Weird being way media Nike. Mister Walders.
Can see that guy with it now, he's an actor that.
I'm a cant driver. I'm the only camp driver in his place.
Good evening and welcome to night, mister Walters a Taxi podcast. I'm HP your co host and with me as always as my co host, Father Malone. Father Malone, how are you this evening? HB.
I got a we got a fifty percent chance of a sure thing here to now we.
Are talking Taxi Season two, episode twenty two art work. This was written by the Charles Brothers The Pride of Henderson, Nevada. This is Glenn Charles and Les Charles, of course, and directed by the erstwhile James Burrows reminder, we're doing these shows in broadcast order and not in order of filming. We opened in the garage as Tony positively bounds in Father Blone. He rushes in excitedly. We've seen a few times he's rushed in very excited about something lunkheaded, haven't we.
Oh yeah, and this reason is the best ever.
I actually like this setup. He says he's gonna make everybody rich rich. I tell you he's got a tip on a fight. You see, he can't lose. He overheard someone at the gym talking about a fighter named Johnson that has a broken hand, but he needs the money, so he's still going to fight. And this gets Alex, Bobby and even Jim reaching for their wallets. They're slavering because.
Jim, even Jim, Jim is no stranger of the gambling thing. He went and bought a horse with the money he won from gambling.
True, but it's not as if he's an inveterate gambler. He goes with the flow. Oh, I think a little bit.
I just wonder about him enjoying boxing, being the burnout hippie that he was, and it is.
Much, very much a pacifist. You would guess he would maybe be opposed to the idea of a blood sport.
I think, particularly one where he knows one of the contestants has a broken hand and he'll be profiting off of that.
Tony asks Slaka if he wants in too. And Elaine looking very chic by the way, in a purple jacket with a matching scarf. I thought it was a good outfit. What did you think?
I did not like it.
Because of the blue and purple mix.
Yeah, I did not like that mix and it seemed ill fitting on her. And I might be allowing my perception of her characterization here to reflect upon the outfit because I didn't like. I hate when they make Elaine the nag, the mom character of the garage, which is what they start out with her here.
I don't disagree, but we're gonna see. This is an art gallery focused episode, and I think when she has these art gallery situations, they like to give her a little more of an upscale, chic look, and I think that's why she looks so so trendy in this.
I think I wasn't complaining about the trendiness, just the fit. It seems not tailored very well. It's too loose. Basically, I just want to in skin tight clothes, let's face it. Age.
When she sees Lata getting involved, that's when her motherly instincts come in. But to your point, she becomes a bit of a nag, although I will say that in this case she's not nagging so much as expressing a lot of concern. She doesn't harangue Alex like she's done in the past. She doesn't get upset. She just says guys, why are you involving Lata? He doesn't have a lot of money. He's sending the money back home to his country. She seems concerned rather than nagging to what I'm seeing.
I don't know.
Okay, how about this. She's a wet blanket. I hate when she's a wet blanket. I'd like for her to just go. That's great, guys. I hope you make a lot of money and then you know what you should do with that money afterwards, invest in art because I got a scam going on the side.
Let's go again. She points out Locke doesn't have a lot of money, he doesn't even know what he's betting on, and but Tony is undeterred. He's excited. He says, it's a sure thing.
By the way, the other thing is it not even the mothering, not the nagging, but constantly treating Lotka like he's a child is kind of insulting. He was just about, he was just about to go back home and kill his former neighbors. He can handle a bet on a boxing match. He's not going to bet his life savings. They're not going to let him.
Do that, probably not, but he's here.
He will even Wheeler would stop him from doing that.
Sure, he will continue to be the wide eyed nape of the group until Simka gets into the picture. I think I'd have accepted that.
I think if Reverend Jim can hang with them, then soa can Loca. They're not steering him wrong, and they could easily do it with Jim.
And that is interesting. I wonder why she doesn't advocate for a Jim in the same way that she did.
She did in the exact same way, and then Jim ended up winning enough to buy a racehorse.
That's true. Loca is confused and he asks Alex what he would do if he were Laka, and this, I gotta say, I love this because it was a nice little bit of comedic foreshadowing. I'll call it that. What it leads to is Alex doing this little quick impression of Laca responding to Elane. Now, it's not the best Loca impression that he's always done, but physically I thought he did a wonderful job with the mannerisms. And what's interesting is Loaca will eventually become Alex during his struggles
with dissociative identity disorder. Another season or two down the road, how did you find I know we talked in the last episode about Alex, the many faces of Alex. What did you think of his impression of Laca.
I liked the impression. I thought him launching into it felt hacky and sitcomy. The transition there just didn't feel it felt forced. Also, the shuffle he does over to Louis, or rather to Elaine, made me think of Charlie Chaplin more than Laca. So then I was thinking about Laca and Charlie Chaplin and their similarities. And then I was just that it took me. I guess it took me
out of the scene. Hb. It was a good impression, but it left me elsewhere then focused on the plot, So maybe that digression wasn't necessary.
His his shuffle was a little bit chaplain esque. I agree with you there in retrospect, it does look like Charlie Chaplin.
I don't know.
I just thought I was charmed by it. And anyway, Loca says he's in with the bet and Bobby goes.
No, no, no, no, no no.
Wait, okay, what did I miss?
I've done with this impression? Yet? How much of that was a fuck you? To Andy Kaufman? From either the writers or the other performers. Also, the line you know you can make fun of it, but I know people who talk like that is a really good funny line that lack of throws back at him after the impression.
They've gone on record after the fact interviews all the actors on Taxi, they've they've talked about what a handful Andy Kaufman was, So yeah, I could see that being a little bit of gentle ribbing on their part to give it back to because he was known for falling, you know, falling into these characters and becoming these characters like Foreign Man and Elvis and all of this, and Tony Clifton of course.
So yeah, maybe, I mean that might not necessarily be So there is precedent on this show of characters impersonating other characters. We had Bobby Wheeler doing it for Louis at one point.
Yeah, so that was first season.
Yeah, in the grand tradition of Bobby Wheeler impersonating him, will have Alex impersonate Lock. Yet, meanwhile, fuck you, Andy.
The scene is just a little nothing, but I just thought it was clever. Nevertheless, Locke says he's in on the bet and Bobby goes to call it in at the payphone, but of course, in true taxi fashion, Bobby learns on the phone that both fighters are named Johnson, so there's no way for them to note which fighter is going to be they should be betting on because they're both named Johnson. So the sure thing goes out the way.
Here's the thing, now, you got it. They're gonna be odds for each of the fighters, right.
But I don't think it's as sophisticated as you're thinking of it. Now we're talking about some.
You bed five dollars on each fighter, right, What is the ratio of loss to win there?
You mean if you put an even amount on both.
Yeah, I put five dollars on both guys. I'm definitely gonna lose five dollars, but will I in ten? And if so, that's just even money. Right. But if it was like a ten to one thing, so you were gonna win fifty dollars and then you walk away with forty five, that's still a pretty good bet. Could be.
And Jim actually, as part of a joke, that's exactly what he says to do, we should put money on both. We have fifty percent odds on a sure thing, so he's probably not far off. I guess I don't know how the odds would work we're talking about. I mean, gambling is still illegal at this point in New York, so you've got it's probably some shady bookie who knows where he's pulling his odds from or whose odds maker is.
So it may not be quite as cut and dried, but it might have been worth the shop anyway.
I never just can you just do that across the board?
Been on both No, because then everybody would do it and there'd be no what.
I'm saying, are there things in place to keep people from doing this?
Like, because I don't think it's as simple as well, I will lose my initial bet on the one hand, but the other side, because the way the odds work the other side, the odds may be terrible, so you're not gonna get even money back. You're probably gonna it may be you bet a dollar to win fifty cents. I just have to assume that if it was that easy to do and that and dry, and everybody.
Would done it, Yeah, and it would all already be a corrupted business.
More so than it already is. So Tony's sure thing is out the window. They can't possibly go through with it. And Elaine, of course, being to your parlance, the wet blanket, she can't help but smile at this turn of events. She launches into this speech about how she sees the cabbys miss every day on so called sure things, but at the art gallery, this is where the art gallery comes in. She sees the rich getting richer all the time.
They were always gambling and they always hit just once, and says she wants to see them win for a change, and this sort.
Of Oceans eleven, She's like, putting the team together here, we're going for this tittling bullshit. We should be going for a big score. We're staking the same risk.
It's it's fun and that that that way, you're right. Because as she's launching into this sort of little monologue, like Alex is actually intrigued and he says, well, how can they do that? And Elaine replies by well, by making intelligent investments. Elaine says, she finds paintings that she knows that's the year's But before we go into this, I thought Elaine was just working in like a secretarial role at the art gallery. Am I mistaken on this, Father.
Malone, No, you're not. She certainly was an appraiser.
Well, and that's but she's painting this picture, she says. She finds paintings that she knows will go up in value, she gets other people to invest in them, and then they be rich. To my way of thinking, that she's appraising artwork, she's like a broker of art that seems a little out of her sphere of influence. I don't know, maybe it's me.
You know, people in that position are making a commission that would alleviate the need to be a cab driver.
Even if she's making let's say, let's call it five percent commission, right, So five percent. So if somebody makes one hundred thousand dollars, right, she stands to make a five thousand dollars commission. If my math is right, that's good money. Now, that's good money. That's great money in nineteen eighty So why the hell is she still driving a cab?
She's not, And I'll right that she has to be because the writers have fucked this up, because they should have just kept her as a receptionist. And she could say something to the effect of listen, I'm not the appraiser there, but nine times out of ten I know what it is and he doesn't. No one listens to me there yet, but I know.
You're one hundred percent right. They could have very easily patched this hole in the logic by saying, I just I sit there, I listen, I see what they're they're betting on, and I know that they're wrong, and my short things are always hitting. But I don't have the money to spend the or the clout to make my
opinion really known. So and that would have actually given her the motivation to push forward with this scheme with the Cabby's, because then it really is an Ocean's eleven type of situation where she's trying to get to get ahead just once.
And it's above board and would only further her career there if she proves that, you know, she can play with play with them.
Would have been great. But as it stands, I'm willing to overlook it because I liked where this episode is going. Alex correctly points out to Elaine that if she does it for these people, she could just as easily do it for them, or for herself for that matter. Elaine backs off At this point, she says that she doesn't like to look at art that way. Alex continues to try to persuade her, but go work.
At a museum, That's what he should have said that. Oh yeah, why are you in a fucking art gallery? Then why are you dealing with art that's making fucking millions of dollars? What are you talking about right now? Eline, you don't want to make money at this.
Well, for all of her professed love of purity of art, the fact that she even admits that she's kind of played the odds with the art market, so to speak, it proves to me that she's not above this at all. I think she's just, I don't know, she gets cold feet because she doesn't want to prove to the Cabby's that maybe she's not shouldn't have quite the cloud that she indicates. I don't know, Maybe it's something like that.
Alex keeps trying to persuade her. She says she doesn't want to use art to make money, she loves it, and the rest of the Cabbys start plotting how much money they could pull together for this scheme, even though Elaine's kind of not really into it. Elini's firm. She's not doing an end of story. And this is where Alex again pulls out the old reverse psychology trick, where he sort of stops and says, you know what, I
think you were just showing off for us, Elaine. You don't know people in art, you don't And incredibly, Elaine takes the bait almost immediately. Did you notice that she doesn't she should understand what Alex is trying to put over on her.
Don't you think she always falls for this?
She seems to maybe she trusts.
Again in the next episode she does, so, yeah, this is a.
Thing anyway, Elaine, like I said, she takes the bait, and she counters that you know what, I know of an opportunity right now that we be a great investment opportunity. There's an artist named Max Duffin who must be again must be some member of the crew somewhere, and a director who's going to be huge. She says, they could get a painting at auction for two grand, and by the end of the year it'll be worth five grand.
Now back to my favorite website, amortization dot org. Two thousand dollars in nineteen eighty father alone would be worth eight thousand in twenty twenty four. That's big money. That's a lot of money for them to pull together just these caves and five thousand dollars. Let's say the investment caps off at five grand return. That would be a cool twenty thousand dollars in twenty twenty four.
Money.
That's pretty good. Split four or five ways or whatever. That's not bad. That is big money.
That is big money.
Bobby gets even more excited, saying they could really make a fortune if they continue to do this. Elaine says, well, not a fortune, maybe one hundred grand apiece, which again would be four hundred thousand dollars in twenty twenty four. Money can split a month.
This. We're so close to the end of this season that this kind of pointed to a direction that the show could be in where they're all trading art while driving cabs for an entire season. It could be like, you know, taxi and art, and so they mainly cruise the museum district.
Picking up artists and getting on one of the art school.
You know.
Alex makes an impassioned plea to a stubborn a Lane to try and get her to agree to this caper, he breaks out a recitation of a poem called If by Rudyard Kipling, which I'm not I can't claim to be familiar with Kipling, but but in a funny bit, Jim basically takes over the recitation perfectly, much to his own surprise, because he wraps up and he says, how do I knowle that? So? I thought that was good.
I loved seeing Christopher Lloyd involved anyway, and it's just funny to see him take over this poem that Alex is reciting. And Elaine is amused too, because she finally decides to help all the caves. Bobby asks if she's sure it'll work, and Elaine admits that ghoulishly Duffin is an old man in bad health, and when he dies, his artwork will go up in value, so it's it. Really, this is the definition of a sure thing in her opinion.
Well remember you forever, Eddie.
This whole scheme is now piquing Louie's interest, as one would expect, and he asks for more details on Duffin's health because Louis figures that buying one of Duffin's paintings is like betting that he's going to die, which is actually kind of the core of Elaine's scheme, right, she knows this guy's in bad health. Once he kicks the bucket, the paintings in a skyrocket and they'll make money. Simple.
It's a more refined dead Pool. The original Deadpool. What that actually was was people with bet on who was going to die that year. That's what a Deadpool actually is. Fucked remember that movie The Deadpool.
Oh with Clint Eastwoods at the Last Dirty Harry movie.
That is the last Dirty Harry movie, And that's about people betting on celebrities who are going to die and then somebody actually killing the people on the list. Yeah.
Liam Neeson was the like this director in that right, he's directing music videos. Then he gets killed.
I think, yeah, well is he is? He? I forget? I do remember that Jim Carrey is the star of the music video lip Sync into Guns N' Roses Welcome to the Jungle.
I remember that. Yeah.
I also remember seeing at the time Slash interviewed about the song appearing in the film, and he said, oh, no, that's cool, but they had some like fucking dweeb like singing the song in the movie.
One are the all time great comedic actors now slashers in the movie. He has a little cameo in The dead Pool.
Have to rewatch the dead Pool.
Yeah, that was a good movie, But that wasn't like they had gotten so far from the notion of Harry Callahan, the character the sort of break all the rules. It was just a cop movie, but it was good. Right.
Remember when at the end of the first film he throws his badge away and quits the force.
Good call on the dead Pool because now you say Deadpool and everybody just thinks of Ryan Reynolds and the character the murk with a mouth, speaking of the mouth's big mouths. Louis wants in, but everybody refuses. Louis maintains that he's got a bank roll that can help them score the painting. Laye calls for a discussion amongst the other cabbys. They try to hash out how much money they have to pool for this.
Here's one of my favorite parts of the episode, Alex confessing he doesn't have that much money because of all the skiing he's been doing.
I loved it's a nice callback to the last couple of episodes where he's actually been you know, he's been on his ski trip and he got back and whatever.
I say that this so yeah. I also put to Alex on more even footing with the other cabbies in my mind, because in that first season they took pains to show how stable he was, that he had a reserve of money that he could lend out to people if necessary. Now knowing he's basically like everyone else living check to check, I'm like, oh, that's I don't know. It adds another dynamic to the show.
I agree, And it even just the notion that he's in on all of this betting, and even the Tony Sure thing at the very beginning. That to me, I think they've done a good job in this season, especially bringing him to your point on the same level as the rest of the cabbies. He's no longer just this unimpeachable voice of reason that they all go to. I think he's a more human as a result, and I like that about about this season.
I agree the Daredevil episode had been about Bobby Wheeler, who would have cared, but it works because it's Alex Rieger.
Another great point. All together, they can only come up with seven hundred dollars and they need two thousand to buy this painting at auction, so reluctantly they take a final vote and Louis is in. As we cut the commercial, we cut back. We've got a new piece of b roll that we haven't seen before. Bottom alone. This one was interesting. It's the windows of an art gallery at night. Did you look at this to try and figure out, like I did, what this actually was in real life?
I did not. I was leaving. It is not you, I'm hp. I'm very busy. Is this. I can't can't be freeze framing and zooming in and then doing picture searches online for taxi anymore.
Brother, I've spent far too much time doing this, and I don't have any great revelation. I have to say. It appears to be the Ryan Gallery r y N Gallery. The number on the window is six 't eighty. But try as I might, I couldn't find that there was information on a Ryan Gallery in the eighties. A lot of paintings are praised through this art gallery, but there's really not much info that I could find beyond that.
I against you.
That's okay.
I don't think we're even going to see that footage every again.
Probably well, maybe there's I think there's going to be more hijinks at the art gallery at some point, so maybe we will, maybe we won't.
But I was always do a weird freeze frame and then a zoom into that freeze frame.
True. I just thought it was a missed opportunity because it's rare that you get such a clear view of the name of facade or a place they're going to visit and a street number. But for some reason, I mean, Google just doesn't work anymore. I don't know, but I couldn't find any more information on it. It's too bad.
So we cut inside where a lane. Bobby and Alex walk into the auction as a lane signs in side note, Elaine is looking very powerful in a blue suit, like a power suit, where Alex is wearing kind of a light brown suit. Usually he wears the dark brown. We've seen him in the dark brown when Zena's parents had them over for dinner. That's what he was wearing. He looks okay, but somehow father alone, I don't know if you notice this, Bobby is looking so slumpy. He's got
a brown hounds tooth blazer and rust colored tie. Where's the fashion plate? No cowboy attire. What's going on with Bobby?
I know what he is? His Viking helmet out for polishing, Like, what is this bullshit?
His fashion can be hit or miss, but even the misses you can see he's grasping for something trendy. There's nothing trendy. It's all ill fitting and it just looks. It doesn't look good on him at all. It's just very, very bad look for him.
This smack's a Jeff Conaway walks onto the set super late and they just go get out there.
Speaking of Bobby, he remarks about the thrill and co into contact with great art, but Elaine tempers his excitement by saying the art and lobby is just prints and reproductions. It's all pretty much worthless. The real art is in the other room, which we'll see in a minute. I have things to say about that. Louis and Laca walk in. Louis has his customary gray suit pink shirt. Well, Laka is in an ill fitting salmon colored suit with huge lapels.
It kind of looked like do you remember my cousin Vinnie When Vinnie's suit got mud splashed on it and he had to go the only suit he could find was at like the used clothing store or something, and it was like a foghorn leghorn kind of a suit. It kind of looked like that a little bit, didn't Did you notice that?
Yes, you mean like the Seven Days Man?
Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, kind of. Yeah. I guess that's ultimately what it is. Well, we're getting to him. Tony and Jim stroll in somehow. By the way, Tony is the easiest, breeziest of all of them. He's got a blue suit, no tie. He looks very cool but sharp. I thought he looked sharp now. Jim, however, has made his Canadian tuxedo literal. He's got a tie on and
Bobby asks, well, why didn't you wear the suit? That Maybe that's why Bobby doesn't have a suit, because he loaned his suit to Reverend Jim to wear, and Jim says it didn't fit. But wouldn't you know it, they share the same necktie size. So ha ha.
Here we are besmirching the name of Jeff Conaway when it's explained in the episode why he is wearing an ill fitting outfit.
Yeah, but I don't buy that. I don't buy that. Bobby would give his best outfit to Reverend Jim to wear. I think he's giving him like he's going to the back of the closet, going God, when did I buy this? This will? Maybe Jim can make something out of this. Elaine ushers them into the auction hall, where there's an assemblage of people already seated. But here, I'm curious what your impressions were. I got to hand it to the
set decoration. Yet again, it's entirely believable. There's a lectern where the auctioneer is going to stand, there's a row of flowers in front of the little stage. But the most clever thing I thought was there's a center carpet line running all the way to the back of the stage effectively. And what it does is it gives the illusion that this room is actually twice as big, like this is a center aisle, like you would have it like a wedding or a function hall. So I thought
it was really effective and it worked for me. What did you think of the auction hall?
I didn't even register it was a set. I liked it so much.
It was good, wasn't it.
Yeah? And you know what, it's funny because it's been a while since they've wowed us with a off site set. But yeah, no, I like this one a lot.
It was good. So the come in they try and act cool. They file past the painting they're going to bid on, and Louie and Tony express some surprise that a painting like this would be worth so much. It's just there's it's just like an abstract picture. There's nothing really interesting about it. Tony remarks, it's untitled. For two thousand dollars, you think they'd throw in a name, so
Tony ever, the simpleton. After some more banter about the painting, they take their seats, but the front row is filled and Louis does the old coughing fit routine, which clears out the first two rows of seats and the Cabby's take their place for the auction.
Ever done that something like that?
HP? Oh, all the time? Well it's less necessary now. For example, would I would do it most often when I went to the movies before they had assigned seats that you could you could get the seat you wanted. So yeah, I did that all the time. What about you?
I don't know that I did the coughing fit, but pandemic when I was flying a lot. If it wasn't going to be a full flight and I didn't want someone to sit next to me, I certainly would take the vomit bag out and just sort of have it on my lap and look nervously at everyone who was looking at potentially sitting next to me, and good lord, they would just keep on moving.
HM. Much more subtle and effective, I think. So they sit down and Elaine is fretting about the projected value of the painting. It's going to go. It's projected to go between one thousand and eighteen hundred bucks, and she again goes back to Louis and says asks if he has any more cash, but he says he sunk everything into it. She says, you always talk about having money, and he says, yeah, I have money, but most of my cash is sunk in investments. Despite his better judgment.
Alex asks about these investments, and do you remember what his big investment that he describes as father balone.
It's like a nursing home, right.
Yeah, it's a nursing home in Jersey. So the auction starts in the first painting is a a nude, which just the hearing about it gets the simpleton Banta all excited. Oh yeah, I think he goes yes like one of those.
Can't take him anywhere. You know what, he's the best looking, he's the sharpest, as you said looking, and then clearly the dumbest just can't help himself.
What I love and what we should probably just mention as this is all going is and maybe this is a little foreshadowing for the Yellow Lights piece, but I gotta say I love the whole ensemble is gathered in the service of this scheme that they have going, and it's such a delight. Tony seems like he's excited about it. Everybody is pitching into the comedy and it's very very funny, and I don't know, I just it's rollicking and I'm really really here for it. What did you think so far?
I'd like to amend my earlier idea of a season of them art brokering and instead a season of them as art thieves, because I agree with you. I love seeing them together and doing their thing.
It's we harp on this every single episode of when we're rating the episode. Well, I say it all the time. Well, there's not a lot of interaction between the caves or this cavey's missing, or this actor is missing. But this is it's so wonderful that they're all together. They're all funny, they're all pitching in, they have the little bits. It's just wonderful. I at this point, I'm just loving the
episode anyway. Like I said, there's this reveal of this nude painting, and it's an abstract kind of cubist image, which Jim stands up in surprise and says, O, my god, I know her, and it's a completely unrecognizable it doesn't even look like a human being. Of course, Jim is going to go, I know her. I thought it was hilarious.
That line made me flash back because that bit was used on WLVII TV fifty six and they're advertising for taxi. That was one of the little clips that they use. My god, I know her.
We fade out and we fade back in, giving the impression that some time has passed and now their painting is coming up for bidding. Louis figures a good strategy is to make it sound like the painting is garbage, so he starts carrying on. He's blowing raspberries and saying stuff like yikes, how did that get in here. It's great Louis slash Danny DeVito. He's awesome in this. They're
all great, but he's really funny. The bidding for this painting starts at one thousand dollars, and Elaine is following with her paddle the increasing bidding. It's basically between her and an older gentleman behind them, who keeps out bidding her pretty quickly. The bidding increases to the Cabby's limit of two thousand dollars, but at the last minute it
looks like they're going to get it. But then at the last minute, this other auction, this other bidder, goes up to twenty one hundred, and Louis makes a threat that this guy better not spend his tw years at Sunset Acres, which I think is the place in Jersey they referenced. Eventually, the painting is just priced out of their reach entirely, and Louie actually lunges at that other bitter and frustration. He's just so upset. I think it's
sold for twenty nine hundred dollars in total. And then immediately after the gavel falls on the painting, somebody rushes in and whispers to the auctioneer, and he then makes this announcement to the assembled gathering that duff and Max Duffin died earlier that morning, which I think at that point Louis is moaning in just anguish at this. So this is yet another I mean, what we're seeing here basically Father Malone, And I'm surprised you haven't mentioned this.
This is another aspirational episode.
Here's why I would have brought this up in yellow lights. Here's why I didn't bring it up because nine times out of ten aspirational episodes on this show about one character trying to get out of the garage. This is the group just trying to get ahead. No one's escaping the life, no one's getting rich, no one's fulfilling their career goals. Here, They're just all pulling together in one direction. So that kind of aspiration is very welcome.
True that this was never going to change their lives. Anyone caves lives immeasurably. This was going to be a nice side hustle for them and maybe help them get over some of the hard times. But so I agree with you there, this isn't aspirational in the truest sense. And now we fade. I'm sorry, I skipped ahead.
Don't skip ahead, got to deal with the Maudlin part of this episode.
Well, no, we're getting to it. But I liked it. I liked it. So we cut to the lobby of this auction house and Louis is just kicking himself forever believing that this was going to work. I think he says something to the effect of, for you, caves losing as a w life, but for me, it's bad for
my system. He makes a lot of other loser cracks at the rest of the Cabby's, and Bobby reckons this is no great revelation, but he says that this proves you got to have money to make money, and he gets up and suggests they all go to Marios for a beer, and they're all filing out, but then Alex says, no, I want to stay. I want to check out the artwork. He says, I came here to buy a piece of art, and I'm going to buy a piece of art, even if it's not original. He wants to buy something he likes.
Bobby agrees, and then the rest of the Cabby's all come on board and they all start browsing through these reproductions of art and paintings and things. And Alex is looking at a bust of it's like Plato or Aristotle or something I couldn't tell, and he decides to buy it. And throughout the whole scene here's the Maudlin part. Elaine is looking at all the cabbys with an almost motherly pride because in her I'm sure she's saying, they get
it now. It's they're appreciating the art for something greater than just something to make money off of.
No, that's not the Modlin part. The Modlin part was Alex pyeing that fucking statue. That's the modlent.
How was that Madlin?
It just seems so I don't know, it just seemed like a button I don't know, for whatever reason HP that seemed tacked on everyone. If they hadn't done that, and then they cut to everyone bought a painting for some reason, that would have been more impactful for me.
I will say. Alex is very childlike about his fascination with this bust, Like he picks it up and says, all right, come on, we're gonna leave now. I don't know, there's something he very potemic in his approach to this bus that it was a little weird, but I didn't think it was Maudlin. I thought it was a little weird, but I was fine with it because he's he's trying to get out of himself a little bit and make the best of a bad situation. So I thought it was fine.
Oh look, you know what, man, I would have bought a piece of artwork too, you know what I mean, like not bagging on the situation. I just felt like they needed us to feel better right then and there. So that's what we got because they didn't win. And you know, I don't know whatever.
I mean, but how else do you end it? You just haven't got to Marios and say, well, that's it. You gotta have something.
No, well and no. They go to Marios and then they start appraising the paintings and Marios, I look at that thing, Tommy, Tommy, you take that down. We gotta gotta get this place looking better. Man.
That is so ghost, Tommy, where did you get that? We fade back into the garage and the Cabbys have set up sort of a makeshift art gallery of all the art work that they bought at the auction, and Elaine is going from person to person giving her nodding of approval, and according to Love's and the Official Taxi Fan Guide, the actors were given their choice of paintings from a small selection to reflect their character's personality, which is why these are also.
I wish we had seen the full gamut of what they were allowed to choose from, to see what was left behind. Honestly, that's as important they chose.
The artwork they chose is all very on the nose, right, So we start off with.
A lot of those paintings, HP, I Love, Can I just say that I agree?
I wonder if it's the same thing is it's got to be Bobby's, right, of course it's Bobby's. So we start off with Laka, and Laka has bought a watercolor of the nation's capital, which it makes sense because he's the immigrant whose believes in America.
Whatever, it's terrible anyway, next it's.
Bad, and then the next one. Tony has picked out the biggest painting of a seagull in flight that you've ever seen. It's probably to match the scale of his Easy Comics plaque of the giant dead fish plaque in his wall. This is the only thing that dwarfs it.
Don't forget he's got gigantic barren walls. That apartment is like two lofts, like split down the middle and caught chopped in half. It's so weird, like he needs that.
He does need a lot of He's got a little wall.
Space thing in there, just like it's the idea that he could look at some nature somehow.
Well. I sort of figured it was maybe a callback to song Gonna Fly Now, the rocky theme. I thought maybe that was part of why he chose to reaching my man could be, could be. Then we get to our favorite painting, both of us. Bobby's picked out a realistic rendering of an electrical outlet. It's like something that Andy Warhol has painted, right.
It's so much better. It's a fucking It's like a four foot by three foot painting of an electrical socket. I loved it.
It's awesome. It's perfectly proportional as a light socket. It looks exactly, it's got shading, it look perfect. So that was my favorite. But that's what Bobby picked out.
This is why we are not part of the art world.
You and I I think, so I gotta find It's like there's no interpretation necessary. It's just a light socket beautiful. Then we pan over and Alex is weirdly staring into the eyes of the bust that he's bought of Plato or whatever. And then Jim has bought this two thousand and one esque painting of monolith, kind of.
With a cloud resting in the middle of a starfield or something.
It's I thought it was like an island in the middle of the water with heavenly lines coming off of it.
It was very, very much what art.
So. And then of course Louis walks in and he's bought I don't know why this would have been on sale and a reputable art auction, but he's bought a cheesy black velvet nude. That's like the size. It's huge. It's like four foot by two foot or something. It's big.
It's a landscape velvet oil painting. It's not a nude, by the way. She's fully closed, sure, but it may as well be a nude. I mean, she's a preveyor of velvet paintings. I now am the proud owner of many. I gotta say that it was a fine painting.
It was fine.
Of all the art purchased. Honestly, that's the one I would probably hang.
Yeah, you just said you'd want the Bobby's painting of this.
I say, I love Bobby's painting, but when I really consider it, I would think, what are you doing? Man's It really is just a wall socket.
But Louise is just an excuse for a one final laugh before the show is over. And we get that.
That's fine.
That is the end of the episode. Now, as is our custom, let's talk yellow lights. What does a yellow light me? Just a reminder we grave these on a scale from one to five yellow lights. One is the worst taxi episode and five is the best taxi episode. And as is our custom, also, I'm gonna throw it to you to give us your grade on artwork.
Father alone, you can consider me at the golf course, HB. Because I'm on in four four four yellow lights?
Why did you knock it down one from perfection? Let me ask that.
It's not. The ending was kind of modeless.
You're hung up on this Alex thing with the bust.
I didn't like it all right. Also, I also I didn't like I didn't like Naggy Lane at the beginning.
I didn't mind it so much, and that's why I gave it five yellow lights, the coveted five yellow lights, because this, as I said before, Father Malone, you can wag your you can nod your head or shake your head at me all you want, but you did you totally kind of like went like this.
Didn't at all. Listeners, he's lying there.
You gave me the gas face from just then. That's what you did.
Always give you the gas face with the permanent gas look.
El Roy, el Roy Cohen gets the gas face. My reasons are very simple. This is the rare instance where all of the cabvi's are present and involved in the plot. This to me is taxi ensemble comedy. It's finest. Five yellow lights from me, four yellow lights from father.
Oh no, no, I'm amending mine. Now, okay, I'm going to three. I'm going to three strictly out of spite. Okay, why because you came at me for some head thing that didn't occur. So I'm now nullifying your perfect score by removing one of my stars.
Well, you know what, this is being recorded on zoom. I'll play it back for you and you'll see that you didn't know you were doing it, but you gave me a shake of the head.
Listen, man, I'm bobbing, I'm bobbing, I'm weaving. That's what I do over on my end of things. Okay, But why would you take.
It out on the Why would you take it out on the episode though that it's done nothing to you?
Who's taking out in the episode you did?
You're knocking it down one light just because I accuse you of nodding your.
Head right, there are consequences to your actions in Sunshine Cab, my man, whatever.
I you know what, there's such a thing called integrity.
Father Malone, bing bing bing, that's three three other lights?
All right? Anyway, before this thing gets docked even more, we're going to stop it. There. Five for me, three from Father Malone. That's going to do it for this episode of night, Mister Walters, Father Malone, where can the people find you when you're not clocked into the garage?
I have a show called Midnight Viewing. It's on twice a week Mondays. It's Father Malone's weekly round up where we look at all the new stuff that came out over the weekend. And on Fridays it alternates between the Horror Anthology podcast where we look at horror anthology television currently looking at Tales from the Dark Side and anthologies Attack, which I do with Antonio Lapour, where we look at anthologies of every variety and genre.
Movie wise, I entreat you check out the weekly Roundup. It's a great well. First of all, it's a great primer for the kind of content that you can get from Father Malone. I love it. It's a great capsule of things that are coming out on streaming or any new movies coming out that week. He gives you a leg up on what to expect. He gives his opinion on them. It's funny. I just love it. It's great. It's a great way to start your week. And I'm gonna, you know what, Father Malone, I'm going to listen to
that as soon as we're done recording this. That's what I'm gonna do.
I'm sorry though.
As for myself, you can find me also in other areas of the weirding Way Network. I do a podcast. I've taken over a podcast called Noise Junkies, which is a music podcast that I've been enjoying doing some new episodes dropping on that, so please check that out. I'm also an occasional guest on The Culture Cast with Chris Dashu and I have a band campsite hpmusicplaces dot bandcamp dot com. Hey father Blone, I just dropped a new album.
Oh my god, yes you did. It's really finally, man.
It's been how many years of me saying, well, new content. So it's an album called Wired and Waiting. I'm very very pleased with it. If you like kind of eighties synthwave, synthpop, old eighties action movie soundtrack stuff, this is I get you covered. Please check it out. It's free to listen to.
Quarter Flash in there too. Man, I've heard some quarter Flash in there.
Quarterfly. I don't have any saxophone, though.
You don't need sacks to be quarter flash.
That's fair, That's fair. Anyway, it was a lot of fun to do, and I'm so proud of this new album, so please check it out. I think you'll be you'll be happy listening to it. So anyway, like I said, that's going to do it for this episode. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to subscribe to this podcast, write a review or ratus. We'd love to hear from you in any manner you see fit So for myself and for Father Malone. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time. Thank mister Walders