Tomorrow - 232: Web shooter

Episode Date: August 29, 2021

By the grace of scheduling, Tomorrow is back! This week, Josh and Ryan catch you up on everything that's happened this summer, including: the OnlyFans meltdown, the Spider-man multiverse, RuPaul's Drag Race, and the terrible, horrible, no good Andrew Cuomo. Thank you for your patience, Tony. We missed you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to Tomorrow. I'm your host Joshua Tupolsky. Today on the podcast we discuss Delta, doing it, and Pikachu. I don't always one minute. Let's get right into it. Well Ryan, we're back. Are we? I don't know. And the funny thing is we never really left when you think about it. Yeah, we were recording episodes and just not really think about it. When you think about it, if you believe it as a listener, Tony, that we weren't releasing podcasts for the past three-ish months, you're actually wrong.

Yeah, that's kind of on you. It's on you and shame on you, actually, for suggesting that we haven't been releasing episode after episode week after week throughout the summer months of the year. And that my friends is gaslighting. No, but seriously, thank you all for reaching out. Like there was, there was, there was every day, thank you for reaching out on every Instagram post.

I'm like, I'm on the screen. I'm on the screen. You guys are like, I'm not the weird phone. You guys are like, okay, but when's the podcast coming back? My DMs are just like a list of people telling me that my opinions are wrong or that I need to have a podcast. You're like, they're like, I fucking hate your ideas and opinions. And if I don't hear them every week, I'm gonna be very upset. No, so listen, so here's the big mistake,

is that we didn't really, we should have released like a snippet episode just to be like, we're taking a break because it's the summer and there's a ton of stuff going on. We didn't do that. If anything, that should tell people where we were at. That's right. I had a surgery that their recovery was a lot harder

than we had planned on and I had a death in the family and then I had a bunch of stuff, and other stuff in my family personally and it was when I say that we took a break out of necessity. It should speak volumes that we didn't even release a clip explaining that. Yeah and I of course I had nothing going on. No but I was, we were knee deep in doing the gocker relaunch. I was working on that and it was very time constrained. We had a date in mind, we wanted to hit it, and there's just a lot of crazy stuff going on. Also, I have a family. We took a vacation, which is an unusual event for me. Of course, we launched gocker in the middle of my vacation, which is exactly how things should be, I believe, in the world. Yeah, so it was just a crazy, it's been a

crazy few months and I think we needed a break and I apologize to Tony and Tony's extended family for not putting up, you know, I actually don't apologize. You know, Tony, you know, you just, it's, what do I, I don't know you in a Polly, yeah, maybe I do actually, okay, I'm going back to the apology. I was like, why should I apologize? And I was like, maybe I should apologize. And this is, uh, basically that's what my brain is doing all day long. Um, anyhow, so we're, so we're back. We are, I think re energized.

I feel like a break was very good. I think, you know, we had some, I thought we had some very fun episodes, particularly some of the ones where we had guests on recently, which, you know, we'll do more of. But also, I think we were a little bit, I mean, Ryan and I have talked a lot over the years. I think we were like, we needed a little bit of a break

from the conversation. It's like when people say to me, you let John go on vacations by himself, it's like I encourage him. Something else to talk about would be great. Like I spend every hour of every day around this man, if he wants to go wander around Seattle for a week, muzzle.

Wow. No, Laura's like, I really want you to leave the house. Like, she's like, I just, you need to go, I'm like, well, we can go back some days to the office and she's like, yeah, you need to leave. Like, it's very definitely, I mean listen, the pandemic has changed the dynamic, right? I used to go in to the city most days of the week,

so I'd go like four out of five days of the week. I usually had work from home on Fridays. And now, I mean it's rare that I go in. And I personally love it. Like I don't, I don't like commuting. It's a huge waste of time, in my opinion. And I think I get a lot more dumb when I can just sit and focus because I have bad ADD diagnosed, attention deficit disorder. But, um, but it's also true that it's like, you know, we've been doing this pandemic dance for a long time now. We're like, we're going on two years. On our last episode, we were like, the vaccines are here, it's all fine. We're like, yeah, the vaccines are really now. I mean, I did go back and listen to the last episode and I was making fun of Republicans who wouldn't take the vaccine.

And you know, what an irony. They owned you, it seems. I mean, the lips have truly been owned by Republicans and anti-faxors, basically ruining the recovery, the American recovery from the pandemic. Biological warfare against America by the right way. I mean, it's just like, it's truly incredible. I don't want to dwell a lot on this

because there's a lot of stuff to talk about, but I think it's worth commenting that at the start of the summer, when we did our last episode, I think it was released on April 26th or something, so we were going, well, so a little bit before the start of summer, but close. released on April 26th or something. So we were going, well, so a little bit before the start of summer, but close. You know, we were like, you have vaccines are rolling out, people

are getting them. I was like, man, you know, clubhouse is going to die, which I think it has anyhow, but I mean, the app, the talking app. But, but, you know, we, there was a moment, But, but you know, we there was a moment Jake Climent who is one of the editors that inverse tweeted about this He's like, I'll never forget the one month I could go into a Dunkin Donuts without my mask on and it's true There was like a moment where it was like hey, wait a second. It's gonna be back to normal and Then you know people didn't get the vaccine who needed to get it. And now there's counties in Florida where the largest majority of people being diagnosed with and being hospitalized for COVID are like children because the Delta variant is much

more aggressive and nobody's vaccinated and kids can't be vaccinated. Kids like between five and 11 now or whatever the age range is. And so it's like, it's really crazy. I mean, Florida's like, the death toll is off the charts. It's high, the highest it's ever been. The South is absolutely ablaze in terms of infection and deaths.

And it's creeping up north, you know, and it's like, it's not a mystery. 5,000 New Yorkers a day get Delta. Yeah, and it's creeping up north you know and it's like it's not it's not a mystery five thousand new yorkry today get dealt yeah and it's not it's not a mystery it's it's this is happening because people didn't get vaccinated i mean here's the here's the thing my mom my my brother moved to florida and he's moved back and he's moving back again it's this whole thing my parents keep talking about how they want to move to florida and i'm like guys

you they used to treat their tap water with liquid oxygen, but now they need the liquid oxygen to give to people because they don't have any other oxygen. So now they're treating their tap water with bleach and telling people to use as little of it as possible. That's the state of Florida. I mean, we have, we have like basically one of the few countries in the world where the vaccines were readily available for any citizen who, basically any citizen of age, who wanted it. Vaccines were readily available for any citizen who basically any citizen of age who wanted it. And other countries were looking at us, I'm sure,

I'm sure they are looking at us in horror as like the burns through their populations and they can't literally get the vaccine. And we're like, oh yeah, no, we're good. Actually, people are like, yeah, we're fine. Right out. We don't need your vaccine. We've got.

A miracle. We've got horse, we've got right out. We don't need your vaccine. We've got a miracle. Horse we've got horse tranquilizers or whatever. I don't like a miracle. No stinking miracle science. I think it's great I don't want to be a downer, but you know shits real fucked up. I mean, you know, it's it's there's a real It's not great better It's not great. I mean, I just think I just want people to I just want this to stop. I just don't we all want it to stop. And like, I can't understand. I truly cannot get in the frame of mind where this, whether it's a political opinion or a fear,

or a lack of knowledge about a vaccine at this point when you know when you see the data to everywhere and when people around you are getting it and not getting sick and not dying and the people who aren't getting it are that you wouldn't just go, you know what? All right, I'm just gonna do it because

I'd like life to go back to normal. Like, do people like this? I'm trying to normal. Like, do people like this? I'm trying to figure out, like, do Republicans like this? Yes. I think that's what they do. Is that the deal? I think they actually do.

Why? Why do they like it? It's maximal. Put me inside the mind of a Republican. Multiple things. One, it's maximally disruptive and then they get to blame and resent people for it. So like every time there's a mask mandate,

every time we're told like we have to do this or this is happening, they can blame Joe Biden, the government, the liberals, everyone who's saying that COVID's a big deal, because quote unquote, it's really the flu. Like they enjoy that. They also hate poor people. So any amount of suffering is great for them.

I mean, it's like that John Taffer clip that made the rounds on Twitter where he was like, you know how I feel about the poor in the military when they train dogs, they don't feed them because a hungry dog is an obedient dog. Yeah. That's how they feel about us. And I think they see this and I think honestly,

I mean, if you're a super rich, if you're super rich and you're like running the party brainwashing machine, you know, you're not really being affected by any of this because you can see, can be vaccinated or tested and you can hide. And it's the people on the ground who are dying

and they're bed begging, oh, can I have the vaccine now? Yeah. No, I mean, it's dark and it's deranged. And I mean, look, we don't have to dwell on this because everybody's actually living this right now. I know. And it's worth mentioning. No, it is worth mentioning.

And from, I'll say on a personal note, I just remembered Andrew Cuomo, by the way, like, who was very popular the last time we did this podcast. I'm pretty sure like April people were still like Cuomo's actual rules. We have to talk about that, but first, I just want to say like, happy to have this podcast as a living record that I never liked Andrew Cuomo. You know, it's true. It is true.

You were always, you were always is true. You were always a You were always you were always Cuomo Fobick. I Hope I just coined that. You had you actually put out a lot of Cuomo Fobia at the time and I think you were right on the The but but personal opinion and on a personal note like I feel Totally safe being vaccinated like I feel totally safe being vaccinated.

Like I feel like even if I get sick, I'm not going to die. Like what is proven is that yes, people are getting, there are some breakthrough infections. It is possible to get coronavirus if you've been vaccinated but the effects are tremendously lessened, right? They're just way, it just, it doesn't, it can't attack your body the way it does if you are not vaccinated.

But I have a kid and right now, I have a seven year old and right now seven year olds can't be vaccinated. And so I live in just total fucking fear because I understand that kids don't get as sick and I understand that kids don't get it as easily even Delta, which is much more aggressive It's still typically is you know the majority of infections aren't even though in some places in Florida That's not the case the majority of infections aren't children, but I'm not trying to play with being the edge case, you know like I'm not trying to like put my kid on a fucking chopping block and be like Well, we'll roll the dice.

You know, I understand there are dangers in life, right? There are things that you do. We write drive in the car and cars are dangerous. And we obviously take every precaution, but you can't take every, you can't know what every other driver's doing or what your car is going to do. Or, you know, if you get distracted for a minute, there are dangers driving in a car. That's a calculated risk. Yeah, we're in the same outfit. But we put our fucking seat belts on. We put her in a car seat, like a special seat for kids because she's not old enough yet to not have that. And we drive carefully, you know, but with this, it's like, you could, you know, it's like, I don't have the option to put the seat belt on, right? I don't have the option. And so every, every

where we go, anything we do, it's like, all I care about and all I think about is like, how dangerous is this for her? And what I think about what the people who haven't been vaccinated is like, you're basically fucking risking my kids life. And the people around you and my old parents because you're a dickhead, because you're a stupid dickhead. And like, you know, that does make me feel like, we're just gonna have to have a civil war. I think we're just gonna have to do it. I think we're just gonna have to go to war with the South

again and wipe them out. No, actually, we'll just let them not get faxed. It's just like fucking upsetting, you know. It's like, we'll just let them not get faxed. It's just like fucking upsetting. But I, it's like, can you just, like, can you guys just be, there's lots of people in the South who are like us, I know, I know, and they'll sneak up behind the people that were fighting, they'll fucking get at them,

and that'll be that, you know, it's gonna be amazing, you know, it's gonna be, it's gonna be great. No, like, I just want people to be sane, and to think, I think, and we've talked about this before, but I think when you get right down to like, what is this? Like what is this thing? It is, do I care and think about and want to help protect people who aren't my direct concern or do I only care about and only want to protect things that are like in my direct control and concern.

And I think like, do I only care really about myself and what I can get? And I think like, and what I wanna do. You know, it's like, it is this selfishness. It is such an incredible selfishness for people who are just like, I don't wanna get the vaccine because I don't want to, you know, be told what to do or I don't wanna wear a mask because, you know,

I'm an American and I have freedom. It's like, what it really boils down to is you're a selfish fucker who doesn't care about other people and can't possibly think about or won't think about the welfare of the people around you or your community or the like what is the, for the greater good. And so you roll through life,

just fucking it up for everybody else. And it's aggravating, you know? And I think like I'm not aggravated for myself. I deal personally as an adult with stupid people all the time. We all do. But it feels like really offensive that like it puts like my kid at risk

and other people's kids and it puts elderly people at risk and people who are immunocompromised. And like, you know, people who need our help and we should be trying to protect, it puts them at risk for no fucking reason except that these people are selfish assholes, self-centered and aren't thinking about like what it means for the rest of us. And so anyhow, I don't want to, I don't want to turn this into a dark, I don't want to go dark on our epis first episode back. But it's like, we had, I know, we had like a moment, we had a chance to actually turn this thing

around and like what we've done is like created this, this, this, this, this like forever pandemic now, you know, where I don't know what it's going to take. I really don't. I mean, it's funny. On the last, I went back, like I said, I let me go and listen. And the last, I went back, like I said, I let me back and listen. And the last podcast I was making this joke about how Republicans think we're gonna like send out like hunter killer drones that are shooting vaccines at them. And I just say like I would endorse at this point I would endorse a drone

program to just shoot people up with vaccine. Like I just think, if that's what it takes, declare martial law, get the hunter killers out. Anyhow, all right, what else is going on? So that's our little, we went a little dark, but there's a lot of other great stuff happening, like the new galaxy fold. That's kidding. I don't want to, I don't think I have anything to say

about the galaxy fold. It's certainly folds. I will say that I almost pre-ordered it. And then I, you know, I don't think I have anything to say about the Gowns and Fold. It's certainly Folds. I will say that I almost pre-ordered it. And then I, you know, I actually have reached a new, I think a new level of maturity recently. I, so first off, I spend a lot of time and money during the pandemic buying things and like trying to do new things

and like going deep on my hobbies. And actually like I'm in a state of like, absolute upheaval right now with several of, in several of my not hobbies, but one is a hobby one is something else. I'll get into that in a second. But what I've lately, I've found myself doing something that I've really never been capable of doing before,

which is exercising self control. How's that going? It's interesting. You know, like I went to, you know, this, there's this, this company that makes really interesting and sort of beautiful keyboards and accessories called Rama, Rama works. And they released these new keycaps, you know,

I love keyboards. And they released these new keycaps. I literally have the tab open right now and I have the keycaps in my cart. But I was gonna buy them and then I was like, I don't need these. I don't. I think I do. I want to buy them, but I don't really need them. And I stopped myself and it was a very new experience for me. And I do feel in this late stage of the pandemic, I've gotten to a place where if the first part of it was, hunkering down and sort of like accumulating and comforting myself and worrying about like the immediate like,

you know, what can I do right now or what, you know, to entertain myself or what can I do to entertain Zelda or how do we like get through this. Now I'm sort of like, I wanna like clear away. I wanna like simplify, I wanna get away from the clutter of whatever that first part of this pandemic produced and find something more, focus more on things, you know? But so like I've embarked on this huge office cleaning project, you know,

I've probably talked about this, my office is separate from our house and it is, the amount of things that I've accumulateded on this huge office cleaning project. You know, I've probably talked about my office as separate from our house. And it is the amount of things that I've accumulated over the years is actually disturbing. I was going through a drawer in my desk and I found a tax return a folder full of my tax stuff from 2003. And included in the tax stuff were ticket stubs from movies that I saw in 2003,

including but not limited to love actually. The great Hugh Grant vehicle, which also I believe has like absolutely canceled stocking in it. I can't remember the details, but at any rate, it's like kind of insane what I've saved. Like I have boxes of letters that I've, do you ever do this? I'll have like a bunch of like mail and I'm like, ah, yeah, I'm gonna get to that. Let me put it in this box.

And I'll, I just save like when I get cards or letters, I save them all. So I've got the boxes of this. No, no, I have those. I have like a statement from a credit card, like, you know, you made a payment, and it's like in a box with 20 other letters like that. And I was like, I'm gonna get to these.

2009. Oh yeah, no, I found they're like little like, it's like I've left, it's like some kind of like, you know, it's like memento. It's like I've left myself clues about something. Some, some, it's an absolutely meaningless mystery. I'm like opening boxes.

I'm like, oh, what is this? Why did I save this? It's like the DaVinci code. It's like an easy pass. It's like your easy pass has been renewed. You know, easy pass is the thing you put in your car so you can like drive around New York and not have to pay tolls by hand.

It's like, oh, my easy pass letter from 2016 saying that I've renewed my easy pass subscription or whatever it's like, oh, my easy pass letter from 2016 saying that I've renewed my easy pass subscription or whatever. What was I trying? What was like planning on doing? You have to wonder, what was I thinking at the time? I think I was like, I gotta get this away from my, from this, I have to get this out of my visible universe. And if I do that, then I could like, you know, I could move on with life. You know, I'm easily distracted, so maybe it's a little bit of like, I'm trying to put stuff away.

Anyhow, I've ripped apart my office, but then I've also, you know, I have a Range Rover, an old Range Rover, a Range Rover Classic 1995. I was like, this car's so noisy. Laura was like, we took it on vacation. Laura's like, I don't wanna drive in the car. It's so loud, because it's got like a V8 engine, and it's like, I think it does,

and it's very loud. It's like, throaty, it it's like, I think it does and it's very loud, it's like throaty, it sounds like a truck, you know? It is basically an old truck, you know? And Laura's like, I can't, I'm getting a headache right in the car, it's so noisy. I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna soundproof this car. I was like, that shouldn't be too hard. You know, other people have done it

and I started ripping apart the inside of the car and then I was like, you know, while I'm soundproofing it, the speakers are working properly. Maybe I'll get some new speakers and I was like, you know, while I'm soundproofing it, none of the speakers are working properly. Maybe I'll like get some new speakers. And I was like, ooh, these speakers, they're good now. They're new, but the amp is broken. I should replace the amp. And like, needless to say,

I've like completely ripped out all of the interior of the car. And it turns out like doing that kind of stuff is pretty complicated. And more complicated than like building a PC, which I kind of stuff is pretty complicated and more complicated than building a PC, which I kind of equated them at the first part of it. I was like, well, I could build a PC, so there should be no problem. But like, in 1995, like whatever people were doing at the Range Rover factory was absolutely bonkers. Like, this the clusters of things inside the car that

you find cables and and plugs I mean it was the 90s man we were going crazy yeah it was the 90s you know people were like they just had watched I'm trying to think of like what came out in 1995 like it was like one of the Jules Schumacher batman's like they just watch like Batman forever yeah head like they're like fuck let's go Put some fire your wires in this rage Anyhow so yeah, no, but I mean listen it's it's a I mean I'm like I think I'm cracking up a little bit I don't know about you But I definitely've had moments where I'm like oh

I think I'm going insane now like I don't know how like I'm much longer I can deal with life the way it is. And I actually like, I'm not a big fan of people. And I love being at home. But I'm a little bit like, God damn, I just want to be able to go out to dinner like a normal person. And we had it. It was so rude.

I didn't though. I had surgery and fucking was trapped in bed during the one reprieve from the pandemic. Oh my God, I know, it's so bad. But you're really hot now. So I'm, you know, we should be clear. Ryan, Ryan had, what do you call it? A bunch of plastic surgery.

Plastic surgery, which, you know, I'm, I personally, I thought about it, but I've decided I won't be getting, I personally thought about it, but I've decided I won't be getting, I probably won't be getting any plastic surgery because I think like I should have to go through life with this face. But I think that's my punishment.

But in a way, I'm like Jesus within this is my cross to bear. I will say, doing it during the pandemic has been great because I have, I mean, I missed a month of fun stuff, but other than that, it's not like I've missed anything, and now every time I see people, they're like, you look incredible. Yeah, you do look good.

You do look good. What else is going on? I mean, it's been a while, there's many things happening in the world right now. Can we talk about the new Spider-Man movie, please? Oh, yeah. Oh, oh, oh, I wanna talk about the new Spider-Man movie, please? Oh, yeah. Oh, oh, oh, oh, I wanna talk about the new Spider-Man movie. I have a lot of thoughts about the new Spider-Man.

First off, I think it wasn't that long ago that I had watched Spider-Man 2, like four times in a row. Very recently, like Laura was like, you've watched this like four times in the last week. And I was like, yeah, because it turns out this is, I mean, many people consider the second Sam Raimi Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, starring Toby McGuire. A lot of people consider that to be like

the perfect superhero movie. And I have to say, upon repeated viewings, and it features Alfa Malina as Dr.. Octopus in like an amazing, I mean, everybody in the movie is just fucking on fire. Everybody in that film is like at the peak of their power. And it's amazing because superhero movies were not like popping at the time. Well, it was like, it was like, you know, this first Spider-Man had been very successful. I think the second one came out, you know, I should look, but I feel like it was like the year after Iron Man first came out. Let me see, it's Spider-Man, too.

You're just going to Google. People love Tony Loves when I go, no, you're right, 2004. So it was way before that because I think Iron Man was 2008. So it was like, yeah, it was definitely kind of a gray area for superhero movies, and the first Spider-Man had been a huge success. And this film is like, it has, it has it all. I mean, it's got like a Willem DeFoe, like Voice Cameo. Actually, he's actually in it for like a part of it.

It's got, it's like a Stefan sketch. If you're really like, it's got Alfredo Molina who's got eight extra limbs. Yeah, it's got, it's like a Stefan sketch. If you're really, it's got Alfred O'Molina, who's got eight extra limbs. Yeah, it's got, it's got, uh, it's got a James Franco, like, literally in his, maybe his greatest role ever, where just the entire movie is like, Spider Man, why did you do this to me? Spider Man. Like literally the whole movie, James Franco is just like, Spider Man, you ruined my life. And then he's like, Hey, Peter, do you want to come over for dinner? And then he's I gotta get Spider-Man and like you know it's like every scene is like every scene with James Franco's either he's either like fuming about how Spider-Man

killed his father and he has to exact revenge or he's inviting Peter Parker out for like french fries and just not making a connection whatsoever but anyhow it's got everything it's got love it's got loss it has Willem Dafoe it's got loss, it has Willem Dafoe, it's got Alfa Molina with eight arms, it has Toby McGuire's penis in it. That was brave. It's brave. But like, so anyway, so there's a new,

so they've made these new Spider-Man movies. So first off, there was the Toby McGuire Spider-Man's, right? I mean, I don't need to tell Tony this, but I'm gonna do it anyway. You're the first three Spider-Man, right? I mean, I don't need to tell Tony this, but I'm gonna do it anyway. You're the first three Spider-Man movies. The third one was, my recollection is abysmal, but like, maybe it's actually good now if I go back and check it out.

The, I know the Toe for Grace is in it, and I loved anything Toe for Grace is in. And then you had the reboot with Andrew Garfield, who you'll know well as Emma Stone's ex-boyfriend. And maybe they're still dating, I don't know. Andrew Garfield who's British, you know, big red flag right there. I just say a little slick for Peter Parker, right?

Yeah, he's a little, he seems like he's working the angles. And that's not really a Peter Parker quality. You know, like Andrew Garfield's a very, he's got a Jude Lash kind of like handsome British man quality. Yes. And I think like, like Andrew Garfield's a good, very, he's got a Jude Lyshe kind of like handsome British man quality. Yes. And I think like, you know, Toby McGuire, I'm not saying to him

McGuire is like, fuglier anything, but you know, he's not like, he's got kind of a baby face, you know, to have a humbleness to him. And Andrew Garfield has a grandeur to him. And I don't want to knock him, because I would love to see Andrew Garfield play another superhero. I'll say And I don't want to knock you, because I would love to see Andrew Garfield play

another superhero. I'll say that. I'd like to see him, yes. I think Andrew Garfield make a good villain. I think, oh, I'd like to see him in the role of a villain. Untaped villain potential. He's a great Joker, actually. I think we need another Joker film.

Maybe Andrew Garfield is the Joker. In the British Joker. The British Joker. He's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, we all go a little mad sometimes and he'd like, can really say it because he's British. I'll go with this little mad sometime. Well, that's just the mad hatter.

That is the mad hatter, but I think the Joker probably says it too, because it's like nobody has any original ideas. Okay, anyhow, so then they made the amazing Spider-Man or whatever the fuck they're called and And they're not that great. They're like whatever and I think Jamie Foxx plays like a Electro and one of them I believe is his name. He did his best. He's fine. He's blue, which I think is It's tough a weird choice right?

Not just like don't make Jamie Foxx blue, you know, that's don't make anybody blue unless it's like a Not Jamie Foxx don't take like a sexy cool leading man who's had like hit songs in great movies, like, paint him into a blue balding, just blue, I just be like, Yeah, that is, that's right, he's like also like, he's like an in-sell, he's like a blue in-sell in that movie, which is stuff, which he's like a large smurf, you know? Like an electric smurf, anyhow, okay, so anyway, so then those movies were like kind of bombs, I guess.

And they're like, nope, we're done. Then, you know, obviously the MCU is happening in the background. And okay, I don't need to tell everybody this, but okay. So they rebooted it with Tom Holland, uh, uh, Zendaya's boyfriend. Twink extraordinaire. Uh, and Tom Holland's good, because even though he's British, which again, I, it's a red flag, but I think he does a very good job of though he's British, which again, it's a red flag, but I think he does a very good job of,

he's sort of like, he's got a very Tobie McGuire kind of vibe. And I'm sure people think he's hot or whatever, but he's still kind of a baby face. He has the right kind of like, he's a teen. I mean, Spider-Man is a teen, right? Spider-Man would seem like he's panicking half the time. Yeah, it's like, it's like, yeah, it's like, you know, Spider-Man's like, he's a like, you know, Spider-Man's like,

he's a guy, you know, premature ejaculation. It's like a Spider-Man kind of vibe. You know what I'm saying? There's a lot of anxiety so that when he does perform, it's a real success for everyone involved. Right, and it's like, and I should say, there's literally like kind of nods to that in the first Toby McGuire Spider-Man,

where he's like, I mean, it's's very there's a real like ejaculate Sort of centric stuff in those are not just gay. You know, hey ejaculation is ejaculation is also Schienke and also be not gay. No, but there's a lot of life with He's like Everywhere and he can't control it and he has getting buff and then he's really good at shooting I've done everywhere. He gets like muscular that he gets shoot his webs like straight at anybody's face. Anyhow he's literally shooting webs into like villains faces. But then okay, so Tom Holland's back and they do these movies and they're all like fine.

My impression, my feeling of all of the Tom Holland's Byterman movies is like, yeah okay, it's a Spider-Man film. Like the one with Jake Gyllenhaal was reasonably entertaining though I wouldn't say like I can remember much of it. It's like a Marvel movie, you know? But I find it's like a Marvel movie. It's not exactly a Spider-Man movie, but it works and it's fine. So there's a new film. Now Marvel has done something and I could probably tell,

I would probably do an entire episode about this. I think we've talked about it previously. But what Marvel is starting to do with what the Marvel universe is starting to do with some of their Disney plus shows, and now with the films, is they are breaking into this really interesting period that I think maybe they did it with Juan Division. They kind of hinted at it a bit with Loki.

Both the shows are. There was a lot of it in Loki at the end. Well, yeah, I guess so. But I'm talking more about the meta, not just the multiverse, because the multiverse is a marvel thing that they're doing right now, where there's this idea of multiple versions

of all of the things that you've seen. Very cool idea that we can incorporate lots of stuff from the past and maybe from the future into this. But they're also doing this thing where they're kind of breaking the fourth wall and they're like acknowledging reality exists. Like, Wandavision, we talked about this when Wandavision came out, did this amazing thing where it was like, this is like reality exists in the Marvel Universe, which is something that like kind of has never been really well-addressed,

but also the reality of the Marvel Universe as we experience it is somehow part of the Marvel Universe as they experience it, which is a really interesting concept, which brings us to the new Spider-Man film, which is called Something Like... There's no way home. No way home or home again or what the fuck is it called? Home on the ring.

Home on the ring. It's like home alone. Home fries and a biscuit. Spider man, spider man. What's it called? It's called. No way home. No way home is the other one.

No way home is this one, but they had one. They have home coming far from home. No way home. No way home is the other one. No way home is this one, but they had one. They have home coming far from home and no way home. In my opinion, these titles are too similar. First off. I just don't understand, wait, what is the, I get that they keep doing this home thing, but what is the, what is that to your Spider-Man? Nothing.

It's just like their motif. They're like, well, we call the first one, far from home or home coming or whatever. The point is home coming because Spider-Man was back in Marvel. Right, home coming, then far from home or no homecoming or whatever the point is homecoming because spider-man was back in Marvel right home Coming then far from home and now no way home or whatever okay, and so we the trailer has been the first trailer has been released and and It's like spider-man has been exposed by Mysterio which happened in the last movie Which I have to tell you I did not remember at all Peter Parker is now like it's public that he's Spider-Man and

He's like oh his life is destroyed because they're but you know again of course I love this thing like with Spider-Man. I get it like It's like Spider-Man's you know If you ever get this Peter Parker's ever exposed or whatever it's immediately like people are like oh I fucking hate your guts Dude you suck. Yeah, he's got some bad PR. Yeah, like every time Spider-Man is in the spotlight, it's because, I mean, I guess we can blame the media. I guess we can blame J. Jonah James.

Yeah, J. Jonah Jameson, who is reprising his role once again, which he played. And Tom Carlson, the role he played in the other Spider-Man movies, or at least in the amazing Spider-Man, which is the Andrew Garbfeld one, which brings me to the point of this whole spiel about the fucking history of Spider-Man. They're doing this thing in this film. It's been rumored for a long time and now it's definitely confirmed in this trailer that they are bringing in in this multiverse. They're bringing in the previous Spider-Man films and they're like intermingling them with this current era Spider-Man meaning at the end of the trailer spoiler alert

If you haven't watched the fucking three-minute trailer or two and a half-minute trailer at the end of the trailer we see Alfred Molina as Dr. Octopus and he's like hello Peter and he literally sounds exactly It's exactly what he says and we're like oh, oh fuck, but also they hint at, you hear Willem DeFos laugh and you see a green goblin bomb. There's a name for them, a goblin grenade or whatever. And I guess there's a little bit of like a lecture shock or whatever his name is, whatever Jamie Foxx's character is. He is, like there's some hint electrodes,

what his character's name is. Anyhow, so it's like, so, and there's a rumor that Toby McGuire and Andrew Garfield are gonna be at it. Now, they've done this in a Spider-Man movie. It should be said. They did it in the animated Spider-Man movie. It's literally,

the after-winning animated Spider-Man movie. And last time mistaken, it is the plot, essentially, of the animated Spider-Man film, which is called, why am I blanking on it? Into the Spider-Verse. Into the Spider-Verse, which is called why am I blanking on it into the spider verse into the spider verse Which is an amazing film and everybody should see and It's but I mean not a low profile film. This is a film they made two years ago that one an off It's got like a post Malone song that was written for the movie

That was like a number one hit for like 16 weeks. It's like It's like a hit is like a hit number one hit for like 16 weeks. It's like a hit. It's like a hit. It's like a hit number one whatever film. But like what was interesting about it and good and like very funny and poignant and just weird was they intermingled all of these like versions. They had like Spider-Ham, which is a version of Spider-Man from the comics from like the 80s or whatever. It's like he's like a pig. And you know, it's just like, it's a really interesting idea.

But doing it in the live action films and doing it with where they're actually referencing the Sam Raimi films and the, and the Andrew Garfield ones, I can't remember where the director was, but at any rate, answer a web. Andrew Web, right? He's like, I have to direct a Spider-Man film

because my last name is Web. And as you know, teasing me for it, and I'll prove the law. I think last name is Webb. And as you know, people teasing me for it and I'll prove it. I think he's also British. And as you know, God damn it. Spider-Man shoots webs. And he might not be. The great British hero, Spider-Man.

Yeah, Spider-Chap. Spider-Lad. Spider-Lad. Anyhow, I'm sure there's a Spider-Lad in the fucking multiverse. And any rate. So I think it's a really cool idea. Like I like the idea of it. So I think it's a really cool idea. Like I like the idea of it.

And I think it's fascinating that they're like mining our actual history of these with these movies to be like, oh yeah, no, that's all. We're including that. And what's interesting is that they are, it is the acknowledgement of the reality that we live in inside of, basically in the reality of the characters of these films. And I find this to be a fascinating turn for this whole, there's one thing where it goes way deep into comic shit with the multiverse. The multiverse is like, what if, and they also have a show called What If, which is the place with the multiverse, right? The multiverse is like, what if,

and they also have a show called What If, which is kind of plays with the multiverse concept, but it's like, what if these, there were versions, multiple versions, multiple timelines, multiple ways that all of these things could have played out. It's a really great, it's a conceptually, really great for comics.

And in fact, I think like the multiverse concept is sort of built around, I can't remember if this is actually why they did it originally, but there are all these moments, both in the DC universe and in the Marvel universe where they try to reconcile all of these like eras of characters that they have, because the one thing about comic characters

that is true is that every generation kind of puts their own spin on these characters and like, so you end up with lots of sort of, like Batman has like 25 different backstories. Like there are a bunch of variations of backstories of Batman. And so they kind of try to, in the comics, they try to reconcile these things. And one of the ways they've done it is this concept of the multiverse. And I'm pretty sure that Marvel's the intention, I want to say, and I want to say it starts with Secret Wars, which is a series that I, a comic series, that I, and I can be wrong, by the way. But it was a comic series that when I was a kid, I was like

absolutely fucking fascinated by, because it was this thing where all of these characters, like the Avengers, and Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man and Hulk, and they all, like, who had their own separate universes. Suddenly, we're like, it was just like this huge mashup where all of these characters were drawn together. Yeah, and it was like, oh my God. It's also the comic where Spider-Man got his new suit, which for me as a huge Spider-Man nerd when I was a little kid was like, just mind-blowing that Spider-Man could have a new badass black outfit, which eventually becomes Venom anyhow. So yeah, the other one, the other sort of the counterpoint to this is DC did a thing

called Crisis on Infinite Earth, which is exactly this. It was like, there's, I think secret words a little bit different in that. It may not be playing with the, maybe does play with the multiverse. Again, I can't remember it, but like, Christ's son infinite, there is in the Marvel, in the, sorry, in the DC universe absolutely is like, hey, we have all of these eras, like we got to smash them together. Anyhow, the point is, there's that aspect of it, which is very comic bookie and fun, and it allows for a lot of weird things to happen. But then what is interesting is this layer of reality that they're adding to it. And like, it's sort of like, I was, we were, we were drinks the other day, and I was talking

to Tom Caswell, who, who runs a social media for, for input. And he was like telling me about how he thought Blade Runner 2049 was a superior film to Blade Runner, which of course is a diabolical and absurd notion. That's a very silly thing to say. And Tom should be ashamed of himself. But, you know, the one thing that I said, you know, look, I enjoy what you're talking about. I was like, I enjoyed Blade Runner 2049.

I actually thought it was a pretty good movie, but what really bothered me about it was that it changed what happened in Blade Runner, basically. It like retconned shit in Blade Runner. It was like, oh no, actually this is what was happening. You were like, hey, you know that movie that was literally about ambiguity? We're gonna get rid of that. Here's the answer.

Right, and not only we're gonna get rid of it, but we're gonna get rid of it in a way that is like deviates from what the even the ambiguity suggested, you know? Like, so, but what's interesting is that this is a similar thing where these movies now and the shows are reaching into places that I have and that you have a definitive perspective on and are like wait that's not done and that isn't back there. It's like here and it is incorporated into this in a way that I think is just like, you know, from a storytelling perspective, I'm not sure that any film series has

ever done something like this. So at any rate, it's really interesting and I'm so I guess I'm like cautiously optimistic about this new Spider-Man movie because it actually seems like it has a more interesting plot than all the other ones, but I will say the de-aging of Al for Malina. I was gonna ask. Yeah. I mean, if you look at, like people have been like posting side-by-side photos, like I feel like they've got to be able to get this better.

I mean, like something's gotta be done about it. I mean, why don't they- Didn't they hire the deep fake person who fixed their Star Wars de- Yeah, they need to get that don't they hire the deep fake person who fixed their Star Wars D.E. You need to get that guy. They need the deep fake guy. You need to stop doing that. Who is the fucking guy from Star Wars?

Whatever the X-Men technology was was wrong. We don't want CGI face on top of a face. Yeah, I don't want to let Wiggly end. We can't handle the Wiggly end. Yeah, I do it. You mean, you ever notice, I mean, just the 3D stuff, just like it just moves weirdly. There is, yes, there's like weird,

it's as if their faces have no collagen. Yeah, or too much, or something. I don't know, but it's like, they don't, it's like the whole thing is like just fucking deep fake alpha-millena, you have to think it. There are literally, literally- What about a distance? Thousands of hours of footage of every angle

of alpha-millena face. Okay? Just do you use a different technology? There's got to be a better way. At any rate, I hope they fix it. It's kind of like a sonic teeth situation right now for me, which is like, I... This is cursed enough to tell you. It's like, I don't like it. It's something's wrong. It's just fucking uncanny valley, man. You know, Tony knows what I'm saying. Tony's in the lives in the uncanny valley. man. You know, Tony knows what I'm saying. Tony's in the lives in the uncanny valley. But at any rate. So, okay, so that's my spiel about the spider man and, and, you know, and I hope we see and I hope we do get to see Tom Holland's penis in this film because I think if they really want to honor the legacy of the original Toby McGuire spider man's they'll

they'll, you know, they'll show a lot more. Shoot his webs all over everyone's face. Yeah, he needs to accidentally shoot web all of the people's faces and then drop and then actually drop his pants and expose his entire penis. That's, I'm just saying, I'm just saying if they want to honor. If they want to honor both the Toby Book Wire films

and the comic books, they'll just show a lot more of self-sessed. We'll be Spider-Fear. Yeah, exactly. All right, can we talk about, I want to talk about something else, which is, I mean, I could definitely talk about this for like a while. We already want to talk about.

I want to talk about my, I haven't had a drink in like a week. Oh, okay. What would you think I would talk about? I'm not gonna talk about video games, but let's talk about that. No, I'm not talking about any video games. I want to talk about.

Hey, so, well, let me tell you, here's an interesting thing. Well, first off, the first few nights I was in drinking, it might be over a week now. I mean, it might be more, it might be like a week and a half. The first few nights I was in drinking, I was having like very, very, very vivid and upsetting dreams, which somebody was like, oh, that's withdrawal. And I'm like, that seems bad if that's what's happened.

Maybe. Also, you might just be used to sleeping with. I think, yeah, I think either I'm getting like super duper knocked out from the alcohol or I'm like sleeping lighter, therefore having fewer dreams or whatever when I'm drinking. But anyhow, so the first United States, I was like, wow, I like need to start drinking again because these dreams are extremely upsetting and vivid. And I don't like them.

That is how they get you. But then that kind of stop. And so one thing that's happened is that there is a company that makes a non-alcoholic beer. It's called the Athletic Brewing Company. And now, I'm not a beer drinker, but Laura started drinking these, and I had a sip of one, and I'm like, yeah, that tastes like exactly like an IPA. They make IPAs and fancy brews. It's like a micro brewery or whatever. I'm like, yeah, that does taste exactly like a beer. You know, and so I've started drinking

these NA beers at night. And like I wait, you know, till the days over, I usually wait till Zelda's in bed, and I crack one open, and I have to tell you, it is like, it is a bizarre experience. And if you're, if anybody is listening to this and is like, I want to stop drinking. How do I do it?

How what's a good way to do it? I would, I would, I truly cannot endorse these beers enough. And I'm not, you know, look, I'm not on the, on the, on the fucking payroll. I, it is like drinking a beer. It tastes like a beer. There's a trace amount. It's like 0.5% alcohol. I think all NABs have some small amount.

It's not like, if you're like a eye map staining from I won't even use rubbing alcohol on a wound because I can't be anywhere near alcohol. This is not- I mean, it's what you're getting from mouthwash. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But I will say, it's bizarre. Like there have been times that I'm drinking it and I'm like,

oh, I should slow down. I don't want to like have a hangover tomorrow. And it's like, oh, wait, like, I'm not getting shit faced from this. And I'm not going to have a hangover and I can drink as many of these as I want. I think it's like, you'd have to drink like 24 of them to get as much as in a, is like in one beer, you know, which is obviously you're not going to do. And even if you did, it's one beer. But it's like, you know, I'll drink like three or four of them

They're also like pretty low calorie. They're like 70 calories and so So it's been like kind of an interesting experience and I it's been a while since I've had like an extended period where I wasn't I mean, I think the pandemic has obviously made us all like Absolute luscious if we if we like to drink I think it's just gotten I'm not a hack man with edible. Yeah, no I mean everything is just like oh fuck what am I gonna do is 8.30 now and I have like several hours before I'm gonna Go to sleep I have to find some way to pass the time and I've run out of you know

I better have four edible. Yeah, it's like the crown bottle of whiskey. I know I've watched all of Bosch now And so I guess I'm gonna you know drink But like yeah, it's actually pretty incredible and I have to say To me there's like a we are I think there's a there's a point that we're getting to I hope we get there Where we've got like the impossible burger for alcohol and I think this is actually like I'll say this I think these beers are as close to anything that I've ever had in my life as like the impossible burger for a beer, which is like, if you like drinking beer, I'm firmly of the mind set and belief that if I were to hand you one of these and you thought you were drinking an IPA, you would not question it. You would not be like,

what's up with this? You would just be like, I'm drinking a beer. But that's so interesting to me, because I don't drink a beer or any other kind of alcohol. Maybe margaritas or something, because of the taste. In general, I'm drinking it because it's warm. Yeah. It's not very sweet. It's not overwhelming flavor. And it makes me feel all fuzzy and so. You want to get drunk?

I'm at this buzz. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I like that it isn't. I like that it's an adult. Like, I can put a movie I like that it isn't, I like that it's an adult. Like I can put a movie on and I'm not like, I'm drinking a Capri-san. I enjoy the whole experience of it. But if it had no alcohol in it,

I would probably just go to Seltzer. No, but okay, so here's the interesting thing. I think for a person, I think, and maybe you're, look, I might be different. Well, if you're doing adibles, if you're taking edibles a lot, and that's like kind of your drug of choice in the evenings or whatever,

like this doesn't compute, but like for me, what like released my like relaxation center of the brain was like I would have like a cocktail, you know? And it wasn't for the flavor. I mean, yes, I like the flavor of some cocktails. It's like the ritual of having this, like, okay, I'm having a drink now.

And it has like a very specific, you know, your brain picks up on this very specific signal. Obviously, the alcohol, but like, just that first taste of it is like, oh, yeah, I'm having the drink now. And it is very Pavlovian, like, I'm like, well, yeah, it's a day is turning off. Yeah.

And I think that's the thing that's interesting here. It is very Pavlovian. Like, I'm like, well, yeah, it's a, the day is turning off. Yeah. And I think that's the thing that's interesting here. Now, again, as a non-beard drinker, what is, what is striking to me is that because it tastes like alcohol, because it tastes like a drink, you know, even though it's a drink that I typically wouldn't have, it's like that, that thing happens in my brain. And I'm like, hmm, and I feel satisfied. Now, look, I, some nights, I'm like, you know, I, I would like a real drink. But then I'm kind of like, yeah, actually, this

is good. This is good enough. And I'm not going to wake up feeling shitty tomorrow. And I'm not going to go to bed, uh, feeling, you know, drunk and, and, uh, it's just a really interesting experience. And I do think do think like there's something, I mean there's a lot of companies working on, I actually bought this stuff called Monday, which is like they have a fake gin and a fake whiskey and they're both like interesting, neither one of them really tastes like whiskey or gin.

I do think like I would love for us to get to a point where there is something that literally tastes exactly like an alcohol but isn't one, because I do think like I would enjoy having, like I would love to have a martini that gives me the impact of like I'm having a drink but doesn't have the result, which is, I'm like gonna be completely fucked up

after three of these. And I think like that's what the beer is doing and it's just for me, now who knows, a week from now I may be like yeah, I'm back on the sauce and I'm going completely ballistic, but it is a fascinating development in alcohol. Recently I've come to the conclusion that I just don't let, I like a couple of drinks,

but I hate the after part, even before they hang overheads, just when you've stopped drinking and you're like, I haven't tried a drink for an hour, that feeling of just like, it feels like sand being stripped through my brain. And I hate being hung over. I hate the indigestion.

And I'm starting to get to the conclusion of like, maybe I only drink it like holidays. And like, that's probably a good place for me to be. And I think it's partially because I've had edibles to be like, listen, I'm not gonna be out here raw dog in reality. So, if I have something to lean on that's not gonna have as many negative effects, it's a nice, I don't really feel like I need or want to drink anymore as much.

But you know what I want to try is those euphorics. They have those drinks that are not alcohol, it's like new tropics, and they're supposed to make you more conversational and relax. People love them. Right. No, I mean, I, yeah, it's not for everybody. I mean, your description of drinking is like,

sort of my how I feel about weed. Like, well, I mean, I'm like, yeah, I'm like, the occasional edible is good. But when I wake up the next day from having an edible, I feel like a brand new sticker. Yeah, I don't, I mean, the wake apart is not an issue for me. It's more like, I mean,

Edibles are different, they're a bit different. And I think it's a, that I'm more into, but like for me, it's like, okay, I'm gonna, this is like, I'm gonna, you know, eat some weed and I'm gonna, this is like, I'm gonna eat some weed and I'm not gonna do other stuff. It's like a thing, you know? But, it's like, okay, I'm doing this now

and it's gonna be anything. Well, that's my rule. I don't have edibles before like 8, 8, 3, 8, 8, 8, but that's the point at which I'm watching TV, having dinner and falling asleep. Yeah, see, I feel like for me, it's like, I couldn't do it as a nightly thing, but smoking weed historically for me is like just doesn't agree with me.

Just whatever is going on with my brain chemistry, where people are like, oh, I feel so relaxed, or I feel creative, or I feel like sleepy, or I feel whatever it is, I'm like, nah, I just don't feel, I feel like it's one of the rare times that I don't have really full control of what my brain is doing. And I've done all kinds of drugs. I mean, I've done it all, okay? I've taken everything, not everything, but a lot. And on almost every drug, including but not limited to things like acid and mushrooms,

I can kind of go go, all right. Like there's the drug experience and there's my, like actual brain and those things like I can like judge the distance between them. Obviously I've done. You're a PCP guy. I haven't done that a while. Yeah, PCP is like, you know, if I go a night without PCP,

I'm like, this something's wrong. But like with weed for whatever reason, particularly if I smoke it or vape it, yeah, I just feel like I'm like, what is my, why is my brain doing this and why can't I, why am I no longer in control of it? You know, it's just like some of the dumbest shit enters my brain and I'm like, I gotta stop this, but I can't. And that to me is the boss feeling. Like as a control freak, as a certified control freak, I think that loss of even a slight bit of... I'm trying to think of the way right way to say it. Not control exactly, but like,

you know, if you use control for weed, my first thought is, oh, who cares? Yeah, you're like, I love this. You're like, I mean, you go into it. I understand that. I generally like having control. Like I have weird issues about control and my body and yeah, plastic surgery. And it's, you know, I, they're real

and I definitely have, have those issues, but weed for some reason turns them off, and I'm free to feel like I felt like when I was a little kid, which is that I'm just like sort of absorbing the world and excited to drink it in. And that is not a feeling I generally have. In general, I feel day-to-day very resentful of reality.

And I'm more like, I wish my imagination was real, but when I have weed, they kind of mix a little. And I feel like I'm reacting to a world that I don't hate. And I don't, I'm obviously these are deeper issues that I am plunging into. Yes. But it feels like a good to have a release valve at the end of the day of like while I'm figuring my shit out,

I get an hour or two where I watch real housewives and giggle and John makes dinner and it's fun. And sometimes they stay up and play a game for an hour. And then that's great for me. Why I can't do alcohol anymore is it's just like, it's a production. And it ends 24 hours after you've started because your body feels like shit,

your brain feels like shit. When you're drinking, you realize that you're not making sense and you're like, I don't know, I just don't, I'm coming to discover that I don't love it. Yeah. Is that given any other option? I don't really love drinking. Plus, I've lost a lot of weight recently.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's the thing. I put my alcohol right by a giant mirror because every time I go to have any drink at all ever, I'm like, oh, I have to remind myself, oh, this is the, this is gonna undo all the progress. You mean, like all the consequences fit him. I mean, I have been aggressively dieting.

I don't know if we've talked about it, but he's been a while, so like I was like doing keto, basically. Oh boy. And yeah, oh boy indeed. And which is, you know, maybe a scam, but definitely works in the sense that it forces you to just dramatically limit how much you're eating. Like, whether or not, like the keto part is real,

what Israel is like, if you start tracking everything that you eat and you're like, I can only have those money carbs, like you were going to eat fewer calories. That's why Atkins worked at the beginning before they came with all those processed Atkins replacement foods. Yeah.

Like, you literally had to do work to eat. Yeah, no, it's, it's like, I'm firmly of the belief that any situation where you are monitoring what your actual food intake is, is a situation where if you wanna lose weight, you probably will because you just start to go, oh, well, I'm done now, and I'm either gonna be starving or given

to my starvation. But at any rate, at any rate, I wanted to lose a couple of pandemic pounds so I was doing keto. But then, and it kind of like plateaued, I lost some weight and then I was like, okay, well, it's kind of here and I got bored with it. So I'm like, I'm gonna eat like regular food again

because this is annoying. And then, I stopped drinking and I started losing weight again. And like, I'm drinking these like beers every night, which have carbs and have calories. But your slice now a lot of calories. Oh my God. Alcohol. Yes.

Make your body process calories. And like sugar and stuff. I mean, so, and so it's like the upside is just a kind of secondary upside is like, yeah, I like, it's like, and I'm like not stressing about it now. I'm like, oh yeah, I'm just like, I'll prop, like I'm not, I can, it's also like they're kind of like a meal. Like a beer is, you drink a couple of beers,

and you're like, well, that had like calories and carbs, and I'm not that hungry anymore. So it's sort of this thing where the combination of not drinking like a thousand calories in alcohol and also having things that kind of fill you up, they're carbonated, they have like some stuff in them. Anyhow, the long and short is like, I've been on a real adventure here and I have to say,

I think the only thing that's made it possible because it's such a habit for me. And I don't think I'm like addicted, but I think I enjoy the ritual of that feeling of relaxation and I think what this is proven to me is that it's so much about what the perception of it is versus the sort of it is versus the sort of reality. In the sense that, yeah, I like to have,

like I like to get buzzed having if the first couple of drinks, but it's definitely downhill from those first couple of drinks, you know, in terms of my enjoyment. But what it really, like a bigger part of it is that feeling of like, okay, here's this like time in place, this like type of thing that I'm doing,

this thing that my body is used to getting this kind of flavor. This one's for dad. Yeah. Anyhow, it's like, it's been incredible and I recommend if anybody's trying to drink less, there were also a few nights before I started drinking these things like all the time.

I was like, oh, well, I was gonna have one more drink but I'm actually gonna drink one of these beers. And it's like, even if you wanna cut back, it's a nice way to kind of like circumvent, you know, just quitting cold turkey and being like, oh, I drink seltzer now. Like to your point, like, that would not work for me. Drinking seltzer has never had, like,

you know, I would even have like drinks with like seltzer and like a splash of bitters and like some lime, which has, again, bitters has like trace, you know, a splash of it is like a trace amount of alcohol But even that like after a while is just like this is not it like I need something that feels like a drink Anyhow, so that's my success story about drinking Also, could we talk about the steam deck which is the ninth portable? I've ordered this year But the one I'm most excited you know, it's you know, it's deranged

There are all these like portables that have come out all all these like portable systems, like the Switch is like, has been killing it during the pandemic. What is so weird to me is like, we're not, we can't go any, we haven't been able to go anywhere. No, he's traveling. I'm like, oh, it's so great. Mostly for, for playing while you've been television with him. Yeah, it's inter home, inter home travel. No, okay, so the Steam Deck, so Valve has released, is releasing a handheld, which is like a switch, except way bigger. But it plays.

But it plays. Very beefy, but it plays, they claim 100% of whatever is in your Steam library. It runs on a custom version of Linux that is like Steam OS. It has all of these like custom fine tuned like interpreters to take like Windows code and turn them to Linux code that makes it executable on this thing. And it's got like a ridiculous amount of like control options. It's got these like touch surfaces, it's got buttons, it has like motion control.

It's got the game control. It's got the game control, it's got the game control, and it's like, and I have to say, I'm so fucking excited about it. I'm so fucking excited about it. There's probably not a single actual like gaming development in the past, five years except maybe like for the development

of like the new Nvidia and the, you know, the ray tracing tech and stuff like that. Ray tracing tricked me into being excited for a little while. But this I think I'm genuinely excited for. And I haven't been excited about a console since the Xbox 360. They've all been like, okay, cool. But this I'm like, I really cannot be to own this.

No, and it's like, I will say to me, there have been many times in my life, especially since having a pretty kick ass gaming PC that I use on a regular basis, where I'm like, I really wish I could play. I've definitely been in bed with my Switch and been playing a game. And I'm like, yeah, this is fun, but I really want to play Cyberpunk. That's happened a lot lately, not surprisingly. And I think it's like like I'm so psyched About being able to play all of these games. You have any games I've purchased

On steam. I mean I have so many fun. I have games that I've never played Just like so many where I'm like I got to get around to that and now it's like one of the thing one of the problems with it is like Well, I've got to be in front of my high-powered PC. I know there's like ways you can stream and all this shit But like I don't want to do that. I want to like, I want to like take the game. I want to have it downloaded. I want to play it. I don't want to fucking stream it from the cloud.

I don't want to deal with like setting up some like, you know, remote control of my fucking PC. Like, I just want it to be a self-contained experience like a switch is. And yeah, man, I'm excited. Like, I think honestly, I'll say this. I mean, not that they could do it, but if Microsoft should yeah, man, I'm excited. Like I think, honestly, I'll say this. I mean, not that they could do it, but if Microsoft should really just buy Valve, I mean, I don't know if they could do it.

We were saying years ago that the PlayStation 5 should be portable or have some kind of portable component and that would be the ultimate. Obviously they didn't do that. But Microsoft has Windows, Xbox and the cloud streaming. And I just feel like the missing piece is like a portable. I guess you know, I guess I say that. I'm like, why would I want Microsoft to buy Valve? But I guess they can't because, you know, Valve is, I mean, how much could I'm sure Microsoft feasibly could. Yeah, I'm the part for my

self. But I guess I'm not sure what I'm arguing because like I like the fact that Valve is its own thing, but I guess like what I'm saying is just from a purely, if I put my like business person hat on from a purely like one if one of those companies owned Valve, you know, it would just like, I mean, it would be game over for the other players like if Sony owned Valve, I think they'd fuck it up to. Obviously, when I think about it, actually, I'm like, definitely, I hope that doesn't happen because I'm excited about the idea of there being a third option. We want to diversify the key.

A third option. Well, like, what's great is, I mean, PC gaming is, is what's happened with PC gaming is such an unbelievable surprising turn of events. I mean, there was a period a few years ago, a lot of people are going to be in a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of

a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a not that long ago, PC gaming was sort of like this weird,

like sort of cast aside subgenre of gaming. I'm not saying that there weren't hardcore gamers and there weren't amazing game experiences, but it wasn't like a mainstream. You didn't always get the AAA game first on the PC. Yeah, like if you went into a Best Buy over the last like 15 years or whatever, you could see the decline of like PC related items

and the rise of things like consoles and, you know, mobile stuff and, you know, the switch once was available. Yeah, I patched it like that. But what has happened is like, it actually PC gaming has actually become like this amazing huge, like central point of innovation. And it's the only platform with no compromises. Yeah, and it rules and it's great. I gotta say for all like the the chaos of it, it is. It's it's it's like, you know, if I had my choice, which is why the steam deck is so interesting to me. I think nine times out of 10, I would reach for like my my steam library versus like whatever is in my PlayStation library right now or whatever is in my

I don't even fuck with the Xbox. I mean, I don't even play my love max box. Yeah, I'm not even I'm like I you know We gave away my my Series X we gave it away Because I was like your PC guy now sitting in a box. What do I fucking eat if I want to play those games? They're on I can play them on a PC, but I don't even care. It's like I've so many other things to do. It's like, I don't know.

It's weird, I think the new consoles are, they have certain value, but I mean- Magician 5 sucks. Yeah, I've read your editorial. We've all read your editorial. At any rate, I just think the Steam deck super exciting. I pre-ordered one Probably not gonna get it till 2023 at this point. I mean I pre-ordered one on the day of and it's like early 2022 and I'm like, okay cool great. I love to wait years for things. That's the best

And any rate I do think it's an exciting development. I just hope they don't fuck it up. I hope it's good. I'm worried it's too big. That's my main. But I have huge hands, so that should be nice. Listen, and yes, it might be a little game, Geary, but I think it's it if the concept succeeds despite it being a little bulky, we'll get other versions. There are worse things to be than Game Geary. Yes. Many worse things. Yeah, you could be, you know, leap frocky.

What is that? You know that like, children's learning console. That's like, you and Peppa Pig are gonna count shapes. Wow, the British. Once again, the British destroyin' our children. Okay, so wait, so then let's fast forward to what's going on in the world right now. Only, I want to talk about only fans. Yes, that's the thing I was going to bring up. Oh, you were going to talk about only fans, only

fans, only fans, only fans could do this. Let me, let's just talk, let's just back up for a second, a couple of days ago, the pornography website, only fans, let me first off up for a second. A couple of days ago, the pornography website only fans. Let me first off, if you're, if you just arrived on planet earth and you don't know what only fans is, let me give you a quick, let me give you a brief,

you're gonna love Blainer. I mean, you're a Vox style explainer. What is only fans? Why are people talking about only fans? What's a fan? No, an only fan is a person who is a fan on onlyfans.com. Only fans is a website where you can subscribe to people, become their fan, you can pay money on a regular basis

to interact with them on some level like there's like a messaging and stuff but mostly to see nude photos of them nude videos of them and or but usually and videos and photos of them like engaging in sexual activity. Now not everybody does it and recently there's been this whole thing where like Cardi B has like an only fans and it's like she's not using it to be nude because she's Cardi B, it just doesn't need to do that. But, anyhow, but Bella Thorn has one

and it's like cleavage or whatever. It's like soft core, basically, you know, not even soft core. So, but to be real, but to be very clear, like if you're a sex worker or a performer, particularly during the pandemic, only fans became a place where you could create, you know, it's like Patreon, but specifically geared towards like video and photos and sort of interacting with this community of people who like you and what you do. And it's like, you know, sex stuff, right? Which everybody likes and is interested in,

which is very common and normal. And there was a lot of destigmatizing happening because like a lot of the creators that people like Twitch streamers, YouTubers, drag race girls, former influencer types would turn to only fans because they didn't have shame about their sexuality and they were like, I can make a bunch of money. And it's like that helped open up a conversation of like sex work is work.

It's employable. It should be, if we can make it safer, that's great because it's work. And, and, and only fans interestingly is a place, you know, there's obviously huge concern on the internet about child pornography and abuse and you know the porn industry is rampant with like horrible, horrible abuse. But only fans, similar to its competitors like Justin for fans and a couple other places, verified your ID. It would say we know for a fact that this is an adult, we know who it is and they are responsible for anything that can be posted here. We have reporting mechanisms, so in case you see something that we don't have. It's literally like having a system of verification and checks for sex work, which is really

something you want. In countries where- What we should have. In countries where sex work is legal, like if you want to accept money to have a sexual encounter with somebody, there are places where that's legal. They have government systems that like, you know, you have to like register, you have to like, you know, people are, it's not like just a random thing. You're attacking that there's no human trafficking going on. Right, there's no human trafficking. There's, there's, you know, there's STD tests. There's all sorts of things that you have to do.

Anyhow, the point is like it says, close is anything that we have in America to being able to verify that, hey, I'm watching a person, I'm interested in them and they're not fucking 12, you know, like they're an adult and they can do this and they're making a choice. And it's them making the choice, not some other person, they're not being trafficked,

or whatever. And they're not making this choice in the CDS most unsafe corners of the world. They're at their home, and they're making it in a part of the internet that they can have users they don't want blocked. They can cut anything off at any point. They can delete their own posts.

They're perfectly, I mean, not everybody. It's not a perfect system. Nothing's like magic, but they're perfectly able to control the environment if that's the option that they want to take. And you can have sex with someone like your partner or whoever, and you can monetize it if that's something you're interested in. And if anything, this is the most ideal version of sex work imaginable

for the people who hate sex work. And it's also like, yes. I mean, personally, I think like you should be able to do what you want to do with your body full stop if you're an adult. And whether that means having sex with people and getting paid for it or doing an only fans thing and making money on it, whatever. I mean, as long as you're safe and they're safe and there's some like structure around that, it's like, it's, who cares? The point is what's interesting about like only fans and what is true about the internet and humanity is that we are all very interested in sex. People are

fucking horny all the time. They're gonna do it in a way. People love having sex. People like looking at people having sex. People are very interested in other naked people and the things that they do with their bodies. Like, this is like, it literally is the basis for all life on earth and everybody's interested in it unless they're just- You could be asexual. Okay, fine. You could be asexual, but I'm just saying like, that's a rounding error percentage of the overall population. Like, most people are interested in- And like, there's a reason why I don't know where porn hub ranks and certain in the most search sites, but it's pretty goddamn high, you know.

Anyhow, only fans has this business. They've built, they've built this business. They've made it huge on the work of sex workers of people who do both like, you know, quote unquote, tasteful news and people who do a lot of people who do explicit sexual content. You know, and I don't know the percentage, but I would guess that most of the money is going to creators on only fans who are doing more explicit sexual content. I'm sure if you did the, if you ran the numbers, it's not just like, I posted a tasteful nude, you know, top only or whatever or my butt and like those people are getting the maximum amount of dollars. At any rate, only fans the other day was like,

we're banning explicit sexual content. First, they put out a statement and they were like, they put out a statement to the press in a very confusing way that was like, we're gonna ban explicit sexual content but we'll still allow nude photos. The scene or to ban video games. We'll still allow visual novels. Yeah it was like what what do you guys consider a nude photo like what you know it's like and and and so we had a couple days we wrote

the story Bloomberg had the story we wrote we wrote a story up on it. We did some follow up stuff. We talked to some creators. I mean, people were losing their shit. In the early days of this, so right off the bat, only fans says they put a statement out to us to other publications. They're like, we're gonna ban sexualistic content.

We write a story on it. Immediately, there's like this crazy misinformation that starts running through the only fans community where people are like, this isn't happening, this is a lie, this is bullshit, this story's made up. And like literally we have a statement from the company itself. It's like, yeah, we're doing this, right? We go back to them, we're like,

hey, there's some Twitter account that seems to be associated with you, that's not our Twitter account. It's like, okay, it was, it's a point. It was, it somehow was associated, but now they're like, it isn't associated. But there's all this crazy misinformation. People are literally like badgering editors at input. They're like, you're a liar. You're making this up.

And we're like, no, like this is an actual statement. Then like a day later, maybe two days later, they release their new terms of service or their new acceptable use policy. And it's like very, very clear. It's like, you know, it's no sex. It's like no insinuation of sex. No holes, no poles, no nips, no slits. Yeah, yeah, it's like no bodily fluids.

Now, it's just like very clear. It's like, okay, so like tasteful nudes, meaning, you know, a butt, a butt or maybe it's a little bit of a nipple somewhere or whatever it is, you know So like Molly Cyrus promo material. Yeah, exactly actually. Molly Cyrus has done some fairly like full-on like nude stuff. I mean she did some stuff I think with Terry Richardson for a magazine that was like all right

You're remembering this too specifically. Keep going. All right. No, I track all celebrity nudity. I use celebnews.net is actually my homepage. No, but like anyhow, she's actually a bad example. I was all I'm saying. Yeah, that's actually, I'm just joking. But no, look, I don't care. I openly admit I'm checking out all of my list iris is porn.

But the, so then people are like, oh, fuck, it's real. And then it's like this, like absolute bad one. People are like, oh, it's real, like this is, and it's clear to everybody that this is their business. You know, this is their business. And basically what they said is, and what the story was, is that MasterCard and Visa, or whatever, these payment processors are like, we don't, we don't want to take, we don't want to work with them. We, are like, we don't wanna take, we don't wanna work with them. We don't want your dirty, sex money. Yeah, we don't want your sex money.

I mean, to get down to the root of this thing is like, MasterCard's like, we don't wanna be associated with it. You can buy a gun from Walmart, but we're not selling, you know, tasteful dudes. Come on, I was talking about this with somebody, and I was just saying like, the, I mean, we've talked about this in the podcast a lot, but the American Purify what's that? The Puritan the pure tanical stuff, but also

our frame of What is acceptable and what isn't is just so weird? Oh my oh it is so weird like like we're like It's just so weird. It is so weird. Like, weird like, breasts are bad to show. But if you wanna show somebody like being murdered by getting a shotgun blast to the head, we'll show like every part of that, that's no problem. And it's like, there is something inherently wrong

in my opinion with this dichotomy, this the way we break it down. It's like extreme violence, more movies show extreme violence, and we've never seen those characters have sex with each other. Extreme violence is more acceptable in American, to American, the American public, than showing true human sexuality or pleasure, which is like, I mean, I think it gets to the root of so many

things that are wrong with this country. Yes, it's like based in this puritanical evangelical sort of like framing and drapery, but it is like, I think there's something really wrong with us that those are the things we feel are acceptable and unacceptable. I think there's something really wrong with us that that's what that those are that those are the things we feel are acceptable and unacceptable I think there's something really wrong with us that we think that nudity is Weird or bad that bodies are embarrassing and are need to be covered. I mean, I know this is I know this is like, you know Freshman year college, you know midnight chat material, but like it, it is, it does get to the heart, the heart of an issue like this, which is, here's people who are adults making decisions about what they want to do with their bodies and other adults making decisions about whether

they want to see that or not. And, and, and, and art in a fucking payment processor is like, no, we don't like that. It's like, no, we don't want to be a part of that. And therefore, the entire thing can be blown up. And I just think like, this, all of this together is a really nice little microcosm of what is, of where we have problems in this country. It's like, yes, the violence thing, yes, the sex thing, but also that the payment that master card gets to make a call about what you can and can't pay for. Right? That there is no system where you have actual freedom to do with your money, what you want.

I don't want to go into crypto, psycho, conversation here, but it does speak to perhaps the need for a different monetary system where we are not at the whims of this corporate entity that has nothing to do with our lives, that has nothing to do with humanity. So you've got the situation where they're pressured by their payment processors to say, we don't want you to have this explicit content, or we don't want to be in the same sphere or conversation. So they're like, okay, we're gonna pull the rug out from all of our creators and our actual fucking business, and we're gonna try to pivot to whatever this only fans

would be where it doesn't have the main feature that is the reason why everybody uses it in the first place. It would be like Patreon with no features. It's like you said, it's like Steam with no games. It's Netflix with no movies in TV. It's like, or it's like, you know, there's like a Christian Netflix. Yeah.

I forget what it's called. And no, it's something like... Pure Flix. And it's like, you know, movies that I assume have no stakes and no nudity and no like nothing good in them because it's like sitcoms made at someone's house. I mean they're probably full of violence actually you know but anyhow it's like it would be like that's what Netflix is now so Neel is to say within 24 hours of like the I think it was

about 24 hours may have been 48 only fans reverse reverse his course, right? They're like actually we figured this out. We're going to continue to allow Hardcore Photography they said it in such a weird way too. They were like we're putting a pause on that decision Yeah, they're like, huh, I want to find the exact statement Hold on I guess I could just go to the input and check it out is a great website input mag calm Anyhow, let me find out let me find our stories. Yeah, they were like here's what they said they said Thank you to everyone for making your voices heard

Yeah, like I'm sure you guys were really psyched on on the way everybody's making their voices heard We have secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community and have suspended the plan October 1 policy change only Advanced stands for inclusion. We will continue to provide a home for all creators. It's very vague. I will say But it does it is kind of like they're like wow we just torpedoed our entire business and But it does, it is kind of like they're like, wow, we just torpedoed our entire business. And for, you know, maybe it took this outrage, maybe it took this huge public backlash to convince their payment processors or whoever it is they had to convince that they needed to stick with, you know, what they had been doing. But it is also like, what a bad form in terms of communication with

like both the press and your audiences about how you will do this. I mean, if it had been, if truly, they truly wanted to retain the explicit sexual content on only fans, you would have thought maybe they would release a slightly different statement. The original statement was like, we're banning this on October 1st, like just very vague and very straightforward. They weren't like, we're leaving counter to an issue, we're working through it, we don't want to do this, but if all else fails, like there were ways to message this where this didn't have to happen, where it didn't have to be like this absolute freak out. But you know, it gets to the kind of heart of

how much we are people now. I mean, how important the internet is to people's livelihoods. I know that sounds like a little bit basic. I wrote this thing at the beginning of the pandemic, this essay called Thank God for the internet. And it was like, after a couple of weeks or months of like, you know, Zelda doing Zoom school and us doing like Zoom meetings and all this stuff, and it was like, just be reflected on the idea that, you know, what the fuck would be happening to us right now if we didn't have the internet? And how would we stay sane? I mean, you know, this is a different, this is just a different kind of pandemic than people imagined. I think we've lived for a long time imagining zombies or some kind of disease that, you know, kills you within 15 minutes

or whatever, that you know, whatever the versions of it we've seen in film and television, what we, what nobody planned for was, okay, you can actually be safe and protected from this. It's just you have to never leave your house. And that without the internet would be nightmarish, I think, you know, I think it's given us a way to stay connected to things and people though Otherwise would have been impossible but what a

What a clear indicator. I mean think about it here You have an entire community of creators an entire class of creators really that are reliant on a service that they have no control over You know there's no independence here because if only fans tomorrow says, actually whoops, we screwed up again. That livelihood and that way of making money is gone. And like you see all these people, these sort of flippant, you know, to reply guys on Twitter

who are like, Tom, to learn how to, time to go back to waitress, ain't there time to do this or whatever kind of bullshit they say and it's like, actually, you know what's fucking amazing is people don't back to waitress, or time to do this, or whatever kind of bullshit they say. And it's like, actually, you know, it's fucking amazing is people don't have to waitress because they can do this if they choose to, and it works for them. And that's like an amazing thing that the internet has provided that's like a service to both the receiver of the content and the person creating the content from what I can tell. But it's under the control of an entity that ultimately,

the creators have no say in. It does raise interesting questions about how we should consider these services and what they really mean and like what kind of regulation we should have. I mean, if a service is essentially, you know, if it is like, if it is the vehicle that creates jobs in this country, how do we regulate that? How do we make sure I can't just pull the rug out from them? You know, it's like McDonald's coming.

It's like somebody going into a McDonald's one day and going, hey guys, we don't serve food anymore. I mean, this is about, you know. This comes down to Uber. I mean, it comes down to all these things that we were like, oh, it's just an app that people pay you through. It's not a job. And that's bullshit because it is gonna end up being,

YouTube is people's job. And we need to sit down and say like, what are the baseline rules? Like a normal job, there are basic rules of how you can treat workers. We are not doing that with these because we're like, they're not real jobs. It's like, yeah, but they are though.

And I don't care that they didn't look like real jobs and that they didn't say they were real jobs. They're real jobs that people are working full time. And there needs to be basic regulations in place of how people get treated and like, what you can and that people are working full time. And there needs to be basic regulations in place of how people get treated and what you can and can't do to an employee. I mean, it's a fine line because you want people to be able to have the independence to kind of run their part of that business the way they want to run it.

That's part of the charm of only fans, right? It's like, you're not on a schedule, you don't punch a clock, you're not like, you don't have a boss who's like, hey, here's what must be done. You get to sort of set your own level of engagement, but it's like, if the entire business changes overnight, out from under you, you know, that's like, there has to be some checks on this, because I think that we're moving towards a society and a reality where it's not like,

I mean, to your point, it's like, you know, if people, it doesn't look like jobs to people, like that's their problem, you know? It's like lots of things don't look like jobs, but are. And the further we get away from this sort of economy of manufacturing and service and the more there's automation and the more that these things are distributed and the more that they're globalized, which is like you can't really put back in the box exactly.

The more there's going to be and the more there are things like this, like only fans or YouTube or whatever, there is commerce there. There is a way of making money. There is a way of the receiver of the content to get something out of it, the creator of the content to get something out of it, the company that hosts the content to get something out of it, the people who, if it's an advertising-based business, the advertisers to get something out of it, there is an exchange across all of those. There is an actual act of commerce and an actual job. And so how do we- But this is why people should be have listened to delivery workers and Uber drivers

and all the non-glamorous things. People should have been paying attention. And this is why you should, and I'm gonna get up on my soapbox where I live. Here it goes, here you go. This is why you need to support unions, even if you are not in that industry, or even if you look at the industry and you're like,

well, I don't know if they need it, it's McDonald's. Just shut the fuck up. Just like, you have more in common with Uber drivers and your day-to-day life and your career, if you make less than $10 million, or if you've less than $10 million in the bank, you have more in common with only fans, creators, and YouTubers, and delivery people,

then you do with the people who own those companies. So why are you keeping for them? Like, I don't know. I'm in the middle of my WGA East drama, and so I'm on my soapbox continually, but. Yeah, I mean, but I agree. I mean, listen, there's, there's, I mean, I'll just, I'm not gonna, I wanna, we're gonna get into a long union conversation here.

I will say, I like, I am, you know, I have come from a family of like absolute socialists I've talked about this before. And so, you know, I'm sort of like, it's in my blood to support all, you know, organizing a particular around labor. it's in my blood to support all organizing, particularly around labor. But, I mean, historically, my family has been actually very involved in that. And so I'm like, okay, I have a history of like,

I've talked to like old relatives about it. And like, obviously like it was something that in, for a lot of Jews, particularly Jews who immigrated to America in the early 1900s, there was a lot of organizing going on here by them. And so it is kind of like in our blood in a lot of ways. But I was like the other day, we were reading about like the New York Teachers Union

would not mandate vaccines for their employees. And I'm like, what the fuck is that? I will say it's good to have collective bargaining in good order. Who would you rather argue with? Who would you rather argue with? You know, would you rather argue with a capitalist, 100 millionaires CEOs?

Or would you rather argue with a bunch of union members and teachers who are misguided? I would not rather talk to a misguided group of regular people. Yes, I definitely would rather discuss like these things with groups of people who actually are like human beings and not, you know, some living on like a, not see-stating or whatever. But, but, yes, anyhow, so the point is yes,

like on the union piece, but also more broadly on this like structural piece, which is like, what is, you know, what is the new, what does the new world, the new job market look like? What are careers now? They're different. I mean, they're just different. And by the way, by the way, we, you know, there is, there's just such, there's just such a huge opportunity here, I think, to reframe how we think about this stuff and reframe like what this is to the next generation. And the reality is we have, I have teams that I work with at this business. And they have been exceedingly productive in a situation where, exceedingly productive

in a situation where without this structural thing in place of the internet and slack and The ability to work online and create online like this just never would have happened You know, but like it's people are people do this. This is how we live now when will reality or when will you know Our reality catch up with the react the quality of commerce is the big question and like And like, I don't have the answer to that, but what I do know is something has changed, something is you can't put it back in the box. Everybody talks about this now with the pandemic. They're like, it's never gonna go back to the way it was.

And I think that's true. Like, businesses aren't gonna go back to the way they were. I think, you know, yes, people will return to offices, but it's not gonna be the way it was. A lot of people have realized that you can do the things that you do completely online. And actually, you know what I mean? We've launched so many new parts of the business, it just talking about BDG and obviously

our side of it. We've built so much new stuff in this period of time and like for me, I've always, ever since the end gadget days, we've always been very online. Obviously, we're like nerds, you know, we've always worked very online. We've always been like, okay, we have people in like Amsterdam and people in Iowa and like not everybody's going to be in the office. But now I think everybody sees the reality, which is like, I mean, think about the office space.

Think about the sheer square footage that has been utilized for these boxes that like probably like 50% or more of the people who are sitting in those footage that has been utilized for these boxes that like probably like 50% or more of the people who are sitting in those boxes don't actually need to be there. Yeah, pay the money to the people who are just sitting at their computers at home anyway. Let us all get nicer houses. Like seriously, I mean, like just the rent alone

should be able to offset all kinds of stuff, you know? So it's a really interesting change. I mean, obviously we're talking about only fans, but like backing out from that to a all kinds of stuff. So it's a really interesting change. Obviously, we're talking about only fans, but backing out from that to a lot of other stuff. It's like, you know, I mean, it's part of the conversation that's like really needs to happen and is happening of like people keep saying that there's labor shortages, but not that there's wage shortages.

Whereas, people don't want to work at an eight dollar an hour job where they're being abused and their life is on the line, people don't want to take that job. And if you're not going to compensate them or make it worth somebody's while, there's a breaking point where people are like, fuck it, fuck it.

My life is going to suck either way. I've heard all these old people, I have a lot of like, all the elderly people in my life are like, oh yeah, I every time I go to a restaurant they're like, we can't get anybody to work here. They're all collecting their stimulus checks. And I'm like, no, actually you know what they did? They're like, wait, I've been working at this shithole

where I get paid badly and treated badly. And now I have to like figure something else out because they fucking laid us off at the beginning of this thing. And I can either go backwards and undo all the figuring out I did in order to put my life online for $8 an hour, which is worse than last. Or less. Which isn't worth what it was worth.

Right. Back when these old people experienced it. Yeah. And I think a lot of those people are like, you know what, I'm gonna do fucking DoorDash or I'm gonna do OnlyFans or I going to go, there are all these like new distributed opportunities or they went and just said, oh, you know what, I fucking completed my, you know, maybe I completed like this course that I needed to complete and I can go get a different job.

It's like, I think that a lot of people were like, I'm not going to go back to being a fucking waiter at this restaurant that sucks being treated like shit by people, especially when it's like putting my health at risk at in the middle of a pandemic. And like they think it's so funny to me. It's like people think people were like, oh yeah, I'm just collecting my stimulus check. It's like, dude, it wasn't that much money. It's not that much money. It's not enough money for people to live on. Okay, people need jobs. And also, every study has shown. Even if you give people enough money to live on, they like to work. People want to be useful.

People enjoy working if they find a job that is satisfying to them. You know, not seeing every job screen. But even if you don't, if you want to be a stay at home parent that should be an option available to you, if someone in your house, I mean, I'm not sitting here saying that it needs to be one way or the other, but I will say if someone in your house is working and one I'm not sitting here saying that it needs to be one way or the other, but I will say, if someone in your house is working and one of the parents wants to stay home and help raise the kids, I think that's a good thing that that's possible.

It's really weird to me to be like, well, let's make it harder on the people who are suffering so that you wouldn't want to be in that group. As opposed to, we have all this excess, why not make it so that people don't feel like suffering and not working is just the exact same life as Being abused and working like if it's the net same. Let's make there the people who these entry-level jobs a little sweeter and a little more livable

So people might want to actually Do them I'd it's just it's bizarre to me I it all feels so backward and yet we're hearing these complaints from people who are raised by stay at home parents and whose eight dollars an hour was really worth twenty dollars in buying power. And like I have to hear and college cost them five thousand five thousand dollars for the entire run of school including books and housing. And it's like, you know, I don't really care about your opinion on this. I really don't want to hear about it because I have hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt that I've had to pay off and I've never been paid like an amazing wage and I've never

I've never been able to stay home or start a family like I you know John and I are having serious discussions about if that will ever be possible for us financially if we will ever be able to have children and Yet I have to hear about from these old people that I refuse to have kids because I'm selfish and self-involved, that I don't want to work, that I'm not grateful, that I made the choice to go to college when I was 17. Like, all of society is, COVID was like a targeted strike for all the things that we're about to snap in America. And they're all snapping.

And people are sitting around, either pretending that it's not happening or mad at the people who are mad as Helen can take it anymore. You know, and I'm sick of hearing people be divided where it's like, well, only fans, you know, well, that's prostitutes, which by the way, offensive word, they're sex workers. But to hear that kind of rhetoric, it's like, I have way more in common with people on only fans than I do with you. So why don't you shut the fuck up.

I mean, I'm thinking about doing it on only fans, you know, and I feel like I could make it least. I think a lot of $15, $20 a month, I think I could do $25 a month, you know, problem like. I think a lot of drivers would support. I'm not sure they would watch the content, but yeah, I mean, what if I just what if I just pivoted to just fucking getting my dick out? I mean, maybe this is they maybe this is where I need to go. Yeah, maybe this is the future for me. The future for everyone is just whip it out.

Is a fucker guy camera will in the nation of cam models. You know what? I support it. I honestly do. I think anything, I think anything that gets everybody. Food. Anything to get, no, but anything that also gets anybody off of this weird shit about sex.

Yeah. You know, like it's, we we're also broken weird people because I mean the sex stuff is so it's so like a base level like we'll break your brain if you don't have some healthy attitude about it. I'm trying to think if there's anything else worth to talk about right now. And this is like I will say I'm out of practice. I I it's like there's so much that I thought I wanted to talk about it. And then we got like, we went down rabbit hole. There's so much.

I mean, we were gone for so long. There's so many things to talk about. I guess we'll have to do it again in a week. I feel like there's things that I, oh, oh, oh, I have to talk about this. We go on vacation in the same place every year and they have this great toy store there. And we went to the toy store on the, on the, there's a sign on the toy store that was like Pokemon cards available here. Now apparently Pokemon cards it's become a very hot market. Everybody's collecting them and trading them and selling them. I mean, they're not carrying them at Target because physical fights kept right there.

Right. Like people are like fighting over them. We wrote a great story about this guy, the Pokemon King, who has like the most valuable collection in the world. I sort of like was aware of, you know, I don't, I don't Pokemon is like, I wasn't my generation. Like, I missed it. It was your generation, I believe. You're like, I'm a little bit older, and so I missed that whole phenomenon.

I'm obviously very aware of it. It just wasn't a thing for me. It's like Harry Potter. I think Harry Potter. I really like it too. And that's not really the time. I think Harry Potter and Pokemon were sort of these phenomena that happened at the same time. Sorry to me to totally talk over you. Anyhow, so I kind of was like, oh, hey, they have Pokemon cards. I mean, Zelda has like one of the games she had.

Let's go Pikachu or whatever for her switch and we've played it a bit and She was into it, but not like yes, fully into it. I was like, oh, they have Pokemon cards here. Like maybe we'll get some. Just sort of not really, I don't really know about the Pokemon card game. I didn't know anything about it. I was like, oh, be fun to buy some cards.

You know where I'm vacation, we'll just get some cards like, look at, right? It's like 10 cards to a pack or something. So we bought them. We bought a couple packs and then we started looking at them. And I was like, and Zelda sort of like, what, like this is a card game, right? And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, but we don't have enough cards to play. And so we we went back and we bought enough cards. We bought like a package of like a starter pack,

which we had already purchased. I had already purchased, apparently, months previously. For some reason, thinking maybe we'd do this and totally forgot about it, but I didn't have it on vacation. So, we went back to the store and we bought a starter pack and we learned how to play Pokemon the card game, which is both incredibly simple but highly complex. It took us a full day of like trying to figure out like how it's played. I'm pretty sure I went into the input slack at some point.

It was like does anybody here know how to play the fucking Pokemon card game? And everyone of the Pokemon generation was like, no, we just collect the cards. Yeah, you're like, no, which is like, which is so depressing to me. But anyhow, we figured it out and we started playing and we started playing and we started playing on vacation.

We played a lot and and and then and now Zelda has like it has become an absolute Pokemon Superfan. Yeah, she she's playing we got sword and shield. She's playing she's playing Pokemon go We're playing the card games and collecting cards. She on go. We're playing the card games and collecting cards. She, uh, uh, uh, there's Pokemon Unite, which is a new game that came out. She's playing and loving. She literally can talk about the Pokemon and their evolutions, like, in a way that just sounds like she's not even speaking the same line yet. And she went to get school supplies yesterday and came back with like a Pikachu hoodie and like the

ace, like the hat, the red hat that he wears. And is that his name, Ace, the guy from the show? And like a Pikachu, the tox, and it's just like immersed in the world. Oh, she got a Pikachu, I'm sorry, a Pokemon lunch box. And he has just completely immersed in this world and it's fucking insane.

And I mean, I had to sit. I had to sit in my parents' head from sailor moon to power angels to Harry Potter to Pokemon. They were like, I mean, I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit.

I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit.

I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. I had to sit. like, I'm like, oh yeah, like we got to get these cards. Like, oh, you know, there's this rare card we should try to find. And like, we're like, you know,

obviously I've gone overboard as usual, but it's super fun. Yeah. And also not for nothing, but we started reading Harry Potter like a week ago. And you've never seen a kid more wrapped at bedtime as we're reading it. That was me. Dude, no, it's like we're in such a good period right now. I guess I'm just sort of gushing about being a father of a kid who is at the age where they are, like she's now into things that I'm like, oh yeah, this is actually really cool. It's like nerd out together in Boston.

Yeah. I mean, the Harry Potter stuff is crazy. I understand that JK Rowling as a human is cancelled, but the book, as I was reading it to her, it is like the ultimate. Like, it is the, it is the culmination of so many of the things that children are just fucking into. Yeah. Like, first off, she loves all orphan stories, right?

Like Matilda, fucking Annie, all these kids that she's like been following, like, you know, the girl from, you know, Rapunzel who gets like kidnapped. Like there's all these stories about kids just being absolutely abused by their horrible parents. And it's like such a central point of so much kids fiction. And like, you know, Harry Potter is like, I don't want to spoil it for anybody,

you know the red Harry Potter. Uh, it's like, it starts out with those things total like, I don't want to spoil it for anybody. You know the red Harry Potter. It's like, it starts out with those things total like, oh yeah, it's just like a classic, Annie abused orphan story. And then just adds in every element that you could think of that would make it even more awesome where it's like, he's Luke Skywalker and also he's magical and also he's going to the school full of other magical people

and there's dragons and there's fucking spells and there's an evil bad guy that we don't know anything about. It's like, it's like Power Rangers where they were like their teenagers and they're really attractive. But also they have got dinosaurs. But those dinosaurs are robots and they're super heroes. It's like, it's just piling

and they grow to enormous size like Godzilla. It's like, it's piling on the shit that kids are like, I fucking love this. Can I just say, but yeah, I mean, can I just say Laura, so Laura read her the book last night, we were reading the bedtime, and she sent this message. She was like, Zelda just said when I was reading that she wants to have a version of Harry Potter printed

where it's all the same except for the end, and the end will reveal that Dumbledore is Voldemort. Ooh, I'm kidding. She's like, keep in mind she doesn't know that happens. She doesn't know what happens. She's only at the part where they arrive at the school. And then she woke up today. Oh my God.

And she was like, I came up with a title for the book. It's Harry Potter and the Revealance of Dumbledore. Which obviously, Revealance, not a word, but she's seven, so cut her some slack. And honestly like, oh listen, JK Rowling made up a lot of words and not just the magical gobbledygook. There was a lot of it. I know. I know. I know. I just pros towards those later books. I, uh, but I gotta say it's a pretty good idea. I mean, it's a pretty good twist. It is. I don't, I don't think that's what happens.

I haven't read or all of the more seen all the movies, but if it did happen, it would be a pretty sick twist, I think. Her brain is insane anyhow. It's a lot of fun. I recommend having a kid, I gotta tell you. It's both, it's both, having a child is both like the greatest thing in the world and also makes you more worried about everything like times a hundred.

Yeah. It's like, it's like, I'm like, oh yeah, climate change is ruining my life. You know, it's like, it's really going to ruin my daughters. It's like, it's like, everything is like that. Anyway, we should probably wrap up. We've been going for a while. Well, is that your nice thing Harry Potter?

Oh my God. Was that my nice thing? I don't know. I have so many nice things Ryan to talk about. There's so many things. I'm trying to think if there's anything else that's really nice. Oh my God, you know, we didn't talk about there's so many things. I'm trying to think if there's anything else, that's really nice. Oh my God, you know we didn't talk about a cyberpunk. Oh yeah, you're all high in my day.

Which is like, I feel like we were almost gonna do a show because I was talking about how it's like become, to me, it's such an unbelievable, like the greatest game of our play. I'm sorry, I don't see it. I'm trying so hard. You gotta go deep, you gotta go far. You gotta keep, you gotta play every, I'm literally playing every fucking side story,

every mission, everything I can do. And I gotta tell you, I just got a whole storyline. I played the game for 90 fucking hours so far. I just got a whole new plot point apart of the main, really the main story that I had never seen before. It's actually kind of crazy. I just, I don't know, like I don't vibe with the game.

Yeah, I mean, there are some things that are definitely turnoffs, but, but, I don't know. I keep going back to it. It's a really, it's something I've never done before. I've played a lot of games that have a lot of DLC and like additional content. You can keep playing after you beat it. And it's really never been one fallout three.

It's probably the game I think of that I went. Dragon age, the Witcher. They've seen I haven't done this. I haven't been, that's like this is that for me. The only game I can think of that's like this is a fallout three and maybe like Dead Cells. You know,, dead cells, the game that I went back to over and over and over again. But anyhow, yeah, I don't know, man. My nice thing is if you're going to watch Drag Race, don't listen to this. If you are going to watch Drag Race, don't listen to this. I am now in the clear. On All Star 6 of Drag Race,

which is where competitors return from older seasons, but they're the most beloved competitors or people who've really impressed in the real world, they come back and they recompete, and they can get in the Hall of Fame, which is not the same as winning a season, but it's close. You get all the same prizes,

it's just a distinction within the community. However, there's always a twist, and every All Stars there's a twist. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad. One time they put everybody on teams of two for the entire competition, and it was horrible because the worst team member dragged the best team members down, and so it was like we are not really getting the answer of who's the best here. Other years they've had everybody vote on who wins or and now they're voting each other out, but this year they did a thing that they called the game within a game.

Every time someone was eliminated, they were asked if they wanted to play another game, but we weren't told what it was until the most recent episode. Actually, last week's episode because a new one came out today. In last week's episode, we got to watch footage behind the scenes from the entire competition that we've been watching of every time a queen got knocked out, they would lip sync against the last queen who was knocked out and whoever won would move on to the next round and the next queen who got knocked out with lip sync. This has been secretly going on behind the scenes and whoever wins, that long competition,

like the earlier you were eliminated, the more people you have to knock out, but you still have a chance to gank it to the end. Whoever wins gets reinserted at the very end for the semi-finals of the competition, and nobody knows this. So we finally got to watch it along with the competitors who had made it there, the traditional route, and there is one performer named Silky-Nutmeg-Ganosh, who was the most, who was just hated. Like the Drag Race fandom hated this person for being obnoxious, for fighting with people that they liked, for being too loud, for bothering celebrity guest judges. Like there was a lot of reasons that people didn't like her, mostly it's because she's black and fat. If she wasn't, people would have liked all those things

about her. In any event, she comes on and knocks out six or seven different competitors in a row, like lip syncing her way directly to the crown, because she realized after her first lip sync, oh, I've got a whole week to prepare. So she started making props out of stuff she could find in her hotel room, things she could pull from random locations like on her way to and from isolation. And came up with storylines and gags and special effects just using the shit around her in order to win these lip syncs

because she wanted to get back into the competition. So for the whole episode, you watch this person slowly like put together that they have to do this, but then desperately try it every turn to have a gag. A twist. At one point, she took two of her looks that was an all-male look, an all-female look, and put them together for a Barbie girl lip sync during which

every time the voice switched from the man to the woman, she turned around or rolled or whatever, and it made the weirdest, craziest performance. Anyway, it was very inspiring, it was very cool to see someone against all odds come back. It's crazy that this has been happening while we're watching all these competitors use like $1,000 outfits and like, you know, teams of designers helped them with all of their looks and they've got to plan all this stuff for her. This person's just like from the seat of her pants lip-syncing her way through this whole thing coming up with all these gags and it was really impressive. It was really cool.

And this week we'll now get to watch possibly her read during the competition. The last lip sync we didn't get the result first. So we'll see today. But I just want to say, it was delightful. It was heartwarming. It was something I really desperately needed. It's something about being like in this pandemic.

And I watched it when I was in Indiana caring for my sick grandmother. It was just like, you can be at your lowest, but if you have a sense of fun and you work really hard and you care about your art, you can still do something that's impressive. It's not necessarily means she's gonna win the whole thing, it doesn't mean like, it was all worthwhile because she'll make money on it.

Like, she's doing this just for the glory of it. And it was like, oh, like, creators will create and things can go on. And I don't know, it was very inspiring to me. So I want to say thank you to Silky, not Meghanash. Thank you to the entire Drag Race family. You're an evil capitalist organization, but you gave me a moment of joy. And God, I love that television show. And you know what? I'm going to say it right here. I think I might win it one day. Wow. I, well, I mean, listen, I encourage you, I support it. I will be there cheering you on.

Is there an audience? I've never watched the show. Oh, well, yes, there was a grand finale audience, usually, but not during COVID times. I'll be there. All right, I'll get you a ticket. I'll be at that as long as it's a required. Congratulations to Silke and congratulations.

Congratulations to Rupal for making money on the back of all these girls. I'm going to do I'm going to do one more quick nice thing and then we do. You know, good. That was a good thing. Nice thing. Nice thing.

Whatever. We relaunch gocker. Oh, yeah. We should say we leave Finnegan is the editor in chief of the new gocker. And there's a ton of amazing people there working with her. Leah, as you know, is the executive editor of the new gocker and there's a ton of amazing people there working with her. Leah, as you know, is the executive editor of the outline.

And I'm very, you know, I'm psyched to have worked on this with her and to have been a part of it, but like, you know, she has just done an incredible job at like reviving something and also making it not the thing that it was and something new and a better version of or a different version of You know, it's better is like it's objective, but like I love what it is now And it's just like come back. No, it's like it's like I think the thing about Gokka is like there's so much there was so much drama about like Could you do it? Should you do it? Would you do it? What would it be? What is it? Gawker, actually, as we went through, I spent months and months going through Gawker archives and going, what was Gawker?

What was it? And what's true is that every new editor brought some new Gawker to it. Every group of writers was a whole different Gawker. And there's a Gawker that was posting Revenge porn, and which was bad, and like there's a gocker that was like posting revenge porn, and like there was, which was bad, and there's a gocker that was doing incredible political commentary, which was better.

And there's a gocker that was doing unbelievable like feature writing like, you know, that like, you would be like, now I think you'd be like, this was gocker because people think they have this idea, mostly they have an idea in their head of what it was, but everybody has their kind of own idea of it. You know, and so-

It's like Saturday Night Live. It was different in different eras, and everybody thinks that their arrow was the most important or influential, but in fact, they're all important and influential, and it has had better and worse seasons, but it's worth putting the effort into making it good. Like, it's an institution that is worth existing

and I'm so happy that I get to read Gokr again. The day that I showed up at RSS Reader, I was like, the only thing that could make this better is if Google relaunched Google Reader and I could just truly live my blissful, perfect life again. Yeah. I mean, honestly, it's very good and very funny

and everybody should read it and follow it and engage with it. And it's like, it's smart good and very funny and everybody should read it and follow it and engage with it. And it's like, it's smart and weird and funny and I think provocative and all the ways that it should be. And I'm just very glad that we did it. I think there was a lot of turbulence in previous iterations, attempts and like I feel like we, Leah has built something really great and interesting. And I'm excited about it.

And it's brand new and it's like a new part of our part of this company, BDG. I run this part of the company called the Culture and Innovation, Portfolio, which is input, obviously, and inverse.com and Mike and now Gauker. Only good websites. Only good websites and only and only and i'm excited there's a lot of new stuff happening you guys are gonna see i don't like spoil any surprises but there's a lot of new things happening in our

universe and i'm very excited about it and we're relaunching spy magazine i'm just kidding so my god you never know man you never know we have w is in the fold in the bdg full of so anything's possible i don't think we're gonna relax but i'm who they have the editor in the fold in the BDG fold down. So anything's possible. I don't think we're going to relaunch Ryan Hulehan the editor in chief of highlights magazine Now that I like actually we actually just acquired a bunch of we actually just acquired a bunch of like parenting and like Kids focus sites, so one day highlights is a kids magazine, right? Yes It's in doctor's offices across this great country. You never know. I think actually is how to get highlights. Any

alright, we should wrap this up. It's like we're reporting on on two hours. I know Tony's loving this, but anyhow, alright, so that's it. We're back. That's it. We're done. We're back. You don't have a father as anymore. If anything, no, no, bother us. They thank you. bother us and and review it. Listen, review it on whatever podcast service that allows you to review, give it five stars or four stars.

I don't know what the top rating is and tell people, tell your family and friends about it because I don't know. Maybe they'll feel something for once in their lives. Okay, bye. All right, let's get out of here. Well, that is our show for this week. We'll be back next week with more tomorrow and as always, I wish you and your family the very best, though I've just been informed that your family is avoiding Delta, but I'm pretty sure they're talking about the airline.