Speaker 1: On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and fair Weather
Speaker 1: Friends Media.
Speaker 2: I'd like to propose a toast. I mean, do you
Speaker 2: even know how, now that I think about it, No,
Speaker 2: I've never have. I know there have to be a
Speaker 2: bunch of examples, like it can't be rocket science. You're right.
Speaker 2: Let's turn toward our four toasters for some guidance. I'm Eves,
Speaker 2: I'm Katie, and in today's episode Raising our Glasses, we're
Speaker 2: giving you the ingredients to a perfect toast.
Speaker 1: With the help of our favorite fictional toasters.
Speaker 2: Of course, have you ever seen a terrible toast?
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on what you mean by terrible,
Speaker 1: because I've seen toasts that are highly underwhelming, like it's
Speaker 1: clear that the person wanted to say something, maybe because
Speaker 1: they felt like they were obligated to say something. Okay,
Speaker 1: and they weren't a speaker, because not everybody's a speaker.
Speaker 1: That's true, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: It's not self aware and everyone no, they're not a speaker.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, And and different toasts for different occasions call
Speaker 1: for different things as well. So I've seen toasts that
Speaker 1: are underwhelming, inappropriate maybe a little bit maybe and toasts
Speaker 1: that maybe are like too long for the moment. Okay,
Speaker 1: but I don't think I've ever seen a toast that
Speaker 1: was terrible, because terrible to me would be like somebody throwing.
Speaker 2: Tomatoes after Okay, well, I mean I feel like most
Speaker 2: people haven't seen it. If those are the the criteria
Speaker 2: for terrible, I've seen lazy ones, like not bad enough
Speaker 2: to be super memorial. I remember that I didn't like them,
Speaker 2: but you could tell that the person just like didn't
Speaker 2: put that much thought into it, you know.
Speaker 1: But you've never seen anybody like try to burn the
Speaker 1: place down that they're in because something offensive was said
Speaker 1: in a toast. No.
Speaker 2: I feel like, especially with black people, when you get together,
Speaker 2: you know, like at a wedding, at a birthday party
Speaker 2: where people are toasting, like you spend a little money
Speaker 2: and no one's trying to ruin that. Yeah, because there's
Speaker 2: not that many cases where we're going to be spending
Speaker 2: a little money.
Speaker 1: Well, also with black people, we are forever trying to
Speaker 1: keep it cute and cordial.
Speaker 2: Keep it cute, just we talk about it in the car.
Speaker 1: But when something needs to be said in the moment
Speaker 1: in the space, nah, probably not gonna happen.
Speaker 2: So I haven't seen a terrible one in that regard.
Speaker 1: Either, right, I imagine there's like toast making one on
Speaker 1: one that could get people really.
Speaker 2: Far exactly Like, you ain't got to be a toast
Speaker 2: master overnight, but you're not going to be sounding goofy either.
Speaker 1: So what makes a good toast? Is there a formula
Speaker 1: for it?
Speaker 2: You know, there's definitely not hard and fast rules. I'd
Speaker 2: say more like guidelines. A well delivered toast has the
Speaker 2: power to bring nostalgia, laughter, even tears of joy, and
Speaker 2: most well received toasts do have a few things in common.
Speaker 1: So would you say that toasts in real life are
Speaker 1: really different than toasts in movies and TV shows.
Speaker 2: Like as far as what makes them good?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like there are certain things that don't make sense
Speaker 1: in the real world that sound or look really cool
Speaker 1: on the screen.
Speaker 2: True, But that's the thing about toasts, their performance, whether
Speaker 2: you're a real wedding or a sound stage wedding. So
Speaker 2: there's not a huge difference in fictional and nonfictional ones.
Speaker 2: So if you got to make a toast, you could
Speaker 2: high key learn a lot from fake ones.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm ready to pull out my notebook let's hear it.
Speaker 2: Okay, this first one sets the stage for the toast.
Speaker 2: If this doesn't apply to you at the wedding, at
Speaker 2: the graduation, at the birthday party, and you're thinking about
Speaker 2: making a toast, I mean he needs you to log
Speaker 2: off for me, Okay, And what is that? It's a
Speaker 2: personal connection, like if you are a plus one and
Speaker 2: don't really know the folks like that, No needs to
Speaker 2: make a toast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not really knowing the person you're making a toast
Speaker 1: about is kind of awkward, kind of like, look at me,
Speaker 1: I want some of the attention, too.
Speaker 2: Right, it's tacky. One person who has this first toast
Speaker 2: ingredient down pack is Kelly from Insecure.
Speaker 1: All right, y'all, gather around, gather around. I myself may
Speaker 1: not be partaking, but by all means, grab an adult
Speaker 1: boissant and join me in a toast. Now. I don't
Speaker 1: like children, I never have.
Speaker 2: They're small features and stilted movements remind me of tiny demons.
Speaker 1: But not Simone.
Speaker 3: This little girl means so so much to me.
Speaker 1: Baby girl's going to be a force when she grows up.
Speaker 3: I am so proud to be her godmother.
Speaker 1: Happy birthday, Samo and angel amongst demons. Cheers, cheer, cheers.
Speaker 2: She's talking about her godchild at the baby's first birthday.
Speaker 2: She's known the kid since before day one. Baby sits often,
Speaker 2: probably feeds and changes diapers, so she definitely has that
Speaker 2: personal connection.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she kind of went off the rails with
Speaker 1: dissing other babies, but hey, I mean she said what
Speaker 1: she said.
Speaker 2: She stood her ground, and that brings us to our
Speaker 2: second ingredient. If you're gonna toast, make your heartfelt. Kelly
Speaker 2: truly meant what she said. The person you're toasting and
Speaker 2: everybody else will be able to tell if your sentiments
Speaker 2: are genuine or not, so please keep it real.
Speaker 1: Okay. Personal connection check, heartfelt check.
Speaker 2: Okay. And this next one, Loki, I think is the
Speaker 2: most important one. Like, if you mess this up, you
Speaker 2: more than likely have killed the vibe.
Speaker 1: Okay, the suspense.
Speaker 2: Do you want to guess?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: What is it? Tell me? All right?
Speaker 2: All right, after this ad break, I'll tell you and
Speaker 2: we're back. So I'm gonna hop right into this next
Speaker 2: perfect toast ingredient. Finally, Okay, Okay, a good toast is concise.
Speaker 1: I should have known you would think that was the
Speaker 1: most important, you really care about keeping things short and cute.
Speaker 2: I mean, think about it. If you're giving a toast,
Speaker 2: you're in the midst of a celebratory moment. So folks
Speaker 2: want to have fun. They don't want to hear you
Speaker 2: drone on and on. Say what you got to say
Speaker 2: and let them folks enjoy themselves.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Sometimes people are so gassed that someone's listening
Speaker 1: to them they feel like they have to talk for
Speaker 1: a long time.
Speaker 2: Dray and Blackish has the conciseness bit down everybody.
Speaker 1: I propose a toast to junior, but stepping out on
Speaker 1: his own, Oh you know, he might blow it.
Speaker 3: He might not.
Speaker 2: The junior junior.
Speaker 1: Okay, why are all these examples so shady?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one was kind of shady, but it was
Speaker 2: concise and the shadiest of This one in particular, has
Speaker 2: me thinking about what role toast play and storytelling, you know,
Speaker 2: like from the TV shows and movies I've watched, toasts
Speaker 2: mark a transition. There's a clear demarcation of the before
Speaker 2: and after in these scenes. The toasty grows up before
Speaker 2: our eyes in that moment, like Dre is toasting Junior
Speaker 2: because he's moving out on his own, which is kind
Speaker 2: of scary for a parent to witness. And as the audience,
Speaker 2: we've seen this kid grow up and the toast is
Speaker 2: solidifying him as a young man finding his own way.
Speaker 2: And even if it's not that deep for the toasty,
Speaker 2: as I say in the case of Kelly Toasten baby Simone,
Speaker 2: it is clear that the friend group we've been watching
Speaker 2: for several seasons is changing. Having a one year old
Speaker 2: is a big change in lifestyle, outlook, availability. So I
Speaker 2: think when toasts are included in the plot, that's what
Speaker 2: they're saying without explicitly saying it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think that toasts and storytelling happen in
Speaker 1: moments that are very important, and oftentimes there are all
Speaker 1: these different subplots that are coming together, and maybe characters
Speaker 1: are all together in a room where they're not necessarily
Speaker 1: always all together in a room. Just thinking about the
Speaker 1: physicality of a toast, like there's an audio queue for
Speaker 1: people to stop and listen in a moment, and also
Speaker 1: you have the captive attention of a lot of people
Speaker 1: in one moment, which, now that I'm thinking about it,
Speaker 1: is a thing that doesn't happen that often in life
Speaker 1: because we have so many distractions. Having a large audiences
Speaker 1: clear attention in a moment is actually like kind of
Speaker 1: a privilege. It's an anomaly. You have the sound of
Speaker 1: the toast and the speech, and then you also have
Speaker 1: the silence of everybody around them that makes the storytelling
Speaker 1: so clear to witness through that toast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like their idea about the subplots coming together.
Speaker 2: And it's like that way in real life too. Like
Speaker 2: we talked about, like how different are toasts in movies
Speaker 2: and TV shows versus toast in real life, And like
Speaker 2: when Junior gets toasted too by his dad Dre, the
Speaker 2: grandparents are there, the girlfriend's there, the sister's there, the
Speaker 2: mom's there, and like many instances, like your grandparents are
Speaker 2: really gonna be kicking it with your girlfriend like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Or at Simone's birthday party, you know, Lawrence and his
Speaker 2: baby Mama's there, and you know, the other friend groups
Speaker 2: are there, the coworkers are there, Like that's not really
Speaker 2: something that happens that often in the show. And you
Speaker 2: know for weddings in real life, birthday parties, graduations, it's like,
Speaker 2: all right, I would just invite all my people. I
Speaker 2: know y'all don't really kick it like that. But we
Speaker 2: just gonna do this one thing together. Yeah. So it's
Speaker 2: like the subplots like kind of converge you and maybe
Speaker 2: it creates some more subplots because those people that aren't
Speaker 2: normally interacted start interacting.
Speaker 1: It's likely to get messy.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's giving more mess for us to watch and
Speaker 2: to consume.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're there for.
Speaker 2: We're here for the mess. We're here for the mess. Truly.
Speaker 2: One important toast ingredient that Drey was missing. A perfect
Speaker 2: toast expresses gratitude or congratulations.
Speaker 1: Right, he definitely could have congratulated his son for stepping
Speaker 1: out on his own or expressed gratitude that he had
Speaker 1: been a great son and an integral member of the family.
Speaker 2: Hey, we all fall short of the glory. And speaking
Speaker 2: of falling short, yeah, do you remember the toast from
Speaker 2: Best Man? Got you? Let me do it, Let me
Speaker 2: do it? Okay, Okay, my bad, Okay. So Tadud's character's
Speaker 2: toast was heartfelt. Next time y'all watch the movie, peep
Speaker 2: that the other grooonsman takes his prepared speech away, like, nah,
Speaker 2: you gotta speak from the heart after the way you
Speaker 2: was moving.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, you can't write a whole book about sleeping
Speaker 1: with your best friends soon to be wife and not
Speaker 1: speak from the heart.
Speaker 2: You gotta lay it all out.
Speaker 3: At this point, I have learned from them what it
Speaker 3: means to be truly committed to another person. I have
Speaker 3: learned the importance of seizing a moment because it can't
Speaker 3: go back. You can never go back. You have to
Speaker 3: live for today, not for what was or or could
Speaker 3: have been, and what will be no one can say.
Speaker 3: But sometimes you just have to step out on faith
Speaker 3: and believe that what you have built together is worth preserving.
Speaker 2: He was moving funny, but at least he got the
Speaker 2: toast right Andy. He had the personal connection heartfel and concise,
Speaker 2: and he congratulated the people he was toasting of. Five stars,
Speaker 2: pay digs, five stars, five stars.
Speaker 1: Okay, So if you're preparing your toast, you're likely like
Speaker 1: working on it beforehand, right, so you're probably writing it down,
Speaker 1: you're editing your toast. You might add things in later,
Speaker 1: you might do it early. If you do it early enough,
Speaker 1: you have time to just exist in the world or
Speaker 1: be around that person, and maybe certain things will come
Speaker 1: up that you realize you didn't put in the toast,
Speaker 1: and you can go back and you can put them
Speaker 1: in the toast, so you have time to work with
Speaker 1: the toast beforehand, is what I'm trying to say. Do
Speaker 1: you need to memorize your toast or can you come
Speaker 1: with the paper? Like is there a difference between the
Speaker 1: two in the moment?
Speaker 2: Okay, all the ones that we saw had no paper
Speaker 2: right or cell phone. And I do think reading it
Speaker 2: makes it feel like a little because, like, you know,
Speaker 2: not everyone to speak, as we said, so people do
Speaker 2: get nervous and there's a lot sometimes there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people around, so you don't want to like mess up.
Speaker 2: But there's somebo that somebot that memorized slashed off the
Speaker 2: cuff that gives it Esa and Jennison.
Speaker 1: Quah, Yeah, I think so too, But I also think
Speaker 1: that's a lot of pressure on a person who doesn't
Speaker 1: normally speak in public and definitely doesn't have to memorize.
Speaker 1: I do think that it isn't just a function of
Speaker 1: storytelling in these clips that we saw that they don't
Speaker 1: have things. It is a function of who the characters
Speaker 1: are to not have come with their speeches on paper
Speaker 1: or on their phones.
Speaker 2: I think that might be one of the biggest departures
Speaker 2: from reality okay that we're seeing in these scripted tales,
Speaker 2: because one, they're actors anyway, you can't memorize lines. But yeah,
Speaker 2: for like a regular civilian to memorize maybe like a
Speaker 2: three minute toast, I don't know, uh huh, to memorize one.
Speaker 2: Maybe to just say one off the cuff, I can see.
Speaker 2: But it's gonna be good, probably not.
Speaker 1: You have to be good at that. You have to
Speaker 1: know you're gonna be good at that, and you have
Speaker 1: to have done this kind of thing before.
Speaker 2: But when someone's like, hey, hey, you can you say
Speaker 2: some You don't have time to prayer. You don't have
Speaker 2: time write none down either, And I.
Speaker 1: Don't like that. It stresses me out thinking about it.
Speaker 1: And I speak for a living. It stresses me out
Speaker 1: thinking about somebody saying well, it's like pointing the person
Speaker 1: out saying you do you have the answer? It's like, I,
Speaker 1: I didn't come here to toast, like, I wasn't prepared
Speaker 1: to do that, So calling somebody else out to do
Speaker 1: that feels a little rude to me.
Speaker 2: It is, but I think people's perceptions are colored by
Speaker 2: what they see on TV. It's like people give toes
Speaker 2: all the time. It's easy, it's breezy. I ain't gonna
Speaker 2: do it, but I want you to. So I do
Speaker 2: think having a memorized or off the cuff toast has
Speaker 2: the connotation of caring more.
Speaker 1: I think that that is a tough one because of
Speaker 1: different people's dispositions in the way that they interact with
Speaker 1: the world. And I know it can be super anxiety
Speaker 1: inducing to have to get up in front of a
Speaker 1: bunch of people, and that having that thing on paper
Speaker 1: can maybe de escalate the intensity of the moment a
Speaker 1: little bit. So I wonder if there is a way
Speaker 1: to if there's like a middle ground. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's like you have the note a telepropter for toast,
Speaker 1: or if you have the note and you're holding it low,
Speaker 1: you have the toast in your hand and you're holding
Speaker 1: it low and you refer to it every now and then.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you just make sure that you only have
Speaker 1: bullet points on your note for toasts so you can
Speaker 1: bring yourself back into the moment. True.
Speaker 2: True, because if you read it and you sounded like
Speaker 2: that second getter who don't read good yet, I think
Speaker 2: people are gonna be. But that's just me. That just
Speaker 2: me hating.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know how I am a hater. Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 1: So at the top of this episode, you wanted to
Speaker 1: make a toast but didn't know how. But it sounds
Speaker 1: like you learned a thing or four.
Speaker 2: So you're right, and we'll test my newfound skills after
Speaker 2: the break. To my brilliant and artistic friend, Eaves, I
Speaker 2: raise my glass to celebrate your incredible literary journey. I
Speaker 2: look forward to you shepherding us into worlds unknown. Here's
Speaker 2: to the boundless creativity that flows from your pen into
Speaker 2: the countless tales yet to be told. Cheers to you,
Speaker 2: Eves for inspiring us to see the world through new lenses.
Speaker 1: Oh that was really sweet of you, Katie. I liked
Speaker 1: your toast. I feel like you followed all of these
Speaker 1: rules of giving a good toast. It was congratulatory, it
Speaker 1: was definitely hard. It felt it was related to our
Speaker 1: specific situations, and I could tell that you thought about
Speaker 1: it deeply and you were thinking about what to put
Speaker 1: in it beforehand.
Speaker 2: So I really liked that toast, and I really like you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, which is probably a key thing in giving
Speaker 1: a toast. That you like the person who you're giving
Speaker 1: a toast about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no need to toast someone you do not fuck with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't do it period.
Speaker 2: Now it is time for roll credits.
Speaker 1: Roll them. So, Katie, what person place saying idea? Would
Speaker 1: you like to give credit to you today?
Speaker 2: I would like to give credit to Palestine. And I
Speaker 2: say that with no qualifications. I say that with no preamble.
Speaker 2: I say that with no PostScript. I believe in a
Speaker 2: free Palestine. I believe in a free Hawaii. I believe
Speaker 2: in free Puerto Rico. I believe in free Guam. I
Speaker 2: believe in a free Atlanta, Georgia. And Jackson, Mississippian freedom boys.
Speaker 2: Who would you like to give credit to?
Speaker 1: I would like to give credit to healing today. I
Speaker 1: would like to give credit to everybody who's on a
Speaker 1: healing journey. I would like to give credit to everyone
Speaker 1: who is finding out what healing means to them in
Speaker 1: different ways. I would like to give credit to people
Speaker 1: who are unapologetically healing and people who are apologetically healing,
Speaker 1: because in the end, the healing is happening and I'm
Speaker 1: happy about that. I would like to give credit to
Speaker 1: the act of healing in general. For all of the
Speaker 1: people who need it. I know when we are living
Speaker 1: our lives that it can be so difficult to be
Speaker 1: intentional about our healing processes. So in whatever soft ways
Speaker 1: and whatever hard ways, and whatever challenging ways and whatever
Speaker 1: ways that people are healing in this moment, for all
Speaker 1: of the myriad things that are going on in this world,
Speaker 1: I want to give credit to them.
Speaker 2: And we'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: Bye bye. On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Fairweather Friends Media. This episode was written by Eves Jeffco
Speaker 1: and Katie Mitchell. It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison.
Speaker 1: Follow us on Instagram at on Themeshow. You can also
Speaker 1: send us an email at hello at ontheme dot show.
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