I am a sample, long before I'm measured, long before I'm named. Each piece of me has a message, a nuanced role. When you look beyond the average, when you see where I belong, you see why I behave the way I do. When you start looking at my details, when you include my context, I start telling you the truth. I always had a story, you just needed a way to hear it. Every sample has a story. Learn more at 10xgenomics.com.
My name's Renee and I'm bad at movies. That's why I asked my friends to make me watch their favorite movies that I've never seen before. So on today's episode, we are watching a movie called Wag the Dog. So this is actually a movie that I have never heard of. And I actually wrote a blind judgment of what I think the plot of the movie is just based on the title alone. So here we go.
A precocious puppy named Pippin is born without a tail. Feeling like an outcast, Pippin asks his very dog mother for the most beautiful tail in all the land. His wish is granted, but things get a little kooky when Pippin's tail starts to have a mind of its own. Wag the dog. Okay, guys, I know that's not the plot of this movie. I know that, but...
I really like this plot that I came up with, and I might write a children's book later, so just do me a favor and don't steal it. That'd be really nice. Thanks. Let's watch the movie. And now, the plot of Wag the Dog in under 60 seconds. Don't change horses in midstream. Oh, my God. The president diddled a young girl. We've got to fix this. All right. Albania, B-30 bomber. Let's go. Ooh, there's a war in Albania. Yeah, yeah, yeah. B-30 bomber. I said let's go. Hey, baby, what do you need? I'm a big producer. We've got to make the B-30 bomber a real thing. Okay, you got it. I'm going to come up with a theme song. I'm going to get a young girl to pretend she's Albanian. I'll make her hold a kitty cat. All right, here she is.
I'm Albanian. Hey, my agent needs you to look at me. No, no, no, you're fine. You can never tell anybody about this ever. Look at it. Boop, kitty cat. All right, this is the CIA. You need to stop this war right now. I'm in charge. The war's over. What are we going to do? Well, we could get a war hero. Old Shoe. Hey, Willie Nelson, get cracking. Good old Shoe. I got a good old Shoe. All right, let's go pick up Shuman and show him off to the public. I'm crazy. Damn it. I'm a convict. Bane crash. We're just chit-chatting. Hey, girl, I like the disco, and I want to boogie with you. Hey, where'd our rapists go? Oh, he's okay. He's not dead.
This whole thing was my idea, baby. I gotta tell the world. Don't change horses in midstream. Okay, so my guest on today's show is Jordan Matthews. How are you, Jordan? I'm great. Wonderful. And I've got Pete here. Hello. Hello. So we're watching Wag the Dog today. I mean, we already watched it at this point. So why did you pick this movie? What interests you about it? I kept thinking about it because we're in the election season. Yeah. And I remember watching this movie. Well, since I watched it again yesterday, I looked up when it came out. It came out in 1997. So Clinton was in office. And I was, what, like 10 years old? So I'm trying to remember when I must have watched it because I can't imagine being a 10-year-old.
going oh this is really affecting me yeah um but it just keeps popping up in my head uh this election season yeah it's crazy i mean it's all i love that first of all the movie is all about just making the president look good but they don't even show the president the whole movie it's just about the team behind the president who's just there to save his ass which i like you know it's like the power of the people behind the most powerful man in america it's really interesting sure yeah and it's even the it's an interesting view on again the media and what people believe and how you can craft a narrative uh just because that's where everyone gets their information from is television It's crazy. They made up a whole war in the movie. They just made up a war and everybody believed them and people were really affected. It's crazy. It's a crazy concept for a movie and it kind of scared me. I mean, like Pete and I were saying when we were watching it, it's supposed to be funny, but then also you're watching it and you're just like, holy shit, this is probably happening. These things have happened. And it's kind of like, yeah, you're laughing, but then also, oh God, it's a little too real. It just feels really real. Yeah, none of it was really funny. No, it really wasn't. The characters are wacky, but I feel like that's why it was scary. It's because these people really believe that they're doing good things and creating art.
Yeah, they're all a little delusional. Meanwhile, damaging the entire country. Right, exactly. they just decide offhand. I mean, there's that scene of like, well, we're going to start a war. Where? I don't know. Albania. Why? I just thought of it. It's like, oh my God. And then, you know, they start this whole trouble with a country that had nothing. There was nothing wrong with them. They just picked it randomly and were like, boop, that's the one. Let's start a war. Yeah. It was kind of funny to me that like, this was sort of pretty, very fast, quick internet lookup stuff. So even the CIA agents were like, we've been checking our stuff and we're pretty sure there's not a war going on. They don't know a hundred percent, but they're very confident that there isn't a war going on in Albania. Yeah. It was cool.
It was awesome. I just can't believe that neither Pete or I had heard of this movie before. When you told me about it, I was like, okay, it's got Robert De Niro in it, Dustin Hoffman, William H. Macy. It's got all these fantastic people in it, and neither of us had ever heard it before. I'd never even heard of the plot. I was just like, how did this go under the radar? I guess because we were so young. Yeah, that's probably me too. I really keep trying to remember where it came from in my head too, but I do remember sitting in my living room where I grew up watching this and being...
Because it is a silly movie. It's satire. It's a black comedy, too. So it's pretty dry humor and dark humor. But it implanted that idea in my head. It just made me realize, oh, you totally could make a lot of these stories up. And it would kind of be important, too. Because narratives, especially in global news, is pretty important. Especially if you're going to tell people. Even when you tell your country you're going to war, people are going to go, why? You have to be ready for why.
But I remember even as a young kid going like, but I never learned really why. There's always really quick answers or like seemingly simple answers on the news of why. Yeah. Right. And then I have, I've always had more questions. Sure. Being in like high school, I'd be like, I need to know these answers for the tests, but they don't really feel like answers to real questions. Yeah. Like, yeah, the Archduke Ferdinand was killed, so we went to war. Yeah, but why? Why didn't we go to war? Yeah. Why are we involved? Well, the most interesting part to me was like.
just showing that the media doesn't really care about telling you the truth or relevant information. They just need like a good, hot image of like, here's all these wonderful symbols from... the past wars and the beautiful patriotic image of, you know, like putting up the flag and stuff. And so they were more interested in the video of the girl carrying the cat than like why we were at war with the pain. And I did love that, like all the songs, like all the patriotic songs. Even when they had to switch gears midway, like, I can't remember why. Why did they have to switch gears? Because the war was over. It was over. And they were like, Willie Nelson, we need another new song. He was like, I don't know. He's like, well, I was just on my way out to get drunk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, get drunk, but write a new song too.
That was really funny. Somebody's like, hey, should I start doing this? Hey, I don't really know what I'm doing here. I don't know what. Willie Nelson was maybe my favorite part of the movie. His whole character was, like, just so... This aimless man was just like, I'm a musical genius, but I don't know what these people want from me. Yeah. They're all laughing on the phone, talking to him. They're like, Johnny just got... He's in his pickup truck with his dog, and he's got a shotgun in the back, and they're just laughing. I think it's so funny. They're like, how quaint. Oh, there's that quick scene, too, that I wish I could remember all the lines from it, but there's, like, a minute and a half. They're all...
talked about voting and how they went. None of them voted. Do you vote? They're like, no, I don't vote because blah, blah, blah. I can't remember because every one of them had a really funny answer. It's too crowded or I don't like being in big crowds. Too many small places. I can't get in there. I'm trying to think of what the three distinct reasons were. I don't like all the pressure of deciding. I don't like to think about it. I just want it to be done. It was Dennis Leary. I think his was like, that one time I voted for, I can't remember what he had voted for, but he's like, I voted for my favorite thing. A baseball thing. That's what it was, a baseball thing. And then he didn't get on and I haven't voted since because I'm just salty about it. I'm salty about it. He's like, I voted for so-and-so.
for the player's choice for the Mets. I just can't shake the feeling that it's meaningless. So you never voted for president? He's like, no, that whole thing was a bad taste. Yeah, that's great.
Politically powerful people are just not involved in the voting process at all. So good. Even little bits about whenever the president was on the phone, Dustin Hoffman's character was like, no, listen to my story. The president's on the phone. No one's listening to me. Nobody's listening. What about me? He always repeats lines in every movie he does. It's so effective every time, even though it's pretty similar. He's like, I mean, he will steal every scene that he's in. And if I ever did, I mean, obviously I'm not going to. If I was ever in a movie with him, I'd just be like, just do your thing. Like, just go. I'll just be like sitting in the back, just watching.
mouth open like yeah there's no way that it's written in the script for him to like repeat the lines there's some point where somebody's explaining something and after every sentence he just goes go on go on go on like you're an asshole it's super funny it's great I think um I mean do you do you read any or have you seen any other like David Mamet movies like I think he helped write it not back in college I had to be in a few Mamet like uh we did like a really short sketch show that had a lot of like quick mammoth shows yeah like a satire on mammoth i like it lots of fucks lots of yeah that's the thing you like curses a lot and also just like it's very wordy that's that's all i knew this is like the first thing that i have seen that i think i think the first thing i've seen that david mammoth has like had some hand in like i get what people are talking about that's all i knew beforehand was like oh it's a lot of words and yeah there's a lot of fucks in there yeah it's interesting i like it Woody Harrelson. Oh man, it was such a weirdo. It was so bizarre. It was like, that movie, yeah, it was almost like upsetting because everybody was so charming, but everything that happened was completely terrible. Yeah. He was like, he was the worst part. The funny rapist in the movie, which was so bizarre. They made him into a cartoon character. He had those big fake teeth and was like, just all the time. He gets murdered with a shotgun. Yeah. That blew my mind. I was like, well, that's what this movie's about. What are we going to do now? Because Hoffman goes in and he's like, oh, everything's, we're fine. Then you hear the shotgun noise, he's like.
Okay, never mind. We need to make up a new story. Yeah. Oh, gosh. No one was worried about it. No, no. Because then also, they don't show what was going on in the room. No. So you're just kind of like, this was a strange setup. Right. Then move on, which is probably a good choice. Let's just keep moving. Yeah, I guess so. Keep the movie going.
He's just always just like, ah, this is nothing. During this movie, we didn't have caterers. No, yeah, everything's handled so lightly. They're all very lighthearted about it. And it's like the music is very any scene. I just noticed this. I think I wrote down. Oh, Randy Newman-esque. It's like when it's like Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro together and they're talking about something really serious in the background. It's like, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Like, we're best friends. We're getting along. Even at the end of the movie where you like.
Hoffman's character is thrown a fit because he wants to have the credit for the whole story. And Robert De Niro was like, you don't want to do this. You don't want to do this. Okay. And they murder him. That's just how it goes, guys. The whole time I kept thinking about, too, because, again, it's weird to realize it's almost 20 years old now. The movie's almost 20. It's like 20 years ago they made that. And so it was interesting to watch. I don't know, because it is somewhat reminiscent of House of Cards. It's set in DC and just that world and creating a narrative and how do we push these issues. But they had to build that world.
just in like an hour and 30 minutes. So I could tell even the cuts and just how quickly Hoffman's character got offed. I was just like, well, they had to do that real quick. Put that darkness in there real fast. It was like a two-minute moment. I mean, that's so funny. It's like...
that whole movie could have been a netflix series if it was now absolutely wild yeah because they put a lot of subject matter in there but they had to like deal with it very quickly yeah i liked how quick it was though it's like they just didn't stop at all to ever really fully explain anything you just kind of had to be like watching yeah like okay i guess i think i know what's going on now it's just happening so fast but yeah it's like that's how it would really happen there's just not a whole lot of explanation happening they just do it yeah you just see it play out it's crazy for real yeah Did you notice weird zoom-ins during this one? Oh, yeah. Always like De Niro's face, too. Always they're just like, push. Like a push on his face. Nothing really happens afterward. No. I really do feel like, again, because it was like, what? It was 97? Yeah. I feel like some of it, I was just like, that has to be a stylistic. Like they're trying to do like this handheld, like push to the face. That's what I was wondering. It almost seemed like it's like this dramatic. It didn't happen often enough to feel like it was on purpose? No.
They always zoomed in on something that had already happened once or twice, and then they did it, but the stakes didn't go up or anything. I remember his assistant, they were in the limo. I think it's before the CIA stops. Off in the car. She's on the cell phone, and it shows her saying something, cuts away. It shows her saying something, cuts away. It shows her saying something that's really not any more important than anything else she said, and it just wildly zooms into the cell phone. And you're like, did we miss something? Did something crazy happen? I don't think so. The cameraman just got bored and was like, well. Yeah.
I remember there was one that I missed that Renee rewound it so I could see it because it was just on De Niro's face. Yeah. You got to see this one. Yeah. He just was looking. He was on a phone. This was like in their little conference room or something. He's on this phone and he kind of looks right at camera too. He just kind of looks up and it zooms in like right on his face and he just goes, yeah. Yeah. The one word. Yeah. It wasn't important. He just thought that something dramatic was going to happen. No. I remember having a thought like there's another one with De Niro in the back of the car. It might have been raining or something too. It was like a dark shot. Yeah. He has his hat on, his little beard, his De Niro beard and he just like finishes up a conversation at the end of the scene but then just like push.
Up to the face. And I was like, all right. And then I think it ended. Like, there's nothing happening. There's never any follow-up to that happening. It's like, whenever that happens, I expect them to turn to the camera and be like...
now what's gonna happen oh boy guys yeah it's it's definitely interesting i mean you're right about this is a good time to watch this movie is right around like the election season and all this crazy stuff is happening it kind of put it all back into perspective of like we don't really ever know what's going on like we as the public are left in the dark about so much stuff yeah because the stories like truthfully are so intricate they have to be like if you know the source of what is really going on if you were the president of the united states or all of his cabinet like those stories have to be so intricate of what is happening who made these things happen? And then you have to decide what, like, how do we tell this story real quick to all the people and what do we leave out? What do they need to know? Exactly. It is kind of akin to parents deciding what their children are allowed to hear. That's true. Yeah, that's kind of true. What's going to scare them? What's going to damage all of them? Do they need to know that daddy lost his job or should we just say we want to go out to eat? Yeah, exactly. It's like, either way, you're okay. Do we want to traumatize them or let them know things are changing? Absolutely. It's strange to think about that.
It's good and bad, I suppose. For real. At some point, you do have to like, I don't know how to even like relate this to like me as a citizen. I feel like at some point you have to go like, all right, I'm ready to know it all. Who do I tell? Just let me know. So maybe even I could tell you, give you some insights on how I feel about this morally in a perfect world. You wish that could be how it is. That would be nice. I feel like I wouldn't want to know everything. I think it'd be too stressful or just too intricate. I mean, like you said, I'd just be like, I don't get it. I don't get it. Why don't we all just get along? Oh, that's absolutely.
well you have to wonder sometimes this is getting into like real deep conspiracy stuff let's get there but like this movie showed that some of the wars are fake or they made a fake war so if we were to know everything is there less danger than we think, and a lot of it is made up just so we have stories, or is there way more danger that we could even comprehend? I feel like it could go either way. Totally, yeah, yeah. I think so. Also, a lot of times I've always felt, you know, there's a song that I love that came out in the 2000s by this English band called Elbow, and their whole CD was called Leaders of the Free World, and the song had a song called Leaders of the Free World, and the chorus was, Leaders of the Free World are just little boys throwing stones. I love that, because that's what it feels like a lot of the time when you watch the news and you do watch the stories come down, and you go like, all of these issues are like,
Like governments are mad at each other, like even like trade and business. That's where all these issues stem from. And like in every country, there's like the person or like the citizen, the person just like going, I'm just trying to round up my chickens. I don't care. I don't care at all. I'm just trying to survive day to day. Yeah. It's like all the leaders are just grade school, like made up club leaders. You shouldn't like them anymore because they did this to us. Like to us? Not really. Maybe to you. Yeah. Maybe you. Yeah. Like if you drop me over there, I'd be like, uh.
What's going on? How can I help? Are you okay? I just need a paycheck and food. It doesn't seem like they're stopping that. Absolutely. Yeah, in certain ways it's like, let's not...
Like when you get the whole country involved in an issue, that's when it becomes a problem. If it's just like an internal problem that doesn't affect us, cool, great. But then it's like all these decisions happen. There was that thing right at the end of the movie that was like, you know, they made up this whole war, but then they said something right at the end of the movie that was like, didn't they confirm that Albanians had like dropped a bomb or it was something. It was some terrorist group. I was like, that wouldn't have happened if they wouldn't have made up this freaking war. And then, you know. Yeah, it wasn't clear at the end of the movie if it was just them continuing the story or if them making that.
false war created a real terrorist cell in albania and i thought that was super interesting yeah yeah you just don't know we never know what's real that movie is super cool because that that's what also what i was thinking of too is just how like uh what's the right way to put it like how these stories can like augment reality or like uh you make up a story and we all see it on the television and it affects our reality so it affects uh it's even one of the things that i wanted to bring up uh i wish i kind of i did real like real lazy research last night like five minutes i was like maybe i can find the actual case study or like i'm gonna go to bed um but i remember learning in school um Big Tobacco or, like, some big cigarette company really wanted to push sales of cigarettes. And they knew that, like, really that was a man thing to do, a smoking cigs masculine thing to do. So they're like, if we can kind of encourage women to smoke, that would, like, double our sales. Our sales would go up so much. And so they even got, like, a psychologist, a famous psychologist to come in and analyze, like, what could we do to advertise to them? And they decided during this big women's parade, like, it was going to be a televised parade, he said, make sure all of the women are smoking cigarettes. Because I think they even had, like, torches of freedom at one point. I don't know if that's connected to this particular story.
But for a while, cigarettes for like a feminist movement was called Torches of Freedom. Wow. But so during the parade, all these women smoked cigarettes as like a rebellion thing. And then cigarette sales exploded because it became. And they used this issue just mainly to promote their product, which is just that is dastardly. Yeah, it's crazy. It happens all the time, though. It's like soda pop and stuff. It's like changing the world. We recycle. So buy our product. It's important to put in your head and think about it so you're awake and aware.
Because I get annoyed when people are trying to make me do things. They go, whatever, I don't need your soda pop. I mean, there's a commercial right now. It's for some kind of beer that's like, hey, if you buy our beer, we'll make sure thirsty people get water or something. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if I believe you. Like, we use water to make beer. Therefore, water. Maybe. How does this work? Well, then I just get annoyed because I go, why can't we just try to go make sure those thirsty people have water anyway? Yeah.
It's even like the Flint thing. It's like, why do we keep sending them bottled water? Which we should. Sure. Like, I get annoyed because I go, why can't we all slow down and we can all just go there and go, what do you all need? Yeah. I'm so sorry this happened. Yeah. Plumbers, unite.
Yeah, it's crazy. I think that it's like a big part of growing up is just learning to take everything with a grain of salt and just be like a little bit more cynical and open to the idea that not everyone's correct all the time. I mean, for me, certainly, I've always thought that adults are always right. Like, you know, my teachers are correct. And like my parents always know what they're talking about, which they did most of the time. But, you know, it's one of those things where as you get older, you kind of look around you and you're like, I'm now an adult and I can make my own decisions and I can also form my own opinions. And I know I'm not right all the time. And I'm probably telling kids the wrong stuff, too. But yeah, it's just it's interesting to kind of.
take a second look at a situation and be like something's wrong here you know it's important to like you like it's it is important as an individual to sometimes exercise your mind and i go like how do you tell this story like if you know something that's hard to like tell a kid even like like how do we explain this in a sensitive way without like freaking out the children yeah this movie reminded me i took a public speaking class in college and we watched a documentary about a real spin doctor i can't remember what his name is but he wrote speeches for presidents assist companies in like how to market their product. And it's just, it was this very interesting thing about very specific word choice and how to present the same idea in different ways so that people will digest it differently. It's like such a crazy thing that if you just change one word, it'll change the way people view a story or a product or anything. And you can do that with different people. Like if you're telling the same story to your dad and then to your boss, you're going to change how it's told. And just the way that we communicate things is crazy. Yeah, definitely. Wish I had good examples from that. I do have to, because that was another fun fact because I was interested while watching the movie.
I was like, oh man, when was the, because this is a similar subject matter, but I was like, when was the Monica Lewinsky thing? And it happened one year after this movie, which I thought was really interesting. That is so crazy. Yeah, I looked that up too because I was like, oh man, they wrote this whole movie like about the whole scandal. Yeah, I thought like they were scathing, like a scathing critique of what was happening. And I was like, oh, it happened right before? Yeah, that's the craziest thing I saw that. I was just like, that is so weird, predicting the future. That was the most unsettling part because it's like, oh, so maybe all of this happens. If that much happens. What's a firefight girl? I don't know. What does that mean? How young was this girl?
I thought that they meant, this is just me, I thought that they meant a Firefly Girl was like the equivalent of like a Lakers girl. Like I was picturing like a dancer or like a team of some sort. But I think you're right. I think the whole scandal was that it was like a younger girl, but not like a young girl. Younger girl. Yeah, not a Girl Scout. Not like eight years old. They were acting like I should know what a Firefly Girl is. No, I didn't. Did they get it up for the movie? I don't know. Yeah, again, it was just the same way that movie, the pacing of that movie. I was just kind of like, oh, just go with the Jordan. Yeah, just roll with it. Just go with it. Fine. Yeah.
Don't take time to think about it. I think I get it. Keep going. Yeah, that's the ticket. I think it all made sense pretty much, except for like 30 minutes into the movie. When we saw Dustin Hoffman for the first time, I was like, is that the president? This seems weird. He's so wacky. He keeps talking about himself in the third person. That's not the president. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I just looked it up. Firefly Girl is the fictional equivalent of a Girl Scout. So that is bad. Yikes. Yeah, that's not good. They cover rape and they cover underage sex. So wee. Yeah, they said they were in the room together for like three minutes or something.
We don't need to figure out what happened. Just roll with it, guys. Why are you hung up on the detail? Come on. Gotta keep me moving. That's why it's a controversy. Jeez, get over it. First thing's happened on the set of Monkey Dory. Okay, wait. I just wanted to talk about this. I know you had mentioned it, too. How crazy the whole Albanian girl, that filming scene of them just being like, they put Kirsten Dunst up on a green screen, right? And they have her holding the bag of Toasty Go chips. And then they just are like, we're going to green screen everything. And then the people in the booth are just like, so we have this thing of Albania.
Okay, let's put a bridge in. Boop, boop, boop, boop, bridge. And then they put in a bridge. It's like all the technology definitely was not there yet. I don't even know that it's there now to just be like, boop, boop, boop. Not like that. Yeah. You don't just type a word in a keyboard and pull up the kitty library. The cat library. It was so crazy. There's no filter in Adobe to replace chips with a cat. It was fucking ridiculous. Boop, boop, boop. Yeah. Hey, man, there's no technology we don't even know about yet. Yeah, that's government grade. Yeah, I suppose so. You don't know what they have in the Pentagon, man. You're right. They might have a stockpile of...
animated, realistic kittens. Holograms at this point. You know what? The president might not even be real. It might just be a hologram. You could be. They're doing that for music shows. I think they can afford it for the president. Absolutely. This is a good point. Can you imagine? We're going to blow this whole story open, guys. Hologram presidents, they're here now. I think I've started believing in the whole Illuminati thing now. Oh, you got to. It's a real thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lizard people? Not even like, no conspiracy words at all. It's just the Illuminati was a real organization standing for Illuminated Enlightened People.
Dan Brown wrote The Da Vinci Codes. Yeah. And now in hip hop, actually, I guess in the past few years, really, it's kind of died down now. But in hip hop, that was like the thing to rap about. Yeah. Loved it. I had my favorite Illuminati lines in all these different songs. The Illuminati is real. It's just a little less mythical. Rich people are on the country. You're right. It's the symbols on the money. It means rich people. Yeah. Yeah. I got it. I got it on lock. Ask me about Bigfoot. Yeah. I did think, though, this movie, I was like, oh, man, if like.
It just seems like a conspiracy theorist's wet dream just to see this and be like, I knew it. I knew this was what was going on. It just backs up their whole thing of like, well, not just conspiracy theorists in general, but I just think it's an idea of that. I don't know what I'm saying. Watch your news on YouTube because none of it's real. This movie also reawakened my thoughts about and tell me if you think about this but I sometimes wonder because like so in terms of coming over to America in the 1700s we're on the east coast and we always push west as our country developed and so you have Washington DC's over on the east coast. Eventually we make it all the way over to the west coast and that's where we have like LA now and I just think it's interesting because as technology has developed LA has been that's where like all of the movies and media which
we can tell shapes cultural, the cultural psychology or the collective consciousness. And sometimes I feel like there's a real battle between DC and like Hollywood in general. Like there's like the liberal media pushing out its, its vision of what the country is. Meanwhile, there's like this realistic, like the actual real government over on the East coast. pushing out policy, like the actual policy. And sometimes I wonder about that. That's fascinating. Yeah, I like that. Also, New York City is a big hub for media. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And it's just a lot of Western philosophy on this side. And sometimes I do wonder, since the West Coast is closer to China, Japan, all those things, if that philosophy, like some Eastern philosophy, hits LA differently or does that whole West Coast in general. Yeah. Yeah.
be really cool if you could just like chart influence on like you know just that's something that's always interested me like I did psychology in the media classes and like yeah it was really really interesting to learn about that stuff but we didn't even like get really deep into it it's just it's one of those things that I don't even think you can really chart how how much influence pop culture or just like news media or any of that like newspapers anything have over people's general day-to-day opinions or like way of life it's got to be all of it now yeah no it is we don't do anything but digest media yeah it's inner pocket right yeah it is i'm on the train reading stories quickly i almost feel like quickly too like people what's next what's next yeah yeah i don't like this one swipe away yeah exactly headline was enough yeah we'll just read headlines that's sort of why some people read buzzfeed because it's just like so over if you watch the news all day, your brain would explode with opinions. It shouldn't be any opinions. You should be making your own opinions. So I'd rather just sit on the train and look at 15 different ways to use Nutella. Well, and now there's also this crazy phenomenon of being able to like block people on Facebook that you don't like their opinion or, you know, like all those like BuzzFeed or anything like that. Any site that you go to regularly has started tracking like what interests you and they'll start bringing those stories up higher in your feed so that it's like, this is what you're interested in. So you're really just...
they've like these sites have almost figured out your opinion and they're just giving you more of what you already want. You don't expand on like, you know, you're not getting any different viewpoints. You're still hearing exactly what you want to hear. And it's just making everybody a little bit more isolated by like, you don't even think about it like that. It's kind of box you in because you're clicking on certain things that you're interested in, even at a time. And I think we all know that like, you know, you're not the same exact person you were six or seven years ago. But when they kind of box you in like that, it keeps like all of these things, all of these subjects that you're interested in coming at your face. Yeah.
I don't know. Some people might get boxed into it. I just get an online. I go, you don't know me. It's so wild to think that like the internet is this place with unlimited, expansive information, but there's ways to limit what you can see. Yeah. Any of us have seen 0.1% of what's on the internet. Right. There's so much out there, but even your Facebook will be like, you Googled jam. Look at this commercial. And you don't see so much stuff. So if they're doing that towards like your political thoughts too, I'm like, well, you Google Bernie Sanders. I'm not going to show you anything that supports anything but him. Yeah, no, it's true. Yeah.
It's crazy. It is crazy. Thanks, Google. Heard you crashed your automatic car. How's that going? It hurts my head to think about it too hard, but also it's like cool to talk about it. I don't get to talk about this stuff very often. No, it's good. It's good to talk about. We don't talk about anything important.
Oh, all Pete and I talk about is jam. I can talk about jam. Have you ever had pepper jelly? Yeah. Love it. Amazing. Put that on a whole thing. I recently got blueberry lavender jam. Whoa. It is great. Wow. That sounds good as hell. Can you put that on? Just toast? Yeah. Just butter some toast. Later, I've been making some fat kid toast. I literally put butter in my pan, my frying pan. I melt it, and I just fry the butter. I throw a piece of toast in the pan. It's a grilled cheese, but just a piece of bread. Yeah, it's just a crusty, buttery piece of bread, and then I put my jelly on it, and I go, oh, this is delicious. I don't think you can say it's a fat kid meal if lavender is part of it. Cool.
Cuisine. Thanks. Cuisine. That's gourmet. Well, we've gotten off track here, but in a really fun way. I think I think we actually need to start wrapping up soon. Yes. So, well, Jordan and I are in the pool. I just want to plug that real quick. So Tuesday nights at 830 at IO. Come see us. We're on the same team. And it's hilarious. Booty thrice is nice. Booty thrice is nice. Is there anything else going on in your life that you want to?
tell people about or plug or anything like that. I don't know if you want to promote yourself in any way. I'm good. Good. Good. Yeah. Cool.
that's well you know like bad at movies on facebook yeah or subscribe to it on itunes that would be great too uh peter do you have anything um in addition to small town doctor our improv show late as fuck got extended through may yeah so if it's a sunday and it's 10 30 at night and you want to go to a show come to io and watch the latest it's a fun one everybody's like a little delirious because it's the end of the weekend it gets real silly it's a pretty great crowd because it's nobody we know it's just people that wander and go that has a swear word in it that'll be a fun show and it is a fun show good fun one good time Okay, so, well, we have our very special guests, Morty and Ava Rosenblum, coming into the house. And I think, you know, if you want to talk to them, Jordan, they would like to maybe speak with you. Oh, yeah, I can't turn down anybody. Great. Cool. Okay, so I'll go ahead and move over. Okay.
Ouch. This movie was exhausting, Mr. Matthews. You're the young man who picked this movie out? Wag the dog. Ava, we're married. I'm happily married to this old man.
You guys look like a fun bunch. I'm excited. Used to be. Used to be. We used to be real wild. Let me tell you something, Jordan. Yeah. We've been having these conversations for decades upon decades upon decades upon decades. It used to be the radio. Yeah. It used to be television. Yes. Now it's your palm pilots. Yes. Blue teeth in your face. Blue teeth. Yes. What makes a human a human is the ability to tell a lie. An animal cannot lie. That's true. Name one animal that can lie. Well.
Yeah, I guess you're right. Besides a chameleon. A chameleon. Then again, a chameleon's not so much lying as it is adapting. One time, my sister Susan, her dog, her little dog Kipper, he ate the cake off my plate while I was in the restroom, and then I came out and I said, Kipper, did you eat my cake? And what did he say? He didn't say a damn thing. He just looked at me and licked his lips. And you know what? Silence is sometimes stronger than words. But that wasn't a lie. That was just denying. What do you think? Do you think there's a difference between lying and remaining silent when asked a question?
Well, you know, I just thought of canaries. I know this is kind of off topic, but canaries, can they lie? Like parrots or parrots? Parrots are the world's most deceptive of animals. I would say parrots can be rude, but I'm not sure they can lie.
They just repeat what you say over and over and over. Morty just had a really rough time one time at the animal store. You know the one. We went into the pet shop. This parrot called him ugly. Whoa. It's nothing I said. And I asked the store owner, I said, has anyone called your bird ugly? And he said, I would never allow such a thing. And I said, well, I walked in and the bird said, you're ugly. In his dumb bird voice. He said, you're ugly Morty. Whoa. He knew my name. Yes. And you're the one that says animals can't lie.
Let's hope he was a lion. It's more of an opinion than an actual fact. Just parrots, you know, parrots like other parrots. He probably saw your unparrot-like face and thought, boy, that's ugly. In terms of parrots, I'm very unattractive. To me, you're the most attractive. Thank you. Good point. Wag the dog. I thought, you know, Bobby De Niro, that's what I like to call him. He had on that jaunty little hat the whole time and a red little bow tie and he looked like a little gentleman. But boy, that was scary. Very scary. Why is he always squinting and nodding?
Bobby De Niro. He's always in deep thought, right? I think he's got a lot on his mind. He's got a lot of thoughts to get out. He's squinting. He greaves with him, nods his head. He kind of looks like a parrot. He's kind of bobbing his head and licking his lips. He's got a hard tongue that kind of clacks against his beak-like mouth. Have you ever noticed that? No, not until you just said it. Robert De Niro looks like a parrot. You don't like Robert De Niro. No, he called me ugly once. I was in a pet shop and Robert De Niro was there and he said, you're ugly, Morty. And I said, has anybody been telling Robert De Niro he's ugly today? He goes, not that I know of. Happens to me all the time.
That's why we don't have pets, you know? No pets and no celebrities that we keep trapped in our home. Not after Channing Tatum. He escaped. Do you have any people trapped in your house? No. No. Other than myself. I'm often trusting. That was our man.
I heard about your jams. Your lavender jam. Peter and I told you about my jams. That sounds good. Lavender's in there. Yes. Yeah, you've got to look out for it. Next time you go, I'm telling you, go to a nice specialty shop, go to Whole Foods or something even, and just look at all the jams they have. Does Whole Foods have parrots in it? Whole Foods? Parrots? Does it have parrots? I mean, that one over on Kingsbury, I still haven't seen the whole store. It's so big. There's a jungle on the second floor. Is there really? I've got to visit it. We should avoid that one, but we can go to another one more. I'm sure there won't be any parrots in the other one. I'd love to get some jam and cook some fried bread like a little fat piece. I'm telling you, it's the thing to do on any weekend.
It sounds delicious. We don't do much, so buttering some bread and frying it up sounds like just a show. That sounds like the perfect Saturday to me. That's an all-day experience. Yeah, you'll get a cup of whole milk with it, too. Oh, my God. You put that in the pan and you drink it. You take a bite. You take a bite of your buttered fried toast, and then you do a little sip of whole milk. Oh, you're talking my language, buddy. Get my blood boiling. Yes. Let's go eat some toast, Morty. All right, let's go to the Whole Foods. You want to come with us? Sure, I'll go with the Whole Foods. You have to fight the parent if we see him. I got your back. The movie was fine. Goodbye.