BONUS The Friday Show - Feedback Loop
Marc:You and I have had very different times growing up.
Marc:You guys are making Halloween costumes together?
Marc:Holy shit.
Guest:Hello, Chris.
Guest:Brendan, what's good?
Guest:How was Halloween for you?
Marc:Did you do adult trick or treat?
Marc:I sat on my porch and all the kids were able to come because normally I just wait for them to ring the bell.
Marc:Sometimes they just pass me by.
Marc:So now I sat down.
Marc:I didn't offer wine to adults.
Marc:That's what I meant by adult trick or treat.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I couldn't do it.
Marc:Like, no one else was doing it.
Marc:It felt weird.
Guest:See, there's a person on my block that does it, and it is by far the best house on the block.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They get a lot of kudos from the parents.
Guest:You walk by, you got the kids get the candy, adults get a drink.
Guest:It's very nice.
Marc:yeah i i don't know i'm already that weird house up on like this like spooky hill where we don't have kids so it's just like i don't know i feel like it would it would have went a bridge too far giving out your full-size candy bars yes full-size candy bars with this guy is he trying to kid yes this try hard uh but yeah we had a lovely time but uh how was your halloween with a child and everything
Guest:it was great we did do a quick costume this year usually we like make a costume or whatever but uh he wore uh an inflatable costume which are very easy you get them they're in a bag and they have a little motor in them and then they inflate and you know people may have seen dinosaur ones or uh you know people walking around as cartoon characters but he was a uh an a person being abducted by an alien which is a
Guest:I've seen it around.
Guest:He's not the first person to ever wear it.
Guest:But it's an inflatable costume where the alien is holding the person, and the person's legs are off the ground because they're actually the alien legs.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But the torso is the human, right?
Guest:And so you have this alien walking around with this body, this human figure, like a foot off the ground, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You would be surprised how many people, children and adults, do not understand what's going on.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:A lot of people staring or like, what?
Marc:How are you doing that?
Marc:Oh, you broke their brain.
Marc:That's hilarious.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:Was he ecstatic?
Marc:Was he like, this was the best Halloween ever?
Guest:He liked it very much.
Guest:He came up to me after he went up to one house and he said, I just pranked a middle-aged man.
Yeah.
Guest:He apparently went up to the guy and, you know, it was like trick or treat.
Guest:And the guy was trying to put the candy in the alien hand, which is fake, right?
Guest:It's wrapped around the torso and inflated.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And he was trying to put it in there.
Guest:And the guy was like, go ahead, take it.
Guest:And so my son thought he meant take it with your hand.
Guest:So he lifted his hand up, which is in the human body.
Marc:And he freaked out.
Guest:And rather the guy freaked out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's awesome.
Marc:That is great.
Marc:Can I say, your son probably loved this because this is, like you said, your first time doing like this store-bought Halloween costume.
Marc:And I know from experience, I was like Dracula for like five years in a row because my mom was like...
Marc:Well, we're not going to buy a costume here.
Marc:You can just do this Dracula thing and just put on a cape, some white makeup and everything.
Marc:So, you know, to have an actual store bought outfit is kind of really fun.
Marc:Like, yeah, I really enjoy it.
Guest:Yeah, I, as a kid, you know, I just kind of had the same thing that I do with him where we as a family would like make the costume together.
Guest:So it was like, what do you want to be?
Guest:And then suss that out and be like, okay, well, how can we do that?
Guest:And that goes back to like the very first costume he ever wore when he was old enough to go trick or treating was Thomas the Train.
Guest:and and we made it we made the train the train yeah yeah like it was it was the kind of thing like uh almost in the premise of like a person wearing a barrel right like with with suspenders that carry the barrel around yeah we did that but built the train with cardboard and put the thomas face on it and he walked around like a choo-choo and it was great and and i think setting that precedent was just always a thing like all right we're gonna make the costume and
Guest:And it could have been very simple.
Guest:Like one year he wanted to go as Arthur, the character from the children's show, not Dudley Moore.
Guest:Yeah, I was going to say.
Guest:That bad British accent.
Guest:No, Arthur is an aardvark that kids like.
Guest:But I did, I had that situation where I told somebody that, oh, he's going as Arthur.
Guest:And they totally thought that it was Dudley Moore.
Guest:And they're like, is he going to have a drink?
Guest:Like what's he?
Guest:Like a martini glass with an olive?
Marc:That's weird.
Marc:All right.
Yeah.
Guest:That's like my favorite mistake like that was one year we were watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade with my family.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And, you know, Arthur, this cartoon is from like way after our time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I think you had to, but it was still on when he was little.
Guest:So, you know, it's probably from like the late 90s onward, it started going on PBS and then kids watched it like along with Sesame Street and whatnot.
Guest:Right.
Guest:we were watching the Thanksgiving day parade and you know, they do like the bumpers to tell you what's coming up next.
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:It's like, you know, stay tuned for the peanuts float or whatever.
Guest:And, you know, so they were like, you know, coming up next to more with Al Roker, the Arthur balloon, musical guests, whatever.
Guest:And my dad was like, wait, what?
Guest:He goes, be Arthur balloon.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We got to make that happen.
Marc:I know.
Guest:I've said it every year.
Guest:Every year we watch the Thanksgiving parade.
Guest:I'm like, is the B. Arthur balloon coming out yet?
Guest:How's that?
Guest:You got to get on this.
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:The B. Arthur balloon.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:You know, all this Halloween talk that we've talked about, I realized that I kind of remember when I was a kid,
Marc:Like there was this other part of Halloween, an adolescent part of Halloween that I personally never partook in.
Guest:You mean like throwing telepaper and eggs and shit?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And like, what is it?
Marc:The shaving cream.
Marc:Mischief night?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So did you ever partake in that?
Marc:No.
Guest:No?
Guest:That was very silly.
Guest:I did it once, ironically, but in earnest, with my 10th grade social studies teacher, who was a rabid conservative.
Guest:He would quote Rush Limbaugh to us.
Guest:In 10th grade?
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:He made us watch Milton Friedman's Free to Choose, which was coincidentally enough introduced by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Guest:Oh, no way.
Guest:The entire first half hour of sitting there watching this show, which was about, you know, supply side economics.
Guest:I couldn't understand why it was called Free the Jews.
Guest:Like, what does this have to do with the Jews and why are they not free?
Guest:Is this about ancient Egypt or what's going on?
Guest:And it was just because that's how Arnold introduced it.
Guest:I would like to watch this show free to Jews.
Marc:Where's Arnold holding them?
Guest:It's like, you're Conan, go free them.
Why are you putting this on me?
Guest:I'm a kid.
Guest:But yeah, so this teacher, he would really show, I mean, he would get fired today, no question.
Guest:He used to complain about the social studies books that our school had, that there were too many women in them.
Guest:I'm not kidding.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He would say, like, you know, this chapter here is obligatory.
Guest:Like, it's a token chapter.
Guest:This woman was not important.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:Yeah, that's what you're talking about.
Marc:So please tell me he wasn't popular in school.
Marc:No, no.
Guest:And so that leads into this story that on Halloween night, my three friends and my dad driving the getaway car...
Guest:decided to go hit his house but not with eggs or toilet paper or uh shaving cream but with mario cuomo for governor posters because like election day was like three days later we put them all over his house we he had a front gate like that you'd have to he'd have to like open the gate to drive out we put a big banner across the gate that's amazing
Guest:And my buddy wanted to make one for Ted Kennedy, too, just because he knew that would bother Mr. Bettini.
Guest:And definitely his house was fully covered.
Guest:We got him everywhere with all these Cuomo posters.
Guest:We were never caught.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Although my mother, who was a substitute at the school, said that he saw her in the teacher's lounge or at the photocopier or something and was like,
Guest:You know, oh, how was last night for you?
Guest:And she said, it was fine.
Guest:Kids were out, whatever.
Guest:He's like, oh, did your house get hit?
Marc:Oh, interesting.
Guest:She said, no, that never happens.
Guest:He's like, oh, mine got hit.
Guest:And she was like, really?
Guest:Oh, they totally played dumb.
Guest:Like, wow.
Guest:And he was like, yeah, it was an interesting one, though.
Guest:He's like, but he's like, you know, as Lennon said, the innocent may have to suffer for me to find the guilty.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:When did John Lennon say that?
Guest:I am the walrus.
Guest:That was after he said that, right?
Yeah.
Guest:But my mom tells that story like he had a glint in his eye, like that he admired it in a way.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Like he felt special that like some kids paid attention to him in a clever way, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And also jokes on us.
Guest:That was 94.
Guest:The Democrats got wiped out, including Mario Cuomo, lost to this nobody from Peakskill, George Pataki.
Guest:Nobody ever heard of this guy before.
Guest:And he beats the vaunted Mario Cuomo.
Guest:But we at least had to take with us the idea that, you know, we got him.
Marc:We got him.
Marc:We got him a few days earlier.
Marc:That's awesome.
Guest:Cold comfort.
Guest:It was like the enjoyment we had, like, you know, when the Access Hollywood tape came out for Trump.
Guest:It's the exact thing, right?
Guest:It's like, ah, ha, ha.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was, that's the only time I ever took part in that.
Guest:And my mom was correct.
Guest:We never got hit or anything.
Guest:We never saw that on our street.
Guest:So I don't see it now.
Guest:Like I saw it.
Guest:I tend to think it was more like an urban legend thing.
Guest:A couple of kids did it once in a while, and then it became this thing like, oh, on Halloween night, your house could get hit with toilet paper.
Guest:Nobody ever did it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Maybe people did.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's all the gangs from the Karate Kid movie.
Marc:Yes, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're in skeleton costume.
Guest:Or it's also like, I mean, Halloween is like the prime holiday of urban legends.
Guest:Razor blades in the apples and cyanide in the candy and all this bullshit.
Guest:None of it's true.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Yeah, but it was a good Halloween.
Marc:I also enjoyed your WTF with Dan Soder.
Marc:Dude, should I get this surgery, this hair surgery that he did?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You might be a little too far gone for it.
Guest:And I don't mean that as a slight.
Guest:I just mean that I think the whole point is when you're losing your hair like up top, they can take the active cells from the back of your head and move them to the top.
Guest:That's what a hair transplant is.
Guest:It's not like they take a giant mane of hair and transplant it to your head.
Guest:It's just like at a follicle level, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, how do you do it all in one sitting?
Marc:Like, I'm so fascinated because now I'm like, well, why didn't my doctor tell me this?
Marc:Like, what doctor do I see?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, it's a, I know one other person that's had it done.
Guest:I know two, actually, now that I think about it.
Guest:And yeah, it's like they do an incision in the back of your head and take the stuff out that they need and replant it.
Marc:It's like re-sodding the garden up top there.
Marc:How interesting.
Marc:I'm going to look into it.
Marc:I mean, I'll be honest with you, I don't really give a shit.
Marc:That's part of it at this point, right?
Marc:Well, no, I mean, even when I was losing my hair, I was just like, okay, what am I supposed to do?
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:But still, it's fascinating that someone actually did this in like one session.
Marc:So I don't know, just kind of fascinating to me.
Marc:But also, I really enjoyed that Mark saw, first of all, Killers of the Flower Moon.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Which I...
Marc:Can't wait for you to see.
Marc:Can I just say?
Guest:I will be seeing it tonight as people are listening to this.
Guest:I have tickets on a Friday night.
Guest:It's at 9 o'clock, so I'm not getting out of there until 12.30, 1 o'clock or whatever.
Guest:But maybe I'll take a nap beforehand because I'm an oldie.
Marc:Yeah, that's great.
Marc:I also, I concur with Mark.
Marc:I know we've said it previously, but why aren't all these movie theaters IMAX theaters?
Marc:I know.
Marc:Just make them the best in the whole world.
Marc:Like, I don't understand it.
Marc:Like, I went to see Killers of the Flower Moon a second time, okay?
Marc:I saw it again, this time in a regular theater.
Marc:And can I tell you, the experience was terrible.
Marc:And it was terrible because this movie happens to be a very quiet movie.
Marc:There are a lot of quiet moments.
Marc:And in the theater next to me is Taylor Swift happening, which, by the way, I saw a couple weeks ago.
Marc:I forgot to mention it.
Marc:It's lovely.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:My niece was dancing in the front.
Marc:I was overjoyed.
Marc:It was very good.
Marc:But I did not need to hear that.
Marc:anti-hero or whatever song was being played by Taylor Swift when Leo and his wife were sitting at a table.
Marc:It was a bit much.
Marc:Just make all these theaters soundproof and the best screen in the whole world.
Guest:When you said that's a regular theater, what was the initial theater you went to?
Marc:the Dolby blah, blah, blah.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:So just that it was a bigger theater with a more pronounced sound system.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:A more pronounced sound.
Guest:I got to tell you, dude, the sound systems are the key, right?
Guest:Like I used to think, like I agree with Mark in a way, like the big screen is really helpful and everything, but the more I go to movies in my older age, when you have all these opportunities and options in front of you, a place with good sound trumps all the other things.
Guest:Like that's the best thing.
Guest:So like,
Guest:For instance, the theater in New York City here called The Paris, which is right by the plaza, as seen in Home Alone 2.
Guest:For anyone with a point of reference.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And yeah, not Eloise at the plaza or anything.
Guest:Home Alone 2.
Guest:Uh, and the Paris was gonna close and Netflix bought it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they use it as their like, you know, showroom now for their, their movies, but also they'll show repertory screenings.
Guest:I think you went to see heat there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Uh, we, we, we saw sorcerer there a couple of weeks ago.
Guest:It's a good theater.
Guest:And one of the reasons it's good is because they totally redid the sound system.
Guest:It has this sound system now called Atmos.
Guest:Atmos.
Guest:And whatever that means, but what to me it means is it's good.
Guest:It sounds great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'll tell you what I went to see there the other day.
Guest:What'd you say?
Guest:I went to see The Killer, the new David Fincher movie.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And it, all right, listen to me.
Guest:If you're in the sound of my voice, anyone listening to this, you need to find where this movie is playing near you.
Guest:It might not be that close, but even if it's not,
Guest:If you live in Philadelphia, take the train up to New York and go see this movie.
Guest:Netflix is going to rob you of an experience because they are going to take this out of the theater on November 10th, and it's just going to be showing on Netflix.
Guest:First of all, it's top tier David Fincher.
Guest:If you like David Fincher, you will love this.
Guest:But it sounds so great.
Guest:It is the best sound design on a film that I've seen since the Top Gun movie, Maverick.
Guest:Which was the last time I sat in the theater and was like, this sounds fucking great.
Guest:Like, this sounds so good.
Guest:And the sound design on this movie, The Killer, is just as good, but different.
Guest:You know, it's not about planes soaring overhead.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's all these little noises of the guy cleaning his gun and his the sound is his scope makes and his all the all his little gear that he's got.
Guest:And then this fight scene that's just amazing.
Guest:You have to see it.
Guest:Seeing it in a movie theater is great because that's just like the tone of the movie is like a very kind of you're trapped in here with this guy kind of movie.
Guest:And it's fun to see that communally.
Guest:Like Mark talks about sharing the same space with people and, you know, you go through it with them.
Guest:So that's great.
Guest:Like I said, the sound is also great.
Guest:But here's another thing.
Guest:It is going to suffer on Netflix because of compression.
Why?
Guest:Like you ever watch something on a digital file and when, if it starts moving fast, things start to look kind of blocky and chunky.
Guest:That is going to happen so much in this movie.
Guest:I guarantee it.
Guest:There is one scene, possibly the best scene in the film that may be rendered incomprehensible because it moves so fast and it's kind of dark.
Guest:And like, remember how people were complaining about this with game of Thrones that like when they were watching it over like HBO,
Guest:max or something it was they couldn't see anything and it was all chunky and blocky that's the same problem that's going to occur with this through the the degraded streaming process so if you can go see it in the theater you have one week you have one week to make this happen and you will not be disappointed the killer by david fincher i know it's playing in the major cities i'm sorry if you don't live in the major cities blame netflix not me i'm just the messenger
Marc:Can I ask—I mean, you probably won't know.
Marc:I mean, you probably know, and it's a probably obvious answer, but why would David Fincher continue to sell his movies to Netflix if— Well, I mean, he's on a deal.
Guest:He signed a deal with them.
Guest:He has now made two feature films, Mank and The Killer.
Guest:He's done several series, including Mindhunter.
Guest:Which was great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I think there's some cartoon or animated thing he was involved with, with robots.
Guest:I can't remember exactly what it was called.
Guest:But he had some involvement with that.
Guest:So, look, I mean, who knows the untold millions they gave him to do this deal.
Guest:They were giving out tons of deals, content deals, as was Amazon, as was Apple.
Guest:I don't begrudge the artists at all for taking these deals.
Guest:But, like...
Guest:The companies themselves, they just need the content.
Guest:They are not looking to display these things in the best way possible.
Marc:Now I have to go find this place, which isn't even playing at the Paris anymore.
Marc:Thursday was the last day.
Marc:So I have to go to my, it's playing at my local theater.
Marc:But again, I'm curious to see if Taylor Swift's going to be, you know, singing back up to this movie.
Guest:I believe it's also playing at all the Alamos.
Guest:So you got those at your disposal too.
Guest:So you can go to like the New York Alamo or something.
Guest:Yeah, I would recommend, see it in the theater.
Guest:You got a week, give it a shot.
Guest:And then it will be rewarding re-watching it again.
Guest:Like when you do get to watch it at home on Netflix, it pays off multiple times.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Very cool.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I can't wait to see it.
Marc:Very good.
Marc:Something else that I really loved about Mark is he's growing.
Marc:So like I was saying, he saw Killers of the Flower Moon and he's like, oh, look, look at all these nice people who've been on my show.
Marc:And he's actually not jealous of them.
Marc:Like, I normally don't think that people can change, but looking at Mark, you know, smiling, looking up at these people without being like, you know, just angry inside.
Marc:Fuck that guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It just makes me think, you know, like Rocky at the end of Rocky IV.
Marc:Like, if I can change, you can change.
Marc:We all can change.
Marc:I saw Kevin Christie in the movie.
Marc:I'm not angry.
Yeah.
Marc:Also, I did not recognize any of the musicians that he was talking about.
Marc:I'm very bad at recognizing people, but Pete Yorn is in this movie.
Marc:I'm like, I don't know which one he was.
Marc:Which one was he?
Marc:He was the white guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Cool.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:He was the guy that for some reason they listed him as Robert De Niro in the cast.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:I'm just kidding.
Marc:But Dan Soder mentioned cigarettes in the freezer.
Marc:First of all, have you ever smoked?
Marc:Were you a smoker?
Guest:No, I was never a smoker.
Guest:But, you know, being a person who went to college and was at parties, I absolutely have grabbed a cigarette in my life.
Guest:I always said that doesn't count as being a smoker.
Guest:Just like it wouldn't count if you like someone was like, hey, do a line of cocaine.
Guest:And you did a line of cocaine.
Guest:You wouldn't be like, I'm a cokehead.
Guest:I don't think that.
Guest:I think there have to be allowances, right, for experimentation or just some recreation, right?
Guest:So I would never have called myself a smoker.
Guest:However, I did buy a pack of cigarettes once.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yes, it was.
Marc:Did you get carded?
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:I was living in the Bronx and I was trying to visit someone for a Christmas party.
Guest:And they were like up in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, which is like there's no trains that go up that way.
Guest:And it's like you're almost in Westchester, but you're still part of New York City, still part of the Bronx.
Guest:And I had to get back down south to the school where I went to, which is in more like the center of the Bronx.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so the only way to do that is no trains or anything.
Guest:And I'm poor.
Guest:I couldn't afford to call a cab or whatnot.
Guest:So I was sitting I was I waited for a I waited for a city bus.
Guest:And it was like one of those not quite yet winter, but super cold days, like New York 20 degree or below days.
Guest:And one of the early ones.
Guest:So you're not acclimated to it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You don't have your heavy jacket on, your hat or anything.
Guest:Even if I did, I would have been shivering.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I was standing there waiting for, and no cell, there's pre-cell phones or anything.
Guest:You can't do anything.
Guest:So you're just standing there focusing on how goddamn cold it is, right?
Marc:Shivering.
Marc:And the lights.
Marc:Come on, can the light turn so maybe the bus will come?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And it was pretty desolate.
Guest:Like there was no one around or whatever.
Guest:It was like me and like one other guy just waiting there for this bus.
Guest:But there was a convenience store nearby, which, you know, happens.
Guest:You'd be a corner store near the bus stop.
Guest:It's going to get frequented, right?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I was so cold and I had like, you know, 10 bucks to my name at the time.
Guest:And I was like, I got to fucking warm up somehow.
Guest:And I went in there and I bought a pack of cigarettes, parliament lights.
Guest:I was like, do the least possible damage to yourself that you can.
Guest:And, you know, he got the free lighter or whatever it was that he handed me to light them with maybe a book of matches.
Guest:I think it was actually a lighter, five cent lighter, you know, something like that.
Guest:And I went out and I opened it.
Guest:I opened this pack of cigarettes.
Guest:I'm like, what the fuck happened to me?
Guest:I'm buying cigarettes now.
Marc:You're going to play dice next with the other five with the change?
Guest:I would love it if like immediately I was just like, like somebody came up to me and I'd be like, hey, what do you got, Pat?
Guest:Like, you know, like all of a sudden it was just like this total different person because I'm smoking cigarettes.
Guest:But that one guy who was also there waiting for the bus.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He does walk over to me while I'm standing there and he's like, well, hey man, can I bum a cigarette?
Guest:I was like, you can bum more than one if you want.
Guest:We can just stand here and smoke cigarettes all night.
Guest:Smoke this whole pack.
Guest:The two of us.
Guest:We're just like two cigarette smoking boys just standing here enjoying ourselves.
Marc:I also loved your bonus episode, your 200th episode.
Marc:I did not realize that Mike Bibiglia was, I don't know, I guess the only way to say it is just thirsty for Mark's friendship.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, look, I don't want to step on how Mark characterizes it.
Guest:Let him have his own perception of it, and he's a good judge of character a lot of times.
Guest:He could very well be right.
Guest:I always saw it, though, more like just one of those people that...
Guest:you know gets under your skin and you can't shake and i don't know like mark always ascribed these you know motives to mike you know coming around and um you know that he had some ambition behind all the times he wanted to be a part of the show or whatever and like i don't know maybe i'm a sucker but i did always just kind of think like i
Marc:think this guy just like likes mark a lot and wants to like hang out and be his friend but yeah again what do i know maybe i'm totally wrong about that yeah and i i think mark was right you know and there are people just just crawl like he said right up your ass you know like i had that at air america like oh yeah i had that guy d-bag and like who i would you know i did not like him and you would be like wow what's the matter you don't like that guy i'm like yeah just don't like him like i
Guest:Well, I remember one time, like, you were like, oh, yeah, that's D-Bag.
Guest:And I was like, oh, that's his nickname?
Guest:And you were like, no, that's what I call him.
Guest:And I was like, what does it mean?
Guest:And you're like, you know, like a douchebag.
Guest:I don't like the guy.
Marc:And I'm introducing him to his face.
Guest:Yeah, that was what I, I figured it was some friendly thing.
Guest:You're like, oh, yeah, that's D-Bag over there.
Guest:I was like, D-Bag?
Guest:What's his name?
Guest:Dave or something?
Guest:And you're like, I don't know.
Guest:He's D-Bag.
Marc:It probably was Dave.
Marc:I mean, I hope it was.
Marc:But yeah, there are just some people who are just like, I just don't like you.
Marc:And that's okay.
Marc:There are always times where I see myself in Mark in his thought process.
Marc:And that was definitely one of them.
Marc:But also, do you guys ever like look around like on your on the podcast apps and like Spotify and all these places and you just see all these fucking podcasts about every sort of thing?
Marc:And do you guys ever like like feel like fucking Oppenheimer at the end of that movie?
Marc:Like you're the destroyer of worlds.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:basically.
Guest:Well, okay.
Guest:I don't think that it's fair to ascribe, you know, the, the, the popularity and boom of all sorts of podcast content to what we did.
Guest:I think, you know, if there's anything that was a real, uh, patient zero, it was serial, which essentially some type of product podcast like serial would have happened.
Guest:Regardless, a highly well-produced, uh,
Guest:radio background show that wound up giving people and companies, more importantly, the blueprint to say, oh, this is a sector of business that we can tap into.
Guest:And there's a consumer base for it that hasn't been exploited yet, basically.
Guest:And that's where I think you get the proliferation of every type of podcast in the world.
Guest:I think what Mark did and the show WTF probably deserves some credit for is the idea that you can just put a microphone on, hit record and talk about things yourself or talk to other people.
Guest:Does that make it a success?
Guest:No, you have to have some level of talent.
Guest:You have to present it well.
Guest:But I think it gave people... It was a permission structure early on.
Guest:Like, oh, that's thing Marc Maron's doing.
Guest:I could do one of those.
Guest:And I don't think that I look at it in any way as a negative.
Guest:I definitely don't treat it like Oppenheimer did.
Guest:But I know that Marc feels sometimes...
Guest:the proliferation of particularly, like, talk podcasts does dilute what he does.
Guest:And I guess, you know, I have to agree with him in some regard that I went back and listened to this episode 200, which is us talking about just the first 200 episodes of the show, and I had forgotten just how...
Guest:kind of influential and central the podcast was in the comedy community at the time just listening back to it going like oh man yeah all these people talking about the show in a way that was like you know that it was this very important
Guest:element of existing as a comic in the early 2000s either knowing conversations that happened on the show getting on the show at that time you know was considered a big deal for comics and uh i i do forget about that and so i think it's it's
Guest:Probably attributable to the fact that there are now so many podcasts that it's easy to forget a time when comedy podcasts of which we were one really dominated the landscape of what podcasting was.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I think you hear that when Dan is talking to Mark.
Marc:He is like over the moon about a being on the show and just just, you know, reverent to Mark.
Marc:And I wonder if Mark will ever understand the impact he's had on other people's lives.
Marc:You know, like I wonder if he will fully understand it, you know, because it is profound and he he, you know, is a big deal.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know that he can ever fully understand it.
Guest:I think he has more of an understanding of it now, I think in particular because, you know, he has a fan base that he can draw to venues over and over again.
Guest:It's not that he hits lulls where all of a sudden nobody's consuming his stuff anymore.
Guest:So I think, you know, he can appreciate it on that level, which he wasn't able to in his past.
Guest:But I don't necessarily think he has a full view of how the podcast has been received over the course of, you know, almost 15 years now.
Guest:So that's an interesting thing.
Guest:And, you know, I don't know that it's a bad thing that he doesn't know that.
Guest:Like, it's probably for the best.
Marc:Right, fair enough.
Marc:Also, I love Mark talking about going to Boston like he did on yesterday's episode.
Marc:So he does the asshole song with Dennis Leary?
Marc:Is that a thing?
Guest:I think that's a new thing.
Guest:I think they're just doing it for this show.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Wait, so this is like a new song that he's going to be performing?
Marc:What?
Guest:Well, no, I think he's, I think there's, you know, they're doing this thing that Dennis has done for years, this Comics Come Home charity event.
Guest:And they're going to do the asshole song.
Guest:And they asked Mark and Bill Burr to be the part of, you know, musicians on it.
Guest:That's amazing.
Marc:First of all.
Marc:The asshole song is something that is very near and dear to my heart.
Marc:Are you kidding?
Marc:I had that fucking CD.
Marc:My nephews, Jake and Nick, still love this album.
Marc:How old is this album?
Marc:It's like 30 years old.
Guest:It's like 1991, 1991.
Guest:I think.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It is so goddamn old and they can quote Dennis Leary doing NyQuil, doing the asshole song, like verbatim.
Marc:So yeah, that's exciting.
Marc:Is that going to be recorded?
Guest:Oh yeah, that's the thing.
Guest:Anybody who ever wants to knock Dennis Leary at being like a guy who stole Bill Hicks' entire persona and whatnot, it's like...
Guest:knock yourself out because like he definitely created something that lasted for a lot longer and had left an indelible impression uh that whole album you're correct but but the song i mean i know the song by heart i could i could sing it right now even though i'm not going to yeah it is great and uh yeah looking forward to it to mark doing that that's very cool uh
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:So if you have any feedback you want to send to us, what we're going to do now for the remainder of the show is read what's been coming in to us because, you know, I just kind of want to make sure we sift through the mailbag here.
Guest:And you can do that very easily.
Guest:Just scroll to the episode description.
Guest:There's a link there.
Guest:Just click on it.
Guest:Send us a comment in the form.
Guest:And it could be about anything.
Guest:And somebody, in fact, sent something in.
Guest:that I think was related to us doing this 200th episode review on the bonus content, because they said, just listen to the 1,000th episode recap slash celebration.
Guest:Are you planning one for 1,500?
Guest:A ton has happened since episode 1,000, and it could be fun to hear you to recap and reflect on the most recent past 500.
Guest:And I can tell this person for sure we will do something.
Guest:On the 1500th episode, I am not at liberty to say what it will be, but it will be some form of celebration in regard to what we have done over the past almost 15 years.
Guest:We kind of try to do this every 100th episode.
Guest:So like episode 100 was, uh, basically like what we're doing right now, but it was the first time we ever did it on WTF where we just had Mark, uh, answer fan mail.
Guest:And, uh, he actually talked to some people who wrote in, you know, called them about problems that they had and stuff.
Guest:So if you want to go back and listen to that, uh, 200, we spoke about the other day, 300 was an episode with a bunch of guests and
Guest:uh who were you know in the comedy community and who wtf made some type of impact on them and uh you know it was jesse thorne it was it was who was really there as a guy who was you know representing someone with wtf at the start that it wasn't so much that wtf as a show meant something to him it was that
Guest:he, as a podcaster himself, was like, well, let me help get this show off the ground so we can all kind of be in a more fluid community together.
Guest:And any chance we get, we give Jesse credit for helping us get started back in the day.
Guest:And he was on that episode.
Guest:I think Pete Holmes, Nathan Rabin from the AV Club, who was a big booster of the show at the time, Andy Kindler, who was also a big fan of WTF.
Guest:That was episode 300.
Guest:Episode 400 was Iggy Pop.
Guest:And that was just kind of like a big moment for Mark.
Guest:They get to talk to one of his heroes.
Guest:And then episode 500 was Mark trying to reconcile with his dad, who he had become estranged from in between like episode 200 and 500, largely around his book.
Guest:Um, and, and he did that by trying to like kind of interrogate his past.
Guest:He spoke with his, his mother, his brother, his old friend, Steve Brill, who, you know, he had some patching up to do with him.
Guest:Uh, so yeah, that was episode 500.
Guest:And we, then we kind of, uh,
Guest:de-emphasized it a bit going forward.
Guest:But back when we hit episode 1000, we knew we had to like, you know, really kind of reflect, celebrate the show.
Guest:And it was just me and Mark.
Guest:And I think that's the only show that like approaches like three hours in length.
Guest:We really went through everything that we possibly could when it comes to the origins and progression of WTF.
Guest:So I think we are looking at the date is, I'll tell you right now, I have it written down.
Guest:The date will be January 4th.
Guest:So, you know, really the first show after New Year's.
Guest:And that'll be episode 1500.
Guest:Mark it on your calendars.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Just moving on to some other comments here.
Guest:This one says, guys, sorry for making a guest request before.
Guest:I know that's tacky as hell.
Guest:And I didn't remember what the guest request was.
Guest:I went back and looked at this person's previous comment and he had recommended Dan Carlin, the host of Hardcore History, which is not tacky as hell.
Guest:We absolutely like to get guest recommendations.
Guest:Dan Carlin is a guy who's been doing it as long as we have.
Guest:So there is some reason to believe we should...
Guest:probably crossed paths with him at some point.
Guest:We never have.
Guest:I think maybe there was one time we, you know, had some type of exchange with Dan regarding, you know, our mutual podcast host Libsyn, but that was about it.
Guest:But yes, definitely something for us to consider.
Guest:But here's the actual question from Ryan.
Guest:He says, here's a sports question.
Guest:In cities with two teams, how do fans choose which one they cheer for will be tormented by?
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:Happy Halloween from Ryan.
Guest:So, Chris, you have some very strong feelings about this, I believe.
Guest:Just from me knowing what your fandom is in terms of sports, and in particular, what your fan hatred is when it comes to sports.
Guest:So I guess I'm curious how you would answer this question.
Guest:How do fans choose?
Marc:Well...
Marc:I wish it was more organic or had to do with the actual team.
Marc:It doesn't.
Marc:It has to do with the people that you like and also the people in your life.
Marc:My dad was a Met fan.
Marc:I basically became a Met fan.
Marc:Although I will say...
Marc:My dad's also a Jet fan.
Marc:So my dad's a Met and a Jet fan.
Marc:Like, holy shit.
Marc:That's like the worst of the worst.
Marc:Anyway, I am not a Jet fan.
Marc:And the reason for that is when I was a kid, I was a kid in the 1980s, and the Giants, the New York Giants, and the New York Mets were champions.
Marc:And they were super fun.
Marc:They had really cool people.
Guest:All right, that's the thing.
Guest:Even before they were champions, you probably were enjoying the characters that were on those teams.
Marc:Yes, I liked... I was the same way.
Marc:Yeah, I liked Bill Parcells.
Marc:I loved LT.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:He was the best.
Marc:And then Doc Gooden, Daryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez, all these guys that I personally was watching, and I loved them.
Marc:And...
Marc:I will never discount this.
Marc:The people in my neighborhood were all Yankee fans and I could not stand them.
Marc:If one of them was burning, I would not help them.
Marc:I grew up with Yankee fans tormenting me and I'm happy that I was on the receiving end of it because if I had to be on their side of things, much like with politics, I would just find myself depressed because I was an asshole.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I think that it's a permitted form of tribalism, right?
Guest:So you're going to gravitate toward something where you don't have to logically explain it at all.
Guest:Say, I like this, my enemy likes the opposite, and it's okay.
Guest:Like, there actually probably should be more outlets for that in the world.
Guest:Then we might not have as many problems.
Guest:And, you know, you don't have to take it too seriously, but...
Guest:you can and it can be a thing you bring with you for your whole life and everything chris said i think is true it has something to do with you know what you inherit through your family but also what's popular what is what appeals to you from an aesthetic level at the age when you start to get into this and i mean geographically it makes a difference because i know i grew up in queens we were closer to the mets than the yankees i don't know that that made a
Guest:ton of difference if I just wanted to watch something on TV you know I could watch the Yankees whenever I wanted but the geography does make a difference there have been studies where they've mapped this out to show what different parts of the country became fans of particularly if they don't have a local team right so you know geography is a big deal and I would also say here's the other thing because what Ryan is asking is how do fans choose which one right
Guest:i think in large part they don't choose right it's like the sorting hat from from harry potter exactly it just happens like if you happen to have been alive maybe five years earlier and there was a lot of reggie jackson going on you would have been a yankee fan absolutely yeah
Guest:And so, you know, and it's just because the aesthetic of that, you gravitate toward it.
Guest:I remember, I could never understand it as I got older.
Guest:Why were my grandparents, who were lifelong Brooklynites,
Guest:And they grew up loving the Dodgers, the both of them, both my grandparents.
Guest:My grandfather tried out for the Dodgers.
Guest:I have the letter from the Dodgers saying, show up on this day, bring your glove, whatever.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:These were Brooklyn Dodger fans from Brooklyn.
Guest:The Dodgers then left and my grandparents gave up baseball.
Guest:They stopped watching.
Guest:My dad, who was younger, you know, and was a Dodger fan, but didn't live with them as long when they left.
Guest:He waited around until the Mets showed up and he became a Mets fan because it was the replacement team for the Dodgers and the Giants, the baseball Giants, which who left for San Francisco.
Guest:I could not understand for the life of me as I got older, why are my grandparents Yankee fans?
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's the Dodgers hated rival.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, this is crazy.
Guest:Like, why?
Guest:And as a kid, I just grew up with them being Yankee fans.
Guest:I didn't know it.
Guest:I didn't have any real reason to question it.
Guest:It was only when I got older and understood the rivalries and what was the history that I was like, why in the world?
Guest:And I remember asking my dad,
Guest:Why are grandma and grandpa Yankee fans?
Guest:And he was like, I don't know.
Guest:It's weird, right?
Guest:So one day you do what you should do in a moment of curiosity like that.
Guest:I said, grandma, why do you guys root for the Yankees?
Guest:And she didn't wait one second.
Guest:She just said, Reggie.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:She said they were out of baseball.
Guest:They did not watch baseball.
Guest:The Dodgers broke their heart.
Guest:So at that point, they're, you know...
Guest:Over a decade removed from the pain of that, right?
Guest:And maybe almost close to two decades.
Guest:And all of a sudden, here's this guy who takes New York City, which is at a particularly low moment as a city.
Guest:The Bronx is burning, all that stuff.
Guest:Son of Sam, right?
Guest:And here he comes.
Guest:He's Mr. October.
Guest:And he just lights the city on fire figuratively, as opposed to literally.
Yeah.
Guest:and uh and they loved him they loved reggie and he turned it around for them and uh and they became yankees fans then so i i mean was that their choice yes it was they chose to do it but there wasn't another choice at their disposal right it happened to them they were inflicted with the yankees at that point right so uh i and look i think this happens in all sorts of tribal
Guest:formulations in life right and the one cool thing about sports is it doesn't matter unless you're blowing your mortgage gambling on it sports does not matter it's just there for fun which is another reason why we talk about wrestling it's the same thing it's there for fun so I don't know that's my very kind of heady detailed answer on how sports fandom gets split up in cities with multiple teams
Marc:Yeah, my grandfather, who a lifelong Brooklyn person, I believe he came over from Italy.
Marc:And he worked on the railroad.
Marc:And you would think this guy is just a lifelong New Yorker.
Marc:He was a St.
Marc:Louis Cardinals fan.
Marc:Which weird, it was the weirdest thing in the whole world.
Marc:I never actually got to ask him why, but I believe it has to do with the fact that he was working on the railroad and would be going to St.
Marc:Louis often.
Marc:And also they were winning at that time when he was a kid.
Marc:So I'm guessing that's why.
Marc:But yeah, he was a Cardinal fan.
Marc:Can you believe that?
Marc:He was working all the live long day.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:That would be the only thing I ever said to him.
Guest:Grandpa, are you working all the live long day?
Marc:Yeah, I wasn't having a conversation with my grandfather.
Marc:You and I, I've said this before, you and I have had very different times growing up.
Marc:You guys are making Halloween costumes together.
Marc:Holy shit, my parents would never do that.
Marc:Having a conversation with my grandfather?
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:If it didn't involve a belt, he wasn't there.
Guest:Well, that's very sad to hear, but I will say you have rebounded as quite an exemplary person.
Guest:And I think you have great sense of humor based on it.
Guest:Like you have been able to weather the storms and make lemons out of lemonade.
Guest:And it has left you with good nature as a human.
Guest:So that is to your credit.
Marc:Yeah, I definitely made lemons out of lemonade.
Marc:But yeah, I think it's the other way around.
Marc:But yeah.
Marc:Oh, is that what I said?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Let's keep it.
Marc:I don't care.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, so the other thing, another thing that came in related to stuff we talked about on the show, some person said, I've noticed Mark's won'ts or wounds, as we would say.
Guest:Uh, because my ex is from the same area of New Jersey as Mark is and says it exactly the same way.
Guest:No, that is weird because I'm married to someone from North Jersey, not very far from where Mark came from.
Guest:And she does not say won't.
Guest:She says a bunch of weird things.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:That I point out to her all the time.
Guest:Any word that ends in like A-I-N, like fountain, she says fountain.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:But yeah, I would guess that's probably not...
Guest:wrong that if if mark and this person's ex are from the same area in jersey it might just be one little pocket pompton lakes wayne new jersey area uh there's a lot of weird regional dialects that's for sure although i i i think it's funny because i i always point the stuff out that my wife says when she says words that are you know regional that have a regional dialect and uh
Guest:I was very high and mighty about it.
Guest:It's like, hey, look, I'm from lifelong New Yorker and you don't hear me sounding like I live in New York.
Guest:I don't have any kind of weird New York regionalism or anything like that.
Marc:Until?
Guest:She's like, she goes, yeah, you do.
Guest:And I was like, what?
Guest:She's like, I'll point it out when you say it.
Guest:And it was, I don't know, weeks, months later, she waited.
Guest:She waited on it.
Guest:Ready to pounce whenever she could.
Guest:And I guess maybe we were having some food or something.
Guest:And I said, what do you want as a side thing with this?
Guest:Do you want some potatoes?
Guest:She's like, there it is.
Guest:Wow, she called it right then and there.
Guest:Potatoes, that's great.
Guest:And I was like, no, I don't say weird.
Guest:I say potatoes.
Guest:that's great and and it's funny because like my my grandfather i was talking about the brooklyn grandfather he was like mo from the three stooges he had the most he said turlet no kidding
Guest:yeah yeah i'm gonna put some earl in the car you know like he he was so brooklyn wow and nobody else in my family really has that but uh yeah i remember one time he was telling me that i had to go see this movie with jeff bridges it was called felis and i was like felis like felis the cat like what are you talking about
Guest:fearless and they and i was like and i repeated it like that i was like fearless like and he was like yeah yeah fearless you have to see fearless it's great and then i remember finding out a long time later that the movie was called fearless and i was like oh that's what he was talking about jeez
Guest:Might as well be speaking Portuguese.
Guest:Like, I had no idea.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Fearless.
Marc:Yeah, that's a rough one.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:Did you ever see it, by the way?
Marc:I have seen Fearless.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:uh, all right.
Guest:So, Hey, I want to read a bunch of these.
Guest:I'm just going to read them.
Guest:There's not a ton to say about them, but this was, uh, this was a lot of reaction we had to our Siskel and Ebert episode.
Guest:Oh, uh, and, uh, I, I actually wound up sending a bunch of these to Matt Singer, uh, cause I thought he'd like to see him.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:I think I'm a little older than you, but I also remember watching sneak previews on PBS with my dad and then following the show through its evolution until Roger's death.
Guest:I even attended a couple of Ebert and Roper's film festival at sea cruises in 2001 and 2003.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I always bought Roger's yearly movie guides and would devour all the new reviews, even the ones I had no interest in watching, because sometimes it would turn out I actually was interested in watching them.
Guest:Anyway, it was great to hear kindred spirits discuss this corner of my life that I am still really attached to.
Guest:And I also appreciated finding out that Matt Singer's book exists, which I'm not sure I would have known about otherwise.
Guest:Well, then we did our job.
Guest:I pre-ordered it, and I'm looking forward to devouring that one as well.
Guest:Thanks again, Craig.
Guest:Well, Craig, that was exactly why we thought of doing it.
Guest:We knew that there's a lot of overlap in people of our certain interest circle.
Guest:If you're liking wrestling, if you're liking sports, if you're liking movies, like we talk about all the time, if you're into pop culture and trivial things that we use as an outlet and a way to kind of take some of the pressure off our days—
Guest:chances are, at our age, you probably like Siskel and Ebert as well.
Guest:So, yes, that was a big reason why we did it was for people like you.
Guest:Although this person wrote in and said, I have to respectfully disagree with what was said about Siskel and Ebert never making their audience feel less than for liking a movie.
Guest:I've been a lifelong horror fan and remember both of them not only reviewing horror films poorly, but also adding mild insults toward the audience that enjoyed them.
Guest:So here's what I would say.
Guest:I don't want to take away that person's experience with that and say that they're wrong because they definitely probably are right.
Guest:What I would say is someone who's probably seen close to every Siskel and Ebert review you could think of.
Guest:It's as close to a completest of their work as possible.
Guest:They loved
Guest:some of the great horror movies of all time.
Guest:Halloween, Alien.
Guest:I mean, like the ones you would think of that are excellent.
Guest:Roger Ebert gave a four-star review to Last House on the Left, which is, you know, that's not an easy sit for anybody.
Right.
Guest:I believe The Hills Have Eyes, too, had a good review from Roger.
Guest:I believe that they held the genre to a high standard because of what they felt as like a certain responsibility toward the youth culture a lot of horror was marketed toward.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And I know what you're talking about.
Guest:They reviewed them poorly and had mild insults toward the audience.
Guest:Yes, absolutely.
Guest:If they watched some slasher movie that, you know, didn't amount to much at the time, but might have a cult fan base now because it's fun.
Guest:You know, at the time, their thoughts on it were like, this is bad for the culture.
Guest:This is just like glorifying violence, you know, has...
Guest:sexist attitudes or just outright misogyny toward women or minorities or whatever, I do believe there was a moral component to it that does not exist now when you can view these types of films with an ironic bent or with just some type of isolated environment that doesn't take into consideration the full cultural stream at the time.
Guest:And I don't want to ever say that I, you know,
Guest:know what was in Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel's hearts and minds when they reviewed this stuff.
Guest:But I really do think they were fine with horror movies if they deemed them good.
Guest:And it's just they found a lot of them that they didn't.
Guest:But yes, point taken.
Guest:I don't think it means that they necessarily thought their audience was less than.
Guest:But I do think there was probably certain types of movies they didn't think very highly of, for sure.
Marc:Yeah, I remember the Predator review.
Marc:Siskel and Ebert, well, first, Siskel was like, this is garbage.
Marc:You know, I don't like it.
Marc:And Roger was like, no, this is actually good.
Marc:Like, for all the reasons you stated, I think it's actually good.
Marc:And he goes on to say, like, you know, and I think the people that are going to see this, and there will be a lot of them,
Marc:They're not going to remember what, you know, this is recycled from the last action movie.
Marc:And then Roger actually kind of apologized.
Marc:He's like, you know what?
Marc:I shouldn't say that about the people.
Marc:You know, they're smart.
Marc:They know what they're seeing.
Marc:I'm just saying this is actually different than all the other stuff that's out there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right, but that's a good point.
Guest:That's a good moment where they check themselves on that exact mentality.
Guest:Someone else wrote this.
Guest:This really blows my mind, but of course it's true.
Guest:This person said, the Friday show has done it again, really reached peak form over the past two weeks.
Guest:I'm a millennial who didn't know about Siskel and Ebert, and now I'm scouring YouTube watching them and loving it.
Guest:Keep up the good work.
Guest:That's so crazy to me.
Guest:But like, duh, Gene Siskel's been dead since 1999.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, like, why would I think everybody should know about them?
Guest:But I will say the same thing I said about you last week or whenever it was when you identified yourself as someone who came to talking heads.
Marc:Wait.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This should be celebrated.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Like...
Guest:I'm envious of some person who just for the first time gets to experience all these reviews.
Guest:And anytime they watch an old movie now for the first time, they could go watch the Siskel and Ebert review of it or read Roger in print.
Guest:That is great.
Guest:Congrats to you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You've unlocked a new level like that.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:You know, that's such a great moment.
Marc:Good for you.
Marc:And really enjoy it because it is the best thing to do.
Marc:Whenever I watch an older movie, I just fire up YouTube, find the review or I read the review from Roger Ebert.
Marc:And yeah, it's a good, good time there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There are worse things you can do with your night than watching Roger Ebert and Siskel reviews, for sure.
Guest:Yes, and then punctuate it with the outtakes where they're making fun of each other every time.
Guest:I mean, it's just another level.
Guest:You're going to have a great time.
Guest:Sounds less excited, Gene.
Marc:LAUGHTER
Guest:Oh, I wanted to read this one.
Guest:It's nothing for us to really answer any question, but I did want to put it out there.
Guest:And it's more of someone sending in a comment about WTF in general, not really the Friday show here, but I did want to read it for that purpose.
Guest:Says, hi there.
Guest:I wanted to respond to the Jeanette McCurdy episode.
Guest:As a woman and a new mother working through an eating disorder, bulimia, I wanted to thank you for the honest discussion.
Guest:This has been a decades long struggle and hearing Mark's perspective as a child of a mother with an ED, I have renewed focus on a recovery so that I never pass down my issues to my son.
Guest:Your conversations are always deeply moving to me, but this one hit hard.
Guest:Love the Friday show and the bonus content.
Guest:Lola and Lola.
Guest:I can speak for Mark on this level.
Guest:I mean, this is really why we do these kind of things.
Guest:Mark gets responses like this that you've sent in.
Guest:They also go to him.
Guest:And, you know, his thing is always like, look, if there's one of those, it's worth doing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:right?
Guest:One time a person goes like, Oh, that's a good perspective.
Guest:And I can make a change based on it.
Guest:I know a lot of this happens with the comments that come in around recovery and, and, uh, alcoholism or drug abuse.
Guest:And he feels like if it gets one person on the path that they wouldn't have been on before, then that's a good thing.
Guest:So, uh,
Guest:As much as I liked all the content in the Jeanette McCurdy episode and how it worked as a conversation, I think what Lola wrote in here is probably the most important reason to have done that episode.
Guest:And I'm glad that it made a difference for Lola.
Guest:And if it made that difference for her and her alone, that is absolutely worth it.
Guest:yeah absolutely that's great and with that i will uh turn the last few questions over to our wrestling fans uh and this might even be some people who are not wrestling fans uh but are curious about things like this particular first question it might be somebody who's new to wrestling because they're asking what are the best seats in the house when watching wrestling in an arena setting
Guest:Which is a great question.
Guest:In fact, so great because just this morning, Chris and I bought tickets to a wrestling show in an arena, Nassau Caliseum to be specific.
Guest:So Chris, how would you answer this now that you've been to, you've probably been with me in the last year plus to more wrestling than you've ever been to in your life.
Guest:So what would you say is your feeling about watching wrestling in an arena setting?
Marc:Well, there's a lot to consider, honestly.
Marc:Before you, I was in, I think I went to two shows.
Marc:I went to a Madison Square Garden show and I was up in like the 300s.
Marc:We had terrible seats.
Marc:We're right over near the entrance.
Marc:So it almost felt like we were kind of like not really part of the whole proceeding.
Marc:And that's a hard building to sit up high in.
Marc:Yeah, and it just looks like we're like five avenues away.
Marc:So it was rough.
Marc:So I wouldn't recommend being really high up.
Marc:But with that being said, I recommend being in the center of the action where –
Marc:at least you can see the, uh, the staging, you can see the arena.
Marc:Uh, it's important to be kind of like one of the first people in, at least in my opinion, this, by the way, I am not the expert in Brendan's probably knows better.
Marc:I asked him today.
Marc:I was like, I, I took a screenshot.
Marc:I was like, are these seats any good?
Marc:Uh, because he knows best, uh, he knows the ins and outs of it.
Marc:But I would say, um,
Marc:to have a straight line where you're not going to have a sign up in your face.
Marc:I always, I love signs at a wrestling show, but I can't imagine being sitting behind someone who has a sign.
Marc:Uh, also I'm kind of short, so I like to be in the first couple of rows.
Marc:So I, I have a clear view.
Marc:Uh, so yeah, so that, that's what I would recommend.
Marc:I mean, you sometimes sit in the front row and I would say that's the best seat in the house, like to be in the front row, but that's not always possible.
Guest:It's not always possible.
Guest:And I would say you should kind of graduate up to that, right?
Guest:Because it's a totally different experience.
Guest:And I think, you know, here's the thing.
Guest:The best seat to be in is going to depend a lot on you, a person, and what you like, and the building you're going to.
Guest:So, like, for instance, Madison Square Garden, that's a rough place to sit up high because of how it's pitched.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whereas the tennis stadium here, Arthur Ashe, where they've had a couple of AEW shows, if you're up high, it's designed for tennis viewing, right?
Guest:So there's really not a bad seat in the house the way that the sight lines are in that building.
Guest:You could sit up high and still feel like you're seeing most of the show and experiencing it like anyone around you.
Guest:What I would say is...
Guest:go with is if you're going for the first time like chris is saying get yourself something that's in the center like you know on either side of the the center of the ring and but but go up you know maybe not the tippy top level but one down from the tippy top and if you like that and you like that environment and then what's kind of calling to you the next time you go is to get closer get a
Guest:splurge on that front row the one thing i would say is a not a great idea in any uh environment is floor seats that are more than three rows back because once you get that point it's exactly what chris is saying you got stuff in your way you're uh you know you're gonna feel like you're missing things when they go outside of the ring and
Guest:It's like sitting in a orchestra section of a Broadway show and you're too close to the lip of the stage and you can't really see what's going on beyond you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like the best place to sit in a Broadway theater is like slightly back in the orchestra pit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it's the same thing here.
Guest:Don't get in that area where you're just kind of going to be blocked by other fans and get seduced by this idea that I'm on the floor now, right?
Guest:No, floor seating is not great if you're several rows back.
Guest:That would be my only caution.
Guest:Otherwise, it's up to you.
Guest:Sit where you feel comfortable and where you feel you could take in the most stuff and also pay attention to the building.
Guest:If it's a small building, being up high is not going to be that bad.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that's my take on it.
Guest:Now, I've been going to these things for my whole life.
Guest:And I would say the only time I've ever had bad seating are those actual floor seats that are too far back.
Guest:Those are the only times I've had a bad time.
Guest:And in fact, one time I did that with someone who got the tickets.
Guest:We got there.
Guest:They were way far back in the floor.
Guest:I said, you know what?
Guest:We should go up to the upper deck and we're going to have a better time up there in seats that nobody has bought.
Guest:And we sure did.
Marc:Oh, no kidding.
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:Very cool.
Marc:I'm taking my nephew to his first wrestling event.
Marc:And like you were saying, you should graduate to floor seats.
Marc:I am not giving, you know, I didn't purchase a floor seat.
Marc:So I'm hoping he likes this.
Marc:And if he does, then maybe eventually we'll graduate to like the really nice seats.
Guest:I think the great thing about taking him to the level that you're taking him is you're in the last row of the first angled tier, right?
Guest:So going up the hill of the viewing, and you guys are sitting in the back.
Guest:That means it's easy for you to get out of the seats if you want to.
Guest:If you want to go back and get some food or whatever, he needs a break.
Guest:These are long shows, right?
Right.
Guest:But he's going to sit there and he's going to experience the whole thing.
Guest:He's going to see the ring right in front of him.
Guest:He's also got a full view of the screen.
Guest:So if he just wants to sit there and watch TV the whole time and watch how it's looking, he's going to look right there and he's not going to have to crane his neck up or anything.
Guest:So he's going to have, if he doesn't like this, you know, hey, none of this is really good for him, right?
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:He shouldn't go to the live show.
Guest:But if he likes this, then next time he can experiment with somewhere else in the building.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Good advice, Mac.
Guest:Speaking of advice, this person wants some advice about watching wrestling on TV.
Guest:He says, Hi, Brendan and Chris.
Guest:Thanks for the Friday show.
Guest:I've started binging Dark Side of the Ring and have wanted to dip my toes into AEW.
Guest:The only problem is I don't have cable.
Guest:doing an online search i saw they used to be on the fight plus app but it appears that's no longer the case i think that's correct i think only in some foreign territories maybe if you have a vpn and you can do that like you know pretend you're in the netherlands or something but uh don't quote me on that
Guest:And he says, my question is this.
Guest:Why the hell do they make it so hard for cord cutters to access their product?
Guest:Shouldn't they be streaming on Max because of their agreement with Turner?
Guest:I know it's not something you guys dictate, but I'm sure other listeners may run into the same problem.
Guest:I just want to watch some wrestling that doesn't have Vince stink on it.
Guest:Well, I'm there with you.
Guest:And I mean, here's the thing.
Guest:Everything costs money, right?
Guest:But I do know that for people who don't want to pay for cable...
Guest:you can watch this through YouTube TV, right?
Guest:Like when you do a YouTube premium subscription or whatever that is, that has cable channels with it now.
Guest:I mean, like that's how Mark watches TV.
Guest:He doesn't have cable.
Guest:He has YouTube.
Guest:And I know a lot of people that do that for watching AEW and you can get the TBS and TNT shows on YouTube TV.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That might not be the thing you want to do.
Guest:I don't know if it's outside of your price range or anything like that.
Guest:But to your question is, why don't they do it differently?
Guest:Why don't they stream on Macs?
Guest:Believe me, they would love to.
Guest:They are trying to get an overall TV deal, much like WWE has, where they show up on a streaming service.
Guest:I just don't think they're going to give that away for free.
Guest:They have a dollar value to associate with it.
Guest:And that's going to be the thing.
Guest:So if you want it on other services, you might have to wait.
Guest:But if you do want to watch AEW regularly, you can sample.
Guest:They put plenty of stuff for free on YouTube and you can sample it to see if it's your style.
Guest:And then when you want to jump in and you don't want to buy cable, you just get a YouTube subscription.
Guest:That's the way I've seen people do it.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, listen, I haven't even made a dent in the mailbag here.
Guest:There's so many comments that are coming in.
Guest:We'll do more on another show.
Guest:And if you have questions, continue to send them to us.
Guest:Feedback, anything like that, go to the link in the episode description and click on it.
Guest:It'll take you to a comment page.
Guest:Send us whatever you want.
Guest:And this one I've been sitting on for a while.
Guest:And it was just a really great letter.
Guest:It came in kind of early on in us doing the Friday show.
Guest:And it made me realize, hey, we should keep doing this.
Guest:Again, kind of going back to that Jeanette McCurdy thing that Lola wrote in about.
Guest:It's like, man, if this is connecting with people in any way, like this comment makes me think it does.
Guest:We're doing something interesting here.
Hmm.
Guest:And this said, hey, guys, I just want to take a minute to message how much I love what y'all are doing.
Guest:I've been listening to WTF for about five years.
Guest:It definitely kept me going through COVID and the end of my marriage.
Guest:Mark's Instagram lives gave me a reason to get up when my work shut down.
Guest:I'm 46 and was a huge wrestling fan in the 80s.
Guest:In the late 80s, skateboarding and punk made wrestling obsolete, even though I had friends who continued to keep up with it.
Guest:I went to see Mick Foley live last year, saw him about seven years ago where I worked and thoroughly enjoyed it with my new girlfriend.
Guest:And it got me back into wrestling and into watching the biographies and docs that have come out.
Guest:Then I started getting into AEW.
Guest:Not too long after that, y'all started your wrestling talk with Mark and I absolutely loved it.
Guest:But if it was not part of the full Marin and I had to pay for it separately, I totally would.
Guest:I'm writing this specifically because I wanted to thank you for having Box Brown on.
Guest:I've been keeping up with him even longer than WTF.
Guest:His books are so well-researched, and I love his drawing style.
Guest:As someone involved with the art scene, I think it's great that you gave a platform to a living, full-time, professional artist who most people know nothing about.
Guest:I've also been a huge Kaufman fan since the late 80s and early 90s, Andy Kaufman, that is, so I also love the fact that you did an episode about him.
Guest:I really enjoy how you all have a good balance of the history of wrestling and what also is going on in the present.
Guest:I now make sure to look up whatever your favorite wrestling thing is of the week.
Guest:Thank you for what you do.
Guest:I'm poor and progressive and live in Alabama working in the arts, so sometimes life can get me very down.
Guest:With all sincerity, what you and Mark do is often what keeps me going and has brought joy to my life.
Guest:Keep up the great work.
Guest:Y'all are truly making a difference.
Guest:Take care.
Guest:Robert.
Guest:And I think it was appropriate for how Robert wrote that, that I kept the y'alls in there and I didn't change them.
Guest:We're talking all about regional accents throughout this show.
Guest:I very much appreciate the y'alls and wanted to honor them.
Guest:And I wanted to honor you there, Robert.
Guest:Thank you very much for sending that.
Guest:And I hope we've kept you entertained since you've sent that in.
Guest:It was several months ago.
Guest:We'll just keep doing it.
Guest:And we'll keep giving you the best thing we saw in wrestling.
Guest:We can do that right now.
Marc:Chris, what was yours?
Marc:Mine was, well, it sort of started dynamite this week.
Marc:It was Orange Cassidy's match with Claudio.
Marc:Great match.
Marc:That was, for me, awesome.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:At one point, Claudio catches Orange Cassidy, puts him in a headlock, and then does his swing, except reversing it where he's holding onto his head and spinning his legs around.
Marc:Yeah, it's like a swinging sleeper hold.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yes, it was awesome.
Marc:And he should make that.
Marc:He's actually like one of his finishers or an adjustment to it because that was awesome.
Marc:I really enjoyed that this week.
Marc:How about you?
Guest:This was not part of the AEW television shows.
Guest:I assume at some point they might put it on there.
Guest:But there was a video they made with the singer Doja Cat.
Guest:Yeah, I saw that.
Guest:And all these women wrestlers...
Guest:you know, we're in costume and basically like doing the song.
Guest:Like it was a, they were part of the video.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And man, I was like, this is, first of all, super well produced.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But also it made me think like, these are great characters.
Guest:Like they've,
Guest:These these women are doing a great job getting me to know them, getting me to know who they are as wrestling personalities.
Guest:Like it came if I felt like they've come a long way since we were talking over the summer about how they weren't telling any stories about the women and they weren't getting them to develop and developing characters.
Guest:And I know this was just a short, like two minute video clip.
Guest:But the fact that it was that short and all their personalities popped out to me, I thought was a testament to the great work that they've been doing.
Guest:In particular, these six or seven wrestlers who were featured in this video.
Guest:So hats off to them.
Marc:Yeah, that was a great hype video.
Marc:Really great.
Guest:Yeah, do that more.
Guest:Do it with all the characters.
Guest:Go do a licensing agreement with an artist and make a music video.
Guest:That's awesome.
Marc:Yeah, that was really fun.
Guest:Well, we'll put the links to that stuff in the description.
Guest:And also in that description is the link to the comment page so that you can be featured on a future show with your letters or notes or just whatever message you want to send us.
Guest:You can always put your name if you want, but you don't have to.
Guest:We don't require it.
Guest:And so just send us whatever you're thinking about it.
Guest:We will cover it here on The Friday Show.
Guest:Until next time, I'm Brendan.
Guest:That's Chris.
Guest:Peace.