green Day album that Mark, I guess, listened to.
Marc:I tried to listen to it.
Marc:I can only listen to a couple of songs.
Marc:So I guess it comes out, I think, today.
Guest:I think it's today.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Friday.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And did you see Billy Joe with Jimmy Fallon in the subway?
Marc:Yeah, in the subway.
Marc:How great is that?
Guest:Yeah, I saw it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I wasn't there, but I saw a video of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I do miss living in the city for moments like that, because that is such a cool moment that I wish I was a part of.
Guest:Well, hey, shout out to Luke Berland and anyone else who's been working on the rollout for this Green Day album.
Guest:That's the people who booked him on our show.
Guest:And they have done a phenomenal job with this.
Guest:I mean, I saw he was in some Irish pub he walked into and started playing.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:They did this thing on the subway.
Guest:They have done a great, great job of interesting viral ways to market this album.
Guest:And it's been very smart.
Guest:And I take my hat off to them for that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Guerrilla marketing, man.
Marc:It's Radio 101.
Marc:He should throw a bra on Al Roker's face.
Marc:Well, you'll remember that, you know, last week you asked me like, oh, what else did you do?
Marc:Remember, I put a sticker of your show on the Great Wall of China.
Marc:I am always thinking.
Guest:You're on the ball on this stuff.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, all right.
Guest:Listen, if you come this far, we appreciate it.
Guest:But we are now going to talk about a movie that is currently in theaters.
Guest:And so this will be spoiler-ish.
Guest:It's not ish.
Guest:It will have spoilers.
Guest:We will talk about the whole thing.
Guest:And that movie is The Iron Claw, a new film by the director Sean Durkin.
Guest:And it is about the Von Erich family of Texas, which was a major wrestling family in the 70s and 80s.
Guest:And in fact...
Guest:Describing it there, I know it sounds like a biopic, and I've seen a lot of things identify it as a biopic.
Guest:I would say it is not a biopic at all, mostly because the reality of it was changed so much, and it is just Greek tragedy.
Guest:It's just structured like a classic tragedy.
Guest:The lessons of such tragedies are...
Guest:simple and plain.
Guest:And this movie presents it the same way.
Guest:And you're not, I don't believe, supposed to watch this and think too much about how this happened in real life and think more about the themes of it and what these kind of real life tragedies mean when they occur.
Guest:And so in that sense, I thought it delivered tremendously.
Guest:I would say going into it, I'm a pretty harsh critic from the area of like,
Guest:growing up and being a huge wrestling fan and someone who would be noticing the depiction of wrestling in a film being off the mark.
Guest:If it was, I didn't love the movie, the wrestler, but,
Guest:For that reason, I think it's good performance in the movie, but I didn't love the wrestling world that it created.
Guest:By that level, I thought this Iron Claw totally delivered.
Guest:I was not bothered in the slightest by the things that were different from the reality of what happened to the Von Erichs.
Guest:And just in general wrestling at the time, I thought the wrestling itself was handled very well and depicted in a way that kind of let you bring whatever you wanted to bring to it as a viewer.
Guest:And and so much of it just worked for me.
Guest:But before I get to the thing that I think worked the most, I want to know what your reaction was, Chris, because you have now seen it twice.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I saw it when it first came out last year, you know, right before Christmas.
Marc:And I knew we were going to talk about it, so I wanted to see it again.
Marc:And Erin, you know, wanted to see it.
Marc:So, you know, she likes, you know, the guy from The Bear and Zac Efron, a beefy Zac Efron.
Marc:So, yeah, we saw it a second time.
Marc:And I loved it, man.
Marc:Like, the movie delivers –
Marc:In such an emotional way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, and it's not just the emotions of it.
Marc:And like, you know, I'm being manipulated by the story.
Marc:It's the acting performances throughout this movie are really...
Marc:Showcased and spotlighted in such a beautiful way that I honestly think Zac Efron should perhaps get nominated for an Oscar like it was such a beautiful performance up and down the cast like Lily James, the dad, you know, I personally don't know.
Marc:the whole story about the, uh, the Von Erich family.
Marc:Uh, and, uh, I felt like I wanted to know more.
Marc:Like, uh, Aaron was like, we were, we were coming back from the, from the, uh, from the screening.
Marc:And, uh, she was, she was on Wikipedia just telling me, oh, did you know this and this?
Marc:And, uh, and like the dad changed their name.
Marc:That's why they're, um, they're, they're the Von Erich family.
Marc:I'm like, yeah, well now I, you know,
Marc:Yeah, I now know.
Marc:But yeah, it was a beautiful movie.
Marc:And I just, I absolutely loved it.
Marc:And like, there's so many things that it hits my cue zone in the right way.
Marc:Like, there's the music of it, there's the acting, and it just, you know, the landing of it, just they stuck the landing.
Guest:Yeah, well, and you mentioned Zac Efron, and that was the point that I was going to get to.
Guest:I think he was not just the emotional center of the movie, but he was the physical embodiment of these people.
Guest:He did an amazing job.
Guest:Whatever he had to do.
Guest:to physically transform himself to look like a legit 1980s wrestler, man, he fully committed to it.
Guest:And maybe his health in the future won't be too thrilled about that.
Guest:But whatever that is, it's between him and his pharmacist.
Guest:And he, man, he got himself looking amazing.
Guest:And it worked.
Guest:It wasn't just, it's not just the way he looks physically.
Guest:He performed the role of a professional wrestler tremendously.
Guest:He
Guest:could have been in the ring legitimately as a wrestler, he would have done well just on the basis of seeing him in this movie.
Guest:But beyond that, the emotional grounding he had as this character, as the tragedies pile up and pile up and pile up to get you to the point at the end of the movie where it delivers in the way it does in a terribly sad but ultimately cathartic way with all his brothers being dead...
Guest:it's really where the movie needed to wind up because why else are you seeing it then?
Guest:What is the point of this?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, the point of it is that amidst this kind of tragic upbringing in the sense that they were all kind of doomed to,
Guest:To whatever shortcomings their father had and their father's motivations for raising them as a family and wanting them to be successful, right?
Guest:They were kind of stuck, doomed, trapped by this claw, right?
Guest:That's the whole metaphor of the film.
Yeah.
Guest:And if you do that and you just show it the way that they were showing it throughout 90% of the movie and you get to an end where you just get a title card that says what happened to them afterwards, well, then it does just kind of feel like gawking, right?
Guest:A tragedy.
Guest:But that it lands in this place where you have to be sold that the true tragedy is that the only thing these guys had was their bond as brothers.
Guest:And this one brother who's left has to deal with the fact that he lives, but the thing that mattered most to him in his life, this bond with his brothers, is gone forever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he has to find replacements for that, which he does in the last frames of the film by acknowledging that he's a father and he can be a father to his sons in a way that his father wasn't to him and in a way that his brothers were.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Um, it's so poignant and it wouldn't work as well as it does.
Guest:If Zac Efron wasn't holding the frame the way he does in those last moments.
Guest:And he, he killed me just like, it was me.
Guest:I went to see it by myself, but I was sitting between another guy.
Guest:And then there were these, but he was also by himself.
Guest:And then two guys who came with a group of people, but they were like friends.
Guest:I heard them talking throughout the film and,
Guest:And like the end of the movie, these four guys, bing, bing, bing, bing, the four of us just sitting there all like literally like loud sniffling and eye wiping going on.
Guest:And I'm like, well, that's a hit.
Guest:Like if you made that happen and those, interestingly enough, those two guys who were there, they knew nothing about what the movie was.
Guest:Like they came and before the movie started, they were like, is this about like Olympic wrestling or is this like WWE?
Guest:Like they did not know at all what the movie was.
Guest:So I actually think, you know, the movie has done much better than they expected it to do.
Guest:And I think that's a big reason why.
Guest:Like I think that people are leaving this thing and whether they're fans of wrestling or whether they knew anything about the story or not, they're telling people like, oh my God, that was so emotional.
Guest:Like I cried during that movie or whatever.
Guest:Like I feel like it has to be one of those movies that,
Guest:is getting lifted by word of mouth because otherwise it's a small, a 24, you know, independent film about a very niche subject.
Guest:And, uh, for it to be doing as well as it is, it has to be because people are talking it up.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And, you know, you could say that people were going to see Zac Efron looking like the Hulk.
Marc:Uh, but there are so many scenes that,
Marc:that were solid throughout this movie.
Marc:Like, there was Zach meeting Pam, his future wife, after a show.
Marc:And his, like, one eye is a bit swollen, so he can't really meet her eyeline perfectly.
Marc:And I just thought the acting in that scene was tremendous.
Marc:Like, their first date, where he told her about his big brother, hearing Zac Efron talk about, I just want to hang out with my brothers.
Guest:Oh, man, there's so much stuff...
Guest:in that first half of that movie, the first hour, it's like, you remember, uh, there's that joke in the Simpsons that it's like in a McBain movie where it's like McBain's partner.
Guest:It's like, Hey, I'm going to get to retire tomorrow here.
Guest:Look at my boat.
Guest:And he shows him like a picture of his wife on a boat.
Guest:And the boat is called the live forever.
Guest:Oh, that's just the first hour of this movie.
Guest:It's just like, that's literally the song that the brother is singing is called.
Guest:I want to live forever.
Guest:they want to put a few circles around this for you i guess huh uh well you know what's interesting though you said you didn't know the story of the von ericks really before you saw this and i think that's for the best like i have heard from people who are wrestling fans who saw it who didn't like it as much as i did and i think it's because they weren't able to they weren't able to view it as a not biopic
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like they were going to it being like, you're going to show me the story of the Von Eriks.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And treat it like almost like a documentary.
Guest:And it does not do that at all.
Guest:Like not even close.
Guest:Like you could say it's more fiction than nonfiction, even though the broad strokes of their family story is there.
Guest:It's just it's depicted in a way to explain.
Guest:emphasize this tragic cycle uh but i mean like it's crazy that there is a another brother who killed himself and that's not in the film and if you're just thinking that to yourself like oh i'm gonna go watch this movie about the von erics and then you sit there and you're watching and you're like wait where's chris and he's not in the film that might seem like
Guest:a violation right if that's how your brain is geared to right and yet i was watching it when the movie was over i was like that was the right call like yeah you couldn't have carried more tragedy to get to that final part it would have been numbing and overkill literal overkill one too many kills right
Guest:At that point, as the story that they were telling.
Guest:And now does that is that some kind of violation because it doesn't match up to the reality?
Guest:Well, I guess if you think it needs to.
Guest:But the first frame of the film says inspired by a true story.
Guest:So it doesn't have to.
Guest:That's not what movies are.
Guest:Like, this is the same argument that happens with, like, Napoleon or Killers of the Flower Moon, where you get historians telling you that's not what happened.
Guest:And the artist behind this is like, well, but I'm not trying to tell a history story here.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm trying to get the essence of a story across.
Guest:I'm using this historical context.
Guest:Because...
Guest:Frankly, there's so much about the Von Eriks.
Guest:The Von Eriks story is, is just nuts.
Guest:And I would recommend to everybody, you know, I know there's wrestling is hard because, uh, there's, everything's wrapped up in legend and lore and you never know who's lying.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:But there is a great Texas Monthly magazine feature from 2005 about the Von Eriks.
Guest:I think it's called Six Brothers.
Guest:I'll put a link to it, actually, in the episode description.
Guest:And go ahead and read that.
Guest:Because I know there's plenty of places you can learn about the Von Eriks.
Guest:Like, if you just go to Wikipedia or if you have a Dave Meltzer subscription, like the Wrestling Observers chronicled everything about the Von Eriks, you know.
Guest:But...
Guest:I think part of the problem with that is it's something David Shoemaker said to us when, when he was on, it's like all the history of wrestling is tied up in the fact that the person telling it to you was incentivized to lie.
Guest:Like if they were a wrestler, they wanted to like tell you the biggest fish story possible.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so much stuff that came from Fritz Von Eric, like the whole thing about the Von Eric curse, right?
Guest:Like they talk about that a little bit in the movie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, where that idea came from, that they were cursed, was because of the character of Fritz von Erich.
Guest:And whether this is true or not, the story that was told, the legend that was told, was that this guy, Jack Atkinson, he develops this character, Fritz von Erich, in the 50s and 60s when wrestling was, you know...
Guest:On black and white TV, and it was really, you know, very broad, the kind of characters like Gorgeous George and that.
Guest:And Fritz von Erich was a Nazi.
Guest:That was his character.
Guest:He would goose step to the ring, and he was a heel, and he had the Iron Club.
Guest:This is this guy from Texas, Texas football player, Jack Atkinson.
Guest:The legend was that one day in Chicago, somebody came to him at the show and said, I don't think you should be doing what you're doing and rolled up his sleeve and showed him his concentration camp tattoo.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And said, I got this from a real Nazi.
Guest:And...
Guest:And basically, as the legend has it, the guy was like, you know, you should be thankful that no tragedy like this has ever befallen you or your family and you should knock this off.
Guest:And he didn't.
Guest:He was still Fritz von Erich going town to town.
Guest:And that's where this legend of like, oh, that's the curse.
Guest:That's the von Erich curse because he played this Nazi character even when he knew he shouldn't have.
Guest:sounds like total horseshit like very very much wrestling horseshit but who's to say right yeah i mean chicago they love their curses they had a billy goat curse up until a couple years ago exactly the bartman all of that stuff oh yeah right yeah
Guest:Uh, but, but I mean, it wasn't long after that this guy's six year old son dies in a freak accident, gets electrocuted walking outside their, their mobile home, touches another mobile home that has like an exposed wire on it.
Guest:He gets zapped and falls down, uh, in, in the snow.
Guest:A puddle, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He gets, he gets killed basically from drowning after the electric shock.
Guest:Um,
Guest:And that's a six-year-old.
Guest:They have the other son, Kevin, who was alive at the time, but just very little.
Guest:I think he was only five.
Guest:And that is what starts this ball rolling, that somehow this family is cursed.
Guest:But, you know, really what you see here is that it's a family that is raised in a circus-like environment.
Guest:Right.
Guest:you know, parental figures who were not very good parents on their own, but then also were trying to get the boys to be part of the family business, which involved pushing them as performers, making them all do things that, you know, were stretching the bounds of health and safety.
Guest:And, you know, they were all drugged up at one point and then it just rolls down the hill from there.
Guest:And, um,
Guest:You know, I think all that stuff comes across in the film, maybe not in the full details of what really happened, but I don't think you need the full details to know what, you know, to have the movie work.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There are scenes where, you know, there's an intestinal disease that happens and like, you know, we're just...
Marc:we're just asked like how does that happen and it's not really ever answered and like i don't think the answer matters it's just like it's it's attributed to this curse of this family and by the way talk about living this gimmick like i don't know maybe find a new gimmick like like i don't understand how he didn't change his name back after he stopped wrestling like it just seemed i don't know i guess like hulk hogan you know it still goes by hulk hogan right
Guest:Yeah, I think that was it.
Guest:It was like the brand name.
Guest:In fact, the way that he went from being this Nazi character to being this, you know, patriarch of a super over babyface family was that a heel guy in the territory outed him as not a Nazi.
Guest:Like that was the way they made it.
Guest:The turn was like, this guy's name isn't even Von Eric.
Guest:He's, he's lying to you.
Guest:He's not.
Guest:And, and it was like, they use the bad guy calling him a liar as a way to turn him into a good guy who was just a family man.
Guest:And he was just doing what he was doing to try to make ends meet.
Guest:But now he's,
Guest:He had changed his ways and he had these young kids who were all going to be stars in their own right.
Guest:And that was how they became the famous Von Eriks.
Guest:And by the way, they were super famous.
Guest:If you were growing up in Texas in the late 70s, early 80s, you knew not only who the Von Eriks were, they were as big of stars to you as anyone on TV.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Oh, it's Magnum P.I.
Guest:and the Von Eriks.
Guest:That was huge.
Guest:Huge, huge fame.
Guest:And yeah, that was also part of why I think they buckled.
Guest:These were just farm kids, essentially, who were thrust into this national fame because it wasn't just Texas.
Guest:It was the territory went national on ESPN.
Guest:And, you know, they were that was the first wrestling I ever watched was was.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:World-class championship wrestling.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:As a kid, like, I mean, I, I'm sure I saw other wrestling, WWF wrestling and that, but like these guys were, they were on my TV before Hulk Hogan was for sure.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:And was Kevin Von Erich as big as Zac Efron is in the movie?
Guest:Well, yeah, I would say Zac Efron's the only one who got the look right.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:That's the interesting thing is Kevin wasn't the biggest like Carrie, who goes on to WWF as the Texas tornado was just enormous.
Marc:Yeah, that's the only one I knew.
Guest:Yeah, and he, you know, so if you're looking at the three actors in there, four, if you include the younger brother, Zach looks the most jacked.
Guest:He looks the most like a real wrestler.
Guest:And he looks the closest to Kevin himself.
Guest:but like Carrie was like, this is a real story.
Guest:Carrie was so huge and so amazingly cut that there was this period where Arnold Schwarzenegger was out promoting Conan, the probably the destroyer.
Guest:Cause it was probably like around 1983 or 84.
Guest:And,
Guest:And they were going to do some promotion with him with the Von Eriks in Dallas.
Guest:And he refused to do it if Carrie had his shirt off.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Because he would take the shine?
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Because like...
Marc:I've seen people be like, oh, Jeremy Allen White, you know, not as, you know, not as big as, you know, as he should be.
Guest:Well, he wasn't, he was not, like, Jeremy Allen White's also like my height.
Guest:I think he's like 5'7".
Guest:And so, you know, he's just small.
Guest:But again, you're not making, you're not trying to make a mirror image of the guy.
Guest:You want the performance.
Guest:Does the performance work?
Guest:Then fine, you know?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I got to say, speaking of performance, I kind of, I wonder if this movie was being made today, if they would have thought of switching the roles of Jeremy Allen White and Zac Efron.
Marc:Because Jeremy Allen White on the FX show The Bear, he's kind of this tortured soul kind of guy.
Marc:And I can see him playing the Kevin role and Efron playing this jock role, you know, very, very easily.
Guest:You know what, though?
Guest:That's probably true.
Guest:But the thing that was the kind of revelation to me about Efron in this movie was he was soulful.
Marc:Yeah, that's the thing.
Guest:You really felt like you could look in his eyes and see into his soul.
Guest:And the heartache, he was just very good at getting that out there and pushing that through the screen.
Guest:And, you know, I'm sure that...
Guest:Jeremy Allen White, he can probably handle different ranges of emotion, but I wouldn't want to have lost that from effort.
Guest:It was so good.
Marc:I do wish the movie was like a play because I remember when I used to listen to this podcast, what is it?
Marc:The West Wing Weekly.
Marc:And Joshua Molina would tell a story about how he would be doing the Broadway show of A Few Good Men.
Marc:And the actors would sometimes just switch parts and play different parts during, you know, that show's run.
Marc:So I would love for this movie to be a play on Broadway and these actors to just switch roles every week to week, you know, because like, yeah, I definitely think they both have the range to do that.
Guest:If you're questioning whether or not the movie works without having the full historical details of the Von Eriks, and did they make a mistake by not including all the tragedy, all the brothers, or the story of Lance Von Eriks?
Guest:It looks like it was something that they actually filmed and then cut out, because that's the role that MJF plays.
Guest:So you see him very briefly...
Guest:in a tag team match with Kevin, with Zac Efron.
Guest:And the story there was that when two of the brothers had died, Fritz saw the gates starting to get smaller, the money coming in, people coming to the shows, and he attributed that to there being not enough Von Eriks.
Guest:So he has this random guy come in and play the character of Lance Von Eriks,
Guest:Just a local kid from the area.
Guest:And he's like, oh, this is the long lost Von Erich cousin, Lance, basically.
Guest:And the crowd shit all over it because they're like, we know that's not really a Von Erich.
Guest:What are you trying to tell us here?
Guest:That's wild.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was like, it's at that time where like all of Fritz's tricks were running out.
Guest:Like, I mean, this is a guy who basically convinced everyone watching that, you know, his son didn't lose a leg, didn't lose a foot.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Which is just unbelievable.
Yeah.
Guest:Crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it wasn't as bad as in the movie where they basically show his foot is lopped off up to almost the knee.
Guest:But it was a foot.
Guest:It was below the ankle, but his foot.
Guest:And Kerry had to wrestle with a boot that had a prosthetic in there so that he could walk around.
Guest:And the pain of that is essentially what led him to drug addiction that probably led to his death because it was just excruciating pain all the time.
Guest:But that was like a trick that Fritz was able to pull.
Guest:He was also able to pull like at one point, Kerry went to jail for a drug arrest.
Guest:And the word that got around in the local media was like, oh, the free birds set him up like the bad guys.
Guest:And that was, like, believed.
Guest:Like, oh, this was a thing that the bad guys did to poor Carrie.
Marc:Oh, that's crazy.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:People were very in on the in-person or in the theatrics of wrestling back then, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I really loved the music sequences in this movie.
Marc:There were like four music sequences.
Marc:There was Blue Oyster Cult, Don't Fear the Reaper, where they're basically doing the tracking shot from Goodfellas, from the Copacabana scene.
Marc:But we're tracking to see the average knight working at, what is it, the Superplex or the Sportsplex?
Guest:The Sportatorium.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Dallas Sportatorium.
Marc:That's where they filmed all those things.
Marc:Yeah, that's exactly it.
Marc:Then there's Rush.
Marc:There's a Tom Sawyer sequence that is just fucking great.
Marc:It just walks us through the three brothers rise through the promotion and like the start of the decline and the drug use.
Marc:And then there's the college party where the brothers and Pam sneak out so Mike can play his gig.
Marc:I mean...
Marc:The movie is really expertly done, and they put a button on the whole thing with the last scene where the song that's being played is the song that Mike was playing with his band in that college party, and it hit me right in the gut, man.
Marc:Like, what did you think of that, of not just the last scene, but of, and super spoiler warnings here, but there's a scene in this movie where...
Marc:The brothers that are now dead are being reunited in the afterlife.
Marc:What did you think of that?
Guest:I thought it was the absolute right choice.
Guest:And I thought it was the right choice that they framed it as though this was what Kevin, Zac Efron's character, was seeing.
Guest:He carries the body of Cary, who has just killed himself, into the house and puts him at the table.
Guest:And he is looking at him.
Guest:And then you see this kind of pastoral fantasy of Cary now with his foot on, his missing foot is back.
Guest:And he takes a boat out to a dock in the lake.
Guest:And his brothers, who have also died, are there, including the six-year-old brother.
Guest:And they reunite and hug and reinvigorate this bond.
Guest:And then you cut back to Kevin, who's still there sitting looking at the body.
Guest:So I can only imagine this is the vision that he needs.
Guest:to be able to move forward with his life.
Guest:And I think it comes from reality.
Guest:Now, maybe this is something that Kevin Von Erich, who's alive and has had some participation with the film, I don't know how much, maybe it's something he spoke about with them.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:But what I do know...
Guest:is that in the book by Bret Hart, his own memoir, he writes about a situation where his brother died.
Guest:This is another family that's beset by many tragedies in the wrestling world, the Harts.
Guest:And this was his brother Dean, not his brother Owen, who died, you know, kind of infamously died in a failed stunt in the ring.
Guest:His brother Dean died in 1990 of a disease.
Guest:And...
Guest:They were still doing a wrestling show that night, the Survivor Series.
Guest:And I'll read what Brett writes about it, about how he and his brother Bruce were at the building kind of in mourning and in shock.
Guest:It says, Bruce and I had run into Vince and Pat Patterson coming out of an elevator.
Guest:They were in a great mood, and Pat gave me a crisp slap on the back.
Guest:Cheer up.
Guest:You look like someone died, for Christ's sakes.
Guest:I managed to calmly say, yeah, Pat, our brother Dean passed away.
Guest:Neither he nor Vince seemed to take the news on board and walk cheerily away, annoying yuck-yuck laughs reverberating down the hall in their wake.
Guest:In contrast, neither of us will ever forget the kindness of Kerry Von Erich, who smiled and said, don't worry, he's up there right now with my three brothers.
Guest:They'll look after him.
Guest:And like...
Guest:Like you can see from the film that this was a family that relied so heavily on religion and the bonds of family to get them through these tragedies, which the irony being the tragedies were happening because of the family, right?
Guest:The familial situation.
Guest:So these brothers are kind of trapped in this, but...
Guest:But all they had was themselves.
Guest:And to know that Carrie, who then goes on and kills himself, is sitting there with Bret Hart and as a way to try to comfort him, says, it's all going to be okay because I have brothers who died and they're going to take care of your brother.
Guest:I have to imagine that that plays a role into that final scene, or the penultimate scene there of the Iron Claw, where you really can see that being enacted by Kevin.
Guest:The same way that he's going to try to comfort himself and have solace to know that at least these brothers' bonds will go on in the afterlife.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it was such a beautifully well done scene that, and I personally loved that this scene didn't happen in a wrestling ring because that's like probably like, you know, they probably loved wrestling, right?
Marc:But it's like tied to their dad, drug abuse, pain, you know, but going to this lake,
Marc:was just for them, right?
Marc:Like, there's a scene in the movie where the brothers pick up Mike, take him to the lake, and they go tubing.
Marc:That was for them.
Marc:And, like, in the, you know, I can't speak, of course, for the family, but in the presence of this movie, that felt perfect.
Marc:It was just a perfect moment, man.
Marc:And that excerpt that you just read was really, really something, man.
Marc:Like, Kevin Von Erich, man, like...
Marc:He's gone through so much.
Marc:It's really something.
Marc:But look, I got to ask you about Ric Flair.
Marc:Because Ric Flair appears in this movie, right?
Marc:And it comes...
Marc:My problem with it is it comes at an emotional high point in this movie, right?
Marc:And it's on this emotional plane that we're introduced to this movie's version of Ric Flair.
Marc:And it is so hard not to be taken out of this movie by how awful this impersonation is.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, it's like, I almost feel bad calling it an awful impersonation.
Guest:It's like a guy who should have never been...
Guest:put near the concept of rick flair he doesn't look like him sound like him act like him really but he's not it's not it doesn't seem like he could have acted like him just the way this guy's personality was whereas if he was just playing a fictional person bad guy great yeah like he he's like oh this is a good bad guy wrestler like this guy's performance that's who's playing but yes the rick flair part of it is the weirdest thing
Guest:And it happens at such a strange part of the movie.
Guest:Yeah, I'm not sure why they made that choice.
Guest:And I would have a guess that it probably is not sitting that well with people.
Guest:But, you know, I was able to kind of just move past it when it happened.
Guest:But yeah, be forewarned, weird Ric Flair part in this movie.
Marc:Very weird.
Marc:I would have loved it if they just used the footage and, you know, like of the promo because like it was just – it was jarring to say the least.
Marc:But besides that, this is a movie that is like – like I'm a brother and like just the – like the –
Marc:idea of possibly losing my brother one day uh who i don't even have like the closest relationship to but like just the idea of that like this movie got me choked up oh just knowing that that bond gets severed right yeah man has your brother seen this movie uh no i don't think he has yet but i'm sure we will talk about it he and i when he does yeah you guys have to see he has to see it for sure yeah
Guest:I will also point out one thing that you brought up, and I think it's a good example of why it doesn't matter if things are to the spot accurate, is that you're talking about how good the music was, and in particular that Rush montage with Tom Sawyer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now, they definitely used Tom Sawyer as entrance music.
Guest:I think particularly in that one match they're showing there with the three Von Eriks against the Fabulous Freebirds.
Guest:And you could go watch that match on YouTube and you see them come out to...
Guest:Tom Sawyer.
Guest:Rush.
Guest:But the most identifiable song for the Von Eriks, like if you go to a wrestling fan and say, hey, Von Eriks, what music did they use?
Guest:They will just immediately say, oh, Stranglehold.
Guest:That was their entrance music by Ted Nugent.
Guest:And it's like...
Guest:That scene you're talking about is so good.
Guest:And they do it almost in like this superhero kind of origin story way where like the one brother plays the Rush album and the other one who's lifting weights hears it and he turns around and then you cut to them in the arena with the music blasting and the fans cheering.
Guest:And then it works its way through the montage.
Guest:It works so perfectly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you wouldn't get that feeling not only just with the sound of Stranglehold, but like there's no kind of nostalgia for that song the way there is for the Rush song or the feeling of the Rush song.
Guest:So not only does it sound great, but it's like, you know, the opening lyrics of Tom Sawyer, a modern day warrior, mean, mean stride, today's Tom Sawyer, mean, mean pride.
Guest:Like that was these guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it ends, exit the warrior.
Guest:Today's Tom Sawyer.
Guest:He gets high on you and the energy you trade.
Guest:He gets right on to the friction of the day.
Guest:Like that's these three guys you're watching on the screen.
Guest:That's the story.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It makes more sense.
Guest:So like-
Guest:I don't care that that wasn't their regular music.
Guest:It's better the way they did it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I will always come down on the side of make the best movie you can.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:And they made a great, great movie.
Marc:Just different Ric Flair, maybe.
Marc:Sorry, actor who played Ric Flair.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I feel bad for this guy, but man, there's no way he could ever show his face around wrestlers ever.
Yeah.
Marc:Never.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:Have you ever seen Ric Flair?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Ever?
Marc:Oh, boy.
Marc:Like, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you think these are the best wrestling movie ever made?
Guest:Well, I can't think of many that are very good.
Guest:So by that low standard, yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Uh, but, uh, but I will, uh, I will reserve.
Guest:I actually just like, don't think it's a wrestling movie.
Guest:I think, like I said, that's the tragedy and the, the, the wrestling in it is done very well.
Guest:Shavo Guerrero is a former guest on this show was one of the stunt coordinators on glow.
Guest:Uh, he was the wrestling choreographer of this film and he did a phenomenal job.
Guest:He's in it for a brief scene where Kevin is wrestling him.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:And it looks great as wrestling.
Guest:Like they did the wrestling up very well, despite the faulty Ric Flair.
Guest:But aside from that, is it the best wrestling movie?
Guest:It's definitely a great movie that has wrestling in it.
Guest:So yes.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Marc:There are no emotional high points that happen in the ring.
Marc:Like all that stuff happens.
Guest:It's not a sports movie.
Marc:No, it's not a sport.
Marc:It's not Rocky.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's a dramatic movie and yeah, they fucking nail it.
Guest:Well-
Guest:If you saw The Iron Claw and you want to talk to us about it, please go to the episode description, click on the link.
Guest:I'm sure we could talk about it more.
Guest:But for those who haven't seen it, we won't keep going on.
Guest:Just go send us some comments and also send us anything else you're thinking about, any topics you want us to cover here on The Friday Show.
Guest:We will next month start our Quentin Tarantino once a month series.
Guest:But anything else like that, we're always looking for finding out what you want us to talk about, and that's what we're here for.
Guest:And until next time, I'm Brendan, and that's Chris.
Guest:Peace!