Speaker 1: I made susion pace sunny sound on Ahead Vision. It's nice.
Hello everybody, welcome back to f C O L. It's Friday.
We're back and John is in studio. And I bet
you one hundred dollars that Lynette is doing better right now.
Speaker 2: I mean we might want to you know, game sort
of game that out both ways.
Speaker 1: Should we call her?
Speaker 2: It could be something maybe we might want to try.
Speaker 1: We should just call Let's just call her and see
what happens. All right, okay, let's put her on.
Speaker 2: If you hear an edit in the show, you'll know
what happened.
Speaker 1: It's springing. Its springing. Oh, I bet she's sleeping. Hello, Ah,
you're on speaker on the microphone.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that was that sounded so breft. She's
faking it.
Speaker 1: She sounds so sad.
Speaker 2: She did that on purpose.
Speaker 1: We were just calling to see how you're feeling. For
the audience is probably really worried. I'm okay, I was
just sleeping.
Speaker 2: Oh you're not supposed to do that.
Speaker 1: Wake up.
Speaker 2: Somebody's supposed to be walking you around. I know.
Speaker 1: Now. My sister Monkey's calling me like every hour just
to make sure. And you guys are like on the
half hour.
Speaker 2: That's what we're here for.
Speaker 1: All right. Well I kind of said what happened, but
not like too many details. I just told him about
all the drinking you were doing. Other than that, did you.
Speaker 2: Really fall off a balcony?
Speaker 1: What did time say? John said, did you really fall
off a balcony? No? She okay, So okay, Lynnette, go
back to sleep. I just wanted you to know where
we got this. Okay, thank you, John, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Oh you owe me big, You owe me,
big guy.
Speaker 1: Okay, go to sleep better.
Speaker 2: Just yelled into the microphone for our listeners.
Speaker 1: That's okay, that's okay, all right, so we did that.
Speaker 2: We did that. Can I also point out one other thing?
Speaker 1: We start calling people off MyD that'd be good. Just
drunk dialing, Julie call like Randos.
Speaker 2: That'd be a good show.
Speaker 1: Don't tell them they're on the show.
Speaker 2: Just drunk dial even though we're relatively I've had two coffees.
Well if we you know, if we're really something occurred
to me while you were talking to Lynette. Do you
realize that we drove from our house about nine miles
to the studio when we could have we have a
road caster at home. We have two microphones. You and
I drove to a studio to record something we could
have recorded at our house. Oh my god, God was
just like I sort of had that little slow guy
realization after we've already recorded one show. I'm like, wow,
we drove to studio city.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Well a road caster that works better?
Speaker 2: Yep. But you know what, you know whatether microphone Isn't
this good?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Their microphone sucks.
Speaker 2: If we get one more good mic we never need
to drive it.
Speaker 1: That is true. And we could have run the sound
through the you could have fixed the sound. But whatever,
we're here. Let's just enjoy.
Speaker 2: But we do. Can we talk about who might be
coming into the studio tomorrow?
Speaker 1: Oh I don't know. That might be a secret. Okay,
I don't think it's our story to tell, but that
if this is the Friday show, it'll already be posted.
But I don't know when they're posting the episode. Okay,
listen Kaylin's podcast with his dad called Just Foolin about
a little plug for very good podcast. Yes, they have
a special guest that is recording tomorrow. Okay, funny, really quick,
funny story. So I'm I'm going to be taking Xander
to SDSU for a tour next week. So we we
plan this way in advance, because when he got in,
we were like, okay, we got to take you to
see the school. So we figured out a day which
is there's a day off, which is next Monday is
President's Day. Okay. So had that planned, went through hotels
dot com. I recently, I booked the hotel room, everything
was set, paid for it, the works, okay. So then
a few days ago or whatever, before the weekend, I
was like, oh my god. Okay, so taking Xander to SDSU,
I gotta figure out with Kaylin because they record and
here as well. I was like, we can't record on
Monday because that's the day of the tour, so or
tour if it's a tournament. I'm just kidding people. People
make fun I say tournament like it's a tour and
you go around and you compete in something like a tour. Anyway,
So then I was like, oh, So then Caylin was like, no,
we have this special guest who's coming in on Tuesday
to record at noon. Now I teach Tuesday night, and
by the way, I have new classes registering, so if
you want to take my writing class, my memoir writing class,
it starts at the end of February. It starts in
like two weeks from the time you're hearing this, So
please go to Facebook, hit me up, or go to
my website and like book. The class Tuesdays are for
new people. Sorry shameless promotion. We'd love to have you
in the class. A lot of fcol people are loving it,
so don't be excluded anyway. I'm like, I got to
teach Tuesday night, so can't come in after his special guest.
So then I'm starting to freak out. Then Lynette, then
we couldn't do Sunday. It was the super Bowl and
we're at Patrick's house and he's having a super Bowl party,
so we're like, he's going to be getting ready. So
I was really stressing out about it, and I said
to Xander, maybe we shouldn't go for the Monday tour
because we're gonna have to leave Sunday. We're going to
a super Bowl party. Then we're gonna have then at
like seven o'clock at night, I'm gonna have to like
we're gonna have to leave and drive to San Diego.
And Xander was like, that's okay, we can find another time.
So I'm madly trying to see what weeks looking forward
we can go, and there's nothing. Because he's soon going
to be having tech rehearsals for his play. I'm like,
we're not going to be able to go until like
well into April. And then all of a sudden, I
don't know how it occurred to me. I was looking
at the rehearsal and I'm like, why are they having
rehearsal at night on the day off on Monday's a holiday?
And then I realized that today today, Monday not a holiday.
It's next Monday.
Speaker 2: You must feel so stupid.
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, I could have had a V eight.
It was such a stupid moment. And then I had
to rebook. I was like, never mind, We're fine, And
how did you tell that story again? On Patreon?
Speaker 2: That's gonna be great. You can you can tune back
in to hear that one again, and we're going to
animate it. We're gonna put something. We're actually going to
hire some very expensive animators to get put that one,
put that one on its feet, and maybe try to
sell it to Netflix. I smell a series, But how
did that relate to uh Kaylan's secret guest.
Speaker 1: That was what means because that was the whole reason
I not use the studio. It was a big deal.
He's gonna have cameras well.
Speaker 2: I'd be giving anything away if I disclosed that I
put on the freezer. I put Tiger Tiger blood chilling
behind the energy drinks.
Speaker 1: No, I'm sure that doesn't anything any surprise you're.
Speaker 2: Anyway, watch Klan show. It's very good.
Speaker 1: We had something else to talk about before then. We
also want to get to questions. Yeah, oh, do you
want to talk about Savannah Guthrie's mom.
Speaker 2: I mean it's interesting. I know that you guys, I mean,
Lynette's got a thread on it, and I mean I'm
just I don't think anybody it's I mean, I'm just
going to repeat what everybody thinks. It's just it's bizarre.
It doesn't track. Savannah Guthrie is not a political figure,
so I mean, nobody's kidnapping to terrorize her. I mean,
it's it is interesting that the influencers, including who is
that Ashley Banfield who used to be on MSNBC twenty
years ago, we don't like her. I mean, she's I mean,
she's pretty thirsty. I gather I've never seen I haven't
seen her since she left Cable TV, but from what
I read, she's kind of, you know, very attention needed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she was spreading a lot of like false
information at the beginning, as you do.
Speaker 2: Nancy Grace built her life on that. But it is
interesting because again I certainly haven't been into the minutia
of it, but I'm aware that Ashley Banfield was one
of the ones that said, hey, you know, they're the
local sheriffs are investigating Savannah's sister and brother in law.
And everybody suddenly went no, no, no, no, no, that's
not true. But then I do see that yesterday they
searched the sister's house and even looked into her septic tank.
I don't want to know about that, but I mean,
so clearly there is some suspicion it is warranted on
the sister and the brother in law. I just it's
so bizarre. It's I mean, when if we ever find out,
it's going to be such a convoluted, weird story. But
I just there's there's nothing to go on, and.
Speaker 1: There's all these So there was a video that went
out yesterday, so we're recording on Monday, you're listening on Friday.
A lot could have changed, so we won't go too
deep into this, but there was a video with Savannah
Guthrie and this and her sister and brother, not the
in law, but the sister and brother saying or she
was saying, you know, we will pay so they see.
But we're not sure how many times people have. One
of them was a fraud because they arrested a guy
who tried to get money from them, so they could
these kidnapping claims could be a hoax. So I found
this article this morning basically seeming like they aren't thinking
it's a kidnapping. But if it's not a kidnapping, nothing
was stolen.
Speaker 2: Well, if it's not a kidnapping with I mean, what
does that I only saw that headline. Let me disqualify myself.
What does it mean that? I mean, so her mom
left willingly, so her mom might be just a clubbed
And if I'm.
Speaker 1: Going to read you, I'm going to read you. It's
not that long this article. It says former FBI Supervisory
special Agent James Gagliano told CNN's Pamela Brown that he's
not convinced the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie is attributable to
a traditional kidnapping. Guthrie the eighty four year old mother
of Today's show host Savannah Okay, we already know all that.
During their conversation, Gagliano explained to Brown why he's not
sure about the theory. Brown says, the first plea from
the Guthrie family, it stressed the urgency of releasing her,
their eighty four year old mother. As we know, she
has a series of health issues. She desperately needs her medications.
We're now in day nine and this will now be
like date thirteen. Yeah, we're now in day nine of
her presumably not having those meds. There was no mention
of that in this new video. What did you make
of that? So that was the interviewer Pamela Brown. So
he says, yeah, well you mentioned it. So we have
an octogenarian, a woman who's eighty four years old. She
obviously has heart conditions, its medications, and pam I'll give
you a stat here. Do you know the percentage of
kidnappings that occur of eighty year olds? It's like infinitesimal,
It's less than one half of one percent. That's why
this case, again is so baffling and confounding. So Brown says,
are you convinced it's a kidnapping? And he says, am,
I convinced this was an actual kidnapping, like an abduction,
like they took her. No, and I'll give you this. Yeah,
I'll tell you this. There are net there are numbers
of ways to conduct kidnappings. Right. There's a new craze
of this. And again we saw this south of the
border when I was stationed there called virtual kidnappings, where
they do everything they can to make you believe that
they have your loved one in their quote unquote possession
when they don't, and they're acting quickly. They're utilizing AI
now to help, you know, because this fog of vagaries,
so that the families are panicked and do what they
need to do. It's just there's so many questions here,
and the fact that the kid, if this was a kidnapping,
had a fourteen hour head start from the time she
was dropped off at home supposedly at ten o'clock until
the family notified law enforcement sometime around noon the next day.
And you see the flurry of law enforcement efforts back
and forth. I don't think there's anything to be taken
from that. People are reading too much into it. That's
the normal progression of an investigation where one lead might
trick off another lead and you move from one thing
to the other. And lastly, two things are going to
solve this case. One is good detective work, that's flat footwork,
knocking on doors, talking to people, canvassing, interviewing people. And
the second piece of this, the biggest one, is the
digital imagery, the digital exhaust that investigators are going through
right now, from the kidnappers, kidnappers in quotes, ransom note,
from the door ring bell that was removed, but they
might still be able to harvest some forensic evidence there.
Things like that are probably going to solve the case.
And we all hope and pray it's going to have
good conclusion.
Speaker 2: Okay, maybe, I mean keep in mind that you always,
unfortunately in the in the Internet age, so many people
will come up with a hot take like that just
because they want some exposure. I mean that seems I
don't know, Yes, it's weird that an eighty year old
woman was kidnapped, but I mean, is he saying that
what he what he seems to be saying is is
that she left of her own accord and somebody jumped
in to exploit that.
Speaker 1: And you don't think he's saying like maybe just somebody
killed her.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so. I mean I take from
that is if somebody somebody goes missing suddenly somebody goes
in to exploit it, as if they kidnapped him when
they don't have them. But I mean his theory is
what she either wandered away, maybe she went to a murder,
she wrote convention, something that the olds like to do.
But I don't, I don't know. I mean, it's just
it seems like he wanted to inject himself in that
because there's blood. There's bloo, they found blood. I mean,
just wandering off absent mindedly usually doesn't leave a blood trail.
So I think that guy just wants his moment in
the sun. But people aren't really, I mean, all of
these things he usually the first thing you do is
who'd ad a motive? Who's benefiting from this? Which does
make it pretty It narrows your list down, I mean,
it narrows it to one. Hoda Colbda's back on the air.
I mean she's back in the she's issuing her you know,
her heartfelt condolences, and she's taken over Savannah's hosting duties.
I mean, I think we need to look at.
Speaker 1: Hodas what if what if that there was something there? Oh?
Speaker 2: I mean there if there's something there, I mean, come on, crazy,
I like coda for this, and I'm going to be
the first to put my marker out there. So this
is Friday. I've probably been confirmed as correct, So celebrate me.
Give me my flowers as a detective right now. But
it's Hoda and this is Monday that we're recording this.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, NBC is date Line is ABC? There's forty
eight hours night Line?
Speaker 2: Oh Nightline is? I'm sorry, Nightline was the So ABC is?
I forget what their investigative show is.
Speaker 1: They all there's forty eight hour mysteries, and there's that's ABC. Yeah,
there's Dateline and then there's twenty twenty. ABC is twenty twenty. Okay,
so is what's her name? Hoda? Hoda gonna gonna narrate
her own twenty.
Speaker 2: Twenty without a doubt. I mean, it's just it is.
Speaker 1: And the end it's her. Yeah, and it's still going
to be like, oh, I'll still want to I still want.
Speaker 2: To do She pre tapes. I mean, she definitely pretapes
knowing this is coming. But this is just a gold
mine for Hoda and I like her for this.
Speaker 1: I think we crack the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah we do good work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, sho't we take questions? Let me let's
talk about hero Bread. Okay, you love it. You're obsessed
with hero Bread. Listen, we all are in our house.
I'll tell you who's like a big fan is Xander.
Xander loves bread.
Speaker 2: He does.
Speaker 1: He likes fluffybread, and he has said that he cannot
tell the difference between the other bread that has all
the carbs in it and this bread that has zero
to five grams of net carbs and high fiber. He
says the texture is the same. It's delicious. He loves it.
They make croissants, they do English muffins. I really feel
like you guys should get some hero Bread and this
year you can hit your goals without giving up your
favorite ready dishes because Hero Bread is offering ten percent
off your order. Go to hero dot co and use
code fcol at checkout. That's f col at h E
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Speaker 2: Already ordered, yes, Yes, spoiler alert. It's got a kickstand.
Speaker 1: You're using it right now.
Speaker 2: I am there you go. That's why I seem so relaxed.
Speaker 1: Okay, get us the question, Get get us some questions. Yeah,
for you, get you some questions.
Speaker 2: Well, there's are questions. Okay, hold on going to it.
Just quick preface here. At the last minute, as we
were driving over here, we we realized that they were
dragging me on as a guest. And everybody's heard plenty
from me. So I put out a post asking if
people had questions, and we did get some questions. So
let's let's take a peek. Desiree Richards wants to know
about the search for a Perfect pooch that is our
Tuesday show. And we already addressed that, so I hope
you feel satisfied. Let's see, here's a quick one. I
live outside Chicago, and I went to high school with
Alex Eastburg. How do you know him? Alex Eastburg was
my executive at Spike TV, no longer a network. But
I did a show called Carlot.
Speaker 1: Cow Boy and that was a good one.
Speaker 2: That was a good one. It was I was the
third show runner.
Speaker 1: What was that guy's name, Tom's Tom was Stuker.
Speaker 2: Stuker is a He's also known as the most frequent
flyer in the world. He's flown God, He's up to
like twenty five million miles. Really great guy. He also
is from Chicago, but his claim to fame is he
is a Carlot turnaround guy. There was a show. It
was called Carlot Cowboy and then it got changed to
Carlot Rescue to match with bar Rescue. But in any case,
Alex was the first show runner and then got hired
by the network. In the middle of the show, they
hired another show runner. It didn't work, and so I
was known as the fixer. I came in as the
third show runner and I finally got the show delivered
to Spike. It was fun and that was many years ago.
But Alex was my executive. He's a great guy. And
he now lives in Ecuador. So TV does weird things
to a lot of people. It is a tough place
to survive, and Alex finally just said, you know, what
the hell with this, I'm moving with my I believe
he married a woman from Australia and they're living very
happily and in Ecuador. Now something to think about something
to think about. Next question, the next question. Let's take
a peek. Why do you let Stephanie deal with the
buy nothing people? I it's like, you know, I can't
control that's it. Kind of. It's one of those things
where it kind of dissipates her rage somewhat, because she'll
often come to me and show me ridiculous by nothing
sort of. I don't know the community. They're like flash
sales or they've got all these little conventions, and she'll
show me somebody who is like offering their toenails or something.
Speaker 1: There's the one neighbor that I always have to bring
you took. I took a screenshot of it. I should
put it up in the for crying out. I should
put it in the group so you guys can see it.
But I have to I have to figure out how
to cross out the name so you don't see his name.
But I mean he will offer I feel like I
can't remember exactly, but I feel like he was offering
some cleaning supplies that had like half an inch on
the bottom of each one, oh, which ridiculously like found
you know outside.
Speaker 2: I do remember at one point you did show me
that he offered something like seven stray nails.
Speaker 1: Yes nails. Yes, they weren't even.
Speaker 2: They didn't match. There were strange there were things.
Speaker 1: He found on the ground on a walk.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it's you know, if if, if that's
where she wants to, you know, dissipate her dismay with humanity.
That's that's fine. There life.
Speaker 1: But I did get like a brand new whole Men's
care shaving thing for Xander the other day. That was
all brand new. He loved it.
Speaker 2: Humbug. Do you like the electric car?
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 2: I actually like it very much. I think Steph likes
it very much. We have an ongoing Volkswagen America. If
you're listening to this. We have a problem with our
information console. It blacks out, and apparently that is that
problem is epidemic with new ID fours and going back
four years, and they've done a recall for every year,
but not ours. So we are in month five of
trying to get our information console. Apparently they need a
module replaced, and.
Speaker 1: We took it in.
Speaker 2: We took it in. We waited three months for the
module because they're sending modules to everyone because every module
needs a replacement. But they sent us we finally got
our time, came up in the line for the replacement module,
took it into Volkswagen, helpin Volkswagen, and they replaced it,
only to find that the replacement module was faulty. So
they called us and said, we're giving you your car back,
but the replacement module. So you're back on the list.
So we have just been waiting and waiting. Everything else
about the car is fantastic, but this is a real
it's a real pain, but we will work through it.
It's first world problems. Yeah, let's see when's the new
dog coming to join your family? Also Tuesday and also
in Tuesday show, have you and Steph talked about any
big plans for the empty nest phase? No, because it
just feels like getting the twins through college is like
Mount everest Or. I mean, we can't even see the
other side of the mountains. It's not that far away.
But mentally speaking, also the way I think about it,
I didn't want to speak for Steph, but in this
economy and with AI and with everything, I mean, you've
got the kids, they get through college and then they
use home as a staging area for a couple of
years too, and you know, I needed that. I moved home.
A couple of years out of college. I moved back
home and I was writing spec scripts for comedy.
Speaker 1: Okay, so right after college, where did you go?
Speaker 2: Right after college? I went to Connecticut, then New York.
Back to Connecticut.
Speaker 1: How long were you in New York?
Speaker 2: Briefly? Very briefly, because my big plan was I wanted
to move. My big plan I wanted to go to Hollywood,
and you know, I majored in writing for TV and film.
But I had this you know, very true Syracuse. Yeah,
blah blah, and I thought that I would. I thought
that i'd make some money, I'd go to New York.
I'd get a job in advertising. I went out of
my way. I put together you know, your spec book
and all of these things. I even went, you know,
I took a job in Connecticut, and then I went
to the New School in New York and took extra
copywriting classes to get my book really in shape. And
I started to make my rounds in New York, meeting
with ad agencies.
Speaker 1: But so you where were you staying? You got a
bunch of rooms, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was at that point, I was just staying
on people's couches, but I was My big plan was,
you know, I'm going to get a job. But in
nineteen eighty six there was a huge consolidation of advertising
all of these a big firm called Sachi and Sachi
bought up half of the ad firms and the other
half of the ad firms. Out of fear of SACI
and Sachi merged together. So where there had been about,
you know, nineteen fairly sizable ad agencies in New York
on Madison Avenue, suddenly there were four. And you had
people who had two or three years copyrighting experience taking
those entry level junior copyrighting jobs. So, long story short,
I got offered two jobs, one at Alli and Gargano,
and but they offered me eleven thousand, five hundred a year,
which even back in you know, nineteen eighty six, you
couldn't live in New York City on eleven thousand, five
hundred a year. I had friends that were working for
eighteen thousand a year. But I was because there were
so many more copywriters than there were jobs. It was
a hirer's market, and I just was like, this ain't
gonna work. So I went, Okay, we're going to skip
the New York Advertising So but I now, if I'm
going to go to if I'm going to go to California,
and I am going to you know, get into screenwriting faster.
I need to write spec scripts. You can't go to
California without your sample scripts. And so I went home.
I took temp jobs. I moved in with my parents,
and I started writing spec scripts. I would, you know,
work a temp job by day, and then I'd sit
up until two in the morning writing spec scripts. And
you know, my mom was I think my mom kind
of speaking of empty nest. My mom kind of enjoyed
having me back home. My dad was like, this wasn't
part of the bargain. My dad was not happy to
have me back home.
Speaker 1: But at this point, your sister was like married, Oh she.
Speaker 2: Wasn't married yet, but she was, she was engaged, and
she was living much too again much in my dad's consternation.
She was living in sin with her future husband. Anyhow,
So yeah, I spent eighteen months at home writing three
spec scripts, saving money. Uh, and then I finally, you know,
I finally my big thing was you know, out the
door by twenty four because I suddenly, you know, I
graduated at twenty two, and I, you know, I thought
I was going to be New York until maybe twenty five,
and suddenly I'm back home living with my parents, which
was demoralizing and anyhow, So that was my And then
I moved out here, and you know, I went through
a couple of staffing seasons and it was an uphill battle.
But and I ended up in reality TV. Don't let
your kids and go into reality TV people, that's scary anyhow,
But that was my path. But bringing it back to
our kids, I mean, I think that you know, our
kids are probably going to need a you know, a
sort of a I mean, my I'm because I needed that.
I'm sort of wired to go. I get how, you know,
going out and suddenly coming out of college into an
uncertain economic world and suddenly having to pay all of
you your own rent, your insurance. It's a as long
as you keep making steady strides, I'm all for, you know,
give them a safe place to get their ducks in
a low in a row. So all of that is
five minutes of monologue saying I don't know that even
the empty nests still be here in four years.
Speaker 1: Well when Xander leaves, LB will be back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've said that to Sadie two, and.
Speaker 1: Sadie will be home.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we're not looking at being empty nesters anytime.
Speaker 2: Oh no, not at all.
Speaker 1: But we're both fine with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're both fine with it.
Speaker 1: I mean we like our house to have a little bustle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I mean we like Yeah, we do. It's
I mean, I'm weird. I mean we're lucky because I mean,
our kids are a much better kid than I was,
or all three of them are much better kids than
I was. I was a paint in the butt. But
I mean, I like our kids being around. I enjoy
get I enjoy having our kids in the house. I
enjoy our kids company. So I you know, I don't
mind them being there too long. I just, you know,
at a certain point, I'm sure we will be empty
nesters and then we'll have to talk to each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll probably take do some trips or something. I
don't know, although we could do that now.
Speaker 2: No cruises.
Speaker 1: I know you won't let us go on a cruise.
Speaker 2: Cruises or the devils. I'll take a river cruise. It's
just you know, I don't want to go I don't
want to go in the fun ship in the Caribbean.
I'd rather jump off. And I went to Club Med
once and I was like, what am I doing here?
And you know, they were trying to get everybody into
line dances. I'm like, I'm not a line dancer.
Speaker 1: I'm not like, would you go with? Was it like
a spring break thing?
Speaker 2: No? I actually I had two friends when I graduated
from Syracuse were set to go with me. We made
plans to go to kan Kun and we're like, all right,
it'll be fun. And both of my friends got job
offers and they and so I was, you know, I
was sitting there and I didn't have a job offer.
I hadn't even gone to New York at that point
to even try. And so they left and I'm like,
for some reason, I was like, I'll show them. I'll
go on my own. So I went down to Club
Med on my own, which was I mean, it was interesting,
it was it was interesting.
Speaker 1: Did you have any hookups?
Speaker 2: I didn't. The only one I was interested in was
this very you know, it was somebody who's like me.
It was like, I didn't come here to hook up
and she was the only But there were there were
some colorful, a little you know, precocious people are like, hey,
you want to come inspect my room?
Speaker 1: Oh really?
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't think so. You scare me.
You're too tan and you look like you're about thirty three,
and I'm just twenty one at that point, twenty two,
so I'm like, I'll pass. So it was it was interesting.
It was nice to sat on the beach. I took
some you know, I tried to drive to chichen Itza,
but the car I rented started misfiring. I'm like, I'm
going to be on the road halfway across the Yucatan Peninsula.
I'm going to be, you know, a single gringo and
a broken down car. I'm like, I don't see that
scenario being a good one. So instead of driving to
chichen Itza, I pulled a U turn and I took
the car back. But I did fly to Kozamel to
go scuba diving because I had just gotten I'd gotten
certified in Syracuse in a frozen lake in Syracuse. I'd
never really been scuba diving other than in a swimming
pool and a very murky lake that was thirty four degrees.
So I go to Kosamel and I get on a dive,
but they down there back in those days, they didn't
take into account sort of different levels of scuba diver.
I was a green. This was going to be my
first open water dive. And back then, the war in
Nicaragua was still going, and a couple of combat photographers
from Nicaragua it also come up and they were experienced
divers and they so they were on our same dive trip.
And so these guys are just like hell bent and
they're really experienced. So we all go together and we
go on the Palagar reef and these guys decide suddenly
spontaneously on the boat, not only are we going to
dive the reef, We're going to cave dive. Oh no, now,
cave diving. I mean, cave diving is to scuba diving
what base jumping is to skydiving. I mean, it's something
that you should only do. You know, have a thousand
hours of scuba diving, and you know it's the the
fatality and danger is exponentially higher than open water. And
we ended up diving into caves and my first open
water dive, and I was terrified, and you know, we
went through underwater some underwater tunnels where the regulator was
scraping along the tunnel. And each time there was one
other guy who was a rookie, and I was just
it was he and I were both terrified and we
both our air ran out on all dives. I mean,
it didn't run out in the cave or in the tunnels,
thank god, but it was we were both so scared.
We went through our air and you know, these guys
from Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like feeling like I can't breathe hearing
it was.
Speaker 2: It was, it was terrifying.
Speaker 1: I mean, but you know, such a panic attack.
Speaker 2: I mean it's you're going through these in the Palalagar reef.
They've got these. I mean, I want to say, it's like,
you know four foot tunnels. They were probably six or
eight feet top to bottom, but you hit it with
your fins. It was you couldn't see anything ahead of you.
It was dark and you had to follow the fins
ahead through the tunnel. And you know, the tunnels were
thirty forty feet and and if something goes wrong in
the tunnel, there's nothing to do. And it was just
and there were Barracuda everywhere. We didn't see any sharks.
I kind of wanted to see like a blue shark
or something that. But we saw a lot of barracuda.
But it was the caves that were terrifying.
Speaker 1: And this is reminding me of that story. That is
a wondering whole podcast.
Speaker 2: Another one You're gonna sit. Yeah, they went in and
they it was stuck in there was it was an
open air cave.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they couldn't get out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they got stuck in.
Speaker 1: The guy remember Elon Musk tried to insert himself.
Speaker 2: Oh, that was a different story that was that was
a tie kid. Elon Musk wanted to get one. Yeah.
Oh when the boy scouts the tie boy scouts.
Speaker 1: H oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They were in a in an air pocket in
a cave and Elon Musk wanted to send a submarine
that was way too big. And then when somebody said, Elon,
that submarine won't turn one corner and he said, oh,
you're a pedophile. It was it was a precursor too.
Speaker 1: But then they got there was a guy basically he
was really good at what you're talking about, and he
got them. Yeah, you went in there and got them
and heat it was like a hole. Oh that was
a good a good uh wondering, Yeah, it was wondering,
one of the wondering podcasts about like surviving.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no it was Yeah, that had a happier ending. Yeah,
I just yeah, it was a bad first scuba diving experience.
Speaker 1: How did we get onto scuba dize?
Speaker 2: Empty nesting?
Speaker 1: Oh? Next question? You know, before we get to another question,
I have to do two more ads. Yeah. So first
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back to questions, Yeah, back to questions.
Speaker 2: All right, I'll try to knock off a few more
of these very quickly. I love you as a last
minute guest. Thank you very much. I didn't pay for that.
But this is from Ann Carpenter says, how do I
keep my cats off the counters? The kid is twelve
and he stopped doing that years ago. Now, I've never
owned a cat in my life, but I do want
to help. So while Steph was reading the ads, I
went on to AI and I, because I'm very good
at writing prompts real acting you as an elite pet trainer,
how do I keep my cats off the counter, okay,
And the short answer, according to Chad's Opus model, you
don't train cats the way you train dogs. You redesign
the environment, so behavior stops paying off and cats going
counters for three reasons, food smells, I eighten, vantage point,
and warmth. If any of those remain, you're fighting physics.
So skipping ahead, I won't read you the whole thing
it did. There was a little news you can use
at the down here. It basically says double sided tape.
Cats hate sticky services. AD that can't speak sticky surfaces,
so cats hate sticky services. Make it unpleasant for them.
Put aluminum foil up crinkly and unstable makes cats furious,
And I'm all for making cats furious persons. Being a
dog person, I think that's just a little bonus grin
whether it works or not. Motion activated air sprayers best
long term solution, silent teacher, no human blame, so they don't.
It basically says if you put a remote control sprayer on,
they won't take vengeance on you. I like that because
cats are devious that way. Yeah, exactly. Finally, it says
textured mats and spike mats works especially well overnight.
Speaker 1: Feel like Anne could have just googled this though herself.
Speaker 2: No, but you know, sometimes they need our help. And
I have a love hate relationship with AI, but I
figured I could swing in and help with that very quickly. Okay,
moving along, so we address as many of these as
quick as possible. How is the YouTube channel?
Speaker 1: YouTube channel?
Speaker 2: Is it's going well, it's I don't know. For those
that pay attention to YouTube, YouTube had a bit of
a trauma across the board in October. They changed their
algorithm and they changed the way that they present videos. Basically,
YouTube is deeply threatened by TikTok and they are moving
from prioritizing long form videos to leading with shorts YouTube shorts.
So they've given a lot of their landscape to promoting shorts,
which is sort of upset the Apple cart for long
form content creators like my partners and I are. So
we got thrown back. We started getting some real traction.
We got half a million views on two or three videos,
which was great, and we're all excited, and you know,
we're you know, pricing Lamborghinis and just getting ready to
go to the YouTube Awards, and then suddenly our views
went down. From you know, anywhere from fifty thousand to
five hundred thousand down to fifty to five hundred overnight.
But we weren't alone. That was happening to everybody, and
it took a couple of months for the reason to
come out. And it's a combination of AI slop channels
that are sort of created entirely by AI, where they
make AI write the script, voice it with something called
the Eleven Labs with the fake voices, and create these
absurd images that they put over. I will say a
lot of the history niche or niche channels really if
you leave it to AI, suddenly they focus in on
things that German female POWs did in Texas during World
War Two. It's a very specific kink that isn't even
true because there were no female prisoners of war in
America during World War Two. But that doesn't stop the
slop in any case. So we are retooling. We've done
a lot of sort of deep dives, and we are
told that because our watchers are somewhere between fifty five
and dead, we have a much older demographic who watches history.
We at least have the saving grace that they love
watching YouTube on their televisions, and so by leaning into
what is referred to as the living room experience, we
can capture our demographic but we are what we're going
to start doing is doing the same type of content
we're doing, but with much with upscaling a lot of
our video so it looks great on TVs. You can
do things. There are a lot of software programs that'll
turn old World War two footage into four K. But
in any case, we are trying to create the living
room experience and we're sort of rejiggering things a little bit.
But thank you very much for asking.
Speaker 1: And where can they find it? Tell them that it's documentary.
Speaker 2: It's documentary. It's documentary dot tv a dot official. We're
changing that because it's so byzantine. But if you just
put in documentary TV, I'll put a link on the
fcol page. But yeah, we've been very slow in posting
for the last couple of weeks since we discovered and
we were looped into all the agonizing over the YouTube's
changing to shorts. We're going to put out more shorts
that lead to our lungs. But that's a little too
inside baseball. But I'll put a link to the channel up,
but we're going to be putting a lot more content
out starting in about two weeks. I've got something on
I interviewed Chuck Yeger long ago, and Chuck Yeger hated
talking about his supersonic flight where he broke the sound
barrier for the first time, but he loved him talking
some World War Two and I did too, and so
there's a long part of that. It was for the
History Channel many years ago, and I could only use
the part about him talking about a supersonic flight. But
we spent you know, he talked to me for three
hours and I could only use about an hour of it.
And so I've always had this old video Chucks long
since departed, but there's a very long video of him
talking about, you know, becoming a double ace in World
War Two. And so I'm cutting a video surrounding Chuck
Yeger and how he got shot down and he escaped
the Nazi's on the ground and the French underground picked
him up. It's a really fascinating story. So that's what
I'm working on right now, but I need to make
it look very pretty for the living room experience. But again,
I appreciate you asking.
Speaker 1: That so, hey, do you have any more or can
I bring up a different topic?
Speaker 2: I've got some more before. We got a couple other questions.
Let's see to ask him about the dog. Let's see,
like to car Oh, do I like yacht rock?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I tolerate yacht rock. I mean it's there's some yacht
rock that actually gives me goose flesh, like Leo Sayer,
and some of it's okay.
Speaker 1: There's you know, Michael McDonald.
Speaker 2: Michael McDonald. I mean, I respect Michael McDonald. I don't
you know, I wish he had done something different. I mean,
his Doobie work was a little better than his yacht rock.
Speaker 1: Work, well, his Doobie Brothers stuff.
Speaker 2: Yet I just, you know, there's a I don't think
anybody is. I have a very and I'm a bit
of a music snob. I mean it's I can be
kind of insufferable in the other direction. I grew up,
you know, I started out loving the Rolling Stones and
the Who and everything, and then I gravitated into alternative
bands like The Replacements and Who's Kerdo and the Dead Milkman.
I was very into the punk and post punk scene,
and you know, and because music was very tribal in
the eighties because you couldn't get anything played on mainstream
radio because that was all aimed at the baby boomers.
Even when we were the twenty somethings, the I was
on the sort of between Gen X and boomers. They
were still playing you know, led Zeppelin five times an
hour and Wishbone Ash five times an hour, and all
of these great new bands that in any other era
would be getting lots of play were buried on college radio.
So you got like very very tribal about it. And
so I'm I got lucky because the twins just happened
to grow up listening to this and like this, and
the twins like a lot of the same music I do.
I mean, they went to Dinosaur Junior with.
Speaker 1: Me, uh, going to Silver Sun pick Up, going.
Speaker 2: To see Silver Sun Pickups. They want to see Bob Moold,
who's sixty five years old. So I'm impressed. But anyhow,
so I'm I'm lucky that the kids sort of are
we LB we split. She didn't go with either of us.
She likes DM, which is confusing, but anyhow, but I
you know, yacht rocked to me soft rock. The only
soft rock is in general, I love Fleetwood, mac in
a couple others, but it just it does it lacks.
It kind of feels like jello to me.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, can I bring something else up that I
know we want to talk about before we end?
Speaker 2: Please do so.
Speaker 1: John and I saw a movie together the other night.
We finally we saw One Battle after Another Paul Thomas Anderson.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had a chance to go to the Director's
Guild screening and you know, then question Paul Thomas Anderson
after but we couldn't make it work. And we're kind
of glad that it didn't work out because even though
either we both like Paul Thomas Anderson Steph's long ago
feud with him via this podcast notwithstanding, but we didn't
like this movie.
Speaker 1: No, and the whole world did though. I know, so
we're here breaking some like we're saying something.
Speaker 2: We're being controlled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're being contrarions, but we didn't like it. I
will say that I didn't like the beginning more than
I didn't like There were like some parts in the
middle where I was like, Okay, I'm just gonna give
myself over to this and try and have a good
time because I know I'm gonna be here for almost
three hours and then we we we won't spoil it,
but the ending really made me like want to punch
a wall.
Speaker 2: I was like, after all this, there was something that
was very very pat and very uncharacteristic for Paul Thomas Anderson.
It was trite and that's something that he is not
guilty of.
Speaker 1: But I'm not trying to be I want to say
this and it's that I thought it was weird. I
felt a little bit uncomfortable with the idea that Paul
Thomas Anderson. And I know he's married to what's her
name from SNI, Yes, so I know he's married to
a black woman. But I did not love the depiction
of the black women in this movie, and it was
a very trying to make them super like sexual and not.
It was it was really some like old ideas I
felt about race, and I.
Speaker 2: Felt like Quentin Tarantino and Jackie Brown and so many
other movies where he felt like he was given some
sort of a race card get out of, you know,
and just But honestly, it's interesting because I have rethought
what I think. I don't think it's any better than
I did, but I think I understand what happened now,
I could be dead wrong, but taking the two Paul
Thomas Anderson, can I call him PTA? Movies that were
sort of missed the mark with us Liquorice Pizza and
One Battle after Another. And Liquorice Pizza was filmed, you know,
in our neighborhood, so we're inclined to like it. It
was about my ex boss, Gary Getzman. But that said,
I think, and I'm looking at what I didn't like
in that movie, and I'm thinking about what I didn't
like in One Battle after Another, and I feel like
what PTA is doing, since he wrote and directed both movies,
he's trying to put characters from a dark I mean,
the whole movie I don't think was a dark comedy,
although some people say it was.
Speaker 1: I did not see the comedy whatsoever.
Speaker 2: I think there was there was, there was some sly
attempts at comedy, but I think that. I mean, the
Colonel Lockjaw was a farcical character, and there were three
or four farcical characters in Mystic Pizza. Where you've got these,
you've got sort of this. It feels sort of like
a drama or a drama dy mystic or mystic I'm sorry,
Liquorice Pizza. Where you've got these, you know, generally realistic
characters and then they run into these broad caricatures and
they're interacting in the same world and there's no you know,
there's there accepted as completely normal by the normal characters.
I feel like he's trying, he's inserting these blackly comedic
characters into drama esque and I mean it just to me,
it doesn't fit together. I mean, Sean Penn's character is
supposed to be in a black comedy, but because he's
just a cartoon and he's I mean, it's like they
asked Sean Penn to chew up the scenery and he
came back for seconds. I mean, it's just and I
don't think that that was Sean Penn's choice. He was
being asked to do that, but I don't think that
fits when you've got you know, Leo DiCaprio was he
was a little outside of reality, but he wasn't anywhere
near it. Just they're different characters and they're they seem
like they're all in different movies, and it didn't click
together the way I would.
Speaker 1: Have liked, and they spent I felt like there was
this whole side story about just like this venal racism.
You know, that got so much more attention. I feel
like than spending any time with some of the people
that were supposed to be kind of main character.
Speaker 2: They didn't develop any character. They're all in I mean,
even though they're not at all all is broad, they're
all very thinly developed characters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I do.
Speaker 2: Think the Christmas Adventurers, who were not giving anything away
the Christmas Adventures I think was supposed to be. I mean,
they're so cartoonishly racist and awful. I think that that
was supposed to be a blackly comedic but I mean.
Speaker 1: For instance, that's a real thing. There's really not the
Christmas event Christmas Adventure, but racism is not. Yeah, but
it's not huge problem.
Speaker 2: It's oh it's a huge problem, but it doesn't quite
I mean, it doesn't quite present itself.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I haven't been to you know, the I haven't been
to Davos, and I haven't been to you know, some
of these Koch Brothers retreats that take place bi annually.
But even there, I don't imagine that there's anything quite
on the caliber of the you know, the Christmas Adventures
who they.
Speaker 1: Want to make sure you even kind of camp and
it was.
Speaker 2: Deliberately that, but I mean a good The good comparison
is if you look at I mean, one of my
favorite movies is Doctor Strangelove and Everybody, I mean, and
it's talking about as serious I mean, it's talking about,
you know, nuclear holocaust and it was made in nineteen
sixty two when that was a very very real fear
and they did it. But the every single person in
that movie is batshit out of their minds and over
the top, and it fits together beautifully, and it's a
masterpiece because they're all in the same movie. They're all
equal measures insane in different directions. Peter Sellers playing more
than one of them, but they all are in the
same movie. In Paul Thomas Anderson's movies, you've got some
people who live in the real world, some people live
in this cartoonish black comedy. And the same with Liquorice Pizza.
When they go to the whatever that country club is
and they run into these thinly veiled or I think
they're actually by real name, mid seventies stars and they're
crazy and they're like getting into the car and they're
driving two hundred miles an hour and getting out with
a Martini in their hand. I mean, that's a different
movie than the kid who's playing young Gary Getzman in
that movie. They're in different movies and I don't think
it fits together. But that's just my opinion.
Speaker 1: All Right, We love you guys. Thank you. Please sign
up for Patreon. John and I are going to do
a Patreon. It's we're going to surprise you.
Speaker 2: But thank you for your questions. It helped a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we just need to say hi to our friends. Listen,
I'm going to tell you we talked about our car.
Adam got it for us. Adam's got a car dot com.
You know where to find him. But just a shout
out to our friends. We got Kelsey between two ferns
and Dick is frolicking. And Kelly Brandt she's not your aunt,
but she'll take you to hip hop class. And Alicia
Escalante from the City of Almonte. And Leslie is still
coughing because COVID's back. Aaron's a dirty Sanchez, Sandra, it's
not easy being green. Stephanie yours stinker wrinker, Christa get
this drap Nikki call your girl. And Elizabeth Williamson's got
a lot of kids, and Rita is La Bassett, Howend
we're going to adopt you, and Polly, we love your pancakes.
Valerie hits out of the park, Katerina, check your moler,
Gabby and Missy still at the Super Bowl, Ishan vojpe
Rebecca a little bit and choke cute and that's it,
and uh, you're a parent now.
Speaker 2: I don't figure does.
Speaker 1: It's good that ang