Constantine (2005)

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That's the ad. That's the ad. So are you subscribed to One Hit Thunder or what? As Desiree would say, you gotta be.

And as K7 would encourage, you gotta come baby, come and join in on the fun of the One Hit Thunder podcast. That's another episode of Horror Movie Night this week. We're talking about 2005's Constantine starring Keanu Reeves and a young Shilabuff. And this one was picked by Scott.

Scott, tell us about this 20 year old relic. I loved the comics. I can, I have the ability to disassociate the movie from the comics because I'm not just an absolute loser. Because the people that hated Constantine and hate Constantine still can't enjoy cinema.

They got like no. This is not a good movie. I am going to be completely clear, but I've probably seen this at least 15 times actively. This is a comfort film for me.

I have fallen asleep to it so many times. It's just great. I'm so sad that it's not currently streaming and that we had a hard time finding a copy that was solid. But like, I just, I love Keanu Reeves, right?

Like it's just, that's the number one thing. He's a terrible John Constantine because the original character is supposed to be, it's from Hellblazer is the original, is the name of the original character's, John Constantine Hellblazer. And he is supposed to be, hold on, I'm going to his, he wouldn't call it Hellblazer. He's from Liverpool.

He's from Liverpool. Yeah, now, well, also the thing is that the comic was called John Constantine Hellblazer. Okay. I don't know.

But also according to Wikipedia, they didn't want to use Hellblazer because they were afraid people were confused with Hellblazer. Yeah, well, I mean, that doesn't, that doesn't make sense to you all, right? Yeah. Like interestingly, John Constantine's first appearance was a swamp thing, sorry.

Makes sense for Scott. And that was actually June of 1985. It was created by Alan Moore along with Steven Sett, who is my all-time favorite comic artist and my wife, you know, no, no, no, no big deal. But you know, she's like pals with him now and she's gotten me like, you know, special, you know, pencil art.

I mean, it's crazy. The things that she's done. But yeah, so he was originally debuted in a swamp thing comic book. So it's 1985.

So that's that predates the Hellraiser movie, right? Like another anniversary. 1985. Let's celebrate John Constantine as a whole.

Oh, yeah. I got it. I'm going to toast him with the blood of the lamb. Hey, very nice.

Cheers. It's been one time I don't understand. Hellraiser was 1987, by the way. So we had a good two years.

Oh, I wonder. Well, Hellbound Heart was what 84 or something like that. I'm looking it up. Well, Kyle tells us what he's drinking.

I'm having a moment where I'm losing my mind right before Kyle talks because I'm like on I'm on the Wikipedia for for John Constantine. And I'm like, I've seen this movie exactly once before we watched it for this. But I'm like, I've seen him in things. He was in like TV shows or movies that I watched.

I have been scrolling through every ounce of this and I have not watched. Except for maybe Sandman when that came out on Netflix, like maybe he was in there. Yeah, but he also was not like a really strong, you know, I think that's just because there's been rumors for more like maybe it's just because I constantly see rumors like we're doing Constantine again. And it doesn't happen.

Oh my god. The whole back and forth with like and Keanu is a huge proponent of this movie and of the sequel, which I love this. There's an actual sequel? No, yeah.

But here is this is the note that I took straight from Wikipedia about the sequel, which has been in development. Hell. So this movie is 20 years old. It has been in development.

Hell for at least a decade. So this is the funniest part about it in February of 2025. So literally a couple months ago, Keanu Reeves revealed in an interview that he and Lawrence, the director, recently developed a story and presented it to DC Studios, receiving approval to proceed with writing a script after having attempted to create a follow-up for over a decade. Reeves also confirmed that the sequel would be set in the same world as the 2005 film, which on Constantine, facing increased challenges.

Now, there's additional information about that, which is that since James Gunn is now in control of the DCU, because the DCU, I believe, is what the Snyderverse was called, right? Or whatever. Or like, you know, all the stuff that was the previous, I was like, Cavill, um, Gagadot, um, like Black Adam, Aquaman, like Momoa, all that shit. So James Gunn is in control of everything.

They're wiping this late clean. I guess they're going to have a main DCU, like cinematic universe, and then they're going to do Elsworlds, which is what they're planning, what James Gunn is planning to put Constantine to into, which would mean that it would be kind of like a, like a multiverse kind of thing. Yeah. You know, but this also feels, this feels like, this feels so much like James Gunn's shit.

You know what I mean? Like, well, it's not quite as zany as what he likes, but this is also how it's dark. Like he likes far stuff and this is like in that darker realm. And it's, is it Matt Reeves that's going to be doing the sequel?

I think it says, is that what I can say that they really read? That's Keanu. Keanu Bend. Oh my God, my brain is stupid.

That's all right. It's all right. Um, it's, it's going to be on his John Wickness, I think, adds to Constantine coming back now, and he's not even being able to hold that even, even more, uh, I don't know, serious or even, or just darker and just like more action. I feel like you have the ability to bring that full circle and have more action in the darker world.

Honestly, both of them are at their peak right now because the director, Francis Lawrence, like, surely after this movie did four of the Hunger Game movies. He's directing the newest one that comes out this year. Oh, is there a prequel? The prequel that's coming out.

And he's also, I'm kind of excited about this. He's the director of the Stephen King adaptation for the long walk that's supposed to come out this year, which is working. Yeah, which is apparently speaking of working. Uh oh, is the beer that I think we go.

John, John, Constantine, man, I don't know how he does it. This is a terrible job. Uh, I don't, I can't imagine the pain that he goes through. I'm a rich workers guy.

I love it. That's fantastic. You know, and in the two roads, the comics, the comic, John Constantine is very unlikable. Um, and you guys know me, you know, I don't like an unlikable character, but he has enough charm and panache that you like, he also has a lot of self hatred.

And so you get that like, you get the ethos in the comic because of the, the, like the thought bubbles and the, you know, there is a better narrative structure to that than in a movie like this where, you know, like Keanu is doing disgruntled Neo and that's fine because he was really at his matrix height when this movie came out, right? So now if we're getting a Constantine too and he's doing kind of a John Wick Constantine, I'm, I'm here for it. I mean, you know, that would, I think that Keanu can kind of do whatever he wants and I won't have a problem with it because he is a relatively unproblematic person as far as I understand. Um, so, you know, I, I'm, I'm hyped for that, but also let's get into the, I'm, I'm going to try my best to not compare the movie to the comics too much.

All right. But we do. Where it counts. Exactly.

Just where it counts. So Constantine 2005, it opens with a scavenger in Mexico finding the spirit of launch, spirit of destiny. It's also called the spirit of L'Angenus, I believe. It was the spirit that, uh, Pierce uses his side, um, at the crucifixion and he's now possessed by it and can just walk straight to L.A.

Um, he's also invincible as shown by him getting destroyed by a car and actually totaling the car and just being fine, just walking it off. So then we are introduced to, um, the titular character John Constantine. He's a chain smoking car, bold exorcist. And he, um, is shown extracting a demon soldier from a young girl via a mirror, which, um, does not smoosh Shilobuff's character, uh, sadly, who is waiting in the cab down below.

Would have been a much better movie without Shilobuff in there, but you know, he's annoying. He's insufferable now. Oh, I was going to say this is peak Shilah. This is before we knew how much of an annoying person.

I don't know if he put up, there's a before he put a bag on his head. Exactly. I don't live down a hill with that bag. No, but this is like, I'm trying to see where this, I like that.

I like that. That actually doesn't seem quite a bit. Oh, it's, you know, I'm a sucker for an interesting take on exorcisms or demons and the way that they come into the world. And I don't, I mean, it's actually still, yeah.

Like very actiony still. And also the comic books are very, very actiony. There's a lot of punching and kicking for a guy who doesn't have superpowers. Yeah.

Yeah. It's so, it does have those moments though where like, we've talked about this before, where we pick these movies where they're like, horror adjacent. Just I do feel like is very horror adjacent in the sense of like, we do have these exorcisms scenes, but like, don't be fooled at the core. If there's a certain style to specific genres, this does not stray too far from the style that you look for in a superhero action movie.

Yeah. It is that first and foremost with like, the horror's pepper in there. It's, it's, well, you gotta remember it's a comforter. It's, it works.

Well, Kyle's back on the great scare. For sure. Love, love this vermin man. Yeah.

One more. Well, that actually is from the comic. One of my favorite, one of my favorite, I think it's a single issue. I think it was just one issue.

I have a hard time remembering because I read a lot of them as Scrappenobbles, but it's, it's like a, a fly plague. You see it again later on when, um, oh, Mick, what's his name? Um, shoot, the guy that runs the, um, the bowling alley where they kind of hang out. Forgot to say.

Um, whatever. Yeah, whatever it is. Anyway, you do kind of see, but that's also. With the pins.

Yeah. Um, that's also not really the same, um, it's not really the same demon. It's, it's Gavin Rosdale fucking with the world, but you know, anyway, um, back to John Konstantin, who kept there. Um, he is chain smoking his way to the grave.

He has lung cancer. Um, and he meets up and he's afraid of dying because he, you find out later, he committed, he tried to commit suicide when he was a teenager and his supernatural powers manifested and he could see demons, angels and all sorts of ghastly things in the world. He thought that he was going crazy. His parents thought he was going crazy, so he tried to commit suicide.

So since he killed a person and that is a mortal sin himself, he is damned to tell, but he's angry with God and the angel Gabriel played wonderfully by, uh, till the swing. Um, he is angry because he's like, how many demons have I sent to hell? You know, and she's like, or Gabriel, they are like, um, it doesn't matter because no matter how many lives you saved, there's still a life that you took, you're fucked. And it's like my favorite till the swing line of any movie I've ever seen.

So he runs into Angela played by Rachel Weiss. Um, she's an LAPD detective who is investigating the apparent suicide of her twin sister Isabel, who was a very powerful psychic. She sees her sister jump off of a building after whispering John Constantine's last name. So she seeks him out and says, I know my sister who was a devout Catholic would not have killed herself.

He promptly visits hell, sees her soul in hell, and they're like, something is going on. Why is this happening? Um, we get this awesome scene where John's friend, Father Hennessy, um, goes to the morgue to check on, um, Isabel's body, sees a symbol carved into her hand. Um, and promptly goes insane, drinks, drowns himself in liquor at a boot and an alcohol store at like a corner store or whatever, and then stabs his hand with the sign of Maman, the son of Lucifer.

Um, O'Beaman is the name of the guy. He's the one that has the, uh, the bowling alley. So Angela Constantine and Shilah Buff's character go there, get a little bit of exposition. Um, they've also been kind of roaming around the dark underbelly of LA.

They go to see Papa Midnight at his club. That is a character from a very important character from the comic book. Like, Papa Midnight. Yeah, yeah, he's, he's very, actually of all the characters in this movie, I think that he is the closest approximation of the actual Papa Midnight character.

Um, but I'm also, it's been at least a decade since I've read any Hellblazer. So anyway, they uncover this plot where Gabriel and, um, Gabriel and Maman are trying to, well, Maman is trying to use Angela's body to be born into the world and then create hell on earth in the ensuing chaos and very matrixy gun battle where they used to shoot in rounds of rock salt and all these demonically possess people. Shilah Buff gets absolutely tanked by an unseen force and then you get to see the best, arguably the best part of the movie where Constantine shows his arm tattoos. They create a sigil that shows that it's actually been Gabriel all along.

Gabriel kind of does the thing where they give all the exposition, explain the bad guy plan before they basically blow Constantine into the other room and are about to stab Angela's tummy where Maman is trying to come through into the world. It's hilariously bad CGI, but also I love it. Like I said, I love this movie. There's movies, yeah.

And then we get the true cherry on top for me is that Constantine commits suicide again by slitting his wrists in the other room. Lucifer comes down from the ceiling, but his feet are like covered in tar. It's fucking Peter Stormer so stoked to see him after his amazing work in Bruiser 2000. Um, and I think of all the characters in this, Lucifer's character design is the best.

And Peter Stormer is just like oozing charisma in his scene. He gets pissed. He's paused his time and he's like, no, you're not going to like, he's like bad son. You're coming back down to hell.

And then he burns off Gabriel's wings. They're mortal. Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot the part that John is actually going to be.

He is since he does a selfless act by committing or by asking Lucifer to save Angela instead of himself, he gets to go to heaven. And then Lucifer's like, oh, no, you don't. I'm going to heal your lung cancer, which is actually a very, very huge nod to the comic books where Constantine knows he's dying. He, I think it's called dangerous habits.

If I remember the storyline, but he makes deals with three different kings of hell and they all come to collect when he's dying of lung cancer. And then he's like, you guys can do it out. And so he gets, they cure his cancer. I think it's actually Beelzebub cures his cancer and is like, I'm coming for you when you eventually die because you are going to fuck up.

This is kind of like the white washes or not. Like the softened simplified version of that story, but still a great nod to the comic. And then like, you know, Gabriel's like, shoot me, kill me. He's like, no, he just punches her in the face and is like, you know, everybody, everybody wins.

But there's a beautiful thing about using sort of like angels and demons and entities of that nature to explain or not explain a thing because as humans, our understanding or misunderstanding of a God being means that we don't understand the things that happen in our lives because they're controlled in some sense by something other, right? So it's like the fact that then you personify these characters, you can just do whatever you want. I mean, the angels and demons like, and they have, they don't need to have an explanation. Yes, there's good and evil and like all this stuff, but you can do an ass backwards like, you know what?

No, I'm going to cure your cancer so that you can't do this and you can't do that. And it's like, you just have the rug pulled out from under you. No matter what, it's really quite fun because you also can just, you choose to just believe that that is what is happening and well, Constantine has proof. But in our world, we get to sort of just believe that that's what's happening.

Yeah, and that's constant. I get my best to steamroll through a very convoluted plot in my opinion. I mean, the two hour runtime is very 2005 for sure. It's a great little bit of always to listeners.

Yeah, if you need something. But yeah, it was, I'm not one for the very, very rarely watch anything, not at the normal speed. And this was one where I think I was like 10 minutes in, but this wasn't a first watch for either. You right?

This was a second watch. And I was watching for Kyle. Kyle Kyle Kyle. Yeah, for someone who loves Stigmana so much, I know.

I know. Don't you steal his double features. Sorry. Sorry.

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He listens to the podcast every week. Has he been canceled? Was Alec Baldwin the one who killed somebody? I hear Gary Sinise is free.

Oh, OK, great. He hasn't worked since 2020. So what would be the script that we would have Gary Sinise for the Napping Through Happy Hour podcast? Listen to this damn show.

Damn it. The Napping Through Happy Hour podcast brought to you by Geeksy. Real life, real drama, real time. I'm Gary Sinise.

That's the ad. That's the ad. That's the ad. I'm sure you got here to record because we did this episode and he knows you're alone last week in the same sitting and we were like.

And then we watched two movies that both have some real pacing issue on their hands. I also just wanted to point out that we've watched a lot this year, particularly a lot of directorial debuts. This is a directorial debut. Interesting.

I believe he knows you're alone. Was a directorial debut. Well, that one, it shows. Yeah.

No, and they do this maybe in a little longer than four months. Gooleys was, Fright Knight was, Reanimator was. It's kind of an interesting, just another aside. Let's do a retrospective at the end of the year for what Patreon piece of content of like, good bad and different about directorial debut as we discussed in 2025.

Oh, that would be fun. I would also like to maybe like, if this was a directorial debut, but like we like this other movie from Shuriken. No, that would be a fun one. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

That would be a kind of a part of the centric about these directorial debut. I'm really curious, because whenever you tell me that, like when you tell me that like, this is his directorial debut, I'm like, okay, sure. When you tell me that Constantine is a directorial debut, I'm like, well, what did this person do prior? To get the money, because this was, well, I didn't even look at how much money this cost.

So this was, well, I can tell you that answer very quickly. The budget was $70 to $100 million in the box office, was $231 million. Yeah, so this is, you know, they're not just selling this to someone who's never made a film. What the hell?

So for this person, it was music videos and commercials, which is how you usually get your foot in the door. I'm looking right now, because I'm curious, like what music videos around this time, would we have known him for? So it looks like one of his early ones in the 90s is where he started. Some noteworthy videos that he did include Wyclef Johns, go on till November, Fire Escape for Fastball, don't wanna miss a thing for Aerosmith, is probably his first big home run.

He did Back to One for Bront, a lot of like pop stuff, waiting for tonight for Jennifer Lopez, I'm like a bird for now, for Toto, Green Day's Warning, a lot of Backstreet Boys, a lot, a lot, a lot of pop music. Slave for you for Britney Spears, what have been before this. So he definitely like, skater boy, Rolavine, these are like cute. They're basically like, you know what, you know your way around a camera, and you know how to make teenagers watch shit here.

Here's a hundred million bucks. Literally. The three videos before he went into production for this movie was Incubus Warning, and then two Justin Timberlake videos. For this morning?

Incubus, the song Warning. Oh, I thought you said Green Day Warning. He did Green Day Warning, and Incubus, he's like, okay. And that's your second warning.

Yeah. Hell yeah, I mean, yeah, dude was clearly on top of the world doing some pretty big music videos, and then the list of his commercial clients, he did commercials for Coca Cola, Calvin Klein, Pepsi, Kid's Foot Locker, McDonald's Gap, Bud Light. I mean, what a career. I mean, that's the dream, right?

It's just easy to do. Well, that's what you hope to do. To do. To get into, you know, I am legend is his movie aftercussive kids.

Oh, god. You know what I mean? And then he wanted to grab me. He wanted to grab me.

You want to grab me? You want to grab me for best music video short for him, because he did Lady Gaga's Bad Romance music video. Wow. Let's see, is he close to what he got?

Wow. Or is he just on the G? He just got a G right now. But dude, the dude only 54.

That's pretty wild. I mean, that's a pretty, he was 34 when he made this movie. What the shit? Yeah, he was younger than not.

So most of us on this call would be. Scott, if you were having friends over to watch this, what were you going to double feature it with? I need some hardcore religious horror. I am going to go with my favorite of recent years, First Doman.

Right? Oh, you know. First Doman 2024, not the Omen, the first one. Just for the first time.

If there were. Yeah, it's clarified. Kyle, how about you? Is it Stigmodis?

It's right there behind you? No, no. I'm going to go Rachel Weiss. So nice.

We'll choose it twice. Then I'm going to be. I'm another bisexual, awakened from a lot of people. I'm going to almost meet you guys somewhat down the middle in a different realm.

I'm going to go with another superhero horror film, arguably the first superhero horror film. And I think a little bit better than this movie, although I haven't watched it in a long time. I'm going to go with the first Blade movie. Yeah.

That was my second thought. Dude, that is. It's still good. Do we ever talk about Blade and Blade?

No, I'm late too. So we need to do at least those two. We can skip the Blade. We have a number of Blade.

We've done the forgotten sequel Blades. Yeah. You know, it's so funny that Matt didn't pick Dogma because I had money on money. Yeah.

Mate. No, I've done the Dogma. I was like 20 minutes into this and I was like, You have so much fun. You have so much fun.

It would be a good time. But I was like, double feature Blade. All right. Guys, hey, you would have fun here with us.

You're having fun here with us? You're going to have even more fun with us. Patreon.com. Backslash.

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He's really killing it. He's working on it. And lastly, you know, just hit us up at the email hmnpodcast.gmail.com. Become part of the newsletter or send us your listeners submit it recommendations for the month of September.

Now, again, I stressed this last week. I'll do this a little bit more calmly. We're just asking for anniversary film. So it needs to be a movie that was produced and released with a five or a zero at the back.

Released. I should stress that. Released with a zero and a five at the back of that year. So let us know what movies we haven't done yet that you think we should do and we will put it into the conversation and make a choice.

And now Scott, what are you even checking out? What are you even doing? What are you even doing? Whatever.

I got no hate this week. I got nothing but love because I was just randomly scrolling on Max, which I have the hardest time not calling HBO Max, but it is Max. And what do I see? Lo and behold, pushing daisies seasons one and two are finally back on streaming.

Whoa! Dude, Megan and I got started last night on the season when we just we only watched one episode, but she was just like exclaiming like this is so fucking good still. And she was like, what a first episode for a series. And I'm like, it's it's on touchably good.

And it's Brian Fuller just I literally think that he has made perfect pilot episodes for every fucking TV show that the monsters was the best pilot that never got made. Kyle, you should add that to the pilot's Patreon. Yeah, but it's like that's great. Dead like me incredible pilot, Wonderfalls amazing pilot.

I never watched heroes, but we're on the street. Is that boy that started strong? Like even Hannibal, Hannibal hooks you right in on that first episode where you're just like, oh, we're gonna see, we're gonna see some shit while we watch. I really, I don't know.

We want to see this for so long, but I feel like I just need to sink my teeth in. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But yes.

And also, just get a bite. Just a little bite. Oh, but I want to just tell one little anecdote about pushing daisies and it's the fact that right after Megan and I started dating in 2009, she introduced me to the show. And I cannot watch it.

And she was also, you know, like she had a very similar hair due to Anna Freel and, you know, Anna Freel has light eyes, dark hair. And I wanted to be Ned so bad. And the longing and the love and the spooky but cute and like the twee outfits that literally every dress Anna Freel wore, Megan was always like, oh God, I wish I could wear that. I wish I could find it.

You know, and like it is still, it just takes me back to the very beginning of our relationship. And so it's like, I just have so much, I'm just having the absolute best time watching it again. And she does too. So happy, happy wife, happy life, happy me.

Woo, yay. You know, Kyle, you inspired me a little bit last week. You were talking about a band that you were really vibing on. And for Barb's birthday, which was pretty recently, I took her to see one of her favorite musicians perform live.

And it was awesome because they were like one of the openers at the show. So we got to watch them and leave before the show was over. Great. And it's an artist that she literally discovered from one of those Spotify daily mixes that they make where it's just like, hey, here's like two hours of music you might like.

This artist just was on one of those mixes and became one of her favorite artists. It's a musician named Andreas. I don't know how to describe it, but Barb was explaining this piece of the puzzle and it kind of all clicked, which was that he was raised in like a devout Christian home and was trained in jazz music his entire life and was going to go to a like prestigious Christian college to learn how to play violin. And then he discovered hardcore music and just like left all of it and does like this.

It's like a fusion of like pop music, jazz hip hop. Wait, what's in? Andreas is his name. The two albums that I've really have liked from him is Once Upon a Time in Bakersfield and Sonny Torres and the Multiverse of Sadness.

And he like, he's so geeky. We got to talk to him for a little bit and he was freaking out about my geek skate shirt that had a it was coffee tacos and comics. And he's like, those are the three greatest things in the world. We got into a conversation about that.

But like the way that his music will just be like really intricate, like jazzy guitar licks and then we'll just go into like a hardcore breakdown out of nowhere. And then all of a sudden he's got like this Lin-Manuel Miranda type rap flow that shows up like he just fuses all these sounds in such a unique way. And he's very obscure still. So highly recommend that.

And then also just going to admit that I'm really liking a romance novel that I'm reading right now called Love in the Time of Serial Killers by Alicia Thompson about a girl who's writing. I feel like you can get an okay. You get a pass on actually. It's all right.

It's a it's a you know, it's your classic romance of girl moves to small town, falls in love with neighbor and a lot of steamy sex scenes. But it has a fun like the the the meat cute is one of my favorite meat cutes in a while because the setup is that she's moving into her father's house after he's passed away and she has to like get things organized to sell the house. She's also writing her met doing her masters in the history of true crime and their whole meat cute is that she's pretty sure her next or neighbor is a serial killer for the first day pages. So it's just like the fun the fun play of that before she's just like, oh no, I'm just I've literally been reading true crime for the last three years for this dissertation.

Am I I'm extra sensitive about this stuff? Like it's just very funny. Lots of cool like reference points for clearly the author, Alicia Thompson is everyone's so while you read a book or you know, you take in a piece of art and you understand every single reference to the point that you're like, I would probably be friends with this person. That's that's what my takeaway was reading this one was like, I think that this person and I would probably not argue over what movie to put on or what like music to listen to because the references are just all there.

So highly recommend the music, Andres and the books of Alicia Thompson and Kyle take us home. Yeah, so I'm also going to go off a little bit more music, clipping, what I'm called dead chain sky and it's really the band called clipping and the album's called dead channel sky and clipping, you know, clipping's been around for a little while now. And I mean, I just I cannot recommend them enough for a lot of reasons, but just because we're on the show and this is what we talk about like let horror be your entry point to clipping for dead channel sky specifically. It is this cyberpunk by way of Clive Barker hip hop and experimental approach to this concept album.

And I actually I don't even know if it's a concept album as much as it is concepts that run together about how frightening the world can be. It's one of those things where the lyrics and the song writing along with the atmosphere and the aesthetic of the music itself actually sinks into you. It is like reading a short story in a three minute song. It truly is like everything flows together in such a beautiful way.

Dominator is an incredible track. I also love Welcome home warrior and I also love run it and they all also have their own little bit of unique personality, which does make it feel like almost like a short story anthology all in the same mindset and have the same aesthetic. It's really it's really a killer album. So that's yeah, I know I recommended a couple to shoot it because I don't know how deep into hip hop most of our listeners go.

But for those of you who don't know clipping clipping's been a band for almost 10 years now. And it is the main the main songwriter and rapper is David Diggs who played Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton. This was like where this is like his start and they are referred to as experimental hip hop because they quite like it is it is abrasive and it's like hip hop mixed with like noise rock like it's a lot of like loud noises into the beat. They have a song called shooter where the entire beat is just samples of gunfire and guns being loaded.

That sounds like a goddamn nightmare. Yeah. But it's but it's like amazing how they do it. They did a really fun during covid.

It's like one of my favorite things they did was during covid they did a NPR tiny desk performance was covid. So it had to be pre taped. So the way that they did it was that they built extremely teeny tiny versions of their instruments that were still functioning. So it's like the one guy was playing like a drum machine that was about this big with little toothpicks like hitting the drum beats and stuff like they're just the definition of like av un guard experimental.

It's like if Divo was a rap group is like a great way to sum it up like early Divo that's that weird like noise punk abrasive but with if you've seen Hamilton you know how fast and how unique his rapping style is. So it's like these crazy noise montages with this like very rhythmic crazy rapping pace over top of it. It's unreal. It's like they induce the story in the in the raps.

It's it is it is wild. They're one song. They have one song a couple years ago that I think became like a tic-tac sound which is him saying like Donald Trump is a white supremacist. If you vote for him you are a white supremacist.

It's like like they don't there's not a lot of subtext sometimes and we can just like this is exactly what I have to say. But yeah, they do not. You gave me a recommendation on that. It was so good that I got pulled over for speeding.

That's how much I enjoyed this. Yes, that's the reason why Matt. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't the speed trap in Gettysburg.

Anyway, we'll be back next week with even more horror movie night. We're making an ad. The napping ad. This is where I think if we're doing it right, Alec Baldwin comes in.

He says a couple things. He listens to the podcast every week. Has he been canceled? Was Alec Baldwin that would have killed somebody?

I hear Gary Sinise is free. Oh, okay, great. He doesn't work since 2020. So what would be the script that we would have Gary Sinise for the napping through happy hour podcast?

Listen to this damn show. Damn it. The napping through happy hour podcast brought to you by Geek State. Real life, real drama, real time.

I'm Gary Sinise. That's the ad. That's the ad. That's the ad.

Do you like to laugh, geek out on music, and learn all about that band or artist who had that one song back in the day, but then seemed to fall off the face of the earth? If so, you need to subscribe to One Hit Thunder. Together with an array of interesting and hilarious guests, we do a weekly dive into One Hit Wonders like Eiffel 65's Blue, Kreshawn Scucci, EMMF's Unbelievable, Delametries Roll to Me, Los Del Rio's Macarena, Musical Youth's Past Adachi, and even Patrick Swayze she's like the win. So are you subscribed to One Hit Thunder or what?

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