BONUS The Friday Show - Cutlet Supreme
Guest:it doesn't even matter if that was real my immediate reaction to that video is oh look a shark is trying to eat that turtle and lucky for the turtle there was a boat there like in no circumstance would i ever have watched that video and thought look at that shark trying to save that turtle
Marc:Hey, Chris.
Marc:Brandon.
Marc:What's good, buddy?
Guest:I had a question for you.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't want to, like, you know, overstep my bounds here and force you to be too personal and reveal things you might not be willing to, but I figure I'll take a stab at this and see what you might say.
Guest:Is it true that you are Italian?
Yeah.
Guest:Yes, of course it is.
Guest:See, I didn't want to get too personal, but I figured maybe the fact that your name is Chris Lopresto.
Marc:Yes, very Italian.
Marc:Very, very Italian.
Guest:Now, the thing is, Brendan McDonald sounds very Irish.
Guest:My dad is full Irish.
Guest:My mom, however, is 50-50 Italian and German.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:And the Italian part is full Sicilian.
Guest:Yeah, same here.
Guest:Yeah, my grandparents, my grandfather's parents came over.
Guest:They were like fresh off the boat, Italians.
Guest:My grandma Columbo, she spoke very little English right up through the day she died.
Guest:I knew her when I was a little kid.
Guest:And she actually taught English.
Guest:My grandmother, who, as I mentioned, was full German, how to make all Italian food.
Guest:Like, it was one of those things, like, you know, in the rolls of the time, my grandmother was like, I'm the housekeeper.
Guest:I have five kids.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I would like to, you know, raise a happy home.
Guest:And she, you know, this was before she had any kids.
Guest:She had gone to my great grandmother, my grandma Columbo, and said, please teach me all of your recipes.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Guest:And so she became a vaunted, in our family, vaunted Italian cook.
Guest:This German lady, Louise Holzinger, became an excellent Italian cook to the point where I remember when she died, people eulogized her like, the best baked ziti I ever ate was at Louise's house.
Guest:She was known as the Italian grandma who was not Italian.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so anyway, I, you know, I was thinking this is probably true with you, but I never really talked to you about it before.
Guest:So I figured I'd ask, did you have this same type of like very specific relationship to Italian food through your family?
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:Every, every Sunday growing up.
Guest:Oh, you had a legit Sunday sauce.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:My family, we would get in the car, go over the Guinea gangplank over to Brooklyn from Staten Island.
Marc:And we would go to my grandmother's house, walk up four flights of stairs to get to her apartment where she was cooking from a big, big old pot of red sauce and like, you know, pasta.
Marc:And like, we would have like...
Marc:meatballs, we would have great bread, we would have some brujol, we'll have like all this meat, the sausage, and it was delicious.
Marc:It was so good.
Guest:Like I'm getting so jealous of you just saying that right now that I can't have it.
Guest:totally well i bring this up to kind of establish our bona fides here okay because something came to my attention this week that i immediately sent to you yes and i feel like you had the same reaction to it i would not allow us to talk about it over text
Guest:Because they said, no, no, no, we're going to talk about this on Friday.
Guest:And this was an Instagram reel from the new quarterback of the New York Giants, whose name is Tommy DeVito, which, by the way.
Yes.
Guest:Hang on a sec.
Guest:Insane.
Guest:This is the name of Joe Pesci's character in Goodfellas.
Guest:And I have not heard anyone mentioning this.
Guest:Everyone's just talking about this guy, calling Tommy Cutlets or whatever.
Guest:It's like, no, wait a second.
Guest:Right.
Guest:This is Joe Pesci.
Yeah.
Marc:Like, are we sure this guy is real?
Marc:Like, he just created a name for like, oh, I like that character.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Or did his family name him after Joe Pesci's character?
Guest:I would not rule that out, especially having seen the family.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now, listen, if you don't know what we're talking about, you know, frankly, I don't follow NFL football anymore either.
Guest:But I live here in New York and I'm aware enough of what's going on in the news and in the world to see when things happen.
Guest:I have like a cursory understanding of like who the major people in the NFL are these days.
Guest:And I also know like when the Giants are bad and the Jets are bad.
Guest:You know, I used to follow them as my teams, specifically the Giants.
Guest:And and so I knew that they were bad and I knew that suddenly they needed a backup quarterback.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Their their their quarterback was down and they used this replacement.
Guest:I don't know where it came from.
Guest:I don't know if he was already on the team.
Guest:I don't know any details like that.
Guest:But this backup quarterback comes in, Tommy DeVito, which like out of central casting, especially for the New York Giants who play in North Jersey in the Meadowlands where probably many bodies are buried.
Guest:And it is the most stereotypical North Jersey caricature.
Guest:to be playing for the New York Giants football team.
Guest:And then all of a sudden, this guy starts winning, what has he won, three games in a row, I believe?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what has also happened, as his personal celebrity has risen, his family's celebrity and his friends and the people he's surrounding himself with, because this is right out of central casting,
Guest:of a bad cosplay version of The Sopranos, right?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:There's like his agent is wearing a fedora and a seersucker suit and he's like roaming the sidelines and just everything about this.
Guest:It's comical to people.
Marc:Well, his family is tailgating with...
Marc:Honestly, it looks like ISIS.
Marc:It's like an Italian flag with a Calandras, which is a bakery right across the street from me.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And like they're tailgating with a bunch of like chicken cutlets and all kinds of Italian food.
Marc:It's incredible.
Guest:So honestly, even before I saw this Instagram reel,
Guest:I was already like, I was enjoying this to an extent, but also I was like, this guy and his whole family are doing whatever the Italian version of blackface is.
Guest:This is, I'm going to call this gabagoolery.
Guest:This is some clown stuff going on here.
Guest:But because it's getting a lot of attention, this guy was a backup quarterback.
Guest:He is really leaning into it.
Guest:And, you know, like, he's a kid.
Guest:Like, what is this guy, 20-something?
Guest:Early 20s?
Guest:He looks like a child.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And, uh, I, uh, I, so I, you know, I assume there's lots of people around him telling him like what good marketing this is and how everything is working out for him and he's playing well.
Guest:And then they released this Instagram reel.
Marc:Which I didn't think was real, by the way.
Marc:Like, how is that real?
Guest:It's on like the New York Giants Instagram page.
Marc:I mean, I watched it maybe 20 times in a row, honestly.
Yeah.
Marc:Each time you watch it, it gets more and more amazing.
Marc:Well, since you watched it so many times, why don't you explain it?
Marc:They're ranking their top five pasta dishes.
Marc:Tommy DeVito.
Guest:Who I believe his nickname is now Tommy Cutlets?
Marc:Is that true?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Apparently, New York has a thing with chicken cutlets.
Guest:Oh, we'll get into that.
Marc:Okay.
Okay.
Marc:so it's tommy cutlets and i'll be honest with you brennan i don't know who this guy is is he is he like a relative like i don't i don't understand who he is but he has the most amazing fake italian like act like jersey accent it's it's it's hardcore north jersey
Marc:Yes, it is like, it's so rich.
Marc:It is like, I can't even impersonate.
Marc:You just have to go watch it right now.
Guest:No, if you impersonated it, you'd get arrested for hate crime.
Marc:So there is an interviewer off camera and she is throwing out different, I believe at first it's pastas and then they go to entrees, the top five of each.
Guest:Like she's just going to give them the names of dishes and they have to rank them.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So the first one for pastas is cheese ravioli.
Marc:So cheese ravioli, they rank as number four on their list.
Marc:Yeah, they're not a fan of ravioli.
Marc:No, no.
Guest:They're not a fan of lasagna.
Marc:No, they're also not a fan of, well, actually, bolognese is on there.
Marc:They rank that as number three.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And then they do linguine with clams as number two.
Marc:Which is just upsetting to me, honestly.
Marc:Like, do you like linguine with clams?
Guest:If you go to a good place and get a good red clam sauce, Michael's in Brooklyn is one of the greatest red clam sauces I've ever had.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I'm not a fan of linguine with clams.
Marc:Then they're asked, well, how about lasagna?
Marc:And the...
Marc:The guy who I don't know who he is, he's just like, this guy can't eat lasagna when he's practicing.
Marc:That's going to be number five.
Marc:That's five on the list.
Guest:Lasagna number five for these guys who are carrying around an Italian flag.
Marc:And I mean, you have to understand these are children, right?
Marc:So this is basically what children would be answering.
Marc:And the last option that the interviewer throws out is penny vodka.
Marc:And they say, oh, number one.
Guest:number one number one penne vodka do you ever remember in your in your life like what was the first time you encountered penne vodka i believe that for me it was in like the college cafeteria yes like a hot tray that was like why does the pasta look pink all right
Guest:What did they do to it?
Guest:What happened?
Marc:Right.
Marc:What happened there?
Marc:Did something fall into the sauce?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:And I have, to be honest, I have no problem with it.
Guest:You put penny vodka in front of me, I'll eat it.
Guest:It's fine.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:I dig it.
Guest:It is like, this is the equivalent of like a hot dog with ketchup on it.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah, it is.
Marc:I mean, for that to be number one is ridiculous, especially when we're not talking about like spaghetti with meatballs or like, I don't know, many other options like risotto.
Marc:How about cashew de pepe?
Marc:Like that is your number one?
Marc:All right.
Marc:But this is just the pasta.
Marc:What's the entree version of their rankings?
Marc:So their entree ranking is, at number five is veal marcella, which I'll be honest with you, never order.
Marc:Whenever I see it, I'm like, nah, I'm good.
Marc:That's another hot tray meal.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You see it in the hot tray.
Marc:You see that at like a banquet or something, right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Which they actually mention, right?
Guest:But then the other thing is, like, so we'll keep going.
Guest:What were there next?
Guest:Number four is chicken franchisee.
Guest:Which they shit all over.
Guest:They're like, what?
Guest:What are you even talking about?
Guest:By the way, that's a chicken cutlet.
Marc:Yes, it is.
Guest:Chicken cutlet with like some butter sauce on it.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They just don't realize that it is a chicken cutlet.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:They say, oh, it has vegetables on it.
Marc:What?
Guest:It does not.
Yeah.
Marc:Like maybe a caper, which you could brush off very easily.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, they should have been given pictures maybe that might have helped them.
Marc:So yeah, that was upsetting, honestly.
Marc:And then next is, at number three, is shrimp scampi.
Guest:Which they get mad at.
Guest:They're like, why are you asking about these entrees?
Guest:What is this?
Guest:Shrimp scampi?
Guest:By the way, probably the thing I've ordered the most in my life at a restaurant.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like if I go to an Italian restaurant and I'm not sure of how they make things, I will go for a shrimp dish.
Guest:Usually like a shrimp scampi or shrimp fra diablo, something like that.
Marc:Oh, all right.
Marc:And next is eggplant parm, which, again, is a banquet meal.
Marc:Like, I've never ordered.
Guest:But they jump all over that, I think because of the parm part, right?
Guest:They were like, oh, well, now you're talking some parm.
Guest:Yeah, I like the parm.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:They're doing the thing with their hands the whole time, too, the fingers together.
Guest:Like, I mean, real gabagoolery going on here.
Marc:Also, that's, like, a thing.
Marc:That's, like, I've seen merchandise from, like, John Boyd.
Guest:Yeah, there's emojis of the hand with the fingers and, yeah, these guys doing the kisses.
Marc:I saw, yeah, I saw clips of the game and, yeah, they were doing the whole hand gesture thing.
Marc:Go for it, man.
Marc:15 minutes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Number one with a bullet, like, absolutely, like, no question, is Chicken Parm.
Marc:No, it is not.
Guest:It is not chicken parm.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Oh, I'm sorry.
Guest:It's chicken cutlets.
Guest:And they have a plate of them sitting in front of them.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Plain chicken cutlets.
Guest:Who the fuck eats that plain, dude?
Guest:Well, also, it's like, if you're like, what's the greatest Italian food?
Guest:And you're like, oh, chicken cutlets.
Guest:I mean, they're good.
Guest:But that's like saying, what's the greatest Chinese food?
Guest:Oh, rice.
Yeah.
Guest:Rice alone.
Guest:Just a bowl of rice.
Guest:But I will say this.
Guest:That is the most 2023 Jersey Italian thing ever.
Guest:And I want everyone out there who is like around my age, maybe even a little younger.
Guest:Maybe you could be in your 30s.
Guest:You're a millennial.
Guest:You're listening to this.
Guest:But definitely I want the old people to listen up.
Guest:Old people like me and Chris.
Yeah.
Guest:We're old.
Guest:Okay, here's the deal.
Guest:I'm going to educate you people because I go to North Jersey all the time.
Guest:Chris lives there, okay?
Guest:This is the way of the world right now for Italian food in America.
Guest:We got to do something about this.
Guest:We need some, we need some people that were like my grandmother who went to the old ladies with the recipes and asked, teach me how to do this.
Guest:Because instead what we have is this is now multi generations removed.
Guest:And you see it in this video.
Guest:These kids do not like Italian food, right?
Guest:They grew up eating chicken McNuggets, right?
Guest:more frequently than they ate any kind of brazole or meatballs or short rib, anything like that.
Guest:They don't even like pasta.
Guest:They want the pasta to be covered in this, you know, pink gloop, right?
Marc:Yeah, they like the food court version of Italian food.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Regular marinara is too spicy for these Gen Z Italians.
Guest:They need plain cutlets and matz.
Guest:That's all they want.
Guest:And I've seen it a million times.
Guest:Chicken cutlet, matz on Italian bread, nothing else that they order.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:It's like the whitest possible Italian, like the equivalent of bologna on Wonder Bread.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:OK, so we must like plant your flag.
Guest:My fellow, even partial Italian Americans like get your go in your closets, whip open your pantries, get those old recipes out.
Guest:Start making these kids some good sauce with flavors, flavors like look, I love a breaded chicken cutlet.
Guest:That is not Italian food.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Plain chicken cutlet does not count.
Marc:You go to Italy, you are not getting a chicken cutlet.
Marc:It's just not a thing that happens.
Guest:And you know what?
Guest:That's fine.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:It's like that scene in The Sopranos when Pauly Walnuts is there and he asks for sauce and they make fun of him in Italian that he's so crude and we don't do that here or whatever.
Guest:That's all well and good.
Guest:But do you know how long ago The Sopranos was on TV now?
Guest:Like what, 20 years?
Guest:We are coming up.
Guest:It'll be in 2026.
Guest:That show will have been off the air for 20 years, right?
Guest:The Jersey Shore was about 15 years ago, right?
Guest:So we are in a totally new zone of what is accepted in Italian-American popular culture.
Guest:In some ways, that's good because some of the clowning that was going on was not exactly the greatest stereotyping.
Guest:of uh of an entire group of people but this whatever this chicken cut blandness is this has got to go and i would i'm very happy for giants fans that they have this guy i can only hope that this is like linsanity a tiny little blip of a
Guest:explosion right oh he did great for two three weeks and then you know reverted to a typical backup because i cannot abide by like this becoming like fernando mania or something we're like this this is like the dominant cultural paradigm for italian americans now we gotta like you know celebrate chicken cutlets and throw uh lasagna under the bus no no no this is not going to happen my friends
Marc:Also, can I just say, where the fuck is our buddy Dan Pashman, the pasta inventor of Long Island?
Marc:Where is this motherfucker?
Marc:He's from North Jersey too.
Marc:From North Jersey.
Marc:The biggest story in the New York Giants of the month or year even.
Marc:And pasta.
Marc:And it's basically his Venn diagram of interests.
Marc:And this guy is nowhere to be found.
Guest:God damn it, Dan Pashman.
Marc:Is he working in the lab with Tommy Cutlets?
Guest:We are going to see Dan Pashman on Tuesday.
Guest:Oh, yeah, that's right.
Guest:We need to get this to happen.
Guest:We need Dan Pashman, host of the Sporkful podcast, inventor of Cascatelli.
Guest:He made up a word.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That sounds more Italian than anything these guys are throwing out there.
Guest:And he's a Jew from North Jersey.
Guest:Come on now.
Guest:This guy knows what he's doing.
Guest:Dan Pashman, you are going to save us from this bland Italian food that is being passed off as authentic.
Guest:By the way, can I have this?
Marc:Penne is objectively one of the worst pastas.
Guest:Well, just a boring pasta.
Marc:It's very boring.
Guest:Give me a rigatoni.
Guest:anything oh god rigatoni is it's the greatest tweak of penne yes i mean i i think dan has done a whole series on this but yes we're not gonna we're not gonna scoop his heat i'm not gonna bite dan pashman's entire bit
Guest:right also his pasta delicious okay oh yeah yeah yeah yeah hey anyone out there exactly if you're if you are uh pasta curious the uh dan pashman uh cascatelli is the way to go to expand your horizons it's uh available at trader joe's yeah that it sure is can i can i tell you i saw die hard in the theater uh last week oh yeah and uh
Marc:You know what I realized?
Marc:Ellis.
Marc:Ellis, you know, he's being introduced to John McClane.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And Ellis laughs.
Marc:And he laughs in a way that I was like, oh, wait a second.
Marc:He laughs kind of like how Dan Pashman laughs a little bit.
Guest:He kind of looks like Pashman a little bit, too.
Guest:He's got like Pashman's exact cropped beard.
Guest:He's just like more hair, more coke than Dan.
Marc:Allegedly.
Marc:Allegedly.
Marc:Allegedly.
Guest:Well, speaking of Die Hard, I wanted to bring this up because I really think it hammers home the point we were making on last week's show.
Guest:Released this week, December 13th in 1991, was The Last Boy Scout.
Guest:wow bruce willis and damon waynes in a tony scott film written by shane black yeah and because it's a shane black movie it is about christmas it's it's got it's it's in california so there's no snow but it's at christmas time in fact they talk about uh fighting against satan claws like that's that's like the
Guest:The end of the movie is this, you know, teaser of a sequel that never happened where Bruce Willis is like, oh, Satan Claus is out there.
Guest:We got to give guys like us.
Guest:And it was released 12 days before Christmas.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It is a great movie.
Guest:We've talked about it on this show before.
Guest:Talked about how it has literally one of the greatest movie depths of my life.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And it has very minimal cultural footprint.
Guest:I mean, there's definitely fans of it.
Guest:People love The Last Boy Scout.
Guest:It's a cult classic.
Guest:exactly but it has no lasting legacy and it's definitely not played at christmas no one other than some like cheeky fuckers like us would ever deign to think like oh you want to watch a christmas movie let's put on the last boy scout right and there's two reasons for this i believe one is if you haven't watched it lately or ever you
Guest:It is so hateful.
Guest:It is one of the most hateful mainstream Hollywood films ever released.
Guest:Like the just total lack of regard for humanity in this movie is comical.
Guest:Like it's part of the comedy of the movie.
Guest:So there's that.
Guest:That's a big deterrent against it.
Guest:But I think, just like we were talking about last week, the reason, even as much as we love this movie, we've watched it many times in our life, it does not have the plug-and-play refillability of a Die Hard movie because there's no real formula to it.
Guest:It's just buddy cop, right?
Guest:It's like Lethal Weapon or 48 Hours or anything like that.
Guest:A buddy movie.
Guest:If you're into buddy movies, you can watch it at any time.
Guest:But it has no sense of like a routinized, repeatable formula, which is what that Die Hard formula is.
Guest:Here's the thing.
Guest:The formula of Die Hard, it's the same thing you have in Christmas carols, like the 12 Days of Christmas.
Guest:You know it.
Guest:You can repeat it.
Guest:Everyone lives for having this thing happen on a regular basis.
Guest:And yeah, that doesn't happen with The Last Boy Scouts.
Marc:Yeah, I think it's also because that movie is an L.A.
Marc:movie.
Marc:And L.A.
Marc:and Christmas, it just doesn't look like anything.
Marc:But wait, what the fuck?
Marc:Die Hard's in L.A.
Marc:I know.
Marc:And that's why there are people that are like, well, it's not really a Christmas movie.
Marc:That's why.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Well, I do think what it has going for it is that it's 90% enclosed doors.
Guest:You're not seeing palm trees.
Guest:You're not out in the sun-swept LA vistas, which is what The Last Boy Scout does.
Guest:And in that enclosed space, there's Christmas shit all over the place.
Guest:There are trees, there are wreaths.
Guest:They're having a party.
Guest:Ornaments.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that is my follow-up to Die Hard.
Guest:Did you have anything that you wanted to follow up on based on this past week of WTF?
Marc:Dude, Peter Sarsgaard?
Marc:Sarsgaard.
Marc:Peter Sarsgaard?
Guest:You know how you remember his name?
Marc:How?
Guest:Because there was that SNL sketch where he was selling Sarsgaards, like it was like to cover your face and not get Sars.
Guest:That's brilliant.
Guest:Peter Sarsgaard Sarsgaards?
Guest:That's brilliant.
Guest:Which they just repeated again later on with the Jon Hamm's Jon Hamm.
Guest:Do you remember that?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So Peter Sarsgaard is like the coolest motherfucker, man.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:What a cool dude who...
Marc:Unbeknownst to me, your episode happened on Monday.
Marc:I watched online.
Marc:It was like a clip of him and his lovely wife.
Marc:They were giving a tour to their home in Brooklyn to, I don't know, like Architecture Digest or whatever.
Marc:And he was just like talking about like, oh, yeah, this is our this is our like our arts room where we do arts and stuff.
Marc:And they just seem really cool.
Marc:And then he comes on your show and he's just instantly like the coolest guy I've ever met.
Marc:Like, I feel like you and he would be good friends.
Marc:Like you guys would just be talking about your kids and all kinds of Brooklyn shit.
Marc:I honestly wonder if he is like a Park Slope food co-op person because he lives pretty close.
Guest:Yeah, right there, dude.
Marc:he might have voted to kick you out but but also i love that this was like a fireside chat like the entire time i was like are these guys like sitting around the fire like just just hamming it up it just delightful yeah it's a it's a a i i said to mark when it was over it's probably the best version of that kind of talk
Guest:Where it's like, you know, they don't really get too deep into his like upbringing or his like his background and his family and that.
Guest:And you know what?
Guest:Totally fine.
Guest:Because there's a guy who likes to have conversation and he likes to like bring up ideas and then talk about those ideas and talk about his preferences and what he likes.
Guest:And I'm like, yeah, this is basically what life is.
Guest:Like you should do this all the time.
Guest:Talk to people about cool things.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:This is like, I've had this conversation like a few times.
Marc:I wish hundreds of times, but I've had this conversation with people and it's so rewarding.
Marc:It's just, it's like, it was just a great conversation with a person.
Marc:And like, he has funny stories about mentioning to Tom Cruise that, Hey, you know, people really like you running.
Marc:And like Tom Cruise has just been running ever since.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That was a great story.
Guest:So is the Malkovich one.
Marc:Yes.
Yeah.
Guest:He's got hired because he sounded like him.
Guest:I totally forgot that he was in that Man in the Iron Mask.
Guest:What a bad movie that was.
Marc:By the way, I put on, because it was on Netflix and I was just, I wanted to do, you know, have something on in the background.
Marc:I put on the Batman.
Marc:Oh, right.
Guest:He's in that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He's in that.
Marc:And it's so funny.
Marc:He plays such a like a sweet, charming scumbag.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:It is great.
Marc:He is so fun.
Marc:And I love his stories about his wife.
Marc:I love that he had to have a sex scene with his mother-in-law.
Yeah.
Guest:well his mother-in-law was the director yes yeah i loved his story about it i mean what a delightful my favorite thing about that story was how he told it that he was like i'm gonna go out of the frame and then i'm gonna be over there doing something else i have a cup of coffee or something and you do your business no no you're like you're and then then you're gonna you're gonna make faces
Marc:I'm just great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You don't even need an intimacy coordinator.
Guest:His intimacy coordinator is the Mr. Coffee.
Guest:He's just going over there.
Guest:He's not even going to be involved.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Also, another thing that's happened to me, and he admits it.
Marc:Sometimes he's in an interview, and the person's like, oh, you've seen that movie, right?
Marc:And he's like, he doesn't have the heart to say, no, I haven't.
Marc:Because he's like,
Marc:He doesn't want to disrupt that train of thought.
Marc:Like, you obviously have something to say about it.
Marc:Why don't you just say it?
Marc:But I love that Maggie caught him in the lie.
Marc:And actually, I haven't gone back to listen to Maggie's episode.
Marc:I'm glad you plugged it at the end of the episode.
Marc:But yeah, that was really great.
Guest:Yeah, you know, it's funny, though.
Guest:Mark remembers it as though she found him out.
Guest:I don't remember that particularly being audible.
Guest:So it could very well be that he is... Guilt.
Guest:He just feels guilt.
Guest:His guilt, exactly.
Guest:It made him feel like, oh, she caught me when, you know, maybe she had some...
Guest:You know, you can kind of tell when someone's trying to fake it or bullshit their way through something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But like, you know, you don't like go like you're full of shit.
Guest:You just go like, oh, yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you kind of react, you know, in a in a muted way.
Guest:I feel like it was more like that.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:You listen to it.
Guest:You be the judge.
Marc:Oh, interesting.
Marc:So yeah, that's probably all, I mean, that's a very Marin thing, right?
Marc:It's all, he's like, oh my God, she fucking called me out where it was just basically a non-audible.
Guest:Well, the number one of those of all time was Nick Cave that to this day, Mark is convinced that he said something in the early part of that interview where he said, he called Nick Cave like a real cowboy.
Guest:You're like a real cowboy.
Guest:And
Guest:He then thought that that must have insulted Nick Cave, who was then very difficult to manage for the rest of the interview.
Guest:And I was like, no, dude, it was Nick Cave.
Guest:He's just fucking like that.
Guest:I don't know why you have to assign it to you to blame.
Guest:And the other thing is, that's a beloved interview.
Guest:People who were Nick Cave fans listened to that and were like, that was great.
Guest:He talked so much.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It just goes to show it's way different when you're not in the chair sitting across from the person and you get loaded with all the emotions that are going back and forth between the two of you, which is a lot of what I wanted to talk to Mark about this week on the bonus content, which was like what his reactions were to some of those earlier episodes from this year that we didn't get to talk about on the mics.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I really enjoyed hearing Mark Hall beg Kingsley
Marc:Just saying, fuck you, Ben Kingsley is great.
Marc:Also, his dumb face.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:That was a real treat.
Marc:He's like, no, I knew because I said that, oh, look, these are lilies.
Marc:You know, a certain lily.
Marc:He's like, no, no, no.
Marc:These are different type of lilies.
Marc:He knew that the shit was over.
Guest:He's like, well, I will say you, my friend called it on the, on the day of, you were like, it was the liquid death, which, which I, I mean, I think I was right there with you and, and identifying that it was like the mug and who's to say chicken or egg.
Guest:Like, was he pissed off that he was given liquid death or was he pissed off that he was given it in a mug?
Guest:Um,
Marc:irrelevant it was as mark assessed the water was the end by the way before we move on fucking mark knows to call people trekkies but he was calling it star trek this entire time like did he call it trekkies back when he thought it was star trek those are heroin addicts i don't i mean it just i'm like what's happening right now
Marc:Also, so sad to hear that this lovely story that Mark has brought up a few times about this interspecies video is complete bullshit.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So I – this is what happened with that story.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:So, crazily, I didn't plan for this.
Guest:I didn't tell him, like, I didn't remind him, hey, you brought up this turtle thing in the talk with Peter Sarsgaard, right?
Guest:Because he brought it up with Peter Sarsgaard and I was like, turtle video, whatever this is.
Ha ha ha!
Guest:And then he sends me his intro and I listened to it and it's the turtle thing comes up again.
Guest:I'm like, Oh wow.
Guest:Like, so that's going to lead in to the interview.
Guest:And I literally had the thought in the moment.
Guest:I'm like, there's no way this is a fucking real video, but I can't, I'm, I do not want to look it up.
Guest:Like I want plausible deniability for this.
Guest:Right.
Yeah.
Guest:Like I want to be able to make this happen because it creates a very nice through line from the intro to Peter Sarsgaard and like the things that Mark is currently kind of concerned about.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So then Tuesday morning, I get a text.
Guest:It's like seven o'clock his time.
Guest:It must've been something he like woke up to.
Guest:And it just says shark turtle video was fake.
Guest:There's no hope.
Guest:So I wrote back, ha ha ha, okay.
Guest:How was it fake?
Guest:Was there a guy in a shark suit?
Guest:So he sends me this video, which is the fact check showing that this video was fake.
Guest:And it says, you know, edited video created with two unrelated footages shared as a shark helping humans in rescuing a sea turtle.
Guest:So I press play on this thing.
Guest:And the first thing it shows is the fake version of this video.
Guest:It's the fakest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life.
Marc:Can you send it to me?
Marc:Because I have to see this.
Guest:I'll put it in the episode description for everyone to see.
Guest:Along with Tommy Cutlet's Instagram.
Guest:So I watched this and I could not help it.
Guest:I had to, like, take my shot on Mark.
Guest:I said, it doesn't even matter if that was real or not.
Guest:I said, if it was real, my immediate reaction to that video is, oh, look, a shark is trying to eat that turtle.
Guest:And lucky for the turtle, there was a boat there.
Guest:Like...
Guest:In no circumstance would I ever have watched that video and thought, look at that shark trying to save that turtle.
Guest:Like, no, he's clearly trying to eat it.
Marc:So you're telling me the shark wasn't like Billy Zane in Titanic?
Marc:Please, sir, my child.
Guest:No, the way that this is presented, it's like Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing.
Guest:Like he's like holding the sea turtle above his head in a nice pose.
Guest:Like, please...
Marc:carry baby to the corner oh my god it's carrying it like the lion king no the real circle of life is the shark eats that fucking thing shits it out and that populates everything
Guest:uh it was great i i listen to me you listen to this everybody's listening to this and you're like they're talking shit about mark this isn't this isn't nice i'll go play this for mark right now this is a what i would like to like highlight here is this is a good thing for mark like any like i think one of the things if you listed like five adjectives to describe mark maron like a consensus on one of those would be cynical right oh he's a bitter cynic right and
Guest:That's like the least cynical thing I've ever heard in my life.
Guest:Like this guy thought this shark was saving the turtle.
Guest:We should embrace that.
Guest:Like that's, that's a good mark.
Guest:Optimism mark.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Like, like I, I'm glad he didn't show me the video.
Guest:Cause I would have laughed in his face immediately.
Yeah.
Marc:This story had a nice arc to it.
Guest:Yeah, the way it worked was perfect.
Guest:And then, you know, I'm sure you haven't gotten around to it yet, but on the intro to the Thursday episode.
Guest:Oh, I did.
Guest:I did.
Marc:Of course I did.
Yeah.
Marc:It's like, got an update.
Marc:Got an update by the shark story.
Guest:Well, he also said, like, I guess he was trying to eat it.
Guest:I didn't know they ate those.
Marc:There's a whole movie about them trying to eat a people.
Marc:But no, no.
Marc:Ooh, turtles.
Guest:That shell, it's too much.
Marc:Turtles are the black licorice of animals.
Marc:We all know.
Marc:No one really likes it.
Guest:I was like imagining these like picky sharks swimming around out there.
Guest:Like in that exact movie you're talking about, they ate a fucking license plate.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Swam up through the Gulf Stream.
Marc:The sharks are like, ooh, that's like the equivalent of chicken fucking cutlet with no sauce on it.
Guest:Yeah, no thanks.
Guest:I'm an old shark.
Guest:I need you to be like simmering that turtle all day long.
Guest:All right.
Marc:Well, listen, do you have anything else from this past week?
Marc:No, that was some great stuff.
Marc:Great episodes.
Marc:By the way, if no one has listened to either of those episodes, please check them out because they are so fun and, yeah, rewarding.
Guest:You're talking about Peter Sarsgaard.
Guest:And then, yes, our bonus episode from this past week, which is like a year in review of things that had come up in the last calendar year.
Guest:You know, there was a lot of stuff that we had stuff to talk about that we never talked about on the mic.
Guest:So we thought it was a good time to do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I want to run through, in the time we've got left here, some of the feedback that's been coming in here.
Guest:I think we'll also do this again next week.
Guest:So if you're still sending us stuff, please do.
Guest:Happy to read some things on the air and hash them out here with Chris.
Guest:And especially follow up on episodes that have already happened.
Guest:And in particular, we got a lot of feedback about Thanksgiving movies.
Guest:I can't go through the whole list of things that people have sent in.
Guest:But overwhelmingly...
Guest:People sent in the recommendation that a good Thanksgiving movie is one I've never seen, which is surprising to me because it was like it's something I probably should have seen at the age I was at and when it came out is Barry Levinson's Avalon.
Guest:which was about a family in Baltimore.
Guest:I believe Elijah Wood plays the lead child in that.
Guest:And I had no idea it was a Thanksgiving movie because I've never seen it.
Guest:But so many people recommended Barry Levinson's Avalon as a Thanksgiving movie that I think I kind of have to watch it now next Thanksgiving.
Guest:So thank you for that.
Guest:We will add that to the list.
Guest:Going back to holidays, back to Halloween, we had some people write in to us about the idea of Mischief Night, right?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:We talked about that a few times, and then some people send in examples, but they all seem very localized examples.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:You know, I was always like, I never saw it or whatever.
Guest:Well, here's a great bit of feedback.
Guest:And this came from Paul.
Guest:And Paul said that you have to really focus on this one story of a woman named Elizabeth Krebs in Hiawatha, Kansas, which is basically the origin story of Halloween as we know it today.
Guest:What?
Guest:But it involves mischief night here.
Guest:This is what he wrote on the topic of Halloween being a night of mischief.
Guest:I thought you might be interested in Elizabeth Krebs, who is referenced as the mother of Halloween.
Guest:According to the accounts of her story, which take place roughly around the turn of the century, Halloween was almost exclusively a night of destruction.
Guest:Ms.
Guest:Krebs, being fed up with her garden being destroyed year after year, began to organize large costume parties in hopes of subverting these destructive acts.
Guest:Well, that seems to have worked, and it was so successful that it contributed to many of our modern Halloween practices.
Guest:On a personal note, I grew up in Covina, California.
Guest:Houses were always TP'd, egged, property destroyed, etc.
Guest:And I don't mean just a few houses.
Guest:It was several on every street.
Guest:I noticed this seemed to lessen quite a bit through the years.
Guest:Now I don't really see it happening at all, but it was definitely overwhelmingly present in my childhood.
Guest:Hopefully that provides some insight into the whole mischief night curiosity.
Guest:It sure as hell does.
Guest:Thank you, Paul.
Guest:And I went and looked this up.
Guest:It checked out entirely the story of Elizabeth Krebs.
Guest:And man, you learn something all the time.
Guest:I never knew this.
Marc:How about that?
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:I'm going to check that out.
Marc:And yeah, thank you so much for bringing that to our attention.
Guest:Yeah, big time.
Guest:uh also some feedback on the albert brooks episode um if you remember i was talking about in that uh you know when we were going over that episode i said it had like three things that i consider like a hallmark of great wtf episodes ava writes in to say i have a fourth sign of a first class wtf episode laughter
Guest:When both Mark and the guest come into that warm, genuine chuckle, they can't help themselves.
Guest:It's therapy.
Guest:It's warming.
Guest:It's to be in the presence of two brilliant people having the best time.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:It's the best.
Guest:It happened with Hugh Grant.
Guest:That's absolutely true.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And yeah, there's so many episodes I can think of that I have re-listened to just because of the laughter.
Guest:So that is a big reason that I think that Albert Brooks episode was so satisfying.
Guest:And yeah, you got it, Ava.
Guest:That's absolutely true.
Guest:Also got this from Chuck.
Guest:He says, I watched Lost in America for the first time because of last week's show, and I think I have a new favorite comedy.
Guest:I doubled back to the Siskel and Ebert review and was delighted to see just talking about the movie had Gene and Roger rolling on the floor.
Guest:They both said the movie ended too abruptly, but I think of it as a huge shaggy dog type of joke.
Guest:When David talks about eating shit and moving to New York, it felt like a perfect punchline.
Guest:I couldn't stop cackling.
Guest:And...
Guest:Albert essentially says as much in the interview with Mark.
Guest:He wanted to end these things the way he wanted to end them.
Guest:They did not have to have some big wind-up and catharsis or anything.
Guest:If it's just a quick joke, that's fine.
Marc:Yes, yeah.
Marc:And yeah, it is such a good movie.
Marc:I implore you all to check it out.
Marc:I believe it's free.
Marc:We can watch it on a streamer somewhere.
Marc:Really great.
Marc:And if you've gone that far, go watch Real Life.
Marc:I cannot recommend it enough.
Guest:It's so, so good.
Guest:five bucks to get.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That one day, that one will cost money, but man, it's worth it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:By the way, it's so much fun.
Marc:I know Mark talked about this in your bonus episode, how he's, you know, had to do a lot of research.
Marc:It's been fun to do a very similar research dive with, uh, with you on this.
Marc:Like, Oh, we're going to talk about our Brooks.
Marc:I better, you know, watch some more our Brooks stuff.
Marc:And it's just delightful.
Marc:It's just a delightful thing to do.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And,
Guest:There are others that is probably not as satisfying, but that is definitely a satisfying one.
Guest:I wanted to mention this just as a follow up.
Guest:Somebody said in an earlier episode a few months ago, you mentioned that the great Stephen Fry will be interviewed by Mark on WTF.
Guest:Has this already happened?
Guest:Can't wait for this one.
Guest:This is why I often don't announce booked guests and we won't on the main show.
Guest:I was happy to mention things like that on the full Marin content here.
Guest:But you might have seen it in the news.
Guest:Stephen Fry had an injury.
Guest:He fell down, had an injury, did not make the trip to America.
Guest:And he just, you know, mentioned in the press that that injury got him hooked on a prescription pain medication.
Guest:And he was like going public with the idea that this is very dangerous and, you know, awareness around pain meds and, you know, especially taking them for injury or whatnot.
Guest:So, yes, there was a reason why we had to cancel that Stephen Fry episode.
Guest:And usually a lot of times,
Guest:You know, if something like that happened, we would never even mention it.
Guest:It's a person's private reasons.
Guest:But I did think it's worth highlighting that he has gone public with the idea that he got injured, got hooked on pain meds and is trying to raise awareness around the fact that this is a very dangerous thing.
Guest:And everybody should be aware if you're in a situation where you have to take pain medication, that the management of it is is crucial.
Guest:We're almost out of time here, and I've got a ton more to read.
Guest:We can do that next week, which will be our last Friday show of the year, our last live one anyway.
Guest:I'll bring you some stuff on the week between Christmas and New Year's that we've already recorded.
Guest:But yeah, Chris, anything else that you wanted to throw in there?
Marc:No, no, you covered it all.
Marc:And it's been a great year for WTF.
Marc:Like you said in your bonus episode, like, you know, kind of like one of the best years of WTF.
Guest:So yeah, I mean, it's kind of shocking to me that that happens.
Guest:Like, you know, and it's I think it's because, you know, you get caught in like the wave of things and it's just going and you don't stop and look.
Guest:And yeah, it just so happened.
Guest:I stopped and looked and went like, God, we had like some great, great shows this year.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, there's not much left to talk about.
Guest:I did want to bring something up, though, about the best thing in wrestling.
Guest:And, you know, initially I was going to say I don't really have much to say because I haven't had a lot of time.
Guest:It's the holiday season, very busy.
Guest:You know, things like wrestling go to the wayside.
Guest:But I do have something that I wanted to highlight.
Guest:I'm not going to say necessarily it's the best thing in wrestling currently, but it could be.
Guest:And this is that a man by the name of Reggie Ray was sentenced to 50 hours of community service and a 90-day suspended sentence.
Guest:Chris is laughing because Reggie Ray...
Guest:is the chair swinging guy from the Alabama riverfront brawl.
Guest:He has avoided jail time for something that he clearly looked like he was going to go to jail for.
Guest:But as we talked about on this show was totally justified in the context of the entire video that was presented in that Alabama riverfront brawl.
Guest:And Reggie Ray has avoided jail time provided that he, you know, completes his community service and stays out of trouble.
Guest:Uh, I feel like,
Guest:Like AEW needs to get on the horn to Reggie Ray when that 90 day suspended sentence is up.
Guest:And he needs to do some chair gimmick with somebody else who is like, you know, a terrible heel.
Guest:And then the baby face is like, you know what I got?
Guest:I got somebody to counteract this guy.
Guest:And out comes Reggie Ray with his white folding chair.
Guest:Please make this happen.
Guest:Do it in Alabama.
Guest:Whenever you're in Alabama next, this guy needs to be on dynamite.
Marc:absolutely get roderick strong to be the bad guy yes right in his neck right in his neck it would be so good oh man it totally compresses vertebra with that yes uh do you have anything anything you want to throw out there speaking of roderick strong uh hangman adam page versus roderick strong that was my favorite match of dynamite oh i can't wait to watch that i haven't watched any dynamite yet
Marc:it starts off dynamite and just, I just love, uh, the way these two wrestle and yeah, great stuff.
Guest:I love the hang man.
Guest:Like, uh, hang man is like a perfect, uh, main character.
Guest:Like that's a guy who should always just be, it's like, uh, uh, you know, when hang man's not around, all the other characters should be saying, where's hang man.
Marc:I mean, he's the Woody from Toy Story.
Marc:It's like he's the guy.
Guest:The spirit.
Guest:The spirit of AEW.
Guest:Hangman Adam Page.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Well, listen, we'll do another round of your comments.
Guest:So please send anything you've got in your chamber.
Guest:Send it in to us by going to the episode description, clicking the link.
Guest:Give us your feedback.
Guest:Give us your questions.
Guest:Tell us what's on your mind as we round out the year.
Guest:And we will be here with you next week.
Guest:Until then, I'm Brendan.
Guest:That's Chris.
Guest:Peace.