Space Zamboni

it's all, it's all fine, it's always nice. Do whatever you whatever you want to do. Um. So yeah, so this week we wanted to start by talking about which now feels like all things in our modern era, like it took place five years ago. But we wanted to just devote a little bit of time to Elon Musk's

um obnoxious space adventure. Elon must space car. He launched one of his test Tesla cars into orbit around our planet, which is Earth for those of you who weren't sure about that, uh and um, and I feel like there was a lot and because of this image of the car orbiting the Earth and the guy on it, like it just feels like that was the stunt, but people are trying to insist that it was actually like a more significant rocket launch for other rocket related reasons. It

was not really sure what those are. They launched like three things at once, and that was one of them. What were the others? The others are like a regular SpaceX rocket and a couple of I think one of them didn't work or maybe that was the last one. Um, but people have a very mad when you criticize SpaceX. People get so nobody to use a bro is m or like a obnoxious trollism, like nobody capes for Elon Musk,

like the worst bros on the internet. They are he is their damsel and they are always coming to his rescue to make sure that nobody says anything mean about their their boy, because they're dreaming that one day they'll be able to afford here plugs and be able to launch a car into space. Yeah everybody, I mean, who

who doesn't who doesn't want that? I saw some I think as I was searching for stuff about the rocket and I Twitter searched Elon Musk, and you know, people are always doing like quote pictures like a picture of him with some you know apparently brilliant quote that he said, and I'm totally paraphrasing, but it was like some story that he was telling about how like when I was a child, I was afraid of the dark until I realized that, like, the dark is just an absence of photons,

and there's no reason to be scared of an absence of photon, which is just like, I if that's who you want to be in your life, It's like, that's like the most most boring future. Like it's just the most like absent of poetry, interpretation of events or something into like a Carl Sagan quote exactly. This makes me feel like I'm watching paint dry. Yeah, it's it's like, oh, did you know that the universe and the cosmos are

actually more inert than you previously suspected. Great, it's all controllable and you can, you know, probably monetize all of it. You're the god of space and everything is under your control with your giant, stupid brain. Yeah, and your stupid rocket that you keep dicking into space. What would be like an exciting thing, you know, what would be a better thing than a car to launch into space to

get your attention? A boat, a boat. Do you remember a while ago there was I wrote about this at Grantland. I remember that, Um, the chip tune band on a mono Gucci put a piece of pizza into orbit with a camera. Uh, this is like a while ago. It's actually kind of mesmerizing footage. It's just like on a weather balloon, so it's not really all rocket launch. Um, but they still had that kind of curved earth view with a pizza pizza with a piece of pizza floating

and the pizza pizza, pizza pizza. Um, that was pretty That caught my attention. Um, But Molly, you were you You pointed out very accurately that this is like a very fifty like the whole image of the car in space is very fifties, like eighties fifties. Weird that they're simultaneously trying to get us into driverless cars and then also being like a driverless car in space. The messaging is very mixed. It's very mixed. I think there is

also like there are certain people. There's like a Seinfeld episode where George Costanzas like we were promised flying cars, why don't we have flying cars yet? And I don't think I want flying cars that much. That's basically like drones that people can ride in. Well, we were also just saying as if driving is not kind of hard enough. I mean, it's already quite dangerous in case you haven't.

So it's like, well, let's take too dangerous things and combine them into a fantasy of like road rage in the air, like all these drones, Like you know, you're dodging drones like their squirrels on the road. I will also say that my boyfriend got kicked off Twitter recently for an old tweet he had where he said, uh, I hope Elon Musk gets murdered by a driverless car. Got him off Twitter curiously. Yeah, wait, and then it

was an old tweet. Yeah, it was like some some Elon musk head found muskrat And I was like, wait, you can't do jokes like that on Twitter, Like that doesn't even seem harsh to me? Is that weird? Yeah? The language thing is so murky, Like I think you can't say like I'm going to kill Elon Musk flying car and automatic flying car. Please don't, please don't edit

out that thing that I just said. It just says um But I think I don't know the saying, I hope thing I have no like that that other driverless car guy did get killed by a driverless car, which is why there was like a billionaire who's like was all into driverless cars and he like took the first ride on a driverless car and he was like watching Harry Potter in the backseat and got like crushed by a truck. WHOA. So that is why I am afraid

of driverless cars? Is that being like, oh, just trust the technology seems like a very yeah, not something I'm gonna do. But it's like a photons, sorry, just the absence of photons. You guys, don't be scared um out of it. Emily, you were talking about the end of Greece the this was your immediate Yeah, there's like five things that this is echoing, and you mentioned um back to the future, which obviously like you know, the flying DeLorean.

I feel like the Tesla is basically like the teen's answer to the DeLorean, except a Dolorean so much cooler than a Tesla. There's a DeLorean that drives around our neighborhood kind of like halfway between Molly's and my houses, and I've been known to follow the DeLorean. They're so they're so great because it's going to the past out of time. Um, it doesn't need rhads. But uh no,

what was the other thing? Okay, so there's that. There's oh yeah, the end of Repo Man where they don't go into space, but like there is an alien that's like in the car and they just fly over Los Angeles in a car. I think it's like, um, it's a Malibu. It's like an old Malibu and uh and that's that's a that's a great iconic ending. And then the end of Greece, which I don't know how you guys forgot. This is like one of the only things I remember about Graces that I can picture it, but

I never thought about it. It's like that they're in a car flying way. Yeah, they're like at the fair and they're doing the hand drive or whatever everybody's doing it, and they get in their car and they drive off into the sunset. Except they drive into the sun rather the sunset, apparently because they like lift off from Earth and everybody back on the ground is waving up at them like they're dying or something. It's very memory of

this at all. I think what I was saying is that the movie Greece entirely takes place in like a sand Juni peri simulation of the fifties and sixties wherever. Yes, it would, because everybody's acts really weird in that movie. Yeah, everybody just looks like like this is what teenagers are like, this is what thirty five year old dressed as teenagers

from an old time look like and behave like. Oh also that now now if I'm doing word association and her ending of things association, then it's also quoted in the video for It's also quiet but without a car, um b York just levitates above the ensemble of dancers. I mean sending York into space would be way cooler she came from space already, or just turning her from if York go home? I think I think that's the thing. Is like, it's not even that we're against a car

in space. It's just like what an uncool car to send into space? You know, it's such a branding exercise, like car would you send into well? I was hoping you'd ask, um I would send like a beautiful like a low rider is what I would like to see in space. I think there's actually a comic about low riders in space. Really yeah, but that you know, like a beautiful space age car with fins, like because it could go faster into space with the fins because it looks,

not because it would be a cool image. You know, I'm not, I'm not such a fun killer, although obviously i'm that'll just remind me from the sun. Then oh yeah, that was also true. Maybe I think we just all have this dream of their being like a car, an old timey car in space, and so a Tesla You're like, oh, what did it do? It gets like good mileage in space? I just finding space. Yeah. I think they're just such boring looking cars that I don't understand them at all.

They are the Christian gray of cars. By the way, I saw that movie and it was amazing. Um and it was like a long car commercial. There was a whole scene that was just about driving a car fast test. What car would you like to send into space? Well, I'm glad I would probably send like a Volkswagen saying

or something. You know, it would have to be like the strangest car so that if it did, if aliens were watching, they'd be like whoa, Like that's what everyone drives on Earth, and then they would imagine us as being hippies from the sixties. But you know, maybe to them that would seem innovative. I don't know. I mean I have the w bus. Yeah, like a bus or like I mean, honestly, like a Winnebago. You should send like an RV into space, and then they would just

think that that's where we live. So I can totally see it with like a satellite dish on its roof and exactly we're going to have to send RVs into space soon anyway, because we're going to run out of Earth. Yeah, I wouldn't send it. I wouldn't send a car, all guys. I would send public transportation. Oh, a space bus, space bus or space train or space bullet train, space subway, sell express already looks like it came from space. Just

send it right back like streamlined. Like what about like an old timey bicycle in space, one of those ones with the big wheel of velocipede space velocipede um. I also saw. The best meme I saw about this was like, hey, you know what's cooler than a car in space is recognizing your workers attempts to unionize yeah, so funny that um. Also, there was a I think I sent you guys. There was an article in maybe cholap Nick about a man,

a rich guy, who was boasting on Instagram. He was like, I'm going to paint my Aston Martin with moon dust, actual moon dust. I've got a piece of moon rock. They're making it into dust. They're going to paint the car,

and yeah, exactly. So I guess the writer of this article was like, I am going to investigate because it's illegal, Like the all of the moon rocks are accounted for, I guess, and an ounce of moon rock is a million and a half dollars, and he would need at least three ounces of moon rock to make enough dust to cover his car. Maybe he meant moon rocks like the weed is they're a type of weed that's like pure THHC. That's called moon rocks. I wouldn't know, but

yes there is. But I think it's actually just like resin from any kind of weed that like, you know, a little hash crystals or something. If you paint your car with hash crystals, you're probably gonna feel like you're in space. This is what I say. I thought you were going to tell me about a different thing that I also read about, which was that guy who built his own rocket, This guy Mike Hughes. Do you know what I'm talking about anyone. There's a guy whose name

is mad Mike Hughes. That's what he goes by. And he keeps doing these publicity stunts where he builds his own rockets and he says he's going to launch them. Um, and some people I follow on Instagram went to the launch, which was like in the desert somewhere, and everybody was commenting on this guy's Facebook page like you're gonna die. You're gonna die in this self made rocket and like you're an idiot. And he was like whatever, I'm gonna

be in space and you're not, so like check it out. Um. And the rocket launch was not successful, but but he didn't die. He is alive still, so he so you can try again. How big are these rockets? So they're big enough to hold hand? This looked like what I remember the the filmmakers of Apollo thirt team referring to

as a vomit comment. Oh yeah, yeah, like the thing well the thing that, yeah, the the method they used for getting zero grab and movie and just like the first rockets that were just like big enough for their tin cans, and they like go up and come back down hopefully they come back to in them. Don't man me from Twitter? Um, But yeah, you know, I think what bothers me about Elon Musk is like, don't privatize space. All these billionaires already trying to privatize all the beaches.

Don't you can't have space, Give me space, that's my beach. Why is it that I'm so much like more into like, you know, pouring money into a space program. If it's actually like a government in space program, then then a private one, even though both are maybe not our top priorities, right, are laying the groundwork for when we all have to leave Earth and only the rich people get to like

in the Martian Chronicles. Also, of course, there's no reason We've never been given any reasons to mistrust billionaires who want to take things and for themselves and ruin them. Like yeah, I mean, all these Silicon Valley guys just seem like they're such bond villains, you know, like the

way that they conduct themselves and brand themselves. I'm like, don't they realize how scary they are coming off, and it's like, no, they don't because they have no self awareness, because they think being like photons absence of photons is a relatable Then again, in defense of that, though, I mean, I would hate if if I became a super rich and famous person and people were like miming all my thoughts, because they wouldn't they just chose. I mean, if you

just aren't pulling things that wasn't my best. Also, if there was like a crazy lady, we'd maybe be more into it. It was like, if there was like a lady Barbara Corkoran, We're like, I'm gonna go, you know, with all of my Shark Tank entrepreneurs and colonized space. I'd be like, maybe, Barbara, maybe I'm fine with all the rich people being the first in space as long as they go first, you know, yes, you know wink Wick, we know. Uh sorry, s all right, Um, speaking of

millionaires possibly evil? Are what am I talking about? Millionaires? Speaking of billionaires possibly evil? The evil variety? Um, this is a little bit late, but we had a we had a hot group chat, uh chat about this. Um. Stemming from the death of the founder of Ikea, whose name I'm going to find in like two seconds. Oh, I thought you were going from evil billionaires straight to the Olympics. Oh, well, we could do either. Um, let's

tell me grocery stores first. This is the hot content everyone's been waiting for from nightcall for us to talk about the apocryphal Nazi origins of IKEA. I just found the best I just found the best factoid. Okay. Uh so so speaking of billionaires, um, the possibly evil or maybe very definitely evil variety. Um, this is a little bit late, but we had a discussion about this a couple of weeks ago and felt like we needed to

take it to the pod. Uh uh about starting with the death of Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea, one of the richest men in the world. Um, he died at He died at age ninety two. Yeah, he looked to be very old and Um. Around his death, people brought up the fact that had been reported I think a few years prior, um that he had been in like a Nazi youth program um as a kid. And then also I mean had been like vocally supportive of Nazi policies all the way up to like two or

three years before the founding of IKEA. Which was like in the forties. Ikea has been around for a really long time. UM uh yeah, it's sort of wild. Um. And I did not know about this before this was brought up. I missed it the first time around, um, and it made me. It made me. Uh. I had been spending a lot of time in Ikea that week because I was working on a project that required me to pick up some stuff there, and you know, UM,

just sort of marvel. And I always like, whether it's like Ikea or Disneyland, like really big places where they have a they have a kind of um protocol for how you go through it, and it's been really you can tell it's really been managed down to like every single step you take. So I always find that interesting. Ike It like how they landed on this particular system. There's a way to go through Ikea that is that makes your life easy, and there's a way to go

through it that makes your life miserable. And they definitely want you to choose the former. Um. But the answer to the question being fascism is not a huge surprise, I guess no, no, not at all. Um. But you know, it's sort of I actually think that I don't have a lot of people have like an allergic reaction to Ikea, and I find it some what calming, So that makes me worry about myself. Uh doesn't everybody find fascism calming? That's the whole It's what's scary about it. Anybody like

being told what to do and where to go. Yeah, there's also something about, you know, the Ikea experience of like you're in and you're gonna you're gonna have to eat there, like having the cafeteria with all of the reminders of the cafeteria, but then in the cafeteria there's like the one thing you get, you know, because I've tried a few different things from Ikea, but it's like you're really going to get the meatballs with jam on them, which seems like such an odd thing to like watch

a ton of people eating meat with jam in the middle of the day in a huge shopping center, But you're like, this is the experience I'm supposed to have. Stuff like that to actually also does freak me out about the idea of space colonies, because like, as soon as I get in there, I want out, you know. I'm like, even if they put everything, I feel the

same way about like big airports, like casinos. It's like, even if they put everything I could possibly need, including like greenery, inside of an indoor space, it's still I have to get out, you know. Um. I loved the Ikea in l A in burbank Um, and then they moved to a larger, giant building and I hate the new one that they did. They moved across the made up street called Ikea Street um, and it's like just

this giant, scary monolith. But like you have, most Ikeas are on I ke O Ways or Ikea Streets or something. It's like how Apple is on like one. Infinitely, it's just such an enormous thing. They have to build their own street for it. Well, I realized that the only reason I really liked going to Ikea was because I could then like trick people into hanging out at the weird dead Burbank mall next to it, and like like old town burbank Um. Although burbank is weirdly a alt

right hotbed. Yeah really yeah, it's like the center of where all right people are in l A. There's like some alt right podcasters or something, which again I'm like, oh, you know that weird kind of fifties quality, you know, who likes that. There's a lot of my I have friends who live in Burbank who are not all right, and they claim that it's getting more progressive, but there is a kind of like Mayberry vibe where your nape.

Like one of my friends who lives in Burbank was received a letter that she had been tattled on for like the fact that her sprinklers partially sprinkled the sidewalk and not all of the water landed on the greenery, so she was wasting what But it's like, you know, she had done zero escaping, Like she's so anxious about how you know, not being like, you know, just having this appearance of being a conscious suburbs suburb everyone's watching

each other all the time. But there's a lot of those in It's also like so defined by the presence of Disney, I feel yeah, and Disney and Ikea, the

twin pillars of Burbank. Also, I feel like, I mean, it's it is like because it is um that fifty suburb that is in the Los Angeles area, it also becomes the fifty suburb of the mind because it is like it has been uh immortalized in that way, like you know, from everything from like Edwards her hands and yeah, um and and and so it feels, you know, weirdly like if you're going there, if you're attracted to some idea of Ikea. It's both what Ikea actually is and

also what it is on screen. Well, Burbank, Also, how is that weird quality of kind of going up It's like flat and then it ends in a mountain, so it kind of looks like you're on a sound stage and I see it's a backdrop. It's very Truman show. It is very Trueman. It is like, well Truman Burbank, that was his last name, exactly. There we go, we're

solving a mystery. So we we when we were talking about Mr Kamprad and Ikea and the weirdness, the both you know, somewhat comforting and also troubling experience of going to Ikea, then we also um found that he wasn't the only um possible Nazi uh alleged. I think we have to keep these as alleged for some people, UM that owns a owns an empire with a presence in America. UM And somewhat heartbreakingly, we saw the it's still like it's it's not I feel like it's not well whatever.

Somebody want to talk about traders. Yeah, so shows was started by Joe columb I'm not pronouncing your right in California. But then it was purchased by one of a pair of German brothers in nineteen seventy nine who had started all the supermarkets and then had split into Aldi Nord and Aldi sud Um after they argued about whether or not to sell cigarettes. So I guess theo all wrecked

bought Trader Joe's and he had it from Wikipedia. I think During World War Two, Theodore was conscripted into the were marched where he served with Rommel's Africa Core in an art Yeah and also side note not having to do with him um having served in you know, with the Nazis. But he was also kidnapped apparently and held for seventeen days at gunpoint. So he was really really he got really reclusive, like the whole family became very

private and very reclusive. So I think it's it became harder to discern if he how he felt about you know, his past, which makes it even more mysterious. I mean, have you all ever been to an Aldi. Oh my god, well,

all the is like totally. Aldia is like you know how everything is just so cheap at I Ke, especially the food stuff, and it's like, am I I feel like I'm in another country right now because it's just like the numbers are not even computing to me as being anywhere near correct, Like I shouldn't be able to have a plate of meatballs for three dollars or whatever

it is. Um, that's sort of how Aldie is. Aldia is like so dirt cheap, and that's like why they were successful is that they managed to be cheaper than anybody else by a wide margin. Josephs too, it's every other grocery store, although having worked there, the reason I was given as to why that was true is because

they like own their own transport trucks. Part of every anything being the Trader Joe's brand is because they don't have to pay for someone to like transport from whatever company to Trader Joe's, which is why they claim regular grocery stores have such high prices because they have to buy like the name brand. There's no middleman. But what do you know? What? What? What? Now that you have experienced from the inside working at Trader joe Is, does

any does this revelation make anything makes sense to you? Well, again, I think there's a weird sort of I mean unforeseen connection between nineteen fifties tiki culture and Nazis, as we all learned when the Nazis, like the sixth thing I would have expected you to bring up, well, remember how the Nazis did when when they did, they're they're scary

march tiki torches. There a connection with tiki torches before then. No, But I mean, this is what I've learned about Burbank is like people who are very nostalgic for the fifties are generally uh into white power because there's like this weird you know, like the past of the mind that they're all into that They're like things used to be great and then like modernity ruined everything. So like you know, there's like kind of rockabilly overlap with white power stuff

in Orange County. Um. So finding out there was a connection to Nazism and Trader Joe's was maybe not as surprising, although I had assumed that it was just founded by some guy into tiki stuff, which it was, but then he sold it. He sold it to the Nazis who came knocking. But I mean he was also interesting in our group check because we had there was something negative to find about every grocery store. That's what we found out.

We were like, are there any that are safe? I mean there's there's kind because there was a big dust up a while, you know, a few years ago with a natural food store out here, Lassons, and I know we were all pretty bummed that Lassens was pro Prop eight because they are run by Mormons and they faced a big backlash over that their pro life. Yeah, I don't know. They gave money, they gave um, they donated to the prop aid campaign. Yeah, yeah, the family did um.

They will notice that the southern California residents will will notice that Lascens is closed on Sundays. Uh. Oh, I did not know. But yeah, looking into sort of all the grocery stores, uh, it's not super surprising that a lot of them are really exploitative. And yeah, they're all like union busting and like nasty in that way. I mean also, but this is the thing that that I grapple with is that I feel like, whether well so the guy, the the the former Nazi who owned Trader Joe's.

He's no longer with us, he's dead. Um. I don't I think his son it now owns it um And we you know, because they're so inclusive, we have no idea how they how his son feels about his his father's leg here anything, but like I feel like on a business level today, like Trader Jose is actually one of the like less awful places you couldn't shop at ye um. And I actually I was surprised because I

told my dad. I was like, oh, did you know the Trader Jos was owned by this guy who was Nazi Um And he was a little bit more like open minded about it that I would have thought, as we are descended to polycaust survivors and not survivors. Where he was like, you know everyone in Germany of a certain age. He was like, they were conscripted into the army exactly like they necessarily mean that they know and that's and that's true because also this was a few

years ago. This was discussed on a bunch of yelled boards which I looked into and people were like, oh, did you know that they were Nazis? And some of the responses were like, well, their father worked in a mine and their mom ran a grocery store and they were really poor, and they were like, oh, we have to learn how to run a grocery store so we don't end up working in the mines and dying. And

then they were conscripted. So it's not like they were like super jazzed to join the Knight, Like, we don't know, we don't know, you don't know the the Ikea guy. On the other hand, I think we have more evidence that he was super into it, like he was. There was a book by Elizabeth as brink Yeah, hell, he said um. At one point he said that he I guess quote it was youthful stupidity and the greatest mistake

of his life. But the woman who wrote the book, Elizabeth asbrink Um, said that he actively recruited people that he was, you know, involved for a long time. So it seems like a bit of a more active thing. But at the same time, he has so much cheaper than everything. I just wanted to not be true, but we knew i Kea was evil for other reasons, which is that they like like H and M and these other kind of like fast manufacturing anything where you're like,

how is it so cheap? Is that they like throw everything away rather than give it to people who could use it, which I still don't even understand why they do that. And that was also something I think that's just a grocery store policy. Like a lot of food at grocery stores that has just gone bad or like you know, could still be eaten technically, and you have

to throw it out. That stuff drives me crazy. And that's actually yeah, And that's one of the things that Trader Joe's is actually like really good with is that they do not do the thing that all of the bigger mainstream grocery stores do where they buy like a huge pile of food just so you can have the image of a wall of food when you walk in and be like like reassured in the idea that you live in a land of plenty. Like Trader Joe's runs out of things a lot, especially in Silver Lake, they do,

and then they push other things in front. That's our secret method, right, if you want to get the newest stuff a trader, just go all the way to the back of the row. That's my entire tip. Like in the vegetables that will have like the stuff that expires, soonest will be at the front. I think that's usually most grocery stores. But they also they also do like the gut the whoever is the not the owner owner,

but the the founder or not founder. I don't know what the title is, but he runs like a kind of um like produced strift store in some inner city neighborhoods where people can access fresh produce for like an affordable price. Um. It's run by Trader Joe's. I think it's called Daily Table UM. I mean like that stuff I think is really good and like addresses a big problem that nobody talks about, which is like how much food is going to waste when so many people are

don't have enough to eat in the world. And yeah, I mean also when I worked there, there were like career people there. There were a lot of people who were working there who were trying to like do creative stuff and it was their day job. But there were also a lot of people who just worked to Trader Joe's and that was their their living. And if you work there long enough, I don't know if this is still true, but like you could get a decent healthcare I believe so in other ways it seemed like it

was better for workers and something. Yeah, well, which is known well known for union busting. Um, there's a great post. Uh. I think it's on the Uh No, I won't remember. Uh. There's a great post about the origins of Ralphs that I love, um about just sort of the invention of the the American specifically the Californian grocery store with the big pile of oranges and all that stuff. Oh yeah, I love thinking about stuff like that. It's yeah, thinking

speaking of evil empires that provide pleasure to people. When are we not talking about evil empires on night call? Uh? We were going to talk about the Winter Olympics for a moment. Yeah, man, Well so we haven't. We haven't an inter pod not inter intrepod um debate because um, some of you may know Molly, and I mean I

think we're all supportive. Um, but Molly, especially as like really leading the the the no Olympics in l a charge um and just you know, kind of highlight I think you've been doing a lot of really good work highlighting all the ways in which Olympics usually funk over the cities that they take place in and are really bad for homeless populations and the environment and a brazillion other things and mostly just exists to make rich people rich with construction and stuff like that. Um. On the

other hand, figure skating is so great. That's the thing is like we're not anti figure skating. We're not, and there are other places to watch figure skating that yeah, I mean we wish that. The problem with the Olympics too is the idea that these like lesser known sports and especially like sports featuring female athletes that get featured during the Olympics and no other time. It's like we could show those on TV more anyway, we just don't.

We only focus on the big male dominated sports leagues. I mean, like I so, you know, before the Olympics started, I was like, all, I know, like I don't want to, you know, detract from the cause, but like I have to watch figure skating, so I've been trying not to watch the other sports. But then like they will do the thing where they're you know, they show a block of figure skating and then they'll switch over to show

downhill skiing. It's happen at the same time. And it's true, like there are there are like female skiers that are just it makes me so happy to watch like these like really talented women like do something incredible and superhuman, like go down a hill super fast and be so tough in a way you never get to see from sports on especially not on television, uh, any other time of the year. And so I'm very I'm very pulled into directions right now. Look, it's okay, I watched the Olympics.

It's not we're not like you know, it's it's not a full like you can't enjoy any of this. We acknowledge that it's pleasurable because again, there's a lot of stuff about fascism that's really seductive and that's why people like these things. It's or the like the interstitial segments where they do the propaganda segments about like this athlete overcame so much, you know, so many things to come to the Olympics and now if they're great, it's going

to be the greatest moment of their life. And you know, those athletes do not get paid well, um, most of them are like you know, they don't pay for them to come to the Olympics. They have to pay for it themselves or the team has to pay. Uh. You know, I'm not against an international sports competition. I'm just pro disbanding the IOC completely awful, overhauling the way that the Olympics happen, and uh being a Debbie downer who tells people stuff about like did you know that that beautiful

ski run they raised an ancient forest in Korea for? Yeah, because they did. I mean, I love figure skating, yeah, and I think I think that, Um. One fun thing about figure skating this year is that, um, we are now living in a post eurieon ice figure skating world. And there's already been at least one performance or one UM skate by a pair from Japan done to music

from Uri on Ice. Your on Ice is a animated an anime show from Japan about ice skaters, about male ice skaters, and it is the best and homo eroticism and yeah, it's a deeply homo erotic show about beautiful men who can do triple axels and quads and UM

also like to hug. And it's great because the skating moment that made you cry, Um, I I teared up for that that pair skate, which wasn't even that great of a pair skate, but the music that they did it too, is like this, it's like not the theme song of the show, but it's um the skate that that your either title character does is his his freestyle skate when he's going, um king his way up to the world. And it is so it's the piano theme.

It's so beautiful. Uh. It makes you just like want to root for whoever you're watching while they're while they're skating to it, because it's just like so gentle and just like sounds like trying. Really, it just is the sound of like trying really hard and like the triumph of the human spirit or something. I just glad people have moved away from like only skating to the same thing. I feel like everybody, well there was already, there's already uh Swan Lake. Um, yeah, like skate to you know,

skate to scroll X. I'm into that. What would skate too? It was just such a good question. We'll task first. I wanted to say, you're probably the only one of us who actually played winter sports. Go, oh my god, you you had to outer. I don't know if you could even say I played sorts. I was played by when I was I went to a school briefly for three years where sports were a very important part of the curriculum, and it was in addition to to you know, Pe,

we had mandatory team sports. Un I just had. I literally shuddered. I shuddered. I also shuddered when you're mandatory team. It was honestly, I was I was just talking about whether or not to sign one of my kids up for basketball, and I remembered I had I had anxiety induced xema playing yeah, on the insides of my obos playing and uh, and that was not even my least favorite sport I had to play there. But yeah, I did co ed ice hockey, but when I was miserable.

But that also seems really cruel to do to prepubuson. It was so cruel. And I was telling I was talking with my husband about this, and I was like, you know, when I ever think about, like could I go to war, I remember what it was like to be like suited up with all of this protective gear and then mouthguard, Like I could never get the hang of the mouth guard, and I think I molded it wrong, like you don't get in the hot water and you

do the whole thing. But I always felt like I was gagging on the mouth guard, I was like fat, so I also had like a lot of padding. And then you just see all these people with this objective of like they have the objective to win, and you don't have the same objective because you're just so overwhelmed, and like they come trying to survive. You're just trying to survive. And I mean, yeah, I would hide out and try and like skate, you know, lace my skates forever,

which actually was like kind of also hard to do. Yeah, that was my softball strategy because I was always stuck in right field, so I would be spend a lot of time like drawn pictures with my cliques. I like wanted to be good at sports. I just was not. You were, no, but you did, Okay, I did not do I mean not as good as I wanted to be, considering that my grandmother was like a Olympic level athlete, uh, which were on that in the future pod maybe, but you know I was like, oh, I've got these good

athletic jeans. And then I was like no, I'm like three ft tall and like I can't do anything but maybe like gymnastics, Emily, what did you play? Um? I played some softball that was it. I didn't play anything officially or competitively after seventh grade. Um. I would play tennis sometimes because I lived by the school and was by the tennis courts and so I could, but I was not good at it. It was just a thing to do. Who would have thought that three unathletic cool

kids would grow up to be writers with the podcast. Um, well, I I before we before we wrap up figure skating, I just want to say that, Well, okay, so there's already been a bunch of stuff, a bunch of skating to Mulan Rouge. There was an ice dance to a Mulan Rouge medley that had a lot of people talking because it was very spicy and very touchy and um.

And then they were Canadian of course. And then there Adam Rappon, who's kind of like the big he's he's not necessarily the like most the biggest hope for a medal from the men's which is more exciting this year. I have to say, like the men's skating on the American side is more exciting this year. But he because he got like fourth place at Nationals but then got sent to the American team anyway, and he's the one who's been really outspoken about like Mike Pence and stuff.

He refused to meet with Mike Pence because he's gay, and he's he's openly gay, and he's like really just like I have I want nothing to do with our vice president. So he's there have been a lot of really good like quotes from him that he had. He had like kind of a disaster. I'm sorry, am I showing how much I've been paying attention to ice skating right now? We forgive you know, he checked out no Olympics l A, but he had so this has nothing

to do with the Olympics. He did have like a really bad, like like kind of heartbreaking skate or like he made a lot of mistakes at the nationals um but then got in anyway and skated for the team event at the Olympics and it he's get into cold Play and cry I don't know the song. I I

don't know the song. It was a song with a really long instrumental part for the first half, and he was just he was like the best I've I've I've seen him on any like YouTube clip that I've ever watched, and he was just like the performance just made me like so happy for him because he's just like having a moment right now is very like, um yeah, just like the kind of person that you want to have like on a mic at the Olympics because they're gonna

like say something about like this administration. So look, Emily's Elon Musk outfits us all with our robot skeletons that make us super strong, we'll all be able to ice skate and do triple axles and we won't need the IOC. We'll just do it on our own. We'll be ice skating in space. Um. I The other thing, well, there's the I think there's been just a lot of ice skating media recently, so I think that there's been renewed enthusiasm for because it sounds like you also have a

Google alert for ice skating. Oh well no, I just follow some podcasts and I saw a Tania which is not very good, but the ice skating scenes in Iitania are amazing. And I have a whole spill now about how wow, like look what we can do with digital effects. Now we should be making more ice skating movies, um, where you can like map a face onto a skater and make it look like really cinematic and realistic, because

we can do that now. Instead, all we use the effects for are like car crashes and explosions still and space battles. We could have like ten ice skating movies and action on ice. We can all of these things. We could have car crashes and skan skating and explosions. No, I don't need I don't mean to leave out explosions like the best movie. I had an ice skating birthday party once as a child. During the eighties, craze for ice skating rinks in mall switches how Tanya Harding got

into ice skating. You didn't have it at the Culver City Ring. No, there was a mall. There was an ice skating rink in the Laurel Plaza mall, which got destroyed by the earthquake, the North earthquake. Um and has been a kind of a pile of bones ever since. Um. I loved that ice skating rink. I loved that whole mall with its orange Julius. It's gonna rank next time we're all in l A, guys. I would love to would be great to make test play ice hockey. I just I just shrank back. I was like, no, no,

I'll just drive the zamboni. I would love the zamboni. Oh a space samboni. That's so we should send it. That's it. I agree, that's perfect. So I think we're going to turn it over to one of our night call listener questions. If you also have a question or a thought in your head for us to answer, you can give us a call at two four zero four six night. It doesn't have to be at night, and that we will try and get to your question on there. Okay, So it looks like today we have a question about

Paddington too loosely, Hey, what's up natives? Collin uh in? Because I want to reopen that padding two bags. I don't want to leave that close. There's too much to talk about. This movie rules too hard. Um, So I have voice blindness. It's not a real thing, but I can't really tell people apart on podcast to like the

thirteenth episode, So my apologies. I don't remember who exactly said this, but they mentioned before they saw patting In two that they saw a bevy of terrible trailers, as did I at the very same experience where I counted five trailers that had extended fart jokes as a part of their advertising for all these kids movies. Before I saw the film, I was just so angry. But then after I saw Patties and I just felt so sad that kids movies feel like they have to do this.

They have to appeal to the the cheapest part of being a kid. I know I can make my seven year old nephew laugh by just going, hey, farts, and he will laugh because that's the global humor he's at. But it just made me sad that so many kids films don't try. So why why don't you think more kids films try? Is it? Is it just that it works? Like? What? Why? Why aren't kids films more like experimental and fun? I

think that's what I really appreciate. But Paving Too is like it reminded me of my my favorite kid movies like Mary Poppins and Willy Wonka, were like, the world doesn't make sense because who cares the kids movies, So let's just explore and have fun and do crazy things and break the laws of physics and reality because it's the kids you care. It's not fun. Why don't you think more kids films do that? Where are they still rigidly structured like a Pixar film or or rely on

so much uh really awful based level humor. That's curious way you think that is? All right? I love the show already, guys looking forward to Well, I think we kind of maybe undermine whatever we're about to Saint X because I know that I laughed when he just said farts. Um, but that was a great call, um, thank you? Was that Colin? What was the name? I don't know if that person identified themselves. Maybe because they knew that they

would be stalked by us, we can call them Paddington. Yeah, well that was a great call from Padding to love her sixty nine. Uh um, yeah, I don't know. I would be interested to know what Test thinks of this, having um, young people to entertain in your life and so many children. Well, I do have to say that

in defense of fart jokes, as if they needed defending. Um. I was having a hard time coming up with TV shows to watch with my kids, and I found a show called All Hail King Julian that is a spin off show for Madagascar and uh and there was one episode that won me over where King Julian's a lemur and he is the king of all of these lemurs in Madagascar obviously, and uh, they're all kind of like, you know, just a motley crew. They can't really get

anything done. And at some point they discover coffee, which King Julian brands as a brown Julian and they all start drinking coffee and they're all really productive in the kingdom, and then they all start just like zonking out and falling asleep on you know, falling out of trees. But it was I was like, this is so good because it's clearly addressing parents need for coffee and how we

all are like exactly like these lemurs. We're like we're so productive, we're so productive, and then by the time we're watching this with our kids, were like just a shell of a human um. But I mean, I think people are very protective of the media their their children consume.

I mean, I think Emily, you may have been the one to send me something about the you know YouTube the like there was an article about how uh you know you the YouTube videos where it takes all these familiar character tres two kids and then it's kind of just assembled by algorithm and they're really violent so I think that there's something of like you trust Pixar to not fuck your kids up that way. Uh, And so

hence the rigid structure, which is also obviously geared toward merchandizing. Um. But yeah, I mean when I was a kid, like, I was definitely watching like bed Knobs and Broomsticks, like the more kind of absurdist children's movies. And now it's I haven't seen Paddington too yet. It's very bead knobs and broomsticks. There's actually I think there's like a scene with some some night armor that I thought, oh, this is just like that room sticks. No wonder, I like it.

That movie is the best. It is the best, and especially I mean honestly Home Alone. I watched with my kids not long ago, and I was like, Home Alone so good because it takes a fantasy of not of you know, having the house to yourself and like nobody to tell you what to do, and then it turns it into a nightmare and then it kind of redeems it. But it goes through all of these iterations of exploring, like when a kid is thinking about this objective, and then like all of the different ways it can play

out I loved Home alone. I was put off by the violence. Yeah, no, I I was too. I was about to say that, like I had to review. It was very interesting to come from Paddington to to reviewing Peter Rabbit this past week because they deceptively seem like things that would be very similar are very British, like a c G I, a cute c G I animal

interacting with with human characters. But like you really see the difference between two kind of um I guess approaches to children's material, And so much of Peter Rabbit is about how he's just like bashing Dominal Gleason over the head and electrocuting him at one point, like in multiple points electrocuting him, and it's like so violent, and I I think if I was a kid, I would just be really stressed out by it because it's just about

him getting bashed around. Well, dude, have you read the books recently because they are so cob Yeah, but they're not things like well mom is a widow because his dad was baked in a pie by Mr McGregor. And then Benjamin Bunny, who's like his cousin. In the Benjamin Bunny book, there's a whole scene where he gets beaten with a switch, and I was I found I had my old copy and I was like, oh, I will read you this before bed, and I was just like,

excuse me, I'm so sorry. There's a bunny beating another bunny. I think they're like good kids things have a little darkness in them always, and like Maurice Bax books and stuff. Yeah, bad kid things treat kids like idiots, yeah, and are condescending and then sometimes, like I'm thinking of DreamWorks movies specifically, are like, you know, treat kids like idiots and then like wink at the adults, being like, hey, we know you're here too, Like that's why Angelina Jolie is the shark.

I also hate, Yeah, I think that when one of the trailers that he's referring to, and maybe you saw this before Paddington to Molly, was the Teen Titans Go to the Movies trailer, which has a really really long fart joke in it, and I saw that before. I saw that before Peter Rabbit, and I was just like, yeah, this sucks. I hated all the trailers up to and very much, including the Wes Anderson Island of Dogs trailer, which made me angry in a different way. You know, wait,

tell me about the Island of Dogs. We have to we have a whole different projects, whole episode about it, because it's like it manages to be like stupid and racist seeming and twee, just everything I hate in a movie. We're gonna go in on it, sorry to all of us, Anderson stands, but we're gonna torch from the island. Maybe maybe mad. It's a stop motion movie. But for some reason, I'm also now thinking about the trailer I saw before

fifty Shades Freed, which was also a children's movie. Also a children's movie, um, although they admitted the part from the final book where the baby kicks inside Anastasia and she says the baby like sex to oh my god, stay in the movie, oh my god. The books there's such a nightmare. But there was a long trailer for a movie that made me angry because it's a movie called Blockers with a rooster at the front because it's like cock Blockers, but like they can't say cock for

some reason. And it was like the whole trailer was just to lead up to a really long joke about John Sana the wrestler who I guess as an actor now but chugging, And I was also like, who, who thinks this is that funny? Like it's maybe I don't know, just like the way the joke was set up and executed.

I was like, it's not that this couldn't be funny, but just like how they're doing it, it's so like, this is what we think a comedy is, Like, uh so I think you know, you know, it was a really good kids movie, but not in its entirety, but just like a slice of it was Flight of the Navigator when he's when he's just dealing with the creatures in the jars on the ship. You know, I've ever seen that one. It's pretty jankie Sarah Jessica Parker's in it,

and the bit rolled. But like I remember, if I could isolate, like something that I would want to expand on for a movie, it's a kid on a spaceship, just like rocking out to the Beach Boys and playing with little Finger puppets that are supposed to represent extraterrestrial life. I like how all of your Only Child fantasies were about like I'm a child, but I'm an adult I'm still living that life. UM. Well, great, thank you for

the Yeah, great call, great question. Um And if you have a question or a musing or a theory or a conspiracy theory, you can leave it for us at one to four oh four six night or email us at night Call podcast at gmail dot com and we will address it. I think that doesn't for sure. This week we have to drive off into the Cosmos. That yeah, we gotta we gotta drive our our classic car into the into space. This is Zamboni now doing the hand drive ye into space. I knew it would end this way. Well,

all right, we'll see everybody next week. M