The Friday Show Special
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fuck, Knicks?
Marc:Happy New Year to you.
Marc:Good morning.
Marc:Happy New Year.
Marc:This is it.
Marc:This is the new year.
Marc:Happy New Year.
Marc:We'll see what happens.
Marc:You know, we'll hope for the best.
Marc:We'll expect not that.
Marc:And we'll see what we get.
Marc:I mean, look, just try to have as good a day as you can every day, right?
Marc:Happy New Year is a lot of pressure, and I think it's a false expectation.
Marc:But what do I know about anything?
Marc:Have a good day.
Marc:Have a good year.
Marc:If this is you looking at the beginning of it, I've lost all sense of time.
Marc:post COVID COVID destroyed my sense of time.
Marc:Every day feels like a week.
Marc:Every week feels like a month.
Marc:Every month feels like a year.
Marc:Maybe that's just my age.
Marc:So every year calendar year has about 12 years for me.
Marc:Maybe that's just, that's old people time.
Marc:Maybe that's what happens post 60, but, uh,
Marc:I hope you did have a fun night last night and a safe night, and I hope that if you are looking at this as day one as some great adventure or some tremendous shift in the way you approach life and your perception of the world, congratulations.
Marc:Good luck with that.
Marc:Happy New Year.
Marc:So today's show is interesting.
Marc:We have a subscription tier called the full Marin and we do bonus episodes every week.
Marc:Movie talk.
Marc:We talk about episodes in the WTF archive.
Marc:Ask Mark anything episodes with listener questions.
Marc:Lots of stuff.
Marc:We do this stuff.
Marc:But also at the end of every week, full Marin subscribers get the Friday show, an end of the week wrap up show.
Marc:And it's hosted by WTF producer Brendan McDonald and Chris Lopresto, who worked with us at Air America back in the day.
Marc:We started doing the Friday show because we got a bunch of new full Marin subscribers when we did the wrestling with Mark series about a year ago.
Marc:A lot of them joined just for the wrestling episodes.
Marc:So to keep giving them what they wanted, Brendan and Chris started talking about wrestling stuff every week.
Marc:This is this is WTF.
Marc:This is this big our big secret.
Marc:This is the secret show hidden in the WTF universe.
Marc:But the show evolved into a weekly look behind the scenes of WTF with recaps of the latest episodes, questions from listeners, stories about guests and whatever else Brendan and Chris feel like talking about movies, sports, TV shows.
Marc:And they take topic suggestions from full Marin subscribers too.
Marc:So today you all get a taste of the Friday show with this special compilation and
Marc:If you want to hear all our bonus episodes, we do two every week.
Marc:Sign up for the full Marin by clicking the link in the episode description or go to WTFPod.com and click on WTF Plus.
Marc:My rescheduled show at Dynasty Typewriter, because I had some sort of bug last week, is this Thursday, January 3rd.
Marc:Then I'm at Largo on Tuesday, January 9th, San Diego.
Marc:I'm at the Observatory North Park, Saturday, January 27th for two shows.
Marc:San Francisco at the Castro Theater on Saturday, February 3rd.
Marc:Portland, Maine.
Marc:I'm at the State Theater on Thursday, March 7th.
Marc:Medford, Massachusetts.
Marc:Outside Boston at the Chevalier Theater on Friday, March 8th.
Marc:Providence, Rhode Island at the Strand Theater on Saturday, March 9th.
Marc:Tarrytown, New York at the Tarrytown Music Hall on Sunday, March 10th.
Marc:Atlanta, Georgia, I'm at the Buckhead Theater on Friday, March 22nd.
Marc:I'll be in Austin, Texas at the Paramount Theater on Thursday, April 18th as part of the Moon Tower Comedy Festival.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com slash tour for tickets.
Marc:And there's a lot of other shows up there that I'll announce as we get closer to them.
Marc:But if you're curious, if I'll be in proximity to you, WTFPod.com slash tour is where you need to go.
Marc:Okay, so look, in this collection of Friday show segments, you'll hear Chris and Brendan talk with Matt Singer, author of the book Opposable Thumbs, How Siskel and Ebert Changed Movies Forever.
Marc:There's also a celebration of the 30th anniversary of The Fugitive, a story of Chris being banned for life from a grocery store, and a moment when the real world turned into pro wrestling.
Marc:But the first thing you'll hear is me.
Marc:From time to time, I join Brendan and Chris on the Friday show to hang out, and this is right after we all saw the movie Air.
Marc:Some of the music you'll hear in this special was created by DJ Copley, a.k.a.
Marc:WebPuppy45, and his production label, Batcave Bumpers.
Marc:Enjoy the Friday show, friends, and Happy New Year again.
Marc:I mean that.
Guest:how are you man how's your brain my brain i don't know man it seems to be uh there it seems to be a little uh uh janky well yeah i'm interested to know exactly what was behind this text i received at uh 12 58 today uh it just says wonder if this vegan trip is fucking with my brain like i'm not getting enough brain food
Marc:Well, that makes sense.
Marc:How is that not a weird, how is that not, how is that a weird text?
Guest:I want to know what food you think is specifically a giving you better intelligence or more connected neural pathways and which ones are harming.
Marc:Oh, I, I heard that, uh, the, the bad cholesterol, you need some of it for your brain.
Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So what, are you going to have some eggs?
Marc:Right.
Marc:The meat cholesterol.
Marc:It goes to your brain.
Marc:It's brain food.
Marc:And that if you get too low on that, you get loopy.
Marc:I'm pretty sure a carrot counts.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I mean, if you want to believe Bugs Bunny.
Marc:yeah and the spinach is good too that's for strength that's not for brain yeah that's for the muscle yeah but his buddy was very crafty though he could like just talk you into putting your head in an oven so i i kind of believe in the carrot no i i think that's probably true i just i don't know man i'm gonna go get those blood tests tomorrow and we'll hammer it out that was not your doctor today
Marc:Today was the yearly or semi-yearly skin check.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:Where they just look at your body, the guy and he says things like that you don't understand to a nurse.
Marc:Like some cutaneous stinker, the cutaneous fucker.
Marc:And then like, you know, just counted little things on my body.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Nothing bad.
Guest:I always like when they're behind you and you hear them go like, hmm.
Guest:I'm like, wait, what's that hmm?
Guest:Good hmm or bad hmm?
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:It's worse when they're giving you a prostate exam.
Marc:I haven't done that yet.
Marc:You're one of those guys.
Marc:What are you, a fucking idiot?
Marc:No, I'm only, like, 43.
Marc:When are you supposed to get them?
Marc:45, right?
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, yeah, I think there is different, like, insurance.
Guest:Like, prostate exam's different, though, than colonoscopy, right?
Guest:But you can get a finger up your ass any time.
Guest:Yeah, but you really want one.
Guest:I'll be in the city tomorrow for my end.
Guest:There's plenty of places where it's cheap.
Marc:Yeah, just ask.
Marc:It's not going to be a professional opinion.
Guest:I mean, you don't know, baby.
Guest:I know a guy.
Guest:Yeah, Tompkins Square Park, there's a lot of barter that goes on there.
Marc:You might want to go to a lobby of a hotel somewhere.
Yeah.
Guest:The other thing, Mark, that we could talk about here briefly is that you saw the movie Air, which now the three of us have all seen.
Guest:And I think is a great example for, you know, especially for people listening to this.
Guest:The idea that this movie Air is about the creation of Nike sneakers, specifically around the mid 80s NBA.
Guest:And it was still such a compelling, interesting movie, fun movie to watch.
Guest:Like that is a great proof of concept that you can make a movie out of anything.
Marc:Well, yeah, but I, you know, I could see the story, but it is true.
Marc:I don't know why they chose that story.
Marc:It's my feeling that they're probably going to do five different sport movies like this.
Marc:You know, they're going to do one about running shorts, about rackets, about golf balls.
Marc:I'm sure you can find the story anywhere about clubs, golf clubs.
Guest:Yeah, I think we might have been in a new era of movie making.
Guest:It's now brands.
Guest:I want to know how our brand came to be.
Guest:I think that's actually absolutely true because they're running out of this fantasy IP stuff.
Guest:There has not been, other than Harry Potter, in the last...
Guest:20 years, something that's kind of universally beloved as a worldwide global IP, the way comic books are and Star Wars and that.
Guest:So yeah, they're going to go to brands.
Guest:Heinz ketchup.
Guest:Be a good one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What is it?
Marc:57.
Guest:You double that up.
Guest:You got a whole movie.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:We're talking television series.
Marc:That's the number of episodes.
Marc:I'd like to see a mini series on the history of Jägermeister.
Yeah.
Guest:yeah oh but you know what is actually a really good one they should definitely do this Stroh's beer there's apparently some story about like the family got in a war with each other over Stroh's and eventually wound up selling it to Pabst and everyone lost all their money yeah like they should definitely make the Stroh's brewing war movie
Marc:Yeah, I think this is a more uplifting movie than the OxyContin family thing.
Marc:The Sackler one?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:The Sackler.
Marc:Not an uplifting brand movie.
Guest:No, actually, I think there's a new Tetris movie.
Guest:I think we really are living in this brand reality where brands are going to be the next movie.
Guest:They're making one about the making of the Blackberry, too.
Guest:from the point of view of the blackberry stop touching me i don't know what that one's for either oh my god you used to have a whole thing in your act about blackberries about how if you hit the t it went up to the top remember that yeah yeah and it was like oh you're a genius come back wizard lady
Marc:Oh, yeah, that's right.
Marc:I remember.
Guest:Because you were like, one of these days, I'm just going to see a kid flying and I'm going to be like, dude, how do you do that?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:My phone does it.
Marc:That still could happen.
Guest:Oh, more so than ever.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:My phone does it.
Guest:One thing I thought was was interesting about air was literally the complete lack of villains.
Guest:There's no like I guess other than like Adidas Converse.
Guest:There's no villains in the movie.
Guest:It's just like, is this guy going to make this crazy deal happen?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And well, you know.
Marc:The guy Phil Knight, is that his name?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:He comes off as kind of a dick a bit.
Marc:But totally in the end, they convert him, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's like the whole third act thing is that he comes around.
Marc:I thought what was great was just seeing how all those guys handle the job of acting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, you know, all of them.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Ben, Matt, Jason, Chris Tucker.
Marc:And, well, Viola Davis is Viola Davis.
Marc:But they all are very different actors.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And Matt Damon's the best.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Especially when he's Fat Damon.
Marc:Fat Damon.
Marc:Fat Matt.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:Yeah, because he's just like, he's let himself go.
Marc:He's egoless.
Marc:He plays a great schlump.
Guest:Yeah, because he's a schlub with megawatt charm still.
Guest:He's never going to be able to hide what's appealing about him.
Marc:Yeah, I thought it was great because, I don't know, I don't really know anything about basketball.
Guest:Nor did you have to, yeah.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And it was a good story.
Marc:And, you know, it was of a time.
Marc:I really, I really thought that the, you know, it can get kind of annoying when they've obviously dug up and had the set deck find all the equipment from the period.
Marc:Like I'd never seen it showcased quite so specifically.
Marc:It was literally just a shameless montage here and there of things that people had.
Guest:Oh, but I didn't think, I thought that was one million percent story intentional.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:No, it was no problem.
Guest:Yeah, that it was like they were, he was trying to show how important brands are in this emerging culture.
Guest:What was there, a Game Boy there?
Guest:There was a Game Boy there.
Guest:There was just a scene where he goes into 7-Eleven and you just get every logo that you know on the shelves.
Guest:Pressware.
Guest:Yeah, Hustler.
Guest:There was a Wonder Bread.
Guest:And it was deliberately showing you the kind of color of the logos in that.
Guest:And I felt like it all wound up paying off that when you finally see that Jordan silhouette logo, you're like, oh, that's as important as the Ghostbusters logo or whatever it was they showed earlier on in the movie that you're like, yeah, this guy earned his money.
Guest:Like, it absolutely, it becomes a story about personal worth that, like...
Guest:And Viola Davis, as Jordan's mom, is like, yeah, you will not undervalue my son.
Guest:He is worth this.
Marc:God, he certainly was, it seems.
Marc:400 million a year in passive income.
Marc:Is that wild?
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:By the way, the fact that you don't know anything about basketball, I guess the very last moment of that movie really resonated for you because you got to find out that Michael Jordan happened to become one of the best professional basketball players of all time.
Guest:Wow, look at this.
Marc:I was so excited for him.
Guest:where you're like i don't know if he's gonna do it i don't know yeah it turned out to be true everything his mom said it's like it's like the end of the walk hard where they're like the real dewey cox oh the real michael jordan huh he was a real guy after all well yeah i pulled one of those horrible old man things with my my girlfriend the other night where i'm like
Marc:it was too bad about the helicopter thing.
Marc:And she's like, that was Kobe Bryant.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that was, I felt like sent you on this brain spiral that you were like, you're concerned about.
Guest:Cause, and it's like, that's just a normal thing to do when you don't follow this stuff.
Marc:And I said, Michael Jordan's still alive.
Marc:And she's like, yeah, my God, that's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Knock on fucking wood.
Marc:Man, that was close.
Guest:That was close.
Guest:Could happen to anybody.
Guest:Tell me what you think, Chris.
Guest:I bet Mark would like The Last Dance.
Guest:Oh, absolutely you would.
Marc:What's that?
Marc:I like most things if they're touching.
Guest:Yeah, this was like peak COVID, right?
Guest:Like right at the time where no one could go anywhere that ESPN had this eight part, is it?
Guest:I think it's eight.
Guest:I think it's eight or ten.
Guest:I think it's ten.
Guest:A documentary about the Chicago Bulls, the Jordan era Chicago Bulls.
Guest:And it was the first major documentary produced with the cooperation of everyone involved.
Guest:So that's Jordan and Scottie Pippen, Phil Jackson, Dennis Rodman, everybody associated with that team.
Guest:And it's really entertaining.
Guest:And you and and.
Guest:Probably the best so far, the best actual look at Michael Jordan and his like the psychology of that guy.
Guest:And he's not just a one of a kind basketball player.
Guest:He's a one of a kind human being.
Guest:You're like, oh, yeah, they don't make people like this.
Marc:But what was he?
Marc:Was he a good baseball player?
Guest:No, no, no, terrible.
Guest:I mean, he won three championships, and then he retired, which is still shrouded in mystery and controversy, mostly because people couldn't understand.
Guest:It's like JFK getting shot.
Guest:People were like, this had to be a conspiracy, right?
Guest:It wouldn't just happen.
Guest:So there's all this conspiracy about he was forced to because of a gambling problem or something.
Guest:But nobody ever knows.
Guest:And it's at this point now, if there was a conspiracy, it probably would have come out.
Guest:And Occam's razor is probably where you go with this, that he just burned out.
Guest:His dad had been murdered.
Guest:And so he was just like, I'm done.
Guest:I don't want to do this anymore.
Guest:And I'm going to I'm so great.
Guest:I'm going to go approach something else.
Guest:And he tried to make it in Major League Baseball.
Guest:He never made it past, like, double-A baseball in Chicago in the minors.
Guest:He was bad at that, too.
Guest:But why'd they kill his dad?
Guest:It was a carjacking that, you know, was a robbery, and the dad got killed.
Guest:And...
Guest:that's also been fed into this conspiracy about like why he, Oh, well maybe that was a gambling debt or something, but it looks like it was just a robbery.
Guest:Um, but yeah, he winds up coming back debt.
Guest:Could that guy not have paid?
Guest:Well, exactly.
Guest:That's huge gambling.
Guest:Uh, you know, he loves poker and stuff, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he makes 400 million a year in his, in his sleep.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:what kind of what kind of debt would michael jordan have to say god give me another week fellas well my guess is if there was any kind of if there was ever anything like that it wouldn't be because he couldn't pay it it was just because he probably didn't right like like that that can definitely be the kind of guy who gets in a situation and goes no fuck you i'm not giving you your money and right somebody feels like they got to teach him a lesson but i don't i want to reiterate i don't think that's true
Guest:I think he just quit basketball and went to play baseball and then came back and he won three more championships.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Amazing.
Marc:It sounds like he was really a great player and I enjoyed learning about his shoe.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a very special episode for us today.
Guest:Matt Singer.
Guest:Matt Singer is a film critic and writer and historian on film who now has a great book.
Guest:It's called Opposable Thumbs, How Siskel and Ebert Changed Movies Forever.
Guest:And Chris, I mean, I don't know that there's much more that we have to say that we don't say in our actual conversation with Matt.
Guest:But I mean, like...
Guest:Suffice it to say, as much as we've talked about wrestling or sports or anything that we talk about here, like Siskel and Ebert are as formative to our lives as any other element of culture.
Guest:Would you say that's fair?
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:That's fair.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, this was a show I would thumb through my TV guide to make sure it was on when it was on last week.
Guest:Because sometimes it would change.
Guest:Yeah, it got moved around.
Guest:Yeah, it got moved around.
Guest:So I had to literally appointment television this.
Guest:And it's something I sought out.
Guest:And it is just something near and dear to my heart.
Guest:Because these two guys were in my life for so long.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, yes, they were, you know, talking about movies, but they also showed clips of movies, which was super important because in those days it wasn't a thing.
Guest:You saw commercials on TV and that was it.
Guest:You didn't get to see other movie clips unless you went to the movie.
Guest:And this was just like, oh, my God, I get to watch part of the movie on the show.
Guest:Sign me up.
Guest:And then these guys would talk and they would bicker and they would debate.
Guest:And it was glorious.
Guest:It was funny.
Guest:It was it was sometimes just like, holy shit, I can't believe he just said that to this guy.
Guest:And he's still just sitting there.
Guest:But yeah, it was just part of my childhood.
Guest:And I love these two men.
Guest:Yeah, well, I got brought to it by my dad, who was watching it when it was still on PBS.
Guest:Oh, no way, that early?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So it was like a family thing.
Guest:We'd put it on the same way you'd put on the news.
Guest:Like, oh, it's time for sneak previews, and we'd watch the movie show.
Guest:And so I had it fully ingrained in my mind.
Guest:And then when they went to syndication...
Guest:so I was seeking it out wherever it was.
Guest:Cause that was like already my show.
Guest:Like I, it was a show I watched with my family and there was a great period of time where it was on after wrestling on the, on Saturday afternoon.
Guest:Like I would watch wrestling and then Siskel and Ebert.
Guest:I remember that vividly.
Guest:But yeah, it couldn't have shaped my life more.
Guest:Roger Ebert still continues to be a kind of lodestone for me, like someone who I consider a spiritual and mental guidepost for how I should live my life.
Guest:He's really one of the last great humanists, I believe.
Guest:the two of them mean a lot to me.
Guest:They both have meaning to me individually, obviously Roger Moore, because he lived longer and he has work output went on for a longer period of time.
Guest:But, uh, yeah, I'm right there with you.
Guest:Very important show for me.
Guest:So I devoured this book when I got it.
Guest:And I definitely wanted to talk to Matt Singer, who is as much a fan as we are.
Guest:And, uh, but actually wound up going on and doing something with his life related to Siskel and Ebert related to reviewing movies.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:So this is Matt Singer, who, like I said, just wrote the book Opposable Thumbs.
Guest:Get it wherever you get books.
Guest:If you're a Siskel and Ebert fan, I guarantee you're going to like it.
Guest:If you're not a Siskel and Ebert fan, I guarantee you're going to learn from it.
Guest:And I hope you learn something right now as Chris and I talk to Matt Singer.
Guest:We've crossed paths with you before, but I'm not sure that you have any idea that we did because it was digital and conceivably anonymous.
Guest:But we knew that you were there and it was part of Nighthawk movie trivia, which we do regularly.
Guest:And so there was one night where we were, I think you might have made mention of it like on your Twitter or something.
Guest:And we're like, oh, Matt Singer, we're up against him tonight.
Guest:And you always crushed us.
Guest:In person?
Guest:No, it was pandemic time.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:I went once in person recently.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Did you have a regular team name or did you change yours?
Guest:We were fairly regularly for the initial days, like initial weeks of the quarantine.
Guest:We were Quarantine Wolf 2.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I remember.
Yeah.
Guest:Awesome.
Guest:Like I was doing that with all my friends from grad school, basically all my movie nerd friends.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that, yeah, I used to love doing it.
Guest:It was one of the few enjoyable things one could do at that time.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It was like a salvation.
Guest:We like looked forward to it.
Guest:It was like our one night out, even though it was in.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And it gave me an excuse to hang out with, you know, most of those, those people don't live in New York anymore.
Guest:So it was like the most I had talked to those people for years.
Guest:So.
Guest:Well, I'm not surprised that we found ourselves in that similar circle, not just because we know similar people.
Guest:We have common friends and we have common interests.
Guest:But obviously, I think we're all from the same age cohort.
Guest:And you have written this book.
Guest:That where I'd have any talent as a writer, it probably would have been the first thing I would have tried to write to was a book about Siskel and Ebert.
Guest:And in fact, when I started reading it, I sent Chris a text.
Guest:I was maybe about 10 pages in.
Guest:And I just said, I'm going to cry reading this fucking book.
Guest:I love these guys with all my heart.
Guest:And sure enough, we both cried.
Guest:Hey, spoiler alert.
Guest:Did I do it?
Guest:Oh, of course.
Guest:I mean, I would be very disappointed if you didn't.
Guest:And it'd be hard-pressed not to cry about any retelling of the final days of Gene and Roger.
Guest:But what I was also thinking about when I sent that to Chris was like...
Guest:Why?
Guest:Like, why?
Guest:And why?
Guest:Like, we're in our 40s now.
Guest:I constantly rewatch these clips, rewatch entire shows of Siskel and Ebert.
Guest:I reread Roger.
Guest:Chris and I were just talking about this like two weeks ago.
Guest:We were talking about how, you know, we watched a bunch of Arnold movies.
Guest:And then when we read all the Roger reviews of these movies.
Guest:and it was so fulfilling right and i seek out things like your book like the ringer did a podcast on gene and roger and obviously i read and seen uh life itself and so like i come up with this question why do i love these guys so much and i guess the first thing to ask you is did you already have a solid answer to that or is part of writing the book you trying to answer that question too
Guest:First of all, I want to hear about the Arnold movies.
Guest:Can we put a pin in that for later?
Guest:I want to know because you're talking to maybe the only – I sometimes call myself a Schwarzeneggerologist, perhaps the only one on earth, and if I could write a book about that, I probably would.
Guest:So we got to talk about that at some point, not to not answer your question.
Guest:The second way I'm going to avoid answering your question is just to say my wife – the only person who read this book while I was working on it is my wife.
Guest:And I would give her chapters and say, how is this?
Guest:How is this?
Guest:And she is not a movie nerd.
Guest:She likes movies, but she's not pathetic like I and perhaps you guys are.
Guest:And when I gave her that part, like I walked in and she was like – when she finished it, she was like crying and she's like, you son of a –
Guest:Like, how could you make me read this?
Guest:It's really upsetting.
Guest:Are you talking specifically about the chapter of Gene's death?
Guest:Yeah, the stuff about Gene.
Guest:And, you know, I got to do the audio book myself for the book, which I wanted to do and was super fun for the most part.
Guest:But then reading that part, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It can get a little heavy.
Guest:In terms of your actual question of why I like these guys, yeah, I did think a lot about that because the show hit me at an age where I never – I was too young to intellectualize the why because I'm talking I'm 12, I'm 13.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And most of the stuff I'm liking is not two dudes, two middle-aged dudes in blazers and sweaters sitting in a movie theater talking about movies.
Guest:And I was, at that time, I was not...
Guest:The biggest movie nerd, you know, I went to movies.
Guest:I watched what was playing.
Guest:I grew up in suburban New Jersey.
Guest:So it's like, you know, if something I was playing, a dumb comedy was playing at the Freehold Metroplex or Movie City Five, you know, I would ask, you know, like...
Guest:Weird Al Yankovic has a movie, Mom.
Guest:Can you please take me to see UHF?
Guest:Spaceballs.
Guest:I liked Spaceballs more than Star Wars, frankly, when I was a kid.
Guest:I'm going to be honest.
Guest:I think a lot of people don't want to admit that, but I definitely did.
Guest:And really, until I discovered Siskel and Ebert, that was the kind of movies that I was into.
Guest:And it really was this show that was like the lightning bulb of like, oh, there are more movies out there than dumb, silly comedies, which I still love.
Guest:Don't get me wrong.
Guest:And the why is an internal question.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think...
Guest:I do wonder to some extent now whether it was in some ways because I was joking about the sweater vests and the and the blazers, you know, and the fact that, frankly, let's be honest, these were not the coolest things.
Guest:dudes in the universe.
Guest:But I think in some way that appealed to me, because even at that age, I knew I was not cool.
Guest:I was not going to be the star football player.
Guest:I was not going to be a movie star.
Guest:I think I understood that innately, even at that age.
Guest:And I think there was something appealing about the
Guest:The ordinariness of these guys, at least the way they presented themselves on TV, they were amazing talkers and they were great TV presences, but there was something attainable about what they were doing.
Guest:They were watching movies and they were talking about them.
Guest:And I think that...
Guest:And really grabbed me and hooked me at that young age.
Guest:I kind of have the same feeling you did about, you know, they don't seem cool.
Guest:But then when you got into them, to me anyway, they were cool.
Guest:You've met Roger Ebert later in his life.
Guest:If I ever had been in that guy's presence, I would have...
Guest:like crumbled, like a fan boy.
Guest:Like I would, I've never had that experience really in front of anyone famous.
Guest:And I definitely would have in front of him.
Guest:I wouldn't have been able to say anything.
Guest:I was paralyzed with fear to ever send anything to the movie answer man page.
Guest:I was always afraid of that, you know?
Guest:Yeah, no, I did that.
Guest:I got in twice, I think to the movie answer man, you know?
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can find them.
Guest:I think if you, I mean, now it might be tougher, but I think, I mean, I'm,
Guest:I don't know if I was ever in one – I mean, first of all, I had the Questions for the Movie Answer Man book.
Guest:That was one of my favorite Roger Ebert books as a kid.
Guest:Yes, I did write in several times and I believe – definitely once, maybe twice I got a question answered.
Guest:And I think they may have been reprinted in like –
Guest:Um, you know, like he always put out the movie yearbook, uh, right.
Guest:And he'd have a few questions in it.
Guest:And they would, he would, he would compile some of those movie answer man columns in there.
Guest:And I believe one of them might've been in one of those books somewhere, maybe in my parents' house somewhere.
Guest:I think I have, uh, that, that book, but that was very, uh, thrilling for sure.
Guest:I would have been completely envious of you if I knew that.
Guest:I will say this.
Guest:You mentioned that I did meet him and I did get to work with him when he was older and I was sort of starting out and stuff.
Guest:But I had met him before that.
Guest:I had met him at a book signing.
Guest:In like 2005.
Guest:And you talk about not being able to.
Guest:You think you would not be able to speak.
Guest:I. That was me.
Guest:It was.
Guest:And I can remember.
Guest:He did a book signing for the great movies to another one of his books here in New York.
Guest:It was at the.
Guest:doesn't exist anymore was the barnes and noble by lincoln center oh yeah he did a talk he did he did a talk and then you got your book signed and i remember waiting and going on the line and uh being like it was the full chris farley show moment you know you know you remember when you did this good i like that show a lot and i i really wanted to be a film critic and i say it's
Guest:And I just remember – I feel like the response I got was something – he's very smiley and friendly and nodding and saying something along the lines, well, good luck to you, something like that.
Guest:But it really was that sort of vibe.
Guest:When I met him again professionally, it did go a little – it went better than that, thankfully.
Guest:But yes, I can completely relate to that feeling of –
Guest:Uh, absolutely.
Guest:They were, they were inspirational figures, um, in my life.
Guest:I don't know if I ever thought if I could be them, I could be cool because I, I, I, I mean, you know, this was not the show for me that I would talk like, you know, sure.
Guest:When I was that age, I also watched Seinfeld and the Simpsons and you would have friends that you would like quote those things with, you know, like did like the day after the new Simpsons episode, you know, you'd be at lunchtime, you'd be quoting.
Guest:Did you remember that line?
Guest:You know, that was a great part.
Guest:Didn't do that with Siskel and Ebert.
Guest:I kind of kept this one close to my vest.
Guest:I wasn't really like, oh, and did you guys see the review of Independence Day?
Guest:Could you believe that?
Guest:That was wild.
Guest:That I did not do.
Guest:This was kind of like...
Guest:This is one of those things that was kind of kind of my secret.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And it's but what's great now is getting to talk to guys like you and writing the book.
Guest:It's like I'm realizing that this secret thing that I was obsessed with is something that a lot of people of our age share.
Guest:Now, were you always consistently one guy over the other?
Guest:Like, did you like, were you like, you know, people are either like a John guy or a Paul guy.
Guest:Were you a Roger guy?
Guest:Like, I mean, I can say just personally, there were different times in my life where I was a different one of them or like a related more to one over the other.
Guest:Whereas now in my like, you know, I would say the last maybe 20 years of life, I think I've pretty consistently been a Roger guy.
Guest:And that might owe more to his longer body of work as he lived on.
Guest:But there were definitely points in my life where I was like, man, Gene's always right.
Guest:Roger's always wrong.
Guest:Did you have a similar thing?
Guest:That's a good question.
Guest:Definitely what you're saying about being a Roger guy later is true.
Guest:And it was certainly true for me because after being obsessed with the show –
Guest:And then buying some of those books, which you could get.
Guest:Then in the late 90s, I go to college, and that's – the internet finally really hits.
Guest:And Roger's reviews start going up weekly on chicagosuntimes.com or whatever the website was.
Guest:And now every Friday, I'm reading his reviews.
Guest:And unfortunately, Gene's already passed away by this point.
Guest:So that's really when I become like a mega –
Guest:The pathetic Roger fan who goes to the book signing and is that guy.
Guest:Because I was, you know, now fanatically, you know, I had already been a fan of the show, but now is really becoming a fan of his writing.
Guest:During the time when I was a kid watching the show, I...
Guest:I don't know that I necessarily had a favorite.
Guest:I really – what I liked about it was that neither – they felt like equals to me.
Guest:They never felt like one was getting the better of the other.
Guest:It always felt to me like this epic struggle between these two titans.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And they never – it wasn't like one ever said –
Guest:You got me there, Raj.
Guest:I feel you make a good point.
Guest:You never heard the phrase you make a good point on Siskel and Ebert, even when both of them often did make good points.
Guest:They refused to concede that at any point anyone but them made a good point.
Guest:In all the years of the show, I think there's one example of Gene changing his mind on the air for a movie, the John Travolta action movie Broken Arrow.
Guest:You know, he gave it like a very mild, positive review.
Guest:Roger rebuts and says, yeah, I think pretty much what you said is true, except I don't think it's very good.
Guest:And, you know, this was even worse than you said.
Guest:And I didn't really care for this.
Guest:And Gene goes like, you know what?
Guest:I've never done this.
Guest:And he never had.
Guest:And he never would again.
Guest:He's like, I'm going to twist the thumb down.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:What am I praising here?
Guest:It's not really that good.
Guest:Thumbs down.
Guest:It's so funny because reading it in the book, it was like somebody writing about the helmet catch in the Super Bowl.
Guest:I was like, I remember when that happened.
Guest:Like I had like this vivid memory of the, the graphic of the thumb being turned downward on screen.
Guest:Like I'm like sitting there with my dad watching it.
Guest:Like, Whoa, did you see what just happened?
Guest:It was, it was like, it was almost as if a Hulk Hogan had just picked up Andre the Giant, honestly.
Guest:And then, of course, because Gene could not because, I mean, theoretically, this is a victory for Roger and has never happened.
Guest:And he could not let that stand.
Guest:He tried in that moment.
Guest:He was like, now, OK, now do me a favor.
Guest:Admit that you were wrong about cop and a half.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a movie that famously Roger had given thumbs up to and liked and he wouldn't do it.
Guest:Roger was like, no, no, no, no, no.
Guest:I saw things in Cop and a Half, the Burt Reynolds comedy Cop and a Half that other people didn't see.
Guest:So and so there you go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, yeah, they they would they fought and argued, but it was it was this neither one would budge.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And I think that's what I really loved about it is that.
Guest:They were so, so dogged in their opinions.
Guest:And you never knew who you were going to agree with.
Guest:I guess to your point is that maybe sometimes you would be like, yeah, I kind of feel Gene is right.
Guest:Or sometimes you might go, yeah, I think Roger has a good point there.
Guest:Not that they would ever admit that the other had a good point.
Guest:But yeah, I think that's what I really responded to when I was watching it was that they always felt like they were so evenly matched and neither one would give an inch to the other.
Guest:That was part of the appeal.
Guest:Well, we started this out by talking about this trivia league that we were playing in over the pandemic.
Guest:And you were saying how you were teamed up with people you were friends with from grad school.
Guest:And there was a line that jumped out at me in the book.
Guest:It was specifically around you talking about the debate over what they were doing to critical discourse, right?
Guest:Specifically the TV show and the famous Richard Corliss article likening them to a sitcom and saying it was degrading film discourse.
Guest:You have a very simple kind of rebuttal.
Guest:I don't know if you intended to be a rebuttal, but it's like a one-line rebuttal to all that.
Guest:And it's like, this was people's first taste of film school.
Guest:And that got as close, I think, as I'd ever gotten to the question of the why in there was like...
Guest:This is the only non-real-life relationship I have with people, parasocial, whatever you want to call it, but the only relationship with people that I have not met flesh and blood that I feel the way I do about a kind of noble and life-changing teacher.
Guest:They did the hard work of educating me to a point where I could change my viewpoint on things or I could adjust the prism by which I was seeing the world in a way that helped, that I thought that the best teachers can do.
Guest:If they say, just don't try to think about acing the test.
Guest:Just listen.
Guest:Listen to what I'm saying.
Guest:And I have to imagine, you know, feeling that way and then going to grad school and being a film scholar and now a person who makes his living writing about film and enjoying film.
Guest:And you have to more even more explicitly than I do draw the line to them in that way of of almost being, you know, an entry point into the discovery of film as an intellectual pursuit.
Guest:Oh, 100 percent.
Guest:I totally thought of them later in life.
Guest:And, you know, now think of them as, yeah, I'm like my first film teachers, you know, not that they certainly didn't know it at the time.
Guest:But, yeah, I mean, when you're.
Guest:When you're young, it's so easy to be a gatekeeper and pushing people out of things.
Guest:And they were the gateway, not the gatekeepers.
Guest:I think they had this way of making...
Guest:films that could be very inaccessible, especially to a 13-year-old who doesn't know anything, feel very accessible.
Guest:They made you want to go out and see these movies, and they never made you feel like because you hadn't seen something by Fellini or Kurosawa or Renoir, whoever it was, that you were...
Guest:You were somehow lesser than.
Guest:They might think you're missing out and encourage you to go check it out.
Guest:But they made you want to do that.
Guest:They made you want to learn more.
Guest:They made these very potentially obtuse things seem within your grasp.
Guest:And, you know, I think they both were good at doing this.
Guest:But Roger, especially as a writer, something I always especially later when I got into his writing, it's sort of the thing that I'm always trying.
Guest:I don't know how often I succeed, but always trying to capture is the way that he could write about these movies in a way that made them feel so accessible.
Guest:And he was that was really one of his great gifts as a writer was he was so good at that.
Guest:One of my favorite chapters, I think, is chapter five, where you basically chronicle Gene and Roger making the rounds of various late night talk shows.
Guest:I knew of them on Letterman, but I actually never knew the story of them being on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show.
Guest:And the behind the scenes story of what happened there is honestly probably my favorite story in your entire book.
Guest:But, you know, I know from the book that you used to stay up and watch Siskel and Ebert, the show, once your family fell asleep when you were a kid.
Guest:But did you ever watch or even know about them doing these late night shows?
Guest:Or is that something that was revealed later on in your life?
Guest:No, I definitely were watching because around this age was also when I discovered, yeah, like late night TV.
Guest:Letterman was always my favorite and Conan.
Guest:They did Conan, too, although I think their most memorable appearances are more like Letterman and Carson.
Guest:But I was a huge Conan O'Brien fan growing up.
Guest:And which is – that's right around that same time, that early 90s period is where I would stay up and watch Letterman and then Conan.
Guest:But yeah, I would say that it all kind of coincided, and I would always get excited when they were on those shows.
Guest:And I do think those shows were instrumental in helping them become –
Guest:bigger TV stars and establishing them beyond the boundaries of the community of dweebs like me who are watching the show because it was, it was bringing them to a more mainstream, a broader audience.
Guest:It was,
Guest:It was having them sit next to the people that they were reviewing these movies of and kind of putting them on equal star footing in a way because Chevy Chase would come out and promote three amigos.
Guest:And then Siskel and Ebert would come out and they would bash three amigos while Chevy Chase is still sitting there.
Guest:And I think that was a huge boost.
Guest:boon to them and to the show because you know that talk show world while it can be very entertaining and amusing there's a certain amount of like phoniness or like just smiliness that's baked into that world where everyone is happy everyone's cracking jokes having a good time isn't it fun to be here and isn't the movie i just made the best movie ever made let's show the clip and it looks great and it's coming out on friday thanks for coming chevy that kind of atmosphere and
Guest:And then they would come out next and be like, actually, Three Amigos is not a good movie.
Guest:You should not go see it.
Guest:Sorry, Chevy.
Guest:You've made good movies before.
Guest:You'll make good movies again.
Guest:But this one isn't one of them.
Guest:And they were one of the few people who would do that on these shows.
Guest:They were honest.
Guest:They cut through the BS.
Guest:They told it like it was.
Guest:And it reinforced that idea that I certainly believed then and now that –
Guest:Whenever you heard their opinion, they were going to tell you what they thought.
Guest:And they weren't going to say anything because they wanted to make a star happy or a studio happy or a publicist asked them to be nice.
Guest:They didn't care what anyone thought.
Guest:They were going to give you their opinion.
Guest:And if that meant saying it to the face of the star, you know, I think Gene especially kind of relished.
Guest:That he he was a he could be a confrontational guy at times, and he didn't mind saying to someone's face, you know, your new movie isn't so great.
Guest:Why aren't you making movies as good as you used to make?
Guest:Yeah, it seemed almost pathological for him that he could not.
Guest:say something that was dishonest or he couldn't, you know, be diplomatic.
Guest:He had to say exactly what he felt, whether that was to a movie star or to his boss or anybody.
Guest:You point out at one point in the book that Roger says like, yeah, Gene doesn't care if people like him or not.
Guest:I think to right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, you know, that is now again, in some situations, maybe that's not a good thing.
Guest:For a film critic, that's one of the best qualities you can have.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Because, and I say this from experience, you know, people, you want people to like you.
Guest:That's like a natural thing for most people is you don't, you know, you're not, you know, you want to have your opinion, but you're also, I mean, you're not necessarily looking to make people angry or dislike you.
Guest:And he didn't care.
Guest:And he, you know, and it didn't matter who it was.
Guest:It could be his favorite director.
Guest:If he thought Martin Scorsese made a bad movie,
Guest:He would say that they gave two thumbs down to The Color of Money, which I think is a great movie.
Guest:But they were unimpressed and they didn't like it, even though they thought, you know, they later gave Raging Bull.
Guest:You know, they call that the best movie of the 80s and they loved Goodfellas and so many other Scorsese movies.
Guest:I think Gene didn't like Casino.
Guest:He didn't.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:He gave thumbs down.
Guest:Another amazing movie.
Guest:But I think that speaks to the fact that he didn't grade on a curve.
Guest:It didn't matter that he loved Scorsese and maybe he socialized with him or they wrote a book that the proceeds went to Scorsese's Film Foundation.
Guest:The only book that they ever wrote together, in fact.
Guest:But if if if Scorsese's new movie is a stinker, according to him, he's going to say that.
Guest:And I think that that was it was great to do that as a film critic.
Guest:It was great for the show.
Guest:And again, it was amazing to see on talk shows because, again, talk shows.
Guest:Like I said, I was a huge Conan fan and Letterman fan.
Guest:Those shows were great.
Guest:But what they brought to those shows that they didn't always otherwise have was drama and tension.
Guest:You know, people are there to have fun and smile and be happy.
Guest:And when they showed up, you didn't know what was going to happen.
Guest:Maybe they were going to insult someone to their face.
Guest:Maybe they were going to piss someone off.
Guest:And just that little bit of suspense and edge gave a little zing to those shows when they were on them.
Guest:Well, and you also did answer something I've always wondered because I have saved in my photo stream a picture of Roger and Gene doing the double thumbs up with Hulk Hogan right between them.
Guest:And I've always wondered, wait, where did this come from?
Guest:Like, they definitely hate Hulk Hogan movies.
Guest:Like, this wasn't like on a junket or something.
Guest:And there's a brief mention in the book that they were at the NAPI convention, the television syndication convention, and...
Guest:And and WWF was there putting on matches.
Guest:So I have to believe that was the meeting of Hulk Hogan and Siskel and Ebert.
Guest:One hundred percent.
Guest:And I I don't I'd have to look in my notes.
Guest:But somewhere I found a video like a news report from Nat P this.
Guest:Yeah, the syndication convention, which.
Guest:I think actually just within this year was maybe canceled permanently, possibly.
Guest:But until a few years ago when cable syndication was big, this was like, yeah, the big industry event.
Guest:Anyone who syndicated a TV show or wanted to, you show up here, you sell your wares like a trade show.
Guest:And for Siskel and Ebert, this was a huge thing.
Guest:And they would go and they would promote the show.
Guest:And yes, the WWF, because their product then was all syndicated Saturday morning syndicated TV, they would set up a ring.
Guest:And I found a clip of them like like doing like wrestling matches at one of these conventions.
Guest:And the audience of like 12 guys in suits is a little bewildered.
Guest:I can't remember any of the wrestlers that were in the clip.
Guest:But for sure, I guarantee you that is where that picture you're talking about of Hulk and Siskel and Ebert, which I think I have seen and is definitely a weird for me to like a moment of my childhood icons, like merging and meeting in this very strange and surreal way.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Spider-Man could have been like could have wandered through the background.
Guest:It would have been like.
Guest:You know, if someone had, like, taken my brain and put it in a blender and poured it out onto a picture, it could have been, like, the ultimate, like, here's your personality in one picture.
Guest:Enjoy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I post it every New Year's, like, as a be good to each other message.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:That's my visual representation of it.
Guest:The spirit of the holidays, yes.
Guest:If they could get along with that man appearing in No Holds Barred and Mr. Nanny and Suburban Commando, there's hope for all of us, isn't there?
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, listen, before we lose you, let's wrap up with this Arnold thing because we had Arnold on WTF last week.
Guest:And before that, to lead up to it, Chris and I were talking about our favorite Arnold movies.
Guest:And we did our favorite five movies.
Guest:And so to put you on the spot as the Arnold Schwarzenegger ecologist that you are, just give us your top line.
Guest:What's the best Arnold movie?
Guest:That's an impossible to answer question.
Guest:And you know that because there's so many good ones and they're good.
Guest:There are, but I will say it came pretty easy to me to get my best.
Guest:Really?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I said Total Recall was my best.
Guest:That's a great movie.
Guest:I mean, that's definitely in the conversation.
Guest:I mean, to me, that's up there.
Guest:The Terminator, Terminator 2 is up there.
Guest:But what I love about Schwarzenegger, and it was an awesome podcast, and I have gotten to interview him now a few times, and that's another one where you're fighting back the, for me anyway, the whole, the Chris Farley urge of, you know, my boy, you may pray.
Guest:That was a good movie.
Guest:That was a good movie.
Guest:That was a good movie.
Guest:And like in that case, I'm like actually interviewing him about about Predator.
Guest:That was maybe Chris's number one, by the way.
Guest:Fabulous movie.
Guest:But yeah, I mean, to me, what's so interesting about Arnold is that, you know, and I've written pathetically at length about this, is that to me, Arnold is like an unappreciated auteur.
Guest:I think now he gets his due as an action star who made very entertaining movies.
Guest:I think at this point, that's pretty much agreed on.
Guest:And we all love Terminator 2, and we love Predator and Commando and all those movies.
Guest:But what I love is that you watch his movies...
Guest:And you see this guy talking about his life in these in these ways that maybe people didn't really notice at the time.
Guest:You look at how many movies are about husbands who are screwing up their marriages or that are feeling guilty about having failed their wives or their children, especially in that later period, right after things are happening in his personal life that might reflect that.
Guest:Almost every movie he made after that like period is about that in some way.
Guest:And and and maybe they're the quote unquote bad movies, you know, like Batman and Robin is about a husband who's trying to help his wife and has failed repeatedly.
Guest:And now he's this cold, icy figure.
Guest:No pun intended, except I definitely intended it.
Guest:There were lots of puns.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Every pun was intended or or end of days.
Guest:He's a husband who's lost his family and he's like grappling with the guilt around that or collateral damage where he's a guy whose family has been killed by a terrorist and he's seeking revenge or Maggie, which is about a guy who is debating how to deal with his daughter and feels guilty about it.
Guest:And I could go on and I have gone on.
Guest:I mean, if you Google my name and Arnold Schwarzenegger, you will find the pieces I've written about this.
Guest:So, yeah, I mean, like, yeah, if I had to pick one movie, I probably would pick Terminator 2 or maybe Total Recall.
Guest:But I just think that, you know, and Stallone is kind of this way, too.
Guest:And I've written about that as well.
Guest:You know, we talk about auteurs.
Guest:To me, they're like the actors.
Guest:You know, these are the guys who had so much power.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They were the ones in, you know, picking the scripts and they were the ones often picking the directors and, you know, producing their movies or at least had the, you know, the juice to what they decided was going with these movies.
Guest:So these aren't like coincidences.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that's what I love about Arnold is that if you know his biography, that makes his movies even more interesting.
Guest:Total Recall is a good example, too.
Guest:I mean, Last Action Hero is another good example.
Guest:True Lies.
Guest:I mean, if that's not a movie about secrets in a marriage, then there's never been a movie made about secrets in a marriage ever.
Guest:So that's the stuff that I really, really love about Arnold.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, I do hope that people who – well, obviously people who are fans of Siskel and Ebert and have kind of loved movies and loved the way movies have been reviewed since Siskel and Ebert was a show are going to find innumerable things about your book to enjoy.
Guest:But I really do hope people who are younger than that era or maybe just didn't pay it much mind, I really hope they get a hold of your book and I think it will –
Guest:open their eyes to something and, you know, it becomes the gateway in itself.
Guest:Like, I'm envious of someone who gets to come to Siskel and Ebert with fresh eyes and kind of start on their own path with them.
Guest:So, you know, on that level, I think the book would be a tremendous success just for newbies as well.
Guest:But obviously, for someone like me, someone like Chris, and obviously someone like yourself, Matt, this is right in the wheelhouse.
Guest:Thank you so much for doing it.
Guest:Thank you so much for
Guest:doing this with us.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:No, it was a pleasure.
Guest:It was nice to talk about Siskel and Ebert with some fans, wrestling fans.
Guest:I feel like we probably could just keep talking.
Guest:I have this feeling.
Guest:We speak the same language.
Guest:It's very clear.
Guest:In many ways.
Guest:It's like a duolingo of a very certain type of media consumer.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, next time we're facing each other in trivia, we won't take it easy on.
Guest:There was something that came up a few weeks ago.
Guest:Chris was asking me, I believe you were asking me about, did I ever have any impulses to be a comedian or get into comedy?
Guest:And I went through my whole rigmarole with that, my whole shtick.
Guest:And you said, no, you never had that.
Guest:Not even anything close, but that you did have the desire to once, just once, tell a story that you say is your one story.
Guest:That was how you categorized it.
Guest:This is my one story.
Guest:I have one story.
Guest:And you said, I would like to tell it on The Moth or This American Life.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Meanwhile, you're on a show right now.
Guest:You have a show that you have access to every week.
Guest:And you can do this story at any time.
Guest:But I would not let you.
Guest:I said it had to be built up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So we ended last week's show with a little bit of a cliffhanger and said that we will do this story.
Guest:And right here, I'm not going to make anybody wait any longer.
Guest:The anticipation is killing everyone.
Guest:And so we're just going to go right into it.
Guest:This is your stage, Chris Lopresto, the story, your one story.
Guest:And now the floor is yours.
Guest:What is the story you have to tell?
Guest:My story is about being banned for life from a grocery store.
Guest:So I met a girl, now my wife, and at the time she was a member of the Park Slope Food Co-op.
Guest:Ever heard of it?
Guest:I have heard of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is a member-only grocery store in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Guest:It's legendary in its strife that is caused by the members of the Park Slope Food Co-op.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Infamous, I would say.
Guest:So to be a member of this food co-op, you have to agree to work once every six weeks.
Guest:Now, my wife at the time, she cuts cheese in the basement, which sounds hilarious.
Yeah.
Guest:and also seemed to be a genuinely fun gig to have like that's her thing like her one job there every week she has to go it was always the same cut cheese in the basement always cutting cheese in the basement every six weeks yes and what does that what does that entail
Guest:It entails getting the cheeses from various regions of the world and cutting them in an appropriate amount of weight so that you can then bag it and then put a little scanner on it so that people can buy it for X amount of dollars.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm up to speed on this cheese cutting.
Guest:So, once we moved in together, she told me that I should join the food co-op because it would be considered stealing if I'm benefiting from her grocery runs to this exclusive grocery store.
Guest:And...
Guest:Let me tell you, I was not into it.
Guest:I begrudgingly accepted.
Guest:I am, you know, just someone who wants to make someone else happy.
Guest:So I figured I'd do something interesting like cutting cheese or working the register or something, right?
Guest:So I filled out my application, got assigned a job and a day and a time.
Guest:Well, I was assigned custodian at 7 p.m.
Guest:on Mondays.
Guest:Did they look at you first when they, was it totally visually judgmental?
Guest:They looked at you.
Guest:They're like, you look like you need to have a giant ring of keys.
Guest:A mop.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think it was blind.
Guest:I mean, I did ask like, are you like, is there anything?
Guest:Like, nah, this is all we got.
Guest:It's like, okay.
Guest:So my job was to empty wastebaskets, clean the bathrooms, break down tables and stack chairs, mop the floors, all kinds of great stuff.
Guest:Not exactly what I had in mind.
Guest:And this is so you could get like some fig spread or something, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is so I can actually go and shop and give this place money so I can get food.
Guest:I mean, I could go to Key Food right down the street, but no, this food is better, apparently.
Guest:I digress.
Guest:So for two whole years, every six weeks, I had to stop what I was doing and go to the food co-op and be a janitor for a night.
Guest:Every shift, there was a checklist of things to do.
Guest:There would be like a few of us each shift.
Guest:We would split the chores and divide and conquer.
Guest:As time went on, I actually became like a crew manager.
Guest:I was like the manager.
Guest:I would tell people, okay, do this, do that.
Guest:I'll do this.
Guest:And we'll, you know, that's what we'll do.
Guest:So I would listen to podcasts and empty the trash can and clean the toilets.
Guest:I would actually have to clean the toilets at this place until every single item was checked off, right?
Guest:So we had a checklist, checked everything off.
Guest:And once everything was done, I would just leave.
Guest:I would also tell my staff, like, hey, you know, get it done quick.
Guest:We can get out of here before the second half of Monday Night Football or Monday Night Raw, that sort of thing.
Guest:Well, apparently, it's not just the items to do on the list that are important.
Guest:It's the amount of time you spend at the grocery store.
Guest:Because I would do all my tasks in about an hour and then leave.
Guest:Apparently, this is frowned upon.
Guest:Apparently, I'm supposed to do all these tasks in two hours and 45 minutes, no less.
Guest:So I was expected to be a janitor and leisurely do these tasks starting at 7 p.m.
Guest:and leave at 9.45.
Guest:So one day I get a letter in the mail saying that I've been accused of time theft and I will have a chance to bleed my case next week.
Guest:First of all, I'm mortified because this is my wife's thing.
Guest:I don't give a shit about this grocery store.
Guest:And here I am just fucking it up and like embarrassing her to her peers, right?
Guest:So I plot out what I'm going to say.
Guest:I write it down that I, you know, I legit never missed a shift in two whole years.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I didn't understand that I was required to be there for that long.
Guest:And, you know, just, you know, sort of just beg for forgiveness and like hope for just a warning.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, I get to the co-op.
Guest:And I go to the admin office.
Guest:Now, this is the same room that I used to go and dismantle tables and stack chairs, right?
Guest:Well, now I see why these tables were set up.
Guest:It was set up to be a trial.
Guest:I was the defendant.
Guest:I sat on one table, across from me on another table were three people, the plaintiffs, and between us was another table with three judges.
Guest:Across from the judges sat a fucking grocery store reporter.
Guest:I shit you not, a grocery store reporter.
Guest:I felt like Joe Pesci walking into the basement room thinking he was about to get made in Goodfellas.
Guest:Also, upon reflection, the scene is basically the same exact scene from Oppenheimer, third hour of Oppenheimer, where he's on trial.
Guest:It's that scene.
Guest:It's the total kangaroo court scene.
Guest:Yes, a total kangaroo court, okay?
Guest:So the plaintiffs hand out a thick packet of documents.
Guest:I'm weaving it right now.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:This thick packet of documents, and the judges allow me a few minutes to look it over.
Guest:Now, Brendan, this document is about...
Guest:50 pages.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:50 pages long.
Guest:And in it are the list of my time theft occurrences and color screenshots of video they have of me entering and leaving the grocery store like I'm Jason fucking born.
Guest:I swear.
Guest:Look, you can say, I know it's a podcast.
Guest:Look, there's fucking...
Guest:Video surveillance.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You see these for Al Qaeda.
Guest:Like these are from like Zero Dark Thirty.
Guest:They show like, look, I think Bin Laden was coming in and out of the compound here.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So they alleged that I tried to hide my identity by switching shirts or removing a hat.
Guest:They're opening remarks by the plaintiff.
Guest:And I'm asked if I have any open remarks.
Guest:And I honestly felt like saying, again, just like Joe Pesci, except this time from my cousin Vinny, that, yeah, everything they said was bullshit.
Guest:However, I tried to stay professional, let them know that no ill intent was happening.
Guest:Again, hoping for a slap on the wrist, right?
Guest:They called witnesses to the stand.
Guest:An administrative worker who saw me leave multiple times and I knew this motherfucker was clocking me because he was giving me like just like the evil eye, just like this bald, white, bearded motherfucker.
Guest:Anyway, he would say that, you know, he would see me every shift and I would leave before the amount of time.
Guest:They also called the fucking video guy.
Guest:who was hired to, to look at the surveillance and, and, you know, mark and take pictures of the video of me actually.
Guest:If you had only given to calico cut pants, you would have, that guy would have been on your side because he gives.
Guest:So when they asked me to testify, I threw myself on the mercy of the court and explained that I didn't know about the time stipulation and explained that I wasn't hiding my identity.
Guest:I simply got sweaty walking up and down stairs and cleaning toilets and that I wanted to change.
Guest:So there's a mountain of evidence at this point piling up against me.
Guest:They call the recess to talk amongst themselves.
Guest:And by the way, these fucking judges, there was like a nice judge who was like, don't worry, it's going to be fine.
Guest:And then like a serious judge who would just be shaking his head the entire time.
Guest:And then just like...
Guest:Another judge who was just kind of like fined, like, you know, I don't know.
Guest:We'll see what happens.
Guest:Five minutes later, they call us back in and told me that I was found guilty and banned for life from the Park Slope Co-op.
Guest:Now it's at this point that they told me that every member of my household was also banned for life from the grocery store.
Guest:So I am now panicked.
Guest:I am begging them to spare my wife as she has nothing to do with these crimes.
Guest:Also...
Guest:Slap on the wrist, warning, nothing.
Guest:They told me, oh, that's a great idea.
Guest:We may think about doing warnings in the future, but because previously there were no warnings, you're banned for life from this place.
Guest:So they also told me that since we're living together, my wife and I, there's no way for them to reconsider.
Guest:I then started to lie and say that we were on rocky ground and going to separate any day.
Guest:Nope, their decision is final.
Guest:And that is how I got us banned for life from the Park Slope Co-op.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:That's my story.
Guest:I mean, it's a great story because I have so many questions.
Guest:Shoot, what do you got?
Guest:All right.
Guest:So the first thing is, with all these witnesses, where were the motherfuckers from your staff who you also got to finish their work so quickly?
Guest:So I didn't realize that this was going to be such a serious crime.
Guest:Again, I thought it was going to be a slap on the wrist, like a warning.
Guest:But I told them, I was like, guys, I'm the crew manager.
Guest:Like...
Guest:I, you could ask anyone that works with me.
Guest:Like, well, we're not asking them.
Guest:We're asking you.
Guest:And I was, I was just, I was fucked, man.
Guest:I was just completely fucked.
Guest:But what did they say to the idea that you were like, but I, my whole thing was, I thought I needed to get everything just done.
Guest:Did they said, they said, no, in, in the contract that you signed, there's a two hour, 45 minute, uh, time, uh, allowance.
Guest:And did they ever say what you were supposed to do if you got done in 45 minutes?
Yeah.
Guest:No, they said you're just supposed to do your job and be there for two hours and 45 minutes.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah, no way around it.
Guest:You know whose story this matches up with perfectly?
Guest:Who's that?
Guest:You are Larry David when he worked at SNL.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yes, when he was a writer at SNL.
Guest:that he tells this story that like he came in and, you know, it was like, okay, the show, you know, it's Tuesday or whatever shows on Saturday.
Guest:And here's some of the things we're working on.
Guest:He pitched things and whatever.
Guest:And it's like Tuesday, he comes into work.
Guest:Nobody's there, whatever.
Guest:He doesn't give a shit.
Guest:He doesn't like anybody.
Guest:So he just sits down and he writes all his scripts.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then it's like midnight and,
Guest:And he's going home and he's like waiting at the elevator.
Guest:And one of the producers is like, where are you going?
Guest:And he's like home.
Guest:I did.
Guest:I worked all day.
Guest:I've been here like all day long.
Guest:And they were like, oh, you know, but we do like an all nighter on Tuesday.
Guest:Like this is a, this is how we've always done it.
Guest:And he's like, yeah, it ain't how I'm going to do it.
Guest:Like,
Guest:And, and he contends that that like basically got him like put on the outs with the SNL brain trust.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Looks good on you though.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:So yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:The other thing I have to say, and this is going to come out a little harsh.
Guest:And so I hope you forgive me.
Guest:I hope she forgives me, but this is to your lovely wife, Aaron.
Guest:Who I'm very fond of.
Guest:I was in your wedding party.
Guest:Aaron is a great, wonderful, lovely person.
Guest:Bring it.
Guest:You can bring it.
Guest:She brought this on herself.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:100%.
Guest:All she had to do was keep going to the grocery store.
Guest:She could have cut cheese in the basement for the rest of her life.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:100%.
Guest:I did not have to be there.
Guest:What was she thinking?
Guest:She knows who I am.
Guest:Like, why would she think this is a good idea?
Guest:Like, I don't.
Guest:But also beyond that, it's like, not only was it not a good idea, you then went and did like an extra good job.
Guest:The job you did was so good.
Guest:You got both of you kicked out of this place.
Guest:Also, can I just say, this place sucks, okay?
Guest:I actually went to this co-op.
Guest:Like, the third date I had with my wife, we went to, like, the park.
Guest:We actually met up with her sister and her boyfriend at the time.
Guest:Had a lovely time.
Guest:We went to dinner.
Guest:We came to the Park Slope Food Co-op.
Guest:And can I tell you, I went in there as a visitor.
Guest:And I was just like...
Guest:All right, well, this place is weird.
Guest:I'm going to leave now.
Guest:I'm going to leave all of you here.
Guest:I'm just going to go home, so bye.
Guest:And her boyfriend at the time was like, well, that's the last time we're seeing that guy because this place is fucking nuts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I mean, a great story.
Guest:I'm very glad you did it here.
Guest:I think if you did it on This American Life or The Moth, those shows are listened to, I think, by 97 percent of the membership of the Park Slope Food Co-op.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And and you would have probably hurt their listenership.
Guest:Because there would have been a war would have been created amongst the listeners of those shows who had been so angry that you did this.
Guest:And then there would have been another group that were going to tear up their membership cards in solidarity.
Guest:Which might have been part of my plan, I'll be honest with you.
Guest:Honestly, no, I can't.
Guest:You're a better man than I. Because I would have left there and I would have been like, I'm going to spend every waking moment of my life figuring out how to shut this place down.
Guest:like i would like vengeance would be mine food inspectors yeah oh yeah yeah you you are done by the way did i ever tell you that story no you never told me that amazing i can't believe i never told you that story no i figured it was some like deep shame as you were starting the story out but it's no it's more like a comedy of errors
Guest:Yes, it was.
Guest:Yeah, it's my one story.
Guest:I feel like I've told it a bunch.
Guest:And I just, yeah, it's quite indicative of who I am.
Guest:And my wife, who's like a Girl Scout or Boy Scout.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, yeah.
Guest:And she married just the worst person imaginable to ruin her time at the grocery store.
Guest:I hope you guys are enjoying Trader Joe's, where everyone can go without having to be a fucking janitor.
Guest:Why do I have to be a janitor?
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Hey, Chris.
Guest:Brandon, last night there was a man in my house.
Guest:I fought with this man.
Guest:He had a mechanical arm.
Guest:You find that man.
Guest:Happy anniversary, buddy.
Guest:Thank you, dude.
Guest:Holy cow.
Guest:It is 30 years since the glorious, glorious film, The Fugitive, entered our lives.
Guest:And I did celebrate.
Guest:I celebrated as though it was like a celebration of my own ilk, my own people.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:And how did you celebrate?
Guest:Well, for one, I read that awesome Rolling Stone piece that was like an oral history of the fugitive, which was sent around on a text chain that we were on.
Guest:Did you read that?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I gobbled that up.
Guest:And I really just made it a meal because I didn't want it to go too fast.
Guest:but man, I read it like over the course of a day.
Guest:I started it and then I stopped it because I wanted to watch the fugitive.
Guest:So I fired up max and watched it and then I continued on and it was just delicious.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I mean,
Guest:I've known a lot about the movie since it came out.
Guest:It's one of my favorite movies ever.
Guest:And I, there was still so much in that piece that I never knew.
Guest:There was insight about the making of the movie.
Guest:That was amazing.
Guest:Tommy Lee Jones was participating in the interview.
Guest:So it was great.
Guest:Like he was saying exactly what was going through his mind with the thing.
Guest:It was fantastic.
Guest:It was like just what I've always hoped about the fugitive.
Guest:For sure.
Guest:I mean, I don't know.
Guest:Let's tell people we have a history with this movie, not just our own enjoyment of it.
Guest:But I mean, I love the movie since it came out.
Guest:I saw it in theaters.
Guest:Oh, you did?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I saw it in theaters and then I had it on VHS and watched it all the time.
Guest:And then I think when I got to college, I met like-minded people who were also like, oh, that's one of your favorite movies, one of my favorite movies, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, we just put it on all the time.
Guest:It could possibly be the movie I've watched the most in my life.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:For me, I watched it on HBO back in the day.
Guest:I didn't go to the theaters to see it.
Guest:It was on HBO, saw it there, loved it, bought it on VHS.
Guest:My brother worked at Blockbuster Video, so I was able to buy it.
Guest:And my brother had, like, an early version of the DVD and, like,
Guest:It was one of those DVDs, I believe it had like a little folder or a little pocket.
Guest:The plastic clip.
Guest:Yeah, the plastic clip that was so stupid.
Guest:Under the plastic clip and it was a cardboard box.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:This was one of the biggest blockbusters of all time.
Guest:And it came out in this thing that was a cardboard box with a plastic flap.
Yes.
Guest:Which just instantly I'm like, what is this?
Guest:If it gets wet, it's just ruined.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But yeah.
Guest:So I burned out the DVD.
Guest:I used to I used to put this this movie on when I wanted to go to bed.
Guest:Like like, OK, it's bedtime.
Guest:I'm going to put something on that I know.
Guest:I just pop in the fugitive and and let that music and the score drift me off to sleep.
Guest:Yeah, it's like a nice blanket.
Guest:It's a perfect thing to put on at bedtime, I think.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all your friends are there.
Guest:Your U.S.
Guest:Marshals crew that you've come to know and love.
Guest:No, it's the greatest.
Guest:I remember I saw it in the movie theater with my parents and we left buzzing like we were.
Guest:Like as a family, we were like, that was so great.
Guest:And we were like quoting dialogue to each other the whole time.
Guest:I remember seeing my grandfather, who was like, you know, a jaded old New York union man.
Guest:But he went to the movies all the time and theater and everything.
Guest:And, you know, I remember seeing him say, Grandpa, did you see any movies lately?
Guest:And he was like, oh, yeah, I saw that fugitive.
Guest:You got your money's worth with that one.
Guest:No way.
Guest:And I always remember that.
Guest:Then I was like, yeah, that was the thing.
Guest:You paid your money and every minute delivered of that movie.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:And that Rolling Stone oral history is great.
Guest:First of all, it starts off with talking about all these Oscar bait movies like The Piano, Age of Innocence, and The Joy Luck Club.
Guest:Guess what?
Guest:I still haven't seen any of those movies.
Guest:But you know what I have seen is The Fugitive 50,000 times.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, the other great thing in that Rolling Stone piece was about how big of a disaster they thought the movie was.
Guest:Like, while they were making it, it had no script.
Guest:It was like the pages were being done in real time.
Guest:And then they were improv-ing so much of the movie, which it feels like.
Guest:Like, that's one of the great joys of the movie is that it's like –
Guest:like lived in feeling where you're like, Oh, these people all know each other.
Guest:Tommy Lee Jones has this great insight about the, the character building at the time that he said, you know, he, he was hanging out with a deputy U S Marshall.
Guest:And he said, the one thing he noticed was how much this dude loved his job.
Guest:He like loved it.
Guest:He was, it was a joy to him to be a U S Marshall.
Guest:And he told all the guys and the woman who were playing U S Marshalls, Hey,
Guest:we just have to have fun.
Guest:Like that's what this guy, he has fun at his job and we got to do the same thing.
Guest:And you feel it immediately.
Guest:As soon as that crew shows up, you're like, oh, these people, A, know what they're doing.
Guest:B, they're awesome.
Guest:And C, can I join the U.S.
Guest:Marshals?
Yeah.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Also, I love that Harrison Ford watches the movie Under Siege, a movie that was a guilty pleasure for me as a kid.
Guest:Great movie.
Guest:And I love that he sees Under Siege and is like, oh, yeah, the guy that directed this should totally be making The Fugitive.
Guest:And I just, I can't believe those two movies are connected that way.
Guest:I can't believe Harrison Ford watched Under Siege, honestly.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I can tell you this.
Guest:I have watched a double feature of Under Siege and then The Fugitive.
Guest:And it makes total sense.
Guest:Like they are compatible movies.
Guest:There are tons of people from The Fugitive who are in Under Siege.
Guest:First of all, like that guy, that director clearly was like, I like to
Guest:working with that guy put him in the fugitive and so you see fugitive people all over under siege it is one million percent tommy lee jones's movie despite the fact that steven seagal is on the poster like these the people making under siege new like and somebody in that rolling stone piece says it like yeah we knew we had the worst actor in the world so instead we just relied on tommy lee jones for everything which is wonderful
Guest:Yeah, well, the other thing that is part of our shared history with this movie is that we went to an epically failed screening of The Fugitive.
Guest:We did.
Guest:So let me tell this story, if you don't mind.
Guest:So we go to what is billed as The Fugitive 35mm screening at the Alamo Draft House in Brooklyn.
Guest:So we meet up for drinks at their House of Wax Bar.
Guest:And I mention it because I think it's going to become relevant, honestly, later on that we had a couple of drinks in us.
Guest:So it's time to go to the movie.
Guest:We make with our drinks into the theater.
Guest:The movie begins and it's humming along.
Guest:Richard's on the bus.
Guest:bus going to prison.
Guest:The bus tips over onto the train tracks.
Guest:The train's coming.
Guest:The other prisoner says, the hell with you, Doc.
Guest:Richard pushes the injured guard to safety.
Guest:Richard's about to jump off the bus.
Guest:Very iconic scene coming up.
Guest:All of a sudden, we cut to wreckage.
Guest:Someone cut out of the 35mm print, the iconic bus jump scene.
Guest:And the crowd is murmuring.
Guest:We, personally, shriek out like we just saw a dead body.
And
Guest:But the movie, like, somehow continues on.
Guest:Like, we're befuddled, we're talking, we're just like, what the fuck?
Guest:But fine, we'll press on.
Guest:I'll tell you, at the time, I thought it was an accidental reel skip.
Guest:You know, like how sometimes when you're switching from reel to reel, there's a little overlap.
Guest:I thought because, okay, it's 35mm, they're inexperienced here, they've skipped too soon.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so we just, but they accidentally skipped at the most vital part.
Guest:So, but, but I, you know, you're right.
Guest:We were like freaked out.
Guest:And then you're right.
Guest:We just were like, okay, all right, we'll settle down.
Guest:The rest of the movie's coming.
Guest:Let's just watch the rest of the movies.
Guest:It's still an hour and a half to go.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:So we get to the scene where Tommy Lee Jones calls for a hard target search.
Guest:And as he's about to say the famous monologue, the scene cuts to the next day, the tow truck driver getting out of his truck and we all freak the fuck out.
Guest:At this point, the movie stops and someone from the theater apologizes.
Guest:Apparently the print had been altered to which I yell out.
Guest:And by the way, we're in the back of the theater, right?
Guest:We're the very last row.
Guest:Very.
Guest:last row far corner I'm yelling top of my lungs you switch the samples and as if I'm Richard Kimball at the end of the movie the guy looks over to me confused to which I say again you switch the samples as long as I can
Guest:He picks up what I'm saying and then just continues on addressing the rest of the theater.
Guest:And then you say, did you kill Lenz too?
Guest:As loud as you can.
Guest:This person is now rattled.
Guest:All right.
Guest:As if we're accusing this person of murder.
Guest:And were somehow the only people yelling in the theater?
Guest:I didn't really ever register or understand why no one else was.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Why wasn't everyone yelling?
Guest:Make your own movie up at that point.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So they offer everyone free movie tickets, free food, I think, and hope that the rest of the movie's intact.
Guest:Well, it's not.
Guest:Everything.
Guest:Famous scene from The Fugitive is cut out.
Guest:We're watching the lowlights version of The Fugitive.
Guest:I didn't kill my wife.
Guest:I don't care.
Guest:Cut.
Guest:The jump from the dam, gone.
Guest:Tommy Lee Jones shooting at Kimball on St.
Guest:Patrick's Day vanished.
Guest:We heckled the shit out of this movie the entire time.
Guest:The ending was void of any, the entire roof sequence, gone from the movie.
Yeah.
Guest:After the movie, we and after the booing of the screen, the lights come up.
Guest:And again, the guy apologizes and says, hey, we can't leave until we see the bus crash sequence.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they pulled a digital copy and queued it up.
Guest:And first of all, like a Blu-ray in the projector.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or they bought it up from iTunes and then you showed it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think they literally said we're going to pop in the Blu-ray.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, first of all, the screen shows up, and it's much louder than the shitty 35mm we were just sitting through.
Guest:And it looked immaculate.
Guest:It looked so good.
Guest:Incredibly rich.
Guest:And so, we're screaming, why didn't you just play this the entire time?
Guest:We had to sit through this garbage.
Guest:And just as a coda for this start...
Guest:All this happened with the two of us and one of my brand new co-workers that I had recently met for the first time told him that, you know, I had an extra ticket to this screening.
Guest:He was in town from like Mississippi or something like that.
Guest:He was very polite and quiet.
Guest:And here we are, these two New Yorkers yelling at the screen.
Guest:Screaming at the screen.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:accusing them of switching samples and killing leads.
Guest:Needless to say, we gave that guy a very good story to go home with.
Guest:Also, never saw that guy ever again in my entire life.
Guest:Are you serious?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I have never seen that man before in my life.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:oh my god that's even better so this guy just showed up you invite him to the the lowlights version of the fugitive and then never see or hear from him again it's like homer going to new york city and just being behind the trash uh you know the the garbage truck on the way home he's just like yeah yes
Guest:Never go in there.
Guest:That place is fucked up.
Guest:Now I want to go to Mississippi just to see if this story has made it through the wild.
Guest:Like in lore.
Guest:Don't fuck with New Yorkers and the fugitive apparently.
Guest:They get mad.
Guest:And then I wound up having a second failed...
Guest:Screening experience of The Fugitive.
Guest:How is this possible?
Guest:Again, a 35 millimeter print.
Guest:It wasn't as egregious as this situation because it wasn't that someone vandalized the print.
Guest:It was that the projector kept dying.
Guest:And I don't know if that's because they, you know, you got to use something different for film than you use for a digital projection, right?
Guest:These things get old and then they don't, you know, change the bulbs or whatever.
Guest:And this thing just kept...
Guest:Like it would, you'd be watching it and then all, and then the light would go out and then the theater lights would come up.
Guest:Oh no.
Guest:And it did it like three times.
Guest:And this was a gift from my son for Christmas.
Guest:He said, dad, I want to take you to your favorite movie.
Guest:And so he took me to the fugitive and we sat there and had that happen three times.
Guest:And then I turned to him and I said, it's okay.
Guest:We can go home and watch it.
Guest:It's on HBO.
Oh no.
Guest:I was still pretty furious.
Guest:So sad.
Guest:What a sad story that is.
Guest:Your son's Christmas gift to you.
Guest:The thing that you love to do the most.
Guest:Go to the movies.
Guest:Watch this movie.
Guest:And it was ruined by a 35 millimeter projector.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it does bring us to Dr. Nichols, who we should talk about for a second.
Guest:First of all, the fact that this Dutch guy, who's a great actor, I love this guy, and of course he would have gotten selected, because if you look at his IMDb, he was just always popping up in the late 80s, early 90s.
Guest:And so they had an actor who then had a fatal brain tumor and he had to leave the set after he'd already shot a bunch of scenes.
Guest:But they go and they get this guy, Euron Krabby, I think is how he says his name, although I'm not entirely sure.
Guest:I just call him Dr. Nichols whenever I see him.
Guest:Uh, we also, I used to call him even before he was known as Dr. Nichols, when he would pop up in things, I would call him the model.
Guest:Cause he reminded me of Rick, the model Martell.
Guest:Oh, look, it's the model.
Guest:Uh, but, but, uh, but yeah, so Dr. Nichols is, is, you know, this guy jumps into the role.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:He plays the part great.
Guest:He's slimy enough.
Guest:And, uh, but, but, you know, and insincere enough, but the thing that I can never get over about Dr. Nichols is,
Guest:What's that?
Guest:This guy is a sick fuck.
Guest:He is a sicker fuck than Hannibal Lecter, than Leatherface.
Guest:And you know why?
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because if you go watch that scene when Tommy Lee Jones and Joey Pants come to interrogate him, Dr. Nichols is sitting there and on the desk behind him is a picture of him and Dr. Richard Kimball taking the night.
Guest:When Dr. Nichols arranged to have Richard Kimball's wife killed and Richard Kimball framed for murder.
Guest:So he knows he did that.
Guest:He is pretending that he didn't.
Guest:And meanwhile, every day he goes into his office and he looks at that picture and he's like, yeah, I fucking did right there.
Guest:100% was the orb that Crusher skull not available?
Guest:Like, just unbelievable.
Guest:Well, I think basically, too, he was probably planning to have Richard killed, right?
Guest:Yes, that's the thing.
Guest:He didn't know that Richard was going to get a phone call and go back to the place.
Guest:So they thought they were going to kill Richard, just like he was going to kill Lentz.
Guest:Instead, the wife is brutally murdered and Richard is going to be put to death.
Guest:That's like and his entire legacy is that he's a wife killer now.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Not a vascular surgeon.
Guest:The actual thing that Dr. Nichols planned to do to kill these two doctors.
Guest:Now it's way worse.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like it was a much more horrible thing that happened.
Guest:And he's still like, you know what I'd like?
Guest:I'd like to be reminded that I did that shit every single day when I go to my office.
Guest:I'm going to sit in my swivel desk and I was going to look at that picture.
Guest:I ruined a guy's life and just murdered a woman.
Guest:I mean, that is.
Guest:And now he's going to be put to death.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He's on death forever.
Guest:Row.
Guest:That guy is a psychopath.
Guest:Yes, you're totally right.
Guest:He has a picture, a framed picture of that night.
Guest:Oh, chilling, honestly.
Guest:Really chilling stuff.
Guest:Okay, so on to the best thing we saw in wrestling this week.
Guest:And now, you should know something about me and Chris doing this show.
Guest:We don't talk about this ahead of time.
Guest:We want to kind of surprise each other with what our best thing in wrestling is.
Guest:And we really don't talk about what we're going to do on the show other than topic-wise.
Guest:Hey, we'll talk about The Fugitive a little bit.
Guest:We'll talk about the Montreal Screwjob.
Guest:Okay, got it.
Guest:We don't want to burn our ideas talking to each other.
Guest:And this week, we both said, oh, we've got to talk about this one thing.
Guest:And I said, well, yeah, I'm going to talk about it.
Guest:But here's the thing.
Guest:It's my best thing in wrestling this week.
Guest:And I believe, Chris, your response was that I was your shirt brother and that you had it as your best thing in wrestling this week, too.
Guest:Which is important for us to note, because it's not actually something that was produced by any wrestling company.
Guest:No.
No.
Guest:But the best thing in wrestling that I saw this past week was the Alabama waterfront brawl.
Guest:And if you don't know what I'm talking about, just Google those three words.
Guest:It also means you have not been on social media for a week and God bless you.
Guest:But the reality is this was basically wrestling at its core, at its most fundamental.
Guest:The Alabama Waterfront Brawl was professional wrestling.
Guest:And I'm interested for you, Chris, why it to you was your best thing in wrestling you saw this week.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Well, first of all, the version that I saw initially of the brawl had a shit ton of wrestling commentary and music.
Guest:There was there was someone doing commentary.
Guest:I want to say his name.
Guest:I don't.
Guest:It's like Mike or Mick Tyson.
Guest:So I watched his commentary and there were Nation of Domination references, Survivor and Royal Rumble call outs.
Guest:Ultimate Warrior and Stone Cold Steve Austin music.
Guest:The person doing commentary, you are just fantastic.
Guest:I need you to do commentary on more stuff.
Guest:I'm following them on Twitter now.
Guest:I love him.
Guest:He is just fantastic.
Guest:But what it is, is...
Guest:Just a bunch of white people on a dock in Alabama and they're jumping a black person.
Guest:And then heroic black people who jumped and swam to save this person.
Guest:And it's quite literally as good as the fugitive train scene.
Guest:And it is most definitely the best thing I saw this week.
Guest:Well, here's the thing.
Guest:All that, everything you said is true.
Guest:And I also did wind up seeing that same thing, a guy named Corey, who did the commentary over this.
Guest:And it's hilarious.
Guest:And he definitely made a lot of allusions to wrestling.
Guest:But I think it's more than those surface level connections with wrestling.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I think it explains wrestling.
Guest:Tell me more.
Guest:And here's why.
Guest:Because, okay, what happened in this... Let me start it by saying this.
Guest:The first thing I saw about this waterfront brawl was somebody clipped out a video, and it was like the part where everyone is brawling right in front of the big boat, the riverboat, and it just looks terrible, like a terrible brawl, and...
Guest:Every now and then you see this kind of stuff on social media where people are like luxuriating and terrible violence.
Guest:And I fucking hate it.
Guest:Like the worst of humanity getting summed up and like, you know, then then it gets put on Fox News.
Guest:And it's I had no patience for this scrolling past.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What just look like a terrible brawl to me.
Guest:And I want to know part of it.
Guest:Then I saw somebody put up a video that was just the first five minutes before any punch was thrown.
Guest:And you see everything that happens with these boats.
Guest:And what happened was this riverboat was trying to dock.
Guest:It could not for like multiple minutes.
Guest:It was trying to dock.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And this crew member on the riverboat takes a small vessel to the dock and is trying.
Guest:Apparently, they had told these white people that were in these pontoons that they had to move the boats and the white people were just ignoring them.
Guest:Now they're drunk.
Guest:They look all sunburned.
Guest:They've been out for the day on the water like these are these are people who are not going to be agreeable.
Guest:Forget about the racial dynamics in Alabama.
Guest:They were not going to be agreeable probably to anyone.
Guest:But then this black crew member goes over there and he's trying to move the boat himself.
Guest:And that is apparently what starts the ruckus.
Guest:And you're watching this guy and he's like defending himself.
Guest:But he's clearly just pointing to the boats, telling them to move them.
Guest:Never once do you watch this guy posture in any way that he's threatening to these people.
Guest:Like he is one million percent in the right.
Guest:Just trying to do his job.
Guest:Just trying to do his job.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Just trying to do his job.
Guest:So if you're watching this, I don't care what color you are.
Guest:Unless you're a stone cold racist.
Guest:You're like, well, this guy's right.
Guest:And these people are already wrong.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Before a single punch is thrown.
Guest:Then some fucking dude...
Guest:And runs from the pontoon and sucker punches this guy, this crew member.
Guest:And then multiple other dudes who were with that guy come and jump the crew guy as well to the point where you can count heads.
Guest:It's six on one, whether they're all six thrown punches at the guy or not.
Guest:It's six on one.
Guest:And at that point, you start to see a black dude come down the ramp.
Guest:You start to see the guy jump in the water and swim after him.
Guest:And somehow, it gets evened up.
Guest:There are at least six black dudes suddenly on that pier.
Guest:And I thought to myself, this is what War Games is.
Guest:The whole premise...
Guest:of war games is that the baby faces are at a disadvantage until the time interval ends.
Guest:And then when they have the, the even odds, the baby faces can win.
Guest:And that is wrestling in a nutshell, because the whole idea is like people have been watching fights since the moment you could clench a fist, right?
Guest:Since the moment evolution occurred where you could make a fist and punch a person and
Guest:Everyone wanted to watch that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's a human impulse.
Guest:It's not going to go away.
Guest:And one of the things that happened was like combat sports were invented because people like to watch that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Goes back to primitive cultures.
Guest:They were doing that.
Guest:And then in modern culture, we had sports around combat, boxing and martial arts, all of that kind of stuff somewhere along the line.
Guest:Somebody figured out if we manipulate these combats, we can make it so people are watching and paying us money because their emotions get invested in this.
Guest:It's not just a random thing where a guy fights another guy.
Guest:It has to have an emotional reason behind it.
Guest:Well, you watch this video of these white guys in Alabama.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:jump a black guy who's just doing his job you know who the good guy and who the bad guys are totally right away and you also know that with this guy being outnumbered well he's in trouble yeah but as soon as the odds are even
Guest:the bad guys free yes they run away and you know what happens when they run away they still get their asses beat yes and that is what would happen if bobby the brain heenan started running up the aisle because all his cheating backfired then some guy would grab him and throw him back in and hulk hogan would kick his ass that's
Guest:That is the core of wrestling.
Guest:The core of wrestling is when it's an unfair fight, the bad guys win because they're bad.
Guest:But when the fight is even, the good guys win because they're good.
Guest:And I have never...
Guest:seen something so clearly represented in the wild as this where you're like well i am pissed right now because i'm watching bad guys be bad and they are outnumbering this dude and winning and wait a minute oh hang on the fight is now even game on good guys win right like so clear that this was wrestling
Guest:What is that, sarsaparilla?
Guest:Sioux City sarsaparilla?
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:No.
Guest:It's just water.
Guest:I go off with a little WTF thing on it.
Guest:The outline made it look like a beer bottle.
Guest:So I was like, oh, it must be a sarsaparilla.
Guest:That's a big beer bottle.
Guest:Wait a minute, what?
Guest:Why if it looks like a beer bottle, must it be sarsaparilla?
Guest:A, it's 1.30, you have a kid.
Guest:Well, that's fine, but there's like five things before sarsaparilla, I would think.
Guest:Also, sarsaparilla is just a delightful thing to say.
Guest:It's a nice thing to say, and to drink.
Guest:Yes, but it tickles the tongue, you know?
Guest:I always loved sarsaparilla when I was a kid.
Yeah.
Guest:the sarsaparilla gets so much play right now it's so fun i was partial to cream soda myself oh me too yes but the sarsaparilla was rare like you didn't get it very often yeah yeah you get it at like a restaurant or when i when i grew up you'd go into a general store like yes that's where that's where they had them
Guest:What a strange name for a store.
Guest:General.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Do you have a specialty?
Guest:Not really.
Guest:Just general stuff.
Guest:The general store.
Guest:Weren't very inventive or just specific back then.
Guest:It's just generally a good store.
Guest:But no.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:There's no value judgment either.
Guest:It's the general store.
Guest:Could be good or bad.
Guest:It doesn't matter.
Guest:It just generally has what you need.
Guest:yeah they weren't admin yeah well what's funny is there were must have been other stores around the general store that were not general and so the general store was like whoa go to that one they're more likely to have it yeah also like i see an opening there's no general store
Guest:There's a specialty store for, like, hardware.
Guest:Oh, so many of those.
Guest:There's one for your horse's shoes.
Guest:There's one for a guy who makes tombstones.
Guest:But general... I also like the idea that, you know, it's just a store for generals.
Guest:Right, like, sorry, are you a private?
Guest:No, there's another one of those.
Guest:It's a private store down the street.
Guest:why is this so stupid and funny uh all right well that was recorded at least so that's good yeah sure
Marc:There you go.
Marc:The Friday show is available exclusively for full Marin subscribers every week to hear all the full Marin bonus episodes and get every WTF episode ad free subscribe by clicking the link in the episode description.
Marc:Just click on it in whatever podcast player you're using right now or sign up at WTF pod.com by clicking WTF plus see you on Thursday for episode 1500 of WTF.
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