Episode 210: The Octopus Forklift
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Transcript
Time Crisis, back again.
On this week's episode,
we talk about the Oscars and all things showbiz.
Flamin' Hot, The Fire Inside,
plus we're joined by Zachary and Christian of The Octopus Murders.
All that plus the top five hits of 1991.
Today on Time Crisis.
With Ezra Koenig.
They passed me by, all of those great romances
The war I felt, robbing me of my rightful chances
My picture clear, everything seemed so easy
And so I dealt you the blow, when a bus had to go
Now it's different, I want you to know
One of us is crying, one of us is lying
We were only there
Time Crisis, back again.
Seinfeld is stuck in traffic.
What up, Jake? What up, Nick?
Hey, let's just get right into it.
Big weekend this past weekend, Oscar weekend.
That's right.
We were all watching, because we're all big Oscars heads.
Are you a big Oscars head? You're serious?
I wouldn't say I'm a head, but I'm a fan.
I generally will watch the show.
And by watch, I mean it'll be on and I'll be in and out of the room.
Yeah.
I'm not going to like, rewind if I miss like Robert Downey's speech.
Like, oh, I missed the speech? Okay, I missed the speech.
I mean, but how far are you going?
Are you doing like themed food at your home?
Do you have a pool?
No.
Jake's special nuclear salsa for Oppenheimer kind of thing?
I wish I had that kind of time to plan and execute an Oscar party.
I don't.
It was absolutely chaotic.
We had a few people over last minute.
There were four three-year-olds there.
Oh boy.
So it was chaos.
It was great.
But you were texting us during the, I forget who sang it,
but someone sang a song from the Flamin' Hot soundtrack.
Yes. We got to throw that on by the way,
because we should have talked about this earlier that Flamin' Hot,
the Richard Montaigne story, the film we've talked about,
about the creation of Flamin' Hot Cheetos, allegedly,
was nominated for one Oscar and that was her best song.
The song was performed by Becky G.
The song is called "The Fire Inside."
Was it written by Diane Warren?
And was it written originally for the Flamin' Hot Cheetos movie?
Or was it an older song that they were like,
"Oh, that'll work thematically with what we're going for."
No, no, no. It's an original.
It has to be original to be nominated.
My understanding, because I was watching the Oscars with a few people,
one of which is, I think, a very well-known producer.
And he said that...
Okay, name drop.
He said that Diane...
I don't want a name drop because I don't know if this is...
I don't think that...
Okay.
He did not produce this, but he said that Diane Warren
is the person you hire specifically to get an Oscar-nominated...
Song.
A song where it has no connection at all to the movie itself.
Do you know what I mean?
It's just sort of like you hire them to...
Or hire her for that.
That's a pretty cynical take, but I guess there are elements of
wheeling and dealing in Hollywood.
Oh, here comes Seinfeld.
Seinfeld, welcome to the program.
We're discussing the Flamin' Hot Cheetos Oscar-nominated song.
Oh, yeah, the Diane Warren written song.
You're not missing a beat.
You're right in there.
It's hearing that if you want to get your song nominated,
you get Diane Warren, and that's a way that a movie can kind of
almost be guaranteed one Oscar-nom, even if it's...
And frankly, I could see best actor for the guy who played Richard Montanez.
And I do think Avalon Goria, it is a great first film.
Was there Oscar buzz?
I don't know.
This was like a pretty slammed year with Oppenheimer and Barbie.
Tony Shalhoub absolutely crushed that role, too.
It should have more noms.
But okay, so by hiring Diane Warren, who's kind of a legendary songwriter
and has been nominated and won many, many Oscars, I bet her name
carries a lot of weight in the voting block for best song at the Oscars.
And I could see that maybe somebody else is, you know, who's voting,
is looking through and they're like, "Flamin' Hot? What's that?"
Oh, Diane Warren wrote the song? I'll vote for it.
Sounds like a hit.
Diane Warren is 67 years old.
I'm going to assume that she didn't produce the song.
She just wrote the chords and the lyrics?
Yeah, this is produced by Ismael Cano Jr.
By the way, Diane Warren has never won an Oscar.
Really?
But has been nominated.
Wow. That's like Scorsese numbers.
Didn't she write "My Heart Will Go On"?
You got the fire.
By the way, I believe this is in the pot.
Diane Warren gets dragged sometimes for attaching her awards-bait power ballads
to random movies in pursuit of an Oscar.
So that checks out. That's what this guy told me.
Okay, well, this year she did not choose a random movie.
She chose the time crisis movie of the year, so okay, but go on.
I guess my point being she had no other affiliation, you know, to this movie other than—
It's not like friend of the show, Mark Ronson, you know, doing all of Barbie or something.
You know, they hire this woman to do probably a credit song.
Actually, do you know when in the movie does a song come up?
First of all, I love Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt.
They wrote "I'm Just Ken" and they produced the whole Barbie soundtrack.
But I don't know if those guys have a more—a deeper connection with Barbie dolls
than Diane Warren has with Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
No, but they—
I'm willing to believe—hold on, hold on.
Really fair point, Ezra.
I'm willing to believe that it's more recent that Diane Warren bought a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos
than Mark Ronson bought a Barbie.
More visceral connection.
I will say, you know, and I feel like you guys experienced this as well maybe,
but I watched Flamin' Hot more than once.
I watched it like one and a half times.
Not until that Oscars performance.
Like, I feel like I'd never heard that song one time before I saw it at the Academy Awards.
Credit sequence?
Yeah, maybe it's just at the end.
Yeah, it's second song in the credit sequence.
Okay, yeah, there you go.
That's what I mean about not having a real connection.
I've seen Flamin' Hot over 20 times.
I've had this song on my gym workout playlist since then.
I almost always kick off and end my workout with the fire inside.
You book and you start and finish with it?
Yep.
Okay.
Wait, actually, I wonder if anybody--
Actually, it would be a good song for a gym playlist.
Oh, totally. It would be great for a Peloton class.
I wonder if anybody ever pitched--
You got the fire inside.
Yeah, I wonder if anybody ever pitched like a Flamin' Hot Peloton class
where they have like an all red background
and the teacher uses songs from the movie,
such as The Fire Inside, Becky G.
Because you could totally see how a fitness instructor could be like,
"All right, guys, we're going to work today.
We're going to work as hard as Richard Montanez
when he was a Frito-Lay janitor."
And kind of like, "Okay, we're going to go up our first hill."
This reminds me of the part in Flamin' Hot
when Montanez first gets the job
and he wants to learn more about how the factory works.
But some of the guys are like, "Hey, stick to being a janitor."
But are we going to let that stop us?
Did it stop Richard Montanez? No.
Okay, pound it out.
I think these things actually happen.
This is the part where he steals himself to cold call Tony Shalhoub.
[laughs]
Okay, I know you probably feel like you're out of gas,
but think about the courage that Richard Montanez needed
to cold call Tony Shalhoub.
And I want you to take that knob
and take three big Richard Montanez spins to the right
because we're going to cold call Tony Shalhoub right now.
And then, I mean, it's perfect.
I'm entering the number.
Oh, Tony Shalhoub pops in the thing.
I pulled the number off the break room wall.
They get Tony to make a cameo?
Yeah, and then Tony Shalhoub walks in and the class is freaking out.
And then it's saying like, "Yeah, you can make all sorts of great jokes about it."
Now, some of us do we occasionally go a little bit too hard
on the Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
Guilty as charged. It's an amazing snack.
And that's why we're going to do one more climb.
You got the fire inside.
Let's not lose the main thread here, though.
So the Oscars are happening.
Ezra hits the TC thread.
He goes, "I'm at the Vanity Fair dinner."
Is that what you were at? The dinner? Pre-party.
Yeah.
And you're like, "I'm the only one at my table that has seen Flamin' Hot."
Yes. I was actually really glad that my background
as an investigative journalist along with you guys on TC
gave me some interesting dinner party conversation
because I'm at a very high-class Hollywood event.
As often happens at those events,
you don't know who you're going to be sitting with
and they split up couples.
Oh, I like that. I like that.
I think that's how it should be always.
I really appreciate that too.
Even if you, on the occasion, go to dinner party
and say, "Couples split up."
Because then it forces people to turn to each other and be like,
"Oh, hey, how are you doing?" You meet people, you know what I mean?
So who are you seated with?
I don't know if I want to...
If you don't mind us... Okay, you don't want to...
Well, I could say, you know, some of them are celebrities.
Some are some big-name people who have been big in TV and movies.
There's a really cool choreographer who I really enjoyed speaking with
and a director he works with.
Are you worried about naming them because you don't want to out them
as having never seen Flamin' Hot?
For all I know, it could get awkward.
For all I know, this guy's doing a deal with Richard Montanya next week.
I don't know.
They're private people.
I will say, I'll just give you one person.
She was very nice and cool, but I was sitting next to Jeff Goldblum's wife,
Emily, a very friendly person
and a very talented kind of dancer, acrobat person.
She had a really cool backstory.
Anyway, sitting with a mix of people like that
and, you know, so I'm sitting across the table from Rashida,
so I can't rely on her to keep the conversation going,
so I'm just talking to everybody.
Everybody was super cool.
So, you know, they have the show on at this party,
so it's not the ideal way to watch the show
because, of course, there's dinner conversation happening,
but people quiet down when they're about to announce one of the awards.
And then, of course, there's a lot of talk.
"Okay, everybody, who do you think is going to win?"
That kind of stuff.
But, you know, as you can imagine,
during the musical performances, there's people sometimes who are talking.
And so during the Becky G "Fire Inside" performance,
I kind of realized, "Okay, this is something I might have some unique insight into."
So I said, "Have any of you guys seen the movie that this is from?"
And not a single person at the table had.
And I said, "Oh, it's from 'Flame It Hot.'"
Had they heard of the movie?
Seemingly none of them had.
And I said, "Oh, it's about the development of the Flame It Hot Cheetos."
And they said, "Oh, really?"
And then I think maybe somebody was like, "Oh, yeah, I heard Eva Longoria directed that."
And I was like, "Yeah, you guys should watch it."
And they're like, "Is it good?"
And I was like, "Yeah, it's pretty good, actually. You should watch it."
And I was like, "You know the whole story about Richard Montanez
and he said that he invented Flame It Hot Cheetos and they didn't know."
And then they were like, "Oh, no."
I'm picturing Rashida's very crestfallen expression
as Trent enters into minute 15 in his recap of Flame It Hot.
Here he goes again.
Once he gets started on Flame It Hot, this is the VF dinner, not the TC dinner.
Just kicking him to the table.
They seemed to enjoy the fact that I was a passionate Flame It Hot researcher
and I did gently rib the table.
I said, "So nobody's seen the movie?"
And everybody's like, "No, no, I haven't seen it."
And then I said, "Well, I guess I'm the only cinephile here."
Sick burn.
I haven't seen Zone of Interest, but I have seen Flame It Hot.
As you stare into Jeff Goldblum's eyes.
I should have just run up to him a few hours later at the party.
"Jeffrey, so are you going to check out Flame It Hot?"
He's like, "What? What are you talking about? Do you remember earlier I said?"
He's like, "No, I don't remember."
That rules.
The friend of the show, Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt,
they really brought the house down with I'm Just Cat.
Yeah.
What did you think, Jake?
Yeah, it was great. I mean, it was a great choreographed piece of entertainment.
It was great.
Gosling had a nice kind of rasp to his voice.
I mean, do I like the song? Not really.
But in the context of an Oscars broadcast, did you see the movie?
It was great. Yeah, I saw the movie. It was all right.
I wasn't like blown away by it.
I think he crushed it.
I think that it was so fun what they did for a performance.
And I really think that a huge problem with the Flame It Hot performance is how--
and I think one of you guys said it-- it was just so over the text.
It was bizarre how self-serious it was.
The kids coming out. I mean, let's have some fun, guys.
I mean, it's just the Cheetos movie.
They should have had Richard Montanya's riff of like a pretend guitar solo.
That's what I'm saying. That would have been great.
Should have had Slash come back out.
Or bring-- oh.
Slash is already there.
Or Bob Seger, since he did the original.
Bob Seger has a song called "Fire Inside." It's not the same song.
Throw that on.
It's a cover, right?
Throw that on.
Is it not a cover?
They should have-- no, it's not a cover.
Somebody on Blue Skies said it was a cover.
Oh, okay. This is-- yeah, this is very different.
I like the idea of what you're saying, though.
Just have him come out, do some--
Ooh, that's very Grammy-ish.
Yeah, they should have brought out Duff McKagan
wearing a suit made out of Flame It Hot Cheetos.
That would have been fun.
Ooh.
You know, they could have dropped inflatables
that look like big Flame It Hots onto the crowd
so they could pass them around.
They should have had a cannon shooting Flame It Hot dust onto the crowd.
Dude, they should have had a bag of Flame It Hot tape
underneath every seat in the auditorium.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, run out into the crowd and kind of do one of those Oscar bets
where they're like, "Okay, Margo, how many are you going to eat?"
Oh, my God, I like--
Becky G.
Oh, we love Flame It Hot down in Australia.
Okay, Margo ate four.
How about you, Scorsese?
Okay, okay, I'll eat--
Now, we've also included a packet of wet wipes
to get the orange [bleep] off your hands
after you've crushed the bag of Flame It Hot Cheetos.
Killian Murphy just stone-faced as Jack Black and Stephen Adler
surround him with Flame It Hot Cheeto bags.
Stephen Adler?
Former drummer of Guns N' Roses.
Yeah, okay, that's what I thought you were saying.
I'm just playing off the fact that Barbie got slashed.
Okay.
They get the original drummer from Geno.
Stephen Adler.
♪
I'm liking this Bob Seger stuff, man.
This is '90s.
♪
Wouldn't it be cool if they used both fire and science for the movie?
Yeah.
'Cause this is really driving and triumphant.
It could have really--
So, kind of period-specific, right?
Like, when does the film take place?
True, '80s into '90s, I think.
So maybe while he's, like, climbing up the ladder,
like, you get this, like, for a montage.
Then you do the Diane Warren cover for the credits.
Yeah, you know what also would have been cool?
I mean, obviously, it's very easy to be
a Monday morning marketing quarterback.
And, you know, Becky G, she seems cool.
She's a Mexican-American singer.
So, you know, I'm reading about her now.
All four of her grandparents are from Mexico.
So she has, you know--
She has that connection in terms of heritage to Richard Montanez.
And I could understand, they're like, well, she's cool
'cause she's kind of like a younger pop star type.
It also could have been cool if they just went totally traditional.
Just, like, a real traditional, like, Mexican ballad in Spanish.
Oh, nice.
Just about, like, you know, like, Los Tigres del Norte style.
Just, like, the ballad of Montanez.
Ooh, just like a real tearjerker.
Yeah, with, like, the big horns.
In Spanish subtitles. Yeah.
And then imagine if they came out just, like,
trad Mexican ballad about the rise of Montanez.
And just, like, but talking about flaming hot Cheetos and stuff.
That would have been cool.
The ballad of Montanez.
Anything else worth talking about from the Oscars?
I wanted to shout out the actress--
What's her name? Sandra Hueller? Is that her name?
Oh, yeah.
From Zone of Interest and Anatomy of a Fall.
I did see that she is still a certified forklift operator.
People on Twitter brought that to our attention.
That's pretty-- that's amazing.
It made me think, I mean, made me wonder, like,
geez, how long does that permit last in Germany?
I feel like in California, you had to renew it every, like, three years.
So what does she actually say?
I didn't read the-- it was, like, a little headline I saw that was, like--
I think it was to the effect of, you know,
as successful as she might be right now.
She's, you know, basically, she's not worried about work
because she can always fall back on her forklift--
Certification.
Certification, yeah.
Not taking anything for granted, not counting her chickens,
because she's a working girl and used to operate a forklift, I guess.
I have a theory about this.
She's doing a bit.
This is a joke, and she's not really forklift certified,
but she's dialed in on the internet humor
and is making a funny reference.
I could be wrong.
You think she's maybe a TC head?
Well, I think the whole meme of, like, certified forklift operator--
Right.
You think that's made it to her desk?
I don't know. I just don't--
Do you really think she's forklift certified?
I believe-- I don't--
Yes, I believe at one point she was forklift certified.
Again, it makes me wonder how long the certification lasts in Germany.
I don't think that she would say--
knowing nothing about this woman--
I don't think she would make a joke about being forklift certified
if she had never been forklift certified.
And you know what? You're correct.
Stealing valor.
No, you're right.
I thought she was doing a joke,
but it actually looks like she did it for a film.
She got certified for a film called In the Aisle by Thomas Stuber,
a German film from 2018.
Oh, and actually in the art, in the key art, the poster,
she's in the forklift.
It's a forklift in the poster.
I like this a little less.
So she got certified for the film, or she got the role--
maybe she got the role because she's certified.
It says she got certified for the role.
Yeah, she flew back to--
it said, "Hueler's last taste of Hollywood glamour
was in 2016 at the Golden Globes,
and the day after the ceremony, she flew back to Germany
to do her certification to become a forklift operator
for a role in Stuber's Isles."
So I still like that.
I like it. I like it a little less, but I like it.
I mean, in my experience, it only took about two hours to get certified,
so it's not exactly like a bonerous process.
You know, it's funny.
I was actually just talking about this, if I should get certified.
For what?
Moving the Vampire Weekend road cases onto the semi.
Let me think about it, because I don't want to give too much away.
But, you know, just we've been working on our--
designing our live show, you know,
because when the proper tour starts in June,
I want this to be our greatest tour ever,
so it's got to have a look and a feel.
And without going into details, there was some talk about--
this is not the theme of the show, but it's almost adjacent,
where I was like, "Oh, could it be cool to have anything like a scissor lift on stage?"
So can you picture like a scissor lift?
Yes, I love where your head's at with that.
So we were talking, "Would a scissor lift be interesting?"
And we were talking about kind of that kind of X shape in a scissor lift.
You know, that just got me thinking, right, because maybe that's--
because sometimes with the set stuff, it can get tricky,
because you have to fabricate stuff yourself.
And there's these companies that specialize in this,
and they're doing huge arena shows, and it's kind of like--
you know, even for a small show, if you have a specific idea,
you might need somebody to kind of fabricate a certain shape
and put in the video wall behind it.
And even if you want your video wall to be round and--
you know, somebody's got to build all that stuff.
So I was thinking about things that wouldn't require much time.
So I was like, "Well, a scissor lift, you could just get that anywhere."
Drive it right on stage, or-- I was looking at those like--
I was thinking about funny little vehicles like that, things that you could drive.
Wait, so would you rent a scissor lift in each city,
or would you travel with a scissor--
Travel with a scissor lift.
I would need my guys to price it out.
But I was just thinking, if there could be--
Yeah, I don't know. I imagine--
I like that for my guys.
Yeah, I like that for my guys.
[laughs]
But somehow that conversation led to being like,
"Could a forklift play a role at all?"
And I was saying, "Well, you know, this kind of--
the forklift meme, being forklift certified,
it's been around for years now. It's probably on its last legs.
If there was ever a tour where as somehow part of the tour,
I or a member of the band should get forklift certified,
this would be it, you know?
I can't wait any longer."
This is very weird. It's--
It's very Guns N' Roses,
Use Your Illusion era.
Axl would wear like a full catcher's outfit.
Yeah.
And like, I could just see like a weird stage stunt
that era of Guns N' Roses with Axl,
like driving a forklift like off the stage or something.
Do you think the, you know, forklift,
you know, operator community would be--
I think it's a little bit of sort of stealing valor.
I think if I got certified, they can't say sh*t.
Maybe at some point, you know, the band's just sh*t cooking,
got a nasty groove happening,
and I go, "Oh, hold on a second."
I come out in a hard hat, drive the forklift on stage,
and I pick up a pallet.
You know, showmanship stuff.
I don't know, and maybe I document my journey,
but like, you know, I'm sorry, but if I'm certified,
I don't care how many years you spend in the warehouse.
Like, technically, we are both allowed to operate a forklift.
I like some, like, longshoremen at the show just being like,
"You know what, man? My culture, that's not your--
you know, that's not for you to take and just--"
"That's not your costume."
"My culture is not your costume," Ezra Koenig.
I want to say, though, real quick,
I like this idea of this person thinking that
while all the members of the band,
they're all just like bumper cars,
on stage driving forklifts.
Forklifts just crashing into each other.
That sounds real dangerous, guys.
Brian Cross is going to have a heart attack.
The whole show could be--
Yeah, well, also, I guess if you take it to its extreme,
actually, the band-- maybe the band can't play.
We're going to do all tracks,
so there's no gear on stage other than boxes and pallets
that we can, like, move.
Big hit with the fans.
Yep. I guess-- and also, I think as a way to pay tribute
to people who actually work in warehouses,
longshoremen, things of that nature,
I would try to make sure that they understood
that I was doing it.
I wasn't trying to literally steal their valor.
Like, if I came out, and I'm wearing kind of like a--
you know, a car heart and a hard hat,
maybe that's too much.
Maybe what I need to do is take a page
from our fellow Apple Music host,
Elton John's book,
and you remember when he played Dodger Stadium
in the '70s,
he famously came out in this, like, very--
like, probably 10,000-sequin Dodgers outfit
that was so sparkly,
and he came out with, like, a baseball bat.
He was wearing this, like, insane, sparkly Dodgers outfit
and kind of, like, did, like, a fake crack of the bat
and then sat down and was, like, ripping on piano.
So maybe I'll do, like, a kind of--
a warehouse forklift operator outfit,
but just covered in sequins, bedazzled to the hilt,
just shining, kind of like Liberace
meets a warehouse employee.
And then they'll see that I'm kind of like--
I'm paying tribute to them,
but I'm not trying to pretend I am them.
I'm recognizing that I come from show business,
and I'm meeting them halfway.
- You are an effete coastal elite.
- That's right.
- The moment you have to encounter
the real forklift operator,
and you're wearing the sequined outfit.
- Yeah. [laughs]
- So good.
- But I just do it, like, so campy,
just like, "Should I do it?"
And maybe even, like, then on the video screen,
like, we play, like, a montage
of me getting forklifts certified in the city of commerce,
and then I actually come out,
and just, like, the crowd goes nuts.
I mean, look, all I'm saying is there's a--
there's a ticking clock when it comes to
bringing the house down with a forklift--
a certified forklift operator bit in a rock concert.
I don't think it's gonna play in four years from now.
I think this is the sweet spot.
- You gotta seize the moment.
- This is the time to do it.
- No argument here.
- What if Baio is standing on a pallet,
and then--and he's just, like,
he's, like, rippin' a bass solo.
[imitates bass solo]
And he comes over, and it's like,
"Oh, here comes the forklift."
I put the prongs into the pallet.
I lift him up, and he's looking around like, "What?"
[imitates bass solo]
And he's just going higher and higher and higher.
And then I bring him back down.
I mean, that right there is a showstopper.
- This could be, like, your--you know how, like,
Pink likes to do the aerial flying stuff with, like, the rope?
This could be, like, the thing that you do for decades.
This could be your, like, your visual--
- I've always wanted more stuff like this.
- I just want to flag, though,
you cannot have any alcohol before the show.
You can't have any drinks and then operate heavy machinery, okay?
- Oh, boy. All right.
- No tequila shot before you go on stage
if you're gonna be operating a forklift,
especially if you're, you know,
ferrying your band members around.
- If I just do, like, a full Motley Crue bit,
where... [laughs]
It's just, like, I kind of come out with, like--
- A bottle of Jack. - A bottle of Jack,
and I'm just, like, chugging it, and I'm like,
"Should I operate this forklift?"
The crowd's like, "Hell yeah!"
[laughter]
And I'm just like, "They don't want me to."
Like, we have, like, one of the Crue guys come out
dressed as a cop, and I'm just like, "Whatever, man."
And then later I get arrested, and I'm just like,
"No, no, no." I guess, like, I have to write, like,
a letter to, you know, the city of Milwaukee
that was pure performance.
There was apple juice in that bottle of Jack Daniels.
I really apologize to Milwaukee PD
for making their life difficult under no circumstances.
Should anybody ever drink and operate heavy machinery,
I'm sorry to have even joked about it.
- You can also go the opposite moment,
sort of NWA kind of style,
where you have actors as cops
always come out to arrest you...
- Right. Yeah. - Nice.
- ...and then you're just waiting, wasted.
- Oh, yeah, but then we have, like, a Keystone Cops moment
where I kind of, like, I shimmy out of, like, the cuffs,
and I get it back in the forklift,
and they're chasing me all around the stage.
And you know what? This is where you get
into true showmanship, is that I'm like,
"Vrrr, can't go right.
"Brr-brr-brr, back up. Vrrr, can't go back."
And then I turn to the audience,
and then they don't realize that this thing
is rigged on invisible wires,
and I forklift over the audience.
[laughter]
- Meanwhile, the band's just vamping
on, like, the cruddiest funk groove.
- [laughs]
- 12-minute bit.
- [laughs]
Just doing a...
[laughs]
[imitates music]
- Sounds like a hell of a show.
- There's something here.
- Then you go, "Thank you.
"The next song is called 'Hannah Hunt.'"
[laughter]
[Hannah Hunt's "Hannah Hunt" plays]
- ♪ I'm in a diamond Hannah ♪
♪ There's no fiction ♪
♪ There's no answer ♪
♪ Don't remember when you left, darling ♪
♪ You and me, we got our hopes in the dime ♪
- What's a forklift weigh? I'm gonna guess, like,
1,500 pounds.
- Didn't Drake have, in one of his shows
in the last five years, he had a car fly, right?
- Did he? Oh, no, I was the one where he stood
on this weird kind of, like, a platform
that would then sort of go above the crowd
while he would sing to them individually.
That was some tour that I went to.
I don't remember him getting a car fly.
- Oh, yeah. He had a flying-- - He had a car fly.
- Yeah, it was a Ferrari. - Flying Lamborghini?
- Ferrari. - Ferrari, uh, five years ago.
Looks like on one of his tours.
Wow, it looks pretty crazy. I've never seen this.
It's just, like, levitating. - So the Ferrari would fly over the crowd.
So probably-- - A forklift weighs 9,000 pounds.
- What?! [laughter]
- Wait, that was just a Ferrari weigh.
- Okay, but that's the thing.
We'll have to talk to Drake's team
because I'm sure it was not a full Ferrari.
It was probably some sort of fabricated fiber.
- A Ferrari's around 4,000 pounds.
- Yeah, there's no way they were flying
4,000 pounds over the audience.
No one's gonna insure that.
So it must have been a lightweight thing.
You got any info, Seinfeld?
- Well, no, I was just gonna suggest you could do, like,
the Ikea version of a forklift, you know?
Like, if you go to Ikea, you pick up television.
- Of the small ones? - It's like--
Just, like, it's like a plastic, like, facsimile.
I guess it would still have to work, though.
- We're gonna have a special effects team.
We're gonna have Industrial Light and Magic
put this together, and I'm gonna say,
"Guys, here's the thing.
"I need a forklift that can move a little bit.
"It has lights, and the fork can move,
"but it's gotta be--it's gotta weigh--
it tops 400 pounds." - I think it's achievable.
- It's a custom forklift.
It has to be able to lift, like, at least 200 pounds.
Pallet plus, like, a dude.
- Yeah, maybe it doesn't-- - Wait a second.
- Maybe we just gotta use sleight of hand for the--
- If you're gonna get certified, though,
you've gotta be--
Like, would the rules apply
if it's a new kind of forklift?
Do you know what I'm saying?
Like, would you need to get certified
if it's not a real forklift? No,
but I would still do it for love of the game.
- Fair. - Also, does certification
work across state lines? I mean, I'm picturing Ezra
rolling into the show in Phoenix,
and part of the pre-show ritual
is that there is a certified forklift instructor...
- [laughs] - Waiting for him at the venue.
- This is too good. - They do a quick--
- I mean, this is-- - They do a quick, like,
40-minute primer.
Ezra does a written test and demonstrates
his facility with the machine.
He's done in an hour.
But that is, for insurance purposes,
a crucial part of your pre-game ritual.
The bus generally pulls into town
around 5 a.m.
I'll sleep a few more hours.
Up and at 'em at 8, grab a cup of coffee
while the crew is starting to put up the lights.
I do a little bit of exercise,
and then I go get forklift certified
in whatever city I'm in.
Back at the venue for a sound check,
and that's how we stay one step ahead of the law.
There's gotta be a Guinness--
like, a Guinness World Record you could get
for, like, most certifications,
or, like, the only guy to be certified
- across America. - That's for the fucking 50 states.
I mean, the forklift certified tour is pretty good.
- [laughs] - It's pretty--
I mean, this is the last year to do it, man.
It's had a hell of a run as a meme,
as a concept, but it's not gonna last forever.
That is so, like, hair metal band.
The forklift certification tour.
[laughs]
- All right, guys. - Should we call our guys?
- Yeah, we gotta call the boys. - Oh, yeah.
- We gotta call our guys. - You wanna set 'em up?
These guys are the talk of the town.
- They really are. - Zachary Schweitz
and Christian Hansen, they made
the octopus murders for Netflix.
It's a big hit.
It's been top ten on Netflix for a couple weeks.
It's a show about conspiracy theories
involving the death of journalist Danny Casolaro
in 1991.
He was a journalist who was uncovering
what he called the octopus,
a series of interrelated covert actions
involving the U.S. government, the CIA,
and all sorts of bad stuff.
These guys kind of picked up the case
and said, "What happened to this guy, Danny Casolaro?"
A lot of people believe he was killed for what he knew.
So these guys revisit his death,
and they kind of get back into the same stuff
that Danny Casolaro was researching himself.
A lot of twists and turns.
It's a great documentary,
and clearly it's resonating with people.
And we know someone in common with Zachary,
so we actually got an email a couple weeks ago,
"Would you wanna have these guys on?"
And we'd actually heard that they had listened to
our interview with Tom O'Neill about his book "Chaos."
So I said, "All right."
Absolutely.
And it feels like perfectly TC, so let's get 'em on.
Now let's go to the Time Crisis Hotline.
[beeping]
All right, fellas, welcome to the show.
Very happy to have you.
Thanks so much. It's great to be here.
Congratulations on the success of your documentary.
It's clearly resonating with people,
and we've all watched, and we think it's great.
Amazing.
I guess for anybody,
any listeners who live under a rock
and they don't know about your doc series
or what it's about,
can you just give the quick summary of how it started
and the impetus behind making it?
It actually started for me with a--
I was writing a paper in college
about the private prison industry,
and that led me to this company called Wackenhut,
which was the second-largest private prison company in America
and was involved in a lot of other things
other than private prisons.
It was a giant multinational security company.
The board of directors were department heads
from the FBI, the NSA, generals in the Air Force, CIA.
The outside counsel was Reagan's CIA director.
Turns out they were-- I was digging into it,
and it turned out that they formed this joint venture
with the Native American Reservation
in the Coachella Valley outside of India, California.
And this journalist named Danny Castellaro
had been looking into this particular event
and what was going on on this reservation
with this security company.
And this reporter died a year into his research,
and it shocked me that I'd never heard of him before,
and he seemed like such a cool guy.
And the book, from what I could gather,
that he was writing seemed just fascinating and bizarre.
And I just started looking into it,
and, like, it's-- you know,
it ended up being like a 12-year odyssey.
- So it starts when you're in college.
You're looking into it in your free time.
As you show in the doc, you were working as a--
your day job is being a photographer.
- It's a little confusing because I had dropped out of college,
and I was working in New York as a photographer
for The New York Times as a freelance photographer.
Then I went back to college to finish my degree,
finally, after several years.
- Okay. - Yeah.
That's--it's a little--my--my sort of own chronology
is a little bit confusing.
- Well, and you guys are old friends?
- Yeah, we grew up--we grew up together.
- Wait, so you're both from Kentucky?
- Yeah, we're from Louisville.
- Okay, so you both--and you both know
a friend of the show, Morgan Leibis?
- That's Zach's cousin. - Right, so--okay.
So Morgan is your cousin. - Yeah.
- So anyone who's trying to create a time crisis octopus,
you're gonna be drawing lines between me and Jake and Morgan,
Morgan to Zach, Zach to you.
Okay.
- There's more. There's more to it.
There's--we edited our show in the Chilin Island offices,
and I love time crisis.
It's the best--well, it's an Internet radio show.
It's the best of the bunch.
And there was one day where I was listening to time crisis,
looking at some spreadsheet, and for all the dangerous,
exciting stuff that I have to do in the course of my research
and this project, there's, like, five times more, you know,
boring, tedious things, and the best thing to do
is to hang out with you guys, you know?
- Oh, hell yeah. - Your bi-weekly radio show.
And I'm sitting there listening to time crisis,
and Deathspot walks in the office,
'cause he was, you know, obviously the producer
of Chilin Island. - Right.
- I didn't say anything. It was just too--it was too bizarre.
- ♪ This little piggy got a house made of bricks ♪
♪ Hand over hand over hand over this ♪
♪ This little piggy got a house made of bricks ♪
♪ Pup and pup, you ain't blowing down ♪
♪ This little piggy got a house made of bricks ♪
♪ Hand over hand over hand over this ♪
♪ This little piggy got a house made of bricks ♪
♪ Pup and pup, you ain't blowing down ♪
- There's the Nick connection
through our producer Rachel, too.
- Yeah, which is very strange. - Right?
- So where a friend of the show, Morgan Levis,
is, you know, related to these guys,
it turns out that my niece is the segment producer
of Octopus Murders.
- Your niece? - Amantha's niece, yeah.
- Okay, so we really have a mini octopus on our hands here.
- Absolutely. - I know, absolutely.
- And then while me and Zach were driving around the country
knocking on people's doors and trying to, like,
come up with the mystery of the octopus,
we would go on the--you know, be driving for hours and hours
and we'd listen to the show.
And it was while listening to the show that we learned
about Tom O'Neill, who became our friend eventually
and mentor and hero. - Author of "Chaos."
So you were literally--the two of you are driving around
the country being Tom O'Neills, and then you hear Tom O'Neill.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And you're like--
- On your show. - Wow.
So you instantly must have been like,
"This man is our spiritual brother."
- Exactly, yeah. - I mean, wow.
Like, there's so many questions we could ask
about the show itself, but as I think about it,
I really just encourage anybody who hasn't seen it,
go watch it, because we could be in here talking about
Amazon, Wackenhut, and Michael--
- Oh, my gosh. - We could talk about--
- Philip Arthur Thompson. - Yeah.
But the truth is, you should just go watch it.
I think--I just want our audience,
anybody who hasn't seen it, to understand
that you were basically two childhood friends.
Zach, you have a background in film.
You've directed movies. You worked on movies,
doing other stuff. Christian, you were getting deeper into this.
Zach is kind of talking about it with you,
decides to make a documentary. I just want people--
they should go watch it to understand the depth of it.
But I think for us, what I'm kind of interested in
is what life looked like as you two guys,
starting in your 20s, became obsessed
with a 1991 death of this journalist
and start kind of just going out there
and doing original research.
Like, I guess my first question is,
before this became a Netflix show,
you were just so obsessed with this
that you were just kind of out-of-pocket
researching this yourself?
Right, yeah. I was writing a book about it.
And so I--you know, after college,
I ended up back in New York City,
and I was freelancing again for The New York Times.
And in order to cover my expenses,
I only needed to shoot about three assignments a week.
And so then I had the rest of the days
to work on the case.
And sometimes the assignments would only last an hour.
You know, like a perp would get released
from whatever, walk into the courthouse,
and I just have to be there, get the picture, file it,
and I can get back to work.
My work started getting really bad.
I mean, thankfully, the editors, you know,
supported me and trusted me or something,
but, like, yeah, some people focus exclusively
on being a photographer at a high level.
They're not doing it just to, like, fund
their crazy research project.
But that was how I was able to, like,
maintain for a long time.
And then also, you know, there would be ebbs and flows,
but then these FOIAs,
these Freedom of Information Act requests,
would come, you know, in one year later,
three years later, seven years later,
and that would kind of, like, reinvigorate
the investigation with thousands of more pages
and new names and new leads.
And I think probably a lot of us
have always been interested in,
for lack of a better word, conspiracy theories,
interested in these alternative histories
or just interested in finding out more of the truth.
Okay, what really happened?
You know, did the CIA really have something to do
with bringing drugs into this country?
Many of us are interested in it.
Many of us will read up on Wikipedia.
You know, I've had my days.
My days, I was very interested in reading,
understanding more about the Contras in the '80s
when I was probably, like, 25.
Next thing you know, I'm reading about Gary Webb,
another journalist who died by suicide
and a lot of conspiracy theories.
But for me, that's where it ends.
I'm a Wikipedia guy.
I might talk to Jake and Nick and Seinfeld
and be like, you know, I was, like, telling Jake,
I was like, "You know that there's a conspiracy theory
that the U.S. did not drop nuclear weapons on Hiroshima?"
[laughs]
And then you start reading about it,
and there's some interesting plausible connections,
and we talk about it.
Well, why would that be the case, and what did they gain?
Whatever, but that's where we leave it.
So I'm curious, where did you get the--
Where does that notion come from?
Like, why is someone saying that?
Oh, yeah, well, even that.
Yeah, why do people believe that?
But again, we might talk about it over a beer.
There might be a little bit of light Googling.
But that's where it ends.
Very light Googling.
So my question for you is, where does this compulsion
and the fire inside come from?
One thing, actually, Wikipedia--
I mean, obviously, I went there first, too,
and there's a Wikipedia page about Danny Castellaro,
and it said that he was a dabbler in journalism,
like, basically a hack, a kook.
And I was sort of just like--
I didn't know, but I was looking at kind of like,
what if he got killed and didn't kill himself?
And the story he was working on seems pretty complex.
Like, how could he be a kook?
And then it also says he ran a trade publication
for, like, 15 years, and that's--
it's not glamorous journalism, but it is journalism.
So I was kind of mad about the mischaracterization
of him on Wikipedia.
But more specifically to the point,
I read everything that had been published
about this series of crimes
and the mysterious death of Danny Castellaro,
and then, you know, I got to a point
where I wasn't satisfied.
And it was a big moment where I decided
to call the people who are quoted in these articles,
these people who are firsthand--
you know, the first person I talked to
was Bill Hamilton, who invented this software.
And, you know, it really felt like a big leap
from, you know, dabbling in the case
to, like, now I'm, like-- now I'm in it.
- Have you always been a go-getter?
- Yeah, definitely. I think so.
- Right, so for you, you're just like--
you get interested in something--
- I was photographing for the Times
when I was 22 years old, you know?
I was just like-- I just moved to New York
and just went for it, yeah.
- Okay, right, so you're no stranger
to just being like, "I'm interested in this.
Let's go. I'm not gonna, like, think too much about it."
- And when you called Bill Hamilton,
were you like, "Hey, I'm a journalist.
My name's Christian. I'm looking into the story."
Were you like, "I was just reading on Wikipedia
about Danny, and I was just--
Like, how did you-- how'd you get--
like, yeah, like, that first call,
that first phone call?"
- That first call was a long time ago,
but he had continued research.
The last article I'd read that he'd been quoted in
was probably in the '90s.
- Wow. - But he was still on it.
You know, he's still networking with reporters
and spies, he said, and, you know, sources,
and he had, like, really pushed the sort of theory
of what happened to his software specifically
and what happened to Danny, like, really far,
and so he just started sending me these, like, affidavits
and all this documentation
that he'd accrued over the years.
I mean, we just--like, our conversation
went kind of like zero to 100.
I haven't told this story.
The first meeting that we had was in--
at a hotel in Bethesda, Maryland.
We met, you know, in person for the first time,
and, like, well, I know the date.
It was November 1, 2013.
I know the date because, you know,
basically, I live--
I was living, I think, in Kentucky at the time,
and I have friends in D.C.,
and I knew if I came into D.C.,
I would have to go out with my friends
and sort of entertain,
and I kind of wanted to, like, settle down and focus,
and I figured that the hotels in D.C. would be expensive.
Martinsburg, where Danny died, is an hour and a half away.
The meeting was a lunch meeting,
so I decided to stay in the room where he died
in order to, like--
- Oh, on Halloween night?
- On Halloween night, in order to write that scene.
- Room 517 at the Sheridan?
- Yes, exactly.
It just happened to be--good job, Ezra.
It just happened to be Halloween night,
and, you know, so I'm like,
just to familiarize myself with the space,
and, you know, 'cause at some point in the book I was writing,
I would need to get to that part,
and I don't know.
I took some, like, papers that had actually belonged to Danny
and some books about him and some other materials,
and I put them on the bed.
Then I got in the bath,
and this--
- Bro.
- This, like, breeze from nowhere
started blowing inside the bathroom,
and it felt like a--it weirdly felt like a hug,
and then I was smoking cigarettes at the time,
and I went out to smoke a cigarette
after I, you know, dried off from the bath,
and the bolt lock of the door was locked,
and I never lock a bolt lock on a hotel room
because I don't know why--
you know, I don't know why anyone would--
you know, you got the key card.
I'm just not locking the bolt locks.
Maybe I did. I don't remember.
I thought it was really weird.
Then the next day I was out.
I was wandering around the outside
photographing the exterior of the back side of the hotel,
like, where his room faced out,
and these hotel maids called over to me,
and I went over and talked to them.
They were smoking cigarettes out the back door,
and they were like, "Are you going to put these photos on Facebook?"
And I said, "Well, I'm a journalist.
I'm just, you know, I'm looking at--
I'm researching where this Danny Casolaro died,
and I'm looking into his story,"
and they were like, "Oh, oh, yeah.
We know all about that.
What happened to him?"
And then they were like, "You got to talk to Miracle."
And I was like, "Who's Miracle?"
They said that she was one of the maids
working there at that point in 2013,
and that she is kind of tapped into spiritual stuff,
and she won't go in the room because things move around
and fall off the shelf and weird stuff like that.
Anyways, I've never told that story before,
but then I went and drove to meet Bill Hamilton.
We had this three-hour-long--
Whoa.
That's a whole other documentary.
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I'm in all the corner ♪
♪ Of my mind ♪
♪ Standing out before the scenery ♪
♪ I pass it by ♪
♪ I know I'm more than just a camera ♪
♪ If I stand by ♪
♪ Or else we just can't see each other ♪
♪ I've been here a thousand years ♪
♪ Until my heart was old ♪
♪ I was such a stubborn child ♪
♪ Like a grain of sand blowing wild ♪
♪ Now I'm feeling like a weathered stone ♪
♪ That's tired of rolling ♪
♪ Weather beats a tread in the sand ♪
♪ Birds fly south, they know where to land ♪
♪ Keep your back to the wind ♪
♪ Where the cypress trees stand ♪
♪ And anywhere you go is rough going now ♪
Wow, so Michael's got impeccable taste.
Yeah, yeah, he loves that.
He's, you know, he's a fascinating guy.
And you talk about in the movie how he got busted for making acid, but...
Yeah, that's interesting that he was...
Yeah, PCP in an underwater lab in the Duwamish River in Seattle.
Yeah. Insane. But I mean, it is very chaos too,
the connection between law enforcement,
counterculture, drugs, etc.
Well, it's weird too, the tie-in. If he was in the hate in that era,
I mean, he might have just like walked right past Charlie Manson.
Right, yeah. And he said he used to go to the free medical clinic.
We tried to keep him away from the book chaos,
so we didn't want to like, you know...
Yeah, he would go nuts.
Yeah, we wanted to learn as much about his connections to that story
before like it got possibly tainted by him reading the book.
I imagine there must be people in the conspiracy theory world
who thinks Michael Raconisciuto was MK Ultrod.
Yeah, we're getting into an area that I can't really go much further into, actually.
It's kind of like a Ted Kaczynski vibe a little bit.
When you're talking about chaos,
I feel like Michael is kind of the bridge from one San Francisco to another.
He's like the bridge between the acid 60s and the methamphetamine,
like late 70s and 80s, right?
So it's like, it's a different drug,
but maybe some of the same actors involved out there.
Wow. Yeah, which is a pretty important bridge.
And the fact that he also gets tied up into all these other things,
it is pretty wild.
I mean, not to say that he's the guy, but he's a prism.
His life is almost a prism through which you can see that transition.
Well, like meth kind of ruined the scene in The Hague.
And it's speed and meth, and his partner,
we show in episode three, is murdered.
And one of the motives for killing him was stealing all of the precursors
to the methamphetamine that he had stashed in an abandoned mine in Nevada.
Crazy. There's so many insane details in this movie.
We should tell that story though, because that really cursed Lillie.
We don't even hit some of the high points of that.
That bust, or that methamphetamine was eventually created after Paul died.
It was synthesized, and that became the biggest meth bust in US history.
Like, what, eight years later or something, Christian?
It was huge, but the thing that nobody's mentioned in the papers when they busted,
it was like, what, 9,000 pounds or something insane?
Millions and millions of dollars worth of meth.
But what the authorities didn't mention is that most of it had already been sold.
They just got a tiny fraction of it.
And that's kind of like, in our research, or in Christian's research,
I guess it's this idea of drugs, drug busts not happening, being delayed,
and the federal authorities kind of either looking the other way
or being more involved than just a normal law enforcement capacity.
Who can kill a general in his bed?
Overthrow dictators if they're red?
Amen.
CIA man.
Who can buy a government's own sheep?
Change a cabinet without a squeak?
Amen.
CIA man.
Who can train guerrillas by the dozens?
Send a man to kill their untrained cousins?
Amen.
CIA man.
One interesting thing I felt I really loved in the final episode of the show,
you have that quote from a fellow researcher.
You have that really beautiful montage of different quotes from people
where you kind of take a bird's eye view again,
and you talk about not just the specifics of the case,
but you talk about the people like you, Christian,
people who do get obsessed with the case and dedicate their life to it,
and as well as somebody makes it, says, "You know what? I made a decision.
I was going to pull myself out."
Because it suddenly--I had this vision watching that section.
Oh, this is like--just like there's the octopus of the bad actors
who perhaps are part of a vast conspiracy,
there's also the kind of like kind vibe octopus of just interrelated,
independent researchers who just got such deep love of the game.
So you get a glimpse in that final episode into some of these other people.
So I'm kind of curious about like--you clearly must have gotten a big taste of that world.
So not the Michael Rikkonen shooters of the world,
but the fellow just kind of like pretty chill researcher.
There was that woman that was really interesting that she was shown this like Dr. Zapruder film.
What was that story?
Yeah, she jumped on the case like in '92,
like right after Danny Vanden started talking to the same kind of dangerous people
that Danny was talking to and like was going and having meetings with them.
She actually told us that she doesn't experience fear.
Well, did she go to Robert Nichols' apartment?
Yeah, she went to Robert Nichols' apartment.
Because he was the scariest--I think he was the scariest guy in this whole thing.
Totally. Who may or may not still be alive.
That footage of him in 2008 in his deposition.
Oh my God.
That was so hard to get our hands on.
We'd had the transcript of the deposition
and it said at the bottom like filmed in whatever downtown New York or whatever.
And we're just like, "We're making a film."
The deposition is interesting, but we can't really do that much with it.
You know, show a little tight clip, you know.
And so our best friend is an attorney in DC
and he helped us get a judge to release that footage.
And it was like when the negotiations started,
it was sitting on this attorney's desk a few blocks from our office in Manhattan.
But it took two years of negotiations.
And then one day the phone rang and me and Zach biked 10 blocks to this plaza below this law office.
And the lawyer came down and gave us these six DVDs.
And it was like right when we got to the point in the story where we needed to cut in the Robert Booth Nichols story.
It was amazing.
You know, we was the best bike ride of our lives.
And then you don't know in the text of all the glaring looks that he gives
and all the sneers and all the eye rolls and stuff.
He just exuded malice.
I mean, he just, he scared the crap out of me.
So anyway, back to Ezra's question.
So there was this, what was her name?
Oh, Sherry Seymour.
Yeah.
So she went to his house.
Yeah.
And then she was asking about, you know, what's the involvement of the justice department?
You know, what were you and Danny talking about?
You know, he and Danny would have these like long phone conversations.
And then they met up in D.C.
And basically at the end of the meeting, he plays this two tapes.
One is, I mean, it's hard to describe.
One, he says, is the doctored Zapruder film, which is the Zapruder film that we all know.
And then he says the other one is the real Zapruder film,
which is where the driver shoots him and basically like seconds have been chopped out.
But, you know.
Yeah, and the doctored Zapruder film, it's like it slows down.
And the driver of the limo that Kennedy is in just turns around and just blows his head off.
Right.
I mean, it's like and then what, you know, she never says that she believed, you know, the one that he said was the real one.
She just said that she saw both these tapes.
And a lot of people that have seen the show have sort of like misunderstood the subtle line that Zack is doing in his edit,
where basically the point that this guy is making is nothing as it appears to be.
I don't think the driver shot Kennedy.
No, I didn't.
I don't think Lee shot Kennedy.
I didn't interpret it that way.
The implication was that he showed her a fake video to make her think that, well, either to discredit her.
That's what she thinks.
So that she would come out and say, because then if she starts writing an essay saying,
I saw the Reels of Pruder film and actually he was killed by his driver, then people would say, wait, you're nuts.
You lack credibility.
And I guess that would be a classic kind of disinformation tactic is like you got to think three, four steps ahead.
And sometimes showing, you know, there's like the famous story.
I don't know if it's totally accurate that the U.S. was actively encouraging UFO sightings and even leaving fake documents to make UFO conspiracy theorists feel
validated
because they wanted there to be a robust movement of people being like there's space invaders in the sky because that took attention away from perhaps advanced
technology.
They were testing, you know, over New Mexico and Arizona.
I don't know if that's true, but like you hear a story like that.
I think it's true that they were releasing phony documents that purported to be legit UFO documents.
Like seemed like internal demos about the UFO situation, but they were BS.
Right. So just to confuse people.
Just to confuse people.
Well, if you really want to hide something, you would need to make sure that it's lost in a sea of disinformation.
It's not enough just to say, just to hide it.
You'd also want competing narratives going off in all different directions.
Totally. I feel like the masterful moment that Bob Nichols pulls off in that meeting, though, is not having one fake Zapruder film, but two fake Zapruder films.
Because he's like, here's the real one that you've been seeing on the news.
Let me play that for you so you can check it against your own knowledge.
And then he plays a second one and half of a tree in the background is missing, you know.
And so this is a pre-internet era.
This is like '92.
So you've got to imagine like you're sitting in there in Robert Booth Nichols' apartment.
And you can't just like Google it really quick and be like, what is the Zapruder film?
Which, by the way, as an aside, is absurdly hard to actually find a good quality version of the Zapruder film even now.
Really?
Something for the TC community to kind of check on here because it's really ridiculous.
But, you know, so you're just basing this on your memory.
You're sitting in this apartment and you're like, wait, I guess, I mean, is there a tree missing?
I don't know.
In '92, you're going to have to go and find a copy of it and whatever.
And by the time you've done this, you sound crazy.
You know, you sound like a conspiracy nut.
So where are you guys at now?
Now that you've made this?
I thought we were going to rest for a bit.
Yeah.
But now that we're like spending all our time that we're not doing press, which we're grateful to do,
vetting like these people that are hitting us up from all corners with possible new leads.
For the sequel.
This also sounds like Tom O'Neill.
So it takes a lot of time to vet the people.
And they oftentimes write extremely, you know, sometimes I'll ask them to,
could you boil these many paragraphs down into like a paragraph where you're talking,
what is the point that you're making here?
And then it's just like, you know, more and more text.
But, you know, just because people are, you know, eccentric or verbose doesn't mean that they don't have
possibly some sort of first hand information that we might need.
Are you as fired up as ever in terms of like your enthusiasm and desire to uncover more of the story?
Yeah. I just want to have balance in doing it.
You mean like a work life balance?
Yeah. Like, you know, have sort of a bit of a healthy life.
You know, I think you could, you know, investigative reporters that work at a newspaper work really hard,
but they also have kids and a family and things like that.
So if I could just keep it contained, that'd be ideal.
But the calls come usually at late at night, you know.
Oh my God.
And on the weekends for whatever reason.
Yeah. And I mean, I can only imagine at this point you must get all sorts of people trying to call you.
Has anybody like told you to stop?
No. Not that I can think of off the top of my head.
You think because the case is so old?
Because I mean, this presumably, you know, there's a very good chance that this guy, Danny Casolaro killed.
Yeah. But the case is old and it's pretty well covered in confusion and doubt.
It's a decent mess.
And you know, the amazing thing about kind of conspiracies, I mean, even perhaps real conspiracies,
a conspiracy to do something illegal is that, you know, you don't have to keep it a secret forever.
Just like, you know, 30, 40 years.
Because then by the time you get a young guy who's kind of like the second coming of Danny Casolaro,
kind of looking around, you know, it's still a very interesting story and it's very compelling and it's gripping.
But a lot of people are dead. A lot of time has passed.
And, you know, let's say you do find a bombshell.
Of course, many millions of us will be interested to find some resolution to this story.
But, you know, then they'll send out, you know, a millennial kind of like CIA officer and say like,
thank you so much to these independent researchers.
I'm all over this and we're going to make sure that our organization really cleans up their act.
Because, you know, us, us millennial and zoomers, we're not going to play the way that those old guys did.
Trust me. And yeah, let's make sure we do a lot of research on it.
And then, you know, and maybe they will. Maybe they will. I'm not saying they won't.
But again, a story like this doesn't need to be buried for a thousand years.
You know, just enough to move on. Like, especially you look at like the promise software.
That looks like a hundred years old in terms of how computers works.
At the time it was cutting edge, but we're pretty far past that now.
You asked about the threats and it's like we never got, you know, what in some ways.
And I hate to say this, but we were kind of looking for. Right.
It's like somebody approaches you in the dark alleyway while you're going home at night.
And they're like, hey, by the way, shut the heck up. You know, whatever.
And Christian used to talk about this. Like he was like at a certain point, you want somebody to reach out from the void.
Right. And now I feel very strongly that I don't want that at all whatsoever.
And so please, I did. Don't do that.
There were two. There was one very obscure person whose name we got in a roundabout way from like a police officer.
And he we called him and he knew a lot of the characters very intimately.
And he made it very clear that what we were doing is very dangerous. We probably shouldn't do it.
And if we do continue to do it, we need him to mail us these plutonium tip bullets and this special like adapter that you get on.
I can't remember what millimeter gun. Yeah.
Why would you need plutonium to bullets?
I don't know. He had a reason to really take these guys, these marauders that are after us down.
But then there was another thing that happened, like, you know, about a whole comes through the door.
About a month before we turned turned in the final product to Netflix, I was making my bed one morning and realized that one of the pillows on my bed was missing.
I searched everywhere in my tiny studio apartment.
It looked in the oven. I don't sleepwalk. I don't you know, it freaks me out to this day.
I don't I mean, who knows what happened to it? But I don't know.
I didn't see it on the sidewalk. I didn't throw it out the window. It disappeared.
And it's like that's one of the weirder kind of things.
Zach thinks the story is just not worth really telling.
But it really I'm really concerned about what happened to the pill.
Also, the pillowcase matched a set, whatever that I have.
But it's like, so I'm not I'm obviously not trying to freak you out, but just because we're all we've already chaos.
Wasn't that a that was there was a thing that the Manson family did.
They'd go into people's houses and just move little things that they call that creepy crawling.
Right. Yeah.
Oh, Superman. Oh, John. Oh, mom and dad.
Mom and dad. Oh, Superman.
Oh, John. Oh, mom and dad.
Mom and dad.
Oh, John. Oh, mom and dad.
Just a quick question. So what's going on? What's the latest with Michael?
Today, actually.
Wow.
He's good. He's been listening to a lot of the podcast.
Scott notes.
He's got his issues.
He says he's being extorted and his ex wife's his late ex wife's son is in some sort of trouble in South California.
He is in hiding somewhere else. I'm not sure where exactly.
There's always some. Wow.
Crazy stuff happening when I when I talk to him, but it is reassuring that we kind of like present his story as I mean, different.
The story, the narrative we present is different than his narrative.
And I felt like he would hate us. And it's very, very reassured that we still talk.
Hmm. That's cool.
So there might be a sequel or at least a continued.
Yeah, we want to do we want to do more. We want to dig deeper.
We did make it with the intention of this being the show.
It's not like we left a cliffhanger in there to be like and just get ready for season two of the Octopus.
That was not the intention. It was really meant to be a self-contained universe.
The problem is that it simply is not a self-contained universe. And there's just so many things that we couldn't fit in there or that have come out since we've been
talking about this thing.
I mean, you spend three years, four years or 12 years on this.
And and there's just a million stories that connect that you want to tell.
And it's just hard to fit it all into, like, you know, four parts for this.
Not I'm sure a lot of people be interested to see what else you uncover.
Just to turn it back as we get towards the end to a very more like particularly TC question.
You know, one thing we loved about Chaos is just the image of Tom O'Neill just hitting random Denny's as he drives out to, you know, meet a retired cop out in the desert
somewhere.
The impression you get from the film is that you guys are spending a lot of time just road tripping across the US.
So just paint a picture of that for us. Like you guys foodies.
Were you hit a Denny's when you're not with Michael Riccone?
No, we usually try to go to a place that's what, 4.7, 4.6, maybe 4.7.
We try not to dip down below like a 4.4 or 4.3 on like a Google rating.
And then our director of photography has like pretty specific rules about like it's a weighted average compared to like how many reviews are there, of course, you know.
So, you know, a five star with only 10 reviews is worth potentially a lot less than a...
Oh, so you guys put a lot of thought into this.
Yeah, a lot of time on the road and a lot of a lot of particular people and particular diets to deal with.
Right. All right. So where's the best gentrified taco in America?
I really like Leo's in Los Angeles.
Do you know the stand Leo's? This one on La Brea?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that's good. So you're not hitting a lot of chain restaurants, but I mean, if you're just out like...
You like pull off the highway?
Temecula or you're out in the Cabazon area or, you know.
Maybe do a Del Taco if we're out like San Bernardino County.
Now you're speaking my language.
You'll hit a Del Taco. You're not, it's not always about like a mom and pop kind of unique place.
We would send the receipts in and our producer would make fun of us for eating so much Del Taco.
And Wendy's. I got made fun of for going to Wendy's. You know, they were...
Oh, I like Wendy's if I'm hitting fast food. Wait, by the way, I think I hit the time crisis chain about this,
but I've never talked about it on the show and be perfect with you guys.
Do you know what this new thing they have at Del Taco is? The Birria Ramen?
No, unfortunately we've been on the East Coast for way too long.
I saw that that existed though.
Yeah, you did hit the thread about that, but no one's...
You got to get back out here.
I mean, to me, this is such a, like a kind of watershed event because, you know,
like Dunkin Donuts added avocado toast to their menu like four years ago, maybe more, five.
You know, we were covering, we were doing independent research about that story.
And, you know, that was like this moment where you're like, all right, avocado toast is really here.
It shows that kind of a millennial, cute indie cafe sensibility has permeated culture to now
Dunkin Donuts is making avocado toast.
Now, to me, you know, Del Taco has always been a pretty like funky place, you know, pretty no frills.
And there's something about, so Birria Ramen, it's like, because Birria already is like, you know,
that's a very specific kind of Mexican preparation of meat.
And then adding it to ramen, basically, this is something that, doesn't it sound like you would have heard about it on like a,
like there's this crazy food truck in LA by this like chef and they're making Birria Ramen and like,
all, you know, all the websites are freaking out about it and like hipsters are lining up.
Like that's what Birria Ramen connotes to me.
So to see it at Del Taco, it, to me, it just means that like foodie, food truck, chef culture has fully, fully permeated America.
Right. Because at first glance, it almost seems like something that like maybe Taco Bell, you know,
like going kind of like weird and, you know, like accelerating a culture really quickly.
Right. But this is so couture for them to do it as ramen.
It's so like high, high minded.
Right. Yeah, exactly. It's, it almost seems like they should just be doing like, check out our new Birria bowl.
Even just adding Birria to the menu already is like, they're going Asian fusion.
Right. Asian fusion at Del Taco.
We're going to be out in Los Angeles in a couple of weeks.
And if you guys want to do like a TC, like just taste testing at some point,
like we would be extremely down to get that.
Oh, hell yeah. Let's link up.
Let's do it.
Do you have a documentary about it?
Ezra, there is a Birria. I'm looking at this Birria ramen.
Basically the Los Angeles Reddit thread, like for food is a lot of Birria ramen.
It's to add food trucks, everything you're saying, delicious truck.
So they literally got this idea.
I mean, that's what it seems like. They're like, oh, the here, the food truck for the Birria ramen food trucks moving.
Yeah. There's a New York times cooking recipe for it and they get it home.
So I guess this didn't cross our desk, but I guess it already had some import.
Okay. So Birria ramen is kind of a thing.
It's kind of a thing.
So it's not, it's not quite as like nuts as being like Ropa Vieja Udon.
Yeah, guys, it's a Dane. Let us know when you're out.
We'll get that Birria ramen.
Del Taco.
Well, thanks so much for coming on guys.
And congratulations. Like it's very obvious to watching the film, how much work and time you guys put into it.
It's very well made and recommend everybody watches it.
And honestly, it's really cool to see how, especially like, I gotta be honest for me.
I've always been a little bit turned off by the wave of like kind of salacious true crime stuff that seems to be all over the podcast, all over the streaming services.
Cause sometimes it really is just some like, just like, you know, like it's just sad.
And then like people kind of get hyped on it. Like it's like a crazy horror movie and you're like, you know, but like it's, it's nice to see that maybe there, there is an
appetite for people who like are, you know,
are interested in a mystery, but also interested in learning more about history, learning more about how the world works.
And even I think similar to chaos, what's inspiring is, is about, again, even if you take all the conspiracy stuff out of it, and this might seem like a weird framing,
but there's also just the vibe of like, Hey, if you're interested in something like you can find a meaning in educating yourself about it.
And that's not just true for, for, you know, murders and conspiracies, even if you're just interested in Birria Ramen, just like, you know, I think that that's the big
takeaway for me is you can go one step beyond Wikipedia,
hit the library, submit a, an FOIA, a FOIA, FOIA for Birria Ramen.
All right. The metaphor is breaking down a little bit, but I'm just saying, you know, I like, I like you, you provide, you guys provide a nice model for kind of a being a
go-getter,
I guess, as I said earlier.
But don't harass people, be respectful always, you know, to people, you know, the people don't always want these things to happen to them.
I mean, usually they don't, you know, with Sandy Hook, there was a lot of harassment happening and, you know, just like be like sensible and respectful always.
Right. And probably most of most people are not cut out for these kinds of intense subjects.
So just go research Birria Ramen, go do like a kind vibe interview with like the guy at Del Taco. When was this first on the menu?
How did they train you how to make it? Like how long have you been working here?
Like when they tell you they're bringing Birria Ramen, like what's your first thought?
I'm talking to myself.
What's the intelligence connection?
Yeah. Don't go there.
But is there? Could there be? I don't know.
All right. Thank you so much, Zachary and Christian.
Octopus Murders on Netflix. And we'll see you guys at Del Taco very soon.
Thank you, guys.
Now it's time for the top five.
It's time for the top five on iTunes.
This week, we're just going to count down the top five songs of 1991, March 1991.
The reason 1991?
That was the year that Danny Casolaro died.
He died in August 10th, 91. So he just missed the grunge explosion.
Oh, yeah. Literally grunge started fall 91.
Like September.
Well, yeah.
Can I also point out that 91 is the year that Bob Seger's The Fire Inside was released.
Oh, crazy.
Maybe that's a slightly more-- This would definitely be the darkest top five, but let's say it's mostly because of Bob Seger's Fire Inside.
But, you know, regardless of the mystery, rest in peace to Danny Casolaro.
And you clearly seem like a very cool guy, very cool, intelligent man.
The number five song this week in 1991, Sting, with All This Time.
You know, I've been listening to some solo Sting lately.
Really?
I know this song. Yeah.
What have you been hitting? Fields of Gold and stuff?
Fields of Gold, Englishman in New York.
A friend of mine was just talking about how there's this insane drum break in the middle of Englishman in New York.
So I started listening to that and it just kind of sent me on a Sting thing.
And were you listening to Desert Rose, the more later period?
I threw on Desert Rose. I wasn't feeling it that hard.
Wow. Okay.
It's pretty good.
Is Desert Rose late period Sting?
1999.
Okay.
It almost sounds like Paul Simon or something.
Yeah, it's a great Paul Simon melody.
So this was written about the death of Sting's father.
It's about a boy named Billy who wants to bury his father at the sea.
I got to say, I'm kind of feeling this.
Yeah, this is good. I've never heard this song.
I ask tonight
One young, one old
I've a brass for the dying to serve the final rite
Won't you love, won't you teach
Which way the cold wind blows
And fussing and flapping and priestly black like a murder of crows
Yeah, that's good.
All this time
Good stuff.
I want to check out this album, The Soul Cages.
The number four song this week in '91, Gloria Estefan, Coming Out of the Dark.
I don't know if I know this one either.
This was the first single Estefan released after an incident on March 20th, 1990,
where an 18-wheeler hit her tour bus, breaking her back and nearly killing her.
Jesus.
Why be afraid if I'm not alone
Life is never easy, the rest is unknown
And up to now for me it's been hands against all
Each and every moment, searching
What to believe, but we're out of the dark
Finally see the light of love
Shedding a little light
Coming out of the dark
I don't love the tears
I'm surprised. It sticks. Wow. Wow. It's show me the way.
Every night I say a prayer
In the hopes that there's a heaven
But every day I'm more confused
As the saints turn into sinners
All the heroes and legends I knew as a child
Video for this directed by Michael Bay.
Whoa. I mean, with sticks, I think of Come Sail Away and Mr. Roboto.
Yeah.
I didn't realize they had a hit so late.
Yeah.
Show me the way
Take me tonight to the river
And wash my illusions away
Show me the way
So Dennis de Young was the lead singer of Sticks.
Yeah.
And he produced and wrote this song.
And as I slowly drift to sleep
Hearing his voice, I'm like, he could have been like an American Freddie Mercury.
Big voice.
Yeah, totally.
Maybe Sticks is the American Queen.
They just didn't have quite the material.
Yeah.
I mean, they have some good songs.
Come sail away, come sail away
But listen to his voice. This is like a big...
He really sounds like Freddie Mercury to me.
Yeah, I've never thought about the Dennis de Young, Freddie Mercury pipeline, but you're totally right.
Show me the way
I just wanna
Show me the way
Oh, this is so depressing, huh?
That early 90s aesthetic.
This is serious Eileen's car.
Yeah.
Tonight, take my hand and take my hand
Well, just throw on some different sticks.
Actually, throw on "Come Sail Away."
I'm sailing away
I wanna just feel out this American Queen thesis.
With it so far.
I remember really liking this song when I would hear it on Classic Q1043 growing up.
I'm sailing away
This is the end of the Freaks and Geeks.
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
Classic.
Very well used in Freaks and Geeks.
Yeah.
Sort of perfect.
So, this poignant middle school dance.
This is the American Bohemian Rhapsody.
A little more earnest.
That's a sad commentary on American culture.
Free to face the life that's ahead of me
Let's face it, England really punched above its weight with the rock bands.
I'm bored, I'm a catfish in the wind
Yeah, they had some good ones.
So, climb aboard
We'll search for tomorrow
And every shot
You know, his voice in 1990 is a little bit, it's less kind of mannered.
Oh, Lord, I'll try
I kind of like his later vocals a little bit more.
This is a little pinched.
Yeah, it's a little more nasal.
Carry on
I look to the sea
I mean, Dennis Young, he really had a knack for some sort of like
sad, slightly depressing
Some catchy song style
This is like theater rock.
Yeah.
Theatrical melancholy.
But this song is moving.
And the dreams we have
I never connected with this song.
Even when it gets big?
Oh, no, I just
I'm not a big queen guy either.
But like the rock part of Bohemian Rhapsody is like so good.
On the path to gold
But we'll try
I always like this line.
Or I like in the beginning when he says, "But we'll try, oh Lord, I'll try"
To carry on
This part sounds great.
It sounds like the hood or something.
Yeah.
A gathering of angels
A pin above my head
Oh, yeah, this sounds pretty sick.
Yeah.
According to our notes, Dennis Young is a devout Roman Catholic.
And that kind of inspired his writing of "Show Me the Way."
But also here he's talking about a gathering of angels
Carried above my head.
I gotta say the music
The music in "Freezing Geeks" is so epic.
Yeah.
I have a couple of memories.
I watched that show once, like, whatever, 20 years ago.
Yeah, what else is there in "Freezing Geeks"?
I remember, well, it closes with "Box of Rain."
Oh, right.
When Lindsay gets on the boat, falling dead.
And it's, they use "Box of Rain," which is sick.
There's another scene where it's just like, she and like,
I think the character's name is Nick, the guy, Jason Segel.
Yeah, he's huge into "Rush," so there's a lot of "Rush."
He's in the "Rush," but he's also into the "Who."
And there's a whole subplot of like,
are they going to go see the "Who" in Michigan?
But there's like, they have some sort of like romantic fallout.
And it's, they use the "Who."
The song is over
It's all behind me
I'm looking at the, oh yeah, go on.
No, no, it's just like, and it's just the shot of like, Jason Segel,
like in a car, like upset about this like, teenage romance.
And it's just like this poignant Pete Townsend vocal.
And I just, for some reason, like, it's just like,
it just seared into my memory.
And I saw it once like 20 years ago.
Wow.
So I'm looking, I'm looking at all the music from there.
Obviously the opening song was "Bad Reputation," Joan Jett.
That's the theme.
Strong use, running with the devil, Van Halen.
I'm all right, Kenny Loggins, a lot of sticks.
They use some deep purple.
Oh, there's a shot of Martin Starr and his buddies
walking in slow motion.
And it's like, oh mama, I'm in love.
Who is that by?
Is that like Emerson, Lincoln Palmer?
You know that song I'm talking about?
Yeah, I do.
I'm trying to, let me see if I can find it here.
Matt, throw on the song "Renegade" by Sticks.
I think this might be what you're talking about.
Oh mama, I'm in love for the love from the love.
Oh mama, I'm in fear for my life from the long I've loved.
Dennis DeYoung.
It's like, is this Sticks?
Yeah, it's Sticks.
And it's like a slow motion of like Martin Starr and his,
like Lindsay's younger brother, Sam.
And they're going to like fight some kids or something.
Oh mama, I can hear you a-crying, you're so scared and all alone.
Yeah, I think they're standing up to the bullies in this one.
Sad tears coming down from the gallows and I don't have them in all.
All right, the Sticks, critical re-appraisal happening in the franchise.
So actually, this is Tommy Shaw singing, not Dennis DeYoung.
Was that Dennis earlier in the song?
Yeah.
The training?
I don't know, it says Tommy Shaw lead vocal on it.
Okay.
Hangman is coming down from the gallows and I don't have them in all.
Sick.
So many, like so few shows I think have done such a good job, or movies.
I mean a handful have done it, but not like freaks and geeks about
really showing your identity based on the music, your musical taste.
Of your era.
Yeah.
Of your high school years.
It's just so good.
Yeah.
How they like really was like every, whatever sort of niche crew you were part of,
like how you identify solely based on the music you listen to.
Sort of because Matt was just texting me, I was going to bring it up.
When James Franco goes punk.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
He rides a bug.
And it's like sort of really painful because he's like, he's sort of cosplaying for this girl,
but he's sort of feels lost because he's not part of his crew.
Yeah.
His girls left him.
So he's like, I'm going to go punk.
Oh, it's so good.
He's throwing away the sticks tape and he's getting that.
I think in the show they use black flag, which maybe doesn't line up quite historically.
Cause I feel like, I feel like the show was set in the 80s, early 80s.
I felt like it was set in like 80 or something, but I could be wrong.
Black flag came out or damage came out December 91.
Oh, 81, 81, 80.
Sorry.
Yes.
81 of course.
Yeah.
So maybe, maybe it's set in 82.
Okay.
Hold on.
I want to find this out.
Did they mess up that bad?
Make your own mute.
I think.
Yeah.
Find out what you're, you know, as I look here, they did use two dead songs, which is
sick.
I do remember when they use ripple, but also freaks and geeks is set during the 1980 to
81 school year.
Okay.
So they fudge the black flag.
So close guys.
I'm pretty sure.
I'm black flag here.
It's on this.
It says they're using diesel boy, punk rock one-on-one and lime green.
You know what?
I haven't seen the show in 20 years.
No, you're right.
Black flag rise above rise above.
It is rise above.
That's exactly right.
That's exactly.
So they, you know what?
I'm going to forgive.
I'm just going to, I'm going to let that one slide.
Black flags, 1980.
No, but rise above.
Like he said, it's the December of 81.
As we just said, the rise above album came out in late 81.
So can we get Judd Apatow on the line?
Judd what gives man don't want to split hairs here, but okay.
The number two song this week in 91, Timmy T with one more try.
Sounds cool.
Yeah, this immediately sounds good.
Timothy, Timmy T Torres.
Do you know this?
No.
Oh, it sounds familiar.
Timmy T wrote and produced it.
It was inspired.
Uh, he was inspired to write it after breaking up with a girlfriend.
It's from Fresno.
It topped the billboard hot 100 for one week.
It was the first single from an independent record label to top the billboard hot 100
since Lionel Richie's truly an 82.
Dude, I love this song.
I guess on the album after this, he covered an Eric Carmen song.
Oh, all right.
All right.
Also, doesn't the song sound so like it's hard to explain why that bass is pretty like
like freestyle American, but the, and his voice obviously is very American, but this
sounds so English to me.
Can you just picture like an English like new wave artist singing one more try.
One more try.
I didn't know how much I loved you.
Like Howard Jones or something.
Yeah.
It'd be like more professionally produced.
I like how like kind of lo-fi this is like, Oh, this is great.
I'm going to make things weird.
I'm just like picturing this dude in kind of like a funky studio in Fresno.
Yeah.
He's just listening to like Howard Jones, Phil Collins, Simply Red, Spandau Ballet.
He just like programs a song by himself, gets on the mic and that's a number one hit.
It almost reminds me of like, if like the Emerson bros had made music in like 1990 instead
of 1978.
Wait, so Baby?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The dude, like the two brothers up in like Spokane, Washington.
One more try.
I didn't know how much I loved you.
One more try.
Let me put my arms around you.
I kind of want to check out that record.
Oh yeah, it's got a great cover.
Really?
Yeah.
I love you.
Oh baby, can we give it one more try?
Is Timothy Torres still around?
Let's see here.
Timmy T. Yeah.
Yeah.
Timmy T co-hosts the Morning Personality DJ Toby.
Oh, sorry.
Timmy T co-hosts with Morning Personality DJ Toby.
There's a photo of him making like a radio appearance.
One more try.
Beautiful song.
And the number one song this week in 1991, Mariah Carey with "Someday."
Mariah Carey wrote "Someday" as a teenager with her songwriting partner, Ben Margulis,
and it was included in a demo she sent to Columbia Records.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You were so blind to let me go.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
You had it all but didn't know.
No one you'll find will ever be closer to all your dreams.
The time has come but still a single column stands today.
That second feeling fades but never really goes away.
A staircase up to nothingness inside your DNA.
That's a blue sky, a blue sky, a blue sky, a blue sky.
How the crew with time becomes classical.
I know that was why Shaq shaked, Mrs. Burnham fastened her seatbelt.
And I know that was why I had to see the world.
I know that was why I had to see the world.
I know that was why I had to see the world.
I know that was why I had to see the world.
I know that was why I had to see the world.
I know that was why I had to see the world.
I know that was why I had to see the world.
(electronic music)
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