Speaker 1: Look man, oh I see you? Why oh and look
Speaker 1: over there? How is that? Yes? Goodness dat Cultures calling?
Speaker 1: How are you today? You know I've been um oh,
Speaker 1: the hand is on the forehead, honey, I've been on
Speaker 1: the damn California Coaster. Is that what it's called the
Speaker 1: Incredit Coaster? The Incredit Coaster? What I just feel I
Speaker 1: just emotionally have been very up and down, up and down,
Speaker 1: up and down. You emotionally have been on the Incredit Coaster,
Speaker 1: just because that coast your famously, like many coasters, goes
Speaker 1: up and down, Hunt up and down. And then I
Speaker 1: had I had Holly Hunter and Sarah Vowel screaming in
Speaker 1: my ear. Wow. Truly the California Adventure appreciation happening already
Speaker 1: right off the job. We have to stand bowing yang
Speaker 1: a Disney girl. Yes, yes, I will never forget. I
Speaker 1: love the Incredit Coast. Oh. We've shared many memories, many memories.
Speaker 1: I long for the day where I can return to
Speaker 1: the Incredit Coster. You will return, and we will. We
Speaker 1: will also once again stroll through Radiator Spring. We will
Speaker 1: are you now? I feel like it's very important for
Speaker 1: me to ask you are you making arrangements that whenever
Speaker 1: you get the vaccine, it will be at Disneyland. No,
Speaker 1: you're shaking your head. Well, okay, so there's there's the
Speaker 1: announcement that one of the vaccination sites is going to
Speaker 1: be Disneyland. And I would say, in a perfect world, yes,
Speaker 1: of course I go, and I get it sort of
Speaker 1: in front of the Haunted mansion. You understand the photo
Speaker 1: of um. But I'll really just take it from anywhere.
Speaker 1: I mean not to sound uncouth, but I will take
Speaker 1: it from anywhere anywhere. I'll get the vaccine wherever I
Speaker 1: can get it anyway before we bring our guests in.
Speaker 1: And I never do this, but I feel like Shudy
Speaker 1: said that I had to do this. She said you
Speaker 1: have to shout her out on the pod. I just
Speaker 1: really quickly. I want to just celebrate. Let's all celebrate,
Speaker 1: as readers, the one, the only Regina King truly what if?
Speaker 1: What if? True? True? Icon and I were not We
Speaker 1: throw that word around a lot all the time, but
Speaker 1: she is. I mean just that that what a career,
Speaker 1: what if? And what a present? Like there's only one?
Speaker 1: That everyone was just an awe, there's only one. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's only one. I just I thought about this, it
Speaker 1: was like two seven like Boondogs, I'm jumping around like
Speaker 1: Boys in the Hood, Justice Ray, like all of it, Watchman,
Speaker 1: Jerry McGuire. She's been around forever. I mean, obviously what
Speaker 1: we know her recent wins because she's been she's been
Speaker 1: rewarded for in a way that she should be a
Speaker 1: needs to be. But it has been an entire career
Speaker 1: of incredible work, like the fact that like Jamie Fox
Speaker 1: got all that awards attention for Ray and no one
Speaker 1: said anything about not just Regina King, but also Carry
Speaker 1: Washington in that movie. I was like, that movie had
Speaker 1: supporting actresses killing it and also Regina King and literally everything.
Speaker 1: And there was a while there where she was like
Speaker 1: ubiquitous and it's just always so good that no one
Speaker 1: gave the appreciation, and so to see her getting so
Speaker 1: much appreciation now rocks. And she had a great episode
Speaker 1: of SNL and you got to do a sketchle basically
Speaker 1: a two hand or with her. What a thrill. And
Speaker 1: then I told a conversation she had with me on
Speaker 1: Saturday morning. I won't reveal it, don't reveal that some
Speaker 1: things have to be private, some things have to be
Speaker 1: private between the stars. Some things have to be between
Speaker 1: the stars. It's a real of culture. It's a real culture.
Speaker 1: Number forty two. Somethings have to be between the stars,
Speaker 1: you know. Okay, I just wanted to just give that
Speaker 1: space for her. And now we have to bring in
Speaker 1: our guests, who I also hold an equal esteem. Truly,
Speaker 1: we were talking about this. You and I met equal
Speaker 1: esteem to Regina King. Let's hear that that is something.
Speaker 1: That is that is something. Okay, I don't know what
Speaker 1: we're doing. That what there's nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: You just you just accept it. Um okay. He is
Speaker 1: a correspondent with NPR. He hosts It's Been a Minute
Speaker 1: with Sam Sanders. Incredible host, such a good listener, like
Speaker 1: and you know he does he does active listening, which
Speaker 1: I appreciate on podcast. And yes, he understands because you'll
Speaker 1: see the guests will be saying something and making a
Speaker 1: point and you it will be often that you will
Speaker 1: hear Sam sort of go ye say yes, my team
Speaker 1: is actually saved some of the owns. Yes, it's iconic
Speaker 1: and it is active listening, and it is it is
Speaker 1: premier podcast hosting. And I appreciate my goodness, thank you.
Speaker 1: Perfect synthesis is like of uh, journalism meets pop culture
Speaker 1: commentary meets breaking down news items every Friday, there's two
Speaker 1: episodes each week, one on Tuesday, one on Friday. Fridays
Speaker 1: or the news summaries Tuesdays are like the in depth days. Um,
Speaker 1: such a phenomenal listen. I'm sure there's many readers who
Speaker 1: listen to the show. But everyone, please welcome to your
Speaker 1: ears senders. So I've never gotten the more through asked
Speaker 1: like welcome. I'm so happy to be but you know
Speaker 1: you deserve it. Being a sort of Regina King figure.
Speaker 1: Can I tell y'all my Regina Keene story her? So
Speaker 1: when she was doing like doing all the press for Watchmen,
Speaker 1: like we got her, and I didn't think we're gonna
Speaker 1: get her because she's a big deal, but she and
Speaker 1: this was still the before time, so folks coming coming
Speaker 1: into the office and yeah, she had come in and uh,
Speaker 1: she wanted some time, and I was like, sure, whatever
Speaker 1: you need, and she wanted time to eat her lunch.
Speaker 1: And she had her assistant, this lovely human being, bring
Speaker 1: her like a fish plate from the South Side, and
Speaker 1: she just like sat there and talked with me outside
Speaker 1: eating her fish plate, just like an around the way girl,
Speaker 1: so chill, so down home. And then we get the interview.
Speaker 1: She's opening up. She's amazing, but then afterwards she's just like,
Speaker 1: let's take some pictures together. Like she's so she wants
Speaker 1: to relate to everybody, and there's no there's no ego
Speaker 1: around her at all, even as she gets more and
Speaker 1: more accolades. Mm hmmmmmm. Here's the thing. I mean, Matt
Speaker 1: and I sat next to her um on this talk
Speaker 1: show on Facebook Sonia Deny and and we were we
Speaker 1: were on it regularly, like in like a guest capacity,
Speaker 1: and it was us and Rebecca O'Neill, and we were
Speaker 1: there and Snia was hosting and Regina King was the guest.
Speaker 1: And this was like after she had won her American
Speaker 1: Crime Story UM and but before she won the one
Speaker 1: for seven seconds and before if Bill Street could talk,
Speaker 1: really the buzz had really started. So it was like
Speaker 1: that moment like where she was getting her do but
Speaker 1: hadn't gotten like her big do yet and the way
Speaker 1: she has recently. And she was the coolest. She came
Speaker 1: in she fly as ship and also shout out because okay,
Speaker 1: her stylists are women and Michael who also styled hot Dog.
Speaker 1: So I actually got to meet the people that put
Speaker 1: her together and they are the best in the biz,
Speaker 1: I can tell you. And we were we were like
Speaker 1: jamming with her on this show. Matt, you predicted that
Speaker 1: she was gonna win the Oscar for Beal Street. Well,
Speaker 1: I said, I think you're gonna win the any first
Speaker 1: seven seconds, which was an even more niche prediction. No
Speaker 1: one was saying that. But then you also you peppered in, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Beal shriek of talk was like it was it
Speaker 1: was clear that that was gonna be a conversation. But damn,
Speaker 1: she's the best. And the thing is, she's been good
Speaker 1: from the start. There's never like a bad performance of her.
Speaker 1: I remember when she was in that Will Smith movie
Speaker 1: that was like an intelligent spy thriller. It was called
Speaker 1: Enemy of the State. She played his wife. She was
Speaker 1: pitched perfect in that, and she's she's just always been
Speaker 1: there giving you the best she's got. Yes, you know
Speaker 1: what the thing is with her, it's like I would
Speaker 1: liken it too. When you hear like Rihanna on the
Speaker 1: radio or like Britney Spears on the radio, someone who's
Speaker 1: just like got that sound. That is a signal. Sure,
Speaker 1: Regina King, she is the signature she is. She stands
Speaker 1: out like that's that's how you have a real star.
Speaker 1: Her voice sort of like the look she can give
Speaker 1: like that where it's very soulful but also like, um,
Speaker 1: very commedically precise. And that's because she was doing a
Speaker 1: ton of comedy and drama at the same time. Like
Speaker 1: it's crazy to see both those things kind of come
Speaker 1: to a head. And I feel like Watchman is such
Speaker 1: a great use of all of her talents that it's
Speaker 1: that thing of like star meats vehicle where it feels
Speaker 1: right and for that to come post the Oscar wind
Speaker 1: like beautiful, that's beautiful. I mean, you're you're seeing a
Speaker 1: true solidification of the A list stardom that she has
Speaker 1: so earned and people forget. She did multiple voices in
Speaker 1: The Bone Docks, multiple voices because she was waiting for
Speaker 1: Huwie and they were auditioning Huwie and then they couldn't
Speaker 1: find the right person and she was just like, can
Speaker 1: I just play that? Can I just play both? And
Speaker 1: they were like sure, like talk about like someone who
Speaker 1: like knows what I want and like goes for it
Speaker 1: and like we should, I should just say that. Like
Speaker 1: her input was like truly everyone took it to heart
Speaker 1: this this past week, where like she had input on
Speaker 1: everything and we were just like yes, of course, whatever
Speaker 1: you want and always everything made it better anyway, just her.
Speaker 1: I got to talk to all about y'all's last episode
Speaker 1: because I loved it so much, And we have to
Speaker 1: talk to you about a recent episode because we feel
Speaker 1: we actually created a companion piece moment. Oh, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Tell me, well, it's your it's your Whitney episode. Girl.
Speaker 1: I was really happy with that one. We so we'll
Speaker 1: do that first, and then I'll talk about Justin Timberlake,
Speaker 1: because I have thoughts on that movie and I would
Speaker 1: like to hear all of them. Yes, yes, so we
Speaker 1: I had read that essay by Danielle Smith. She wrote
Speaker 1: like an oral history of Whitney Houston's national anthem at
Speaker 1: the ninety one Super Bowl in Tampa, and it's perfect
Speaker 1: came out five years ago and I remember loving it
Speaker 1: back then, reading it like five times over and crying um.
Speaker 1: And the week of the super Bowl, at our weekly
Speaker 1: pitch meeting, our producer Janet, she was like this might
Speaker 1: feel weird, but like an easy way for us to
Speaker 1: cover the Super Bowl with not having like talk about sports,
Speaker 1: might be talking about the anniversary of this rendition, And
Speaker 1: I said, we've got just the person, and so we
Speaker 1: get Danielle Smith. And the goal was to make her
Speaker 1: the middle part of our Friday episode, so no more
Speaker 1: than twelve minutes, because we cut everything down. We taped it.
Speaker 1: As soon as we finished, we all get on the
Speaker 1: phone were like, that's the episode. That's it, there can
Speaker 1: be nothing else. She was amazing, she was so good
Speaker 1: and like it reminds, it reminds you, And this is
Speaker 1: what y'all were doing last week with Brittany. How our
Speaker 1: culture mistreats females. We mistreat them, we don't value them.
Speaker 1: We asked too much of them. You know. Part of
Speaker 1: the tragedy of Whitney is that she felt too much
Speaker 1: pressure to be perfect, to be the perfect pop star.
Speaker 1: And it's hard, it's hard. But I was glad that
Speaker 1: we got to make the episode and it was it
Speaker 1: was it was. I mean, I was fighting back tears
Speaker 1: talking to her about it, and I'm just glad that
Speaker 1: they got out in the world. Well. Ending of that
Speaker 1: episode where you have Danielle read from the last part
Speaker 1: of the essay, and it's true poetry. The way that
Speaker 1: she talks about like the lights intersecting with with the
Speaker 1: sky so that it looks like in the Glory of God,
Speaker 1: you're just like, oh, taking you to church. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's just like, but you know what's crazy is there
Speaker 1: is a there are so many more tragic Whitney stories
Speaker 1: and the biz that we just don't talk about because
Speaker 1: how many women are chewed up and spit out by
Speaker 1: the beast and then we just forget, you know, yeah, countless.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that it's it's really something to
Speaker 1: think about how much they provided to everyone and fed everyone,
Speaker 1: like and I think I think that there is something
Speaker 1: because it's something that I really connected with in that
Speaker 1: episode and something that Danielle talks about a lot is
Speaker 1: that Whitney positioned herself to culturally be the only person
Speaker 1: that could really deliver that to the American people in
Speaker 1: that moment, and she had been such a huge pop
Speaker 1: star and she had I believed the way that she
Speaker 1: phrased it is she has she had experienced in moving
Speaker 1: people and that the NFL recognized that and like whoever
Speaker 1: was in charge of UM programming that recognized that, and
Speaker 1: then she delivered it. And you guys talk really interestingly
Speaker 1: about the way that she was dressed, how she was
Speaker 1: very dressed down. Yeah, yeah, and it just it's so
Speaker 1: crazy because it's it's literally like these women, these performers,
Speaker 1: can't do enough to to to get us to just
Speaker 1: treat them well, because this is someone who just met
Speaker 1: us right on the level we needed and gave us
Speaker 1: so much and truly roused the country. And I mean
Speaker 1: rousing in the truest form of that word. I mean
Speaker 1: she's sang the national anthem like it needed to be sung,
Speaker 1: not how a quote unquote should be sung, how it
Speaker 1: needed to be sung. And from that moment she only
Speaker 1: gave more when because the body Guard album wasn't even
Speaker 1: a thought in anyone's head at that point, and then
Speaker 1: she would really reach even an apex that was further
Speaker 1: up from that moment, and still we treated her like
Speaker 1: she was not human by the time, by the time
Speaker 1: the nineties were coming to a close, she was a
Speaker 1: full on punchline, a full on joke, and her humanity
Speaker 1: had been stripped of her the public consciousness and it's
Speaker 1: so similar to Brittany. I remember watching the reality show
Speaker 1: being Bobby Brown laughing at it, and now I'm ashamed
Speaker 1: that I enjoyed that, you know, and it's just like
Speaker 1: we do this again and again and again, and I
Speaker 1: was so I was so happy that you all talked
Speaker 1: about it in your show last week. And I'm also happy,
Speaker 1: Matt that you shouted out the Brittany album Glory, because
Speaker 1: I've been playing it and you're right, it's good. Glory
Speaker 1: doesn't what's the one of where she's like, do you
Speaker 1: want to come over? I like, I'm so happy we
Speaker 1: are prolonging that do you want to come over? Conversation?
Speaker 1: Because it's really a national conversation going forward. This is
Speaker 1: every episode we're gonna be talking about it. How do
Speaker 1: y'all so speaking of women being treated badly by the industry?
Speaker 1: How do y'all feel about whatever Justin is doing now?
Speaker 1: You know? Be nice? Well, I mean, I will say
Speaker 1: I I don't think the apology is good enough. I
Speaker 1: think and I think that he really should not have
Speaker 1: grouped them together and the same apology. I really feel
Speaker 1: two different stories to different women, two different and when
Speaker 1: you plug it together like that, it's sort of as
Speaker 1: a way to skip over, like the the experience of
Speaker 1: both of those women. So I think the apology should
Speaker 1: have been much more focused on. To Brittany, here's what
Speaker 1: I want to say, and here's my genuine, heartfelt apology.
Speaker 1: To Janet, here's what I want to say about what
Speaker 1: I did. I'm taking accountability and letting everyone know this
Speaker 1: is what I'm apologizing for, and here's my apology that's
Speaker 1: hard felt, and then say I'm going to do the
Speaker 1: work continuing and cut it. We did not need lines
Speaker 1: about how the industry is fucked up. We did not
Speaker 1: need lines about the ways in which you know, he
Speaker 1: should be acquitted for crimes against these women. Like we
Speaker 1: needed acknowledgement, genuine apology, and a statement of a mission
Speaker 1: statement going forward about what he's going to do. And
Speaker 1: it did not provide that. So for me, it was
Speaker 1: not good enough. Yeah, And instead it was just, um,
Speaker 1: it was him just sort of flattening all contexts by
Speaker 1: lumping them together and then thinking that there was like, um,
Speaker 1: a catch all the way to like treat both of
Speaker 1: those cases. And I don't know if you guys agree,
Speaker 1: I feel like there is no apology that like would
Speaker 1: make it right in my eyes where I'm just like no,
Speaker 1: just like Justin can take he can he can withstand this,
Speaker 1: like mark on his career by like like like I
Speaker 1: think he can withstand that, because there is no like
Speaker 1: making it right for either Brittany or Janet. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can't give Janet back the years that she lost. We
Speaker 1: just really can't do. And people forget how big of
Speaker 1: a deal Janet was. We think of Madonna as like
Speaker 1: the premier pop star of that era. Janet was right
Speaker 1: up in it. Yeah, they were, they were, they were
Speaker 1: the two. Yeah, I'm like, it's also justin Timberlake fun fact. Uh. One.
Speaker 1: It got me thinking and reminding myself of how like
Speaker 1: his vocals were never great. The Falsetto was fine, And
Speaker 1: someone pointed out to me on Twitter because I was
Speaker 1: tweeting about him last week. The final Falsetto runs in
Speaker 1: Crimeer River. He doesn't sing that. Marcia Ambrosius of Flower
Speaker 1: Tree is singing the that's her, that's not even him. Look,
Speaker 1: that happens a lot in pop music, and it happens
Speaker 1: with Brittany. We know all the time. It's just it's
Speaker 1: just like it's symbolic if it's it's it's it's further
Speaker 1: like sort of like hits home the fact that he
Speaker 1: has built his career off of women, let's just say
Speaker 1: women and black women, Yes, people with more ability than him,
Speaker 1: like and and because the thing with Justin Timberlake is
Speaker 1: they really what have you believe? And I say they
Speaker 1: capital th h y. I was like, Hollywood would really
Speaker 1: have us believe that he can do it all? They
Speaker 1: were trying to make the whole entire era he was
Speaker 1: like the new rat pack kind of thing. They were
Speaker 1: really pushing him as like someone who could sing, dance, act,
Speaker 1: entertain and you know, there was a moment where he
Speaker 1: was trying to be all over sn L. There was
Speaker 1: a moment with like the Social Network and stuff like
Speaker 1: they wanted to make him a renaissance man. He really wasn't.
Speaker 1: He just really wasn't. What's so funny is like when
Speaker 1: you when you watch The Social Network now, he really
Speaker 1: was the perfect person for that part because Sean partner
Speaker 1: ends up being a weak bitch who's like crying in
Speaker 1: that in that apartment when they're getting arrested, being like
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen and going crazy on it. You can
Speaker 1: just tell that's like, so probably what it looked like
Speaker 1: when that happened at the super Bowl. You can kind
Speaker 1: of think in your head like he definitely was crying back.
Speaker 1: What's gonna happen? Oh my god? Yeah, what's y'all's favorite
Speaker 1: Janet video? Janet had so many great videos. I think
Speaker 1: y'all said the last time favorite Brittany video is Toxic,
Speaker 1: which I agree with. Okay, so for the first years,
Speaker 1: but what's yours? I love Escapade, I love but from
Speaker 1: like All for You. I also remember it was classic
Speaker 1: like queer, this classic queer development where all boys sleepover,
Speaker 1: we're watching MTV. All for You comes on and I go,
Speaker 1: I turned, I turned all my friends and I go,
Speaker 1: that was so good. I was like, isn't it wasn't
Speaker 1: that amazing? Wasn't Janet Jackson so good at that? And
Speaker 1: they were like, yeah, I guess that was like for me,
Speaker 1: like a sleepover, remember where I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you guys, look, do you see this? Yes, well sure,
Speaker 1: we were like, oh my god, look like she's in
Speaker 1: this futuristic subway station. Um I don't know those those
Speaker 1: are mine too. I know those are weird picks, but
Speaker 1: um no, that's a really that's a really good one. Um,
Speaker 1: I know my minus do it? Okay? It so low
Speaker 1: hitties pushed all the way off she was in the world.
Speaker 1: There was no neck, it was titties, and I was
Speaker 1: just like, oh my god. And then at that same
Speaker 1: time together again like that would emotionally take me back.
Speaker 1: Remember that song is just so warm to listen to
Speaker 1: and it just it lifts you up. And the video
Speaker 1: was beautiful and um and then obviously like you know,
Speaker 1: love off for you as every as everyone did. Yes,
Speaker 1: what is yours? I so because I grew up at
Speaker 1: that peak time when h one was still like playing
Speaker 1: eighties videos as well, so I remember loving her in
Speaker 1: the pleasure principle. This is what she's doing. She's wearing
Speaker 1: all dinner with the chair at the point she dances
Speaker 1: and flips the chair over with the Korea when you
Speaker 1: like mind blown, So that one for the Chorea. And
Speaker 1: then second, I think she's never looked as good as
Speaker 1: she looked in the video for Love Will Never Do
Speaker 1: Without You. Remember that one. It's all black and white. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's like photography because like her brists directed it. But
Speaker 1: she's in this lush desert with like this tank top
Speaker 1: and like this beautiful smile and it's all black and white.
Speaker 1: And then like one of the models dancing in the
Speaker 1: video is I can't say his name, right Jamoe and
Speaker 1: Hinsu the guy from Yeah, he's looking more beautiful than
Speaker 1: he ever did. And Jim Hun Yes, yes, yes, he's
Speaker 1: in he's in the video. She she like does this
Speaker 1: thing where she looks at the camera and her hairs
Speaker 1: up in this cute places. Just like this is miss
Speaker 1: America right here. This is like the American James Janet Jackson.
Speaker 1: She when she's when she gave you that smile, forget it.
Speaker 1: Just everything talk about super Star. Also, um, what was
Speaker 1: I just thinking? You said, oh when you said pleasure
Speaker 1: Principle simone doing that lip sync on Drag Race A B.
Speaker 1: I'm behind when you when you resume, you will be
Speaker 1: so gagged because in the first episode, Pleasure Principle is
Speaker 1: one of the lip syncs, and this Queen Summone who's
Speaker 1: like definitely gonna win the show did it and it
Speaker 1: was so like, yeah, I'm gonna go back to it
Speaker 1: and watch it. Also, I gotta apologize to Mr Hinsu
Speaker 1: Hites how Man's last night. I think it's Giaman Hunsu
Speaker 1: Giaman Huntsu because we can't screw up pronouncers like we
Speaker 1: get letters at the network first. I'm sorry, sir, go ahead.
Speaker 1: We were not held to the same journalistic standards. This
Speaker 1: is decidedly not NBR. That's actually rule of culture number
Speaker 1: one four last, culture is decidedly not delightedly. What are
Speaker 1: one of our favorite Janet albums? Because I think because
Speaker 1: as soon as you said pleasure principle, I went control
Speaker 1: as I think the all around for me has no skips,
Speaker 1: no ships. Yeah, I think, like you know, like Rhythm
Speaker 1: Nation is like maybe like the best like concept album
Speaker 1: in her and her and her sort of discography. But
Speaker 1: I think Control is like wow, like nasty um, like
Speaker 1: when I think of you and I'm like running out
Speaker 1: of type. That's just that's that's a perfect album. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's one that I gotta go look up actually hold
Speaker 1: one of her latter albums. Is it? Is it Demita Joe? Okay,
Speaker 1: because I was just gonna say, don't sleep on Demita
Speaker 1: Joe because Demita Joe is has got has got some
Speaker 1: stuff on it, and she is fully in her bag sexually,
Speaker 1: and I mean, for me, the one I'm always going
Speaker 1: to think about is Velvet Rope, just because it kind
Speaker 1: of came at that point. It was A ninety seven,
Speaker 1: so it was that point where I was discovering all
Speaker 1: of these ladies for myself. And that video, the video
Speaker 1: where her hair is like red and it's like kind
Speaker 1: of African thing. Which which song was that for? Oh?
Speaker 1: Got to What's Gone? Got to What's Gone? Video? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Got Sean Yes with the Joni Mitchell sample. Oh my gosh, yeah,
Speaker 1: oh man, my favorite de Meted Joe track. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you because I'm pulling it up, my favorite and
Speaker 1: I still run to it all the time all nights,
Speaker 1: don't stop. It's like the fast like Dancy one. Truly
Speaker 1: truly thank you because that song did not get it
Speaker 1: to do it did not. It was really good at all.
Speaker 1: It was so good and her vocal sound incredible. She's
Speaker 1: just always so smooth and perfect and like you. The
Speaker 1: thing with Janet is like, if you really listen to
Speaker 1: the lyrics, it is a ride and another trap that
Speaker 1: I feel like wasn't a huge hit, which I honestly
Speaker 1: believe had the super bullshit not happened, then this song
Speaker 1: would have been a huge hat hit. Is feedback feedback?
Speaker 1: Yea feedback when she's like my Asian persuasion, Asian persuasion,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna speak on behalf of the community. I think
Speaker 1: we all loved it collectively. I was like Janet just
Speaker 1: that Asian persuasion and feedback. I was. I was obsessed, oesed.
Speaker 1: She performed All Night Don't Stop on SNL. I remember
Speaker 1: watching her because the chore was so amazing she did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and here's the thing that like no one wants to
Speaker 1: talk about. Michael Jackson was doing Show Your Moves, but
Speaker 1: Janet wasn't a better dancer. Janet was a better all around.
Speaker 1: She could do more different types of chore Michael just
Speaker 1: did Michael choreography. That is a really interesting I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get letters. I mean Janet, it felt like could do
Speaker 1: all styles. Yeah, exactly, exactly, And she had different choreographers
Speaker 1: at different phases in her career, and you saw the
Speaker 1: style to change up. Remember j Lo in the video
Speaker 1: for That's the Way Love Goes Yep, yep, yep, yep. Yes,
Speaker 1: yes we love it. And you know who else was
Speaker 1: an incredible dancer pop star at that time? Who is
Speaker 1: you know, we laugh about now, but Paula Abdul, Paula
Speaker 1: Abdul back with it. We laugh about it now because
Speaker 1: she's just an American aisle. She's just like me, Mishnell,
Speaker 1: Like you know, she had the reality show too, Like
Speaker 1: I think that you know, she sat on that person
Speaker 1: in Bora. We honor Paula, We honor Paula. But I'm
Speaker 1: just saying that she had to ride a certain wave
Speaker 1: in the culture where she was like, you know, similar
Speaker 1: to everyone else. Like we laughed a little bit at
Speaker 1: and with Paula with the American idol of it all
Speaker 1: and some of her narrative. But what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: she as a dancing pop star maybe the best, like
Speaker 1: when you truly because she truly came out of dance.
Speaker 1: And also is intrinsically linked with Janet in that way
Speaker 1: because it wasn't Paula Janet's choreographer. She was and and
Speaker 1: and the Jackson family discovered Paula she was a Laker girl,
Speaker 1: and she would do with the Laker girls. Some of
Speaker 1: Michael's siblings and janet siblings saw her and said we
Speaker 1: want her get and they had yeah, oh yeah. Now
Speaker 1: she's in this commercial for some kind of medication. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: of course she's dancing with the younger version of herself,
Speaker 1: and it's like, you know what, Paula, get your check
Speaker 1: and you know the thing. She's also now the lead
Speaker 1: judge on the Mass Dancer and I actually I saw her.
Speaker 1: How do you do mass? It's very shocking, but but
Speaker 1: you know, how do you do it? You know how
Speaker 1: you're doing You put them in suits, they dance around
Speaker 1: a surprise. One of them is Demilvano. I mean, like
Speaker 1: it's just a tale of oldest time. How do you
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen next? Like Mass? Netflix watcher? Like what
Speaker 1: is you know? Who'd buy that? Netflix? Um? But like
Speaker 1: she Paula was on Watch What Happens Live and you
Speaker 1: can tell that she watches All the Housewives, which I
Speaker 1: loved and being she to this day has such a
Speaker 1: sense of humor because paul uh Andy did, like, um,
Speaker 1: top five moments from Paula's reality show on Bravo that
Speaker 1: we're like insane and it's just these five moments that
Speaker 1: are like, I don't know, Paula crying on the phone,
Speaker 1: Paula doing all this stupid ship and Paula herself today
Speaker 1: is just laughing at it, like what a fun thing.
Speaker 1: Like she's She's just like the consummate. I'm gonna show
Speaker 1: up and get my check everywhere you go. Listen, listen,
Speaker 1: and those checks for her? Yeah, what was the not
Speaker 1: to dwell on? Paula? Remember the video where she was
Speaker 1: just like dancing and singing with the street Wise cartoon? Yes,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, a Grammy winning music video. What with the
Speaker 1: music I Want to Grammy? Yes, that's Paula's one Grammy
Speaker 1: she Wanted video? Oh yeah, Anna, can we just source
Speaker 1: of this is true? But I'm almost positive that Paula
Speaker 1: Abdul's one Grammy win is Best short Form Music Video
Speaker 1: for Opposite to Tract. Do you know what's given me
Speaker 1: life right now? Knowing that Paula Abdul has one more
Speaker 1: Grammy than The Weekend? Oh will forever always have one
Speaker 1: because it's a winning Grammys anymore. That's that's confirmed. I
Speaker 1: was Paula Abdul Grammy winner for Short Form Music Video,
Speaker 1: Katie Perry zero The Weekend zero. Someone posted this justin Timberlake.
Speaker 1: Ten Grammy wins. I think Britney spears one. We live
Speaker 1: in a society in which that happens and then which
Speaker 1: that is possible not to bring it back to Britney
Speaker 1: and justin um, although I'm always happy to do that,
Speaker 1: my my, my, don't think so, honey. I've decided will
Speaker 1: refer back to it, um, just just the conversation around it.
Speaker 1: And it really is like, I think I've had it
Speaker 1: some time to digest the documentary now, and I'm like
Speaker 1: the fact that I'm still thinking about it, like a
Speaker 1: week out is a huge deal. Yeah, yeah, well, and
Speaker 1: it's also making me rethink other women who just disappeared
Speaker 1: and now I'm like, maybe they left for their sanity,
Speaker 1: Like I think of like Tracy Chapman. She was just
Speaker 1: like Hugh Mongous and everywhere, and then she was like,
Speaker 1: why y'all see you later, And it's like I get
Speaker 1: you have, like you have to preserve yourself and like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'll I won't ever get angry again
Speaker 1: when a celebrity decide to stop being a celebrity, because
Speaker 1: it's really freaking hard and it's an exploitative system, and
Speaker 1: seeing that doc reminds you of it totally totally. Did
Speaker 1: you guys read that piece on Shelley duval that just
Speaker 1: came out. I started. I'm like halfway through it. It
Speaker 1: also sounds like the industry kind of drove her crazy.
Speaker 1: Well I haven't I need to read the whole article,
Speaker 1: but my takeaway from like a cursory like intake of
Speaker 1: the information over the years has been that like, oh,
Speaker 1: it was like the industry, but it was also like
Speaker 1: maybe Kubrick like traumatized her on the set of The
Speaker 1: Shining or something, or she just like, oh my goodness. Basically, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, it was the industry at large, but what
Speaker 1: happened to her on The Shining was just an example
Speaker 1: of the way that she was treated a lot, which
Speaker 1: was just sort of men not having a lot of
Speaker 1: care for what a woman was going to have to do.
Speaker 1: Because if you watch The Shining, it's pretty much just
Speaker 1: seeming the entire time, right, it's a it's a hysterical
Speaker 1: performance of a woman that's being emotionally traumatized in the
Speaker 1: worst way you could imagine. And um, he does extremely
Speaker 1: long shoots and ask for a lot of takes. And
Speaker 1: I think that the way it comes off in the
Speaker 1: article anyway, is that she was just expected to and
Speaker 1: sort of you know, uh, just counted on to provide
Speaker 1: that volume of hysteria throughout or she would sort of
Speaker 1: face like, um, you know, his disappointment or his dismissal
Speaker 1: or and really there was no one there to to
Speaker 1: speak up for her. Have you seen the BTS video
Speaker 1: the like there's footage of like that, like them on
Speaker 1: set arguing and she's like I can't walk. She's like
Speaker 1: I can't walk from the snow into this door. Like
Speaker 1: she's she's telling him like I can't do what you
Speaker 1: want me to do, and he's just I mean, he's
Speaker 1: not yelling at her, but he's just like very like
Speaker 1: resolutely like, well you have to do it, and she's
Speaker 1: just like pleading with him, like no, can we can
Speaker 1: we like try to. I mean like I'm kind of
Speaker 1: comparaphrasing the interaction, but it's truly like that stayed with me.
Speaker 1: I remember watching that video for the first time in
Speaker 1: college being like, oh my god, they really mistreated her. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's it is this thing where I think she
Speaker 1: was completely yea torn down by the industry. And and
Speaker 1: then it's this article talks specifically about that doctor phil
Speaker 1: interview from like four years ago. How is he still allowed? Oh,
Speaker 1: my god, I don't. He's just still around not to
Speaker 1: bring this into the conversation. But do we do wast No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we do. We fault Oprah at all for bringing some
Speaker 1: of these people into the culture, you know, like your
Speaker 1: doctor oz Is, your doctor phils Um, your your Nate
Speaker 1: Burkas is just kidding. I don't doubt I don't falter
Speaker 1: for bringing them in because we didn't know at that
Speaker 1: time the nine different. But I kind of blame her
Speaker 1: from not speaking out about them now, right, she certainly
Speaker 1: has a platform to um if she wanted to help
Speaker 1: change the face of what daytime television has become. This
Speaker 1: is not her responsibility, And I almost don't even think
Speaker 1: at the time it was her responsibility because the audience
Speaker 1: responded a certain way. Yeah, and the respond responding you
Speaker 1: know what I really was really was driving me nuts
Speaker 1: before we got on here, as I was hearing about
Speaker 1: how tomorrow are By the time this episode comes out,
Speaker 1: this interview will be out there already. But Tamron Hall
Speaker 1: is having Sherry Pie from Drag Race on her show
Speaker 1: to talk about how there were those allegations and then
Speaker 1: where they're confirmed to be true by Sherry herself. About
Speaker 1: how Sherry was posing as a casting director and basically
Speaker 1: getting guys to put themselves on tape and do pornographic
Speaker 1: shit with this promise that they were going to be
Speaker 1: cast in a in a show or a movie that
Speaker 1: Sherry was producing. She used a fake name, Alison Mossy
Speaker 1: Casting and she got these guys to do you know,
Speaker 1: explicit stuff on camera and send it to her under
Speaker 1: the guys of like, you'll get a role in a project.
Speaker 1: And when this came out, Sherry Pie was was disqualified
Speaker 1: from Drag Race after the season had already shot and
Speaker 1: she was a finalist, so they had to completely edit
Speaker 1: her out. But now it's so it's a year over
Speaker 1: a year later that this has happened and tam Ron
Speaker 1: Hall is having Sherry on the show, and the way
Speaker 1: that the interview was promoted was sort of like, um,
Speaker 1: it's frame frames. Sherry is the victim. Yeah, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, after being hit with these lude accusations and
Speaker 1: getting the boot from Drag Race, breakout star, Sherry Pie
Speaker 1: has something to say. Finally, you won't want to miss this,
Speaker 1: and it's like, why are we framing? Were the men
Speaker 1: underage at all? They weren't I don't believe that they were.
Speaker 1: It's still a bad move. Yes, it's just it's part
Speaker 1: your conversation around like the extent of assault or like
Speaker 1: if like or just coerced, coercing any order, like it's
Speaker 1: it's it was just that was the frame around it.
Speaker 1: But now it's like, but now, yeah, I was reading
Speaker 1: something some of the tammerin Hall like promotional language, and
Speaker 1: it was like kind of trying to like make it
Speaker 1: seem that Sherry was unjustly like taken out of this competition.
Speaker 1: I don't know, and that that might be subjective. But
Speaker 1: but if and I'm just hearing about this from 'all,
Speaker 1: if it's true that Sherry made up a fake company
Speaker 1: and did fake casting to get the nudes, how do
Speaker 1: you not say that's just bad? Yeah, it's it's just
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like it's like it's it's it's beyond
Speaker 1: cat fishing. It's like fraud. And also we should say
Speaker 1: she also told some of the guys when they sent
Speaker 1: her the videos, you should use steroids, you need to
Speaker 1: be bigger, and then a couple of the guy as
Speaker 1: actually did so there was also like a coercion into
Speaker 1: like drug use and apparently you know, at least one
Speaker 1: of them had lasting issues because of that. So this
Speaker 1: was emotionally and physically traumatic, um in it, you know,
Speaker 1: profound way. And so I in thinking about, you know,
Speaker 1: the way that these daytime TV narratives keep happening where
Speaker 1: you know, I just wonder if Tamron Hall on this
Speaker 1: show have the real best interests of the survivors at heart,
Speaker 1: if now they're coming out and saying, we don't want
Speaker 1: this to air, We don't support this, like we don't
Speaker 1: see why Sherry Pie needs a platform. We don't necessarily
Speaker 1: understand who's going to benefit from it besides her, who's
Speaker 1: clearly starting to try to re enter the narrative in
Speaker 1: the public. And um, you know, tam Ron Hall is
Speaker 1: a good journalist, and she's a great interviewer, and I've
Speaker 1: seen her hold people's feet to the fire a lot.
Speaker 1: But when you see an interview marketed and promoted this way,
Speaker 1: it's a red flag for me, like because because what
Speaker 1: what I think is going to happen is this is
Speaker 1: really going to be fed to the community that hasn't
Speaker 1: heard about this, which is like straight people who are
Speaker 1: hungry right now to go yum, yum yum, cancel culture
Speaker 1: narrative that I can talk about. So it's like, I
Speaker 1: don't want this to be framed as yet another thing
Speaker 1: of cancel culture, because she actually was an abuser and
Speaker 1: she admitted to it. So also, I don't understand folks,
Speaker 1: you do something like that, you end up on a
Speaker 1: show like Drag Race and expect no one will ever
Speaker 1: find out, right, It's all it's gonna come out at
Speaker 1: some point, Like it's it is increasingly difficult to ever
Speaker 1: really cover your tracks, folks, like you gotta just like
Speaker 1: know what you can. It's like, would it have gone
Speaker 1: better had they told drag Race right before they started
Speaker 1: even like this is in my past. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but they're gonna find out. It was it was ongoing
Speaker 1: during the competition. It was something that had been happening
Speaker 1: and was still in process while they were on the show.
Speaker 1: They were still doing this. They had just been like
Speaker 1: it was like a part of their deal, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like this was a this was like
Speaker 1: pathological behavioral thing. So so that's I guess how it
Speaker 1: gets even darker and all the rude girls are like,
Speaker 1: don't give her this platform there, I mean they're very
Speaker 1: vocal about it. Jackie Cox tweeted about it. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the girls have tweeted about it. But
Speaker 1: it's it's it was interesting in thinking of the daytime
Speaker 1: TV thing because there are such sensationalist narratives that happened
Speaker 1: every single day on those programs. Um, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's just interesting that it kind of gets away with
Speaker 1: it because like it's during the day, or you know,
Speaker 1: like he's a doctor, you know what I mean, or
Speaker 1: she's a serious journalist, you know. But it's like, wait,
Speaker 1: hold on a second, Like, ultimately, these are feeding large corporations,
Speaker 1: and so we do have to think about what the
Speaker 1: hell is going on. It's like fucking American Idol having
Speaker 1: Conway on, Like this is essentially Disney Presents American Idol
Speaker 1: presents the Kanye Conway Redemption arc. That's really oh yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. I always am flabberg acid by how much
Speaker 1: the View will trend on Twitter. Speaking of like daytime TV.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that that many people still watch the View,
Speaker 1: but I guess it's. Yeah, it's I've been a watcher
Speaker 1: of the View for for many years, but I find
Speaker 1: it hard to watch now because um, well, we are
Speaker 1: one of our panel members, so someone who makes all
Speaker 1: the rules for this show, um is Megan McCain. Like,
Speaker 1: we have to check with her before we do any
Speaker 1: bits and stuff to see if it's cool with her. Um,
Speaker 1: And she can be a little bit difficult. She's very
Speaker 1: sort of strict. She wants this to be a very
Speaker 1: PG sort of conservative podcast, and so we we always
Speaker 1: have sort of conflict with her. But no, in all seriousness,
Speaker 1: it is hard for me to watch the view because
Speaker 1: she's on it. I find her so um brady and
Speaker 1: sort of petulant. Well, and it's like she must not.
Speaker 1: I'm like, are you having fun, Megan, or do you
Speaker 1: like this? Is there a better space for you where
Speaker 1: you're just not constantly at odds with the whole rest
Speaker 1: of the folks there she I would be under question
Speaker 1: if I were in her position. I honestly just find
Speaker 1: I think she's just an unhappy person, no matter the context,
Speaker 1: because I remember early days of but this was back,
Speaker 1: this is agears ago, back when I like I loved
Speaker 1: Rachel Maddow when she first was on the air, but
Speaker 1: like she would have Megan on, and Megan at that
Speaker 1: point was just like a reporter for The Daily Beast,
Speaker 1: But she would come on and just like have that
Speaker 1: like that, she would have that petulance and you can
Speaker 1: tell Rachel didn't really know what to do with it,
Speaker 1: but and yet she still kept coming on. And then
Speaker 1: it's the thing, like I guess I can commend Megan
Speaker 1: McCain for being able to like go into different spaces
Speaker 1: and like get her person now and get her point
Speaker 1: of view across like she's on what Watch What Happens
Speaker 1: Live all the time with like sc cup and I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm truly perplexed. I'm like, how how does this
Speaker 1: keep happening? How do we still allow her to Like
Speaker 1: I'm sorry this sounds so toxic, but it's like we
Speaker 1: we there's we've we've progressed past the need for Megan McCain.
Speaker 1: I really believe that we have as like a media
Speaker 1: figure anyway, I don't want to step out out of
Speaker 1: the lane that I have to be in working for MPR.
Speaker 1: But for me, it's not even about ideology conversation she
Speaker 1: is it seems like she's never having a conversation to
Speaker 1: like learn and exchange ideas. She's having a conversation to
Speaker 1: make it an argument she wanted to end up as
Speaker 1: an argument and it's like no, please, no. Well, you'll
Speaker 1: notice that a theme of almost every single time Megan
Speaker 1: McCain is trending is that she has somehow managed to
Speaker 1: get across how hard it is for her. It's so
Speaker 1: hard for her to get the conservative ideas across. It's
Speaker 1: so hard for her as a real conservative when Trump
Speaker 1: is on the GOP. It's so hard for her. Her her,
Speaker 1: It's always about her, and it's that is what is
Speaker 1: frustrating to watch, because you're not watching an issue debated.
Speaker 1: You're watching someone express that they're having a difficult time
Speaker 1: processing something and it's like, yes, welcome to what it's
Speaker 1: like for everyone in the world. It's a complicated right area.
Speaker 1: I understand you're a traditional conservative and you're at odds
Speaker 1: with what your party is, but um, this is about
Speaker 1: the country and not you. And it's interesting because she
Speaker 1: thinks she's always arguing for the country, but all I
Speaker 1: are here and all she her trends about is like,
Speaker 1: you know, me, me me me, me, me, me me me,
Speaker 1: which is probably a lot of the way that she
Speaker 1: was brought up as a senator's daughter and the Princess
Speaker 1: of Arizona Um which Adie Bryant played on us, and um,
Speaker 1: let's let's let's really just get get all this toxicity out.
Speaker 1: So let's get the toxics d out. But we need
Speaker 1: to ask Sam some stage. Let's burn the stage in
Speaker 1: the zoom. We have to ask Sam the question we
Speaker 1: asked all of our guests, and that is Sam, what
Speaker 1: is the culture that made you say? Culture is for me? Matt,
Speaker 1: what does this question mean? It means so many things.
Speaker 1: Bowing and I'm so happy to sort of get in
Speaker 1: there and streamline for the for the audience, and for Sam.
Speaker 1: Are the readers and and Sam. So basically, this was
Speaker 1: the moment in pop culture that made you say, mmm, okay, yep,
Speaker 1: got it, got got got got got got a c
Speaker 1: yes for me, And I've agonized over the last few
Speaker 1: days and I was like, well, and for a second,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I know what it is. It's
Speaker 1: the day when Mariah Carries Honey video premiered and it
Speaker 1: was shown every hour on the hour on MTV. But
Speaker 1: it's actually not that that is a number two to
Speaker 1: just the cultural phenomenon that was v H one in
Speaker 1: the nineties, because it was an education. If you recall,
Speaker 1: so I was born in eighty four, that means I
Speaker 1: was like entering my teenage years in the mid nineties
Speaker 1: when VH one was still ascendant, and what v H
Speaker 1: one was going back then was like a true music
Speaker 1: history education because they had two things. They had pop
Speaker 1: up video and they had behind the music, and you
Speaker 1: were learning things. You were learning things, and I remember
Speaker 1: being twelve years old having like a working knowledge of
Speaker 1: Duran Duran, Yeah, because like H one taught me right,
Speaker 1: and so between that, I think H one and giving
Speaker 1: me the sense of like music history and the and
Speaker 1: and the substance behind pop music through those two shows,
Speaker 1: it kind of like taught me that it is okay
Speaker 1: to be a total stand and geek for music and
Speaker 1: for celebrity because there's steps to it and there's layers
Speaker 1: to it. And it's like when you watch the behind
Speaker 1: the Music for Celine Dion or behind music for Fleetwood
Speaker 1: Mac or for ms Camra or for TLC or that
Speaker 1: was the best one when she burned the house down,
Speaker 1: Oh my god. But it's like, here is how you
Speaker 1: go bankrupt and after selling and get ready to do
Speaker 1: yes yes, And like it taught me that like every
Speaker 1: song that I heard on the radio had a story
Speaker 1: behind it and a culture behind it, had real people's
Speaker 1: lives affected by it, and it is worth carrying a
Speaker 1: lot about that. I think a lot of heteronormative culture
Speaker 1: teaches us that pop and celebrity and ship the gay
Speaker 1: kids like is frivolous and VH one all the time,
Speaker 1: I was saying, now, let's not there's layers to this ship.
Speaker 1: Let us show you. So I think that, And like
Speaker 1: I ended up being a music major in college, Like
Speaker 1: I was a musician. I played the saxophones still, and
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't I don't know if I would
Speaker 1: have gotten it's heavy into music if not for v
Speaker 1: H one, If that makes sense, I really and like
Speaker 1: it's hard to overstate how weird they were. So besides
Speaker 1: doing a lot of music history in the nineties with
Speaker 1: those shows, they also played a really interesting mix of stuff,
Speaker 1: Like half of it was just Top forty, but the
Speaker 1: H one would do like a lot of adult They
Speaker 1: played the hell out of Sean Covin. I still every
Speaker 1: word home, yes, yes, And so like I was this
Speaker 1: little black nerd in South Texas who was like prepared
Speaker 1: to give you a soliloquy on Sean Colvin and Duran
Speaker 1: Duran and can tell you like Shania Twain's backstory at
Speaker 1: the age of thirteen. I love that. So I would
Speaker 1: say the H One in its nineties era of educating
Speaker 1: the youth was the culture that made culture for me.
Speaker 1: This is one of my favorite answers anyone's ever given.
Speaker 1: And it takes someone like Sam who like is able
Speaker 1: to like connect every dot that is so great and
Speaker 1: because where else would you have gotten that education, wouldn't
Speaker 1: have learned well. And then I think of the kids now,
Speaker 1: like y'all have seen y'all actually had a skit about
Speaker 1: these two young kids who do the reaction video. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as they play the oldies, that wouldn't have happened if
Speaker 1: they had h One, that wouldn't have happened. Like I knew,
Speaker 1: I knew about like I knew disco songs in my
Speaker 1: because like it was like the H One was teaching
Speaker 1: you that. And so now part of me sees gen
Speaker 1: Z discovering these songs through TikTok for the first time.
Speaker 1: Half he said, it's cute. We failed your babies, we
Speaker 1: failed you. I see exactly what you're saying. And then
Speaker 1: there was this piece that came out in New York
Speaker 1: Magazine last week about how TikTok is as great as
Speaker 1: it is as a platform from from new music, it
Speaker 1: is sort of flattening it in a way. I think
Speaker 1: the headline is like, how TikTok is flattening music, but
Speaker 1: it's like talks about driver's license or Olivia Rodrigo as
Speaker 1: an example, which I was like. I was like, I
Speaker 1: think it's just a great song, but then the way
Speaker 1: that like it outlines, like how deliberately proliferated it was,
Speaker 1: makes me go, oh, okay, so this is the new
Speaker 1: apparatus for it, and there's no like genuine authentic organic
Speaker 1: discovery of like new stuff old stuff that like is
Speaker 1: in the same like container that is like a H
Speaker 1: one like a VH one shower or something like that.
Speaker 1: I think it's important to remember that there's always been
Speaker 1: apparatus apparati through which the the music business would manipulate
Speaker 1: how songs performed. I mean, like you know, like with radio,
Speaker 1: like they were able to inundate radio, and they're doing
Speaker 1: it now with TikTok. It is like an interesting advancement
Speaker 1: of of of the way the music business can can
Speaker 1: decide for itself what is popular. Um. But I do
Speaker 1: think it's it's interesting that we are maybe like that
Speaker 1: last generation because I too am in nineties VH one
Speaker 1: kid because I wasn't allowed to watch MTV, which I
Speaker 1: also think is a thing. Um. But genuine education on
Speaker 1: music history through through that type of engagement. And it's
Speaker 1: also true of television to like because these gen z
Speaker 1: kids also don't know the classic sitcoms and it's so
Speaker 1: interesting to see them be revisited by something like Wanda
Speaker 1: Vision because I think that a lot of people are
Speaker 1: going to watch these I Love Lucy throwbacks and the
Speaker 1: Bewitched throwbacks and be like that's crazy and not even
Speaker 1: understand and or have a vocabulary for that type of
Speaker 1: culture in the way that we do. And I do
Speaker 1: think that that those shows behind the music and pop
Speaker 1: up video we're doing a service. They were not just entertainment,
Speaker 1: but they were education. I remember more from those things
Speaker 1: in terms of like things I learned as a child
Speaker 1: than I did from school, for sure. Yeah. My favorite
Speaker 1: pop up video was probably Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson
Speaker 1: screen video because they end up revealing in the little
Speaker 1: pop ups that at that point it was the most
Speaker 1: expensive music video ever made. They spent seven million dollars
Speaker 1: just making enough insane insane. That's another video, we Gotta,
Speaker 1: we Gotta, we Gotta the White Leather. So, like y'all
Speaker 1: mentioned how on writing itself when the songs are changing
Speaker 1: to fit TikTok, what's crazier? And I had this so
Speaker 1: I had the two hosts of this music podcast called
Speaker 1: Switched on Pop. I had them on my show I
Speaker 1: Love back Check. It's a great show. They've dug deep
Speaker 1: into how the Spotify algorithm has resulted in shorter pop songs. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's crazy because like what determines if you get on
Speaker 1: the playlist, Uh, part of it is whether or not
Speaker 1: people listen to the whole song, And if they play
Speaker 1: your whole song all the way through, it bumps you up.
Speaker 1: So now songwriters make the song shorter so that you'll
Speaker 1: play it all the way through. The average pop hit
Speaker 1: used to be three and a half minutes. I think
Speaker 1: Old Town Road was just over two minutes. You'll see
Speaker 1: like all our like I'm like Ariana's records, like it's
Speaker 1: like two forty seven, Like they're no longer than three minutes.
Speaker 1: And also I was wondering why it seems like there's
Speaker 1: so many long albums like a lot of tracks, because
Speaker 1: that helps album streams exactly like Drake is mastered that game.
Speaker 1: Drake will have thirty seven songs on his albums because
Speaker 1: you know, you'll just hit play and it's like more
Speaker 1: spins for the It's crazy, there's little hacks. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: interesting that like the incentives are new now to like
Speaker 1: formally change and altar like what an album is, because
Speaker 1: now it's just I mean like we've known for years
Speaker 1: now that like the album has been reduced to like
Speaker 1: the square and like it's not like you know by
Speaker 1: sleeve at the record story. You don't buy like even
Speaker 1: like a CD case anymore. And it's like there's nothing
Speaker 1: tactile about it. And so now it's just like I
Speaker 1: do moren the fact that albums are just completely abstract
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. Now, well there's there's there's
Speaker 1: less acknowledgement of the of the village it took to
Speaker 1: make a thing because there's no liner notes. I remember
Speaker 1: reading the liner notes of albums as a kid. D'angelo's
Speaker 1: Voodoo album had the most intense liner notes ever, so
Speaker 1: besides the credits on the album, he had written this
Speaker 1: essay about how his music was informed by uh Prints
Speaker 1: and other musicians, and it was like is oh too,
Speaker 1: folks that he loved it was it was this wonderful
Speaker 1: companion to the album that just doesn't happen anymore, and
Speaker 1: I miss that. But I will say this, this like
Speaker 1: idea that like the plant, like the platforms have always
Speaker 1: changed the art. So you know, we thought that the
Speaker 1: three and a half minute single was just the way
Speaker 1: it happened. They were that long because when records were ascendant,
Speaker 1: that was the right length to fit on that size
Speaker 1: of a record in that and so it's this is
Speaker 1: always the way it works. And like, I don't know
Speaker 1: what happens next, but I do think we're gonna go
Speaker 1: a little too far towards too short, too quick hits,
Speaker 1: Like I want some double album flex energy with like
Speaker 1: nine minute long songs again. And I think it's coming.
Speaker 1: I think it's coming, I hope. So yeah, well, when
Speaker 1: something becomes the I mean, there will be someone that
Speaker 1: just breaks through that and and it's got it's gonna
Speaker 1: be someone that is like one of our few people
Speaker 1: right now who's like at artists level, Like watch Rihanna
Speaker 1: come back into just three long songs, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like I feel like eat it and deal
Speaker 1: with it, and like, man, I will right understand. I'm
Speaker 1: not playing by your rules. Here's three sixteen minute long
Speaker 1: songs and you're not going to hear from me for
Speaker 1: another seven years. Yeah, And and then she disappears in
Speaker 1: a cloud of weed smoke. She's like, you don't give
Speaker 1: a funk about this and never did well, Like people
Speaker 1: forget the last time that everyone listened to an album
Speaker 1: all the way through at the same time when it
Speaker 1: came out right, And it's funny that, like you think,
Speaker 1: like it's sort of happened with Taylor Swift too. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, like with Beyonce, it's like it really
Speaker 1: does feel like a piece, you know, And because even
Speaker 1: even with folklore and evermore like those those are tracked
Speaker 1: by track, Beyonce felt like and she did announce it
Speaker 1: as such, but there was a visual pieces. There was
Speaker 1: a was an arc to both. And I think that's
Speaker 1: that's how you know, like there are still there are
Speaker 1: still those things happening. There are few and far between,
Speaker 1: but those artists aren't like she doesn't feel the need
Speaker 1: to play the two minute second game, Like would never
Speaker 1: be thirsty enough to like lead the streams, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Like it does end up feeling a
Speaker 1: little transparent and thirsty when I see a seventeen track
Speaker 1: album with with two minute songs, and especially when there's
Speaker 1: five songs that obviously can go and I mean that's
Speaker 1: been a lot. Yeah, I have a I have a thought.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to see what you guys think. So Taylor
Speaker 1: Swift is re recording on her old music just to like,
Speaker 1: um because just uh the Scooter bron stuff right, shoot
Speaker 1: a brown stuff. She you know she is it like that?
Speaker 1: She's like her Master's result. She's she's just re recording
Speaker 1: them too. She owns the songs, she will not own
Speaker 1: the masters own masters. Yes, So I'm thinking, is this
Speaker 1: is this the equivalent to like reboot like treatment in
Speaker 1: terms of music where I don't mind it, but I'm like,
Speaker 1: and Taylor needs there's a reason why Taylor is doing this.
Speaker 1: But I'm thinking, like, are we going to maybe see
Speaker 1: this from other artists where they are dipping back into
Speaker 1: their old music and like, which is also not itself
Speaker 1: a new concept, but It's like I feel like this
Speaker 1: might happen now with certain artists where they go, oh,
Speaker 1: let me just like redo some of my older stuff.
Speaker 1: Does that sound fully crazy? I feel like it might not.
Speaker 1: I don't think it sounds love it and I would
Speaker 1: love to hear what artists would sound like doing their
Speaker 1: old stuff. Now, imagine Beyonce a re recording, be Day
Speaker 1: or four. Yeah, let them all do it. I would
Speaker 1: all do it. Let them all feels kind of it
Speaker 1: feels kind of like Joni Mitchell, but not quite where
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, there's these are like reimaginings of songs
Speaker 1: like decades later, like that is so emotional and so
Speaker 1: like I want to listen to that. Um, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just I can't. That's something about that really fascinates
Speaker 1: me because I really do think. And now I am
Speaker 1: excited for the Fearless Taylor's version release, and I'm excited
Speaker 1: for these old Taylor Swift songs that I that I
Speaker 1: remember loving and I still love. But now I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: her voice is mature, they feel different, They're gonna feel different,
Speaker 1: and I already already love the love Story sort of
Speaker 1: re record the Taylor's version like, I find it to
Speaker 1: be really interesting thing that might be the new mental
Speaker 1: model for some artists. I don't know. I have two
Speaker 1: favorite Taylor Swift songs and all bigger Taylor fans in me,
Speaker 1: but lover is perfect the other one, the other one.
Speaker 1: I used to sit on the stup of my duplex
Speaker 1: chain smoking cigarettes after Corey dumped me. This was the
Speaker 1: song he loves He's such a loser, Can I know? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not. Corey is a fucking loser. Don't need to
Speaker 1: know anything else. In the midst of that breakup, I
Speaker 1: would sit on the front stood chain smoking to finally, clean, clean, clean, clean, fabulous.
Speaker 1: Your work you get you feel your emotional tailor. I feel, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: you make me cry. I'm drama drama. I loved your
Speaker 1: interview with Phoebe Bridgers so much because you also said
Speaker 1: that you cried to her so my routine. Because I
Speaker 1: got into Phoebe when I was in Texas this past
Speaker 1: year because at a certain point during lockdown in like
Speaker 1: l A, I was in downtown l A and I
Speaker 1: was like, why am I let me go take my
Speaker 1: money into San Antonio, Texas where it goes a lot
Speaker 1: farther and it's a lot quieter, and one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things to do would be to take my dog's
Speaker 1: ora out to McAlister Park. It's one of those parks
Speaker 1: it's so big, like it's just kind of like hiking
Speaker 1: basically leash and I would be playing Phoebe Bridges watching
Speaker 1: my dog chase deer that she would never catch, gently
Speaker 1: weeping and it was like, Phoebe, thank you. And of
Speaker 1: course the person thing I told on the interview was
Speaker 1: like like yeah, and she took it so well because
Speaker 1: she goes, thank you so much and she goes I
Speaker 1: love that. This is like my thing now is that
Speaker 1: people will come up to be being like your music
Speaker 1: has destroyed me, and I have to be like thank you.
Speaker 1: You know that has to be so gratifying though, to
Speaker 1: know that you are at this point millions of people's
Speaker 1: like emotional release, like that really has been like a
Speaker 1: function that she has provided in so many people's lives, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's for me. I guess for me. That happened with
Speaker 1: Maggie Rogers a few years ago. I feel like people
Speaker 1: are feeling it now in this Phoebe Bridges is sort
Speaker 1: of hitting a similar nerve and like, I love that
Speaker 1: like well one. We got a lot of feedback from
Speaker 1: listeners after that interview. Her fan base is all over.
Speaker 1: A lot of middle aged dads wrote me and we're like, bro,
Speaker 1: I felt this. I feel like she has she has
Speaker 1: stands all across the spectrum. It's really beautiful. I know,
Speaker 1: I know. And she was about to start to ring
Speaker 1: in Japan. I feel like she has like international like appeal,
Speaker 1: like she I mean, she's she's phenomenal. She's here to say.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite songs of all time is probably Funeral.
Speaker 1: It's just album. Yeah, it's such it's one. It's just
Speaker 1: a beautiful poem. But then there's this majestic string arrangements
Speaker 1: going on and the second verse that just shindows this
Speaker 1: wonderful like cut. Anyways, stop because I can keep going
Speaker 1: on her. I know, I feel like I feel like
Speaker 1: Megan is winning Best New Artists. But I would not
Speaker 1: be surprised if Phoebe Bridges has votes, Like she's gonna
Speaker 1: get tons of votes. And I also think that, you know,
Speaker 1: it feels like she's peeking out a good time for that.
Speaker 1: I just know that you know that Best New Artist award,
Speaker 1: like you that's an important thing. Because really like it
Speaker 1: sets a tone like when do a one best, It's
Speaker 1: when future nostalgia was what it was, you know, put
Speaker 1: pressure on her, like I think she said an interviews
Speaker 1: that the Grammy put pressure on her to deliver something
Speaker 1: really elevated. Um, not that Megan needs it, not that
Speaker 1: Phoebe needs it, but I mean either of them would
Speaker 1: be like worthy recipients. Yeah. And what I love is that,
Speaker 1: like it seems like all of them probably like like
Speaker 1: each other, and then it seems like that I'll be
Speaker 1: really cool, you know, with each other. Then there's the
Speaker 1: spoiler in that category, which is Doja no Doja, Doja
Speaker 1: deserves it. I wanted to hate on Doja, but she's talented.
Speaker 1: She she can, she can dance. I've seen a few
Speaker 1: of her like a Warshow performances. She's got the moves step,
Speaker 1: She's always on Billboard Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, True
Speaker 1: Star Quality. Um. I was gonna say that I wish
Speaker 1: that like these musicians, these best new artists musicians like
Speaker 1: campaign together the way that like Oscars like the campaigns,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, amazing, Because Phoebe Bridges likes Megan this down
Speaker 1: and she's like yeah, got it. Yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: who doesn't like imagine? She was like, well, there's people
Speaker 1: in the category I don't care for, but no, I
Speaker 1: just feel like in terms of, like, you know, she
Speaker 1: got the nomination, and in terms of how much she's
Speaker 1: impacted the culture, like it would be nice to see
Speaker 1: that nobody recognized Megan the Stallion as being like the
Speaker 1: best new artists of the year in terms of like
Speaker 1: impact and also like justartistic relevance all that stuff. But
Speaker 1: Phoebe's incredible and I do love Dojo like you could.
Speaker 1: You can see some of those those are words forms,
Speaker 1: like when she did the Buildoard Music Awards and she
Speaker 1: did the Roxy heart um like like that illusion. I
Speaker 1: was like, she's saying, give this is for the gays only,
Speaker 1: and I appreciated it. Also, her verse on the Ariana remix,
Speaker 1: it's better than it's better than Megan's. I mean, they're both,
Speaker 1: but I'm telling you that because because like Doja is
Speaker 1: really melodic, She's always able sing song and she's kind
Speaker 1: of like that. I like it. Yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: think I might agree. I do love Megan's verse on it,
Speaker 1: but Doja is I always love Megan, but Doja she
Speaker 1: is what is the what is when do you say?
Speaker 1: The moment? Come on a legend. She's got a point
Speaker 1: to legend. She's an iconic moment, the moment. Now I
Speaker 1: loother that there's two now now come on out come now,
Speaker 1: come on now perfect. You know it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: give um dojo the w there because I also in
Speaker 1: what I'm always like feeling like, I feel like Cardi
Speaker 1: is the one that kills this like it is Cardi's song,
Speaker 1: but she sets the tone in that and I don't
Speaker 1: know Cardi slays wop. But then Megan comes in with
Speaker 1: you and when she says to me like thinifying your honor,
Speaker 1: I'm a freak bitch. I liked the new Cardi song
Speaker 1: too Up great. The video is phenomenal with Megan. It's
Speaker 1: that she's always been like coolly confident. That's been her stuff.
Speaker 1: She changed her hand all the recently, not her handle,
Speaker 1: but her name on Twitter. Yesterday was the birthday Tina Stone.
Speaker 1: I got excited. I was like, you're gonna do something
Speaker 1: with that character again. That was like on her one
Speaker 1: of her first albums or mixtapes, Tina snow like this
Speaker 1: play just like play me like imagery and that's how
Speaker 1: heightens the moment. Yeah, that has some of my favorite Megans.
Speaker 1: That was like that was like old school quote unquote Megan.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can call it that, but
Speaker 1: like that was when I first discovered her and she
Speaker 1: had like big old freak and the old freak is
Speaker 1: still so good. That was the one Bowen first showed me.
Speaker 1: He was like you have to. He's like, we're gonna
Speaker 1: listen to Megan, and the first song we need is
Speaker 1: big old phrase. And he would always be flitting around
Speaker 1: Bowen yang As saying big old freak and then he
Speaker 1: would giggle, Yeah he would, and he would be giggling
Speaker 1: about and sort of founcing about and saying the gold freak.
Speaker 1: I could tell he was feeling himself that Megan had
Speaker 1: an impacted That beat is an Albi Shure sample, and
Speaker 1: I'll be sure is a biological father of one of
Speaker 1: did He's kids. Oh did He's light Skin son is
Speaker 1: Albi Shore's son. Yeah, my god, I mean checking checking
Speaker 1: behind him. Honestly, you you should reboot it. Is it
Speaker 1: still going behind the music still a thing. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't believe it is. I think it should exist though,
Speaker 1: and I think that there's a way if I would
Speaker 1: be h one, I'd be like, how are we making
Speaker 1: behind the music and digestible enough packages for TikTok? Oh?
Speaker 1: That's that's really good. I mean the closest thing that
Speaker 1: there is now in TV form is like a song
Speaker 1: Explode or Netflix, which is also phenomenal. There is something
Speaker 1: about the way that behind in music really stepped out
Speaker 1: the narrative, like like the fluid mac thing, Like that's
Speaker 1: probably the three the way that I learned about Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: the rumors of it all. You know, It's like I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have known about all that stuff if it weren't
Speaker 1: for that behind and like it should come from like
Speaker 1: a not a central place, but from like a big
Speaker 1: place where there's like journalistic authority behind it. Does that
Speaker 1: make sense likely? Would you know? If my management is
Speaker 1: listening music, do this? Do it? Do it? Even if
Speaker 1: it was just like an extension of like the podcast
Speaker 1: or something. I just feel like it's something that needs
Speaker 1: to happen because I do think that like people would
Speaker 1: would really want it, Like I especially like for that
Speaker 1: generation that felt just out of reach for us culturally,
Speaker 1: and for example, someone like me learning about Pat Benatar.
Speaker 1: I love that, Like, who's the who is the little
Speaker 1: gay boy right now? Who would they want to hear about?
Speaker 1: Is it like Jewel? I don't know, Like who who
Speaker 1: was popular for us that they want to hear? Like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I feel like there's an appetite for that,
Speaker 1: there is. I felt like the gen Z kids need
Speaker 1: like a behind the music on like Brandy. People forget
Speaker 1: there was a moment when Brandy was the she had Moitia,
Speaker 1: she was doing the albums, oh forget Aday and people
Speaker 1: also forget just how influential she is as a female
Speaker 1: R and B vocalist. You know, she's referred to in
Speaker 1: that community as the vocal Bible, And like, I think
Speaker 1: that obviously, because she's a black woman, she has dealt
Speaker 1: a shitty hand by the culture in terms of nostalgia
Speaker 1: for her, and it's kind of sort of nice to
Speaker 1: see her getting this moment right now with um the
Speaker 1: Brandy Cinder, which is always I always called the Brandy Cinderella.
Speaker 1: It's called Cinderella, but for me, it's is now on
Speaker 1: Disney Plus and she just released B seven and she's
Speaker 1: like got the Moitia reboots. So it feels like a
Speaker 1: nice moment for Brandy respect right now. And I would
Speaker 1: love like a companion piece that it maybe this is
Speaker 1: an idea for you, Sam, but a companion piece that
Speaker 1: is like, let's actually remember like the impact of you know,
Speaker 1: the Brandy. She was such vocal control. They're these YouTube
Speaker 1: videos of her just joking around, singing like in the car,
Speaker 1: playing around, and that's pitch perfect. You know. Like my
Speaker 1: favorite Brandy album is probably Full Moon, but there's a
Speaker 1: few tracks on there where you're just like, you weren't
Speaker 1: hearing a voice that smooth that she was the one.
Speaker 1: She was the one. She also made it seem easy
Speaker 1: in a way, which is just like it's it's because
Speaker 1: it was so natural to her. And she didn't have
Speaker 1: like this huge tone, like like like a big like
Speaker 1: sort of like belty tone. She was very much like
Speaker 1: you know, she had like that silky sort of pillowy sound.
Speaker 1: And I think that because she didn't have this big,
Speaker 1: booming Whitney Houston voice, people don't put her on that level.
Speaker 1: But in terms of vocal dexterity, in terms of like
Speaker 1: having an ear, in terms of um you know, the
Speaker 1: way that her vocals were laid in together, like if
Speaker 1: you listen to how Have You Ever? Like that is
Speaker 1: a genius, geniously produced song. Um and also in terms
Speaker 1: of range, like when she gets into the bridge on
Speaker 1: that song where it's like she goes, it's like it's
Speaker 1: so high, and she's also in her basement on the verses,
Speaker 1: so she she is. I mean that song is hard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she made it sound emasy. I love her Actually, Randy Cinderella, yet,
Speaker 1: have you reindulged? I haven't reindulged that. I need to
Speaker 1: remember when it came out back then, how big of
Speaker 1: a headline it was because there were people who were
Speaker 1: like America by a multiracial cast on this classic and
Speaker 1: then million viewers, right, seventeen million viewers watched it that
Speaker 1: first weekend it was out. If I recall correctly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it must have been that huge. It's like, if you
Speaker 1: have a hard time believing that a cast could be
Speaker 1: multi ethnic, you're gonna have a really hard time believe.
Speaker 1: And they were gonna take a glass slipper around the
Speaker 1: whole town try to get one should have been and
Speaker 1: then based on that he marries her. You're gonna have
Speaker 1: a real hard time then, girl, if logic is your
Speaker 1: you're fucking hill. You're gonna die on with Cinderella, Mama, girl,
Speaker 1: Like you accept the pumpkin becoming a carriage? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: got no questions about not the fairy godmother tweedledeedles doodling
Speaker 1: in with nothing else but a shimmer and a pop like,
Speaker 1: I mean, girl, yeah forget it. They buy it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Whitney and Whitney's Wife soundtrack, which I mean, I'm I
Speaker 1: would imagine that you've you've frequented. It's like a YouTube
Speaker 1: video of Brandy and Whitney like prepared, rehearsing together, do
Speaker 1: it impossible? Yeah, and where Brandy is like giving So
Speaker 1: Brandy recently talked about there's a part where she goes
Speaker 1: and she's like giving Whitney a note and she's giving
Speaker 1: her the low version of the note because she didn't
Speaker 1: want to belt the octave up in rehearsal. But she
Speaker 1: was giving Whitney that note and Whitney looks at her
Speaker 1: in the eyes and goes, why are you down there? Yes,
Speaker 1: and recently cleared it up, she was like, no, I
Speaker 1: was giving her the note the octave down because I
Speaker 1: can't just built this thing out and rehearsal that She's
Speaker 1: gonna be doing. So that's where the confusion was on
Speaker 1: that one. Why are you down there? Is up there
Speaker 1: with that bell doing where my background saying it's there,
Speaker 1: just like the interrogative tone. And also people forget Whitney
Speaker 1: was a mentor to all of the young ladies in
Speaker 1: the industry as they were coming up. She mentored Alicia
Speaker 1: Keys a lot behind the scenes. They were close, they
Speaker 1: were friends. She was she was she really, I don't
Speaker 1: know she was. It's such a loss. It's such a loss.
Speaker 1: It's such a loss. And oh god, this is like
Speaker 1: this we're coming up on a nine year I think
Speaker 1: he passed the nine year mark. Oh it really, it's
Speaker 1: crazy that she's been gone that long. I know, I know,
Speaker 1: it hit me hardly. I took a day off of
Speaker 1: work after she died. I remember that and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm no because it was just like Grammy's and it
Speaker 1: was it felt so sudden, it was a Grammy week.
Speaker 1: And then when every time you found out more details,
Speaker 1: it just got more and more sad. Yeah, I got
Speaker 1: more and more sad. I cannot believe that Davis still
Speaker 1: had that party that night. I cannot believe it. That
Speaker 1: guy is the worst. And I can't believe that she
Speaker 1: died in that hotel and that he didn't cancel that
Speaker 1: event like or that if he was going to have it,
Speaker 1: it wasn't entirely about her legacy, especially her history at
Speaker 1: that Clive Davis pre Grammy party in particular, like that
Speaker 1: was one of her biggest industry coming out moments. Like
Speaker 1: I just I he obviously you know he took. He
Speaker 1: was on one of the many that took and took
Speaker 1: and took from her. Have no respect for him. There
Speaker 1: are so many pieces about how truly just monstrous he
Speaker 1: was as it specifically as it pertained to Whitney. Um,
Speaker 1: it's dark. It's dark. You guys. Remember when he put
Speaker 1: out was it a year or two or year ago
Speaker 1: he put out his autobiographer or like his memoir and
Speaker 1: he was like, oh, it turns out I'm like actually
Speaker 1: by yeah, and I think he was waiting for this
Speaker 1: outpourn of support. But everyone's like, okay, whatever, says yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't like you that much. Yeah, he's the devil.
Speaker 1: Well it's important that he is the devil. Um, he
Speaker 1: actually is the devil, and so the devil is the
Speaker 1: devil being by actually doesn't surprise me at all. I
Speaker 1: knew the devil was by the devil is a chaotic bisexual.
Speaker 1: The devil is chaotic bisexual. I do want to ask
Speaker 1: Sam before we move on. I don't think so, honey.
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like it's been a minute.
Speaker 1: Is truly like the perfect synthesis of like pop culture again,
Speaker 1: like I said, and like news of the day, news
Speaker 1: of the week, What are what are like? How do
Speaker 1: how do you and the team like figure out what
Speaker 1: to cover? Because I really think that there is the
Speaker 1: specificity and this like art to like the point of
Speaker 1: view of the show, and like it makes me always
Speaker 1: want to listen and consistently like thank you, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's a few things, like in general,
Speaker 1: if there's a story that it feels like everyone is
Speaker 1: covering to death, our goal is to either find a
Speaker 1: different angle on it or just skip it. So we
Speaker 1: skipped this second impeachment. We were just like what we add?
Speaker 1: What do I add? You know, like I can't do
Speaker 1: anything with that that won't that would feel new, So
Speaker 1: we just went elsewhere. And then I think the other
Speaker 1: thing besides that is like when we started the show
Speaker 1: we probably covered more topics, and we probably wanted our
Speaker 1: our main desire was to help people laugh about the
Speaker 1: week of news. But as the news cycles have gotten
Speaker 1: more depressing and the world has just started to feel worse,
Speaker 1: we've kind of leaned into also allowing the show to
Speaker 1: be a space for people to just like shed some
Speaker 1: tears and like have a little emotional catharsis. Um. So
Speaker 1: it's still a fun show, but we're laughing less than
Speaker 1: we were two years ago. And of also, uh, we
Speaker 1: talk about less every week now. In the earliest iterations
Speaker 1: of the show on the Friday shows, we might cover
Speaker 1: three or four different stories, and now we really just
Speaker 1: lean into less to give it more time and let
Speaker 1: it breathe a little bit more. Um. But my philosophy
Speaker 1: about like a mix of news and popular culture. My
Speaker 1: philosophy is that you can never understand the news fully
Speaker 1: without understanding pop culture. And I think that this dividing
Speaker 1: line that a lot of journalists have, where you know,
Speaker 1: this was the hard news and this is a soft news,
Speaker 1: I think that is structurally and systemically oppressive and racist
Speaker 1: and phobic, sexist, because all the stuff that the old
Speaker 1: school journalist voice that God reporters want to say, is
Speaker 1: the soft stuff but they don't care about always happens
Speaker 1: to be stuff about women and black and brown folks
Speaker 1: and gay people. And so my desires to say that
Speaker 1: everyone who listens that that stuff is just as important,
Speaker 1: and to also say that you cannot understand these quote
Speaker 1: unquote hard stories about just the facts until you understand
Speaker 1: the cultural significance and emotional stuff that's in these softer stories.
Speaker 1: For instance, like people want to there were years where
Speaker 1: journalists at all kinds of news outlets, including my own,
Speaker 1: we're saying that Trump voters were motivated by economic anxiety
Speaker 1: and because in their lizard brain logical journalists minds, they
Speaker 1: couldn't see what it was really about, and they wanted
Speaker 1: to put logic into it. But if they had done
Speaker 1: a better job, if we have done a better job
Speaker 1: of understanding the significance of culture and of cultural stories
Speaker 1: and the way that people feel and the direct reaction
Speaker 1: of some parts of white America to see a more
Speaker 1: diverse America on screen, we might have seen earlier that
Speaker 1: it was never economic anxiety. It was a lot of
Speaker 1: in some instances racism. And so I think in order
Speaker 1: to really under stories are never just facts. Stories are
Speaker 1: never just numbers. Stories are usually always about feelings, and
Speaker 1: the feelings are always more important than the facts. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying the facts don't need to be right. I
Speaker 1: want to get the facts right, but I'm not going
Speaker 1: to understand the story until I understand the emotions behind
Speaker 1: it as well. And journalists who cover heart and soft
Speaker 1: news are better at speaking to and feeling those feelings.
Speaker 1: I think. So I'm kind of ramble it now. This
Speaker 1: is this is this is really fascinating because I actually
Speaker 1: i'm and when you're while you're talking, I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: like the way that I've learned history throughout my life,
Speaker 1: and I think that like when you especially when you
Speaker 1: when you look at like the American public school system,
Speaker 1: when you learn history, it's a lot of like this
Speaker 1: was the president, this is the date the spill was passed, this, this, this, this, this,
Speaker 1: and it's sort of just bleeds all in together and
Speaker 1: it feels irrelevant, Whereas I think that I would have
Speaker 1: absorbed more of those things had I known, like what
Speaker 1: do people of the time, like, what did they do?
Speaker 1: What were the interests? What was popular at the time,
Speaker 1: Because facts without context, you know, you can't get much
Speaker 1: from it, and so pop culture is the context for
Speaker 1: everything that happens. And we especially see that over the
Speaker 1: past five years, you know what I mean, when the
Speaker 1: two truly collided and we may never go back. And
Speaker 1: so I think that in that way, like this, this
Speaker 1: ideology that you have is exactly the way we need
Speaker 1: to be moving because it helps give a more well
Speaker 1: rounded understanding of life. And it would be more exciting
Speaker 1: to learn the world and to learn history that way.
Speaker 1: Imagine if our teachers had taught us the Civil Rights
Speaker 1: movement with Motown records as the sound track, because it
Speaker 1: was and so much of the ballism of Motown and
Speaker 1: the way that they presented their black artists as polished
Speaker 1: and ready for white consumption was this was paralleled in
Speaker 1: the way that Dr Kane was marking through the streets
Speaker 1: in a suit and tie. These things are connected, right,
Speaker 1: and so that I want to have those kind of
Speaker 1: conversations and I want It's like, it's like, I hate
Speaker 1: it when people are like, well, this story is just
Speaker 1: about the facts. It's never just about the fact. It's
Speaker 1: about all this ship wrapped up together. Understand it holistically,
Speaker 1: you know, And yeah, and it's almost like when Trump
Speaker 1: became president, all the serious people were like humiliated that
Speaker 1: this could be true. And it's it's it's like they
Speaker 1: were mortified this could be true. How dare they, um,
Speaker 1: you know, have to share the screen or time or
Speaker 1: give attention to this creature of reality television. And it's like, girl,
Speaker 1: it's knocking on your door, Like what is happening like
Speaker 1: in the in the homes of people and this man,
Speaker 1: for better or worse, has been in people's homes for
Speaker 1: decades and they understand him as something. So if this
Speaker 1: makes people have to understand and grapple with the fact that, yes,
Speaker 1: the Kardashians aren't quote unquote famous for nothing, then maybe
Speaker 1: we'll have a better understanding of the American people. Yes,
Speaker 1: And gotta say, speaking of Trump reality TV, the journalists
Speaker 1: out the gate who were covering him the best. We're
Speaker 1: journalists that had previously covered television or pop culture, and
Speaker 1: like my favorite reporting about him in the campaign or
Speaker 1: the articles that tied back everything he was doing on
Speaker 1: the campaign trail and in office to the crap you
Speaker 1: saw him doing for years on the Apprentice. It's the
Speaker 1: same playbook. He uses, the same playbook, So like I
Speaker 1: honestly want to have political reporters that have watched every
Speaker 1: season of Survivor and American Idol, because like, that is
Speaker 1: the culture, and that is a culture that our politics
Speaker 1: now operates in. You know, you hit a perfectly man.
Speaker 1: I got on soapbox about this ship, as you can tell.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's it's almost like like somebody said
Speaker 1: to Andy Cohen, like, um, after he was doing a reunion,
Speaker 1: he was a great job with that reunion. He should
Speaker 1: moderate the debates, and then a couple a couple of
Speaker 1: people who are like, well, you know, yes, maybe he
Speaker 1: would actually ask questions that people want to hear answered
Speaker 1: or wouldn't bail because these journalists have this sort of
Speaker 1: like they pretend that they're still decorum. It's like when
Speaker 1: Savanna's got three Savannah three and one of the last
Speaker 1: presidential elections, she said to him, in so many words,
Speaker 1: like you can't like like I'm not going to ask
Speaker 1: you this question like a journalist. I'm asking you this
Speaker 1: question like a human like you hear you, but they
Speaker 1: don't behave like that, you know, and it's like we
Speaker 1: keep and this was the thing that we all had
Speaker 1: to figure out at the start of the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: Every White House reporter walking on that White House expected
Speaker 1: Donald Trump to like and his press team to follow
Speaker 1: the rules of like the way that like you work
Speaker 1: with the press. Those weren't rules, they were norms. They
Speaker 1: were never written in stone. They were there because previous
Speaker 1: presidents chose to do it. Donald Trump has proven that
Speaker 1: everything that we thought was like etched in stone about
Speaker 1: the way DC works, it was just a gentleman's agreement.
Speaker 1: There's no rule book, you know, and and there's never
Speaker 1: gonna be one again. Even things constitutionally are just suggestions
Speaker 1: that this After the second impeachment, it's like, oh, so
Speaker 1: this is all meaningless? Got it? Like it's I don't
Speaker 1: know um. Early on in his term, so I so
Speaker 1: I covered the last campaign for NPR, and I was
Speaker 1: following Brownie around for a lot of yeah yeah, And
Speaker 1: then once Trump became president, I began making my new
Speaker 1: show in earnest, but I still did a little bit
Speaker 1: of political reporting. And I remember early on doing a
Speaker 1: story about Trump's like first violation of the Hatch Act,
Speaker 1: and I was like, are they going to get them?
Speaker 1: This is an ethics violation? And he violated the Hatch
Speaker 1: Act and now you're just like, it's a joke, a joke.
Speaker 1: It's a joke, you know, And that's I guess what
Speaker 1: worries me about. Um. Whenever anyone is like we need
Speaker 1: a healthy Republican party or rich across the aisle, or
Speaker 1: like Biden as president, I'm like, this is a return
Speaker 1: to what didn't work for such a long time. And
Speaker 1: I at least have to be hopeful that like he
Speaker 1: because he's so because we were never going back after
Speaker 1: Trump like that, he'll have to listen to progressives as
Speaker 1: we um continue to hold him accountable and make sure
Speaker 1: this country is moving in the direction needs to move.
Speaker 1: But I just it's hard to know that that we're
Speaker 1: returning to a place of like bro code, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Because that's really what the Constitution is is.
Speaker 1: It's like bro code. It's like a bunch of dudes
Speaker 1: being like like drunk at a frat party writing rules
Speaker 1: for their frat going forward hundreds of years, and the
Speaker 1: idiots and hundreds of years from that point are like, well,
Speaker 1: the dudes who made this said this, dude, and it
Speaker 1: has to be two thirds, dude, it can't just be
Speaker 1: a majority. Dude that when you when when it's impeachment, bro.
Speaker 1: Because when it's impeachment, bro, it's actually bigger. It should
Speaker 1: be bigger, So it should have to be more people.
Speaker 1: Though you know what I mean. Though it justels like stupid.
Speaker 1: It's like it was forty three this mote and we
Speaker 1: can't fucking say this guy is guilty of his crimes, Like,
Speaker 1: give me a break. I think what is most interesting
Speaker 1: to see happen in this moment because like, in spite
Speaker 1: of all of America's attention being squarely focused on Donald
Speaker 1: Trump for the past four or five years and actuality,
Speaker 1: very little got done in d C. You know, like
Speaker 1: DC was not passing while safe for the tax cut,
Speaker 1: there were no major packages and a lot of the
Speaker 1: stuff that made a lot of you know visual like
Speaker 1: woe was just Trump kind of screwing around on the
Speaker 1: border and like, but that was happening outside of Congress, right,
Speaker 1: And so in that absence of action, you see a
Speaker 1: larger role from big business and like the making change
Speaker 1: for the country. And like what I am watching and
Speaker 1: I don't want to say scared of, but maybe it's
Speaker 1: like we're gonna end up in a society where if
Speaker 1: Washington keeps on doing nothing or being ineffectual. The Zuckerberg's
Speaker 1: and the bezos Is and the Dorseys are gonna actually
Speaker 1: run the world because they're gonna be able to move
Speaker 1: more quickly than DC ever can. It's um yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the whole premise of this video game that came out
Speaker 1: in December called Cyberpunge, and where it is like it's
Speaker 1: society is run by corporations. It's terrible, um I, but
Speaker 1: I did love it really quickly. I did love that,
Speaker 1: Um you covered the Amazon um the best sumer uh
Speaker 1: sort of that that whole sort of unionizing story instead
Speaker 1: of the in lieu of the impeachment, right, but that
Speaker 1: was I loved that just deliberately is a choice. Now
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna say no. I was just saying
Speaker 1: with with the one corporation of it all. And I
Speaker 1: also listened to the Amazon episode and thought it was great.
Speaker 1: I mean it was like earlier when I was seeing
Speaker 1: when I was watching the Conways on American Idol, I'm like,
Speaker 1: American Idol is owned by Disney. This is the biggest
Speaker 1: company in the world presenting the biggest show in the world,
Speaker 1: presenting the Kelly Can Conway Redemption arc, and I was
Speaker 1: just like, this feels disgusting to me because and then
Speaker 1: it feels like I almost was hesitant even like saying
Speaker 1: something about it because they are one of the one
Speaker 1: companies that owns everything. And it's just like, that is
Speaker 1: that's how you get situation when one corporate identity owns everything.
Speaker 1: And if we are headed to just a battle royale
Speaker 1: with Disney and Amazon, it's like, that's really scary, and
Speaker 1: that's that's that's something that needs to be top of
Speaker 1: mind because you, like God forbid, you were to get
Speaker 1: into a trouble with one of the few companies that
Speaker 1: runs the world. What are you gonna do? Yeah, it's sucking.
Speaker 1: It's crazy that you bring up Disney and their corporate power,
Speaker 1: because we're gonna drop this on Tuesday of this week tomorrow,
Speaker 1: I interviewed Abigail Disney, very critical of the company, and
Speaker 1: she lays out how she just thinks Disney has become
Speaker 1: a different company and it's it's they've got some like
Speaker 1: evil empire tendencies that she thinks need to be checked.
Speaker 1: But she was going through the disparity between their lowest
Speaker 1: earners and their highest earners. It's bonkers. It's bonkers. And
Speaker 1: they were giving out big bonuses in the midst of
Speaker 1: the pandemic year or like stock buybacks of some sort,
Speaker 1: while they laid off like twenty like thousands of people
Speaker 1: who were like making the lowest wages. And it's not
Speaker 1: just like Disney. This is like corporations right now period.
Speaker 1: And I feel like we don't talk about it enough,
Speaker 1: like companies. Companies are doing a lot that we just
Speaker 1: don't look at, and we need to look at. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm really just diet driving down, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: taking it all in. And the thing about Disney is
Speaker 1: what's really funked up about it is they do it
Speaker 1: with a smile, and they do it with their happy
Speaker 1: brand um, and that's that's that's nefarious. Well, because they're
Speaker 1: able to do two things at once, were like numerically
Speaker 1: by the numbers, some of their financial practices draw a
Speaker 1: lot of scrutiny and a lot of folks say that's bad.
Speaker 1: But visually and the symbolism of Disney, it is so woke.
Speaker 1: Black Panther was the most impressive rollout I've ever seen
Speaker 1: from a company like that doing black stuff, and they
Speaker 1: made all of us love and regardless of race. So like,
Speaker 1: on the one hand, Disney as a company gets representation symbolically,
Speaker 1: but are they are they taking care of all their people?
Speaker 1: Don't let me, let me stop lose my job. It
Speaker 1: is sometimes just it almost feels like refreshing to talk
Speaker 1: about how dark it is, because at least as a
Speaker 1: knowledge of it, you know what I mean, Like, at
Speaker 1: least we're not like fifty years ago, like I'm drinking
Speaker 1: Coca CoA. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we got to talk about it.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Um, this sort of sentiment, how perfect for
Speaker 1: I don't think so, honey, but perfect for I don't
Speaker 1: think so honey. I'm just sitting here like taking it
Speaker 1: all in, being like, yeah, oh my god, this is
Speaker 1: so I have nothing to add. I'm just kind of
Speaker 1: astonished at how dark everything is. But this, this is
Speaker 1: the perfect seguet. I don't think so honey, I mean truly.
Speaker 1: So this is where we literally work it all out.
Speaker 1: It's our sixty second segment where we take something in
Speaker 1: pop culture that we sorry, hate to say this word
Speaker 1: but hate. I hate to say the word hate. Um,
Speaker 1: and we sort of exercise the the First Amendment. Okay, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: Matt this is I think, do you want to go first?
Speaker 1: You have something? I have something? Okay, So traditionally Matco
Speaker 1: was first. This is Matt odds Is. I don't think so, honey.
Speaker 1: His time starts now. I don't think so, honey. President's Day?
Speaker 1: Who gives the fun? Why do we need to celebrate
Speaker 1: these fucking white slave owners, Like, what is the fucking deal?
Speaker 1: Change the name to American Citizens Day? Celebrate us the
Speaker 1: people that put them in fucking positions of power since
Speaker 1: the beginning of this country, just so they can abuse
Speaker 1: that power against us. No fucking thank you. I don't
Speaker 1: think so, honey. Also, I'm sorry, but after the last
Speaker 1: four years, I'm not ready to freaking kick my heels
Speaker 1: up and celebrate the person that happens to be president,
Speaker 1: especially when they can become president based on shitty, fucking
Speaker 1: illegal means. So no thank you. President's Day. I don't
Speaker 1: think what Joe Biden me right now is fucking pats
Speaker 1: on the backs and fucking yea, Joe. He needs to
Speaker 1: get to work. He needs to get to work for
Speaker 1: the American people. President's Day, I don't think so, honey.
Speaker 1: I also don't think so honey. The Hall of presidents
Speaker 1: in Disney World knock it down and put up a
Speaker 1: damn roller coaster. I don't think so, honey. And that's
Speaker 1: one minute. That's a small roller coaster. It's not that girl.
Speaker 1: It ago in one circle. I don't care. It would
Speaker 1: still be more thrilling and more entertaining than anything in
Speaker 1: the Do you know what the title of that entertainment? Entertainment? Yes? Um,
Speaker 1: but like um, I just feel like one, I'm like,
Speaker 1: shut up. We don't have to do this anymore. Also,
Speaker 1: I don't know why we just don't go to a
Speaker 1: system where like the holidays don't have to have a name.
Speaker 1: Just so you got a day off, just say Federal
Speaker 1: holiday number five, you know, give us one every quarter
Speaker 1: and just say day you know, it's like every year
Speaker 1: you get twenty five days. You fucking deserve off. I
Speaker 1: don't need to know what they are, and they don't
Speaker 1: actually be able to pick them. Yes, I also have
Speaker 1: no more excitement about new holidays. You know, after the
Speaker 1: protest last year, they're like, we're gonna push for June tenth.
Speaker 1: They become a holiday. And how do you feel? I
Speaker 1: don't know, girl, I don't know. It's it's another it's
Speaker 1: a holiday. Also, half of the folks talking about June
Speaker 1: teenth have never done June tenth. At the folks have
Speaker 1: never done. It is not a thing that all the
Speaker 1: blacks do. As someone who's speaking for the blacks, well,
Speaker 1: that that is the danger and some and some like
Speaker 1: cultural like like a thing like that where it's like,
Speaker 1: oh so then like from an outside point of view,
Speaker 1: like people think that everybody does this, I'm not like
Speaker 1: I I like Lunar New Year, not exactly exactly, but
Speaker 1: there's a pressure, it seems like now to like really
Speaker 1: like go get into it. Yeah, and it's like it
Speaker 1: is kind of very specific to East Asian culture. Um
Speaker 1: and and yeah, it's it took to apply a wholesale
Speaker 1: to like a whole group of people is really interesting
Speaker 1: to me. I don't now. I feel like usually when
Speaker 1: when it comes to holidays, like the one that gets
Speaker 1: shipped on the most nowadays is fourth of July obviously
Speaker 1: because it's like we're not down to celebrate America. But
Speaker 1: President's Day is one that we really need to be targeted.
Speaker 1: That's just that's literally going out of its way to
Speaker 1: celebrate like this group of people that like suck. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's exactly. It's what Bowen always says or has been
Speaker 1: saying recently. It's the individualism over collectivism. It's like, why
Speaker 1: the funk. It's like, it's like, you're y'all are mad
Speaker 1: that we live in a celebrity obsess culture, but we
Speaker 1: have a thing called President's Day. No yeah. I also,
Speaker 1: speaking of that bone, I really loved when you called
Speaker 1: out the folks who were kind of trying to be like, well,
Speaker 1: I wasn't mean to Brittany in that time, and your
Speaker 1: and your clap back was perfect because you're like, we're
Speaker 1: not talking about you were talking about these systems and
Speaker 1: structures and love. And thank you for that, Bowen. I
Speaker 1: real appreciate it. You're welcome everyone, and thank you for
Speaker 1: being you. And I love you so much. And we
Speaker 1: had a sister conversation. I love this sister conversations um
Speaker 1: to the moon and Okay, so now I love you
Speaker 1: so much that I'm actually gonna say it's your turn
Speaker 1: to do I don't think, and it's the highest anticipated
Speaker 1: moment of my life and I don't think so, honey,
Speaker 1: and his time actually starts now, I don't think, so, honey.
Speaker 1: Diane A motherfucking Sawyer. Get your Nixon standing ass away
Speaker 1: from this, this, this whole converse. I don't even want
Speaker 1: her to apologize at this point, she's disappeared special in
Speaker 1: the pandemic. I think I think the best thing for
Speaker 1: her to do is not even an announced that she's retiring,
Speaker 1: is just to never show her face like she. I mean,
Speaker 1: the Brittany of it all is disgusting, but then the
Speaker 1: Whitney of it all is also equally as dark. She
Speaker 1: viciously goes after her in that damn interview, and it's
Speaker 1: honestly good for Whitney for like standing her, like asing
Speaker 1: that by being like, I don't know what it is, Diane,
Speaker 1: do you know? Do you know like truly this woman
Speaker 1: like was this like media like she she's the she
Speaker 1: was a tool for misogyny in the in the adds,
Speaker 1: and like terrorized Connage Chown. Will never tear it, will
Speaker 1: never forgive her for terrorizing Connage Chong. Diane, So you
Speaker 1: found dead, not as dead as Mike Nichols, but still
Speaker 1: found dead. I'm like, I love love Mr Nichols in
Speaker 1: his work, but I think there's some darkness there. If
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just she's that lady has always
Speaker 1: been suspicious to me. She never and can I just
Speaker 1: say this speaks to a larger theme that I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do with my work. Stop with the gotcha journalism.
Speaker 1: It's never good for anybody, And you will get more
Speaker 1: out of your guests if you're nice to them. But
Speaker 1: you know, the very comfrontational nature of her interviews and
Speaker 1: then where it's like I got you, got you guys,
Speaker 1: that's bad, that's malpractice. We don't have to do it
Speaker 1: like that. Yes, we don't have to do that because
Speaker 1: you know, you know who's actually a really good model
Speaker 1: for this today. I think I might be wrong on this,
Speaker 1: but I think Gail King is like she doesn't do
Speaker 1: got She just has a grace. Even with r Kelly
Speaker 1: like she was, it wasn't about like getting him, It
Speaker 1: was just being like what is this? What do you
Speaker 1: have to say? Whereas with what Dion story, it was
Speaker 1: like just shoving that picture in front of in front
Speaker 1: of Whitney was just like so yeah. And also not
Speaker 1: for nothing, but for her to be like a wealthy
Speaker 1: white woman and be like what is this to like
Speaker 1: to like to Whitney Houston, it feels really disgusting in retrospect.
Speaker 1: And also, you know what other interview of hers I
Speaker 1: didn't like at all, Michael Jackson Brianna interview after everything
Speaker 1: happened with Chris Brown and Rihanna was ready to talk
Speaker 1: about it. And I'll tell you who looks mortified the
Speaker 1: entire time is Rihana because you can tell it was
Speaker 1: not her choice to sit down with her. And I
Speaker 1: don't know what big PR company Rihanna was with that
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, you're gonna do the interview with Diane
Speaker 1: Diane Slayer because that's what we know, because it's gonna
Speaker 1: get ratings. Because it certainly wasn't to the benefit of Rihanna,
Speaker 1: who looked miserable the entire time. So I'm in full
Speaker 1: agreence with you. Boy, Radar are great album razing, I
Speaker 1: mean so many of I mean, we were just talking
Speaker 1: about Loud. Um. We fucking love Loud, we love rated
Speaker 1: are I love talk that talk, unapologetic of them, grow
Speaker 1: gone bad obviously to close the loop on this Diane thing,
Speaker 1: I mean this to get into trouble with the Disney
Speaker 1: of at all um like ABC News just owes America
Speaker 1: an apology. I come up, come apologizing to Brittany or
Speaker 1: like Whitney Houston's family, it's just like apologize to us
Speaker 1: for the way that you like not to use this word,
Speaker 1: but like normalized that kind of interview style. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: that kind of I don't know us, it's just it's
Speaker 1: it's yeah. Barbara Walton's was the pioneer, of course. And
Speaker 1: the thing here's the thing, though, we pick on these
Speaker 1: women because because like they got these again celebrity interviews,
Speaker 1: probably because it's what you're saying, Sam, the networks handed
Speaker 1: off the interviews about the celebrities to these women network
Speaker 1: and they were like, you know what that's and and
Speaker 1: so guaranteed if Peter Jennings does that interview, it's worse,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like, so it was all
Speaker 1: of media at the time. It's it's it's it's the
Speaker 1: way that we were cultured that those kind of interviews went.
Speaker 1: And we're picking on the women because the larger structure,
Speaker 1: which was the networks, gave the women those interviews. So
Speaker 1: we we didn't start to I think the media industry,
Speaker 1: popular culture at large, we didn't even unders begin to
Speaker 1: understand the era of those ways. We didn't even understand
Speaker 1: what it means to be woke until Obama. And I
Speaker 1: think Obama was just like a cultural reset because all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, having a black man in the space
Speaker 1: where it just to be just used to be white
Speaker 1: man meant that we had to question everything, We had
Speaker 1: to question everything. I really think that, like the emergence
Speaker 1: of okenness is tied to the cultural reset that was
Speaker 1: Barack Obama. It's him, but but but that is again
Speaker 1: like you like having the connective tissue of pop culture
Speaker 1: like suspend together these like political hard newsy facts, which
Speaker 1: is like that's I mean, no, that's that's perfect. That's
Speaker 1: like such a holistic Also, like so much of that
Speaker 1: narrative of the two eight election would set the stage
Speaker 1: for what happened in the election because it all took
Speaker 1: place in the media. It's all I mean, Barack Obama
Speaker 1: became a media star. Yes, he he was celebrated by
Speaker 1: the very thing that would then, whether they want to
Speaker 1: admit to it or not, champion Donald Trump in two
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen. It's about who is the star. That's
Speaker 1: why I always feel like something I always think is
Speaker 1: the start of the election will win the elections. That's
Speaker 1: why people go to extremes, to to create stories all
Speaker 1: the time. That's why Trump was as chaotic as he was,
Speaker 1: because he constantly wanted to be the star. And I
Speaker 1: think that he may have been the star of election,
Speaker 1: but he also was the villain. It's hard to be both,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to be both that you can't with
Speaker 1: you can't keep being both exactly. It's like like any
Speaker 1: television program, people are going to want to change the channel.
Speaker 1: So that's that's the dark side to the media controlling
Speaker 1: so many things. It's like they will lose control. We
Speaker 1: have control. Oh yeah, well, and and like even the
Speaker 1: fact that like a lot of us are still grappling
Speaker 1: with I still grapple with it. Some of the moments
Speaker 1: in which my career has moved to the next level
Speaker 1: the quickest have been on the backs of like disaster
Speaker 1: like I the cacaphony of election and all the bad
Speaker 1: things that happened in that campaign a around Donald Trump
Speaker 1: catapults in my career. Then, um, after George Floyd died,
Speaker 1: the ratings from my show, the weekly users per week
Speaker 1: per downloads for the podcast version doubled in one episode,
Speaker 1: then they tripled. They're still back at double but like
Speaker 1: it feels weird to know that some of your professional
Speaker 1: success has literally come on the back of a dead
Speaker 1: black man, you know, But this is what I indust
Speaker 1: read that. This is how it's so weird, Like our
Speaker 1: life blood is tragedy. I mean it is not. I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's not. It's not because of anything. You
Speaker 1: didn't within your control or power to like make that
Speaker 1: that happen. It was just circumstantial and unfortunate. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that is so interesting. I just don't think
Speaker 1: that you should like carry any sort of like no,
Speaker 1: and yeah and not dread. It just makes you really
Speaker 1: wonder and and like I think that I've I think
Speaker 1: the best thing that I can do to honor George
Speaker 1: Floyd's legacy is to amplify the voices that are shouting
Speaker 1: to the rooftops stop killing us, which is what we
Speaker 1: have been doing on the show since that happened. So
Speaker 1: I don't feel guilt about it, but it is there's
Speaker 1: a certain there's a certain perverse, there's a certain perverse
Speaker 1: economics to the news media industry because we never want
Speaker 1: to say it, we never want to admit it, but
Speaker 1: the bad ship is often good for us. It's weird.
Speaker 1: It's weird, that's all I mean. It was just so
Speaker 1: funny to me when people were saying on Twitter like
Speaker 1: l O L the news is boring now, and it's
Speaker 1: like the last thing anyone wants to hear is that
Speaker 1: they're boring. So in that way, you know that news
Speaker 1: media was like, is like, fuck now they're quaking. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you every TV exactly, every TV exact doing
Speaker 1: TV news is scared shitless because Joe Biden is many things,
Speaker 1: but one of them that he is not He's he's
Speaker 1: not exciting. He's like, he's just not. So it'll be
Speaker 1: interesting to see how, particularly like a place like CNN
Speaker 1: chain is their coverage over time we'll see who well, uh,
Speaker 1: we have we have come to the point where it
Speaker 1: is time for Sanders. I don't think so, honey. Now
Speaker 1: are you ready and are you prepared? Can I tell
Speaker 1: you how much I'm ready and prepared? So I was
Speaker 1: able to meet up with a group of friends safely
Speaker 1: for a week with them in a cabin in the
Speaker 1: woods around New Year's And what we did one night
Speaker 1: is went around the fire and did I don't think so, honey?
Speaker 1: Come that is the best thing we've ever heard. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, and so my friend Megan making Cain. Hey Megan,
Speaker 1: she's listening. I know she's gonna be listening. I don't
Speaker 1: think so, honey. And I was like, girl, you need
Speaker 1: to record her. I don't think so, honey, because I
Speaker 1: can just make sure. Well, maybe hear it. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to send it to you. She had the best one.
Speaker 1: We love to hear it. Okay, well, but in the
Speaker 1: meantime we are, we are quicking like a cable news
Speaker 1: hosts umh my god, I can tell you. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you won't. This is Sam Sanders. I don't think so, honey.
Speaker 1: As time starts now, I don't think so honey. Duvet covers,
Speaker 1: why though Jester flop entergy, there's no need gives you
Speaker 1: a blanket, then you can just wash there. Why are
Speaker 1: you making easy ship hard? So for all the time
Speaker 1: the duvet covers have existed, they've never given us like
Speaker 1: a guide on how to get it right. Why isn't
Speaker 1: then why aren't the Why aren't the corners of duvet
Speaker 1: covers color coded to match inside the cover and the
Speaker 1: top thing make it? It's like the duvet family wants
Speaker 1: to make my life hard. They want to make it rough.
Speaker 1: And when I go into an airbnb where they even
Speaker 1: just a goddamn blanket, but there's a duvet and a
Speaker 1: duvet cover and all that ship, I give you a
Speaker 1: three star to star review. I don't like them. Get
Speaker 1: him out of my face. Don't make easy ship hard.
Speaker 1: I don't think so, honey, Duvet covers, you are dead on.
Speaker 1: This is something in the culture that must be rectified. Now,
Speaker 1: why do they exist? Why do they exist? Why do
Speaker 1: you have to scuba dive into a stack of cloth
Speaker 1: every time? Literally, and everyone's gonna everyone's gonna mention, Oh,
Speaker 1: there are the ways, you know, you roll it up
Speaker 1: and then you flow. Those are the same pools that
Speaker 1: tell you how to fold the fitted sheet. There is
Speaker 1: no way, there's no I didn't even know about this
Speaker 1: duvet until I had to make a room of my
Speaker 1: own and I bought a bed of my own, and
Speaker 1: I had this duvet, and I was like, I thought
Speaker 1: that was just a thicker blanket that went on top. No, bitch,
Speaker 1: it's stupid duve nonsense. You have to put this on that,
Speaker 1: on this on that. It's why are you making simple
Speaker 1: things hard? It's exactly what you said. And family is
Speaker 1: one of the worst families in the world. Criminals. Oh yeah, no,
Speaker 1: they are horrors. They're responsible for horrors. Clarissa Duvet Morton Duvet,
Speaker 1: Ashley Duvet. Ashley Duvet. Ashley Duvet is Megan McCain's best girlfriend.
Speaker 1: And they go to they go to tah together. They
Speaker 1: do Oh they are so you know, how did you did?
Speaker 1: You all both watch Barbon Star? Alright, Trish, okay, and
Speaker 1: you get that joke. You'll get that joke when you
Speaker 1: see the movie. But fucking Ashley Duvet. She is not Trish.
Speaker 1: Energy is not trash. She's not Trish. Just get a blanket.
Speaker 1: Just get a fucking blanket. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask you both. Is it not okay to sleep
Speaker 1: with a duvet without a cover because it just feels
Speaker 1: weird and too soft? I mean, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: weird because it's just like you, you live the way
Speaker 1: you want to live. And also like if if you
Speaker 1: skip the step of needed to put the duvet cover
Speaker 1: on it, then good for you, more power to you. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look right because we've been conditioned to think
Speaker 1: that we got to put the duvet cover on the thing,
Speaker 1: and that's how a bed looks. But girl, it's a
Speaker 1: whole extra step and it is complicated, very complicated, Levin.
Speaker 1: It's one of the songs. It's one of a vine songs. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: that felt. That was a good release for me. Thank
Speaker 1: you all for giving me that space. That was an
Speaker 1: incredible one. You've been giving top shelf, top level pop
Speaker 1: culture commentary and then to get your I don't think
Speaker 1: so many opportunity And it's duvet that is so that
Speaker 1: the power that that has the power that has the
Speaker 1: international inflisra that has I love it. I love it
Speaker 1: such a delight I have been, I'm telling you, and
Speaker 1: I'll keep playing it because I mean, I've been listening
Speaker 1: out for a while and I love what y'all are doing.
Speaker 1: Like there's there's such a great balance between like totally
Speaker 1: off the dome riffing free association matched with and I
Speaker 1: know this, I can tell when y'all have really thought
Speaker 1: deeply about a thing and spend time processing how you
Speaker 1: feel about it before you tell us about it. So
Speaker 1: y'all do it really well. You make it seem like
Speaker 1: you just show up, But I know you're preparing and
Speaker 1: I hear it and it's just great and I love
Speaker 1: what you'll do. Like linguistically, you're playing with language in
Speaker 1: a way that I just find it's like any playing
Speaker 1: like jest or flop making that I don't think, so
Speaker 1: honey a thing the whole meaning of the word cathartic
Speaker 1: like this is like like playing with the language in
Speaker 1: a way that like, honestly, I think like pushes the
Speaker 1: English language forward. So I don't know, I just come
Speaker 1: into work. Language is ridiculous to please. You are so
Speaker 1: incredibly smart. You are such an aspirationally good host. You're
Speaker 1: such a warm host. I think and I both know
Speaker 1: that from being guests on your show and being made
Speaker 1: to feel so special and so interesting by you, and
Speaker 1: you really do um um. You really just have such
Speaker 1: a great way of getting in there on all the topics.
Speaker 1: And I, like I said, this Whitney episode was a highlight.
Speaker 1: I also loved your fashion episode about it during the quarantine.
Speaker 1: I thought that was really illuminating and to be it
Speaker 1: would be an honor if we could call ourselves a
Speaker 1: sister podcast to yours and listen sisters sisters, all the sisters.
Speaker 1: And also I realized now I've had both of you
Speaker 1: on separately. Next time we do this, I've gotta come
Speaker 1: on together. We would be figured out. Always love to
Speaker 1: be asked anywhere. Well, everyone, please check out. It's been
Speaker 1: a minute with Sam Sanders. Um and I mean, just what,
Speaker 1: what a true pleasure this was? I loved, I mean,
Speaker 1: one of our best answers to the question, one of
Speaker 1: one of my favorite. I don't think so, Honey's truly
Speaker 1: this episode has it all and um and I can't
Speaker 1: think of a the better just a better all around episode.
Speaker 1: Now do you agree? I would, I would agree this
Speaker 1: was a classic and this and we had an amazing
Speaker 1: time and I think that bowen, Um, we have to
Speaker 1: finish with the song we and I know just the
Speaker 1: song impossible, play possible or play country bokings to the
Speaker 1: Prince and joined a marriage. I don't know, just yeah
Speaker 1: and then wait they'll hold on weight. We gotta say,
Speaker 1: just just just just finished with these two words. Same
Speaker 1: knees and fools, all right, bye, I stoop to boot