320: I Have A Question Part 2 (Muppet Babies of Fortune)

Continuing the interview fun, here’s part 2 of our hosts asking each other some thought provoking questions.

Kolide ensures only secure devices can access your cloud apps. It’s Zero Trust tailor-made for Okta. Book a demo today at Kolide.com/overtired.

Promo Swap: The Nerd Room — Are you looking to get more out of your fandom experiences? Do you wish you had the time to keep up with all the latest news and insights about your favourite film franchises? Check out The Nerd Room on all major podcast platforms. For more from The Nerd Room, head to thenerdroom.net or use the hashtag #WeTheNerd

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Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter.

Transcript

ot320

[00:00:00] Intro: Tired. So tired, Overtired.

[00:00:04] Brett: Hi, this is Brett Terpstra. You know me. Um, this is episode two of our very special series. What was it? A very special episode. Isn’t that like Hallmark channel? Um, um, I am here again with Jeff Severances Council and Christina Warren. And we are going to, we’re we’re gonna offer, we’re gonna ask some, um, Hopefully open-ended questions that will lead to some really fun discussions.

[00:00:34] On Mastodon

[00:00:34] Brett: The last episode went great. I think, uh, this was, this was Jeff’s brainchild. I’m, I’m very impressed with how it’s going so far. Um, before we roll into the new interview questions, I did have one topic, um, especially for Christina, but I’m curious about Jeff’s input on this as well. Um, Mastodon, uh, I. I didn’t run away from Twitter when [00:01:00] Elon just completely royally fucked it.

Um, I have, I have 13,000 followers there. I have a good community. I feel, um, I feel heard there and, and that’s hard for me to leave behind. But the fact is it has become truly a, a wasteland. Um, and all of the sudden, like I set up a Macedon instance. Maybe a year ago. Um, and all of a sudden I started getting enough followers that I started following back.

That my timeline got interesting to the, to the point where I check Macedon before Twitter. Now Twitter has become kind of a, a secondary, I’ll just see what’s there, where that used to be, what Macedon was. I’d check it like maybe every three or four days and respond to queries there. But I hit like this critical mass.

I, I’m up to almost 2000 followers and I follow about. [00:02:00] Maybe 350 people. And that was like a magic number. All of a sudden, Macedon got really interesting for me. Um, I, I was getting more interaction from a post there than I have on Twitter for a long time, and I was finding more interesting articles and more links and more funny jokes.

And like Macedon suddenly became a thing for me. Uh, like this just happened in the last couple weeks. Um, ivory came out and, and th there’s honestly a great ecosystem of apps, Mona Ice cubes, like, uh, toot, uh, there’re just, there are so many good Mastodon apps. It feels like the early days of Twitter, uh, when Twitter was a little more.

Before the invention of the hashtag, you guys remember that, like that era when Twitter was still figuring out what it was. And I feel like that’s where we’re at with Macedon. So I’m curious, [00:03:00] uh, how, what your guys' current perspective on Macedon is, uh, how your, your follower accounts are going. Um, is it, is it replacing Twitter for you?

[00:03:13] Christina: Yeah. So for me it’s getting there. I’m, I’m still in this weird place and I’m actually, so, and this is what’s frustrating because Twitter may or may not be shutting down the, or changing the terms of the developer api, which will make this difficult. But I’m still in this weird place where like, I kind of have to use both because I have a master, really large audience on Macedon, uh, relatively speaking, like I’ve got almost 13,000 followers now.

So I have more than 10% of my Twitter followers are now on Macedon. And I find that the engagement is a lot better. I think a, because frankly it’s, it’s a smaller audience, so more people, even though I have like. Fewer followers because like the pool of Macedon users is smaller. Like more people see your stuff and more people wanna be engaged with it.

Um, which honestly was [00:04:00] similar to Twitter in it’s early days too, when it was smaller. Uh, I think a lot of times you had sometimes, you know, people who were lucky enough to have like bigger accounts had like, A bigger impact, so to speak. And then as the services get bigger, you need bigger and bigger, like account numbers for that, um, to, to continue to work.

Um, the people who are on Macedon, it, it reminds me a lot of like Apple, Twitter circa like 2007 to like

[00:04:25] Brett: Yeah.

[00:04:26] Christina: Like the Mac people are all there, you know, like our, like my, my, my kind of tech nerds. Um, but not everybody is there. Like pop culture is not there. Memes are not there. Um, and so, uh, there are even some people who do cool stuff that like, like I, you know, um, who I, I maybe wouldn’t give a shout out about something who aren’t there.

So I still feel like I have to use both. And so ideally, and, and, and I’m trying to treat them as different things. Like I, I don’t wanna set up like an automated. Crosspost the same content to each service thing, cuz that’s doesn’t feel right. But it [00:05:00] also is annoying to have to rewrite the same post for two different audiences.

So there’s this service called MOA Party, uh, uh, is moa.party. And, but you can host your own instance, um, as well. That basically lets you cross-post between networks like Macdonna Twitter and it, and it can be conditional. So you could have like a hashtag and only post that have that hashtag would be cross posted.

That to me is ideal and that’s really what I want, but I don’t know how long that’ll be like, um, useful given that the, the Twitter API is kind of in

[00:05:34] Brett: Yeah, I was using, I was using like open web services for quite a while, for a year, uh, to cross post anything. I posted to Twitter, just got posted to Macedon and anything I retweeted on Twitter showed up as a boost on Macedon and that, that worked for a while. Twitter broke that. Um, that no longer functions, and I’m fine with it because Macon has just become the place I go first,[00:06:00]

[00:06:00] Christina: Yeah. I’m,

[00:06:00] Brett: about stuff.

[00:06:01] Christina: I, I’ve noticed that I’ve started to kind of do that too. And to, to the point though, where Yeah, but because of my job and because of other things, like I can’t completely, I mean, I guess I could completely migrate, but it just, I don’t know, it doesn’t feel fair to the people who are still on Twitter in some ways too.

Who, who, who I know still wanna maybe converse with me.

[00:06:19] Brett: Yeah. I’m not, I’m not deleting my Twitter

[00:06:21] Christina: Totally, totally. And so, but, but, um, I’m trying to kind of figure out like the, the way that I can cross post again, like I said, conditionally, right? Like there’s an instance where, but, but it is interesting what, for me, the changing moment was getting rid of the Twitter clients.

Like all the Elon stuff. I didn’t. I mean, I hated it, but it was getting rid of the Twitter clients. And for me, I think it was because then I started seeing a significant, uh, mass of people who weren’t there. And it was also, I think that that decision also coincided with some of the other decisions that have been made at Twitter where things are breaking, but we don’t know how broken it is because so many people are gone.

And so the website’s [00:07:00] still functioning, but it’s not really functioning. And so people don’t see your tweets because that stuff has been changed or the, the logic behind that is broken and, and no one

[00:07:10] Brett: Somehow, no matter how much blocking and unfollowing I do, I still see tweets from Elon every day,

[00:07:17] Christina: Yeah, yeah. Uh, and, and there were reports that he like had, like made, forced kind of, uh, you know, engineers to rejigger the algorithm so that everybody would see his content first, which is.

[00:07:30] Jeffrey: Uh, the great fictional company, Huli,

[00:07:32] Christina: Yeah, exactly. 100%. 100. I mean,

[00:07:35] Brett: Oh, Gavin.

[00:07:36] Christina: all of this is like literally out of like Silicon Valley. Um, but it’s real, but, but, but beyond like that stuff, like, stuff is just broken and the site is breaking and whatnot.

And so it’s becoming this frustrating thing where it’s like, I don’t get the engagement. I don’t see people that I used to really, like, some of them have moved to Masson, some of them haven’t. And so I’m like, well, if I get more engagement, you know, on this [00:08:00] platform, I’m, I’m gonna spend more time here. But like I said, the thing that sucks about it is like all my memes, all my pop culture, all that stuff is just not there.

And I don’t know if it’s going to be there. Like, I think that, yeah.

[00:08:13] Brett: Does Instagram fill that gap for you at all? Because to me, Instagram is broken these days too.

[00:08:18] Christina: Yeah. It,

[00:08:19] Brett: every third post on Instagram is an ad I get. They, they infiltrate my timeline with people I don’t follow because someone I do follow liked a post and they decided, all right, I’m gonna show that to you.

[00:08:32] Christina: I’m getting notifications now that so-and-so posted something and I’m getting a notification because two people that I follow also follow. And I’m like, what are you doing? Like, I, I, I don’t know,

[00:08:43] Brett: Not, not in the way that Twitter is broken, but it is, it is. It’s gonna kill itself. It is going to kill itself.

[00:08:51] Christina: The thing that had kept Instagram, I think, so successful for so long is that Kevin Systrom and, uh, Mike, I can’t think of his last name.

Um, uh, last name starts [00:09:00] with the K, the two like founders were still there. And when they left, I think that they left in like 2018, um, because of some clashes was z uh, that to me, I was like, okay, there it goes. Because they had, they had maintained like creative control and like product vision. and you know, he started putting just the, the, you know, ad guys and the people who are juicing engagement in charge, and then the service dies, like, you know,

[00:09:31] Brett: because it’s not sustainable. And with apple’s latest, like do not follow, uh, technologies. And with Google removing like cookie tracking, um, in upcoming removal of cookie tracking, like the ad, the ad based. Uh, system that these major services were built on is going to fail them. And they do. They’ve never put time into figuring out [00:10:00] an alternative way to make money.

And Elon’s struggling with that right now. Uh, but also z like, there’s just, it’s, it’s in an, in an era where we’re starting to worry a little more about privacy, where we’ve stopped just voluntarily giving up privacy. Um, ads aren’t, ads aren’t gonna work the way they have for the last 10 years or so.

[00:10:25] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s interesting. People will have to change things. I, it’s interesting to look that at a, you know, talk’s Rise too, which is, uh, So in TikTok is a completely different system in that like, and this I think is why Instagram has been struggling because Instagram was brought up in like the old web era where your social graphic was very important that it be people, you know, and that was what linked you together.

And like that was, you know, uh, Facebook and that was Instagram. And, and to a certain extent that was Twitter. Twitter’s always kind of been kind of in the middle of these two worlds, which [00:11:00] to me is actually strength. But, you know, uh, it’s not strength if you don’t capitalize on that, whereas, TikTok is all about your interest graph.

It’s not about your, your personal, uh, graph. Right? Like, I don’t really follow a lot of people that I know in real life. I follow some of them, but a lot of them I don’t. And I, I kind of don’t even like that. Like I see people auto following me on TikTok cause I, I don’t post anything on there, but I’m kinda like, oh man, I’m, that’s not really, you know, the audience.

I’m kind of going for like, if you want to, cool, but like, that’s not really, you know, my, my, my bag. And so it’s, it’s a, it’s different expectations and different types of, you know, interactions with things. The reason it sucks that what Instagram is doing is that it’s like you go into it with the expectation that I’m going to see people that I chose to follow my friends or people I’m interested in.

And instead they’re showing you content that they think you’re gonna like, and hey, maybe you do like it, but like, that’s not what I signed up for.

[00:11:52] Brett: but yeah, and it’s like the majority, like if you wanted, if you wanted to slip in, you know, something you thought I would [00:12:00] be interested in every 10 20 posts fine. But you get past the first five posts in your Instagram feed and it’s, it’s not stuff you signed up to

[00:12:10] Christina: no, no where,

[00:12:12] Brett: just reaching for your interest at that point.

[00:12:14] Christina: exactly. Whereas TikTok was very clear about, we are going to show you stuff that we think you will like based on your activity and you might not even have to follow people. We’re just going to continue to feed you this stuff. But like I know that, I know that going into TikTok that that’s what it’s going to do.

YouTube is sort of similar in that way, right? Like I might follow certain personalities, but I don’t need to have like a personal relationship with people that I follow on YouTube. And a lot of times stuff that’s recommended to me is not people that I follow. And that’s great

[00:12:42] Brett: Yeah, like

[00:12:43] Christina: I come into it.

[00:12:44] Brett: YouTube’s algorithm, YouTube’s algorithm is working for me. I watch a video from someone that I specifically subscribe to. I watch their video. At the end of it, after I’ve gotten the content, I came there for. It gently suggests. Oh, if [00:13:00] you dug that, here’s some other related content. Um, and sure, you know, like the whole radicalization procedure that it puts people through is, is terrifying.

But for me, I, I, I find new content. I subscribe to three new YouTubers last week just because of suggested content after our video. I watched that’s, that’s an okay way to do it. But that worked on YouTube because you are consuming more than just one image and then moving on, you’re actually engaged with something for five to 20 minutes or longer if you’re into like crazy Collin shows like the atheist experience.

But we totally lost Jeff in all of this. I’m sorry, Jeff

[00:13:44] Christina: Jeff

[00:13:45] Jeffrey: you didn’t lose me. I’m listening. I, uh, I was on a

[00:13:49] Brett: here to listen. My favorite 12 step response.

[00:13:53] Jeffrey: I, I have the privilege of being able to kind of sit back and see how this mastered on [00:14:00] Twitter thing sorts, cuz I don’t have any reason to be, I don’t have any, I don’t have any, no, I’m not, I’m sorry. I’m, I don’t have any professional reason to be on Mastadon or on Twitter at the moment.

And so I, I’ve been just kind of letting it fly, letting it go, see what happens. But I, I find it a little, we’ve talked about this before, Christina, you and I talked about this, I think when Brett was out. Like, it is, it is the case that I, I know there’s so much of what I have gone to Twitter for and what I’ve built and uh, you know, in terms of who I followed and lists and everything else.

Like, they just can’t be recreated. Like, and, and I am, I’m, I’m not ready to fully grieve that loss. And so I’ve kind of. I’ve stayed in, but I’ve, I’ve noticed, you know, every, every week it’s, it’s a truer thing that, uh, what I created is not really what I created anymore. Um, and so, you know, as a kid who had to move like 30 times or something, I pisses me off to have to like, take all my posters down and put 'em on up somewhere else.

But I do have to, I do have to [00:15:00] go over to Macedon and, and put my posters up.

[00:15:02] Brett: I create an Overtired MA sit down account? And if so, what instance should I put it on? Is there a podcast, like what place where Podcast Gather? Is there an instance for, I bet there

[00:15:18] Christina: I bet there is. I bet there is. Yeah, cuz, cuz there are, because unfortunately it does sort of matter. I would think Hacky Durham might be the one that we would use, uh, because that’s kinda like the tech-centric one. Um, uh, but actually let’s, let’s also put this out to our listeners.

[00:15:37] Brett: yeah.

[00:15:38] Christina: What, what, what instance do you think we should be on?

Should we be on Macedon? For Overtired? I feel like it, it, it would find our audience cuz like both of us have managed to build, you know, um, good proportions of our, of our Twitter audiences on Macedon really quickly with, with very little work.

[00:15:55] Brett: I wanna switch, I wanna switch instances like I signed up . [00:16:00] I’m on no, noj dot ez dns.com. Uh, or ca.

[00:16:08] Jeffrey: Is that? Is that, that sounds like some dark web drug buying

[00:16:11] Christina: it does. It

[00:16:12] Brett: it is. What it is is Libertarian shit. It’s, it’s, Easy. DNS is run by a libertarian who puts out a libertarian newsletter. And there there’s this fine line between like skeptical of the government, which I am, um, and, and libertarian and like I, I am the newsletter he puts out, talks about privacy invasions, especially in, uh, Canada and the us and, and it’s stuff that is actually of interest to me.

Uh, but the , the approach he takes to it is disconcerting for me. Um, that said, like, I signed up because it, he was like, Hey, I made a ma instance and at the time Macedon was a new thing. And I’m like, all right, I’ll sign up. [00:17:00] And I did. And now I have this embarrassing, uh, Macedon handle TT scoff at noj jack dot. Easy DNS ca. Um, and I, I wanna switch. I feel like there’s, there’s like , there’s an, there’s, uh, there are indie app spaces. Um, there are, uh, spaces that I would feel more comfortable having associated with my handle that, um, I, I know it’s possible to like switch instances and have all of your followers follow you there?

[00:17:37] Christina: and I’ve done it.

[00:17:38] Brett: haven’t looked into it yet.

[00:17:40] Christina: yeah, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I can walk you through that. The only thing is, is that like you wanna figure out what essence you wanna go to and then, um, with your number of followers, I think that you’d be okay. It takes some time cuz they have to re propagate. You won’t bring your posts with you.

That’s, that’s the only thing. All of your posts will remain kind of in a read only state in, in the [00:18:00] old thing. Um, and.

[00:18:01] Brett: At this point, I think I’m okay with that.

[00:18:03] Christina: Totally. I’m just saying that, that that is kind of a, a concern, uh, that a lot of people have. And I’ve actually been looking at maybe getting my own, like hosted, uh, master on instance that like I control at, at like Master Host.

Um,

[00:18:16] Brett: Oh, we should start an Overtired

[00:18:17] Christina: was thinking that, I was thinking that, I was like, we could do that for like $5 a month or something. Um, but uh, and we’ve been thinking about doing one for Rocket, but um,

[00:18:28] Brett: I would join the Rocket instance.

[00:18:30] Christina: yeah, totally. Totally. Um, and we could have it Overtired at, at like whatever our, um, uh,

[00:18:37] Brett: I’m surprised re relay doesn’t have their own incense.

[00:18:40] Christina: does, I think.

But they don’t have it. Like, it’s not like a thing where like, at least to my knowledge anyway, they’re, I mean, maybe for some people they’re like, Hey, join our instance and, and moved all your stuff over. But

[00:18:50] Brett: But it’s mostly for shows at this point. Yeah.

[00:18:54] Jeffrey: I don’t know, Brett, wouldn’t you, wouldn’t you miss TT scoff at, uh, take it sl. That’s what [00:19:00] she said. Biz

[00:19:02] Brett: It’s gotta be ca it’s gotta be, it’s gotta be a Chinese, a Chinese tld. Um, um, alright. We are, we we’re 20 minutes in already and we haven’t gotten to interview questions. So what I’m gonna do is take a quick sponsor block, uh, and then we’ll spend the rest of the time on our interview questions. So same sponsor from last week.

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[00:20:44] Promo Swap: The Nerd Room

[00:20:44] Brett: Also, We have a promo swap this week. Are you looking to get more out of your fandom experiences? Do you wish you had the time to keep up with all the latest news and insights about your favorite film franchises?

Well [00:21:00] then look no further than the Nerd Room Podcast. A weekly audio experience with deep dives into the la, the latest news reviews and speculation from the worlds of Star Wars, Marvel, DC and beyond. Whether you’re a casual fan or a diehard enthusiast, the nerd Room has something for everyone. Plug into the Nerd Room podcast every Thursday on all major podcast platforms and let them bring the nerd to you.

For more information on the nerd room, head to the nerd room.net or use the hashtag We the nerd hashtag we the nerd.

[00:21:40] Jeffrey: We the nerd. We The

[00:21:42] If you could go anywhere…

[00:21:42] Brett: Yes. All right, Jeff, do you want to kick us off with a question again?

[00:21:46] Jeffrey: Alright, here is the question. It’s not so much a tech question, although I guess maybe it could be if you choose to snap and end up in like a server room. But if you could snap your fingers and be anywhere in the world [00:22:00] but invisible. why invisible?

So obviously why the place, but why invisible?

[00:22:05] Christina: Okay. All right. I think that I would go to China and I would go to China, or I would go to Ukraine. Um, and I would be invisible in both of those places because I, well Ukraine, because I, I would want to be safe and would not want to necessarily have to like engage in all like the horror that’s happening there.

But I would also like to see what’s happening on the ground. And China, I would love to go to China, but my fear about going to China has been for a long time, and not so much fear, but just like hesitation. It’s been like, I’m gonna have to bring a burner phone, I’m gonna have to bring a burner laptop. I’m gonna have to like, deal with a lot of like the, the state sponsored stuff.

and I, I don’t know how much I would wanna engage necessarily with the state. And so I would love to see China, [00:23:00] but I would like to see it in a context where like, I’m not having to engage with the government, which seems like that would be difficult to do otherwise. Um, and in the Ukraine, simply it is just that I’m a freaking baby and, and don’t wanna go to like a war zone.

Um,

[00:23:14] Jeffrey: that that’s not being a baby that’s wanting to live

[00:23:19] Christina: but I, but I would like to see like what’s happening on the ground and I would like to like, you know,

[00:23:23] Jeffrey: Yeah,

[00:23:24] Christina: uh, ha have, have perspective of that.

[00:23:27] Jeffrey: totally. Totally. That’s awesome. Did you ever see the, um, the YouTube videos? This guy, I think he’s in Shinzen, and he, he’s like, how I made my own iPhone. And he basically goes through all the tech markets to find the various

[00:23:42] Christina: Yeah.

[00:23:43] Jeffrey: of iPhone tech and puts it all together. Uh, just about at the end. Oh God.

That’s what I thought of when you said you’d wanna, you’d wanna be chat. I,

[00:23:52] Christina: No, I totally, the tech markets, yeah. I would love to see the tech markets. I would love to see like the, some of the factories. I would love to see some of the, I mean, it’s such a vast country, right? [00:24:00] Like, like,

[00:24:00] Jeffrey: Yeah. Incredible.

[00:24:01] Christina: I would love to see like the, the Great Wall as, as, uh, you know, trite as that is.

Um, uh, but, but I would love to see, yeah, I would love to see the cities. Like I haven’t spent a lot of time in Asia, unfortunately. Um, I’d, I’d had some trips planned and then, uh, COVID happened. Um, but I would, I, like, I, I don’t wanna be invisible when I go to Tokyo, like I wanna like be fully immersed in all of that.

Um, but I, in China, I, I, I have a feeling I’ll go there certain day and, and not invisible. And I’ll be very happy to do that. But again, like I’d be thinking about my opsec and I’d be thinking about. The state. So it would be cool to be there, you know, again, kind of as an observer, um, and not having to necessarily be like a participant.

I, I think that, I think that for me is, is any place I would go be like a place I would wanna go to observe, but not to participate in

[00:24:52] Jeffrey: yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes a lot of sense, Brett.

[00:24:55] Brett: I couldn’t think of an answer to this. Well, I had to think hard [00:25:00] to come up with an answer that wasn’t creepy and overtly sexual. Um,

[00:25:05] Jeffrey: You know what’s funny? It didn’t even occur to me. What a creepy question that could be.

[00:25:08] Christina: No, it didn’t. Me either. And until we said this, and I’m like, oh, actually, yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough.

[00:25:13] Brett: So, so here’s my answer. Here’s what, here’s what I came up with. Um, I would like to, Are we in al Like, do we take up space in this invisible,

[00:25:26] Jeffrey: I, I leave that up

[00:25:28] Brett: with like, I wanna go to a Michelin star kitchen. Um, and I wanna, I wanna watch the chef and the sous chefs. I wanna watch them work.

Um, I’d love, I love cooking YouTube. Um, I love watching real chefs do their thing. I love food so much. Um, and it’s just fascinating to me to see that what goes into the preparation of Michelin star meals. And if I could be [00:26:00] in those kitchens which don’t have a lot of space and like you can’t be in the way.

So I would literally have to be a fly on the wall, an invisible fly on the

[00:26:08] Christina: Or you’d have to be a rat at Chewy. You’d have to be a rat.

[00:26:11] Jeffrey: Yeah.

[00:26:13] Brett: I would hope that there aren’t a lot of rats in Michelin circuit kitchens, but, but yes. Um, I, I would just, I would love to just spy

[00:26:24] Christina: That would be

[00:26:24] Brett: on someone not making a YouTube video, just doing their thing just in the moment, not explaining what they’re doing. Just fucking cooking.

[00:26:33] Christina: just wanna actually observe. I love, oh, I love this answer so much. This is like, this is genuinely like, such a better answer than mine. That’s so cool.

[00:26:40] Brett: I, I, I liked your answer.

[00:26:43] Jeffrey: that’s awesome.

[00:26:44] Brett: Did you guys, oh, we talked about the bear, right? You guys saw the bear. I know, I know. We’re not talking

[00:26:49] Jeffrey: I do not want to, I do not wanna be in the bear, uh, invisible or otherwise, but love that show.

[00:26:56] Brett: but that kitchen environment, like to me, there’s something [00:27:00] attractive about like just being in a kitchen that knows what they’re doing and like, yeah,

[00:27:06] Christina: You read, you read, you read the book Kitchen Confidential, right? I’m sure you.

[00:27:09] Brett: I didn’t.

[00:27:10] Jeffrey: I did not either.

[00:27:11] Christina: You have to, and the audio book is really good, especially now that he is gone. Um, that is Anthony Bourdain’s, you know, book. It was turned into a TV show. But no, you would love it. You would love it, Brett, because it, it’s all the culture and, and everything that goes into that.

And it’s, it’s, it’s a great book. Um, the audio book is really, really good too, because he, you know, is, is the narrator and he’s obviously, you know, he was a fantastic, um, uh, speaker and and storyteller. Um, you saying this. So my favorite ride at Disney World was the rat

[00:27:42] Jeffrey: was my next question, the TUI ride.

[00:27:45] Christina: rat ride? Uh, uh, like Remy’s, uh, quest or something.

I don’t remember what it’s called now, but basically you’re in these little, um, the way that they have it working is that it’s one of the, the three. Um, rides, um, [00:28:00] or I think it’s 3d. Um, I think you have 3D glasses. It, it’s kind of a combination of different elements. So, uh, basically it’s like a dark ride coaster sort of thing, but each of the, um, cars is shaved like a mouse.

And so the idea is that you are a mouse who’s, um, helping, um, assist Remy as he’s helping get service for the restaurant. And so everything is like massively like scaled. So like you’ve got like, you know, and you’ve got these experiences where like you have, um, somebody sees you, uh, and, and you almost get swept under something and then a water from the, uh, mop comes and hits you in the face and real water comes out and, and, and, you know, you see like these, these, these different kind of, uh, thing, it’s just super, super fun.

Like, I, I, I went on it several times and I had a great time. Uh, so, uh, that made me think of that because that was like,

[00:28:53] Brett: I feel like there’s a,

[00:28:54] Christina: the wall in, in a high end restaurant?

[00:28:56] Brett: there’s a litmus, there’s a litmus test much akin [00:29:00] to knowing that Frankenstein wasn’t the monster. Um, and knowing that rat Tui wasn’t the rat

[00:29:06] Christina: Yes.

[00:29:07] Jeffrey: Yeah. Right, right.

[00:29:11] Brett: All right. Can I, can, before we switch to Jeff’s answer, which I want to hear, um, have you guys ever read a deadly education?

[00:29:22] Jeffrey: no.

[00:29:22] Christina: No.

[00:29:23] Brett: It’s, you, you, you said audiobook, and this, I just wanna mention this completely, completely as an aside. Uh, but it’s Harry Potter, except. There are no teachers in the school. The school wants to kill you.

Only a quarter of the graduating class survives. But it’s, it’s magic and it’s lethal. And I started this book and just immediately gotten grossed in it. Like it is what I look forward. I’m, I’m doing the audiobook. It’s part of a trilogy, but a deadly education is the first one. And [00:30:00] it just drops you immediately into this world where magic wants to kill you.

[00:30:05] Christina: Okay. I love

[00:30:06] Brett: e every decision you make is a survival decision. It’s fascinating.

[00:30:11] Christina: Okay. I’m gonna, I’m, I’m gonna put this in my queue of, of things to like, to listen to next. I have an

[00:30:15] Brett: Yeah. I highly recommend it. Very good. All right, Jeff, so what is your answer to this question?

[00:30:23] Jeffrey: Um, it’s funny, I wrote the question and then instantly had an answer as I was writing it. Um,

[00:30:29] Brett: And it didn’t have anything to do with girls' locker rooms.

[00:30:32] Jeffrey: No it did not. Sorry. It’s, this isn’t gonna be, what’s the movie? Oh, what’s the porkies? Thank you very much. Well played Um, okay. So I, from 1998 to 2001, I was traveling back and forth to Iraq, uh, doing like humanitarian work. And then, um, I stopped for a while and then the war happened and I went [00:31:00] back and I went back like, know, does everybody remember the big statue being pulled

[00:31:04] Brett: Mm-hmm. . Sure.

[00:31:06] Jeffrey: I went back, I went back like right after that, right after that, like a day or two after that. Um, so the occupation was pretty new and, and everything was still very confusing. And, um, and, and also it was the, um, first time I had ever experienced a city that I knew, well, this is the only time I ever experienced , a city that I knew well, um, being totally

[00:31:29] Brett: Leveled.

[00:31:31] Jeffrey: not leveled because in Baghdad, like it was a lot of like what they call smart bomb hits, you know?

But, but there were, there were, there was just enough of that kind of stuff that the whole city felt different, even though, you know, other parts were still working, whatever. Anyway, I really love that city, um, and, and really loved the time I was blessed to spend in it. Um, but once the war ended, and especially once the Civil War started, [00:32:00] um, Which, you know, was like 2006 or so when that started, lasted a couple years.

It, it just wasn’t possible to go back. Like I, I had had friends, um, Iraqi and American Kidnapped. I had had, uh, someone who was traveling with my organization was kidnapped and then beheaded. Um, and, and it just wasn’t possible to go and not get someone hurt basically. Um, and, and the place that I would like to go now, because it’s now been since, uh, 2003, since I was there at all.

Um, and of course coming up on the 20th anniversary of the war this month is, um, there was this big hotel called, called the the Palestine Hotel. And. You could go to the restaurant on the top floor, which was like a 360 restaurant. It wasn’t one of those that moved. They had one of those in Baghdad, but this wasn’t that.

But it was like, there were all of these like, um, really high backed booths that you could sit in and kind of see some part of the city. And it was like a perfect place cuz you’re like [00:33:00] right on the Tigers River and um, you could really see how the city’s laid out and how it’s functioning and um, all of that stuff.

And I used to love it cuz like you could go up there and there’d be like young lovers eating cake in the like, private booths, you know? Um, and uh, and people would meet there for various reasons. It was a lovely place to hang out. Um, and I would love to just be plopped. There first in that restaurant to just have sort of a look around the city and see what’s changed because I, it’s not so much that it was all bombed out anymore, it’s that it’s been in a rebuilding process for quite some time.

And, um, and I, and I know exactly how I would be able to see that, um, like which park areas and which whatever else, and just sounds lovely to be able to be there and, and wandering around and not, uh, not getting, Hurts , because that is the sad reality to this day. I mean, I have friends who go, everyone always goes to Northern Iraq, but in [00:34:00] Baghdad, I, I think it’s still not terribly safe for anybody who is your friend if you’re there,

[00:34:05] Brett: Sure

[00:34:06] Jeffrey: So I wanna be dropped in a restaurant too. Um,

[00:34:10] Brett: for entirely different reasons.

[00:34:12] Christina: different.

[00:34:12] Jeffrey: reasons,

[00:34:13] Brett: All

[00:34:14] Jeffrey: oh, and the sunsets. You could watch the sunsets there. It was really awesome. That’s an awesome city, man. I hope, I hope to God one day you, you could just travel there normally and be a tourist. It’s just an awesome city

[00:34:25] Brett: Nice.

[00:34:26] Christina: what do you think would have to happen for that to actually be a reality? Like I, I would hope that too, but I just don’t know geopolitically if that’s ever going to really be a possibility.

[00:34:33] Jeffrey: I have no idea anymore. I used to think I could imagine a pathway to that moment, but the way in which, the way in which the region and, and geopolitical forces generally like shifted or imploded because of that war and the way in which that some of that implosion didn’t happen for five years or 10 years or 15 years.

And the way in which that’s still happening, you know, I can’t imagine. I mean, I [00:35:00] just think I get so frustrated as someone who was working pretty much full-time as an anti-war like organizer and going on TV and radio. Cause I’ve been traveling there. It’s like, like talk about it like that. Um, you know, it’s not even satisfying to say we were right cuz actually we were wrong.

It was bad. We had no fucking idea. How bad it was going to be. Um, you know, we weren’t saying, we weren’t saying, Hey, there’s gonna be a civil war and there’ll be bodies in the street every day that nobody wants to pick up because it’s dangerous to even go out and pick up a body in the street. Right. Like, we weren’t thinking of that.

We weren’t thinking of Syria, we weren’t thinking of the Arab Spring and, and, and where that fits into everything.

[00:35:37] Christina: weren’t thinking 20 years.

[00:35:38] Jeffrey: yeah. And so, I don’t know. I, I don’t know how to, I don’t know how to think about it,

[00:35:43] Brett: You know who you should talk to though is Jared Kushner,

[00:35:47] Jeffrey: yeah, that guy seems to be on top of some shit. Yeah,

[00:35:53] Brett: All right,

[00:35:53] Jeffrey: love to kick him in the shin and flick his ear

[00:35:58] Brett: Um, all, so [00:36:00] my question for you guys would be, since, since we were talking about Michelin Star kitchens,

[00:36:08] Christina: Yes.

[00:36:09] Brett: all right, so envision your last meal. You don’t have to be on death row, but you have the opportunity. You know, you know, this is your last meal for whatever reason. What do you want to eat and where do you want to eat?

[00:36:25] Jeffrey: I’m so, I’m so confused about this question because like I get way too in the weeds right away. Like, I’m like, I’m like, well, if it’s my last meal, I don’t wanna just be jerked around some part of the world and I’m back home and like I wanna be with my people. You

[00:36:38] Brett: snap of the fingers. It’s a snap of the fingers. You’re just suddenly, you’re suddenly where No, no, there’s no travel. You’re just, you have this moment where you get to eat the meal of your choice in the setting that you choose with no other repercussions. And, and if you have any dietary sensitivities, they don’t [00:37:00] apply.

[00:37:02] Jeffrey: I don’t apply.

[00:37:03] Brett: Like for me, like I’m, I’m, uh, gluten and lactose intolerant, so like some of my favorite meals, I, I just, I can’t eat. So for me, this is like a total fantasy thing.

[00:37:18] Jeffrey: Okay. I have one. I have one. I have

[00:37:20] Brett: okay.

[00:37:21] Jeffrey: I don’t know where this location is, but I’m assuming I could almost like, make a request and, and the location would be found. Um, I would love to have, The, the best papu cart in El Salvador’s, papusas as my last,

[00:37:40] Brett: and you want street food.

[00:37:41] Jeffrey: I want street food, but I want Papusas and, and I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna do what always happens when you’re in the States, which is like, oh, maybe they’re gonna be super dry.

They’re never, you can never know they’re gonna be right. I wanna know that they’re right. And I want that to be my last meal with if, if possible. And I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna assume they’re [00:38:00] supposed to have, uh, uh, the cake of another country or anything like that, but if there’s some trace leche cake for dessert sounds great.

[00:38:07] Brett: It’s, it’s your fantasy, man. You, you set the menu.

[00:38:10] Jeffrey: My, my friend Dan and I, um, when we lived in Chicago, we both worked Fit Punk Planet Magazine. He was the, like, founder of Punk Planet Magazine, and we would get Papusas every week and we actually took a community Spanish class just so we could order our papus in Spanish.

[00:38:24] Brett: Wait, Dan, Danny.

[00:38:26] Jeffrey: No, Dan Sinker

[00:38:28] Brett: Oh,

[00:38:28] Jeffrey: different, not Danny Glamor.

[00:38:30] Brett: Oh, I was gonna, if, if he was the founder of, of punk planet, I, I was gonna, I was gonna regret not not, not knowing that at our last interaction. Okay.

[00:38:41] Jeffrey: So we learned just enough Spanish to order in Spanish. That was our goal.

[00:38:44] Brett: Nice. Christina, have you thought of anything?

[00:38:49] Christina: I have. So I think. it would be a John Georges restaurant, and I’m just trying to figure out which one it would

[00:38:56] Jeffrey: Mm.

[00:38:57] Christina: Um, because there are a bunch, [00:39:00] so like I could go like lower end in the John Georges like Pantheon, which is not to say it’s low end cuz it’s still gray. I and say ABC Kitchen, um, in, um, uh, New York City in the Flatiron, um, where I’ve been many times and where I had Thanksgiving once.

Um, and uh, I I I love ABC Kitchen. I think it’s a great restaurant. Um, and it, it has like a nice mix of um, uh, different types of, of foods, but they have really good, um, like pastas and, but also great fish, which he’s known for and, and meats and steaks and other things. There was a John George’s restaurant that I was went to in Sao Paulo in Brazil.

That was at this hotel that, um, one of my coworkers was staying at because she booked the fancy hotel and the rest of us stayed at like the Marriott, like in the city. And she stayed like further out, like this super, super swank hotel cuz she did it right. And like my last day in Brazil, and this was [00:40:00] in, um, early December and it made me think that like, I would love to go to Brazil during, um, new Year’s, some, some year because it’s, uh, warm there.

It’s summer there. And, um, we were like out by the pool and we ate at the, uh, the, this just fantastic restaurant. I had this great risotto and this great, um, uh, uh, these great scallops. Um,

[00:40:22] Jeffrey: That

[00:40:23] Christina: and, and, and then there’s, then there’s John Georges in, in New York City. . But I think honestly the one in Brazil, I think the one in, uh, in Sao Paulo in, in kind of like is outside of the city a little bit.

It’s this beautiful hotel that had this like beautiful pool and, and the restaurant was fantastic. And, um, the food was just great and, and it was just a wonderful location and it was kind of a fusion of a bunch of different things. And so I think that’s one of my favorite restaurants. And, um, I’ve also been to some great restaurants in Paris, but I think that the, the John Georges in, uh, in Brazil is, is where I would have my final meal.[00:41:00]

[00:41:00] Jeffrey: That sounds like fun.

[00:41:02] Brett: Nice. Do you wanna hear my

[00:41:04] Christina: We have to hear your

[00:41:05] Jeffrey: course, we ought to hear answer.

[00:41:07] Brett: I have, I have two and, and come, come end of life, I would have to choose one or the other. Uh, first one would be like a, a neopolitan pizza with a like Italian meal served in Rome wi in a small villa with like a family of 12.

[00:41:28] Christina: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:29] Brett: Like the whole Italian dining experience, like family style, dining experience, um, pizza.

And, and I, I don’t even know, I’m not Italian enough to know what like ideal accompaniments would be, but I envision like a whole meal built around Neapolitan pizza. Um,

[00:41:49] Jeffrey: Yeah.

[00:41:50] Brett: second option is street taco pork. I’m a vegetarian, but this is my last meal.

[00:41:59] Christina: meal, so, [00:42:00] so you’re going all out. Do it.

[00:42:01] Jeffrey: Yep.

[00:42:02] Brett: uh, an aest store pork taco from a street cart in Mexico City,

[00:42:09] Jeffrey: Sounds

[00:42:09] Brett: Eaton at a picnic table.

Streetside, like, that’s, those are my, those are my two competing options for my last meal.

[00:42:19] Jeffrey: Awesome. What are you gonna do? Flip a coin or what?

[00:42:22] Brett: I mean, I, I think it’s whatever I’m in the mood for at the moment, I find out that this is my last meal. It’s, it’s whatever comes to mind first. The way I, when, when we’re talking about like going out for dinner, what I do is I close my eyes and I imagine eating different foods, and I pay attention to the way it makes me feel in my body.

When I imagine the foods and people, when we go out to restaurants, I am always the guy that everyone’s like, oh, I should have ordered that. Uh, because I order , I order, well, like I’m really good at, I’m really [00:43:00] good at examining how is this gonna make me, how, what level of happiness is this dish going to bring me?

And, and imagining it and, and fueling it, and then making my decision. So give, like at the moment, in the moment where someone’s like, this is your last meal, what do you do? I would picture the two. I would see how I felt and, and roll with it.

[00:43:23] Christina: I, I, I have another potential addendum. Patsy’s, you, you said pizza and I was just like, I gotta go

[00:43:28] Jeffrey: Oh yeah.

[00:43:30] Christina: That’s like the best pizza.

[00:43:31] Brett: haven’t been there.

[00:43:32] Christina: It, it, it’s like, probably like the, the best pizza in New York, in my opinion.

[00:43:36] Brett: All right.

[00:43:37] Jeffrey: Yeah, it’s lovely

[00:43:39] Brett: God, I love talking about food. All right, Christina.

[00:43:45] Christina: All right. My question is, um, what was the first thing, like, you know, talking like, like musician or a band or a film or an author or a brand or whatever, like that you were a fan of, like a fan, like your first like, introductory to [00:44:00] fandom, like the first thing that you loved, you know, that you maybe like, had like, would, would, you know, get merch from, or, or, or wanna be, you know, wanna put posters of your wall up of, and, and, and just loved everything about it.

Like beyond just liked, but like, you were a fan of. Uh, and, and then the, the secondary question about is like, are you still a fan of that thing?

[00:44:20] Brett: All right. So I had to think long and hard about this because like I grew up, we weren’t allowed to watch a lot of tv. I wasn’t allowed to buy music. Um, my parents listened to Peter, Paul, and Mary, and like, there just were not a lot of things, but the TV shows I was allowed to watch as a kid, I became fans of.

And I would have to go with Night Rider. Um, like I had, I had the Kit model car, I had the action figure of David Hasselhoff. I had the poster on my, on my room wall. Um, like Night Rider [00:45:00] was the first time that I experienced like, going to bed at night and wondering what Night Rider was doing now, uh, that like, I want into this person’s life and Night Rider.

I mean, secondary secondarily like Buck Rogers. But I would say Night Rider was my first fandom. And no, I’m not still a fan. I’ve seen episodes of it. It doesn’t hold up. Um, I, I, maybe I’m over it. I might be overly critical.

[00:45:34] Christina: the theme song is still fantastic.

[00:45:36] Brett: is

[00:45:36] Jeffrey: did you hear the band? The band Deerhoof made an amazing record recently that integrated that,

[00:45:42] Brett: I haven’t heard that. I’ll check that

[00:45:45] Jeffrey: really amazing.

[00:45:46] Brett: All right. I’m adding a note for the show notes, dear Hoof. All right. That’s what I got.

[00:45:51] Jeffrey: Um, mine. So if we’re talking first, like the first for me, I believe would be Motley [00:46:00] Crew. Um, first time I was exposed to them, it was just to their images. So my, not even my stepbrother yet, cuz our parents were dating and, and I was living and living together. And so he came home and at the bottom of the stairs in our townhouse was a record.

And it was the shout at the devil record, which was, it was the version that had a black front. So it had a black front, a matte front, but the pentagram was gloss and, and it said Motley Cruz name. And I thought, well that looks. Badass and I turned it around and like their photos on that album are just like, there’s flames and they’re wearing that awesome red and black leather leather with like little spikes and shit, and cod pieces and everything.

And I was, I was probably in fourth grade and I was like, that is the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. And, and so I, I got to listen to that record and I, I definitely loved it, but it wasn’t until, um, theater of [00:47:00] Payne came out, um, with their hit home suite home, one of

[00:47:04] Brett: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:04] Jeffrey: hits, um, that I like, truly fell in love with that band.

Um, and, and like w you know, I had. Not just posters, but like door posters. Remember those like the

[00:47:14] Christina: Yeah, yeah,

[00:47:16] Jeffrey: like so many door posters that they had to go on the wall and, um, . And I had like, you know, my, my mom and stepdad worked at this magazine, distribution company, which had like every music magazine.

And so I had tons of like, cutouts

[00:47:31] Christina: so you had all the cutouts, you, you, you had everything. That’s

[00:47:34] Jeffrey: everything enough to like, I had a cutout so I could tape onto my school folders. Like everything I needed to be a fan. And like, and, and I, and I thought about them all the time. I remember buying their VHS like home video. Cause bands used to always have like a VHS home video they called it.

[00:47:50] Brett: Before the Pam and Tommy video

[00:47:52] Jeffrey: not that home video

[00:47:54] Christina: I mean, I, I mean, I mean you did have that home video we’ve all talked about, well, maybe, maybe you didn’t buy it, but we all saw it. We [00:48:00] all saw

[00:48:00] Jeffrey: right, that’s right. But like, you know, it was like them, like just going to band practice and being in the studio and like hanging out chicks. Stupid. It’s stupid. But I, I watched it over and over again and I would buy, like, once Tommy Lee had custom sticks, I used those, those drumsticks for my drumming.

And just to say that the first time my band ever played like a meaningful show, which was all the way in like, probably seventh grade or eighth grade, I guess. I, I actually like, before leaving the house to go to this show, I actually sort of prayed to one of those door posters. I was like,

[00:48:32] Christina: Yeah.

[00:48:33] Jeffrey: dudes, I’m gonna need.

everything I can get tonight. Okay. You know, it was like a battle of bands or something like that. And, um, so yeah, that was it. Like I, I was, I thought about them all the time. I imagined their lives, I imagined myself in their lives, like, did not have an easy time doing that. Um, and they did not hold up, as we all know, if we’ve got YouTube.

Um, not only did they, I mean their, some of their records [00:49:00] did hold up. I can really enjoy the first record. I can really enjoy.

[00:49:03] Brett: Live Wire. Live Wire is still a banging song.

[00:49:06] Jeffrey: and I still love shout at the Devil. I still, I still love some of the, I actually love riffs on every album. I mean, I, I, I fell off at, uh, Dr. Feelgood, but

[00:49:17] Brett: mc Mars was a genius. Vince Neal’s younger voice like

[00:49:21] Jeffrey: yeah.

[00:49:22] Brett: all the way up through like Dr. Feelgood, like his voice was magical,

[00:49:28] Jeffrey: and like as a drummer, I loved the like drummers front man thing. I was like, oh yeah, that’s pretty, that’s pretty sweet. That’s a good idea.

[00:49:36] Christina: were, were, were you in, were like, did you become a drummer because of, because of them, because of Tommy Lee.

[00:49:41] Jeffrey: Did I become, no, I was already a drummer, but he, he just was such a charismatic character, you know, like, I loved how if you watch how his body moves when he is drumming, it’s like there are, there are no drummers that look like that when they’re drumming. Like he just, he had, he, his body was so [00:50:00] into that role.

Um, and, and I just found it amazing and I thought it was great when he was on a crane and being turned upside down and shit. It looks really stupid now. And if you watch the YouTube, we probably talked about this in our first, our first episode together, but like, if you watch the YouTube recordings of those solos, they’re not super good.

And they’re not good because he is upside down. You know? It’s just like, Jesus. One, my, my closing bit on this is one of the things that I enjoyed about the Taylor Hawkins tribute show. Um, the one in LA is that Nikki six. and Tommy Lee played a couple of Motley Crew songs with Foo Fighters and others helping to sing or whatever.

And it was just really cool to like see those songs being performed like super competently and like not in the, not in the context of just utter terrible cheese

[00:50:56] Brett: Yeah,

[00:50:57] Jeffrey: like just hot melting, [00:51:00] drowning cheese. And I was like, oh yeah, these songs are still pretty good . So anyway, that’s mine. What about you, Christina?

[00:51:08] Brett: I’m curious about Christina’s answer to this.

[00:51:11] Christina: So the first thing that I ever loved, the way that you loved Motley Crew, I think, was the TV show saved by the Bell. But when I was like six years old, but the first thing I ever really, really loved and had like an outstanding love for and like I’d merch for, and that, like, I, I didn’t think about it the way that you thought about Molly Crew because when I say what this is, you’ll completely understand why, but that I genuinely loved was Sesame Street.

[00:51:39] Jeffrey: Yes.

[00:51:40] Christina: Sesame Street. Like I loved it so much as a kid and I had like the sleeping bag and I had like the stuffed animals and I would go to Sesame Street Live and I had like, You know, I would watch it and I had the, the, the tapes and, um, I had some of the books and, and [00:52:00] I loved it. I loved it so much and, and I don’t know why I loved, you know, Sesame Street and the Muppets and, and all of it, but it wasn’t just the Muppets, right?

Like I, I, I liked the humans too. Like I wanted to marry Bob and,

[00:52:12] Jeffrey: yeah. Bob.

[00:52:13] Christina: Gordon was great and, and, and Luis, I remember when Luis and Maria got married, like that was like a whole special episode. And like, I loved, loved, loved, love Sesame Street and by extension Jim Henson, like, I just like, loved that.

Um, and, uh, Yeah, I, I’m still a fan. Like I, I still love Sesame Street. I met, um, I was very fortunate that I got to meet Carol Spinney, uh, who, uh, was the voice of Oscar and Big Bird and, and, and, and played Big Bird when he came to Mashable to do a, a collab between, uh, uh, Oscar, the Grouch and Grumpy Cat. And it was, and it was a close set.

And, and, and they let me come in and I was off of a red eye. And I’ll never [00:53:00] forget this, like, I got in at like six or 7:00 AM and I went straight to the office. Like I had like my bags with me. I was just getting in from San Francisco and I, I, I have a photo and I look like shit, but there’s a photo of me and Oscar and I got to meet Carol spinning, and I got to tell him that, like to thank him for my childhood and like, I cried like a baby.

Like I’m gonna cry right now even thinking about it because I got to like tell this guy like, Thank you for that. I had the same thing when I met the, um, the current, uh, voice of Bert, who wasn’t even my Bert, but he was, he was, you know, he took over, um, uh, like I think in the, in the, uh, ladies early nineties cuz I, I don’t remember if Jim Henson was, was a voice of Bert or not.

Um, but, but he, um, took over in the early nineties. So this guy wasn’t even really my Burt and, um, I mean, there might have been some overlap, but, but not, not great one. And I like cried when I met him and I was like, thank you for, for what you do and what you bring out to kids because it’s, it’s [00:54:00] magical what they do and when you know, when you see them.

Especially like when I’ve been able to, luckily been fortunate to see those, uh, puppeteers. How. Are with them. And like it is like they are the puppet is, you know, you don’t even look at the human like you’re interacting with a puppet. It’s, it’s, it’s unreal. And, and, and they, they clearly love what they do so much because they could make more money doing other things.

And everybody who’s involved with, with that, except for I guess the licensing people, uh, could be making so much more money than what they do with, with Sesame Street and, and those types of things. And yet, uh, they do it anyway and, uh, and they do it because they love it and they do it because they, they know that it helps people and because it like, touches kids in like a really special way.

And so, uh, yeah, like I, I will never, always be so grateful that I got to like, tell Carol Spinney like, thank you for, you know, childhood.

[00:54:55] Brett: Yeah. That’s awesome. Did you, do you remember the Muppet babies?[00:55:00]

[00:55:00] Jeffrey: Of course.

[00:55:01] Christina: babies. We make our dreams come true. Yeah. I love

[00:55:04] Jeffrey: There’s your answer.

[00:55:05] Brett: My first, my first rock and roll album was the Muppet Baby’s Rocket to the Moom, which I had on a seven inch record that I played on. I can, I can picture it exactly this like play school record player. I

[00:55:21] Christina: Yeah.

[00:55:22] Brett: Anyway, so, so the Muppet Babies Rocket to the Moom was like, I had, I literally only listened to classical and I had heard a little bit of the Boston Pops, um, uh, like classical versions of pop songs and like the Star Wars theme and stuff like that. But I had never heard a four on the floor rock and roll.

[00:55:45] Jeffrey: roll

[00:55:47] Brett: Up until that point, and the Muppet babies rocket to the Moom Moom, I was like, snap, snap. Oh, I get this, like this, this speaks to my soul. And, and that was the beginning of a [00:56:00] journey into rock and roll for me. But I absolutely owe it to the Muppet babies.

[00:56:04] Jeffrey: that’s awesome. I love it. I love it. I, you were, when you brought them Muppet babies and, and when Christina brought up, um, Sesame Street, I was like, wait, mine is Garfield I had like the bedspread, I had, I got all the books from my parents'

[00:56:21] Brett: is, what is what, what about Garfield Garners any kind of obsession?

[00:56:27] Jeffrey: Yeah. No, I

[00:56:28] Christina: Brett, there there are a lot of people who love Garfield is actually kind of

[00:56:30] Brett: really?

[00:56:31] Jeffrey: I will say that when my kids had a Garfield phase, I was like, I don’t remember why I liked this, but I loved him.

He was a grump. He didn’t like Mondays. He was like, he was sassing off to the, to the clueless adult in his life. You know,

[00:56:47] Brett: you, did you also love Kathy?

[00:56:50] Jeffrey: no, I wasn’t the Kathy fan,

[00:56:52] Christina: See and I only knew Gar. No, no, no. Was this just the comic strip? I was gonna say cuz I remember Garfield primarily from the animated show and, [00:57:00] and

[00:57:00] Jeffrey: I watched the cartoon. I watched the cartoon, but I was a huge fan of the books which I could get at my parents' work. And yes, that is the same place that that carried all the porn. Um,

[00:57:11] Christina: Because they,

[00:57:11] Jeffrey: and, and I, and I also,

[00:57:13] Christina: stuff. Yeah.

[00:57:14] Jeffrey: also just loved those books were rectangular. Um, they were all the same size and, and I loved how they were different.

They felt different from any other book, which was really exciting. But another fan thing I realized that ties back to one of our conversations from last episode is that. When I, because again, my, my parents worked at a magazine distribution company, which means that I was regularly in a warehouse, massive Costco size warehouse full of every magazine that exists and a lot of romance novels.

And, um, and so I had, I would come home, one visit, I would fill a box with Circus Magazine, hit Parader, Quang, like all these, uh, in this case, like kind of rock hard, rock and metal magazines and, you know, rolling Stone and I mean, everything, right? And so I had a [00:58:00] knowledge about the bands I loved that was quite current, given that there was no internet because I was constantly reading the newest interviews with them or, or reviews or whatever it was.

And I, I don’t think about that often enough. I had, I had something much closer to the internet than most of my friends by being able to, you know, there was a magazine called Soldier of Fortune. Soldier of

[00:58:22] Brett: Oh man.

[00:58:23] Jeffrey: and, but be, before they got busted for it, there were people in the back advertising their services as mercenaries.

Yeah. Like, I mean, like, I, I had the whole, there was a magazine called Prison Life. Like I, it was just like I had everything in front of me. Anyhow, I’m going off on a

[00:58:39] Brett: You can, you can imagine how a kid from my background grew up with a certain survivalist bent. Um, that is, that is common for fundamentalists. Um, but yeah, like, uh, I used to run around in the woods with, uh, an army helmet and full camo, and we would read Soldier of Fortune and, um, you know, [00:59:00] imagine someday when we could offer our mercenary services to people in the back of Soldier of Fortune,

[00:59:06] Jeffrey: I mean, what’s crazy is in this case, right, these were Vietnam vets. It was pretty

[00:59:10] Brett: Uh oh, yeah.

[00:59:11] Jeffrey: these were guys that were like, the war’s been off for 10 years and I don’t know what to do with myself.

[00:59:16] Brett: It, it was, it was for real. It was scary shit.

[00:59:20] Jeffrey: that’s a funny to go from Muppet babies to that

[00:59:23] Brett: Soldier of Muppet babies. Um,

[00:59:26] Jeffrey: this

[00:59:27] Christina: although, although, although Muppet babies did so many parodies, you know, cause that was their

[00:59:30] Jeffrey: yeah, that’s a good point.

[00:59:32] Christina: you, you, you could imagine them doing like a parody of like

[00:59:35] Jeffrey: Totally. Totally. Yes.

[00:59:39] Brett: of Fortune. I I would watch that. I would watch that.

[00:59:43] Jeffrey: uh, show title. Um, this has been awesome.

[00:59:50] Christina: will.

[00:59:50] Brett: Yes. Um, so we only in each episode we got through one question each. We could continue to do this. I say we put it out to the listeners. [01:00:00] If you wanna hear another episode of, of Christina, Brett and Jeff interviewing each other with pie in the sky questions. Uh, let us know. Otherwise we will get back to our regular programming.

We are now the, the we. So full transparency, we did this, uh, two part series. We recorded it in one day because we want to get on a Monday publishing schedule. Uh, so we have weekends to edit and we needed to get a week ahead. So we did this long Saturday.

[01:00:32] Jeffrey: Sorry, Garfield.

[01:00:34] Brett: Sorry, Garfield. Um, and, and we are now officially back on track, uh, with sponsors and whatnot, so we are happy to continue doing this.

This has been truly a blast and, uh, uh, an in-depth look into psyches, um, that I’ve really enjoyed. But we can also get back to the usual, the usual Overtired shtick. [01:01:00] Um, so let us know. Let us know. Ping us, ping us on Twitter. Um, our, our Macedon account that doesn’t exist yet. Or on the discord or, or you know, if you Yeah,

[01:01:14] Christina: whatever. And, and also let us know, like, uh, if you have suggestions for where we should go for Mask on or what we should do for that. Or if you want us there, like if you’re there, like, we’d love to hear from, from you, the listeners, if that’s something that we should, we should be investing in, uh, for the

[01:01:28] Brett: yeah.

[01:01:29] Jeffrey: One, one final recommendation to everybody, including and especially you two. Have you ever seen Garfield minus Garfield online?

[01:01:36] Christina: Yes.

[01:01:37] Jeffrey: Garfield

[01:01:38] Christina: one

[01:01:38] Jeffrey: strips with Garfield removed,

[01:01:40] Christina: It’s

[01:01:40] Jeffrey: and John, John goes from like introspective to totally insane. I put a link in the show notes. It’s magical. Garfield minus Garfield

[01:01:49] Christina: It’s absolutely the best. I haven’t thought about them forever, but yeah. That, that is, that’s like one of those like peak, like, like that, that’s like one of those, like, like, like late, late, late, late odds, early 2010s. [01:02:00] Like things that’s just like such like a perfect, like encapsulation of like that, like time on the

[01:02:07] Jeffrey: Like the GI Joe PSAs. Do you remember those? Did you

[01:02:09] Christina: Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Cause cuz yeah. Oh yeah. Cause

[01:02:12] Jeffrey: the ones that were turned into, they were dubbed over.

[01:02:15] Christina: Well, yeah, cuz Garfield, mine, Garfield was, was, was a, was a Tumblr or, or still is a Tumblr, I guess.

[01:02:21] Jeffrey: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. The, the GI Joe PSAs would be like a kid fell his bike and the GI Joe Guy shows up and instead of saying what he actually says, he says, who wants a body massage? Anyhow, all right. Get some sleep.

[01:02:40] Brett: Get some sleep.

[01:02:41] Christina: and get some

[01:02:42] Outro: The.