Episode 3 - Legally Blonde gets a Seattle reboot and British phone booths go PNW

Kim and Jim break down the current state of commencement ceremonies and explain why AI does not deserve to graduate. 👩‍🎓👨‍🎓Legally Blonde gets a grungy Seattle reboot. (The boots are Doc Martens.) 🎸And those British-style red phone booths are popping up all over the Upper Left. 📞 🇬🇧 We'll tell you where they've come calling, with a little help from our friends.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Legally Blonde goes grunge.

SPEAKER_01 0:02

It's graduation season and we have some thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

And red phone booths keep calling to the upper left.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

We're Kim and Jim, and this is the Upper Lefters Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

All right, many of us are very aware it is graduation season here in the upper left. I am feeling it especially personally because my daughter's graduating from high school.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

So exciting. Now high school graduation, that's a real legitimate graduation. Yes. College graduation, that's a legitimate graduation. What are illegitimate graduations? I'm about to go on another rant, I think. I can feel it building.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

We've literally just begun.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

How about this? My kids had uh they had graduation for preschool, they had graduation from kindergarten, they had graduation from for K through eight. Yeah. They had high school graduation, once again, perfectly legitimate. They had college graduation, also perfectly legitimate. Then my daughter went on to med school. Yeah. She had uh a med school graduation. Yeah. I guess that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Absolutely legitimate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

But now this, now she's a a resident. Okay. And a resident ph the resident physicians also have a graduation. So she is in her 30s, and we're still going to graduations for her. And graduations are difficult to sit through, I must be honest.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Okay, I think that we are going to diverge here. Because I just went to a family friends graduation last weekend, also a high school graduation. I knew a total of maybe three students in the ceremony. But when all of the kids walked out, this was the very beginning. Okay, like nothing had even been said yet. You cried. I cried Because it's beautiful. Like you think about all of those kids and everything that they have faced.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

You cry at a T-Mobile app.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

I mean I mean, look, they have some really good. They do actually pretty good. Yeah. But truly, like I I guess I think it's fine to celebrate any achievement that marks a milestone of something that you have begun and then finished, if it was especially academic, because it is hard. You have to take classes that you you aren't interested in or you don't know what you're doing, and you just have to push through those. Who knows what personal things you're going through during those years, and you still got there. So I say make those graduation ceremonies loud and proud. And maybe, maybe I will grant you a a wee bit shorter.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

There, there you go. That's that's actually my biggest complaint is how long they go. Oh my gosh. There, some of them are like uh when Eli, our son, graduated from Gonzaga, it was like, I think four hours. And we love the part where he got to walk everywhere, woo!

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Four hours.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

And then it was like, okay, yeah, it was forever. They did every school individually. It was just and it was just a long list. How about how about um commencement speakers?

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Okay, so this is where this is where I think they could truncate it. Some graduations have like five speeches from different faculty members, yeah. The principal, the but but I know all of those people are super important to the kids' matriculation. However, I don't know that that each of them needs to give a 15 to 20 minute long speech in that moment. But student speeches I love and guest speakers I love.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

It's uh yeah, because I mean you're the principal, you get to speak all the time. People know you're in charge already. You don't have to do a speech to show them that you're that you're the alpha dog.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

I don't think that's why they're doing it necessarily. You are not assuming good intent here.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

I'm assigning uh uh malodor.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Malodorous?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Wait, malodorous intent?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

That's I don't think that's m malevolence.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Am I emitting malodorous intent?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

I think that is exact. I can smell it. It is strong.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Oh, that was about an hour ago. So I guess the ventilation's not working. Uh okay, where were we?

SPEAKER_00 3:50

We were talking about so I I think student speeches are the ones that get me the most because they are so meaningful and the kids really had to earn that spot.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Don't you think they've gotten better too?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

I when I was a kid, they probably picked up a piece of paper and they read off it and said, graduation is a very important part of everyone's life. Yeah. Um what we are, what Eliza had, blah, blah. Now they see other speeches on social media. You can find the 10 best ones and go, oh shit, I gotta raise the bar on this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

If I may recommend, because I I am one of those people that watches the speeches from like across the country. If they have a you know, former alum come back and give a speech, they're just so good. And so my favorite this year is Noah Bomb Bombach.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

I'm here to tell you about the wonders of AI and also to express my controversial views on the conflict in the Middle East.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

I always forget how to say his last name. Noah Bombach. No, Noah. The like writer director, he's Greta Gerwig's partner. His speech is so great. It hits every it's so funny.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

I said to a fellow Vassargrad from 1991 that I was shocked to discover that this year is our 25th college reunion. He said you might even be more shocked to learn it's our 35th college reunion.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

It's also really poignant. It also gives great advice, and that's why I actually love speeches at graduations from either former students or current students, because I I think you're hard pressed to find um any sort of public speaking event that is as meaningful as that because they're drawing from their own experiences.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

All of this is true. My only complaint was so long, so boring.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Okay, that's but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

No, if you've got a great speaker, there was a speaker I remember crying from boredom. It's the only time it happened in my entire life. My girlfriend, who was one year behind me, was graduating from Penn State, and so I took time out of my valuable lifestyle to go watch her graduation up at Penn State.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

How big of you to support your girlfriend?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah, and I recall sitting and looking at the people next to me and saying, I am literally going to cry. This is so bored, boring, and so long. And the speaker, I remember to this day, was the assistant secretary of the Navy.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Yeah. Judging from your reaction, I mean, he's no no one. It wouldn't line up to hear that but it wouldn't line up to hear that. Uh oh yeah, and I don't even remember what he talked about, but it was just it was not inspiring. Yeah. And it was uh it was really bad. I you know, I looked, I tried to look up some um celebrity speakers that might be coming through the Pacific Northwest. And I really couldn't find any. Although at first I did find some.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Okay. Wait, what?

SPEAKER_01 6:45

Well, I I couldn't find any that were coming through. I Anna Ferris, I think, spoke at uh I can't remember.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

She's a celebrity, and she is from Edmonds, Washington.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Yes, and she spoke some I can't remember which university, but it was last year.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

So I was like, well, anyone this year? I didn't see any big names. But then I then I kind of went down this rabbit hole online and I was like, what were some of the biggest names to speak in uh college graduations across the Pacific Northwest?

SPEAKER_00 7:11

You were asking the AI to tell you all time. Is this I guess so?

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Yeah, AI took over. Okay. Um, which I rarely I do not like AI, and this has confirmed my beliefs on that. So it responded with some really great answers. Barack Obama at the University of Washington 2022. Oh. Tom Hanks at Whitman College in Walla Walla in 2010. Um Bill Gates at the University of Washington in 2009.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Controversial, but okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Big names, you know. And then uh so I started looking for more information about each of these, as one does. Yeah. I went off the AI and I thought, let me do real research. Yeah. As we always do. Uh by the way, upper lefters always does its own research. Um, and guess what? They were all wrong. Wait. They were all wrong. Chat GPT can suck it.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Every one of them was wrong.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

President Obama. It was telling you what he wanted wrong. You know what? It was it was telling you what you wanted to hear. Yeah. Because you would have loved to see like Tom Hanks give a accept or a commencement speech.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Oh, do you want to hear the description to Kidney?

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

The actor's speech in Walla Walla remains legendary. Hanks joked that receiving an honorary degree meant he was finally, quote, a college graduate, despite never earning a traditional bachelor's degree. Well, Tom Hanks did give a fantastic graduation speech, but it was at Harvard. Oh. Somehow this thing got drunk and just started spewing information that was wrong, like a know-it-all in a bar. That's what that's what Chat GPT is. It's like a drunk in a bar.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Fascinating. I guess it's just another reminder that you you really do need to be a critical thinker, just generally speaking. Um, and AI, look, it is an extraordinary tool that we should use for good, but also you can't just trust but verify, as they say, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:12

All of them are a little different, and all of them have their own personalities. Chat GPT is known for being overly eager to please.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Oh, it's that friend that just wants to like be besties.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

I haven't used Claude, but I heard that Claude is a little bit more, just gives you the information, a little more to the point. But like the the um the the Chat GPT will lean more toward empathy over accuracy.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

And so that's not I don't need you to agree with me. I just need the information.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

I need you to be truthful. Okay. Well, there is your um, you know what? That's your commencement speech to new graduates.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

That was pretty long and boring, long-winded commencement speech.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Prove it. It hits every note.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Yeah, kind of prove my own point.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

There you go. Can we turn to entertainment? Because you know it's one of my favorite things, but I have very mixed feelings about the new Legally Blonde series that's coming out. I would just like to raise a glass to all of you. I don't have mixed feelings, to be clear, about Legally Blonde. It is truly in my top ten favorite movies of all times. I think it is essentially perfect. There's one scene that I would pull out. I don't love the bend and snap scene. I think I dropped something on the floor that I need to pick up. Which I know is controversial. I know it's like everyone's favorite scene. Bend and snap!

SPEAKER_01 10:29

What don't you like about it?

SPEAKER_00 10:30

It just feels out of place in the movie as a whole.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Oh, okay. Because it's so like wacky.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

It's kind of wacky and all of a sudden everyone is doing a uh like coordinated thing, almost like a choreographic.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Like they were trying to start a thing.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Yeah, and so that, but again, such a small nitpick. Love Legally Blonde, but the series, based on the trailer that has dropped, is set in Seattle instead of at Harvard. So it's sort of swapping in Seattle for Harvard, which on on face, great. Love that it's set in the upper left. But why does it have to make Seattle look dark, gray, and mean? Did no one ever tell you that we don't do posers here? Seattle isn't a costume, and pink isn't a personality. Because that's what's coming across in the in the trailer.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yeah, it's a little cartoonish in the sense of and it makes all the Seattle students look like the villains, you know, just very mean, judgy, and and unhappy. And also sort of uniform in their, you know, in their look and in their mood.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

To be clear, it is set in the 90s. So they're definitely leaning into the flannel and the grunge and the sarcasm and all of the things that are stereotypically associated with the bigger. But that's the thing.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

They're leaning into the stereotypes of that. Exactly, exactly. You know, if you recall, grunge bands at the time didn't like the word grunge. They're like, stop trying to pigeonhole us. We're not label us.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

We're not a thing. We are an artist or a band making music. But there became this like sensibility. Remember that big New York Times article that came out about like what Seattleites wear and how they speak, and half of it ended up just being like made up from the people that they interviewed at subpop records.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Yeah, that was that was great. Yeah that's that was the spirit of grunge.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Is to make you know to mislead the mainstream media as they're digging for, you know, some hype stories.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Right, right. So I guess my my concern with this show is that even though it is set in the 90s, people who don't live in the upper left aren't gonna realize like that's not uh it wasn't how it was then, and it's certainly not how it is now.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Yeah, we should point out that this show is a prequel. I think maybe we already didn't. I think I probably wasn't listening.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

I don't know, it's not a prequel. I think it's like just within the universe. I think it's a retelling.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Oh no, because her name is her name is Elle, and it's her in high school, whereas in the in the movie she's in college, she goes off to Harvard.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Oh, but then I totally misunderstood.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Well, let me set you straight.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Because in the movie she or in yeah, in the movie she's still living in LA, but in this series, she moves from LA to Seattle.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Yes, her parents, she's in high school, and her parents say, Um, we have some news for you. She she loves LA, of course. She's L, she dresses in pink, she loves the palm trees and the sunshine, and they say, We're moving to Seattle, bum bum, bum, like it's this horrible place for her to go because it's out of her ecosystem. And then so then supposedly she spends two years in Seattle.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Got it.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

And then she comes back to LA, which is where the events of the movie pick up.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

So, really, don't listen to a word that I say because I am very short on details.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

You are like AI. You are just like just mixing drunk with power and trying to please.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

So true. But here's here's so I I love the nostalgia of the show. The idea, because I love anything that's said in the 80s or 90s, and a lot of people will be tuning into this show for sure. Absolutely. If there's digital cameras and like just all the stuff from the 90s that is huge right now. Oh, yeah, digital cameras are bad.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Which of the jenners? Kylie. Kylie Jenner was just seen with a uh digital camera.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Oh, my daughter, my daughter and her girlfriend and all of their friends. That's that's how they took their prompt pictures of it.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Okay, so what's the appeal? They just think it's cool because they it's not something they've used before.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

No, and it probably feels very much like an antique to them that they can still utilize. I don't know, but that's it is definitely the thing.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Um kind of like when you go to a wedding and they've got um the disposable Polaroids or disposables. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

The Polaroids are always Polaroids are always fun because there is something, even in this very digital age, when you have to wait and shake something and then it will be.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Thank you for that. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Um there is something kind of magical about it. I I think it's almost like a magic trick, which is why I still love it and think that people will always continue to. Um but back back to the we do we went off on a tangent again. It's what we're known for. Back to Legally Blonde. I will uh despite everything I've said, I'm a hundred percent watching this. There's yeah, there's no way I'm not watching it. It's it comes out what on Amazon Prime Video on July 1st. So maybe then we can have a better idea of it of and if it actually um is a love letter to Seattle versus making fun of us.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Maybe she turns it around, brings a little sunshine to the gray skies of Seattle.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

I also just want to point out I wear pink all the time.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

So do I. So not anywhere that you can see, but I'm wearing it right now.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

I just don't want anyone to think that they can't come to Seattle and be themselves whoever they are, because I think that that is actually what this region is the first one. That's what it's all about. It's just be be your true self here, and you're you'll be embraced for it, is my take.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

There's no pretension up here in this little upper left corner of the universe. From pink to red. That's I love this. So we posted uh I think what you're referring to is we posted a picture of a red phone booth that uh Anita and Marvin, the dog, and I came across in Lady Smith up on Vancouver Island in BC. I don't know Lady Smith. What is that? It's just a tiny little town. Um yeah, we stayed overnight there. Um it's up sort of Nanaimo away.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Oh, I love Nanaimo. Not just because it's fun to say.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Nanaimo.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Nanaimo.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Okay, it is fun to say. Maybe we'll just keep doing that. Okay. So I kind of put together a very incomplete list of other places that we knew of um red phone booths, British style red phone booths. That are just scattered around the upper left. Yeah, around the all around the Pacific Northwest. Oh. And um let's see, let's share a couple. So there's the Lock Spot Cafe in Seattle, which is right next to the Ballard Locks. That one I think is inauthentic, but it looks like one. It looks some of these are real phone booths, some of them are made to look like the real phone booths.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

So the real phone booths were brought over, presumably from the UK?

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Yes, and there's a whole story I could get into with that. You probably will want to stop me though. Uh East Blaine Street in Seattle, there is a phone booth, a red phone booth. There's the one I spoke of in um on Vancouver Island. In Victoria, I think there are several, but the one that most people see is the one that's on the walkway between Courtney Street and Humboldt Street. If you're taking notes.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Well, but the tri I mean Victoria does make perfect sense because it's a little very British.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

It totally fits in there. Eugene Oregon has one um downtown, Vancouver's got one. So it's it's kind of cool that these are still living on because the original ones are pretty much gone. People don't need phones of any sort now. They have them on their bottom.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Why are they do we know why they're all here?

SPEAKER_01 17:48

I don't know what it is. Why there are so many of them up in in this part of the country. I assume there's probably in other parts of the country too. But that we do have a certain Anglophile kind of thing, I think, that goes on up here, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 18:01

Yeah, I do. And I because we also have there's like um like British specific stores that you can go to and tea rooms and things um like that.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

There's a great one in Redmond. Is it still there?

SPEAKER_00 18:12

I don't know, but you're correct. There is and or was I went in. This is really helpful information we're giving people.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Somebody will let us know.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Yeah, they will. Well, people let us know about more phone booths too.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Yeah, which this is great. This is what I love about the upper lefters community. People I we s we they didn't they didn't chime in and say, Oh, you missed one. What they did was said, Hey, let me be helpful, and I've got a few, and here's more, and everybody chimed in, which I love. And uh told us there's one in Friday Harbor. A few people told us about that one.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Um Cecile says uh Paul's bow, downtown.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Mm-hmm. And that was thanks to a guy named Bill Austin who was described as a local hero. Oh, love that. Lori said Fairhaven up in Bellingham.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

That makes sense too. Also, the cutest town with the cutest Victorian architecture.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

So you've been up there quite a bit. Do you remember where the red phone booths is?

SPEAKER_00 19:04

I don't. It's in Fairhaven, which is near Bellingham.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

That's the fun of stuff like this. Yes. I love lists of things that you have. It's almost like a scavenger hunt. Absolutely. You get to find all of these.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Yep. Um so look for them when you're out in the There's also one in Portland, a cocktail bar called Unlisted PDX. So it's a speakeasy, and you look for the red phone booth because that is a demarcation of the entrance, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:27

I think you either go in through the phone booth or right next to it. But I also think, and oh, somebody will correct me if I'm wrong. I think that you when you make your reservation, they give you the code for that day. It changes daily. You go into the phone booth, stop it, enter the code, and then you can go in. Wait, that's the Polaroid can. That's the digital phone. Or the digital phone.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

I think that's the Polaroid, actually.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

And then as you as you you have to shake it.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Yeah, you're an amazing Foley artist.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Yeah, I'm like that guy. Who's that guy who did all the horses?

SPEAKER_00 20:07

You're not like that guy. You're thinking of the guy from Police Academy.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Yes, I'm exactly like the guy from Police Academy.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

So nice.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

I can do all of the give me give me a sound and I'll do it.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Uh leaf falling off a tree.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

That last part was when it hit the ground. Here, I'll give you one. Uh squeaky door opening. You do it.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Oh, I I'm not the a fully artist.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Okay, ask me to do one. Oh, you're not a foley artist? That sounded pretty freaking fully, if you ask me.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

If anyone is still listening at this point, we love you so much for putting up with us.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Yeah, we're gonna just walk out this door now.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

But we'll catch you on the next Upper Lefters podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Slammed the door. Bye. Bye.