Speaker 1: Hello, This is Christian Bush and welcome to episode seven
Speaker 1: of Geeking Out, my new podcast. Every episode is a
Speaker 1: new person talking about what they're obsessed with that has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with their job. The only requirement is
Speaker 1: that they're totally geeking out on it and they want
Speaker 1: to talk about it. From sharpie graffiti Chuck Taylor's to
Speaker 1: cosplay wig patterns, from miniature vintage synthesizers to hidden TV
Speaker 1: show tattoos, from seventies cartoon breakfast plates to beach comber
Speaker 1: metal detectors. Tell me about what you love, why you
Speaker 1: love it, how you got into it, and what makes
Speaker 1: it awesome. Every episode is presented in three chapters. Chapter one,
Speaker 1: my guest and I talk about what they're obsessed with.
Speaker 1: Chapter two is a game I call trade it, where
Speaker 1: my guest and I turn each other on to one
Speaker 1: thing that we've discovered. And chapter three closes the show
Speaker 1: with me talking about music. Then I'm currently geeking out
Speaker 1: on and why. I believe that curiosity is contagious and
Speaker 1: the life is better with a soundtrack. So let's go
Speaker 1: chapter one. Today's guest is Angelina Burnett. Angelina is a
Speaker 1: television writer and producer who's written for incredible shows like
Speaker 1: the Americans, Hannibal, and my favorite, Halt and Catch Fire,
Speaker 1: which was just wrapping up its final season when we
Speaker 1: recorded this interview. She also happens to be a good
Speaker 1: friend of Ruth Bennett, the Friends fanatic with the amazing
Speaker 1: laugh that you may remember from our last episode. My
Speaker 1: producer Whitney and I went to visit Angelina at her
Speaker 1: home in Venice, California, last August, and we've been looking
Speaker 1: forward to airing this episode ever since. I think you're
Speaker 1: about to understand. Why how far away from the beach
Speaker 1: are seven blocks? Do you walk that seven blocks a lot? Yes?
Speaker 1: I do as much as I can. Hi, everybody, this
Speaker 1: is Angelina. Hi um, Angelina. Tell everybody what you do.
Speaker 1: I write and produced television. I just finished up on
Speaker 1: a show called Help and catch Fire, which is airing now.
Speaker 1: Well I don't know when this is airing, so who
Speaker 1: knows a police airing, but you can see it on Netflix.
Speaker 1: And what is that sound of the animal on your knee?
Speaker 1: That is my Boston terrorist Hank obsessively licking my knee
Speaker 1: and I will make him stop in a moment because
Speaker 1: it's really obnoxious. Okay, So the rules of the podcast
Speaker 1: are Um, I want you to talk about something that
Speaker 1: you're totally geeked out on that has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with your job. That's really easy, right, It's really easy.
Speaker 1: I know what's coming, but I just wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure because we set the grounds of the beginning, okay, um,
Speaker 1: and this will be as long as short as you
Speaker 1: needed to be. I'm just curious about your passion, Okay.
Speaker 1: I am deeply and profoundly passionate about Beyonce Gaselle's Knowles Carter.
Speaker 1: I recognize that this is a rather Quititian passion in
Speaker 1: this day and age. Um, but I've been it's been
Speaker 1: growing slowly and steadily for many years. And Lemonade feels
Speaker 1: like a real justification for me because I've gotten a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of friends, uh smarty, hoity toity
Speaker 1: songwriter types who think there's so much better than miss
Speaker 1: Beyonce Gasels. Noals Carter and um Lemony changed a lot
Speaker 1: of minds, and I feel really vindicated for those people
Speaker 1: who don't know what we're talking about. Could you shorten
Speaker 1: her name? And and wait, you know, if I can
Speaker 1: just can I take a moment here? You can take
Speaker 1: this is this is actually your moment. I need to
Speaker 1: I need to share something with everyone who's listening to this,
Speaker 1: and I'm hoping they will continue to share it with
Speaker 1: the people they know and ask them to share it
Speaker 1: with people they know. Beyonce's nickname is pronounced b. Her
Speaker 1: fans are the bee Hive. In many many recorded musical performance,
Speaker 1: members of her family her friends have called her b um.
Speaker 1: She uses the B emoji when she posts on Instagram.
Speaker 1: She did an entire tour in which she came out
Speaker 1: wrapped in a b costume that opened up and she
Speaker 1: stepped out of it. There were projections of bees all
Speaker 1: over the stage. And yet, and yet, Johnny Come Lately
Speaker 1: fans insist on calling her Bay. That is not her nickname,
Speaker 1: and it's very disrespectful. Okay, I'm done, and Grant, I
Speaker 1: feel that it's important interject. I'm the Christians manager and
Speaker 1: Angelina's friend. Angelina is a very intelligent, wonderful even I
Speaker 1: would say, young woman who I've known since college, who
Speaker 1: leads a completely functional life, but who just really likes you. Don't.
Speaker 1: I don't need you. I don't need you to convince
Speaker 1: them of my righteousness. So here's what I want them
Speaker 1: to know is that I know, because you and I
Speaker 1: have had this conversation many times, that there was a
Speaker 1: point at which your fandom of Beyonce went from like
Speaker 1: she's good to like she is all encompassing. Yes, she's
Speaker 1: changed my life. Can you talk about I can. There's
Speaker 1: actually a few moments I'm gonna walk you through the
Speaker 1: evolution of my psychotic, obsessive joyful, deeply and profoundly joyful
Speaker 1: and deeply seems. I've spent an incredible amount of money
Speaker 1: on Beyonce, and I don't regret a single penny. I've
Speaker 1: flowed across the country and sat in front of venues
Speaker 1: for long periods of time to be front and center
Speaker 1: for Beyonce, which Carter so when I was in college
Speaker 1: one of my best friends still to this day, one
Speaker 1: of my best friends who actually played soccer with Whitney
Speaker 1: um Uh. She is a brilliant world round tap dancer.
Speaker 1: She won a MacArthur a few years ago. She has
Speaker 1: an incredible dance company called Doran's Dance, which I highly recommend.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy dance, you check out um And at
Speaker 1: the time she was dating an Irish step dancer and
Speaker 1: they lived in this basement apartment in New York City.
Speaker 1: You know you had to like walk down below the sidewalk,
Speaker 1: and they had dragged this piece of plywood down into
Speaker 1: their basement apartments so they could practice. And I was
Speaker 1: a big time music snob. I listened to like obscure
Speaker 1: jazz and you know, like modest, super new modest mouse
Speaker 1: like Radioheaded BC Boys were was like mainstream as I god,
Speaker 1: it was a big time snob at like nineteen and
Speaker 1: um Michelle was trying to convince me that Destiny's Child
Speaker 1: was like a super great fun band, and I was
Speaker 1: a soul about it. So I go down to her
Speaker 1: basement apartment and she's like, I'm gonna dance for you,
Speaker 1: and she puts on Bill's bills bills and she with
Speaker 1: her tap shoes on and her Irish step dancer girlfriend
Speaker 1: start trading. And something about the rhythmic addition of the
Speaker 1: tap dancing and the step dancing like unlocked the music
Speaker 1: for me. So I didn't hear it as like cheesy
Speaker 1: pop music that wasn't cool anymore. I heard it as
Speaker 1: like this incredible rhythmic composition, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe Destiny's Child is cool. I guess I'll check them out.
Speaker 1: And so I started getting into Destiny's Child. I wasn't
Speaker 1: like insane, but I could groo up on it. It's
Speaker 1: sort of like opened my world to mainstream pop um.
Speaker 1: And then I don't know circus single Ladies. That video
Speaker 1: came out and I am a deep dance history nerd
Speaker 1: um and I'm a huge Bob Fossy fan. Bob Fossey
Speaker 1: is like responsible for all modern music videos. Like everything
Speaker 1: we sort of understand is like visual music mash up
Speaker 1: pop culture can all be traced back to Bob Fossey.
Speaker 1: And if you could, of course, beyond Bob Fossey, go
Speaker 1: to like the Chickland Circuit and the Hoofers and you
Speaker 1: can get deep into jazz and black culture and again
Speaker 1: tap dance um. But Bob Fossey was sort of this
Speaker 1: like choke point culturally that really shifted how music videos
Speaker 1: give made. And for those who don't know, and I
Speaker 1: think maybe a lot do, But for those who don't,
Speaker 1: the single Ladies video is a reimagining of like an
Speaker 1: old Fossy trio with his wife gin Veritan, and I
Speaker 1: knew the piece and so when I saw the single
Speaker 1: Ladies video I was like, hold, Beyonce is pulling from
Speaker 1: Fosse and the like in an overt way, not in
Speaker 1: a like I don't even know what I'm channeling way,
Speaker 1: And like this Jude, by the way. Rich Man's Frog,
Speaker 1: which is another Fossy piece, inspired another Beyonce video called
Speaker 1: Get Me Bodied, which I found after Single Ladies, when
Speaker 1: I started going psychotic and doing a deep dive. Um.
Speaker 1: So Single Ladies was another flashpoint, as it was for
Speaker 1: many and then this is where everything really changes. This
Speaker 1: is what I lost my mind. This is when I
Speaker 1: became a crazy person that spent five minutes ranting about
Speaker 1: a nickname. Um I heard. I at this point in
Speaker 1: my life whatever mid twenties, late twenties, somewhere in there,
Speaker 1: was like done with stadium shows or big arena shows.
Speaker 1: Like they sound like they're not in rooms that are
Speaker 1: intended for sound. Um, your ears are ringing afterwards, there's
Speaker 1: too many people, it smells like beer. It's awful. I
Speaker 1: hated stadium shows. I was done. I was never going
Speaker 1: to another one. But I hear that Beyonce is doing
Speaker 1: a five night residency at the Win in Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: in like a theater and it's like a pared down
Speaker 1: Vegas review version of her Big Arena Tour. And I
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, I've just gotten my first
Speaker 1: uh script, So like I had a nice chunk of change.
Speaker 1: I've always, my whole life been incredibly financially irresponsible. So
Speaker 1: rather than putting it in savings, I was like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I will blow the incredible amount of money
Speaker 1: that it's going to require. Because, by the way, you
Speaker 1: can't just buy a ticket to see Beyonce at the Wind.
Speaker 1: You have to stay at the Wind to be eligible
Speaker 1: to buy a ticket, and those are not those are
Speaker 1: not the cheapest rooms in Vegas. And I don't want
Speaker 1: to go alone. And like, none of my friends at
Speaker 1: this point who like Beyonce have the kind of money
Speaker 1: to do something like this. So I called my friend
Speaker 1: Matt Murphy, who former a b T answer now of
Speaker 1: arts and dance photographer for the New York Times and Broadway.
Speaker 1: He did the Hamilton's the photo that's on the Hamilton
Speaker 1: post Yeah, the guy pointing out yeah on the Star
Speaker 1: that's one of Maths photos. Um. He's amazing, and he
Speaker 1: and I he's a huge Fossy fan and a dance
Speaker 1: nerd like I am and we had like geeked out
Speaker 1: over the single Innies video. So I was like, listen,
Speaker 1: if you can pay a fear plane ticket, I got
Speaker 1: everything else, and I'm gonna need you to come out
Speaker 1: to Vegas and we're gonna see Beyond Stagels and all
Speaker 1: his card are live for the first time. And we
Speaker 1: had a great day. We chilled in the pool with
Speaker 1: the drinks. Whitney we do this. This is Whitney's favorite
Speaker 1: thing to do. It's you know, the Vegas chill. And
Speaker 1: we started talking. We're like, you know, I'm a little worried.
Speaker 1: I'm a little worried that this is going to break
Speaker 1: the spell that like this sort of fun few months
Speaker 1: we've had geeking out about Beyonce. We're gonna go see
Speaker 1: her on a stage in a small theater without the
Speaker 1: bells and whistles, and we're just gonna be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that was fun, well lasted. Who was going to disappoint you?
Speaker 1: We were anticipating disappointment because how could she live up
Speaker 1: to this like in this like geek geek Fest had
Speaker 1: over the single latest video, it was all hype, no way.
Speaker 1: So now a little bit more context at this point,
Speaker 1: the way I listened to Beyonce albums, is like three
Speaker 1: songs off of everyone. I skipped the majority of them.
Speaker 1: I find many of them insipid. There's a song called Hello,
Speaker 1: which is basically the line from Jerry maguire over and
Speaker 1: over again, you had me at Hello. It's ridiculous, I was.
Speaker 1: I laughed. I don't even actually think I'd ever listen
Speaker 1: to the entire song because it was so silly. I
Speaker 1: was like, skip next. So I'm in the front row
Speaker 1: of the balcony of this theater, which is not that big.
Speaker 1: It's a nice intimate setting for someone like fiance, and
Speaker 1: I'm in my freaking dress, and I got my heels
Speaker 1: on and my nails done, and Matt's in a cute outfit.
Speaker 1: And the lights come down and the opening strains of
Speaker 1: Hello start, and something happens in my heart. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what's happening? I don't like this song? Why do I
Speaker 1: feel this way? And then I realized she's not coming
Speaker 1: out on stage, is coming from the back of the house,
Speaker 1: and she's walking down the center and she's shaking hands
Speaker 1: with her fans one man Genuflex and she laughs like,
Speaker 1: oh my wonderful subjects all the while belting this song
Speaker 1: Hello you had Me at Hello, And it's also like,
Speaker 1: you know, a million mile an hour lyrical dance in
Speaker 1: between the cheesy refrain if you had Me at Hello,
Speaker 1: and I start weeping. It was the craziest I have
Speaker 1: no idea where it came from. Literally like laughing, crying.
Speaker 1: I turned to Matt, I pointed at my face and
Speaker 1: I say, what is happening? Like it was it was physiological,
Speaker 1: something rearranged in my chemical makeup, and I was a
Speaker 1: different I was a different person. I cried through that
Speaker 1: whole show. I cry at every Beyonce show. I have
Speaker 1: not missed a tour since I've seen most tours two
Speaker 1: or three times. I flew across the country when she
Speaker 1: played Roseland, desperate for that intimate not Roseland wasn't Roseland, Yes,
Speaker 1: desperate for that intimate experience again. And I managed to
Speaker 1: be in the front row of this thing. That's why
Speaker 1: I sat in line all day to be in the
Speaker 1: front and was like nearly attacked by a teenage gay
Speaker 1: man smacked in the back of my head with its camera.
Speaker 1: It was not good vibes at all, but she was
Speaker 1: right there. I could have spent on her, not that
Speaker 1: I would ever spent on Fyance. So really, what it
Speaker 1: is is there something about her as a live performer
Speaker 1: that like, until you've seen it, And this is why
Speaker 1: I felt vindicated by Lemonade. When you see her live,
Speaker 1: you're like very something in there that has not come
Speaker 1: out yet. She has been like twerking herself into this
Speaker 1: like pop mold of what you're supposed to be, to
Speaker 1: be a huge, famous pop singer, and there's something else
Speaker 1: inside of her that is like screaming to come out.
Speaker 1: And so that's there was something. There was this shift
Speaker 1: that happened between Beyonce and Lemonade, where she went from
Speaker 1: being the most studied performer I've ever seen, Like a
Speaker 1: lot of times he's like, oh, that's so effortless until Lemonade.
Speaker 1: Beyonce was not effortless. She was working her eyes off
Speaker 1: and you saw it every second everything been. She watches
Speaker 1: every show after it's done, she watches the whole thing,
Speaker 1: does notes and sends them to the dancers and the
Speaker 1: musicians for the next morning. She watches every show she
Speaker 1: does and studies it. And you could tell and then
Speaker 1: something happened. Maybe it's having a kid maybe it's having
Speaker 1: a bedrillion dollars. I have no idea where she was,
Speaker 1: just like you know what, I don't give off anymore.
Speaker 1: And this last tour was the messiest, most vicious, most energetic,
Speaker 1: give no thing I've ever seen from her. And I
Speaker 1: feel so incredibly proud to have been there early on
Speaker 1: and to have committed, knowing what she was capable of
Speaker 1: and having been proven right. But this is why I
Speaker 1: get like a little aggro that there's not for someone
Speaker 1: as popular as she is and as successful as she is,
Speaker 1: and as you know, ubiquitous who she is, that there
Speaker 1: isn't more like actual critical thought about her entire body
Speaker 1: of work. Because Lemonade is absolutely in keeping with it.
Speaker 1: She has been singing about this exact her whole career,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people throw, oh, she doesn't write
Speaker 1: her song. She absolutely writes her songs. There's no way
Speaker 1: she's collaborating with Farrell and he's writing lyrics about what
Speaker 1: happens when a perm has been left in too long,
Speaker 1: like Beyonce is all lyrically all over her horse. She
Speaker 1: collaborates Christian as you know, collaboration is a huge part
Speaker 1: of songwriting. So this these themes um women done wrong
Speaker 1: by their men um, commitment to their men, commitment to
Speaker 1: making it, or a girlfriend standing by each other's sisterhood
Speaker 1: are the themes of all of her work. And what's
Speaker 1: so great about Lemonade, It's like, you know, the wonderful
Speaker 1: Sam Shepherd just passed away, and he's probably my favorite player.
Speaker 1: Right He wrote the same play over and over again
Speaker 1: for his entire career, and there's a couple of ones
Speaker 1: that pop up where you're like, that is like the
Speaker 1: distillation of all the themes he's been working with through
Speaker 1: his entire career. And that's what was so exciting about
Speaker 1: Lemonade was she's like she is, she has tapped the vein. Now,
Speaker 1: she's been drilling down for twenty years and she's tapped
Speaker 1: the vein. And what happened when she tapped the vein
Speaker 1: was on one level, it was about Jay's Z. On
Speaker 1: another level, it was about any woman who's been done
Speaker 1: wrong and has been supported by her girlfriends. On another
Speaker 1: another level, it's about black people's relationship with America. On
Speaker 1: another level, it's about women's relationship with America. Like it
Speaker 1: works thematically on multiple levels. And to have that album
Speaker 1: come out in the context of what just happened with
Speaker 1: this last election as a woman in this country, being
Speaker 1: able to tap into those emotions because I've never been
Speaker 1: done wrong in that way. I can't relate to having
Speaker 1: been like cheated on and disrespected repeatedly. Um, but I
Speaker 1: can relate to feeling, like, you know, finding my own
Speaker 1: power in a situation that fights to make me powerless.
Speaker 1: And the fact that she was able to take what
Speaker 1: used to be like cute little pop confections, dealing with
Speaker 1: like my man done done me wrong. No no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, and turn it into something that like expands
Speaker 1: and contracts depending on who you are and where you're
Speaker 1: sitting in the culture is like a beautiful accomplishment. And
Speaker 1: so when you look at it in the context of
Speaker 1: her whole body of work, it's about jeez, it's about
Speaker 1: every guy she ever dated, it's about her dad, it's
Speaker 1: about any guy that over one of her friends. It's
Speaker 1: about everyone. So you can read it however you want.
Speaker 1: And I think I could be wrong. I don't know
Speaker 1: the woman. Someday I hope to, but I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: think she gives us what you think it's about, because
Speaker 1: she knows what it means for her and you get
Speaker 1: to make it whatever you want to make it for
Speaker 1: you and seen this is awesome. UM, I'm very excited
Speaker 1: about this. I'm glad because I didn't know. I had
Speaker 1: no idea, and you know, I'm very curious. So I
Speaker 1: have My daughter is twelve, and if I was to
Speaker 1: start her on a Beyonce song and give her like
Speaker 1: the first three, what would the first three be? Well,
Speaker 1: the twelve year old throws me. Well then and again,
Speaker 1: you know, if we're gonna raise strong women, and this
Speaker 1: is our strong woman avatar and it is a bumblebee,
Speaker 1: which is an emoji. How do I say, come on, look,
Speaker 1: I need you to take one step. And here's what
Speaker 1: I wanted and it came from a professional. Um. Let's see,
Speaker 1: I would say, um, bills bills, bills, bills, bills, um,
Speaker 1: which is Destiny's Child era UM XO from Beyonce. Just
Speaker 1: flipping through my role of Deck, I would say, you
Speaker 1: know what, she's twelve. Let's go for independent Women Part two,
Speaker 1: the title song from Charlie's Angels. It's very straightforward. Own
Speaker 1: your be your own woman, take care of yourself. It's
Speaker 1: a good message. It's very accessible. Those would be my threat. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll totally do that. Well, thank you for being You're
Speaker 1: so welcome. This was. I really can't tell you what
Speaker 1: a treat it was for somebody to ask asked me
Speaker 1: to do this rather than like suffer through me doing
Speaker 1: it while I'm like drunk or stone at a bar.
Speaker 1: So thank you for this incredible opportunity. And I hope
Speaker 1: that people like didn't turn off two minutes in when
Speaker 1: I was ranting about a nickname. Chapter two is coming
Speaker 1: up in just a minute, but first a word from
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Speaker 1: com slash Nashville pod Chapter two. In every episode of
Speaker 1: Geeking Out, I see if I can trade one thing
Speaker 1: I've discovered with one thing that my guest has discovered,
Speaker 1: A friendly exchange. I call it trade you, all right,
Speaker 1: So this section of the podcast is called trade you
Speaker 1: I give, I turn you onto one thing that I'm
Speaker 1: into at the moment, and you turn me onto one
Speaker 1: thing that you're into at the moment. And it could
Speaker 1: be anything like a TV show that you like, or
Speaker 1: or a product or any could be anything. I got it,
Speaker 1: you know, like I'll go first to give you an idea. Um,
Speaker 1: you have two and I have recently become kind of
Speaker 1: a half dog owner. Um, and I have discovered this
Speaker 1: crazy thing that apparently just because I'm like the least
Speaker 1: suburbans person, I didn't know these things existed. But the
Speaker 1: bark box right where you get the thing? And um,
Speaker 1: it comes in the mail. And I guess you can
Speaker 1: do this for clothes and things for ladies, or you
Speaker 1: do it for men, or you can do it for food.
Speaker 1: There's all sorts of ways that you can never leave
Speaker 1: your house again. Right this particular thing. Do you get
Speaker 1: a bark box? Okay, you should try this because I
Speaker 1: have the most allergic dog in the world. Well I
Speaker 1: think you can tell them that, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: But so I have an anxious half dog and m
Speaker 1: and I got this spark box thing, and they have
Speaker 1: little themes they come with. I think the most reason
Speaker 1: was like space, So there was like a space squirrel
Speaker 1: and a space thing and apparently which I didn't know
Speaker 1: until recently because when you pointed it out, if your
Speaker 1: dog tears it up, which dog would tear that, you
Speaker 1: can send it back and they'll send you up in it. Right.
Speaker 1: That's great. I'm turning you on to love your dogs.
Speaker 1: They're such good dogs, they would love that. Okay, guys,
Speaker 1: how about I get your back box? Um, at least
Speaker 1: like whatever, whatever, hankle eat everything. Um, So I have viewed?
Speaker 1: Do you know? And I hope you don't know, because
Speaker 1: then I will have failed. Um. The television program The Leftovers, No,
Speaker 1: I've seen it on the menu. I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about it. Is that the one that also
Speaker 1: was a book? Yes? Tell me it? Just the finale
Speaker 1: just stared like two months ago. It was only three seasons.
Speaker 1: I watched the pilot when it premiered and was like,
Speaker 1: this is the saddest thing I've ever seen. I cannot
Speaker 1: watch this. And then post election, I had a Whitney
Speaker 1: knows this but because she turned me onto it, but
Speaker 1: I went through a really long phase where I couldn't
Speaker 1: watch any television at any narrative television at all. Scripted television.
Speaker 1: I watched I'm not even kidding, almost every single season
Speaker 1: of Survivor because there was just something about the mindlessness
Speaker 1: of it and the like hope of people going back
Speaker 1: to the beginning and like starting over and being able
Speaker 1: to take care of themselves, like if we get wiped out,
Speaker 1: we can start fire and like, you know, kill a pig.
Speaker 1: If about the former Survivor contest, Yes, that's right, they're
Speaker 1: they're going to build camp. Je Props would be the
Speaker 1: prime minister. So for some reason, and I can't really
Speaker 1: say how it happened, the way I transitioned back into
Speaker 1: watching scripted television, which really, I actually know plenty of
Speaker 1: TV writers who don't watch television. I think that's crazy,
Speaker 1: Like it's your form. I think you should study it
Speaker 1: and understand it and see what else is out there. So, UM,
Speaker 1: I transitioned back in by watching The Leftovers, and it
Speaker 1: actually it feels like it was ahead of its time,
Speaker 1: Like it's far more Um speaks to this cultural and
Speaker 1: societal moment than The Handmaiden's Tale does. Frankly, Um, it
Speaker 1: is a stunning, stunning, stunning work of storytelling, and I
Speaker 1: was actually angry at myself for not watching it when
Speaker 1: it came out so I could like champion it. It
Speaker 1: really is truly one of my favorite shows ever made.
Speaker 1: I'd put it up there with The Wire and Dead,
Speaker 1: which which are my two favorite shows. Um, it is
Speaker 1: so weird. It is so confident. It is so deeply, deeply,
Speaker 1: deeply heart centered and and like emotional and real and honest,
Speaker 1: and you never know where it's going to go. Never
Speaker 1: I wish every episode I was like, I was sure
Speaker 1: it was going one way, and it would dog leg
Speaker 1: and go another and it always came out of character
Speaker 1: and it always felt real. I wept it was It
Speaker 1: was just truly one of the most beautiful pieces of
Speaker 1: television I've ever seen. That's it. It is also the
Speaker 1: saddest piece of television I've ever seen. So I want
Speaker 1: to recommend it because I just I just feel like
Speaker 1: I'm a fuller person for having experienced it. But it
Speaker 1: was deeply sad. Yeah, like, maybe watch a couple and
Speaker 1: then watch like, I don't know, a few thirty rocks Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get yourself back. So that's my I'm right, thank
Speaker 1: you for being here. Still fantastic. I love where you live. Awesome.
Speaker 1: It's like California. But it's it's got a buffer of
Speaker 1: like trees, keeps the California in and out. Yes, that's right,
Speaker 1: all right, thank you. This is fun five. Chapter three
Speaker 1: me geeking out on music the rhythm of the words.
Speaker 1: Commercial songs have many important pieces that contribute to their popularity.
Speaker 1: A melody, a rhythm, a lyric that all combined to
Speaker 1: make some sort of elixir, a potion that our brains
Speaker 1: just can't resist. People for years have been trying to
Speaker 1: make a science out of the mystery of hits. Their
Speaker 1: websites that will analyze your uploaded song and give it
Speaker 1: a hit score between one and ten. Apparently, black Eyed Peas,
Speaker 1: I've got a feeling scores at like eight point five.
Speaker 1: There's a hit potential equation developed by the University of Bristol.
Speaker 1: Even today, Sony has some sort of artificial intelligence algorithm
Speaker 1: that they claim can actually write hit based on the
Speaker 1: existing structure of years and years of hit songs. But
Speaker 1: I would like to humbly offer one underrated characteristic of
Speaker 1: songs that stick in your ear. I propose that it's
Speaker 1: not just the melody or the lyric, or the key
Speaker 1: or the beats per minute that drive the force of
Speaker 1: a catchy hit, but rather the hidden superpower of the song,
Speaker 1: the rhythm of the words and the way they roll
Speaker 1: out of the singer's mouth. Once you recognize that, you
Speaker 1: start to hear it everywhere. They're easily identifiable songs that
Speaker 1: you might have messed up the lyric too, but you
Speaker 1: can sing the syllables no matter what, like this or this.
Speaker 1: We sometimes curse these songs because they stay in our
Speaker 1: heads all day. They're hard to shake. I believe they're
Speaker 1: hard to shake, maybe because the rhythm of the words
Speaker 1: have some sort of relationship to your everyday work. The
Speaker 1: way we walk, the way our hearts beat, even the
Speaker 1: way we talk might key off a rhythm that lines
Speaker 1: up exactly with the song that you've heard. So tried
Speaker 1: this one on for size. Robin Hood and Little John
Speaker 1: walking through the forest laughing back and forth and what
Speaker 1: the other next to say? Reminiscennesce and that and havn't
Speaker 1: such a good time lolly lollygully one to day. You see,
Speaker 1: it's not just what he's saying, it's how he's saying
Speaker 1: it that makes it stick in your head, kind of
Speaker 1: like this band. I don't want to see that baby too.
Speaker 1: Some people figured out the real value of the rhythm
Speaker 1: of the word and how to play with it. These guys,
Speaker 1: we're part of a movement that changed everything stop and
Speaker 1: then others even innovated it. How do the rhythm of
Speaker 1: the words affect you? But when it comes down to it,
Speaker 1: it's the way the words roll off of the singer's
Speaker 1: mouth that make all the difference. So check this out.
Speaker 1: This is Michael Jackson vocal only beat it. Listen to
Speaker 1: how much of the song is in how he sings it,
Speaker 1: not just what he's singing or even just the melody,
Speaker 1: but the way the rhythm of the words work. We
Speaker 1: all know this song, but this is a fun way
Speaker 1: to hear it. This is what it sounded like to
Speaker 1: hear only the vocal and what the rhythm of the
Speaker 1: words sound like. Don't want to say no blood, don't
Speaker 1: be a much a man. You wanna be tough, better
Speaker 1: do what you can't so feed it, but you wanna
Speaker 1: be bad? Just feeding beat beat feed, So when ho
Speaker 1: fucking dog is shot, it doesn't matter who's spunked up, right,
Speaker 1: just feeding. So next time you listen to your favorite
Speaker 1: song or you're just flipping through the channels and the radio.
Speaker 1: Notice the rhythm of the words, how they bounce when
Speaker 1: they stop, how good they feel. If you sing in
Speaker 1: the shower, you'll find that you imagine the whole band
Speaker 1: in your head as you sing along. Listen to the
Speaker 1: rhythm and dance along with it. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: this episode of Geeking Out and we are already hard
Speaker 1: at work on the next one. Are you obsessed with
Speaker 1: something amazing? I want to tell us about it? Right
Speaker 1: to us at Geeking Out with KB at gmail dot
Speaker 1: com and you might be a guest on an upcoming episode.
Speaker 1: Come find out more about me and this podcast at
Speaker 1: Christian Bush dot com, Christian with a K people follow
Speaker 1: me at Christian Bush on Twitter, Christian Bush on Instagram,
Speaker 1: Christian Bush on Facebook, and Christian M. Bush on Snapchat.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Bobby Bones for the opportunity to make this podcast,
Speaker 1: Brianna Bush for making the soundtrack and assembling the pieces,
Speaker 1: Tom Tapley for audio wizardry, and Whitney Pastor for being
Speaker 1: a great producer and making this whole thing possible. This
Speaker 1: is Christian Bush Geeking Out. Thank you for listening.