Episode 27 - Leaving it open ended

Welcome back to another episode of Behind the Whiskers! This week, Mitch and Harley are putting down the tools and picking apart the very fabric of the stories we love.

In this episode, we’re exploring the consumability of art—how we digest media in a world of instant gratification and why some stories stay with us while others fade away. We also dive deep into the power of the non-conclusive storyline, discussing why a story without an ending can sometimes be more impactful than one that ties up every loose end.

Join us as we discuss:

• Art as a Commodity: Is the way we consume media changing the way artists create it?
• The Beauty of the "Open End": Why leaving an audience with questions is often a more powerful tool than giving them answers.
• The Sinners Soundtrack: We feature a special segment from Hayden, who breaks down the haunting track "Last Time (I Seen the Sun)" by Alice Smith and Miles Caton. We explore how this Academy Award-winning composition perfectly captures the atmospheric weight of a world without easy exits.

📲 Follow us for more behind-the-scenes content:

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Facebook: @twistedwhiskersideshow

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your favorite streaming app. Your support helps Mitch and Harley keep the lights on in the workshop!

#Podcast #BehindTheWhiskers #ArtAndMedia #Storytelling #SinnersSoundtrack #AliceSmith #LastTimeISeenTheSun #TwistedWhiskerFX #OpenEndedStories

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, boils and ghouls of all ages. Welcome back to episode 27 of Behind the Whiskers, the podcast where we dive into the strange, the unusual, and the usually theatrical. I'm your host, Mitchell Fink. And I'm Harley Clinton. Welcome back, everybody. Glad to be back in the air once again. Hopefully all of you listened to our last two guest episodes.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Yeah, we had some really amazing guests, and it was a lot of fun, and they had a lot of wisdom to share with us about not just sideshow, but entertainment in general. And I can't wait to have either of them back on the show to talk about more projects, future projects that are coming up with both of them.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Yes, we've got some really exciting things in the work works um with both of those guys, and we're excited to share some of those collaborations as they happen this year. Uh they're just tremendous folks, uh, both Joe and Carrie, that have such a wealth of knowledge, um, and an approachable wealth of knowledge too.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

Oh yeah, it's very consumable. They're not trying to pander to a more expensive market. They know how to do this stuff on a budget, and for the people that are just looking to start getting into the arts that they create, they're very uh consumable, which leads us into our topic today of consumability in performance and media and entertainment.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Yeah, so I I think kind of our goals, we were talking on the phone, I don't know, a month or two ago, it all blends together until these moments where Harley drags me kicking and screaming out of my shop to be recorded for an hour. And so it all blends together. We were on the phone, and I think I had just gotten out of doing some work on a touring Broadway show that was in town.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

It was the Alicia Keys.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

It was the Elisa Key Yeah, uh Hell's Kitchen is what it's called. Yeah. And I think we were talking about um that like like that musical in particular, that piece of entertainment and and my opinions on it. Uh is this the moment where I insert that? Yeah. Disclaimer, if you're a big, big lover of Hell's Kitchen, you're you're gonna want to hold your breath until I get done. Because broadly, I'm going to say that I liked it. Like I enjoyed it as a piece of art. It was fun to get to engage with for a week. And um, you know, Alicia Keys makes great music. She's an excellent composer. Um I find that her singing, for me personally, is a little flat. It's kind of not flat as in bad, like out of tune.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Flat like as in There's not enough variation.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

It's not dynamic, it's not kind of folks-y, which is my own personal taste in music, is is very that uh like rough, underproduced, um, witty lyrics. Uh, and she does witty lyrics well. But what was interesting is like I found Alicia Key's music actually popped in a Broadway format because that's all it is. You're like performing the song on stage to tell a story, and so there were some really cool numbers she did there, and the story she tells is good. But I I think we were talking about the fact that there has been a notable series of musicals in the last I'd say five, six years, where consistently we see this uh I can't use that phrase on the air. Uh uh. I mean it's it's it's arguably more vulgar than Cockchwitz. Uh it's it's a little more visual. Um, how do you say uh Turn and Burn is a good one where it's these musicals, they're they're kind of like a biopic had a baby with some musical artist, and it's like a vague retelling of their life through their own music. Um so kind of Mamma Mia, although that wasn't Mamma Mia at all. Mamma Mia, that was just like a retelling of some other random ass story with their music, music of ABBA, which is like good, because ABBA makes sense on Broadway, but but still, we've we had a Michael Jackson musical, we had the Silicia Keys musical, uh, we had who else? Um, there was a Neil Diamond musical, which I I hate to say I actually liked a little bit, but it I'm not surprised. Neil Diamond's great.

SPEAKER_03 4:35

You're obsessed with Neil Diamond.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

But I'm obsessed with the Neil Diamond because I saw the musical. Um but his voice sounds like a velvet-wrapped ashtray, which is actually a quote from the show, and it's so so apropos. Uh but um we also had a Bob Dylan musical, and I think it's called Gor Girl from the North Country. I remember building the show. I did not come back to see the show. It the set was beautiful, the crew was beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Just wasn't your cup of tea.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

No, it's not even just my it was terrible, it was objectively horrible because Bob Dylan is this like Vietnam War protest, like raspy folk artist that makes really beautiful music and says these really deep and auspicious commentary pieces. And it was once described, I think, Adam Savage. Uh he has this great book. Now we're really drifting around the point, and we'll get back there per the usual.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

This is how it always goes.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

I mean, I'm sure they're they're familiar. I forgot people are listening, sort of kind of delayed by 12 hours or so. Um but Adam Savage has a book called Every Tool's a Hammer, which if you make anything at all, like plug. Can you put that? Is that allowed? Can you put that in our in our like link of things? Yeah, I'm sure I can. As I pretend I don't know how to use a computer and how that works, I'm like asking a question. We should do that. Uh but Every Tool's a Hammer, great book by Adam Savage. Um, very encouraging to young makers and old makers and anybody who's shy about making things. But anyway, in the book, he's talking about ideation, I think it is, and he says something to the effect of um he says something about fishing for ideas, and he was like, Yeah, anybody who's fishing for song ideas downstream of Bob Dylan isn't gonna catch any fish. And it's true, because he's brilliant. However, it's also Bob Dylan doing Bob Dylan's thing. One should not attempt to badly reproduce Bob Dylan. It doesn't work. And it was like laughed out of the theater. People would get up and leave halfway through. Um they also just did the show called Stereophonic, which is like it was kind of cool. We built a recording studio on stage. And that part was neat. Like it was 1970s recording studio, like down to the ashtrays in an etch a sketch as a prop. Like piles of cigarettes, you have a props guy that's like rolling fake joints. Like it's it's a whole thing, and it was it's because they they they couldn't quite get the rights, I don't believe, or they didn't pursue the rights to Fleetwood Mac's actual music, which would have been pretty bitch-in. But they didn't do that, so instead, uh they like made some music just for the show, and it's like a vague retelling of Fleetwood Mac's like origin story. Okay. Except this wasn't even a musical. This is a three-hour play that happened to have like music in it. Yeah. People were leaving well before intermission. Because it was just bad. Whereas if you had a Fleetwood Mac concert, you would have stayed. Yeah. So that being said, a lot of these musicals people do love. I'm creating like lots of weird side tangent points here, and now nobody knows in whatever the fuck direction I might have possibly been going. Um the gist is, why are we seeing so much of this like weird biography musical flash and trash? Even Moulin Rouge, which I love for its aesthetics, just took a bunch of pop songs and strung them together both times, both the movie and the musical. And the answer is because it's they think it's a guaranteed bet that people will like it. Whereas if you make a story on your own, it's kind of scary. Because then you don't know if it's gonna resonate with an audience, and sometimes things can even get through like a highbrow New York New Yorker art audience, that then they're like, Alright, let's try to milk this investment a little bit, not realizing they're milking the horse which is dead. Uh like milking the horse. Okay, we're just gonna move on from that. We're just continuing. It's just like barreling through to my point. My point is that like art, especially large-scale commercial art and live performance is a gamble where you would be surprised by the number of things that your audience will accept. Um, like you'll go watch some of these shows and just be like, like the Alicia Keyes show. She says some like relevant things about racism, um, the culture of New York City, which are themes you can find in her music. Like, this isn't like new thoughts she's twisted or conjured out of nowhere. Um, and you know, about young artists and being inspired, relationships with parents. Like, she does touch on some like deep topics, but honestly, it's kind of shallow. It's very simple. Boy meets girl, girl's mom hates boy, drama follows, couple of side characters, dad's a deadbeat dick who shows up occasionally as comic relief. We resolve the boy by them breaking up spoilers, uh, and then dad shows up at the end of a funeral of a slightly related but kind of important character to be like, I'm not a totally terrible dad, I'll be home for dinner tomorrow. And then news flash, thitter doesn't happen. Mom and daughter sing about how much they love each other, so then their conflict is resolved, and then the show's over, and then it's woo something something something America USA song she did. Yeah. Lots of people are dancing in the streets of New York for some reason.

SPEAKER_03 10:05

I I'm not entirely familiar with Alicia Key's uh discography, but Neither am I. The only one that I really know is This Girl Is On Fire, and that's That was in the show!

SPEAKER_01 10:19

That was in the show.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

That's because it was used as the finale scene of one of my favorite video games.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Which video game?

SPEAKER_03 10:27

Uh Borderlands. Ah, okay, I can see that being an ironic choice. That's kind of fun. Not really, though, because uh what one of the lead characters, Lilith, uh she is what's considered a siren in that universe. She has special powers, and she was granted the nickname the Firehawk because she has the ability to turn essentially into a Phoenix. And so she turned into the Firehawk and flew into the moon to stop it from colliding with the planet that they were all on. And so, at that moment, the song This Girl Is on Fire was playing, and it's like it's uh it's a little on the nose, but it's fitting.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

This one had nothing to do with actual fire. Um, the way they used it was the girl is like for like there's like there's like three minutes in the play where everything's going well. She has the boy, her mom is supposedly believing her lie about not seeing the boy, but everything I'm mentioning versus that, that's like a pretty big deal problem that we're poking fun at or parodying or whatever. Yeah. Um, high stakes. Nothing about this play was high stakes. Not a single bit of it. I mean, maybe the creation of a star is kind of high stakes. Yeah. And they touch on some high stakes themes like like racial issues of the police, which are super relevant today. But either way, the show was pretty sh sh I don't use that word.

SPEAKER_03 12:03

It's not shallow, it was It was consumable. Yes. It was not uh made into something that people will look at and go, oh, she had a crazy ridiculous experience that's drawing me into the plight that she had. It's going, okay, I understand these issues, like these are issues that everybody's going through as a super.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Relatable at a superficial level.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

Yeah, it's the same reason country is so massive. Like, to a lot of people, they look at country, the trucks, the flannel, the beer, and they go, Well, that's just stupid. Nobody's doing that, but it's relatable to the people who are living that life, who are out on the farm, driving their trunks, drinking their beer, wearing their flannels. It's it may not be relatable to you personally, but it is relatable to a demographic appeal. Really strongly.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Like, not even like not just like incidentally, you know, uh relatable. And so that's why it does well, even though it's kind of two-dimensional flash and trash, like, okay, whatever. Like they didn't they did some things that were interesting to us as technicians with flighting insets, but not noteworthy. Like none of it was like, you know, changing uh entertainment that like made you you walked out of that with a new per I did buy a piano after the show. So maybe I'm kind of lying here. But the point is it's after sitting through a week's worth of performances, that they just it's not innovative. It's not innovative, it's the same thing, it's a bunch of safe bets. Um, and even Moulin Rouge was the same way. Uh the show in Moulin Rouge, though, the story behind it is actually kind of deep and deals with death in a really strong way. Um, deals with an evil man, like it's got some more like kind of fantasy level problems um that I find more interesting. But this doesn't feel as compelling as whatever I said to you on the phone the other day. But that being said, uh I think that entertainment so Hades Town is and clearly like right now we're only talking in the musical sphere because I've got that just like always locked and loaded in the back of my brain because I know that's not your favorite thing. Yeah. Um it's definitely not my bag. You put up with it for me and your wife. That's pretty much it. Yeah, pretty much. Fair. Um, to be fair, I don't video game. Um but it like Hades Town takes a like millennia-old story and retells it, and then the ending, which I will not talk about in the air because I don't want to spoil that one, because it's not a piece of flash and trash, and you should go see it, and they've got a uh a a pro shot being released on July 24th, I think. Um with the original cast. Really cool. The point is that they are like that musical one, it's written by a folk artist who made her own music, turns it into an album that doesn't really see the light of day until the first time she tells this story. Like she's running around the country, she's coming up with this music based upon the things she's seeing, she's taking the Bob Dylan approach, she's writing about the issues in front of her, and once she does that, she then congeals it and goes, you know, the story of Orpheus and Uridice really fits this. And in that story, I am gonna spoil. Spoil, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, put some clown horns, some pizzazz, some pig farting, whatever you need to do here. Spoiler! Uh, the gist is that um they tell you at the beginning of the play that uh we're gonna tell you this story, and it's worked out the same way every time, and we're just gonna keep singing it in the hope that it changes. Or if you have seen your redissi go through their whole little plot thing, and then uh he goes to hell to rescue her per the original legend, fails to rescue her, she gets stuck in hell, he has to go on living his life and and and play. And then at the end, they kind of rub your nose in it, and they're like, We told you it was a sad song, and we're gonna sing it again anyway. A boo-hoo. But every time that I've ever seen it live, the large portion of the audience is surprised that she doesn't make it out. And at that moment, there is a collective literal gasp. A where everybody thought they were gonna make it, and it's kinda like spooky music's playing as they're trying to walk out of hell, because that's probably what hell has as its elevator music if it were a real place. But like, it's like and then and then then she turns back, she looks at him, she goes away, and the collective gasp, everybody in the audience that gasped felt something, and they felt despair. That's not a happy emotion, that's not consumable.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

But people like but it's something we all deal with. It's something that is relatable. We've all been in despair at one point in our life. Now maybe that's because your girlfriend broke up with you, or you had a family member pass away, or your dog ran away, your fish died, whatever it might be. We've all felt some degree of despair, which makes it link back to that consumability. We understand that emotion and it hits us all.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Yes. So, they made a risk, and it paid off tremendously. Hugely popular show. Um, not most shows don't get pro shots. You're not gonna see Hell's Kitchen pain for a pro shot. They're like, go buy Alicia Key's album, listen to the cast recording. You're not getting a pro shot of that because it's not tremendous. The staging is really simple but really impactful in Hades Town. They made great art choices, great people were involved in that project, and because of the you know, culmination of all those things, combined with the risk, it somehow satisfies the soul in a way that this Alicia Key show, even though it was good, there are songs in it I have revisited, I liked. I don't listen to the Alicia Key's version, I listen to the musical version. It but it's still just like it's just like clapter crap. It's it's designed, at the end of it, everything resolves itself, it's all happy, we're all singing about being happy at the end of Hades Town. They sing a song of mourning for Orpheus running around alone and in despair for the rest of his days, and you're just like damn.

SPEAKER_03 18:42

I think that's more a comment on humanity though. We can't. Like, as people, we struggle to acknowledge these darker emotions that we all deal with, and we want everything to be sunshine and rainbows and unicorns, and everything has to be happy and resolved and perfect but life isn't perfect, and neither is art.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Well, that's the problem. Is so the money-making machine now you're getting me to it. Good job. Uh, because I wouldn't have gotten there on the street.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

I just had to lead the horse to water. Drown the horse in it.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

But the problem is that, like. The problem with most modern art is that if it's not already been done and was successful, the Wiz is a good example. The Wiz is very important uh to specific communities, uh, by and large, the African American communities, um, because it was a retelling of a quote unquote white story uh they kind of took ownership of and applied their own music to it. It's a great show, it's tremendous.

SPEAKER_05 19:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

But it has been done, it has been toured, it was made into a movie, all of which were very popular. It did well, and so there was a tour of it that was picked up and started. Um and it has done well enough for a show that's old and getting a reboot, but it was a safe bet. Like somebody else took the risk. Yeah. And Hades Town is unique to me because it was a big risk. You're going to make those people there there isn't a song at the end where it comes back together and it's like, okay, partying, sound trends and rainbows. No, they just leave you with a feeling of shittiness and tell you we're gonna be singing it again tomorrow. Um, you can come back and see if it changes. And I would buy a ticket every time to watch it again in the hopes that it changes, even though it won't. Um, and they they they're just it's it's it's an incredible piece of art because then it also stimulates conversation. The Hell's Kitchen thing, I only even bring it up as contrast. In another two months, I will have forgotten that it existed.

SPEAKER_05 20:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

And that's the problem, is that producers are willing to spend money on things they're like, that's a sure bet, and that makes business sense, but it doesn't inherently encourage good art.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

It's it's also not smart marketing to have the story resolved in the end. If you resolve the story, people go, oh well, that's finished. Now I can move on with my life. But like, if you don't resolve the story, you give them that cliffhanger, it's going to be fresh in their mind for months, and they're gonna wanna know the answer.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

You're gonna continue to discuss it.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

But it is smart marketing in the short term because we are now stuck in a society that wants instant gratification for everything.

SPEAKER_03 21:39

They can just flip it and rip it.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

And they're like yeah, they're like, they're sure, they're gonna go to that musical, and that musical is gonna give them a little couple dopamine hits, and they're gonna feel really good about Alicia Keats or Neil Diamond or whatever the hell. The Neil Diamond story was interesting because it's telling the story of a man that's losing his mind, which later we find out, like, but I don't know if Neil Diamond's still alive, but he ended up with some sort of, I think, degenerative brain condition. Unfortunately, and is out of his mind. And they only kind of allude to that in the musical. I think it'd be more f compelling to truly show a man loses fing marbles and everything he built, gone. Doesn't matter now, because he's out of his mind and can't appreciate it, even though he's touched millions of people with his music and his words. Like I think that's a much scarier, like, let's face that, but that's too scary for the masses. Yeah. The masses would not appreciate that. And I don't know why it is, like, see, even I'm saying it in declarative. Even though I think it'd be a more interesting story, but then the question is like, okay, well, why did Hades Town get away with it and this this you know they didn't do that? And it's probably because they just weren't willing to take the risk. They could have taken the risk, and it might have paid off. It might have been really memorable and talked about. But again, only brought up because I need contrast.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

That and I think to some degree Hades Town is an escape from reality. It's uh what most people would can would consider mythological, versus Neil Diamond's true story is his reality, and it's a scary reality at that. And so most people consume art and media in an effort to escape what they're going through to find a way to uh venture into another world or understand a different perspective that isn't their own. But when they're confronted with stuff that they may have to face on a daily basis, it becomes difficult.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

I think that that is a pretty valid point that maybe they just like pulled it a half step back where you're like, you can you can separate yourself from the story being told because it's mythical. And that's not a bad idea. I think that immersive entertainment is the next level of this because now you have an opportunity to immerse an audience potentially in a story, preferably they don't know anymore.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Um but the trick is and the the tricky part about this, and and and I guess I'll touch broadly on the the overall point that we think might be instructive for listeners, people that are trying to produce their own shows, um, similar to the sideshow that we produce. And the sideshow right now is in its uh its riskless format, actually, because we don't really force them to confront a story, we force you to confront some old things that humanity's well survived, in like Death Defying Acts, things like that. None of it is actually like I'm not screwing with you emotionally.

SPEAKER_03 24:36

Yeah, we're not going back and diving into the character's history yet.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Yeah. And so that is, you know, it's not that uncom you know, it's not that compelling, really. It's it's compelling in a in the original format a sideshow have been produced in, but it's not inherently compelling in the sense that it's going to force you to think about your own mortality just yet. And as we kind of work our way up to that, we've been diving a lot into how we get um financial backing, how we solicit uh producers that might be interested in the concept, that are going to stay true to the concept and what we think it should be. And the basic formula is risk your concept limits your pool of potential investors. If you're trying to do a big piece of art that isn't like garage-sized, chances are you need a grant of some kind to get that. And there are arts grants, if any of you are out there looking for like a two, three thousand dollar project, there are arts grants that will even allow you to pay yourself a little bit of money that you can use towards that project. It'll come from like an art council or someone else who isn't particularly invested in the you have to apply for it, so they have to kind of like the concept, but like you can do some like weird nuance sculpture and things like that, but you're still not really going to be tickling like touch the masses with a complicated concept.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

Yeah. Simplicity sells easy and quick, but it's forgettable.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Yeah, it is. How many people, you know, that are listening, if you guys feel like you'd like to touch in the comments, how many pieces of sculpture art really stuck with you that you could tell us about in specific? Like you could do a cocktail napkin sketch of? And the answer is probably none unless they got famous. Uh, and even then, you're not it's not probably something like Michelangelo's David, you probably haven't seen that in person. I have one friend that has actually showed me pictures he took on his phone of that sculpture. And the only reason he even thought to go see it or separate it from the thousands of other marble sculptures that exist is because other people decided it was famous.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

Yeah. So it's like what decides if a piece of art becomes massive? Because some of the art these days, as you've expressed, is just flesh and trash crap.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Let's literally throw some World Shock blots at a canvas. I'm gonna tell you that it's a compelling story about a banana eating itself, and then you're gonna be like, oh, that's must be a massive commentary on Jesus' left toe hair. I like and then I'm just like gonna agree with you and be like, oh yeah, yeah, well, and of course, so there's a couple things about that psychologically. Firstly, I think people don't like to look dumb, so they're inclined to parrot the opinions of people around them. I am no exemption to that. I have to really guard myself against that. People like to be agreeable. And so if one or two people stand up and form an opinion about something, other people will typically follow. Or they will be then given the fodder to read into it together. And now we're still talking interpretive art, but like in live entertainment where the characters are telling you something about it and you can actually visualize it with your own eyes and things. I think that your win can be stronger faster because it's something you're experiencing, and the answer to your question is like what makes a piece of art popular? I think it's people talking about it.

SPEAKER_05 28:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

I don't I think that's the mistake I see in a lot of pieces of art or plays that are done, is that like your goal should be to get them to talk. And that's a risk, though, because like if you if you make a three three, four, five, ten million dollar investment in producing a show, and then you just get crickets afterwards, oh you fucked up.

SPEAKER_03 28:38

That's a massive failure.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

You fucked up, and so you've got to be really sure, and there's not like a straightforward playbook, which is also nice. I one of the reasons why I find that I'm more inclined to really put my mind towards and you guys can hear mm the rumblings of the beginning of the story, which has changed slightly some. We will do another episode on that at some point, unless Harley gets it out of me in this one, is that uh which you're not gonna do because I can't have anybody know until we finally get it produced. Uh double double top secret um probation is where the idea exists right now. Uh but i the point is, is that like people need something thought-provoking to talk about. And if you can get them to start doing it online, that's even better because it can happen faster, and so then you can multiply the word of mouth beyond your own marketing. Like, you can shove advertisements for what's new at the local pack this week, and unless they have a personal connection to it, that advertisement you're sliding under their nose probably does not tell them enough. Like they would still have to take extra steps between clicking that ad and buying a ticket, unless they're like a seasoned ticket holder or something, which happens, um, to research the topic of the show.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Go, oh, will I like this? Won't I like this? And then choose to buy a ticket. So I truly think that live entertainment is a place that's still left where, as we've asked several people, and we plan to ask more, how do they think the fate of live entertainment in the face of things like AI and other economic problems that we've got going on and people's fingless obsession with their goddamn phones that was like four clown horns. Uh yeah. Uh I'm really, really I'm excited now because I consciously remember that you play a clown horn every time, so now like I cuss more because it's funnier to me.

SPEAKER_03 30:34

You just like making my life hell, don't you? I sure fing do.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

So the point is that like I think live entertainment is still a frontier in which innovation can happen. And I don't think it's how you can put together a more compelling acrobatics routine. I don't think it's can you put the sexiest dancer out there? I don't think it's can you put the singer with the best voice on the stage? I don't think it's can you spend twenty thousand million trillion billion cajillion just making some obscene numb of money on your marketing campaign. I don't think that that makes a difference either. I think the true like test of time is a piece of art gonna get people to rally around it and talk about it and be like, whoa, that all made us feel something. And you do need to hit the nail on the head in order to do that, and it's always a gamble. But I think that's why it's a good frontier, because there are college courses at the wazoo, there are all these professionals that'll tell you they have the answer for how to do that. Well, hey, I'm a professional that's here to tell you I have no earthly clue. I don't know. I mean, I have my instincts about what I like, and I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that I probably have it better than Andrew Ludweber's fan of the opera, but I definitely can do better than Kat's. However, he knew something too, because Kat sold a lot of damn tickets for being one of the most obscenely dumb musicals I have ever had the horror to witness. I feel like we're just even got different themed reboots.

SPEAKER_03 32:20

I feel like we're just saying like we're just trashing specific musicals whilst raising up other musicals.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

This really, this podcast is is is what do I think about musicals?

SPEAKER_03 32:34

That's what do I think about art?

SPEAKER_01 32:36

No, it's just musicals. It's not even, you know. Uh but all jokes aside, I really think, Harley, that like the secret is conversation. If you can get them to talk about it, and there's some logic we could apply to that, um, you know, good ways to get people to talk about things is to leave things on a broken end, like Hades Town. Yeah. Or to to directly hit them with a question, or you force them to be introspective for so long, um, which we knew this was coming with this conversation, sleep no more, being what I consider to be the gold standard for a piece of weird art that people like I they got me, all of their psychology worked on me, which is very rare. I tend to autistically kind of bug out and start looking at stage lights and pretty much everything I watch, but they got you emotionally hooked inside of your own mind bad enough, and they shrouded it in enough secrecy that you felt compelled to talk about it. I called like nine people after seeing that show. They were all two plus hour phone calls trying to figure out what the f I had just experienced. And I don't think that's just because I'm a theater kid and I'm more susceptible than most. I think it's because they did a good job of making you question, and they left you with far more questions than answers, and still wowed. It was still technically, you know, excellent, and the cast and actors were excellent people, and you know, yada yada yada, talent, talent, talent, but it was it was a risk, it was a big risk at that time. Nobody had done anything like that. The closest thing we got was, you know, a bootleg haunted house. Um I think haunted houses, by and large, do a fing terrible job. They do a horrible job of this when it seems so easy in their environment, you're literally having people walk through a themed space and you could give it a compelling point, and you could jump out and go boogie woogie woogie woogie woogie. All of those things can happen at the same time, but haunted houses are so busy being cool that they forget to apply like intellectual art steps. Because if a haunted house, and there's one that we may or may not have discussed just an episode ago, that is doing this. Yes. And they're in the middle of BFE, North Carolina. Like I guess it's BFN now. Yeah. Yeah, but where you see how I just negated my use of the abbreviation by by By being a dick.

SPEAKER_03 35:10

Yeah. Yeah. A colossal just hat.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

So are you just gonna put the honk over the word or are you gonna put it over the word hat too? No, just the part of the podcast where we put in as many clown honks as possible to ensure that you're still awake and still listening.

SPEAKER_03 35:32

And beware, I might put one at full volume just to wake you the hell up.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

That's right. Um we start to figure out what things make our piece of immersive entertainment really shine, and it's the clown horns.

SPEAKER_03 35:43

Oh, definitely. I mean It's been the most engaging for people. I haven't had any questions about the sideshow or anything, or anybody send me their art, but I've had about a million messages about the damn clown horns being too loud.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

We did reasonably reduce the volume of the clownhorns.

SPEAKER_03 36:03

Down to 15% of their original audio volume.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Hopefully they don't lose their impact. Hopefully. But in any case, I I think the next world for us with this immersive entertainment stuff, and and by the way, thank you to all of our listeners for being here and listening to our ramble. This podcast's purpose, which I really don't think I've discussed on the air, at least for me, has become a place to register almost a time capsule of what we're thinking in that moment, um, in parallel with the sideshow's growth uh and the strange little carnival we want to build. And so by the time that you guys get to see that polished concept, which I'm sure by this point, half the people listening are like, you guys are never actually gonna do it, and that's fine. I wish you would tell me uh because of the Neurospicy. I I am more likely to do it faster the more people tell me that I'm crazy.

SPEAKER_02 37:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

So bite me. But I think that when we pull this off, this podcast is gonna be an interesting time capsule of what the experiences were and what we thought, and then we can look at it and go, damn, we were wrong.

SPEAKER_03 37:19

Yeah, it's basically just the behind the scenes of the building it, but also the foundational blocks of art and entertainment that we have studied and utilized or avoided dependent on the direction that we want the project to go.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

100%. That is, you know, because I still don't quite like the crystal ball gets less foggy day by day as I talk to more people and I workshop the idea more and more. But and frankly, all of the puzzle pieces are here. If anybody took the time to listen to all, you know, 4,000 hours of this show, uh, you could s probably, if you're pretty smart, figure out what it is that we're trying to do. I think. One of the interesting questions that I would love to discuss, completely changing tack here, because I'm all over the place per the usual, is that you guys wanted authentic content. Here it is. Um two dudes, one couch, and lots of cats. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:33

Uh I feel like there's a new cat that walks through the door every three minutes.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

It's really fun. Um but so we've got a problem, which is that we want to create a risky deep dive concept show. And I guess we could take a few minutes maybe and like puzzle out what things we believe would solve the problem of a modern audience who, by the by, actually they're like their soul still screams for something that's impactful and meaningful. But they have been um which, by the way, I don't know if you saw the lawsuit. Here we go again. I don't know if you guys just saw it just saw the road on the GPS turn as I said that. Uh did you see the lawsuit that Google's going through right now?

SPEAKER_03 39:27

I've heard vaguely about it, but I don't know a lot about it.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

I didn't deep dive too far, but essentially there's a woman who cites in her lawsuit, and this is in California, which makes sense. It's a very liberal state, so they're going to be more inclined to entertain this, whereas I feel like a place like Texas would be like, this is nonsense. Yeah. Yo, somebody, Sam, get these people out of here. You know, or whatever, I don't know. Um, but uh there's some validity to it. Uh basically, Google and Meta, I think for like a combined six million dollar payout, have to pay this woman, ordered by a George to do so, while they have publicly said that they disagree with it, because of course they do. Um, on the basis that they created without enough disclaimers, in the same way that cigarettes have to have disclaimers, technology that was so addictive that it ruined her life because she started online at six years old.

SPEAKER_03 40:31

I mean, I can see it. There's a lot of lawsuits going around at the moment around video games and uh predatory marketing for like microtransactions and sh and there's some big payouts coming for anybody who can prove that their life has been negatively impacted by video games.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

I think that, you know, if we were chills, maybe we should start some lawsuits. Um, I'm now getting like uh personalized advertising content that's suggesting me lawyers who are looking to take up the case in North Carolina. Uh I have no intention of doing that, because I'm not gonna build our entertainment empire on the uh Downfall of another. Yeah, that seems dumb and kind of like It's like building a house on a graveyard. It feels in poor taste. You could get the job done, but so that's kind of ludicrous, but it does actually point out a pretty valid issue, which is that people are addicted to their phones. Even some of our our our good friends will let you remain unnamed, but you know who you are. iPad kid. iPad kid. Um so he is like obsessively on his phone. Yeah and he's there, he wants the presence of people, he wants um also do clown horn over his name. I don't want to get like my you know my my sh kicked in later for outing him on the air for being an iPad kid, but the reality is like you miss what's going around you, and I feel it too. I have to consciously, but I I didn't have it for as long as a child, so it's easier for me to like shove it in my pocket, and if I've got things in front of me, I'm less likely to do it. But all of this around, too, in an immersive environment like Sleep No More, yeah, they they locked your phone in a bag. That was how they solved the problem. Is you gotta keep it on your little purse, but they locked your phone in a bag, it was not an option, and they did it under the auspicious of they didn't want you to take photos, because at some points in the show, um, their talent was very exposed. So, like you're trying to protect their privacy, which makes sense, but um it but you know what? And just saying the words alone is not enough. I can tell you from sitting in a spot booth looking down on the crowd that half of the mother f that paid a well over$150 for a ticket to see a live show will do two things. This is I'm talking quite literally half the people in the theater. One they will have their phone out the large majority of the show. And I don't understand their relationship with money. Somebody should talk to them about it, but if I paid that much, my phone will be off. I do not pull my phone out at the movie theater where I only spend like ten bucks for a ticket because it's rude, but also I'm I'm it's like my one break from people. I I I want to be just me and the movie and nothing else. The other thing they'll do, which pisses me off, is they will get up and they will leave before bows. Which drives me insane.

SPEAKER_03 43:49

Yeah, Onyx and I were having a conversation the other day about this exact topic. Like, you see videos of Concerts these days, and 95% of the crowd are standing there, hands above their head, filming the show, not actually watching the frickin' concert. Like, what the f wrong with you? Why didn't you bother to go? You're not actually experiencing the show. Yes, you're hearing the music, but all you're seeing is your forearms and your phone.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

You are absolutely just brain dead. What's funny about this machine and how it works, though, is that they also the number of times I've ever recorded or taken a picture of something that's just like out in the wild, I don't post it. I rarely go back and look at it unless I'm trying to tell somebody else about it. Yeah. Um, so I can't imagine that many people would go back to it. I remember back in the day, I did have a friend do a bootleg recording when we were at the Trans Siberian Orchestra of the concert. But he just like brought in a bullet microphone and a little recorder in his lap that he smuggled in. It was actually pretty cool. This is like the early uh like 2013. And uh and then he gave us all the recording that Christmas. I've already gone to the concert with him as a as a Christmas present on a CD-ROM. Uh ancient ancient technology that the Egyptians invented, the CD-ROM. Uh when Al Gore and I invented the internet together, it was really a shock to us to discover CD-ROMs. Um, we didn't think that was a thing that could have ever been imagined. Um, but you know, because they had uh slaves and cranes, the Egyptians were able to pull off the CD-ROM. It's fascinating. But that being said, like you're not gonna do anything with the footage, likely. Um but what's funny is like bands, so like the trap of the machine is you have this instinct to film everything in front of you because your online identity is this most important thing to everybody these days.

SPEAKER_03 46:06

Oh yeah, everybody wants to be a content creator.

SPEAKER_01 46:09

You're like told your value of the person.

SPEAKER_03 46:12

Yeah. Is slake is like slaked upon that. How many followers you have, how much money you make from uh producing content online. And I'll tell you right now, it ain't sh like I stream on Twitch, I ain't doing it for the money. I started Twitch so I could learn to speak more publicly and become more uh communicative with the people and the world around me, and yes, I have made a small margin of money off of it. But I'm not out here begging for people to subscribe, begging for people to follow me. If you agree with me, sure, come have a conversation with me. But at the end of the day, I'm still going to produce this content not out of a need for popularity or money, but out of a need for personal development, and I'm not going to allow that content creation uh to essentially take over my life and stop me from uh experiencing real things around you.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

Exactly. And that's I think kind of the key. The problem with the machine is like a band, they they they don't want to dissuade you. They they're probably told by their marketing agencies and stuff not to dissuade you from taking phone and video. They do in the theater, but I think that's mostly a darkness thing, and it's an old rule that nobody's thought quite cleverly enough about yet to go, oh no, f let them film it. You know, um, because the value of most of those shows, because they tour and they're not experiential in the same way a concert is, is is the being there and seeing it live. Yeah. But the band wants you to film because you filming gets them more press. Yeah. You want to film because you feel like you should, because that validates you as a person that you can say that you were there. Yeah. And it pulls you out. Like you're not just vibing with the music, you're not talking to the person to the left and right around around you about what's happening. Um, and you're kind of almost stifling the conversation, but then like the marketing people still get what they want because you're still posting about it. Yeah. Talking about it, but you've removed some of like the human interaction in the space, and I think that's kind of sad.

SPEAKER_03 48:46

It is definitely sad. Uh again, it falls back to that almost predatory predatory marketing scheme of yes, we could have people sit there with their phones constantly recording, but it's not a fulfilling interaction for the audience or the cast members either way. But yes, at some of our sideshow gigs, we've had people filming, and that's cool. We love seeing the videos, we love seeing what you enjoyed and whatnot. But we would prefer if you would interact with us on a more personal level versus just taking photos and send it. It's the memories are going to stick with us more if you come up and interact with us, have a conversation with us, uh, experience the show to its fullest, because there's a lot of stuff that you don't get just from seeing the performances. Like if you go up and talk to any of our characters, we're constantly in character, whether we are performing or not. Our characters are fully fleshed out, they've got backstories, hobbies, uh quote unquote careers behind the scenes. And you could learn a lot and have a really fun experience. Some of our characters have backstories based on real events in history. You could learn something about history. Uh our characters have backstories from different walks of life France, Australia, America, all over the place. But if you're just gonna sit there with your phone, you're going to get the surface level experience.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

Well, and I think the phone thing is just like one kind of corner of it. Because like our show is weird in the sense that it's interactive with like you can which actually leads me to this idea that I think that there's some ways to combat this. I like Sleep No More's model because it's very simple. The phone is locked in a bag. You it's you in the art. You no longer have anything to hide behind, because I think also like filming gives you something to do with your hands the way that a cigarette used to do. Yeah. Like it's easier to avoid being, like, totally confronted by something if you are knitting a sweater. You know, that's a weird pick. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:40

But very left field.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

It's just easier to avoid a connection. And in some cases, like, you know, there are some shows that I've seen, even pieces of straight acting plays, that I find are kind of um uncomfortable. Like, Hades Town is uncomfortable to watch, and if I suppose if I would ever deign to have the rudeness to pull out my phone and attempt to film it, I would be able to put a barrier between myself and the emotions they're sharing and their performance, and then it it could definitely like keep me safe from having to think too hard about what's in front of me. And I think it's a comfort thing. I think the phone thing is a big comfort thing for a lot of people, but ways to get around that. So Sleep No War solution is brilliant and clever and all that. But I think there's another level of their solution that was really clever, which is that you remove the urge for the phone by making it a touch-inclusive space. Like you can touch everything, or you could, it's now gone, but you could touch everything in that venue. And papers, books, filing cabinets, glasses of liquid, um pillowcases that had perfume sprayed on them as if somebody had just been on them, like could touch and engage, and so it almost like creates this sort of ethereal space by the nature that it's a real space that's also set in the past, so the technology doesn't make sense in this space. Yeah. Uh there were phones, they were rotary.

SPEAKER_03 53:21

Like, yeah. I remember those things, they were uh special.

SPEAKER_01 53:27

Spe great, man. Like you don't get distracted by notifications trying to place a simple phone call to order a pizza. Like uh spectacular pieces of technology. I think that was the height of its evolution.

SPEAKER_03 53:37

And being able to hang up in such an aggressive way, like it just doesn't have the same effect anymore.

SPEAKER_01 53:43

No, it doesn't. If you angrily hit the button on your phone too hard, you might crack the phone screen. Like, that's that's no fun. Um and it doesn't do anything to the person on the other side of the phone, which is the point of hanging up loudly and angrily. But I guess I think also having a sandbox format to your piece of art is helpful because and as someone who doesn't game, maybe you can speak to this. I think it stimulates an area of the brain for exploration.

SPEAKER_03 54:16

Yeah. So I play a lot of those sandbox open world style games, which a lot of the time have no story base. It's simply just you put in a space developing your own story. Now, there are some, like one that I've started playing recently, Icarus, which have little quests that you can do which add a little bit of story and a little bit of direction in what you're going to need to do to survive. But when you're given a space with unlimited possibilities to do whatever you want, one, it's very freeing, but it can also, at the same time, be very overwhelming.

SPEAKER_01 55:16

But it's overwhelming enough that I bet you're not picking up your damn phone to record what the video game you're playing. Oh no.

SPEAKER_03 55:22

I'm not gonna sit there shielding myself behind a phone.

SPEAKER_01 55:26

It's just like too many options, but that's like the normal world as it used to exist when you didn't have your AI assistant telling you every moment of every day what you should go do and when. Oh yeah. I think the sandbox environment is key. I think the physical touching of things is key. There's another thing that they did that was kind of clever in that they I'm gonna make up a word here. Anom uh anonymized gave everybody an anonymity. Um because I think they are real words.

SPEAKER_03 56:04

You are not innovative in that sense at this point.

SPEAKER_01 56:07

Okay, I'll take it. No no no Shakespeare for me. But they essentially, like, by by putting everybody in masks, I think that made everybody less self-conscious, because at least for me as an artist, there is a rather severe feeling of a need to fit in, which goes back to the people talking about art concept where like one person is brave enough to form an opinion out loud, even if other people have opinions and everybody else will just agree because, you know, and hopefully positively for the show's sake. Uh, it also touches the idea that you're recording with phones, the reason that everybody wants to instinctively do that is.

SPEAKER_03 56:59

Sorry, a cat has entered the room and is sniffing around like a crackhead.

SPEAKER_01 57:07

Yeah. So the gist is that it also I think has people um feeling like that's what they must do because everybody else in the room is doing it, and if you're not doing it, it creates like the subconscious FOMO, like, oh well, they're getting that valuable content, so I've gotta get it too. Even if you don't do anything with it, yeah. Like it's just what's worth doing. I've experienced that in the days of just like pocket digital cameras where like I would go somewhere on vacation. The first couple big vacations I took alone, I was photographing the living out of everything. Yeah, like, oh my god. But then I was like, this is a real place. I could just Enjoy it and go back if I like it that much. Yeah. Like, I think taking photographs is good to show your family, but I started only pulling out the camera when I had something specific to show somebody. Yeah. And then it also made it less daunting when I went through my photos later, and I'm like, okay. It's like, what are you gonna do? Where do you upload that? To whom are you showing it to? Like, and I think it's different too if you're taking like a selfie with friends, or like there's a specific memory you're capturing, but this urge to just like photograph the hell out of everything in creation, you're like, No, I have eyes.

SPEAKER_03 58:24

Again, it's another thing like Onyx and I have touched on because we used to just take a sh ton of photos of each other doing whatever we were doing, whatever. It could simply be we were sitting in a f McDonald's.

SPEAKER_01 58:43

I was really worried you were gonna say sit on the loo.

SPEAKER_03 58:45

No, there's no photos of that.

SPEAKER_01 58:48

That's good, I think. Yes, very good. Okay, alright. Um Don't want to yak your yum, you know. But I know how you are about Lou photos. We're just gonna leave that there for the audience to decide what I mean by that.

SPEAKER_03 59:03

Yeah. Um, and so we would take a ton of pictures, and then I just gradually stopped taking photos because I grew to just want to experience the moment more. And they approached me a couple of times and they're like, you don't take photos of me or us anymore. And it's like, it's not because I don't want to capture the memory, it's more I don't want to hinder the memory by hiding behind the screen.

SPEAKER_01 59:41

The moment, yeah, you have to detach yourself to get behind the screen, then you've like like lost touch with the actual impact of whatever potential moment, or maybe it's a moment that's forming that's really important, but you're distracted.

SPEAKER_03 59:56

And that's not to say, like, taking photos to uh capture memories is a bad thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:03

Like my entire wedding was photographed and that's like you can also hire a photographer who has no emotional investment in that to come in and take the wedding pictures on your behalf so you can be in the moment and the photographer can do their thing.

unknown 1:00:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:19

And then you can revisit those, you know, but again, like you're gonna want to send those to friends, you're gonna have an album, like there's purpose behind it. Yeah. Whereas I feel like, you know, being where your feet are is kind of a lost art. But something else you said that I wanted to touch on is I think it's about creating good live entertainment is about creating a recipe. It's like serving a really good dinner with ingredients that you have sourced from around the world. You know, you've got some actual curry or some crazy flour tea from China, or like something that's like just they don't encounter every day, and you sell them a ticket to this grand, just like crazy taste bud popping experience, and the reason they're paying for it is that they can have an experience, but you as the curator or chef, your job is to like create a moment or moments. Now I'm drifting back out of the metaphor, sorry, it's just like whatever, we're talking about food, we're talking about theater, what are we doing? I guess it could be dinner theater, you know, whatever. The point is that you're like creating this these opportunities for your patrons of your art to have moments. Yeah. And that's what they're paying for. Is they're like, it's not just paying for an escape. That's something that Joe and I have both said independently many times, like, that's what we do. How do we explain it? What are all what's the conducting thread? Well, we give people opportunities to escape. And maybe a more positive way to say that would be we're giving you the ingredients you need to create a really special memory that would be almost impossible for you to run into an accident in the wild.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:57

Yeah. But we can engineer a world where you can really, you know. Engineering an experience.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:05

Yeah. Uh and, you know, an experience that ought not be used to take a video on your phone. You can you can do that yourself with your in your own time if you feel so compelled. Um Yeah. I mean, does that about cover it? I don't know that we really like nailed anything down here. We just said a lot of words.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:26

Yeah, we were all over the place, but Hi, it's me.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:30

That's what I do.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:31

I think sometimes that's the fun of it. Not having a specific direction, again, leading back to that scene.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:39

We definitely told them that we had a direction at the beginning of the show. Yes, but Oh! Oh, my new autistic phrase! Okay, so on that note, wow, I peeked the hell out of that so badly. Um Autistic phrase for everybody who's listening. Step right up, alright? Grab a pen, or just your weird little neurospicy brain, and jot this down. The plan will disintegrate on contact with the enemy. Okay. Uh a good friend of mine who may or may not have been on the show within the last two episodes said that to me about a conversation we were planning to have, a business chat. And he was like, I was trying to make sure I had whatever information he wanted to discuss prepared, and what uh and he goes, No, that sounds good. He goes, besides, realistically, like most of our conversations, the plan is just going to disintegrate upon contact with the enemy, so I feel like you've got your autistic phrases of the day, and I've got my Australian phrases of the day.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:48

Oh, because we have so many segments. But fortunately, your autistic phrases are seldom as vulgar as my oxidrome.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:59

Speaking of which, bum blab it's now time for Harley's Australian phrase of the day.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:09

Well, the one that I've been falling back to time and time again is we ain't here to f spiders. I'm just letting him process that for a minute.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:24

I I don't know which question to ask. What I guess we'll start with the obvious. Have you ever the spiders are very large in Australia? No. Okay, alright, okay. This isn't a place of personal experience. That's good to know. The spiders are very creepy. Harry Potter did me in on that.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:43

It's a very uh common phrase amongst older Australians. And why? It's essentially saying we don't have time to sit around and not get done.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:05

Right. But that's a phrase that already exists that one could say. I guess it'd be the American equivalent of being like, we don't have time for everybody to sit around here with their thumb up But why instead are you putting the thumb up the spider's butt? Uh what did the spiders do to deserve this threat of violence?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:23

I don't think the spiders did anything to deserve it, but have you ever tried to catch a spider? Uh, with the bottom of my shoe. They're wriggly little bastards.

unknown 1:05:37

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:39

This is just getting worse and worse.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:41

We're just gonna leave that there, ladies and gentlemen, that we do not have time to uh fornicate with the arachnids. And that's great. I'm glad um that we could discuss that on the air for your Hey, you wanted to bring I I did ask, and you know what I like to say a lot, which is we do not ask questions we do not want the answers to.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:08

Yeah. Pretty much. Also, we have a new song from Hayden to check out, and I will add his little segment in here, but it's actually from the Sinners movie this time.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:25

Really? Okay, love the Sinners movie. People can debate its like storytelling content all they want. Horror fans were kind of upset, suspense fans were kind of upset because it was both. Yeah. So neither really got what they wanted out of that. I thought they did a great job of making that a social commentary on so many levels. And as a production design kid, that was a beautifully, beautifully assembled movie. Lots of attention to detail. And the music was tremendous.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:58

It I think there was a lot of plot holes in the story, for me personally, but I didn't think it was a bad work of art. It had really good music, it was very fitting for the time, uh, a lot of little subtleties, like some that you didn't even pick up on your first three watchings. That's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:20

Yeah, as I as I tore that movie apart because I'm obsessed with a time period, that's kind of what we're doing.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:26

Uh, and there are it's a piece of art that got people talking. Yeah. And the ending kinda blows. It does. Not like it was like badly constructed, but it's the same kind of like, oh, that just didn't tie up quite as neatly as we wanted to. And I found out that the the the guy that plays the old version of the the boy, yeah, that's the main character, um, that's a real famous blues singer. Yeah. Um, that got a cameo, and he's doing a concert, I think, uh, playing some of the music from the movie, actually.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:02

That's kind of dope. That is cool. But yeah, like So which song did Hayden pick? Or did he go into that? Hayden picked uh Last Time, and then in parentheses, I Seen the Sun by Alice Smith and Miles Ketten.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:18

Interesting. That's that's a really, like, a really, really powerful piece in the movie. I'm excited to hear what he has to say about it. As am I.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:31

So I'll live like it's the last time for a long time at the wrong time.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:45

Hello, Twister Whisker viewers. Welcome back to the music segment. Today, your host, as usual, Hayden, and I got a fun one for y'all. Today's song is from a soundtrack, and the song is called Last Time from the movie Sinners. Now, let me get this off my chest. Sinners, great movie. 10 out of 10. I can't explain to you how many times I've watched the movie and how many times I've listened to that same song almost every single day. It's such a great song. And the meaning behind it is great. It's basically like what in the movie said when that song is about to play was last time I seen the sun was the last time I saw my brother. No, last time I seen my brother was the last time I seen the sun. There you go, that's the line. And that just hits different. And with that, it technically explains what twisted twisted whisker is. Before the fire, before everything went, we're living that moment, seeing that last sunset, having the best times of our lives. It was the last time that we saw the sun. But now we just all travel in a briefcase because we're all dead. We couldn't do nothing about it. But then when we get out of the briefcase, the song is literally about living the moment until time is wasted. And that's what we do. Even for our true selves. Whenever we do a show, we live the moments. Forget anything personal, have fun, and have just have a great time. Really is all about. Like, the amount of times I've listened to it start to finish. I I just love the old bluesy slide. It's so so cool to hear that on a soundtrack as well. The whole soundtrack of Sinners is great itself. But the guitar work in there is amazing. The guy who played Preacher Boy, he knows how to play blues, and he wore a slide, and he did phenomenally. And I'm a guitar player myself, and it's really hard to do slide and play blues and sing at the same time. I can't sing and play at the same time. I suck at it. But doing that, it was so impressive to see that, and then hearing that in the song with the actor, Preacher Boy, and so and a woman singing with him, combined them together, those harmonies that they were doing was out of this world, and it was just such buildup with the song, it just hits you differently so much. I remember when I first listened to it, I almost shed a tear because throughout my personal life I could connect to it a lot because I moved away a lot, and those were the best times of my life was with my people, and the last time I saw the sun was with them, so I could relate to the song a lot, but it's such a great song. I totally recommend listening to it, and basically from the viewers and who we are, I can't doubt that y'all haven't seen Sinners. It's for a Kavany Award wedding from Oscars. Like, come on now, who doesn't know the movie Sinners at this point? Such a great movie itself. The soundtrack, the visuals, the prosthetic work, everything about it is amazing. But this is your host, Hayden Downs. This is the end of the music segment. Have a good day. Stay safe. Goodbye.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:32

Well, folks, welcome back from listening to that reggae riveting segment from Hayden Downs. Uh and uh I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:43

Yeah. Uh he had some good perspectives to offer on uh this particular work of art.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:49

Way to sell the horse before you slaughter it. So um with that, folks, I think that concludes episode 27. Do we have any other last thoughts you want to share?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:59

No, I think uh just go ahead and jump on the socials, let us know what you think. Tell us what you thought of the Sinners movie this week. We've asked you to show us your art, but yeah, go ahead, follow, like, subscribe, share it with your grandma. I'm sure she'll love us.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:18

I think that's a hey, we talked about risky endeavors and art. So, you know, show us to your grandma.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:25

Yeah, show it to your grandma.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:27

And you know what? Throw out there. If you're listening, please, if you made it this far, take a moment to comment a piece of art that you thought, particularly live art, uh all this applies to, but a piece of art that you've consumed yourself personally that you found didn't resolve in a super pleasant way or in an expected way, and really left you talking about it afterwards. Send us some art pieces to to absorb. If it's digital in format, that's obviously easier because we're not going to fly across the country to go see a play. Not at this juncture. But if you guys have something that you really thought was compelling and made you stop and think and talk to your friends about it, send it to us and we will take the time to watch it, listen to it, and talk about it on the air.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:21

Yeah, I think it'd be cool to do a uh an entire episode about art that doesn't didn't resolve itself.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:29

And I'm sure we'll get five minutes into that topic and then talk about everything else under the sun. Exactly. That being said, folks, thank you so much for joining us here for episode 27 of this chaotic ride. Is it really 27? It feels like it's like 57.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:42

It's 27.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:44

Oh. Yay! Yay! Um and thank you to our mysterious benefactor in the wings. You know who you are. We really appreciate your contributions for keeping this uh opportunity to um discuss strange things on the air. And uh yeah. Alright, until next time. Ciao.