Latest / My Favorite Things / My Favorite Things Episode 25: Writer and Nerd Fitness Founder Steve Kamb

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My Favorite Things Episode 25: Writer and Nerd Fitness Founder Steve Kamb · My Favorite Things

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Steve Cam, thanks for being here.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, Brendan.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Great to hang out with you, man.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell people a little bit about who you are?
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: So my name is Steve.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a nerd who fell in love with writing unexpectedly.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Accidentally started a health and fitness company for nerds called Nerd Fitness.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that worked for a long time.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then I fired myself to write a book which just came out.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: That book is called How to Try Again.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: And have...
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: navigated a few interesting years of life,
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: business, internet, the creative process, all of the above.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that all kind of made its way into that book.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: So here I sit in Nashville,
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: still that same nerd,
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: still fit,
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: and just trying to share as much as I can,
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: helping people try again and, you know, live a little bit differently.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's sort of...
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Correct me if I'm wrong,
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: but it's sort of like an antidote to those people who are like,
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: you got to get up at 4 a.m. and, you know, whatever.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, here's my morning routine that lasts six hours and then productivity,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: productivity, optimization.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that stuff.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Those people don't need books.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: They're fine.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: They're in their cold plunge and saunas and whatever.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: so actually the first line of my book proposal was some people wake up at 4 a.m.,
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: run 15 miles barefoot, and then meditate in an ice bath.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: And this book is for the rest of us.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's who we helped at Nerd Fitness and still do help at Nerd Fitness.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: I fired myself, but the company is still going and doing well and helping people.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to write a book for everybody else that couldn't relate to
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: the Instagram models and the dudes on steroids and the productivity bros and
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: the boss babes and boss dudes and whoever.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like, hey, man,
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: most of us are white knuckling our way through reality right now,
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: just trying to hang on.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to write a book for those people.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm really proud of how it turned out.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, awesome.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: For real.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's like,
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: for real people,
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: let's try this instead of neglecting everything else in your life for the sake
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: of productivity.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as you know,
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: This show is called My Favorite Thing,
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: so you've sent me a list of five of your favorite things,
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: creative works, through your life.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with the Redwall book series,
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: which I am not familiar with at all,
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: but it's a book series that you discovered in sixth grade.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I grew up in a town called Sandwich, Massachusetts.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I was at the Oak Ridge Middle School Public Library.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I saw a book on a shelf that had a badger.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: On it, wearing like a full like coat of arms and had this giant spear.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the book was called Salamandastron.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I have no idea what this word is.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Why is this badger wearing armor?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I need to know what this is about.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I picked it up right there and then went on to devour that book
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: and every other book that Brian Shocks, the author, wrote.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it's essentially, it's like,
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't say Lord of the Rings.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's like a PG Game of Thrones, but with animals.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, maybe G, like a G version or PG version of Game of Thrones.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, like,
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: there is this place called Redwall Abbey,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: and it's run by mice and,
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: otters and rabbits,
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: and they,
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: They have legends that they're trying to follow and legends that they pass down
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: to their young'uns.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: But then there are foxes and stoats.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And those foxes are evil and trying to sneak into the abbey.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: And they have to defend against these things.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: So this was my first introduction to fantasy.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: In some ways,
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: and only recently, I think Brian Jocks passed away within the past handful of years.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: And in his obituary, I learned this story.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: So for anybody that has read Redwall,
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: he does an unbelievable job of describing the food of That the animals are eating.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like, oh,
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: I dug this out of the ground,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: but like they make feasts and he talks about like,
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: candied chest nuts and waterfowl and he puts together these elaborate meals
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: and these, like I said, celebrations.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Celebrations.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you can almost taste it the way that he's describing these things.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I learned through after he passed away that Brian Jocks had a number of jobs as an adult.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: And one of those jobs was delivering milk.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And this is over in the UK.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: He delivered milk to the Royal Liverpool School for the Blind.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And when he would deliver milk to these kids, he would come up with these stories about animals.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: And the kids were blind,
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: so he wanted to give them the visual of what these feasts
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: that he would imagine would exist on the table of these animals at Redwall Abbey.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why they're so unbelievable.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Unbelievably descriptive.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, he tells these stories.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: They start to become famous in this little group of friends.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: The kids absolutely love them.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: One of his friends convinces him to write the stories down.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: That friend then grabs one of the stories,
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: as the story goes anyway,
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: you know, I'm sure there's some embellishment here, but the story gets written down.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: He then delivers it or gives it to a friend of his who is a book publisher
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: and ends up like the guy is like, this is incredible.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: How many more stories do you have?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think he ended up writing, I don't know, 25, something like that, 25 of these books.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: I believe I've read them all.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it was my entryway to Tolkien, C.S.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis, all the sci-fi and fantasy that I now read as much as I can.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: But it started in sixth grade seeing a badger on a library bookshelf.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any interest in writing fantasy or sci-fi or have you?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: God, a lot.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: I have so much interest in it, and I haven't done it.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: I've written...
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: I've probably written a lot that has never been seen or read by anybody in the fiction space.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I accidentally became a nonfiction health and fitness writer.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there will be a time in the future,
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: you know, and we were talking about this before you hit record...
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like giving myself permission to do the ugly version of fiction
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: and not overwhelming myself with, oh,
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: I need to build out the whole world and I need to do,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: I need to plan out this other thing and like just start writing stories or interests
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: that jump out at me and be okay just being like, hey, I did the bad version.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see what comes after that.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you lived here, we get together once a month.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: We have a, it's called Bad Fiction Cult.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: We started as Bad Fiction Club.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: But the only rule is you have to,
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: we show up at this restaurant and you have to bring one sentence
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: of fiction you wrote, minimum.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you can write it,
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: you can type it on your phone as you're walking into the door,
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: which one of us does usually, but...
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're all bringing, we're just trying.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's just fun to hang out.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: But calling it bad, like, really takes the pressure off, I feel like.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can be like, okay.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think two or three stories have been turned into...
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: I know at least one of them has been turned into the movie Arrival.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: That short story is called Story of Your Life.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: The movie, which was directed by Denis Villeneuve, who was making all the Dune movies.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a 10, 15, 20 page story.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: That contains the entirety of the story.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a full world building.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like it's all condensed in that short distance or those few short pages.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that feels...
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously not to that level, but I feel like I could start ugly and write a short story.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's maybe the direction that I'm going to continue to kind of explore.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we're certainly going to talk more about exploration and creativity
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: as we continue talking today, because that's kind of where my head is at these days.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like having those...
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: The high standards you have for the book,
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: the books that changed your life and 25 of them written by probably a genius,
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: it's like that might not be the best place to,
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: best person to emulate, you know, like you can find something simpler to try.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: It might be a good, a better strategy or something.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and just be okay,
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: again, being bad or making it bad or starting ugly or whatever it may be.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yep.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, big jump here.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, I...
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: When you sent me this, I was like, have I seen this?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I clicked on it and I started watching about a minute into it.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh yeah, I've totally seen this.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: I remember this.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: So this is Bo Burnham's Kanye rant burrito ballad, which is a, how about you explain it?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's 10 years old now.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: So Bo Burnham,
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: most people probably would know him from his Netflix special Inside,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: which we all watched during the pandemic.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: I imagine most of us watching thinking like, okay,
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: there is some amount of,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: there is like,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: there's genius in And whatever we're watching here,
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: this is a guy that just went for it.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And also, there's so much humor and darkness in what he's putting out in the world with Inside.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: So Rewind, geez, it was probably eight years prior to that.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: He put out this special called, I think it's called I Hope You're Happy.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: And up until that point, I'd stumbled across Bo on YouTube or I think Vine.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Remember Vines?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Vine?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what it's called?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Vine?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Gosh, that was way back in the day in social land.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: I like stumbled across this stuff.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, this is kind of funny.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: But for whatever reason, I just like I didn't give him the risk.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't say the respect, but like, okay, fine.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's over there doing his thing.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that's probably that's that's not my style or sense of humor or whatever it may be.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: But then I stumbled across this 10-minute auto-tuned song that he closes out his special with.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the special poked fun at the easily-made-funable Kanye West for Kanye would go on these...
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, long, meandering, rambling rants at the end of his sets back then.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so Bo uses autotune and goes on this rambling rant about Chipotle.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: But then it, like, slowly evolves.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then he drops some lines into it that are, like, the most...
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I've never felt more...
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Connected or related to a piece of art when it comes to creating
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: and putting things out into the world than I did with this song about Chipotle
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: and burritos.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: The whole thing is essentially a metaphor for creating and making things in public
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: and fame and his deeply challenging relationship with creating for an audience
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: and being on stage.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: He talks about how he wouldn't have got all these extra ingredients
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: if he knew they wouldn't fit in the burrito.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, you should have told me that you're the burrito expert.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially what he's saying, at least as far as I can tell, is like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: I just like making stuff.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: If you told me like this is what fame would lead to, I wouldn't have been interested.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't want to do those things.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then he starts talking about his,
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: he's like, he's talking to the audience and he's like, part of me loves you.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Part of me hates you.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Part of me fears you, but part of me needs you.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he's just trying to figure out, like,
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: how do I do the thing that I feel like I'm put on this earth to do,
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: which is, like,
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: to entertain and be funny, but, like,
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: also present, like,
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: really deeply thoughtful,
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: considered critiques of society and what it's like to be,
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: existing in this random,
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: apocalyptic hellscape slash utopia that we find ourselves in,
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know, rotating every 15 minutes.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And...
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Not only that, but it's also really catchy.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: I've probably listened to this.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: I found it on, I think it's on Spotify, but I just listened to the audio from this.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: I've probably listened to it a thousand times on repeat because it's 10 minutes.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's so catchy.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: It gets me in this zone.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Stumbling across that eight years ago, my brain immediately said, like, okay, I was wrong.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: This guy is a genius,
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: a tortured genius,
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: and he has a really complicated relationship with how he's trying to show up in
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: the world and helping people.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: And in doing so, you know, he's like telling you what's going to happen.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like he ends up not performing for years after this because he develops
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: a panic attack disorder and only starts performing again in like the,
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: gosh, I think it was like the month of or the weeks before the pandemic.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: So he was like, I'm finally going to get back on stage.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then the pandemic hits and he has to take all this creative energy
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: and ends up putting it into inside.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: But like I listened to this 10 times.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: I've published an essay that's like 3,000 words going through it line
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: by line explaining how each of the lines,
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: like what I think they mean and how they can represent,
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: you know, the creative struggle or the creative process.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just in awe and I can't wait to see what he does next.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think,
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: like, why do you think it resonated with you when you first saw it and how does it,
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: has that changed now?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: I just put this book out and I'm getting offers to,
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: hey, can you come speak at this conference?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Or, oh, hey, we'd love you to come speak at this assembly.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Or can you give a presentation on X, Y, and Z?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: I want to throw up every time I get anywhere near a stage.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I feel physically ill. And yet also, when I do it...
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: It generally goes really well.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: I have a lot of fun with it.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And like the idea of getting better at this craft of speaking and sharing my ideas
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: and subverting expectations with the audience is like really,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: really appealing to me.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: I love standup comedy.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: I study it.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: And yet also I'm like an anxious,
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: fairly introverted dude who writes
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: so that I don't have to go out in public.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Except now on the internet, it's like, oh, you write?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now you have to make short form video for Instagram or you have to do...
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: You got to get on stage and go on a speaking tour.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: You have to do this other thing.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I just have such a complicated relationship with all of that.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm evaluating it constantly and like even my own relationship with my audience.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: I wrote about health and fitness,
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: like kind of backed into that as a career for 15 years.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then I took some huge steps back to go write this book,
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: which is way more personal and certainly not a fitness book.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: But it's really interesting talking to people who only know me from like,
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: oh, Steve, you're the nerd fitness guy.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what they want to talk about.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And meanwhile, I'm like, no, no, no.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be over here talking about this weird stuff that brings me to life.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there is an opportunity to push myself in these directions.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm still trying to figure out how much of this I'm willing to,
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to say tolerate,
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: but kind of tolerate so that I can get my message out to people that But in a way
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: that doesn't result in me developing panic disorder,
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: mental health challenges and whatever.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it's really complicated.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: And Bo just, I don't know, the way that he spoke about it, I'm like, man, I get it.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: I relate to this so, so, so much.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the public speaking thing, like, as an author, you're like, What?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this part of the deal?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I write things, right?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it's in the book.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's why,
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: but I did this year of like 50-some,
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: you know, speaking engagements, you know, mostly largely unpaid.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Some were just like...
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: In an outdoor gear shop, somewhere in an auditorium, you know, for a film festival or whatever.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing that worked for me was, have you ever heard of Aaron Draplin, the designer?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's half of the people who, or half of the team that created field notes, the little notebooks.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, cool.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: But he designs,
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: he's a graphic designer,
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: so there's all these incredible posters, just everything, like logos for companies.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he...
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many of these he's doing anymore,
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: but he was promoting a book probably 2015, 2016.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was just all about his career.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful book.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I somehow found his speaking engagements.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he just gets up on stage, gives a slideshow.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if TED Talks are at one end of the spectrum of professionalism and...
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's a vanilla formula.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Draplin is at the far end.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's just himself dropping F-bombs, cracking jokes.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: So every time I would do one of these speaking gigs,
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be nervous,
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: and I would just pull up on my phone and watch three or four minutes
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: of Draplin doing his thing.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, love that.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I got this,
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: you know, people,
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: because at a certain point,
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like people want,
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: they enjoy real people as opposed to like fake pauses for,
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know, dramatic, whatever.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And like, I'm like, man, I'll just be me.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if they don't like it, well, I already have their money, you know, whatever.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Or the other thing too is like,
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've talked to a lot of friends that do public speaking
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: or they're public speaking coaches.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: They get paid crazy money to give their talks.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, I don't know, man.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's not a lot of difference between people that are like...
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Even the people that you see really good at it, yes, they've done it a lot.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: But there's still tons of people that are very bad at it and also making a boatload
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: of money doing it.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: And companies will still pay them.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: So the bar is very low.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can put together a fun talk with some cool stories that you like to tell...
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's you.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm on board with that.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And also, I'm guessing this probably goes back to seventh grader.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was in a school play and forgot a line or something.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: And forevermore,
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: whenever I'm like, oh, I have to give a prepared talk, it makes me want to throw up.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: But if you told me to get on stage and answer questions from people in front of
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: a stadium full of people, no problem.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because I can't prepare for it.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Funny you should bring that up.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: I actually went to a show Ian McKay from Minor Threat and Fugazi did.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is like 2007 at a bookstore, and there's like 150 people there.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, yeah,
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not very good at public speaking,
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: so I just sit up here and you guys can ask me questions.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this went on for an hour and a half.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: I could do that.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: I could do that for two hours,
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: no problem.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was phenomenal.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of stole it at one point.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was like I created a slideshow called like 20 questions you may or may not have
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: about ultra running.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And just like so I just click and there would be a question
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: and it would be things I made up or whatever.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then it very easily flowed right into the,
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: you know, the Q&A period where people did ask questions, you know.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you or I did that from an audience and we said, yeah,
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: you can just ask me questions and they don't have any idea who you are,
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: it could fall flat very quickly.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: And there's always like that moment too of like, okay, does anybody have any questions?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: And like that awkward pause before one brave person finally raises their hand.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: It makes me so deeply uncomfortable.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: I often,
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: if I knew somebody in the audience beforehand,
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be like, hey, will you just ask the first question?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter what it is.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you'd be like, would you eat for breakfast?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like, get out of the way.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so number three on your list is another comedian who is quite well known,
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: uh, and it's Nathan Fielder's The Rehearsal, the show, specifically season two.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, how did you, how did you come into this?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Just like everybody else, like, started watching it right when it came out?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so I...
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: This must have been Thanksgiving three or four years ago and was sitting next
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: to my sister-in-law's cousin.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: And we just ended up becoming best buds immediately at this Thanksgiving.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'd never met the guy before, but this was out in San Diego.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And he lived in LA and was in the movie and TV industry.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we just swapped stories about our favorite movies and shows.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I asked him what his next project was.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I'm working on the second season of Nathan Fielder's The Rehearsal.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, oh, I've heard of this guy.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I know there was some show on Comedy Central back in the day called Nathan For You.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he said,
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay, here's what you need to do.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: On your flight back to Nashville, like, watch this episode.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's on Netflix or I can't remember whatever it was on.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Just watch, like, this episode of this show.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it was an episode of Nathan For You where he is, like, trying to help small businesses.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: But he does so in, like, the funniest, most inappropriate way.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it's half...
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Documentary half comedy slash performance art.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that show I think was on Comedy Central.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that was just like, oh, this is a funny show.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: He's trying to help businesses.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: He does so in a funny way.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: But then he comes up with this show on HBO called The Rehearsal.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he talked about how he was really struggling to have conversations with people.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he was worried about how a certain conversation was going to go.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: So he convinced HBO,
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: as the story goes,
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: to pay him or to give him a boatload of money to recreate the entire environment in
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: which he was going to have this conversation so that he could practice
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: with other actors all the different permutations of how this conversation could go.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then it just like evolves into like the weirdest,
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: like in a similar way as Bo, like, hey, this is like, this is comedy.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: But kind of cringy in some ways,
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: but also performance art and also like an unbelievable critique on society
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: and humanity and the human condition.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: So whenever you try to explain Nathan Fielder to anybody,
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: like you sound like a crazy person because it doesn't make any sense
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: and you can't get it.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah,
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think that I'm going to butcher this,
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: but I think like Andy Warhol said something like art is getting away with it.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it wasn't Warhol.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember who said it, but it's something like art is getting away with it.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like Nathan Fielder is getting away with it.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like he is just doing whatever he wants.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so strange and considered,
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: but smart and weird that companies are like,
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: it's turning into So the second season, he's trying to solve aviation safety.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't want to spoil it,
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: but he continues to build elaborate sets to help teach pilots how
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: to better communicate with each other.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: And just each episode gets funnier and more bizarre and confusing and ends on one of the most...
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know, I guess you would call it performance art.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I don't want to spoil it,
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: but I hope everybody listening is like, all right, this guy sounds very strange.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: And if everybody's seen on the internet the past few weeks,
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: he has a documentary coming out where he lived with Elizabeth Holmes For
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: the last few weeks.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for the months leading up to her imprisonment.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it just debuted at the Telluride Film Festival and like took over the festival.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: So when that comes out in a few weeks, I think it's hitting hopefully theaters in October.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: I will be the first one in line.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like I cannot wait and we'll sign up for whatever this guy does because it's
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: so strange and unique.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is there part of you watching these episodes unfold that's kind of going,
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: how did they write and plan this?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then how much did it evolve by how many days of this?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Are you thinking about that as you're watching it?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: The entire time.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: Except for the moments where I'm just like,
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: I can't believe he convinced them that he could do this.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so many parts of it, you're just like, gosh, that is clever.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's so smart.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I love watching...
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to think, like,
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: my favorite movies and TV shows, like,
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: stories about people making other things within the confines of the story,
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: like, if that makes sense.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, like,
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall, like, in it,
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: you know, the guy Peter is trying to make, Like his Dracula musical with puppets.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, it's a story within a story of him trying to create the thing.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Or the TV show, Dave, which is Dave Bird, aka Lil Dicky, the rapper.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: He's got a show called Dave on Hulu,
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: which is very crude,
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: but also like so heartwarming and also about the creative process of trying
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: to become a musician slash rapper.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, I'm a sucker for anything that's like, how did they do this?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: What are they trying to make?
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: And like you said, how much of this was done in the writer's room ahead of time?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then how much of it was done like on set where they're like,
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: oh my God, this would be way funnier.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like they just keep trying to one up each other.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like I could learn and study and read and rewatch these things over and over just
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: to try to figure those things out.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is within the Nathan Fielder universe, but are you a fan of How To with John Wilson?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Did you watch any of those?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Gosh, that's on my list of things to do is to catch up with him.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: But the fact that you're putting him in the same sentence just rocketed him to
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: the top or rocketed this to the top of the list.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like Nathan Fielder maybe was executive producer or producer of the show,
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: but I had been familiar with John Wilson like years ago
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: because he would put these weird videos on.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Vimeo that were like how to get rid of bedbugs,
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: and it was these bizarre like it's like kind of awkwardly voiceover poetry sort of
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: or narration with clips that are like camcorder shots from walking around New York.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're just seeing weird shit.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've definitely heard of this and I've definitely seen clips.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: What you're saying about someone trying to make something in the course of
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: the narrative makes me think it'd really work for you.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: He just tries to figure out how to buy wine, how to become good at tasting.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow he decides...
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: I forget how this works, how it actually unfolds, but he decides he wants...
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't like wine or wine people
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: and he ends up pursuing Bang Energy Drink instead and somehow finding his way
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: to Florida to the founder of Bang Energy Drink's house.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they're having like a birthday party for one of his kids and he just walks in somehow.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like very similar to the Nathan Fielder thing where you're like,
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: how did this evolve into this?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Gosh, well, so what's the quote from Dolly Parton?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, find out who you are and do it on purpose.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think,
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: so I put this book out,
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: I fired myself from the other company,
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: I did the book tour and signed,
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: whatever, but I'm now in this spot where I'm like, what do I do now?
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: What's next?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: What am I interested in?
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: What am I exploring?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I'm really drawn to shows like the rehearsal and whatever.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: The people that have figured out really who they are and are doing it on purpose
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: and found a way to make it viable enough to keep doing it or to do so in a way
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: that they can continue to explore The deep weirdness that they are bringing into
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: the world.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the world is better off with these people
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: that have found out what they're supposed to do and are doing it and have
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: the courage to do it.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously,
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: there's tons of people that have figured that out and haven't found a way
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: to make it viable or popular or whatever.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: But stories like this are the people that have, which is endlessly fascinating to me.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we all get that HBO money.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: To rebuild an entire airplane hangar, yeah.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah, like, I don't, yeah.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let's shoot a little lower than that, maybe.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just a
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: little lower.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: Tiny bit, not too much, just a little bit.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Number four is a video game, Outer Wilds.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a video game person, so perhaps you can describe this to me or to us.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Also, have you always been into video games?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: I, as a young, young,
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: young kid,
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think we got the Nintendo Entertainment System with the Duck Hunt gun and
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: the Power Pad in, like, this must have been 1989.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Eight, 89, somewhere in there when we got it.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I was five.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, immediately from Mario to Zelda to Metroid, like I was just hooked.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, gaming has always been a huge part of my life.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I heard many years ago about this game called Outer Wilds.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know anything about it, except that it was like a mystery slash exploration game.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I heard this story about how it came together.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: So the creator's name is Alex Beecham,
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: and he was an undergrad student at University of Southern California.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he was just,
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: you have to,
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: he worked in the, or game design was like his, what he was getting his degree in.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: So he came up with this idea.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, oh, what about just like this idea of like exploration?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: And like, well,
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: you take a little spaceship and you can go explore like this solar system
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: and you just get on the spaceship and you go explore.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: And he had some friends that were,
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: that started that like,
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: He knew there was something there and got some friends that were also interested.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it started to become like a project that he was like,
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: oh, I think I can actually try to do something with this.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: So then he takes it to the USC.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was like a game developers, almost like a job fair, but like a game developer fair.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: And while he's there, there's this guy named...
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Masi Oka.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: So do you remember this show way back in the day called Heroes?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was on NBC.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was like save the cheerleader, save the world.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like mostly this modern, modern superhero story.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there was a character in it named Hiro Nakamura.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: That actor was at this game fair, and he was a game developer.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: So he sees these kids and their project, and he's like, oh, there's something really cool here.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I want to fund your game.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: So they formed a studio called Mobius Digital
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: and end up putting together this tiny game that went on to win dozens of awards,
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: Unbelievable acclaim.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: It has one of the most beautiful soundtracks.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: I've ever experienced, like,
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: in addition to listening to the Bo Burnham song on repeat,
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: I also listened to the Outer Wilds soundtrack on repeat because it's so beautiful.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing about the game that's so cool is you are this little alien
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: and your job,
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: you get in this spaceship,
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: like you wake up to start your day and you get in your spaceship
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: and you go explore this tiny solar system.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: And every 22 minutes, the sun explodes.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to start over, like literally at the beginning of the game, you wake up again.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: The sun exploded, the game is over, and you wake up.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: But based on how you explore the universe, you uncovered some mystery.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: So even though you're starting over every time,
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: you're gaining knowledge with each trip out into the solar system.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh,
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: when I went to the planet with the tornadoes on the ocean,
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: it turns out that if you pick up a thing,
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: if you figure out what to do there, then, oh,
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: there's a comet that flies by every 17 minutes, then I need to go find the comet.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: And every 22 minutes or sometimes you like crash the spaceship into the sun
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: or fly too fast through a planet and explode.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: You popped my space suit on a cactus once like you die repeatedly in very funny ways.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: But every time you die, you get to bring the knowledge of all of those past attempts with you.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: So there's no weapons,
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: there's no leveling,
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: there's no enemies,
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: but you have to solve the mystery of why the universe or
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: the sun explodes every 22 minutes.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: So you'll do hours,
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: hours of these attempts,
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: and every time you're just like,
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: oh, I
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: figured out this new thing, I gotta go explore it.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: And by the end of your dozens of hours of playing,
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: you wake up on the last morning, and within those 22 minutes, you solve the mystery.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it was such a,
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to say life-changing,
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: but maybe life-changing experience with,
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: I still get goosebumps thinking about it,
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: of when you uncover the mystery and you finish the game,
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: I still think about it all the time.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Even more importantly,
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: I will now go on YouTube and people do these things called Let's Plays
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: where they will play a video game with their camera on them and they'll talk
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: through it as they're playing it.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: I've probably watched 50 Let's Plays of other people having those same light bulb...
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Life-changing moments.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like I can't wipe my brain and play the game again,
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: but I can experience like secondhand joy,
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: which is so fun of other people having those moments too.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: And like, frankly, like, like, oh,
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: like almost like feel like life is a little different for me
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: after having played this game.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it took 22 minutes.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you didn't watch any of those before you actually saw?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: So like I've had so many friends that say like,
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: I need you to play this game, but I need you to not look it up.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: I just need you to trust me and start playing.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I got like 30 minutes in.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, this is kind of fun.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I died once.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was like, oh, wait a second.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: What's on this moon over here?
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like it's a small solar system and you get this fun like cartoon little spaceship.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's so clever.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: They almost made a new video game genre that is based around,
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: this is kind of like back in the day,
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: there was that game called Myst,
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: where you had explored an island, and oh,
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: you gotta find the,
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: if you find this node over here,
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is kind of like that, except it's all knowledge-based.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: You don't put anything on,
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: you don't find a new weapon,
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: you don't get upgrades,
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: you just learn how the world works and the The physics of each planet.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: And as a result of those things, you start to slowly peel back each layer of the onion.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: And each one, you just get more and more hooked.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh,
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot wait to die again so that I can start over and wake up again
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: to optimize my next 20 minutes of running through this universe until
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: the sun explodes one more time.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: How many hours do you think you spent total on the game?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: Twenty?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Twenty?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Twenty-five, maybe?
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think the longest stint was that you spent on?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, God.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it took over my life for about two weeks.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially, it was like those 25 hours.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: If I wasn't playing it, I was thinking about it.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very deliberate with video games.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: They're so good now that I can't...
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I can't play any online multiplayer game.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: I can't do it.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: One, I don't want to get yelled at by 12-year-olds, you know, who are kicking my ass.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: But also, like, those games don't have an end.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, you could just keep playing them.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, I'm very deliberate.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I play a single player,
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: generally an adventure,
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: where I can, like,
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: experience the hero's journey for my little character over X number of hours and,
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: feel a sense of completion and satisfaction and then,
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: like, Take a break and not play video games for a while.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then, oh, find another one that a friend is telling me about.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: And this was one of those that I had a few people tell me like,
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: don't even, you don't have to look it up.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: Don't watch any trailers.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like just start playing, start exploring and see what happens.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: So when you watch the Let's Play videos, how long are these videos?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I mean, some people, they're like 15, 20 minutes.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's generally like it's their last run, because that last run is 22 minutes.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: I never thought I would end up like watching other people playing video games
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: and like, why is that interesting or appealing?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I think in these instances,
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: it's like when you watch your favorite movie and then you're sitting with somebody
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: that hasn't seen it
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: and you're like looking at them for like the moments of like,
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: That part was cool.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I try not to do that, but I can't help it.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think in this instance is like, hey,
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: I had a life changing experience playing this game and like you can try
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: to explain it to other people,
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: but you're literally watching live footage of them and you can see the gears turning
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: in their brain when they're like, oh, that's why this thing is the way that it is.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: And like there's something different too about a game where a movie,
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: you're a passive participant.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: You're sitting there and you're watching the full experience of what the director intended.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: In a video game, you are the active participant.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: So you're the one choosing what to do.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I think there's something to that as well.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: And like this game ends up getting into like the Acceptance and mortality and all
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: of these things that is just, it's brilliant.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact that it came out of this one guy's quest for curiosity and a guy from
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: an NBC TV show funding it is just, Gosh, what a cool story.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the type of stuff that gives me hope for creators doing interesting, fun things.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the video game industry is in a tough spot right now.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully there can be more great stories like this that can continue
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: to put some really interesting,
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: fun things out there and create some cool experiences for people.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's fascinating on multiple levels, I think.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a...
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not designed to addict you forever, right?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you solve it eventually.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, right?
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, that's the thing.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: I love a good puzzle game.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: I love a good mystery.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: And this one, just such a clever...
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like such a clever conceit of like, hey,
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: you have to solve this mystery and you only have X amount of minutes to do it
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: because then the sun explodes.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: And like, that's the mystery you need to solve.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it just like, it really scratched that itch of like, ooh, one more thing.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: Or, oh, once I figure out how to solve this maze,
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: it might take me 22 minutes to solve it this time.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: But the next time I know how to solve it,
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: I can get through it in three minutes and then I can finally see what's on
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: the other side of it.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: And like that feeling is just so addictive.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's just so, so fun.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's fascinating from just from many, many different perspectives there.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, video games also suck up a lot of time too.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why I have to be so careful about it because they're so fun.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of things suck up a lot of time.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's true.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go to number five.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is two.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is a double.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: Tony.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: I cheated.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: The movie and the movie Roadrunner, the documentary, both about Anthony Bourdain.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: Did you read Kitchen Confidential?
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Were you a fan of the Anthony Bourdain shows?
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: Why did you watch his movies?
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I watched Roadrunner, the documentary, and I think last year.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: And prior to that, I knew of Anthony Bourdain.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: I knew when he passed away how many people revered him
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: and were just absolutely crushed at his passing.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: So then when I watched this Roadrunner documentary,
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was just, you know, like I went back and read Kitchen Confidential.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: I went back and watched a number of episodes from his shows.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that documentary is
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: Really insightful.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a tough watch because,
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: the first whatever 60% of it is a guy who feels like he's getting away with it,
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like he worked in a kitchen until 42 and then all of a sudden his book,
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: writes the book and now has TV shows but gets to do it his own way and I think gets
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: to travel around the world and talk about it and Write about it and eat delicious
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: or weird foods or whatever.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I think there was a lot of appeal to that for a lot of young aspiring writers,
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: travel writers, food writers, cultural critics, etc.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: But there was always that darkness there as well.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: So after watching Roadrunner and kind of seeing another guy who liked to help
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: and liked other people but had a really complicated relationship with success
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: and fame and
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, navigating a lot of mental health challenges as well.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, I then went back and read all of his other books.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: So when I found out that they're making this movie called Tony,
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, wait a second.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so this is a movie loosely,
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: very loosely, based on Tony's first summer on Cape Cod, which is where I'm from.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, like, this wasn't planned, but I'm wearing my Cape Cod t-shirt today.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: Starting to sweat through it,
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: which is very funny,
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: because I'm sitting in,
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: like, my little studio, and it's 1,000 degrees here in Nashville.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: But so he spent a summer in Provincetown as a dishwasher.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then eventually became a sous chef and then worked his way up.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: So this movie is loosely based on his summer on Cape Cod.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I was sitting on Cape Cod this summer visiting my family in Sandwich
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: where I grew up and heard about this movie.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then I realized that it was directed by Matt Johnson.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: So Matt is also like the co-creator and co-writer of the movie
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: that came out early this year called Nirvana, the The band, the show, the movie.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, what?
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I went,
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: so I downloaded that movie and watched it and realized here's yet another person
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: who feels like they're getting away with it.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was like this gorilla style movie.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: Where they filmed with almost no budget, small cameras.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: They used archival footage of their show from 10,
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: 15 years prior to do this time traveling movie.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's so strange.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, so, so bizarre.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: And yet also deeply hilarious, super funny.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then I find out that the guy that made that show is directing this Tony movie.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just like this amazing slice of life slash coming of age story about
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: a kid who's trying to figure out what he wants to be when he grows up and goes
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: to have an amazing summer on Cape Cod.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: And as like a uncool kid who grew up on Cape Cod,
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't go to the cool parties that he was invited to and didn't have
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: the wild years that he did.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah,
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: so it's just like a it's a great to our movie that's coming of life or coming of age
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: that happens to be based on, again,
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: loosely the that like really formative year in Anthony Anthony Bourdain's life.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's partly the hometown thing.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was pretty cool seeing like, oh, I've been there.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, we went whale watching as kids, you know, in grade schools.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like that was one of our big field trips for the year was going whale watching
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: and it was out of Provincetown.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: So like it was cool seeing that environment.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then I talked to my dad and my dad's friends and they were like, oh, yeah,
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: they were trying to film at this one restaurant and they tried to shut it down
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: for two weeks.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: But They couldn't shut it down because it was in the middle of summer
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: and they didn't have the budget to afford to convince this restaurant to do so.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: So they had to get pretty creative with how they put the film together as well.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because the actual restaurant,
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: he changed the name in the book,
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: but it's the real name of the restaurant in the movie.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds right.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do I remember that?
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that sounds right.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: We'll just say it's right.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's loosely based on a thing.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we're both right.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: I saw both of those in the theater, in our little indie theater down the street here.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah,
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: they're, I mean,
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: probably one of my favorite things about Anthony Bourdain is A,
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: his punctuality, but B,
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: the fact that he basically came to punctual,
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: like be obsessed with being on time because of the dishwashing job.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was,
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: he said in interviews or maybe even said in the book,
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: like that was the job that taught me the importance of showing up on time and doing
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: the actual work that you need to do.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I like,
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: also I was a dishwasher for several years in high school,
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: which is
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was a dishwasher.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: I made it about three weeks and I was like, this is not.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then a classmate of mine was like, hey, we have an opening for a busboy at another place.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh, that was way better.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I was a busboy for that summer.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I liked busboying, bussing way more than I liked washing dishes for sure.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: Did you?
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: My job was like a combination of both.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was like one night your busboy or next night your dishwasher.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: And There were some pluses to not having to go out in public,
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: and we had to wear white dress shirts and ties to bust tables,
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: and I was just like, yeah, okay, not tomatoes.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was a dishwasher at this...
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like really small, weird restaurant that was not great.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then I got the job as the busboy at a different restaurant with like,
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: I knew the other busboys and the waitresses were all older.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was,
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: I must've been whatever,
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the waitresses were all very attractive college women that thought we were cute.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was probably 5'2", could barely carry the tray.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: They were like, oh, bless your heart.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: They don't say bless your heart in Cape Cod, but you know what I mean.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: But it was a way better job.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: Way better job doing that than sweating profusely in the back.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: The washing dishes, for sure.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's a book a guy wrote called,
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's actually just called Dishwasher and it's Pete something.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it was his quest to wash dishes in restaurants in all 50 states.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, one of my favorite adventure books of all time.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not supposed to be an adventure book,
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: but he washes on an offshore oil rig,
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: an Alaskan fish cannery, a sightseeing train, a ski resort.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he's also a bit of a flake and he'll just like go work somewhere for a day and
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: then just be like, I don't know.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was drinking beer out in the front yard.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: I decided I didn't want to go in that next night.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, wow, dude, thanks.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: I remember when I quit my dishwashing job,
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: I had worked up the speech and had to go in after school,
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: and my mom dropped me off so that I could go in and quit in person.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I thank you so much for the opportunity.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: However, I got a new job somewhere, blah, blah, blah.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the lady was like, All right, cool.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for two weeks.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: You can pick her check up.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: She was very confused as to why I went through all of these,
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: jumped through all of these hoops to explain why I was no longer going
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: to need employment there.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm guessing the just not showing up is typically what used to happen.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's pretty common, right?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty common.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a couple of minutes left.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to talk about your number six here, your bonus?
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, this would maybe just be a soundtrack.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: There's a band out of, I
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: think it's Utah.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: Called The Strike.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it is these dudes, I think, I'm guessing they're in like their mid-20s or something.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: But they put out songs that sound like they came from 1987.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, you know, bright 80s synth wave.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's saxophones and synthesizers and, you know, certain pedals on guitars.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: And...
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: It just makes me happy.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember how I found them.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think maybe a friend or could have been spotted, but years ago.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: And they have a song called Painkillers,
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: where it's like them essentially talking about how we play songs from
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: when we were younger to forget or to dull the pain of growing older and regret
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: and all these other things.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think for the last five years in a row,
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: that band has been my number one played band and the number one song played
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: on my Spotify wrapped.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_01: And as a result of that band,
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: now the majority of the music I listen to outside of Bo Burnham,
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: And Kanye and the Outer Wilds thing.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: Outside of those two things,
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: the song that I play,
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: the band, I'm sorry, the type of music I play more than anything.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's like this 80s synth wave inspired stuff.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's like The Strike, The Midnight.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: it's just all of these bands that are brand new or have been around for just
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: a few years, but putting up music as if it were transplanted back 40 years.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's awesome.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have nostalgia for like 1987 in particular?
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you think this is coming from?
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I did watch,
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: like, The Karate Kid and Indiana Jones and Star Wars repeatedly throughout the 80s.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe there was some of that.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think I just liked that kind of music.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: And, like, I wasn't listening to that kind of music when I was a kid.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, my parents were listening to, like, Bruce Springsteen and Lee Greenwood.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I'm trying to think of, like, who else in the 90s.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: Or late 80s, early 90s.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a whole hair metal.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but we weren't listening to that.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: It was maybe like Mike and the Mechanics.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Mike and the Mechanics, some just absolute jams.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: Peter Cetera and Chicago.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: So like...
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think maybe there's some part of like deep in the deep recesses
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: of my brain like drawn to that.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: So when these bands are now going back to this 80s synth nostalgia,
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: nostalgia dripping music,
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: even though it's out now, my brain is like, just this makes me happy.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just...
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, let's put it on, enjoy the ride.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then whenever Spot Out, I'm just like, just give me a shuffle of songs like this.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: And there's just, there's more and more bands to be discovered.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: Wolf Club is another one in that same vein.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you look at Wolf Club's, like,
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: album cover art,
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: it looks like,
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: straight out of,
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: like, Sega, like, OutRun, you know, like, like, pixel art from the 80s.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's just, it's the coolest thing.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that crazy how that works?
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just like music can just do, do that.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_00: Even if it's not the stuff from the eighties and it's,
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: but it's created to sound like it, but it takes you to some sort of happy place.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we're not really sure why.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was just reading about this thing called M-E-A-M.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's like music evoked, jeez, I think it's like
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: autobiographical memory.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm butchering
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: maybe what those letters are,
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: but it's like when you hear a song and you can instantly transport yourself Back to
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: a specific location.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_01: Probably you can smell the thing.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can taste the food when you're sitting.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like,
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_01: those songs just, like, immediately, like, time travel you back to that location.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think some of these songs maybe do that for me.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: But, like,
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: maybe not to the time and location, but, like,
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: it transplants me back to a kid as a kid watching Karate Kid or watching,
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: you know, those movies from the 80s.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: And, like, that's maybe what I'm picturing.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: Drinking Kool-Aid.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: Not a care in the world.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: Eating Starbursts.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: Nerds.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: Just rotting my teeth.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is the best.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's fascinating.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think about that a lot,
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: especially with having a four-year-old and the music I'm playing for him.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, is he going to have memories
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: of this?
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: The memories I have of my dad playing music and my dad telling me about the music
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_00: and like this whole thing.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_00: And like how many layers of nostalgia are we going to be sorting through here?
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like layers on.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_01: So what are the songs that are bands or groups that your,
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_01: your, your, your kid is like super excited to like, what's the Venn diagram overlap?
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, I will play this.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_01: And they actually like it.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he's, uh,
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: so it depends if we're having a dance party,
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: which he's pretty, he's like actually really into ACDC Thunderstruck.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: And, um, Great song.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's a couple other ones.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's a video of Fred again and Thomas Bankalter
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: from Daft Punk playing One More Time at the beginning of this concert.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's pretty into that.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: That song transplants me to high school.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: I can see exactly where I am watching the video on MTV,
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: the music video on MTV,
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: on my CRT, TV in my bedroom, being like, this is the greatest song ever made.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_00: I will send you this video because it's the beginning of like an hour and a half show.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'll probably just watch the whole hour and a half show, so thank you.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're having a religious experience at the beginning of this concert,
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_00: including Fred again, who's just out of his mind to be playing on stage.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, and then the other day I introduced,
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just discovering Wren Gill, the Welsh musician who is like...
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, my God.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_01: I almost put that down as one of my five things,
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: but I was like, that one might get a little too dark.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: It is dark.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, my God.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_01: I've watched that so many times.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: The Bittersweet Symphony one is the one that Jay is like,
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: he's like, we're listening to and he's like, I want to watch the video.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I turn it on and he's just,
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_00: just cannot, like,
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_00: he's like, cannot tear his eyeballs away from this guy rapping, you know, like.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: What a talent.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it's fun.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's super fun.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: then I'm going to,
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to have to describe to him like, well,
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: we're listening to the Beatles because grandpa liked the Beatles and this is stuck
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: in my head.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: As your father before you.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, awesome.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: So.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say seven things here.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh, I'm sorry.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's great.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: The Red Wall Book Series by Brian Jock,
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: Bo Burnham's Kanye rant,
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_00: Burrito Ballad,
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: Nathan Fielder's The Rehearsal Season 2,
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: Video game Outer Wilds,
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: the movies Tony and Roadrunner,
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: and the Strike slash any 80s synthwave-inspired rock music.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, thanks so much for doing this.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_00: This was super fun.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: This was a blast.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share all the weird stuff I can't stop talking about.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.