Latest / What The Heck with Matt Bellassai / Desecrating Dobby’s Grave, Stalking Peter Pan, and $20k Dorm Room Makeovers?!

Transcript

Desecrating Dobby’s Grave, Stalking Peter Pan, and $20k Dorm Room Makeovers?! · What The Heck with Matt Bellassai

• 0:00
  I feel like the Imagine Dragons guy started it.
• 0:03
  Do you remember the Imagine Dragons guy?
• 0:05
  And he like takes his shirt off and he's like ripped as, oh,
• 0:08
  unfortunately, he's incredibly hot.
• 0:09
  And it's like, what it just sing the song, whatever the Imagine
• 0:13
  Dragons song is. Welcome back to What the Heck
• 0:21
  with Matt Bellassai, a podcast about what the heck is going on,
• 0:24
  what the heck is happening and all the things that make me say
• 0:26
  what the heck. It's another week, another day.
• 0:30
  I'm stressed out today. I don't really know why.
• 0:32
  It's just kind of like general stress love.
• 0:35
  I love a day when it's just like can't really pinpoint what's
• 0:38
  wrong, but something is off. I took my medicine.
• 0:41
  Don't worry, it was kind of cloudy.
• 0:43
  The clouds went away. I'm one of those people where
• 0:46
  like, if the clouds are out, guess what?
• 0:48
  I'm guess what we're we're thinking about jumping out the
• 0:55
  window. No, just kind of generally
• 0:56
  stressed out today. Probably doesn't help that I
• 0:58
  had, I don't know, 7 coffees today.
• 1:01
  Topped it off with a nice iced coffee.
• 1:03
  Went went downstairs. I have a coffee shop in my
• 1:06
  building that I've been to like twice because guess what?
• 1:11
  The guy who is the barista there is someone I kind of know and I
• 1:14
  don't want to be small talking. No disrespect to Sean, no
• 1:19
  disrespect. He's like my ex roommate's
• 1:22
  ex-boyfriend. So it's like one of those people
• 1:25
  that you like kind of know and have to interact with if you
• 1:28
  see. But like I but don't know well
• 1:31
  enough to have anything beyond just small talk.
• 1:34
  And I don't, especially when I'm in need of coffee.
• 1:37
  I've never walked into a coffee shop, not under duress.
• 1:42
  Like I'm walking into a coffee shop because I desperately need
• 1:45
  my medicine. I need my fix and I don't want
• 1:49
  to be making small talk with the barista.
• 1:51
  Make my iced coffee, give it to me straight.
• 1:54
  I'm going to go up it down. Then I'll think about coming
• 1:56
  back and having a conversation with you.
• 1:59
  Don't piss me off. So now I was like, what if I go
• 2:03
  out the one door of my building, kind of swoop around, look
• 2:06
  through the window, see if he's at the cash?
• 2:09
  Then I could decide if I want to go in or not because I'll figure
• 2:13
  out if I have to have a small talk or not.
• 2:15
  It's difficult. It's difficult, whatever.
• 2:17
  If you're the type of person who wants to avoid having a
• 2:19
  conversation with somebody, if you want to avoid small talk, it
• 2:22
  takes a lot of effort. It probably more effort than
• 2:25
  just having the small talk would take.
• 2:29
  I hate that. I mean, there have been times
• 2:31
  where I've walked in places seeing someone I like vaguely
• 2:34
  know and would have to talk to and walked out 'cause I'm like,
• 2:37
  I'll go somewhere else. I don't, I'd rather not have
• 2:41
  that interaction. And you know, it's that maybe
• 2:43
  like a terrible way to live life and better to kind of embrace
• 2:46
  the spontaneity of having just off the cuff interactions with
• 2:49
  people. Sure.
• 2:51
  Am I living a less rich life because I won't have small talk
• 2:55
  with someone I kind of knew once?
• 2:57
  Possibly. What if he leads to my next
• 2:59
  great, you know, breakthrough? Probably not, but you never
• 3:04
  know. No, no disrespect.
• 3:06
  He was my my very first roommate.
• 3:09
  It was her boyfriend there. I feel like there is something
• 3:13
  kind of contentious about like woman's boyfriend and her gay
• 3:18
  roommate. There's some kind of
• 3:20
  confrontation. There's a there's a tension
• 3:23
  there that kind of is always bubbling beneath the surface.
• 3:27
  Didn't help that when I moved out, I was moving into my own
• 3:31
  apartment, into a studio. I was like, I need to live by
• 3:34
  myself. Love you, girl, but I'm out.
• 3:37
  And I felt bad that I was leaving her.
• 3:39
  I mean, it was like our lease was up.
• 3:41
  I wasn't just picking up high and dry.
• 3:43
  It was like our lease was up. I was like, I don't think I'm
• 3:45
  going to reassign. I think I'm going to move in by
• 3:47
  myself. I think it's time.
• 3:49
  And I was like, maybe you and Sean can move in together.
• 3:52
  No mature adult person would ask that of somebody.
• 3:58
  That is like way too personal to just suggest, hey, have you have
• 4:01
  your boyfriend and you talked about this momentous step in
• 4:05
  your relationship that I'm just kind of offhandedly suggesting.
• 4:10
  Turns out that was sort of a sore point for them.
• 4:12
  And I eventually I think they broke up.
• 4:15
  Who knows if it was because of me, Who knows, maybe.
• 4:19
  You were the glue keeping them together.
• 4:21
  Yeah, maybe they needed my gay energy in the apartment to keep
• 4:25
  them together. I was the thing that they
• 4:27
  complained about all the time, and that's kind of all they had
• 4:29
  in common. Perhaps.
• 4:31
  I don't know this all speculation, but yeah, today I
• 4:34
  was like, let me see. Let me see if he's there.
• 4:36
  I'll get another coffee. I got my iced coffee, had a nice
• 4:40
  croissant and that did make me feel better, possibly better or
• 4:45
  we'll see the croissant. I don't know if the, the
• 4:47
  croissant lifted me up. The iced coffee maybe stressed
• 4:50
  me out even more. We'll see.
• 4:52
  The sun kind of came out. So I'm feeling I'm feeling
• 4:54
  better. It's also one of those days
• 4:56
  where like I've made it to, you know how like you first do
• 4:59
  laundry, then you got your good underwear.
• 5:02
  Oh, good underwear day feeling great.
• 5:04
  Then you have a number of those days.
• 5:06
  Then you get to the like, you start getting to the B tier, C
• 5:09
  tier underwear and we're, we're on the like D tier underwear and
• 5:14
  you just never feel as good in your D tier underwear.
• 5:17
  And there have been times where I'm like, why don't I just throw
• 5:21
  all of these away and like buy all.
• 5:24
  It's almost like you need, you need the D tier underwear, you
• 5:29
  need the underwear. That's like falling apart holes
• 5:32
  so that you appreciate and feel that you're sexiest when you're
• 5:35
  in your best A tier underwear. Can I be a A A+ underwear all
• 5:40
  the time? Although that is kind of
• 5:41
  homophobic to say 'cause I do feel like gay guys are kind of
• 5:44
  having, I don't know, 2300 pairs of underwear and they're,
• 5:48
  they're coming in fabrics that are not found anywhere else in
• 5:51
  nature with appendages off of them.
• 5:54
  There's flaps, there's holes, there's strings.
• 5:57
  They're doing crazy stuff in the gay guy underwear department.
• 6:01
  I, I was going to say it's like, as a gay guy, you grow up
• 6:04
  obviously thinking that like the underwear aisle is sort of where
• 6:08
  you're gay awakening happens. That happens for a lot of gay
• 6:11
  guys of a certain age. I don't.
• 6:13
  That's kind of the sad thing about under, like Amazon now.
• 6:16
  Oh, what are you going to? Are you going to discover that
• 6:18
  you're gay shopping for underwear on Amazon?
• 6:20
  No, your mom's going to order whatever size you got, and
• 6:23
  you're not going to be able to see, you know, the Calvin Klein
• 6:25
  ad at the Macy's. How are young gay children
• 6:28
  supposed to know that they're gay?
• 6:30
  They have access to more adult images than probably ever
• 6:33
  before. Anyway, coming off the weekend,
• 6:38
  I made, I took, I don't know, 7 hours yesterday and made a
• 6:42
  lasagna from scratch. I had one of those impulses.
• 6:45
  I was like, today's Sunday, What if I just make a slow sauce?
• 6:49
  One of those slow sauce sundaes? I'll make some spinach pasta
• 6:54
  from scratch, whip up a nice lasagna.
• 6:57
  Took me 7 hours of my life for ultimately what was something I
• 7:01
  could have gotten from a restaurant.
• 7:04
  Better quality for less money. And I'm like, I know, I know.
• 7:10
  For some people, cooking like a laborious luxurious meal is sort
• 7:16
  of like, you know, it's about the journey.
• 7:17
  It's not about the destination, it's about the destination.
• 7:21
  I want a good meal at the end of it and sometimes 7 hours of work
• 7:24
  is not worth it. That's the the second I realized
• 7:29
  I could just click a button and have a gourmet meal pretty much
• 7:32
  delivered directly to my doorstep, it was over for my
• 7:35
  cooking ability. There's just no, there's no
• 7:39
  world in which I'm compelled to make a food that I could order
• 7:44
  usually for less. That's the thing that they're
• 7:47
  not telling you at the grocery store.
• 7:49
  They're not saying that actually it's it's all adds up to be more
• 7:53
  than what you would just do if you doordashed.
• 7:55
  I'm just saying. And yeah, if I cook for myself,
• 7:58
  do I usually get like 7 meals out of it as opposed to one meal
• 8:02
  that I'm eating pretty much naked on the couch?
• 8:06
  Sure, but I'm still going to order.
• 8:09
  I don't want to cook. Not to mention, don't even get
• 8:12
  me started on the dishes. I don't even want to think about
• 8:15
  it. Nothing pisses me off more than
• 8:17
  the amount of times that dishes pile up in my sink.
• 8:19
  I'm one man and I've made an effort to empty my sink at the
• 8:23
  end of every day. I wake up within the course of
• 8:26
  like an hour, I have a sink full of dishes and I'm pissed off.
• 8:30
  Anyway, let's move on to some of the news.
• 8:34
  What the heck is happening this week?
• 8:36
  First, fans of Harry Potter derogatory have apparently
• 8:43
  forced an electric company to relocate a multi $1,000,000
• 8:50
  power cable project from a particular beach because it
• 8:55
  would have disturbed the fictional site of Dobby the
• 8:58
  house elves grave. Are you understanding me?
• 9:03
  OK, so apparently there was this power cable company.
• 9:06
  It's like the National Trust. It's like the National Electric
• 9:09
  Company for Wales. Or, or I don't, I don't fucking
• 9:13
  know, don't. I'm not going to wade into
• 9:15
  English politics or whatever British politics, which I don't
• 9:19
  know which one Wales is, OK, but they were going, they wanted to
• 9:23
  put like a power cable through this beach.
• 9:26
  I don't know why. I don't know why you're putting
• 9:27
  a power cable on a beach. But yeah, fans, apparently fans
• 9:31
  have been like using this site as some type of house elf Mecca
• 9:36
  that they go and, and, you know, pray at and they, they the like
• 9:41
  environmental groups for years now had to be like, stop leaving
• 9:46
  your dirty fucking socks on the beach.
• 9:48
  It is an environmental hazard. These are not like biodegradable
• 9:53
  socks that you're leaving on a just a straight up beach.
• 9:57
  And so for a long time, they, they were like, maybe we're
• 10:00
  going to have to shut this thing down all together.
• 10:02
  We're going to have to be like, no, no Dobby's grave whatsoever.
• 10:07
  Finally, they were like, we it can stay, Dobby's grave can
• 10:10
  stay, but we have to not be doing socks anymore.
• 10:14
  We can't be leaving socks. We can't be people leave like
• 10:16
  piece of plastic and stuff that says like, you know, you're a
• 10:19
  free elf or whatever. And then I guess the latest
• 10:24
  development was that this power company wanted to put a power
• 10:27
  cable in. The Harry Potter lobby was
• 10:31
  apparently so aggressive that they have rerouted the power
• 10:37
  cable so that it won't disturb Dobby's grave.
• 10:41
  My favorite, this story, this from the Guardian.
• 10:44
  Yeah. The $430 million pound,
• 10:48
  1,000,000 LB green link interconnector links the
• 10:52
  National Grid to Ireland was initially going to pass through
• 10:55
  the site of the grave. In quotes, the project manager
• 10:59
  Simon, said he did not know who Dobby was and got confused by
• 11:07
  the calls the company received, saying a colleague told him
• 11:10
  apparently we're going to go straight through Dobby's grave.
• 11:14
  I said Dobby. Who's Dobby?
• 11:17
  I don't know Dobby. I said he's a fictitious
• 11:21
  character in a fictitious book. The whole thing is fictitious.
• 11:24
  What are you talking about? Kind of sounds like you know who
• 11:27
  Dobby is then, Sir. In one sentence you say, I don't
• 11:30
  know who Dobby is, and then you say, oh, he's a fictitious
• 11:33
  character. His colleague said no, it's
• 11:36
  very, very serious. The firm then enlisted planners
• 11:43
  to find a new route. This is, it gets so crazy.
• 11:46
  That avoided the grave. A lot of people are very happy
• 11:49
  about that. The project is now going ahead.
• 11:52
  Dobby's happy in the end, he said.
• 11:55
  We went quite close to some real Bronze Age remains, but we
• 11:59
  avoided Dobby's grave. The Bronze Age remains include
• 12:03
  urns associated with human burial.
• 12:08
  What, so you're telling me a bunch of nerds convinced this
• 12:13
  power company not to disrupt a fake elf gravesite and instead
• 12:20
  they went through a Bronze Age burial site?
• 12:28
  What the fuck are you talking about?
• 12:31
  First of all, fuck Dobby. I wish they'd killed him twice.
• 12:35
  I don't like that fucking scrotum skinned little slave
• 12:38
  boy. I know I never got the
• 12:41
  obsession. Oh yeah, we feel bad for him.
• 12:43
  He's fucking household. He's disgusting, he's
• 12:45
  disgusting, he's disgusting to look at.
• 12:47
  I don't even want to see his face on my screen.
• 12:50
  I don't like his flopping the every every.
• 12:52
  The first time I saw that fucking elf, I wanted him dead.
• 12:58
  Second of all, he's not real, babe.
• 13:01
  I don't understand. It's like at this point too,
• 13:05
  it's kind of weird because it's like, do I?
• 13:07
  Obviously, I don't want to side with like a major power company.
• 13:12
  And so it's like that, you know, but it's also crazy to reroute
• 13:17
  it through a Bronze Age burial site.
• 13:19
  Essentially. It's unclear from this story at
• 13:22
  least whether the the Bronze Age burial site was actually
• 13:25
  disrupted or if they just got close to it and this guy thought
• 13:28
  he would sort of get a job in by mentioning it.
• 13:31
  But I don't know, the Harry Potter fans, I just, I got to
• 13:35
  excuse myself. I can't, it is the one thing
• 13:39
  that like I was, I was a die hard fan when I was younger and
• 13:45
  I like still wish I could be a fan 'cause I did like them very
• 13:49
  much. But like that bitch is, she's
• 13:53
  made it too difficult at this point.
• 13:55
  I know I mean this, everything that can be said about this has
• 13:59
  been said already, but it's just like JK Rowling not to invoke
• 14:03
  her name. She has just made it impossible
• 14:09
  to separate the art from the artist.
• 14:11
  It's she has done too much to gloat about the fact that she's
• 14:15
  cashing her royalty checks and then giving them to anti trans
• 14:19
  causes. And it's like, I cannot, there's
• 14:23
  like no, literally no room for like, like suspending disbelief
• 14:31
  or like, like trying to ignore it.
• 14:33
  She's just made it too impossible to ignore how
• 14:36
  terrible her views are. And the fact that she's like
• 14:38
  profiting still from these things that people are a fan of
• 14:43
  and then using those profits to attack people.
• 14:46
  I'd still, it just baffles me every time.
• 14:48
  It's like truly truly baffling that she has taken the stance
• 14:54
  and is being being so militant about it.
• 14:58
  So fuck that little elf. Fuck his little body.
• 15:01
  Which? Isn't there by the.
• 15:04
  Way which isn't there. He's not.
• 15:06
  It's not a real gravesite. You can literally put your
• 15:10
  little cross I guess or wherever, throw your socks, make
• 15:16
  a garbage can, his grave or whatever, choose anywhere else.
• 15:21
  It is so crazy that like, I don't know, whoever direct what,
• 15:24
  what the the last two Harry Potter movies that they just
• 15:28
  randomly picked a site and now the dominoes have fallen in a
• 15:34
  Bronze Age burial site has been desecrated.
• 15:36
  I guess Odysseus's grave has been the upturn.
• 15:42
  Well, I'm like, what was happening in the Bronze Age in
• 15:46
  in Wales? I don't really know what was
• 15:48
  happening. Every time I remember like
• 15:51
  Britain, Britain is so old. Everything is so old, but like
• 15:55
  Britain is so old. They're like, what do you call
• 15:57
  it? Not crop circles When they like
• 16:00
  draw stuff in the grass. I guess crop circles.
• 16:05
  They're like big, I want to say drawings, but it's like stuff
• 16:10
  carved out of the grass in like a hillside in in the UK and it's
• 16:15
  just like giant Dicks. Let me look that up.
• 16:19
  Giant Dicks. Oh boy, that's.
• 16:21
  Gonna. Hillside OK UK Surprisingly not
• 16:28
  pornography, the this mysterious hillside carving is actually
• 16:32
  Hercules. Oh, my God.
• 16:36
  So, yeah, it's like a hillside carving, I guess they're calling
• 16:40
  it. And it's like, you know, made
• 16:43
  out of a pathway. But you can really only see it
• 16:46
  from, like, above, which is kind of fascinating.
• 16:49
  But I guess it's Hercules. Anyway.
• 16:51
  It's got a big old boner. They, they, whoever made this
• 16:56
  horny hillside carving. His Dick is going past the belly
• 17:00
  button. It's hitting the first set of
• 17:02
  ABS, actually. Yeah.
• 17:07
  And he's got like a bat, like a WAVY bat that he's waving
• 17:09
  around. The more I've been reading about
• 17:11
  Greek mythology, although I haven't really read that much
• 17:14
  about Hercules. I didn't realize Hercules kind
• 17:16
  of like went insane and killed his wife.
• 17:18
  I think they didn't. They didn't tell that in Disney,
• 17:21
  did they? But anyway, fuck off to all the
• 17:26
  people who care about Dobby's grave, it's not real, he's a
• 17:30
  fucking disgusting little elf and I don't give a shit about
• 17:33
  him and I hope they desecrate his grave.
• 17:36
  Anyway, next, and this is kind of IT related, the Internet
• 17:48
  TikTok in particular has been obsessed with this woman who is
• 17:53
  has some type of insane parasocial relationship with
• 17:57
  Peter Pan from Disney World. So there are like multiple
• 18:02
  actors who have played Peter Pan in in Disney World.
• 18:06
  I don't even know what you say played Peter Pan.
• 18:08
  I guess they have to say that they were friends and as an
• 18:14
  actor who is a Disneyland character, you can't just say,
• 18:19
  oh, I, I was this character. You have to like according to
• 18:22
  Disney rules, you have to say like, I was friends with Peter
• 18:26
  Pan from 2011 to 2015 because Peter.
• 18:30
  Pan is real. Because Peter Pan is real.
• 18:33
  So apparently multiple people who were friends with Peter Pan
• 18:36
  have come forward and been like, this woman was straight up
• 18:39
  harassing us. It is a huge thing on TikTok.
• 18:43
  It is going crazy. People are like harassing this
• 18:45
  woman. So I guess the story is like,
• 18:48
  she just had kind of a very intense parasocial relationship
• 18:52
  with a number of Peter Pan's. And there's like compilation of
• 18:56
  like, compilations of videos of this woman approaching the Peter
• 19:00
  Pan's and them kind of registering that it's her and
• 19:03
  being like, oh fuck, here she is again.
• 19:08
  But it's like crazy. And because what are you
• 19:10
  supposed to do in that situation?
• 19:12
  It's like, especially if it doesn't seem like she ever quite
• 19:17
  crossed a line or anything. She was just very intense about
• 19:21
  her devotion to Peter Pan. And it's sort of like of all of
• 19:26
  the Disney characters to have a weird psychosexual obsession
• 19:31
  with Peter Pan. He's a child.
• 19:35
  It's like the one that you can sort of get away with.
• 19:38
  It's there's something that I don't like.
• 19:40
  It's it's, I don't know, can you can you groom an immortal child?
• 19:49
  But it's like, of all the Disney characters, why don't you?
• 19:53
  Why aren't we sexually harassing Prince Eric?
• 19:56
  Why aren't we sexually harassing Gaston?
• 19:58
  They are. They are.
• 19:59
  I've I've also heard stories of them getting harassed and having
• 20:03
  because. It's like one thing, you know,
• 20:06
  I'm sure there are stories of, of like dads at Disneyland being
• 20:11
  kind of weird perverts towards like Ariel and, and Cinderella
• 20:16
  or whatever. You don't often hear about the
• 20:20
  male characters getting harassed.
• 20:22
  But then I think a number of them have kind of come forward
• 20:25
  with stories being like, don't harass her.
• 20:28
  She, you know, was very intense, but like nothing beyond what
• 20:32
  we're used to. This person, however, did harass
• 20:35
  me and follow. I just watched one this morning
• 20:38
  that was a guy saying when he was Peter Pan, this woman was
• 20:43
  like, came up to him and was describing his, like, dog, like
• 20:49
  his own dog. And that's where he was like,
• 20:54
  OK, this is no longer about like Peter Pan the character.
• 20:58
  This is like, you are stalking me in particular.
• 21:00
  But it's like you have to maintain character.
• 21:02
  You can't break character in front of them.
• 21:04
  So you have to be like, oh, that's crazy.
• 21:06
  Oh, you know, yeah, Not. Let me go talk to the people of
• 21:14
  Never Neverland about this. But yeah, no, literally insane,
• 21:17
  insane behavior. This is.
• 21:19
  I mean, I feel like it is spiritually related to people
• 21:22
  who give a shit about Dobby's grave.
• 21:24
  These are not real. Everybody has reached a level of
• 21:28
  psychos. It's like, I feel like these are
• 21:30
  all the product of people losing their goddamn minds, including
• 21:33
  me. What if I just became so
• 21:35
  obsessed with the Disney character?
• 21:37
  I think if a Disney character, if a Disney character at the
• 21:41
  theme parks knows who you are, can recognize you, something is
• 21:47
  wrong. Something has gone wrong in your
• 21:49
  life, in their life. I think, and we need to
• 21:54
  reassess. I think I put them in Disney
• 21:58
  jail. I would love to be in Disney
• 22:00
  jail. It looks fun.
• 22:02
  I bet they give you stuff. The obsession with Peter Pan in
• 22:05
  particular is so funny to me. But the obsession with any
• 22:10
  fictional character, it's, it's akin to being sexually attracted
• 22:14
  to like Santa Claus. You're like, oh, I have a crush
• 22:17
  on Santa. Famously mommy did.
• 22:21
  It's just kind of a culture that I'm sort of fascinated by but
• 22:24
  ultimately have no interest in partaking in.
• 22:27
  I do. I do enjoy dipping my toes into
• 22:30
  the Disney waters occasionally. I think it's fun to go to Disney
• 22:34
  even as an adult. But I will say some of the
• 22:37
  Disney stuff is pissing me off. I did just watch.
• 22:41
  I mean, this is very tangentially Disney, but the, I
• 22:45
  realized I never saw the last spider man, the last Tom Holland
• 22:50
  Spider Man 'cause it's like I, those, those movies make no
• 22:54
  impact on my life. It's I, I watch them and the
• 22:56
  second they're over, I forget everything that I just saw.
• 23:00
  I don't like how I have to do homework before a Marvel movie.
• 23:04
  Every time I watch a Marvel movie, it's like, OK, here are
• 23:07
  17 characters that I've never heard of before because I didn't
• 23:11
  watch this obscure Disney Plus miniseries that came out three
• 23:16
  years ago. So now I don't understand this.
• 23:18
  And then those they're they're making all these inside jokes
• 23:21
  the only people who saw the miniseries can get no stop.
• 23:26
  That every movie should start fresh and I should be able to
• 23:29
  understand what the fuck is going on and not have to watch
• 23:32
  70 other movies to understand what the fuck spider man is
• 23:36
  talking about. I remember when Comic Book Hero
• 23:40
  Movie was just a guy shooting webs out of his first and it was
• 23:46
  simple and it had Willem Dafoe in it and he would talk in a
• 23:51
  scary voice and he'd say this is a movie, this is a movie and now
• 23:58
  everything is just a reference to something else and it pissed
• 24:01
  me off. Anyway, moving on, terrible news
• 24:07
  for the cheese community because global warming is threatening to
• 24:12
  upset the $400 million cheese vaults in Italy.
• 24:20
  Did you see the story? Yeah.
• 24:21
  I cried. Yeah.
• 24:23
  So apparently here's the thing that it's going to, this is
• 24:27
  going to reveal, I don't really understand the economy.
• 24:31
  I do get you. Have you ever seen that picture
• 24:33
  of the girl who's like, hey, what's going on with the
• 24:35
  economy? And the guy is like, don't worry
• 24:38
  about it, it's fine. And she's like, OK, yay.
• 24:43
  That's how I, that's how I genuinely feel.
• 24:45
  I do not understand economics whatsoever, like macro or
• 24:48
  microeconomics. Let's be real.
• 24:50
  I do not understand when people are like, oh it's the gold
• 24:53
  standard, OOP, I'm out, I'm out. Don't understand how that works.
• 24:57
  I barely understand how my checking account works.
• 25:00
  So you think I'm understanding the the gold standard.
• 25:04
  But I, I could kind of start understanding it when it's
• 25:06
  described in Wheels of Parmesan cheese, 'cause I guess the idea
• 25:10
  is that Parmesan is like incredibly expensive and
• 25:13
  valuable. And like a wheel of Parmesan is
• 25:16
  like hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of dollars,
• 25:19
  especially the more aged it gets or whatever.
• 25:23
  But it takes a long time to age. It's like it has to age for at
• 25:28
  least 12 months before it's even like you can even sell it.
• 25:32
  And so farmers, because they need the money before the cheese
• 25:37
  ages, will get like loans from the bank, like with the
• 25:42
  expectation that they will get paid back once the cheese is
• 25:46
  mature. So it's like this whole cheese
• 25:49
  based economy, which is kind of like if you had told me that
• 25:53
  this like if if I had to guess what the Italian economy was
• 25:58
  held up by, Parmesan cheese would be up there.
• 26:00
  It would be Parmesan cheese, wine and misogyny and
• 26:06
  homophobia. But it's like now global warming
• 26:11
  is kind of threatening the aging process, and it kind of might
• 26:15
  bring it all to the ground. Some of these stories I was
• 26:17
  trying to read and understand, they're talking about the
• 26:20
  blockchain. I don't know what the blockchain
• 26:22
  is. Can't be bothered.
• 26:23
  I tried to I looked up the definition of blockchain.
• 26:27
  I blacked out my eyes. My my nose started bleeding.
• 26:31
  Yeah. So I kind of have no idea what
• 26:33
  the fuck they're talking about. And this is like, I don't
• 26:36
  understand what cryptocurrency is.
• 26:38
  I don't understand what the blockchain is.
• 26:41
  I don't know what Dogecoin is. I don't know, I barely
• 26:45
  understand the Italian cheese economy.
• 26:49
  The point is, global warming is threatening our Parmesan and
• 26:52
  it's going to bring about our destruction and I don't like
• 26:55
  that. Anyway, next this woman in I
• 26:59
  think the South went viral after sharing a $20,000 dorm room
• 27:08
  makeover that she apparently offers to several clients a
• 27:13
  season. So these rich like mostly
• 27:18
  southern sorority girls it seems are getting $20,000 dorm room
• 27:24
  interior design and people are freaking out as they should be
• 27:30
  because that is crazy. She, this woman says, I guess
• 27:34
  that she does 15 to 20 dorm rooms each year and she charges
• 27:39
  like $20,000 for them all to be like, here's pick this
• 27:45
  comforter. It's like how many options do
• 27:48
  you have for a dorm room? It's a 10 foot by 10 foot space
• 27:53
  that this teenage girl is going to get her shit railed in.
• 27:58
  It's like if if the women I went to college with are any
• 28:01
  indication, that room is going to be basically a pit from hell
• 28:06
  in the next nine months to spend $20,000 on that.
• 28:10
  I mean, if you're spending that type of money on a dorm room,
• 28:14
  design it, it doesn't matter. Like you'll spend whatever on
• 28:18
  whatever. I just can't imagine spending
• 28:22
  $20,000 free dorm room that is going to get the shit trashed
• 28:31
  out of it. And also it's like she's going
• 28:35
  to, she's going to like drink too much and throw up over all
• 28:40
  of that. That is going to have so much
• 28:43
  hair, so much body fluid absolutely flowing all over it.
• 28:47
  Also, they're lofting beds to heights that have never been
• 28:51
  achieved before the way that these beds are at a height that
• 28:56
  is neither neither bunk bed height, but not like normal bed
• 29:00
  height. There's somewhere there's like
• 29:02
  an uncanny valley of of bed height that they're achieving in
• 29:06
  these dorm rooms that I just cannot get my head around.
• 29:09
  I'm like, how do you? And they're they're doing this
• 29:12
  for women that are 5 foot 35 foot 4, like barely registering
• 29:18
  as as humans. It's always so funny too when
• 29:21
  it's like 2 roommates, but one of them pays for her side to be
• 29:26
  like decked out and the other side is just kind of put a
• 29:29
  couple posters on a wall. This video also kind of went
• 29:32
  viral cause the mom in the makeover has like the worst hair
• 29:37
  you've ever seen. But I mean, it's just kind of a
• 29:39
  bitch thing to say just just to be like, oh, this rich person.
• 29:45
  Her hair is also disgusting, but her like extension tracks are
• 29:50
  showing. I never really pay attention to
• 29:52
  women's like extensions. I feel like a a lot of my
• 29:55
  friends will be like, Oh yeah, you can see her extensions or
• 29:58
  whatever. It's just never, I'm never
• 30:00
  looking that close at a woman. I see women as like, you know,
• 30:06
  spiritual entities. It's sort of like I'm not even,
• 30:11
  I don't even register you as a physical being.
• 30:14
  I'm not judging a woman's appearance whatsoever.
• 30:16
  It's more I'm judging her personality.
• 30:21
  Whereas for men it's the opposite.
• 30:23
  I don't give a shit what's inside of you unless it's me.
• 30:31
  Next we got a call to the What the Heck Hotline, which is of
• 30:35
  course the number that any of you can call to leave at your
• 30:37
  what the heck? The thing that's making you say
• 30:39
  what the heck? Four O 7.
• 30:41
  WTH, Matt? Let's hear this week's color.
• 30:46
  Hey Matt. OK, so I need to know what the
• 30:51
  heck is up with these cashiers who don't want to put my stuff
• 30:56
  in the bag. Like I live in a state where
• 31:00
  they don't give us plastic bags at the grocery stores because
• 31:03
  you got to save the environment. Even though that's not my job,
• 31:06
  it's the corporations. Anyway, I bring my reusable bag.
• 31:10
  I have to bring it to the cashier and they don't want to
• 31:13
  put my stuff in the bag. It's so annoying.
• 31:16
  I have to do this passive aggressive thing where I'm like,
• 31:19
  hey, you need me to help you with the bag.
• 31:22
  And then they like begrudgingly put my items that I have
• 31:26
  purchased with my money into the bag.
• 31:29
  And sometimes they have the nerve to just pile up my items
• 31:32
  next to the reusable bag as if I'm going to put them in the
• 31:36
  bag. This isn't self checkout.
• 31:37
  OK? So yeah, what the heck is up
• 31:40
  with that? I'm sick of it.
• 31:42
  Thanks. Love the show.
• 31:43
  OK, bye. Thank you.
• 31:46
  Wow literally 100% agree. I get so confused whenever I'm
• 31:52
  at the store 'cause I also live in New York.
• 31:55
  They don't have plastic bags anymore.
• 31:58
  I've amassed basically a blue whale's worth of reusable bags
• 32:05
  from there's no way that the amount of reusable like cheap
• 32:10
  grocery store bags that I've got from the grocery store 'cause I
• 32:13
  forget my tote. There's no way that that's
• 32:16
  better for the environment. It is.
• 32:17
  I think a plastic bag takes like 1,000,000 years to disintegrate
• 32:22
  and the like, reusable cloth ones, you know, but I don't
• 32:25
  know. Then they're complaining about
• 32:26
  fucking socks at the Dobby Grave.
• 32:27
  So who knows. But no, I always get so confused
• 32:32
  'cause then I feel like an asshole where I'm like, here's
• 32:35
  my bag, put my shit in it. But that used to just be like
• 32:38
  what happened at a grocery store.
• 32:40
  The person would bag it. In fact, they had people whose
• 32:43
  specific job was bag boy and they would put the groceries in
• 32:46
  the bag. And now it is that uncomfortable
• 32:48
  middle ground. I've never been more seen than
• 32:51
  this caller. I always feel sober, especially
• 32:54
  at Trader Joe 'cause sometimes the Trader Joe's cashier,
• 32:56
  they'll say you brought your own bag and then then I'm like,
• 33:00
  yeah, here you go, thank you so much.
• 33:03
  Other times it's like, yeah, what do you want it from me?
• 33:05
  This is actually related to one of my what the hecks, which is I
• 33:09
  feel like customer service people have like lost touch with
• 33:13
  reality and, and have like not they've forgotten people skills.
• 33:19
  They're not hiring customer service representatives who have
• 33:21
  people skills anymore. Once again, that's why the
• 33:24
  robots are taking over. It's just like, let's just
• 33:27
  communicate. Just like, tell me your wants
• 33:29
  and needs and like, I'll tell you mine.
• 33:32
  And maybe that's me saying, OK, maybe I have to be like, are you
• 33:35
  going to put the stuff in the bag or should I?
• 33:38
  Maybe that would kind of solve it.
• 33:39
  But there's no way to say that without sounding like kind of an
• 33:42
  asshole. The related point was that I
• 33:44
  walked into one of those like make your own.
• 33:48
  It's one of those. It's one of those bowl type of
• 33:50
  places. And the woman, she wasn't
• 33:55
  looking, I like walked in and she said, like, how can I help
• 33:59
  you? But then she like looked away at
• 34:01
  someone else where that she was like doing something with.
• 34:04
  And then it was like, is she still listening to me?
• 34:07
  Is she is she paying attention to that person now?
• 34:11
  Is she on the phone? Sometimes people have like ear
• 34:13
  things in. And then she looked up at me
• 34:15
  like, well, are you going to order?
• 34:17
  And I was like, what happened to maintaining eye contact for
• 34:21
  longer than one second? So I know that you were actually
• 34:24
  talking to me. It's just like, I feel like
• 34:27
  people have just lost the ability to communicate.
• 34:32
  That's all I'm saying. Remember how you started this
• 34:35
  episode by trying to avoid small talk at all costs?
• 34:40
  Well, it's like I'm not putting myself in the position to have
• 34:42
  to talk to people if I like. I hate small talk.
• 34:47
  I'm not going to, you know, try to be a customer service Rep.
• 34:53
  Yeah, it's just like I 'cause I feel like it's related to the
• 34:57
  Gen. Z stare.
• 34:58
  And this was not a Gen. Z person that I interacted with.
• 35:01
  But from what I understand, the Gen.
• 35:03
  Z stare is like, like Gen. Z people don't understand.
• 35:09
  Like the. The claim is that Gen.
• 35:11
  Z people don't know how to communicate.
• 35:13
  And so they'll just kind of stare at you blankly until you
• 35:16
  do something. And I'm, I'm like, I hadn't
• 35:19
  really encountered that. If anything, I've encountered it
• 35:22
  more from older people where I'm like, let's use our words, but
• 35:27
  maybe I'm the one doing the Gen. Z Astaire.
• 35:30
  I just saw another a TikTok of a woman being like, I work at a
• 35:34
  restaurant as a Hostess. And when people come in, I'll be
• 35:38
  like just the two of you. And then they kind of stare at
• 35:40
  me and then I'll say like, are we waiting for someone else?
• 35:44
  Like, and it's like people can't just walk in and say hi, a table
• 35:49
  for two please anymore. I've made the mistake before of
• 35:53
  like leaving my Airpods in which I know is annoying.
• 35:57
  I I will always turn the music off.
• 36:00
  I'm not like trying to talk to someone through the music, but
• 36:03
  sometimes I'm not always taking the Airpod out.
• 36:06
  I did that once. I went to a Subway sandwiches,
• 36:10
  eat fresh. I, I remember I was in Buffalo
• 36:14
  because I was performing, I was doing a stand up show there.
• 36:16
  I was at my hotel. The hotel had a Subway
• 36:19
  sandwiches attached to it. So it's like, oh, let me just go
• 36:23
  get some Subway. You didn't even have to leave
• 36:24
  the hotel. You could just walk right in and
• 36:28
  I walked in. I had my Airpods in, but they
• 36:31
  were off and I was, I thought the person said, hi, what would
• 36:37
  you like? And I said Turkey sandwich
• 36:39
  please. And then louder I heard them
• 36:43
  say, did you just hear what I said?
• 36:46
  And then I was like, oh, let me take this out.
• 36:48
  Sorry what? And they said I just quit.
• 36:54
  And I was like, OK, diva go off. But also, can you make my
• 36:57
  sandwich first? Like it's kind of sucks that
• 37:00
  this was the cut off that you decided right before you made my
• 37:03
  Subway sandwich and that there was someone else there.
• 37:07
  They were just finishing up. But I was like, I desperately
• 37:11
  want to know why that person just quit right before they made
• 37:14
  my Turkey sandwich. It was kind of, it was kind of
• 37:17
  jarring. I was like, oh, OK, I guess I'm
• 37:22
  going to have to go somewhere else.
• 37:24
  Never got my Subway sandwich. It's pretty devastating.
• 37:27
  I've just never witnessed anything like it.
• 37:30
  Someone quitting in the midst of me trying to order a sandwich,
• 37:34
  they just saw my fat ass walk in and they were like, I don't
• 37:37
  whatever he's going to ask for is going to be too much.
• 37:39
  I know it. I'm out next.
• 37:42
  I've had enough of all of the straight slash bisexual DJs that
• 37:48
  I keep seeing on my TikTok that are just hot guys made from the
• 37:53
  gay guy gay guy factory. The Gay Guy Factory for
• 37:58
  producing guys that look like hot DJs.
• 38:01
  The number of musicians and music adjacent people that I'm
• 38:05
  seeing pop up on my feed who are just kind of some of the most
• 38:09
  conventionally attractive, like stock people.
• 38:15
  It's I'm like, where are they making these people?
• 38:17
  Why are they making these people?
• 38:19
  Is this the only qualification for being a DJ?
• 38:22
  Why is your shirt off? I thought DJs were like Paris
• 38:27
  Hilton and like Meredith Marx from the Real Housewives.
• 38:31
  And then you'll see like a DJ and it's just like like guy with
• 38:37
  a six pack with his shirt off. And I'm like, I don't understand
• 38:40
  what I guess it's like the Zac Efron school for.
• 38:45
  How many times do you have to watch We Are Your Friends before
• 38:49
  you understand DJ culture? I always forget We are your
• 38:52
  friends as sort of like a documentary film about being a
• 38:55
  hot DJ. It's just like every so often
• 38:58
  I'll look at the the Internet and there will be some new DJ
• 39:02
  that pops up and I'm like, who is this?
• 39:03
  I also think that there, I mean, there are kind of two paths for
• 39:07
  being a male pop star or a male musician.
• 39:11
  Non country edition, white person edition, which is like
• 39:16
  you can either be soft boy, like flowy clothes, kind of gender
• 39:25
  androgynous, but also kind of throwback.
• 39:27
  I'm thinking like somber and that that other one who looks
• 39:32
  like somber or you can go like bro Y mask, like, I don't know,
• 39:41
  metrosexual guy. It it's always these like guys.
• 39:45
  I feel like the Imagine Dragons guy started it.
• 39:48
  Do you remember the Imagine Dragons guy?
• 39:51
  And he like takes his shirt off and he's like ripped as fuck.
• 39:54
  Oh, unfortunately, he's incredibly hot.
• 39:57
  But it's like, I feel like people have followed that mold
• 40:00
  where it's just like hot shirtless guy.
• 40:05
  And it's like, what? It just sing the fucking song.
• 40:08
  Whatever, whatever the Imagine Dragon song is.
• 40:11
  I know like even as it came out of my mouth, I was like, this is
• 40:24
  not the sound that I'm intending to make.
• 40:26
  But also, yeah, you get it. And finally, clicking into a
• 40:33
  website on your phone in the year 2026 is one of the most
• 40:37
  harrowing experiences that you can go through as an individual
• 40:41
  on the Internet attempting to read an article on your phone.
• 40:46
  The number of things that pop up, the number of ads, the
• 40:49
  number of pictures, the number. Oh, would you like to sign up
• 40:51
  for our newsletter? Would you like to sign up for a
• 40:53
  subscription? Would you like to close this ad?
• 40:56
  And then they go there. There's always the real X and
• 40:59
  then there's a fake X. Sometimes the fake X will try to
• 41:01
  get you, but you because you click on the fake X and then it
• 41:04
  opens up another website that's downloading some type of virus
• 41:07
  onto my phone. But then you click on the real X
• 41:10
  and it it takes you to another one and you have to wait 60
• 41:12
  seconds in order for the ad to load.
• 41:13
  And then you can click skip this video, stop it, stop.
• 41:17
  I've had enough of things popping up.
• 41:21
  Or they'll do ads. They'll do pop up ads that are
• 41:24
  like interactive and it starts playing like a, a, a short film
• 41:29
  on my phone when I'm just trying to read a Vulture article.
• 41:32
  And, and the, the, the ad, it'll be a little banner at the top
• 41:35
  and it expands into a full, full blown movie.
• 41:38
  It blocks half of the shit that I'm trying to read.
• 41:41
  Do you look at the shit that you're creating?
• 41:43
  I don't know whoever is making these ads.
• 41:46
  Have you used a phone before? Have you seen a screen?
• 41:50
  I'm convinced that it's some type of like malicious evil
• 41:53
  troll who is making all of these ads that are designed just to
• 41:58
  piss me off by the day. There's so many times where I go
• 42:02
  to click on a link, it starts opening stuff.
• 42:04
  My phone is getting hot in my hand, it's burning a hole on my
• 42:08
  couch and I just say I don't even care anymore.
• 42:11
  I don't even care to find out what that was about because I'm
• 42:14
  not. I'm not about to search for the
• 42:17
  X Treasure Island style to try to close out the theater of
• 42:22
  items that have opened up in front of me just so I can read
• 42:25
  this article about a cat that they found on a whale.
• 42:35
  And finally, my what day for the week.
• 42:38
  The thing that's making me say hey, my opposite of a what the
• 42:42
  heck? So heck yeah, brother's not
• 42:44
  sticking around. Or my heck yeah, brother.
• 42:47
  I don't know. We're still kind of testing it
• 42:48
  out. I do like, heck yeah, brother.
• 42:51
  Actually. We'll see.
• 42:52
  I don't know. I think I finally graduated from
• 42:55
  my Greek mythology phase. I think I pass.
• 42:58
  I'm giving myself my Greek mythology degree.
• 43:01
  I've earned my classics degree. I realized I was going to make a
• 43:05
  TikTok of like, oh, here's all the books that I read.
• 43:07
  And I realized it's not that many and they're all pretty
• 43:10
  basic. I was like, I can't really be
• 43:13
  making a video saying how oh look at me.
• 43:15
  I read the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Stephen Fry books, and then
• 43:20
  Cersei and Song of Achilles. Pretty much Greek mythology 101.
• 43:26
  For gay. For gay.
• 43:27
  Oh and I read the Margaret Atwood one which is I do
• 43:30
  recommend. It's called the Penelopeiad.
• 43:33
  It's Penelope, Odysseus's wife, the story from her perspective.
• 43:39
  Maybe I'll still make a tick to, who knows why not?
• 43:43
  But the point is, I've graduated from my Greek mythology phase.
• 43:47
  I believe I can. I finally put that to rest.
• 43:49
  Even though we will be seeing the Odyssey 1/3 time because
• 43:53
  there's that one screen in Lincoln Square that you have to
• 43:56
  like fight for your life to get tickets to and they only have
• 43:59
  like 5 showings a day and they're sold out forever.
• 44:02
  We finally got tickets, but it was like a month later.
• 44:06
  We're going to see that soon. But now I think I'm back into my
• 44:09
  sort of Queen Elizabeth Tudor era phase, my Elizabethan age,
• 44:14
  and I've started a book called The Six Loves of James the 1st
• 44:19
  that I'm enjoying a lot. King James who succeeded Queen
• 44:25
  Elizabeth FAG flaming FAG, which I kind of love that the King
• 44:33
  James of the King James Bible was sucking D and behold they
• 44:41
  made. I never watched that Showtime
• 44:43
  series that was like Julianne Moore and the gay guy from that
• 44:49
  one gay guy movie and also the sheep detective movie.
• 44:53
  The gay guy from the gay guy movie, Nicholas Glanquin.
• 44:57
  He's plays he man and he was also in Sheep detectives and he
• 45:02
  was also in the gay guy movie for gay guy.
• 45:04
  It's about red, red, white and royal blue.
• 45:08
  Anyway, he plays one of like a young lover of King James.
• 45:14
  So I'm excited to I'm excited to watch that after I read the
• 45:16
  book. But I like how it is sort of a
• 45:18
  parallel to, you know, Henry the Eighth had six wives and James
• 45:25
  King James had 6. I feel like we need a what the
• 45:35
  heck history spin off. Maybe that could be an
• 45:40
  additional thing that we we do. I don't know.
• 45:43
  Maybe this is a good time. If you made it to the end of
• 45:45
  this episode to, like, let us, let us know if there's anything
• 45:49
  in particular that you would like to see or hear more of,
• 45:52
  less of. Yeah, obviously, of my
• 45:57
  interests, love a good history, love a good, love a good TV
• 46:02
  movie, book, sort of summaries and recaps.
• 46:06
  But let me know what it is that you want to see or hear more of
• 46:12
  'cause we have a small but mighty audience who's listening
• 46:15
  pretty faithfully every week. But we need to grow.
• 46:19
  We always need to grow. Am I right, folks?
• 46:25
  Anyway, let us know. Send us Adm.
• 46:28
  Yeah, that's it for this week's episode.
• 46:30
  Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching.
• 46:32
  Make sure, of course, that you're leaving a good comment, a
• 46:36
  good review. Only if it's nice.
• 46:37
  I don't want to hear your shit. Share our clips.
• 46:41
  Share our posts and make sure you're following and
• 46:44
  subscribing. And that's it.
• 46:47
  See you next week. Bye.
• 46:50
  This has been an episode of What the Heck with Matt Bellassai.
• 46:53
  You can call and leave us a voicemail about what's making
• 46:55
  you say what the heck this week and you might be featured on a
• 46:58
  future episode. Call us at 407-984-6288.
• 47:02
  That's four O 7 WTH Matt. What the Heck with Matt
• 47:05
  Bellassai is produced by same boat studios and Bellassai
• 47:08
  productions. It's hosted by me.
• 47:10
  Matt Bellassai. Our executive producers are Bria
• 47:13
  Lewis, Barry Finkel and me. Matt Bellicide.
• 47:15
  Erika Glass is our senior producer.
• 47:17
  Our video editors are Matt Bellicide and Erika Glass.
• 47:19
  Production designed by Erika Glass, Matt Bellicide and Barry
• 47:22
  Finkel. Our theme music is courtesy of
• 47:24
  epidemicsound.com. Special thanks to Truffles
• 47:27
  Bellicide.