Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang - "The Meaning of Mariah Carey": A Book Club Moment

Episode Date: October 14, 2020

What we have here is basically one long gag over Mariah's memoir. Matt and Bowen are blown away and show their big loves. This episode contains violence and adult language.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Yeah, you can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts or on the iHeartRadio app. Hey, y'all. Niminy here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman historical records brings history to life

through hip hop. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to historical records. Listen to historical records on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Look man. Look, Matt. Where?

Oh, I see. Wow. Oh, and look over there. Wow. Is that culture? Yes. Oh, my goodness. Wow.

Las Culturistas. Ding dong. Las Culturistas calling. Ooh. Mm-hmm. I can tell you will have emotions. You've, she's got you feeling emotions. She's got me feeling emotions.

In fact, I have to just do this right now because it's such a happy occasion. Oh my God. Oh my God, it got all over me. It got all over me. It got all over her. But that's actually okay because this is such a,

I popped a little bottle of champagne for everyone at home and it just got all over me because we are celebrating today. New York Times bestseller. The New York Times bestseller that is now my favorite book is, it's more than just a book to me. It's a piece of living history. It's a historical document. The Meaning of Mariah Carey. And today we're going to do The Meaning of Mariah Carey Book Club.

I can't wait for this. I was looking forward to this all week. The only person I would finish a book for on a week like this for two people, you and Mariah. Go back like babies that pass a fire. Fires. Oh, we have to talk about. Oh, we sure do. Well, what a genius. First of all, can we just say a genius for wanting to include ODB in that track and directing the music video? This whole thing warrants its own conversation. So I think what let's, let's get to that.

But I just wanted to ask you because I kind of threw this out there last week. And I wasn't sure if you'd want to do it because I know that you don't have the most time because you guys are hashtag in season at SNL. And I know that you're not historically as big of Mariah fan or a lamb as I am, but I'm not, and I wasn't in the lambily. I feel like I have a profound understanding and appreciation and admiration for Mariah Carey.

Now, I mean, it's truly, I feel a little bit transformed. Should we just get into it? What do you think? I would love to hear from you what your broad impressions were. I want to hear everything that you experienced while reading the book i want to know what you felt i i'm i'm i have we have not spoken about it at all i only saw your twit twit your tweet earlier today saying that you loved it so so please tell me everything well i like you i saw your twit and you had said that you were in actual real tears finishing the book and i I was like, oh God, I bet she just really dazzles you with the ending.

And boy, did she. Got really fucking emotional because this was the week that I needed to hear all of that, I think. I'm going to say something crazy and truly I will allow people to come from my head when I say this, especially the beginning.

It read like a modern day tony morrison book it read like something so like to borrow a phrase from asia o'hara like etched in sorrow do you know what i'm saying yeah her name was etched in sorrow and now it's flashing flashing in lights really you see michaela angela davis's name on the cover and you're like okay she's being very upfront about having a ghostwriter. Good for her. But from the beginning, you read this book and you're like, okay, there's so much raw detail here and specific detail here that it could only have come from her. And she's an artist and she's a writer. She's good with words. It's like,

I'm willing to say that she probably wrote a majority of this book and probably like, and she's friends with Miss Davis and it's just like, okay, like, why don't you get this credit? But like so much of it can only could only have come from her. That's my thought. Yeah. I think it's always interesting whenever people want to have the conversation about how much of it was quote unquote actually written by the artist or the person at the center because for me it's like there's no doubt in my mind being the lifelong and i mean lifelong fan that i am of mariah that this sounds like her is completely in her voice and the thing about her is the fans know that she really does write all of her music and so or the vast vast majority of her music and lyrically this sounds like her you know what i mean like yeah in terms of the prose of it all you know maybe it wasn't all totally

authentically coming from only her but this is her voice you know what i mean like this and this this book impressed me so much because it it got across um it was such beautiful writing, but yet it also did sound like her the whole way through. For me, reading this was very, it actually was very emotional for me. Of course, of course. And I was thinking of you the whole time. And before you keep going, I'm sorry. I just, I think it's worth pointing out that you and I are as old as her career.

Not as old, but it's like, she's, it's MC30. Like we're 30 years old. It's like, like Vision of Love came out when we were, the year we were born. Like I feel like that has some, I don't know, like coincidental meaning, but it's like, that's important, I think. Yeah, to me, like weirdly numerically, Mariah always seems to line up with me.

Like, and I'll say, I said it on the podcast last week, but I will say definitively, I have so gone back and forth on this question over the years doing this podcast and when we pose this question to other guests it's always in the back of my mind but for me the culture that made me say culture was for me is and was mariah and so this was really like extremely up and down experience for me to read this because she really has like her music really has been there for me like through my entire life and i mean i could get into specifics as we as we go through it but

you know hearing that she struggled as much as she did and she came from the place that she came from and it was you know her passion and talent and love for what she was doing that was really the only thing that saved her and got her to where she was doing that was really the only thing that saved her and got her to where she is which is one of the greatest of all time um it was just extremely inspiring and while i was so devastated for her in the in the dark parts of this book i obviously recommend it to everyone because this is a book not only about like triumph over struggle it's it's so reveals and explores so many themes in her life that are so specific to her and yet can feel so universal while also being a total celebration of her music and of music in general that any music

fan would love this book and anyone with understanding, which is within even a vague understanding of who Mariah Carey is, I think would be enriched in reading it because it's like truly like a human triumph. I can't say enough about what this book means to me and what she means to me and what all of her music means to me and always has. I love that.

And I will say as someone who is only really getting the media packaged version of her narrative from the sidelines just being like oh okay she got married to that sony guy my sort of downloading of mariah carey has only been second hand and that i did not put in the work myself to be like, okay, what is, what is she about? Like what is informing this behavior? Because some of the behavior is like fun and silly and juicy and like,

oh my God, isn't she being such a diva? But like all of it. And I mean, all of it makes sense to me now, all of it down to, down to the, I don't know her of it all.

Like that fully tracks in my, in my sort of thinking now and it's like oh yes of course this is how you would sort of approach this and of course you were traumatized by the way that your career is sabotaged at the hands of your ex-husband who then like went behind your back and then like gave swiped you twice in order to give this other artist like you know like a moment a thing whatever and i'm just like okay this all makes sense to me now and even if like even if anyone out there i haven't really read this i feel like it is pretty universally being acclaimed this book yeah but even for someone who's just like well it's probably like a really strategic sort of pr thing and blah blah blah but i'm like no like this is something this is like a fully contoured

illustration of her life I think oh it's passionately written and written with care and detail and research into her own family history I mean this is a this is a labor of love you can tell and I will say she has I listened to the audiobook so did you she has yet again changed the game in a in a new medium because the audio books are not going to be the same now after this. No, you're right. You're right. 100%. Girl, you have done it again.

Jester, you have done it again. And I also say Jester because she's so funny throughout this book. Funny. So funny. And I love when she cracks herself up. And there's just moments in the book where she starts singing there's a particular refrain that is like really important to lambs which is the opening of close my eyes which is and like when when that jumped out in that moment

where she's in the bath not jumped out when that jumped out and then when she's in the bath after her concert the first concert she had had where she was taping a special and she realized she had a lot of fans. That she was famous, yeah. Right, and she gets home and gets in the bath for her relaxing moment and that just sort of comes to her. The way the tears sprung to my eyes, because I associate that obviously with the Butterfly album.

And I've said it many times on this podcast that the Butterfly album is my favorite album of all time because I associate it with the point of my childhood where it was the first time I ever truly, really connected to lyrics. Because I'll just say this flat out right now. So when I was seven, eight years old is when the music of Butterfly started coming out. That was when Honey came out as a single. And then it was followed by My All and the whole Butter butterfly album that I just sat and drenched myself in. It was the first time I felt like an artist that I was listening to purposely was like really meaning what they were saying and lyrically and musically, they were

alive in what they were doing. And then I went back and listened to everything she had ever done. My dad was actually a fan of hers. And we had the music cd just in the house so um i ended up listening to that and from there on like i think it was around that time that i started realizing that i was different i didn't i don't think i had the words for gay i don't think i had the words for queer or whatever but the themes that she explores throughout butterfly of liberating yourself and um you know not for nothing but discovering your sexuality, because that was very much what was happening on that album. She talks a lot about how- Post divorce, yeah.

Yes, exactly. And during the divorce and as she exited the divorce, that was when there was a real commitment to hip hop in her music and a real sort of embracing of real sensuality in her lyrics. Whereas she discusses a lot how her early pop songs were like dream lover and fantasy. Adult contemporary. And I'm talking lyrically, the object of her songs being fake people. Whereas people that she wasn't writing towards, they were just abstractions. Yeah. Yes.

And so deep in that music that i just felt it in my bones like i i remember i felt the song the roof in my bones i was eight i had no concept of what it felt like to be stifled and then be able to like have a sexual moment with someone or a romantic moment with someone on a roof as the rain falls but with dj and i just want to say like y'all this is i actually the other night patrick and joel were over at the house and i made them listen to the roof because oh it's beautiful beautiful song such a genius song you guys and like i have made a playlist and i actually made a beginner's playlist of mariah for those who aren't really lambs who want an entry point and i made a more intermediate playlist for those that kind of want to delve into her more deep cut stuff and the

roof is the first track on my other on my second playlist but this is down to even the rain hitting her skin and like the physicalization of that when you really match that up with what she's going through which is a deep discovery of her own sexuality and sensuality which as we know is such a huge part of mariah carey yes that was such a moment and i will never forget discovering that with the door closed when i was eight years old just like you know whatever but um it it means something so much to me like the song my all means so much to me. Like the song, my all means so much to me. The song butterfly means so much to me. Like, so to have her delve into the creation of that album in such rich detail was a dream for me. Like it was,

it was euphoric for me, like to have her, to have her explain just how these lyrics came to her and those feelings and those emotions. And she so vividly portrayed that night with Dark Jeter. She devotes a whole chapter in the book to that night. Yes. Yeah. And then that was sort of the source material of the song.

And this, I mean, I love hearing you talk about this and hearing you talk about the door being closed. Are you saying that you touched yourself to that song? No, that was a couple of years before I started jacking off. In fact, the first time I ever jacked off, do you want to know what song was playing?

Was it honey? A song about come? No, it was another song that had come in it. It was come my lady, come, come my lady. Oh my God.

It was butterfly by crazy town, crazy town. And which is so funny. That was a hot music video though. That would, that music video was hot. Yeah. But I was like,

that was when I sexually discovered myself like a couple of years later. And I didn't even know I was like gay yet. It was just like, whatever. But what I guess what I'm saying about the, um, the butterfly album, it was the first time I ever like let myself seep into

something that felt like a little bit more adult than i was used to sure i felt like there is like a weird thing where i associate her self-discovery in that album with my own beginning of self identification as being different and like you know not for not for nothing, but at the same time, like, this is probably something I haven't really talked about on the podcast or really, I don't ever talk about too much, but when I was very young, like, I don't know how it was for you moving around so much and, you know, not speaking the language and, you know, obviously visually appearing to being a different race than the other kids like i was became so aware of my like an abstract sense i was like aware of my queerness just knew i was different and i developed

like a real social anxiety like i did it was very hard for me to make new friends like i i was not good at making new friends and um her music was such a comfort to me at that time like i remember like i was having like a panic what i can now realize was panic attacks like when the bus would be on the corner to pick me up like a couple times i even threw up at my bus stop because i was so afraid of not being able to sit with someone or like a couple times when i the bus is like raised and i would sort of i thought it would be cool to like get up on the bus fast and i would fall and like just like really stupid shit but like you were just choreographing you

just had such anxiety around i had such anxiety around everything around every social interaction and so her music at that time was like such a big part of my life that like i associate it with comfort in that way and i'll always feel like safe and warm when I'm listening to that album. Wow. And even the honey imagery, the warmth of that song and the way it feels. And there's so much about being a kid that doesn't fit in. Because this is really when she starts to tackle her own childhood in a way. Like maybe I grew up a little too soon as the lyric in the,

in close my eyes. And she describes herself as a wayward child and stuff like that. Like, obviously I can't compare what I was going through in my childhood to the horrors that she experienced, which now, you know why she identified with the script like precious, but it's,

I just, it's always going to be so important to me always i mean that album was her sort of opening the lid a little bit i know it's like she makes the whole point of not just abandoning numerals not really really tracking her age. She doesn't mention her age once. She mentions her age in these important developmental moments, but she's not like, I'm 50 now. She doesn't speak in those terms.

But it's like from the moment she moved, and Ernest was working in music and was trying to make it to a Schenectady show where she was like, Oh my God, I'm famous.

What? And then that's like a benchmark, but it was still, but then even, even from that point to her divorcing from Tommy Mottola, it's like, there is this there, she was sort of being held in some like panopticon or she was being like

held captive in some way through her family or she was being like held captive in some way through her family or through her husband or through her labels, her label, I should say through Sony specifically and then Virgin, but it's like, honey, you could see, you could tell was like the sort of first crack in the like emancipation that

would come later, you know? Yeah. Right. You know, even in the music video, like she talks, she just got, she escapes. Yeah. right. You know, even in the music video, like she talks, she discusses.

Yeah, she escapes, yeah. Yeah, she's doing this James Bond sort of thing. She's Agent M. And so she is, she escapes from this mansion that she's being held in and sheds the little black dress that she always had to wear. And, you know, she she sort of in that moment like

literally sheds that skin in the pool when she jumps into it and becomes mariah carey like that she would be forever you know what i mean and also at that time it was so interesting because another thing i've been doing is i've been watching a lot of media that she has done throughout the years. And I remember there was two things I heard about Mariah Carey in the very beginning. Because I was like a big Celine Dion fan. Like it was just the Titanic thing was she was everywhere, as you know. Yeah. Especially from like your perspective, like the French Canadian-ness of it all.

Yes. But she was huge, obviously. And I was like, I've always been like a protective stem. Like, even back then, like my mom was like, you know. Of Celine or Mariah? Of Celine at the time. Of anybody. Like, but yes.

But my mother said to me at the time, she was like, you know, if you like Celine Dion so much, you might like Mariah Carey. Mariah Carey is one of my favorites. And I was like, who is that? And she was like, well, she's an amazing singer. And I remember my mother said to me at the time she does she does dress a little you know like but you know but but she that was like that was like you know what i mean like that was like the narrative around her was like yeah all of a sudden she was dressing like quote-unquote like slutty um and she was um

she was like scantily clad all the time yeah yeah but i think it was just because as she details in the book like through the first like six seven years of her career she was maybe allowed to show a little bit of cleavage and a little bit of like navel and that was it and this is someone who is deeply in her bones a sexual sensual person and was never allowed to be that to the point where it was physically manifesting in herself how uncomfortable she was all the time. I mean, that passage where she's with her acting coach,

that was crazy. But I remember those were the things I had heard about her were like, you know, she is a little bit, you know, on the edgy side in terms of how she dresses and she's got an amazing voice. And then I got into her and I just connected with her. She is a little bit, you know, on the edgy side in terms of how she dresses. And she's got an amazing voice. And then I got into her and I just connected with her. But your mom was saying that was the reputation before Butterfly even? No, no, no, no.

This was when Honey had come out and then like Butterfly was happening. That's when I first like became conscious of who she really was. And then it was like all broke open for me. That's when I first became conscious of who she really was. And then it was all broke open for me. And there was no one who stood anywhere near her in terms of my own devotion at that point. Sure. And by the time Rainbow came out, it was like, oh, wow. She's fully leaning into this sex pot image. like there's just a oh god there's a song that still holds up um in like any sort of makeout or sex playlist um off of rainbow that i that i still use which is bliss which is like six minutes long

and it's just her going yeah that's all the song is and it's so good and it's still it's just timeless it's timeless she this is the thing. And she always talks, she talks about Marilyn Monroe being this inspiration for her. But the reason why I think, and what sort of drives her and motivates her subconsciously in her art is she wants to create things that are timeless. Timeless. Yes.

She's driven by that in every sense. And like, I feel like, I think this book itself is timeless. I would agree. I think it's sort of reshaping the celebrity memoir in a certain way I mean certainly raises the bar it raises the bar for that for her ilk do you know what I'm saying

it's like definitely it's like you know if let's say Celine were to write a book like it would have to be so it would have to get so fucking real about the fact that Renee Angelil came onto her when she was 14 years old. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like,

yeah. And I guess that's the thing too, is it's like, I question whether or not Celine would or could get that. That's right. And for me, that's, that's what connects me to Mariah Carey is there's a deep honesty to her

that has really always been there. If you look at her lyrics and because she has been telling her story for years and she's even said a lot of this stuff before, but she's able to spell it out in such explicit detail here that you're right. Does raise the bar for stuff like this because it's so beautifully explored but you know and you've you've you've like talked about this like sort of like whatever off off the air off off the record off the pod but you're just like oh no she's like she's changed in the last two years it's since 2018 um and she's been writing this book for two to three years um but because i was going to bring up the fact that four or five years ago the mariah carey of the mid-aughts or no no the mid-teens whatever you want to call them yeah was still pretty cagey about stuff in general was was very

like reactionary to things that would happen to her in the media was very not in control of the narrative, still sort of at the mercy of like the publicist industrial complex, like the publicity industrial comp, whatever you want to call it. Something has happened maybe since she like came out with that whole, like I'm bipolar thing, not to, not to reduce it,

but like, or she's, since she came out as bipolar a few years ago, since then there's, there's been some shift where she is being, I think, very radically transparent about. The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City are back.

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I'm NK and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big sudden

swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you

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And guess what? Haunting is back, dropping October 22nd, just in time for spooky season. Now, I know you've probably been wandering the mortal plane, wondering when I'd be back to fill your ears with deliciously unsettling stories. Well, wonder no more, because we've got a ghoulishly good lineup ready for you. Let's just say things get a bit extra. We're talking spirits, demons, and the kind of supernatural chaos that'll make your Halloween season complete. You know how much I love this time of year.

It's the one time I'm actually on trend. So grab your pumpkin spice, dust off that Ouija board, just don't call me unless it's urgent, and tune in for new episodes every week. Remember, October 22nd, the veils are thin, the stories are spooky, and your favorite ghost host is back and badder than ever. Listen to Haunting starting on October 22nd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think she might be

genuinely happy. I think that she's very happy with Tanaka. I'm not exactly sure what the nature of their relationship is now, even after reading the book. She just kind of describes him as a beautiful person in her life. And I'm so happy that she has that and that that was not just some weird thing

that was a stunt thing for the docuseries slash reality show that it became, the Mariah's World moment when she was... That's what I'm talking about. She was being badly managed by Miss Stella. Stella, oh my God. I don't think so, honey. Stella.

Oh, 100%. She's the definition of an I don't think so, honey. A villain in her life. And I'm so happy god she's i don't think so honey stella 100 she's the definition of an i don't think so honey a villain in her life and i'm so happy that she's gone but i think that that might have something to do with it also the fact of the matter is you know mariah is very honest in this book she's not perfect and no how could you be she's been through so fucking much and she's also and she discusses this a lot in the book a real victim of that paparazzi culture yeah and she and the fact that she was able to survive that glitter moment when the entire world did did want to see her tear torn down because she was there was no one bigger and how juicy

is it for someone to fail so spectacularly of course and that was at that time when there was no awareness about like what bullying was in that kind of context it was just like ha ha look at her look stupid now's our chance um that we're all guilty of participating in but i think that someone that's been through something like that doesn't just automatically know how to respond in this way and what i really liked the passage in this book that i really liked was when she discusses seeing princess die at an event i was gonna bring that up yeah and they have that moment of looking each other in the eyes and they really saw each other they kind of saw they were both victims of this thing that was paparazzi and media

and this this narrative of um the bigger are, the harder they must fall. I believe that, yeah. And I think there was a real recognition there. And she says, she wishes that Princess Diana had lived to get an Instagram or a Twitter or to be able to have her own voice and to watch what I thought was a really beautiful way of saying it the people become the press you know what i mean like she maybe would have stood more of a chance if she would have seen that there was an end date there was an expiration on that culture that even mariah says killed her and and would have killed mariah had she not, you know, had gotten lucky, to be honest. Sure.

I mean, I did get a chill when I read that part where she was like, social media, you know, for all its faults or whatever, has at least rendered tabloids completely meaningless. There's no power in them anymore. And of course, like, we've always known them to be ridiculous and terrible but it's like oh no they but there is no like when are you ever going to pick up um an us weekly anymore yeah the sun exactly never this sun it's like who fucking cares and they're all toxic horrible septic tank fucking rags anyway. But I mean, I did, I understand what she's saying about the Diana thing. And I do believe her when she felt the moment of connection and it's like, oh, what a profound moment.

And like, absolutely, like please say that you have something in common with Princess Diana because you are one of the only people who like at that time could maybe make that claim. But the way the way the way she worded it which was i wish princess diana had lived long enough to get an instagram yeah i mean this it was kind of funny like to say like i get what you say i wish she had lived

to have an instagram or an instagram i i think i think that she probably read that back and was like i'm gonna run a risk of people, like trolling me for this sentence. No, it's not a troll-worthy thing. No, I genuinely believe that it's a funny line, but I do think she believes it because I think that ultimately, like she just wishes that someone like that could have had a voice of her own.

Of course. But let's just kind of, I don't know, for context, I guess, if it matters, like that's still happening with Meghan Markle. Still happening in some way where she is being fucking destroyed by the British tabloid media. Yeah. Well, they're so vicious. I mean, they're terrible. If you think that they're bad in America or have been bad in Americaica they are out for blood in the uk i mean it is it is

relentless and they are not happy until someone like really crashes and burns and it's really really fucking dark and it's also incredibly racist and um that is also at the heart of so many of the attacks that she has faced over the years mariah carey and i also thought i was so curious to hear what you thought of you know just how huge a part her biracialness played in everything like just hearing about how she didn't feel like she belonged with literally anyone throughout her childhood i I believe it. I believe it. And I honestly, in the sense strange maybe,

but looking at the photos that are in the insert that are in the book, if you buy the hard copy, I look at those photos and I'm like, that's a sad kid. Do you know what I'm saying? Yes. Like that's a sad fucking kid. And I know that sounds like scared kid.

It's a scared kid. And I believe, I believe it when and even when she was a teenager because because you think because if you if you want to like go backwards and try to extrapolate and think of Mariah Carey as she was before she was famous and you you're also you're picturing maybe some model of like the glamorous version of Mariah Carey that we all know now yeah you even see these photos of her as a teen and she's still like she still seems like a little in her shell and a little of her as a teen and she's still like she still seems like a little in her shell and a little sheltered and just like and she went to beauty school and

then she kind of like had fun with her look but it's still like yeah she was she was holding these terrible heavy things in her with coming from a broken family just being biracial having these siblings who were um you know sort of broken in their ways it it was just really heavy just really heavy and and of course and the moment that a lot of people have talked about especially in interviews with her over this um book releases um you know that moment when she goes to the sleepover in the hamptons and these girls lock her in a room and just chant the n-word at her yeah she basically thought she was going to hang out with friends she thought she maybe finally was gonna fit in with this group of

white girls that she went to school with and um they didn't they weren't explicitly privy to the fact that she her father was black because mariah we should just say she has a black father she has an irish mother um which presents a lot of very interesting and sort of tragic consequences later when Mariah's mother weaponizes her privilege against her family in many, many very crazy ways. girls that she's hanging out with find out that she's part black and they essentially bum rush her like by hounding her like cornering her in a closet and screaming like the n-word at her traumatizing her for years and she says she blocked it out

until she was writing the book yeah yeah yeah and this is I was watching the beginnings of her um the Oprah conversation on Apple TV plus fabulous interview. I haven't finished it, but Oprah star of deer. We love deer star of deer,

Oprah, Oprah. And, um, like, I think like one of the first things they talk about is how Mariah. Well, Oprah's like,

you know, you taught, you kind of like air out a lot of the conflicts you've had in your life. And then Mariah goes, well, I feel like I'm just writing to things where the, where someone else drew first blood. And I'm like,

yes, that is actually completely correct. And I don't think it's one of those things where it's like, oh, she's framing it. Like she's being revisionist in whatever way to make it seem like she's been victimized her whole life. No,

but it's this thing where her family was exploiting her. The industry was exploiting her. I mean the press, whatever, but it's like, but then, but down to like these like core things where she was, she was experiencing racism,

poverty, you know, divorce and all of these like different dynamics. I don't know. That's just that, That just has to be considered anytime you think about Mariah Carey. I think that is- Yeah.

And you know, another thing that's in the book and couldn't possibly have been planned for this moment, but couldn't feel more prescient in this moment is her family's, unfortunately, repeated experiences where police would come to their house

because her black father would get into physical altercations with her darker skin, but still biracial brother. And she says in the book that the calling of the police, which often was her mother doing that would almost always heighten the violence and almost always aggravate the situation because another reason i sort of feel like i understand her on a deeper level too is she is from long island and i can tell you long island is extremely segregated and i can't express this enough like people that live there don't really understand that that's what it is because they think the word segregation and they think. People that live there don't understand what you're saying?

I don't think they do. I don't think a lot of people that live there and haven't left. I don't think they would use the word segregated to explain how Long Island is made up. I really don't. But that's exactly what it is. I mean, like wealthier people live some areas, and they're white. And then there are the, quote unquote, bad areas of Long Island. And this is the way it's said to you as a white kid.

And those are the, oftentimes, it's the inner part of the island. It's the parts that are not by the water. And those are the places where it's mostly black people or people of color. And I don't think that people really understand that live there just how much they're of racial division that there is. And so in reading this, I was thinking to myself like, Jesus,

like what that must have been like to live in an extremely predominantly white place and be the one like mixed race family. It's just, and then the police get called and you've got violent people in the house. And the one police officer, she says, said to the other one, it'll be a miracle if this kid survives. And it kind of is. It'll be a miracle if this kid survives and it kind of is it'll be a miracle if this kid makes it i think because i remember thinking like oh like that's such an interesting like way of

that's such a whatever like linguistic i don't know if you want to call it that thing where it's like oh she makes it she survives she makes it she like succeeds as an artist right i think that this this actually this was the moment where her brother pushes her mother as hard as he can against the wall and her mother just laid there in a slump and there had been a loud crack and he leaves the house and she gets on the phone and calls a family friend and um she describes it as being in a sort of paralysis and she just mustered enough emotional energy to call the police. And this is just like this is where I say, like, you know, of course, she was gravitated to a script like Precious and was so good in a film like that, because I don't think anyone really understood the specifics of what her life was like. Of Mariah's life.

Yeah. of Mariah's life yeah no like I the witnessing of extreme violence like that in your own family in your own home the lack of a safe space anywhere has to damage you on a level that is unimaginable um yeah I mean I grew up with a lot of fights amongst my parents and that they got violent and physical and I mean that's that still stays and it was nothing it was nothing quite like what she experienced um but it's still something that like it just it just like exceeds your own body and physical space in the way that like the scar tissue is just there i cannot imagine imagine. It's true. It etches into you. And for that to be repeated has to be like, God.

I mean, yeah, I have the passage pulled up. One of the cops looking down at me, but speaking to another cop besides him said, if this kid makes it, it'll be a miracle. And that night I became less of a kid and more of a miracle. Wow. I mean, yeah, if this kid makes it,

I was just like, that's so interesting. Well, because the thing is like, you can't talk about this book without talking about where she came from. And I was saying like how on Long Island, we were talking about her biracial identity and like how that can't have been a comfortable place to be like in the early 70s on Long Island.

Where being a biracial kid probably was so so such an anomaly oh rare as fuck also her her mother being disowned on long island yeah for for wanting to be with a black man like all of that all this sort of shame that was hoisted upon probably every member of the family also you know mariah being the closest child of the three to quote unquote passing, as they say, the, the resentment that came from her toxic older siblings. Yeah.

And then, you know, the brother is just a piece of fucking shit. And he ended up becoming a manipulative, toxic person who I couldn't believe was in her life for as long as he was. The sister, Alison, that is a whole fucking can of worms that's tough that's tough because she i mean everyone in this story is sympathetic to some level even even if they're as despicable as pat allison and morgan i feel like i i feel like i'm sympathetic towards allison

i feel like i'm sympathetic towards morgan i feel like i'm sympathetic towards mariah's mother i feel like these are these are like it's like i said like i there there's some morrison s quality there's just some tragic race trauma in all of this in her family history. I don't, I don't know. I mean, it's not as like sort of grandiose maybe in the way that Tony Morrison novels are and sort of sweeping and sort of biblical seeming almost,

but it's like, but she, she does have, Mariah does pepper in scripture throughout the, the memoir. She sure does. Yeah. There's just something.

I don't you feel like all of it is just so cinematic though like oh it's gonna i i would see this becoming a mini series oh my god at some point absolutely or maybe even like a television series to be honest with you like because there's so much in here i don't think it could be just a movie but um no no but um i i mean yes i would agree i mean the thing is the thing is they were all living in that house. They were all having different experiences with that pain and that trauma. And they were all living identities or they all had identities that were outside the norm of the time. And not one of them had a safe space or a connection or someone to talk to or someone to understand them.

Because there's so much difference in the five of them living in that family. There was no attempt to understand each other really. I think that unfortunately, obviously, what goes unspoken in the book and Mariah is upfront about not being able to speak for it, but is happened to allison when she went away with the first guy that she married um she comes back and is a completely different person and that's when she starts exposing mariah to her friends that are drug dealers exposing mariah to drugs giving mariah drugs i mean she gives her a valium at one point and she passes out at 12 years old and sinks into a couch she tries to give her cocaine she leaves her with someone who tries to

coerce her into sex work yes and she she mariah at as a young girl is alone in a car with a much older man who kissed who tries to molest her does molest her and a man sees it and at that point she is like aware of the fact that this was not normal you know but like true tragedy like the stuff that she's going through in the beginning of this book and you know only with years of hindsight can you even begin to understand and unearth that stuff and you know i'm i'm happy for her that she's been able to do that but jesus christ it must have been hard to relive and write this i mean maybe like through this process she's really kind of like solidified her core or something because i because it's funny that she mentions in the book that caution is her most critically acclaimed album and i kind of am like oh yeah

that is interesting and like we like the general consensus around caution was that it was like one of like as like a real one of the best albums of 2018 but a solid mariah carey album and even though it didn't have like exactly these these big like moments that these big sort of like you know promotional moments on it it was such a competent body of work just contained little like 10 songs yeah 10 songs just like her having fun with r&b with hip-hop her collaborating with like blood orange or dev hines and skrillex and like all these artists um there was just there's just a confidence there's a serenity to her now and i think you're right like she with what you were saying earlier and she closes the book on her being happy it's like she is at peace now and i

and like that that's what gets me emotional and that's what got me emotional when i finished the book even as someone who like i mean mariah has like been the soundtrack to my life and the way that she's been the soundtrack to everyone's lives in western culture but i'm just like oh thank god she's happy you know yeah like well that's that's something that i love about her now in the past 10 years is she is so funny in her music now like gtfo being the first song on caution like and her kind of putting that out there as like a weird like faux first single and being like yeah why not like it's like really a funny song and she's she's so funny in the song obsessed from memoirs obsessed is so funny she's she ever since emancipation on you can tell like that emancipation also involved like her finally being like i don't

have to just write like longing songs sad songs no balance whatever she is so clever jack mcbrayer in a music video right and dexterous yes like she and like obsessed i love that the chorus is so long like she can't stop going in on eminem on that song like it's and she was doing good she was doing very good drag in the music video as eminem she also has a great reaction when the bus hits eminem she is what's it's all me it's all that that music that song is all mean girls oh it's the best it's so funny i love that she's just like that's the thing too is like and when you were saying before about like stuff we've said on this podcast about like whatever sort of speculating about what her actual personal life is

like, like what's the deal going on with that billionaire she was marrying? Like what the fuck happened on New Year's Eve, et cetera. Part of loving Mariah is having the sense of humor that you think she would have. So it's like, you're not ever really laughing at her,

but it's laughing with her because that's what sort of, you know, gets her through stuff like this. And so I never feel bad about like, quote unquote, having fun at the expense of things that happened to her. Like, because you have to be able to laugh and joke about it because ultimately like,

Glitter was one of the toughest times of her life and that was so depressing for fans of hers that were hardcore fans of hers to watch happen and now it's like we can truly laugh about it now because the lamely has so reclaimed that album it's now on spotify it did go to number one on the charts like a couple years ago when they said justice for glitter like now we get to hear specifically about like the way that went down it's just such an easy story to understand like something that a project that starts with substance it gets noted to death by people who don't care about the project who only care about making money people who want her to fuck up tommy mottola

i'm talking to you like screwing up that project that maybe could have actually been good and isn't necessarily bad. It's not necessarily bad. Right. I, I just love that. She has the full hindsight closure, whatever on glitter,

especially when she writes about it in this book where she was like, and look, and the fact, no, this is what I'm obsessed with. The fact that she still stands by the songs on the soundtrack. Well, it's a great album. It's a great album, but she's like,

the rest of the world is not going to win by like making fun of this movie and blah, blah, blah, ha ha, isn't it such a train wreck? I stand by the work and the work for me was acting, which I'm very passionate about. And I've like meticulously worked on to improve that. And I stand by the songwriting, which, you know, almost 20 years later, however many years later, like was finally like finally achieved some recognition because of my fans coming together and like, and achieving a common goal.

And I think she makes the case throughout the entire book for some like class consciousness, socialist ideal, where the middle manager fucks, the capitalist class fucks, who are like the agents, the Tommy Mattols, the world,

the record label execs who are like trying to like make money without lifting a fucking finger off of her. Yep. Are like trash. And she's actually out there like being the laborer and do, and actually like the way we talk about class consciousness, like an airline pilot who makes like, you know,

$120,000 a year is more likely to support the unionizing efforts of like a working class person who makes 40,000 because that airline pilot is also technically in the working class because he's, he answers to some middle management, to some, overlord who's just like, you do this, but I don't have to work. But you're the one who's doing the actual legwork. Mariah is like throughout the entire book, focusing on the work. Laboring. Laboring and finding fulfillment out of it and joy and also speaking to this collectivist thing where amazing things

can happen if people just come together the reason why all i went for christmas all i went for christmas is you went to number one on the billboard chart is because my fans came together and did that it wasn't some promotional thing it wasn't some like choreographed media thing it was because a bunch of people were like the lambs did it again she says the lambs did it again and that's the thing too is like um when it comes to glitter and everything like it really has stood the test of time because her fans are always gonna watch glitter like i'm always gonna always like and the fact of the matter is like it sort of disappeared from the public consciousness i don't know why obviously it was a huge flop but I love when she says in the book like it wasn't that bad and she's right and also I thought it was so interesting and here

you go that she really wanted Terrence Howard to be the lead in it yeah and they were like no we don't see how that would work, which is basically them saying, like, we don't want a black lead. We don't want you up against, up there with a black man, like, him to be the romantic interest. And then she also says, by the way, I envisioned him in this role before Hustle and Flow.

Oh, yes. Like, she was so ahead of, and she still is, I believe, like, so ahead of the curve. And it's always, always like people being like, oh no, what are you talking about? This is, this is, this is a good segue into the ODB of it all. So this is, I think one of, one of her best talents. She's obviously an incredible singer.

She's an amazing composer. She's an amazing lyricist something that is a talent is understanding the pulse of pop culture better than anyone else she said in the early 90s by the way anyone who will listen the way that mainstream music is going hip-hop is going to be huge i'm telling you she says she said at the time it's all he dismissed her what are you talking about he didn't understand it so it couldn't possibly be true he liked standards he liked the time, Mottola, he dismissed her. What are you talking about? He didn't understand it. So it couldn't possibly be true. He liked standards. He liked the ballot that she was doing.

He understood that type of thing. Then she talks about being at that dinner with a bunch of their associates. And he asked her, what do you think of Puff Daddy, of Bad Boy Records, of this new movement that was P. Diddy at the time. He was just kind of emerging as the super producer. And she's very honest, understanding that in saying her honest opinion, she's sort of defying her husband, who is this extremely powerful man

who runs her career and her life at home. And she says, this is definitely the way that mainstream music is going and what he's doing is very exciting and we should all be paying attention to it. Tommy Mottola gets up, makes a huge public scene at the restaurant. Thanksgiving is canceled.

Thanksgiving is canceled. I just want to say Thanksgiving is canceled, which is so funny and stupid. So dumb. But this is what I'm saying is it's like, it's stayed this way throughout the career and remains to this day. Yeah.

She still understands, even as a 50-year-old woman, sorry to age her, because I know she hates that. She's 12. She's eternally 12, but she still is making contemporary music that works. Yes. Caution! Caution is... Excuse me.

By the way, we cut out the part where I was choking on wine earlier, guys. It was a home moment. I won't get into it, but it just came back up and then it got caught. It went down the wrong pipe. You know, relatable queen,

relatable queen. We're talking. No, we shouldn't cut it out because I'll tell you something. No, no, it's very honest of you. It's very honest. No, I'm being honest about it. And now I get to control the narrative.

I don't want people to hear me fucking coughing up this orange wine, honey. Okay. The first part of it can be cut. The second part, I love honest and beautiful.

And I like it. I like it. Thank you. But then, um, but what you were saying about, um, the ODB of it all,

that was one of my favorite chapters. One of my favorite chapters. And so like such a, I love that. She like blew up Tommy's spot with like, once she got the ODB verse. And she's flipping out. She's so excited.

So excited. And one of the most, the definitive iconic rap verse, featured rap verse on that kind, whatever. And for it to be Mariah Carey and ODB, no one would have ever thought that until that moment. But she was like i love wu-tang like let's do it but but for tommy mottola to be like i could what the fuck is this i can do

this it's like you're a fucking idiot yeah and and you can like you can swim in your stupid sea of like no no they can't take that away from me not to like shit on standards but it's like who cares who cares yeah like and then and then for her oh my god obsessed with her talking about the time that tupac said hi to her at the grammys and the time that biggie was biggie was about to come in for yeah um the honey remix so i mean she has she she she got she was she got admiration from both coasts what a fucking icon there you go she and also you know just like that i loved the writing of the the part where she finally hears the um and in the audiobook it's great because you actually can hear odb on it and you really understand like i think someone someone

who grew up with that song like just that's one of those things you just kind of assume was always there no no me and mariah go back like baby was a pacifier like that that whole thing even though new york in the house is broken the house etc like all that like that is so and just that whole fantasy remix that is a moment in contemporary musical time like truly stars aligning to make a classic and she had to be flipping out as someone who wanted that so badly to be her thing and then you hear that think about being there

and then unfortunately she didn't have a fucking husband and musical partner who could appreciate that that's when she had to know it was over totally I mean I love in the book she's like it's so random that ODB just went I'm a little bit country

I'm a little bit rock and roll baby baby come on baby come on baby it's just so and it just leads so perfectly right into the Mariah vocal it's like what a perfect what a visionary to like trust that that would work to push for that

and be like no I'm picking odb and I'm and it's gonna be like us at like you know the carnival or whatever like the music videos like them at the carnival or whatever yeah they're right playland yes that's right the theme park and so I just

admired that vision maybe not above all else in her artistry but it's like it's such an important element to like Mariah Carey the artist yeah that it's just like oh like that's that's priceless like that that comes along like once in a generation

maybe I don't know and she'd replicate it so many times I mean like that's another thing about when you look with Kanye and with like with kanye with jay-z on heartbreaker with all these things you know like etc etc she's just done it so many times like and also one of my favorite songs on caution is the distance which she has ty dolla sign on and like that song is fucking great and i i would recommend that people revisit caution into it

and also um i mean i literally that's another part about this whole last week and a half as I've been reading this and listening to the audio book. It's only been Mariah music for me. And it's been so nice because I love it so much because it is timeless. And even her more recent albums that do have the more like sort of frivolous quote unquote content. Like, you know what I mean? Like she's being funny. She's not, it's not super taking itself super seriously. It's still when you listen to it is like top tier it really is like even like me i am mariah the elusive shantus like it's got a goofy fucking title make it look good it's very good off that

track i mean yeah there's like so much good stuff on there and i think that it was named something so crazy that people sort of wrote it off and maybe it doesn't need another name if I'm to criticize, but, but, um, but really it's so good. That's underrated. E equals MC square.

It is fucking great. And emancipation of Mimi emancipation of Mimi. Like that is, it's one of the best albums ever. Every song is classic. Every song is classic. I love I gasped when she was like

kind of like going through all the tracks but then she goes your girl should have been a single and I was like yes yes yes because I've thought this for years and I had just like I listened to Emancipation the other week and you and I connected we were like oh my god literally sister life hashtag hashtag sister life

I was listening to your girl I put it on my stories and you're like literally sister like hashtag I forgot how good that song is your girl is not a joke and then she she does say she's so good and then like um she says like people don't really know how much I love that song I should have been a single and I did I almost crashed my car when I was driving I was like yes but the thing is about that album is that album was made of hits like stay the night. Yeah. The song that she wrote was Kanye. That song was epic.

Say something. I actually think was released as a single, but like a later one, it didn't really hit, but so much stuff on that album. And then obviously all the hits she did have. And she of course did the re-release with don't forget about us, which is so good.

Just that album is, of course, did the re-release with Don't Forget About Us, which is so good. Just that album is, and that album also means a ton to me because that album came out of 2005. And I remember that was like, that was a moment. Freshman year of high school. Yeah. So basically, I think it was freshman year, the summer of freshman year, I was listening to it a lot because I was at a cross country camp and like I said it was hard for me to make new friends because I was so anxious and I just would put my Walkman on on the buses to like practices and stuff like that and I would just listen to Emancipation

the whole way through like Shake It Off was slapping so hard at that time oh my god just like so good and so fun it's like that like I feel like it's like an up tempo sort of like club moment but it really is the like the melody of it's like an up-tempo sort of like club moment but it really is the the like um the melody of it is so creative uh we belong together i mean it's such a classic

the real housewives of salt lake city are back oh my gosh welcome and last season's drama was just the tip of the iceberg you're recording us i am disgusted never in a million years after everything we've been through did i think that you would reach out to our sworn enemy we were friends how could you do this to me i don't trust her the real housewives of salt lake Lake City, Wednesdays at 9 on Bravo or stream it on City TV+. I felt too seen. Dragged. I'm NK and this is Basket Case.

So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health

is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Triangle. How do you find a date inside the Bermuda Triangle? We can't help you, but we will find someone who can. Listen to the How to Do Everything podcast on iHeartRadio. Hey everybody, it's Matt Rogers. Back when I was a server, I was one bad day away from a huge personal crisis. Thankfully, Giving Kitchen is here to serve those that serve us. Giving Kitchen

is a non-profit helping any food service worker who gets hurt, gets sick, loses a family member or their housing. That's giving relief. So when you or someone you know is in crisis, tell them to ask for help from Giving Kitchen by visiting givingkitchen.org slash help. That's givingkitchen.org slash H-E--p together we are giving kitchen we help food service workers i think that is track for track my favorite album my favorite album it's so good it's so good but

also this sounds weird but caution has a very special place in my heart caution is so good as an album that works that just i don't know and i i this sounds weird but like as an album that is such a clean confident like way of like lifting mariah from 2005 or yeah lifting mariah from 2005 and then like dropping her in 2018 and it's sort of still retaining that dna i'm just like oh that's like really fucking impressive that you still made this work like whatever like 13 years later you know it's like oh you're this is timeless this is timeless this is like what i'm getting at it's like this is this is a timeless all-time great artist all-timer the fact that that album was so roundly ignored by the Grammys.

Like, caution? Yeah, you're right. It's so pathetic. It's so pathetic. And the fact that she's only won five. I'm sorry. Go back and listen to, you're going to give out pop vocal Grammys and fantasy is not rewarded. You're going to give out pop vocal Grammys and Heart're gonna and fantasy is not rewarded you're gonna give out pop vocal

grammys and heartbreaker is not gonna be rewarded even though the entire end are those three that that like laid over those three vocal tracks which are made of hooks her song her voice is unbelievable the fact that she can just decide what verse melody she's gonna do and it works at any time you're gonna give out vocal grammys and only have mariah have a couple fuck you actually up the ass it's so ridiculous it's crazy it is no you're right it's disrespectful and the grammys are canceled and this is my thing is it's like if billy eilish can win in no shade and if she can win in one year what Mariah has in her entire career 30 years get the fuck out of here I want to talk about lover boy I want to talk about the J-Lo

of it all for just yeah let's chat I mean let's do it you wait did was this did we did we get this on the on the record you are on you you have a hot take on this my hot no this so before we started bowen was saying you know because we're listening to the rarities as well which is fantastic i love that she's saying out here on my own i love that song it's such a classic old irene carra song from the fame soundtrack which is um she loves i recorded in 2000 she because she sang it when she was young at a talent show we were saying bowen was talking about the lover boy original mix that she was going to do and put on the it was going to be like the song and glitter and then tommy matola because they had been divorced at this point he was working with jennifer lopez and well after

mariah had done all of this work on lover boy with the sample that she wanted he took it and gave it to j-lo who was also on the label and he he basically was just like went behind mariah's back and fucked her up creatively full context glitter was through was distributed by sony matola was still working at sony was able to see the dailies and was able to see or i guess maybe not the dailies but like the tracks so like tommy matola got got his hands on lover boy, which has this yellow light orchestra sample. It's so good.

So good. And like Mariah picked hand, picked it out herself. Um, I think with Jermaine Dupri, maybe, um, probably.

So then first, so Tommy Mottola fucked her over twice in this first gives the sample to, to JLo's like here, record this song. Um, and then it turns out to be, I'm real. It uses that, um, sample, record this song. And then it turns out to be I'm Real. It uses that sample, but it's not the Ja Rule remix.

It's I'm Real, but it's like really sort of upbeat and peppy and has this disco sample. And then when Mariah is laying down vocals with Ja Rule and this duet for the Glitter soundtrack, Tommy Mottola gets wind of that, then tells JLolo's people hey gotta put your rule on yeah got put your rule on this let's just remix i'm real with that sample with it with this with that song that has that old that old sample that i told you guys about so

if i was mariah carey and my art had been violated like that yeah and just so nakedly sabotaged in that way, I would I would have ended up in a facility like the way, I would have been Yeah. Institutionalized. I would have ended up the same place she would have been. Like, you know, like 100%. And the thing is to also know that

she is responsible for and labors over, as you said, that music and to give it to an artist like jlo who knows shade but is just not she's not artistically involved musically in that way it's just not what she does she does something different and she does it really well but it's it's it's the lowest blow especially because he wanted to fuck her up because he wanted to in any way stop the success of an acting project that she had because he was always forbidding her to act, take acting lessons, etc. God. So so then we were talking before we started and you were you were kind of saying that you that do that you like this lover boy that that's on the rarities.

I love this lover boy that that's on the rarities i love this lover boy on the rare yes i i never really like i i mean the the lover boy on the glitter soundtrack is fun but you could you could tell it was just like a little too like frankensteined out of like other beats and stuff and there's like three different features on it i was just like it just felt like it's just like a very chaotic mariah song to me. And it always stood out to me that way. It was like, okay, this is not, I was like, this is not what the original intended work was. Do you know what I'm saying?

I always had that suspicion. For me, I'm going to go ahead and agree with Mariah that the cameo version of Loverboy is better. Like I do, I actually think that every, the stars aligned here and we ended up with a better lover boy i mean come on lover and we'll watch a good daddy she does that on yeah but she does but like it works with this like don't don't i think the cameo thing like i just love it i just think it's so fun and 80s and yes it is chaotic but that to me makes it like more the genre and more the vibe like

i just don't see i guess like i hear that lover boy cameo version that we all know and i feel like this sounds like a hit song in the movie like the movie needed it to be like a hit song or whatever and like had it been the other song it's like a little bit more like down tempo it's like a little bit more it just doesn't feel as much like it's suiting the purpose that the Loverboy with Cameo needed to I still like it but Loverboy with Cameo version is

why did you do that like it had to be a successful song in the world of the movie yeah that and the Loverboy original Firecracker mix is like the cure where it's like it doesn't really make sense sure in the film okay that that i will say my hot take is i do love i'm real withdraw rule by jlo and this is the thing i think it's important to say that it's not jlo versus mariah and i

but like mariah has every right to like not know jlo ever um but i feel like it's a thing where again it's this it's some capitalist class motherfucker who's pitting these who's pitting these laborers against each other and created conflict and tension where there didn't need to be undermining solidarity between artists and is being like fully neoliberal margaret thatcher ass motherfucker and is like pitting these people against each other the thing about mariah is she can't help herself she can't she has been asked about j-lo many times over the past 20 years or whatever and she's always shady and borderline she even has got she even has said things like she's not a singer etc whatever but the fact of the matter is that's another reason why we love

mariah she cannot help herself when she thinks of a funny smart thing she's gonna say it and she's like patty lapone it's like yeah and you can't touch her ultimately at the end of the day so it's like for me i forgive her for anything she's done that's like super shady and i but i will say this she she again could not help herself when she said at the end of that chapter and at the end of the day lover boy was the best-selling single of the year i'm real i'm real i know i was like oh my god i mean but this is the thing though i didn't know about all this i like really did like the research after i read that that chapter because i did not know that that was that that was all happening that was the catalyst yeah honestly and i even went back and watched like you know the the dumb youtube

videos are like shadiest mariah moments oh yeah please so fun i said out loud it all makes sense yeah it all makes sense now and yes we loved we love j-lo on the spot of course but it's also absolutely i see i see why mariah feels this way yeah you know i mean so for me it's just like it's so weird that they're so constantly in conflict like in the media because they're so different they have nothing in common like they're i guess they're the same sorry age generation like i guess they've been successful through the same periods of time and i think honestly what binds them the most is that people keep fucking needing them to be in the same conversation no they don't that's the thing i don't think so honey doing the mariah versus j-lo of it all

because ultimately there's no competition because one of them is extremely talented in one way one of them is extremely talented in another you know j-lo is a dancer and performer and actress mariah is a composer and singer and musical artist and actress and let's talk about the acting a little bit because one thing I loved was the chapter where she talks about when Tommy Mottola finally allowed her to take an acting class

and she meets with this very like very well characterized in the book kind of kooky acting teacher who's like draped in fabrics and smells like essential oils or whatever and tells her to lay on the ground and like relax and go to her safe place and she can't find a safe place and she has a she has like a real physical breakdown because she's realizing she doesn't know even how to pretend to feel relaxed and safe this to me was

like this is someone who has been psychologically tortured. And that's something that I think is like pretty explicitly stated without being, without being explicitly stated in the book is like, she was psychologically abused for years by Tommy Mottola. Years. Her whole life. Her whole fucking life.

She did not have a memory of a safe place to go to. I think that was even one of the, the drill down layers was the acting teacher was like okay but what about like in your past and she was like i still like she was she's like i still don't have that place i have no memory of feeling safe right how sad is that you know which makes which makes the end of the book when she says she can finally sit down and she has the kids and she's had a nice Christmas because that's another part of the book is her fascination with Christmas is sort of explored and explained because she never had a real family Christmas. She always wanted to have the family have a nice Christmas together, but always interrupted in violence or arguing or whatever the fuck and she in her adult life because she has clung to the inner child which is i think another reason why i love her so is she refuses to lose that and i think it's something that everyone could learn from in some element she says her

fascination with christmas and the need to be joyful around christmas and celebrate is because she never had that and so at the end of the, when she's at peace after the concert, like I think it was a New Year's concert or something. And she's looking out at all of her fans that had been there and the people that have worked with her that have been there and stuff. And she's finally sitting there and everyone's retired to their rooms and the kids are safe and happy. And they've had like a festive moment, if you will. She's able to sit there and she's able to have a festive moment uh if you will um she's able to sit there and she's able to have a quiet moment with herself and she says i am peaceful i am complete yeah and that like just gave me i was just so moved by that was very moving because it

was really it was really hard one because the whole book leads up to that. Cause the whole book, you're sort of held at the point of like, you're held at the question of, is she, has she ever felt happiness? Like, you know, I don't know. That sounds like a little extreme or dramatic.

Well, she describes that as like being a difficult thing for her because she also talks a lot about how she genuinely believed when she married Tommy Mottola, this was a price she had to pay for success that you could not both have success and happiness it didn't exist like it like almost the universe was saying to her we'll give you success you'll never have happiness like it didn't seem like a possibility to her realistically with the way that her life was panning out and she genuinely did believe that she'd be married to tommy mottola forever because she thought this is what it is like i'll

be taken care of this guy does get me musically and we do have that connection it's just that i won't be romantically happy and also it's an element of that is her not actually understanding what it is to be romantically fulfilled, sexually fulfilled, you know, emotionally fulfilled. Never. So it's not like she knew she was missing something, you know, she just thought this is must be the way life is. She understood that trade off. Or thought she understood it. Right. Right. Where she thought that that was the implicit thing. I think that her obsession with Christmas is so

is like I mean thank God for that you know it's like it's so like we've only reaped the benefits of her obsession with Christmas I feel

oh absolutely I mean when you hear the song All I Want for Christmas is You you feel like Christmas you know what I mean like I think it's the best Christmas song

of all time I would say I would say it's got the you know it's so funny because she did write it so quickly, she says, like it was like an hour and a half or so that she wrote it in. But to me, it's just like, that's so like, of course, because it is so pure, you know, it's upbeat, it's happy. It's expressing a need for connection during Christmas. It's not about material things. In fact, it's happy it's expressing um a need for connection during christmas it's not about material things in fact it's like um issuing commercial like pursuits and material things it's just about all i want for christmas is you that person that makes me happy and that's what i

that's what i really want truly deep down in my heart and you could anyone can sing it even if you're not someone that really celebrates Christmas. I feel like it does have a spirit to it. It's spirited. It's happy. It's jubilant. It is that feeling of Christmas. And to me, I would say it is the best Christmas song.

Wow. And there are some fun things to expect from Matt Rogers and his Christmas music. I can't wait to hear more. No, because it won't be this year. But anyway, yeah. Well, but I mean, things are happening. But maybe not this year.

Maybe not this year. Definitely not this year. But anyway, revisiting that later. But yeah, so what was, if you had to say your favorite thing about as we sort of, we're now at hour 60, I could talk about this forever. And that's another thing about the book is when it ended, I was so depressed. All I want to do is listen to her talk. You know, it was so funny when she does, she very briefly touches on the new year's eve

debacle. And I say debacle because she says not all debacles are created equal darling in the book, which I i loved but i loved when she said it's gonna be hard for me to find right now but basically what she says is like she likens it to when you're a little kid and you get your eye you get sand in your eye on the sandbox and then you leave go on do your life become a doctor like be really successful um we can cut into this i found i found the passage say the passage yeah you can say you're obviously gonna read it

better than I can remember it. Well, she's talking about the risks of singing in the cold and she's talking about how Luther Vandross was the first artist to warn me of the risk of singing in the cold. There's a certain performance of mine

in the bitter cold wearing a sheer bedazzled leotard and eight-inch Louis Vuittons at the world's busiest intersection, et cetera, et cetera. To me, it's as if I was a child playing in the sandbox and I got sand in my eye,

wept theatrically, and caused a scene and then arrived 20 years later at my class reunion after having gotten a PhD and become a celebrated scholar. I only have my classmates ask, oh, but how's your eye? I was a lot of things in that fleeting moment in the cold, but I knew one thing, certainly, I was not. I was not broken, not even close.

I had been through so much worse. All debacles are not created equal, darling. So she reads that in the audiobook and after she says that but how's your eye she cracks up and they have to cut the take and she starts again it's just so funny and so real and you can tell it really doesn't matter to her no but i remember it mattered so fucking much to the whole world like no one could stop talking about that for like a week and i was just like shut up like and you know what i don't even know what we said on this podcast at that time i'm sure we touched on it but it's like i was saying before it's like part of loving mariah

is is being able to make jokes about it all you know and we even joked about bianca as if it's like she like very she very seriously took on this like alter ego, but it's like, no, she was, she realized how dumb. Oh, she's a goof.

She's a goof. She's fun. The fact that she even wrote music, like alternative rock music sung through Bianca. It's like, what a dedication to your craft for you to like create this fictional character and then like fill her creative life out with her own songs that are that are differentiated from your own

like that's amazing yeah that's great did you see what i texted you um about the emancipation of it all she says um um emancipation was an amazing time and it was an amazing time for my fans they need to see me succeed they needed to see me come back like that I agree that was an amazing moment in that culture that's one of the best that culture moments in history and honestly I'll never forget how triumphant it felt

because here's the thing through the glitter of it all I think I've told this on the podcast but the day the album came out was 9-11 and she actually talks very vividly about how when she saw the towers fall she was in that detox rehab center that her brother basically fooled her into going to because she thought it was a spa she really didn't need a detox rehab center she was just exhausted from sleeping two hours and six days during the glitter promotion cycle.

Psycho. But she says that's where she watched the towers fall down. And I actually, I mean, this is true. The day of 9-11, and it was scary to live in the tri-state area on 9-11. Like that was really a very dark day. But I had been living for that. I it was tuesday september 11th this is music came out on tuesdays i said mom today after school we're gonna go get mariah's glitter you told me that we could and she was like yes of course and then not an hour and a half later

i'm getting picked up from school early like It's really weird. I had just gotten there, and my mother was like, we got to go home. There's something happening, etc. That's when an 11-year-old me was sort of realizing what was happening, but I still was like, my security blanket at that time was going to be that album, regardless

of any national tragedy. I was like, no, you will take me to the CD store to get this album. I was like, no, you will take me to, to, to the CD store to get this. I was in hysterics. And you, you did buy it.

She was like, they're going to be closed. I was like, we have to go. So we get there, they're closing. And the people there, like teens that were working at the store were like,

um, we're closing because of nine 11, like as it was happening, my mother was like, please. Like, he won't. They knew to call it 9-11 on the day, huh? No, I'm just saying, like, no, they didn't, obviously. I know, I know, I know.

But it was so, they were like, we can't do this right now. And I was just, I think they saw in my eyes that I was such a gay kid. That my mother, my poor mother would not. Not gay kid eyes. They knew my mother couldn't deal with 9-11 and me that day if i didn't have mariah so they said they said let's get this little kid i almost said little fag and i am gonna say little fag i was the album so that he can not make his mother's life more of a living hell than it already is going to be with all the uncertainty and the w-o-r-L-D. I have a question. Do they have Miss Padma Lakshmi,

aka Silk's songs on that album or no? Silk does not appear on the album, but I mean, it's so funny. Padma's good in the movie. She goes, she's just so good in the movie. She's such a bad singer on the track, like it's, but on purpose. But she's so perfect in that role.

She's so good. And then there's the moment where like, they put Mariah on the track instead of Silk and Terrence Howard looks at Padma and like nods and she nods back like, yeah, we're going to get this bitch to sing for me. And it's just so funny. Padma Lakshmi is a star,

but we knew that. We love her. We love her. We love her dearly. Come back, Padma. It's time for you to come back. We weren't able, we couldn't,

we were supposed to get Padma back on the show and then schedules were colliding. Yeah. For niche um for taste the niche but um we'll get her back soon but anyway i wanted to ask you uh what your favorite if we haven't talked about any talked about one thing that's your favorite thing about the book what's your favorite thing oh um my favorite thing about the book is honestly her talking about process. I know this sounds so silly, but it's like, there's a part in the book where she lays it out pretty clearly.

She's like, the way I like to work is I like to lay down like a scratch vocal where the lyrics aren't even that complete, but it's just like syllable, syllable, syllables. Then I'll do a lyrics pass after those are down. Then I'll go back and do another vocal track that has the finalized lyrics. And Then I'll do a lyrics pass after those are down. Then I'll go back and do another vocal track that has the finalized lyrics. And then I'll do background vocals. I'm like, oh my God, we're getting a peek into her, her creative, like full, like

principle, you know, it's like, that was very special to me. I was like, oh, that's very, that's worth the price of the book alone. Yeah. To me, it was also really fun for her to hear her say like i like it to be just me and my engineer if i could do my own thing by myself i would creating the vocals is like a very like almost like she describes it as like almost a sacred process for her and that is so evident when you're such a fan of hers for so long because her choices are unparalleled. Like the fact that like the, the fact that the way she sings is mainstream is like iconic.

Like just like her choices and her like riffs and like when she's singing in full voice and head voice and the way she can transition between them and her use of whistle tone and how over the years she's employed the whistle tone in such a different way. Like how she layers it into to tracks like when she's deciding to do it and not do it like that to me was so amazing to hear and and i i would say for me there's two i have another one too but you go go go you go first well my my sorry my second one is the epilogue where she's like,

if I have one thing to share with the world, and the sounds are corny as hell, I know, but it's something that I needed to hear this week. It was like, if there's one thing I can tell the world, it's to never give up on your dreams and no mother, father, sister, brother, you know, like manager,

person, cousin, friend, fake friend, president. Chicken with a phone. And then she ends on chicken with a keyboard chicken with a keyboard can can like can like take ever take that away from you from from things that you've like built yourself and I was like fuck yes because I gotta tell you I am

off the fucking wagon with like my discipline around like not looking at you know the comments and whatever I'm like fully back because there's nothing else to do now and i'm just scrolling and i'm like kind of letting it hit me and i'm talking about in therapy we'll work through it but i'm just like oh fuck like this is something i have to like fix pretty soon but her saying that was helpful to me so i love the epilogue the girls were have been pretty fucking mean to me over the past two weeks too i don't know what's in the water but i got

the we got that i got the nastiest review on the podcast app it was so it was so baseless and fucked up and aggressive and i was just like it really nailed me and actually really ruined my mood when we were right before we got on the episode last week. And, and we talked about this off, off the record after we finished recording. I, and I know reader, it sounds kind of, you know,

frivolous and we're on our little perch when we sort of complain about this shit, but like, it hurts my feelings. It's, it will, it, it fucking like rots your soul in a way.

And, and, um, it's a matter of scale in some cases and matt like after hot dog came out matt and i were drunkenly facetiming and we were we like confiding in each other about this but it's like there's i don't know there's there's like a there's a certain like unnecessarily toxic thing to all this and like i i we're still we're still at that place in the culture where we're figuring out how to move past it and i think there is progress and there is some empathy that we're

all practicing towards each other with with with this and and no matter what your station is in life we're all sort of trying to understand each other better but this is something that like i am working through on a very deeply personal level it's like the one thing that is truly ruining my life right now. Yeah. And I feel bad because like, I constantly think like, and this is another element of it that I hate, but like,

just to say this, like when I, when I think about the way that I'm dealing with the way I'm getting it, and most people are so sweet and so nice, but then there'll be like that one little comment about like, the fuck this like this host uh is like too much or whatever and like like they're so much meaner than that like it's so crazy and then like they'll and i think about what you must get and on the scale

you must get it and then i feel stupid for feeling bad but then i'm like no no no actually no and then but that's also an element of this is like please stop comparing bowen and like if you just say this what are you if if you if you love bowen i i agree with you i do too but he he would hate it if he heard you talk about the way if you talk about me the way that you do he this way would not endear you to him at all to say that I am bad. And if you think that you're impressing me by saying anything negative about Bowen Yang, you couldn't be, you could not be more wrong. That like, is it, when I take any attack on Bowen is attack on me.

Like that's personal to me. I was going to say an attack on you is an attack on me. I mean, if our readers don't know by now if you if you listen to this podcast and don't know that i and i tell matt this on too regular of a basis that i think he is the smartest funniest this is my right person i'm like this is my right matt matt checks off so many superlatives for me and i love him so so deeply like a sister like a brother a sibling if just don't even bring that don't present that to me like a fucking offering okay and likewise for me it's just like any any anything against bowen yang is you getting smacked. I'm serious.

The only way I would get physical... I will smack you. I will smack you in the face if you come for Bowen. I really will. I'll hit you. I'll hit you. That's a threat. That's not a threat. It's a fact. Step off. Also, don't listen to the podcast if you don't like

one of the hosts or 50% of it. You motherfucker. Put your fucking dukes up. I will fucking, it will take such little effort for me to destroy. We will throw hands. We'll throw hands. See me with them hands. See me with them hands. Come see me with them hands.

Come see me with them hands. Anyway, back to the positivity around this book. Okay, what were your favorite moments of the book? I have so many. So basically, there's the Divas chapter where she, there's like a solid

six pages. She shades Celine. So I'm going to get to that in my item. Thanks, honey. So there's like a solid six pages of this book that is all just adulation

for Aretha Franklin, which is so deserved. And also we should say Mariah's impression of Aretha is so funny. So good. I was going to bring up the impressions. And Diana Ross.

Mariah, they're playing games. And then when she's like, why are they playing games? Why can't they turn the fucking air off? And she's like, gets so animated. And then she goes, I was dying. She's just so good. So I love the whole diva section. I loved hearing about her time with Whitney.

Me too. diva section i loved hearing about her time with whitney i i just i loved it so much because again that was like the machine around them being like whoop they're not gonna like each other they're not gonna like each other let's like you know prepare them for this but also fan the fires and then for them to connect and complement each other in such a way and she said you know britney was the princess of all vocalists. You know, she was born into almost royalty in terms of singing. Mariah is a craftsman and a laborer in terms of like composition. And they're both incredible singers, et cetera. But they're so different in how they complemented each other and the laughs that they had and the time they shared together.

You could tell it meant so much to Mariah. And there's so much love in that. And ultimately, and I'll also just give an honorable mention to, she says a few good words about a few good men, and there's like beautiful little tributes to Stevie Wonder and Prince and Nelson Mandela and all those gentlemen.

But I think my favorite thing in the book is one that's something that's been talked about so much which is the derek jeter of it all i mean i think that they're they're their connection over their shared shared uh identity and they're the way that they first flirted and talked to each other like they were the only people in the room but she kind of woke up in that moment and the way that translated to her music i almost like feel thankful that that meeting happened because it created the whole first half at least of butterfly um you know track one through five or six you could pretty much argue was all about that about their relationship that however brief but um you know i i was also a huge fan of his at the

time because um you were a baseball boy i was i was really into it and so the fact that they were dating and now i get to like hear about the specifics of it then meeting at this like private armani runway show and then like how cool it was and how galvanized she was by the conversation the people her age smart people her age of all different races talking about race for the first time seeing a family seeing a family like his loving and that was very emotional for me she realized that it wasn't her her her biracial identity that was creating problems it was the people in her family that were creating problems and to see a possibility of a loving family that looked like her really changed things for her and i think that that relationship obviously is so crucial in her development as a human being and i just everything about it like the way she felt awake sexually for

the first time i just love that she really went there with that chapter and it created my favorite music of hers it's just such a vividly painted illustrated like thing and like it's one of those like honestly like it's one of those things where it's like that's love that is love yeah yeah yeah like those like the the conversations with the people who who do make you feel like there's no one else in the room like that is huge and i'm horny and i'm horny for it it i mean it was such a horny moment in the book and also the way that they were like sneaking her into that like pizza parlor she went out the back and like whatever like and like just that sneakiness like it was so tense you know like that part of the book was so rest like it was and then she gets home and she's like drenched and she was so thankful that tommy wasn't there to see her was so wet because she would have had to explain why she was wet like

the whole fact of the matter that she had like um surveillance in every room in her house except the bathroom and the only place she could find solace was the bathtub like come on like that the fact that she was living like that and then then when she talks about, God, I could talk about this forever. Getting fries with Debrat. That, like, and that whole moment. Going to Burger King. Yes. When you go to Burger King next time, Reader, you better appreciate the freedom you have to go to Burger King.

Mariah Fries. Mariah Fries. And then the other thing was, I was really moved by, and the song is sort of like, it's so, not a basic song, but it's just like, it's so for the masses. Yes.

It's so commercial and for the masses that I don't think it gets credit, but it really means something to so many people. It's a beautiful song. It's a beautiful song. But I loved hearing about the creation of Hero, how it just kind of came to her in the hallway and um how it was originally for gloria stefan and then she performed it live at that concert in schenectady for the very first time and she felt that she really connected with

her fans who she realized she had in that moment and um that whole section i thought was was really terrific yeah i think she's one of those artists listen, we're talking about 30 years she's had number ones for four decades in a row. Obviously in a row, but it's this thing where it's like, I feel like she has these seasons

in her career that like are so distinct. Yeah. And are marked by struggle, yes, but it's like she like she it's the book is a triumph the book like sort of like tenses you up as you read it but like it's like it's like by the time you get to that last chapter it's it's triumphant it's like oh my god thank god she's happy totally yeah i'm actually deciding in this moment that i don't want to go negative on this one part because i do think it was a cultural thing that Celine Dion didn't know.

I think it was a cultural thing. I think Celine is just goof-a-loof and she just didn't know that she wasn't supposed to challenge Aretha Franklin in that moment. And for Mariah Carey, someone who idolized her and, you know, is a black woman, like, she had to look at that happen and be like, I'm mortified this is happening. And then Patti LaBelle afterwards being like, I would have smacked you upside the head had you done what that child did like you you like that was wrong patty but but like i can't be reading i can't be reading selena about it she didn't know any better i don't think you can no no but i'm gonna do something else i have a good i have another good i don't think so okay good but if you watch back i went back and watched it and i feel like aretha was just having fun yeah it didn't seem like aretha was like that

ghastly like what was that like mortified or no i think it was more just everyone around her who who of course i was visibly uncomfortable yes well and mariah has the reverence she talks about how you know when she first met her she got down on her knee and said, like, I want to thank you for everything you've done. My name is Mariah, et cetera. And then Aretha said later, Mariah, you have good manners. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That which was a part I really liked. And she's like, that's what the other girls don't have manners.

And I think that informed the way she looked at that moment. Yes, of course. That it was important. The decorum of it all was important to Aretha. And for selene to challenge her that was just against mariah's moral code it wasn't respectable i get it um i do want what i thought was missing in the book was the moment where donna summer backed out the night of for this like for this other divas show that was supposed to have diana and was it another

divas show but i don't know what it was but it's in the book that it was supposed to be a trio between donna summer diana ross and mariah and then donna summer came to rehearsal and then was like all of a sudden not doing it anymore no one knows why i don't know about that donna summer i mean we love her music but she was very homophobic in the end and we that we just have. We just have to put that out there. But we love On the Radio. We love Last Dance. We love, you know, all the bops. So it might be time.

It might be time for I Don't Think So Honey. And we are doing Mariah-centric I Don't Think So Honey. This being a Mariah-centric episode. An episode I have so enjoyed as I enjoyed this book. I have loved this episode. Just like going back and listening to all her music, I can't recommend enough. I'll repost those playlists too. I'm going to make more

because I really enjoy doing it. But I have one. Okay, this is Matt Rogers' I Don't Think So Honey as Time Starts Now. I Don't Think So Honey, Anyone Sleeping on the Album, Charm Bracelet. Okay? You don't have to understand. Oh my god. Even though this was the album that was after Glitter and before Emancipation,

this album has bops. Okay, Boy I Need You with Cam'ron, this is a bop. Through the Rain, the way that Mariah sings that, if you don't respect that, I don't think so, honey. If you're not off book on that song as a gay person, as a queer person, I don't think so, honey, on this hashtag national coming out day. You need to come out as a stand of charm bracelet. I know it was a few days ago, but we're recording on the day on the day 30 let me just say some songs that are on here that are

fucking slays yours okay the song clown which was her first time that she came for eminem clown is an unbelievable song you all need to listen to clown and if you don't i don't think so honey also the cover of bringing on the heartbreak is it the song subtle invitation is it the one of the last songs is, the last song actually is Sunflowers for Alfred Roy, which is a gorgeous tribute to her father who passed. Five seconds. Beautiful.

Please stand charm bracelet, listen to charm bracelet. If you don't, I don't think so, honey. You're not a lamb. And that's one minute. Don't be calling yourself a lamb and not be including charm bracelet into the conversation. Beautiful. Now, do you think Mariah's art pop is Charm Bracelet

or Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel? I think probably her art pop is probably Me, I Am Mariah, The Elusive Chanteuse. But I feel like if it's her art pop, it's the underappreciated album that has like, has like, you know, like sort of a hindsight value then I think it's tied between

me I am Mariah the Elusive Chantouse and Charm Bracelet because I think memoirs has respect like memoirs spawned a hit song Obsessed was a huge hit song

Obsessed was huge but that was but that was kind of it though right and there was Up On My Face was a moment well and by the way

I watched that Up On My Face video again like you said last week it's crazy how much fun they're having together they're having so i told that's what i said last week it's like they're genuinely they're not faking it they're enjoying each other's company you would never be able to tell me that that would become the feud that it did and also notice that's not in the book at all she doesn't even mention that she's not even the words american idol even uttered because who fucking cares yeah i don't want to i i i was thinking like oh there are intentional things that

aren't mentioned like i guess i i mean the entire time i was like when she's going to talk about nick cannon then i feel like that she she devotes like three paragraphs to it or something and i'm like well she goes into the nick cannon stuff and you get the she's got like a that was like a real love and i i always questioned i was like they're in each other's lives still they're like yeah i was always like mariah and nick cannon i wonder what what that really is and i think that she says it as plainly as she can like she was really unaware of who he was because she didn't watch tv she didn't know all of his 90s relevance and then she met him and he was fun he was hot and fun and he wanted to have kids with her and

he was obsessed with her so you meet someone hot fun who's obsessed with you and wants a future you'd be hard pressed not to marry nick cannon if nick cannon wanted him wanted to marry me i would be like yes absolutely a hundred percent also i thought it was interesting that she was like originally nick cannon was going to be in the touch my body video and we thought he couldn't be a nerd i was like i think he would have been a great nerd he would have been a great nerd he was like he's a sketch performer he can do it yeah hot nerd culture is culture hot nerd culture is culture equals mc squared also is terrific um i mean emancipation is a fucking moment then you got i mean glitter might be mariah's art pop sure oh that's yeah that's that's fair that's fair

you're right you're right and then the other ones are just all kind of critically acclaimed masterpieces great all right so the thing is after i do my i don't think so honey what will happen is bowen will do his i don't think so honey and if he's ready i can start the clock yeah i think i'm ready okay, that means I will start the clock. Bowen Yangs, I don't think so, honey. Time starts now. I don't think so, honey. Marshall Mathers, Eminem, stupid clown, bitch.

Clown. Dumbass, toxic whore you are, Eminem. And there's a reason why. Why are you so obsessed with her? Boy, I want to know. You have been harassing this poor woman ever since you wanted you decided to get in your dumb little ideation machine that you call your brain that you wanted to fuck her and she was like no 30 seconds stop it you have other options out there marshall you don't have to fuck mariah carey you don't have to show up at the Oscars in 2020 out of

nowhere and perform and do lose yourself it's a great song it's maybe your only one good cultural contribution Stan I don't care for I don't even see I don't even know real slim shady

I'm gonna get into this after my minutes up but first of all i don't think so honey eminem okay my minute's up that's one minute do we care about eminem's contribution to hip-hop let's just say to hip-hop look me in the eyes no as as as lovers of hip-hop you and i i don't fucking care for marshallathers at all. I just think he came along at the exact right time where we would have fucking even allowed

someone like him to get as far as him. Yeah, well, you know what? Those people are very ill and they need a lot of help and I'm willing to pay to help them get the help that they need. Actually, I'll do a scholarship every year at my high school. Find the person that still likes Eminem and give them $600 how about that

I'll pay that for the rest of my life I'm willing to do a scholarship to help young kids that think that Eminem is the way to go I would start this scholarship with you we should start the scholarship can we each do let's just each do $500

for each of our high schools does that work so it's so it's yeah so it's we each we each pay a thousand total yeah okay so basically it's like we a teacher that we trust at the school finds the kid that looks like they might like eminem and give them the money to get the help that they need to get the help they need which is if you like eminem you need to get the help you need it's actually real culture number 104 if you like eminem you need to get the help that you need the help you need what scholarship then it has to be that we that that goes towards their schooling literally i don't think so honey eminem you need an education if you like him rancid i don't know why we even i feel like eminem is like a squatter in our brains well you know first of all i'll tell you why we even give a fuck is because he came along because

of eight mile well no it was it was it was fucking before that basically like homophobia was hot engineer doug since i'll lie for the 500 it's a thousand doug it's a thousand doug now so basically like homophobia was cool and so he came along and made his whole thing homophobia and misogyny and like the culture couldn't have been more toxic at that point because it was post like the clinton and clinton impeachment everyone hated women hillary was the biggest punching bag this is at that time like it was just so fucking cool to hate women and the fact that he took misogyny and violence against women and homophobia so fucking far and made it made such a huge fortune on it

he should be fucking ashamed for the rest of his life and if you think that there aren't legions of men who hit their girlfriends because they thought it was cool because they heard eminem did it you got another fucking thing coming and it's disgusting and he's the worst thing that's come You think that there aren't legions of men who hit their girlfriends because they thought it was cool because they heard Eminem did it? You got another fucking thing coming. And it's disgusting. And he's the worst thing that's come out of American culture. Oh! Pop culture.

And now he's fucking with Mariah Carey. He's not fit to shine her shoes. Wow. Damn. Damn. I'm so happy you did that. Hashtag sister life. Hashtag.

No, literally sister life. Literally sister life. Hashtag. No, literally sister life. Literally sister life. Hashtag. After. Fuck him. And I used to think he was hot too, which is so toxic. No, no, no. He's got a fucking fat ass. He'd be a superstar bottom if he put his mind to it. He really would. Why don't you tell that to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi

while we're at it? Yeah, why don't we throw decorum out the window, Chuck and Nancy? Let's get a little dirty here. Why not? Let's play dirty. Okay, so a few things before we close out. I just want to say I loved this episode so much. What a treat.

I love a book club. I know it's, Matt, and I don't want this to be part of the narrative that you don't read too many books. I don't like this bit anymore. It's such a bad bit. It's such a bad bit. I don't like the bit anymore it's such a bad bit it's such a bad bit i don't like the bit anymore like because it's because a it's not true b we lean into it because

it it helps with the dichotomy with you and i but now i have people like actually in my dnm dnms i as i try to make it we're a little tipsy yeah i have people in my dms now treating me like i'm dumb and like trying to do bits of me like I'm stupid. First of all, you don't know me like that. Get out of my DM. Second of all, like I'm so it's not I'm I don't not read. So I just love a book club. I think we can do this with a book that sort of strikes our interest in the future.

I would love that. Let's do that. It's going to get us away from this narrative. Has to come organically, I would love that. Let's do that. It's going to get us away from this narrative. Has to come organically, I think. Yeah. Another thing we should talk about is we're going to go a few more episodes than normal that are just me and Matt for a bit.

And then we'll, every now and then we'll bring in a guest, but this is sort of the dynamic for now in the short term, just because our schedules are kind of crazy now. It's harder for us to find times that work uh for just between me and matt in the first place but then to figure out a guest schedule into that is also a little yeah of um an outside factor so it's actually what is exciting for us right now like you know bowen and i feel like we can be bowen and i sometimes when it's just the two of us not that

we haven't ever been like ourselves and having a blast when we have any guests. It's just, we want to do this for a little while and we've been hearing you guys and you guys seem to like these episodes with just bow and I, so we're down for it. So yes, but we'll still bring in guests every now and then.

Yeah. And it'll be great. Um, but yeah, so we're excited about that and we're excited about this app and we're excited about each other. And, uh, that's really number one. Wow.

I love this. And you got to read The Meaning of Mariah Carey. I mean, and also shout out to Andy Cohen Books that published this. Oh, yeah. Did you know that? She thanks him in the acknowledgments. Well, she was on Watch What Happens Live on the same week as you. What an honor. What an honor to share the same air segment as her.

Yeah. In one week. Please better yet even listen to the audio book. I feel like it's really one of those experiences that is enriched by the sort of sound, the sounds of her reading it. She has changed the game for audio books, for sure. I agree.

I agree. She better win a Grammy for that. I would imagine. All right. So this has been Lost Cult. And we are, of course, going to take it out with a song. Why you so obsessed with me? Boy, I want to know.

Lying that you're sexed in me. When everybody knows. It's clear that you're sexing me when everybody knows it's clear that you're upset with me finally found a girl that you couldn't impress last man on the earth still wouldn't get this

you're delusional you're delusional oh you're losing your mind it's confusing y'all you're confused you know why you wasting your time the way Mariah said let let me write a long chorus. Seeing right through you like you're bathing in Windex.

Oh, oh, oh. The way she used Windex in the chorus. The way that Windex is a lyric in her chorus. The way that Windex figured in as the prominent lyric in the chorus. I can't. She just watched my Big Fat Greek Wedding and was like, I'm writing Windex into this song. She said Windex writes. Windex writes.

Okay, bye. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. What is wrong with me? A show about the ways that mental illness is shaped by not just biology, swaps of different meds, but by culture and society. By looking closely at the conditions that cause mental distress, I find out why so many of us are struggling to feel sane, what we can do about it, and why we should care. Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Joe Gatto. I'm Steve Byrne. We are Two Cool Moms. We certainly are. And guess where we could find us now? Oh, I don't know. The iHeart Podcast Network?

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can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts or on the iHeartRadio app. Hey, y'all! Niminy here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. Get the kids in your life excited about history

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