Speaker 1: I think the thing that I want to most say
Speaker 1: about what we're doing here is that we've always had
Speaker 1: this feeling that somehow we can just work it out.
Speaker 1: But there's another species that wants to talk to us.
Speaker 1: They'll say what's on their mind, We'll say what's on
Speaker 1: our mind. Some kind of confusion will exist, and maybe
Speaker 1: harmony will happen. But then again, Brent, I remember back
Speaker 1: to the very beginning, of course, when we were much younger,
Speaker 1: and there was the Twilight Zone episode called to Serve Man, right, yes,
Speaker 1: and what happened this other race?
Speaker 2: And I loved it as a kid.
Speaker 1: The super tall, weird looking dudes showed up and they
Speaker 1: wore these long kind of gowns and they had their
Speaker 1: spacecraft and they said that they were here to help us.
Speaker 2: And they did right.
Speaker 1: Then they made the Desert's bloom and yes, yep, it
Speaker 1: was great. And then we got a hold of their
Speaker 1: book and it said to Serve Man, and everybody.
Speaker 2: Is this is so freaking great. Are here to help
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 1: As a kid, I didn't realize that, but today you'd say,
Speaker 1: thank god, somebody is here.
Speaker 2: To help, right exactly?
Speaker 1: We sure need some help. But so the main character
Speaker 1: and the Twilight Zone that is like twenty two and
Speaker 1: a half minutes of programming or something, so it goes fast.
Speaker 1: But this one guy who's been sort of the leader
Speaker 1: of the band is getting on this flight. He's going
Speaker 1: to go to their home planet. And the people who
Speaker 1: have been looking into trying to translate the How to
Speaker 1: Serve a Man book yell at him, don't get on
Speaker 1: the ship.
Speaker 2: And why because he's going to be dinner. It's a cookbook. Wow.
Speaker 1: I don't know when you first saw that one as
Speaker 1: a kid. What's your what was your take?
Speaker 2: Honestly, I was of the age when I first started
Speaker 2: watching The Twilight Zone where pretty much every episode upset
Speaker 2: me or scared me or something, and that I think
Speaker 2: that probably the idea that aliens were going to eat
Speaker 2: us stayed with me for longer than I would have liked.
Speaker 2: I think the interest things, it's something that we culturally
Speaker 2: still carry around with us, that we still worry about.
Speaker 2: What if that's their intent, what if they're fattening us up,
Speaker 2: or what if they're keeping us alive so that and
Speaker 2: that they're farming us. We've heard all of these these theories.
Speaker 1: All of it, and in fact we hear it often
Speaker 1: with the cattle mutilations out there, It's like, Okay, if
Speaker 1: it's really NHI that are mutilating cattle and draining in
Speaker 1: them of their blood and taking their vital organs, how
Speaker 1: do we know they're not doing that to us? There
Speaker 1: have been reports of human mutilations, fewer, I think, I hope. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the thing I want to just land the table for
Speaker 1: us right now is back when Dolan and I were
Speaker 1: writing Ad After Disclosure, it was I believe it was.
Speaker 2: Twenty ten when we were writing it.
Speaker 1: Okay, so yeah, I know it does seem it's like
Speaker 1: the how time flies, right. So we were thinking about
Speaker 1: a lot of things, and we were kicking things like
Speaker 1: you and I do all the time, right, It's like
Speaker 1: testing theories, what about this?
Speaker 2: What about that?
Speaker 1: And then something happens in the middle of that process
Speaker 1: that just laid something out onto the table for us.
Speaker 1: And we had a chapter I believe called threat Narrative.
Speaker 1: And here's what got laid on the table. It turns
Speaker 1: out that Stephen Hawking in the famous scientist, right, the
Speaker 1: man who was he was super super bright, but his
Speaker 1: body at afterpheed and it was all very strange but
Speaker 1: he was on a Discovery Channel mini series Into the
Speaker 1: Universe with Stephen Hawking is like April of twenty ten,
Speaker 1: and Dolan and I are like, our sleeves are rolled
Speaker 1: up and we're working on this book. And then he
Speaker 1: ends up saying, and this is the part that's famous.
Speaker 1: The quote is if aliens visit us, the outcome would
Speaker 1: be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't
Speaker 1: turn out well for the Native Americans. And I kind
Speaker 1: of love that because it's the role reversal. If indeed
Speaker 1: there are aliens here or an Nhi that is technology
Speaker 1: advanced over us, aren't they, in fact the people from
Speaker 1: the Old World coming to the New World?
Speaker 2: The conquerors? Yeah, yeah, the invaders. No, it's true. And
Speaker 2: going back to your original point of the hope is
Speaker 2: that we could work it out with aliens, but in fact,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of historical precedent that we can't work
Speaker 2: it out with ourselves, right, So it's a hard kind
Speaker 2: of wish to see coming true that aliens are going
Speaker 2: to come down, and as we're going to take a
Speaker 2: look at in at least one of the movies here,
Speaker 2: But really I think it is a theme across all
Speaker 2: of these movies is communication right. When cultures clash, communication
Speaker 2: is key, And if they don't understand each other, or
Speaker 2: they can't even speak to each other, then so much
Speaker 2: for trying to work things out. I remember that Hawking
Speaker 2: made the argument. He wasn't saying that aliens were going
Speaker 2: to be evil. That was not his point.
Speaker 1: His point was that any civilization capable of crossing interstellar
Speaker 1: distances to get here, against all the odds and all
Speaker 1: the distance and time, they would possess technology that was
Speaker 1: so overwhelmingly superior to ours that any meeting with them
Speaker 1: might not accrue to our benefit. And in fact, I
Speaker 1: remember watching that episode and it was just mind bending.
Speaker 1: He's talking about imagining things, and I always thought, listen,
Speaker 1: the guy super bright, but he was limited physically and
Speaker 1: what he could do. So what he did is he thought.
Speaker 1: He used that brilliant minded to think. And one of
Speaker 1: the things he did and talked about in that first
Speaker 1: program was he imagined an advanced civilization that had exhausted
Speaker 1: its home planet's resources and had become space bearing nomads.
Speaker 1: And the quote was looking to conquer and colonize whatever
Speaker 1: planets they can reach. So the problem is of we
Speaker 1: have rather naively sent out voyager, unmanned craft with gold records,
Speaker 1: telling people what we look like, what we know, how
Speaker 1: to find us. And it wasn't that Hawking was saying
Speaker 1: don't don't listen for signals. He was in favor of SETI.
Speaker 1: He was saying, listen. If somebody is sending out something,
Speaker 1: you want to receive it. He was just saying, exercise
Speaker 1: a little caution before you send it out. I think
Speaker 1: that's what is the what's driving us in this episode.
Speaker 1: This is a chance for us to talk about are
Speaker 1: there movies that demonstrate contact between not just individual aliens
Speaker 1: and individual humans, but civilizations if you will, And sometimes
Speaker 1: movies are. There's a bunch of them. There's everything from
Speaker 1: Alien Nation in District nine, where actually it goes worse
Speaker 1: for the aliens than it does for us, right, And
Speaker 1: then of course there's the Day the Earth Stood Still
Speaker 1: where they show up and give us an ultimatum. There's
Speaker 1: Independence Day, of course, where it's just playing bad. They're
Speaker 1: looking for trouble, they're not looking for help.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think the headline here is that when
Speaker 2: humans and aliens meet spoiler alert, it doesn't end well. No,
Speaker 2: for one side or the other. And again going back
Speaker 2: to kind of historical precedent, the equivalent of aliens is
Speaker 2: when the earth was still being explored, a dominant culture
Speaker 2: would go to a indigenous culture and they would be
Speaker 2: overtaken and conquered. I think the only example I can
Speaker 2: think of was New Zealand, where the Maori were not conquered,
Speaker 2: they were integrated into culture, which is why New Zealand's
Speaker 2: such an interesting place to visit. It is and you've
Speaker 2: lived haven't you lived there before? No? I thought about
Speaker 2: living there. I visited it for a month and I
Speaker 2: love it. I would highly recommend it to everyone, and
Speaker 2: not just if you're a Lord of the Rings fan.
Speaker 1: And let's move on to a kind of a movie
Speaker 1: that again, I bet very few people are thinking about
Speaker 1: the movie that we want to start this conversation with.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to start us down this road with
Speaker 2: yet another quote. And the quote is a great civilis
Speaker 2: a is not conquered from without until it has been
Speaker 2: destroyed from within. Now, Yeah, powerful quote. That's actually by
Speaker 2: a man named Will Durant, who was a twentieth century
Speaker 2: storian and philosopher. And it's the first image that you
Speaker 2: see on the movie we'll now be talking about, which
Speaker 2: is Apocalypto. That's a movie by Mel Gibson that came
Speaker 2: out in two thousand and six. And the interesting thing
Speaker 2: is that quote was actually an excerpt of something larger,
Speaker 2: which is equally relevant to the world we're living in today.
Speaker 2: Here's the full quote. A great civilization is not conquered
Speaker 2: from without until it has destroyed itself from within. The
Speaker 2: essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals,
Speaker 2: her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her
Speaker 2: stifling taxes, her consuming wars. Now is America a modern
Speaker 2: day Rome? Are we right to be conquered? Could it be?
Speaker 2: I've wondered lately, is this the reason that we are
Speaker 2: on the verge of disclosure? That the powers that be
Speaker 2: want to maybe prepare us for the potential alien invasion coming?
Speaker 2: Obviously we can't answer that today, and I know that's
Speaker 2: a scary thought. But I think the most important thing
Speaker 2: to take away from this is what we talked about
Speaker 2: in the beginning, which is there is a culture clash
Speaker 2: that happens in Apocalypto that does not go well for
Speaker 2: the indigenous tribes, and yet the whole movie becomes a
Speaker 2: metaphor for that idea that there's always a bigger fish. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Boy, I got to tell you, I love Apocalypto, and
Speaker 1: I know Mel Gibson is a controversial character, and I
Speaker 1: would like us to be able folks, to separate ourselves
Speaker 1: from his personality or whether you love him or hate
Speaker 1: him or whatever, concentrate on what this film is about,
Speaker 1: because it really does ask a brilliantly large question, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't really ask it even until the very end
Speaker 1: of the film. So the one thing I do have
Speaker 1: to say is, look, this movie, as Brent said, was
Speaker 1: made in two thousand and six. This is not the
Speaker 1: kind of show where we can respect people that call
Speaker 1: spoiler alert. The ability to discuss what this film does
Speaker 1: needs for us to actually look at what it says
Speaker 1: in its entirety. So I guess if that's the problem,
Speaker 1: maybe bounce ahead ten minutes and you'll be okay. But
Speaker 1: here's the thing. This is the story that takes place
Speaker 1: with the is it the Aztec or the Mayan civilism?
Speaker 1: It's of course yeah. And the main character is a guy.
Speaker 1: It's so great.
Speaker 2: There's no English in it, there's no it's just all subtitled.
Speaker 1: Yep, it's all subtitled, and very little dialogue at that.
Speaker 1: And the main character is this guy named Jaguar Paw
Speaker 1: who is a hunter from a peaceful forest village. But
Speaker 1: he gets captured by these Mayan warriors, right and they
Speaker 1: just destroy his community. His wife and his child end
Speaker 1: up in a pit. He ends up captive, and he's
Speaker 1: forced to go back to this really horrific He described
Speaker 1: the civilization that's falling apart from within. I think that
Speaker 1: describes what was going on with the Mayans at that point.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Their plan is to march Jaguar Pauw and his other
Speaker 1: fellow captives up to the top of a pyramid and
Speaker 1: behead them and as sacrifices to the gods to try
Speaker 1: to cut them a deal. So all I can say
Speaker 1: is this, it's creepy. It's like being on a bad
Speaker 1: acid trip. It's just like his reality is shattered. He
Speaker 1: can't even imagine the cruelty that he's about to experience.
Speaker 1: The fear was probably so high that he can barely
Speaker 1: stand on his own two legs.
Speaker 2: It's so bad.
Speaker 1: Plus he's worried about what's going to happen to his
Speaker 1: wife and child? Are they going to die in this pit?
Speaker 1: What's going to happen? And that is the only thing
Speaker 1: that motivates this character. He wants to save his family
Speaker 1: and so he manages to escape, but then things go badly.
Speaker 2: A couple things to touch on here, which is, as
Speaker 2: you pointed out, the Mayans are basically playing the part
Speaker 2: of the Romans. Their whole culture has fallen apart because
Speaker 2: of kind of the moral decay. They believe they are
Speaker 2: the people of destiny. They have the arrogance, they have
Speaker 2: the hubris, they're on the downfall, and in fact, the
Speaker 2: reason that they are sacrificing others to the gods is
Speaker 2: they believe that all the problems that have befallen their
Speaker 2: culture were because of the gods, not because of themselves.
Speaker 2: We didn't do this to ourselves. This is because we
Speaker 2: haven't killed enough people to make the gods happy. A
Speaker 2: very twisted point in the Mayan culture there, and I
Speaker 2: think to the other points. As creepy and as visceral
Speaker 2: and as savage as the movie is, I actually before
Speaker 2: we get to the ending, which is in some ways
Speaker 2: the whole point of the movie at least for our podcast.
Speaker 2: I took away one thing that I was very empowered
Speaker 2: by the thought that how can somebody in that situation
Speaker 2: when Jaguar Paw is on the cusp of being sackcrificed,
Speaker 2: he's left his wife and son behind him. By the way,
Speaker 2: his wife is pregnant about to give birth. That's the
Speaker 2: other complication in this sinkhole, what gets him through, what
Speaker 2: pulls him through. Early on in the movie, he says
Speaker 2: to his son before they're separated, don't be afraid. Don't
Speaker 2: be afraid, right, And the only thing that keeps the
Speaker 2: sun going with the mother to help her through giving
Speaker 2: birth to a child in a sinkhole. And the only
Speaker 2: thing that gets Jaguar Paw through this hole ordeal is
Speaker 2: he stays poised, He doesn't give into the fear, He
Speaker 2: sticks through it, and he has the courage to endure.
Speaker 2: And I that Mel Gibson, obviously having made it also
Speaker 2: the passion of the Christ is a spiritual man. And
Speaker 2: I don't think it's a coincidence that the key idea
Speaker 2: of this is don't be afraid. When the world becomes
Speaker 2: dark all around you. That phrase don't be afraid is
Speaker 2: in the Bible seventy times, and just to tie things
Speaker 2: all together, it's one of the key lines in Disclosure Day,
Speaker 2: don't be afraid of the unknown. And so I think,
Speaker 2: as we talk about what could be a possible terrifying
Speaker 2: outcome for humanity if we were ever to be invaded
Speaker 2: by aliens, I think that is something to hold on to,
Speaker 2: like that life preserver in the dark ocean. Don't be afraid.
Speaker 2: I commend the thought.
Speaker 1: But I have to tell you if what was happening
Speaker 1: to Jaguar all was happening to me, I'd be so afraid.
Speaker 2: I don't know what I would do.
Speaker 1: And before we get into that ending, I have to
Speaker 1: tell you that a few years back, I was in
Speaker 1: an Anytime fitness gym working out and I'm just pushing
Speaker 1: some weights around and I look over and there's Mel
Speaker 1: Gibson doing the same thing and my local gem. So
Speaker 1: I just went up and said hello, and I told
Speaker 1: him how much I enjoyed his film, and he was
Speaker 1: very nice about it, and he was appreciative. I think
Speaker 1: it's always nice if you're a director and somebody seeks
Speaker 1: you out to say mental lot. To me, that's important,
Speaker 1: And so I told him that but then I went
Speaker 1: the one step further and I said, and you know
Speaker 1: what's so interesting to me is and I don't know
Speaker 1: mel if you're involved in this, or you think about this,
Speaker 1: or whether it was part of it, but it sure
Speaker 1: felt like a metaphor for the UFO alien contact issue.
Speaker 1: He looks at me kind of the scance like really
Speaker 1: he did, by the way, as we talked, acknowledge, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would make a certain amount of sense, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't what he had in mind. So all I have
Speaker 1: to say, Brent, is if you and I are seeing
Speaker 1: it in this movie. The director of the movie apparently
Speaker 1: didn't see it himself when he was making it, or
Speaker 1: at least that's what he seemed to say to me.
Speaker 1: But Okay, so this doesn't go on forever because we
Speaker 1: have a lot of other things to cover. We've got
Speaker 1: a couple of great personal stories. We've got several other
Speaker 1: films that we want to talk about in passing. So
Speaker 1: what happens here is Jaguar Pop breaks free and he
Speaker 1: is pursued by the baddest ass Mayan hunters around, including
Speaker 1: one dude who is just he just burns to kill
Speaker 1: this guy in a violent torturing way. That's all he
Speaker 1: can say is you know that if he catches him,
Speaker 1: that's that. And it's this incredible chase. It's not a
Speaker 1: car chase. It's so much better than a car chase.
Speaker 1: This is like a gang of highly talented, brutal mofos
Speaker 1: chasing you who has no chance through the jungle. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: And so you know, you just know if they catch him,
Speaker 1: that's it, and that's game over.
Speaker 2: We're done.
Speaker 1: And nothing really appears to be available to stop them,
Speaker 1: and yet something does.
Speaker 2: And that's what's so great about it, Yes, and what
Speaker 2: that something is. When they reach the beach, they see
Speaker 2: these credible craft on the water, right, it's the boats
Speaker 2: coming of the Spanish explorers coming to conquer the New World.
Speaker 2: And oh my goodness, it the looks on their faces.
Speaker 2: It's the way we would look if alien spaceships landed
Speaker 2: on our planet. And that's where I think you got
Speaker 2: the idea of that great metaphor.
Speaker 1: It's so great about it is Okay, these two this
Speaker 1: guy is caught, gotten dead to right, and once he's
Speaker 1: at the beach, he ain't getting off the beach. There's
Speaker 1: more of them than him. And so that's the end
Speaker 1: of the movie. And I think at the first time
Speaker 1: I saw it, I'm almost checking my watch, going, isn't
Speaker 1: this the end of the movie? There seems like so
Speaker 1: much they're just going to kill it. What and then
Speaker 1: they stop in their tracks and they have never seen
Speaker 1: anything like it. These are the Spanish galleons. These are
Speaker 1: major craft, and I believe at the same time there
Speaker 1: are the guys getting out of it with the metal,
Speaker 1: the head gear and the head gear and the breastplates
Speaker 1: and the swords, and just so there's technology for that time.
Speaker 1: These ships are technology. The protective gear is technology, and
Speaker 1: everybody just stops in their tracks because they don't know
Speaker 1: what it is the same way some of us might
Speaker 1: stop in our tracks if we were having a fight.
Speaker 1: Was say, you're having a fight with your next door
Speaker 1: neighbor about the law, about the fence and where it
Speaker 1: needs to be, and people are threatening to sue each other,
Speaker 1: and suddenly there's this craft above you. You're going to stop
Speaker 1: your fight. It's just going to stop you. There's just
Speaker 1: no way around it. So what I think is so
Speaker 1: interesting if you replace the Spanish ships with alien craft,
Speaker 1: what happens is that everything changes because what the Mayans
Speaker 1: don't know, these Mayans who have been chasing him, is
Speaker 1: they don't know are the gods they're looking at?
Speaker 2: Are they traders? Are they explorers? Are they invaders? Are
Speaker 2: they refugees? They don't know anything.
Speaker 1: No, just in a way, given that we've had eighty
Speaker 1: years to study what's going on with whatever is going
Speaker 1: on right now, we don't know exactly what's goed.
Speaker 2: There may be people that do know they haven't told us. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I think that's one of the major reasons why
Speaker 2: everyone wants to know the truth. I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people believe they are out there, they may even
Speaker 2: be here. The big question is why what do they want?
Speaker 2: Are we being threatened? Are we being observed? Is someone
Speaker 2: here to help us? It's a big spectrum, and I
Speaker 2: think the anxiety that people have about what the potential
Speaker 2: motives might be is legitimate. And again, if you look
Speaker 2: to history, most of the time a conquering race meets
Speaker 2: a lesser race or a less developed race, it does
Speaker 2: not end well. So anyway, it's a really interesting movie.
Speaker 2: Glad you got to run your theory past Mel Gibson.
Speaker 2: It's very funny when we come back. We are going
Speaker 2: to talk about Arrival and another movie which I'm going
Speaker 2: to hold out the surprise of what that last third
Speaker 2: movie is. And we're also going to hear about Bryce's
Speaker 2: personal Apocalyptos story. I can't wait. Let's do this. I'm
Speaker 2: Brent Friedman. Years ago, a family friend who became a
Speaker 2: cabinet member in the Reagan administration just closed to me
Speaker 2: that aliens are real. They're here, and he'd seen them.
Speaker 2: I'm Bryce's able.
Speaker 1: Later, when we were producing Dark Skies, an NBCTV series
Speaker 1: about an alien invasion, we were approached by men who
Speaker 1: said they were from the Office of Naval Intelligence and
Speaker 1: they wanted to give us inside information in exchange for access.
Speaker 2: To our show. We didn't take that deal, but we
Speaker 2: have never stopped thinking about it.
Speaker 1: That's why we do this podcast. We're working out ideas
Speaker 1: in real time about how Hollywood is portrayed aliens and why.
Speaker 2: Every episode is different because there are so many questions.
Speaker 1: We're looking for answers. It's an active investigation. Let's do
Speaker 1: this together.
Speaker 2: Bryce, without further ado, tell us you're Apocalypto story. First.
Speaker 1: I apologize it's probably going to be a little long.
Speaker 1: It because I feel like I need to tell the
Speaker 1: whole thing, and Brent, it's a real story. I just
Speaker 1: wanted everyone to understand there's nothing made up about it.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is true, and in fact, it's a
Speaker 1: story that for years since it happened, and it happened
Speaker 1: forty years ago, okay, forty years ago, since that time
Speaker 1: my wife is at dinner time would tell people, Hey, Bryce,
Speaker 1: tell them that story. And I was one of those stories. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I would tell it like it was a comedy.
Speaker 1: And then I realized a few years ago I could
Speaker 1: no longer do that. It was just too wrong, and
Speaker 1: I said, I have to tell this for what it is,
Speaker 1: which was one of the worst, most fearsome moments of
Speaker 1: my life.
Speaker 2: We're talking about like nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: Okay, I am recently married and I have a pregnant wife,
Speaker 1: so I'm about to be a father, and I'm working
Speaker 1: for a show in Los Angele as a director, producer,
Speaker 1: and the show is called I in LA. It's one
Speaker 1: of those magazine shows where they do a lot of
Speaker 1: travel specials kind of thing. And I had done certain
Speaker 1: things for I in La that had already been a
Speaker 1: little dangerous.
Speaker 2: One of them was.
Speaker 1: I did a Baja travel special where I nearly died
Speaker 1: because I ate some street food that the guide said, oh,
Speaker 1: this will be great, no problem, so that nearly killed me.
Speaker 1: At the l Presidente Hotel, I went to Cheech and
Speaker 1: Eaza where they had a pyramid very similar to the
Speaker 1: one from.
Speaker 2: Apocalypto, and I got two.
Speaker 1: Thirds of the way up and they there was an
Speaker 1: opening and they said you can go out through there
Speaker 1: and then go down.
Speaker 2: I went out there.
Speaker 1: I was way far up and I got down about
Speaker 1: ten ten steps, and I realized the steps were teeny
Speaker 1: tiny and I could fall off this thing, and I froze.
Speaker 1: I couldn't go up, couldn't go down, nearly got killed
Speaker 1: on the Cheech you eatsa pyramid. Then came Borneo. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So I get paired with this guy named Claude who's
Speaker 1: a Texan, and he's got this thing that we're supposed
Speaker 1: to do. He and I are being sent to Malaysia
Speaker 1: to scout locations, and then we're going to go to
Speaker 1: Borneo and we're going to scout locations there. And as
Speaker 1: Clyde assures me, we're going to go stay with some
Speaker 1: former Headhunters in the middle of Borneo. Now, most people
Speaker 1: think Borneo is a place where it's the.
Speaker 2: Middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: We're going to go into the middle of nowhere with Headhunters. Now,
Speaker 1: Clyde assured me, don't worry about a thing. Man, they
Speaker 1: haven't taken head since nineteen forty six, so that's not
Speaker 1: that far removed. No, no, it really isn't. So what
Speaker 1: I did is back then. Now we think of Banana
Speaker 1: Republic right now is a place where you can get
Speaker 1: some upscale clothing or whatever. But back then it was
Speaker 1: more like a travel adventure place. So I know I'm
Speaker 1: going into the jungle. I go to Banana Republic and
Speaker 1: I buy a shirt with epaulets and with the big
Speaker 1: pockets and I'm you look the call cargo pants. And
Speaker 1: I get this hat that I kind of love because
Speaker 1: the hat looks like Indiana Jones. It's an Indiana Jones
Speaker 1: at brand new, very nice looking hat. Really enjoyed having that.
Speaker 1: I probably looked like a complete goofball. And on the
Speaker 1: video version of this people will be able to see
Speaker 1: that for themselves. Okay, that's exciting. Here I am with Clyde.
Speaker 1: We get on the plane to set the tone. We
Speaker 1: end up in first class, so I'm thinking this is
Speaker 1: pretty cool, and there's nobody else in first class, so
Speaker 1: all these flight attendants are doing whatever we want, which
Speaker 1: is giving us don peren yone to drink. So Clyde
Speaker 1: and I drink two two and a half bottles of
Speaker 1: this over the eighteen hour flight. And when we get
Speaker 1: to Malaysia, we're walking off the plane. We're having a
Speaker 1: good time and we see a sign and it's a
Speaker 1: skull and cross bumps and it says Dowda is death,
Speaker 1: which means drugs are death. Okay, so that kind of
Speaker 1: sobered us up a little bit. WHOA, what's going on there?
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, shortly after we were there,
Speaker 1: two Australians who were under sentence of death four drugs
Speaker 1: were hanged oh in malaysiing in Kuala Lumpur not long
Speaker 1: after our visit, so there was a tone a tone
Speaker 1: thing going there. So we did our thing in Malaysia
Speaker 1: and that was a beautiful country. People can go there
Speaker 1: now and enjoy it very much. But then it came
Speaker 1: time to go do this scouting trip. So we get
Speaker 1: on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to I believe we're
Speaker 1: flying east to a Kuching, which is the capital of
Speaker 1: Sarawak and the gateway to the rest of our adventure.
Speaker 1: And I know this seems like a lot of setup,
Speaker 1: but I just feel that you got to really understand
Speaker 1: the state of mind of what's going on here. We
Speaker 1: landed this small airport and right now, if a visitor
Speaker 1: was retracing my steps forty years later, man, you'd be
Speaker 1: on an air conditioned coach. Right, things have changed, but
Speaker 1: this is forty years ago. That's not what happened to us.
Speaker 1: We get to this small airport and there's this ramshackle
Speaker 1: like jeep there, and there's a guide, this Malaysian guide
Speaker 1: who's about seventeen years old. He's just a kid. His
Speaker 1: English is broken. He's not the best guide around. It's
Speaker 1: what Clyde has found, okay. And by the way, we're
Speaker 1: completely sober by this way. We've had a week to
Speaker 1: get our hope together.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So this guy looks very young, his English is barely
Speaker 1: passable for tourism. And so we get in this jeep
Speaker 1: and we drive for about three hours and at first
Speaker 1: it's dirt roads and the roads kind of give up
Speaker 1: they're not even roads anymore. They're just dirt, right, and
Speaker 1: then they become something else. They're just nothing. And we
Speaker 1: just weren't like bouncing up and down. And I'm thinking
Speaker 1: to myself as we're doing this print during this three hours,
Speaker 1: I'm like, Clyde hasn't told anybody where we are.
Speaker 2: How could he?
Speaker 1: No one knows where we are. My wife doesn't know
Speaker 1: where I am. The people at I in La don't
Speaker 1: know where we are. We don't have a sad light phone,
Speaker 1: we got nothing. Nobody knows where we are. And we
Speaker 1: have just gone three hours into the middle of nowhere
Speaker 1: and we reach the Skrang River that's what it's called.
Speaker 2: You can look it up on the map.
Speaker 1: And we're on our way to what's called the Long
Speaker 1: House where the Ebon tribe, the ones that were the headhunters.
Speaker 1: I think later I found out they were headhunters through
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two, but at the time we thought nineteen
Speaker 1: forty six, so I would have been even more scared.
Speaker 2: How do you spell that?
Speaker 1: The Ebon Iban and Sprang skrin g Sprang river looks
Speaker 1: that looks like something made up And anyway, so we
Speaker 1: get to the Sprang and there is this kind of
Speaker 1: dugout like boada fair and it's not great. It's small,
Speaker 1: and there's this motor on it that looks like it's
Speaker 1: from World War two, and we get in it and
Speaker 1: we start going up the Sprang River. It's like heart
Speaker 1: of darkness time, right, because at first there were a
Speaker 1: few settlements on the side, and then pretty soon nothing
Speaker 1: and we just keep going. We've gone three hours under jeep.
Speaker 1: Now we're three hours on the spray, and as we
Speaker 1: get up there, we just realize how very alone we
Speaker 1: are because soon nobody's there. It's just jungle cutting in
Speaker 1: on the river. But then eventually there is a long
Speaker 1: house and there are the ebonds and we get off
Speaker 1: and our guide is the one that translates for us,
Speaker 1: and it's been okay thing for a moment. They used
Speaker 1: to take these long what would you call it, the
Speaker 1: blow darts blow darts, and so they gave me a chance.
Speaker 1: I thought, oh wow, this is great. I get to
Speaker 1: practice with the blow dart. There's a picture of me
Speaker 1: doing that, and I'm thinking this is intriguing. Blow darts
Speaker 1: because they would pull they would actually paralyze people before
Speaker 1: they would probably behead them Okay. The other thing is
Speaker 1: we were told that the people that had actually taken
Speaker 1: heads had tattoos on their hands, and there were some
Speaker 1: old dudes that did. So we're doing blow darts. We're
Speaker 1: doing that, and at one point with the blowpipe, that's
Speaker 1: all happening, and then they say, now come with us,
Speaker 1: and that's where they show us the skulls.
Speaker 2: And I'm not only showed you the skulls, they showed me
Speaker 2: the skulls. There were numerous skulls.
Speaker 1: And I don't remember if it was a room or
Speaker 1: some raised storage erry, or whether it was actually in
Speaker 1: the long house or outside that part. I can't quite
Speaker 1: but I just know they were not Halloween decorations, Brent, Okay.
Speaker 1: And they were not replicas. They were trophies from this
Speaker 1: earlier era that had been preserved as objects of ritual
Speaker 1: and ancestral significance. They were important to this tribe, all right.
Speaker 1: And I just I just this was outside of my perspective.
Speaker 1: I didn't even quite really understand what I was seeing. Okay,
Speaker 1: history was not buried at this point, Brent, it was.
Speaker 2: I was in the room with it. Okay.
Speaker 1: It was just very strange, all right. And now I
Speaker 1: also want to make clear, because I don't want to
Speaker 1: be misinterpreted. This is not a story about villain I
Speaker 1: don't think there were any villains in this village. This
Speaker 1: is a story, and the reason why we're incorporating it
Speaker 1: is this is a story about communication where two different
Speaker 1: cultures are going to see things slightly differently. So that night,
Speaker 1: we got fed and it was fine. I don't remember
Speaker 1: what we ate, but then afterwards the community gathered around
Speaker 1: a fire with the chief. Now I don't remember how
Speaker 1: many people were in this community. I want to say
Speaker 1: a hundred, but I bet it was less. And we're
Speaker 1: sitting around this fire, me Clyde and our young seventeen
Speaker 1: year old guide, and the only diplomatic tool I possessed
Speaker 1: at this point print was to smile. I tried to
Speaker 1: smile so that people could see I mean them no harm.
Speaker 1: And of course I was dressed like an idiot, and
Speaker 1: they were smiling back at me. Okay, now this is
Speaker 1: where things get a little weird.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: I was sitting there wearing my hat and I thought
Speaker 1: it made me look competent, but the chief apparently thought
Speaker 1: it made me look like negotiable. Okay, At some point,
Speaker 1: he says something, and the Guide gets a funny look
Speaker 1: on his face, and he's interpreting what the Chief is
Speaker 1: saying in this imperfect English of his and I'm getting
Speaker 1: the translation and getting increasingly frightened by the whole thing.
Speaker 1: And the Chief is looking at my hat, and the
Speaker 1: guide is getting a little concerned, and I said, what's
Speaker 1: going on? And he says he likes your hat, and
Speaker 1: I said, tell him thank you, and more conversation. He goes,
Speaker 1: he wants your hat and I said, oh, at this point,
Speaker 1: it's just a hat. I don't know what I paid
Speaker 1: for it. And I said, fine, I'll give him the hat.
Speaker 1: And then the Guide shakes his head and he says, no,
Speaker 1: you can't give it to him. That would dishonor him.
Speaker 1: He has to trade for it.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: This is getting strange, but not quite apocalypse Dick yet.
Speaker 1: And I said, would I trade for it? And I'm
Speaker 1: not making this up. I am not making this up.
Speaker 1: He says his daughter for tonight. Oh, And I said,
Speaker 1: you've got that translator wrong. That can't be right, and
Speaker 1: he goes, no, I think that's what he's saying. So
Speaker 1: the chief's daughter was there sitting next to him.
Speaker 2: She's smiling.
Speaker 1: Everyone else is smiling, right, And they're all saying that
Speaker 1: the chief is going to trade his daughter to me
Speaker 1: to sleep with that night, and he's going to get
Speaker 1: the hat and everybody will be respected. And I said
Speaker 1: to the guide, look, I'm married, I've got a pregnant
Speaker 1: wife at home. I'm not sleeping with any anybody for
Speaker 1: the hat, right. And at that point, I said, you've
Speaker 1: got to tell him, no, I can't do it. And
Speaker 1: he says, if you refuse, you will now dishonor his daughter.
Speaker 1: Oh so now I'm not trying to dishonor anyone. I'm
Speaker 1: marriedah blah blah. And I make that very clear to him.
Speaker 1: And he's not happy. He's concerned. You can see it
Speaker 1: in his face. And we're all sitting around there and
Speaker 1: we're all having the same event, but we're all seeing
Speaker 1: it so very differently, right, And it was tense. There's
Speaker 1: a fire, there's people, there's me, there's everybody. And I
Speaker 1: got an idea. I don't know where it came from.
Speaker 1: I just said, okay, listen, here's what you got to
Speaker 1: tell him. You got to tell him that this is
Speaker 1: not the best hat that we make in the United States,
Speaker 1: we make a much better hat, and for a chief
Speaker 1: who's as important as he is, he should have the
Speaker 1: best hat available, and that when we come back, we
Speaker 1: will bring the best hat for him.
Speaker 2: Now, I was never going to come back at this point,
Speaker 2: but I'm telling him it's a good pitch. Though. It's
Speaker 2: a good pitch.
Speaker 1: And I said, that's exactly what I said to the
Speaker 1: guy brand, I go, you got to sell this. So
Speaker 1: he tries to talk me out of it, but he
Speaker 1: agrees and he tells him this, and this is the.
Speaker 2: Part where it gets really strange.
Speaker 1: Then I guess it's already strange, right, So we're all
Speaker 1: sitting around there. The guide has told the chief that
Speaker 1: we're going to bring him a better hat, and suddenly
Speaker 1: nobody's smiling and nobody's talking. There's just all these people
Speaker 1: sitting around this fire, and they're all kind of looking
Speaker 1: at me, and then they look at the chief, and
Speaker 1: then they look back to me. And I'm looking at
Speaker 1: the chief, going what is he thinking? Because I have
Speaker 1: no idea. I don't know what he's thinking. And then
Speaker 1: this goes on for about a minute. Now, if listen,
Speaker 1: a minute is nothing. If you're screwing around, it goes,
Speaker 1: but if everybody's quiet in a tense situation, it feels
Speaker 1: like an hour or ten.
Speaker 2: Yeah, ok, stops.
Speaker 1: And then finally the chief kind of studies me, and
Speaker 1: then after about this minute he breaks into a smile
Speaker 1: and everybody's happy, and it sounds like he's accepted this thing, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: all right? So I think now we've set the stage
Speaker 1: up that cultures can collide and see things very differently.
Speaker 1: And looked like I was getting out of that one.
Speaker 1: So then they take us to where we're going to
Speaker 1: spend the night, and there's some mats or cots or something,
Speaker 1: and me and Clyde and the guide are there, and
Speaker 1: now I was scared, right because I thought, what if
Speaker 1: they changed their mind or whatever about this head hunting thing.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: And all I can say is because I was a
Speaker 1: CNN correspondent in another lifetime before that, I've met a
Speaker 1: lot of people, so I'm pretty good at studying people
Speaker 1: and seeing what I think they're thinking. And all I
Speaker 1: can say is I looked at the kid, the guide,
Speaker 1: and he looked more scared than me. So I said
Speaker 1: to him, why are you looking like that? And his
Speaker 1: take was I'm worried that he only was saving He
Speaker 1: didn't use the phrase saving face because he didn't have
Speaker 1: that language, but he said, basically, he was only doing
Speaker 1: that for the group that you have dishonored him and
Speaker 1: his daughter, and that we're in trouble now. Clyde, good
Speaker 1: old Texan boys like ah, I forget about it.
Speaker 2: It's nothing. Everything's going to be great.
Speaker 1: So all I knew is I had a wife and
Speaker 1: a son i'd never met back home, and I intended
Speaker 1: to meet them somehow.
Speaker 2: So I said to the guy, we're leaving because just
Speaker 2: like that. Yeah, and now.
Speaker 1: Everybody's supposed to be asleep. So we realize we're going
Speaker 1: to have to start up this engine. So we wait
Speaker 1: till dawn because it's pitch black. We couldn't turn on
Speaker 1: we didn't have we.
Speaker 2: Had to wait.
Speaker 1: So at the break of dawn, Clyde and me and
Speaker 1: the guide sneak out to that boat that we've got
Speaker 1: parked out there. We get in the boat as quietly
Speaker 1: as we can. We floated out into the river and
Speaker 1: then we hit the engine and we start motoring up
Speaker 1: the scrang and I've got images of guys with blow
Speaker 1: darts chasing us, Oh, with machetes or whatever. They took
Speaker 1: the heads with who knows wow, and they mercifully that
Speaker 1: didn't happen. We got three hours up the scrang, we
Speaker 1: got three hours on the jeep. When we got to
Speaker 1: the airport, I wanted to kiss the freaking tarmac. And
Speaker 1: all I can tell you is this, If you want
Speaker 1: to know a little bit more about it, Anthony Bourdain
Speaker 1: went there first, I believe, in two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: and had a weird experience himself. But that was twenty
Speaker 1: years after me, and he still freaked out. Then he
Speaker 1: went back ten years later for another show. And Okay,
Speaker 1: I know that's gone on forever. I know how these
Speaker 1: things work, and we'll probably have to cut it in post.
Speaker 1: But I feel like I've always I've never told that
Speaker 1: story as a scary story.
Speaker 2: It's always been a comedy. So in the comedy and no,
Speaker 2: it felt nerve racking. I like it had the classic
Speaker 2: aspects of the story where it just kept ratcheting up,
Speaker 2: getting worse and worse. I'm glad that you survived it.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you're not a skull in their trophy case,
Speaker 2: because we wouldn't be doing this podcast among other things.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: By the way, Brent, that's what's so interesting.
Speaker 1: If it had gone badly, I'd have just been erased, true,
Speaker 1: would ever have known what happened to me. My body
Speaker 1: would never have been recovered, My to be born son
Speaker 1: would never have met me, and the people at I
Speaker 1: in La would always have this mythical story of the
Speaker 1: producer they said, who never came back.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow, it's so funny because that your story reminds
Speaker 2: me of one of my favorite movies, which is Cool
Speaker 2: Hand Luke and that famous quote. What we have here
Speaker 2: is a failure to communicate, and back on point to
Speaker 2: the theme of the episode. You were left there with
Speaker 2: a translator, a seventeen year old trying to broker a deal,
Speaker 2: and you had no idea, Like you said, what the
Speaker 2: chief was acting thinking correct, of course, I probably would
Speaker 2: have done the same thing and just high tailed it
Speaker 2: out of there at the middle of night and hope
Speaker 2: that you weren't going to be chased.
Speaker 1: So I guess the moral of the story to try
Speaker 1: to bring I'm glad to have a chance to tell
Speaker 1: that story publicly, frankly, because it gets it off my chest.
Speaker 1: I feel better having exercised that little ghost here. But
Speaker 1: I do think it's important because this was just these
Speaker 1: are human beings. This chief was intelligent. I'm intelligent. We
Speaker 1: we weren't trying to be in a conflict and yet
Speaker 1: we were.
Speaker 2: Yes, well yeah, and so I think it's a nice
Speaker 2: segue into our next movie we're going to talk about,
Speaker 2: which is Arrival. And Arrival for those who have not
Speaker 2: seen it. And oh, by the way, all the spoiler
Speaker 2: alert cautions that Bryce said earlier apply obviously to this movie.
Speaker 2: Arrival really quickly was directed by and somebody helped me
Speaker 2: out here, Denis Villeneuve. Yeah, I think that's my best shot.
Speaker 2: Sounds like the way Google pronounced it. So I think
Speaker 2: you're safe there. Yes, And that director also has done
Speaker 2: some really remarkable movies. He did a movie called Prisoners,
Speaker 2: He did a Blade Runner twenty forty nine, which was
Speaker 2: the sequel to Blade Runner, and then he is the
Speaker 2: director behind the current Doom trilogy that is playing out
Speaker 2: and I believe the third movie comes out next year
Speaker 2: or later this year. Yeah, so a really accomplished director.
Speaker 2: And the movie is about Amy Adams, who plays a
Speaker 2: linguist that is recruited by the government, recruited in the
Speaker 2: sense of you can't say no to come and figure
Speaker 2: out how to communicate with aliens who have just landed
Speaker 2: these huge ships all over the Earth. And because that's
Speaker 2: not a one person job. Her co star is Jeremy Renner,
Speaker 2: who plays a theoretical physicist that has also been recruited.
Speaker 2: And their whole job is to try and analyze the
Speaker 2: alien language and make sense of it so that they
Speaker 2: can actually communicate, so that humans and aliens can communicate.
Speaker 2: And that really is the whole gist of the movie.
Speaker 2: That's the whole plot, really.
Speaker 1: The whole conceit is that somehow they must teach us
Speaker 1: their language. Yes, right now, there's advanced beings. They're the
Speaker 1: ones that cross the galaxy to get to Earth. And
Speaker 1: I kept wondering two things. She uses a little dry
Speaker 1: erase board, and I'm like, why is she doing that?
Speaker 1: But as you explained it to me, it's probably because
Speaker 1: they couldn't have they didn't want to have the technology
Speaker 1: in there or whatever. Yeah, so I'm giving them.
Speaker 2: Because they're going by the way, they're going inside their
Speaker 2: spaceship to talk to them. Yes, alien, they're.
Speaker 1: The advanced beings, Brent, why didn't they do more to
Speaker 1: help learn our language. Why was it important that first
Speaker 1: we had to learn theirs. Even if they were going
Speaker 1: to teach us something important, wouldn't they be able to
Speaker 1: do basic things like she's at the very beginning, she's
Speaker 1: pointing at herself and saying your name, Yes, I'm walking
Speaker 1: walks and things like that.
Speaker 2: No, it's a great point, and obviously we'll get to
Speaker 2: it in a bit, but that us learning them language
Speaker 2: is a whole plot twist at the end of the movie,
Speaker 2: and so you just have to kind of go along
Speaker 2: with it. I will say, if you haven't seen the movie,
Speaker 2: one of the more interesting depiction of aliens that I've seen,
Speaker 2: because they are not humanoid in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 2: They're called heptapods. The best way I can describe them
Speaker 2: as a cross between octopus and jab of the Hut.
Speaker 2: But they're scary, they're large, and they're formidable, and you
Speaker 2: got the sense that if they really got upset, things
Speaker 2: would go poorly for humans. But needless to say, they
Speaker 2: I think the idea was that they couldn't come out
Speaker 2: of the ship. They were not ready to interact with
Speaker 2: our environment, so we had to go to them. And
Speaker 2: the way that they spoke, was this kind of visual
Speaker 2: language that would appear on kind of the glass between
Speaker 2: us and them, almost like us going to visit fish
Speaker 2: in an aquarium. Right, That was kind of what the
Speaker 2: whole thing is felt like. And we'll come back to
Speaker 2: the whole language thing, because it really is the key
Speaker 2: to the whole movie, and not just thematically, but from
Speaker 2: a plot standpoint. I think one of the things that
Speaker 2: I thought was so fascinating about the movie was actually
Speaker 2: the poster. I remember when I saw the poster, the
Speaker 2: marketing slogan was why are they here? And this goes
Speaker 2: back to what we talked about in the beginning, Yes,
Speaker 2: exactly why are they here? To have a whole movie
Speaker 2: that just explores why are they here? I was really
Speaker 2: excited for that. And one of the other things that
Speaker 2: comes of that is that this is something that we
Speaker 2: didn't even consider, the notion of are they coming here
Speaker 2: to farm us? Are they coming here to conquer us?
Speaker 2: I think the why are they here is something that
Speaker 2: was not on my bingo card in terms of what
Speaker 2: aliens would be coming to Earth for. What was your
Speaker 2: thought about, ultimately the reveal of the movie and the
Speaker 2: whole point of the movie I saw this film.
Speaker 1: My family and I had gone to the Telluride Film Festival,
Speaker 1: and it was like the talk of the festival, and
Speaker 1: I remember we had to campaign and fight to get
Speaker 1: in to see it because it was just sending shockwaves.
Speaker 1: People were taken by it that yes, of course the
Speaker 1: poster image, because they weren't like it wasn't like a
Speaker 1: flying saucer hovering.
Speaker 2: It was sideways.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was just hanging in the air, and it
Speaker 1: was gigantic, and it didn't look like a saucer.
Speaker 2: It looked very alien.
Speaker 1: So I was very intrigued to see it, and believe me,
Speaker 1: any questions I have about it now, I have because
Speaker 1: I've seen it several times enough to even think about it.
Speaker 1: When I first saw it, I didn't actually have any
Speaker 1: issues because I didn't understand half of it. And part
Speaker 1: of the reason I didn't is because it really is
Speaker 1: about time. It is about space obviously, and that they
Speaker 1: have traveled space, but it's about time. The reason they're
Speaker 1: trying to teach us their language, as I understood it,
Speaker 1: or I understand it now, is that that was necessary
Speaker 1: because in the way they view time, and in fact,
Speaker 1: I guess the way time is in the laws of
Speaker 1: the movie's we think of it as a linear thing.
Speaker 1: It's like a river. You get more and you go
Speaker 1: down the river, and it's not like the Skrang River
Speaker 1: or anything, but it is a river. And they're saying, no,
Speaker 1: all time is going on, and they're aware of all time,
Speaker 1: and they're saying that some three thousand years in the future,
Speaker 1: mankind is going to they're going to need mankind's and
Speaker 1: kinds help, yes, and so they have to teach us
Speaker 1: how to think about time. So they're coming in advance
Speaker 1: in preparation of an event in the future where they're
Speaker 1: going to need mankind.
Speaker 2: To be upgraded. And I thought that was the most
Speaker 2: interesting thing, is that when you can learn to speak
Speaker 2: their language, it rewrites human DNA. It upgrades us. It
Speaker 2: gives us this whole ability to see time and experience
Speaker 2: time in a different way. Right now, that's cool for humans,
Speaker 2: it's like we get this new power. But at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, it was a very self serving
Speaker 2: motive to come and upgrade humans because they're going to
Speaker 2: need our help in the future really fast.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and listen again, I did not understand that. I
Speaker 1: knew it was about time, but I didn't get all
Speaker 1: of that right off the top, because on another level,
Speaker 1: they're playing it as more of the me and the
Speaker 1: chief talking about the daughter and the hat kind of thing,
Speaker 1: where it's like there's some exchange going on, but people
Speaker 1: maybe are misunderstanding because the whole thing comes down to
Speaker 1: us rather trying to translate them. And with those, as
Speaker 1: you said, the kind of the dark inky circle kind
Speaker 1: of communication, they've gotten down a heptpod phrase. That is,
Speaker 1: they translate as quote, offer weapon, and that freaks everybody
Speaker 1: out because there's twelve of these things.
Speaker 2: They're all over the world. The Chinese had one and
Speaker 2: we've got just one. But there's people all over and
Speaker 2: we're all.
Speaker 1: And because people don't trust each other humans in this thing,
Speaker 1: we can't work together. So we've got twelve different groups
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what to do about this thing.
Speaker 1: But when they translate offer weapon, that's when we finally
Speaker 1: start getting together, which I think is the movie's metaphor
Speaker 1: for saying, see, we only respond to fear, yes, right,
Speaker 1: But in reality, what the Amy Adams character is trying
Speaker 1: to state is that weapon can be translated in English
Speaker 1: anyway into tool or gift or capability and so she's
Speaker 1: trying to exercise caution, saying we're not one hundred percent sure,
Speaker 1: but everyone else is getting ready for war.
Speaker 2: Yes, that kind of thing. Yeah, thank goodness for Amy Adams,
Speaker 2: because that story would have gone awry and probably ended
Speaker 2: in the destruction of mankind were it not for Amy Adams.
Speaker 1: Cool later, of course, you have the same kind of
Speaker 1: time weirdness Interstellar, which also confused me the first time
Speaker 1: I saw it. But to get back to Arrival, I
Speaker 1: think Arrival is an important film because it is clear
Speaker 1: as opposed to Interstellar for different reasons. But it is
Speaker 1: clear to me anyway that some form of NHI or
Speaker 1: non human intelligence from some other place might be extraterrestrial
Speaker 1: something else don't know, But somebody else is trying to
Speaker 1: interact with us, or is interacting. Whether they're trying or not,
Speaker 1: they may just be doing it. And so the idea
Speaker 1: that they are a technologically advanced civilization to us means
Speaker 1: we're going to have to we need to do a
Speaker 1: little extra homework. We can't necessarily plan on the other
Speaker 1: guy doing the right thing by us, so we better
Speaker 1: be a little more proactive about how So we may
Speaker 1: need fewer generals and more linguists out there is the
Speaker 1: moral of that story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think even going back to Apocalypto, I
Speaker 2: think if fear is your first response, you will be
Speaker 2: creating a world based on fear, and it will end badly.
Speaker 2: Don't be afraid, be open minded. Now, if you're conditioned
Speaker 2: to think to serve man and that it's going to
Speaker 2: end badly, then it probably will. And so I think
Speaker 2: that's a message we should all absorb, not just in
Speaker 2: terms of how we interpret the movies, but whatever is
Speaker 2: to come with disclosure. Keep an open mind. We don't know.
Speaker 2: We just don't know. Which brings us to our third movie,
Speaker 2: The New World and the New World, which I'll let
Speaker 2: you set that one up a little bit, but I
Speaker 2: just want to frame it in the sense that it's
Speaker 2: really a continuation of the end of Apocalypto. It's why
Speaker 2: we put Apocalypto and The New World in the same episode,
Speaker 2: even though neither one are a movies in any way,
Speaker 2: they're metaphorically alien movies. The New World came out in
Speaker 2: two thousand and five. Terrence Malick directed it. He's an
Speaker 2: enormously talented director, but it's nice and slow and that
Speaker 2: kind of thing, So you either like that stuff for
Speaker 2: you don't. But that's not why it's such an interesting movie.
Speaker 2: It's the story of the founding of Jamestown. And of course,
Speaker 2: for those of you who know, this is not the
Speaker 2: story of Thanksgiving, it's the story of Jamestown. Thanksgiving is
Speaker 2: up in Plymouth. This is the relationship though you've all
Speaker 2: heard of, between John Smith and Pocahontas. That's the story, right,
Speaker 2: which has been enormously simplified to kids over the years.
Speaker 2: And so what's lovely about this thing is they really
Speaker 2: stretch it out and make it come to life. And
Speaker 2: John Smith is played by Colin Ferrell. If you think
Speaker 2: about Apocalypto, it's all the prequel. It's like the society
Speaker 2: before anybody else shows up to disrupt it. So nine
Speaker 2: tenths of that movie is about that society. Then that
Speaker 2: one tenth at the end of Apocalypto is where you see, oh,
Speaker 2: new technological society shows up.
Speaker 1: Now what's going to happen? And it doesn't answer that.
Speaker 1: You feel that blanket. Now, what's great about watching these
Speaker 1: back to back, which I did just last week for
Speaker 1: this thing, is if you start watching The New World,
Speaker 1: it literally is that scene, The New World begins with
Speaker 1: the ships, this time belonged to the white European settlers.
Speaker 1: These people are coming from Europe. They've got the big ships,
Speaker 1: they've got the breastplates, they've got the they've got guns. Right,
Speaker 1: these people are showing up. And then you got the Palatans,
Speaker 1: the Native Americans. They've not seen this before. They're leading nice,
Speaker 1: peaceful lives and suddenly these people just show up on
Speaker 1: their shore.
Speaker 2: In the movie A New World, John Smith, the English
Speaker 2: kind of settler, finds himself basically a stranger in a
Speaker 2: strange land. Right. He's coming in and he is living
Speaker 2: amongst what feels like savages, and what he discovers is
Speaker 2: the beauty of this new culture, right to the point
Speaker 2: that he falls in love with Pocahontas. Now, my story
Speaker 2: is not a love story, but I was a stranger
Speaker 2: in a strange land. And the way it all began
Speaker 2: was back in the early nineties. I was doing some
Speaker 2: work for a movie studio called Cannon Studios, and they
Speaker 2: did a lot of big action movies in the eighties
Speaker 2: and nineties, and they had made Get This a ten
Speaker 2: picture deal, maybe it was even a twenty picture deal
Speaker 2: with Chuck Norris. Right, Chuck Norris, before he became the
Speaker 2: Internet meme, was a big action starr. Even before Texas
Speaker 2: Walker Ranger. He was making movies like Delta Force and
Speaker 2: Missing An Action and it was a big action star
Speaker 2: and action. In case you don't know, action movies translate
Speaker 2: very well internationally. Okay, so all of that's important. So
Speaker 2: I get hired to write a new action movie for
Speaker 2: Chuck Norris. Wow, okay, this is exciting. Yeah, what's the story?
Speaker 2: They said, What we want to do is we want
Speaker 2: to film this movie in Israel, where we have a
Speaker 2: movie studio that we just built and we'd love to
Speaker 2: film it there. And because we're going to be filming
Speaker 2: it there, why not use that culture. Now, this is
Speaker 2: a very different Israel from the Israel we know today.
Speaker 2: This was in the early nineties, and so I had
Speaker 2: never been to Israel, and despite my name, I am
Speaker 2: not Jewish. But I thought, wow, this sounds like an
Speaker 2: amazing adventure. And what they wanted me to do was
Speaker 2: to write a movie that paired Chuck Norris with an
Speaker 2: Israeli cop and do an action buddy comedy. What can
Speaker 2: you go wrong? What could go wrong? So I was
Speaker 2: being sent to Israel to spend two weeks as a
Speaker 2: ride along with an Israeli cop so I could get
Speaker 2: to know what it would be like to be in Israel,
Speaker 2: to be a policeman, get to know that character, so
Speaker 2: I could actually maybe even base everything that I was
Speaker 2: going to write on this cop who was going to
Speaker 2: take me around, and of course Chuck Norris would be
Speaker 2: playing some version of himself. So off I go to
Speaker 2: Israel and they put me up in a really nice
Speaker 2: hotel on Tel Aviv, and I'm told for the next
Speaker 2: two weeks, I'm going to be meeting with this cop
Speaker 2: and he's going to be driving me around and so fantastic.
Speaker 2: He's what I was told was, he's an Israeli vice cop.
Speaker 2: So the first day comes and I get dressed up
Speaker 2: to go. I think I'm going to go to the
Speaker 2: police headquarters and learn about procedures and how they do
Speaker 2: their work. And up in front of this very nice
Speaker 2: hotel pulls this old rickety Ford Fiesta, grumbling and shaking
Speaker 2: and smoking and whatnot. And this guy gets out who
Speaker 2: looks like a cab driver, introduces himself as Shabby and
Speaker 2: says you must be friends. Get in and so I'm like, wait,
Speaker 2: what are you taking me to? The cop? He goes,
Speaker 2: I am the cop.
Speaker 1: Oh shabby the cop.
Speaker 2: So I get into his Ford Fiesta and we start
Speaker 2: driving and I was like, so is this your car? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is my car. I'm like, wow, okay, this is
Speaker 2: what standard issue for police people. No, we don't have
Speaker 2: police vehicles here. What I come to learn is that
Speaker 2: the actual vice cops in Israel have no budget. All
Speaker 2: of the budget goes to the military defense. And so
Speaker 2: not only that he doesn't have a gun. He's a
Speaker 2: vice cop. He's going to go arrest drug traffickers and
Speaker 2: all sorts of stuff. He has no gun. They don't
Speaker 2: believe in them for police work. And so I'm like, wow, okay,
Speaker 2: this is I can already see Chuck Norris is going
Speaker 2: to have a field day with you. This is really interesting.
Speaker 2: This will be fun. So he says, I'm told that
Speaker 2: you're here to research for a Chuck Norris movie. This
Speaker 2: is very exciting to me. I'm a big Chuck Norris fan.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna let you do my job today. I was like, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 2: we're just getting started. And so he says, we're going
Speaker 2: to go make a drug bust, and I'm going to
Speaker 2: show you how it works. And I'm like, okay, thinking
Speaker 2: we're going to make a drug bust, and this is
Speaker 2: where I'm really getting anxious about this idea. But you
Speaker 2: don't have a gun. I'm coming from America, where it's
Speaker 2: like always ends in a shootout when you're trying to
Speaker 2: make it.
Speaker 1: He's asking an unarmed American to make trug busts in
Speaker 1: a foreign country.
Speaker 2: Yes, also, I need to do a sidebar on the
Speaker 2: unarmed American. I am wearing khaki pants and a polo
Speaker 2: shirt appropriate of the times, and I am in no
Speaker 2: way dressed for Dea style work. I'm just to set
Speaker 2: the stage here. So we're going to go make a
Speaker 2: drug bust. And we keep driving further and further out
Speaker 2: of Tel Aviv. Now, if you've been to Israel, you
Speaker 2: know the further you go out of Tel Aviv, you're
Speaker 2: it's getting a little sketchy. And it's not even that
Speaker 2: it's a worse part of town. It's just that it's
Speaker 2: like there's less and less town. You're getting further away
Speaker 2: from civilization. And we drive for I don't know what
Speaker 2: seemed like an hour or so and we get to
Speaker 2: what he defined as an Arab ghetto. Now I actually
Speaker 2: didn't know that there were Arab ghettos outside of Tel Aviv,
Speaker 2: but there are. And it was a big cinder block
Speaker 2: building and it's just getting dusk about the time that
Speaker 2: we pull up there, and he says, Okay, here's how
Speaker 2: it's going to work. Everyone here is selling opium. And
Speaker 2: you're going to see lights start flashing in the windows
Speaker 2: right that that are the code for this is what
Speaker 2: I have, and this is how much it is. Okay,
Speaker 2: so all we have to do is sit here and
Speaker 2: you pick window, and that's the person we'll go up
Speaker 2: and bust. And I'm thinking we I thought I was
Speaker 2: gonna sit in the car and wait for you to
Speaker 2: go make the drug bust, or maybe I'll watch from
Speaker 2: a distance or something. But he's making it sound like
Speaker 2: I'm going to be part of this drug bust. So
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, we're so he we pick. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: I that window that looks good. So up we go.
Speaker 2: There's no elevator. We walk up all through these stairs.
Speaker 2: We get up to the fourth floor. We come up
Speaker 2: to the door and he says, okay, mister Hollywood, I'm
Speaker 2: sure you're gonna have a scene in the movie where
Speaker 2: Chuck Norris kicks down a door. You need to know
Speaker 2: what that feels like. So kick it down. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: I'm like me, you want me to kick it down?
Speaker 2: He's like, come on, You're a big guy. You can
Speaker 2: do it. So I'm like, ah, okay, So there I go.
Speaker 2: I try and do the Hollywood move to kick it down.
Speaker 2: I almost blow out my knee. My whole knee just
Speaker 2: reverberates with pain. He's laughing hysterically, and he go and
Speaker 2: knocks on the door. An old woman opens it, looking
Speaker 2: at us, like what are you doing here? And he
Speaker 2: says something to her, he speaks her language, and she
Speaker 2: rolls her eyes and opens the door and lets us in,
Speaker 2: and he kind of motions to me, now I'm limping.
Speaker 2: I come in the house and this little apartment and
Speaker 2: there's two teenagers, these Arab teenagers that are sitting on
Speaker 2: the floor watching an old black and white TV and
Speaker 2: they're watching The Love Boat, for whatever that's worth. And
Speaker 2: he turns to me and he says, go ahead, ransack
Speaker 2: the place. Look for the drugs. I'm like, ransacked the place.
Speaker 2: I don't feel comfortable doing this, and he's like, no,
Speaker 2: it's fine, we do this all the time. Just go ahead.
Speaker 2: So I'm like very carefully going and opening drawers and
Speaker 2: being very polite. And meanwhile, the grandmother is in cooking
Speaker 2: dinner in the kitchen, looking at me, glaring at me,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I'm just I'm trying to be very respectful.
Speaker 2: I'm like, after a couple minutes of just pretending to
Speaker 2: look for drugs, I'm like, no, no drugs here, let's go.
Speaker 2: Didn't work out. Sorry, this was great learning experience. He's like, no,
Speaker 2: I know they're selling drugs and he so we walk
Speaker 2: out and he says, I'm going to catch you. We're
Speaker 2: going to catch you tonight. We close the door, we
Speaker 2: go back downstairs. I'm like, wow, that was great. You
Speaker 2: can I've learned a lot. I need to go write
Speaker 2: all of this down. You can take me back to
Speaker 2: the hotel now, and he said, no, you're going to
Speaker 2: be with me for two weeks. I'm like, yeah, every
Speaker 2: day for two weeks, I'm going to come in. We're
Speaker 2: going to do some version of this. He goes, no,
Speaker 2: we're together for the next two weeks. I go what, No,
Speaker 2: I didn't pack anything, so you don't know any you
Speaker 2: don't need anything, You'll be fine. I don't need anything
Speaker 2: at least I don't even have toothbrush, So now you'll
Speaker 2: be fine, you Americans. We get back to the car
Speaker 2: and I'm like, okay, so where are we going now?
Speaker 2: And he's, oh, no, we're going anywhere where. You're going
Speaker 2: to arrest this guy. I'm like, I'm going to arrest him.
Speaker 2: I'm not a copy. He said, no, you'll you do
Speaker 2: the arrest and then I'll step in. I'm like, what
Speaker 2: if he shoots me. He's like, he doesn't have a gun.
Speaker 2: I'm like, how do you know? He's like, nobody has guns. Like, okay,
Speaker 2: So sure enough, After about fifteen minutes, one of those
Speaker 2: the older of the two teens, comes down to make
Speaker 2: a sale and he pushes me out of the car
Speaker 2: and he go get him. Now. By now, it's like
Speaker 2: a hot summer night, and there's a bunch of people
Speaker 2: out in the parking lot milling around like it's a
Speaker 2: social thing. And now I'm chasing this teenager and everyone
Speaker 2: starts clapping and cheering, and I'm chasing him around and
Speaker 2: circles in the parking lot, and I mean long khaki pants,
Speaker 2: not dressed in any way appropriately for this, and sure
Speaker 2: enough I can't catch him, and Shabby steps in and
Speaker 2: trips the kid when he runs by him and goes
Speaker 2: over and picks the kid up by the shirt, slaps
Speaker 2: him twice across the face and says, what are you doing.
Speaker 2: You're embarrassing yourself. Now get to jail. And the kid
Speaker 2: kind of nodded and that was that, and he was
Speaker 2: going to go put check himself into jail the next day.
Speaker 2: And I was like, that's not how it works in America,
Speaker 2: and he said, no, this is these people. They have
Speaker 2: problems and it doesn't matter what culture you're from. If
Speaker 2: you've stooped to crime, you need help, and that's when
Speaker 2: you go to prison to get help. And there's honor
Speaker 2: in that in asking for help. And I was like, wow, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm this is going to be a very interesting movie
Speaker 2: with Chuck Norris, because that's not how Chuck operates. So
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, okay, now it's eight nine pm. I said, okay,
Speaker 2: so now what are we gonna do? Where am I
Speaker 2: going to sleep? And he goes, We're going to sleep
Speaker 2: in the desert. Tonight. I'm like what. He goes, Oh,
Speaker 2: it'll be beautiful. You're gonna love this, and so I'm
Speaker 2: like okay, and he goes, yeah, I have a special
Speaker 2: treat for you. So we start driving, and as we
Speaker 2: get off the highway and we get further and further
Speaker 2: into the middle of Israel, just like you, suddenly we're
Speaker 2: not on roads anymore. We're on dirt roads. And then
Speaker 2: pretty soon we're not on anything. We're just driving right,
Speaker 2: And that's when I noticed that the passenger seat is
Speaker 2: not bolted to the floor of his Ford Fiesta. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And by the way, he was one of those Middle
Speaker 2: Eastern drivers who drives with two things, his gas pedal
Speaker 2: and his horn. There is no break, so he's got
Speaker 2: music blaring, he's smoking a cigarette, he's got the gas
Speaker 2: pedal to the floor. We're going we are off roading
Speaker 2: in an old Ford Fiesta, and my seat is not
Speaker 2: bolted to the floor. So I am like on a
Speaker 2: roller coaster ride from hell, getting sicker by the moment.
Speaker 2: And we're just driving for what feels like hours, and
Speaker 2: it was hours. It was probably like one thirty two
Speaker 2: in the morning. When we finally come to a rest mercifully,
Speaker 2: and we hit this kind of crest, this ridge, looking
Speaker 2: down into this massive valley, and it actually wasn't the valley.
Speaker 2: It was an old dry river, like a massive like
Speaker 2: I'm talking like Mississippi River, like huge thing. But that's
Speaker 2: not the interesting thing. What was amazing was as far
Speaker 2: as you could see in every direction were tents. It
Speaker 2: was a tent city stretched out across the in the
Speaker 2: middle of the desert with lantern and every like. I've
Speaker 2: never seen anything like that, and I was like, what
Speaker 2: is this? And he goes, these are the Bedouins. Now,
Speaker 2: for those of you who don't know, the Bedouins are
Speaker 2: this ancient culture that is basically allowed to roam as
Speaker 2: nomads all across the Middle East and they don't recognize
Speaker 2: borders and they have this kind of mystical way about them.
Speaker 2: And most people don't get to meet the Bedouins. But Shabi,
Speaker 2: my guide, knows how to speak Bedouin and so language
Speaker 2: apparently whatever it's a, it's a I guess it's a nuance.
Speaker 2: It's like a dialect or something. But he had interact
Speaker 2: with them before and he knows how to speak their language.
Speaker 2: So down we drive this into this old dry river bed,
Speaker 2: and we start just driving through the tent city, and
Speaker 2: in the middle of the tent city is this big
Speaker 2: top and it's where the elders all meet and they
Speaker 2: sit around making plans for the next day and the
Speaker 2: future and whatnot. So he pulls up his Ford Fiesta
Speaker 2: and we walk right into the elder tent. And inside
Speaker 2: this tent, which was square, there's sitting around the perimeter
Speaker 2: of about three a little more than three quarters of
Speaker 2: it are all these old men in robes with long beards,
Speaker 2: and they're sitting on pillows. And we walk in and
Speaker 2: everyone goes.
Speaker 3: Shobby and I'm standing there, not quite sure what I'm
Speaker 3: supposed to do, and they're talking to him and asking
Speaker 3: him questions, and he's pointing at me and saying something
Speaker 3: or other, and I'm thinking, Wow, this is amazing.
Speaker 2: I've seen a Bedouin tent. But they've got a lot
Speaker 2: of big work to do here. So we're going to leave,
Speaker 2: and then he waves me over and he goes, they
Speaker 2: want you to stay, and they're going to do a
Speaker 2: ceremonial tea coffee for you. And I'm like why, and
Speaker 2: he's like, here's the thing I tried to explain to
Speaker 2: them that you were here doing research for a Chuck
Speaker 2: Norris movie, and all they could really understand is that
Speaker 2: you're Chuck Norris. Oh my god. And so I noticed
Speaker 2: everyone's looking at me, and I'm like, do they even
Speaker 2: know who Chuck Norris is? And he goes, he's very
Speaker 2: popular here and they are very honored to have you here,
Speaker 2: and so just play along with it. And I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: what do I have to do? And he go sit
Speaker 2: down and look important, look tough, and I'm like, okay.
Speaker 2: So everyone scoots and moves and they give me this
Speaker 2: honorable pillow where I'm like sitting in the middle of
Speaker 2: this whole big tent. On the side. I'm looking and
Speaker 2: these elders are looking at me like this is a
Speaker 2: moment where if we had cell phones back then, they
Speaker 2: would have wanted a selfie or Chuck Norris. By the way,
Speaker 2: I met Chuck Norris through all of this. He's about
Speaker 2: a foot shorter than me. Very nice man. I look
Speaker 2: nothing like Chuck Norris, but there I am. I'm sitting
Speaker 2: there and over in one corner of the tent, it's
Speaker 2: all partitioned off and there's a bunch of women in
Speaker 2: veils making coffee and fresh peeda bread. And now that
Speaker 2: we're having this ceremonial drink, outcome all of the platters
Speaker 2: and everyone's getting their coffee and their peeda bread. Before
Speaker 2: I get on with the rest of the story, I
Speaker 2: will say it was the best pieda bread I've ever had.
Speaker 2: It was amazing also, but I had Shabby hadn't fed
Speaker 2: me yet for hours, so I was voraciously eating pea bread.
Speaker 2: And I was given what looked like a double shot
Speaker 2: glass of coffee. And I, at the time did not
Speaker 2: drink coffee. I just didn't drink coffee. And so I
Speaker 2: really and I really didn't even drink soda pop, so
Speaker 2: I didn't really have a lot of experience with caffeine.
Speaker 2: But they make a toast, they say something or other.
Speaker 2: Shaby's not translated. He said, they're talking about how wonderful
Speaker 2: you are and this great American who's come to visit them,
Speaker 2: and so he says, now it's time to drink. So
Speaker 2: everyone takes the thing and they put it to their mouth,
Speaker 2: and I'm okay, I don't drink coffee, but I guess
Speaker 2: I'm going to do what the natives do. I put
Speaker 2: the thing to my mouth and it's like a can
Speaker 2: of wet dog food. It's like it's not even liquid,
Speaker 2: it's like this gunk. And I'm going like this, like
Speaker 2: it won't come out, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: the entire contents of that little double shot glass go
Speaker 2: into my mouth, and not only is it horrible tasting,
Speaker 2: it's gushy, and I don't know what to do with it.
Speaker 2: And I'm it's in my mouth. I can't spit it
Speaker 2: out in the middle of this like ceremony, so I
Speaker 2: just swallow the whole thing. And as I swallow the
Speaker 2: whole thing, I noticed that Shabby is looking at me
Speaker 2: like with just this blank face, and every elder is
Speaker 2: leaning in and looking at me, and the elder next
Speaker 2: to me goes, Chuck Norris, and I'm looking at Shoppy
Speaker 2: and he goes, you're going to die, and I go,
Speaker 2: what are you talking about? He goes that coffee is
Speaker 2: supposed to last a whole day. You touch your tongue
Speaker 2: to it, you drag the whole thing. We have to
Speaker 2: get you out of here. You're gonna die. And I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: So I get up, and everyone's like Chuck Norris like
Speaker 2: looking and waving at me like they just saw the
Speaker 2: most incredible feat. Chuck Norris just lived up to his name,
Speaker 2: and in fact, years later I started to wonder, was
Speaker 2: I the one that started those internet memes where Chuck
Speaker 2: Norris is indestructible? Did it start in that tent? I
Speaker 2: think it might. So there I am, and I am
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, okay, I'm not feeling anything yet, and Shabby
Speaker 2: gets me in the car and he's like, the happy,
Speaker 2: go lucky guy is gone. Now he's like looking like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I'm gonna get this guy killed. And
Speaker 2: we're just He's driving like a madman, and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, I start to feel the good chunk, good chunk,
Speaker 2: good chunk on my heart and I'm like, oh boy, okay,
Speaker 2: here we go and I feel like I am having
Speaker 2: a heart attack. I can't my brain is throbbing. Everything
Speaker 2: in my body is off, and I go, Chobby, this
Speaker 2: is not It's really hard to breathe. You. I know,
Speaker 2: I know it's gonna be okay. So we're just driving
Speaker 2: for I don't even know how long is It was
Speaker 2: a blur, but he takes us to the coast to
Speaker 2: a Kabbutz where he knows somebody, right and a kibbuts
Speaker 2: is this like living community, right, a shared living community?
Speaker 2: And it's this beautiful beach. And by now we've been driving,
Speaker 2: it's six am and the sun is starting to come up.
Speaker 2: We get to the beach and he goes get out
Speaker 2: of the car. I'm like, is there a doctor here?
Speaker 2: He goes, no, doctor, you just need to walk this off.
Speaker 2: Just walk back and forth on the beach and do
Speaker 2: not stop and keep breathing. You'll be okay. You have
Speaker 2: to be reminded. Okay, all right. So that's what I
Speaker 2: do for the next I don't know, eight nine hours.
Speaker 2: I just keep walking on the beach. Meanwhile, he falls
Speaker 2: asleep on the beach right, And pretty soon my heart
Speaker 2: starts to slowly work down, and I'm like, okay, I
Speaker 2: think I'm going to survive this. I go over and
Speaker 2: I wake him up, and I'm like, can I please
Speaker 2: go back to the hotel? When he goes, yes, I
Speaker 2: will take you back. Now. That was the first day
Speaker 2: of two weeks on that research trip. By the way,
Speaker 2: the movie did get made. I was only one of
Speaker 2: a number of writers that worked on it. It's called
Speaker 2: hell Bound. It is said in Israel. It is the
Speaker 2: story of Chuck Norris, a cop from I Believe Detroit
Speaker 2: who works to solve a crime with an Israeli cop.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 1: I just enjoyed the hell out of that story. Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm just imagining you as too much coffee man walking
Speaker 1: on the beach for nine hours while the guy who
Speaker 1: said you're going to die is sleeping. I can't even
Speaker 1: imagine what you're thinking. There's a lot of similarities in
Speaker 1: our two stories, though. We're both on assignment doing preliminary
Speaker 1: research for what will become a shoot. And by the way,
Speaker 1: my thing became a shoot. They Clyde went back later
Speaker 1: to the Headhunters and actually shot a show there.
Speaker 2: I did not get.
Speaker 1: And I want to tell you something because I want
Speaker 1: to see what your relationship in your story to it is.
Speaker 1: I came home from what happened with the Headhunters and
Speaker 1: I quit my job. That's how I went into I
Speaker 1: in LA and I just said, you guys, you didn't
Speaker 1: care about me. You put my life in danger, you
Speaker 1: had no plan, and you barely paid me, so see
Speaker 1: you later, and I quit. That was the last thing
Speaker 1: I ever did for that company, which is interesting, and
Speaker 1: I'm wondering did you have any reaction to what had
Speaker 1: happened to you, where you made any life changing decisions
Speaker 1: or anything.
Speaker 2: They offered to send me back to Israel to do
Speaker 2: research on another movie, which I politely declined, and not
Speaker 2: because of the country. I just felt like I've been
Speaker 2: the stranger in a strange land long enough, and who
Speaker 2: knows who they would misrepresent me or recognize me for
Speaker 2: if I go back over there. Look, I think, I
Speaker 2: know this is all crazy. This is one of those
Speaker 2: episodes where it's like wow, the way they're trying to
Speaker 2: weave all of this together. But I do think that
Speaker 2: this all kind of leads us back to that idea
Speaker 2: of the New World. And I think if you look
Speaker 2: at the three movies we've talked about, and the New
Speaker 2: World is granted it is not an alien or UFO movie,
Speaker 2: but it is about that the culture clashes. It is
Speaker 2: about the assimilation, right, And I think we can now
Speaker 2: look at America and we can see what happened to
Speaker 2: the indigenous people of North America, and I think when
Speaker 2: we step back out and we try and extrapolate, what
Speaker 2: would that mean for first contact for us with aliens?
Speaker 2: Have we learned any lessons in the history of human
Speaker 2: civilization about the best way to approach this, Because for
Speaker 2: many times some subset of human has been the dominant race,
Speaker 2: right that has come in and been the conquering race,
Speaker 2: and we as a Mamurricans certainly have experienced that. But
Speaker 2: what happens when the shoe is on the other foot.
Speaker 2: What happens when somebody that is far more advanced than us,
Speaker 2: that has more technology, more intelligence, more capability in terms
Speaker 2: of maybe they exist above time, like the aliens in Arrival?
Speaker 2: How will we respond to that? What lessons can we
Speaker 2: take from these movies from history and hopefully do the
Speaker 2: right thing. Is it as simple as just don't be afraid,
Speaker 2: be open minded? I don't think so. I think that's
Speaker 2: a good place to start. But I actually think this
Speaker 2: is going to be one of those situations where when
Speaker 2: first contact is made, it's going to be essential that
Speaker 2: we have the right people like Amy Adams on the
Speaker 2: front line, making the right decisions and most importantly, figuring
Speaker 2: out how to communicate in the most mutually beneficial way.
Speaker 1: In a future episode, by the way, we are going
Speaker 1: to take a look at some more alien like films
Speaker 1: where the clash of civilizations is alien to human I
Speaker 1: just wanted to end on one thought here. We have
Speaker 1: talked about some great films that you should see. Most
Speaker 1: people who are into this world probably know about it
Speaker 1: and have seen Arrival.
Speaker 2: It does get better on.
Speaker 1: A second viewing, even though because you do tend to
Speaker 1: get a little deeper in it. Definitely enjoyed Apocalypto in
Speaker 1: the New World, and frankly, if you're going to watch them,
Speaker 1: probably watch them in that order. But a thought for everyone.
Speaker 1: Something that's brand new out there is something on Apple
Speaker 1: TV Plus called Chief of War, and that's our good
Speaker 1: friend Jason Momoa, of course, and it's about the same
Speaker 1: thing that basically in the eighteenth century in the Hawaiian Islands,
Speaker 1: where the Hawaiians themselves were in the middle of internal
Speaker 1: conflict between themselves when the colonists show up and the
Speaker 1: whole thing you have the collision between the indigenous culture
Speaker 1: and this other culture that has guns, for example, right,
Speaker 1: And that's very interesting. I've only watched a few of
Speaker 1: the episodes, so I can't comment more than that, other
Speaker 1: than to say, if you're intrigued by this idea, it
Speaker 1: does sound like a good one, and the one thing
Speaker 1: that first contact. I think the commonality between them all
Speaker 1: brand of this try to summarize this first contact doesn't
Speaker 1: happen all at once, at least in these films. First
Speaker 1: contact unfolds through stages, so at first it may be
Speaker 1: jaw dropping curiosity, but it's still curiosity. Then there's this
Speaker 1: sort of period, at least in these of cautious trade misunderstanding,
Speaker 1: things become unequal in the exchange. Then one society becomes
Speaker 1: dependent on the other, and obviously the less technological one does.
Speaker 1: And then this transformation. And if we don't want to
Speaker 1: be the society that's transformed negatively, we should be thinking
Speaker 1: about these things now. And I guess the way I
Speaker 1: look at it is, if indeed we have been contacted
Speaker 1: or in the middle of Nhi contact for eighty years,
Speaker 1: we as a society have been deprived of the time
Speaker 1: to get our brain around what's happening, our communal brain.
Speaker 1: And I think that's unfair. So I wish the powers
Speaker 1: that be will take that seriously and at least move
Speaker 1: forward in again not laying out every single detail. Certainly
Speaker 1: there are other ways we're going to.
Speaker 2: Have to look at it.
Speaker 1: But at least let's get on with the idea that
Speaker 1: it's happening. If it's truly happening, let's get prepared for
Speaker 1: the best possible outcome that we can manage.
Speaker 2: That's where I leave. Hallelujah agree.
Speaker 1: Sound, Light and Frequency is an iHeart podcast produced by
Speaker 1: Stellar Productions. It's executive produced by Nick Johnson and for
Speaker 1: Stellar Jackie's Abel. Our show's music was written by Anna
Speaker 1: Stone and Hamilton Lighthouser, and your hosts and executive producers
Speaker 1: are Bryce Able. That's me and Brent Friedman watch the
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