>> I need support staff to clear the room. >> Stand up and walk now. >> Hello and welcome to the watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at theringer.com and joining me in the studio. He doesn't need a protégé. It's Andy Greenwald. >> I'm sorry, I'm just not myself. I just Maria Bartoromo is out at Fox News. >> She's going to be the press secretary. >> I'm thrilled for her. >> The money honey. >> That's what she used to be called. >> At the time, you were white, strident. That was demeaning to both honey and money. >> She used to have a fastball, man. >> You don't think she has it now? >> I mean, he probably does. Greenwald, great to see you Thursday. Here we are. >> Do you like the way we're responsive to the news? People like that. >> We had a pre-recorded episode that went up on Monday or Sunday evening is where we talked about the furious finale and then Andy interviewed Liz Maryweather and Emmy Rossum. Congratulations on all your work. >> Thank you. Do you want to talk about why you absented yourself? >> I was participating in the ringer fantasy league draft at a different part of Los Angeles. >> So there are two genders. >> I had the first pick. Did I tell you that? You knew that. >> You watched the entire three and a half hour video? >> I started halfway through. Because I'm only interested in the later rounds. >> That's right. >> Who did you pick first? >> I think it was a good choice. >> But it was funny because I didn't really study that much. And I know a fair amount about the Eagles on them. Weirdly not as much as you anymore. And I would draft guys. >> Yeah. >> And then immediately turned to people who knew about football and see if I could read their face. >> Did you have a tell? >> Oh. >> And somebody would be like, oh. And I'd be like, is that because he has tendonitis or pending felony charges? >> Did your team have a name? Do you name your teams? >> I haven't yet. I named my fantasy Premier League team, though. >> Oh. >> No jacket required for Jeremy Jacquet. >> That's very good. >> The French center back that Liverpool has. >> I know that he's the French center back that Liverpool has. I'm very invested in the Premier League. My team, I believe, is yet to win. >> So today on the show, we're going to talk about lanterns, which we were remiss and we didn't get to discuss it on Monday, because we had this pre-recorded episode. We're going to talk a little bit about the second season of the gentleman and maybe the larger project of mining IP for television, which is something of an old saw horse for us. >> I thought you meant the larger project of Guy Richie single-handedly returning posh hierarchy to his native land. >> It's an odd show. >> It's a weird show. >> And I have some news and notes and some trailers at the top for you. It's a pretty important stuff at the top. And you can email us at
[email protected] and you can follow us on Instagram @thewatchpod_ and you can watch us on YouTube at Ringer-TV where we're hanging out with the prestige TV on that channel. And many, many, many, many, many, many men have emailed us asking to discuss Tom Hardy's triumphant return to mob land. >> I was one of the people that messaged you about this. >> This is a show that I watched. I think, and, you know, Kai and I were trying to talk about this. I tried. >> Well, we were trying to say-- >> When Kai, like, no, man, I got to go. >> Kai was like, this is inappropriate. Don't talk to me about mob land. Tom Hardy is a very important figure for me. You know, Venom in a lot of ways taught me it was okay to be weird. And I'm just so happy to see him and Jess Butterworth work out their differences. There was all these rumors that Tom Hardy had basically behaved himself off the show. >> The story, I don't, the sourcing was murky, but that was that he was let go. >> I think we need to get it together as a society. >> Yes. >> Like, we did, like, a full two weeks, like, how dare Indy never ready turned down Michael Mann. You know, like-- >> We did. >> How dare Tony's, it really got, say this, about Paul Mescal after the fact. >> Yes. >> You know, like, and I don't think these people are actually saying those things. >> I'm going to-- >> It's just us, right? We're turning off the cameras for a second. >> I think that the newsrooms have been gutted a little. >> I'm sorry to tell you this is not Ben Brandly's Washington Post. >> Look, I love dining out unpossibly true information. >> Who among us? >> Yeah. >> Sure. >> This seems to be pretty certified though, that Tom Hardy who was seemingly on his way out of Mobland and that may or may not have spelled the end for this-- >> Right. >> -- this series that I watched some of and enjoyed, but was a kind of consistent phenomenon that I think lots of people experience where they like something, but they may not like it 10 hours worth, you know. >> And talk me through this though. This was a few months ago we were talking about this. Well, they were, I guess, in post on season two. >> Yes. >> Season two is now a few weeks away. >> Very soon. >> Evening. >> Yeah. >> And it was renewed for season three. >> And in the spirit of Andy starts Euphoria on season three, I may just jump back in on Mobland. I bet I can piece it together. >> In the spirit of one upsmanship, I won't watch it until season three. >> But that's not the only Tom Hardy news I have for you. >> I hope it's, okay, good. I know about this. >> So Tom Hardy also was revealed, although not fully revealed, as you'll understand in a second, to be a part of a contemporary rap super-- >> Yep. >> -- called-- >> You thought you were going to put this over on me. I know about this. >> It's our face. And you know who's in the group. >> Yeah. >> Seven Allen Esoteric to backpack legends from our youth. >> Hm. >> Inspector Deck from Wu Tang Clan, the single. And then I believe that Tom Hardy's rap name is Frankie Pulitzer, is that right? >> Yeah, I think it's Pulitzer. >> I'm sorry to be that guy. >> Is it? >> Yeah, it's a Pulitzer prize, not a Pulitzer prize. >> Okay. >> And you know, I was listening to this record. I got a couple of messages about this record, and I was checking it out. And I got to a track about like Midway through the album called Dr. Yorgo in the Land of Acid 7.0. I was like, "This shit, nox. This is really good." And then I got to the last 20 seconds of the song. >> Okay. >> Sarah, would you please play it for us? >> The thing I like a lot about this is that it harkens back to like, basically one of my favorite times in hip hop and in pop music that I've experienced as I've been alive, which was like the real height of the mixtape. >> What the fuck, man? >> What? >> Did they sample me on this record? >> What the fuck? >> Can we play it again? >> We will listen to this. >> Here's the thing. >> I want to say this to you. >> Yeah. >> To Tom Hardy. >> Yes. >> To Inspector Deck and Sevenel and Osoteric and God. >> Yeah. >> And the American people. >> Yes. >> You can have it. >> I like it. >> Full consent. >> Full fucking. There is no same word. >> You are not going to be treating this. The way ASCAP is treating Stella lefty records. You're not looking for the forensic evidence here. >> This is like seriously among the coolest things that's ever happened. >> Can I hear it again? >> Yeah. >> Listeners, we don't have anything else to talk about today, right? >> First of all, I think we are fully within our rights to play this on our podcast, if that's my voice, which it pretty much is. >> Wouldn't it be incredible if Inspector Deck called you and was just like, "I need points on that now"? You may be ready. >> Sevenel and Osoteric want to jump in. >> You may want to give up the bag easily, but we do not. >> I hope that this ends with Zarface and Frankie Pulitzer in our studio. >> Okay, I've got a couple of questions. Let's hear it again, and then I've got a couple questions. >> The thing I like a lot about this is that he harkens back to like, basically one of my favorite times in hip hop and in pop music time, experiences I've been alive, which was like the real height of the mixtape. >> Okay, a couple things. So they pitched you down a little bit, or did you not have that for that? >> Yeah, and I fully know that if, however, hip hop production works, like maybe all these dudes were standing around being like, "Oh, yeah, pitch it down a little bit," or they could be like, find that nerd talking about mixtapes and put it at the end. >> When did you say that? >> I feel like it was on this podcast. >> I think so, and I think, I mean, we must have been talking about push a Kendrick Drake maybe. It sounds like we would have been referring to. >> Okay, this is like maybe the clips mixtapes from the OTS or G unit, or I don't even know. >> Okay, so let's talk through this. I appreciate that you gave the roster of creatives involved here. Who is the CR head among them? Or let's rank the probabilities. >> I mean, my desired probabilities are the likely probabilities. >> I'm sure it will. >> I mean, let your heart sing. We all know it's like the engineer named Brad. >> I think we all know that Inspector Deck, when he heard us discussing top of the lake, was like, I found my people. >> And then he thought we gave season two short drift, and he was just like, I'm out. >> Yeah. >> I mean, this is an incredible, how do you, how do you feel? >> Honored. >> Yeah. >> Deep honor. >> Yeah. >> Like, you remember when Obama surprised Biden by giving him the congressional medal of freedom or whatever? >> One of the great days of my life. >> That's how this feels. >> Like, I'm just hanging out, listening to a rap record, and then it's just like, my voice pops up. >> It just like, Barack came up behind you with a medal. >> Yeah. >> Okay. All right. It is incredible because it is a perfect Venn diagram of who you, who you would want to see you. >> Also, I like that beat. >> It's a good beat. >> Yeah. >> I thought, honestly, okay, let me talk you through my process. When Sarah played it, I thought you were playing it because it was going to be like, do you see the sample as of the 80s Tweet Pop Legends field mice? >> Oh yeah. >> That would have been weird to put the A block. >> But I was like, that is weird, but maybe it's a really slow day. >> Yeah. >> You just wanted me to like, I'm proud of you. >> Do you want to see how close this brings me to Tom Hardy? We're essentially homies now. We're essentially like, I'm surprised like, I'm going to go to London. We're going to hang out me and Tom Hardy. They say, like, project out into the world that she wants. It's the secret, like, visualize it. I visualize me and Frankie Pulitzer just rolling around in a bends. >> Sure.
do you think Roman style do you think with a blood bag in the bag yeah as a rapper is Tom Hardy better than Chalamet who collaborated with a SD kid recently yeah I think so I think he's probably also been like honing his craft for a long time can I wear a mask in this like like doon style like yeah oh really Tom Hardy wears a mask just to get into this I mean what a wild thing you've just thrown down on the table yeah I'm thrilled for you this is a wonderful moment I wonder what it would the Greenwald sample would have been oh I didn't want to bring it up but you know I was sampled on the new DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ record talking about Avengers you didn't tell me this I was and I didn't you know didn't talk about it on the pod no I'm I'm more modest about these things that's what everybody says Sherry do you have that sample cute up anyway model and season three and season two I am seated I'll be watching this is incredible too because I do think the paramount publicity team is just getting blindsided by this but now they are like oh shit now we know how to get him on board this captive audience one other piece of news from this week that I thought you would get a real kick out of I may have a recoil reaction in about 20 minutes to so we can always circle back to it I don't even know how good this pod's going to be these are some headlines and some some words that I read on deadline dot com today all right to get your immediate yeah I've been driving around I haven't seen the headlines headline yeah Dungeons and Dragons live action series Raven loft in the works at Netflix from John August and Alfonso Cuarone do you remember do you think it's weirder that I'm on Zarface or that Alfonso Cuarone is fucking making a touchdown can I tell you how this makes me feel no no I don't mean this globally but you know the scene in the opening moments of the new season of lioness when Martin Donovan looks at the New York Times and the cover says end of democracy that's kind of how I feel for that headline I'm zagging you're into it yeah let me tell you you're gonna be such a good mood today I'm gonna tell you about this deadline uh this is a quote from deadline described as a prestige fantasy series where adventure collides with gothic horror and tragic romance Raven loft and its domains of dread tackle adventure through character driven you're all lost in the sauce now wait I'm trying to understand these words so when they tackle adventure through character driven stories of dark magic and supernatural entry read the next sentence I dare you at its heart the series follows the making of the vampire dark lords strad van Zerovitch whose story of power love session and undead transformation charts his origins from tragic anti hero to one of d and d's most notorious villains okay a couple things origin story of stod the vampire by Cuarone fuck off respectfully a couple things here dark lords strad van Zerovitch is Kenneth Branagh's role in tenant I believe no that was Andre seator okay why I picked the wrong you have to get a little fucking earlier in the morning break people it's over here fast fall fast me um the whole point of judges and dragons is that it does not have iconic villains you are the characters right right and that's what I bet drew one of our most accomplished filmmakers who is now in year six of a prestige TV experiment between this and what was that one disclosure was that called um yeah uh the show the k-planta show yeah I watched all of it yeah um that he's making you know he's returning Netflix for the first time since roma and I'll just add some more context to this this is a new project with new auspices that is not related to the forgotten realms oh thank god a live action series taking place in the titular d and d setting that Netflix put into development in early 2025 would drew crevello at writing and Sean leave the executive producing that d and d adaptation is no longer in development at the streamer deadline is aren't so this is uh-huh the Netflix d and d show it's a relief going for john august a incredibly well-rounded screenwriter and very good podcaster I love the bigger zag that you're doing that I'm noticing is you're like clearly it is the appeal of open world storytelling that has drawn Alfonso Cuaron to this project as opposed to the appeal of open world money which is I think that which is also fine this could be though like if I told you that the director of roma was making a Gothic vampire story and what would you say well so this is the yeah this is the deeper thing which is that if this is the Trojan mechanism with which one can yeah although I learned recently the Trojan horse not what we thought not just an easy metaphor you know what I mean had some consequences sure especially for Elliott page and everyone inside the walls uh okay that's your take okay I mean I'm throwing a lot at you this morning this is this is the world this is the world we live in you know where was what's your dnd history I don't know that I I never played but I also don't feel like I was ever asked you know like I think I've played dnd esk games right I have never played dnd like classic like proper 27 nobody was ever like do you want to play dnd you know because because they're like you're so good at sports you're like you're like you're like looking at your travel baseball schedule and the hallways they're like just man all you do is it one drive just ropes frozen ropes all day do you know like when I was in uh I think I was pretty young I think I was like 12 yeah but you know we were um we have like our league city league you know what I mean uh we we basically have a our fair amount league that we played on different teams on then there was a fair amount all stars team that traveled the city would play different teams and then within that city wide league one year I made all star good for you and like my coach or my assistant coach was the assistant coach of the all star team and I was like doing something and I could hear them talking about like what the lineup should be my assistant coach goes my guy could get clean up he hits line drives and I was like fuck this is as good as I never felt that's the coolest thing I've ever heard it sampled on us our face record you've lived a pretty decent life I got to say two things that were cool have it yeah it wasn't your month it was two things that have never happened to me and never well I promise you that um I have I have a follow up about D&D but I did want to ask like one thing that I've observed through contemporary parenthood and you've you've observed it too just by living here yeah is that like the expectations of parents in travel sports is like way way different than what I imagine it being or observed it being do you think that if young CR was young now would you have done travel baseball with what it requires and like like travel all over the same way and wake up calls and like the like the complete devotion I've never swimming for a while did you uh you know there were some like wake up at four and drive to northern New Jersey for a meat kind of this um but I you know I mean like in some ways my diminutive height was like a blessing because it was like this is probably not gonna happen you know like what yeah but what's his name what's the what's the what's the little spark plug guy who's on the ass he's on the Astros out to me yeah but he's a cheater right okay well nobody's perfect I just meant that like he's carved out a pretty good career for himself he's pretty good yeah I mean there's examples of like incredible athletes overcoming maybe a height willy lampkin on the eagle for example how tall is he 57 well they say he's 5/11 but they talk about him like he's an oompa lupa okay so I think the truth lies somewhere in between okay my D&D thing was in Philly it was just like go to fishtown and then go to like Abington it wasn't like that hard for my school like the cross country meets at Gerard college was like the most exotic thing you could ever possibly do first of all it's called college they're the other reasons but you know basically just run around yeah pretty easy no one was like my guy can my guy can run forth he runs like they're like he's on the team too when I guess I should say when I say like it's all you know you generate your own characters I never successfully like I don't maybe it's successful or unsuccessful like I never played a lot of campaigns you know I didn't that didn't have to roll deep enough to do that but maybe this is even nerder but I did read a lot of dragon lance novels okay and you never went that far deep I don't know what that is so the thing that they're saying like forgotten realms or whatever this one is raven loft like within the world of D&D which is notoriously open they would have like world sets you know we're like in this world there's this magic these sorts of things these are the stakes and then often they would do like it would they would sort of flood the zone with like novels set in the world to draw people in and there may be there cartoons for the more popular ones and and I think real heads note those dragon lance trilogies rip I wonder if Taylor Sheridan's ever considered getting into like a dice rolling RPG like this just in case he's running out of people to give wedgies to know just like not for dungeons and dragons but like you could be in the world of lioness yeah stop giving this away for free that is such a much that is a money minting exercise yeah you're Ukrainian drone operator with a crippling like roll roll to see how many women are in the bathtub with you 20 sided die well I could get really awkward pretty fast depends how big the bathtub is another thing I wanted to mention was that there was and this is also kind of in Netflix news interesting to see a couple of trickles of information about like Netflix projects that like cross our interest level
you know, like Dungeons and Dragons being one of them. East of Eden got its full trailer. There had been a teaser. - Yeah. - This is Zoey Kazan's adaptation of John Steinbeck's celebrated American literary masterpiece, which I read, I think two years ago, I think Kai is reading it now. - Did you? - Yeah, I mean, it's been a hot book. - 90, I think that was a 94 for me. - Nice one. - You know? - Yeah. - Did you feel like you really got the biblical allegories in that? - I just threw on Bex Mellow Gold for whatever. - Tucked myself up in my Urban Outfitters flannel. - Can you read it and listen to music at the same time? - Not with lyrics, no. - No. - Instrumental. - Yeah, me too. - Nice. - We're just a couple of cool guys in the 40s. - I think of what guys, no fucking problems going on upstairs. Zoey Kazan's grandfather, Elia Kazan, was the director of, I believe, 1951 adaptation. - With James Dean. - James Dean and Orrak Hudson. This is seven episodes on Netflix dropping 10-1. The cast is Florence P. as Kathy, who is certainly not the main character of the novel. - You're right, that's the thing. - But is the main character of this trailer. - And seemingly the series. We can get to the second Christopher Abbott, and Mike Faced is Adam and Charles Trask, Joseph Zada and Joe Anders, who is a Winslet son. - Yep. - As a calendar. - He was just in Cape Fear. - Yeah, and calendar and Trask, I would say, to make up a large portion of the novel, right? - Almost a biblical portion, if you will. - Yeah. - And then C and A, the sons, you know? - This also stars Martha Punt and Karen Hines. Hoonley and-- - Say it. Say your name. - I haven't seen any of his stuff. Tracey Letz, is that, is it, with the two T's, is it pronounced differently? - Tracey is an actor. - Yes. - Yeah. - He seems like, seems like a promising upstart. - Yeah. - I look forward to seeing his work. - I have high hopes for him. He's in this. - And I thought this looked very good. - Beautiful. - And certain shots reminded me of my beloved Joe Wright adaptation of Anna Karenina. - Do you love that adaptation? - I think it's just very brave. I think it's a really cool Tom Stopper script. - And I think like the staging of it is really cool. - The Joe Wright-- - Joe Wright did it. - And I also will admit, if I tell stories about my, my line drives when I was 12. - Sure. - I have to balance it out, karmically by saying it did not finish her in Anna Karenina. I quit midway through. - My daughter just read it. - Come on. - She did. - They're like real one? - Yeah, they're real one. - Not the like a bridge. Like she put her face-- - Graphic novel version. Anna Kay, and she read the book. - How's that happen? Is that kind of like how a kid can learn French really young? - Yeah, and she doesn't have Instagram reels. - I don't have Instagram, it's not like that. It's not like that. - I don't even have the distractions. - She watches like 19 seasons about her banks in a day. - The brain at that age. I was gonna say, but she hasn't watched the movie, the movie, but the Joe Wright-- - She just read Anna Karenina. She was like, this all this wheat shucking is cool. Like I'm down with this. - I made that joke early because I read it 25 years ago and that's the only joke I remember to make. - Yeah. - Guy Levin loves farming. (laughing) - She's like, "Dad, that's hilarious." Then I'm like, page 200, I'm like, "Levin's still farming." What's up with all this wheat? Am I right? - Man, I felt completely like emasculated knowing that your daughter was able to do something that my burden couldn't. I know that I could have done it. I could have done it. But this is the problem. You have so much choice in this world and you're like, "What if I just run out of the book about a guy who finds a bag of cocaine?" - It's what happened. (laughing) She was reading that when I was reading Jordan Harper's Violent Masterpiece. - Yeah. - She was like, "What's going on?" She was like, "Well, Levin's, you know, threshing." And I was like, "Nice." She's like, "What's going on in your book?" And I'm like, a man named the, okay, it's like the night thresher is doing to the young women of Los Angeles what, you know, what Levin does to his stocks. And she was like, "Why do you read that?" And I was like, "That's right." Put the cover of the Snoop Dog record, you know, "Why must I be like that?" That's, then I tried to tell her about that and then she was like, "Go to bed, grandpa." - I just was trying to say that Joe Wright directed her favorite film, Pride and Prejudice. - Go to 2005. - Yes, I like Joe Wright. - He's talented guy, does, the agency, come on, look at us. - Yeah. - Can I, can I do one East of Eden thing just to circle back to it? - Please. - I think it looks great. I cannot wait to see this. And the note is still the note we had before, which is how interesting it seems to be reframed to make Florence Pugh the main character. But there was, but the world we live in now and the way trailers are cut, there was a part of me when I was watching it that was just like, Black Widow, Professor X, in a story brought to you by the dangerous mind behind grapes of rats. - Yeah, and so Ferrari. - It's like, it's, you could watch the trailer, the trailer communicates what a trailer should, which is some sort of sweeping emotion. But I don't know, sincerely, and I don't know if this matters. If the Joe popcorn casual fan who didn't read the book 30 years ago or three months ago, I don't know if they're gonna walk away being like, I see what that's about. - Right. - Does that matter? I don't know. - I am just looking forward to this because I am not very precious about adaptations, specifically like, I mean, I guess I would be if, like, you know, the Cohen brothers had made no country for old men into like a rip-roaring comedy. But like, for the most part, I think when you make an adaptation, you should have the freedom to investigate. - I think it's exciting. - Different kinds of perspectives and you should feel free to screw with it a little bit. And based on this trailer, it looks like Zoe Kazanz, way in on this is to interrogate a very complicated figure in Kathy. - I think that's, look forward very much for Florence Pew to play this part. - I think that's great. Genuinely, like, it's a conversation about any adaptation of a beloved or highly respected book. It's like, where do you set the floor and where do you set the ceiling? Because if you get something that looks beautiful and you invest a lot in the production design and you have good actors and you have a book that is prestigious for a purpose, it's going to be a B minus. - Yeah. - The floor is going to be high, but honestly, why do it? Why spend all of your time doing it if you're just trying to reflect the light of the book? If you have the opportunity, you should try to do something with it. Use it to tell a different story and it seems like she did here. - Since we're on the topic of Netflix, do you want to talk about the gentleman first and then we'll do lanterns second? - Yeah, all right. - This is a show when it premiered two years ago. It's Guy Richie reimagining his feature with Matthew McConaughey with this one, the show version stars Theo James as a off-brand British royal. Like, what would it be? - He's a Duke. - But he previously was a army captain, peacekeeping officer. - Right, I remember those flashbacks and then Kai's-- - That's how it starts. - Well, that's right. - And then he gets helicoptered out of doing good to go do bad. - And Kai's scotalario plays the air to a criminal empire in England. Fathers played by Ray Winstone. It's like a really good, really entertaining, perhaps over long crime show with a lot of humor. - And a lot of great performances by some of the all-stars. - Dailings is in this as a coked out rich guy and he's incredible in that. - He plays Theo James's older brother and people who'd watched the gentleman were then happy to see him in Night of the Seven Kings. - Pretty much playing the same character. - Yeah. Please let him play this character. - When Lionel Barathe and his character and the gentleman is very similar. - I'd like to see him play this character in more shows, who would lighten the mood. - Let's start with an omission. I am a connoisseur of late period, Guy Ritchie. It's one of the stranger careers that I think of any filmmaker from my, like essentially my generation, you know? Obviously he started out his career making these incredibly stylish, incredibly hip extensions of rural Britannia, like Brit pop culture with lock stock and two smoking barrels and snatch, then became something of like a steady Hollywood hand where he's making Sherlock Holmes movies. - He's a lad in live action. - And has now turned himself into a multi-faceted corporation where he-- - Yes, we'll describe the brand. - It's essentially a lifestyle brand. - It is. - That is a mixture of high and low, like high-end, British, traditionalist trend of options. - I try like Burberry hunting peasants. - He has a great-- - And hunting peasants maybe, I don't know. - Peasants and peasants. - The guns go off either way. - Whichever one comes out of the-- - He has a great pub in Fitzrovia, Laura the Land. - Yes, and I believe has like a whiskey line and a cigar line and all this stuff. And while this is happening makes one to genre crime movies of the year, including some good, like wrath of man from a bunch of years of good or in COVID, which he apparently directed from a van looking at an iPad 'cause of COVID. And-- - Oh, 'cause he was busy. - There's just like a lot of really weird John Franken Hymeri movies that don't really typically get made anymore and many of them are not very successful yet. He continues to get tons of work. - The gentleman is this sort of not only an extension of his movie, but I would say is a platform for his interests in the world. - Which is very shared and asked, I think. - Yeah, and also, but like for instance, is not to similar from what, Copeland and Levine did with billions after a while where they would be like, this is a band that we like, this is a, you know, this subplot about a race horse lets us get into like gambling on horses or whatever. And I just always like kind of admire when a creator is like, I have an idea for a show, but really what I want to do is have a bucket that I put all the time.
all the things I'm interested in in that bucket. - You could also just have a podcast. - Sure, yeah, but then you wouldn't get to hang out out on the British countryside with Rolls-Royce's screwed up. So the second season arrives and I have a couple of things to say about the execution of it, but I'll just say, I thought it like plenty entertaining. The first episode is weirdly an hour and five minutes long and then I started watching the second episode and I was like, oh, I see. This is how they're gonna do it. John Carlyle Spasito, who is in the first season for a while, is a rival to who wants to buy Theo James's house. It reappears and there's some discussion about orbs and setters. Anyway, I just wanna see where your head was at with this because I have something I wanna discuss specifically about Richie's writing style and the Netflix house style. But please let me know how you're feeling about it. - The shows seem to be, to my mind, it seems slightly different from season one to season two. The things I liked about season one remain. I like how it's, the brand, you know what I mean? It says like mature audiences, violence, whatever. I think you should also just say cheekiness or cheek because nothing is really that serious and I kind of that helps with some of the extremity of it for me that everyone is having a good time playing a larger than life version of someone in a larger than life circumstance, set quite beautifully in larger than life surroundings. And some of the little like, little filigrees in the filmmaking were fun too in the sense that like when a character is talking about money or talking about a plan or is introduced, that information is written on the screen. So it's just has its own kind of house style that I appreciate and when you have good looking cast and good costumes, it's like, it's a good time. - Yeah. - I thought the second season began with a director who clearly just wanted to spread out on his lawn for a while. Like this felt more like I reached you wanting to kind of make a movie with these people and it really, really hangs out. And with a little bit more, I don't wanna say self-seriousness, but like, there's a lot more, there's just a lot more for a show that was already pretty jam-packed. So I didn't love it as much, but that said, like, there are worse ways to spend your time. There are delightful new additions like Hugh Bonneville who has just entered a really fun post-doubting era of his career. - Dang shit, words on his own, prestige TV show. - Truly, like from the agency to this, he's just like, you could tell that he's relaxing and he can just be an actor again in a really fun way. And, yeah, I mean, my favorite thing about it is Vinny Jones, who is a reliable, richy, tough guy and famously-- - Yes, in play, basically, like the Butler or the like, not the Butler, but like they sort of-- - He's a gameskeeper who has some secrets and it sort of becomes the consigliary. And like, it's one of those performances that, you know, Tarantino would do this where he'd like, take someone who is known for being limited and gives them a chance to show a little bit of wit, a little bit of soul, a little bit of personality, whether it was like Laurence Tierney and Reservoir Dogs or, I mean, they're more recent, Robert Forster being another big example of it. So his kind of just sly presence and charisma does a lot of the load lifting for me, even though Freddie Fox doesn't seem to be in the season and so far. - I can see why people want to be on the show. - Yeah. - You get to say really, really, really rich dialogue while wearing outrageously nice clothes in really nice locations. - Beautiful. - I don't know if they shot in Lake Como, but it sure looks like it. - I mean, the thing about the episode is that you're like, oh, this is going to be a, a bird hunt episode, which is a fun thing to do. Like, industry does it. Downton Abbey certainly did it. And then you realize that there's still 37 minutes left and there's then going to be a Botticelli art auction and a motorcycle chase and then a lot of Lake Como stuff. - Yep, and a tiger. - And a tiger. - Yeah. - And as someone who put a tiger on TV once before, welcome brother. - Well, that looked incredibly digitized. - I used a real tiger. - I know. I know. - Thank you. - Well, I was just thinking about like-- - Thank you. - Would you now, if you were making Breyer Pratch in 2026, would you digitize your animals like Ridley Scott? - I would do everything else like Ridley Scott, but not that. - You would shoot with 10 cameras and make four movies while you were supposed to be making the other. - It would help. - It would help. - In the second episode there's this sort of fun, opening with John Carlyl Esposito and Theo James talking about the Magna Carta. And I think a plan to make Theo James King, which is funny. But then basically like Theo James does the Ozark thing where somebody goes somewhere extraordinarily far away to have a two minute conversation that they could have had on text message. So it goes back to Italy, goes back to the mob boss and is like, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna kill the bill that's going through the parliament to legalize marijuana. Or no, we're gonna make sure the bill goes through, but we're gonna jump on the legal marijuana trade before everybody else. And the mob boss is like, sounds good. I need you to kill a Japanese guy back in London. And I was like, oh, so now we're just gonna basically kind of do mission of the week while also adding on a half an episode of the larger weed empire story. And Ray Winstone, who apparently shooting all of his scenes from a steam bath. - Yeah, that was one of his requests. Ever since Sexy Beast, he's like, I just like to be hot and wet at all times. - That's hopeless. - By the way, we're also glossing over one thing, which is that like when you have people who just call their own shots, like a Taylor Sheridan or a Guy Ritchie, they are immune from larger TV trends. Like this season does begin with an extreme image of something happening and then does the three weeks earlier. Which I think generally has been outlawed for writers and directors who make less than $5 million a year. So, and he makes quite a bit more than that, I would imagine, or at least lives the way that way. - Yeah, I mean, it's a fine and fun hang. I wish that it was Whittier because the visuals are quite Whittie. - Yes. - And I believe there was one line here where Eddie, the Duke, Theo James, is talking to a lovely Italian countess who's visiting him for the weekend. And they're talking about her boyfriend who's kind of a dummy. And she says, he bought me a striped lion for my birthday. And he says, you mean a tiger? And she says, whatever. But it's shot like that's a joke. - Yes. - And I was waiting for the next bit of banter and I rewound it. So I was like, I bet she said something real clever. No, she's just letting us know what was gonna happen later. - So since 2019, when he did the gentleman, then COVID happens and he comes out of COVID and Guy Ritchie does Wrath of Man, which I like is a Heist Thriller with Jason Statham. - Operation Fortune Rue de Gaire, which Rue de Gaire, which is actually not bad. It's like a big spy action movie. - Guy's made so many movies. - He made The Covenant or Guy Ritchie's The Covenant with Jake Gyllenhaal. Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Then last year, he made Fountain of Youth, which was widely panned, but was supposed to be kind of like a national treasure or Raiders of the Lost Star. - Straight to Apple, I believe. - Straight to Apple. In the gray, which isn't as bad as people say it is, but is not very good. And then next year he has wife and dog and Viva La Madness. And also is making multiple seasons of the gentlemen. And was he involved with Mapland? No, he wasn't. He was originally involved when it was gonna be like a Ray Donovan who was supposed to have been it. - Yeah, that's right. - Anyway, the point is, is that in his writing of those movies, and he writes a lot of his own stuff, Matthew Reed also is a co-creative conspirator on this show. He has a very flat affect. His actors are like obviously instructed to have a relatively flat affect while they deliver really dense information and fact-packed dialogue. - Right. - This suits the Netflix, the supposed Netflix house style of like, we have to remind people what they're seeing. - Every few minutes. - Kind of well, because on one hand, you can look at your phone while this is on. - Yes. - 'Cause you can hear them being like, and you said that you were gonna do this, but first we have to take a plane over there and do that. I'd better ask my father if that's okay. Your father is currently serving three to five years for a stint in jail. - In a sauna. - Yeah, and it's like no one would actually speak like that, but they kind of do in guy-richy stuff. - Yeah. - And I don't know whether it's a good chicken and egg of like, guy-richy realized like, this is where things were going and he needed to have character stock like that, or this is where we've just sort of arrived. - Yeah, I don't mean to belittle it. I think in the same way that Taylor shared and became the furnace of Paramount. And now he's left, but guy-richy could be that for Netflix or at least for Netflix UK. It's just well, they're well suited to each other. Like, I don't think he's the kind of filmmaker who you have to say, hey, could you re-explain the plot here or could you make it propulsive or could you end in a place where people wanna keep clicking? I mean, that is what he does naturally. And I'm not proud to say this, but you're exactly, you're absolutely right that in season one and season two, this is a show that one's attention could wander. - Yeah. - And still be okay with it. - Yes, and when Daniel links is on screen, I'm like, I'm seated when other things are happening. I'm kind of like, I'm sure we're gonna recap this at some point. - But there's also the same, the kind of thing that I think is an executive wet dream of every frame. There's a lot to look at or not look at. There you could be watching it as a real estate person. You could be watching it for the wardrobe. You could be watching it, tried and shop that look. You could be watching 'cause you like that actor or there's a beautiful woman.
There's always something to kind of tickle somebody's fancy in every frame and That's fine. I mean, there are so many shows that are Not entertaining so I give this one a gentleman's whatever last thing I'll say about this is as the runtimes are relatively extensive. Yeah First episode and I really would love to address this with someone who somewhere who makes these decisions as to whether or not This is statler and wall while they were feeling from the balcony like they used to make 42 minute episodes 42 minute long episodes and they were great Versus like this extra 25 minutes that gets tacked on to say an episode of fallout or gentleman or whatever it is and I just Don't find it fun I I'll tell you from inside the matrix. There is an absolute mandate coming down from executives from streamers from networks To bring down runtimes because I always imagined that the idea here is that if you have Plus 25 minute runtime for eight episodes of a season that will net out to three more hours of Watchtime at the end of the season right for people and if they're like hey, they're gonna watch it anyway Like we might as well rack up the stats here if you think about it that way in terms of minutes watch that that does make sense But I but the other thing about it is This goes back to a conversation we've been having for years But I think we specifically touched on it recently which is choose the right number of episodes or budget for the right number of episodes And when you get far down the road and you realize you have too much story for the eight episodes and things start to bulge and Particularly when you have these projects that at a certain point reach Their own kind of velocity where like you've committed this much money and you've held the actors and you have the stages built and you have the VFX houses reserved and It's people and fall out. Wow. It was a hits. We have to make season two It's very hard to pull back at that point I'm sure that I'm sure the Nolan that John and Nolan and Lisa Joy like I'm sure they would argue my point that they've never been asked to pull back I'm sure it's always a push and pull. Yeah, yeah, but I just feel like those types of shows that become They just their own inevitability those are the ones that tend to swell the most and The other times these things swell as when it's guy richy with final cut or guy richy running the entire means of production or Taylor shared and we're just like You want to go tell him like that doesn't really happen, but I have seen firsthand like Really really attempted to have teeth the mandate that like no no we're going to start this early the scripts have to be shorter Yeah, they have to be like 47 scripts have to be the number four has to be in the yeah on the script for us to want to do it But then things happen and then things get moved around or you know set pieces take longer Big actors like I want to X amount more scenes, you know what I mean like it could be any number It's maybe another actor is like I can't I actually am not here this much this season right you're gonna have to fill out like the parts that I can't do Which is like which is why Danielings is maybe is not in the first year, which is a bummer I I guess the reason I'm I'm harping on it is because I want to make the distinction that for a time with a rise of streaming It was definitely like when the CD came out and suddenly records didn't albums didn't have to be You know 60 minutes spread across two sides are with the whatever the specific limitations were on LPs and that's when Actually the real bump was when it went to like the double album and stuff But like with CDs you could just keep cramming tracks on there and people thought that was an invitation If the space is there might as well use it Which is how we ended up with that era where like Tina Fey and Robert Karlock went from a Difficult but super tight 21 minutes of 30 rock to Kimmy Schmidt episodes going 24 26 28 31 Yeah, and I'm not gonna complain about more Fein Karlock, but comedy hits different sure when it's absolutely longer. Yeah Garage you did direct two episodes of mob lines. So is he guy? And I don't think he did he did I know but what would what if we just kept this going I mean we started The but like we stopped doing the watch. No, but you were like you were we started by saying you're okay with the aggregation of false facts So what if we just drop it in here? Sometimes it serves the first part of the spot is to just sort of riff off of like bulge and then the new SD kid record drops And just my voice saying no, he didn't the tracks called Guy Ritchie Yeah, please. Yeah, please give me that Let's talk about lanterns. So obviously this to the extent that there is a breakout show right now I think it's lanterns to the extent that There is an episode that it felt like everybody was talking about. It was definitely episode three outcast Written by Vanessa B and Kelly. They reminded me of like the way lost used to do things where they would take a character and really dig into their background, but also through doing that illuminate the behavior of other characters on the show At first of all, I thought this was an obviously excellent episode of television gripping I think This stuff that I bumped against Had more to do with the visual kind of language of the show or the like maybe the the appearance of the show where there is a kind of Genericness to maybe like John and you know, John Stewart's childhood home or you know like The outback steakhouse they go to like it doesn't have maybe the really weathered lived in Feeling that some of my favorite TV shows have that being said. Yeah, this is an exceptional exceptional episode of television That was just like I'm I'm not even being like I'm not even trying to give it to merits I know I think it was almost like when something is this good. Yeah, I almost notice like That's just I'm curious about that. You know what I mean? Well, I'm curious about that I mean you could point to a couple things you could speculate about budgetary reasons with the VFX heavy show or at least a show that inevitably we'll get more VFX heavy You could um You could point out that James Haas directed the pilot in the second episode in a block and Steven Williams Who is a accomplished and excellent TV director came on and sometimes visual continuity can get He can get disrupted from that. I don't look Yeah, similarly similar. I think the other thing that I'd be curious about is one of the things that was cool I think about the production for the show They did get like a California tax credit, which is very hard to get these. Yes And so um Where's the town that they keep going to Nebraska, Russia. They shot the show in puru Which is like in Ventura County. Yeah, and so they were trying to double Nebraska and Nebraska, but also wherever John Stewart's family is and also wherever he was and also you know what I mean So they were trying to Anyway, it's also a comic book adaptation. It doesn't know it's interesting one like sort of relationship I think it's an interesting question. I also think it's worth noting that in the same way that um Burn notice on USA was a show about sunglasses lanterns has really really um reveal itself to be a show about jackets I mean it's a long line of HBO shows that have been about jackets. Yes. It's just remarkable We had last of us and now we have call Chandler's sort of cinched. Yeah, but every week John Stewart has a sick new fit that must be moisture wicking Because that dude does not shower a lot and runs more. Yeah So Yeah, here can I a little behind the curtain here I've been you know like I've been have I've been quite busy and like my sleep's been a little Touching go recently. Yeah, but I woke up thinking about this episode. I think yesterday. Okay And I wrote a note about like I was like, oh, I think I cracked it. You never have one of those or like I really have a take. Yeah, and I wrote down And I was like at least I got that done today before I went on to do all the other stuff I had to do and Earlier this morning I looked at what I'd written and I wrote TV and translation question mark Do you know what that means? I don't fully, but I'm gonna try She's good. I think what I meant was that there is something that like If you read literature and translation And you can love a book and you can love an author, right? Okay, so like reading Savage detectives whereas yeah, Natasha whimmer is like Celebrate I did not mean to go down this tangent, but it's fine Maybe I did is celebrated for her understanding of Bologna's intent and context and everything in Spanish But really can't wait to hear this get sampled On the put on a put on my own collection somewhere they sell it But the point is are like you know if you love Haruki Murakami, which I do like the people often say you don't actually you've never actually read that sure You are reading Jay Rubin or Natasha whimmer. You're reading the translator I think what I meant when I And I didn't mean it pejoratively, but watching this episode there are things in this episode that are so keenly to me comic book stories Like the way that the show in a period of literally almost panels like one you could call them scenes Moments but in a comic book it would be a series of panels tells A very very very dense backstory with a with some degree of almost theatricality like the moments between John and his mother throughout time, you know, I mean, this is all all TV movies do this because of compression but like The scenes where they talk to each other are so weighty and it's almost as if no time passed but like Only four things have ever happened to these people and all of them are about whether she can communicate with blues space gods or not You know what I mean like the turn of that episode from his father being The domineering and not just afraid yeah with the perception of the father But also the arc of the father and the arc of the mother and what we knew before I mean the efficiency of it is remarkable But it also sometimes felt still to me like expositional because it felt like I was reading a cool comic book and not
I'm necessarily watching a TV show because it had to get to this work done. So you think about that, and I don't want to describe Motive. I think all these people work together. But again, I look at the credits, and I'm like, this is what Tom King does. There were just moments in this episode where I looked like to me, like Tom King was one of the creators, like human target comics, where the artist is Greg Smallwood and like the way that he captures framed images that almost look like they're stills of photographs. It's like, that's what it felt like, that type of storytelling. But it wasn't, it's a TV show. Similarly, there were things that I think were so elegantly translated for the medium, whereas if it was a comic book, when the guardian comes to apologize, in a comic book, that would happen in a fucking upside down pocket dimension, and a blue god would be there the whole time, because that's why you write comic books. Because there's no budget, there's no makeup, but you know, you just can draw whatever you want. You can make it surreal. This is where the TV stuff comes in, and I'm sure Tom King agreed with it, but you think about Monday, or you think about Damon, and you're like, well, we don't, not only we could, we could go as Casey, like had in hands, like can we have enough money to make a blue space god in this episode? Or you could be like, what's more interesting than that? And it's more Lenny. And that is such a hugely successful decision that makes the episode feel completely different, and it's quirky, and it's surprising, and it's awesome. And that works for TV. So I guess what I'm trying to say was, I was like, I was feeling the pulse of some original, of a different language in this episode. And sometimes it worked for me, all the lower Lenny scenes. Sometimes it didn't, when it's like, again, a few frames of John Stewart being on a stakeout for nine months in the bushes. Like, that's wild. That tells me something about a comic book character, but it's so outrageous that this boy is just a vessel to become what he becomes that I lose some of the humanity. Well, let me ask you another, it's a kind of a nuts and bolts question that when it comes to writing. I think I would describe this to Damon, but just because of my experience with his work in this. A deeply, deeply empathic humane writer, but also a bit of a trickster. And a little bit like of a magician when it comes to you're watching something, you think you know what you're watching, and then it turns out you have to reconsider everything you've watched because in fact, this person was always this. - You've been watching something else all the time. - John Locke was in a wheelchair. Like you now think about that when you're watching everything else. And you know, after three episodes, this episode makes you look at house antagonism towards John differently. It makes you look at John's relationship to his family differently and makes you look specifically as relationship to his mother and his father differently. It makes you ask questions about his relationship to his brothers. It makes you ask questions about the certainty of who is doing the front office work for the lanterns because there's been a lot of speculation. Like is, you know, was that Laura Lenny character a guardian? - What people are speculating that she wasn't? - That she was a manhunter. - What who speculated that? - There's just speculation online about that, yeah. - What? - Show me the websites. - Happily. - Arach goals.net. - My point is, is that how sustainable is that for a storytelling mechanism where you're like, we're constantly gonna be wrong footing or asking you to go back 15 minutes to now think about this differently. Because I think it's an excellent way to apply Damon's like genius to a story that I think we're probably like, we know Superhero's man, we got it, we like, we've done this a couple of times and like he did it so well in Watchmen, he does it so well in so many different spaces. But I was wondering if we're like an episode five and it's like actually, it's not that. Now, of course, all mystery shows are essentially like giving you red herrings until you finally zero and on the real person. Probably one of the reasons why Furious was so refreshing is that there is no mystery of Furious. Really, it's just how deep does the rabbit hole go. Do you see what I'm asking you? - I think in this case, I mean, broadly speaking, I think that Damon, who is, you know, his our friend and who we admire first and who we have criticized openly as well on print and in print and on this podcast. I mean, I think that he hears the music of weekly television in a way that almost no one ever has and in the same way that people who are just like piano prodigies can almost like hold space in their mind not just for the note they're playing, but for all of the different chords and then eventually like an entire orchestra, the parts. That seems to be, and I've worked with him, I've seen it happen. Like he, he, like, conducts an orchestra basically of, now you know, he's just gone from piano to conducting but bear with me, I haven't seen Tara in a while. Everyone in the room is offering ideas and what's incredible about what he does, it's he, he seems to process them like little different melodic moments and he takes them and he keeps taking and taking and then he's sort of story weaving in real time and fitting them together. And so that's an incredible thing to see and I do feel like you can see that happening and I don't say that to diminish the contributions of all the other writers, including Vanessa Baton-Kelly who wrote the episode. The other reason why I think that's a brilliant skill set is because the episode and the weekly episode, a drop of a series has been so devalued with the binge model, which we've talked about, maybe we're retreating from slightly. But one of the great joys of the model is this idea of every moment, like the wire, like every piece matters, every moment matters. There isn't a wasted scene because the scenes exist not just as a propulsive mechanism to go forward but as a moment that will tie back to the past that will connect forward to the future and then when you have a show with a trick-story timeline set up, that goes double. So, but I also hear you in the sense that like, - No, that wasn't like a critique. It was basically a concern troll about the sustainability of like, loss was able to sustain that for a long time where you thought you knew the island, there was another part of it. You thought you knew what time you were in, there was another era. You thought you knew what Said or Locke or Jack's story was, you find out something else about it. It's baked into what you would expect every time you started a new episode. We very well may get a Lorelini episode or something that's a little bit more how Jordan centric, but it feels comic booky to me in the best way in the sense that there's everything has a secret identity that there's a second layer to everything and it's instead of showing us something and then filling us in on lore only, it's filling us in on emotional connection and on actual like lived their fictional characters. But like the data dump of the show, whether it's hidden in, you know, beautiful artifice or not, isn't really that much about what the Green Lantern cord do in outer sectors of the Sagittarius quadrant or whatever, it's about what John has done or what John and Hal have done. - Yeah. - And I think that makes it more present and more interesting, but it is a comic book style of storytelling. The other thing that I think is very on brand for Damon, whether it was in the room and whether he was the only one pushing it or not, is that I really like his tendency always in writing, never to write around a problem and not even a problem right around a obstacle. I don't wanna meet you as a negative word, it's like right around something that you've been given. And so in this case, specifically what I mean is this show is conceived as a two-hander between two Green Lanterns or one ascending and one descending. And intentionally, canonically, Hal Jordan is a white guy and John Stewart is a black guy, and they ran right at that in this episode in ways that at times felt almost didactic compared to some of the storytelling in other scenes, but at other times felt really exciting. - I'm sorry, yeah. - You know, in terms of like the whole thing about even in space we aren't seen and sometimes you have to raise your own hand and adding context to this character that it's almost like having seen Rebel Ridge and like Aaron Pierre just basically plays a sledgehammer in anything he does. - Sure, he's awesome at it. - But there's, there's, it builds that character. - This episode builds that character. It's like here's like this kid who's been basically conditioned since he was a baby to not feel a huge swath of human emotion or to suppress it. And so what does that do to you? How do you then relate to other people? You know, and what happens when you have this other great passion of yours in art and in drawing and that winds up being the actual thing that sort of is your entree into this whole other. - And like, you know, the show is doing so many things. We talked about that a lot in the pilot. But one of the things that it's doing, whether I don't think this is like they're guiding light. But by running right at ideas of America, of particularly of race, of culture. - Of culture, yeah. - Of all wrapping in the back seat of the car thing. - But even of humor, like being silly and like undercutting things, like every frame, every decision is like a broadside against the idea that comic book storytelling can't do any of that. - Yeah. - It's like, it's quite a burden for one show to bear. I don't think that's what they were trying to do necessarily. And sometimes I think they overdue it. Like I do think I'm no prude, but they curse a lot. Like they don't need to curse that much. Like if you ran a mic on us like on the way back from a six years game, maybe it'll be different. - I think it'll be different for me, yeah. - But can you fucking believe the project?
That's been you all summer. Yeah. But it's a really exciting show. And like just those little surprises that like it's a job, it felt very leftovers to me. The entire mall interview with Laura Lennie. Funnily enough, I thought that reminded me of the prisoner. It was a show that we talked about a couple weeks ago, the 60s show that's on Craterian channel now. Uh, I thought that was reminiscent of this reality of it. It was very reminiscent of that. It reminded me of International Assassin, the leftovers episode. Yes. Um, I guess we, I guess we are, we can look right, yeah, uh, what else do you want to talk to me about? Can you, can you tell me whether or not I am supposed to be as a casual, like, what do I need to know about, like the Guardians stuff, like, is, or is that just like going to become? Dude, I don't know. Okay. I mean, I generally, because I'm not, I know, I know I can dig deep when we're talking Marvel, but I don't really know the story of this. I'm actually really appreciating the kind of Cliff's notes version of it that like, because there's continuity is so messy and James Gunn's whole thing has always been the more modern version of it, the Grand Morrison version of it, which is all that crazy shit happened. So like when Grand Morrison wrote Batman, it was like, Grimm and Gritty Batman, but also Batmite. Like, it's kind of the spider ham of the Batman universe was also real and the Adam West vibes were also real and you had to reconcile all that. So even in the screen, even in lanterns like, this is a world where there's this whole iconography that there's one, but we already have seen Superman and we know that Nathan Fillion is also one. Sure. And he's showing up in the show. So all that to say, I appreciate that they're like, yeah, I heard that there's 12 of you and you're born, you know, we've now learned you, you were born and die alone and you are the guiding. I mean, I wrote down the line. We are the guiding whatever of law and order in the universe and one of you died. And it's like, okay, yeah, or when his mom's like, prove it to me, the year blue. Okay. I feel like diamond was, that's, that's challenging. You know, I learned from the agency season two that moving diamonds. It is. Although I assume I think the inferences that they eventually do move it thus funding their lives of training him of getting a satellite and yeah, yeah, who would you rather have shoot an apple off your head, mom or dad, neither with you on that. You know what I mean, for different reasons, we're not built telling it over there. I hit line drives. We're not messing around. Before we get out of here, let's do a couple of recommendations. Yeah. I want to keep doing these on Thursday, especially and he has a book rec and then I have a book and a record. There's a book that came out two weeks ago called Days of Miracle and Wonder by Ashley Con. It's Paul Simon and the trials and triumphs of Graceland and album that just celebrated his 40th anniversary and I am not a big music bio guy and nor am I necessarily a big nonfiction guy, but maybe the timing was right because I just crushed it over the weekend when I was doing some traveling and it's just a really wonderful, easy and the best possible way read. It has incredible anecdotes about the 1980s, about music, about the about Paul Simon's experience, making Graceland traveling to South Africa, working with these beautiful musicians and then also the pushback and the uproar about cultural bands and that part in particular felt very relevant only because like one remembers that there has been liberal purity tests at every point in history. We don't need the internet just to amplify it, but more importantly, like what I found really moving about it was it's because it's very contained. It's not like in 1962 when Paul and Arty first started. It starts with him. It starts with him getting the tape that famously he got a tape of, I think it was eventually realized it was the group called the Boioio Boys, but he was just walking around or he was driving to Montauk, where he was building a house for his then wife Carrie Fisher, which is just like strapped me in, but it stays very, very focused, but what's incredible to read about it. I'm sure there are many talented musicians and songwriters who still do this, but the way that he built this album is felt very, very, very grandiose in the best way and artistic and bespoke. He was like, I'm going to go to South Africa where the music is and we're going to book some studios and these people I've never met before are going to come in and we're going to see what we come up with, and I know that like one of the major differences between that and now and he was, there's a lot of this in there as well, like he paid triple rate for all the musicians and he gave credit and people got royalties and he brought them on tour into the musicians largely felt very well taken care of and their contributions were appreciated and blah, blah, blah, blah, but you do realize that one of the main differences between analog and digital era is that I'm sure you've heard this as well that like when contemporary artists have collaboration sessions or jam sessions, the tape runs from morning to night. Sure. So that at any point of things get legal, you know, like if Frankie Pulitzer was like, I think Chris said that, they would go to the tape and that wasn't the case in the eighties and I think there was some grumbling, I mean, famously more than grumbling from Los Lobos. Yeah, I think the grumble is quite quite, but, but interestingly, like this book, like talks about, it was a tough studio day because Los Lobos didn't really understand and they were kind of insulted that they weren't brought in to do what they do. They were brought in to just kind of jam play. And some up with something and despite the tension of that day, the members came back multiple times to do overdubs and like we're part of the process, but then later felt sort of ill used by it. Gotcha. I know you had a Los Lobos question. I could see it. Well, it's just it's a very important album to me and probably a bunch of other people who are already. Yeah. Of course, I listen funnily enough like Graceland has been like one of the most played albums of my life, but not by me, but like various people in my lives are like, we're going to listen to Graceland on this road trip or we're going to listen to Graceland while we make Thanksgiving dinner or whatever it is all the like for years and years and years. I feel like, but I love the record. I feel like the most like Proustian, like Citizen Kane, like, oh my God, like sound of my life is the horns on Graceland and the horns on Billy Joel's and Innocent Man. Like instantly, it's between the years of May 23 and 1986 and I'm like, whoa, can I have mac and cheese tonight? Yeah. I'll throw out a book rack really quick. I was reading this book Life During War time by Lucy Shepard. I'm really enjoying it. It's like a kind of psychedelic sci-fi novel set in a imaginary conflict in Guatemala and they mention this. Did you mention this? I did. Yeah. And I left it on a plane. Wait for my replacement copy to arrive from Spirit Airlines. Are they sending it back to you? It wasn't Spirit. Okay. Just figure, let's give them a little shine. I'm getting Franky Pulitzer money now. We're on Alaska, brother. I'm reading this amazing novel, by writer named Rudolph Whirlitzer. He's the screenwriter who wrote Packyard and Billy a Kid, Tulane Blacktop and then a claimed novelist as well. This came out like 2011. I think Drag City, the music label, put out the novel and it's based, it's called Slow Fade. And it is essentially a book about a Sam Peck-and-Paw-esque director making a western. His fail son, who was returned from a long trip to Asia where he was there with his wife, but also was looking for his disappeared sister. And it also is about a, basically like a rock and roll road dog who like road manages bands, who has lost an eye and is now living with the son writing a screenplay. Yeah. And it kind of feels like a little bit of that vibe where you're like, is this like, this is kind of like a steely Dan album like as a novel and it's awesome. That's incredible. I love it. It's a Slow Fade by Rudolph Whirlitzer as my book recommendation. And in my music recommendation, I was just going to make really quickly was you say I romanticized the new album by sweeping promises. Fucking incredible. So it is so good. Just came out on Subpop a couple of weeks ago and I liked this band. I liked this band. Yeah. But this record is amazing. Their first record is Hunger for a Way Out. Yeah. I loved and then I kind of went away from that. Yeah. Like it's a duo and it's when Lira Mondale sings and plays bass. And they're like a full band on the record or everything, but like it is like in that sort of heritage of wire stereo lab, electriline, elastic, breeders like it has like post punk. But then there are like flourishes that remind me of like Blondie or even some like the vocal stuff they do is like, I don't know if I would say it's like queen, but it is like incredibly gorgeous melodies layered on top of each other that are just coming from Mondale's voice. So highly recommend this record as you bring me driving it is like bringing me back a great running record, a great working out record, a great driving around record that hunger for a way out. There's a song cross me out in there. That's like X-ray specs needs, yeah, Blondie. And that was one of like, if I had my goat, we should do this actually. Like what was the go bag that got you through COVID culturally sourdough bread wise? Yes. Because there are things, you know, DJ battles, modern family reruns. Yes. Thomas Mann's the magic mountain. That was that was summer 2020 for me. Yeah. Yeah, but Lonesome Dove was in there for us and read all those books. But like one thing as we get older as people who are obsessed with culture and.
books and music and things, I find is that the resonance of the things you love becomes more diffuse, meaning like, I was just saying about like the horns on Graceland, I am in another body in another life, I mean my own, but like all the cultural touchstones and the smells, and I remember things about like my grandparents' house instantly. Things from 2014, I'm like, it's just 2017, like I love things, but I you lose. I think we're we're conversant about a lot more things, but we're not as, but they're not be knowledgeable and like connected to them. And they're not as married to, so like a record that I love, I will love for four days and they never listen to it again. Well, because it's also not wedded to in a particularly intense emotional period, because it's just like, well, no, I mean, I get, as my kid pointed out to this morning, I get pretty heated, going to Trader Joe's, but other than that, you know, it's not like it was some great swing in your life. Yeah. And COVID was that for everyone. So I do think that there are aspects of that. In the same, I mean, on the same token by the same token, I also don't remember anything about three years there. Sure. And it was either 10 minutes ago or 10 years ago. But let that's a project for us. That would be fun. The COVID diaries. No. Just like remembering some things that matter. For sure. You know what this pod really is remembering things. Do you think we should tie more of our content to national tragedies? Like what would you like to do for the 25th anniversary of 9/11? Just do a full listening session for Jay Z's blueprints. You know, people love it whenever, whenever the subject 9/11 comes up. And I say, you know, the weather was clear blue day. That's how the report opens. That's a what? The 9/11 report. Well, I was in, they asked me. It was, it's very well written. The 9/11 report. People don't talk about it. So the report contain all the people playing Frisbee in Central Park. It doesn't. Was that what you were doing? No, no. I was invited. Okay. No, no, but like when we walked up, did the long walkup Manhattan from the spin offices like up central park, like, you know, hundreds, thousands of people were like pilgrimageing just away. They're worried, not in significant number of people just like tossing a tossing the disc around. Yeah. Like it's a nice, it's a nice Tuesday. That's the real story. You only get that here. And on Frankie Poole's or mixed tapes. We will be back on Monday or Tuesday yet to be decided yet because it is Labor Day. But we will be back on Monday or Tuesday and we'll have two episodes next week for you. Thanks to Kai and Sarah for producing today and we'll be back Monday. Everybody have a great weekend. John Stewart would do Monday. He believes in the mission.
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