It's Raining Menendez!

Some people did. The people that saw Terrifier three made it number one, and a lot of people listened to my advice and saw Wild Robot, but not enough to keep it at number one. Wild Robot. It just can't beat it. You just cannot beat it. It's a perfect movie. Some people have said, well, I've seen the storyline done better or whatever. I don't care. This is a beautiful film, you know, and you're gonna love it. The animation is great,

and animation is just killing it right now. So congratulations to Universal for making a better an animated product than anything I've seen out at Disney in quite some time. And I'm the biggest Disney fan there is, maybe not the bigness I biggest. I'm not one of those Disney adults. Okay, I'm not a pin trader. I'm just you know, I grew up in near Disneyland. I went there a lot.

I used to get in for free early in my youth, just hanging out there like it was a you know, like the back alleys of the Bowery Boys and just

causing mischief. Never got kicked out, got in trouble once, but never got kicked out, even though I wrote a I guess you could call it a hit song, one of the Vandals hit song hit song in punk rock Pirate's Life, about taking LSD and going on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and being trapped in there because you it was an interdimensional experience that was spurred by a drug induced fantasy that went wrong. But I never did that. I'm just reporting what's out on the streets,

what's going on in the streets. People are doing that. I don't recommend it. You don't need drugs at Disneyland, and you shouldn't take drugs at Disneyland because there's a lot of heavy machinery and children. So come on, Okay, so wild row About. You should see it, and maybe they'll have a wild Rowbout ride at Universal Studios that might get me to go there. I just went to the Universal Studios in Orlando, but in Orlando like ten times, kind of Disney World over and over. I love Epcot.

Never went to Universal. Finally went and I'm like, yeah, it's not for me. I mean it's cool, Harry Potter's amazing, but I don't know. Okay. So number three is The Joker. People say it sucks. I'm not gonna watch it. There's no way in hell I'm going to sit down and watch The Joker. Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. Great movie. You should see it. Saturday Night Live documentary. A lot of people are going

to see it from Sony Pictures. But I'm I couldn't get myself motivated to go and watch a documentary about a TV show in a theater. I couldn't do it. I'm not saying it. It's not gonna happen. Number six is Piece by Piece. I'm not really interested in that one. Transformers one again. No Nightmare Before Christmas comes back every year. Great, The Apprentice, you don't care, Okay, let's move on to what I was going to talk about. First. I'm going

to talk about, Uh, there's a couple of things. Chapel roone. You know her, Do you know who she is? She's a transgender queer artist or she's not transgender because she's dresses like a girl and she is a girl, but her influences are transgendered people and that's her aesthetic. It's like I dressed like a dry queen. It's not bad. I mean, you know, I think if you're a performer, I think that's a pretty good one. It's a good one.

You know, it's theatrical. And yeah. One times I made the mistake of like I had an old girlfriend and like she'd ask me, oh, do you think that girl's pretty? Do you think that girl's pretty? You know? And then I made the mistake of answering yes or no. What she just shouldn't do You should just say no, one's a pretty as you dear. Anyway, after I I told her a couple of girls I thought were pretty, one day, she goes, you just like girls who look like drag queens.

And you know you don't want that because then next time you're around a girl that looks like a drag queen or worse at drag queen, then your girlfriend is gonna be suspicious of you. You don't need that, so you can't give him information like that. You just can't. I only like girls that look like my wife. That's problem too, because then there are girls that look like my wife, and then she sees them. She goes that girl likes me, looks like me. Why he's staring at her.

But she's not really like that, So I don't have to worry about it. But Chapel Roane. I saw her at Coachella. She was good. She's an underfire right now because Bill Maher is criticizing her, and I'm wondering if what happens to her career. Does this help hurt her career help her career? I don't know, because it has to do with Israel and Gaza and all that stuff. And I'm not smart enough to understand what's going on over there, and I'm not gonna try. But I do

know what Bill Maher said. He said, if you were in the Mid East, they would throw you off a building because that's what they do to queer people. So he's trying to tell her give her a fraternal correction. Don't get on the Palestinian bandwagon because it makes you look like you don't know what they do there to queer people. So entertainers always better off just kind of being like, hey, you know, I'm next question. Hey, what do you think Chapel of what's going on in Israel

and Gauza? I think all people should be free and I'm against war in the end. That's your entertainment advice for today. Now there's an actual legal case which is kind of fascinating right now. Have you heard of it? Limp Biscuit files a lawsuit against Universal alleging they owe them to one hundred million dollars in royalties, And you say, to yourself, how could that be? I say that to myself, how could we How could Limp Biscuit earn two hundred

million dollars in royalties? Ever, they're big, but wow. Then they kind of went away. But then as this nineties thing comes back, they have a resurgence. I think last time we played the Vandals played with them on a festival. They were on one day, We're on the other day. The Vandals outdrew them. But since then the nineties thing has come back in a big way, and they're the poster children for the nineties, so they're I think what happened.

So they're saying that their their royalties were done wrong, and they're they're of course, the lawyer is going to say they're purposely calculated to cheat people. I don't know if I believe that, but deliberately designed to conceal artists royalties so it can pocket the profits. That's a little extreme of a charge to make against a the largest music company in the world that other people are not suing. But so what they were getting, they were getting statements.

Here's what you get. When you're in the music business and you have a record out, you get these statements. Now, if you have a sleazy label, they don't even send you the statements. But a good label, we're going to send you statements either quarterly or bi annually or monthly sometimes, and you get these statements and it says mainly you're looking at these statements if you're a young rock band, to say like are you recouped or not? Are you

close to getting royalties? Because there's two kinds of royalties you would be looking for in your statement. There would be a statement for publishing and a statement for album sales. We'll call it that now you're publishing. Is the amount of money that the record label must pay composers when they're mechanically reproducing their copyrights onto a tangible met or even a digital medium. A that's caught. Why they call

it a mechanical royalty. It would be something like just I'll just tell you, like I'd be like, let's call it seventy cents a record, an album sex six cents a song or something like that. They've got to pay that to somebody. They pay it to whoever owns the composing rights. Who the composer, Maybe he sold his rights, maybe he's got a partner. They there's a company called

Harry Fox that collects that from most people. I don't let them collect my money because I can collect my own money and I don't want to give them a cut. But you were going to if you're a record label, every time you mechanically reproduce a record, you got to pay that six cents a song. Okay, So you look at that, and that goes directly to the band. You can't you cannot touch that. You can give it to,

you give it to the publisher or the band. Sometimes a publisher came about and said, hey, fred Durst, let me give you a million dollar advance on your publishing. Now you're paying it to that guy until it recoops. And then it recoops, then you're that guy's got to collect the money and start giving it to Fred Durst or half of it or or three quarters of it, depending on the deal you made and how much money of an advance you took. I hope this is not

putting you to sleep. So that's publishing. That's for songwriting. Now, sometimes it goes to a different person because like, if you're Elvis, you didn't write your songs, maybe some of them. If you're Frank Sinatra, you didn't write any of them. So on a Frank Sinatra album, all that money's going to, you know, Paul Anka, whoever wrote things like New York, New York. That's where that money's going. It's not going to Frank Sinatra is only getting the album sales royalties.

So those are two different things. So when but when the Biscuit looks at their statements, their statements all said, you're not recouped yet on your album sales, or you're publishing. Actually, let's leave publishing a side. Let's just deal with album sales, because you're not recouped yet, so we're not paying you anything. And then they just kind of got used to that, and because well they took says here in this article that they got like forty two million dollars in advances

over their career. Okay, think about that, staggering number. Two forty two million dollars. Lord, the Vandals probably got one million dollars worth of advances over their entire career. I'm going to say five hundred thousand. And we are recouped everywhere, everywhere in town, so we get when we get a statement, we get actual royalties because we're recouped. Now, if they get an advance of one million dollars for their album sales from Universal, forget about publishing. They've got to earn

out that advance before they get a cent. And that would be about a dollar to a dollar thirty five in Fred durstday, probably a dollar thirty five for each CD that was sold. So they got to sell a million to recoup a one point three five million dollar advance. How many millions of records did they sell? Well, if they got a forty two million dollar worth of advance. As some of that's probably in publishing. That's a lot of records you gotta sell. But over time the streaming

income started to come in. You know, probably sold some songs to some films and evidently the money piled up. They were owed a bunch of money and they didn't and then finally when they complained about it at all, it looks like, according to this article, Universal sent them a million dollars to them to fred Durst, and a million or to the band, then three million dollars to the record label that fred Durst started to put out

his own records. Because remember for a while he was like I got my own record label and directing movies, all that kind of stuff. He was a big player. So he's getting a good royalty rate because he owns a record label. And they did pay him. It's like they paid him maybe four million dollars or something like that. But his lawyers say, you got two point three million to Flawless Records, his company, and one million to him

in last August. But they filed the lawsuit last week and they say there owe two hundred million dollars as a lawyer. I heard his name is Quantinets or something like that, and he's very colorful and he polls stunts and things like that, and he gets in the in the public eye and forces things to happen with public pressure.

That kind of guy. So we're all gonna watch this very closely, except for bands, I mean, especially bands that have deals with Universal and have had him through the nineties, like some bands I won't mention that I'm very interested in. So we'll see how that goes. That is limp biscuit versus Universal, hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, theoretically, we'll see. All right, now, we're gonna get to the

Menendez thing, because that's the only thing. I mean, I just kind of watched it obsessively and didn't go to a movie theater and the did you watch it? What did you think of it? Put it in my Facebook comments. That's the only place you can really get a hold of me, or I might respond, Okay, it's nine episodes. Nobody's getting nine episodes to do a true crime story.

But Ryan Murphy. Ry Murphy's one of the most successful producers in television, and he's got you know, hits everywhere, and he made this huge deal with Netflix and it's kind of starting to pay off for Netflix. He did the Dammer one, now he's doing this one nine episodes, so they really dragged out the story, gave him an opportunity to be very artistic with it and to tell every side of the story, you know, all these different angles.

So I some of the parts of it I didn't enjoy at all, but in the for the most part was I was hooked to I was hooked to it, and I enjoyed a lot of it. Is like my era of the nineties, you know, when I'm like twenty seven in nineteen ninety and this is going on at that time, and I'm in law school, and it was. It was fascinating back then, still fascinating now if you

don't know the story. They killed their parents and then they seem to have gotten away with it, mainly because the Beverly Hills police at that time weren't doing the thing that you could pull anyone off the street. Right now, there's so much true crime on TV and ask them, Hey, if two parents got murdered in Beverly Hills or anywhere, who's their and they had two kids. Who's the who's

the first person you're gonna look at? Well, I look at and see if they had any affairs, you know, going on, and then I'd look at the kids, you know, do they stand again? Who's stand again? Who stand again? Of course these kids stood to gain. I mean there's some complications about whether they were cut out of the wheel or not. But if you're a cop who stands

to gain, go investigate them. They didn't do anything. They let these guys are run around for months selling or buying roll x'es and cars, and of course they did because they're stupid. And the whole uh the upshot of the all the Menendez you know documentaries. There's a documentary I watched. First, I thought there's a Menendez thing. I went on Netflix and I watched. I thought it was everyone was talking about this documentary. I watched that. That

was pretty good. The Netflix went then I realized, oh, there's a narrative, scripted drama here. Let me watch that, yep shot of it. These are just two stupid people, stupid spoiled chemacos. These guys never had to do anything

for themselves, and they're there their dad. It seems like their dad pretended to say like, I'm gonna be tough on you, okay, And then but he's so worried about his ego and that these these kids will be show pieces for him, and they will go to the best schools and they'll be the best tennis players and all that stuff. He has to fund it all, and you got to worry that. I think, you know one thing, if you're a kid like that, you can worry. You

know what, I don't really need all this stuff. I'm gonna dress like a homeless person and see how you like that. I'm gonna embarrass you. No, no, no, no, don't dress like a homeless person. Here's an unlimited clothing budget, you know, that kind of manipulation. So he gave him everything, yet he was cruel to them, seems like now, but you know, defind cruel when you're trying to raise kids who are spoiled brands. I think it comes down to his ego. His ego is not letting him raise the

kids in a normal way. But I don't know how to raise kids. Who does. But he raised them in a way where they shot him in the face of the shotgun. So he obviously I think I can say he did a really crappy job. Whatever's method was, it didn't work. But after they're arrested, then after a while they come up with a story said we killed them because we were molested, because they came up with a theory where they could argue self defense and avoid the

death penalty and maybe get out of prison. Because if you have an honest, good faith belief that your life was in danger and you shot them for that honest, good faith belief, you don't get out of jail, but you do get to plead to like an involuntary manslaughter or a voluntary manslaughter. I think that's what it would be, and they cannot charge you with first durg murder if you had a good faith belief that your life was

in danger. So they concocted a story where they had a good faith belief that their life was in danger because their parents were going to kill them. They basically that was part of their thing. They have been molested forever and their parents are going to go to kill them, that we're going to kill them, And they didn't have a very good support for why their mom would kill them. And I think that is what the that's one of the problems with their case. But in the movie, let's

talk about the movie. The movie. You watch it, it might make you mad sometimes, you know, you say, people never say stuff like this or that would never happen. Why would they believe this? These people are spoiled brats. But you're really seeing this in a Roschmann type scenario where different versions of the same story are being told over

and over and over again, gets a little repetitive. The worst is that they keep talking about details of the molestation which probably didn't occur, over and over and over and over again, the same details over and over and then. And my wife at one point was going, Wow, these are such detailed molestation stories. How would they even know

to make this stuff up? And then someone pointed out that they were reading all these books about molestation stories, so they got really good at it and their life was on the line and they put on a performance and Okay, no one bought it, and they're in prison for the rest of their life. So that's But when you're watching this now, you wanna hang Ryan Murphy for trying to depict what happened. And sometimes you're mad at him. You're like, oh, come on, this why do you do this?

Why do you do that? But hey, it's an epic nine hours. He's got to fill the time, and he made I think he did a great job, except for repeating the child the pedophile stuff over and over because it didn't happen. Most likely it just did not happen. They made it up so they could. That's their defense. Hey, how we get out of this. Let's make up the story. That's the story they made up. It's no different than saying, well, I wasn't there, I was over here. I have an alibi.

It was like, well, I did kill him, but I had to because I thought they're going to kill me, and you know, they were molested me in my whole life. Okay, it's no one bought it, so we don't really have to worry about it. But I think you can make an argument that if your dad was so mean, you had to kill him because you're so freaked out by it. And I think the jury could have said, Okay, so you killed your dad, we're going to go easy on you in that voluntary manslaughter. You were so freaked out

and so you know, your poor thing. The problem is they killed their mom. Okay, so for killing your mom, you get the death penalty. No, I'm not really for the death penalty, so I'm glad I wasn't around then. But you get the maximum penalty for killing your mom, which is death. So why are we even talking about it? Why coming up with all these excuses about why you killed your dad when you killed your mom. No excuses for killing your mom. So you get maximum for your mom.

We can only kill you once. So you killed her, you get killed, and we're done. But back then, I don't know. I don't know why someone didn't come up with that argument. But there's two trials. First trial, they give them the benefit of the doubt and they let all this stuff in. You're gonna let you plead this child molesting thing or whatever, and enough of the jury buys it, so they have a hung jury, and so

they're going to try them again. Second trial, the judge, same judge, says, well, I don't want that to happen again, so let me manipulate how much evidence comes in, and then I know I'll get a guilty verdict, which I don't know if that's fair either. So the first one was let them say anything and put on a show. And the ladies and the jury believed it. The men said no way, and then that was unfair because they were, you know, just crucifying their parents. There's no evidence for

this molestation at all. None. There's a couple like people that said, well, yeah, I heard, and he told me there was something going on. But they also have letters of the Menendez kids writing letters to people and telling them to come and testify and tell the following lie. They call him on the phone, tell the following lie. So they have that, so you can't really believe anything they say. So basically you have to approach this so

you can't believe anything they say. But the one funny thing is the prosecutor in the first trial says she could not find one person to testify favorably for Jose Menendez. Could not find one person that would come in and say he was a very good guy. Lick, he's been murdered in his living room while you're sleeping. No one, despite all that sympathy that you might have, she couldn't find one person that would come in and say he

was a nice guy. So that's a problem, and that's the problem, you know, that's I guess one of the reasons why the trial went on and on and then the second So the second one, you know, they didn't they weren't allowed to argue the molestations, so they were just already it was over before it started, and they're serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. Very interesting article about Ryan Murphy's version that Eric Menendez has commented

on it and he said he thinks it's bad. Problem is he didn't see it. This is an Entertainment weekly, so he's making this big statement about it, but he hasn't watched it. So and I go, this is what I say to that too. Yeah, TV producers exploit murders and victims and all this horrible stuff and they make money off it and et cetera. And I think there's a lot lot of people that could complain, which are

you know, victim's families members and things like that. And if you have disdain for Ryan Murphy because you think he's exploiting your death, okay, fine, valid, valid complaint. But for Eric Menendez and Lyle Menendez, once you kill your mom for no reason, you don't get to complain about anything.

So that's just now I don't know if you know this, but there's an appeal or a request being made for a new trial, because one of the main things is, I mean, there's so many there's so many Menendez products now on all these streaming service it's literally reigning Menendez at the moment. And one of the documentaries shows a letter that was written by Eric to his friend a couple of weeks before the murders that supposedly proves that he was being molested and by his father, and so

that would change everything. So, I mean, here's what I would do, and I would face that if you want a retrial, and this is the way I would have done the original trial. And I don't know why, and they never called me. This would have solved everything. There would have been one trial, not two trials, and went over. It would have been over in five seconds. I would have said, Okay, your dad molested you. All right, I'm the DA. I'm gonna I'm not even gonna charge you

with your dad's murder. Okay, I'm not gonna charge you. You're innocent, self defense. I believe you. Good, good for you. Now, I'm just gonna put you on trial for your mother's murder. Okay, did she molest you? No? She didn't. Okay, why did you kill her? Oh? Because of this and that that she couldn't live without my dad, and she was a prisoner too, so we put her out of her misery. Okay, that's really bad. That's not a defense. Now you have

since I let you off for your dad. They were convicted anyway of two consecutive there were sentence to two consecutive life sentences. All right. Now each of you get one life sentence without parole. The other was two without parole. Now you get one without parole. Why would the DA's office be so interested in convicting them for both murders. Just declare them innocent of the father's murder and get a life sentence without parole for the mother's murder. No

one's going to argue with that. And you could do the same thing when they come up for appeal. If you have half a brain, you would do that. And forget trying to convince people that Jose Menendez did not molest the two kids. Just throw that one out. They only have one life. You have one life sentence without parole, and it's done. But nobody calls me. It's just the way it goes. But anyway, do I recommend it, Yes,

I do. Once you see them interviewing them about there, they're describing their child abuse, I would just fast forward it. I did. You didn't get anything out of that, Ryan Murphy maybe did. There's a lot of you know, topless men in this thing, a little gratuitous topless bodies in this thing. So there's that, you know, and maybe Ryan Murphy gets something out of that, or his audience does.

I don't know. But describing your how you're getting raped and stuff when it probably didn't happen, you don't need that. So I would fast forward through all that, which you can do because the Netflix fast forward thing, the technology they are improving it, it gets better and better and better, easier to fast forward. It used to be impossible. It's just terrible, but it's better. So, like I said, I recommend it. But it's uh, it's not for kids, that's

for sure. All right. I think that's about it. I will I'm just brief putting news. The Vandals Christmas Show is on sale now December twentieth at the House of Blues, San Diego. December twenty, first Saturday Night at the House of Blues and I and it's gonna be a lot of fun. I hope you will come. It's a big tradition for a lot of people. It sells out of a year, so get your tickets soon, and I will now leave you with just the taste of the greatest song I ever written. All O.