Spotlight Series: Copa Catania On Hollywood, Writing, & More (SS 2)

[00:00:03]

And welcome back to the Lambency show. This is The Creator Spotlight, and I am joined here by my fellow host of Vex Electronica and the star of the evening, Copa Catania. Apparently, I cannot spell it either because I put setting up as a E edding up. I have problems. Nice.

[00:00:20]

Yeah, nice. But this is the Creator Spotlight that we have recently revived. We have already interviewed Canole, and now we are interviewing Copa Catania, the hottest guy north of Havana.

[00:00:38]

How are you doing, Copa? Let's get the Berry Man a little out of the way now. Well, it's funny how you thought I wouldn't get the reference, but immediately before I even hit you up, I had actually said to Konoli about how I'm like I like how he took Barry Mandalo's song and made it his own. I didn't even do that. That was someone else that did it.

[00:01:02]

But if the title of my show makes me a Barry Manalo fan, then damn it, I'm a Barry Manalo fan. I mean, hey, I can't deny Barry Manalo had some hits. Yeah, I can't name one other than Copa Catania. But it's all good because I'll be honest and stuff, I look at you and I just realize we're just both ships who pass through the night. And I saw the state.

[00:01:28]

I can feel it. I feel that one. I'm becoming a fan, Aloe, as we speak. You're becoming a fan Aloe. So what brings you here onto this and stuff?

[00:01:39]

What are some of the things you're hoping to talk about during this interview? Well, let's talk about everything else but me and I'll be comfortable ma'am. Why would I do that? I don't know. This is a Creator Spotlight breath.

[00:01:54]

All right. Yeah, I'll talk about the channel. My new Copa Catania Channel. Copa Casania Channel. Talk about that.

[00:02:03]

Talk about my new book. We could talk about some of the past things I did and some of the past things I didn't do, but I will claim them anyways. Fair enough. So, Vex, I know you have a couple of questions in there, and we'll alternate between questions and stuff. I know this one was yours.

[00:02:19]

I'm going to let you take the lead from here on this one. Okay? Sorry. Okay. I thought I lost.

[00:02:24]

I'm like, well, we're already just started and we're already a man down. Okay. So, Copa, you're originally from the west coast? You're from california. So what did you do out there before you relocated out east?

[00:02:41]

I was a director, editor, screenwriter out there in the good old Hollywood, California, USA. That's what I was up to. So what kind of things did you kind of direct and write? Do you have any examples you can give us? Something we can check out on the IMDb?

[00:02:59]

On the IMDb is not really because most of the things that I directed was like, commercials or they would be like, fancy cut screens to interviews and stuff like that or like music videos. Sometimes I would direct to local bands that never went anywhere. A lot of promos, a lot of local commercials for local businesses, like hat companies and stuff like that. That was the directing. And then the writing was more script Doctoring than anything else.

[00:03:32]

That's kind of where I got my foot in the door as a writer with Script Doctoring. What is script, doctoring? Script Doctoring could be a lot of different things. You could be fixing plot points where the studio says, like, we're having problems with this plot or we're having problems with the dialogue or we're having problems with characterization. And they'll get somebody who's not a part of the WGA to come in and just kind of doctor it up.

[00:04:01]

The Writers Guild of America become doctor it up and things of that nature so they don't have to pay them dues.

[00:04:09]

Usually with me, they would call me in to doctor up dialogue or to do funny little quirky things. It was my friends that usually did it. Call me in the office and asked for some dialogue. Punch up the dialogue. They would always say, Sharpen it.

[00:04:24]

They want the dialogue sharpened. They want this cheddar sharp is what they used to say. Weird people. That's an interesting phrase. Yeah, we want this cheddar sharp.

[00:04:35]

And I'm like, I know what you're talking about. So I would throw ideas at them. If it was like an office visit or whatever, I'd throw ideas. And if it stuck, they'd throw me an NDA in a check. Yeah, I was doing that for a while, but the real money maker was editing.

[00:04:54]

Once I got into editing, that's when everything just started really taken off for me career wise out there in Hollywood. So when you say editing, are we talking editing just like some of those videos, like music videos and commercials you mentioned? Or in what capacity were you editing things? Yeah, so I was editing everything and anything out there. I edited short films.

[00:05:16]

The only thing I didn't edit was a feature film. But everything else that you can think of, I was chopping up. So I was cutting promos, I was cutting music videos, I was cutting short films. One of the first things I got attached to as an editor was a short film.

[00:05:33]

I was just thrown into the fire with that one, with editing. And I've been editing ever since. Wow. Okay, so this is a question I don't have written down. So sorry.

[00:05:43]

Lambency when you're editing because when you're editing your own content, for example, it's like, oh, there's that drive for you to kind of make good content. And you know what? It is kind of inside and out. But when you're given things that aren't your own creation or maybe they're not in your interest, did you ever find there were any difficulties that you would encounter just from a purely unbiased perspective, editing things did you get any mental blocks or lost interest a lot of the time? That kind of thing?

[00:06:15]

Well, you're always going to get material you don't really care for. You're just kind of sitting there going, this is crap. The story is crap.

[00:06:26]

There's nothing you're going to be able to cut to make this story any better. So you kind of have to put that aside. As soon as you start seeing where this is going, you kind of put that aside. And what you basically have to do, like, I've gotten some crap short films, and what you basically have to do is put that aside and go, okay, what's the best story I can squeeze out of this? So you really start using your creative juices as a story writer.

[00:06:51]

So that helps me being a script writer first, that really helped me be able to look at film and go, okay, I can piece this together in a different way that might make this more interesting, and we can hide a lot of the flaws that are going on. The funnier thing with that is, in the editing bay, it's not just you. You have a lot of ego to deal with. There's so much ego happening because you have the producer who paid money for this project. You have the director who has this vision of the project, and then you'll have some actresses.

[00:07:24]

And actresses will have it in their contracts that they'll have, say, on how they're cut and how they're acting. And if they don't like the way they look, you might have to throw out the take that you wanted. So it really turns into this psychological mind game with everybody and how to navigate various personalities and various egos. So you turn into more of a psychologist at a certain point.

[00:07:53]

It really is. And then, so as an editor, one of the first things you learn is you have to drop your ego because there's going to be plenty fill in the room. Yeah. But yeah, there's a lot more mind games than a lot of people like to discuss. And I think that's one thing that they don't teach you is that, hey, you're going to be a psychologist.

[00:08:14]

You're going to have to figure out ways to trick and manipulate people. You're going to have to figure out ways that makes them happy and you happy, or you're going to have to figure out ways that ultimately makes them happy. And you're just going to have to wash your hands of it. And that's really where the collaboration of filmmaking comes in. I've been in plenty of fights where you're fighting over one frame to cut off or keep on.

[00:08:37]

I've had those fights. And a lot of times you can get away with, oh yeah, I took it off when you really didn't. And then you show it to them and you go, what do you think? I took the frame off like you said, it looks better. And they go, yeah, it looks good.

[00:08:51]

So you realize you're dealing more with ego than you are dealing with somebody who knows what they're talking about. Nine times out of ten, that trick works. And then from there on, usually if I get into that fight, that's where I go, okay, I'm dealing with ego, so I'll just have to navigate those waters. But no one prepares for that. No one prepares you to oscillate between the actual job and being a psychologist.

[00:09:15]

When you go through training or whatever, you go through film school, it's really fun. It was really fun to learn all that on the fly. I feel like that's something people don't prepare you for in general, with any workplace. I kind of, like, can relate to you in that sense. Like, I work through a multitude of industries, actually, and I find that each one of those you end up having to like you mentioned, there's a psychological aspect to it all that nobody really prepares you for.

[00:09:43]

They just kind of get you the, oh, here's the black and white. Here's the nitty gritty. And then they completely leave out that there's an entire mental side and emotional side to this that not only do you have to deal with in other people, but you have to have yourself if you want to be successful or happy or productive in that area, too. Right. So I can totally understand where you're coming from.

[00:10:05]

So when it comes to them, those kind of oh, sorry. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I was just going to add on. To go ahead, please.

[00:10:11]

Yeah.

[00:10:14]

With any job, you realize and some people takes a lot longer than others, you realize politics. And I'm not talking politics as in, like, Republican, Democrat politics, but politics in a human sense is always going to infiltrate groups of human beings. So I don't want to say you have to be mock of alien, because that is a disgusting term, but you just really have to learn how to play the game and kind of go with the flow. And at the same time, you also have to know when to put your foot down and when to fight for something, especially on a creative level. There are times where you go, I got to let go.

[00:10:50]

Like, this is for the team. The producer wants it this way. We're going to do it this way. The director says he wants to do it this way, we'll do it this way. But then there's other times where there's something that's just not working, and you have to put your foot down and say, Absolutely not.

[00:11:02]

You can't do it this way, you can't cut it this way, or you can't have your Quentin Tarantino out of time, time placement, plot points, because the story just doesn't work that way. We never pieced together in that way to begin with, and sometimes that's what goes with a collaborative effort is sometimes you just have to learn how to play the game. Got you. Then in that respect, then what are some of like, I understand that maybe you don't have to name specific names or anything and you might still be I don't know what the limitation is for NDAs in some cases, but then what are some kind of either like the wilder or more surreal experiences than that you've had in that industry? I had a great time in Hollywood where I was in the standpoint.

[00:11:51]

There was a couple of times where there's little here and there typical, like what you see in the workplace that was out of line or whatever, but it got corrected. I never really saw anything or was a part of anything where I was just like, this is wild. I have friends who have a deeper set of stories than I do, but I had a really positive experience with my time in Hollywood, I really did. But when you start getting into that upper epsilon of the Hollywood ring, that's when the Wilder and wilder stuff goes down and somebody's having a threesome. The star who's married is having a threesome with other people, and it's kind of out in the open on set, but then the husband shows up and everybody's kind of quiet about it.

[00:12:44]

Your typical drama, your typical Hollywood drama that you hear about, read about and stuff like that, that goes on all the time. Interesting, weird culty stuff I never saw I can't think of. So you're saying the Church of Scientology yet? No, I will say that there was a person along the same lines of Cruz one time who this was kind of funny. He was working on a movie, this actor, and he's a pretty big actor, and this was the first time I ever seen Hollywood power.

[00:13:21]

Actually, it wielded. We were on set at Sony Pictures and he got a call in the middle of a take, and it was a very important call because he cleared the lot. And when I mean cleared the lot, I mean, all the stages cleared out for him to take this call. And I mean, when I'm talking stages, I'm talking like ten stages on that lot just shut down because this one person was taking a call outside so no one could roll no one can roll film. Everybody had to sit in silence and wait until his call was over.

[00:13:56]

And I went, oh, my God. I said, this is for real. Nobody can get to work. I mean, other movies, other productions that had nothing to do with him, just, wow. Couldn't work until he was done.

[00:14:06]

Yes. That's how much power this one person commanded. And I saw that is this the. Name that we would know? Yes.

[00:14:14]

Okay. This is a household name in I guess that's a wilder story, but I think that's just more shocking how much power one person could have. I mean, he just stopped hundreds of thousands of dollars happening all at once to take a call. That's absolutely. But then you get used to see and that's the weirdo thing to, like, people on the outside is you get used to stuff like that.

[00:14:37]

There's certain people where you can't look them in the eye. Like, I know people who work on certain sets of certain TV shows where the host of said TV show has it to where nobody on his staff can look him in the eye when he walks through the temperature. Has to be at a certain degree. He has to have a certain thing, certain food waiting for him in the green room. But the weirder thing was, you can't look him in the eye if you're walking down the hallway and he's walking up the hallway, you look anywhere else.

[00:15:08]

It's crazy. Stuff like that. That in that industry you just kind of get used to you go, okay, he's just an asshole. And you just move on and get your paycheck and go you're like, all right, whatever. Actors yeah, there's a couple of actors I've heard that have done that on TV shows and movie sets.

[00:15:29]

I want to say it's either Alec Baldwin or Christian Bale. I've heard of them doing that here and there. I've also probably heard Christian Bale because of what he did on the set. Of the Terminator thing. Yeah.

[00:15:42]

So I had a friend that was working on that and the back story to that was I'll give you this story because everybody knows a Christian Bail story, okay? The back story to that is the cinematographer, I can't remember his name had a knack for lighting and relighting a scene before they shoot. And so while him and Bryce Dylan Howard were rehearsing for the scene this dude is in there in the peripheral plane with his lights and stuff like that. And for an actor who's trying to get involved in the scene and stuff like that that shit gets distracting after a while. But it is rehearsal anyways.

[00:16:16]

So throughout the shoot, right before they call, before they start a rolling picture he likes something. And this is the key moment when actors and actresses and everybody's had a heightened sense they're about to do the take and he goes and fixes a light or something like that. And he's doing this throughout the entire picture. So finally, the moment that everybody's heard with Christian Bale yelling at him is him snapping because they're about to roll a take and he goes and fixes the light. And that's when Christian Bale snaps because he's just like this guy keeps getting in my way.

[00:16:51]

He keeps getting my peripheral. He keeps fixing things. He keeps messing with me. He's messing with my cadence and my timing. And that's when he snaps.

[00:16:59]

So for the rest of the shoot now, this may be hearsay, but this is what I heard from a friend for the rest of the shoot. They put screens around him, around the cinematographer, so he couldn't move out of that box of screens. They put him in, like, a screen. Prison, just so Christian wouldn't see him, essentially, or so he wouldn't just so. He wouldn't go mess with the lights.

[00:17:22]

They put him in prison.

[00:17:26]

He could tell his gaffers and stuff like that, where to mess with the lights and stuff like that. But he physically was put in prison every day after that. I mean, at that point, why not just fire or replace the guy? If you got to go through that much effort just over, I think, with. That shoot, it was already in the middle.

[00:17:44]

So it's like, this is someone we have to roll with at this point. We fire the DP. We have to wait for the other DP to come in, or someone else. Maybe you can bring up the second unit DP if they had one. I don't know.

[00:17:56]

But that's more money being lost. I remember when that whole video clip and the audio clip leaked online, and everyone just lost their collective shit over it, because Christian Bale hadn't been really a household name at that point. Right. Because this was just he was starting to come off the Catania fame with that. Right, right.

[00:18:16]

I already knew who he was because I had watched The Machinist and American Psycho and all that stuff. Right. And then people were I think that was my introduction to memes, in all honesty.

[00:18:32]

That's the standout memory for me when it comes to people meaning things. And then people would take that sound clip, too. And I remember there were remixes that people are making. Some of them are really good, too. I'm not trying to excuse his behavior, by the way.

[00:18:44]

Oh, not at all. I think he was terribly misbehaving and very unprofessional. You go lose your shit in the trailer, but at the same time, I understand it. I've been there before myself. I think everybody who's a human being understands that something's going off in the corner of your eye and it keeps happening, and maybe you tell the person about it, and then it keeps happening, and you try to let it go, but there's a moment there where you got enough is enough, and you just snap.

[00:19:11]

And that's exactly what happened. Everyone got that breaking point. Right? Exactly. That was a breaking point.

[00:19:17]

And unfortunately, they were rolling sound, and someone leaked that audio, so it was very interesting. Then I got the story about what they did with the cinematographer, and that made it just funny. It made the story ten times better right there. To be fair, I can completely understand the cameras rolling at the wrong time. I still remember, after dealing with a problem customer for 45 minutes, who clearly broke an item and trying to explain to them, because at the time, our policy was no refunds, no exchanges.

[00:19:48]

We're not responsible for misuser and proper used items. And after dealing with them for 45 minutes, him threatening me, threatening to go after me and my family, beat me up, stab me, shoot me, all that other stuff if I don't give him a refund. All right? I kept telling him to leave, and eventually I just got fed up. I'm like, dude, just fucking leave.

[00:20:08]

Literally said it, just like that. And he goes, don't you dare swear in front of my child. That sets a terrible table. And that's what I snapped. And I didn't realize that he pulled up his phone to record my reaction.

[00:20:20]

But I just go, don't tell me not to swear in front of your fucking child when you've been sitting here acting like a Karen for the past 45 minutes. Way to be a parent. They're assholes now get the fuck out of here. And the ball tried to ban me for those 15 seconds. I was like, are you kidding?

[00:20:34]

Wow. Yeah. Are we going to stumble across like a random TikTok video now of you just like, losing your shit at a customer? Then this happened December 27, 2020. So exactly two years ago.

[00:20:51]

Vex is an excellent researcher to pull that up on the screen for the audience to enjoy. Oh, God, I'll have to look deep in that. Well, that would also be a standout clip given the timing, too, because that was right before all this. COVID or no, this is at the peak of the COVID magic a little bit. Right.

[00:21:14]

Interesting. So speaking of Hollywood and stuff, what are some of the trends you've noticed coming out of Hollywood that have really bothered you? All of it. Just every single little bit has discussed to me. I could talk about the most recent thing.

[00:21:27]

Which is? Which are blood origin.

[00:21:33]

I said this on Twitter.

[00:21:37]

I'm not part of the fantasy nerdham. I like fantasy. I shouldn't say I love fantasy, but I like fantasy. I like fantasy movies. I've read fantasy books.

[00:21:45]

I'm nowhere near someone like John Douglas, who is just Mr. Fantasy. But I see what the streaming services are doing to fantasy lore. And it makes me sad and sick for the fans. I've never read the Witcher books.

[00:22:03]

I never played the Witcher video games. But I've seen the show or tried to watch it, and I couldn't. And then I see what they're doing with blood origin. I've seen what they did with Rings of Power. I've seen what they did with Wheel of Time.

[00:22:16]

And it's stuff like that, where as a Hollywood guy, it used to be if it's not making money, it's not getting made anymore. But now it seems like as long as the message is deeply rooted into our work, we're going to keep making it. And I don't care if it doesn't make any money. It really blows my mind. I feel really bad for these fans who have to put up with the fact that these things are like the Witcher in name Only, it just blows my mind.

[00:22:40]

Like Rings of Power looks like somebody's mom decided to dress them up in Cosplay and then they put some really good CGI in there.

[00:22:52]

I just 100% agree with you. One of the big things I've noticed across all of these ancient esque fantasy realms, too, is they don't. At least when you watched, say, The Lord of the Rings right in the early 2000s, it genuinely thought, okay, the language has been adapted to make it sound like this is actually a person that was probably alive 1000 years ago, and this is how they would talk. And then you listen to the dialogue in these newer shows. And I said this in our chat for the Mischief Mayhem movie group.

[00:23:25]

Some of these fantasy shows now sound like a fan fiction writer who's writing Lord of the Rings smut and is just trying to bare minimum it in order to finally just get to the juicy bits where the hobbits all fuck. Essentially, I don't understand how with so many people on a staff or writing don't catch on that, hey, this might be bad for the immersion that we're trying to go for. And like that fuckety, fuck, fuck, fuck line. That's the first line of blood origin. That's the first line of I saw.

[00:23:57]

That and I couldn't believe it. I had to look it up. I thought it was literally I thought so, too. Oh, my goodness. And then I watched the first episode and there was first line.

[00:24:08]

It's so impressive to me just the amount of bad writing that is happening right now in Hollywood. Because what's going on in Hollywood is instead of writing out and fully fleshing out a story, what they're doing is they're writing beats. So they sit there and they say, now we have beat one, beat two, beat three, beat four, and let's fill out one to two and then start shooting. And then as we're shooting, we're going to fill out three to four. So they're all trying to hit these beats that they're already shooting, and then they're going back over it's just so fast backwards on how it's done now that it's incredible to me that they even have some semblance of story.

[00:24:51]

This isn't like Woody. Woody Allen. I'm not a fan of Woody Allen. But what Woody Allen would like to do is he would shoot half the film, stop production, edit half the film, and then he'll come back to do the other half of the film because he knows kind of where it's going to go now. And that's interesting and that's fascinating, and that really works for him.

[00:25:08]

None of these people are talented like Woody Allen. They can't do this. Like I described before, you have at least 30 egos in pre production, at least 100 egos in production. It's just not going to work. And they continue to play around with the fans, and the fans are saying, Enough.

[00:25:27]

And this is another point that I've made in some of my videos, which is all these shows, especially these streaming shows that do gender swaps, that do race swaps, and things of that nature. What's going on is that a marketing team is behind this. They're running these shows through a marketing team. And the marketing team is just saying, make the show. However make the show with these race swaps, gender swaps, however you want.

[00:25:55]

Add LGBT characters where they don't belong. Shoehorn everything you can into this, because at the end of the day, we're going to use them as shields. And to me, that's unfair. It's unfair to the actresses and the actors that have to play human Shield for marketing campaigns. And I said this before.

[00:26:12]

I said, Remember which one it was? But I said, some of these people need to stand up and say, no, I'm not going to be your shield anymore. But no one has yet, and I'm waiting for it. I'm waiting for someone to stand up and say, I'm not going to be a shield. Anna de Armis was I applauded her when she said, no, James Bond doesn't need to be a female.

[00:26:29]

We just need to write our own James Bond. Yeah. Hello. Yeah, a lot of people were on her side with that one. Yeah, I remember.

[00:26:36]

Yeah, and I totally agree. And I applaud her because she's pretty much saying, I'm not going to be your shield. I will not be your James Bond, just so you, the marketing company, can use me as a shield when things don't go right. And they're not going to go right. They haven't went right since 2016.

[00:26:50]

Ghostbusters 2016.

[00:26:55]

We don't talk about that. All right? There is no Ghostbusters 2016. Only zool. There is also what was it?

[00:27:03]

The oceans. Eight. There we go. Oceans Eight. God, that was a travesty as well.

[00:27:09]

And there were some good actresses in there. One of the things I hate the most about this gender and race swap is have you not noticed it only goes one way? All right? You'll never see a white person race swapped without anyone else, but you'll see it the opposite way.

[00:27:26]

All of a sudden, it's a big problem. And you'll never see a man gender swapped with a woman because that becomes a big problem as well. But the other way oh, that's empowering. You'll never see Black Panther, after a heroic moment, rip his mask off. And there's Chris Pratt.

[00:27:42]

That's not going to happen. It's true. They gender swapped him. What I'd like to see is Black Panther take off his mask and you realize it's Elon Musk. That would be hilarious, actually.

[00:27:56]

He should be the new Iron Man. He basically is Iron Man at this point, right? Yeah. He is African American, too, so that would work. He can't complain.

[00:28:04]

He's African American. There you go. Right? I. Swear, anyone who's complaining against Elon Musk just doesn't want to see a strong, independent black man succeed.

[00:28:13]

They just don't want to see that African Americans succeed at all. It's just a shame. It's just a shame that we live in 2022 and people complain about an African American controlling Twitter and launching rockets into space. It's just awful. It's awful what we have to watch him endure.

[00:28:30]

So racist. So, so racist. Scary.

[00:28:35]

But with the fantasy stuff, like I was saying before, all they have to do all you have to do is just stick to the lore and take it seriously. That's it. Fantasy fans will wait. So let me get this straight. You said gender and race swap and completely go off script to make a possible movie?

[00:28:54]

Yeah, exactly. You nailed it. You should be a Hollywood producer or a Hollywood marketer, at least. For sure. All right, this is what I got, ladies and gentlemen.

[00:29:04]

I got a great idea for a movie. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to take a bunch of superheroes, we're going to have this really great story, and what we're going to do is we're not going to race swap and we're not going to gender swap. He gets thrown out the window. Kind of racist.

[00:29:23]

I understand. Kind of like wanting to get your message in there, right? Like, there's been many productions just in the last 2030 years where they've still kind of inputted their own little dose of whatever in there, right? But they still managed to get a good movie or a good overall story out of it regardless. So when it comes to the fantasy stuff, I just don't understand how I don't understand why they're just taking the name of the franchise and then turning it into something completely original from there.

[00:29:51]

I don't understand why you don't just either make your own separate series or just adapt the material. Is it's void of creativity? Yeah, it really is. It's completely void of creativity. And you go, this is the best these minds came up with?

[00:30:06]

You kind of reminded me of something you just said, which is they used to get their message out there without having it bonked on your head. And Richard Donner, who directed Lethal Weapon as we covered on our show yes. He said specifically with Lethal Weapon, he said, look, if you make the movie about your message, people aren't going to come and watch it, but if you put your message in the background like he had on the refrigerators and stuff like that, he said, like, free South Africa and apartheid. Say no to the NRA. He had all these stickers and stuff like that.

[00:30:39]

He was a big lib, but he never shoved it in your face. It was in the background. He still got his message in there, which he was happy with. And we were happy because we got to enjoy a movie without getting bonked on the head, and that's how things used to be, but today it's the other way around. The entertainment is in the background and the message is in the foreground and there's nothing there.

[00:31:00]

It's completely void because these writers these days, they don't think past their noses of what they're trying to do. They're not trying to entertain at all. It's the iPad generation at the writer's block now. That's what it is. All these people can't fathom any depth at all because their mind honestly cannot conceive any of it because they're just used to kind of also a lifestyle of, oh, it's in your face, it's right there, it's instant gratification.

[00:31:29]

And then that reflects on to all of the things that they produce. Right? Right. I think part of this is to blame on we live in, especially in film and TV show. This is kind of why I started Copa Catania as a channel, is we live in spectacle now.

[00:31:45]

All of our movies and our TV shows are basically spectacle. And we can't be a culture that is purely on spectacle. There has to be a deeper human. We have to pull at the wires that make us human, and we have to have stories that kind of connect with us on an emotional level and a deeper philosophical level. If we're a culture of just pure spectacle, that's when we start praising the artifice and that's when everything just becomes shallow and our culture becomes shallow.

[00:32:17]

And thinking of having a deeper meaning to everything kind of gets washed by the wayside. And I think that's kind of what we're up against now with Hollywood, is that everybody got this shallow brain to thinking 100% agree. Are you still here, by the way? Lambency yeah, I am and stuff. We're both taking turns with questions and everything, making sure everything's going well and stuff.

[00:32:39]

But you have a bit more of a rapport with Copa Catania, and I'm well aware of that, and that's perfectly fine. But that's also because both of you host over at Canole Sasquatch's crew as well. So I'm not going to mess with that chemistry and stuff.

[00:32:58]

Natural chemistry. I like it. I promise I won't tell. Sharper.

[00:33:05]

So now on the wave, though, just to take it back for a moment. So have you actually met any notable actors and celebrities? I can understand if you don't want to drop any names, but if you did, were they interesting? Were they cool? Did they meet your expectations or change the opinion that you had of them?

[00:33:26]

There's two people who I will talk positively about, okay? And maybe three, but I'll only talk about the positive. I've met some, plenty of A listers. Some are jerks, some are nice, some that a lot of people that we all share in contact with who don't like actually turns out to be really nice people. At least my experience with them.

[00:33:52]

The people I do want to talk about is a danny Trejo looks like a mean son of a bitch. Completely opposite dude. I've heard nothing but good things about him off of the seat. He is a wonderful man. Absolutely.

[00:34:05]

From top to bottom, all five inches of him is just pure joy to hang out with. He's that short. He's short? Oh, wow. Okay, short.

[00:34:15]

But I tell you, that little Mexico looks like you kick your ass. Now that I think about it, anytime I've seen Danny Trejo in a movie, whenever they try to make him look big, they always have to do an angle that's kind of, like, underneath them to make them appear larger. So now that I think about it. He'S like, down here shot. Yeah.

[00:34:35]

No, he's short, but he's super nice. Super cool dude. Talked to him for a couple of hours, and he acted like he had all the time in the world for you. It didn't matter who you were. It didn't matter if you were some PA on the set or if you were the director.

[00:34:50]

He had time for you. So that was one and another one. And I'm sure this won't shock anybody either, is Christopher Nolan is a gentleman. What you see in his interviews and stuff like that is exactly what you get in person as well. The man is just a soft spoken gentleman.

[00:35:07]

Once again, he had some time for you as well, and he didn't seem to take anybody for granted when I met him. So Christopher Nolan is a perfect gentleman. Class act. And so is Dandy Trejo. How did you meet Christopher Nolan?

[00:35:22]

I screened a 70 millimeter print of Interstellar with him and Ryan Johnson. Wow. Oh, the knives out guy. Rien Johnson. It's spelled weird, right?

[00:35:36]

Yeah. Ryan Johnson. It was Ryan Johnson and Chris Nolan. And we screened a 70 millimeter print of Interstellar when it first came out, and then we did a question and answer session after that. Wait, so was the cut that you saw of Interstellar different from the cut that we saw in theaters?

[00:35:52]

No, same cut. Same cut. But it was projected. Look, kids, back in the day, we used to print film on what we called film, and you had your standard 35 millimeter print, but this was shot in 70 millimeter, and then he printed it on a 70 millimeter print, and then he projected it in 70 millimeter. So when you get the cigarette burns from Fight Club, you know, up here in the top corner, there was actually somebody there changing a reel, and you heard the little flickers and stuff like that.

[00:36:21]

Like straight up old school movie theater style. Exactly how it's supposed to be presented is exactly how he presented it to us. And it was an amazing night, because that was probably the last time I watched anything on film. And he happened to bring it because most people saw it digitally. But there's something about 24 frames per second of film kind of flickering onto a screen that just brings movie magic to life.

[00:36:50]

I don't know what it is. It's just hypnotic, the sound, little flicker of light to it. It was a wonderful presentation. And, yeah, he was a gentleman. It's a unique experience when it's like that.

[00:37:01]

I think that's what it is. Like, you can't compare it to anything else. And it's so uniquely its own thing that it becomes like it's almost dream. Like the world you get sucked into, right? Yeah.

[00:37:14]

It's just I swear that 24 frames per second flicker just it puts little stars in your eyes. You're just like, whoa, I'm really in the movie, right? Like, I'm just even trying to think of it because now they ship all of the movies to theaters on a disk or like a drive. Right.

[00:37:36]

I might have been one of the Lord of the Rings movies, but I remember the movie had been so long, and this was in the early 2000s that they actually had to provide an intermission to switch the reels. Right. I don't remember what it is, but now that you've mentioned it, that memory is trickling back and like, oh, man. There is really some magic that's been and they wonder why people won't flock to the cinema. Right.

[00:38:01]

They're trying to immerse you with the moving seats and the spray thing and all that stuff. And you don't need that for a movie. It's all Top Gun, Maverick and 40 X. And that was a treat. It felt like you're really flying around in there and stuff like that.

[00:38:18]

But, yeah, that's why I like Tarantino so much and Nolan, is that they are hardcore film guys and they will press hard for film. And if they can screen their movies on a film print, they will. Like, Tarantino owns the New Beverly, and he screens all of his film collection there on his film prints there. And then he'll screen his films there as well. He'll project them on there.

[00:38:48]

And I bet you that's a site. I haven't seen one of his movies in his theater, but I bet you that's something to behold, especially with Hateful Eight. I wasn't a big fan of Hateful Eight, but that was also shot on 70 millimeter. And he had, like, a Hateful Eight road show where he was touring around the 70 millimeter print and projecting it to certain theaters. And all those people who got to see it had something special.

[00:39:14]

I bet it was a much more fulfilling experience than watching it digitally. So just like for our audience, that maybe isn't as movie savvy. Can you explain the whole millimeter thing when it comes to film? Yeah, so it's just different sizes of film. So you have an eight millimeter, which is cheap and it's small.

[00:39:36]

I could hold up my finger. Let's say an eight millimeter is like that size and a lot of grain to it, and it's very dirty image and then, you know, you double that to 16, and then the next size would be your standard what movies used to be shot in? Like, everything up until maybe the early 2010, before we all switched to digital filmmaking, except for the select few, the standard size would be 35. That was your okay, so you had a 35 millimeter camera and you would shoot on 35 millimeter film. You printed out on 35 millimeter.

[00:40:10]

The next size after that is obviously doubled again to 70, and you get a much more clearer image, but it's much more expensive. And the 70 millimeter print is probably about that big. Yeah, I'd say it's about that big. But you capture a lot of depth and clarity with a 70 millimeter print that you otherwise wouldn't with a 35 even. Got you.

[00:40:35]

Okay, so this might be a stupid question, but how does this factor into things that are filmed in wide lens or IMAX film? Because IMAX has the specific cameras. Does the film measurement factor in at all or does that affect things or is that completely separate? That is a stupid question. No.

[00:40:57]

Yeah. So an IMAX, I think IMAX now no, that would be your 70 millimeter. Okay. But a standard IMAX, I'm sure I'll get called out on this if I'm wrong, but if I remember correctly, your standard IMAX aspect ratio is different than your regular 70 millimeter wide. Yes.

[00:41:16]

You can notice that. Yeah. So an IMAX one, I can't remember the aspect ratio, but I want to say it's more vertical. Sort of like how it looks like I might be coming in right now. I might be coming in vertical.

[00:41:28]

Yeah, I'm coming in a little vertical. You see, like, my black bars are kind of squeezing me in. So an IMAX camera does that for the aspect ratio because the IMAX screens are not wide. They're tall. Yes.

[00:41:42]

To fit the IMAX. But the clarity you get with an IMAX camera is pretty much the clarity you would get with a 70 millimeter print. Okay, got you. So I just looked it up. So the the aspect ratio for IMAX is either 1.43 to one or 1.9 to one, right?

[00:42:00]

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because I remember when Avatar came out in IMAX, that's the first big release. I can remember coming out in IMAX, but I remember sitting in the IMAX theater and I was like, this is different, but I couldn't tell how. And then I would read kind of trivia and footage and stuff of movies that had been specifically filmed with IMAX cameras, and I couldn't put my finger on it, that's all.

[00:42:24]

So I didn't know if they were related or not. So I thought I'd ask the expert. Yeah. Top Gun. Maverick.

[00:42:32]

A lot of if I remember correctly, maverick was shot with a lot of IMAX cameras just to get that depth and clarity of all the shots of them flying around, because that's really them doing it. Yeah. Which is incredible. Dark Knight. The Dark Knight was filmed in IMAX too.

[00:42:49]

Actually they had, like, four of the eight or five of the eight existing IMAX cameras at the time, and they broke two of them in production. They broke two of them? Yeah. Nolan was the first one to actually contact IMAX and ask them if he can use their cameras specifically for the action shots. So the prologue, the chasing and the lower whacker and the entire finale is shot in IMAX cameras.

[00:43:16]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. You could definitely tell it through the chasing. Yeah, you can tell, actually, if you watch it on home video, the aspect ratio changes. So you have a standard 185 to one ratio, which is your standard wide screen.

[00:43:30]

And then once you get into those IMAX moments, it fills up your screen. Yeah. It will fill up your screen. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, the picture and the clarity just comes in just ten times sharper.

[00:43:44]

Yeah. And you can notice it even in The Dark Knight Rises as well. You can see that. That's, like, the most obvious one I can think of, where you can pinpoint the change in the camera. Right?

[00:43:54]

Yeah. Okay. All right. I'm pretty sure those IMAX cameras because Nolan is a film guy, so I'm pretty sure those IMAX cameras that he shot on are 70 millimeter. Got you.

[00:44:04]

And I think the ones they shot with Top Gun was digital. Okay, interesting. So are there any rumors you've heard about Hollywood actors or actresses that turned out to be true? If you can disclose that at all. I have not heard any salacious.

[00:44:22]

Well, I mean, Harvey Weinstein was always the joke. We all kind of know how that turned out. We all know how that turned out. But that was, like, the joke around Hollywood. Harvey.

[00:44:32]

Okay, but I really want to know. If Jim Carrey really was a pet detective. He was actually he was working for Ups at first, and then he became a pet detective. All right. Goodness.

[00:44:49]

Got a package, people. That is B-E-A. Beautiful.

[00:44:58]

Yeah. Scott Rudin was another one. A lot of people that were around scott Rudin was another producer. Okay. He got me tuned, but in a different way.

[00:45:09]

He got me tuned because he treated his help like shit. And this all came out. He hit one PA in the head with a laptop, and he threw his assistant out of a car moving. What's his name again? I'm a Googler.

[00:45:26]

He's a huge he he was a huge producer. I mean, he's still he I think he's still attached to what we do in the Shadows, the TV show. And he's he was the Comb Brothers producer for a while, so he did no country for Old Men and a few others. But, yeah, he got me tuned out of there. But that was a big rumor, was if you want to keep your fingers unbroken.

[00:45:47]

You kind of want to stay away from him. In fact, actually, Tom Cruise. A lot of people thought Tom Cruise's part in Tropic Thunder was supposed to be Harvey Weinstein. But really it was a neat little portrayal of how Scott Rudin really was. Which makes sense now because he treated everyone like shit in that movie.

[00:46:06]

Right? Yeah. Wow. Okay. Yeah.

[00:46:09]

He is still credited.

[00:46:17]

That's one of those instances where it's like, if it's a good movie, we don't care about cancel culture or me, too and you. It's totally acceptable if it's a a funny movie and be someone you love. Right. Robert Downey jr. Absolutely.

[00:46:32]

That's one of my favorite comedies of all time, is Chopping. Mine, too. Robert Downey Jr.

[00:46:40]

As an actor, as a dude disguised as a dude playing the other dude. He loves you. Every time he shows up in blackface, I just roll on the floor laughing and just pure joy that he is a part of this movie. It's forever going to be him. He doesn't break character until the end of the DVD commentary on the actual DVD.

[00:47:00]

It's just all perfect. He deserved that Academy Award nomination for that part. I think that was a wonderful, wonderful I'm sorry. He seriously got nominated for that? Yeah.

[00:47:11]

He got nominated for that. No. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[00:47:16]

Hold on. I got to look this up. I didn't know that. Why don't you look that up? I'm going to have my Robert downey.

[00:47:23]

Jr. Boner.

[00:47:27]

Wouldn't that be a Robert Uppie boner? Oh, yeah. Robert UPy boner. Yeah, it's a Robert upper. Hold on.

[00:47:35]

Okay. So he was oh, my God. Yeah. He was nominated for best supporting actor. I think it would be funnier if he was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

[00:47:44]

Because they got it. I thought it would have been funny if he showed up in blackface. He only lost his wow. I didn't know. Those are the things that I know of that came true.

[00:47:59]

But those are the rumors. It's usually producers and stuff like that. Yeah. Salacious stuff. The rumor of Brian Singer pool parties was out there, too.

[00:48:10]

And that caught up to them that whole time where everybody was kind of getting outed. For a lot of people in the industry, it was more like we kind of just nodded our head and went, finally caught up to you. That's crazy. So on that line, then, if people were aware of this or it was like a running joke. Did you ever encounter people that would try to get almost like their 15 minutes of fame or something and try to expose any of these people?

[00:48:38]

There was a guy online speaking of Downey Jr. There was a time there where I can't remember the website, but there was a time there where everybody thought Robert Downey Jr. Was writing anonymously on this website exposing these people. I remember hearing about this. This was like 1012 years ago.

[00:49:01]

I think it was this person was. Naming names, and he was also naming good people in the industry. And a lot of the people he named were a lot of people who were close to Downey Junior. So, yeah, there was people who were trying to fight to get this out for the longest time. But finally it happened.

[00:49:20]

It was much too late. I mean, if it was a joke when I was popping in around 2008, 2009, and it was the running joke, you go, okay. And then you kind of go, that kind of sounds like there's some truth to it. Yeah. One of those shrug.

[00:49:36]

And these people have been in the industry for 1520 years prior to me. Yeah. It's been a long time coming. Too long. Serious problem.

[00:49:44]

Yeah. So in a random question, if Hollywood made a movie about your life, who would you like to play you?

[00:49:55]

Okay. Who would be cast? Hollywood Studios presents jackie Chan as Copa Catania.

[00:50:05]

That is a good one. Samuel Jackson would be another. I mean, we won't share. Similar to head. Yeah.

[00:50:15]

On a serious note, some people would say Tom Hardy, I guess, looks wise. In a more serious note, he'd probably go for Tom Holland. He plays everybody. Maybe Jennifer Lawrence, because she'd be the. First person that's true.

[00:50:32]

First bald person on screen. There we go. First biographical actress. An actor on screen. There we go.

[00:50:41]

I don't know. Yeah, probably. I don't know. Maybe. Josh brolin.

[00:50:46]

I'd say Josh Brolinn because he's someone who can oscillate between serious and funny. That's very true. I was going to say probably a bald Kevin Costner could play you. Bald Kevin Costner? Yeah.

[00:50:57]

He's a bit old, but thank you. Slightly younger, right? If you were a bit younger or if you were older, if this were at the end of your life and he somehow is still preserved with the magic of Hollywood, I would imagine, like Kevin Costner, you take off the hair, I could see it. I'll take it.

[00:51:17]

Now you're on the East Coast now, and you've left Hollywood. So what kind of initiated or inspired you to leave that, like, industry and kind of venture out on your own? My wife and I got married in 2014, and the obvious family talk started, and we started really opening our eyes to what was going on around us at that particular moment of time. I remember turning to her one day, and I was like, can we raise a kid here? And I already had my answer in my head, and she kind of went, no, I don't feel comfortable with it.

[00:51:54]

Which is weird and sad because La. Was our home. Yeah, La was our home for 30 plus years. But when kids are on the line or the potential of having a family and raising a child in an environment, that makes you start thinking about things a little bit differently beyond yourself or yourselves. So when we came to that conclusion.

[00:52:19]

We started playing around with the idea of where we wanted to go. And my wife has been out of the country, but she's never been around the country, okay? And I've taken plenty of road trips as a family, and I really wanted to show her the country, so I said, here's what we'll do. We'll just pack up and we'll drive. We have family on the east coast.

[00:52:42]

That will be our landing point. And I'll take you around and I'll show you the country. I said, you're going to be awesome. Yeah. So I said, you're going to be mind blown once you get out of California on how people treat each other.

[00:52:56]

So it's going to be a completely different country, too. And that's what we did. We took the southern route because it was in the winter, and we toured the country for a little bit and landed in North Carolina for a while, and we've been on the East Coast ever since. Very nice. Yeah, I understand that sentiment because my husband got relocated for work to the northern part of Florida, and when he did that, I was just like, oh, this is great, because there's a lot more better schools.

[00:53:24]

Because that's the plan, is once I finally get down there, we'll start seriously kind of planning for a family within a couple of years. But I can totally understand that sentiment of like, you start to really consider things that you otherwise would have never thought about, right? And it does make you sad in some respects, but then ultimately the payoff is worth it, right, or will be worth it. We grew up in the Long Beach area where we lived. We were only a block away from the beach, and you just picked up your surfboard, walked outside, and then a block later, you were on the coast of the Pacific Coast.

[00:54:01]

The problem was, is that in order to do that, you had to walk over mountains of bumps and homeless people, because there was a park between us and the coast. And at the time, you don't really think about it. A lot of people who are living there still, they don't really think about it. They go, oh, yeah, there's tents along the freeway, whatever. They just keep going on with their day.

[00:54:22]

Yeah, but when the family question popped up, I'm like, yeah, no. And then there was a huge influx of homeless people that were dropped off right in front of our house to the point where they started camping out there.

[00:54:40]

One night, I got home from being on the East Coast. I got home, and this was when I was smoking at the time. And I stepped outside for a cigarette, and then I came back. I came right back in the house and I said, what's going on outside? What is this?

[00:54:52]

And she goes, my wife says, yeah, it looks like the walking dead out there. Now. And I said, Was there a mass suicide? Because there was at least 100 homeless people all sleeping in this parking lot right across the street from me, and it looked like a mass suicide. And what happened was they just bust these people in.

[00:55:11]

They have no idea where they're at. They have no idea where they're going to go. So that's where the bus dropped them off, and that's where they stayed until the police came and started sweeping them off, because they started breaking into a lot of the neighbors stuff. I said, that's it. I said, we can't do this.

[00:55:31]

I can't raise a child here. And it didn't feel like home anymore. Yeah. It's like a shadow of its former self, right? Yeah, I understand that.

[00:55:41]

That's one reason why I could never I always had plans to move to a city when I was younger, and then I never did, because I kind of see, like, this is the mindset that people develop down there. This is what you see on a daily. Like, even just when I go down to Toronto to get into Toronto, there's only two highways in, and one highway is the main one that will take you straight to the downtown area. Right, right. And the one highway that takes you there, it immediately goes under an underpass, and it's just homeless people.

[00:56:10]

Like, as far as you drive, that's all you see under that underpass, and you're thinking, there are, like, almost a million dollar condos looking over this, and people are totally okay with it. Nobody blinks an eye at any of this. I had a friend, she grew up down the street from me when we were kids, and she moved out with her husband as well. She is another California runaway. And she went back recently, and she called us, and she said, it's crazy.

[00:56:41]

She said, along the Four and 105, which is the stretch of freeway from our house pretty much to Santa Monica, she said, along the 405, before I hopped onto another freeway, it was just tent after tent of homeless people. They're all sleeping on the side of the freeway now? Yeah. And you got to be kidding me. She said, no, she's like, it's a good three or four mile stretch, which is homeless people camping up on the side of the freeway.

[00:57:04]

It's sad. It's really sad. But that's the life in the big city, and I've always lived in a big city, and now I'm starting to see the joy and wonder of not. Yeah, it's like city living and city lifestyle really kind of makes you negative in a lot of ways, doesn't it? It completely changes the way your outlook on things and your perspective on things.

[00:57:28]

And I feel like most of the people that I know that live or have spent a significant amount of time in a city or urban area, they're just some of the most miserable people I know. In all honesty or narrow minded. See? Okay, so case in point. We leave Long Beach and go do our cross country trip.

[00:57:49]

Complete strangers would wave at us. Yeah. And the first thing our city brains went is, locked the doors and what the fuck do they want from us? These people are trying to rob us. And it's like, no, you have to switch your mind and go, no, these people are nice and being friendly.

[00:58:06]

It's just a completely different mindset. Yeah, it's so true that's when you kind of realize, like, man, I've really programmed myself to be guarded when I see people. Yeah. Especially if they're being extremely nice and just saying Hi. You just go, oh, they're trying to rob us.

[00:58:26]

Or People just look at you weird, that's all. Because I never grew up in the city. I grew up in the suburbs, so for me, it was commonplace. Like, if you go walk your dog or whatever and you pass someone else that lives in the neighborhood, you smile and you say, Hi. Right?

[00:58:39]

So that was commonplace for me. But then when I had an ex that lived in the city, and whenever I would go to see him, if we were just, like, walking around, I'd do the same thing, and people just look at me like, what the fuck?

[00:58:53]

She's trying to do a drive by on us. Right? That's how I look at you.

[00:59:01]

All these city people preach, like, happiness and unity and stuff, and the second you show them a little bit of niceness, they look at you like you're on drugs or ready to rob them. It's crazy. They look at you like you're looking for a handout or you're about to rob for sure. Because that's how I look at people who are being nice. And I've been all around this country, and even being in the neighborhoods where they say hi and wave at you, I was still weirded out.

[00:59:27]

They're trying to rob. I guarantee it. I'm sure that the mindset has changed, though, since then.

[00:59:34]

It has changed a bit now. Now that I've been out, I actually find myself waving at people and saying hi.

[00:59:44]

Yeah. I actually do it myself now, and it's kind of weird, and I'm getting used to it. He's growing. He's growing. As an adult, I can agree with you guys when it comes to city life versus not being in the city and stuff and how people are different, because it's because I live where I live, where I'm extremely introverted outside of work.

[01:00:06]

I don't like to leave my room, let alone my house, which I'm sure would be a lot different if I lived in a friendlier place where I didn't have to worry about people potentially wanting to harm me for no reason other than just happening to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Get it? You're John McLean. I mean, to be fair, I've been shut. I've been stabbed.

[01:00:27]

I've been a whole bunch of other things, all from the area I'm at. Okay. I thought I heard a little rattle in your microphone. Sounded like So was opening up a hardware store. But it's just your body getting shot, that's all.

[01:00:46]

So now you're on the east coast. Now that you've left the Hollywood lifestyle, what have you been up to? Have you still been like I know you're still pursuing writing. Is that kind of the main venture now? Yeah, writing books now because COVID hit, and like everybody else who's working in the industry, I was still getting jobs editing.

[01:01:08]

And then I think it was March 27 was the exact day when all my jobs just went away. I'm not one to just kind of sit around and wait for things to happen to me. I kind of want to go out and make things happen. So I sat there for about a day and went, what can I do now? I don't have any jobs I could write, but I can't write screenplays because once again, Hollywood shut down.

[01:01:31]

So what can I write? And I think every writer has it in their head where there isn't writing novels, that they can write a novel. So I started tinkering around with that, and I started writing short stories. I gave myself a challenge to write a short story a day. It didn't have to be good or anything.

[01:01:48]

It was just to get the mind. Starting an exercise, right? Yeah, very much so. An exercise. So I started writing one a day.

[01:01:57]

It didn't have to be long. It didn't have to be short. It just had to be a complete story about 14 or 15 shorts deep. I handed my wife one. I said, what do you think of this one?

[01:02:10]

And she read it, and she came right back in the office and she said, More. That's all she said to me. She said, I want more. Okay, so three books later, I have this book called Why Not Wichita? That just came out about a year ago, and it's two sequels, and that's what I'm working on now.

[01:02:29]

It's paid off in dividends. It took off like a rocket for me. And now with the Lambency Show, it's kind of even gained another breath of life. So that's what I'm doing now, is writing books and doing the Lambency Show, and I edit here and there still, and that's what's going on with me. So can you tell us a little bit about your book?

[01:02:54]

For I'm halfway through your book, and I'm loving it so far. I just sat down, and my cat wanted to cuddles, like, oh, it's a good time to read. And then before I knew it, I was halfway through it, and I messaged you. I'm just like, hey, Miriam. Kind of reminds me of this, but please tell us a bit about your book.

[01:03:17]

Yeah, so Miriam is an EPON warrior and Epons are the Think Jedi there, but they're this kind of classic people or beings that are designated sort of like ronin where they kind of roam and help out villages or towns and whatnot. This is set in the future. It's a sci-fi. And Marianne has been tasked with this city called Metro City in the Texas area for quite some time. But she's a little big, headed to where she doesn't ask for help, but she needs it.

[01:03:56]

Finally, she finds herself at a crossroads where she knows she needs a vacation from the place. She doesn't want to ask for a replacement or anything like that. She just wants to take a minor break, like four days regroup, kind of let the cup drain a little bit before it overflows.

[01:04:16]

She has to fight her way. No one else wants her to do this, so she has to fight her way to get a vacation. That's pretty much the basis of the book, is this one smart ass girl who's a warrior is fighting for her vacation time. She needs a little vacation. She needs to get away.

[01:04:36]

Just a woman who needs a little R and R. That's it. She needs a little RnR. That's it. That's all she wants.

[01:04:42]

She doesn't want any help. She doesn't need any help. And later on, that's all going to come bite her in the ass. But for right now, that's all she's trying to do. She's trying to get that PT in.

[01:04:52]

So how long did it take you to write that, then? Because it was published last year. So how long did it take you to write that and kind of get it all edited? So to write that one and get it all edited, probably about eight months. Wow.

[01:05:06]

And then the other two took me a year after that. Oh, the sequels. The sequels are done. Yeah, they're done. I have to apologize to the fans of this.

[01:05:18]

Why not Wichita? Because the second book was supposed to come out this year. Oh, what happened? It was a total failure on my part because I told everybody was coming out third quarter of this year, and then things happened, and the buck stops with me. Problems arose that I never thought could arise with COVID art and with editing, but they did happen, and I didn't have any contingency plans to back that up, so I was kind of at the whim and mercy of life and things going on with other people, but it's completely my fault and total failure.

[01:06:00]

So it's coming out next year, probably second quarter of next year. Okay.

[01:06:10]

I'm just buying myself here. It's going to be like the Rock Star Developers and GTA Six. Just constant delays. You're never going to see a second part. It's going to be like George R or Martin.

[01:06:21]

Like, it's coming. I swear to God. Oh, gosh. Go ahead. Oh, no, go ahead.

[01:06:27]

Go ahead. I was going to make the george RR. Martin joke. He said, Look, I'm 500 pages away of being done with my book, which is horseshit. No one knows that for, like, four years.

[01:06:39]

The joke is like, yeah, but he's not telling everybody that his book is 501 pages long.

[01:06:49]

That's a good one. That's a good one. Thank you. And on that note, I'll keep my mouth shut. I finally made someone laugh.

[01:06:58]

The next one is coming up next year. I'm assuming both sequels won't drive next year. Like, you'll time one for 2024, or like, what's your plan there? Yeah, I'm going to let one breathe a little bit. So the second one is called Wind of Whispers.

[01:07:14]

So I'll release that window, whispers, and then let that breathe a little bit and let that sink in, and then I'll release the next one year later. Got you. I promise. What differences do you see between a writer and an author? I just like calling myself a writer because I feel like calling myself author.

[01:07:36]

And I'm not saying this for anybody else, but for me, calling myself an author makes me feel a little pretentious, and I don't like that feeling. But saying I'm a writer, it sounds almost like I work with my hands.

[01:07:50]

In that case, what would you think? It's like an actor. It's like an actor who calls himself a thespian. He's not wrong. But if I was an actor, I'd say, I'm an actor and he's not a thespian.

[01:08:01]

Got you. That makes sense. Yes. I don't think that's wrong. Like I said, for my fellow authors that might be watching, that's not me passing judgment.

[01:08:10]

You call yourself an author? I think everybody is. A damn good lot of authors I know are damn good authors, and they deserve that title. So then what is the most difficult part of your individual writing process? Most difficult part would be what everybody's difficult part is, which is the first draft.

[01:08:28]

And that's because even, like, for someone like me, there's two different terms. There's a plotter and then there's a panther. Plotters are people who plot out their story before they even start writing the first draft. And then there's a panther, and they're called panthers because they write at the seat of the pants. Like whatever comes to their mind, they're thrown on the page.

[01:08:52]

But no matter what group you belong to, you're always going to run into issues of looking at that white space, that blank white space, and you just don't know what you're going to fill it with that day. And you could be a plotter like I am and look at your plot and go, no, that doesn't seem like it's working. Or you go, I know what the plot is. I just don't have anything for it. So it gets intimidating with the first draft, but you have to keep telling yourself, anything is better than nothing.

[01:09:19]

And the first draft is the shit draft. So you might as well, shit all over the page than anything else that. Rome isn't built in a day. Right. Like, a lot of people jump the gun and think like, oh, it has to be perfect right from the get go.

[01:09:33]

This is the first draft and the only draft, and I got it perfected. But like everything else, it's a practice in developing and in mastering and in growing. So I totally get where you're coming from there. Yeah. It's almost like crafting something not really with your hands, but with your mind.

[01:09:53]

And you're really trying to build this structure, and you're trying to build the skeleton that is going to hold up the story at the end of the process. So if you're going to sit here and say, well, I'm going to build a skyscraper, and by the end of the day people are going to be moving in, you got another thing coming. It's a lot of work to make a story happen and to make it readable. I don't know anybody who can write a first draft and it goes on to be a major success. I'm sure they're out there, or they claim to be out there, but that's incredible stuff.

[01:10:28]

I mean, you might do something like that short term if you had to do, for example, like an essay or something like that. As far as writing a book, I'm pretty sure you can't do that. Yeah. Even when I write my scripts for Opaquenea, that's more of an essay than it is a screenplay, right. I started writing it as a screenplay, and then I realized quickly, like, no, this is more essay.

[01:10:54]

And you're absolutely right. Even then with an essay, I'm still doing two or three, four drafts before I'm starting to get happy with it, before I even start recording it. And I've even found myself, while recording, making edits in my script, I do. The exact same thing, actually, with the reviews I write, I write it much like an essay. Right.

[01:11:20]

So you got the whole hamburger thing going. Right. But then as I'm about to publish it, I was just like, oh, I'm just going to rewrite this whole thing. Or like, even some of the one review I've recorded for the Lambency Show so far, the same thing. I'm just like, this doesn't sound right at all.

[01:11:36]

I got to rewrite this. So I totally get where you come from. I've done it personally is sometimes I'll write down exactly what I think sounds great, and then I'll go record it and I'll paraphrase off of it because out of my head, it sounds better than what I wrote down on the piece of paper that I spent all that time writing. And I'm just like, no, you know what? It sounds more fluid when I do it this way.

[01:12:01]

More natural. Yeah, no, absolutely. And when I do cope to Kanye's stuff, when I'm watching a movie or whatever, I just crap on the page and I go, okay, this is what I'm feeling at this moment and this moment, and I have these ideas here and there and whatever else, and then it turns into this mosaic of, okay, now I have a puzzle to put together. How do I string these thoughts to where they're actually tangible for someone to actually want to listen to? Like, who wants to listen to this rambling right now?

[01:12:36]

Yeah, that's the neat thing with writing copacanya stuff versus the plotting stuff of narrative writing. So in that case, what, to you, would you consider as the most important elements of a good writer and good writing? What do you mean? Like, what do you see as an element that is absolutely necessary in order to provide the best writing possible? Stick to itiveness and seeing it all the way through.

[01:13:09]

I mean, a good command of the English language actually would be number one, whatever language. But I'm speaking English, baby, and I only read the English, so yeah, you want to have a command of whatever language you're used to writing in, whatever. And then you want to know the rules so you know how to break them. Exactly. But you want to know when you can break them and when not, or at least you have some idea.

[01:13:43]

And yeah, the last bit is your stick to it of this. I've seen countless of people drop out just because it was too hard and they never saw it to the end. I've read a couple of screenplays for Friends that were good, and they could have been great, but they never stuck through it. And it was really sad because some of it you could tell there's some real raw talent, and if they just stuck with it and kind of rewrote certain things, they would have had something. So that's another thing, too, I guess.

[01:14:15]

It goes all the way back to can it be learned or is it something you're born with? I think it could be learned if you are open and apply yourself, if. You'Re willing to practice and adapt and learn and all that stuff. Definitely. Yeah.

[01:14:29]

It's also willing to change things that you may have thought were great before, but when you actually look at it, you realize it's really not. You can't be covered. One of the hardest things I've had to learn as a creator and stuff, I'm a little better when it comes to creating. When it comes to writing, on the other hand, I hate I absolutely hate having to correct my work. When it comes to anything else, though, I'm perfectly fine, but that particular element just from absolute hell out of me.

[01:14:57]

I love it. I like it, too. Yeah, I love it, too, because editing is your last chance at storytelling before it's all said and done, so it's kind of fun to start playing around with it and seeing what you can take away. I love writing a first draft and seeing it get cut down 10% or 20% by the time I'm done because I'm starting to realize that I'm shaving off a lot of stuff that is unnecessary. It's like a sculpture, right?

[01:15:29]

You start with just like the block or just clump of clay and then it becomes that nice sculpture or face or whatever that you're trying to get at. Right? Yeah, I agree with you. I love the thought I may have I could have thought it was perfect at first. But I love seeing how it transforms by the end of it and what it ends up becoming.

[01:15:51]

And how you end up yeah, it's. Like you get a full puzzle and then you start picking out pieces here and there and going, do I still get a full picture? Can I still make out what this is? And then once you pull out too many pieces and you can't make out what the pictures anymore. Got to put some pieces back in.

[01:16:11]

Now you can make out the picture again. Yeah. Okay. And then you start playing with you start playing with that. Until now you have this complete picture, but you have room for interpretation.

[01:16:22]

And that's the blank spots. And that's what I love doing, is starting to play with like, oh, I'm leaving room for interpretation now. And that's always the fun part. Do you want me to read the next question? Lambency or you got it.

[01:16:36]

I think he fell asleep. No, sorry about that. I had a lot of my dogs in. You must have said something right as I did it, because I was only about 5 seconds. I had my headphones on.

[01:16:47]

Okay.

[01:16:51]

What were you guys trying to ask me? No, I was like, do you want me to read off the next question or do you want to go ahead. So while you're writing, do you play music while you write? Or what do you do to kind of inspire you and give you that sense that you need in order to write? A lot of times I'll pull up something that has inspired me in the past, usually.

[01:17:18]

Would that be? Catania sasquatch. You have Catania Sasquatches podcast playing in the background to inspire you? Exactly. But it's just me talking.

[01:17:27]

I cut just my part. You just do the Copa Catania best moments. Yeah. I'm like, oh my God, he is so good. Jeez, he inspires me.

[01:17:36]

I think I'm going to write no, kind of a great dude. I'm sure we'll get to him later. But yeah, I'll pull up something like Walter Hill's version of Alien that he wrote. And if you ever have a chance to read the way Walter Hill wrote Alien, the screenplay, it's very different from how a lot of screenplays read. And I try to emulate that.

[01:18:01]

Or I'll pull up a film that inspires me and I'll watch a scene or two and kind of try to emulate that or I really try to emulate people that I try to copy. So Hemingway comes to mind, of course, as he's short and succinct with his sentences. And if I can take, like, a paragraph and turn it into a sentence or turn a sentence into a word, I'm going to do it. So somebody like him, I kind of, like, just browse through stuff, and then I'll sit down at the computer, and I'll just throw on a Playlist or some kind of movie soundtrack or whatever. If I'm really feeling fancy, I'll put on a movie in the background that I've seen a bazillion times and just run that on loop all day and just have that as noise, and I'll just go to town.

[01:18:48]

And my rule is three to four pages a day, and then I walk away so that's every day I'm writing three to four pages. I can completely understand that, because anything more than that and you might be forcing it. So get the best work you can, and then just don't force it after that. So that way you can go back, you can relook at it and take the story from there. Yeah.

[01:19:07]

And I've tested myself in the past where I'm like, how much can I write in a day? And I think one day I got eight to 10,000 words or something like that down. And I was like, okay. Wow. I can do 10,000 words a day.

[01:19:20]

That is insane. It took me about 12 hours. And I'm like, okay, that's my limit. And then I went back to the next day and read it, and I was like, wow, none of this is usable. I just highlighted the whole thing.

[01:19:33]

I select all and then delete it, and I'm like, I'm never doing that again. You got to leave room for your brain to think about the next day. And I always try to end a writing day, a writing session on a high note, where I know what the next point is going to be the next day, so I don't run into too many of those first. Draft problems where I look at a blank white space the next day and get intimidated by Italy, where I'm going to go the next day so I don't have to worry about that, per se. And I could get on a roll.

[01:20:05]

And once I get on a roll, then it's off to the races for three to four pages, and then I'm done. And then I get to go on and write other stuff, like Copenkatania stuff. All right. Now, this particular phrase means something different for every writer. Every author, screenplay writer, whatever medium that they used to write.

[01:20:26]

But for you individually, what do the words writer's block mean to you? Bullshit. Doesn't exist. Why do you say that? Because you can write anything you damn well want to.

[01:20:37]

And once you start getting that, once you start getting into that rhythm, like I said, you're good. To go. You can't think of something. Right. Or shit.

[01:20:47]

Start writing about what your computer looks like. Start writing about what you can do with a chair. Start writing about a lamp and what other uses a lamp can bring you. Like, anything to stimulate you to get you going, right? Yeah, stimulate.

[01:21:00]

Yeah, exactly. You got to self stimulate, baby. Get on that horse.

[01:21:07]

And then on top of that, a lot of times riders block happens when they don't know what's coming next. They get to the spot and they go, I don't know what happens here at this particular moment, but don't get stuck on it. Just move on to the next thing. This is your first draft. This is the crap draft.

[01:21:25]

This draft doesn't mean anything other than you're going to work on it later when you're done. So what's the next thing in your brain? You have an idea of where they're going to end up, so just write where they're ending up and then fill in the blanks later. There's so many different things that you can get done. It gets past the routers block.

[01:21:46]

I think it's completely nonsense. I've never had it. The times that I thought I had it, it was just because I thought I was stuck on the next thing and I wasn't going, well, I can write the ending. I know where I want to end up. Or I don't understand how A gets to C other than through B, but then I can write a footnote for, like, well, I think it can happen this year, and then I go on.

[01:22:10]

Right. See, it's interesting that you mention it like that, because that's actually how I like maybe I don't know if your experience is different, but that's how I kind of explain writing to some of my high school or university. Students when they come in and they have trouble just kind of like, getting like this is the idea I have, but I don't know how to start it. And I'm just like, yeah, you don't have to start with a thesis or an intro. Just start writing what you want to put in there and then just start piecing it together from there.

[01:22:38]

And I notice it's just their brain can't comprehend that because from a young age, you're taught the hamburger method, right? Introduction, your three body paragraphs, your conclusion. And then they end up doing the same thing when it comes to longer pieces of work or more writing scripts, for example, and they associate as writer's block, or I'm stuck it's. Just start writing the first draft. Doesn't have to be the only draft.

[01:23:08]

Exactly. It shouldn't be the only draft. Oh, my God. Exactly. Cramming, too.

[01:23:16]

I've crammed before, but when you're writing, yeah, just start. Just start. Anywhere is a good place to start. Exactly. And even when you're cramming, it's like, okay, yes, you get that one draft, but you're still tweaking it.

[01:23:29]

You're still editing it. You're still cutting things out of it. It still isn't the perfect draft. Right? So I really kind of hit home with you there on what you like.

[01:23:39]

Writer's block is bullshit. You can write about anything. It's just are you willing to if you're writing Sci-Fi and you're stuck like you said, just write about anything else for all you know, could trigger something. Yeah, if you're super stuck on something. That's why I also like to write character BIOS before I even start as well.

[01:23:58]

I'll do a little background, like Dossiers on my characters and write little BIOS about them. It has nothing to do with the story in general, other than the fact that you kind of understand where they grew up or how they came about and what the back story is. So if you ever run into writer's block in that sense, then you can kind of consult your notes of what their bio is and that might jar something. Or you could sit there and look at, let's say, the villain. The villain pulls out the gun and he points it at your hero.

[01:24:30]

He's got his finger on the trigger, and the trigger is caught in the hammer back slowly. And that's where your Rider's block comes in, does the gunfire. You don't know if you want your hero dead. You don't know if you want the gun loaded or not. And you just sit there.

[01:24:45]

Okay, so play out all the scenarios. Is the gun loaded? Is it not loaded? Why is it not loaded? Why is it loaded?

[01:24:51]

Is it loaded with wrong ammunition? Is it going to explode in the villain's face? You just start getting wacky with it and it will come. Something will come out of it where you go, oh my God. Like I never thought of this before.

[01:25:01]

And you'll march forward, guarantee. I love your explanation of brighter's block, but I was more specifically talking about your short from your college days. Oh, shit. Were you really?

[01:25:16]

That would be hilarious. Block. Riders Block was big. That was a big, huge success. That's what got me into directing.

[01:25:27]

Riders Block didn't meet a film festival it didn't like or a film festival didn't like Rider's Blog. It got accepted too many film festivals. I think at the end of the day, that short film of mine won 14 awards, including Best writing and Best Lead Actor for drama for Tony Perez. Do we find this anywhere? It's not online.

[01:25:52]

Not yet. I haven't really figured out what I want to do with my filmography yet. With you have a copy of it, though. Oh, yeah. Okay.

[01:26:02]

Copy of that and the other short films that I directed. But that one I shot on 16 millimeter film and everybody thought it was crazy at the time. Yeah, that was a good time. Riders Block. Very nice.

[01:26:16]

Yeah, but yeah, that one that one launched my career into into film and got me got me. To where I was and where I'm at now without riders block. The thing is, I like how I did that as a joke, but it ended up being a great bit because Vexing the Chat was like, what was it about? How is it? I'm like, Shh, I've got something.

[01:26:38]

And then as soon as you finish your whole thing about writer's block, I'm like, well, that was great and all, but I was actually talking about this. And then you hit us with gold. Yeah, that thing took off like a rocket. Okay, well, now I'm excited to see what you end up doing with that because my interest is peaked now, right? She has a roll of the 16 millimeter film in the fridge from that shoot.

[01:27:05]

Yes. We still have a roll of 16 millimeter of Kodak film. Wow. Would you say there is many Kodak moments, about 24 of them per second. Speaking of which, I meant to ask you earlier when you were talking about your wife and everything and wanted to start a family, where exactly did you meet your wife?

[01:27:26]

Because if you didn't meet her at the Copa Catania, I'm going to be severely upset. I didn't. I met her at the soccer field where her friend was on her team, our mutual friend. All right, so I met my wife and we were in high school, and I had a mutual friend who lived down the street from me, and they played on the same soccer team, and that's where we met. And we became best friends instantly.

[01:27:51]

But we didn't start dating until a couple of years after that because I had a girlfriend at the time. She had a boyfriend at the time. It was stupid high school stuff. And then when I graduated high school, I asked her out, and to my shock, she said, yeah, and then after the date, she goes, I don't know if I'm going to do this. And I went wait, what?

[01:28:12]

What do you mean? And she goes, well, we have such a good friendship. And I went, oh, my God, we're going to play this game. Okay. Yeah.

[01:28:19]

She's like, we have such a good friendship. I don't really want to waste it. And I'm like, okay, you tell me if you want to go out again. So she calls me a couple of days later and she goes, well, I will go out again.

[01:28:30]

Ever since the rest was history. The rest was history. We've been joint at the hip since, and we love every moment with each other.

[01:28:40]

Thanks. I'm going to go find out if my toaster is waterproof now.

[01:28:47]

I'm sorry. She hates my guts, and I try to shower her with love and affection and she spits in my face. Does that help? A little bit more relatable now, I. Thought you were going to say something along the lines of, I tried to shower her with love and affection.

[01:29:04]

She hit me back with birth control and protection. I was going to say she spits in my face, and that's what makes it all sexy.

[01:29:15]

But in this household I thought you said in your household, if it's in your mouth, you don't spit it out, you swallow.

[01:29:25]

So back to the writing. What is then the most valuable piece of advice you've been given about writing? Or what would be some very valuable advice you'd give to aspiring writers? Yeah. My mentor, Roger Ernest, is a phenomenal guy.

[01:29:42]

And one of the things that Roger taught me was exactly what we've already talked about, which was, do not be intimidated by that piece of paper or that white space on your computer. You just go ahead and you write whatever you can and as fast as you can, especially with the first draft. One of the most valuable pieces of information he ever told me was to write as fast as possible. Like, don't think. Just type it all out as fast as you can.

[01:30:12]

And that has been a lifesaver, because if you think for too long about a certain thing, or if you get stuck on a certain plot point that you're trying to chew over, it can seriously set you into a tailspin to where you're not doing anything. So as long as you're hitting those beats that you write out, at least for me, as long as I'm hitting plot points at a certain pace to where I fill up four pages in four or 5 hours, then I know that I'm kind of on a roll and I didn't really think too much about it. So that's my advice to everybody else is don't let the white space intimidate. Just fill it up. And it doesn't even have to be filled up with I can't stand I said this before, I try to copy, like, Walter Hill or Ernest Hemingway, where I can't stand opening a book and I see a wall of text, because not everybody wants to climb Mount Everest.

[01:31:12]

Yeah, it can be intimidating for some people. It can be. It really can. And someone like me, who's a reader, an avid reader, I open up a book and I see a mountain of text and I go, God, I really want to get into this right now. When I say fill up the white space, that doesn't mean fill it up with every single word.

[01:31:32]

You know, in the dictionary, that means a one sentence paragraph, and that cuts the mustard for you. Do it. And that's filling the white space. Create pages. Keep creating those pages.

[01:31:45]

Yeah. Never be intimidated by the white space. Got you. Yeah. Actually, I encounter that a lot with younger kids who are just learning to read.

[01:31:53]

Like, you give them a sentence or two, and they're totally fine, but the second you give them, like, a paragraph, they're the easiest ones to see it in, because with teenagers, it's hit or miss. Right. They won't reveal their true emotions, but with young kids, you could immediately see, like, I can't read this. I don't want to read this. I totally get what even sometimes.

[01:32:15]

And I guess this was an intentional in the way that you spaced out your book, because I noticed as soon as I opened it, it's just I didn't feel like how you'd said. I didn't feel like I had to climb Mount Everest to get through a chapter or get through a page. I don't know if that was something intentional that you did when you were very much intentional. Okay. My book is part of my background of being a screenplay writer.

[01:32:43]

So it's part that, and it's also part intentional to where it's like, look, especially because of the age bracket I'm kind of writing in with this. Like, teenagers. I don't want them to crack open the book and just look at it and go, Shit, no, I don't even read that. Because it kind of blows my mind that we live in a day and age where people kind of refuse to read, but then they read at least 5000 to 10,000 words a day online. Right.

[01:33:11]

They go on Twitter, right? They spend a whole day on Twitter. Twitter. How much have you read today on Twitter? Yeah, you know, you've read at least 2020 to 40 pages, so you you know, but at the same time, like, I know what it was to be a kid.

[01:33:24]

I know what it is to be an adult. You know, when you're an adult, you have a life and you open up a book that's not like there's a. Commitment that needs to be made. And you look at that and you go, that's a commitment. Climbing Mount Everest is a commitment, and climbing a Mount Everest in board format is a fucking commitment.

[01:33:42]

So I try to keep it short and sweet. I really do. There's plenty of authors that I read that are have mountainous texts, but every single word they put down is enjoyable to run across. I actually get a little bit like, again, I haven't finished the book yet, but I get a little bit of Ray Bradbury vibes from your writing style. That's just me.

[01:34:06]

So The Illustrated Man is one of his collections of short stories, and it's actually one of my favorite books ever, and that is just explicitly like, dystopian Sci-Fi. So when I was reading your book, I was like, this kind of reminds me of one of The Illustrated Man stories. Just the way that the dialogue comes across.

[01:34:31]

Thank you so much. You're welcome.

[01:34:39]

I still haven't picked up on who you're writing about. I guess that will come later because that's the big surprise, right? But that's just where my intuition kind of took me in comparison. That's all. No, thank you.

[01:34:56]

So what would you say is the best money you've ever spent in regards to your writing? Best money I've ever spent in regards to writing is a notebook and a pen.

[01:35:10]

That's where I do my first draft by hand. Yeah, you do it all by hand? Do it first drafts by hand, from head to pen is the only way I can do it. So that would be it. And then the Lovino ThinkPad keyboard has amazing action on it.

[01:35:29]

I know people will call me a nerd for this shit, but I have never experienced a better keyboard on a laptop than I have on a Lavino. It feels like I'm just gliding. Is it called Levino? Lenovo. Sorry?

[01:35:44]

Lenovo. Because I'm like, I've heard of Lenovo. I used to have a Lenovo Legion. I'm being a stupid guinea again. Levino I'm thinking myself, I might have.

[01:35:55]

To look up what a Lenovo is. Yeah, Lenovo. Which Lenovo? Like one of the legions. No, it's a ThinkPad.

[01:36:03]

I believe I heard good things about their ThinkPad before. I actually I mean, I don't use a ThinkPad, but before I did the stream through the PC that I now have, I was doing this podcast and the streams and everything through a Lenovo Legion laptop. And that thing was able to be able to handle everything I threw at it. The whole reason I eventually went up to a PC was, first of all, the way I was using it, it was never unplugged from the outlet because I was always using it right here. So I'm like, well, it's not even a laptop at this point.

[01:36:34]

And second of all, had to be with the fact that, well, I ran out of ports, right? Yeah. It's an idea, Pad. I just looked at it. Yeah, the thing pads are great.

[01:36:46]

It's an idea. Pad three. But the keyboard on it, it just feels like your fingers are just gliding from letter to letter and it makes writing a lot of fun. I've never experienced it before. I've had Macs, I've had other kind of laptops, and nothing compares to this keyboard.

[01:37:05]

Lenovo. Sorry. Lenovo got it down. Yeah. Vino vuvino's got it down.

[01:37:10]

The Vino. That sounds like a really fancy laptop. And then I was like, Wait a second, does he mean Lenovo now? It's Italian for the wine. Yes, vino.

[01:37:22]

Listen, I'm not going to have one glass of wine. I'm going to have six, because it's classy. It's called a wine tasting.

[01:37:35]

This Idea Pad, it wasn't expensive at all for a laptop. They're very affordable, the Lenovo. Very affordable. Yeah. So I would say, if anything, it doesn't cost much to be a writer.

[01:37:48]

Pen and paper. If you could write, too, especially, it's even cheaper. But if you want to go the computer route levino. I'm just going to call Lavino now. Levino.

[01:38:00]

So who do you trust for objective and constructive criticism of your work? Oh, my wife. She will rip me to shreds if it sucks 100%. I've handed her stuff and she practically threw it at my face. So it goes always to the wife first, and especially because she has similar tastes to mine, but she also has certain things that she can catch and she's into that I'm not really into, so she'll be the first one.

[01:38:29]

And then usually it goes to a couple of trusted friends that will also I know for a fact not let me down in the department of Blowing Smoke Up My ass. They won't do it. And that's ideally with your beta readers that's who you need to look for. Is not the person who wants to. Be the you don't want to have a friend.

[01:38:50]

You want to have someone who will, if need be repeated. Shreds. Yeah, 100%. I agree with that. With any form of entertainment or content you're making, you definitely don't want.

[01:39:02]

That's how you get all these idiots that are sitting in the writer's room writing about literally period dramas in The Witcher, they're just blowing smoke up each. Other'S literally period drama. I think in order to be successful, you have to be willing to take that criticism with someone that you trust or someone who has the same goals as you. Case in point, vex and I oftentimes double check each other's work before we even have anything go public because, all right, when I submit something to her before I go public with it, I know that she's going to be honest, she's going to say what she feels. We may or may not agree with each other on certain things, but we're doing it for the right reasons.

[01:39:42]

And it's the same way the other way around. She may be wanting to get an article out. She needs someone to proofread it. There might be some minor things I have to correct, like maybe a fluency error or something like that to make it sound a lot more smooth. But we do it because we want to provide the best content we can.

[01:39:59]

So whenever you're doing any kind of content, you definitely need someone in your corner who has your best interest at heart. Exactly. And that's exactly who you need, is just you don't want yes people, because that doesn't better you. You want someone who wants the best for you, and that doesn't always mean someone who's going to coddle you. And I think what Vex touched on just now was a lot of these writer rooms in Hollywood these days.

[01:40:28]

They come from a bunch of places that they were always told yes, their parents gave them participation trophies. They were told that everything that they did was great. And the moment they hit a wall of criticism, their whole entire worlds are shattered. And you can see this happen kind of in real time when fans reject a piece of entertainment these days where you could just tell these people who were writing their entire worlds are crumbling before them because they've never encountered criticism from Lord of the Rings fans. I made a video on Copa Catania about lord of the Lambency Show.

[01:41:08]

And I said one of the things that these people were so stupid in trying to achieve was messing with Lord of the Rings fans. Yeah, 100%. Those are dedicated fans. Those are hardcore fans. Yeah, it's not even that they're dedicated.

[01:41:25]

We're talking generational fans. We're talking grandfathers and great grandfathers. And we're talking about people who literally have scholars. This is almost like a lot of people's Bible. Like a lot of people memorize it back and forth.

[01:41:41]

People know the lore like I have never seen. I thought Star Wars nerds were kind of crazy with like, oh, that character in the background. Yeah, that's R two J eight. And he shoots Jizz all over the place. When you touch him in a certain way and you're like, what?

[01:41:59]

Where'd you hear, which movie is that in? And it's like, Excuse me, that was in like, book three of whatever the fuck. And you go, Whatever, dude. But Lord of the Rings fans are on a completely different level. And for them to attempt to fuck with those fans was crazy.

[01:42:16]

They were just out of their mind if they thought Lord of the Rings fans were going to roll over Star Wars fans. It was the number one show on Amazon. Oh, yeah. That's why I heard from everybody that worked for Amazon.

[01:42:30]

It's almost as if there was never a negative review about it. Well, it was kind of funny because you watched it on IMDb and it never crossed a certain threshold in the ratings. It dipped below like 5.5 in the ratings and then it go back up to 5.5. Like you could tell that they said it in IMDb is by Amazon. Yeah, it's owned by Amazon.

[01:42:51]

So they're already skewing the numbers right there. Oh, my goodness. IMDb is still one of my more trusted sources when it comes to that ratings and stuff. But same here. The reviews, too.

[01:43:04]

I enjoy the reviews because that's where you'll see just regular people writing them. Right. I don't care about the critics as much. I want to see what actual people think of this. Except for I don't look at tens or ones with the reviews.

[01:43:17]

If you gave something a perfect ten or one, you kind of seem emotional. To me because there's one extreme or the other. Right. So that totally makes sense. Yeah.

[01:43:28]

Excuse me. Go ahead. You don't want me?

[01:43:37]

No, you'd mentioned so you're writing books and then you're making YouTube videos. So what inspired you to begin making online content? Well, first of all, I always wanted to teach or at least kind of educate. Yeah, educate and kind of pass down some of the things that I learned. I was very inspired by, once again, my mentor, Roger Earnest, who was in the industry for a while.

[01:44:08]

Would we know him from anything, by the way? Roger Ernest? Yeah. Well, sort of. Let's see.

[01:44:16]

You guys remember Universal Studios? Yeah. So he was the one who came up with the Miami Vice show in Universal. He was the one who designed all that. And then after that, it turned into Water World.

[01:44:32]

He was, like, one of the first ones to come up with the idea of mixing fire and water at a show and stuff like that. At Universal, he did a lot of the other rides. He was friends with Spielberg in the college years of Spielberg. So they did a couple of short films together. There was one short film that they did called Slipstream.

[01:44:56]

I can't remember who the lead actor was in on that. Okay. And then he had a little bit to do with Jaws. He was there for pre production, and then he went into the Air Force. And when he came back, he was in Close Encounters.

[01:45:15]

Have you guys ever seen Close Encounters a while ago? I have, yes. Okay, so do you remember when the cop is chasing the UFO and he's not keeping his eye on the road and he goes over the side of the cliff because he keeps chasing the UFO? Yes, I do. That is Mr.

[01:45:34]

Roger Earnest over the side of the cliff. He's been around, in and around the industry for the longest time. He was working for a Universal and then he decided to teach screenwriting and creative writing and whatnot. And then he inspired me so much that I was like he imparted a lot of his knowledge because he took me under his wing outside of school. Like, we became really great friends.

[01:46:06]

And I felt like he imparted this knowledge on me. And I wanted to do something along those lines, but not really go to college and teach. So I was toying with the idea of coming up with some kind of channel for creativity and filmmaking and writing and things of that nature. And then, of course, COVID hit and all the YouTubers blew up then because everybody was sitting at home. And one of the YouTubers I came across was the critical drinker.

[01:46:37]

And I went, oh, my God, this guy. It took you to COVID to discover drinker? Yeah. Oh, man. I had all this extra time on my hand.

[01:46:48]

I was catching up with everybody else watch a drinker. And I was like, Whoa, this guy. He's nailing it with all of his views. And not only that, he seems to have some kind of storytelling capabilities because he really understands and breaks down story elements. He can deconstruct a story element really.

[01:47:09]

Well because he's a writer. There you go. Right. But at the time, I didn't know that. I was just watching him.

[01:47:16]

I was like, man, this guy. I went through this entire back catalog and just going through how he was deconstructing everything, and it was just like, Jeez, this guy is just on point. So then I tinkered with the idea while at the same time writing the book and then the book came out. And then I said, okay, it's time to start the channel. And I didn't know what to do.

[01:47:35]

So at one point, I was thinking about just streaming me writing and talking about writing or whatever. And then it just all clicked one day where I was like, I should just review films. I'm tired of what I'm seeing in modern filmmaking. I feel like I have a spot where I can bring my knowledge in storytelling as well and kind of talk about what I'm seeing in modern filmmaking as well. So being inspired by the drinker, I was like, okay, I'll give it a shot.

[01:48:10]

I'll see what I can do. And the first film I tried it on was Top Gun Maverick. And I released that on my birthday in September of this year. And that thing blew up. It got over 5000 views.

[01:48:26]

I think it's sitting at over 5000 views still. Wow. And I went, okay, so I was expecting to do, like, 50 views. I was expecting to do, like, something like that. Something what I think is a modest number, like 25, 50 views.

[01:48:43]

Starting numbers. Yeah, I was totally like, I'll just start now. I'll have one or two people and then maybe over time of, like, two or three years from now I'll gain a little bit of a following and I'll be able to do live shows and crap like that. And we'll talk writing and we'll talk this and whatever. But it was like watching the numbers real time just skyrocket.

[01:49:09]

I mean, this thing was just taken off. And I was like, okay, that was a fluke. Okay, I picked the right movie at the right time. Even though the movie was already out. It was September, so it was already out, like, four or five months.

[01:49:21]

But, okay, I picked the right time, I picked the right movie, whatever. And then the next couple of reviews I did, they were doing, like, 300, 400 views. Yeah, this is kind of ridiculous. And then I dropped my triple R review and that did over 55,000 views. And I am on to something.

[01:49:42]

I really feel like I'm on to something here. So I've kind of committed now to making at least one review video a week or at least talk some kind of story element or movie making element once a week here because I've only had the channel about three months now and I have over 300 subscribers. Yeah, you're growing very quickly. It's crazy. It's crazy.

[01:50:08]

I never expected this to happen, especially this fast. I'm hitting my 4000 hours watch mark here soon. Wow. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you.

[01:50:22]

Thank you so much. And it's so humbling. And I mean it too. Every time it hits some kind of milestone or what I think is a milestone and it's in such short period of time, three months to me seems so short and so quick. And I'm extremely humbled, especially with people like Canoli, UVAX, Lambency, just getting together with everybody else who's kind of in this space with me and kind of opening the door for me as well, especially with Catania's podcast with Mischief, Mayhem, and Movie.

[01:51:00]

That was the first time I've ever been on the live streams. You know, I was going to ask, like, how did you end up meeting Connolly Sasquatch before you I kind of. Just a quick question. You said that was your first livestream with the Mischief, Mayhem, and Movies, right? Yes.

[01:51:16]

Would we have been your first interview? No, you're not my first interview, unfortunately. That explains a lot. That explains because you you're very comfortable and you come across as very comfortable. And I really do believe that our community is really going to enjoy this, especially those who are listening later on on Spotify and everything else.

[01:51:33]

Like, you come across very natural, very genuine, and viewers like hearing that. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. It's just been a very humbling experience. And I'm trying not to take any of it for granted.

[01:51:48]

I'm really trying to soak it all in because it's been lightning quick. A lot of things just haven't really been expected, but it's been in a very positive situation. I've met a very vast amount of positive people by just doing this, by just sitting in front of a microphone. I just said, screw it, by buying the $70 microphone, and I'm going to start talking into it. And that's exactly what I did.

[01:52:10]

And since then, this has opened up so many different doors to so many different people that have just been great and positive and in my corner. And I'm right back in their corner as well. It's just been a great community to be a part of this group that we're all coming up with or already made it and they're pulling other people up. It's just been incredible. It's been a lot of fun, and I just love every moment of it.

[01:52:40]

But it's deeply humbling as well. Yeah, I agree. I agree 100%. So it just kind of happened then. Did you find them on through YouTube or through Twitter?

[01:52:54]

I can't really remember. I know I've known White Bear for quite some time. He's probably the longest I've known. I was following him on YouTube for a while and we were following each other on Twitter. Got you.

[01:53:12]

I'm pretty sure someone tagged all of us together at one particular moment. She had like, hey, here's some fellow conservative libertarian writers and here's some podcasters, and here's some whatever. And she had this long list, and then she told everybody to add to it, whoever you thought. And I think that's pretty much where we found each other. Got you.

[01:53:39]

But the Mischief Movie mayhem came up. And I don't know how this originated, but Ponoli, myself and White Bear were all like, having a giddy fest over the movie Heat. We're all being macho men talking about how awesome heat is. And at one point I said, man, I could talk about heat for hours and can only pretty much say, why won't you why don't you come on my show and do it then? Yeah, just do it.

[01:54:10]

Just do it. Just do it already. And I was like, I'll do it. I'll come on your show and do it. And he asked White Bear as well.

[01:54:17]

And White Bear said yeah. So we all got together on Monday night, and after that show, we went, holy shit, I think we have something here. And then the next week or a week after that, two episodes deep, Kennely comes into the group chat and he goes, what do you think about me bringing in Vex electronic mayhem and movie? And I said, no fucking way. No girls laugh.

[01:54:45]

I still got a phone picture with you, Mr. Canole. Yeah, Mr. Catania, after he tabs Vex as a new host, goes to me and he's like, after I announced this, I realized I probably should have went to you first. And then like, hey, is it okay if Vex comes over and hosts with me?

[01:55:04]

I'm like, yeah, that's fine. She could do whatever she wants. But it would have been nice to be would have asked.

[01:55:12]

I guess it would have been one thing if it canceled out your show or whatever. But I was like, wait, does our show cancel his show? Are we all on at the same time? And he wouldn't know. And I'm like, there shouldn't be a problem.

[01:55:23]

Oh, no, I had no problem whatsoever. I like how you asked me after the fact. You asked me before the fact would have been nice. Yeah, you kind of should be like, yo, dude, I'm not trying to poach anybody. And I'm just having her on my show too.

[01:55:36]

I'm just giving you a heads up. Lamancy and I had had the conversation a couple of months before was like, hey, we're going to build this lament to show together and all this stuff. But I don't want it to ever feel like if you go off and do your own thing that it's not going to affect this or that. Should the opportunity arise, you won't be held back. I still want you to be able to grow.

[01:56:00]

So it's like we had already had that conversation in the past. So when Catania asked me, honestly, if it were on a Sunday, I would have flat out said no, because Twig is my baby, and I don't want to abandon that in any way. Right?

[01:56:18]

This week in gaming, yes, this week. In gaming is all you. It's my baby, right? But then he's like, oh, no, it's Monday. And like, that's fine.

[01:56:27]

I don't work till the afternoons usually, so that works perfectly. It's fine with you and him, but no girls allowed. I basically have a dick in this place. God.

[01:56:43]

Well, I said to him. It's probably good that we have a female perspective on the show. And then I met Vex and I was like, shit. Well, we still don't have a female perspective on the show until I started. Talking about how hot Bell Gibson was.

[01:57:00]

His buns buns were there. And I was like, okay, she's back. We do have the female perspective. Yeah, we had this conversation a few months back and stuff. I had told her flat out, I'm like, listen, as long as you still want to stay aboard, I don't want you leaving the the Lambency Show show.

[01:57:19]

You've made that your own. But I also don't want it to hinder you either and stuff. So if you're still willing to work with us and you find opportunities elsewhere, go ahead and go do that and stuff. If anything, it helps both hands. I'm not going to bite the hand up.

[01:57:33]

If anything, it works great for us because now Canole has a great host that we both mutually share. And it's actually opened up another avenue where I know if I'm in a position where I might need somebody, I can go to Cannoli and be like, hey, this is what I'm dealing with. Is there any way do you have anyone available who can help me out? Because we now have that bridge between us and stuff. And then I'm looking at our Rumble rants, our Rumble chats.

[01:58:03]

White Bear says, a Copa has been such a good new friend to have. He's given a lot of insight that he appreciates. He found you through Twitter, but you were already sticking out to him in his arena. And he says, it turns out you're like a Transformer more than meets the eye. Oh, wow, so sweet.

[01:58:25]

If I had a party, then he. Says, we are poachers. We poach. Vex like an egg. She got a bigger D than most fellas and double exposure rock.

[01:58:40]

See, I wanted to call it I thought it should have been called Mischief Movie and Misogyny and Vex just blew it. You've seen some of the things I've said in our private chat. It could still work. It's awesome. It's really awesome.

[01:58:57]

Yeah. Once Vex came into the show, it was like, okay. I didn't even know we were missing a piece until she showed up and then was like, it's all locked in together, and we have a really rock solid live stream show that once again, if you asked me in, september, when I was dropping my first video that I was going to be doing a live stream show with three great co hosts every Monday night, I would have been like, absolutely not. Who am I? Johnny Carson?

[01:59:25]

I'm not Johnny Carson.

[01:59:30]

It's just been a crazy whirlwind of great people and just backing each other up. One thing I can't stand as a writer, especially an independent writer, and I've seen this a lot, is people really cut each other at the legs. They feel like their fellow writer is competition, which is crazy to me. I've seen people just go after each other just because I don't see it either. We're all just trying to come up.

[02:00:04]

You already have publishers that are kind of gatekeeping you out. You don't need the extra layer of bullshit. But with the YouTube community, or the streamer community or podcasting community, whatever you want to call it, I haven't met anybody who's just been nefarious and just trying to cut each other at the legs off. It seems like everybody has been genuinely trying to lift each other up and it's just been fascinating to be a part of that, even a little bit. I've noticed the same thing just from first hand experience.

[02:00:40]

As I've said numerous times before, this is not my first rodeo. My biggest mistake in the past was, you know, I only had a YouTube, so when they shut down my YouTube, I had to start from scratch and that was kind of disheartening. But from my own personal experience, what I have found is it starts happening once people start blowing up faster than others. And I never really agreed with that. There is one channel in particular that I helped Kickstart and that's not me trying to take credit.

[02:01:09]

This person had like two followers on YouTube, but I liked the content she was making. And at the time I had like 4000 subscribers on YouTube. I was averaging 75 to 100 viewers. And I took her under my wing and within a month she blew up. Never heard from her again.

[02:01:28]

And I'm not saying that she has to give credit where credit is due, that's not the case. But I find a lot of times what happens is once someone blows up, they don't want to. They only want to be with people who are now around their channel size and forget anyone who's not. Instead of just having yeah, they think they outgrew you even though you had that rapport before. It's like, okay, yeah.

[02:01:53]

And that's what I've noticed in the certain writing communities in the indie sphere is of course, Hollywood. They see you as a wrong to step on instead of a hand to rise up and grab onto and say, hey, you're coming with me. That's not the way I do things.

[02:02:16]

I feel like the people that I've met so far seem to be extremely genuine. I seem to have a knack to recognize who's genuine and who's bullshit. And the group I'm kind of running with right now in that terms, I haven't really sniffed out any bullshit yet with them. It's just a great core group of people that seems to just want nothing but the best for the other guy. And that's what I like, at least with the people I found.

[02:02:45]

I'm sure it's out there. Of course it's out there. That's the thing. You don't have to be jealous just because someone blew up or anything either. I don't get that whole point.

[02:02:56]

As a matter of fact, I'm the first person to be like, Congrats. It's well deserved. I don't care if you get bigger than me or not because we all have our time in place. Matter of fact, that's why I have the creator spotlight in the first place. I plan for our show to become really big.

[02:03:11]

It's going to take time, of course, but I plan for it to be really big. And while I do plan on interviewing people who are better known and or celebrities, that doesn't mean I'm going to stop interviewing smaller creators because that's what the spotlight is going to be there for. I want to run across this obscure, smaller channel who is providing great content but doesn't have that exposure yet and being like, hey, listen, with our 10,000 viewers, we're interviewing this creator. Well, who's this creator? Let's go check him out.

[02:03:44]

Oh, this creator makes great content. Boom. Now he has a fan base. I don't see why we can't all just work together. Well, like I said, there are some people who just look at others and go, you're just a rung to climb up.

[02:03:57]

And sometimes these people don't even think of it until they get up there. And then they go, oh, well, you know, Copa Catania, he only has 300 and some odd subscribers. So I mean, like, I can't really talk to him and things like that that just exposes their character. And it's shocking to you, but yeah, it's just terrible. It happens in every facet that I've seen.

[02:04:25]

I think it's just human nature that there's always going to be snakes in the grass. You just got to make sure that your garden isn't snake free. Really. My whole thing is if you have a good report, what the hell does it matter? I could have a million subscribers and have another channel with a million subscribers want to come on the show and the rapport is terrible and then have someone come on the show who's got ten subscribers and the report is awesome.

[02:04:53]

Who do you think I want to have on more? Exactly. Well, that's entertainment, baby. That's entertainment. Sorry.

[02:05:01]

Go ahead. No, sorry. No, you can't wait, but we enjoy it. Stop lying. I pay you a lot of money today anyways.

[02:05:14]

No, I was just going to say I noticed that. Again, this is probably just my experience, but I noticed that a lot of Twitch creators specifically do not like to support people who they see are doing better than them, especially when they started from the same place. Right. I noticed that a lot of the people I supported on Twitch when I was still streaming, I will still be more than happy to like their content because more likes on Twitter and stuff means more people see it. And I'm more than happy to congratulate them when things happen.

[02:05:48]

But when I announce something, it's like, oh no, it doesn't. Matter anymore. I don't even want to just see where you're going because it negatively impacts me or it overshadows what I'm trying to do. I find that's the deal with a lot of streamers, they're fucking dumb.

[02:06:09]

I may hurt people's feelings with that. But Twitch streamers, 99% of them are the most self centered fake people you will ever find on the internet. And the ones that are trying to be genuine are the most dis genuine people you will ever find on the internet. Like for real. So they're actresses?

[02:06:30]

They're the internet actresses. Basically they're Pokemon. All of them are just Pokemon. Your God. Yeah, pretty much.

[02:06:37]

Some of them just show titties. Some of them do Hot and Adolf Midler. Adolf Midler. That's right. They're all like that.

[02:06:46]

Even the dudes are like that. And then the dudes just like they're God. They're all of those actors that you see coming out being like, you have to like, we made an awesome movie. Trust me, guys, it's great. You're going to love all the they're the rock promoting Black Adam.

[02:07:01]

That's what they're all like. No tea at all. Very low tea. It's horrible. We shouldn't generalize people.

[02:07:11]

And I try not to not to let that take over. But fucking hell. Twitch streamers. Get your shit together. Grow a backbone together.

[02:07:20]

Learn some empathy. Get some tea. Get some tea. Yeah, eat a steak. God damn tea.

[02:07:27]

Eat a steak. Cut out the soiled.

[02:07:32]

For real. Jesus. To Twitch streamers Pokemon, your youth is not going to come back. Midler. She's my age now.

[02:07:45]

I think she's 30 or 31. There's another Twitch streamer that's been making the rounds for negative things that this particular streamer has been doing. And all I did was make one comment and it's already got like 25 likes. And I'm not going to say the name, but as soon as I say what the comment is, you're going to know exactly who it is. So basically this particular streamer has been making the rounds again for basically being a horrible human being.

[02:08:14]

And I basically commented. I'm like, I'm not even going to ask what's going on. All I know is that a couple of months back, she decided to go after one of my co hosts for asking a question. No, she went after me. You could say she went after me.

[02:08:28]

Went after Backs for asking a question and made a scene out of nothing and just basically just tried to create drama and thin air just to create clicks. My name got dragged through social media a little bit earlier this year because of this creator. Yeah, because what were you doing? Asking questions, dumb. Dumb.

[02:08:49]

I know, right? How could I be so dumb? She asked. All she said was, I've been hearing a lot about this streamer with a question mark. Another one like what's going to run the audacity of her?

[02:09:03]

That's what you asked. That's. What? I dare you. Vex.

[02:09:07]

Oh, my God. I'm glad that people finally came out and realized that she's not a good person. She's a fake, like most of these fakers. We're talking about the dreamers. Since we're brushing around the portrait here, is this the one who admitted that she was married and has a husband?

[02:09:25]

Oh, no, not Amaranth. No, she's not that big. She's not that big. One who made her whole fame being one of the top people on Hover and got a lot of favoritism on that app, which was basically a pyramid scheme, which was exposed as a pyramid scheme and got all of her popularity through it. Oh, by the way, Hover is like TikTok just for gamers.

[02:09:47]

That's all for reference. But it was basically run like a pyramid scheme. Is it now defunct? It's gone now. Yeah, it's gone now.

[02:09:55]

Sharper rise and even Sharper decline yeah. Because I've never heard of it. Yeah. Within a year, it was done, basically. Wow.

[02:10:03]

But then those same people came back and tried to make another app that was like a crypto kind of based app. And that, of course, did exactly what you think it did. Right? Yeah. No.

[02:10:15]

And she is one of the people who was behind all that shit. And that's how she gave her fame and money because she was cute and bubbly. Are you going to blame her when Vex is running around asking questions? I mean, Vex questions are asking questions. How dare you?

[02:10:32]

Wait, hold on. I wish I had the sound clip. The sound clip that I could play right now. Greta thunberg one. How dare you?

[02:10:41]

How dare you? Don't you know that the only person who was ever able to ask questions is Jennifer Lawrence? She's the first one who gets she. Gets first pick all the time. She asks the questions.

[02:10:54]

Only her, only hers matter. Questions didn't even happen ever in history before Jennifer Lawrence. And you tried to ask a question before her. Who do you think you are? That was awful.

[02:11:06]

That's just awful. That's foul play. Do you want to take this next question? I would see it. Oh, you don't want the heat for this question?

[02:11:15]

No, I don't. She's like, I'm part of the crew. I can't ask this because then exactly. Fine. I'll take the heat off of you.

[02:11:24]

I'm still asking the following question, though. In your Cannolia and his crew, which host brings the most drama? Which host brings the most drama? Now, keep in mind, I asked Cannoli when he was on here, if he had to get rid of one person as a host. Right.

[02:11:39]

That's what I was going to say. I was like, oh, I thought this was the question I was going to get. But which one brings the most drama? That's easy. It's White Bear.

[02:11:46]

Easy. Oh, shit. White bear barely says anything. And I'm like, that little bastard streaming up shit. I know it.

[02:11:53]

That's true. And even if you look at, like, yesterday, for example, dude was just gone for half the dream. And he comes in comes in how hot? Like, fuck this movie. Yeah.

[02:12:03]

Fuck this fucking movie. I don't know why we're fucking talking about Eyes Wide Shut. I mean, he was just hot. I was like, good. White Bear on rubblefoot.

[02:12:10]

Lol. I bring a duck. Ton of drama.

[02:12:16]

Yeah. I'm going to have to say white bear. All right. Very nice. He might seem quiet, everybody, but that man is not drama free.

[02:12:24]

He don't seem quiet. He looks like he sniffs that white powder. When he sniffs that white powder, though, that's when he gets going. He looks like the type of person where if he was at a grocery store and he saw the Coca Cola vendor, he would ask if he has any of the dry stuff. Oh, yeah, exactly.

[02:12:43]

Absolutely. He just goes around sniffing sugar and flour all over the place because he just thinks it's in there. I heard that he got a really cheap brick and he was wondering why it was so cheap. But it was flour. Yeah, it was just powdered sugar.

[02:12:59]

He's like, fuck it. It'll get me high too, or I'll get diabetes, one or the other. Hey, it's not good if you can't taste the diabetes. No, it's right. That's absolutely right.

[02:13:08]

Yeah. So who does surprise you with what they bring to the table both in the past and more recently? With the show. With the show with everything that you've been doing as of lately and everything and in your past as well. Like, it could be your time in Hollywood or whatever else.

[02:13:26]

Something that you surprised you in your past and something that surprised you recently. It's an interesting question. Something that has surprised me recently, to be honest with you. All three of my co hosts have surprised me. What surprised me, what's really shocking, is just how in depth Vex gets with her research.

[02:13:48]

I thought you were going to talk about how hers is bigger. Hers is bigger. It really is. But oddly enough, brighter. Yeah.

[02:13:55]

I was looking up why it was so bright, and then I realized she's got the clap.

[02:14:05]

She's getting all scratchy.

[02:14:09]

That's why it's all red.

[02:14:12]

No, Rudolph was out of commission. Santa used to fix this dish.

[02:14:19]

Why you got to do that? I'm picturing that.

[02:14:27]

You got the sleigh tonight. That's a hell of a Christmas, everybody. Good gracious. Thank you. Yeah.

[02:14:37]

Her level of dedication to research is fascinating to watch and be a part of. She slams the group chat on a minute basis with all this stuff that we could possibly talk about, it's kind of funny. We knew we were going to be talking about Eyes Wide Shut and I was going to kind of touch on the occult stuff, and I immediately stopped myself and I went, I guarantee, without even mentioning it, Vex is going to COVID that. Vex is going to have that covered. And sure enough, she had it all down.

[02:15:13]

I mean, she's looking at backgrounds. It took her 5 hours to watch the damn movie. She's pointing out numbers and the lighting schemes and stuff like that. I had questions for her like, hey, do you think they use the set over again? And that's why it looks like 33?

[02:15:29]

And she's like, no, it's the occult. I'm telling you, I have it all down here in my notes. Genius. And then I was like, okay, crazy how much she can cover and how deep she can go in very short time. She started watching the movie the day of, and then she had everything that she presented the show by that night.

[02:15:54]

It's just fascinating to watch. So, yeah, that's one thing that's been kind of shocking and surprising, to be fair. I think a lot of that might actually have to do with her teachers background. I think she's used to doing things like this. And I am taking that skill that she's learned over the years of teaching these children and grading papers and everything and applying it elsewhere in her life.

[02:16:16]

Whereas I am the fuller opposite. I am absolutely OCD as hell at work. And if someone fucks up, I immediately have to fix it. I go home. I don't give a shit anymore.

[02:16:28]

You're completely opposite. Yeah. It's like, hey, you know what? I took off the badge. I don't have to be the sheriff here.

[02:16:34]

Exactly. And Becks is like, no, this is my life now. She's the sheriff at home. My job is badge twenty four seven. I feel very fulfilled by my job.

[02:16:45]

And as a result, it's been able to push me to that fulfillment. That joy that it brings me can now be spread very nicely to all these other things that I have an interest in. Right. And it's even my boss is taking advantage of it because we started writing works. She showed articles from the Lamb, and she showed.com to her boss for things that she could do at work.

[02:17:12]

And I'm like you're crazy. And now my boss is having me write education articles for Perfect. Right. It's insane to watch you work and be a part of it. Thank you.

[02:17:25]

Thank you. Like I said, the addition to you has been more ways we got more. Than I'm sorry, I have to stop everything right here. White Bear just donated $5 on Rumble. And he this is his comment.

[02:17:41]

Diversity, higher reparation money.

[02:17:49]

Thank you.

[02:17:52]

Thanks, White Bear. Thank you for the $5. That is a good luck. Thank you. I couldn't help but stop everything there just reading that.

[02:18:04]

I'm so glad I didn't just take a sip of my drink because I would have fucked up my $2,000 computer.

[02:18:15]

So then who surprised you in the past? Then? Who are some figures that have come into your life in the past that really surprised you at how much they inspired you or influenced you or whatnot. And please don't think Chris walking. I was really trying to skip that question so I didn't have to answer that.

[02:18:33]

I was really trying to COVID it. I think it's that answer. I don't know what surprised me in the past. I can't really come up with anything off the top of my head. Not to say that nothing's ever surprised me, but it hasn't.

[02:18:50]

No one pulls the bull over my eyes except for, oh, there's certain things that happen in your life where tragedies and whatnot that come across, and you think to yourself, wow, I never really thought that. Like Chris walking, didn't I? Wow.

[02:19:17]

There are certain things that come across your desk or through your life, and you go, I never thought that person was capable of that. But yet, here we are. But I can't put my thumb on one. I'm sorry. I'm just kind of drawing a blank with it.

[02:19:31]

God, someone who surprised me. Okay, have it in the back of your head. If it comes back to you, you can let us know. Okay, fine. Because there's a question that was asked earlier by White Bear, and I think after that comment he just had, he deserves this question to be answered.

[02:19:46]

I was going to kind of skip it because we had already gotten past Hollywood, but I feel we should probably ask this one. White Bear earlier asked about the divide in Hollywood, politically, mentally, how big is it? Workers, actors, management? And did you feel the divide? Yeah, you feel the divide, especially a lot of the blue collar guys are obviously blue collar, and they tend to lean a certain way, and then you have the elites that lean left or are left.

[02:20:17]

But the old adage of people coming up to, let's say, right wingers and going, hey, I really agree with you. I just can't really say anything about it is true. Like, you're ostracized immediately for expressing a certain political opinion. I felt it in 2015 when I voiced I didn't even voice my support for Donald Trump or anything. I voiced my understanding of people voting for Donald Trump or liking what Donald Trump had to say, and that got me kind of pushed to the curb.

[02:20:55]

I mean, I had 1ft out the door anyways, and that's why I was kind of starting to open my mouth. But I only voiced that I understood why people were liking Donald Trump, and that was going to get me kicked to the curb.

[02:21:11]

Opinion, different than what they've been taught. Wasn'T even opinion, was a fucking observation. It was a straight up observation with my opinion on my political beliefs or political meanings. It was just like, hey, look, I understand. It was exactly what Dave Chappelle described in his monologue on SNL.

[02:21:30]

Dave Chappelle hit it on the notes. Oh, he hit it on the notes. And I was telling people that in 2015, and they were looking at me like I was spitting swastikas at their face. And I'm like, I just don't get it. You guys aren't paying attention anymore.

[02:21:44]

What this side is saying that they feel is going on. You are just shrouding it over racism, sexism, and misogyny without listening to grievances that they have. And I felt the heat just by saying that, I really did. And I went, wow, this is something different. Because before, prior to that, like in 2012, when Romney was running against Obama and stuff like that, it wasn't that bad.

[02:22:11]

He could have voiced an opinion like that and get away with it. But by 2015 rolled around and Donald Trump was running, and you knew who was running for the presidency, and he voiced an opinion like that man, that got kicked you out of polite society pretty quick. You know what the sad thing is? A lot of people voiced their displeasure as something I had said in that whole race as well. And it wasn't even to that point.

[02:22:36]

I had basically just said, I'm like, I don't agree with Trump, but I certainly don't like Hillary. So basically, I have to choose between someone who's been a career lifelong criminal constantly in court all the time because of his slum lord ways in Donald Trump, or I have to do a career criminal who never gets prosecuted, who can't even control her own household and keep her husband in check. And I suppose I trust either or of them for presidency. I'm like, this whole thing sucks. I'd be better off voting for Nader.

[02:23:08]

Yeah, maybe that's where the past surprise comes in. I had a couple of friends that chewed me out just for expressing that opinion.

[02:23:20]

I think that was a shocking moment to me, was 2015. 2015 was a big shocking moment. So, yeah, I would have to say to actually circle back to the other question, there was a couple of people who shocked me with the fact that you couldn't even express the mild opinion of, I understand the plight of middle flyover America and what they're yelling about. And I kept on saying, Look, I'm telling you, this is how they feel. And you have to listen to them.

[02:23:49]

They have legitimate grievances. They feel like they're being forgotten. You have a bunch of hardworking Americans whose factories have been shut down, their jobs have been shipped overseas, and they have a president who's on his way out saying they're never getting their livelihoods back, and you don't think that they're going to be pissed off. You have another thing coming, and Hillary doesn't seem to care. There is one person who does seem to be tapping in to their concerns.

[02:24:15]

All these men and women want to do, especially in the middle America, what they call flyover country. All they want to do is take care of their families and provide put food on the table, blue collar. They want to work, they want to work because they know work gives life and meaning. They want to sacrifice, and they want to feel like they're giving something better to their children. And you have somebody who's higher up who's leaving and saying, they ain't coming back.

[02:24:41]

Your jobs are not coming back. That was the line. What is he going to do, wave some kind of magic wand and bring those jobs back? Well, guess fucking what? He did.

[02:24:50]

Like day two, all these jobs came flooding back, and that made people even more hopeful. But at the time, 2015, yeah, I was really shocked that you couldn't even express the mild opinion of I understand. No, you're very right. Yeah. There's always been divide in the country, in all honesty and stuff.

[02:25:08]

I don't know how much you've actually seen and stuff because as you stated, you are Canadian and stuff, but as someone who's been in America, one of the things we know for a fact and this is nothing against you, it's. Just no, I understand. Throughout my entire life, this is what I've noticed when it comes to any kind of race for presidential, all that other stuff, you have so many more people who live in the city. So wherever the cities decide to vote is what ends up happening. Because the cities do not understand the plights of the common American man, because they're used to be receiving handouts and government subsidies and this and that.

[02:25:42]

So they're going to vote for the party that's going to give them the most money. Whereas the hard class, middle, the hard class, blue collar men and women of America who tend to live in the country, who are providing all the substances that you need to live that life of luxury that you're getting all these government assistance constantly are getting less and less money and stuff because of these rules. So they tend to vote a completely different way. So it's almost like you have three sides of the US. The way I look at it, all right, you have the coast of California, that whole area over there, that whole side, the whole west side, and you have the whole eastern side, the coast of the eastern.

[02:26:22]

But then when you get in the middle, it's a completely different ground. So really, the people who are voting are really just the people who live on the coastal lines of both sides. Those people, their decisions are what make up for the entire country, all the remaining miles of the country, which is the majority of it. And it's hurting the hard class, blue collar men and women. It's ripping them apart.

[02:26:46]

But it's also ripping apart the middle class. The middle class is paying for everybody. The upper class, they don't pay much in taxes, and the lower class, they don't pay taxes at all. So it's the middle class is burden for everyone and they're getting ripped apart. And that's been the common thread for the.

[02:27:07]

Last maybe 20 years, is that the middle class is getting ripped into shreds. I'd almost argue that there's almost no middle class anymore, right? And it's starting to turn into a why bother? Because why bother paying my taxes when the rich don't have to pay that much? And these people over here don't pay at all, so why bother?

[02:27:28]

Why bother working when I can get subsidies? With COVID it was, why bother work at all when I could get paid more by the government to stay at home?

[02:27:39]

My personal is like a lot of people make this wrong assumption about how the rich don't pay any taxes. I get why people say that maybe on their income they don't, but they always pay taxes. They have property taxes just like everybody else. But they also have to the top 1% also tend to have a lot of things called employees. And that employee tax that you get when you get checks, it's not just the employees who play pay that income tax.

[02:28:07]

The companies have to pay that tax, too. So when you look at it over, I think it's like 83%, give or take, of all American taxes are paid by the top 1%. Well, if you think about it this way, what's the most richy thing you can get? A yacht. Now, what does it take to fucking build a yacht?

[02:28:27]

Wood, electronic equipment. You need all these other equipment to bend the wood to build the yacht. You need, like, leather interiors. You need all this other crap that goes into your yacht. Also, this one person can have luxury.

[02:28:45]

But you know how many jobs that just generated? You know how many people are unemployed just to make one damn yacht? Someone doesn't need it. Put food on something. Now, I'm not saying hey, guess what?

[02:28:56]

You need rich people. I'm not saying that whatsoever. And I'm sure my words will get twisted around anyways. But what I am saying is that jobs are generated through that. Taxes are generated through that.

[02:29:08]

People can put food on the table through that. You got a lot of people nowadays that will take what I said and go, why would I want to work for anybody who is a rich asshole? And it's like what you're saying without. That rich asshole, right? That's like saying a plumber going, why do I want to deal with something that's filled with shit all day?

[02:29:27]

Plumbers don't say that. They say, I want to get paid so my son can have a better life tomorrow. But the other thing is and this is the thing that a lot of people forget, all right? While I don't have the greatest memory I do have, I do absolutely adore history. And all you have to do is just look back to the days when America, and particularly Detroit, was known as the Motor City of the world.

[02:29:51]

Actually, our group Chat was talking about Motor City, Detroit and how they gave up the automotive industry. You know why they gave it up though, right? Informed one of the big reasons they gave up Motor City and moved their practices overseas. Their manufacturer business overseas had to do with the US government stepping in and turning around and starting to tax them more because they're already, as I've already stated, paying more than 80% of all the US taxes. And you want to keep jobs like that in your country the second you start taxing them more.

[02:30:27]

Any businesses model is to be able to make the most amount of money for the cheapest amount that they possibly can. So if you want us Businesses to thrive and succeed in order to create more jobs and opportunities, you need to give them tax breaks and give them reason to want to stay in the country. Because the amount that you give them on a tax break is going to come back tenfold in the employee taxes and everything else. But people don't understand that concept. They're just like, oh, they're not paying their taxes this, that.

[02:30:59]

And I'm looking at them like, you have no idea how economics work, do you? Because if you did, you wouldn't be talking right now. Well, bring it down to a smaller scale. You have McDonald's now that has replaced an entire workforce with robots, robot with the help. They think what's going to happen because.

[02:31:16]

The government is saying you have to pay these part time workers $15 or over an hour and the company is just getting crushed. But you know who you don't have to pay? You don't have to pay a machine. All you have to do is pay the guy who comes in and repairs it and the electric and the electricity to run it. The fact of the matter is I look at it, all right?

[02:31:39]

I still remember when I work part time at a gas station to subsidize some of my pay at the toy store. And I remember I was working third shift. Like this is true story right here. I'm working third shift. Our particular third shift, every single one of these chains gas stations had different agendas per shift.

[02:31:59]

So like our third shift was different than another gas station's third shift. But ours in particular, all the tough tasks were done on our shift, all right? Morning shift comes in and I'm still finishing up. Mind you, I had to do second shift work because second shift didn't complete the job in order to get to my stuff. So now I'm doing my work.

[02:32:21]

And then of course, first shift comes in. Well, guess what? Some of their tasks include things like making the breakfast and doing inventory and all this other stuff. Well, guess what? They're not fucking doing it.

[02:32:31]

So what am I doing? I'm doing their job because it has to be done while I'm doing their job. I'm carrying all these dishes that have to go on the back because we got to clean them real quick. Right? Right.

[02:32:41]

I overhear two employees talking about, I hate this minimum wage. They need to pay us more. I'm worth so much more. To which, with this pile of dishes, I walk past them, I'm like, you're lucky there's a minimum wage. And as I come back out, they're like, what did you mean we're lucky there's a minimum wage?

[02:33:00]

I'm like, you're worth significantly less than a minimum wage. Shut up and get back to work. Yeah, it's true.

[02:33:09]

For what the job is worth, especially. These teenagers and these young adults, they now feel entitled. They've went through an entire generation of kids who cannot be punished by the school, cannot be punished by their parents, and there's an anti bullying law and effect. So they've never been told no in their life. So now these entitled teenagers and young adults go into the workforce and for the first time they're told they have to do something, they throw a fucking fit.

[02:33:37]

And they basically just think that they're they are to collect a paycheck and they don't have to do anything. And these are the same people screaming about, we need more money. Exactly. And but you also have this same generation to add on to it. You have the same generation who's raised by a bunch of parents who are trying to raise friends instead of children of tomorrow.

[02:33:59]

They're trying to be their child's best friend. I've seen so many people now it's literally impossible until they're an adult to be their best friend. And even then, you still have to be a parent. But you're still a parent. You know, you could not but still a parent as an when they're an adult, but when they're a child, you're not there to be your child's best friend.

[02:34:21]

And anyone who's like, oh, my daughter is my best friend. My son's my best friend, then you're not a good mother or father. You obviously don't have any social skills. You might want to go look, go find some friends. Yeah.

[02:34:34]

It's just crazy. You see a lot of people who say, exactly that my kid is my best friend. No, that's your child. Whenever I hear that, you know what immediately goes off of my head? If your child is your best friend, that means you don't discipline your child or you're not taking care of your child the way they need to be taken care of, because it's not just putting food on the table.

[02:34:54]

It's not just having a roof over their head and making sure they have clothes and a warm place to sleep. It's also about being able to emotionally raise them in a mature way. And if you're their best friend, that's not a good sign. No, it's not. I agree 100%.

[02:35:10]

You there to mold them, not to be their best friend. Agree. But we're getting off topic. Let's go back to the interview. Yeah.

[02:35:17]

Writing I just wanted to add in. I went to go do groceries earlier today, and we have this thing called bulk barn here in Canada where basically it's like bins and stuff, and you just kind of buy as much as you want. So I went over there, and it's like this 1718 year old cashier. And someone asked her if they had something in stock, and she had to go to the back to get it. And she's lifting this heavy she's a Twiggy girl.

[02:35:41]

So this bag was like, £50. And as she walks by me while I'm, like, scooping something out of one of these bin, she's like, they don't pay me enough for this shit. And I'm like, oh, my God, girl, you're lifting a bag. All you do is sit out of cash all day. What the fuck do you mean you can't pay that?

[02:35:58]

I'm too old for this shit. God damn. She came back. She had hurt hip. She was in a wheelchair.

[02:36:07]

Oh, my God. My neck in my back. Right, so, yeah. Back to the interview, though. So what are your top three favorite movies and why do those stand out as your favorite movies?

[02:36:20]

Wow. That looks like has got to be that Intro to the Cannoli Sasquatch production. Oh, three amigos. The three astros.

[02:36:34]

The original title of our show was Three Astrimos. Okay. Wow. So top three films. One would be the godfather.

[02:36:44]

This is no particular order, but The Godfather is definitely in the top three because of just how multifaceted that film is. Got you. It's just one of those films that you can find many layers to just watch and you go, I didn't even notice that was there before.

[02:37:04]

I would say Seven Samurai would be the next one because it is one of the most epic films ever be shot. It's one of the first true action films. War film. Well, not first war film, but it's just a really great action film. But it's just a phenomenal epic.

[02:37:29]

And that's another multifaceted one. Yeah. My third one would probably be god, I would say Dr. Strangelove right off the top of my head. Okay, throw a little comedy in there.

[02:37:42]

Mix it up a little bit. Mix it up a little bit. This is not the definitive three, but if I was to go on a deserted island tomorrow gun to your head. Gun to my head. Three films go, this would be my three.

[02:37:56]

And yeah strange love Just because the satirical comedy of it all is just fascinating to me. You're at the height of the Cold War and so what's? The best thing you can do is just make fun of your own destruction. That's one I haven't seen yet that's been on my list to watch for years, and I just never got around to it. It is so good to consider it one of Kubrick's best is an understatement.

[02:38:26]

Do I think it's his best? Technically, no. But do I think it's obviously his funniest, but to take such a serious subject, as in a very real one, a lot of people don't realize how close we were to our own self destruction in the 60s. Yeah. Those boomers were really living under some boomers.

[02:38:50]

But to take that subject and turn it on its head and just make it this satire where every line of dialogue is a laugh out loud moment, every little piece of action in that movie is a laugh out loud moment. It is one of the most perfect comedies to ever come out. Okay. Yeah. That would probably be my three.

[02:39:13]

My top three. Okay. Or showgirls. All right. That's an interesting one to throw right there.

[02:39:20]

Well, yeah, I mean, like, boobs. You need those boobs. I'm on a deserted island and I have no boobs to watch. So on a similar vein, then, you're kind of a casual gamer yourself. So what are some of your favorite games?

[02:39:37]

Well, some of my favorite games GTA Five was one of my favorite for the story alone. I didn't really like the bullet player. Got you another one. That I enjoyed playing immensely. Like, the entire series was Metal Gear Solid.

[02:39:52]

Like snake. Snake? Snake. I haven't played a Metal Gear because that was a PlayStation game. Right.

[02:40:00]

So I've never played one of those. Oh, yeah, that's right. You're NextBox girl, aren't you? Yeah, we call her Xbox girl. We call her Xbox.

[02:40:09]

Yeah, I'm an Xbox. Apparently she's an Xbox. Okay. That's the insult. That's all.

[02:40:15]

I played middle gear since it was on a tendo. That's how far back I went with it. And then you could tell with Metal Gear Solid Five. No, it was regular Nintendo genesis. Oh, no, it was like the regular number.

[02:40:31]

I was dead broke and I couldn't picture this. Yeah, it was the regular NES, and it was like a top down. I know what it is. I was making fun of the songs lyrics. Okay.

[02:40:43]

And you tell with Metal Gear Solid Five, that was going to be a pretty rock solid game even though it got cut off. And then they just kind of reused story elements. But I really liked the fact that it was an open world. Metal Gear Solid. Finally, we got a little bit of that.

[02:40:58]

And I would say just anything Mario. But like, the Lambency Show. Super Mario rocked my socks off when I was a kid with Yoshi. I remember playing that, and I was like, I can't believe that I'm playing this game with all this color and graphics and Yoshi is eating shells now. And I was having a blast with that.

[02:41:23]

So I'm going to have to go. Anything Mario. But especially Super Mario. That really blew me away when I got my Super Nintendo when I was a kid. Nice.

[02:41:31]

Very nice. Your mastercard was really good. I've always wanted to play it story. Me, too. That's been on my list for a very long time.

[02:41:39]

My sister is a huge Mass Effect fan. I know. Everybody who's played Mass Effect has always told me, like, dude, you got to play it for the story. I've just never gotten around to it. So I would really like to chew on that.

[02:41:53]

Oh, you know what another one was, was Red Dead. I mean, I don't want to name another rock star game, but Red Dead, the first one. God, that was like playing a spaghetti western with something else. It was really something else. You just hugged out Vex's heart strength.

[02:42:07]

I hope you know that Vex is huge into Red Dead. She even attended the Red Dead online too. Funeral. Oh, did you? Yeah, I did.

[02:42:17]

I'm a Red Dead fan, and I'm. Like, I can't tell if he doesn't know or if he's kissing. I didn't know. I had no idea. I wasn't the biggest Red Dead two fan, but the first one, jeez, it was like playing Good and the Bad and the ugly.

[02:42:34]

The video game. There's a perfect comparison. Oh, my goodness. I played the crap out of the multiplayer. I just couldn't get enough of that game.

[02:42:45]

Anytime I wanted to play cowboys, I just got on that game and went to town. Did you play the expansion, red dead on dead. Oh, yeah. And I remember how that came about because they had that glitch in the multiplayer where it turned the person into a zombie or whatever, and everybody made fun of it. They just decided to expand it, go with it.

[02:43:08]

Yeah, man. Red Dead, especially the first one. I have great memories with Red dead. Got you. Okay, it's going to get a little bit weird now.

[02:43:17]

Okay. It hasn't gotten weird yet. No, it hasn't. Okay. How would you describe opera to someone who is deaf?

[02:43:26]

How would you describe opera to someone who is deaf?

[02:43:33]

Tragic, with singing, they're deaf. They don't know what singing is. Well, you didn't tell me I have to describe what singing was. I have to describe what opera is. Bra.

[02:43:43]

If it's they're singing, of course, you got to describe that as well. Okay. Along the lines of sounds like they're screaming, but beautifully. Yeah, it's a beautiful scream. I'm trying to get your writer's muscle working a little bit here.

[02:44:00]

Or your creative, I would say tragedy with really loud talking. Okay, I'll take it. I'll take it. All right. This is a little less weird, but aside from food and water, what are two things you would want on a deserted island?

[02:44:18]

My laptop and my film collection. Is the film collection on a hard drive? Yeah, I imagine you have a very big film collection. That's why yeah, but a laptop with a disc player. Okay, all right.

[02:44:32]

That's fair. That makes sense. All right, before I ask my question, then I got an interesting one for you and stuff. Okay. If you could make adding a little bit of alcohol mandatory to one sport.

[02:44:44]

What would it be? Well, you can't do baseball because you could totally play baseball drunk. What would be a funny one? I want to say soccer at first, because they'll just all run into each other, and then they would all pretend to be hurt, but they'd all be. Drunk, but the rest has drunk, too.

[02:45:04]

That would make it funnier. Yeah. Oh, basketball. Just imagine a drunk guy trying to go up for a dunk. God, that'd be just hit on the backboard.

[02:45:14]

Another one. Hockey. Hockey would be another one. That would be drunken hockey fight. Drunk hockey.

[02:45:21]

Drunk hockey fights. Drunk hockey fights would be lit. Oh, I'm telling you, that would be hilarious. You get a bunch of dudes on skates drunk. No one would ever score a goal.

[02:45:32]

I don't even think anybody would be able to stand. Oh, that would be hilarious. Yeah, I'd go with hockey. Drunk hockey. What's the most creative insult you can think of?

[02:45:41]

A creative insult? Gee. I read a really long one today that made a woman commit suicide. Tell us, please. I like how wild the way you did that.

[02:45:53]

She was on roast me. Read it. Roast me. She was some kind of ethot model, okay? She posted, and this guy tore her down.

[02:46:04]

He was saying how shallow she was going. He was saying things like, you wake up every day and you wonder, do people like me because of my personality? Or do people like me because of my looks? And it keeps eating away at you and away at you and away at you, and every day you wake up, and it gets worse and worse, and you wonder if everything that's happened in your life that's good has been because of your looks or because of your merit. And you know it's not because of your merit.

[02:46:35]

I mean, he went in paragraphs going about how she will never figure out if anything good in her life was ever due to her merit or just because everybody wants to be nice and give her things because she looks good. Like, a couple of days later, an article comes out that this you thought killed herself. Oh, my God. Can you share that in the twitter group? I'll share it in the tweet.

[02:47:01]

I came up with a creative one. Here I thought I came up with a creative one, and I'm almost embarrassed to say it, and it was something I said to twitter support. Okay, what was it? I already told you about this one. I've been having trouble with twitter support trying to buy ads, and they're not listening.

[02:47:16]

They tell me the same three answers to which I give them the same responses of why their support won't help. So finally I turned around, and I'm like, does Elon need to clean up on your guys'whole team as well? Because right now you're being as useful as a used diaper. Dang. Maybe they'll be in the newspaper tomorrow about how they committed suicide.

[02:47:40]

Man got to watch it. All of a sudden, it runs better, too, with less staff, and then the. Whole site runs a lot better. That's so true. I got one more weird question for you.

[02:47:53]

Okay. All right. If you could explore anything Indiana Jones style in a living world, where would you go first? Vagina. No, you just couldn't help myself on that one.

[02:48:08]

I could hear it, too. Anything Indiana Jones style, anywhere in the world. Explore it Indiana Jones style. And we're not talking women. We're not talking vaginas or assholes or mouths.

[02:48:23]

No. Orifices of the human body parts. No. Bodies. Okay, but does it have to be in the world?

[02:48:29]

No, it doesn't have to be I'm going to say anywhere. And I've talked about this with a buddy of mine, and we've both said that if Elon ever asked for people to go on the first mission to Mars, we'd do it. So, yeah, I'd totally go to Mars. Indiana Jones Mars. That would be interesting.

[02:48:48]

Yeah, I would do Indiana Jones Mars. Well, I mean, technically speaking, if I'm going to be Indiana Jones, I'm going to be looking for an artifact. To be fair, you have a higher chance of Mars since it hasn't been explored. Right. But if it was Indiana Jones style, I would guess I would go on the adventure of looking for the actual spear destiny.

[02:49:07]

Okay. They never touched on that one. Got you. So that would be fun. Find the spear that pierced the ribs of Christ.

[02:49:15]

That would be a fun little adventure to go on. But if we were just exploring, like we're just being explorers. Yeah, totally going to Mars. Okay, so I got one last funny question before we wrap it up with our final question. Why do you think the sea is so salty?

[02:49:31]

Why do I think the sea is so salty? Because it's acting like a little bitch. I like that response, but to the one I was thinking of. See, I I think the sea is so salty mainly because the sword never waves back.

[02:49:52]

What was yours, Vex? The whale cum.

[02:49:57]

The sperm whales. Yeah.

[02:50:06]

And it's mad because the short never waves back. Oh, my goodness. Acting like a bitch.

[02:50:16]

Acting like a salty bitch. Ocean. So who are two people you'd recommend us to reach out to for an interview? Two people I would recommend. White Bear would obviously be white.

[02:50:28]

Yes. We got to get White Bear on here. Too much cocaine. I'm not sure if I can do. You need to provide the cocaine, but.

[02:50:35]

If you don't have any listen, I'm currently having to fund everything over here on this end. I'm low on funds. I can't just provide the pure white snow. You know what, Lemon? I got you there because Canada is actually the country that buys the most cocaine second in the world.

[02:50:56]

So I can help you there. There you go. But he can provide some he can provide his own supply. I mean, he just did a delivery last night. That's why he was it wasn't delivery.

[02:51:05]

It was to journal.

[02:51:09]

Okay, so White Bear, who else? Yeah, well, with White Bear, he's so good with his edits. I don't think he really understands what kind of raw talent he has for editing. Oh, 100%. 100%.

[02:51:22]

Yeah, his comedic voice really comes through in his edits. Every single one is just perfecto. And the other one I would suggest creative wise would be I would say John Douglas is another one. He's a writer as well. Yeah, I follow him on Twitter.

[02:51:44]

Yeah, he's really something. We were following each other on Mines for a while, and then I guess we kind of reconnected on Twitter. And he is a great writer. He dives into fantasy. He also has a show called Dungeons and Coffee.

[02:52:03]

I don't think it's every morning, but that's where he talks, like, fantasy stuff. But he also dives into the topical things and yeah, he'd be a great creative to talk to as well. All right, I'll definitely keep those two in mind. I've got his book in my Amazon, like Cart right now, in all honesty. Yeah, I've been meaning to buy that.

[02:52:23]

He's on my reading list as well. Any socials you'd like to plug or let the community know about any upcoming projects, anything along those lines, yes, you. Can subscribe to me on YouTube at Copa Katanya, and you can follow me on Twitter at Copa Catania as well. I'm taking the week off with reviewing because it's the new year and stuff like that. And just try to recharge the batteries.

[02:52:49]

But I'll be back next week with something special and yeah, all me in those two places. You can also find his book. Why not? Wichita on Amazon. If you guys are interested.

[02:53:02]

It is a very affordable buy as well. So you won't break the bank for this one. Yes, thank you. Because I'm a dumb dumb.

[02:53:11]

I'm reading it right now. So I want people to go and take a read of this and also just kind of finally see a or not see, but experience a modern female protagonist that, yes, is strong and witty and all that stuff, but isn't necessarily a Mary Sue. Like, she actually has some development. Right. So that's the big reason why I would want people to read this, because it's too much that as soon as you get a female protagonist oh, they just happen to be like Superman at everything.

[02:53:45]

That's right. They're so good at everything. See, I started her off her thinking she's a Mary Sue, and she's constantly going to be reminded that she's indeed not. So it kind of starts off with her in that mindset. But I never once treated her as one.

[02:54:03]

I never sat here and said, oh, you know what? She could just get out of this because she's a Mary Sue and she knows it all. And she just has to tell everybody how to do their jobs. Like, no, she has her own little corner. She actually is comfortable in that corner and doesn't want to dip out of it.

[02:54:20]

And she gets pushed out of that corner. She gets pushed out of that mindset that she's a know it all. Or she kind of has this overconfidence to her. She kind of rides that razor's edge of between confidence and overconfidence. She's going to be tested in many different ways.

[02:54:39]

That's how I kind of wrote her out as Got you. Yeah, it definitely comes across just even halfway into the book. Right. Which as a female, I really appreciate that because we don't get good female protagonists anymore at all. We don't.

[02:54:55]

It's really upsetting to watch female action protagonists get portrayed the way they do because there's no kind of growth. It's almost like, hey, women, you're perfect the way you are. And that's not a good way to write a character. And it's not a good way to try to share the human experience with you're sitting here telling women that they're just perfect. It'd be the other way around, too, where if you're just telling men that they're perfect at everything they do, that's called a shitty movie.

[02:55:24]

That's called shitty character that no one can relate to. So it's like the go to is always Ellen Ripley or Linda Hamilton. Well, that's because they had flaws, especially with Linda Hamilton. She was turning into a terminator herself in Terminator Two, and she had to learn how to regain her humanity through her son and through the actual terminator. Yep.

[02:55:47]

Yep. And it's stuff like that where it gets lost in the shuffle of things in politics. When you have a female protagonist like, let's say Ray from The Last Jedi, where she's getting training from, all of a sudden this dumb ass who they named Luke Skywalker. And in the middle of her training, she pretty much says, screw it, I know it all anyways. I mean, he was supposed to teach her like three different things and that was it.

[02:56:14]

And he only got to number two. And then she said, fuck it. I'll just learn. I know it all anyways. And she goes off and does it, which is a complete opposite of what Luke had to go through.

[02:56:24]

He went through his training, left in the middle of it, got his ass handed to him for doing just that. So it's just an interesting thing. And I'm surprised more women don't cry out and say, we want great female action heroes and actually get it. It seems like women cry out, we want great female action heroes. And then the female writers go, you are perfect the way you are, and that's what you get.

[02:56:45]

And you go, no. I mean, I have my wife who is an action film junkie. She's not into romantic. Comedies or any crap like that, or musicals. It's not really her thing.

[02:56:56]

She's into action movies and horror films, and she can't stand what she's seeing. She wants good female action films. So it's partly the reason why I wrote this book, too, was kind of an ode to women and kind of what they would like to see in their heroes and what I would like to see in a female protagonist as well, because I enjoy them as well. The Bride and Kill Bill is someone I like to watch kick ass and get her ass kicked. She doesn't run around without any scratches on her.

[02:57:27]

She gets thrown through glass. She gets stabbed a couple of times. She gets shot in the chest at one point. I mean, she gets ran through the wringer and you believe it all and you like watching her endure that stuff. So that's my little last rant on the terrible fucking writing in the film industry today.

[02:57:45]

Love it. I love it. Right? Well, we definitely enjoyed having you over here on The Lamb at the show. For those who are unaware, you can go check us out at The the Lambency Show to see all of our latest articles, newest podcast episodes, as well as our merch store and so much more.

[02:58:05]

So feel free to check us out at The Limbity Show. You can also go follow Copa Catania on YouTube at Copa Katanya, as well as on Twitter with the same handle. Also, feel free to check out his book, which is called Why Not Wichita? Which is available in stores and everything near you, correct? Yes, sir.

[02:58:23]

No, it's an Amazon exclusive, actually. Okay, so it's an Amazon exclusive, so go check out Why Not Wichita on Amazon today to read some of his fantastic writing and let us know what you think. That being said, though, that is going to be the end of this interview. We hope you guys enjoy this interview, and until next time, enjoy yourself.

[02:58:53]

Thank you.