What a year! Whatever you thought of it—good or bad, boring or exciting—we’ve got you covered with our year in review. A lot happened, so we’ll remind you of the major events. There were also quite a few notable deaths, so we cover those as well. Farewell, 2022!
1. Topics
2. Additional Resources
3. Merchandise/Support the Show
4. Contact Us/Follow Us/Rate/Subscribe
New episodes every week!
Listen, rate, follow, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts!
Follow us:
5. Credits
What a year! Whatever you thought of it—good or bad, boring or exciting—we’ve got you covered with our year in review. A lot happened, so we’ll remind you of the major events. There were also quite a few notable deaths, so we cover those as well. Farewell, 2022!
1. Topics
2. Additional Resources
3. Merchandise/Support the Show
4. Contact Us/Follow Us/Rate/Subscribe
New episodes every week!
Listen, rate, follow, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts!
Follow us:
5. Credits
This week, what happened, who died, and what were the most popular Google searches of the past year? It's our 2022 year in review. Welcome to Subpar Talks. Hey everybody. Welcome to Subpar Talks, where we have conversations about everything. I'm Jeff.
Chris:And I'm Chris.
Jeff:Thank you so much for joining us for another episode here. And as always, here's our standard disclaimer, listener discretion advised. There will be profanity in this podcast, perhaps a lot of it, and depending on the episode, we do touch on some mature subject matter. So if that doesn't set well with you, that's OK. Perhaps we are not your cup of tea. But for everybody else, sit back, and here we go with this week's topic. This is our last episode of the year 2022, and so we are doing a year in review. We are gonna touch on some stuff, events that happened. I guess that's the best way to put it. We'll talk about some people we lost in 2022, and I'm sure this will, uh, spawn some conversations about who knows what. So Chris, how is 2022? If you had to grade 2022, like 10 being the best year ever in the history of history, and 1 being the absolute worst, where would you rank it?
Chris:Well, it certainly depends on where you are. But if I'm averaging it out, it's probably uh, four to five maybe. It's been pretty rough I think, for a lot of people.
Jeff:Yeah, I'd put it in the middle, maybe a little bit below average. And like you said, it depends on where you are. I was thinking more just in terms of, of the US, but yeah, overall a little bit below average. So I figured we'd start with some major events, I suppose, and some of these I think worldwide. But others more about just stuff going on here or that happened here in the US. What do you think is the biggest event of 2022?
Chris:Worldwide I would say it's gotta be the Ukraine/Russian conflict. war, whatever we want to call it. I, I think that's probably the biggest event.
Jeff:Yeah, I would too. That, that has, when I was making a list of biggest events, that was at the top of my list, the Russia invasion. And honestly, I remembered us talking about this back in January of this year, if it happened. But I didn't think that it was, like, I didn't think it was gonna happen. I didn't think it was possible. Not possible, I didn't think it was probable that it was gonna happen at all. But I guess I underestimated the asshole-ery of Vladimir Putin.
Chris:I think early on I felt like that too. Like, he can't be serious, you know? For what?
Jeff:Yeah.
Chris:And how's this gonna, like, play, play this out. Where's this gonna go? It's, it's not gonna end well for anybody. Even if Russia were to succeed in their goal, then war's no good for anybody. And is it really that, I mean, there was no conflict. So you, you're just gonna go in and start this? I just really didn't see that happening. But the more they were amassing on the various borders, well, they're not doing that for nothing. Like now, it's a matter of time. When is this going to happen?
Jeff:I just figured it was all for show, because Vladimir Putin, he very much longs for the days of the Soviet Union when, you know, they were scaring everybody. And I figured it was just intimidation tactics. But yeah, I guess that's why one of the many reasons I'm not in charge of foreign policy. Ah, he's just fluffing. Don't worry about it.
Chris:Something else that just rides on top of all of this, and it's not in, it's not by any means the cause of all of this, but it has certainly exacerbated it all, is the worldwide inflation, your gas prices. I don't know about interest rates worldwide, but certainly interest rates in the US have been really skyrocketing with the purpose being to counteract the inflation. It could certainly have that effect, but you know, the other part of this story is there's the other camp that says it's not that there's too much money in circulation, so raising the interest rates is going after the wrong problem. They're saying that the problem is the corporate greed and that the corporations have continued making a lot of money, so they don't need to raise prices. They would need, you could see that they need to raise prices if they're not making that much profit, but there is a lot of money in circulation. And so it's the, the increased demand that is driving this. But that doesn't appear to be all that we're seeing. And so my concern, and this will show up, this will show up in the 2023 year in review, one way or another is, OK, well what happened with this? My concern is that they're gonna raise interest rates to such a degree that it pushes us into a recession. Not that we wouldn't end up in one anyway, but how much of one are we gonna be in?
Jeff:Yeah. It's uh, it's inevitable. I'm like you, uh, it's gonna happen, but how deep will it be and when will it hit?
Chris:Yeah.
Jeff:And it sucks just for, like, everyday average people like us, it sucks paying way more than we were even a year ago for stuff. And gas prices. And can we get this straight right now? I don't care who the person in charge is in the White House. I don't care who the president is. Presidents do not control gas prices, people. They have nothing to do with gas prices at all. I don't care if you're a Republican, Democrat, whatever. I get so tired of hearing that kind of talk.
Chris:That's just such a narrow understanding of economics in general. Because they, they want to point to how low the gas prices were in 2019, and particularly 2020. It's like, what else was going on in the world? And there again, it was not just the US, it was the world. With the covid mess that we had, nobody was driving like they normally did.
Jeff:Right.
Chris:And if you understand how supply and demand works, that completely explains the gas prices we had then, and it completely explains the spike that we've had since then.
Jeff:Yeah. Well, can your average everyday Walmart shopper understand this? The forces of supply and demand?
Chris:No.
Jeff:So, I didn't want to get, well, maybe I did, I don't know, overtly political here, but there were two major, well, if you count the election results, I guess three major stories, but two major stories with politics. Uh, as of this recording, just in the past week, Congress passed a law recognizing gay mar-, or a bill, recognizing gay marriage at the federal level. And what surprised me is there were, I don't remember how many Republicans in the House that voted for that. And there were enough, obviously, in the Senate to, to get that passed.
Chris:Surprised me too.
Jeff:Did you see the woman in, she's a representative from some district in Tennessee, um, Republican, and she was urging her colleagues to vote against the bill, and she started crying. Did you see this?
Chris:I saw a headline about it. I didn't see the video. I just didn't understand what that's about for her.
Jeff:Well, I don't get that anyway. I don't get the mindset that if two people of the same sex are allowed to marry, how does that harm you? What is that? And I hear people say, well, it's not the Biblical definition of marriage. Well, we're not a theocracy. Like, that's not something we should be basing our laws on in the first place. I just don't get it. But she was having, like, a real moment on the House floor. Like she was clearly troubled by this and I just don't, I don't understand it.
Chris:Just crumbling her foundation I guess, what she feels like she's gonna stand on. I mean, cuz it's, it's either gotta be some kind of idea that it's deeply personal to her and is harming her. I mean, I'm talking about her thought process that's harming her in some way, or she's crying for all the souls that are gonna go to hell because of it. I don't know.
Jeff:Another big political story, Roe v Wade was overturned. Did that surprise you?
Chris:As the conversation was moving along in the months prior to, I was less surprised when it actually happened. I was more surprised that it was moving that direction as it moved that direction. Because, it's one thing for people to talk about it. It's another thing for it to become reality. I was having a hard time believing that it would become reality.
Jeff:Yeah. I was that way initially, but remember they leaked, somebody leaked the draft opinion. You remember that? That was back in, like, February, I think, or March.
Chris:Yeah.
Jeff:And that's when it was, like, well, OK, I guess this is going down. Speaking of the election results, that was the third big political thing I was thinking of. There was clearly backlash against that decision to overturn Roe v Wade, right. Like the Democrats fared way better than anybody thought they actually would. They held onto the Senate, actually gained a seat in the Senate, and didn't lose near as many, uh, seats in the House as people thought they would.
Chris:Yeah. Really shocking. I did see one, one statistic that said, uh, Biden was the first president since FDR to not lose a Senate seat in the midterms.
Jeff:Oh, wow. I didn't know that. Yeah.
Chris:Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. Presidents always lose, almost always lose seats in the House after their first two years. There are rare exceptions to that. One was Bush in 2002, but that's because terrorism was freaking everybody out. So Republicans actually gained seats in the House. But, um, yeah, that was a rarity that we saw in, in, uh, in November. OK. So for some lighter news um, this recently happened. Elon Musk bought Twitter, and I gotta say, I didn't really know, I don't follow Elon Musk. I don't really pay attention to anything he says, or does, or whatever. I know he runs SpaceX and Tesla, but I don't really know much about him. But now that I've seen what he has done with Twitter, and maybe the verdict is still out because this is not that old, but man, was there a massive backlash when he first bought Twitter. It kind of makes me question how, I don't know if bright is the right word, smart. I, it makes me question some things about Elon Musk, which if you had listened to a lot of people before, they made him sound like the smartest person in the world.
Chris:Right. Well, you know, seeing things from different viewpoints, having uh, different perceptions, he may have creativity, I really don't know. Lots of people have said, well, he hasn't really created anything. He has used money to buy, buy, buy. A lot of the messaging around what he has, has ownership in may be more overblown than the reality of it. You know, I've heard that there are other electric cars, for example, that are better than Tesla, but you're not hearing about them the same. So...
Jeff:Yeah.
Chris:That could all just be marketing. I mean, it's the same thing back with Microsoft fighting with so many different software companies back in the day. And lots of people would say so-and-so software company had a much superior product to Microsoft, but Microsoft had the money and the messaging and just drove the other people out.
Jeff:Yeah.
Chris:And you know that that could very well be what's happened with the other companies. What's happened with Twitter since he took it over has just been an absolute shit show
Jeff:Yeah.
Chris:Just think, just pick one thing out like the the blue check mark deal. How do you not think that through a little bit more before just throwing it out there, and like, even before you bought the company. If you think that this is that big of a problem, how do you not have a better solution for that by the time you buy it and say, this is what we're doing.
Jeff:Yeah. I don't know. And I guess that's the part that makes me question like, how, how smart is he actually? Um, there's one thing to be smart and innovative and have all these new ideas that work. It's another thing to just have a bunch of money and you can insert yourself in a bunch of different companies in different scenarios and whatever, and control the conversation. And I, I'm, I'm led to think that it's more the latter than, than the former. But I, you know, the Twitter stuff, uh, we'll see what happens. But yeah, so far it's been a shit show. So I consider myself a celebrity idiot. Like when somebody mentions a person's name, oh, have you seen whatever in whatever movie? I'm probably gonna give them a blank stare. But this did jump out at me because it was all over the goddamn place. When Will Smith slapped Chris Rock? Yeah, I remember reading the, so I don't watch the, what was that? The Oscars? Yeah, the Oscars. Yeah. So I don't watch the Oscars. I haven't watched the Oscars, and I can't tell you the last time I actually watched any of it, but I was reading. The news the next morning, and it was, it's a little update that the, that the New York Times gives on, you know, major stories going on. And it just flat out said, will Smith slapped Chris Rock? And I'm like, what the fuck did I just read? What So of course I had to look into it. But anyway, that was a big story that made the rounds and that's all anybody was talking about, it seemed like for a week or two. Yeah, for sure. And I, I actually saw a headline about it, like 20, maybe, 20 minutes after it happened. I wasn't watching it either, but I saw the headline and then it had the video of it. So I watched the video and in watching the whole thing, my first thought is, OK, that's not real, because there have been other things at award shows. Including the Oscars where the presenter and one of the celebrities in the audience were in on this whatever joke together. And so I thought, you know, maybe that was just part of it. This is a, you know, a skit, performance, whatever of theirs. But clearly to me there were still people doubting it. After that. I was like, no, that was real. Um, once Will Smith got back in a seat and that exchange, well that was not That was not an act. No, it wasn't. It was definitely real. You think there's gonna be, I mean there's obviously been fallout from it. Do you think this is gonna, well it will. How much will it harm Will Smith's career you think? Our studio's gonna still hire him, our director's gonna wanna work with him. Is it one of those things, is it like when Mel Gibson went off against the Jews or is this like people are gonna shrug and say, oh yeah, all is forgiven. Really hard to say be, I think, and, and I don't know the answer to this is have there been any kind of other issues that we haven't heard about before? And maybe people kind of shrugged it off, played it off, not that big of a deal, but then this has happened. Are other people going to say, oh, well he's had this behavior, that behavior, whatever in the past. This is just kind of an extreme example of, and then they just use it as justification to to, yeah. Cut him off. Or do they view this as an extreme but isolated incident and. Let him lay low for, I don't know what year, two, three years, whatever. He gets to come back and say, Hey, and I, he's already done this some, but he gets to come back and say, look, I worked on myself. He's already said, you know, and, and it's not an excuse, but yeah. Saying he's got this issue and that issue and whatever, and he is worked through it. And if he can do that, then he might be able to redeem himself. But I do think that's gonna depend also on whether or not there's anything in the past that maybe we didn't hear about. So I saw this, um, this was in the New York Times. New York Times was, was had an article on things that happened in 2022 that had never happened before. Like these are the first time ever I found this interesting. I'll just read from it directly. A Gallup report released in August revealed that more Americans are now smoking marijuana than cigarettes. For the first time on record, about 16% of the Americans polled, said they currently smoke marijuana five percentage points more than those who reported smoking cigarettes. So if you're keeping scores, 16% of people smoke weed. 11% of people smoke cigarettes. Tobacco cigarette use has continued to decline since its peaked during the mid 1950s when 45% of Americans reported that they smoked. So 16% of Americans say they smoked weed. Does that surprise you? I wouldn't have put it that high. It does surprise me, and the 11% surprises me. I would've thought that's much higher from the footage I've seen. I mean, seems like there's a, I mean, yeah, clearly there are fewer people smoking than used to, but. They're out there. Yeah. Yeah. That, that's shocking to me. 45% of Americans reported that they smoked in the mid 1950s. My god, that's a ton. When it's that high, you gotta wonder why did the other half not? Well, I was wondering that too. And would you be, would you be stigmatized? Like, why aren't you smoking? Like, I don't know. Like I, I could see that. Well, and it'd be interesting to know then too, you know, what's a percentage of Americans who drink? Because I can tell you, there is certainly a stigma in certain situations of people that don't drink. If you are in an environment where the majority of people are drinking and you're not, it's like, wait, why don't you have something to drink? Come on, let's go get you something. It's become more socially acceptable. I, I know to have a drink than it was say, 30 years ago. And I know, I mean, I've read articles and, and maybe Gallup did stuff on this too, but, uh, alcohol intake increased during covid, which is no surprise, Texas. Well, the governor, our, well, I'm not gonna get political. Our Governor signed an executive order during covid that would allow you to get curbside alcohol delivery right at restaurants. Um, yeah, that would've been unheard of before. So yeah, it's becoming more socially acceptable, but that 16% with marijuana use is, um, that surprised me. It's high. So, one other topic I think worth putting out here, that's been a huge thing this year was starting last year too, but I think it's, it's really picked up a lot this year. Is the, the debate, the struggle between companies and employees of are they going to continue working remotely or are they going back to the office? And there are plenty of companies out there that have just allowed flexibility. If you want to continue working remotely, you can. If you want to be in the office, you can or have some kind of hybrid of that. I can say for my company there, they actually pulled us and there were enough people that did not want to be in the office all the time that they have now gotten rid of our office space. And we are now going to a kind of hot desking place where we can rent conference rooms or desks or whatever for a day, two days as we need to. But recognizing that the majority of those people, Won't do that. And even when they do, it's gonna be for a short period of time. And then you've got the exact opposite of all of that where companies are saying you're coming back into the office or else, you know, this is just the way it's gonna be and you're losing your job if you don't. So I can give, I mean, my situation, uh, being in, in higher education, the college environment and for decades, centuries, I don't know, professors have been expected to keep office hours, right? Because you need to be working in your office and who knows when a student is gonna show up and they want to talk to you. So how many students actually show up and talk to professors? It's next to none. And so at my institution for the first time starting this year, we did not have to keep office hours on Fridays. We don't have any or very few classes held on Fridays. We don't have office hours on Fridays, uh, anymore. But, and I know boomers get a bad rap, and some of that's justified and sometimes it's not, whatever. But it is a boomer mindset that how can you possibly be getting any work done if you are not sitting in your office at your desk? How can you be doing anything? Like you can't be doing anything productive. And everybody else younger than than them is like, of course I can be productive. Why do I need to be physically in my office to be working and be productive? I don't have to, I have everything I need right here at home to do what I need to do. And. if a student, for whatever reason, does want to talk to me, there are ways that that can happen. I mean, I can arrange to meet a student face to face if that's what they want, but we have Zoom, we have Skype, we have texting, we can call. I mean, there's just, there's no reason a lot of times to actually have to be in a, an office. And so Exactly, yeah. It's, it's, uh, it's been a struggle between people who kind of got into that rhythm, that pattern of not having to show up during covid, and now companies are saying, Hey, you gotta come in. Yeah. I, I actually read something just a few days ago, which just boggles my mind. There's no way I would work for a company like this, is that they are taking pictures of the employee. It's every, I think it was every nine minutes at their computer. To make sure that they are there and working. Yep. Well, I could be sitting at my computer not working. Let's just put that out there. Yep, I've done that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Think about office space where he says, well, I usually get in about 15 minutes late and I spend the next hour just staring off. And as always, in a year end review, there are people who died, notable people, and so Chris, you got a list for us. Tell us about some dead people. So so these are kind of all over the place. They are, they're known people. Some maybe not quite as well known, but have some importance in, in the, the role that they had. So one of these that I'm gonna mention here, I just, to be honest, I didn't even know of this guy, but Vin Scully was calling games for the Dodgers for 67 years. The, yeah. Longest, longest term announcer for anything like that. So that, I think that's noteworthy right there. I don't know much about him, uh, but you would probably recognize his voice just because he is been there so long. But yeah, he had been doing that forever. Yeah. So, um, Louie Anderson was a comedian. Who died this year? I think he was a game show host. I'm not sure what, what game show that was, but I know he did that. I think he had some acting roles, but then he was just a standup comedian. I don't really know why I know him. I know what he looks like or looked like. I don't know what he looks like. No. Yeah. I don't really know why I know him. I know who he is and I know what he looks like looked like, but I don't know why I know him. Naomi Judd. So she is? OK. Yeah. Ashley Judds, the actress. Ashley Judd. And what's the daughter, what's the other daughter's name? Um, Winona and Winona Judd's mom. And they were in. They both sang independently, but they were also in a group called the Judds. William Hurt as an actor. Yes. Who died this year. What do you know him from?
Chris:I can't pick out anything in particular. I, wait, I think he was in, was it broadcast news?
Jeff:I don't know, but he was in damages. Oh,
Chris:that's right.
Jeff:I don't remember what, which season. He's also in a movie called Body Heat with Kathleen Turner. It's from the early eighties. You should check that out. It's a good movie. Well,
Chris:it would have to be with a title like that and cheese in it.
Jeff:It's, it's not Oh yeah. There's some good naked in it for sure. I mean, obviously not from William Hurt obviously. Right. But yeah,
Chris:it's a good movie. Um, Angela Lansbury now, she's been around forever. Yes. Forever. Murder she Wrote is the only thing I can think of her from though
Jeff:that Yes. And I never watched it, but that, just knowing that murder she wrote was coming on, sent me into a deep, dark depression. Yeah.
Chris:That's why I would never watch it either. Yeah, right. It's probably what, like after 60 minutes. Yeah. 60 minutes is coming on after the football games and they've got the clock ticking and that's just the clock in your life. You know, that time's right now,
Jeff:that clicking on the stopwatch was just the. And it's why I avoided watching 60 Minutes. I didn't, I didn't ever watch it. I didn't wanna watch it. Just, this is horrible. Of course, when you're a kid, you don't wanna watch the news. But even when I was older, I was like, I don't like it. I still get that feeling like, oh, I gotta start up again tomorrow morning. But yeah, I remember watching football and Pat Summerall would come on for at like five 30, right? You're in the fourth quarter. And he would say, coming up after, you know, 60 minutes followed by an all new murder, she wrote This is like, yeah. And then there's, it was some, uh, shitty made for TV movie that came on after Murder she wrote, you know? Right. Yeah. That was the worst.
Chris:It's like if you weren't depressed enough, just watch the shitty
Jeff:movie. Yes. So back in 2000 3, 4, 5, somewhere around there, my wife and I went out to eat. and it was like at a diner type place. And we're just sitting there talking about who knows what. And my wife says, oh, did you hear who died today? Said, no. And she said, Angela Lansbury died. And I said, really? I didn't hear that. And the girl behind the counter said, oh my god, Angela Lansbury died. I loved her. And she was all distraught and said, I can't believe that I loved her in this and this and this and whatever. And I'm like, wow, I didn't know that she died. And this was pre, Hey, I can just take out my phone and look this up. Right right. We get back home and sure enough, Angela Lansbury's still alive, And to this day, we don't know where my wife got that, but we would bring that up every once in a while. So
Chris:you don't know who actually
Jeff:did die? Well, I don't know if anybody died. We have no idea. Like, I don't know how that entered my wife's head that Angela Landsbury died in 2003 or whatever, but now she's dead. That's hilarious. And I always wonder about that waitress, that girl behind the counter. What was the rest of her day like? Well, hopefully she got the good news. Yeah,
Chris:right. So Ann Hayes. Yep.
Jeff:That was a bad ending. Drove into a house.
Chris:Yeah, I think she hit something else first, but that wasn't it. It was, yeah, when she hit the house or whatever and then that burst into flames. Oh,
Jeff:did
Chris:it really? Yeah, I think it was the Burns that ultimately killed her.
Jeff:Your car's on fire.
Chris:maybe some other kind of internal injuries too. I don't know. But yeah, Bob Sagat now, he was back at the beginning of the year.
Jeff:Yeah, that was early. Like January, February. Yeah. I had forgot. That's still a weird thing. He just fell and hit his head.
Chris:So, but here's the thing about that, I just, and, and we may never know. I feel like there's something else to it, because if that's all it was, why did his family sue to block the release of any of the
Jeff:information? Oh, I didn't know they did.
Chris:Yeah, they did. And we already knew that information. That he supposedly had some kind of head wound on the back of his head. And so that was their guess is he fell, you know, shower, leaned back, hit the headboard on bed, whatever, didn't think anything of it and continued on. And if that's all it was, then that information was already out, so why do they care? But yeah, they, they went to court asking for, um, injunction or whatever it was to block the release because normally, you know, like a death certificate is public information, so they blocked that so that it could not be out there to the
Jeff:public. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, it makes you wonder.
Chris:So the next one was Olivia Newton John. That was kind of a, a sad thing to me just from the time thing. It's like somebody who's just always been around, you know? And yes. See her music. There was Grease, obviously. I don't know if she did. I know she did some other movie stuff, but that's certainly the biggest one I know about.
Jeff:Yeah, I don't know what she did after that in terms of movie or or anything on tv, and I didn't know this at the time. I mean, I was, I don't, I don't remember when Grease came out. I was alive, but I was really, really little. But my sister had that record, the soundtrack, and I know all those songs, and I've seen Grease, who knows how many times since. But she was already an established musician, singer, artist. By the time that movie came out, she had a lot of hits.
Chris:Yeah, I think I heard when she died, that she had been singing in the sixties, which I certainly didn't. No, you know, later on, but I know in the early seventies for sure, and Grease came out in 78, so yeah. Yeah. She had been around a while, but I didn't know that. I had no idea who she was then. But by the, the about 80 was probably when I really knew of her. And actually she was in, I just remembered this. I don't know why I wasn't thinking about it. She was in Xanadu, um, oh yes. And Xou came out in 80, and that had some good songs from the soundtrack that were very popular on the radio
Jeff:then. Yeah, I know the title track. And then physical, that was probably her biggest hit, which I don't even think that's her best song by long shot, but 81 I think is when that is. Yeah,
Chris:that's about right. Yeah. I didn't like that song as much either, but yeah, it was huge for her. OK. Sydnee Poitier.
Jeff:Yeah,
Chris:he was in his nineties. I don't know exactly how old, but he was up there.
Jeff:So I don't know him from really anything except the movie In the Heat of the Night. Have you ever seen that?
Chris:I think I might have. I saw a couple of his older movies when I was a kid and I couldn't tell you anything about'em. So I, for those, I probably couldn't even say which one of his, it was only one I remember for him, and this is because I have seen it more than once, absolutely loved the movie, honestly, was guess who's coming to dinner and someone actually put out a tweet a few months ago asking like, what's the first movie that comes to mind for him? A ton of people said In the Heat of the Night, Uhhuh, But to me it was, guess who's coming to dinner?
Jeff:So, Yeah. OK. I know about that movie, and I know the premise is I think a white girl is dating a black guy and Right. She's introducing him to her parents. OK. Yeah. Right. Uh, so, OK. I guess I need to check that out. You should watch in the Heat of the Night. It's a good, good movie. Yeah. I
Chris:need to, all right, so this is extremely recent, is Kirsty Ali. That was just this week. Yeah. That was shocking because I, I don't think anything had been publicized about her having cancer, so I think it was a surprise to everybody.
Jeff:Yeah, it was for sure. I know her from, mostly from Cheers and mm-hmm. I thought she was great on that show. I actually like her better than Shelly Long, who she replaced really, uh, in that role. and she did, I mean, she was in some movies, I'm trying to think what movie, like in late eighties she was in some stuff, but I don't think she really did anything after that that I remember, but she was great on Cheers. Yeah. I've,
Chris:I've watched enough cheers to really know the characters and all that. I have not watched nearly enough to say, oh yeah, I remembered these episodes or anything like that. Mm-hmm. but I would agree with you on, on her versus Shelly Long too. I I definitely think her Rebecca character was better than Diane. Yeah. I, I don't, yeah, Shelly Long is just gonna get on my nerves. Next one is Paul Serino, so I know you know who he is.
Jeff:Pauly from Goodfellas. Yeah.
Chris:He was a perfect mob person.
Jeff:He was, he was great in that role. uh, he was the mob boss and Goodfellas. And what else has he been in? I don't know. I know he
Chris:was in the firm and I think the firm was 93. It was 92 or 93, so it was just a little bit after Goodfellas. I wanna say that I've seen him in something else, but I couldn't say. But those were very notable roles. For whom? And particular Goodfellas. Um, so the next one is Mihail. Gorbachov. So that's clearly a big one. Yeah. Uh, responsible for the breakup of Soviet Union, bringing down Berlin Wall. Yep. Bunch of arms control treaties with the United
Jeff:States. So, I mean, I was young when all that was going down. I've read since that he saw the riding on the wall as far as the longevity of the Soviet Union or lack of it. And he saw that as a, the only way to preserve anything that was left was to open up relations with the West and parti, particularly the United States. And yeah, he was instrumental in that. And I don't think this is in retrospect, and I don't think this was after the fact. It seems to be a thing at the time, but he was well liked. Do you remember thinking that in like 88, 89, 90, like Americans liked him, which was weird, right?
Chris:That is weird because prior to that, and I don't remember when he came into his, do you know when he came into his.
Jeff:Position, I think it was 85, because I think one of the first things he did was he left Afghanistan. Remember the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan, and I think that was one of the first things he did was called all the Soviet troops back home. So I think it was, I said 85, it might have been 85 or 86, but mid eighties. OK.
Chris:So that's some perspective right there. My feeling looking back on growing up was there was this whole time period where, you know, Russia's the enemy. We have something to be afraid of. What are they gonna do? When is, when is, you know, such and such gonna happen? Those kinds of things. And then I only remember. And, and, uh, my memory of this is to think late eighties of how different it was. Like we didn't have that kind of concern and fear. And yes, he's more open to a lot, um, open to these discussions and making deals and, uh, yeah, just seemed like a, a 180. Uh, so the next person on the list is Queen Elizabeth. That's obviously huge. Just for, uh, the amount of time that she reigned, was it like 70? Well, she just had the 70th anniversary, I think shortly before she died. Right. That's unbelievable. Um, so this person, I didn't know who, well, you knew who this was. I didn't know who this, who, this was Bill Russell played for the Bolton Celtics. Yes, he was a five time mvp, but what caught my attention here is that he was the league's first black coach. I don't know when that was,
Jeff:but yeah, I didn't know that. I knew he had won I, I think 10 N B A titles with the Celtics. Something crazy like that. He's always mentioned as like one of the top five players of all time.
Chris:Wow. Um, Ray Liotta died this year, so can put him in the category right there with uh, Paul Serino both being in good news.
Jeff:Did we ever find out how he died? I
Chris:think I heard, but I can't recall. I know he was only 67, which that just shocked. Yeah, I don't, I don't really care hearing for something like
Jeff:that. No, and I was gonna say this, so with these lists of people who have died, I find myself, I never would've done this as a kid, or even 20 years ago, but now I wanna know, well, how'd they die? What
Chris:did they die? Yeah. What can I do? What can I do to
Jeff:stop it? right? So Ray Liotta just died. Like, did he die in his sleep? I mean, I, we don't, I don't know that we know, but he did.
Chris:So, yes, he did die in his sleep. Um, he was shooting a movie in the Dominican Republic and died in asleep, but I don't know why.
Jeff:Damn. But yeah, like if, if we learn that somebody like overdosed, like Phillip Seymour Hop is like, oh, OK, well he's doing heroin. I'm not doing heroin, so I'm good. But if this person just killed over, like for whatever reason, oh, Bob Saget hit his head well. I don't want that to happen to me.
Chris:I know. Well, and that's the thing, you know that you have these kind of everyday thing I say every day, but I mean, yeah, hitting your head. Well, we shouldn't have to think twice about the fact that we hit our head, unless as massive head and you're, you know, bleeding outta your head. But, but that's the thing. You hit your place in just the right place. You could have this internal bleeding, have no idea that that's going on. And then, well, that's it. You don't wake
Jeff:up. That's what happened with Liam Neon's wife. Remember that she was just skiing and fell and hit her head. Oh, that's right. And they didn't even think anything of it. And then she died. That's scary.
Chris:Leslie Jordan, he was on Will and Grace. I feel like I know him from something else because I never watched Will and Grace. He was a very short guy,
Jeff:comedian, but I never watched Will and Grace. I only know him from people posting stuff from him on social media. He became like this social media sensation during Covid. He was funny. Like the clips I would see, he was just commenting on whatever. But he was funny. Yeah, they said he had a medical emergency while he was driving. Oh, is that right?
Chris:I, I saw that he died in a car wreck, but I didn't
Jeff:know why. Yeah, I don't think he was that old. I mean, relatively speaking. I think he was like in his sixties. I think
Chris:he was 67. Also like Ray Liotta, um, Jerry Lee Lewis. Yeah. So I don't feel like I know a lot about him, but I know great balls of fire. A whole lot of shaking going on.
Jeff:That's about the extent that that I'm at. And that he married his 13 year old cousin. Oh, really? OK. Yeah, I don't know much about that. I just know that he married his 13 year old cousin. I think it was in like 1960 or 61. I mean, he was a big star then and it was a big deal and I don't know how much it hurt his career or anything of that nature, but yeah, he was an early, early pioneer, rock and roll for sure. And a hell of a piano player. Uh, early pioneer marrying family members. there you go.
Chris:Um, Gilbert Gottfried.
Jeff:Yeah. Do you like him?
Chris:Drove me insane. So here's the thing, I couldn't stand his voice, so I don't know much about him because I couldn't stand and listen to him.
Jeff:So I could tolerate him for only so long and then it just got to be grading. Like it just got on my nerves to keep listening to him. But the way he would deliver some lines in, in whatever he was talking about was funny. And his voice, my God, just so over the top that yes, sometimes it didn't depend on what he was saying. You just laugh like the spectacle. But I couldn't take him for very long.
Chris:The spectacle. That's a good way to say it. Yeah. The next one's Coolio.
Jeff:OK. Yeah. That's not
Chris:my genre of music. So I really don't know much about him except the name. But he is a six time Grammy winner.
Jeff:Yeah. It's not really my genre either. I know. Uh, gangster's Paradise, you know that song. Right? You'd know it if you heard it. He did. Um, oh, I can't think. There are a few other, a couple others that I know of. And you might recognize those two. So Gangsters Paradise is a, was a huge hit. It was in the movie Dangerous Minds. Did you see Dangerous Minds with Michelle Pfeiffer? I never saw it. She was a teacher at a an all black school I think. I don't think I saw it. Well, you listen to Gangster's Paradise, it's a good song and that's probably his most famous but Weird Out Yankovic did a parody of it. It's called Amish Paradise It's it's great. Uh, the song and the video are hilarious. You should check that out too.
Chris:So the next one is Madeline Albright. I don't know much about her except she was the first female secretary of state in the
Jeff:United States. I didn't know that. She was the first woman, uh, secretary of State. That's cool. I always felt like she'd be intimidating. Maybe she was, I don't know. But she seemed very hard line wouldn't take any shit to anybody. She looks angry.
Chris:Yeah, she's got that RBF resting bitch face.
Jeff:Yep, for sure.
Chris:um, Loretta Lynn. Oh yeah. I don't know a lot of Loretta Lynn's music, but I remember hearing a lot about her growing up because back at that time she was still big in the country
Jeff:scene. Yes. I don't know much about her. She, um, I know she had a song, kind of a pioneer thing, but she had a song called The Pill. And it was about the pill, birth control, and a bunch of country radio stations wouldn't play it. It was in the early seventies, but it was all about how she's been stuck at home taking care of the kids and now she's on the pill. She can go out and have a good time just like her husband's been doing and kind of a fuck you thing. And I got the pill and I can have sex at Will and not have to worry about the consequences of it. Well, there are
Chris:other consequences, but yeah,
Jeff:Yeah.
Chris:So one thing, whenever I hear her name, the thing that stands out to me, I remember she was on an episode of the Dukes of Hazard one time because of course on the Dukes of Hazard, they would always find a way to bring in these musical guest stars. And they were always in Ros, caught in Roscoe's speed trap. And the only way they would let them off is if they would come perform.
Jeff:Yeah. That's right. I think that's how the Oakridge boys ended up on the Duke Yep.
Chris:Um, Ken Starr. So he was the, what do you call him?
Jeff:Special counsel. Special prosecutor and LewinskyGate. You remember the Star report? Yeah. That became a national bestseller cuz of all the sex stuff. Yeah.
Chris:Yeah. Um, meatloaf. That's two words by the way. I didn't know that. I think the food is just one word, but I'm not sure. do
Jeff:not understand I do not understand why anybody likes his music. I've heard it. I don't like it. I think it's terrible. Yeah. I, I don't think
Chris:I could name anything of his. But in that same vein, then I think about the group bread. So you've got Bread and meat.
Jeff:Bread. Bread actually had some good songs. Yeah.
Chris:So just a couple more these we can put together. Estelle Harris was George's mom on Signs Off. Yeah. And Liz Sheridan was Jerry's mom on Seinfeld. They both died this year and they were like, I wanna say two or three months apart. It was fairly close together.
Jeff:Yeah, I think that's right. Wow. Oh man, Estelle ha. Estelle Castanza was such a good character. Just absolutely one of the best
Chris:she was. And that's one of those, you know, we've talked about this before, is the idea of, you know, somebody else playing a part in a TV show or movie. And there are some where you go that, that character was good, but if somebody else had done it, yeah, that could still be good. But there's no way that I could imagine someone else playing her character.
Jeff:It couldn't. And if it had been anybody else, there's no way it would've been that good. No. Do you know the first episode in Seinfeld that we see her is the contest when she's in the hospital bed?
Chris:That's right. Treating
Jeff:your body like it's an amusement park. Yeah.
Chris:So the last one on the list is James Khan. So there's another, uh, mafia esque
Jeff:person. Yep. In, in the Godfather. Yep. And, uh, he got blown away at a toll booth. I remember that. Sure did. and he was in, um, oh, some people hate this movie. I really like it. Mickey Blue Eyes. Did you ever see Mickey Blue Eyes with Hugh Grant? I did. Yeah. And I can't remember the woman, but he was in that. He was funny.
Chris:Don't remember a lot about it, but I, yeah, I did like it.
Jeff:What I remember James Kahn the most from is misery. You like misery. Oh yeah.
Chris:That's That's as scary as fuck movie
Jeff:It is. Oh my God. When he gets hobbled. The thing that's,
Chris:that's what I was gonna say. That is the thing that stands out to me the most about that movie is when she did that. Oh hell no. Put up a wood block and smashed him with a
Jeff:hammer. Yep. Sledgehammer. Such a good movie. OK, so. I had a list also, and that's pretty much everybody. I had, I had, um, well this just happened as of this recording, this has been like in the past few days. I didn't know his last name, but Bob from Sesame Street, did you see that? I did.
Chris:I forgot about
Jeff:him. Yeah, and I mean, I don't know anything about him other than he was that guy on Sesame Street, but yeah, he just died.
Chris:Well, so apparently he was like one of the original characters too, and just stopped being on there like three or four years ago. So I think they said he was on there for 50, 49 or 50 years. But I didn't know this. He was a musi. He was a musician person too, and he was responsible for the song on there. Uh, these are the people in your neighborhood.
Jeff:Oh yeah. I guess this is political, but did you know Sesame Street was banned in Mississippi and Alabama for the first two years? It was on no for what? It was teaching the kids the alphabet It was seen, yeah, it was seen as subversive. Like there were black kids interacting with white kids and there are muppets of all different colors and they were teaching people, you know, to love each other and acceptance and all of that. And well, we can't have that in Mississippi or Alabama. Goddammit. That's horrible. So yeah, doesn't fit in with our values. Yeah. Wow.
Chris:That's crazy. So I, I just saw this recently was, um, Oscar in the first season was orange.
Jeff:Yeah. That blows my mind. Yeah,
Chris:that's
Jeff:not right at all. Do you know who Irene Cara is? It doesn't sound familiar. You'll know the song she's sang, uh, fame and Oh, what a feeling. Yes. Are those both from Flash Dance? I don't know. I never saw the movie, but she died. She was pretty young. She was like early sixties. Yeah, she was
Chris:young. One of them I think was from Fame and one from Flash Dance.
Jeff:Oh, fame was a separate movie. That's right. So what a feeling was from Flash Dance. OK. Yeah.
Chris:But, but I think she, she did the, she did the fame theme
Jeff:song though, right? Yes. Yeah. And then the last one I have on here is Christine McVee. Do you know who that is? No. She was in Fleetwood Mac. Oh, that's right. Yeah. People usually don't know who she is. Like when you think of Fleetwood Mac, you think of Stevie Nicks. Well, she's the other woman. She's like, it's like the other guy. She's the other one. Yeah, she's the other one. Yeah.
Chris:Yeah. So apparently she wrote a lot of their
Jeff:songs. Yeah. Yeah. Incredibly talented. OK. To finish this up, NPR was kind enough to send me and millions of other people, uh, the most popular searches on Google for this year. So let's run through these. Uh, we'll do, we'll do people. We're talking about people, right? the most searched people on Google in the year of our Lord. 2022. All right. Number 10, Serena Williams. Number nine, Adam Levine. You know who that is?
Chris:All right. Yeah, I know who he is. I don't know why people are searching for him. I don't
Jeff:either. Number eight, Andrew Tate. Who? Uh, Andrew Tate. I don't know who that is. I
Chris:don't either.
Jeff:Number seven. Chris Rock. OK, there you go. Number six, Anna Sorokin. OK. Is that the
Chris:real inventing Anna? Yeah, the
Jeff:real one. OK, so that's the real person? Yeah. OK. Number five. Carrie Lake or Carri Lake. I don't know how you say her name, that Nutjob candidate from, uh, Arizona for governor. OK.
Chris:I didn't know her name. Number
Jeff:four. Antonio Brown. You probably don't know who that is. He was a wide receiver in the NFL and he's a complete nut job. He just walked off the field last season in like the third quarter of a game. Like he just started taking his pads off and walked off the field. Yeah, I
Chris:did know that. Yeah. See friends with Herschel
Jeff:Walker, probably number three. Amber heard. I had never heard of Amber heard before, the whole Johnny Depp stuff. I didn't know who she was either. No. Number two Will Smith and number one. Speaking of Amber heard Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp was the most searched person of 2022 and now for the most searches, overall number 10, Jeffrey Dahmer. OK, because of the. Series on Netflix, which, have you watched any of that? I have not, no, I haven't either. Did you? I don't think I really want to. No. I, I, I haven't watched any of it, but I don't know that I want to get into all that with Jeffrey Dahmer. And I heard some people say it was boring. Uh, number nine and Hayes. Number eight, Powerball numbers. Did you buy a Powerball ticket or several? I didn't, Nope. Did you Can't win if you don't play. Uh, no I didn't, but my wife did. I don't know how many she bought. I didn't ask. Oh, OK. But spoiler alert, we didn't win number seven. Mega Millions. We didn't win that either. Uh, number six, Ukraine. Mm-hmm. number five. Bob Sagat. Number four. Queen Elizabeth. Number three. Betty White. And when I saw this list, I was like, why were people searching for her in 2022? She died December 31st, 2021. She died on New Year's Eve. Yeah. She didn't quite make it to 2022. Nope. Number two, the election results, and number one, the most popular search on Google in 2022 is Wordle. Do you play Wordle? No, man. No. I love Wordle. I look forward to Wordle every morning. I
Chris:just, no, I can't. That stuff just irritates me, That's like, no, see, I would be, I would be thinking again, again. The shit
Jeff:No, I like it. It's exciting. Well, I don't know if exciting is the right word. I look forward to it. I have my wordle in my coffee. It goes hand in hand, so there you go. Those are the most searched Google terms of 2022. So
Chris:I'll add one thing to that, and that is the Miriam Webster dictionary. Word of the year is gaslighting.
Jeff:Oh, gaslighting, OK. Yeah.
Chris:I'm a little surprised that's still coming up
Jeff:this year. Yes. So I was gonna say, I first remember hearing about that maybe two or three years ago, and I didn't know what it meant then. I obviously know now, but that's surprising. Yeah. In 2022.
Chris:Yeah. I had no idea what it meant when it first came up
Jeff:either. We neglected to mention this. This is by far the biggest story of 2022, bigger than the Russia invasion, bigger than inflation gas prices. It's even bigger than the Will Smith slap. We started a podcast. Exactly
Chris:right. probably the most important
Jeff:thing too. Well, obviously like how did that not make the top 10 on Google? I mean, come on. No idea. I think we're getting screwed. They'll discover us eventually. All right, there you go. People. That is our 20, 22 year in review. If you like this kind of stuff, then you should absolutely follow us on whatever platform you're listening to this on. Go there and subscribe, follow us. That way you'll get new episodes delivered to you automatically. You do not have to do anything at all. And while you are there, go ahead and rate us. If you are so inclined, we would be so grateful. If you'd give us five stars and leave a review, say something there. Doesn't matter what you say, but if you put something there, it makes it easier for people to discover the show. So just write something again, it doesn't matter what it is. You can also visit our website at is Subpar Talks dot com. There you can email us. You can even leave us a voicemail. Tell us how your 2022 went. Whether it was really good or shitty, doesn't matter. Tell us. You can follow us on social media on Twitter. We are at subpartalks.com on Facebook. We are subpartalks.com if you wanna follow our personal Twitter accounts on there. I am at@independentjeff.
Chris:And I am at Chris Bradford,
Jeff:tx, and we have other social media links on our website. You can find those there. And finally, get the word out about Subpar Talks. Share this with your friends, colleagues, family. Share it on social media. Stop and talk to random people on the street. Whatever. Just get the word out about Subpar Talks. The more people we have listening to this show, the easier it is for us to get this content to you each and every week. And I really hope everybody had an OK, at least OK, 20, 22 year. Hopefully. It was really good. And here's to lots of good things happening in 2023. Chris, do you have any final thoughts, words, comments, questions, concerns for the year 2022 or are you ready to leave it? I would
Chris:say, let's move on. just, uh, Just a happy upcoming new year, and let's hope everything goes in the better direction.
Jeff:There you go. All right, people. That's another episode of Subpar Talks. Happy New Year to everybody and we will see you again in 2023. Until then, it's long.