Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to what Future. I'm your host, Joshua
Speaker 1: to Pulsky And I don't know if you know this, Lyra,
Speaker 1: but I used to have a job where I ran
Speaker 1: a bunch of websites and I launched some new websites.
Speaker 1: One of the websites I launched was Gawker relaunched gawker
Speaker 1: dot com if you heard of it, I have Gawker,
Speaker 1: very famous, very controversial website was sued out of existence
Speaker 1: by Peter Teal using Hulk Hogan as a vehicle. Um
Speaker 1: I'd like you to get a mental image of like
Speaker 1: Peter Teal sort of using Hulk Cogan as a skateboard
Speaker 1: sort of the way I'd like to think about it. Anyhow,
Speaker 1: now I'll probably get suited by Peter Teel of existence.
Speaker 1: But anyhow, Gawker was shut down through some like really
Speaker 1: wild light lawsuit stuff that was unprecedented. And and then um,
Speaker 1: I was purchased by this guy, Brian Goldberg I used
Speaker 1: to work for, and he you know, has like, hey,
Speaker 1: I owned docer now, and like what sh we do
Speaker 1: with it? And then eventually we were like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: you could relaunch it? And I started working with this
Speaker 1: editor Leah Finnigan. Leah Finnigan, who has worked with me
Speaker 1: at The Outline, which was a website that I started,
Speaker 1: uh and as a brilliant editor and super smart and
Speaker 1: has become a friend over many years of us working together,
Speaker 1: has attended more than one Thanksgiving dinner at my house
Speaker 1: and uh, She's a great, incredible person. But I haven't
Speaker 1: really liked seeing Lee or talked to her. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not at the company anymore, and Gawker's off doing
Speaker 1: its thing, and I haven't talked to Lee in a
Speaker 1: really long time. And the other day I was I
Speaker 1: would say reminiscing, but I think you when you reminisce,
Speaker 1: you have to do it out loud. I think, but
Speaker 1: can you reminisce to yourself or does it have to
Speaker 1: be out loud? This is a great question. You don't
Speaker 1: have to have the answer to that. And I'm just
Speaker 1: now I'm just sort of thinking out loud. I mean,
Speaker 1: now that you're asking, I'm wondering. I'm wondering too. I
Speaker 1: was reminiscing about Leah and thinking about you know how
Speaker 1: I haven't talked to her in a long time, and
Speaker 1: I felt like I should have her come on the
Speaker 1: podcast and we should chat because, frankly, like not for
Speaker 1: a super specific reason that we are in like Awards season,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of Like has been doing a
Speaker 1: lot of really funny celebrity coverage lately, and I mean always,
Speaker 1: but especially they've been really on there at the top
Speaker 1: of their game. And anyhow, so I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: let me use the precious time I have here on
Speaker 1: the podcast to reconnect with my with my old friend
Speaker 1: and colleague, Lea Finn again. So we got her to
Speaker 1: agree to come on the show. But before we start talking,
Speaker 1: can you reminisce internally? I didn't get a good answer. Really,
Speaker 1: I got an article saying there are six types of reminiscing,
Speaker 1: but only three are good for you. See, this is how,
Speaker 1: this is how the content machine has ruined in form
Speaker 1: nation in the century. The powers that be in the
Speaker 1: technology world have created a prison of information where you
Speaker 1: think you've unlocked the cage, but then a new set
Speaker 1: of bars come down in front of you and it
Speaker 1: is poisoned the soul of humanity. Anyhow, let's let's talk
Speaker 1: to you. So the Golden Globes happened last night? Yeah
Speaker 1: they did. Did you watch them, I did. Did you
Speaker 1: have an opinion on the proceedings. I thought they were
Speaker 1: kind of strange. We wrote a piece for Gawker dot com,
Speaker 1: of which I am the editor. Yes, your website. Yeah,
Speaker 1: about the vibes being off. I thought it was a
Speaker 1: little there's a little too meta for me. You know,
Speaker 1: I want to I want a song and dance. I
Speaker 1: just want to chill out. I think what you're saying
Speaker 1: is you want Ricky Gervais back, is what you're trying
Speaker 1: to articulate. No, definitely, not, definitely not. I just want
Speaker 1: one like number from Hamilton's or Cats. Either one of
Speaker 1: those would be getting a Golden Globe this year though,
Speaker 1: right is? But why not? Just like you think they
Speaker 1: should have the Golden globes where they like kind of
Speaker 1: intersperse it with Broadway numbers. Your idea, Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that would be great. It's not bad idea. Um. No,
Speaker 1: I thought the vibes were off. I like Gerard Carmichael
Speaker 1: a lot. I thought as a host of that show
Speaker 1: it was very uncomfortable. I mean, on purpose, obviously, But
Speaker 1: I did think his his outfits were absolutely incredible. Oh,
Speaker 1: he looked great. He's got an incredible sense of style,
Speaker 1: and I thought his you know, his like scientology jokes
Speaker 1: were excellent and made everybody really uncomfortable, which is good.
Speaker 1: Feel like you and I have talked about this, and
Speaker 1: in fact, probably we have written on more than one
Speaker 1: occasion something on the outline, and certainly maybe now you've
Speaker 1: written something on GOK. I don't know about the death
Speaker 1: of award shows and the fact that award shows are
Speaker 1: just kind of like terrible. I mean, aren't they all
Speaker 1: sort of bad now? Yeah? And yet we still watch
Speaker 1: them and talk about them for months, maybe even years.
Speaker 1: I mean do we do? We watch them though? I
Speaker 1: mean I haven't checked the numbers with the viewership of
Speaker 1: the Golden Globes. Good, like where the numbers up? Nobody
Speaker 1: watches TV like we watch it because we're aging. We're ages.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm old. I can't speak for everybody. You
Speaker 1: have an old soul. So it's a kind of a
Speaker 1: similar situation. Are you googling something right now? I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll never forget six point two five million the second
Speaker 1: smallest audience for the annual ceremony and near record law. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: that's it. What were we gonna say? You're about to reminisce.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll never forget where I was for the
Speaker 1: lab which was that was the Oscar. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: but we're talking about a warshows. The slap was our
Speaker 1: generation's moon landing. It was our generations nine lefe. No,
Speaker 1: for me it was as bad as Not eleven. Perhaps
Speaker 1: work our generations. Not eleven was not eleven maybe for you,
Speaker 1: but for me it was the slap. But I did
Speaker 1: think Eddie Murphy was his closer to His speech was
Speaker 1: extremely funny. I mean, I will say I legitimately feel
Speaker 1: that he tapped into something in terms of timing and
Speaker 1: like the place that was just perfect. Maybe that's just me,
Speaker 1: you know, Maybe I don't know. It didn't work for everybody,
Speaker 1: but I thought his joke about the slap was very
Speaker 1: well placed. Of course, he's a great art. We have
Speaker 1: to keep talking about this lap. It was a major
Speaker 1: moment in history. I mean, was it? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean I kind of forgot about it, to be honest,
Speaker 1: Like I've been thinking that much about it. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say it lives rent free in my mind or anything.
Speaker 1: I definitely talked to my therapist about it. Did it
Speaker 1: upset you when you saw it. Was it like something
Speaker 1: that was a jarring personal experience for you. I think
Speaker 1: I can't remember if I even saw it in real time.
Speaker 1: I think I must have. It's like when you have
Speaker 1: a really traumatic experience, you kind of like can't and
Speaker 1: sometimes can't remember. Anyhow, You're just at the stage here
Speaker 1: a little bit now. Of course, you and I have
Speaker 1: done a podcast before, but we haven't done one in
Speaker 1: a long time. And the last time you and I
Speaker 1: did a podcast together, I believe the outline was in
Speaker 1: business Trump was not No, he was president. Trump was president.
Speaker 1: It was just a very different time, and now it's
Speaker 1: it's brand new year. You are the editor in chief
Speaker 1: of Gawker dot com. I no longer work at the
Speaker 1: place where Gawker dot com is hosted. Very very sad.
Speaker 1: I know it must be very depressing every day you
Speaker 1: have to walk the halls. I'm sure you're in the
Speaker 1: office every day, walking the halls, the lonely halls, sensing
Speaker 1: the overwhelming sensation that I'm just not there, and so
Speaker 1: I it's got to be a powerful and upsetting feeling
Speaker 1: for everybody. Anyhow, Dawker is thriving in the current environment,
Speaker 1: Am I wrong? Am I right. I think we're doing okay.
Speaker 1: But I mean there's a lot of things going on
Speaker 1: in the world that I feel like are very good
Speaker 1: for Gawker right now, Like there's a lot of absurdity.
Speaker 1: The political landscape is nightmarish, but not like it was previously.
Speaker 1: Like I feel like we've reached a point. You tell
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong. During the Trump era politics was
Speaker 1: it was sort of like nightmarish and really upsetting and
Speaker 1: legitimately felt bad, like there were really bad things going on.
Speaker 1: Now it seems a little bit like politics are nightmarish,
Speaker 1: but in a kind of a fun way. Would you
Speaker 1: say that that's true? Yes, you know, I was moved
Speaker 1: by Santos not saying hi to anyone in the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives, but then greeting a dog with the bow tie.
Speaker 1: Speaking of dogs with bow ties, heard that's your dog? Baby?
Speaker 1: Is she barketed us? I know? She defends the building
Speaker 1: from the people who live here, right, just like a
Speaker 1: small dog. Very good stuff. Do you have like a
Speaker 1: sound proof of booth you could put her in or
Speaker 1: there you go? Yeah, shutting the door? What a novel concept. Anyhow,
Speaker 1: So you're the editor in chief of Gawker a great website,
Speaker 1: a wonderful website that I mean, really, you raised from
Speaker 1: a corpse back into a slightly less dead corpse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no one wanted it, but we did it. No one
Speaker 1: wanted it, no one asked for it, and yet we
Speaker 1: delivered it. You delivered it to the public, and now
Speaker 1: they have to take it every day. They have take
Speaker 1: with Gawker's dish. Now. I think that what's interesting about
Speaker 1: Gawker is that it's still really agitates people, Like people
Speaker 1: are still very upset about it, uh and offended by
Speaker 1: it and angry about it. Like I've talked to people,
Speaker 1: and I remember when we were relaunching it. Like in fact,
Speaker 1: people in like Hollywood, who I know, we're like, I
Speaker 1: fucking hate Gawker. I can't believe you should not do that.
Speaker 1: Don't bring it back. It's terrible people in Hollywood. People
Speaker 1: in Hollywood hate Gawker. It's well in not In fact,
Speaker 1: who do you know in Hollywood? The only thing they
Speaker 1: remembered a lot of people, the only thing they remember
Speaker 1: about Gawker is Gawker Stalker. They don't remember anything else
Speaker 1: about Gawker at all, And they just think that Gawker
Speaker 1: did Gawker Stalker for It's as higher existence and that's
Speaker 1: all it was about, was like hunting down people in public.
Speaker 1: Are you a scientologist? Am I a scientologist? Yeah? Yea,
Speaker 1: I saw you're like I know these Hollywood people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my buddy Tom Cruise, and uh, I don't. I actually
Speaker 1: couldn't think of another scientologist just now. Kirstie she said
Speaker 1: she died rest in peace. Uh. John Travolta, Yeah, John
Speaker 1: Travolta is still a scientologist. He's still alive and still
Speaker 1: a scientologist. Yeah, no, I know, he's still alive. Elizabeth Moss,
Speaker 1: who has been a very successful scientologist. Elizabeth Moss is
Speaker 1: like one of the back scientologists back is also a scientologist.
Speaker 1: And we're kind of like, oh, you know, I was
Speaker 1: just born into it or you know, that's my family's
Speaker 1: religion or whatever, and it's like, yeah, but your family's
Speaker 1: religion was invented by a science fiction writer in the nineties,
Speaker 1: whereas many people's religion was invented by a science fiction
Speaker 1: writer from the from the zeros. You know, so yeah,
Speaker 1: very different vibe God, Yes, yes, God invented religion, that's
Speaker 1: exactly anyhow, So I think something's happened to celebrities. So
Speaker 1: we're talking about the Golden Globes in Hollywood, which two
Speaker 1: of my favorite topics. And you cover celebrities on Gawka,
Speaker 1: you're constantly writing about them. Like, for instance, if if
Speaker 1: I click on the homepage right now, there's a here's this,
Speaker 1: uh Gerod Carmichael's getting the panned. You've got Harry and Megan.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about Harry Megan. We'll get to
Speaker 1: that in a second. There's a actually a lot of
Speaker 1: Golden Globes derived content on the front page of Gawka
Speaker 1: right now. Would you say that that's a big Gawker event.
Speaker 1: It was a big event. People were talking the traffic
Speaker 1: driver chattering classes. It was a great traffic driver, surprisingly
Speaker 1: really interesting. Unlike that the Emmy's were not. The met
Speaker 1: Gala was I'm telling you all the secrets. No, this
Speaker 1: is great Matt Gala, driver of traffic, Golden Globes, driver
Speaker 1: of traffic. He's nothing that's interesting. I mean Emmy's feel
Speaker 1: like there's a lot less like relevant stuff happening at
Speaker 1: the Emmy's for like a younger audience. Don't you think
Speaker 1: to me, feels like kind of old, really old about
Speaker 1: the Emmy's maybe or not important. Now the daytime Emmy's,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, did you cover that? Did you
Speaker 1: cover the daytime Emmy's? I mean, now that you don't
Speaker 1: have a day job, are you watching daytime TV? Not
Speaker 1: at all. I don't watch TV at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: we did watch the Golden Globes, obviously, we let Zelda
Speaker 1: stay up. Did you watch The White Lotus? So here's
Speaker 1: the thing about The White Lotus. We watched the first
Speaker 1: episode and then busy or something and couldn't didn't finish it,
Speaker 1: and we didn't get back to it, and then every
Speaker 1: everybody finished it, and everybody was talking about how amazing
Speaker 1: it was, and there was apparently this huge, you know,
Speaker 1: a potential spoiler for the final episode or whatever. But
Speaker 1: I have been working so hard to avoid the spoiler
Speaker 1: because I've been waiting for us to get back to
Speaker 1: finish watching it. Right, I'm very excited because everybody said
Speaker 1: it's great, and then it was ruined for me last
Speaker 1: night by one of the stars of The White Lotus,
Speaker 1: Jennifer Coolidge, who just you know, tweeted it out a
Speaker 1: like or whatever however the tweet goes, you know, just
Speaker 1: said it maybe that doesn't spoil the whole show, but
Speaker 1: it definitely after Like it was kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: you haven't had COVID yet, you know. I remember when
Speaker 1: I hadn't had COVID for several years and then I
Speaker 1: got it at a company dinner and I was so angry.
Speaker 1: You know, I had stayed safe for so long and
Speaker 1: then I was exposed to it. That's how I felt
Speaker 1: when I've heard the White Lotus spoiler um last night.
Speaker 1: So it's honestly really painful for me. I don't know
Speaker 1: what your take is, like, do you think the show's
Speaker 1: rude and shouldn't even bother watching it? I think this
Speaker 1: is all your fault. It's on you, Like you should
Speaker 1: have just watched it, and now you're complaining that it's
Speaker 1: ruined for you. But you could have prevented this situation
Speaker 1: by engaging. I think what you're doing is just commonly
Speaker 1: referred to as victim blaming UM. This victim blame your
Speaker 1: victim blaming me. I'm the person who had the thing
Speaker 1: happened to them, and yet somehow it was my fault.
Speaker 1: It's very strange and upsetting to hear that come out
Speaker 1: of your mouth. You need to take responsibility for what
Speaker 1: you're doing and not doing. You're right, But anyhow, I
Speaker 1: don't watch TV. I mean, there's very little to watch
Speaker 1: on TV. So what do you do? What do I do?
Speaker 1: That's a great question. I mean, Um, well, I've just
Speaker 1: recently re up my medical marijuana license, so I'm I'm
Speaker 1: dabbling with weed now. I'm trying to do dry January,
Speaker 1: I mean California Dry January, which is smoking weed and
Speaker 1: not drinking like I'm having a non alcoholic beer right now. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I have a daughter, as you know correct,
Speaker 1: we're opening a bookstore here in our town, and I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna want to say the name of the town
Speaker 1: because you know, I'll get a kind of gawker stalker
Speaker 1: gawker stalker in my town. But Josh, Josh to pulk
Speaker 1: spotted in unnamed town. You haven't seen the bookstore that
Speaker 1: we're opening. No, you haven't seen any of any of
Speaker 1: the Instagram posts from Sylvia or Laura. No, what is it.
Speaker 1: It's a bookstore and it's an actual store. That's great anyhow,
Speaker 1: But getting back on the celebrities and the Golden Globes
Speaker 1: and the TV that I'm not watching, I think like
Speaker 1: something has a derangement has occurred with celebrities, Like they
Speaker 1: don't seem normal anymore, right, Like I feel like the
Speaker 1: two things that really broke celebrity behavior. One is of
Speaker 1: course the rise of the Internet and the fact that
Speaker 1: they could now like be communicating with people in real time,
Speaker 1: which like I don't think celebrities should should do, Like
Speaker 1: I think it's bad for them. It seems like unhealthy
Speaker 1: for them. And then you know the pandemic. I think like, like,
Speaker 1: don't you feel like celebrities lost it during the pandemic?
Speaker 1: Is like they couldn't make their stuff and what else?
Speaker 1: What you know, you're talking about what I do in
Speaker 1: my downtime, But like imagine being you know, Brad Pitt,
Speaker 1: and you're just like sitting around, Like what does Brad
Speaker 1: Pitt do at home? Does he he plays games? That
Speaker 1: he plays video games? Like does he does he watch stuff?
Speaker 1: You know? No, here's my theory. They're just getting plastic
Speaker 1: surgery all the time. Like that's why they're not real,
Speaker 1: because no one has a real face or body anymore.
Speaker 1: They all have new faces, you know, new But do
Speaker 1: you think Brad Pitt has a plastic surgery? Absolutely? And
Speaker 1: then this is you know, this is a life you
Speaker 1: have to commit to where you're just getting secret plastic surgery.
Speaker 1: Then you have to recover for six weeks or whatever.
Speaker 1: But what about Jeane Smart? Jeane Smart has plastic surgery.
Speaker 1: Probably she's had a like a little niptalk or little
Speaker 1: really little pull up. Is there an nobody you think
Speaker 1: hasn't had plastic surgery in Hollywood? Maybe like Steve Bushemy.
Speaker 1: You don't think he's un Joe Biden. Joe Biden looks
Speaker 1: like maybe he said something. Don actually like maybe a
Speaker 1: little facelift. Yeah, it's like a brain implants going. But everyone,
Speaker 1: I mean everyone has a new phase. Really do you
Speaker 1: think so? Remember when we launched, we wrote a post
Speaker 1: about how everyone has the same nose. It's a classic post.
Speaker 1: Who wrote that was Claire, right right, Clare Carouselo. And
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely true. Everyone has the same nose. Now
Speaker 1: it's like a little thinner. They do it with filler.
Speaker 1: I'm looking it up right now. Maybe you should get
Speaker 1: that nose. You think I should have a smaller nose.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. It's anti semitic of you to say, but
Speaker 1: that is and I'm sorry you could say because you're
Speaker 1: half Jewish, but um, you know full of Jewish, but
Speaker 1: thank you really are you? You're completely Jewish. My mother
Speaker 1: is Jewish, all right, So that's that washes out your
Speaker 1: dad's contribution. It's very cool. I'm looking at the nose
Speaker 1: post now, and uh, I would like I wouldn't mind
Speaker 1: having a smaller nose. I think it would solve a
Speaker 1: lot of problems for me. You know what's funny about
Speaker 1: my nose is that it's it's hard to breathe through.
Speaker 1: Like you would think it would be good to breathe through,
Speaker 1: but I'm actually stuffed up all the time. Like I
Speaker 1: have to wear breathe right strips at night too. That's
Speaker 1: more of a throat problem. No, I don't think it is.
Speaker 1: You gotta see any ant. Yeah, I know there's a
Speaker 1: lot of things I should be doing. Do you have
Speaker 1: insurance right now? I do? Haven't. I do have insurance
Speaker 1: right now, actually great insurance, and I could have all
Speaker 1: of my problems dealt with. I actually tried to go
Speaker 1: see my doctor the other day and he said that
Speaker 1: he didn wouldn't see anybody who had a cold because
Speaker 1: they might have COVID. It seems like a weird position
Speaker 1: for a doctor to take. Right right if he feels like,
Speaker 1: don't come to the doctor. He was like, he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: if you're feeling sickly, I can't see you. And it's like,
Speaker 1: but you're a doctor, Like your entire existence is for
Speaker 1: people who feel sick. It's very kind of upsetting. I
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna have to get a new a new guy.
Speaker 1: M So, how's Gager. How are you feeling about it?
Speaker 1: It's going great even though you're not there anymore. It's
Speaker 1: still a dream job. It's very fun. We laugh a
Speaker 1: lot every day. It's fun to just like make fun
Speaker 1: of celebrities and put that out there for people to
Speaker 1: enjoy reading, which I hope they do. Yeah. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like you've created any enemies since the launch of
Speaker 1: the site. I can't really say. I mean, the site
Speaker 1: is still snippy, but it's not really specifically mean at
Speaker 1: anyone who would be totally offended. We did a post
Speaker 1: about how Brie Larson doesn't have any friends. It's a
Speaker 1: very very funny post. People got very angry, and afterwards
Speaker 1: she posted and Instagram and she was like, here I
Speaker 1: am with my friends. That's so great. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: That's you're interacting with the celebrities. Right, we make a
Speaker 1: lot of Taylor Swift fans mad, but that's literally not
Speaker 1: hard to do at all. What would you say is
Speaker 1: the thing that you've most recently made Taylor Swift fans
Speaker 1: mad about? Well, we did a post speculating as to
Speaker 1: whether she was gay, and those the TikTok rumors were
Speaker 1: really insane. And really, when you publish anything about Taylor Swift,
Speaker 1: the Taylor Army responds immediately on Twitter. They have their
Speaker 1: opinions and they expressed them, and I'm happy they have
Speaker 1: an outlet on which to do that. Right, I mean,
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift, is she gay? There's no real evidence, is there? Like,
Speaker 1: it's just kind of all she's she's kind of a sexual.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Later alone, should we be outing people
Speaker 1: like that? Isn't that what gets gok or in trouble
Speaker 1: in the first place, is outing people? Yeah? Is then
Speaker 1: why Docker was put out of business by Hull Coogan.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I was asleep during that entire thing.
Speaker 1: Docker out at Hull Cogan has been bisexual good by side, No,
Speaker 1: he wasn't bisexually. We don't know, do We remember when
Speaker 1: we we launched and we wanted to do like a
Speaker 1: post about Hull Cogan every day, top Hule Cogan wrestling moments.
Speaker 1: We had some great Hull coging content, which we ended
Speaker 1: up not doing. My impression is that you and I
Speaker 1: thought it was funny, but I don't think everybody else
Speaker 1: thought it was that funny. It was gonna be like
Speaker 1: ten reasons why Hull Cogan is so awesome, and it
Speaker 1: was just going to be very earnest. I mean to me,
Speaker 1: what would have been exciting about And by the way,
Speaker 1: you could still do this like no one's stopping you.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have a picture of Hull Cogan on
Speaker 1: the home page, yet no one, no one's ever mentioned it, right,
Speaker 1: people have mentioned it, but I haven't heard from any
Speaker 1: l A W Y E R s uh. You know
Speaker 1: what I just spelled. I don't. Yeah, I haven't heard
Speaker 1: from any lawyers. But yeah. The idea was that we
Speaker 1: would just post like positive stuff about hul Cogan and
Speaker 1: presumably would make people nervous and upset and maybe make
Speaker 1: Hulk Cogan nervous and upset. Right, Yeah, I mean we
Speaker 1: want to do like a slide show of like pictures
Speaker 1: of him looking cool, like Getty photos of Hulk Cogan
Speaker 1: looking his best. What do you call that in wrestling?
Speaker 1: Is best slams SAMs, body slams, body slam. That's pretty
Speaker 1: good body slams anyhow. But it never happened. We didn't
Speaker 1: do it, you know. And that's just one more, you know,
Speaker 1: one grain of sand and the on the long on
Speaker 1: the large beach outside of her palacial estate. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't Oh my god, hold on, we have time
Speaker 1: a prince, Harry, I forget. Do you have a feeling
Speaker 1: of preference for about the royals? Like, are you a
Speaker 1: royal follower? Do you like the Royal family? What is
Speaker 1: your stance on the British Royal Family. I like them
Speaker 1: just for entered human value. I think they're, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the greatest actors on stage right. Okay, So
Speaker 1: I was absolutely indifferent when it came to the Royal
Speaker 1: family and completely uninterested and indifferent when it came to
Speaker 1: Harry and Megan. But I have to say, I have
Speaker 1: to say I started watching the Netflix documentary and I
Speaker 1: have become a huge Harry and Meghan fan. I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just in love. I'm in love with
Speaker 1: their story. I love their real nous. I love Harry.
Speaker 1: Harry is just so real and cool. He's just putting
Speaker 1: it all out there. I mean, aren't you Do you
Speaker 1: have a copy of Spare you must right? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got it on Kindle, but it's been like too
Speaker 1: emotionally taxing to dig into it. I might have to
Speaker 1: wait a few years. I literally when we put it on,
Speaker 1: I was like, who fucking cares about these guys? Like
Speaker 1: I don't know why I would spend one second and
Speaker 1: then like half an hour into the first episode or whatever,
Speaker 1: I was like, you're sobbing is so fascinating? Well no,
Speaker 1: but it's it's just so weird, right, Like they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: we met on Instagram or whatever, and maybe this is
Speaker 1: all a made up thing, Like I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: that's like an invented but like it's not a normal
Speaker 1: narrative for the Royal Family that like people meet on Instagram.
Speaker 1: So I feel like I don't know. And then the
Speaker 1: whole thing with you know, all of England being racist
Speaker 1: towards her is like fascinating and the Royal family being
Speaker 1: racist towards her, and I mean two things can be
Speaker 1: true at once, and as much as the British press
Speaker 1: is noxious and weird and just awful and the Royal
Speaker 1: family is you know, full of inbred just idiots, didn't
Speaker 1: like literally didn't go to school, correct, But also I
Speaker 1: find Megan Marco one of the most grading people alive today.
Speaker 1: Really huh. Yeah, she's the kind of person who's like,
Speaker 1: I'm concerned about issues and rights. Right, Okay, you mean
Speaker 1: you think her she's she's so in love with this
Speaker 1: with this prince who's just dumb. Yeah, I mean is
Speaker 1: he dumb or is he um, you know, not that smart?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's a there's a distinction. I
Speaker 1: hear what you're saying. I there's there is a vagueness
Speaker 1: to her um I guess concerns or whatever her like
Speaker 1: you know, causes. But like, also again, I think they're
Speaker 1: very charming and I love hearing about the like inside
Speaker 1: of their relationship in this whole world that they occupy,
Speaker 1: and frankly like his childhood and stuff about his mom,
Speaker 1: which really, like I have to stress. Up until the
Speaker 1: Netflix documentary, I had no interest in, Like, we tried
Speaker 1: to watch The Crown and I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: care like this is not interesting to me. I don't
Speaker 1: care about these people like they're having a bad time, Like, well,
Speaker 1: they're fucking royalty. So I'm sure that their worst bad
Speaker 1: time they're having is better than like the best time
Speaker 1: that I've ever had, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: the worst moment for Harry, it's probably better than any
Speaker 1: moment I'll ever experience in my life. So everything I
Speaker 1: know about managing I learned from the Queen, from watching
Speaker 1: The Crown the best. The best thing was sometimes no
Speaker 1: decision is a decision that's very good. Do you employ
Speaker 1: that during the editorial meetings of Gawker? Just wat But
Speaker 1: it's a comfort to know that I can employ that
Speaker 1: when I'm talking to Winston Churchill or someone like him. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: Winston Churchill who had horrible gout or something? Right he
Speaker 1: was at any rate, I need to go into that
Speaker 1: horrible gout, very bad gout. I could barely walk. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if he had gout or not. Actually, to
Speaker 1: be honest with anyhow, but one thing that does bother
Speaker 1: me about Hary Megan is that they say h and am.
Speaker 1: I think when they talk about each other, like she'll
Speaker 1: be like h and it's like his name is Harry,
Speaker 1: Like you could just say it, like we all know
Speaker 1: who you're talking about, like one say the full name.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's easier it's a single syllable. I don't know.
Speaker 1: We had a we actually had a very good post
Speaker 1: about that on gawker dot com about them saying H
Speaker 1: and M. No. It was before this. It was about
Speaker 1: how it's really annoying when people call their significant others
Speaker 1: by their initial Yeah, it is an unusual practice that
Speaker 1: I don't fully understand. If I'm reading an essay where
Speaker 1: they do that, I'm automatically disinterested and turned off. See
Speaker 1: it makes me think automatically, like I'm thinking about the
Speaker 1: sex diaries that they publish on New York Magazine, where
Speaker 1: they're always I feel like they're always like H called
Speaker 1: and wants to go out tonight or whatever. It's like
Speaker 1: they have or they have these like weird code names
Speaker 1: for people, which like seems very unnatural. Like if you're
Speaker 1: in my experience, if you're in a relationship with someone,
Speaker 1: you don't typically have a code name that you use
Speaker 1: publicly for them. You might have a pet name that
Speaker 1: you use in private situations, you know, like snick or
Speaker 1: doodle or whatever. But for the record, I've never called
Speaker 1: anybody's neckerdoodle, nor will I ever. But that seems like
Speaker 1: the kind of thing you might use in private. But
Speaker 1: like having like a just a letter or whatever, it
Speaker 1: seems unusual to me. It's off putting. It's impersonal, right,
Speaker 1: Like if if somebody were to refer to you as
Speaker 1: l on a regular basis, that would it would be strange,
Speaker 1: even if it was not like a romantic situation. Just
Speaker 1: any like why you know, it's not a nickname, Like
Speaker 1: if you had a nickname, it's a different story. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Harry and Megan anyhow I was, I was just
Speaker 1: caught up in their story, you know, of the romance
Speaker 1: and then all the the stuff that happened in England
Speaker 1: and they had to leave, and and then I started
Speaker 1: hearing about this book that Harry has put out again.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I'm not going to read the book.
Speaker 1: I mean, I watched the documentary. They seemed, you know, interesting,
Speaker 1: like I get learned a lot about how horrible the
Speaker 1: British you know, royal family is um. But then his
Speaker 1: in his book, he's detailing a lot of strange stuff.
Speaker 1: It seems like like he killed a ton of people
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan, he said, right, like twenty five people. Like
Speaker 1: that on its own is a crazy fact to think about.
Speaker 1: For when when you think about Harry, he's just this
Speaker 1: like redheaded, like British royal family avatar, you know, like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's like kind of the dumb younger brother or whatever.
Speaker 1: That's his thing. But now I know he's like a
Speaker 1: mass murderer, yes, and completely unconcerned about it. He's more
Speaker 1: you know, traumatized by like his brother not paying enough
Speaker 1: attention to him than he is by killing twenty people. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: I can understand that uma with an older brother. I
Speaker 1: think you you you long for their friendship, you don't
Speaker 1: have that experience sometimes when you don't get there, when
Speaker 1: you don't get their love and affection later in life,
Speaker 1: you have to kill people. That's just that's just a fact.
Speaker 1: And then I guess he's that he did drugs according
Speaker 1: to Cox's house. Yeah, I don't know this is You're
Speaker 1: not interested in this at all. You don't care, No,
Speaker 1: I am. I think it's I always rooted for him,
Speaker 1: But I think Megan is just like so syrupy in
Speaker 1: a way that offends my sensibilities. I'm a dedicated Post
Speaker 1: reader now, because are you? Yeah, because you know, the
Speaker 1: New York Times is an arm of the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: So I've switched to the Post. Definitely think that interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so interesting. Case. I started getting the paper delivered
Speaker 1: again on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and I have to say,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's good or anything, but I do
Speaker 1: find that I'm like experiencing stories that I would otherwise.
Speaker 1: I guess you could get the Post delivered. They still
Speaker 1: make a paper, right, the Washington Post. I just think
Speaker 1: the Post congressional reporting is far superior to the Times.
Speaker 1: That's my haughty opinion. Yeah, I find the Washington Post
Speaker 1: general output to be so full of spam and weird
Speaker 1: like hot takes that it's like I tend to ignore
Speaker 1: most of their real reporting, which is a problem. Again,
Speaker 1: that's on you, no, but I feel like it's they've
Speaker 1: cluttered the messaging of what the Washington Post is with
Speaker 1: like a lot of random ship Like I feel like
Speaker 1: sometimes it's a little bit like a Forbes whoever, whoever,
Speaker 1: the whatever the site is, where they just will publish
Speaker 1: anybody's stuff, like they'll just you can just write anything
Speaker 1: for them. I feel like Forbes is one of those
Speaker 1: websites now, but like where you're like, I don't am
Speaker 1: I reading like a real person's writing or is this
Speaker 1: like of thinly veiled ad for like a new razor?
Speaker 1: You know? Okay, So the Washington Post has a section
Speaker 1: called Inspired Life. Well, I guess it's a column and
Speaker 1: it's just it's just beautiful stories about humanity. Like today
Speaker 1: they wrote about that dog bus in Alaska where all
Speaker 1: the dogs get on the bus. Oh, that was the
Speaker 1: one where I saw there's like a there's like a
Speaker 1: meme of the dogs getting on the bus right, and
Speaker 1: they're like, hijake, these dogs ride a bus like humans,
Speaker 1: And now the internet is in love. Yeah, so this
Speaker 1: is just like buzzfeeds beautiful. This is just a buzz
Speaker 1: food page. It's like Upworthy, but it's better written. And
Speaker 1: you know, they're like man discovers that his kidney is
Speaker 1: compatible with dying Olympic superstar or whatever. Is that a
Speaker 1: real story to you? Just make that up? I just
Speaker 1: made that up. But do you actually like this? Do
Speaker 1: you really like this? I do? Yeah? Oh, I guess
Speaker 1: I subscribed to The Washington Post as well, digitally interesting.
Speaker 1: Just so flagrant with my spending on news that I
Speaker 1: don't even realize that I'm I'm also subscribed to this
Speaker 1: so interesting. This is you legitimately like this section? Yes,
Speaker 1: I love it. The Washington Post has great advice columns,
Speaker 1: like they have my favorite advice column, Miss Manners. They
Speaker 1: have a Miss Manners. If you're not reading Miss Manners,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're doing. I'm not reading Miss Manners.
Speaker 1: But let me give you a few. I want to
Speaker 1: give you a few headlines from Inspired Life from the
Speaker 1: section hundred year old woman makes custom jackets by hand
Speaker 1: and gives them away. Amazing handmade blankets for homeless, crafted
Speaker 1: with quote love come to Capitol Hill. I don't know
Speaker 1: why they. I don't know why they put love in
Speaker 1: quotes there. But Captain Sir Tom Moore's family is doing
Speaker 1: what they can to fill his shoes. Was no. This
Speaker 1: dog has collected more than a thousand littered plastic bottles.
Speaker 1: That one was really good. Are you really reading these? Huh? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So strange. The dog is collecting these on purpose. M h.
Speaker 1: They don't think the dog knows that it's recycling or whatever. Right,
Speaker 1: The dog definitely knows and understands the concept of recycling.
Speaker 1: The dog is like, we've got to stop polluting the
Speaker 1: planet Earth. Let me help. Yeah, the dog is like
Speaker 1: all these bottles wolf oh man. Okay, this is I'm
Speaker 1: really learning a lot about you. Okay, So, Miss Manners,
Speaker 1: you're saying, that's another section of the Washington Post that
Speaker 1: I should be reading. Okay, this is like, this is interesting.
Speaker 1: You and I are just doing like a little bit
Speaker 1: of a media tour, like just kind of traveling around
Speaker 1: the media landscape. All right, I'm looking at miss Manners. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this makes for a compelling podcast,
Speaker 1: but I'm certainly learning a lot. Miss Manner. I don't
Speaker 1: feel comfortable using the term baby mama. Okay, go back
Speaker 1: one more day. There was a really good one. You're saying,
Speaker 1: go back a day. What was the topic from a
Speaker 1: day ago? Yeah, there's one on like, um, a candelabra.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, oh my god. Miss Manners is displaying an
Speaker 1: unused candelabra, a decorative faux pap. Dear, Miss Manners, I
Speaker 1: have a lovely silver candelabra that is a family piece.
Speaker 1: I keep it on display on a sideboard in my
Speaker 1: dining room with white taper candles. It is purely decorative.
Speaker 1: I have never had the occasion to use it for
Speaker 1: its intended purpose. At a shower at my house, one
Speaker 1: of my friends took me aside to tell me that
Speaker 1: I was committing a decorating slash etiquette faux pap by
Speaker 1: having unlit candles in the candelabra. She said that I
Speaker 1: should at least present the appearance that the candelabraa was
Speaker 1: used if I were going to display it. These are
Speaker 1: problems real people have, Josh, real people, this is some
Speaker 1: heavy ship. I don't know if they are this is
Speaker 1: I mean, it's definitely. It's raising questions and making people
Speaker 1: making me feel ways that I haven't felt in a
Speaker 1: long time, just out of curiosity. Do you think the
Speaker 1: friend was right? Yeah, well I have a candle labra.
Speaker 1: If you're not going to use it, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that's kind of like to me, that's a question
Speaker 1: about life really when you think of it. Absolutely, isn't
Speaker 1: a candle labra there to be to be populated with
Speaker 1: candles and lit to illuminate a space. And if if
Speaker 1: it's not for that, what is the purpose? I guess
Speaker 1: you could say you you could admire. No, or just
Speaker 1: like a candle labra is not just for Jews. I
Speaker 1: mean lots of people use candle labros. But like, I
Speaker 1: guess you could just say, I like the way the
Speaker 1: candle labara looks. Isn't that enough for people? Don't you think? No,
Speaker 1: there's a code and Miss Manners follows it. Okay, it's
Speaker 1: very sharp, Miss Manner. Seems like it's written by several people. Also,
Speaker 1: by the way, it's written by a woman and her
Speaker 1: daughter and her son. I think it's nepotism. This is
Speaker 1: a bunch of neppo babies, right, yeah, exactly right, speak
Speaker 1: of nappo babies. Great segue to the napa baby controversy.
Speaker 1: How where where do you come down on napa babies.
Speaker 1: I don't care. You don't have a preference, you're no
Speaker 1: strong opinion. I mean it's always interesting and kind of
Speaker 1: comforting to find out someone's a nappo baby. Maybe you're
Speaker 1: competing against them for something, or you're jealous of them
Speaker 1: for some reason, and you find out their dad is
Speaker 1: so and so, and you're like, oh, got it? Okay, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, can you think of anybody that you're in
Speaker 1: competition with or that you are envious of or something.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to name names. Okay, you don't have
Speaker 1: the name names. But have you discovered that somebody that
Speaker 1: you might consider a rival or that you're in competition
Speaker 1: with is a NAPA baby? Yeah? Really recently, you know,
Speaker 1: as funny is um. I think people think William Finnegan
Speaker 1: from The New Yorker is my father. I did lean
Speaker 1: into this by when he wanted I think a Politz
Speaker 1: that I tweeted congrats to my father, and then the
Speaker 1: Pulitzer organization retweeted it. So I think I contributed to
Speaker 1: this myth. No, are you serious? Wow? I encouraged this myth.
Speaker 1: But he's not my father. My father is a math
Speaker 1: teacher in Illinois, a college math teacher, right high school,
Speaker 1: high school. There's no NAPA baby scenario where your father
Speaker 1: is a calculus teacher in high school and somehow you
Speaker 1: unless you become a calculus teacher in high school. Yes,
Speaker 1: I clawed my way to New York and I'm still
Speaker 1: holding on. There's no appotism in your family, correct, No,
Speaker 1: there's none in yours either. No. No, my family is
Speaker 1: complete trash on every level. Nobody's no successful people. Nobody
Speaker 1: to hand us a break whatsoever. Quite the opposite. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that I've had it the worst or anything.
Speaker 1: I certainly have that My parents are lovely, but they're
Speaker 1: clinically insane, and as you know, you you know my parents,
Speaker 1: they're lovely, lovely people. Uh so fun if you're not
Speaker 1: their child, I think, like the most fun. But definitely
Speaker 1: did not create any environments that would that made it
Speaker 1: easy for me to do whatever it is that I do.
Speaker 1: There was no like on ramp like my dad, you know,
Speaker 1: my dad's old snack food for a living, like distributed
Speaker 1: snack food out of a van. He didn't have a
Speaker 1: podcast about snacks. You didn't have a podcast. He didn't
Speaker 1: start any media companies. He was not an editor or
Speaker 1: writer anywhere. No nothing there at all. So I guess
Speaker 1: I feel a little bit when it comes to the
Speaker 1: Neva babies. I do feel a little bit, like you know,
Speaker 1: it's not envy exactly, but I wonder what it might
Speaker 1: be like to have options presented as kind of readily
Speaker 1: available that other people would have to work very hard for, like,
Speaker 1: because you know, like there are many people in our world,
Speaker 1: in the media world, who are other product of nepotism
Speaker 1: and maybe your rival that you were just talking about
Speaker 1: your company. Maybe I wish and say your rival, but
Speaker 1: your compety titian that you won't name. I think it
Speaker 1: comes with a lot of complexes, and I'm actually glad
Speaker 1: I don't have that. And you have to feel like
Speaker 1: you can you surpass your parents? Yeah, slam dunk, mission accomplished.
Speaker 1: It must be a horrible feeling. I'm so glad I
Speaker 1: don't have to think about that because I can't even
Speaker 1: do any math. Oh you mean if you're if you're
Speaker 1: a nappo baby, you have to be like, can I
Speaker 1: be better? Like if you're Steve Martin son or whatever,
Speaker 1: you're like, well, I ever be well? I ever do
Speaker 1: anything as funny as wearing the arrow head thing? Right,
Speaker 1: wasn't that his thing? He wore like it was like
Speaker 1: an arrow through his head? Yeah? Sure, I don't know. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're not a Steve Martin fan. Have you read his
Speaker 1: book Shop Girl? I like I like the jerk. That's
Speaker 1: not he didn't. I don't think he did. He write that.
Speaker 1: He wrote a serious and he's the star of the jerk.
Speaker 1: I know I've seen it. I've seen the jerk many times.
Speaker 1: But have you read shop Girl his novel? Yes? I did.
Speaker 1: Did you like it? I liked it? Okay? Alright, anyhow, okay,
Speaker 1: any final thoughts here? I think we gotta wrap. This
Speaker 1: is a successful podcast. I know it's hard to say.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say I've enjoyed it. Will it be
Speaker 1: a podcast that's anybody's guests? I mean, I'm always I'm
Speaker 1: always honored to talk to you about current events. We
Speaker 1: haven't talked in a long time, and I mean we
Speaker 1: haven't talked like as just as friends, which we could
Speaker 1: do whenever we want, but we haven't. And we haven't
Speaker 1: worked together in a long time. I mean it's been
Speaker 1: like nine months or ten months or I don't know
Speaker 1: how long it's been since we last worked together, a
Speaker 1: very long time. And and so I was just curious,
Speaker 1: like what's going on in your world? I get I
Speaker 1: kind of missed, you know, like I don't get to
Speaker 1: hear what's happening in Gawka every day, so I sort
Speaker 1: of missed that. I'm like constantly impressed and like amused
Speaker 1: and interested in the things that Gawker is doing, but
Speaker 1: I do feel like I'm at a remove. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't invite me to any dinners, gawker dinners or anything.
Speaker 1: It's fine, I'm not I don't feel upset about it
Speaker 1: out of the fold choice. And honestly, most of the
Speaker 1: time I was invited to dinner, I bailed, So I
Speaker 1: think it's it's understandable that I wouldn't continue to be invited.
Speaker 1: I do wonder, you know, not really a nappa baby thing,
Speaker 1: but I always wonder if I should schmooze more. You know, like,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm not very good at schmoozing. You're not.
Speaker 1: You're not really big on schmoozing either. You don't like
Speaker 1: to schmooz. I'm gonna You don't like to attend parties
Speaker 1: and like strike up conversations with people not really know.
Speaker 1: You don't enjoy being the center of attention sometimes they
Speaker 1: do you do? Sure? M hmm? Interesting? I am a leo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what that means, not really love attention. I'm not,
Speaker 1: is that true? M hm hmm. Interesting. I mean I
Speaker 1: feel like if you do like to be the center
Speaker 1: of attention, you communicate that in a very subtle way.
Speaker 1: I feel like that you don't come off strongly as
Speaker 1: a person who wants to be like, have you know
Speaker 1: a spotlight on them? I'm succeeding. Okay, yeah, commission accomplished.
Speaker 1: But I feel like, you know, if you're a Nappa baby,
Speaker 1: you probably have to shmoo is as much either, right,
Speaker 1: They just put you on the conveyor belt to success.
Speaker 1: It's like a thing like they have the supermarket. But
Speaker 1: when you get to the end of that, you get
Speaker 1: a TV show or a writing job on SNL or whatever.
Speaker 1: My favorite Nappo babies in the Nepo baby list are
Speaker 1: the guys who are the SNL guys. They're amazing there.
Speaker 1: I think they're very funny guys. I think they are
Speaker 1: legitimately funny. Clearly they grew up in you know, the
Speaker 1: presence of comedians. I should clarify. I don't think they're
Speaker 1: amazing because they're good at their jobs. I think it's
Speaker 1: just amazing that they are so explicitly Nepo babies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's interesting. I've always thought it was weird,
Speaker 1: like personally, and maybe it makes sense if your dad
Speaker 1: has a job, Like my dad's job never appealed to me,
Speaker 1: like I wasn't like it would be great to drive around,
Speaker 1: you know, delivering snack food to people. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying he I don't think he loved it, but he
Speaker 1: did it and it was fine. It's hard to imagine
Speaker 1: having like a situation where you're like, oh, my dad's
Speaker 1: like a writer for a comedy show or something, or
Speaker 1: like my dad's on TV, and like that's what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do. Like I feel like you reject that. Like
Speaker 1: I feel like it's it's a child's natural inclination to
Speaker 1: reject becoming like their parents. But then what is a
Speaker 1: child of a celebrity d sells neck food? Yeah? Maybe
Speaker 1: how does the universe balance out? Yeah? I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's like when Daniel dey Lewis quit acting he became
Speaker 1: a cobbler. You know, maybe it's like you have to
Speaker 1: experience something like that first. I don't know. I don't.
Speaker 1: Let's ask Jacob Dilan. You know what's he up to
Speaker 1: these days? Jacob Dylan did? He spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time not wanting to become a musician and then was
Speaker 1: finally like, well, I can't do anything else or I'm
Speaker 1: not going to make it at any other category. You
Speaker 1: write one great song and just fade away. That's the dream. Yes,
Speaker 1: one headlight the name of the song, one song, one
Speaker 1: headlight that one headlight. Your dad has a hundred million dollars.
Speaker 1: You're totally chill, You're fine. Yeah, that's the life alright.
Speaker 1: Any final words for the listener? Um, Baby just bark.
Speaker 1: She's barking a little again. Baby has time to wrap up.
Speaker 1: Follow Baby on Instagram. Read Gagger dot com, Josh, I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you. M're doing oh man, so many great things,
Speaker 1: so much stuff to talk about. I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1: I expected Leah to have a I don't know why,
Speaker 1: a slightly more positive opinion of Harry and Megan. I
Speaker 1: guess I thought for some reason. And again, I honestly
Speaker 1: don't know why I thought this, but that when I
Speaker 1: said that I liked Harry and Megan, she would agree
Speaker 1: with me, and she didn't. I mean, she doesn't dislike them.
Speaker 1: It sounds like, well, actually she maybe doesn't love Megan.
Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting. Just generally speaking, I don't
Speaker 1: know why. I feel like everybody's been won over by
Speaker 1: Harry and Megan. That's I guess that's my problem. I
Speaker 1: have some kind of damage that. Again, I'm not like
Speaker 1: hanging posters of Harry and Megan in the in the
Speaker 1: house or something. But I surprised myself in being like
Speaker 1: weirdly won over by their kind of I don't know,
Speaker 1: like maybe I bought into the pr bullshit. They seem
Speaker 1: just really like real people. And also I just feel
Speaker 1: like we get this peak. I don't know, it's so
Speaker 1: interesting that they're even doing the thing they're doing that
Speaker 1: going like, oh, here's what's really going on. But maybe
Speaker 1: that's the and Leah sort of suggested this, that's the
Speaker 1: whole game, that this is all in act? Is it
Speaker 1: all in act? It's just like they come back to
Speaker 1: the Royal family in a few seasons, like you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It's like, um, it's like a character
Speaker 1: on like a TV show who's like goes evil, you know,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh my god, they turn to evil,
Speaker 1: but then somehow they come back to like the good side.
Speaker 1: Because it's all just like these this is the reverse
Speaker 1: of that, right, They're like, we're they went good, but
Speaker 1: it's just for a few seasons, and the like the
Speaker 1: fans are going to be like, we demand that they
Speaker 1: be come back to the Royal family as like part
Speaker 1: of the evil operation, you know, like maybe in maybe
Speaker 1: in their later years, they'll be like, Wow, this is
Speaker 1: really working out. I don't know anyhow, I thought that
Speaker 1: was interesting that that she had a not a strong negative,
Speaker 1: but just not a strong positive. I just feel like
Speaker 1: they've taken the world by storm. Everybody's just charmed. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you they have not charmed my house. Nobody's charmed
Speaker 1: over there. You don't find Harry Megan charming. No, but
Speaker 1: I haven't watched the Netflix. I just saw a clip
Speaker 1: where like an interviewer asked Megan what TV shows they're watching,
Speaker 1: and then she took five minutes to say that they
Speaker 1: don't watch TV, but then to say that there's a
Speaker 1: lot of incredible TV happening out there, and then ultimately
Speaker 1: said white lettis, I don't remember that at all. I
Speaker 1: do think the documentary is interesting. I do think that
Speaker 1: there's some fascinating sort of behind the scenes stuff there
Speaker 1: that I've certainly never seen or heard. And maybe, like
Speaker 1: I'm more affected because they go into a bit about
Speaker 1: Harry's childhood and Diana and the relationship between the royal
Speaker 1: family and the press. They go into a lot and
Speaker 1: for me, as like a media guy, this is really
Speaker 1: interesting They talk a lot about the relationship between the
Speaker 1: press and the royal family and how coordinated they are
Speaker 1: and how like what's really odd and it's sort of
Speaker 1: like upsetting is like how when Harry and William are kids,
Speaker 1: like how much they're part of the whole thing, And uh,
Speaker 1: that part I thought was really affecting. It kind of
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, it put a spin on all of it,
Speaker 1: like in a way that I hadn't really felt before,
Speaker 1: where I'm like, oh, there's like some there's something here
Speaker 1: more than just like Harry doesn't like being a royal anymore.
Speaker 1: Harry wants a break free of his big brother. He's
Speaker 1: not going to be the king, so he wants out
Speaker 1: of there. And it was a little bit more like, Oh,
Speaker 1: there's something legitimately weird about the way this kid was
Speaker 1: brought up, Not obviously because he's like a prince in England,
Speaker 1: but there's something legitimately upsetting about the way he was
Speaker 1: treated as a child. Like that you can kind of
Speaker 1: see they have like footage of and stuff, and it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that I mean that. The Oprah interview when they explained
Speaker 1: that they basically sat them down and said that they
Speaker 1: were no longer going to have security. Yeah, after like
Speaker 1: years of threats and once they had children. That to me,
Speaker 1: I was that that was like the most affecting thing
Speaker 1: that I heard from that, the idea that they then
Speaker 1: they had had like death threats against their baby, they
Speaker 1: are no longer going to protect them. It's scary. It's
Speaker 1: really weird. I mean, it's it's it's truly like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard. I guess it's again it's hard to feel
Speaker 1: sympathetic for like the royal family. It is like it's
Speaker 1: definitely tough to be do not go well. You definitely
Speaker 1: may have some unusual or uncomfortable situations or some even
Speaker 1: horrible ones, but like also you have fifteen colonies or
Speaker 1: whatever that you own, you know, or have previously owned,
Speaker 1: where you're like on the money. So it's sort of like,
Speaker 1: I don't know how bad could it be. It seems bad,
Speaker 1: but like it's degrees of badness because like I said,
Speaker 1: their worst day ever is probably better than both people's
Speaker 1: best day. What Future is an iHeart Media podcast. Our
Speaker 1: executive producer is Lyra Smith. You probably hear Lyra from
Speaker 1: time to time. Adam Wanda is our editor, and Jenna
Speaker 1: hagel Is are super revising producer. If you like the podcast,
Speaker 1: which I think that you do. You made it this far,
Speaker 1: I would love it. If you want to, you know,
Speaker 1: go and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you
Speaker 1: can do five or six or seventh star review for us.
Speaker 1: That would be great. We love that. It really helps
Speaker 1: and uh. You can also follow me on a variety
Speaker 1: of social networks. You can find me on Twitter, which
Speaker 1: I now hate. My name is Joshua Tapulski. There, on Instagram,
Speaker 1: I'm at Joshua Topolski. On mastadon I'm at Joshua Topolski.
Speaker 1: But you really have to, you know, hunt around for
Speaker 1: me because it's a little complicated. And I'm on TikTok
Speaker 1: but I would not recommend following me there because it's
Speaker 1: all very sexy dancing