What Have You Been Watching?
Two friends living on opposite sides of the country check-in with each other about Film, TV and culture.
What Have You Been Watching?
Slacker
Come hang out as Robin slows things down with Slacker, Richard Linklater's 1990 film about, well... nothing much, really. He and Charlie talk about being open to life's chance encounters, the commodification of our time and "hustle culture," and the deep value of letting ourselves be bored.
Hello everybody. Hello, Robin.
SPEAKER_00:Hello, Charlie.
SPEAKER_01:How are you doing, pal?
SPEAKER_00:I'm doing great.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah? Doing good?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, why not?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we're just hanging. We're just chilling today.
SPEAKER_00:I'm feeling good.
SPEAKER_01:Um, I had a pretty, pretty uneventful week. Did you say you were going you went to a baseball game or something?
SPEAKER_00:I did. I went to my first uh my first major league baseball game. It was a lot of fun, had good seats. It fit into the vibes feeling, which is like I don't really feel like paying that much attention to something. I just kind of want to soak in the atmosphere.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_00:I want to soak in the vibe of people kind of uh tuning in and out.
SPEAKER_01:Soaking the vibe.
SPEAKER_00:Which you can do with baseball, which is great. So you can kind of like, oh, there's a lot of action happening, and then I'm gonna talk to my friend for a while. I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna walk around, I'm gonna come back, and the guys are still there, and it's still the uh second inning. So it's great.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right, right, right. Did you do that on purpose just to talk about how the vibes in the baseball game was the same vibes as a movie we're gonna talk about today?
SPEAKER_00:I'm always this is podcast mindset that I'm adopting here.
SPEAKER_01:Podcast mindset, let's go!
SPEAKER_00:Alright.
SPEAKER_01:Well, if you didn't know it yet by the title in your phone, this is what have you been watching? Uh podcast where my friend Robin and I, Charlie, talk about what we were watching. And a few years ago, Robin and I were very good friends, and we had this interest in common, which is film. Um but the pandemic hit and we were all isolated. So Robin and I started watching movies together but apart. So we would watch the same movie simultaneously from our apartments, and we would take turns choosing a movie, and my buddy Robin showed Slacker, which by some miracle I hadn't seen. And I know it's a very important movie for my buddy Robin. Is that what you have been watching lately, buddy?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's the uh 1990 film from, yeah, as you said, Richard Linklater, who would go on to do the before trilogy. He would do Days to Confused, uh, one of my favorite movies. He would do big movies like School of Rock. Uh yeah, School of Rock he did with uh Jack Black, huge hit movie, you know, Oscar nominated for boyhood. But this movie, Slacker, is kind of what launched him into uh kind of the burgeoning kind of indie filmmaking scene of the 90s. And Slacker, it's a bit of a it's a it's a different movie. It's um, I guess you could say it's an experimental movie. Essentially, Slacker, it's a single day in the life of this collection of kind of um bohemians, um eccentrics, and oddballs, misfits in Austin, Texas. The conceit, the story, how it's told is basically uh kind of a past the baton style of of storytelling in which we are following a character for a certain amount of time, and we don't stay with any one character for more than a few minutes. So we'll be with someone, they'll be having a conversation with somebody, they'll go to a different place, and we drift off and we follow a new character. And this is this is the film.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's the epitome of nothing happens.
SPEAKER_00:Nothing happens, but doesn't that mean that a lot happens?
SPEAKER_01:Everything happens, that's right.
SPEAKER_00:A lot of ideas happening.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:I remember when I first this was kind of like an early one for me in terms of when I was getting more into movies and interested in different kinds. I think I was about 18 when I first saw this, and I just started university. And in my small town, we don't really have many options for finding smaller, more obscure movies. But the city where the university was, uh, where I went, they did have like this now it's gone video store called That's Entertainment. And they would have an entire wall of like movies of cry. They had all these like old movies never never heard of, and they had like a criterion section, and I had heard of criterion. I was like, remember my Royal Tandem Bombs was my first criterion that I had, and it's like, oh, what is this label? It's like this cool little label that like kind of specializes in arthouse movies, foreign films. But something caught my eye about Slacker. I don't know, like the the the cover art for it was very compelling. And I maybe I'd heard something about it, but I picked it up, and it's an interesting what the characters uh talk about is very interesting. They have these like kind of rich inner lives, and uh that's what kind of drove the interest for me, and that and I had never really seen a movie like this, and they kind of like open up potential for different kinds of storytelling, and as somebody who you know being interested in movies and even being interested in like I didn't know really what I wanted to do with with film as uh passion. I'm like, oh, do I want to write it, direct it, or act in it? And there's something about how the movie it seems so simply made. Um, it almost feels like one continuous shot as you're following these people throughout the day. And there's something that was very it felt very from a filmmaking side and like the potential for making your own things, it felt very inspiring that they were able to make this work. It felt attainable because there aren't special effects, or there's not even action in a in that terms, in terms of like gun violence or anything like that, or like something, a car crash happening, or something like, oh, how did they do that? It really is driven by kind of this, I think what did like uh Richard Linklater may have described as kind of like a a radical experiment and narrative that he had kind of been interested in. Like, why couldn't a movie be this?
SPEAKER_01:Right. Uh I love what you said about like it being one shot because I re-watched it and I did re-watch with my partner, and then he was like, did was that a one-shot? Like he he thought it was a one-shot, even though there were clear cuts, but just because it is just moved so easily from one conversation to the other, you kind of have that it gives you that impression that it all happened continuously. Um I noticed you were talking about like the passing the baton kind of thing, right? So there's one interaction, and then maybe one of the people in that interaction walks away, and then they go into a diner, and then we see a different interaction between different people, and then we go out, and then there is um, I don't know, there we go into a restaurant and they're talking about Smurfs, you know, like we go from one thing to the other, and you kind of let go of the previous thing. And it's I thought it was remarkable like watching this movie and contrasting it with our culture right now because it did give me a little bit of that feel of the scrolling, you know, let's say through Instagram or TikTok, where you are you were bored, so you grab your phone, right? And then you watch a story and then you scroll up, and then there's something else, and then you scroll up, and there's something else. However, that interaction on the phone is kind of a one-way thing. You even if you like, of course, you can comment or like or something, but you're taking stuff in. And in Slacker, um, that interaction is between people. You're actually, even though like it can get a little complicated because the interaction between the film and the viewer is a one-way interaction. But when we look into the the culture in the 90s in Austin, you see an interaction between people where there's a back and forth, right? So uh to me, I as I was watching it, I couldn't help but think that every time we move from one moment to the other, it's kind of like scrolling. But you know, I don't want to get too I don't want to get moralistic here, but obviously it felt it feels like it was healthier back in the 90s because we're losing connection with people. And I think there's like different ways to cure boredom, you know, in different times in history, obviously. And I feel like today you cannot be bored, you're not allowed to be bored. Uh, so that's uh you know, remember back in the day when we would wait for a bus, you know, and you didn't have a phone in your hand? That seems crazy. Um, but now we are not allowed to be bored, so we have these ways to kill that boredom, but like to kill the boredom in a very bad way. I mean, back in the day, it feels like it was a little more allowed for that boredom to just exist.
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah, I think that's yeah, a really interesting way. I didn't I didn't really uh think about it in terms of like um making that connection to how we are now with uh constantly kind of like seeking, like getting an experience of something, being like, okay, I I've had enough of that, on to the next thing. Um, and trying to like think, did I even like absorb what I just spent a few minutes watching, or even like 10 seconds, 20 seconds? Like I don't even know anymore. Um, but yeah, uh it is the 90s, it is the obviously like the very early 90s, but it does seem like you know, uh quite a different world in terms of like how people are experiencing life. Um and I've heard that like people who are from Austin, Texas say, like, this is such an Austin Texas movie, this is such a like I guess it is a specific group of people, but I think you would have find these groups of people anywhere, this kind of collection of I guess maybe unambitious people who don't really seem to have jobs, who spend their time daydreaming, walking around. But if they are bored, I mean, and they just find themselves wandering around, encountering other people. And it's interesting because like sometimes there is a dialogue between the characters who stumble across each other, and then sometimes it's very one-way street, it's very much like a monologue happening to another character, and they're just kind of experiencing it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but they're there, right?
SPEAKER_00:But they are there, it is a they're listening, that's not nothing, right? Like they are actually having the even having the experience of listening to somebody is is better than just being alone in that in that sense. But Richard Linklater, I think, put it like thinking um like what if people's inner monologues were just said out loud, and I can see that through some of the characters.
SPEAKER_01:Oh a hundred percent. Like the guy that talks about um the alien abduction guy? The alien abduction guy, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:That's the one like it's so I don't know if we want to talk about like because like I've this movie meant to like does mean quite a bit to me. It is honestly one of my favorite movies. And even when before I re-watched it for this podcast, it hadn't been too long since I had last watched it. Like it has like now it just has like a weird calming effect on me for some reason because it is pretty quiet, and um, you know, uh it's a vibe that I can get into really well if I'm maybe feeling stressed out.
SPEAKER_01:It is a vibe.
SPEAKER_00:It's a it's you know what? It's maybe is this an early vibe movie?
SPEAKER_01:Maybe, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I think like a lot of Link Later's movies are very vibe-heavy, but I'll say like the stories. I mean, in terms of what we're hearing and how this movie plays out, there are like common themes, I guess, that get explored from person to person. I mean, there's a lot of talk about like alternate realities, especially at the beginning, with the character who just has an absolute monologue to kind of a bored cab driver after he gets off the bus, having slept there, and he just goes on about alternate realities, and then we encounter somebody who's kind of a conspiracy theorist who talks about alien abduction, abductions in general, like where are all these people going? Like, how could it be possible that this many people are gone? There was also something, so so this is 1990 that this movie came out, and a lot of what we're just gonna, I'm just gonna refer because a lot of these characters also we never learn their names. But this guy who just goes on a complete rant to a young man who just leaves a coffee shop and he just approaches him and starts talking, like, oh, I heard your roommate is missing, and then he starts talking to missing people and it and it goes on for a while. But like some of what he says is very out there and um pretty like on the fringes of maybe rational thought, I don't know. But also he does mention stuff about like you know, global warming greenhouse effect, sort of like ecological collapse, which I found to be very interesting just to hear those kind of like terms being talked about back then. I mean, I guess it was known, but like to put those kind of to this character who's a bit of an eccentric oddball. I mean, I wonder if those were like were kind of uh eccentric thoughts.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I think it's a kind of postmodern thing, and and I don't want to like throw like jargon or anything like that, but which is like always question is the Kafuko thing, like always questioning reality, or always questioning what's real. And in today that's kind of reaching a bit of a like a peak, right? With AI, with fake news, and so back so back in the 90s, you you would hear him talking about uh climate change, and it would feel a little bit like even in the movie, it does come across as like conspiracy theories, especially because he also talks about really, really out there stuff. So like you if it's coming from that person, then you kind of start questioning, right? And now, you know, you kind of don't know, really don't know what's real anymore. I mean, I I someone sent me a video of a woman talking about I don't even remember what it was, but I looked at the video and I was like, is this I think this is AI, and I couldn't really tell, and then it wasn't AI. What I like about that scene specifically is that and and that's in the commentary too, that the young guy listening to that man, there's not really a lot of judgment, and that's what he Link later wanted. He didn't want it to come across like the young man was judging him, he was just listening to him. And again, I'm sorry to bring it back to this, but you know, the other day I was having a massage, and it's this massage therapist that I've been seeing for years and years and years, and we get along really well, and he, you know, just in the middle of it, he goes, like, Do you believe in demonic possessions? And I'm like, I'm always curious when something like this appears. So I said, uh, I don't know why. Well, like, I'm not sure. And he tells me this story about his friend who played the Ouija board one time and then went completely nuts and got admitted to a hospital, and you know, he was like going on and on and on and on. And listen, I care about this care provider that I have, and um I don't know how to put it, but if you if that's out on the internet and you have a chance to interact with it, maybe I would have gone, I'm not sure if that was really the case. Maybe he was he had this kind of disease or this kind of illness. Um or it could even be a little more blunt to say, like, that's that's bad shit crazy, man. What are you saying? But because I was there, a weird thing I was on the table, but I was there, I wasn't facing him, but like I just let the curiosity drive that conversation.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:And it just opens up your world. Like, I it doesn't matter if I believe it or not, that the important thing is the human interaction that's going on. So when I rewatched the movie and I saw that scene, I was really um I was just thinking about that conversation a lot and how you know I had to be on the freaking massage table to be able to have that interaction now, you know, without without that much judgment passed on. But I think you were mentioning more about like the climate change talk.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I just thought it was uh the non-judgment, like yeah, like anybody who who interacts in this movie, they there isn't like a real sense of uh judgment, which is really nice to actually to see. And it was cool to hear that um that was kind of a specific direction that Richard Link later gave. But if anything, there's a real like curiosity, yeah, as you said, about that. Yeah, yeah, because in my job I interact with a lot of different people, and even in the street, like I don't know, even like in transit, sometimes I'll find myself in a conversation with somebody who they initiate it and they are kind of talking at me, I guess. Like, I don't know if I'm interjecting, other than being like, oh wow, interesting. And the kind of but like I am and then it's brief, and then it's over, and then I may never see this person again.
SPEAKER_01:There's some stuff that stays with you though, it does, yeah. I'll never forget I was biking to work, and this old man was crossing the street that I was supposed to go into, and then he's just stopped in the middle of the street and he raised his coffee and just stay there. And everybody in the intersection just stopped and looked at each other like, what do we do? And then the old man took his time, stopped, and then he what significance does that have? There I don't know. I don't think there needs to be any significance, but I'd never forget it. And it was like a I don't know, two-minute period in my life that I can't forget.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's it's I think that's I don't know, maybe the importance of like I don't know, going out and like touching grass and just like even like going on a walk. Because as like none of these characters really, I don't know, there's not a lot of driving, so they're just kind of like walking from place to place, and it's kind of like a good way to like people watch uh in a way, and like yeah, even find yourself in an interaction when you never even planned on having one. At my job, working at like a coffee shop or something like that, I'm trying to get my tasks done or like working on something, and it's a leisurely, you know, environment for the customer a lot of the time, or people who are like sitting in the cafe having a drink, and then they will just start talking to me, and I'm doing stuff and I'm listening, but I'm also on my way. Do you know what I mean? Kind of like that character who's like he's going from like the coffee shop to his house, and in that time, like he just has a person with him. And during my time of like collecting garbages or like clearing plates or like going from here to there, I have somebody speaking to me, and I'm like, oh yeah, like childless, and they're like also like you know, revealing their life to me in in different ways. So yeah, it is like little like strange bursts of like now I know this person, I forget their name, but I know they grew up here, they lost their father last year, and then it's over, and then I'm on to the next task, and it's just an odd, kind of like a wonderful way to kind of experience like bits of people, how however much they want to reveal, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:It's just it's a lonely time to be alive, and I I feel that too, yeah. I think loneliness is a big thing, yeah. It's a big thing now, and so for example, at a coffee shop, that's one of the rare moments where you you try to find some connection, and not necessarily find connection like let's be friends or anything, but like little moments of connection like that. I think that's everything like Slacker is about, like tiny moments of real connection, even if it's strange.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yes, exactly. And like people have different ways of connecting too. So I have people talk to me sometimes about um what the government are doing and those pinheads in Ottawa, they'll say, and then okay, and then I'll hear about somebody's family. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I was gonna I I wanted to introduce this, not introduce, because we already talked a little bit about this, but how big part and boredom is in this film. And I've sent you this this page, but um, I'm not gonna read the entire page, just a couple sentences. In an essay by Walter Benjamin, he was a philosopher in the early 1900s, and he has this essay about a writer called Nikolai Leskov, that's not important. The important thing is that he's talking about boredom a little bit, and he says, if sleep is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation. Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. I uh to me that's that's what slacker slacker is an experience. So when my partner was like, nothing happens, but everything happens. I know, right?
SPEAKER_00:Well, like, yeah, like nothing happens, like I know, right? Isn't it great? Like this is. I hated it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and if it's my partner, he does like the movie, but yeah, nothing happens, but that's the nothingness is what makes room for for things to come up for for mystery, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's like um no, I really like that quote. Like, cause I like like boredom, like what what does what is I'll say it again.
SPEAKER_01:The dream bird that hatches the egg of experience.
SPEAKER_00:The dream bird. I I I like that a lot because I think that uh to me is it's like it's kind of speaking to allowing yourself to have perhaps like a calm mind in which something can come out of that, whether or not it's like a realization or a potential or a creative thought, whenever you're not maybe filling what you think is boredom with m stimulation, maybe meaningless stimulation, or like noise or visuals that or that that that kind of uh we have this obsession.
SPEAKER_01:I think this is especially for millennials like us. Obsession with being productive, yes, right? We need to be productive, we need to be doing something what useful, something that will make us better, you know, and that is so it's kind of inhumane in terms of just allowing ourselves to exist in whatever reality we are in, and not try to produce, produce, produce. We were told this lie that if we worked really hard, we would get everything we wanted. That is not quite true for most of us, you know. It's a lot of people working really hard there and struggling. And we watch Slacker and we watch these people just be, just be lying down in in bed, not wanting to go to the park, or not, you know, like just letting the world come to is it's a like a very, very, very big capitalist lie that we need to be productive because our our lives are more than work and productivity. Our our lives are an experience. We don't what matters at the end is not how much we got done, but how much we enjoyed ourselves, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:Well, so it's a lot of like the uh yeah, the the self-optimization, the idea that I guess like work is life.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my gosh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:The constant grind, I guess. I don't know. It's like it's a kind of like the glorification of like a like hustle culture.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, it's it's hustle culture. How different is that movie from this hustle culture that we grew up in?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, it's a it's a very that's a big that part of this too, is that at say in the 90s, um the early 90s, okay like not to age myself, but I wasn't like a young person in a sense in the early 90s. I was a child, but like the culture also moved slower than so. I feel like you catch some of it a little easier than now, like a linger longer. But there's the idea of not selling out, of like hanging out and like chilling, and the idea that Lick Later talks a lot about that too. A constant kind of uh ambitious striving, not that ambition is is always bad or anything, but that it's a striving to attain status and more money that was considered really lame back then. But it's kind of flipped that um, like say like Instagram influencers and whatnot, where it's like the goal and YouTube influencers, all this that is the the goal is to sell out. Like that's of course you you the goal is to sell out, and then of course you would. Why wouldn't you? Because that means you know, selling this ad space or like selling prime energy drink or or something like that. But here there's this like segment of time, and I don't even think it lasted really very long, where it was cool to uh yeah, do what these people are are doing. It's a segment that um, you know, there's not a lot of if you were to look at it, you'd be like, I don't see a lot of money here. Like, where's the money that they're making? And maybe they're not, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe they're not, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but that doesn't mean that they're not uh meaningful because we describe them as like maybe bored or like unambitious, or that they're maybe like drifting through the day. But they're also people like they're full of ideas and opinions and questions and like questioning societal norms, like they have very active minds, but it's just that you couldn't really translate that into like how do we put this to work in the economy? You can't really, because they're just experiencing their own their own lives and how on their own terms, which is I guess kind of like a a Gen X, like we're gonna uh kind of pursue our own passion and kind of have like our own sense of how we navigate with our own uh standards.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and just we need to remind ourselves this was also filmed in 1989, the year that the Berlin Wall fell, Soviet Union came apart, and then so capitalism just really took off, and then this hustle mentality came in, and yes, we are just thrown to this system that creates so much oppression, and I don't know, you know, Robin.
SPEAKER_00:What what's that, Charlie?
SPEAKER_01:We live in scary times, we live in scary times, but maybe we're on the verge of a real change. I don't know. You know, maybe maybe we'll go back to slacking a little bit. Maybe we'll find out what really matters in this life. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:Well, there was something about if if I could talk about like because I actually made a note too about the fall of the Berlin Wall. Oh, okay, okay and that's significance to this moment in history. And I like that we both did that because it reminded me of um with the fall of the Berlin Wall. I wish I could remember the full name of the uh writer is the last name, I believe, is uh Fukiyama who wrote about the end of history in terms of Fukuyama.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, the capitalism is the end of history, yes.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, and uh it kind of like noting like with this fall of the Berlin Wall, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, this new form of economy clearly works the best, and we don't have these um. These times, these uh radical times so much anymore, or being unsure of how things are gonna operate, or this tension between nations or how things should be run. Well, this is how it's gonna run. And it did run like that through the 90s, but I as time goes on, I think we kind of found out altogether that it's really not maybe the best operating system. And I feel that, especially maybe with younger people that becoming very disillusioned with how things are, with like multiple, you know, collapses. Yeah, everything won't be able to yeah, we're not gonna forget about owning a home. Like these things that like I kind of took for granted. Like, I don't know, my parents just like had a home. I don't know how much my dad spent for his home, but I mean it wasn't that long ago, but it seems like something unattainable.
SPEAKER_01:Unattainable, and then like if it's unattainable, what do we have left? So I do see a lot of Gen Zers refusing to engage in the hustle mentality. And I see how it comes across to people like us, I uh people like us. I I think some millennials and Gen Xers, they are a little uh resentful almost of that, but I think that's it just it feels like a pendulum, and I feel like this I'm not saying that Gen Z are slackers by any like I'm not saying that in a negative way. I'm saying that they refuse to engage into a system that oppresses them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um, I don't know if we're able to like talk about like a if we can like reference or like shout out like an article that we read.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go for it, go for it.
SPEAKER_00:Charlie, I sent you that um article by uh a writer named Rosie Spinks.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Their article was influencers are out, slackers are in. The age of the influencer has peaked. It's time for the slacker to rise again.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And it was a really nice look at that kind of what we are have experienced and are going through in terms of this idea that you can hustle to get your bag, to get your money, commodifying, you know, your work. I mean, commodifying your life for Instagram, that every aspect of your life is potential for you to be making money. And if you're not, you should kind of feel shitty that you're lazy.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:But there is something about and how we're being we're burnt out. There's like that, you know, millennial burnout. It's just getting, yeah, at the expense of, you know, your mental health and your your personal life. But they do kind of note that Gen Z. Oh, I feel so old. I because I I just saying Gen Z, that they're actually very, you know, they're pretty savvy and like have a real allergy to being like kind of sold stuff from a corporation or they seeing that this is inauthentic and that they're trying to a corporation trying to get something out of them, whether or not, you know, it's Zuckerberg on Instagram or something like that, but that they don't um uh well I lost my train of thought. I thought I had it there for a second.
SPEAKER_01:No gosh, what's happening today? This is a slacker podcast episode because we keep going from one thought to the other. And you know, and we're not being we're not being productive, Robin. We're not being, you know, like how can we sell this? Seriously. I deleted my Instagram, you know. I don't want to live that life anymore. I wanna live with the real people out here that has nothing to do with what we were talking about. Anyway, uh this lacquer episode we can only hope that it's making some sense. And if it's not, it was an experience.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean I mean, I think like that it's unfortunate in a way that the uh environment of Slacker where people um seemingly don't really have to work that much, or that it does not take a lot of money in order to kind of maintain their lifestyle of like, you know, going to matinees, going to coffee shops, being in a band. It seems very nice. Um, I wish that it didn't seem like such a far-fetched idea nowadays, or even something from an ancient past, but I hope that we can maybe get to a point where the slackers, yes, rise again and uh normalize being a slacker, I guess, in the sense that you're pursuing and living your own life on your own terms.
SPEAKER_01:It's important to be idle. I think it's important to let it let things be a little bit without this urge to produce something all the time, you know? Yeah, just hang out. We need to just do that, hang out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, let's hang out.
SPEAKER_01:I was talking to a friend about that. We want to see each other, but like we we're like we don't have a plan, and we're like, what are we gonna do? And maybe we don't we don't do anything, maybe we just hang. I miss hanging with people. Can we do that much with you, Robin? Because you moved away and you abandoned me.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's right. I I did. And I keep apologizing.
SPEAKER_01:No, you abandoned me. I can't forgive you.
SPEAKER_00:There's never gonna be enough apologies.
SPEAKER_01:Uh uh. Never be enough. It's never gonna be enough.
SPEAKER_00:It's never gonna be enough. Well, maybe we'll wander around, we'll bump into each other.
SPEAKER_01:No, a lot of resentment there.
SPEAKER_00:Chill out. Hang out, bump into somebody, get into a conversation about alien abduction and JFK conspiracies. You never know what could come out of it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Take it easy, you know?
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Wow.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, I think that's it. I think we should go now. Um, but if you didn't realize we were going, we are actually going now. Do you hear the music? The music's playing back to the city.
SPEAKER_00:Appropriately so. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Let's go. Let's go to the next one. Nice talking to you, buddy.
SPEAKER_00:Nice talking to you, pal.
SPEAKER_01:See you next week.
SPEAKER_00:See you next week. Bye bye.
SPEAKER_01:Bye.