BONUS The Friday Show - Lions and Mayors and Mail, Oh My!
Guest:They're like, OK, now the part where you're going to get knocked out of the boat is because you'll come around the bend of a river and there's a bunch of lions there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I guess the only thing they could do was just like sail the boat right over to the lions.
Guest:And so the lions are on the bank of the river and they're just like, well, let's knock these fuckers out of the boat.
Yeah.
Guest:Hey, Chris.
Guest:Ho, ho, ho, Brendan.
Guest:How's it going?
Guest:It's great.
Guest:You know, it's New York City.
Guest:Anything could happen today.
Guest:A plane could crash into the trade towers or a business could open up.
Guest:You know, you never can predict it, according to our mayor.
Guest:Come on down.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Come on down.
Guest:No, like I need to jump in right away here because some people are like, what the fuck are these guys talking about?
Guest:If you don't live here, maybe you've seen this because it definitely kind of went viral.
Guest:But here in New York City, our illustrious mayor, Eric Adams, he found himself on the Channel 11 Sunday morning news show this past week.
Guest:That alone, it's like, this is not Meet the Press guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:This was Channel 11, WPIX.
Guest:It's like where I grew up watching Little Rascals.
Guest:Like, this is not...
Guest:You're not on face the nation.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's no gotcha questions here.
Guest:No.
Guest:In fact, the question was the softballiest softball question you could ever get.
Guest:He was asked, what word would you use to describe 2023?
Guest:Shall I read his answer?
Guest:Please.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:What word would you use to describe 2023?
Guest:Eric Adams said New York.
Guest:Okay, hold on a sec.
Marc:Paw.
Marc:You're already more than one word.
Guest:More than one word.
Guest:Also...
Guest:That's the word he would use to describe a year.
Guest:That's the two words he would use to describe a year.
Guest:New York.
Marc:Well, you know, they asked the mayor of Newark and he said Rhode Island.
Marc:So I don't know.
Marc:Everybody just loves two words and a place.
Guest:That's what you think of when you think of a year, I guess.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So he says his word is New York.
Guest:And he goes on to say...
Guest:This is a place where every day you wake up, you could experience everything from a plane crashing into our trade center to a person who's celebrating a new business that's open.
Marc:wow first of all knock on wood for both of those scenarios um also was was he recently like listening to and i i i forgive me for bringing this back up but dennis leary's uh no cure for cancer where he says there are so many ways to die in new york city drive-by shootings like
Marc:Like asbestos shooting into the sky.
Marc:Like what is going on right now in his head?
Guest:I just also love that the two sides of the coin here are 9-11 and I opened a bodega.
Guest:But he also closed it out by saying, this is a very, very complicated city, and that's why it's the greatest city on the globe.
Guest:I mean, there's a couple of ways I would describe a city where if your options were a jumbo jetliner crashes into you, or you maybe, you know, have a new job.
Guest:Like, the greatest isn't one of them.
Guest:Like...
Marc:terrifying they're both kind of terrifying to be honest yeah like like uh hieronymus bosch painting sure i mean like any of those things i mean it's it's on par with elon musk saying go fuck yourself to uh to advertise to all the advertisers sitting there yeah like you had yeah you maybe could have said anything else and been okay
Marc:Exhilarating.
Marc:Exciting.
Marc:Not, I mean, does he wake up every morning thinking, oh, did 9-11 happen again?
Marc:Did it?
Marc:And he looks outside.
Marc:Nope, nope.
Marc:We're all good.
Marc:Just another day in New York.
Right.
Guest:But, you know, it's also... I think it's that a guy like him, he is not a very impressive dude.
Guest:I think that he has this macro.
Guest:It's this, like, switch that whenever you're asked about anything, just say New York.
Guest:Use that as a chance to talk about, like, how crazy New York is.
Guest:It's, like, the most unique place in the world.
Guest:And so the guy was clearly trying to get him to describe this past year, which, like...
Guest:tumultuous right like there's lots of and i think like eric adams kind of realized like well i shouldn't be celebrating 2023 but i already answered new york so i have to give a response that's about how like new york is complicated just like the year 2023 was well what's complicated about new york well
Guest:There's great things here.
Guest:But also 2,000 people got killed in a gigantic skyscraper.
Guest:So why don't I combine those two things?
Guest:That's my answer.
Marc:I mean, you can't think of another terrible situation.
Marc:Like, I don't know.
Marc:You can't go out and you can't get a cab.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Good Lord, man.
Guest:Well, you know, it's juxtaposed with the fact that just recently I saw Pablo Guzman.
Guest:Do you remember him from the news?
Guest:He was like a street reporter.
Guest:You'd see, I think it was on like Channel 2 all the time.
Guest:Pablo Guzman.
Guest:He'd always be out there in like a trench coat and that.
Guest:This guy died.
Guest:And I'm reading the obits about him.
Guest:And he was like in the 70s.
Guest:He was like...
Guest:He was the founder of the Young Lords, which was like, you know, it's a gang in the Bronx who like are pretty responsible for like getting more attention to the South Bronx.
Guest:Like they did like garbage strikes and stuff like that.
Guest:And then reading about him being in with the Young Lords.
Guest:And there's a quote from Geraldo Rivera.
Guest:like talking about him being in the Young Lords.
Guest:And it says like, you know, he was like, yeah, he would command attention because he, you know, had a good style about him that probably suited him well when he became a reporter.
Guest:And it was like, says Geraldo Rivera, his lawyer in the Young Lords who himself became a television personality.
Guest:And I was like...
Guest:like we need like a better class of public facing new yorkers because like anytime you read about like somebody from the 70s 80s even 90s new york like they were these crazy characters and now we got this guy who can't even answer what what how what's what do you how do you describe the past year the last 12 months um
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I'll go pick out the worst terrorist attack on U.S.
Guest:soil.
Guest:That's how I'll describe the last 12 months.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Does the current mayor of Honolulu say, well, the past year, you know.
Marc:A total Pearl Harbor job.
Yes.
Marc:You could have.
Marc:It really got us by surprise this 2023.
Marc:You could have a kamikaze on a boat.
Marc:You can have a kamikaze at the bar.
Marc:So it's a real...
Guest:Well, what I think about 2023, it's like a luau or drowning in the middle of the ocean.
Marc:Just like brain worms on Eric Adams there.
Marc:Holy cow.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:There was a great thing also in that Pablo Guzman obit.
Guest:It said he liked to tell a story about covering a visit by Nelson Mandela, then the president of South Africa, coming to New York in the 1990s.
Guest:At one point, a member of the Mandela delegation told him that Mr. Mandela wanted to speak to Mr. Guzman privately.
Guest:And the quote here from Pablo Guzman back in the day says, my ego was jumping.
Guest:All the other reporters thought I had the inside track.
Guest:So I went over to him and he wanted to ask me about John Gotti.
Marc:No way.
Marc:That's amazing.
Guest:As do we all.
Guest:It's a fascination that crosses oceans, crosses borderlines.
Marc:Amazing.
Marc:What did he want to know about John Gotti?
Marc:Just like, is that guy real?
Guest:Well, Pablo Guzman was famously on the John Gotti beat.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, he was the primary John Gotti reporter.
Guest:He was doing every night stand-ups outside the courthouse.
Guest:Yeah, so he was like Mr. John Gotti.
Guest:Wild.
Guest:So, hey, this past week on WTF, I don't know if you happened to listen to Monday's episode, but what Mark was talking about in the intro was his appearance on the Doug Benson show out in L.A., Benson Interruption, and they watched the movie Roar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Had you ever heard about that before?
Guest:No.
Marc:And you very nicely sent me the link to it.
Marc:And it is some weird fucking shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Mark did not undersell it.
Guest:Did you know about this beforehand?
Guest:I knew about it only from our shared trivia night that we go to, movie trivia.
Guest:They asked a question about it once.
Guest:And our friend Matt actually knew of it.
Guest:He knew the movie and got the question right.
Guest:And I remember when he mentioned it, oh, that's Roar.
Guest:That's this crazy thing that Tippi Hendren did.
Guest:I went and looked it up and I read about it, but I didn't watch anything of it.
Guest:So it wasn't until talking with Mark and then he mentioned it throughout his intro that I went and sought it out and watched it.
Guest:And
Guest:I will put the link in the description here.
Guest:Because until it gets pulled down, somebody put the whole movie up on YouTube.
Guest:And it is quite the scene, man.
Marc:It is.
Marc:I mean, scary.
Marc:Like, I can't believe this is a real thing.
Guest:Well, first of all, you've never seen that many lions in your life.
Guest:Like, I guarantee I've never seen that many in any form.
Guest:Like, maybe in CGI.
Guest:Like, in something where they pretended there were hundreds of lions around.
Marc:Yeah, let alone actors next to the lions and jumping into the water to, like, wrestle with the lions.
Marc:Like, holy shit, what is happening?
Marc:How did this happen?
Marc:Also, how did this crowd – so was the crowd's homework to bring in a movie that Marc Maron would like to, you know, watch and respond to?
Guest:No, I don't think it was specifically for Mark.
Guest:It's just for the whole panel.
Guest:And, you know, they brought in – people gave in, you know, a bunch of suggestions, and they went with this movie Roar, and it looks like it was a good choice because it got them all talking about it.
Marc:Yeah, well, I was thinking because of Mark because of cats.
Marc:Maybe that's why.
Marc:Like, yeah, he's a big cat guy.
Marc:You'll love this big cat thing where they try to murder people.
Guest:Maybe, maybe.
Guest:I mean, to me, it was like –
Guest:it was basically like a 1970s version of Jackass, but with like young Melanie Griffin.
Guest:Like it was like, I felt like this, remember the, the, the, the, the bit in Jackass where like,
Guest:they're on like a teeter-totter, like a four-way seesaw, and a bull is trying to gore them.
Guest:And there's like a point where he actually gets gored by the bull, and you're like, oh my God, did I just watch him fucking die?
Guest:Like that was this for 90 minutes.
Marc:Yes, yes.
Marc:And it is relentless.
Guest:No, that's right.
Guest:It's not like a point in time where like the lions ease up.
Guest:Like these lions are like...
Guest:They're in the whole movie and they're probably going to kill somebody at any given time.
Marc:Like, I'm shocked.
Marc:So, Melody Griffin got injured and needed plastic surgery?
Guest:Yeah, like on her face.
Guest:And the director, no, the cinematographer was Jan de Bont, who went on to shoot, be the DP on Die Hard.
Guest:And then he made Speed and Twister.
Guest:But he got like half of his scalp ripped off and...
Guest:And I knew of that before I watched the movie.
Guest:And then watching the movie, there's like, there's a scene where a guy, I think it's the sun, is hiding in a refrigerator or cabinet or something.
Guest:As one does.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Because there's, you know, 30 lions in the kitchen.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:what would you do?
Guest:And he, he shot from like the side of like the, they show him like in the refrigerator and he's like, the door is closed and the lion is like trying to yank it open.
Guest:So you see a shot facing the guy with the, you know, lion pawing at it and the door slightly opening and the guys are yanking it closed.
Guest:Cause he's terrified.
Guest:But then there's a reverse shot.
Guest:Where the camera is now in that son's point of view in the cabinet or refrigerator, whatever it was.
Guest:And the lion is like swiping directly at the camera.
Guest:I'm like, well, that must have been it, man.
Guest:You're like...
Guest:hunkered down behind this camera in a closet or refrigerator either one like they they clearly weren't shooting this at like a separate location it wasn't like they were like hey let's go to the uh the the expanse you know like they have over there for the mandalorian and we'll shoot this part with the uh with the lion no like the lion is swiping at the camera as the guy is in an enclosed booth like i'm sure he got his scalp ripped off when that happened
Marc:Yeah, and it's also not fake.
Marc:It's not like, all right, let's have an actor put on a lion's hand and start doing it.
Guest:No, the point where it's the most not fake, I mean, because there's just flurries of violence, especially Tippi Hedren's husband, the guy who's directing the movie, he just runs into packs of lions all the time.
Guest:Yeah, like a death wish.
Guest:You see the lion swipe him on the arm, and then his arm's just bloody and everything.
Guest:But there's this one part, and it was like,
Guest:i don't know maybe like 50 55 minutes into the movie it's right before like tippy hedrin legit gets her leg broken by an elephant which is also terrifying uh but they're like floating down the river and this had like they had to set this up where like they're like okay now the part where you're gonna get knocked out of the boat is because you'll come around the bend of the river and there's a bunch of lions there right and
Guest:And I guess the only thing they could do was just like sail the boat right over to the lions.
Guest:And so the lions are on the bank of the river and they're just like, well, let's knock these fuckers out of the boat.
Marc:They served it to us on a silver platter.
Guest:And you just see it.
Guest:There's no cuts.
Guest:It's not camera trickery.
Guest:It's like, oh, here's the part where we're going to push this boat over to the bank of the river here and the lions will try to kill them.
Guest:That's what happened.
Marc:Like...
Marc:What's the director say?
Marc:All right, so this is the scene where you all probably die right now.
Marc:Don't worry, it's going to be great.
Marc:It's going to be great.
Marc:Don't worry, we're rolling.
Marc:We got enough film, right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Rolling, it's going to be great.
Guest:Craft services will be here afterwards, so you get a good lunch.
Marc:How about an ambulance?
Marc:No?
Marc:No ambulance?
Marc:Like, wow.
Marc:Oh, man.
Guest:I can't believe that happened.
Guest:Well, yes, I'll put the link in there if anybody wants to watch any of Roar.
Guest:It is quite the treat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How about you?
Guest:Anything else stand out to you for that?
Guest:Definitely stood out to me from this past week.
Guest:Anything else for you?
Marc:I loved the entire Tammy Pescatelli episode, and I hope I'm saying that name right.
Marc:Pescatelli?
Marc:How would you not?
Marc:Okay.
Guest:I think that's what you say in your sleep.
Marc:I love episodes.
Marc:I love episodes like this because it's Mark talking to another comedian and it's just like that scene in Rounders where they're all playing cards together.
Marc:They're all just mechanics and they're all just talking about the craft and just high-level comedy shit.
Marc:And I just love it.
Marc:I just absolutely love it.
Guest:Well, yeah, that is definitely like the heart and soul of WTF.
Guest:If you want to, you know, pin anything to like our like the DNA of the show, you know, we've we started out as a show where Mark was just talking to other comics.
Guest:And so it's always going to kind of be a nice landing place for that.
Marc:I was also struck by Mark saying that William Dafoe doesn't like him.
Marc:He's convinced of this.
Marc:He's convinced.
Marc:I actually listened to the episode, okay?
Marc:And listened to the whole thing.
Marc:It sounded like a great time.
Marc:Lovely talk.
Marc:How the fuck does Mark think that William Dafoe doesn't like him?
Guest:I think he attributes it to meeting him again two other times at like, I think once was at the Independent Spirit Awards and one was at, oh man, I don't remember, somewhere else, but maybe a movie premiere or something.
Guest:And he said the first time at the Independent Spirit Awards, like Mark, like,
Guest:was like, oh, hey, how's it going?
Guest:And he said, you know, Willem Dafoe just, you know, gave him, like, the stink eye.
Guest:Like, he didn't say hello.
Guest:It was like a look, like...
Guest:At the time, he didn't know how to interpret it, and he thought he interpreted it like Willem Dafoe was like, who is this guy?
Guest:Why is he talking to me?
Guest:But then it happened again, and Mark was like, oh, this guy hates me.
Guest:I must have said something or asked him something, and he doesn't like me.
Guest:i think he might be right about the first part still yeah like i think it might be one of those things where i don't know who you are i'm sorry exactly and the way his fit yeah maybe i'm talking out of turn here or i'm saying something crazy but i don't know willem dafoe has a weird face have you ever thought about that
Marc:He also spells his name weird.
Marc:I was searching for him like, what?
Marc:It's not William?
Marc:No, Willem.
Guest:I'm not making this up.
Guest:Willem DeVoe just said this.
Guest:He was just on, I think, like the Today Show or something.
Guest:And, you know, he's talking about because he's in this poor things.
Guest:And, uh, he says he is like the time he realized that he was recognizable.
Guest:He says he was taking the subway and, uh, this is the quote.
Guest:Some guys got on the train and they're sitting and they're looking at me and, uh, they're looking kind of rough.
Guest:And I think, Oh God, even with my son here, they're going to roll me for money or something.
Guest:Something bad is going to happen.
Um,
Guest:And they were looking kind of mean and looking at each other.
Guest:And then I heard one say, yeah, it's got to be him.
Guest:Nobody looks like that motherfucker.
Guest:And he goes, that's when I knew I was recognizable.
Guest:He says, I've learned I have a distinctive face, something I didn't know.
Guest:So, yeah, that's the other thing.
Guest:I imagine people stare at this guy and look at him with recognition all the time.
Guest:And he's just like, who are you?
Guest:Wait, what?
Guest:And like, you know, Mark remembers the day Willem Dafoe came over to his house.
Guest:I'm not sure Willem Dafoe or anyone, for that matter, remembers specifically...
Guest:Right.
Guest:Doing an interview, you know, maybe I hope they would.
Guest:You know, a lot of times people, you know, say, you know, Mark, I saw, you know, thanks for having me on or whatever.
Guest:But like there might be people who just never remember it.
Guest:And hey, that's fine.
Guest:Got to be OK with that.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And I like to think that Mr. Dafoe's face is one of those faces where it's, you know, it's kind of like, what show is that?
Marc:Where someone like shaves off their eyebrows.
Marc:I think it was Seinfeld.
Marc:But like someone just thinks, oh, man, why are you so angry at me?
Marc:That's right.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:Yeah, his resting face is like, it's a guarantee, especially for someone like Mark, who's always reading vibes.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Oh, man, this guy's.
Guest:this guy doesn't like like actually actively hates me right yeah we ever seen this guy in any movie he's the green goblin like he he has that face yes like i love that in that last spider-man movie they were like but by the way guys no helmet for him no mask like his face is the green goblin already like we don't need to put a mask on this guy yeah
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:I also just love that Mark's going to movies, baby.
Marc:Movies are back.
Marc:Everyone go to the movies.
Marc:I love it.
Guest:I also love that he goes to the biggest theaters he can find.
Guest:Maybe we can get Mark to take up our cause of building more IMAX theaters, more large format screens.
Marc:Yes, please.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm still convinced that, and Mark is as well, that Mark taking up the mantle for Michael Clayton like seven or eight years ago and talking about it nonstop on the show helped get that movie a little renaissance going.
Guest:So let's do the same thing for large format theaters.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:Oh, man, I want I want Mark to talk to Chris Nolan and they can go into business together.
Guest:Well, yes, they could do that.
Guest:But like Chris Nolan is the flip side of Willem Dafoe.
Guest:Chris Nolan is the guy who Mark was like, why the fuck is this guy looking at me?
Guest:Who's this guy with the boots?
Marc:Chris Nolan's probably like, oh yeah, that guy Mark hates me.
Guest:He hates me.
Guest:I was going to cast him as the scientist, Robert Downey's part, but man, he does not like me.
Marc:Instead of some boots.
Guest:Speaking of movies, though, I was with Mark when we went to see that, the Color Purple screening, which was great.
Guest:And I recommend it just as Mark did.
Guest:The screening that we saw was really fun.
Guest:But man, I got to say, that interview with Blitz Bazawooli is like a great example of just going for it with like a hunch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because they came to us for the color purple, like the Warner Brothers.
Guest:And, oh, we'd love to have someone on to talk about the color purple.
Guest:And that's how we often book guests, because a movie wants to be publicized, not someone individually coming to us.
Guest:And it's like, okay, great.
Guest:Well, the movie is out, and this person is in it, and Mark wants to talk to that person, and let's get them on.
Guest:So they sent us the cast of The Color Purple and was like, you know, oh, anybody you'd like to talk to here.
Guest:Now, Mark has already talked to Taraji P. Henson, who he loves, but probably was not going to have much more to talk about.
Guest:They have a pretty thorough interview.
Guest:And then it was like a bunch of musical theater people and, you know, performers that Mark isn't aware of.
Guest:I think like the one closest person on there that he'd had seen in any other thing was that guy, Corey Hawkins, who played, um, Dr. Dre in straight out of Compton.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And in his Mark's mind, he was like, well, what am I going to do?
Guest:I was going to talk to him about that one other movie.
Guest:And then this movie, like, right.
Guest:And I knew that looking at this cast list.
Guest:And then I saw this director, Blitz Bazaouli, who they were not offering.
Guest:Then I look at what has he done.
Guest:And I see it's a very short list, which is usually not a good sign for a guest.
Guest:I don't mean not a good sign for a person.
Guest:I just mean like, are you going to have a thorough interview with this person?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I then went and checked him out.
Guest:There was just something about him that I was like,
Guest:there might be something here backstory wise, you know, and then sure enough, I just like found his art, found that he made, you know, sold rap albums on the street was like a visual artist, a poet, a novelist, like all this stuff was like adding up, you know, they grew up in Ghana and he had all this influence from his grandmother.
Guest:And I just, it was like one of those things I went to Mark and I was like,
Guest:You got to trust me on this one.
Guest:I think you should do this.
Guest:Like, talk to this guy.
Guest:And, you know, when I do that, like, that's me planting a flag.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You've done it before.
Marc:You've done it before.
Guest:I have, but I've done it before with people I can vouch for, essentially.
Guest:Oh, I see.
Guest:You know, it's like, I'm like, oh, dude, I've watched everything this person's ever made.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:All you need to watch is this, this, and this, or listen to X, Y, and Z, and you're going to love this.
Guest:This is going to be great.
Guest:Like, that's an easy one for me to vouch for.
Guest:This was like me putting my ass on the line.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Guest:Because like...
Guest:who I've never heard this guy.
Guest:He never talked, never tried to watch enough, some videos of him that are out there, but things are limited.
Guest:Like it's very rare to find something that's like what we do.
Guest:It's like, do they have a fresh air interview out there?
Guest:Well, that's helpful, but this guy didn't.
Guest:And so, you know, just kind of going on gut and knowing like where Mark's mentality is around the certain things that he admires or his perception of art and,
Guest:You know, seeing little things that this guy said in print interviews and picking up on them and thinking, OK, that's somewhere to go with it.
Guest:And so it's just a great example of how, you know, not just me.
Guest:Mark does this as well.
Guest:We suss out whether or not somebody is going to be a good person.
Guest:guest but again that's all supposition because then it's got to deliver right and like i'm sitting there you know when mark when this guy shows up at the house and then it's radio silence until it's over right like i just gotta wait and
Guest:And, you know, and I remember like, you know, spending the days leading up to it and kind of feeding Mark a lot of stuff.
Guest:And he went and watched and listened to a lot of stuff on his own.
Guest:He really filled his head up with this guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he comes over and I'm looking at the phone.
Guest:I'm looking at my watch and seeing what time it is and everything.
Guest:And they're in there for like over an hour.
Guest:And it's like an hour and 15 minutes and an hour and 20 minutes.
Guest:And like, I don't get a text till like, you know, 90 minutes later.
Guest:And like, that could go either way, right?
Guest:Because like, it could be like, he's like, I could get nothing out of that.
Guest:I had to keep searching and searching and searching, right?
Guest:Like that's happened before.
Guest:But he just writes me and he's like,
Guest:That was fantastic.
Guest:He's like, we had each other's number.
Guest:We were like, it was great.
Guest:He was so into this.
Guest:And I agree with Mark.
Guest:He was like, we've never had a director come on and talk about the making of a movie the way this guy talked about making this movie.
Guest:Like from soup to nuts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This guy laid out his whole vision for the color purple and how it was executed, like with his DP, with his, with the choreographer, with the costume designers.
Guest:Like it's a film course in this talk.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Awesome.
Guest:But then on the, at the same time, like they're really, you know, relating to each other on a, on, on a level of what they appreciate as art.
Guest:art.
Guest:And, um, you know, the Mark is asking the right questions, not out of a place of ignorance, but out of like a place of curiosity.
Guest:Like, I don't know about this from Ghana.
Guest:Tell me about, you know, what this type of storytelling meant to you or whatever.
Guest:And it just reminds me that like, so much of this is like a date, right?
Guest:Like, and it's like a date for Mark and for me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Cause like I'm sitting there listening to it and I'm halfway through this talk and I'm like, yeah,
Guest:Yeah, man, these guys are vibing.
Guest:They like getting along.
Guest:This is great.
Guest:And so, yeah, if you haven't listened to that yet, I highly recommend it, not just as a good interview, but as a good little peek into the process of how we go about choosing a guest and whether or not it's successful is entirely dependent on...
Guest:You know, that intuition.
Guest:Did we make the right call from our initial gut reaction to how this is going to go?
Guest:And I think that was one where it absolutely did.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:I'm going to listen to that tonight while I'm wrapping presents.
Marc:And I love that you're like a truffle hunting dog.
Marc:You're just like sniffing it out.
Guest:Thank you for saying dog and not pig.
Guest:that's a great movie all right well uh if you have any reaction from stuff you've heard in the past week or past a few shows uh you can send it to us click on the link in the episode description and uh right now we will go to some of the things you've been sending into us and uh you know i think this is a good time to kind of
Guest:Clear out the mailbag.
Guest:We'll start fresh in the new year.
Guest:And so right now, I just want to run through some of the things we haven't gotten to yet.
Guest:In particular, this is going back to when we did an episode about the super fan documentary.
Guest:And Judith wrote in to say that Jimmy Fallon's movie, Fever Pitch, is a good exploration of the super fan's world colliding with a normal person's world.
Guest:Yes, it's a light rom-com, but it's very well executed.
Guest:Here's what I would say, Judith.
Guest:If you liked the Jimmy Fallon movie, that movie is a remake.
Guest:It's a remake of a movie called Fever Pitch where the title makes more sense because it's about soccer or football where they play on a pitch.
Guest:So that was the whole idea was that I believe it's Colin Firth, right?
Guest:Is the lead actor.
Guest:And he is a fan of Arsenal who was the like Boston Red Sox of football.
Guest:uh, English football.
Guest:Also read the book, Nick Hornby book.
Guest:Great book.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Big, uh, you, you were a huge Nick Hornby fan from way back in the day.
Marc:I remember.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I loved, uh, high fidelity as a, you know, as, as an adolescent and the movie still holds up.
Marc:The show is awesome.
Marc:Uh, the one, one.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Guest:You know, you know, what's great about that, that movie is that it holds up because you realize like, no, no one was ever saying this was a good guy.
Guest:Like, yes,
Guest:Like, like you watch it again and you're like, oh, the movie pretty strongly comes down on the side of this guy was a dick and had to change.
Guest:All right.
Guest:We have two questions here from Ryan.
Guest:One was Mark and Cliff Nesteroff agreed that Richard Pryor was the best stand up and Maria Bamford is the best of the last few decades.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:I think that was also, I think that Maria was the best of the last few decades came from the Jesse David Fox episode.
Guest:Who would you put in those positions?
Guest:I'd slot Norm MacDonald into both.
Guest:Norm, obviously, you know...
Guest:God is due to an extent when he was alive.
Guest:But I think Norm is going under quite an extensive reevaluation since he died.
Guest:And it's deserved.
Guest:It was probably more deserved while he was alive.
Guest:But yes, Norm is an amazing and unique stand up.
Guest:And I find myself going down like YouTube holes with Norm MacDonald stuff all the time.
Guest:The greatest one ever.
Guest:ever is not part of his standup.
Guest:It was on Larry King's like weird internet shows.
Guest:Like after Larry King left CNN and he did it, Mark has done it too.
Guest:And I'll put it in, I'm not going to try to recreate Norm's exquisite timing and Larry's
Guest:unintentional straight man performance.
Guest:It is one for the ages.
Guest:It's the funniest 40 seconds of talk interview television that I've ever seen in my life.
Guest:Uh, and it is, it is based on Larry asking Norm, uh, what is a secret that people wouldn't know about you?
Guest:And Norm's answer is that I'm a deeply closeted gay guy.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:and uh the resulting uh reaction from larry and norm's immediate ability to jump on the raw meat is it's a thing of beauty i will put it in the episode description uh my answer for that though the best stand-up of all time
Guest:It's interesting because I feel like you can only answer a few, not because like any answer isn't valid, but it's almost like there are only a few comics who like transcended the time and space that they were in.
Guest:And obviously Richard Pryor is one of them.
Guest:And for me, it was George Carlin.
Guest:It was like I was able to grow up listening to the records that my father had, you know, the stuff from the 60s and 70s.
Guest:But then also see him on HBO doing his stand-up specials.
Guest:I literally this week sent a George Carlin clip from the 90s to Mark.
Guest:Like I was like, you know, something we were talking about.
Guest:And I was like, oh, it's like that Carlin joke.
Guest:And I sent it to him.
Guest:And that is the guy who most deeply fascinated
Guest:formed my brain around comedy, probably much the same way Pryor did to Mark.
Guest:So he would be my pick for best of all time.
Guest:Although I have a 1A, I wonder if that would be some, I wonder what you're going to say, Chris.
Marc:Well, you know, it's funny, like you mentioned about Norm passing away, and it's unfortunate that
Guest:death kind of reconceptualizes people's opinion of a comedian then sure like it sort of just solidifies their entire catalog right that's right well it's that old thing of like certain bands too right like yeah nirvana is better because they only had a few and then you know kurt died so right what would have happened if they had 10 more records of diminishing returns
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:So it's like someone that's passed away, they're thought of, put up on a pedestal a little bit.
Marc:And someone who maybe had some banger comedy sets, like Dave Chappelle, as time has gone on, it's like, oh man, he's just kind of a bummer now.
Marc:So it's just weird how...
Marc:death and time sort of just, you know, you really, you really get to crystallize your opinion of someone.
Marc:But for me, if I had, if gun to my head and please put it down, you know, this is radio, not talk is Robin Williams.
Marc:That's the guy for me.
Marc:I mean, he was just pure gasoline.
Marc:I would watch those, those, those comic relief specials.
Marc:And I would always pop for whenever he came on.
Marc:Robin Williams was the fuel that just got me rolling on the floor.
Marc:He was so fast, so funny, just a mile a minute, man.
Marc:Like it was the best.
Marc:So for me, Robin Williams, my favorite.
Guest:Well, so my 1A is very similar to that.
Guest:It's not Robin, but it's like a similar thing where it's a person who I just think, I think if he like Robin had just been, you know, devoted to standup comedy for his entire life and career, there's no doubt he would be the greatest of all time.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:But both of these guys, they went on and became huge movie stars and had other trajectories.
Guest:And so, yes, I agree with that, with Robin.
Guest:But from my perspective, it's Eddie Murphy.
Guest:Like, I just can't conceive of a person as young as he was and as funny as he was.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I think he has properly contextualized his early comedy.
Guest:He has said there's things in it that he wouldn't do now.
Guest:But I think you can watch those knowing that you're watching a 20-year-old.
Guest:But man, those early specials, particularly his first album, self-titled Eddie Murphy, is from 1982 when this dude was 21 years old.
Guest:And it's just crazy how self-possessed he is, how assured he is.
Guest:This bit he spins out of nowhere about Chinese food packets.
Guest:It's so clear that he just, it's an idea that just came to him.
Guest:And I always remember that when he was on, same thing with Robin, both of those guys, when they were on our show,
Guest:they showed in real time to me in front of my face with Eddie and in front of Mark's face with Robin, how they could just take a funny thing and make immediate comedy out of it.
Guest:Like it's, it wasn't even improv.
Guest:It wasn't like yes.
Guest:And style thinking it was just that their brains are so fast and funny and geared toward thinking about what the joke is going to be based on the words coming out of your mouth, you know,
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:Like those, those were two amazing, amazing guys.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:In terms of Ryan's question about the last few decades, I have a controversial one here and it's, I just can't, I can't deny it.
Guest:It's, it's, it's similar to, you know, if somebody was like, well, what's your favorite movie of all time?
Guest:And they're like, Rosemary's Baby.
Guest:And it's like, really with Polanski?
Guest:Yeah, fuck it.
Guest:It's one of my favorite movies.
Guest:You know, it's the same from you.
Guest:Louis C.K.
Guest:?
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Louis, I thought, was the greatest comedian possibly of my lifetime when he was at his peak.
Guest:And so I cannot deny him of that.
Guest:It is whatever your thinking is about Louis and, you know, his transgressions and how he should be received presently.
Guest:Fine.
Guest:I have no argument with that, but I won't deny the greatness of his comedy.
Guest:Just truly amazing, groundbreaking stuff.
Guest:Groundbreaking.
Guest:He changed the game for the ways a lot of people did comedy and wanted to do comedy, much the same way Pryor did.
Guest:So yeah, I would not shy away from saying that that's my pick for the last few decades.
Marc:Yeah, and his dad stuff, you guys probably had kids around the same time?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:I was having kids.
Guest:My son was born around the time those albums were coming out that Chewed Up and Hilarious, all of those were revelatory.
Guest:I was already a fan.
Guest:I was a fan of his back in the 90s when he was a writer for Conan, and his comedy was largely surrealism.
Guest:Like, you know, I'm not going to recite his bits, but a lot of them were based on, like, just strange visual premises, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I loved him even back then.
Guest:But then when he realized, like, there was...
Guest:Power to doing much like what Mark does, turning the comedy all inward on himself and dealing with his foibles, which when you listen to his comedy, it seems pretty clear that, like, the things he wound up admitting to in terms of, you know, sexual impropriety, like...
Guest:They're probably there in the comedy.
Guest:You're hearing a guy struggle with his kind of self-hatred and the fact that he makes poor decisions.
Guest:Yeah, that's part of why you can't remove him from who he is, from what his comedy is, because it was there in the comedy.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, so true.
Marc:And kind of like what Mark and Tammy were talking about in their episode, like she was hiding her pregnancy and Mark was like, oh, look at that.
Marc:You would have been on the cutting edge because that would have been, you know, it's boomtown, boomtimes for a pregnant special happening.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:All right.
Guest:This is a multi-part question.
Guest:So I'm going to answer this and then I'm going to do the remaining things I have here for next week's show because Chris and I are going to record that now since we will be on vacation next week.
Guest:So here's a question from Scott.
Guest:Multi-parts, as I said.
Guest:It says, it has been well established that Mark and Brendan have 50-50 equity in the WTF podcast.
Guest:Even so, I would love to know more about the business side of the podcast.
Guest:I imagine that a lot of those details are proprietary slash secret sauce that cannot be revealed.
Guest:No, not really, Scott.
Guest:I don't have a lot of proprietary stuff that can't be revealed because you just said it.
Guest:It's a 50-50 business and anything else that we're paying out is overhead.
Guest:And so, you know, this is the follow-up Scott had here.
Guest:He says, things I'm curious about.
Guest:Is there a set salary for Mark and Brendan?
Guest:No, there is not.
Guest:We just split all the profits 50-50.
Guest:Is there a stockpile of profits being saved, reinvested, put into some other sort of investment vehicle?
Marc:Brendan, Brendan, let me answer all these, please.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Well, there will be something for you to answer.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:No, we don't stockpile it.
Guest:The way this works, and it doesn't just work this way for us, it works this way for a lot of people in entertainment.
Guest:You have something called the loan out, which is essentially like a limited liability corporation that is, you know, when you see the end of a TV show and it says, you know, sit, Ubu, sit, right?
Guest:And that's Ubu Productions, right?
Guest:That then pays out to...
Guest:vendors or anything that's working for the production agency.
Guest:And then Mark and I each separately have our own loan outs.
Guest:These are S-Corps, right?
Guest:And so we get the profits from WTF, go to Boomer Lives Productions, and then Boomer Lives Productions literally right down the middle that we zero out every year for tax purposes.
Guest:You end the year with Boomer Lives Productions having zero dollars in it.
Guest:And then the money just goes to me and Mark and whatever overhead we have.
Guest:So that's the way it works as a business.
Guest:He says, do you pay yourselves bonuses when there are bigger years than other years or big distribution deals?
Guest:Nope.
Guest:Just goes into the pot.
Guest:50-50 split.
Guest:Me and Mark.
Guest:After expenses.
Guest:Then he says, as a show business nerd, I am curious if the guests of the podcast are paid anything.
Guest:I believe some late night talk show hosts have to pay guests a guild minimum payment per SAG-AFTRA.
Guest:That is correct.
Guest:Obviously, this podcast is not a union show, but do the guests get a travel stipend or something to appear on the show?
Guest:Here's the deal.
Guest:We have, you know, when we started doing the podcast, everything was ad hoc, right?
Guest:So, you know, it was just like friends doing the show and this and that.
Guest:As the podcast started to grow, we actually had to address this.
Guest:Do we have to start paying guests?
Guest:You know, does this rise to any level where they wouldn't be able to do it?
Guest:Do the show for, you know, per union rules or anything like that?
Guest:Is it not a is it is it is it not a valid form of promotion where the studio would pay for it?
Guest:And that's ultimately where the show comes down on.
Guest:If you're doing this show as part of publicity, well, then it's it's paid advertisement, essentially, for the outlet that wants to have the guest on the show.
Guest:Blitz Bazaouli, who was just on, is promoting a Warner Brothers movie.
Guest:So they're fine with sending him over in a car and dealing with whatever promotional responsibilities he has on his end.
Guest:Now, that's obviously not the case with everyone.
Guest:It wasn't the case with Tammy Pescatelli, for sure.
Guest:But
Guest:At this point, with the level of what the show brings in audience-wise, someone like Tammy is thrilled to do the show because it's a business move for her, right?
Guest:It's a promotional outlet for her and her comedy that's going to exceed anything that a travel stipend or anything like that would cover.
Guest:Now, I will say this, and this is between us here on The Friday Show because I don't need everyone in the world to know this.
Guest:when asked we will pay for travel like if they don't have the means to get to the show we'll make sure they have the means to get to the show uh and that's in in any environment but a lot of most of the times that's covered because they're on a promotional they're in a promotional situation or if they're not they're like no i'm i'll drive over i'm i'm gonna be nearby right um but so that's basically how it goes now
Guest:For the Friday show, any guests you have heard on this show, we are paying because this is a for pay outlet.
Guest:You pay your subscription.
Guest:If you're hearing someone on the show, you're the only ones hearing it.
Guest:They're not getting the benefit of our larger audience.
Guest:And so, yes, we pay them an appearance fee that is in line with the payments that get paid to late night talk show guests.
Guest:Uh, and, uh, that was just a, you know, instant decision.
Guest:Once we knew we were going to start doing this, these bonus episodes, well, the guests have to be paid.
Guest:And so that being said, the last question here from Scott, it says, last but not least, does Chris get paid for the Friday show?
Guest:Scott, what do you think I am?
Guest:Do you think I'm the biggest asshole who ever lived?
Guest:I got to drag this guy out here every week.
Uh,
Marc:Oh, is Scott's follow-up question.
Marc:Can it be less?
Guest:Do we get a say as subscribers?
Guest:Can we veto his payments?
Marc:Thank you so much, Scott.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:So that's, listen, I've said this before on here.
Guest:When I can't tell you things, I'll say, I can't tell you that.
Guest:In fact, I'm going to start next week's show with something that I can't tell you.
Guest:I mean, I will give you some background about that, but I'm going to start out with a question that was asked.
Guest:And I'm like, no, here's why I can't tell you this.
Guest:So that's a little teaser for next week's show.
Guest:I will also tease that on next week's show, I'll give a little more information about our 1500th episode.
Guest:Episode 1500 is coming up on January 4th.
Guest:And I will give a little information about that.
Guest:But we're going to wrap this up here for this week.
Guest:This is our last like in real time show.
Guest:Next week's will will be a week old by the time you're hearing it.
Guest:And so this being the last show that we're doing in real time.
Guest:Chris, do you have anything about wrestling that you wanted to to talk to me about?
Marc:Well, this has been a year of like me getting back to being a wrestling fan, you know, and that's all thanks to you.
Marc:Like I was out as a wrestling fan for a while and I noticed like as I get back into it, wrestling and the fandom behind wrestling has changed drastically since I was a kid.
Marc:There's
Marc:a lot more bonus content out there.
Marc:Like there's wrestlers, social media posts.
Marc:There's also just social media in general, you know, where like thousands of fans are theorizing and complaining about things that back in the day, I would only talk about with like my buddy and some of like other people who were like, you know, you know, wrestling fans, but not, you know, not really crazy about them, but I would talk to them about it.
Marc:However, now the game has changed.
Marc:It went pro like there are still these dirt sheets that are doing great, but they've also gone pro.
Marc:There's like video and audio to them.
Marc:It's all happening.
Marc:And I've seen and heard from wrestling fans a large spectrum of reactions to WWE and AEW.
Marc:And yes, there are like other promotions out there, but these are like the big two.
Marc:But some fans hate that there are two big companies.
Marc:They actively hate the competition between AEW and WWE.
Marc:And it's bothered me all year because from where I sit, this is all gravy.
Marc:Like fans are getting more and more wrestling, like good wrestling, you know?
Marc:Like not like shitty wrestling.
Marc:This is like pro stuff.
Marc:And this, you know, so I'm just like trying to conceptualize it or just like, you know, put it compartmentalize it, I should say.
Marc:And basically fans are basically divided into three camps.
Marc:There's pro WWE and hate everything else.
Marc:Then there's pro AEW and hate WWE.
Marc:And then there's the fine with both WWE and AEW.
Marc:And it's a familiar feeling for me.
Marc:And I couldn't put a finger on it until like recently.
Marc:And it's because wrestling fans are like New York baseball fans.
Marc:specifically Mets and Yankee fans.
Marc:You either love one and hate the other, or you're happy for both of them in an agnostic way.
Marc:And by the way, that latter one is completely baffling to me.
Guest:Well, that's the thing.
Guest:The people who are like, oh, I'm kind of cool with both.
Guest:Then the ones who like either side hate those people who are cool with both.
Right, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So it's, it's, but it's exactly that.
Marc:That's why it was feeling so familiar, but also so, so toxic at times.
Marc:And it's like, you know, just think of it.
Marc:It's like one player who is playing lousy on one team leaves and goes to the other team and succeeds and they're bragging rights for the other, you know, team, right?
Marc:Like a fading star from one team goes to the other team and they have success.
Marc:You know, it's, it's this, it's this strange yet familiar feeling.
Marc:and like wins and losses are for some reason who gets the bigger ratings which I think is just hilarious but it's all so much New York baseball fans and it's something that I do not subscribe to I wish that people didn't do this you know because you know for me you know
Marc:I think wrestling fans should be rooting for these two companies to be as big as possible.
Guest:Well, but I think a reason why wrestling fans do it is that one thing that's very consistent of wrestling fans throughout history is that they are by and large not pro sports fans.
Guest:uh there's not a ton of crossover i mean obviously there's there's a there's plenty but there's there's it's not dominant it's not like if you're a wrestling fan then clearly clearly you have x y and z sports leagues that you also follow and so i do think that a lot of them don't have this kind of practiced rivalry feeling that you do as a sports fan right and so these kind of uh um
Guest:contrived rivalries come up and the only way to really have that is through rival promotions right so you so and it's all part of like having an identity that's wrapped up in something bigger than yourself and you know people do that so they can get out their frustrations through this thing that's an escape where the stakes don't really aren't really injurious to them they're they're it's a team of people playing something that they have no involvement with i mean like how many times in your life have you said that to yourself like why am i getting mad at this i
Guest:I don't have any involvement in this, right?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:About Mets or Yankees, whatever.
Guest:And I think that's what happens with wrestling fans in just the same way.
Guest:It's just these two leagues who are putting on a show.
Guest:It's not real sports competition.
Guest:And so the competition becomes, well, how well are the actual companies doing?
Guest:Because that is a real competition.
Guest:That is real life of how they're doing.
Guest:And that just becomes the kind of competitive environment that a lot of fans find themselves living in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I honestly, for the next year, I really hope that wrestling fans can actually just kind of recognize or get their head out of the sand and just realize that just, hey, it's okay to have two companies doing
Guest:doing wrestling you don't you don't need the other one to go out of business like wcw did well also realize that if any of these companies do go out of business it hurts the other company it will hurt what you're watching on tv and what you should be thrilled about is that we're in a golden age of wrestling like it's it's on multiple basically any night of the week you can find it on television and
Guest:And you get like pay-per-views and live events all the time.
Guest:And the matches, look, I don't watch WWE wrestling, but I know there are great matches on there for people who do watch it.
Guest:There's just the style of it isn't my favorite thing, but I see plenty of highlights of things.
Guest:I'm like, oh, that person's really good.
Guest:Or this thing looks like, you know, it's got some real heat behind it.
Guest:So everyone is benefiting from this.
Guest:So, yes, unsqueeze the bat a little bit, loosen your grip, and just enjoy the ride.
Guest:Yeah, have fun.
Guest:Well, did you have fun with anything you watched in wrestling this week?
Marc:Oh, dude, Swerve Strickland is the guy.
Marc:He's, like, he's the guy that should just be...
Marc:You know, what's the phrase?
Marc:A push.
Marc:Yeah, a push to the top, man.
Marc:He has it.
Marc:The fans love him.
Marc:He's great in the ring.
Marc:He's great on the mic.
Marc:He had a segment.
Marc:I don't know if you watched AEW's Dynamite this week yet, but he's on the mic with MJF.
Marc:They share a segment together.
Marc:And I got to say, it was like the hairs on my arm stood up, man.
Marc:It was excellent.
Marc:exciting.
Guest:These guys will be good rivals at some point.
Guest:And yeah, I don't think what you're saying is falling on deaf ears.
Guest:I mean, it's not by accident that Swerve was like down at the Jacksonville Jaguars complex all week.
Guest:He was filming.
Guest:He was on the sidelines of the game.
Guest:You know, Tony Khan, his family owns the team.
Guest:And so if you're trying to give a wrestler a rub of your NFL team and have him out there dancing with the cheerleaders and the mascot and
Guest:I think it's fair to say you're getting the rocket strapped to you.
Guest:So, yes, I don't think that's flying on deaf ears.
Guest:Now, I'm not going to bemoan your praise of Swerve, but I am shocked that you did not bring up
Guest:The truly best thing in wrestling this past week, which was the trios match from AEW Rampage with, I'll name all the wrestlers, Top Flight and Action Andretti versus El Gio Del Viquingo, Commander, and Penta.
Guest:And so this was six wrestlers in what was essentially a lucha libre match.
Guest:You had three Mexican wrestlers.
Guest:And then the other three wrestlers were not Mexican wrestlers, but were very easily able to work that style.
Guest:And this was so good.
Guest:I showed it to my family who does not watch wrestling.
Guest:My wife doesn't.
Guest:My son doesn't.
Guest:But they know it's on, and they've seen things from time to time.
Guest:They're not opposed to it.
Guest:So I said, I think you guys are going to really like this.
Guest:And we watched this match.
Guest:It was so spectacular, there's no way you could not like it.
Guest:So everybody who watches it will like it.
Guest:But when it was over, they both said something interesting.
Guest:My son said it was the second best match he ever saw, second only to one where he saw a guy get his head wrapped in barbed wire.
Guest:So that's a little weird.
Guest:But I understand it.
Marc:Not 1A, but second.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:All right.
Guest:My wife, Dawn, who, you know, like I said, has grown to, you know, tolerate wrestling, if not appreciate it.
Guest:She's fine with it.
Guest:She's not opposed to it, but she's not going to seek it out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I think that is a great bit of advice for anyone out there.
Guest:If you are, if you like wrestling and you want to get someone else into it, or if you don't like wrestling at all, the best entry point I think is Mexican lucha libre, particularly of like the, uh, there's a federation in Mexico called CMLL.
Guest:you know the great thing about lucha is that it's it's athletic it's it's show-offy it's uh it it looks like a circus act but they're still obeying the rules of wrestling right it's still like a wrestling match and then this match ended and it was such a spectacular match and all the guys in it were baby faces so they get up and they all shake each other's hand and
Guest:And they raised their hands, they raised everybody's arms, all six of them walking around the ring together.
Guest:And my wife Dawn says, see, I like this one because it was about sportsmanship.
Guest:Like they were just about who is going to win.
Guest:And there was none of that nonsense of like, you know, soap opera stuff, which I think is so interesting because people who don't really know about wrestling always try to call it, oh, it's like a male soap opera, right?
Guest:That's why you like it.
Guest:And-
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's not why I like it.
Guest:I like it because it's performative violence.
Guest:It's performative aggression.
Guest:I don't have to actually watch people being hurt to get the excitement I get out of like an action movie, right?
Guest:And what she was appreciating was getting that excitement, but then at the end, they liked each other.
Guest:And I thought about my wife, who is not a sports fan, not a wrestling fan, but the one thing sports-wise that she watches religiously
Guest:is the Olympics.
Guest:From start to finish, every four years, she watches the whole thing, winter and summer Olympics.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And I was like, oh, that's what this was.
Guest:It was a sporting competition where everyone was happy with each other at the end, and they did tremendous gymnastic-like stunts, like a floor routine.
Guest:And I was like, oh, wow, if I want to get my wife into more wrestling, they need to be more like the Olympics.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Not more like a soap opera, like whatever that thinking is like, no, no more sportsmanship, more like death defying, you know, physical activity and, and less about like, I stole your girlfriend or whatever.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Yeah, that match was fantastic.
Marc:Please seek it out.
Marc:It's on Rampage.
Marc:Does it start Rampage or does it end Rampage?
Guest:It ends Rampage of last week.
Guest:So I will put the section of it that they've put up on YouTube.
Guest:I'll put that in the episode description.
Guest:The other thing that's in the episode description is the comment link.
Guest:So click on that and send us any feedback that you have.
Guest:We will not be answering it, though, until next year because the show you'll hear next week will be recorded as of right now.
Guest:Chris and I are going to go do that.
Guest:So until then, I'm Brendan, and that's Chris.
Guest:Peace!