Red Scare - American Hate Story

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

The ladies discuss the poor styling choices of Ryan Murphy's upcoming Carolyn Bessette Kennedy/JFK Jr. series American Love Story and review Matt Wolf's new Paul Reubens documentary Pee-wee As Himself.

["All the Things You Said"] Okay. Hey. We're back. We're back. Um, a lot of big news this week. Everyone's really upset about the Carolyn Bissette Kennedy. I thought you were gonna talk about Israel Iran. I know, I was doing a fake. I did a fake. That's my Israel Iran. I'm like the internet is ablaze with all the Carolyn Bissette fan accounts I follow

are going on about this nonstop. I love when something happens and they start beaming Carolyn Bissette Kennedy pics onto the timeline. It's a real like timeline cleanser. I'm just like, oh, she's like so chic and elegant. That's really what I love about her because she was clearly such a crazy bitch and a shallow cunt, they're really such a crazy bitch. Yeah. And a shallow cunt, but she looked amazing and classy. We discussed this and we know she was shrieking

when that plane was crashing. You know, she was badgering. Yeah, she was nagging and scolding him. She made him crash the plane. and scolding him. She made him crash the plane. I hope to see that dramatized in the Ryan Murphy. American love story. Yeah. I mean, it is shocking. The styling because that's literally the whole reason. The whole reason she's relevant is that she had good style. The people who styled her and who she was friends with

and who knew her and who gave her highlights are alive. Yeah, and they're here to tell their story. There's also countless people who've, like all for Carolyn, at all for Carolyn on Instagram, who are meticulously kind of cataloging her, not just her, what she wore, but like why it was so good. And what was so unique about her and her Riz and Aura. Yeah Yeah what was so unique about her because there have

been a lot of like stylish women throughout history especially in contemporary times like Kate Moss, Sienna Miller, Kate Bosworth like these little starlets of the aughts. Alexa Chung whose style I personally don't really vibe with it's a little too like twee Tweed and indie. I mean, all those women are fantastic, but they're not like 10 out of 10, like in terms of dread, you know, they're not always knocking it out of the park. That's true. And also they have a very like grunge and boho aesthetic, whereas Carolyn Bissette Kennedy had like the kind of ultimate classy minimalist appeal.

And the Yamamoto and something all for Carolyn wrote about was that she re-wore pieces. So you really, when you saw her in the paparazzi pics or in the media, like she was re-wearing things because you got the sense that she was like wearing clothes that were true to her her and authentic. Yeah. And I think now the toxic dynamic of celebrity styling. Well first of all, they all have stylists. They can't dress themselves. It's like, you know, you think of like the two biggest fashion victims, Sabrina Carpenter and what's her name from?

Midsommar Florence Pugh. Oh yeah. And it's like those girls like just like clearly have no sense of their body type, their like skin tone, their personal aesthetic. But I think the biggest crime yet is that you're styled anew every single time and you wear like a novel piece that you're never gonna wear again. Which is like the antithesis of personal style.

Or like different yeah she was also very consistent in her silhouettes yeah and knew what worked for her and yeah had an amazing and being a Kennedy's partner of course is always a very like iconic kind of position to be in, which lends to her allure. Right. Like the other big stylish woman that I can think of that she clearly modeled herself after to some extent, much like Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton model themselves after Princess Di is Jackie O. And of course, Jackie O was a very like, she was a style icon,

but I think like her style looks too dated to contemporary people today. It's to like 50s and 60s, whereas like- But when she wore like the red scarf and Meekinose, like that also was like, people were like, wow. But Carolyn Vissette Kennedy's style is sort of like evergreen. Yeah, well now also there's a kind of revival nostalgia for a Y2K.

Yeah. And I was thinking of like the other like most stylish women I can think of are Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, the Olsen twins. But they too were very like boho and grunge at their peak. Like I remember Mary Kate doing like the long plaid shirt with like the Skittles bar like biker heel thing. Yeah. And, um, I guess Ashley was always the more like, um, classic and sedate one,

but still had her like moments. And I was thinking about how like Carolyn Bissette Kennedy is the template for the row because the row doesn't really reflect Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen's like peak personal style. Right. I mean, I honestly don't own this. I have a pair of heels from the row. Yeah.

But I don't own anything because it's so expensive. And it actually doesn't work the row is actually weirdly very similar to Balenciaga in the sense that it's so expensive and The fits are actually so off, but it gives you like inspiration for duping I randomly own a lot of row shoes and like my favorite Pair of like square toe classic ankle boots are the row. I've worn them for like six years now. But other than that, I just keep selling that crap on the real real because it just doesn't work every time.

I'm like disappointed. I can't even justify really the price point for what because I want to look if I'm going to spend a lot of money. I want to look, if I'm gonna spend a lot of money, I want to look sexy. Yeah. I'm not. You don't want to look like dowdy or frumpy. Yeah. Like an art teacher at like an elite college or something. Yeah. It's a little like modest. Yeah. What I'm willing to drop money on. Yeah. It's like asex like, it's pretty affordable. And like, you can buy like Japanese stuff on eBay. Or like just go to Coase, Coase, whatever it's called. And like, but yeah, Carolyn Besat Kennedy

makes me feel better about myself because lately every time I go out, like you asked me on the last one, whether I had my summer uniform planned. And I just like, my summer uniform really amounts to wearing literally the same outfit every day but with a different bag and belt And so people make fun of me for doing that because they're kind of creeped out

It's like Doug funny or you like open his closet What they don't realize is that I have like ten of the same shirt from Zara so I'm not like wearing the actual same item over and over. Just like a shrunken black boy tee that elongates the waist and makes you look really skinny. But like makes the tits look nice. On like a pair of like low rise slacks or whatever. That sounds like a good.

It's a good outfit, but people are like, ew, like do you ever shower? And I'm just like, I'm like Carolyn Bissette Kennedy, you guys. Mm-hmm. I'm an iconic... A classy aging horse-faced woman who wears the same thing every day. Well, what I'm most jealous, not of women like Carolyn and others, not who are like skinnier or like have better bodies than me, but just women who have totally different coloring and can pull off different. Yeah, like I won't look good in like a stark white. It's gonna make me look like sallow. And like, yeah, and you can do it. Yeah, cause I have like high contrast,

like dark hair and dark features with like pale skin. But I'm conversely, grass is always greener. I'm jealous of blondes who can pull off the, I was saying this in our girls chat, who can pull off the kind of like peak 90s Michelle Pfeiffer, Sharon Stone, cool toned ashy color palette or like khaki drab for instance, which just makes me look like like a

moldovan peasant like some woman like selling like angora hats and rega yeah the Holocaust survivor like a prisoner of war it makes me look like a prisoner of war well I've said I've said this before but Zelensky really ruins all the drop t-shirt kind of for everyone But I can still wear a khaki button down khaki is one of my go-to's I'm trying I Overinvested in black and I think I need to cycle in more browns. Mm-hmm. I think I just look better. You look good in black I look okay. It's not The most flattering it's not the most flattering color.

I would say it's like not your style, but you can pull it off. Thanks, Anna. But yes, I think you're correct in that like every woman is jealous of other women who can pull off stuff that they can't. And there's like nothing I can do. And also I think with Carolyn Bissette Kennedy,

she had this unique ability to look like sexy and sensual wearing very kind of boring and sedate silhouettes. And most women, when they try to do that, look like they work at MoMA PS1. Yeah. Like there's a reason why, like for example, you lean into like a certain like Lolita co-cat look because it makes you look sexy.

And I lean into like the kind of like Y2K, low rise, pseudo-goth aesthetic, because it does that for me. Yeah, office siren. Yeah. Water cooler whore, it's like that Sherry O'Terry SNL skit where she's just like dropping heavy-handed innuendo and it's like John Goodman,

what's the guy from Wade Blazing Game, dog attorney. Who? Chris Parnell. Oh, yes. It was like all the kind of like generic, handsome but not that handsome SNL white man. Yeah. And she's like, boys, I just wanna grapple your.

Ha ha ha! Boys, I just want to grapple your... That's people like to leverage a criticism of me for dressing age inappropriate, but they always like furnish photos where I am doing like a school girl-ish get up, but they're from years ago. Yeah, I don't do that anymore. I think you dress like pretty age-appropriate. I think so too. Whenever you do one of those like film Q&A's it's like a white blouse and a black pencil skirt. I literally dress like that. I get why I have that rep. Yeah, but I actually do dress pretty age-appropriate. I'm not that rep, but I actually do dress pretty age appropriate. I'm not, yeah. I'm saying I'm really struggling with my season, folks.

It's sent me into a spiral, and that's what I'm noticing. Other people's undertones, like Carolyn Bissette Kennedy. Well, so then Ryan Murphy responded, because yeah, they released these images Yeah, where where like the actress Sarah Pigeon looks like she's literally wearing aritzia or zara or mango or something. It's like The worst like an ultra suede Duster and like kind of too tight ill-fitting Black office clothes and then that picture from her on set in the silk midi skirt.

With Converse? Like who? What? The Carol and Bessette Kennedy would not be caught dead in Converse. I mean, maybe I guess charitably they're framing the feet out of that shot and that's like a comfort shoe or something. But yeah, you sent me that article where they were like

clearly coping and they were like, these shots are not final costume images. They were just meant for lighting and staging. Such a liar. It's such a lie because the guy. We just threw on a coat, we were just doing camera tests. Who plays JFK Jr.

Doesn't look too great or convincing, but he looks better than her. It's not egregious. They're like, sure,. doesn't look too great or convincing, but he looks better than her. It's not outrageous. And people are like, sure, it doesn't matter. Yeah, they put him in like a Patrick Bateman suit and gave him like crunchy, fluffy hair. Like, sure. I'm buying it, yeah.

We're not watching the show for JFK Jr. Yeah. Yeah. That's not what people wanna see. That's not what they want the meticulous styling for. And also like their coupledom was very compelling because he was very conventionally attractive, perhaps the most conventionally attractive man who's ever lived. And a Kennedy. And a Kennedy. And she was really beautiful in a way that like Kate Moss and Sienna Miller,

for example, are not, even though they are arguably more conventionally attractive. Kate Moss has, you know, I'm a Stan, but she has a we're ethereal special thing. She has like her eye distance is too wide. Yeah. If she was dating a Kennedy, we'd be saying she's, you know, but it's because she's a model. But yeah, I hear you. it's cuz she's a model but yeah, I hear you She's not like she's not like And she wasn't she's not like royalty. She's not like from a well-bred kind of waspy family

Well, that's the other thing I think that the other part of their appeal is that they represent like the peak or the pinnacle or like frankly the last gasp of like elite wasp culture in spite of neither of them really being wasps. Right. They're like, I think they were both like Irish, French, whatever Ellis Island people. I don't know actually about her background but yeah the Kennedys were Catholic. She's like Ann Coulter I was actually thinking like the

only woman holding down the legacy of Carolyn Bissette Kennedy these days is Ann Coulter. So true. Because she has the same kind of Riz. Which is like extremely skinny with huge tits. Awesome. Well, Jackie O was waspy. Was she? Yeah, she was. She was like from the South. Bouvier, she's French. Yeah, but like,

the very Northeastern. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't even know anything about Jackie O. She's not like a woman that I follow or have ever had any interest in, but. I really did when I don't even know anything about Jackie. Oh, she's not like a woman that I follow or have ever had any interest in But I really do did when I was a kid for some reason. Oh Yeah, you did the book report. I gave a presentation and my mom Sowed me god bless her. I

Didn't do the pink pillbox hat thing. She I like found another Picture of her from some event and an opera gown, and my mom saw me like that. So sweet. And I wore it. Something a Russian mom would do. And I gave a report about Jackie. We had to give a report about the most interesting American. And I was like, her husband was shot, and then she married the richest man in the world.

She's the most interesting woman. Imagine the psychic relief she must have experienced when her husband was finally in the world. She's the most interesting woman. Imagine the psychic relief she must have experienced when her husband was finally like in the ground and she had romantic opportunities. She's like, yes. Fuck, what was I saying? But yeah, like something else that you and a lot of other people pointed out was like that shot of like Sarah pigeon in like the shitty whack outfit where she's holding like a Birkin bag, which isn't the model of Birkin bag that Carolyn Bissette Kennedy carried. And it's also like unfilled. It's not stuff. Yeah. Not everything.

It's nothing. It's so bad. Like it just like deflated, like slumped down. It looks like my fake Miu Miu bag. After I whipped it all over Europe. It looks like something that you got from like African boobs on Canal Street. And now it's like sagging.

Yeah. And then yeah, the Vogue, we did an interview with her colorist who's now retired. But he specifically, this is talked about in the CBK fan community, is the buttery chunks. But she had this, she was a kind of a mousy brunette naturally. But they brought her up to like a tawny and then gave her these very chunky blonde pieces. Like almost platinum. Yeah. Yeah. But like a yellow, like butter, they call it. Yeah. and then gave her these very chunky blonde pieces. Like almost platinum.

Yeah. But like a yellow, like butter they call it. Yeah. And that's not at all what is going on with pigeon. It's like icy, it's all one tone. It's not, it doesn't look, it's somewhat, I saw someone say that, post it and say that this is what the like

old money aesthetics look like. And it's so true, like all the people were like, here's how to dress old money. It's all like the conservatard people. Nouveau riche trash. Or people who are like, you should dress nice for mass. You can buy a suit for a hundred dollars on Amazon. Yeah. It's like that discourse that was circulating recently about, um, Zora and Mum Donnie's wife and all the leftists were melting down

about how uniquely and unspeakably gorgeous she was. She looked like you. I know, I know. They're so mean to you. I know, I know. I know leftist boobs be calling me unfathomably, unforgivably ugly for- What the fuck?

Over half a decade and then some bitch pops up who looks like my literal sister. But with like little baby dsa baby bangs. Yeah and like uh like an art hobo. That girl is obviously like there's nothing wrong with her she's pretty. She's pretty I see why he's swiped right on her on hinge or whatever. She looks good and I actually saw a video of them walking around together. Zoran Mondani is a lot like Luigi Mangione for me in that like he's ostensibly like objectively not a bad looking guy but I find him to be like physically repellent because he like doesn't smile with his eyes,

which like I'm being hypocritical because that's a problem I also have. But mine is because I'm shy and awkward and his is because he's like seething and mean. Pretending to be a human being. But the girl is cute and fine. And some of the right wing guys had a more or less correct take on it where they were like, well, the reason people are responding to her is because she has like nice skin and hair and she's clean cut and has styled herself to be attractive for men. Like she wears like kind of like knee high boots, classic feminine pieces, which is probably

true. But I'm like looking at her styling and it's like, it looks like she went to Beacon's Closet, which is unforgivable considering that she probably comes from generational wealth and should like know better. Well, she's Syrian born. Yeah. But they had a wedding in Dubai. Yeah.

Even though they are really harping on the courthouse subway. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, what about the Dubai wedding? Yeah. What about the luxury destination wedding? And like, yeah, her styling is actually like whack and off in a way that like straight guys can't really understand because they just respond to like a short skirt and like tall boots Which is fine. Oh, they're like the EV sundress is just fine. Yeah. Yeah, they're like your if you counter signal it you're engaging in like Intrasexual competition or whatever you can see her tits. Yeah

She's fine. Her drawing. I looked into her drawings. Oh, yeah. Her like deviant art drawings. She's like me for real in that she's a woman who looks better in motion versus in still photos. Like she looks really good on video. Like I'll give her that. She's clearly an attractive girl. And like, it's so sad that like, Zoran Mamdani and his like Syrian art hoe wife

are the closest thing we have now to Carolyn Pettkennedy and JFK Jr. No. They're like the aspirational power couple. No. There's gotta be someone else. But even you look at like women across the political spectrum who have like again, like technically ostensibly good style and look polished and put together like Ivanka Trump or

Who'd at what's her name? Who'd a Abidine Abidine like they look classy in the modern like meme warfare tick-tock way But there's always something off and over styled. There's too many jewel tones. There's too much midriff showing. Yeah. The jewelry is too chunky and looks cheap, even though it's probably really expensive. I think Hoopa Abedin had a wedding. Recently. Oh yeah. She married, um, Alex Soros. Yeah. I think Santa Miller was there actually. Alex Soros. Yeah I think Sienna Miller was there actually. I mean the nicest thing I can say about her is that she has a type. I mean I was actually thinking on my way over here how people hold it against me that I or call me a fascist

or whatever like Josh Sid Josh Cinderella when they're like but you went to all these parties yeah and it's like yeah I did I also went to like Huba Abedin's purse party in the Hamptons because I was on like some publicist lists on accident clearly but like if Democrats invited me to some parties I'd go to them. Of course, of course. I'll roll up, invite me. We'll go to the Zio Gala. What do I care?

Come on, going to a party makes you come on. That's one of the- Relax. The most bizarre and vulgar aspects of being like a niche media personality is that I find it very understandable that like young leftists who live elsewhere, like not in any major city will like freak out at you and accuse you of being a grifter or whatever like I get that. But when people that you know personally and like have rubbed shoulders with and go to the same party, like share a friend group with, or like lashing out against

you or like, but we literally just inhabit the same social scene. That's so bizarre. I know. And like I'm prepared to like turn a blind eye and look the other way and like I not be Mean and competitive about your policy a lot of my Friendly acquaintances supporting Zara and Mumtani. Yeah, I'm like sure whatever You know, like you're making a mistake, but whatever I don't hold that against you yeah, like I mean like all of our celeb friends basically are like teams over on and I'm like, you're making a mistake, but whatever. I don't hold that against you.

Yeah, like, I mean, like all of our celeb friends basically are like Team Zoran and I'm like, that's possibly the most human and least questionable thing about them because it's like, they're kind of just like stock default progressives and they don't really care about politics, which I find inspiring and aspirational.

Totally. And like, of course they're going to go with him. I mean, they don't have to say anything. But some of our a lot of our bohemian friends as well. You know, I just don't I think I mean, when like Cynthia Nixon was running for governor, I was like posting about her. I didn't know any, you know, I was like, she's from sex in the city.

She's kind of a Bernie crap, you know, I was like, she's got the right, I was like, let's do it, let's vote for Cynthia. Like I didn't know what she's for at all. I think a lot of people just do that. Yeah, it's like you're a friend or a friend of a friend and you're like on the scene, I'll just vote for you. You seem like comfortable and familiar. The other thing is that a lot of these people, because they do come from family money, are so coddled and sheltered. That's not a value judgment. That's merely a observation. And so they, it literally does not occur to them that there are people who are not

smarter than them maybe, but wiser than them because they've had more life experience and they sort of understand how the political game works and in a weird paradoxical way that becomes their strategic advantage because they're very like forceful and idealistic. And that's like the biggest asset you can have in the war of ideas because you can actually just like dominate and browbeat people. the war of ideas because you can actually just like dominate and browbeat people. And I was even thinking, I didn't mean to like turn this into like a Zoran hatefest, but I was, I like came around to it and I was like, all right, fine, let him win. Because it might actually be interesting. I'm making like a real accelerationist argument here.

It could be interesting, like he will turn the city into a wasteland or maybe he won't. I don't even part of me doesn't part of me thinks that he won't even get around to it because he's going to be so gridlocked in bureaucracy and he'll be making tick tocks and he just wants he's a whore. Yeah, he's just yeah, he's an attention whore. He's just going to be a ceremonial figure. But like, if he were to win and ascend to the level of like political fame that like AOC has, for example, he's gonna be so epically owned by Donald Trump on the world stage. He as it'll be a moment to remember will be Donald Trump's delight. Yeah. And Cuomo's right, like, say what you want about that guy, but he's Yeah. And Cuomo's right, like say what you want about that guy, but he's, um...

I mean, that's what sucks is I can't really be like, go Cuomo. No, no, no, fuck Cuomo, but he's a person who has life and political experience. He's not stupid. Sauron's never even had a job. Yeah. Besides being like a DAS racist rapper. Yeah. Joke clown rapper on the subway.

What was his rap name? Mr. Cardamom. So gross. It's disgusting. It's horrible. Come on, get real people. He's like doing daisy rap, looking like a total gooner with a short.

Very disrespectful. That's not the mayor. What the hell? I'm so glad I never tried to have a rap career because I would. You might have. Yeah. I was, yeah, I couldn't even make it through my hip hop dance class in fourth grade I got too scared I got the chicken pox and was really relieved I know I know the black teens weren't laughing at me they're handing out chicken pox vaccines to children now which like I'm pretty much a moderate on this issue and feel like that that vaccine of all vaccines is probably fairly safe but you want your kid to run the gauntlet of having chicken pox because that also builds character and also brings some

kind of psychic relief because you literally just like get taken out of school and like don't have to do your hip hop dance class. Do you remember having chicken pox? Yeah, I loved it because I mean it was like shitty and itchy but like my mom kept us home. Of course. My sister's two years younger than me so we basically like cycled through all the afflictions together. Well you know about pox parties? No. That's what kind of like proto anti-vaxxer type moms would do in the 90s early aughts was just take their kids in the 90s, early aughts was just take their kids to be around a kid with chicken pox so they could all get it. Damn. They're taking their kids to the gay sex orgy to get monkey pox. But I mean, I have really unpleasant memories of it. I specifically remember having like boils between my toes that were really painful. Yeah. And, but yeah, it's a good, you know,

suffering is salvific and it's pretty short-term and relatively harmless. Yeah. And you get some cool scars for a while and you like, yeah, it makes you, it's probably good for your character. Yeah. And you, but you basically get to do what you want and like not go to school for a while, which is fun. That's like all kids want is to not go to school. Yeah, it's true. I want to skip class.

Yeah. Wait, I'm gonna, that's it. That's the podcast. I'm gonna see if I have anything on. Oh, here's a funny quote from the article that you sent me of Ryan Murphy clapping back at the haters. Sadly, Murphy believes scrutiny hurled at the shows. Carolyn is eerily similar to how the media and public treated Bissette Kennedy.

We're writing a story about a person, an unknown person who falls in love with the most famous man in the world and suddenly she can't leave her house. Ryan says she was constantly being photographed being called a cunt by the paparazzi. Like what does that have to do with the fact that you were like costume department? Clearly. Is like lazy and broke.

Yeah. Yeah. He's her every move and fashion choice was dissected ad nauseam. They're doing that to our Carolyn. What they did to the real life Carolyn Murphy says, it's not fair. Total these are people who are invested in the legacy of Carolyn Bissette Kennedy and want it to be done justice to they're not calling her a cunt. Like, what are you talking about? That, yeah, yeah.

That's crazy. It's the that's the opposite world. Well, Brian Murphy also did the swans, right? Which is a show I watched on a plane and got really addicted to. And I remember even then, like the styling was off. Well, a lot of television styling is off. But my question of like done by committee and without real like vision. Yeah. And by people who don't really understand what is like important

about. It's done by millennial black gay guys. And they're not all white lesbian friends. Not always, but often I think that it's a department that does get underfunded. Yeah, but it's like very unclear what went wrong. I liked your take that you probably don't remember now. When you said that Ryan Murphy was probably so overextended

with all his like multiple projects that he didn't really like bother to nail down the vibe. Yeah. Or hire the right people. Well, he knows people are going to watch it anyway. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, he can kind of phone it in. Yeah. And like, my question is though, like, why didn't they just like dip into the archives? Easy.

Given that they're, they probably had a budget for it. I mean, maybe no. And they're just pulling half-assed contemporary dupes of existing pieces that you can actually probably buy on the real reel. I think like- Low-key Hollywood's broke. Yeah, everyone's broke.

I did a movie, The Materialist out now. You guys are gonna love it. But that was like a 10 million A24 movie and several departments complained to me about not having enough money and the costuming was, you know. The people were talented,

but they definitely were spread thin, I felt. And I think that comes across and people can see it. I saw someone say, cause Kim Kardashian was on a season of like American Horror Story and that she was wearing like designer clothes. But that's probably because she through in person styled herself or yeah,

like had some say in production what she wore and like wanted to wear them because much like Pee Wee Herman, she's like a total like control freak and domineering personality and has to like fully like control her image at all times. Um, but also yeah, why wouldn't you, if you, you know, if you had clothes that were better money The money, the resources, yeah. Why not? Like I have a chip on my shoulder about self styling

because I'm like, what the fuck? Like you should dress me if I was Kim Kardashian. But you're actually in a weird way probably better off for it. Often, yeah. Yeah, that was like the appeal of Chloe 70 because she always like styled herself and she looked good and like, yeah, that's like, yeah, that is that's the nature of style. She's kind of on the level of Carolyn to me. Where like you, but she's worn, unlike Carolyn, she's worn a lot of different looks. Yeah.

But they've all been pretty- Like fun and good. Very good. Yeah, and flattering. Like she definitely knows, she has a style. Yeah. But yeah, with Carolyn, I think the re-wearing, and she wasn't like an unknown totally. I know. Well, she was like a PR girl for Calvin Klein. Yeah. And allegedly, their famous like explosive fights were related to the paparazzi attention,

but that feels kind of like a convenient and like obfuscated yeah reason it's yeah I don't think she was that upset about they were both like in spite of how Cool my rides here. I have to go Time square, baby. Yeah, New York minute vibrant community. Yeah But what was I gonna say? I'm like so it's also very hard to podcast with how hot it is in here I need to get an AC in here. Oh, yeah. Sure. Are these the fan? Yeah, we're retarded. There's a heat wave y'all or at least a fan. Yeah, we're retarded. There's a heat wave, y'all.

It's rough out there. No, it's so bad. I already feel so crashed out. I know. And I got the weather alert today and it's like heat wave and pending. Like make sure you don't use too much energy and like stay in for it.

I mean, I have been. I'm gonna die. I've really been up in my home. I was thinking about how like, I wouldn't ever kill myself, but I would do something reckless and retarded that would get me killed. Okay, well that's a kind of killing yourself. Yeah, and have like leftist clowning on me for days.

I, yeah, I haven't left my, well, because I have to leave my apartment during the week because of the construction noise. Yeah, wait this is so interesting. It's like the guy in the car blasting like hip hop and then the chopper flying overhead. Get him. Who they get in. I might not even edit this out. Yeah, whatever. People are always like, can't you just like hire a guy or like use an AI to do the editing? And I'm like, no, because I would have to give them notes and it would actually like extend the process.

It's harder sometimes to like delegate a task. It's just, or just as much. That's why I always lean back on this really brilliant Madonna quote. I think she may have said it on Letterman. She was like, well, you really can't trust people to execute your vision. So you have to do it yourself.

And then what you're gonna give them directions and then listen to it to make sure they did them correctly. Like that's harder. Yeah, wait, Madonna, what's her, I'm gonna Google what Madonna's sign is. Isn't she a gem? I think she may be a Virgo. Oh, Virgo would make sense.

I wouldn't be surprised. What is, why are Virgos so sexy? What is that? Um, thanks. But it's true. August 16th, she's a Leo, she's Leo. Oh, she has the same birthday as Matthew, I forget that. Oh, cool.

We should talk about the Peewee Herman documentary. He's a Virgo, he has the same birthday as my sister, August 27th. Oh, interesting. He's a Virgo, and it really comes through. He's like so very clearly a Virgo. Like somebody who has a very romantic and sensitive and idealistic private emotional side

and who is perennially disappointed by other people because they fail to mirror his conscientiousness and is forced to again become like an exacting and domineering personality and a control freak and who like hides himself behind layers of conflict. This is like the classic Virgo thing. And like Virgo is the virgin. You would think that it would be like a uniquely repressed

and asexual sign, but it's actually like really demented and horny. Well, those aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. No, no, it's like you have a dark side. There is like, yeah, some repression. The Pee Wee Herman doc was interesting. I was like, I wasn't really in the mood for it. I know, I know it was extremely boring in a drag and it was, it was interesting in the

ways that it was uninteresting specifically. And I like, I'm going to pull up my notes like Peewee. I watched Peewee's Playhouse as a kid, even though I kind of had the sense that it was a little like naughty, or like it wasn't really for kids, which is what I liked about it, but it also kind of creeped me out. And I didn't, the rough, round the edges stuff

in a child's mind wasn't like, it didn't register so much. But again, yeah, if I had been in a different mood, but I was really, I found myself very like unamused kind of same, same, same. It was very cute. Yeah. He's a, he's a very lovely and special, but I wasn't like, he reminds me of Glenn Greenwald. First of all.

Yeah. but I wasn't like- He reminds me of Glenn Greenwald, first of all. Wow. Yeah, they're the same kind of guy. Gay, Jewish, liberal, who's exacting and forceful. And essentially domineering, but has a soft, sensitive side. Like when he talks about- And with like a, yeah, Peewee has like a vaudeville twist and he's a lawyer, but yeah. He just like us for real, he's like a Virgo

and also a circus freak. Yeah, my first impression of the documentary was like, it's like a pretty neutral and frankly kind of bland like attempt to like, I guess like explore, revisit the legacy of like Paul Rubin's, AKA Peewee Herman. It relied on a lot of like Paul Rubens, AKA Pee-wee Herman. It relied on a lot of like stock conventions of contemporary documentary filmmaking. You have all these like BTS elements embedded in it,

like the clapboard that's doing the take at the beginning, like every documentary does that now. Then you have like the layer of like meta commentary between the filmmaker and Paul Rubens. Paul Rubens is like, I don't trust you. Yeah, where they're like negotiating not only the documentary process, but the nature of their working dynamic, which is becoming increasingly personal. And it becomes this kind of like bit or meme.

And all of this is like, placed over a very like linear narrative progression. Yeah. Like, you know, it spans like from his birth to his death with his career in the middle. And it kind of like cycles through like, yeah, like his circus adjacent youth in Sarasota, Florida, to his like zany experimental period, being like a student at CalArts, to like the conceptualization of the Peewee Herman character, to like the success of the- The Warholian influence.

Yeah, like the kind of large scale success of the Peewee Herman franchise, his afterlife as like a character actor, which is kind of like a more demoralizing and disappointing version of his childhood dream of becoming an actor. He wanted to be like a screen legend, you know, like all boomers.

He was like transfixed and transformed by the television medium. Another notable, but I guess unforeseen element is that he died like during the filming or shortly after the film wrapped. Yeah. Um, I'm like fuzzy on the exact timeline, but apparently he'd been battling cancer for six years and like, uh, neglected to inform the filmmaker. And then it's like before his death, he was interviewed for 40 hours, which sounds like you're like, it's a little vague what that means.

Like before my death, I've done a lot of things. And it's like a classic like Pee Wee Herman trick, like that he was basically, yeah, like very calculated and controlling. He made the process appear effortless when actually a lot of effort went into it. He likes pulling surprises and playing tricks on people, that sort of thing. On the other hand, also, this documentary was interesting in that it like, um, grappled with like certain supposedly like controversial or problematic elements of his personal life, like his sex scandals, and sexual identity and sexual behavior and all this stuff.

Well, yeah, he was closeted essentially though, not very well. I don't really, I don't really buy that because my mom showed me Pee Wee's Playhouse when I was a kid and it was like a show I watched a lot. And I was like, I'm actually very in love with Paul Rubin's. I always thought he was like so beautiful. He's gorgeous.

And he's very interesting. He's like a classic Jewish guy. I can think of a lot of Jewish guys specifically that have this quality. Yeah, he looks so sexy in photos. He looks statuesque, monumental, sexy in photos, but is actually very slight and nebbish in reality. Like you know, like Peter Vac has this quality. Yeah. Like where he has like, he's beautiful. Yeah, he has like a face for the screen. But when you see him in person, he's like very handsome and good looking and whatever,

but he's like a normal person. Yeah. I hope I didn't do him dirty. But like, yeah, it doesn't seem it doesn't this documentary, I guess, is like vaguely interesting in the sense that it doesn't seek to like condemn or qualify his actions. I was thinking of that talk that I went to with R. Crumb where his biographer Dan Nadel, who's like a nice Jewish lib from Brooklyn, who clearly is attracted to his work, was trying to like hedge and whitewash all the racism and sexism and anti-Semitism.

That's just like a default mode. Right. Oh, it's a critique. Yeah. Of like capitalist society or the ultra rich or something like that. Yeah. People do this with, um, Pasolini. Yeah. And like Salo where there are like heaps of searing indictment of fascists. And it's like, you don't have to make like a torture porn movie of teenagers to like tell people fascism is bad. He wanted to make this movie. He's acting on like his desires, which is why it's worth watching. Not because it's like, ooh, the fascists are so bad. Yeah.

And it's like, but these guys did like, I was thinking about this too, like all my favorite artists are basically openly communist anti-fascist people like Alberto Moravia, Rosalini, Joseph Lossy, Harold Pinter, like they're all, like most of them are gay and were living under some kind of like oppressive regime and blah, blah, blah. Like Joseph Lossy, for example, got kicked out of Hollywood because of the McCarthyist purges and ended up going to London

and teaming up with Harold Pinter and making this like the most amazing Trinity of films that has ever existed. But he was like very openly anti-communist, if not anti-fascist like Carlos Suara, who died like a year ago or something. All these guys are like when people are like, oh, yeah, like leftism, like leftists can't make good art. It's like they're the only ones making good art. Yeah, they've held the mantle for a while. And so like Jack pointed out that this documentary is less about like a specific famous guy and more about like the changing cultural landscape and that it's like an anti-me too film.

I read that post before I watched it and didn't totally get that impression. I didn't get it at all. I'm going to have to counter signal Jack here because he says, well, okay, with Paul Rubin's, there was the Saratoga movie theater, adult movie theater where he was arrested for public indecent exposure, which is ridiculous because like, why do you go to an adult movie theater if not to indecently expose yourself? It's actually very mysterious, yeah, that he was both caught in a sting operation at an adult movie theater where people obviously are jacking off. Why the fuck wouldn't you jack off? That's the point. I thought that was allowed. If you weren't going to jack off, wouldn't you go to a regular theater? I didn't realize that was the point. I thought that was allowed. If you weren't gonna back off, wouldn't you go to a regular theater?

I didn't realize that was a crime. And then the like bogus like child pornography smear search. Yeah, because he was like an avid collector of like vintage gay erotica. Right. And he actually never had any child pornography, but he was associated with that one actor, the redheaded actor, Jeffrey Johnson or whatever his name is,

who legitimately, I guess, got nabbed for child porn. Okay. Cause that guy would come to his house. But he was like well connected. But he was like, I'm like, what did he, did he counter signal Israel? Like why did this happen to him? Yeah, it's like really, but Jack pointed out

in his very glowing review of this documentary that it's an exception to the rule because no one ever talks about gay men as people, which I thought was very insightful and astute. He talks about how like no one ever sees gay men as humans or individuals on the left. They're viewed as privileged misogynist depressors and on the right as dangerous social contaminants. And I can totally put myself in his shoes and sympathize with his position as like a person who's just like historically copasetic with the gays. Of course. I fuck with them. But like also whose fault is that? Hmm. It's like gay guys kind of did it to themselves because

they turn themselves into a meme and in that respect they were very like they were just like merely ahead of the curve as gay guys often are because now everybody turns themselves into a meme, but it's like okay you think about like the pride month pride marches like rupals drag race gay slang which is basically cribbed from black slang whatever well yeah just just like the stranglehold cultural influence of the gay community yeah it's very like mimetic. Right. Like now you have nice white girls talking like gay guys.

They had some control. Yeah. And also like I think that to me that like missed the point a little because like Paul Rubens is not your average gay man. Like, yes, like part of his appeal is that he brought like a uniquely gay aesthetic and perspective to like normie mass culture. For sure.

It was like in the way that like Andy Warhol and John Waters did it. But his closetedness, which I guess the film makes a case for, doesn't feel real or meaningful actually because he was always very clearly kind of gay. Everybody knew it. Everybody knew it. I didn't even think to question it even as a child I was like knew that he was because I knew other gay people. There's something off about him and I'm like the other boys. I knew other gay people because I've come from a circus showbiz. I've been in showbiz my whole life and so I've known gay people that work in showbiz and so I knew what kind of person

he was. Yeah I don't think that's like his his problem and him hanging out with some vampy actress. Yeah like Debbie Mays or like Carol what's her name name? Like Carol Kane pretending to go on dates. And like, as Jack also points out, he like achieved this like large scale, large scale like performance art vision through the unlikely medium of children's television, which obviously became a thorn in his side when he was like canceled first

for the indecent exposure in the adult movie theater and then for the child porn allegations. But to me, him being in conflict with his gay identity is fake news and not really his core construct. I don't think he gave a fuck about that. It was, yeah, he was predisposed to being pretty private and didn't want to be outwardly gay, not because there was like so much rampant homophobia in the industry that it would have necessarily hindered his career though it would have been different.

He claims, he claims, that's his rationalization for it. He probably wouldn't have done a children's show, you know, if he was outwardly gay, but yeah, he decided to be closeted prior. Did we stop? Oops. Oops, that's okay. Say that again.

I was saying that he made the decision to be closeted before Pee-wee's playhouse. Yeah. And the dual decision to sort of live his life with the alter ego of Pee Wee Herman because he was already a naturally private person who was comfortable, compartmentalizing and bifurcating his life into two portions.

And then you were saying. Yeah, that he made that decision not because he was in conflict about his sexuality. He wasn't it wasn't so much that he was ashamed of being a homosexual because again, you remember that he was extremely well liked and well connected and it wasn't really a problem for him. He did it out of some like weird Virgo, like moral or principle where he, yeah,

he had some like ethical disgust airing his private life in public. And he wanted to have control of how he was perceived and understood. By his own admission, he talks about how it was easier for him to operate as an alter ego because he could always say that he was developing

a fictive persona as a bit versus advancing his own interests as an artist and professional. He wanted some kind of plausible deniability. He needed a moral buffer. Yes, exactly. That's very well said. He couldn't do Paul Rubin's Big Adventure.

Yeah, it would be too like self-serving and narcissistic. Yeah. And I don't think this has anything to do necessarily with his sexual identity. Yeah, it just feels that feels off to me. And yeah, and you get the sense with him that like, he was like a singular, unique, like once in a lifetime personality. But what really drove home his uniqueness is kind of like, I don't know if it's like, it's sort of like inadvertently

fleshed out in the documentary because you, you realize that he had a pretty like typical middle class upbringing that was weirdly free of drama or dysfunction. It's very interesting that both he and his sister were gay. Like he has this very like stoic, um, intellectual Gertrude Stein-ass-seeming lesbian sister. But his home life was loving and stable. His parents always loved and supported him. There was no weird tension or abuse there. His mother read him fairy tales

and encouraged his creativity. His dad had a big personality and was a good role model. His parents were automatically supportive of his homosexuality. And the other- He had his proximity to the circus. Yeah, and he found success relatively early on in life and had it consistently throughout his life,

just through the regular straightforward means of being a person who was creative and ambitious and hardworking. Well, that's what really, he was obviously singular and special, but I was kind of struck in the documentary by sort of the ease and creative freedom of an earlier era. He's like, we were just smoking weed

and writing the screenplay and then we got it made. And then I called Shelley Duvall and she put me in touch with Tim Burton. And then it was, you know, and it's like- Like Phil Hartman signed on. Yeah, we all were just like making like, and that's just doesn't exist anymore. Well, no, it does.

It's just like more fractured and subcultural, I guess. It's way harder to make a major feature motion picture without making concessions or getting like designed by committee. Yeah. Getting long housed creatively. There have been brief windows of time, getting long housed creatively. It was just a, there was like, there have been brief windows of time. I feel like where people have been able to,

in part because of their will, but just also through circumstance to like push an aesthetic and an idea forward in a big way. And like, when you look back at it now, it looks like the typical woke crap, especially if you're a conservative leading person, you look at Pee-wee's Playhouse and you're like, well, he's clearly the faggot

who was into cross-dressing and camp and was corrupting and grooming children. But at the time, back then, it was a really novel thing. And it hadn't been done before as such and like the only source of like possible conflict in this documentary is like the fact that he keeps achieving these like professional milestones at the cost of sidelining his like personal life well then his circus movie and like keeping his identity under wraps yeah and he has like the kind of normal like standard challenges. Yeah. His circus movie flops.

He has a sex scandal than another one. But all of it sounds pretty manageable in the long run. And that that to me is like basically the problem with like the whole with the story. It's like there is no story. There's no friction. There's no suspense. Like it is remarkable and they try to like, narrativize it, but like, it kind of is what it is. Yeah. And then there's this like underlying subplot of his conflict with the sexuality, or like, yeah, he claimed he didn't want to be openly

gay because it would like hamper his career somehow, which sounds like fake news. And you're supposed to get like the sense, yeah, like eighties and nineties. And you're supposed to get like the sense, yeah, like 80s and 90s. And you're supposed to get the sense that like, that's not the whole story. And he had some like deeper psychological conflict with it. But of course, you're you're never going to know the truth, like whether that was actually the case, or whether the filmmakers narrativized it. I think with the like movie theater there was a period of time where I guess there was like a legitimate homophobic kind of conflation of well there's like a satanic pedophile panic going on at the time but like yeah gay sexuality and pedoph. And because he did a children's show, like I do remember there

was like this somehow, you know, that's, and it's because it gets so mixed up in the ether when it's like Paul Rubens from the TV, the children's TV shows and decently exposing himself. It's like, then yeah then people kind of just draw conclusions, uninformed conclusions that he's a pedophile or that he had some kind of sex scandal involving children, which he didn't. But the whole thing is so suspicious because why was there like a sting operation

in an adult movie theater in Saratoga, Florida? What do they think? Why, what are they, are you not allowed to check off in an adult movie theater? Isn't that the whole point? Is that the law? But like overall I found the documentary to be like somewhat boring and uneventful

because everything just goes well for him. He dies. Well, there's the whole thing of his like black boyfriend dying of AIDS, which is just a footnote. Kind of shoehorned in. Yeah. It reminded me of that Louis CK bit that I really love about how

if he were to write his ultimate ideal movie, it would just be about a guy, like a linear progression of a guy's life that keeps getting worse and worse with no plot twists or redemption arc. And except instead of being overwhelmingly negative, his story is overwhelmingly positive. Yeah, there's this whole arc where he falls in love with this sensitive, sensual, beautiful, funny black guy

named Guy and steals his bits and they immediately fall into a playing house together in LA and then he like abandons this like very peaceful but unexciting existence because he wants a career in show business and like that also, like I don't think he abandoned, like turned his back on like a beautiful and perfect gay relationship because he had misgivings about being gay. He did it because he wanted to be a star and this guy was getting in his way. And it's very telling because Paul Rubens never got AIDS or at least never died of AIDS because he was so focused on his work.

That whole moment just passed him by. And meanwhile, all his colleagues and contemporaries were literally dropping flies. Right. Yeah, because he was a vargo workaholic. Yeah. Yeah. And the picture that emerges is of a guy who is basically in a control freak, dominating her personalities exacting. He holds grudges.

He has conflicts with nearly everyone he's friends with and works with. Like that kind of thing. He likes animals more than he likes people to the point that he's like rescuing mice and spiders. I'm sure there's one out there, but I want to see a doc about Phil Hartman getting murdered by his wife. Yeah, by his like BPD wife. Yeah, that would be interesting. So he had the best voice. Oh my god, he was amazing. It's so, that's so sad. One of Paul Rubin's friends and colleagues says he's calculating, but you're not watching him calculate.

You're just seeing the result of someone who's in control. And then the actor, Martin Lando, said he held an audience like Hitler. He is a fascist personality. Oh yeah. And it has nothing to do with him being gay. Partly. I mean, sure, yeah.

But yeah, a lot of gays are fascists. Yeah, that's true, yeah. But basically, yeah, he's clearly a person who, many basically intelligent people and a lot of earth signs. He is by his own words, romantic and sensitive, aka idealistic, aka narcissistic. He finds it intolerable when people don't meet his criteria or found RIP, whatever. And basically that life is one of like solitude and alienation. Yeah, but sometimes that's what it takes. Not always. No, but you look at all the forethought and planning that went into like

the show itself. He talks about how he wanted to make the show like kind of conceptually radical and racially inclusive without commenting on it in any way, which is truly he cast Laurence Fishburne as, what was his name? Cowboy something. Yeah.

Which like Beyonce kind of repurposes as Cowboy Carter. I don't I just looked up in like a country black person. The movie theater scandal happened in 91. Okay. Oh wow I thought it was like in 2000 or something. Yeah. So it was after so any encounter that kind of makes sense why my memories of it are colored as being somehow naughty because I was born, I probably knew, you know, if I watched Pee-wees Playhouse as a kid, which I did, but I probably like understood that there was like a scandalous underbelly. Because you were born the year of the sex scandal. Yeah. Interestingly, though, when he talks about racial inclusivity, I feel like that was already kind of the norm in the 90s.

Benettonas. Yeah. We were like, it was a different pitch of culture or but we were doing a similar thing. Yeah. Yeah. But like black people were simply just like accepted and included in artistic production. And it was like the heyday of like, yeah, like BT, UPN nine, like you had like stars like Eddie Murphy.

And once you're already working in a very like, kind of Brechtian abstract mode with the playhouse, you don't have to, like, it wasn't a Western where it would have been weird for a black guy to be a cowboy. It all like made sense. But the idea of like having a black cowboy is very campy. It's drag.

I mean, it's all gay and camp. Like from top down. And Peewee himself is this boyish, kind of bratty. It's a very interesting character. Like twinkish, yeah. Because, yeah, he's kind of like this arrested figure who is mischievous and not dangerous, but not really safe.

Like he is and everything, everyone in his world kind of and he's a chaotic and confusing. But yeah, but in like, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, you know, it's kind of like a given in the world that he exists in. He's not like a freak. Yeah. And like in the in the circus movie that flopped, right? Like they were talking about how he was adamant about having like the longest kiss in movie history and the studio was like we have to cut this this is like annoying and uncomfortable and you can tell that he wanted to include that because he he kind of like subversively wanted to like troll and punish people because he was very clearly gay

and resented that people wanted him to speak on that or to budget it into his identity. Yeah, he talks about how he wanted the show to be educational in an undercover way that had a lot of innuendo that was meant to go over kids' heads and appeal to like kind of like hip progressive parents. That's probably why my mom showed it to me.

It was like very subversive and eccentric. I think like the way that he handled his sex scandals was also very revealing where he talks about how like the most devastating part of it was losing his anonymity. And then he stages this like crisis PR photo op with Carol Kane. So crazy.

Where they're like supposedly going on a date. Yeah. He said he wanted to come out on top without looking like a victim. And then one of the most notable parts for me was when he disputed the idea that the public has a short memory and said that the public's memory is like a steel trap.

That's partially true. Like what I was saying, it's not that like people will remember the details, but that a scandal will get kind of warped into someone's narrative forever. And it becomes your reputation. And he's like well aware of that. forever. And it becomes your reputation. And he's like, well aware of that. But it's not that people remember. Yeah, that there was a sting operation on adult movie theater in Florida in 1991 that he was caught up in. It's like they remember that he did something bad and that he did a TV show for kids. And that's worse than like actually having like an elephant memory, as he says, it's this all kind kind of foggy amalgam of a collective memory. Yeah.

And he's just like, I don't know, I would say emotionally and psychologically intelligent. Of course. He's not like an intellectual or a theory self, but... No, he's tapped in. Yeah. Which is like a hell of its own. At the start of the documentary, he says that the whole idea is that you don't have a perspective on yourself.

But the implication that he's trying to get across is that he actually does. Right. And they keep asking him what if he were to direct the documentary, which he kind of like wants to or claims to. Yeah. And he supplies them with footage like what he would do. Yeah. And he's like, what if I give you like a list of questions that I want to ask the

other interview subjects and the filmmaker is like, this is weird and unethical and you know we can't do that. Yeah. is weird and unethical and you know we can't do that. He says I don't really want this to be a legacy movie I want to set the record straight in a couple of things and that's pretty much it. Which on one hand is true but on the other hand it is like the classic Virgo thing of like thing of playing dumb and feigning humility. Right. And he's very articulate about acknowledging certain uncomfortable or unflattering emotional realities, which actually has the paradoxical effect of making him totally emotionally inaccessible.

His take on being the subject of the documentaries that he's used to being the one who's manipulating others through his alter ego. Puppa Pelley trickster. Yeah. And now someone else is making all the decisions for him. He mentions being kind of seethingly, fiendishly jealous of child stars as a kid on the topic of fame. He says, I'm such a star fucker. There's something so exciting and fun about success. Yeah. Very like paradoxical conflict there. Yeah.

He's a person who's like in and want he wants to be private, but he wants to be famous. Yeah. He wants. Yeah. He wants. Yeah. Yeah. I find that very relatable, like the kind of like evil hypocritical, like poisonous side of like being a Virgo.

Yeah. Is that you want the attention, but kind of on your own terms, like a cat. And you'll literally like just tell everybody like in full honesty about all of your like misgivings and doubts and like self-criticism, which is usually correct in a way that's supposed to disarm and naturalize them, which is frankly evil. I mean, I do some a different version.

Yeah. different version. Can I steal that? That is maybe more Pisian in nature, but I have this like moral ultimatum about the truth, you know? But then I give myself a kind of like laxity where I am like, well, at least I'm telling the truth, but that's not necessarily always most like ethical. Or correct. Yeah, like you know that by telling the truth,

you create a lot of like damage and leave a lot of destruction in your wake. Yeah. Like you also have to selectively tell the truth which is like intolerable to you because because I'm so neurodivergent. White lying and not telling the full truth that makes you like angry and resentful or whatever.

I mean, overall, like the impression I have of him is that he's like very likable and even somewhat sweet. Totally. No, yeah, he's he doesn't seem villainous in the least. But like as a person who essentially like his lot in life is being forever alone. Well, that's and like the reason that his- it's Warholian too, I think Warhol also over a go. That's a good question, we should look this up. And what's John Waters

is a Taurus. Interesting. My impression of when we met him was very Virgo-esque, you know, that he kind of had talking points that were like impenetrable and a little bit controlling. Yeah, and he's like interested in other people as like a novelty and curiosity. It feels almost mean, even though he doesn't mean it that way. Right. But Rubens Warhol was also kind of a weird isolated gay guy with a very exacting aesthetic and was obviously a big influence on Rubens. He talks about it. Yeah, yeah, like he was like watching

the early Andy Warhol, Paul Morrissey films, whatever. And he like translated that aesthetic to children's programming, which is like bizarre and perverse and subversive. Yeah. But yeah, like I guess my impression of it is not that he's narcissistic and exacting because he's a homosexual, but he's a homosexual because he's narcissistic and exacting. Very wise.

Like he can't live. He's fundamentally like interested in other people, but he can't live with other people. Yeah, and his gayness is sort of beside the fact. Yeah, I don't like, yeah, okay, like we get it. It doesn't seem like a big part of his actual lived experience. Yeah, like he's clearly a gay man who had gay sexuality in the sense that he was sexually interested in other men.

But that really just like has nothing to do with like his rise and like fake fall. Yeah. Because honestly, in terms of cultural memory, the child pornography stuff, I didn't recall. Yeah, and obviously both the adult theater and child pornography stuff is so overblown and fake, and he did nothing wrong. He clearly was not. And was vindicated, sort of, for not. And I guess in that sense, the worst you can say about him was not that he was a gay pervert, but that he was... A gay pervert, but that he was-

A collector of fine erotica. Or that he was like basically asexual. Cause he didn't really care about sex that much. I'm sure he used sex to like get a load off as everyone does. He cared about erotica, which again is also very like removed, mediated- Yeah, it's like displaced, like relationship to sex.

The fact that he had such an extensive collection of vintage gay porno is very cool, but like doesn't really give me the impression that, and again, also in adult movie theater, like he was like Warhol, a little bit of like a voyeur in his sexuality. Yeah, he's a person who's an active participant and a guy who was like, you know, being gay as fuck. He's like a person who's basically like unmanageable, unknowable, inaccessible.

Morrissey not Paul, but Steven Patrick is also like this. So true. Where he wants the attention, but has a contempt for those who would give it to him. Yeah. I mean, the stage invading is such a good and visceral example of that, is he invites people to charge at him and try to make contact with him, but then has them fascistically and violently removed. And we all participate in this ritual where people try to touch more as he doesn't quite let you. So real.

These are people who basically have some kind of relatively normal desire for sexual release and emotional affection as all people do. But for whom that is secondary. That's probably like the most damning thing I guess you could say about him, that he's not motivated by that really. He's not like a compulsive gooner. Even though ironically enough he was caught gooning in an adult movie theater. But again, very like suspiciously. I don't really get what that was. Well, he was probably, I guess, yeah, who knows? Yeah, but he was like spiraling like hot off of the failure of his movie and didn't know

what he was going to do with himself. Are you not allowed to do that? I really I'm gonna I'm gonna ask chat GPT. I also love the bit like, basically the way that I caught wind of Paul Rubin's initially was because I was a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer the movie with Christy Swanson and David Arcat and he plays like the villain in it and I remember being like transfixed by it like my two favorite movies were growing up were Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lost Boys, which were like, you know, like Gen X, elder millennial vampire movies. And that was like a role that he got after the sex scandal. And he was being like

rehabilitated in the press or whatever. I forgot where I was going with this, but he deliberately conspired to make his styling on the movie look like his mugshot. Right, right, right, right. Huh. Yeah, public masturbation in any public space is illegal in most US jurisdictions. And indecent exposure or lewd conduct laws touching our genitals when others are or could be present is a crime. Damn.

But that seems so crazy. It's not a felony, okay? And he was sentenced to 75 hours of community service that he used to make anti-drug PSA. In spite of being like a huge stoner. Yeah. I liked how many people also were stoner. Like, I'm always, I always feel a little vindicated when there are like high functioning stoners because a lot of right wingers loves to talk about how it's

like a degenerate and useless. Well, like all things, it's one of those things that like has diminishing returns when it's like normalized and mass normie culture. Like now you go outside and there's just like head shops and like CBD store funds and you literally just like walk outside and smell weed everywhere and it's disgusting. And like an olfactory and cultural pollutant, it makes me sick when you see like all sorts of different people from all walks of life just like toking up on the street. You know, this is disgusting and pathetic.

Normie, like probably like a nursing student or something like smoking weed on the street. I'm like, yeah, that's her like skinny fat boyfriend. They're like smoking a blunt. I'm like, that is disgusting. But also like weed smoking is very boomer coded because they all love to like brag about how much weed they smoked and they were like hippies. Well, there's a Gen X kind of like Seth Rogen, right? Like there's a whole contingent of culture on that too that was like very like weed-centric. I mean, it's not my favorite culture, but

as a habitual, occasional marijuana user, I do think it's not like it. But when I got weed in Trinidad and I had to go to like that Rasta drug den, I was like, this is how hard it should be to get it. You should have to find like African nationalists or illegal, but like somehow sanctioned in like a community of like Haley's, like head, not even a head shop, just like some weird space. You should have to go to like a secret area to get it. Yeah. If you want to like a park in New York or Berlin and just like cop weed from some

like random African, you have to get it from like a Rasta person who thinks it's like a sacrament. He tells us also like he tells us very interesting story. I mean, also it's not that interesting because I feel like the impression that I got from this documentary is that like all the stories that they tell was kind of like the Martha Stewart dog. Yeah. Where it's like's like overly controlled and managed and like the stories are supposed to be like quirky, chungus, it's like when they wheel out like an actress

like Isabelle Huper or like Nicole Kidman and she's like- Happy birthday by the way. Yeah, oh who, which one? Kidman. Oh. And they were like, I can't stand like dog owners or I can't stand weed smoke. And they say like, I can't stand like dog owners or I can't stand weed smoke. And they say like something like relatable and like Twitter is buzzing about it. And you see like these NPC tweets that have like 56,000 likes or something over something

like some actress set like was fed to the press. The people saying Dasha jumpscare in a letterbox review is so crazy. Like, how do you people not, so many people. How are you not ashamed of yourselves? Like so many of you are saying the same exact thing. Yeah. It feels like coordinated. It feels like an op. It's like what? Like you're all coming up with it. That's crazy. Yeah. Just to signal that you know, I'm in the movie and you approve and or disapprove of me is unclear. But like, but

you're like registering knowledge. You don't have a mind. So you're just gonna say what you see. No, it's so horrible. But there's a story he tells about how his mother would sarcastically say to him as a child, well, like everyone who doesn't agree with you must be wrong. And he would say unironically, that's right, mom. And then he sort of says, like, as an adult,

I've actually come to see that that was true. If you don't agree with me, then you're wrong. And then he does this thing where like this a bit where he's like, actually, I'm kidding. I don't mean that. But actually, I kind of do. No, I don't. But maybe you think I do. And he's doing like that thing. And it's like, he obviously does think that like anyone who's not aligned with his vision is like a loser in a rub. Yeah. But

that's literally it is right about that. Like, if you want to be truly free or make a mark on the world, you just cannot agree with other people and have to do what you want to do at all times. Like the great personal sacrifice of hurting others and alienating yourself. That's just what it is. Well, it's good to get the representation for that kind of thing. Yeah.

When they're talking about like, blackers getting representation. I'm like, I want to see some like. And Lauren's fish burns, like, I didn't really get it, but I needed the work. I'm gay for pay. I'll do this weird faggity show. Remember when Lauren's fish burns daughter was doing porn? Oh my God.

So sad. I's so sad. I forgot about that. That was like a mid-aughts thing. We've done about an hour and a half. That's fine. We can wrap it up. We don't need it. I don't want to get into Iran. Yeah, I have nothing to say. I've been blissfully ignoring that. And last night I was hanging out and people were like,

oh yeah, there's a war. War just dropped. Is we getting a war? I have been sort of following it because I kept waiting for something to happen. Yeah. And I guess today it did or yesterday. Well, Trump bombed the nuke facilities. Yeah. Is that the idea? Trump bombed the nuke facilities.

Yeah. Is that the idea? Israel bombed the nuke facilities like eight days ago. Then Iran started firing ballistic missiles into Israel. The US shot some of those down, but was still kind of like not getting involved. And then finally, but Israel needs the US because we have some bomb called a bunker buster. That can penetrate into the core depths

of this nuclear facility. And we finally dropped it yesterday or today. The New York Post headline was like, we bombed Iran. And then it was like a quote from Trump. It's time for peace. Yeah. And I guess all the kind of like anti-war leftists and anti-war right wing crypto leftists are like,

he's going to drag us into another like long winded forever. I don't know what's going to happen. A lot of people did not vote for Trump on They don't they don't want the war with Iran You know that wasn't we didn't want that and no I think nobody really does and Right, I see how bombing a country is an act of war. It's an invitation to have a prolonged, serious engagement. But I just think more will be revealed. And I don't want the war with Iran, obviously.

Well, Catherine had a good take in our girls chat where she said that she was like positive and optimistic that this was just a beautiful show for us by the majestic Trump and that it also gives Iran a way out. I could buy whatever. I don't care. I don't care about Israel or Iran.

It's a pity both sides can't lose. So true. I just wanna have like a white girl crash out summer. Yeah. Summer fun. Yeah, this isn't a good, This isn't part of our summer vibe, so we're not gonna talk about it. For once, I'm not like glued to Twitter,

like taking in all the political analysis. I'm like Ted Cruz, I don't know anything about Iran. Yeah. Oh yeah, I told you I watched The Power of Nightmares, the Adam and Eve's talk, which feels extremely quaint because it's about kind of the West dog, which feels extremely quaint because it's about kind of the war on terror and how the Islamic jihadists

and like the Straussian neoconservatives all both created this idea of the other as this like looming threat that they needed to then engage in jihad or war. Yeah, this is like a Peter Thiel of Straussian moment. But he talks about how Al-Qaeda is not actually like an organized terror network and not a real threat. And that it's all kind of the politics of fear

that are driving. Yeah. It all makes sense, but. Well, it's like memeing villains into existence. Exactly. Which again, gay guys are ahead of the curve on. But it is interesting to talk about how like, yeah, Al Qaeda might not be the threat facing the UK.

There's also like Tony Blair footage talking about Al Qaeda and these very like hypothetical terms. But now, like, I don't even know when it came out, like 2005, 2003, after 9-11, but pretty early. But now, it's not Al-Qaeda that the UK should have been worried about. It was like the migrant crisis. It's like now most people in England are named Mohammed and stuff, and they might not be like jihadist sleeper cells,

but it's like, that's something else. Well, as many much smarter and greater people have pointed out, like 9-11, the aftermath of which was supposed to decisively crush the Islamist threat had the effect of just inviting more Islamic immigration into the country. And it like when you look at like Iran's like Middle Eastern people are so gay and dramatic a same being pointed out like the Iranian like official Twitter will tweet out

like we have a surprise for you that you won't forget your lives will be ruined. You will be your civilization will be destroyed. And then like literally nothing happens. Yeah, like at my husband's. Because they have to like save face in front of their population. And also the international community. They're like between a rock and a hard place,

like literally because they just like have like desert and like stones up in there. It reminded me like the stuff coming out of like Iranian official media reminded me of like that time that we read Osama bin Laden's letter on the podcast. And it just like crazy because you're like, these people sound like fucking high school leftists.

Well, yeah, that was the Iranian revolution. Yeah, they're so stupid. They're like, oh, capitalism. Those neoliberalism. Those dogs in the West are degenerate gamblers. They sound like me in 2016. They gamble and wear short skirts over there. And that's why we must wage to hot.

They're gooning to Whitney Houston. I mean, oops, I mean I mean, huh Anyway And yeah, i'll wrap it up. But it's like very clear also that like I have a great deal of respect and appreciation for I have a great deal of respect and appreciation for Iranian people. I like Iran and Iranian culture. The Persians are noble and beautiful peoples. I don't want to go to war with them at all. They're also very intelligent relative to all the other people in that region.

Well, I also don't think that they are that close to having a nuke somehow. I just... Yeah. That's just a hunt. I'm not a, you know. Like, okay, they have some enriched uranium that they're not supposed to, but like Israel, Israel relax and get your boot off my neck, okay? I know, I know.

And it's like also crazy, this idea that like, that a lot of like, when Tards promote that like, you as the American empire can't strike out at Iran, which historically has been antagonistic to American interests because that means that you're a zio cuck and you're just like following the lead of Israel. Like that's not true. Also. Well, in this case, we actually don't have any business being in Iran outside

of defending Israel who just attack them. No, I think we have some purely American interests. I mean, this is also like a very... No way. No way. The ayatollahs are also a very geriatric sclerotic regime that are willing to do anything to hold on to power. We do not need to be spending money on our precious bunker bussers on Iran.

But I don't know. I don't know if I'm gonna be like proven wrong. I'll eat my words, whatever. I like literally don't care about this conflict, but I feel like probably it's not gonna turn into another forever war. Well, wait, it's not, we haven't occupied Iran, we dropped bombs on them.

So it's not- On their three supposedly nuclear generating facilities. It is different from Iraq where we fully occupied. Yeah, had like a ground war. You know, that's way harder to pull out of. I think, yeah, we dropped some bombs on them and like they'll retaliate probably against Israel or like against US military bases probably.

It's not good, none of it's good. And we are doing it on behalf of Israel, which is not really a non-American verse. No. But I ultimately am kind of trusting the plan because like you said, we're just trying to get through the summer. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. See you.