Speaker 1: It's twelve twenty two am in Chicago, and you're listening tonight.
Speaker 1: Call hello and welcome tonight call a call in show
Speaker 1: for our dystopian reality. I'm Molly Lambert and with me
Speaker 1: are Testa Lynch and Emily Oshida. Welcome back. It is
Speaker 1: May today as the first day of May. This will
Speaker 1: be coming out in May. And it's now Why to
Speaker 1: You May? Our new theme month. That's all why t
Speaker 1: K themeds excited about Why to You May? It so excited.
Speaker 1: I love looking back at a fake apocalypse to just
Speaker 1: contrast the real one going on right now makes me
Speaker 1: gives me the warm and fuzzies. I was given permission
Speaker 1: by Hunter Harris that we are the only people allowed
Speaker 1: to do a It's gonna be May meme for meme
Speaker 1: that died, but we can use we're allowed to do
Speaker 1: It's gonna be why to May? Yes, Okay, give in
Speaker 1: mean permission. I think that kind of joke is what
Speaker 1: one calls a hat on a hat if you're in
Speaker 1: a writer's around. But we'll go with it. What's finishing
Speaker 1: the hat? I still don't understand not a hat. I
Speaker 1: was going to say, like one of those big kind
Speaker 1: of like top hats, like fetzy top hats that were
Speaker 1: really popular around the year two thousands Mystery used to wear. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's the hat that's not in the case of it's
Speaker 1: going to be y too may What about a cat
Speaker 1: in the hat raper hat? Yes, say same, same basic idea.
Speaker 1: Keep waiting for those to come back. Yeah. I was
Speaker 1: going down a long Google image wormhole when I was
Speaker 1: putting together graphics for this month's Night Calling newsletter and
Speaker 1: just looking at pacifier necklaces and just really wondering like those.
Speaker 1: You know, there's been all sorts of nineties nostalgia over
Speaker 1: the last decade, I'd say, but very little that you
Speaker 1: hear about passive I ire necklaces. Maybe we should bring it.
Speaker 1: It's not like pople aren't doing Molly. We're gonna get
Speaker 1: into candy flippers today because that was one of my
Speaker 1: realizations about Michael Jordan, as he dresses like a candy flipper.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear all of your revelations about
Speaker 1: Michael today. We're gonna talk about sports as well. Sports
Speaker 1: in the late nineties, so technically on topic um, but
Speaker 1: first the question to lead into that, we got a
Speaker 1: night email from Jonathan Tess, would you like to read it?
Speaker 1: I would love to read this email from Jonathan Okay
Speaker 1: high Night Call. A few months ago, the idea of
Speaker 1: the long eighties I think it was the eighties was
Speaker 1: mentioned on an episode for Why to May. I was
Speaker 1: wondering where you all think the long seventies, eighties, nineties,
Speaker 1: and audies begin and end? The show is always a
Speaker 1: highlight of my week. Thank you, Jonathan. What do you
Speaker 1: guys think? Wow? I love how he wrote OS and
Speaker 1: you turned it into audies. I did he wrote OS,
Speaker 1: but I my brain looks at OS and just immediately
Speaker 1: translates audie. I think if I saw it written like that,
Speaker 1: I would say two thousand's And that's only because of
Speaker 1: I love the year two thousand, or the years or
Speaker 1: the two thousands, like whatever. The Empty One Show was
Speaker 1: because they had done I Love the eighties, I love
Speaker 1: the nineties. Did they have I Love the seventies or
Speaker 1: is that a little out of their purview? I think
Speaker 1: they did have I Love the seventies. I don't think
Speaker 1: they had I Love the sixties. But I definitely watched
Speaker 1: all that trash. I think definitely nobody who was watching
Speaker 1: it was alive for the sixties, so they skipped over
Speaker 1: the sixties. Um, also like the sixties. It's like it's
Speaker 1: hard to like, I don't know. I feel like if
Speaker 1: you were just a different documentary, it's a yeah, there's
Speaker 1: lots of I love the sixties out there, just comes
Speaker 1: in different forms other than a v H one talking
Speaker 1: head show. But um, I want to say, I think
Speaker 1: most decades, I don't think they really start until midway.
Speaker 1: I feel like usually the year with the five on
Speaker 1: it is when it becomes really whatever that decade is
Speaker 1: going to be. Here's my here's my degree. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you guys what I think, and then you can you
Speaker 1: can tell me I'm wrong. Uh. I think the sixties
Speaker 1: started in like okay, Like I think the early sixties
Speaker 1: in the late sixties are like two different decades essentially,
Speaker 1: because the early sixties are essentially the long fifties. So
Speaker 1: I want to say the sixties started in like nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four maybe for real, um, the first like um
Speaker 1: big civil rights protests, because I would say that is
Speaker 1: like kind of the turning point for the sixties. So like, yeah,
Speaker 1: sixty sixty five, YEA somewhere around the civil rights movement
Speaker 1: really kicking into gear and the Beatles coming to America.
Speaker 1: That's what that's when the sixties begins. The sixties end
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two, thus begin the seven weeks. Why
Speaker 1: why nineteen seventy two, particularly like Nixon and stuff, Nixon
Speaker 1: and ship. Wait, but you say decades usually begin in
Speaker 1: the fives, like halfway through. But you just cited two
Speaker 1: examples where they both began in like seven three seventy two.
Speaker 1: That's where I think they start on the third year. Okay,
Speaker 1: this a little theory. Seventies, Uh go until nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 1: I would definitely agree with us. Yeah, eighties begin in
Speaker 1: nineteen eight three, which is also when you and I
Speaker 1: Molly were born with our birth. Um, the decade was
Speaker 1: allowed to begin the eighties and in nine continuing with
Speaker 1: testa theory, and then the nineties are ninety three to eleven. Uh,
Speaker 1: what's the quote by um fucking Narromancer author William Gibson?
Speaker 1: Isn't doesn't he have the quote about how the future
Speaker 1: will get here? It'll just like not be evenly dispersed. Um, Yes,
Speaker 1: I think that William Gibson come on night call please obviously, Yes,
Speaker 1: that is like an open invitation for all time. But
Speaker 1: I think I think the same kind of goes for
Speaker 1: these decade changes though, because I think if you're living
Speaker 1: in the Midwest, or you're living in a more conservative place,
Speaker 1: like it takes a while for some of the waves,
Speaker 1: like the cultural waves of these changes to hit you,
Speaker 1: so like it can still feel like the eighties, you know,
Speaker 1: deep into the nineties. I mean there's some parts of
Speaker 1: the country or their pockets, I think to where it
Speaker 1: never fully moves on. It stays forever in one zone.
Speaker 1: It's always the nineteen fifties in Burbank. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: say that that there are certain I would say there
Speaker 1: are certain things, though I would say nine eleven is
Speaker 1: one of them. Um, I would say, I'm fairly confident
Speaker 1: that the recession, the housing crisis is one where those
Speaker 1: are evenly dispersed, um and maybe even more dispersed towards
Speaker 1: places that are not big metropolitan areas where we think
Speaker 1: of the center of cultural change happening. Although you would say, like,
Speaker 1: I have been thinking about this a lot, because obviously
Speaker 1: this crisis is like extremely not evenly dispersed and being
Speaker 1: really much more bad. Yeah, there's that. I mean, like
Speaker 1: the severity is different for for COVID, But I would
Speaker 1: say that this is definitely something that's happening to everybody
Speaker 1: at the same time. It's happening in different ways to
Speaker 1: everybody at the same time as the same thing with
Speaker 1: the housing crisis, with kind of all of the shifts
Speaker 1: that came after that um occupy and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff like it, it affected people in different ways.
Speaker 1: But like, you know, you can actually say, like, this
Speaker 1: is a thing that changed pretty much everybody, at least
Speaker 1: in our country. Like at the same time, when you
Speaker 1: think about something like the Manson murders and people saying
Speaker 1: like the Manson murders was the end of the sixties,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, kind of just like in l A,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't the end of the Definitely very convenient.
Speaker 1: And also the reason the sixties really ended in l A,
Speaker 1: according to Mike Davis, is because a bunch of the
Speaker 1: prominent black panthers were killed by the US government. So
Speaker 1: they definitely were trying to make the sixties be over
Speaker 1: a sap. Yeah, the sixties is like actually one of
Speaker 1: the shortest decades if we're going through it like this
Speaker 1: and not on accident. But yeah, This is an interesting
Speaker 1: I think about this stuff all the time. This is
Speaker 1: I think just nine eleven two now is all one decade.
Speaker 1: I think of it as just all one time period.
Speaker 1: I would don't think that. I think that. I think
Speaker 1: the housing crisis is is a turn. I think I
Speaker 1: think there's a major turn there. I think the whole
Speaker 1: twenty one century has been as well. Wait, this might
Speaker 1: be a good time to bring up, Molly, your brother's
Speaker 1: theory about Y two K and how will you explain? Okay,
Speaker 1: my brother think about this constantly. My brother Ben Lambert
Speaker 1: Lambo Lambo had a theory. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: read it somewhere or just came up with it, but
Speaker 1: his theory was essentially like Y two K did happen,
Speaker 1: and that is when reality split into the multiple universes.
Speaker 1: Time about this a few times, talking about it before,
Speaker 1: But it's very Y two K. It's Y t K.
Speaker 1: This is like the cornerstone of our Y two k's
Speaker 1: like the matrix. People like it because it lets you
Speaker 1: imagine there's a good universe somewhere. But I guess the
Speaker 1: idea is also like in the universe where Y t
Speaker 1: K happened, we had to reckon with our lack of
Speaker 1: preparedness for a global event, we had to come together
Speaker 1: as nations. I'm writing an Errand Sorkin book about what happened.
Speaker 1: You say, I suddenly like perked up as like that
Speaker 1: coming together as a nation. Um. Yeah, no. But the
Speaker 1: other thing about that theory that I think is popular
Speaker 1: among people of our generation and like our friends, is
Speaker 1: that it conveniently lines up with like the end of
Speaker 1: us being teenagers. Um, So you know, it's it's very
Speaker 1: comforting to think that like once you enter adulthood, Uh,
Speaker 1: then the ever shifted and it was all fake after
Speaker 1: the only real stuff was when you were like a teenager,
Speaker 1: I didn't have anythings like serious to worry about. But also,
Speaker 1: like we got uniquely a lot of bad things happened.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously bad things happened to every generation, but uh,
Speaker 1: it seems like things have gotten just acceleratedly worse since
Speaker 1: the year we're speaking to you from a global pandemic.
Speaker 1: So it's like, yes, it's it seems pretty bad. But
Speaker 1: I also think I think the twentieth century was an
Speaker 1: outlier as a time of just you know, all these
Speaker 1: circumstances lined up to create growth and prosperity briefly in America,
Speaker 1: starting with the beginning of the twentieth century. Something I
Speaker 1: would love to talk about more that you guys don't
Speaker 1: think quite is I'll be happy to go back and
Speaker 1: and we can do a whole series on the Nick. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do more than the Nick and fewer PBS
Speaker 1: American history. And I agree with that American history. But
Speaker 1: you know, I have been talking a lot about The
Speaker 1: Magnificent Amberson's which is like a whole novel. Somebody wrote
Speaker 1: about how much they hated cars, uh, and how they
Speaker 1: thought cars were going to ruin everything, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what not wrong? Wrong? If you had to
Speaker 1: choose a world where there were no cars or no airplanes,
Speaker 1: which would you choose both? Can I have both no
Speaker 1: cars the new airplane? Now you have to choose one
Speaker 1: or the other. That's the point of actually cars, I
Speaker 1: don't care about airplanes that much. I've never had like
Speaker 1: a good air travel experience, so you'd rather pick Okay, See,
Speaker 1: I firmly disagree. I can get around in life, and
Speaker 1: I have for many years in my life gotten around
Speaker 1: without a car. But like the possibility of like Oh,
Speaker 1: if I want to go see some other part of
Speaker 1: the world, I have to get on an ocean line.
Speaker 1: That's how it was. Yeah, But like I think I
Speaker 1: think I've shared this controversial opinion on on I think
Speaker 1: it was on the dailies like guys recently when I
Speaker 1: was a guest on there. I think air travel is
Speaker 1: great A plus love air travel, being in the sky.
Speaker 1: I don't like being in the sky. It feels unnatural.
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm never going to get on a
Speaker 1: plane again, honestly after this. But I like a road trip.
Speaker 1: I think I'm just like, well, if there's no planes,
Speaker 1: we'll have to drive across the country, like in Stephen
Speaker 1: King's the Stand to get places, isn't that isn't don't
Speaker 1: be that bad things happen in the States. Well, this
Speaker 1: is largely bad things happening. Yeah, I mean it's too
Speaker 1: on topic for right now. I've watched it a lot
Speaker 1: of times, but like, have you ever read it? I've
Speaker 1: never read it. That it's such it's so good, a
Speaker 1: good book to read, but also like I don't think
Speaker 1: I can handle it right now. It might exactly what
Speaker 1: you want. Well, I also saw some from Stephen King
Speaker 1: where he was. Like in my sci fi like Dystopia universe,
Speaker 1: it didn't like occur to me that the government would
Speaker 1: suck it up this badly right, just like things William
Speaker 1: Gibson says too, it's just like some of the ways
Speaker 1: in which society has become bad. It's just like even
Speaker 1: the people thinking about all the way society could become
Speaker 1: really bad, we didn't didn't think about it. That's why
Speaker 1: we're going back to Y t K, A great time
Speaker 1: that everybody loves when it feels very innocent and quaint.
Speaker 1: Right now, where where were you guys on Y two K?
Speaker 1: I was in jolly old England, are you? It was
Speaker 1: my first trip to another country speaking of air travel, UM.
Speaker 1: And it was my mom was doing a research trip,
Speaker 1: so I was just tagging along with her and we
Speaker 1: were just staying at like a series of hostels around
Speaker 1: mostly northern England. UM. But we had we spent actually
Speaker 1: the actual turn of the millennium in Cambridge, UM. And
Speaker 1: I remember there was a huge carnival out on some
Speaker 1: lawn at Cambridge, but we were not we were not
Speaker 1: doing any of that. I remember. I remember like the
Speaker 1: drunkenness level being like and even living in a college
Speaker 1: town at the time, being something that I had never
Speaker 1: seen before, like because it's college town times, British times,
Speaker 1: British exactly. Um, but we spent our evening at like
Speaker 1: a cathedral that had been or not. It was a church,
Speaker 1: an old old church, like a Romanesque church that had
Speaker 1: been around since like the first millennium. And uh, there
Speaker 1: was like a kind of service type thing, like a
Speaker 1: victual or something. And then, um, I drank my first
Speaker 1: class of champagne among a bunch of old people in
Speaker 1: a an old church in Cambridge. You had the most
Speaker 1: delightful y two k I've ever heard of. That sounds great,
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Probably where were you. I was at my
Speaker 1: family friend's house the Moffits with my parents and brother
Speaker 1: and we were watching it on television. We like went
Speaker 1: over there for New Year's. Um. I feel like I
Speaker 1: never did anything party for New Year's in high school
Speaker 1: because it was like such a pain and like nobody
Speaker 1: wanted to drive on New Year's And I remember people
Speaker 1: would always be like going to the beach, but then
Speaker 1: that would be that was like a five hour clusterfuck
Speaker 1: of like stuck there. Yeah, so I would always just
Speaker 1: hang out with my parents, like the cool kid that
Speaker 1: I was, UM and my family, and I remember that
Speaker 1: there was like a PBS or local special of the
Speaker 1: Millennium around the world, Why two K around the world,
Speaker 1: and that l A had the worst y two K
Speaker 1: celebration of anywhere. Everywhere else had something cool. Um there
Speaker 1: was like some crazy ball drop in Sydney. And then
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like going through as it it
Speaker 1: becomes around the world. You remember seeing something cool looking
Speaker 1: at the silly like Millennium Dome in England. I just
Speaker 1: saw this like silly, probably really wasteful infrastructure stuff that
Speaker 1: they built for the millennium, and then the Eye in
Speaker 1: London and stop for the millennium. Yeah. Yeah, they built
Speaker 1: a lot of dumb ship for They built a lot
Speaker 1: of dumb ship for the millenning. And then they cut
Speaker 1: to Hollywood, California, and it's Jay Leno at the Hollywood
Speaker 1: Sign but and they lit off like two sparklers and
Speaker 1: that was it. We were, you guys nervous about the
Speaker 1: collapse of technology at the time. I think I was
Speaker 1: like curious if it would happen. Really yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: remember being really actively nervous. And then I think I
Speaker 1: remember being later at some point, like or no before
Speaker 1: it was midnight. We were in some bar or some
Speaker 1: cafe or something and they had the TV on where
Speaker 1: they were showing like the Millennium celebrations and like India
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and it was like, oh, it's fine,
Speaker 1: like it's all gonna be okay. Um. So like by
Speaker 1: the time it was midnight in England, I was like,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's okay. I'm just gonna like chill and
Speaker 1: have my my champagne. But yeah, I have no I
Speaker 1: can't remember, and it's so stressful because I was trying to.
Speaker 1: Right before we started, I was like, okay, I think
Speaker 1: I was in my bedroom online, as a very cool
Speaker 1: person would be at midnight on New Year's Eve. But
Speaker 1: then I was like, no, I think I was in Connecticut. Um,
Speaker 1: because my parents would leave. They were renting in California
Speaker 1: for work, so when I would have school breaks sometimes
Speaker 1: we would go back to their house in Connecticut. So
Speaker 1: even worse than being in like my l a bedroom,
Speaker 1: I think I was like all alone in my haunted
Speaker 1: bedroom in Connecticut. But I was really really stressed about
Speaker 1: computers breaking and stuff. Most more than anything. I was like,
Speaker 1: my emails, my AOL emails, It's like the record of
Speaker 1: my life. What will I do if those are lost?
Speaker 1: And I think my dad was pretty stressed because he's
Speaker 1: he was like an early techie, can ask your parents
Speaker 1: for confirmation. Well, I was like, oh, I should look
Speaker 1: at my diaries. But then I'm not. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go down that road right now. It's too fragile.
Speaker 1: Look at your A O L email. Can't. Man, I
Speaker 1: wish I could. I I don't think that those exist anymore,
Speaker 1: but I mean they were like that was a big
Speaker 1: deal to me. I was stressed. I actually have a
Speaker 1: binder of printed out A O L emails, but it's
Speaker 1: just the tip of the iceberg. It's not an exhaustive
Speaker 1: collection correspondences. My correspondences as very victorian with the pen piles. Well,
Speaker 1: let's take a break and then we'll be right back
Speaker 1: with some sports. Welcome back Tonight Call. This is a
Speaker 1: special news segment. We're introducing UH at my Behest, but
Speaker 1: also some of our listeners demanded it called Sports Call,
Speaker 1: the sports podcast within Nightcall. We've got two whole sports
Speaker 1: topics to talk about, and I would love to have
Speaker 1: some actual people who are sports journalists and we want
Speaker 1: to have our friend Holly on sometime to talk about sports. Actually,
Speaker 1: we are not pretending to be sports experts. We are
Speaker 1: merely sports amateurs. But what we have our opinions, lots
Speaker 1: of them. Well put uh here is a night text
Speaker 1: twee got asking about the Michael Jordan documentary The Last Dance. Hi, ladies,
Speaker 1: been a listener since your days in grant Land, and
Speaker 1: this is my first time ever calling in. Given you
Speaker 1: guys are talking about The Last Dance documentary, I guess
Speaker 1: my only question is how do you think a figure
Speaker 1: like Dennis Rodman would be read and consumed in today's
Speaker 1: media landscaping culture. Rodman was no doubt a fascinating figure
Speaker 1: when I was a kid in the nineties watching him,
Speaker 1: but looking at how social media reacted to seemingly first
Speaker 1: time discovering who Rodman is in finding old clips of him,
Speaker 1: he's easily going viral yet again, especially when he talked
Speaker 1: about his sexuality and how he liked to dress, which
Speaker 1: at the time was very controversial. Thank you and I
Speaker 1: enjoyed the podcast. Wow, thank you so much for this
Speaker 1: great introduction to talk about our favorite subject, sports, basketball specifically,
Speaker 1: did you guys get to watch any of the last dance?
Speaker 1: I haven't yet, but I've I've committed to doing it
Speaker 1: this weekend. I know, Molly, you started it right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's just a great documentary. I will say. It's like,
Speaker 1: even if you don't care anything about basketball, and I'm
Speaker 1: definitely on the low end of caring about it, it's
Speaker 1: just a great collection of people and personalities, um. And
Speaker 1: it makes it very much about how these personalities interacted
Speaker 1: and what, you know, what made that work and not
Speaker 1: work for teams. And it's a lot about the corporate medaling,
Speaker 1: about how the league got involved and fucked up good
Speaker 1: arrangements and sucked over great players. Um Scottie Pippen is
Speaker 1: the focus of the second episode. It's all it's very
Speaker 1: it's very discursive in a way that I like, who
Speaker 1: are the villains? The villains? Jake Kang disagrees with me,
Speaker 1: But the main villain is Jerry Krause, who uh basically
Speaker 1: breaks up like the threatens to break up the the
Speaker 1: championship winning bowls. Um Scottie Pippen signs like a bad
Speaker 1: overall deal because for reasons that make perfect sense that
Speaker 1: he's like I need to like buy my mom a house,
Speaker 1: you know, and like they offered him eighteen million and
Speaker 1: he takes it. But then he gets to a point
Speaker 1: where it's like he could be making so much more
Speaker 1: money and he's like the second best player in the
Speaker 1: league or something on the best team in the league,
Speaker 1: but he is making he's like very low on on
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of getting paid. They talk a
Speaker 1: lot about the way that the league exploits players, and
Speaker 1: you know how you have to be sort of like
Speaker 1: so happy to do anything for the league. Uh. But
Speaker 1: obviously if you get injured, they kind of stopped giving
Speaker 1: a funk about you. But it's really about it's about
Speaker 1: the late nineties, about Michael Jordan's retirement, and it's ten episodes.
Speaker 1: I've watched four so far. It's coming out weekly on Sundays,
Speaker 1: and it's like a big event that everybody's enjoying watching.
Speaker 1: Can I ask what it's called the Last Dance? Um
Speaker 1: Our producer Joel says she actually knows why it's called
Speaker 1: the Last Dance, so uh. An episode one, Phil Jackson
Speaker 1: talks about how at the top of each year he
Speaker 1: would set up sort of a theme or a mantra
Speaker 1: for the team in order to focus them on a
Speaker 1: singular goal. Uh. He was pretty sure this was going
Speaker 1: to be his last season, and so he coined this
Speaker 1: term the last Dance, and they were all sort of
Speaker 1: trying to make that last dance a memorable one. Nice
Speaker 1: thank you, Joel. So the first episode is focused basically
Speaker 1: on Michael Jordan's, the second episode is sort of focused
Speaker 1: around Scottie Pippen, and then the third episode is Dennis Rodman,
Speaker 1: and then episode four it starts to like weave these
Speaker 1: They're all being woven together the whole time, which is
Speaker 1: also why I like it. It kind of jumps around
Speaker 1: in time and uh, in in careers, in stories a
Speaker 1: lot um in a way that some people have said
Speaker 1: they find confusing, But I think it's fine. You can
Speaker 1: just follow what year it is by how long people's
Speaker 1: shorts are. Is it the country music of nineties n
Speaker 1: b A. It kind of is. Actually it's some, but
Speaker 1: it's it's better than country music because it's got interviews
Speaker 1: with everybody. And so it's got interviews from the time
Speaker 1: period where somebody was just filming their entire season, the
Speaker 1: Bowl season, and then it's got interviews with everybody in
Speaker 1: the present day in their mansions, like reflecting on their lives. Um.
Speaker 1: And that part is also really interesting. And one of
Speaker 1: the interesting things about it is that Michael Jordan wears
Speaker 1: a ball chain necklace in one of the interview setups,
Speaker 1: and he wears these like huge pants all the time,
Speaker 1: like Jinko type pants. And that was just like, I
Speaker 1: had this realization last night where I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: he dresses like a raver. He dresses like the ravers
Speaker 1: I knew who also listened to Sublime. Just be kind
Speaker 1: of like a proto like SoundCloud rapper a little bit
Speaker 1: as like a cultural figure somebody like that. Just freaks
Speaker 1: out parents. Well that's Rodman. Yeah, ro oh, I thought
Speaker 1: you were talking about Dennis Roman. So that's where funny
Speaker 1: Jordan wears the ball chain necklace. That's awesome. Rodman kind
Speaker 1: of dresses like an old new metal guy, which is
Speaker 1: also really cool. Um. But yeah, young Rodman, I guess
Speaker 1: if you had never seen him before, does feel like
Speaker 1: kind of a revelation because even for people who didn't
Speaker 1: watch basketball, he was such like a rock star of basketball.
Speaker 1: He looked very cool and it seemed very cool. But I,
Speaker 1: as a person who didn't really know anything about the bulls. Uh.
Speaker 1: I had watched the Bad Boys documentary about the Detroit Pistons,
Speaker 1: which was where Rodman came up, was in this team
Speaker 1: in Detroit. That's also an amazing ESPN documentary that I
Speaker 1: super recommend about the Bad Boys, um, which was about
Speaker 1: they basically just started playing really physical and kind of
Speaker 1: dirty because they were like nobody likes us because we're
Speaker 1: Detroit and in flagrant fouling. I guess, like Joel fact check,
Speaker 1: why were they allowed to foul everybody so hard? In
Speaker 1: the eighties. So back in the day before NBA became
Speaker 1: a major sports ball franchise, it was um like very
Speaker 1: low rent. So in other words, players were getting paid
Speaker 1: a lot. A lot of them. This was their second
Speaker 1: job they were doing. They were basically like the cheerleaders
Speaker 1: are today, where they're like, yeah, you came into here,
Speaker 1: here's a little chunk of change, go home or whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: And so it wasn't uh standards and rules and all.
Speaker 1: That was kind of like whatever, we're playing a game,
Speaker 1: beat men like punch each other, It's fine. Uh. And
Speaker 1: they just kind of had to eventually grow out of
Speaker 1: that because that we can't be having players who was
Speaker 1: for violence and things like that. But yeah, back in
Speaker 1: the day, it was anything goes. Yeah, our producer, Zach
Speaker 1: Are the producer also says that people got hurt a
Speaker 1: lot over the years and that was why they reformed it. Basically,
Speaker 1: the Pistons are like, let's see how far we can
Speaker 1: push it. Let's just turn it into hockey kind of um.
Speaker 1: Everybody else thought that like wasn't a classy form of
Speaker 1: basketball to play, but super good TV, super good TV,
Speaker 1: and like super good for sports. And so the Bulls
Speaker 1: were kind of this prestige team and there was this
Speaker 1: whole thing about that when they went to play the Pistons.
Speaker 1: The Pistons had a set of rules for Jordan's that
Speaker 1: they called the Jordan's Rules, which is the name of
Speaker 1: the tell all book about Jordan's that my brother red
Speaker 1: and told me all the good parts from. And it
Speaker 1: was basically just like a strategy for playing against Jordan,
Speaker 1: who they all agreed was like if he gets off
Speaker 1: the ground, you're you're fucked, you know, like keep him
Speaker 1: on the ground. It wasn't like hit him in the face.
Speaker 1: It was a little bit hit him in the face,
Speaker 1: and it was kind of just like play as rough
Speaker 1: as you possibly can to keep him from from getting
Speaker 1: to the basket. And it worked. But then, like sports
Speaker 1: broadcasters did not like it because they were like, we
Speaker 1: have this narrative going about Michael Jordan's and he's the greatest,
Speaker 1: and like a bunch of you know, roughnecks, like fucking
Speaker 1: it up isn't part of our narrative. The Pistons are
Speaker 1: all great, they all show up in interviews, they're probably there.
Speaker 1: They're chiller than the bulls um because they're all kind
Speaker 1: of like, yeah, yeah, we did that stuff like it was.
Speaker 1: It was cool. There weren't any rules yet, you could
Speaker 1: do it. It was fine. Basketball in general always makes me.
Speaker 1: It gives me the Y two ks. I mean this
Speaker 1: year obviously we were talking, We've all everybody's been talking
Speaker 1: about the Lakers because of Kobe dying Um and the
Speaker 1: Lakers won two championships in a row. I think Joel
Speaker 1: and Zack might know better than I do, But I
Speaker 1: thought in two thousand and two thousand and one, is
Speaker 1: that right? Uh? Didn't didn't they win in two? I
Speaker 1: want to say maybe then too. But in terms of
Speaker 1: like Y two k it was a big time for
Speaker 1: the Lakers. It's kind of like it introduces all these
Speaker 1: teams that became sort of like the brand name. They're
Speaker 1: like bands. They're just exactly like bands. It's like a
Speaker 1: music documentary. It's like people that had to get along
Speaker 1: with each other in order to work and had like
Speaker 1: interpersonal conflicts that they had to keep off the you know,
Speaker 1: the court, but the behind the scenes stuff is great.
Speaker 1: We have, don't we have to address our feelings about
Speaker 1: Dennis Rodman, and because I want to hear what you
Speaker 1: guys think about your impressions of Dennis Rodman, especially when
Speaker 1: he first kind of came onto the scene. Oh nice,
Speaker 1: Oh wait, Joel just confirms that the Lakers won the
Speaker 1: championship two thousand, two thousand one, and two thousand two. Here.
Speaker 1: I love it, I love thank you. I just remember
Speaker 1: when when we graduated from high school in two thousand one, Um,
Speaker 1: I was like in a or I guess it wasn't
Speaker 1: when we graduated, but there was like when they won
Speaker 1: the championship in two thousand one. Um, I was out
Speaker 1: with a bunch of my friends and we were on
Speaker 1: Sunset on the Sunset Strip, and everyone was like hanking
Speaker 1: and had Lakers flags. And everything, and I was like,
Speaker 1: maybe I care about the basketball now, well, maybe I
Speaker 1: could play baste day. That's the main aspect that I
Speaker 1: don't like about sports is the like city nationalism, because like,
Speaker 1: who cares, you know, I don't think my city is
Speaker 1: better than other cities. It's not about your city being
Speaker 1: better than other cities. I mean, I I'm a Dodgers fan.
Speaker 1: Like I I do enjoy that a lot. I enjoyn Scully,
Speaker 1: I enjoy like the camaraderie. I gotta say. I like
Speaker 1: city nationalism, not in my sterious like let's start a
Speaker 1: warway but baby fascism. You'm not cheering for it to right,
Speaker 1: but like and you like the New Orleans Saints. I
Speaker 1: love it despite the fact that I think that that's
Speaker 1: I don't love it because the sports teams are good,
Speaker 1: Like that's yeah, but the sports teams are kind of
Speaker 1: just an accessory to it. Like I like, I like feeling,
Speaker 1: like you know, I think that sports is one of
Speaker 1: the good things about it is that it is a
Speaker 1: nice way to just like, you know, sit at a
Speaker 1: bar and talk to somebody that you might not talk
Speaker 1: to otherwise. When I had my brief like dalliance with
Speaker 1: being an into football that was sort of fun. Football
Speaker 1: is a super evil institution, but like sometimes it was
Speaker 1: fun to just like chat with somebody at a bar,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's like, that's like a fun
Speaker 1: thing and it makes and it does make me feel
Speaker 1: more even though I was never talking about l A
Speaker 1: football because there wasn't l A football yet. When I
Speaker 1: was watching football, like it was sort of I don't know,
Speaker 1: it was just something to another way to kind of
Speaker 1: cross the bridge or something to people. Um I, but
Speaker 1: I will say that the downside of that, like when
Speaker 1: the actual hooliganism enters into it, because my memory, I
Speaker 1: wasn't around in l A for those championships around like two.
Speaker 1: I was here for the one and that I remember
Speaker 1: really really vividly because I was out at a bar
Speaker 1: on Sunset. Sunset seems to be the place to be
Speaker 1: a championship, and uh, I remember it was. It was
Speaker 1: Mission Mission Takaria, yeah, um, which is still there, but
Speaker 1: like in the shadow of the Big Death Star Emerson
Speaker 1: Campus now um and I lived around the corner from there,
Speaker 1: and we saw on the TV at the TV that
Speaker 1: they won and then there was this like weird kind
Speaker 1: of thing that went over the bar where everybody was
Speaker 1: like I'm leaving, I'm gonna go home because it's about
Speaker 1: to get crazy out here. And it did. Like people
Speaker 1: were setting fires and overturning trash like like dumpster that
Speaker 1: was like that. That was like the one good sports. Wait,
Speaker 1: that's the good stuff I thought you hated, like the
Speaker 1: saying that's part. It's part of it is like the
Speaker 1: over you know, it's like I think I'm just just
Speaker 1: you get people in the stadium. It's a little bit
Speaker 1: like a rally. You know, there's there's a lot of good.
Speaker 1: You like when people go and like burn shipped down
Speaker 1: after their team by a billionaire like one a sports
Speaker 1: game because I like when they defaced l A Live. Well,
Speaker 1: they were defacing more than l A Live. Like we
Speaker 1: were like overturning cop cars and ship like that's cool.
Speaker 1: They were also overturning other people's cars to I mean,
Speaker 1: and it's like it's like I'm I'm I'm totally here
Speaker 1: for that if it's for a political reason and it's
Speaker 1: like to send a message. But it's like the Lakers one,
Speaker 1: let's destroy some property, Like and I were in Providence,
Speaker 1: we were in college when the Red Sox one the
Speaker 1: World Series for the first time in a billion years.
Speaker 1: And I remember because we went to Legal Seafood. We
Speaker 1: drove to Legal Seafood and we were driving back to
Speaker 1: Providence and there were fireworks and we were both like,
Speaker 1: what the fund is happening? And we were listening to
Speaker 1: and it was very magical. You may have been don't
Speaker 1: you dare diss you know, but I remember we were like,
Speaker 1: what is it? Because we were both so out of
Speaker 1: it we didn't know. And then we were like, oh,
Speaker 1: the Red Sox one. Although I have to say that
Speaker 1: the Red Sox so my parents are Red Sox fans
Speaker 1: because they're both from Boston and then but then they
Speaker 1: moved to New York and they growing up, I was
Speaker 1: always fascinated by how much they hated the Yankees because
Speaker 1: they were terrible at explaining it, and it was like,
Speaker 1: because they're the Yankees because we like the reds And
Speaker 1: I was like, but give me more, because I'm five
Speaker 1: years old and it makes no sense. And it's like
Speaker 1: because fun, That's what I'm saying, is like the part
Speaker 1: of sports fandom that is like our place. You know,
Speaker 1: Springfield is good and Shelbyville is bad, and like the
Speaker 1: Springfield will win because like Shelbyville is evil, and it's
Speaker 1: like as long as it's kind of a it's a joke,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not serious, Like when I tell like
Speaker 1: when I meet somebody from USC and I say, like,
Speaker 1: we can't be friends. It's so stupid. I never went
Speaker 1: to a single game, Like, I just like, it's just
Speaker 1: sort of a dumb joke. It's like, and it's also
Speaker 1: on this side, like like Emily is saying, when you
Speaker 1: find it's the one thing you have in common with someone,
Speaker 1: you know, it can be like a nice form of camaraderie.
Speaker 1: I definitely find that with the Dodgers, although there's often
Speaker 1: some tension depending on how many Giants fans are like
Speaker 1: with you in your group or whatever. But I mean
Speaker 1: it's you can start a conversation with someone about what's
Speaker 1: happening that you're watching. It's it's such a like weird
Speaker 1: kind of unique thing. It's not like you go to
Speaker 1: a concert and you start like talking to the person
Speaker 1: next to you, like what you think, It's just another show,
Speaker 1: except you can watch the show in a huge arena
Speaker 1: and there are good hot dogs from The problem I
Speaker 1: think also with basketball in Los Angeles is that the
Speaker 1: Lakers are like prohibitably expensive to see, because yeah, I
Speaker 1: would never I've never been to a Laker game. I've
Speaker 1: seen a w NBA game that I went to a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, and I like wouldn't stop talking
Speaker 1: about it because it was so fun and it was
Speaker 1: like a sports event with no like bullshit. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: like a dad's brought their daughters here and it's all
Speaker 1: like big groups of women just like no, no, just
Speaker 1: macho bullshit. I guess, um, yeah, sports without I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: there can be sports without macho bullshit. Like I didn't
Speaker 1: even know what that looked like in real life. I
Speaker 1: would love to go to a Sparks game. I've been
Speaker 1: to at of three, uh three pro basketball games in
Speaker 1: my life. One was the team formerly known as the
Speaker 1: Seattle Sonics um when they were the Kingdom was being
Speaker 1: repaired some time before they decided to just tear it
Speaker 1: down all together. I really love I have like a
Speaker 1: very soft spot in my heart for the Kingdom. But
Speaker 1: they were playing their games at the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma,
Speaker 1: so I went there and I got in a huge
Speaker 1: fight with my friend that I went with because um
Speaker 1: that they did a T shirt cannon and she like
Speaker 1: knocked me out of the way to get a T shirt.
Speaker 1: I was so mad at you're gonna say the T
Speaker 1: shirt cannon knocked you out. I don't know, my friend
Speaker 1: knocked me out? Uh and then uh. And then I
Speaker 1: did go to a Lakers game. I've been to a
Speaker 1: Lakers game, but it was when I worked for a
Speaker 1: nonprofit and they would the donors to It was like
Speaker 1: an after school program, so sometimes donors would give their
Speaker 1: leg box seats, like really amazing seats to games. So
Speaker 1: I like was in a skybox for Lakers game, but
Speaker 1: I like didn't know what was going on. So I
Speaker 1: was just like doing a crossword puzzle on the couch
Speaker 1: in the lounge, like, and the kids were all like
Speaker 1: having a great time. I was just like I went
Speaker 1: to the w NBA game with a dance team called
Speaker 1: the Divas of Compton, who I was writing about for
Speaker 1: a sports magazine called Victory Um, and they were doing
Speaker 1: the halftime show and it was great because I got
Speaker 1: to like go early and go backstage and the Staples Center,
Speaker 1: which is just like a giant concrete labyrinth, and I
Speaker 1: was so excited about that. I was like, oh, backstage
Speaker 1: of like a weird stadium with all just the weird
Speaker 1: doors and warehouse stuff of thing about stadiums that I like. Um,
Speaker 1: stadiums are bad. Well, we're going to take a quick
Speaker 1: ad break and when we come back a little more
Speaker 1: sports and maybe another night email or night call. Hello,
Speaker 1: we are back. Um, Molly, have you ever played any basketball? No,
Speaker 1: my brother was good at basketball. I'm short. All my
Speaker 1: sports dreams were dashed by being short. I'm sure too,
Speaker 1: I'm the same height as you. I think you're not.
Speaker 1: I'm five five, I'm five two. You're not five to
Speaker 1: the last time I saw you. Well, I have a
Speaker 1: lot of bone loss because I wear sneakers with some height.
Speaker 1: Give me some height. Also, my grandmother was a high jumper,
Speaker 1: like an award winning high jumper and like super tall.
Speaker 1: So I was totally just waiting for my growth spurt
Speaker 1: and it just didn't drinking of milk as a kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and also just like the sports I could have been
Speaker 1: good at, like soccer, Um, everybody was too good at soccer.
Speaker 1: So Emily, I think you said you you are not
Speaker 1: a basketball person. No. The only sport I've ever played
Speaker 1: in any organized way was with softball. They did a
Speaker 1: softball episode last night on vander Pump Rules, which I
Speaker 1: was like, what a great idea. I mean on it,
Speaker 1: like that is what I will say about sports. I
Speaker 1: know I'm talking ship, but I'm also talking shit more
Speaker 1: about sports leagues, I guess, and like the business of
Speaker 1: sports than I am about playing actual sports, you know,
Speaker 1: which is fun, I think sometimes sometimes. But I played
Speaker 1: softball for a long time, like up until junior high
Speaker 1: went again just like people got big and I didn't,
Speaker 1: so it was like my time was over. Um, and
Speaker 1: I loved I was like never very good, but I
Speaker 1: just loved being on a team, and I loved talking
Speaker 1: trash still do still do outside of a podcast. Should
Speaker 1: we take a night email? Yeah, let's do it. So
Speaker 1: we have a night email from Kate who writes to us.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you guys could talk about the
Speaker 1: prevalence of forest green and bright purple as a color
Speaker 1: palette in the mid to late nineties. It was just
Speaker 1: so hideously ugly. Note the seattle spruce and track suit
Speaker 1: colors in the piece I attached, which we can put
Speaker 1: it in the show notes and the really scary patterns
Speaker 1: like this been hands posts that we're everywhere. Also, Taco
Speaker 1: Bell in the nineties were this color scheme, the purple
Speaker 1: and the green. H So that comes to us from Kate.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Kate. Um. We were talking a little bit
Speaker 1: about Y two K color schemes, the purple and green.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of surprised too to see that be cited
Speaker 1: by somebody because that felt very specific to the Pacific
Speaker 1: Northwest for me in the late nineties, but maybe it
Speaker 1: was everywhere. The it's also like big Barney colors, like
Speaker 1: like it's like Barney Barney Purple. Spacific Northwest had such
Speaker 1: a huge influence on everything in the nineties, that's true.
Speaker 1: I have to say that I'm a really big fan
Speaker 1: of forest Green and I when we got this email,
Speaker 1: I was like really aghast because I have a forest
Speaker 1: green bathroom. That was like a bold choice that I made,
Speaker 1: and I thought it was great. And then I went
Speaker 1: in there and was like, is it okay? Because there's
Speaker 1: no purple like it. But I think that the the
Speaker 1: Y two K Forest Green had a lot more blue
Speaker 1: in it than the current, Like it's more of a
Speaker 1: like deep emerald without that much it's a true green.
Speaker 1: It was like a dark teal more that the teal heels.
Speaker 1: I don't like the nineties color. It was all of
Speaker 1: the schools in my school district when I was growing
Speaker 1: up in a Tacoma Like most of them were a
Speaker 1: combination their colors of the schools, or a combination of
Speaker 1: like teal, purple, gray, um blue, and like sometimes a
Speaker 1: maroon in the college. I feel like the eighties were
Speaker 1: all primary colors, and so the nineties were like nudes
Speaker 1: and jewel tones. Yeah, where their nudes then too. I
Speaker 1: think of them as being nineties late eighties becoming nudes
Speaker 1: is eighties and then you still get it in the
Speaker 1: nineties by like what I was talking about, the effect
Speaker 1: of like it stays in it stays in the suburbs,
Speaker 1: like a beige house, like a beige house, and like
Speaker 1: a very prefab neighborhood will be very like a nude colored.
Speaker 1: A lot of those interiors and like the Ryan Murphy shows,
Speaker 1: like American American Crime Story specifically, like that is just
Speaker 1: a really great work of art direction as far as
Speaker 1: capturing I totally I hate all the houses that are
Speaker 1: slate gray now yeah, So I don't like the houses
Speaker 1: out here that are basically black. That's the slate, right. Weird,
Speaker 1: that's but it's it's like it's aggressively dark. They're doing it.
Speaker 1: They're doing it to like cover the beige, I guess,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them are new construction. Somebody posted
Speaker 1: a Victorian like a gingerbread house in San Francisco. That
Speaker 1: someone did that too, and it made my heart die.
Speaker 1: It's so and it's such a stupid choice because it's
Speaker 1: going to heat your house so quickly, so it would
Speaker 1: make sense to me in a place that was more
Speaker 1: often cold than swelteringly hot. It's like you're murdering out
Speaker 1: your house. Well, I think I actually think that that
Speaker 1: is a reaction to so much new construction of the
Speaker 1: like the McMansion variety being this very stark white where
Speaker 1: they had these facades where it was like the windows
Speaker 1: a lot of them had no shutters, there was nothing
Speaker 1: to break up this like glaring whiteness. And they're huge,
Speaker 1: so they it just it made them look even huger.
Speaker 1: And I think that the they started working with the
Speaker 1: dark slate gray. I remember the first one I saw
Speaker 1: was in Echo Park. Um it was a like a
Speaker 1: small lot ordinance development called the Blackbirds, and there was
Speaker 1: a huge community response because they were like, these are
Speaker 1: supposed to be smart homes, but you're painting them black.
Speaker 1: They're gonna be like little furnaces. And I think the
Speaker 1: response was like, but these are not. These aren't like
Speaker 1: churned out, you know, new construction, Like they're different. They
Speaker 1: were trying to differentiate it's just like just a signifier
Speaker 1: of like this is a gentrification house, Well now it is.
Speaker 1: I think they were trying to discuss it to be
Speaker 1: like it's not don't think it's that. It's to try
Speaker 1: to be like it's new because they're building like the
Speaker 1: same types of apartments. Are getting off topic. Sorry, sorry,
Speaker 1: we'll haring get back to the Y two K aesthetic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so tests linked to this article in Paper magazine. There
Speaker 1: was just about an interview with a kind of uh
Speaker 1: a historian, I guess of the Y two K aesthetic
Speaker 1: um as this person who runs UM the blog Institute
Speaker 1: for Why two K Aesthetics, Evan Collins, and um I
Speaker 1: think that there is especially since the arrival of vapor
Speaker 1: wave as like an Internet aesthetic, there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff that thinks it's like Y two K aesthetic,
Speaker 1: But I appreciated this interview because it's like much more
Speaker 1: granular and actually like it seems to be coming from
Speaker 1: more experience than just like teenagers, you know, not to
Speaker 1: sound like an ancient old person like teenagers who didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily it's a different my reaction. I think I've said
Speaker 1: this before, but like all the kids who dressed nineties
Speaker 1: now where you're like, oh, it's like a stylized, kind
Speaker 1: of cartoon version of nineties dressing, like oh, that's how
Speaker 1: we dressed seventies in the nineties. But you know, he so,
Speaker 1: this guy, Evan Collins says that he he kind of
Speaker 1: thinks that the Y two K aesthetic began in like
Speaker 1: three and lasted to two thousand three, So it kind
Speaker 1: of like lines up with our theory loosely that that
Speaker 1: the decades begin and end with the threes. But also
Speaker 1: it does I mean, I think of it primarily with
Speaker 1: the with the nineties stuff as being a music video
Speaker 1: aesthetic that then kind of bled out from there. Um.
Speaker 1: And he says that the key traits of the Y
Speaker 1: two K aesthetic is like, um, the futuristic feel period,
Speaker 1: which I'm look, I'm scrolling through this now there's like
Speaker 1: a great one of left eye like wearing just the
Speaker 1: most ridiculous Everything looks like um, like those jogging suits
Speaker 1: that are supposed to make you like sweat more like yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of what I'm thinking about is
Speaker 1: like high Williams video. Totally. Yeah, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: list he does a whole list of all of the
Speaker 1: Y two K aesthetic signifiers, but I'll just go through
Speaker 1: a couple of them. Translucency like the iMac translucency, Grady
Speaker 1: and blue yeah, bondy blue, motion, overlays, warping in perspective
Speaker 1: like the fish eye, lens um curves and blobs, blobjects, futuristics.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting because you can you're like, oh, okay, this,
Speaker 1: you know, I now see that it is a really
Speaker 1: cohesive aesthetic because it was all leading up to the future,
Speaker 1: which was here two thousand. Yeah. But it was like
Speaker 1: a very i would say, for the most part, a
Speaker 1: very optimistic kind of future that sort of like was
Speaker 1: taking its cues from a sort of sixties idea of
Speaker 1: the future. It was kind of a world's faise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like with the like with the rave influence because I
Speaker 1: think that, like it's interesting to point like on because
Speaker 1: that kind of is when club culture starts to really
Speaker 1: become a thing in the States. Totally. We got the
Speaker 1: Summer of Love like three years late. Yeah, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: related everything like that. But but yeah, so like that,
Speaker 1: and then you you hear it in the music, and
Speaker 1: then you see it in the fashion and everything, and
Speaker 1: kind of there's right, and the idea the two thousand
Speaker 1: was going to be like a world rave. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's what everybody. I mean. Like, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite Ye two K movies is Strange Days, which takes
Speaker 1: place around UM takes place from like Christmas to New
Speaker 1: Year's UM in the movie was made UM, but it
Speaker 1: ends with this incredible party scene. It's like outside the
Speaker 1: Bonaventure Hotel in downtown l A. And it's just like
Speaker 1: this massive crowd of people and they actually did have
Speaker 1: a huge concert where like a f X twin and
Speaker 1: a bunch of other people played and they had like
Speaker 1: a real rave and people went to the hospital because
Speaker 1: of drug roverdoses like on the set of this movie. UM.
Speaker 1: And that just seems like the epitome of like what
Speaker 1: people thought that that moment was going to be like
Speaker 1: just the biggest party. Right. It seems like all of
Speaker 1: history you're like waiting for the release. You're waiting for
Speaker 1: the drop. I would say, right now, we are waiting
Speaker 1: for the drop too, and it is the most pressing
Speaker 1: thing in the world to realize it is not going
Speaker 1: to be a drop. It's just gonna be like a slow,
Speaker 1: deep like de crescendo. It's also funny to be like ow,
Speaker 1: instead of all being outside together, everyone's like inside alone.
Speaker 1: Yeah again, never alone. It's if you have a family,
Speaker 1: you've never been less alone in your life, like having
Speaker 1: kids and generally not seeing them as much. I mean
Speaker 1: that's what you're still in, like a quiet place the movie,
Speaker 1: a quiet place you're like not really, I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm in the loudest I think, whether you're with family
Speaker 1: or not with family, like the thing the thing that
Speaker 1: feels optimistic or like I guess if you're a person
Speaker 1: who likes this sort of thing. But the thing that's
Speaker 1: appealing to you about imagining a huge Y two K
Speaker 1: esque party, for example, is not so much like the
Speaker 1: fact of actually being around the other humans as it
Speaker 1: is like kind of like sharing something again, like talking
Speaker 1: about sports at a bar with a stranger, like sharing
Speaker 1: something with somebody that you don't necessarily know, or like
Speaker 1: having these kind of randomized moments just because you're in
Speaker 1: a crowd and you're out in the world. Like that's
Speaker 1: what we're missing right now. I have to be honest, though,
Speaker 1: and I think, like this has been discussed a lot
Speaker 1: on Twitter recently, is I don't know that I'm ever
Speaker 1: going to be able to go back to enjoying some
Speaker 1: of those things. I mean, the idea of being in
Speaker 1: a huge crowd right now, even after that is like permissible,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I'm ever going to feel compelled to
Speaker 1: or like comfortable doing that. I think everyone is like
Speaker 1: people who lived through the Blitz and they're you know,
Speaker 1: everyone's going to have PTSD from this. It's like it's
Speaker 1: like a nine eleven just happening, just very slowly and
Speaker 1: like everywhere. Yeah, I totally I feel the same way.
Speaker 1: And it's really frustrating too, because it's like, on an
Speaker 1: intellectual level, I want to be able to enjoy those
Speaker 1: sorts of things, but I could already feel myself like
Speaker 1: freaking out even about the smallest little interactions right now.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be like, so it'll it'll be even
Speaker 1: worse in a way because it's not even like I
Speaker 1: won't want to go to a party, So it'll be
Speaker 1: that I want to go to a party, but I
Speaker 1: don't think I can handle going to a party, you
Speaker 1: know exactly. Sadiki had a really good tweet about it,
Speaker 1: I think yesterday, where she was like, Yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: going to just be over like anytime soon. It's not
Speaker 1: going to be like we're not going to be in
Speaker 1: a different place probably till like next summer, and then
Speaker 1: it's not going to be like before and after it's
Speaker 1: going to be like we're living in the shadow of
Speaker 1: this event for the next decade at least, you know,
Speaker 1: the way that nine eleven just became a way to
Speaker 1: like enact all this terrible policy and be like, well, hey,
Speaker 1: remember when this one scary thing happened, Like I still
Speaker 1: hold onto some hope that there will be positive changes
Speaker 1: like after this. I mean, you know, honestly, the way
Speaker 1: that people have kind of come together to try to
Speaker 1: support local businesses. And I mean today, obviously there's I
Speaker 1: keep saying obviously today not obviously, but we know that
Speaker 1: a lot of workers are on strike, and I think
Speaker 1: that the response to that has been really heartening, and
Speaker 1: I think people do have more of an understanding of
Speaker 1: how people put themselves at risk when they work for
Speaker 1: companies that really don't care about their well being. So
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that there can be some kind of like
Speaker 1: gain shared humanity. But I when I was watching I
Speaker 1: don't remember what I was watching, but there was a
Speaker 1: huge crowd scene and I was like, will that ever
Speaker 1: be something that I will want to do again? Like
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, you know, No, I've been doing a
Speaker 1: lot of like triangle shirtwaist factory fire comments in my
Speaker 1: head about just like the whole country is a factory
Speaker 1: that's on fire and like everyone's trapped inside. But people
Speaker 1: were talking about how that got us a lot of
Speaker 1: good labor regulation because of that, and I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm just so beaten down right now that I'm like,
Speaker 1: they're just gonna like run us over in their cyber trucks,
Speaker 1: like I don't know. But I also feel like that's
Speaker 1: because the news media has been so gutted. There's not
Speaker 1: a lot of coverage of the stuff that I'm actually
Speaker 1: interested in, which is also I feel like it's exciting
Speaker 1: we have a cyberpunk podcast, right, but also stuff like
Speaker 1: rent strikes, like what a lot of people like what
Speaker 1: you're seeing a New York low right now. It has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with like news coverage, has truly just
Speaker 1: to do with like ground level organizing and stuff. And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people, because of our circumstances
Speaker 1: right now, you know, it does kind of take something
Speaker 1: like this to get people to get like start doing
Speaker 1: stuff that they wouldn't be doing normally. I think people
Speaker 1: want to build an alternative to the world we live
Speaker 1: in because like things are so bleak, and maybe maybe
Speaker 1: we're trying to just make a techno commune because the
Speaker 1: idea of a physical commune seems too stressful right now.
Speaker 1: I want to know if and if you guys back
Speaker 1: to the wide two case stuff and just thinking because
Speaker 1: I just love thinking about past visions of the future.
Speaker 1: It's just like a general bucket of stuff that I'm
Speaker 1: have a great interest in. But do you think that
Speaker 1: any of it I felt I don't know how to
Speaker 1: like bad to you or felt like a wrong thing
Speaker 1: to hope for because I've been thinking about this a lot,
Speaker 1: and like I actually think that it's one of the
Speaker 1: few sort of like aspirational aesthetics that I think seems
Speaker 1: pretty wholesome, but maybe I'm missing something. Well. I remember
Speaker 1: at the time there were a lot of people who
Speaker 1: didn't like it because I thought it was too glossy,
Speaker 1: especially in wrap. People were mad at the hype Williams videos,
Speaker 1: people that were like underground heads. I think maybe Alex
Speaker 1: Pepadimus talked about traving to to deal with the fact
Speaker 1: that he liked those videos even though he was trying
Speaker 1: to be like indie um, and I think just the
Speaker 1: indie thing in general, there was like a pressure to
Speaker 1: not admit you like that aesthetic if you liked also
Speaker 1: a stripped down aesthetic. So I also had like a
Speaker 1: come to Jesus moment of like, oh, I actually love
Speaker 1: all these total Request live videos and it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: I can't also like listen to Pavement. I can like
Speaker 1: all these things. Um. But yeah, people were mad because
Speaker 1: it was also there's a lot of like sexualizment of
Speaker 1: the teens around that time as well. Sure, you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like we were like sixteen or seventeen when
Speaker 1: the Brittany Rolling Stone cover came out, which is like
Speaker 1: very peak y. K aesthetic to me like nineties aesthetic,
Speaker 1: remember being like I'm also sixteen or seventeen and I
Speaker 1: don't look like the or feel like this, and and
Speaker 1: baby spice in retrospect problematic baby Spice. But now that
Speaker 1: I'm distanced from it, I love it sure well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like at the time, I wasn't doing a lot of
Speaker 1: body glitter, but now would you can. There's a really
Speaker 1: good white two Instagram filter that I posted I found
Speaker 1: on that just gives you like a flip phone and
Speaker 1: some some face jewels. I think, I think the thing
Speaker 1: that makes me feel and it has less to deal
Speaker 1: with big like large scale pop culture, but more to
Speaker 1: do with kind of the early Internet, which is another
Speaker 1: thing we talked about here on here a lot, and
Speaker 1: we talked about with um with Claire Evans when she
Speaker 1: was on talking about her great book Broadband, which you
Speaker 1: should still read. It's great. It's got a lot of
Speaker 1: good white take why two K content in it. But
Speaker 1: like I guess, I guess when I think of these aesthetics,
Speaker 1: a lot of it just comes back to like the
Speaker 1: aesthetic that was being built built for the early Internet,
Speaker 1: and that feels really optimistic to me, and like you
Speaker 1: know the before everything just became ad driven, uh where
Speaker 1: the internet did feel like it just a place where
Speaker 1: you could figure out how to be a different kind
Speaker 1: of person. For sure, we were going to make the
Speaker 1: techno utopia. Yeah, and and so they all the kind
Speaker 1: of the look and feel of that digital world, I
Speaker 1: guess is more what I'm talking about than like hype
Speaker 1: Williams videos and necessarily even though I love all that stuff,
Speaker 1: but like, um, I guess that's and and like you know,
Speaker 1: just like art, like like shitty art that people were
Speaker 1: making for their websites and stuff like that. Well, I
Speaker 1: love Molly Soda, that artist Molly Soda makes a lot
Speaker 1: of great work about sort of that angel fire aesthetic.
Speaker 1: But we will have plenty of time to continue addressing
Speaker 1: the Y two K aesthetic. Dennis Rodman and Sports from
Speaker 1: Night Calling the Future. UM, thanks for listening today. We'll
Speaker 1: be back next. Can you please send us all your
Speaker 1: thoughts on Y two K. You can email us at
Speaker 1: Nightcall Podcast at gmail dot com. You can call us
Speaker 1: at too four oh four six night. You can also
Speaker 1: send us your thoughts via social media. We are Nightcall
Speaker 1: Pod on Twitter, Nightcall Podcast on Facebook and Instagram. Also
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Speaker 1: We are Patreon dot com. Forward slash nightcall. See you
Speaker 1: next week, See you next week. Do the worm out.