Las Culturistas are joined by NPR correspondent, host of It's Been A Minute and active listener extraordinaire Sam Sanders, who quickly finds out that he is "held in the same high esteem as Regina King" by Bowen & Matt, which is saying quite a lot, okay?! The three show Regina respect, get into Whitney Houston's National Anthem at the Super Bowl (Sam has a great episode of IBAM that is sort of *talking to* our Britney episode, so check it out), react to Justin Timberlake's lil' apology, and get innnnnnnto Janet Jackson's music video iconography and talk favorite Janet albums. Also, the current state of daytime TV is discussed, a discussion on how IT'S A BRANDY MOMENT RIGHT NOW, theories on Clive Davis being the devil, and Sam discusses how pop culture and politics are forever intertwined. What. A. Time. What a man. Listen to and follow Sam!
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Look man, oh I see you? Why oh and look over there? How is that? Yes? Goodness dat Cultures calling? How are you today? You know I've been um oh, the hand is on the forehead, honey, I've been on the damn California Coaster. Is that what it's called the Incredit Coaster? The Incredit Coaster? What I just feel I just emotionally have been very up and down, up and down, up and down. You emotionally have been on the Incredit Coaster, just because that coast your famously, like many coasters, goes up and down, Hunt up and down. And then I had I had Holly Hunter and Sarah Vowel screaming in my ear. Wow. Truly the California Adventure appreciation happening already right off the job. We have to stand bowing yang a Disney girl. Yes, yes, I will never forget. I love the Incredit Coast. Oh. We've shared many memories, many memories. I long for the day where I can return to the Incredit Coster. You will return, and we will. We will also once again stroll through Radiator Spring. We will are you now? I feel like it's very important for me to ask you are you making arrangements that whenever you get the vaccine, it will be at Disneyland. No, you're shaking your head. Well, okay, so there's there's the announcement that one of the vaccination sites is going to be Disneyland. And I would say, in a perfect world, yes, of course I go, and I get it sort of in front of the Haunted mansion. You understand the photo of um. But I'll really just take it from anywhere. I mean not to sound uncouth, but I will take it from anywhere anywhere. I'll get the vaccine wherever I can get it anyway before we bring our guests in. And I never do this, but I feel like Shudy said that I had to do this. She said you have to shout her out on the pod. I just really quickly. I want to just celebrate. Let's all celebrate, as readers, the one, the only Regina King truly what if? What if? True? True? Icon and I were not We throw that word around a lot all the time, but she is. I mean just that that what a career, what if? And what a present? Like there's only one? That everyone was just an awe, there's only one. I mean, there's only one. I just I thought about this, it was like two seven like Boondogs, I'm jumping around like Boys in the Hood, Justice Ray, like all of it, Watchman, Jerry McGuire. She's been around forever. I mean, obviously what we know her recent wins because she's been she's been rewarded for in a way that she should be a needs to be. But it has been an entire career of incredible work, like the fact that like Jamie Fox got all that awards attention for Ray and no one said anything about not just Regina King, but also Carry Washington in that movie. I was like, that movie had supporting actresses killing it and also Regina King and literally everything. And there was a while there where she was like ubiquitous and it's just always so good that no one gave the appreciation, and so to see her getting so much appreciation now rocks. And she had a great episode of SNL and you got to do a sketchle basically a two hand or with her. What a thrill. And then I told a conversation she had with me on Saturday morning. I won't reveal it, don't reveal that some things have to be private, some things have to be private between the stars. Some things have to be between the stars. It's a real of culture. It's a real culture. Number forty two. Somethings have to be between the stars, you know. Okay, I just wanted to just give that space for her. And now we have to bring in our guests, who I also hold an equal esteem. Truly, we were talking about this. You and I met equal esteem to Regina King. Let's hear that that is something. That is that is something. Okay, I don't know what we're doing. That what there's nothing to do with it. You just you just accept it. Um okay. He is a correspondent with NPR. He hosts It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders. Incredible host, such a good listener, like and you know he does he does active listening, which I appreciate on podcast. And yes, he understands because you'll see the guests will be saying something and making a point and you it will be often that you will hear Sam sort of go ye say yes, my team is actually saved some of the owns. Yes, it's iconic and it is active listening, and it is it is premier podcast hosting. And I appreciate my goodness, thank you. Perfect synthesis is like of uh, journalism meets pop culture commentary meets breaking down news items every Friday, there's two episodes each week, one on Tuesday, one on Friday. Fridays or the news summaries Tuesdays are like the in depth days. Um, such a phenomenal listen. I'm sure there's many readers who listen to the show. But everyone, please welcome to your ears senders. So I've never gotten the more through asked like welcome. I'm so happy to be but you know you deserve it. Being a sort of Regina King figure. Can I tell y'all my Regina Keene story her? So when she was doing like doing all the press for Watchmen, like we got her, and I didn't think we're gonna get her because she's a big deal, but she and this was still the before time, so folks coming coming into the office and yeah, she had come in and uh, she wanted some time, and I was like, sure, whatever you need, and she wanted time to eat her lunch. And she had her assistant, this lovely human being, bring her like a fish plate from the South Side, and she just like sat there and talked with me outside eating her fish plate, just like an around the way girl, so chill, so down home. And then we get the interview. She's opening up. She's amazing, but then afterwards she's just like, let's take some pictures together. Like she's so she wants to relate to everybody, and there's no there's no ego around her at all, even as she gets more and more accolades. Mm hmmmmmm. Here's the thing. I mean, Matt and I sat next to her um on this talk show on Facebook Sonia Deny and and we were we were on it regularly, like in like a guest capacity, and it was us and Rebecca O'Neill, and we were there and Snia was hosting and Regina King was the guest. And this was like after she had won her American Crime Story UM and but before she won the one for seven seconds and before if Bill Street could talk, really the buzz had really started. So it was like that moment like where she was getting her do but hadn't gotten like her big do yet and the way she has recently. And she was the coolest. She came in she fly as ship and also shout out because okay, her stylists are women and Michael who also styled hot Dog. So I actually got to meet the people that put her together and they are the best in the biz, I can tell you. And we were we were like jamming with her on this show. Matt, you predicted that she was gonna win the Oscar for Beal Street. Well, I said, I think you're gonna win the any first seven seconds, which was an even more niche prediction. No one was saying that. But then you also you peppered in, Yeah, the Beal shriek of talk was like it was it was clear that that was gonna be a conversation. But damn, she's the best. And the thing is, she's been good from the start. There's never like a bad performance of her. I remember when she was in that Will Smith movie that was like an intelligent spy thriller. It was called Enemy of the State. She played his wife. She was pitched perfect in that, and she's she's just always been there giving you the best she's got. Yes, you know what the thing is with her, it's like I would liken it too. When you hear like Rihanna on the radio or like Britney Spears on the radio, someone who's just like got that sound. That is a signal. Sure, Regina King, she is the signature she is. She stands out like that's that's how you have a real star. Her voice sort of like the look she can give like that where it's very soulful but also like, um, very commedically precise. And that's because she was doing a ton of comedy and drama at the same time. Like it's crazy to see both those things kind of come to a head. And I feel like Watchman is such a great use of all of her talents that it's that thing of like star meats vehicle where it feels right and for that to come post the Oscar wind like beautiful, that's beautiful. I mean, you're you're seeing a true solidification of the A list stardom that she has so earned and people forget. She did multiple voices in The Bone Docks, multiple voices because she was waiting for Huwie and they were auditioning Huwie and then they couldn't find the right person and she was just like, can I just play that? Can I just play both? And they were like sure, like talk about like someone who like knows what I want and like goes for it and like we should, I should just say that. Like her input was like truly everyone took it to heart this this past week, where like she had input on everything and we were just like yes, of course, whatever you want and always everything made it better anyway, just her. I got to talk to all about y'all's last episode because I loved it so much, And we have to talk to you about a recent episode because we feel we actually created a companion piece moment. Oh, let's do it. Tell me, well, it's your it's your Whitney episode. Girl. I was really happy with that one. We so we'll do that first, and then I'll talk about Justin Timberlake, because I have thoughts on that movie and I would like to hear all of them. Yes, yes, so we I had read that essay by Danielle Smith. She wrote like an oral history of Whitney Houston's national anthem at the ninety one Super Bowl in Tampa, and it's perfect came out five years ago and I remember loving it back then, reading it like five times over and crying um. And the week of the super Bowl, at our weekly pitch meeting, our producer Janet, she was like this might feel weird, but like an easy way for us to cover the Super Bowl with not having like talk about sports, might be talking about the anniversary of this rendition, And I said, we've got just the person, and so we get Danielle Smith. And the goal was to make her the middle part of our Friday episode, so no more than twelve minutes, because we cut everything down. We taped it. As soon as we finished, we all get on the phone were like, that's the episode. That's it, there can be nothing else. She was amazing, she was so good and like it reminds, it reminds you, And this is what y'all were doing last week with Brittany. How our culture mistreats females. We mistreat them, we don't value them. We asked too much of them. You know. Part of the tragedy of Whitney is that she felt too much pressure to be perfect, to be the perfect pop star. And it's hard, it's hard. But I was glad that we got to make the episode and it was it was it was. I mean, I was fighting back tears talking to her about it, and I'm just glad that they got out in the world. Well. Ending of that episode where you have Danielle read from the last part of the essay, and it's true poetry. The way that she talks about like the lights intersecting with with the sky so that it looks like in the Glory of God, you're just like, oh, taking you to church. Yeah, and it's just like, but you know what's crazy is there is a there are so many more tragic Whitney stories and the biz that we just don't talk about because how many women are chewed up and spit out by the beast and then we just forget, you know, yeah, countless. I mean, I think that it's it's really something to think about how much they provided to everyone and fed everyone, like and I think I think that there is something because it's something that I really connected with in that episode and something that Danielle talks about a lot is that Whitney positioned herself to culturally be the only person that could really deliver that to the American people in that moment, and she had been such a huge pop star and she had I believed the way that she phrased it is she has she had experienced in moving people and that the NFL recognized that and like whoever was in charge of UM programming that recognized that, and then she delivered it. And you guys talk really interestingly about the way that she was dressed, how she was very dressed down. Yeah, yeah, and it just it's so crazy because it's it's literally like these women, these performers, can't do enough to to to get us to just treat them well, because this is someone who just met us right on the level we needed and gave us so much and truly roused the country. And I mean rousing in the truest form of that word. I mean she's sang the national anthem like it needed to be sung, not how a quote unquote should be sung, how it needed to be sung. And from that moment she only gave more when because the body Guard album wasn't even a thought in anyone's head at that point, and then she would really reach even an apex that was further up from that moment, and still we treated her like she was not human by the time, by the time the nineties were coming to a close, she was a full on punchline, a full on joke, and her humanity had been stripped of her the public consciousness and it's so similar to Brittany. I remember watching the reality show being Bobby Brown laughing at it, and now I'm ashamed that I enjoyed that, you know, and it's just like we do this again and again and again, and I was so I was so happy that you all talked about it in your show last week. And I'm also happy, Matt that you shouted out the Brittany album Glory, because I've been playing it and you're right, it's good. Glory doesn't what's the one of where she's like, do you want to come over? I like, I'm so happy we are prolonging that do you want to come over? Conversation? Because it's really a national conversation going forward. This is every episode we're gonna be talking about it. How do y'all so speaking of women being treated badly by the industry? How do y'all feel about whatever Justin is doing now? You know? Be nice? Well, I mean, I will say I I don't think the apology is good enough. I think and I think that he really should not have grouped them together and the same apology. I really feel two different stories to different women, two different and when you plug it together like that, it's sort of as a way to skip over, like the the experience of both of those women. So I think the apology should have been much more focused on. To Brittany, here's what I want to say, and here's my genuine, heartfelt apology. To Janet, here's what I want to say about what I did. I'm taking accountability and letting everyone know this is what I'm apologizing for, and here's my apology that's hard felt, and then say I'm going to do the work continuing and cut it. We did not need lines about how the industry is fucked up. We did not need lines about the ways in which you know, he should be acquitted for crimes against these women. Like we needed acknowledgement, genuine apology, and a statement of a mission statement going forward about what he's going to do. And it did not provide that. So for me, it was not good enough. Yeah, And instead it was just, um, it was him just sort of flattening all contexts by lumping them together and then thinking that there was like, um, a catch all the way to like treat both of those cases. And I don't know if you guys agree, I feel like there is no apology that like would make it right in my eyes where I'm just like no, just like Justin can take he can he can withstand this, like mark on his career by like like like I think he can withstand that, because there is no like making it right for either Brittany or Janet. Yeah, you can't give Janet back the years that she lost. We just really can't do. And people forget how big of a deal Janet was. We think of Madonna as like the premier pop star of that era. Janet was right up in it. Yeah, they were, they were, they were the two. Yeah, I'm like, it's also justin Timberlake fun fact. Uh. One. It got me thinking and reminding myself of how like his vocals were never great. The Falsetto was fine, And someone pointed out to me on Twitter because I was tweeting about him last week. The final Falsetto runs in Crimeer River. He doesn't sing that. Marcia Ambrosius of Flower Tree is singing the that's her, that's not even him. Look, that happens a lot in pop music, and it happens with Brittany. We know all the time. It's just it's just like it's symbolic if it's it's it's it's further like sort of like hits home the fact that he has built his career off of women, let's just say women and black women, Yes, people with more ability than him, like and and because the thing with Justin Timberlake is they really what have you believe? And I say they capital th h y. I was like, Hollywood would really have us believe that he can do it all? They were trying to make the whole entire era he was like the new rat pack kind of thing. They were really pushing him as like someone who could sing, dance, act, entertain and you know, there was a moment where he was trying to be all over sn L. There was a moment with like the Social Network and stuff like they wanted to make him a renaissance man. He really wasn't. He just really wasn't. What's so funny is like when you when you watch The Social Network now, he really was the perfect person for that part because Sean partner ends up being a weak bitch who's like crying in that in that apartment when they're getting arrested, being like what's gonna happen and going crazy on it. You can just tell that's like, so probably what it looked like when that happened at the super Bowl. You can kind of think in your head like he definitely was crying back. What's gonna happen? Oh my god? Yeah, what's y'all's favorite Janet video? Janet had so many great videos. I think y'all said the last time favorite Brittany video is Toxic, which I agree with. Okay, so for the first years, but what's yours? I love Escapade, I love but from like All for You. I also remember it was classic like queer, this classic queer development where all boys sleepover, we're watching MTV. All for You comes on and I go, I turned, I turned all my friends and I go, that was so good. I was like, isn't it wasn't that amazing? Wasn't Janet Jackson so good at that? And they were like, yeah, I guess that was like for me, like a sleepover, remember where I was like, oh my god, you guys, look, do you see this? Yes, well sure, we were like, oh my god, look like she's in this futuristic subway station. Um I don't know those those are mine too. I know those are weird picks, but um no, that's a really that's a really good one. Um, I know my minus do it? Okay? It so low hitties pushed all the way off she was in the world. There was no neck, it was titties, and I was just like, oh my god. And then at that same time together again like that would emotionally take me back. Remember that song is just so warm to listen to and it just it lifts you up. And the video was beautiful and um and then obviously like you know, love off for you as every as everyone did. Yes, what is yours? I so because I grew up at that peak time when h one was still like playing eighties videos as well, so I remember loving her in the pleasure principle. This is what she's doing. She's wearing all dinner with the chair at the point she dances and flips the chair over with the Korea when you like mind blown, So that one for the Chorea. And then second, I think she's never looked as good as she looked in the video for Love Will Never Do Without You. Remember that one. It's all black and white. Yes, it's like photography because like her brists directed it. But she's in this lush desert with like this tank top and like this beautiful smile and it's all black and white. And then like one of the models dancing in the video is I can't say his name, right Jamoe and Hinsu the guy from Yeah, he's looking more beautiful than he ever did. And Jim Hun Yes, yes, yes, he's in he's in the video. She she like does this thing where she looks at the camera and her hairs up in this cute places. Just like this is miss America right here. This is like the American James Janet Jackson. She when she's when she gave you that smile, forget it. Just everything talk about super Star. Also, um, what was I just thinking? You said, oh when you said pleasure Principle simone doing that lip sync on Drag Race A B. I'm behind when you when you resume, you will be so gagged because in the first episode, Pleasure Principle is one of the lip syncs, and this Queen Summone who's like definitely gonna win the show did it and it was so like, yeah, I'm gonna go back to it and watch it. Also, I gotta apologize to Mr Hinsu Hites how Man's last night. I think it's Giaman Hunsu Giaman Huntsu because we can't screw up pronouncers like we get letters at the network first. I'm sorry, sir, go ahead. We were not held to the same journalistic standards. This is decidedly not NBR. That's actually rule of culture number one four last, culture is decidedly not delightedly. What are one of our favorite Janet albums? Because I think because as soon as you said pleasure principle, I went control as I think the all around for me has no skips, no ships. Yeah, I think, like you know, like Rhythm Nation is like maybe like the best like concept album in her and her and her sort of discography. But I think Control is like wow, like nasty um, like when I think of you and I'm like running out of type. That's just that's that's a perfect album. Yeah, there's one that I gotta go look up actually hold one of her latter albums. Is it? Is it Demita Joe? Okay, because I was just gonna say, don't sleep on Demita Joe because Demita Joe is has got has got some stuff on it, and she is fully in her bag sexually, and I mean, for me, the one I'm always going to think about is Velvet Rope, just because it kind of came at that point. It was A ninety seven, so it was that point where I was discovering all of these ladies for myself. And that video, the video where her hair is like red and it's like kind of African thing. Which which song was that for? Oh? Got to What's Gone? Got to What's Gone? Video? Yeah? Yeah? Got Sean Yes with the Joni Mitchell sample. Oh my gosh, yeah, oh man, my favorite de Meted Joe track. I'm gonna tell you because I'm pulling it up, my favorite and I still run to it all the time all nights, don't stop. It's like the fast like Dancy one. Truly truly thank you because that song did not get it to do it did not. It was really good at all. It was so good and her vocal sound incredible. She's just always so smooth and perfect and like you. The thing with Janet is like, if you really listen to the lyrics, it is a ride and another trap that I feel like wasn't a huge hit, which I honestly believe had the super bullshit not happened, then this song would have been a huge hat hit. Is feedback feedback? Yea feedback when she's like my Asian persuasion, Asian persuasion, I'm gonna speak on behalf of the community. I think we all loved it collectively. I was like Janet just that Asian persuasion and feedback. I was. I was obsessed, oesed. She performed All Night Don't Stop on SNL. I remember watching her because the chore was so amazing she did. Yeah, and here's the thing that like no one wants to talk about. Michael Jackson was doing Show Your Moves, but Janet wasn't a better dancer. Janet was a better all around. She could do more different types of chore Michael just did Michael choreography. That is a really interesting I'm gonna get letters. I mean Janet, it felt like could do all styles. Yeah, exactly, exactly, And she had different choreographers at different phases in her career, and you saw the style to change up. Remember j Lo in the video for That's the Way Love Goes Yep, yep, yep, yep. Yes, yes we love it. And you know who else was an incredible dancer pop star at that time? Who is you know, we laugh about now, but Paula Abdul, Paula Abdul back with it. We laugh about it now because she's just an American aisle. She's just like me, Mishnell, Like you know, she had the reality show too, Like I think that you know, she sat on that person in Bora. We honor Paula, We honor Paula. But I'm just saying that she had to ride a certain wave in the culture where she was like, you know, similar to everyone else. Like we laughed a little bit at and with Paula with the American idol of it all and some of her narrative. But what I'm saying is she as a dancing pop star maybe the best, like when you truly because she truly came out of dance. And also is intrinsically linked with Janet in that way because it wasn't Paula Janet's choreographer. She was and and and the Jackson family discovered Paula she was a Laker girl, and she would do with the Laker girls. Some of Michael's siblings and janet siblings saw her and said we want her get and they had yeah, oh yeah. Now she's in this commercial for some kind of medication. Oh yeah, of course she's dancing with the younger version of herself, and it's like, you know what, Paula, get your check and you know the thing. She's also now the lead judge on the Mass Dancer and I actually I saw her. How do you do mass? It's very shocking, but but you know, how do you do it? You know how you're doing You put them in suits, they dance around a surprise. One of them is Demilvano. I mean, like it's just a tale of oldest time. How do you what's gonna happen next? Like Mass? Netflix watcher? Like what is you know? Who'd buy that? Netflix? Um? But like she Paula was on Watch What Happens Live and you can tell that she watches All the Housewives, which I loved and being she to this day has such a sense of humor because paul uh Andy did, like, um, top five moments from Paula's reality show on Bravo that we're like insane and it's just these five moments that are like, I don't know, Paula crying on the phone, Paula doing all this stupid ship and Paula herself today is just laughing at it, like what a fun thing. Like she's She's just like the consummate. I'm gonna show up and get my check everywhere you go. Listen, listen, and those checks for her? Yeah, what was the not to dwell on? Paula? Remember the video where she was just like dancing and singing with the street Wise cartoon? Yes, uh yeah, a Grammy winning music video. What with the music I Want to Grammy? Yes, that's Paula's one Grammy she Wanted video? Oh yeah, Anna, can we just source of this is true? But I'm almost positive that Paula Abdul's one Grammy win is Best short Form Music Video for Opposite to Tract. Do you know what's given me life right now? Knowing that Paula Abdul has one more Grammy than The Weekend? Oh will forever always have one because it's a winning Grammys anymore. That's that's confirmed. I was Paula Abdul Grammy winner for Short Form Music Video, Katie Perry zero The Weekend zero. Someone posted this justin Timberlake. Ten Grammy wins. I think Britney spears one. We live in a society in which that happens and then which that is possible not to bring it back to Britney and justin um, although I'm always happy to do that, my my, my, don't think so, honey. I've decided will refer back to it, um, just just the conversation around it. And it really is like, I think I've had it some time to digest the documentary now, and I'm like the fact that I'm still thinking about it, like a week out is a huge deal. Yeah, yeah, well, and it's also making me rethink other women who just disappeared and now I'm like, maybe they left for their sanity, Like I think of like Tracy Chapman. She was just like Hugh Mongous and everywhere, and then she was like, why y'all see you later, And it's like I get you have, like you have to preserve yourself and like, I don't know, I'll I won't ever get angry again when a celebrity decide to stop being a celebrity, because it's really freaking hard and it's an exploitative system, and seeing that doc reminds you of it totally totally. Did you guys read that piece on Shelley duval that just came out. I started. I'm like halfway through it. It also sounds like the industry kind of drove her crazy. Well I haven't I need to read the whole article, but my takeaway from like a cursory like intake of the information over the years has been that like, oh, it was like the industry, but it was also like maybe Kubrick like traumatized her on the set of The Shining or something, or she just like, oh my goodness. Basically, well, I mean, it was the industry at large, but what happened to her on The Shining was just an example of the way that she was treated a lot, which was just sort of men not having a lot of care for what a woman was going to have to do. Because if you watch The Shining, it's pretty much just seeming the entire time, right, it's a it's a hysterical performance of a woman that's being emotionally traumatized in the worst way you could imagine. And um, he does extremely long shoots and ask for a lot of takes. And I think that the way it comes off in the article anyway, is that she was just expected to and sort of you know, uh, just counted on to provide that volume of hysteria throughout or she would sort of face like, um, you know, his disappointment or his dismissal or and really there was no one there to to speak up for her. Have you seen the BTS video the like there's footage of like that, like them on set arguing and she's like I can't walk. She's like I can't walk from the snow into this door. Like she's she's telling him like I can't do what you want me to do, and he's just I mean, he's not yelling at her, but he's just like very like resolutely like, well you have to do it, and she's just like pleading with him, like no, can we can we like try to. I mean like I'm kind of comparaphrasing the interaction, but it's truly like that stayed with me. I remember watching that video for the first time in college being like, oh my god, they really mistreated her. Um. And it's it is this thing where I think she was completely yea torn down by the industry. And and then it's this article talks specifically about that doctor phil interview from like four years ago. How is he still allowed? Oh, my god, I don't. He's just still around not to bring this into the conversation. But do we do wast No, no, no, no, we do. We fault Oprah at all for bringing some of these people into the culture, you know, like your doctor oz Is, your doctor phils Um, your your Nate Burkas is just kidding. I don't doubt I don't falter for bringing them in because we didn't know at that time the nine different. But I kind of blame her from not speaking out about them now, right, she certainly has a platform to um if she wanted to help change the face of what daytime television has become. This is not her responsibility, And I almost don't even think at the time it was her responsibility because the audience responded a certain way. Yeah, and the respond responding you know what I really was really was driving me nuts before we got on here, as I was hearing about how tomorrow are By the time this episode comes out, this interview will be out there already. But Tamron Hall is having Sherry Pie from Drag Race on her show to talk about how there were those allegations and then where they're confirmed to be true by Sherry herself. About how Sherry was posing as a casting director and basically getting guys to put themselves on tape and do pornographic shit with this promise that they were going to be cast in a in a show or a movie that Sherry was producing. She used a fake name, Alison Mossy Casting and she got these guys to do you know, explicit stuff on camera and send it to her under the guys of like, you'll get a role in a project. And when this came out, Sherry Pie was was disqualified from Drag Race after the season had already shot and she was a finalist, so they had to completely edit her out. But now it's so it's a year over a year later that this has happened and tam Ron Hall is having Sherry on the show, and the way that the interview was promoted was sort of like, um, it's frame frames. Sherry is the victim. Yeah, it's like, you know, after being hit with these lude accusations and getting the boot from Drag Race, breakout star, Sherry Pie has something to say. Finally, you won't want to miss this, and it's like, why are we framing? Were the men underage at all? They weren't I don't believe that they were. It's still a bad move. Yes, it's just it's part your conversation around like the extent of assault or like if like or just coerced, coercing any order, like it's it's it was just that was the frame around it. But now it's like, but now, yeah, I was reading something some of the tammerin Hall like promotional language, and it was like kind of trying to like make it seem that Sherry was unjustly like taken out of this competition. I don't know, and that that might be subjective. But but if and I'm just hearing about this from 'all, if it's true that Sherry made up a fake company and did fake casting to get the nudes, how do you not say that's just bad? Yeah, it's it's just I mean, it's like it's like it's it's it's beyond cat fishing. It's like fraud. And also we should say she also told some of the guys when they sent her the videos, you should use steroids, you need to be bigger, and then a couple of the guy as actually did so there was also like a coercion into like drug use and apparently you know, at least one of them had lasting issues because of that. So this was emotionally and physically traumatic, um in it, you know, profound way. And so I in thinking about, you know, the way that these daytime TV narratives keep happening where you know, I just wonder if Tamron Hall on this show have the real best interests of the survivors at heart, if now they're coming out and saying, we don't want this to air, We don't support this, like we don't see why Sherry Pie needs a platform. We don't necessarily understand who's going to benefit from it besides her, who's clearly starting to try to re enter the narrative in the public. And um, you know, tam Ron Hall is a good journalist, and she's a great interviewer, and I've seen her hold people's feet to the fire a lot. But when you see an interview marketed and promoted this way, it's a red flag for me, like because because what what I think is going to happen is this is really going to be fed to the community that hasn't heard about this, which is like straight people who are hungry right now to go yum, yum yum, cancel culture narrative that I can talk about. So it's like, I don't want this to be framed as yet another thing of cancel culture, because she actually was an abuser and she admitted to it. So also, I don't understand folks, you do something like that, you end up on a show like Drag Race and expect no one will ever find out, right, It's all it's gonna come out at some point, Like it's it is increasingly difficult to ever really cover your tracks, folks, like you gotta just like know what you can. It's like, would it have gone better had they told drag Race right before they started even like this is in my past. I don't know, but they're gonna find out. It was it was ongoing during the competition. It was something that had been happening and was still in process while they were on the show. They were still doing this. They had just been like it was like a part of their deal, you know what I mean, Like this was a this was like pathological behavioral thing. So so that's I guess how it gets even darker and all the rude girls are like, don't give her this platform there, I mean they're very vocal about it. Jackie Cox tweeted about it. You know, a lot of the girls have tweeted about it. But it's it's it was interesting in thinking of the daytime TV thing because there are such sensationalist narratives that happened every single day on those programs. Um, and you know, it's just interesting that it kind of gets away with it because like it's during the day, or you know, like he's a doctor, you know what I mean, or she's a serious journalist, you know. But it's like, wait, hold on a second, Like, ultimately, these are feeding large corporations, and so we do have to think about what the hell is going on. It's like fucking American Idol having Conway on, Like this is essentially Disney Presents American Idol presents the Kanye Conway Redemption arc. That's really oh yeah, yeah yeah. I always am flabberg acid by how much the View will trend on Twitter. Speaking of like daytime TV. I didn't know that that many people still watch the View, but I guess it's. Yeah, it's I've been a watcher of the View for for many years, but I find it hard to watch now because um, well, we are one of our panel members, so someone who makes all the rules for this show, um is Megan McCain. Like, we have to check with her before we do any bits and stuff to see if it's cool with her. Um, And she can be a little bit difficult. She's very sort of strict. She wants this to be a very PG sort of conservative podcast, and so we we always have sort of conflict with her. But no, in all seriousness, it is hard for me to watch the view because she's on it. I find her so um brady and sort of petulant. Well, and it's like she must not. I'm like, are you having fun, Megan, or do you like this? Is there a better space for you where you're just not constantly at odds with the whole rest of the folks there she I would be under question if I were in her position. I honestly just find I think she's just an unhappy person, no matter the context, because I remember early days of but this was back, this is agears ago, back when I like I loved Rachel Maddow when she first was on the air, but like she would have Megan on, and Megan at that point was just like a reporter for The Daily Beast, But she would come on and just like have that like that, she would have that petulance and you can tell Rachel didn't really know what to do with it, but and yet she still kept coming on. And then it's the thing, like I guess I can commend Megan McCain for being able to like go into different spaces and like get her person now and get her point of view across like she's on what Watch What Happens Live all the time with like sc cup and I'm just I'm truly perplexed. I'm like, how how does this keep happening? How do we still allow her to Like I'm sorry this sounds so toxic, but it's like we we there's we've we've progressed past the need for Megan McCain. I really believe that we have as like a media figure anyway, I don't want to step out out of the lane that I have to be in working for MPR. But for me, it's not even about ideology conversation she is it seems like she's never having a conversation to like learn and exchange ideas. She's having a conversation to make it an argument she wanted to end up as an argument and it's like no, please, no. Well, you'll notice that a theme of almost every single time Megan McCain is trending is that she has somehow managed to get across how hard it is for her. It's so hard for her to get the conservative ideas across. It's so hard for her as a real conservative when Trump is on the GOP. It's so hard for her. Her her, It's always about her, and it's that is what is frustrating to watch, because you're not watching an issue debated. You're watching someone express that they're having a difficult time processing something and it's like, yes, welcome to what it's like for everyone in the world. It's a complicated right area. I understand you're a traditional conservative and you're at odds with what your party is, but um, this is about the country and not you. And it's interesting because she thinks she's always arguing for the country, but all I are here and all she her trends about is like, you know, me, me me me, me, me, me me me, which is probably a lot of the way that she was brought up as a senator's daughter and the Princess of Arizona Um which Adie Bryant played on us, and um, let's let's let's really just get get all this toxicity out. So let's get the toxics d out. But we need to ask Sam some stage. Let's burn the stage in the zoom. We have to ask Sam the question we asked all of our guests, and that is Sam, what is the culture that made you say? Culture is for me? Matt, what does this question mean? It means so many things. Bowing and I'm so happy to sort of get in there and streamline for the for the audience, and for Sam. Are the readers and and Sam. So basically, this was the moment in pop culture that made you say, mmm, okay, yep, got it, got got got got got got a c yes for me, And I've agonized over the last few days and I was like, well, and for a second, I was like, oh, I know what it is. It's the day when Mariah Carries Honey video premiered and it was shown every hour on the hour on MTV. But it's actually not that that is a number two to just the cultural phenomenon that was v H one in the nineties, because it was an education. If you recall, so I was born in eighty four, that means I was like entering my teenage years in the mid nineties when VH one was still ascendant, and what v H one was going back then was like a true music history education because they had two things. They had pop up video and they had behind the music, and you were learning things. You were learning things, and I remember being twelve years old having like a working knowledge of Duran Duran, Yeah, because like H one taught me right, and so between that, I think H one and giving me the sense of like music history and the and and the substance behind pop music through those two shows, it kind of like taught me that it is okay to be a total stand and geek for music and for celebrity because there's steps to it and there's layers to it. And it's like when you watch the behind the Music for Celine Dion or behind music for Fleetwood Mac or for ms Camra or for TLC or that was the best one when she burned the house down, Oh my god. But it's like, here is how you go bankrupt and after selling and get ready to do yes yes, And like it taught me that like every song that I heard on the radio had a story behind it and a culture behind it, had real people's lives affected by it, and it is worth carrying a lot about that. I think a lot of heteronormative culture teaches us that pop and celebrity and ship the gay kids like is frivolous and VH one all the time, I was saying, now, let's not there's layers to this ship. Let us show you. So I think that, And like I ended up being a music major in college, Like I was a musician. I played the saxophones still, and it's like, I don't I don't know if I would have gotten it's heavy into music if not for v H one, If that makes sense, I really and like it's hard to overstate how weird they were. So besides doing a lot of music history in the nineties with those shows, they also played a really interesting mix of stuff, Like half of it was just Top forty, but the H one would do like a lot of adult They played the hell out of Sean Covin. I still every word home, yes, yes, And so like I was this little black nerd in South Texas who was like prepared to give you a soliloquy on Sean Colvin and Duran Duran and can tell you like Shania Twain's backstory at the age of thirteen. I love that. So I would say the H One in its nineties era of educating the youth was the culture that made culture for me. This is one of my favorite answers anyone's ever given. And it takes someone like Sam who like is able to like connect every dot that is so great and because where else would you have gotten that education, wouldn't have learned well. And then I think of the kids now, like y'all have seen y'all actually had a skit about these two young kids who do the reaction video. Yeah, as they play the oldies, that wouldn't have happened if they had h One, that wouldn't have happened. Like I knew, I knew about like I knew disco songs in my because like it was like the H One was teaching you that. And so now part of me sees gen Z discovering these songs through TikTok for the first time. Half he said, it's cute. We failed your babies, we failed you. I see exactly what you're saying. And then there was this piece that came out in New York Magazine last week about how TikTok is as great as it is as a platform from from new music, it is sort of flattening it in a way. I think the headline is like, how TikTok is flattening music, but it's like talks about driver's license or Olivia Rodrigo as an example, which I was like. I was like, I think it's just a great song, but then the way that like it outlines, like how deliberately proliferated it was, makes me go, oh, okay, so this is the new apparatus for it, and there's no like genuine authentic organic discovery of like new stuff old stuff that like is in the same like container that is like a H one like a VH one shower or something like that. I think it's important to remember that there's always been apparatus apparati through which the the music business would manipulate how songs performed. I mean, like you know, like with radio, like they were able to inundate radio, and they're doing it now with TikTok. It is like an interesting advancement of of of the way the music business can can decide for itself what is popular. Um. But I do think it's it's interesting that we are maybe like that last generation because I too am in nineties VH one kid because I wasn't allowed to watch MTV, which I also think is a thing. Um. But genuine education on music history through through that type of engagement. And it's also true of television to like because these gen z kids also don't know the classic sitcoms and it's so interesting to see them be revisited by something like Wanda Vision because I think that a lot of people are going to watch these I Love Lucy throwbacks and the Bewitched throwbacks and be like that's crazy and not even understand and or have a vocabulary for that type of culture in the way that we do. And I do think that that those shows behind the music and pop up video we're doing a service. They were not just entertainment, but they were education. I remember more from those things in terms of like things I learned as a child than I did from school, for sure. Yeah. My favorite pop up video was probably Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson screen video because they end up revealing in the little pop ups that at that point it was the most expensive music video ever made. They spent seven million dollars just making enough insane insane. That's another video, we Gotta, we Gotta, we Gotta the White Leather. So, like y'all mentioned how on writing itself when the songs are changing to fit TikTok, what's crazier? And I had this so I had the two hosts of this music podcast called Switched on Pop. I had them on my show I Love back Check. It's a great show. They've dug deep into how the Spotify algorithm has resulted in shorter pop songs. Yes, it's crazy because like what determines if you get on the playlist, Uh, part of it is whether or not people listen to the whole song, And if they play your whole song all the way through, it bumps you up. So now songwriters make the song shorter so that you'll play it all the way through. The average pop hit used to be three and a half minutes. I think Old Town Road was just over two minutes. You'll see like all our like I'm like Ariana's records, like it's like two forty seven, Like they're no longer than three minutes. And also I was wondering why it seems like there's so many long albums like a lot of tracks, because that helps album streams exactly like Drake is mastered that game. Drake will have thirty seven songs on his albums because you know, you'll just hit play and it's like more spins for the It's crazy, there's little hacks. Yeah, it's interesting that like the incentives are new now to like formally change and altar like what an album is, because now it's just I mean like we've known for years now that like the album has been reduced to like the square and like it's not like you know by sleeve at the record story. You don't buy like even like a CD case anymore. And it's like there's nothing tactile about it. And so now it's just like I do moren the fact that albums are just completely abstract in a lot of ways. Now, well there's there's there's less acknowledgement of the of the village it took to make a thing because there's no liner notes. I remember reading the liner notes of albums as a kid. D'angelo's Voodoo album had the most intense liner notes ever, so besides the credits on the album, he had written this essay about how his music was informed by uh Prints and other musicians, and it was like is oh too, folks that he loved it was it was this wonderful companion to the album that just doesn't happen anymore, and I miss that. But I will say this, this like idea that like the plant, like the platforms have always changed the art. So you know, we thought that the three and a half minute single was just the way it happened. They were that long because when records were ascendant, that was the right length to fit on that size of a record in that and so it's this is always the way it works. And like, I don't know what happens next, but I do think we're gonna go a little too far towards too short, too quick hits, Like I want some double album flex energy with like nine minute long songs again. And I think it's coming. I think it's coming, I hope. So yeah, well, when something becomes the I mean, there will be someone that just breaks through that and and it's got it's gonna be someone that is like one of our few people right now who's like at artists level, Like watch Rihanna come back into just three long songs, you know what I mean? Like I feel like eat it and deal with it, and like, man, I will right understand. I'm not playing by your rules. Here's three sixteen minute long songs and you're not going to hear from me for another seven years. Yeah, And and then she disappears in a cloud of weed smoke. She's like, you don't give a funk about this and never did well, Like people forget the last time that everyone listened to an album all the way through at the same time when it came out right, And it's funny that, like you think, like it's sort of happened with Taylor Swift too. But the thing is, like with Beyonce, it's like it really does feel like a piece, you know, And because even even with folklore and evermore like those those are tracked by track, Beyonce felt like and she did announce it as such, but there was a visual pieces. There was a was an arc to both. And I think that's that's how you know, like there are still there are still those things happening. There are few and far between, but those artists aren't like she doesn't feel the need to play the two minute second game, Like would never be thirsty enough to like lead the streams, you know what I mean? Like it does end up feeling a little transparent and thirsty when I see a seventeen track album with with two minute songs, and especially when there's five songs that obviously can go and I mean that's been a lot. Yeah, I have a I have a thought. I'm curious to see what you guys think. So Taylor Swift is re recording on her old music just to like, um because just uh the Scooter bron stuff right, shoot a brown stuff. She you know she is it like that? She's like her Master's result. She's she's just re recording them too. She owns the songs, she will not own the masters own masters. Yes, So I'm thinking, is this is this the equivalent to like reboot like treatment in terms of music where I don't mind it, but I'm like, and Taylor needs there's a reason why Taylor is doing this. But I'm thinking, like, are we going to maybe see this from other artists where they are dipping back into their old music and like, which is also not itself a new concept, but It's like I feel like this might happen now with certain artists where they go, oh, let me just like redo some of my older stuff. Does that sound fully crazy? I feel like it might not. I don't think it sounds love it and I would love to hear what artists would sound like doing their old stuff. Now, imagine Beyonce a re recording, be Day or four. Yeah, let them all do it. I would all do it. Let them all feels kind of it feels kind of like Joni Mitchell, but not quite where it's like, Okay, there's these are like reimaginings of songs like decades later, like that is so emotional and so like I want to listen to that. Um, I don't know. I just I can't. That's something about that really fascinates me because I really do think. And now I am excited for the Fearless Taylor's version release, and I'm excited for these old Taylor Swift songs that I that I remember loving and I still love. But now I'm like, oh, her voice is mature, they feel different, They're gonna feel different, and I already already love the love Story sort of re record the Taylor's version like, I find it to be really interesting thing that might be the new mental model for some artists. I don't know. I have two favorite Taylor Swift songs and all bigger Taylor fans in me, but lover is perfect the other one, the other one. I used to sit on the stup of my duplex chain smoking cigarettes after Corey dumped me. This was the song he loves He's such a loser, Can I know? Well, I'm not. Corey is a fucking loser. Don't need to know anything else. In the midst of that breakup, I would sit on the front stood chain smoking to finally, clean, clean, clean, clean, fabulous. Your work you get you feel your emotional tailor. I feel, um, yeah, you make me cry. I'm drama drama. I loved your interview with Phoebe Bridgers so much because you also said that you cried to her so my routine. Because I got into Phoebe when I was in Texas this past year because at a certain point during lockdown in like l A, I was in downtown l A and I was like, why am I let me go take my money into San Antonio, Texas where it goes a lot farther and it's a lot quieter, and one of my favorite things to do would be to take my dog's ora out to McAlister Park. It's one of those parks it's so big, like it's just kind of like hiking basically leash and I would be playing Phoebe Bridges watching my dog chase deer that she would never catch, gently weeping and it was like, Phoebe, thank you. And of course the person thing I told on the interview was like like yeah, and she took it so well because she goes, thank you so much and she goes I love that. This is like my thing now is that people will come up to be being like your music has destroyed me, and I have to be like thank you. You know that has to be so gratifying though, to know that you are at this point millions of people's like emotional release, like that really has been like a function that she has provided in so many people's lives, Like, yeah, it's for me. I guess for me. That happened with Maggie Rogers a few years ago. I feel like people are feeling it now in this Phoebe Bridges is sort of hitting a similar nerve and like, I love that like well one. We got a lot of feedback from listeners after that interview. Her fan base is all over. A lot of middle aged dads wrote me and we're like, bro, I felt this. I feel like she has she has stands all across the spectrum. It's really beautiful. I know, I know. And she was about to start to ring in Japan. I feel like she has like international like appeal, like she I mean, she's she's phenomenal. She's here to say. One of my favorite songs of all time is probably Funeral. It's just album. Yeah, it's such it's one. It's just a beautiful poem. But then there's this majestic string arrangements going on and the second verse that just shindows this wonderful like cut. Anyways, stop because I can keep going on her. I know, I feel like I feel like Megan is winning Best New Artists. But I would not be surprised if Phoebe Bridges has votes, Like she's gonna get tons of votes. And I also think that, you know, it feels like she's peeking out a good time for that. I just know that you know that Best New Artist award, like you that's an important thing. Because really like it sets a tone like when do a one best, It's when future nostalgia was what it was, you know, put pressure on her, like I think she said an interviews that the Grammy put pressure on her to deliver something really elevated. Um, not that Megan needs it, not that Phoebe needs it, but I mean either of them would be like worthy recipients. Yeah. And what I love is that, like it seems like all of them probably like like each other, and then it seems like that I'll be really cool, you know, with each other. Then there's the spoiler in that category, which is Doja no Doja, Doja deserves it. I wanted to hate on Doja, but she's talented. She she can, she can dance. I've seen a few of her like a Warshow performances. She's got the moves step, She's always on Billboard Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, True Star Quality. Um. I was gonna say that I wish that like these musicians, these best new artists musicians like campaign together the way that like Oscars like the campaigns, Like yeah, amazing, Because Phoebe Bridges likes Megan this down and she's like yeah, got it. Yeah, yeah, I mean who doesn't like imagine? She was like, well, there's people in the category I don't care for, but no, I just feel like in terms of, like, you know, she got the nomination, and in terms of how much she's impacted the culture, like it would be nice to see that nobody recognized Megan the Stallion as being like the best new artists of the year in terms of like impact and also like justartistic relevance all that stuff. But Phoebe's incredible and I do love Dojo like you could. You can see some of those those are words forms, like when she did the Buildoard Music Awards and she did the Roxy heart um like like that illusion. I was like, she's saying, give this is for the gays only, and I appreciated it. Also, her verse on the Ariana remix, it's better than it's better than Megan's. I mean, they're both, but I'm telling you that because because like Doja is really melodic, She's always able sing song and she's kind of like that. I like it. Yeah, I think I think I might agree. I do love Megan's verse on it, but Doja is I always love Megan, but Doja she is what is the what is when do you say? The moment? Come on a legend. She's got a point to legend. She's an iconic moment, the moment. Now I loother that there's two now now come on out come now, come on now perfect. You know it's it's hard to give um dojo the w there because I also in what I'm always like feeling like, I feel like Cardi is the one that kills this like it is Cardi's song, but she sets the tone in that and I don't know Cardi slays wop. But then Megan comes in with you and when she says to me like thinifying your honor, I'm a freak bitch. I liked the new Cardi song too Up great. The video is phenomenal with Megan. It's that she's always been like coolly confident. That's been her stuff. She changed her hand all the recently, not her handle, but her name on Twitter. Yesterday was the birthday Tina Stone. I got excited. I was like, you're gonna do something with that character again. That was like on her one of her first albums or mixtapes, Tina snow like this play just like play me like imagery and that's how heightens the moment. Yeah, that has some of my favorite Megans. That was like that was like old school quote unquote Megan. I don't know if you can call it that, but like that was when I first discovered her and she had like big old freak and the old freak is still so good. That was the one Bowen first showed me. He was like you have to. He's like, we're gonna listen to Megan, and the first song we need is big old phrase. And he would always be flitting around Bowen yang As saying big old freak and then he would giggle, Yeah he would, and he would be giggling about and sort of founcing about and saying the gold freak. I could tell he was feeling himself that Megan had an impacted That beat is an Albi Shure sample, and I'll be sure is a biological father of one of did He's kids. Oh did He's light Skin son is Albi Shore's son. Yeah, my god, I mean checking checking behind him. Honestly, you you should reboot it. Is it still going behind the music still a thing. I don't know. I don't believe it is. I think it should exist though, and I think that there's a way if I would be h one, I'd be like, how are we making behind the music and digestible enough packages for TikTok? Oh? That's that's really good. I mean the closest thing that there is now in TV form is like a song Explode or Netflix, which is also phenomenal. There is something about the way that behind in music really stepped out the narrative, like like the fluid mac thing, Like that's probably the three the way that I learned about Oh yeah, the rumors of it all. You know, It's like I wouldn't have known about all that stuff if it weren't for that behind and like it should come from like a not a central place, but from like a big place where there's like journalistic authority behind it. Does that make sense likely? Would you know? If my management is listening music, do this? Do it? Do it? Even if it was just like an extension of like the podcast or something. I just feel like it's something that needs to happen because I do think that like people would would really want it, Like I especially like for that generation that felt just out of reach for us culturally, and for example, someone like me learning about Pat Benatar. I love that, Like, who's the who is the little gay boy right now? Who would they want to hear about? Is it like Jewel? I don't know, Like who who was popular for us that they want to hear? Like, you know what, I feel like there's an appetite for that, there is. I felt like the gen Z kids need like a behind the music on like Brandy. People forget there was a moment when Brandy was the she had Moitia, she was doing the albums, oh forget Aday and people also forget just how influential she is as a female R and B vocalist. You know, she's referred to in that community as the vocal Bible, And like, I think that obviously, because she's a black woman, she has dealt a shitty hand by the culture in terms of nostalgia for her, and it's kind of sort of nice to see her getting this moment right now with um the Brandy Cinder, which is always I always called the Brandy Cinderella. It's called Cinderella, but for me, it's is now on Disney Plus and she just released B seven and she's like got the Moitia reboots. So it feels like a nice moment for Brandy respect right now. And I would love like a companion piece that it maybe this is an idea for you, Sam, but a companion piece that is like, let's actually remember like the impact of you know, the Brandy. She was such vocal control. They're these YouTube videos of her just joking around, singing like in the car, playing around, and that's pitch perfect. You know. Like my favorite Brandy album is probably Full Moon, but there's a few tracks on there where you're just like, you weren't hearing a voice that smooth that she was the one. She was the one. She also made it seem easy in a way, which is just like it's it's because it was so natural to her. And she didn't have like this huge tone, like like like a big like sort of like belty tone. She was very much like you know, she had like that silky sort of pillowy sound. And I think that because she didn't have this big, booming Whitney Houston voice, people don't put her on that level. But in terms of vocal dexterity, in terms of like having an ear, in terms of um you know, the way that her vocals were laid in together, like if you listen to how Have You Ever? Like that is a genius, geniously produced song. Um and also in terms of range, like when she gets into the bridge on that song where it's like she goes, it's like it's so high, and she's also in her basement on the verses, so she she is. I mean that song is hard. Yeah, she made it sound emasy. I love her Actually, Randy Cinderella, yet, have you reindulged? I haven't reindulged that. I need to remember when it came out back then, how big of a headline it was because there were people who were like America by a multiracial cast on this classic and then million viewers, right, seventeen million viewers watched it that first weekend it was out. If I recall correctly, Yeah, it must have been that huge. It's like, if you have a hard time believing that a cast could be multi ethnic, you're gonna have a really hard time believe. And they were gonna take a glass slipper around the whole town try to get one should have been and then based on that he marries her. You're gonna have a real hard time then, girl, if logic is your you're fucking hill. You're gonna die on with Cinderella, Mama, girl, Like you accept the pumpkin becoming a carriage? Yeah, you got no questions about not the fairy godmother tweedledeedles doodling in with nothing else but a shimmer and a pop like, I mean, girl, yeah forget it. They buy it. Yeah. Whitney and Whitney's Wife soundtrack, which I mean, I'm I would imagine that you've you've frequented. It's like a YouTube video of Brandy and Whitney like prepared, rehearsing together, do it impossible? Yeah, and where Brandy is like giving So Brandy recently talked about there's a part where she goes and she's like giving Whitney a note and she's giving her the low version of the note because she didn't want to belt the octave up in rehearsal. But she was giving Whitney that note and Whitney looks at her in the eyes and goes, why are you down there? Yes, and recently cleared it up, she was like, no, I was giving her the note the octave down because I can't just built this thing out and rehearsal that She's gonna be doing. So that's where the confusion was on that one. Why are you down there? Is up there with that bell doing where my background saying it's there, just like the interrogative tone. And also people forget Whitney was a mentor to all of the young ladies in the industry as they were coming up. She mentored Alicia Keys a lot behind the scenes. They were close, they were friends. She was she was she really, I don't know she was. It's such a loss. It's such a loss. It's such a loss. And oh god, this is like this we're coming up on a nine year I think he passed the nine year mark. Oh it really, it's crazy that she's been gone that long. I know, I know, it hit me hardly. I took a day off of work after she died. I remember that and I was like, I'm no because it was just like Grammy's and it was it felt so sudden, it was a Grammy week. And then when every time you found out more details, it just got more and more sad. Yeah, I got more and more sad. I cannot believe that Davis still had that party that night. I cannot believe it. That guy is the worst. And I can't believe that she died in that hotel and that he didn't cancel that event like or that if he was going to have it, it wasn't entirely about her legacy, especially her history at that Clive Davis pre Grammy party in particular, like that was one of her biggest industry coming out moments. Like I just I he obviously you know he took. He was on one of the many that took and took and took from her. Have no respect for him. There are so many pieces about how truly just monstrous he was as it specifically as it pertained to Whitney. Um, it's dark. It's dark. You guys. Remember when he put out was it a year or two or year ago he put out his autobiographer or like his memoir and he was like, oh, it turns out I'm like actually by yeah, and I think he was waiting for this outpourn of support. But everyone's like, okay, whatever, says yeah, I don't like you that much. Yeah, he's the devil. Well it's important that he is the devil. Um, he actually is the devil, and so the devil is the devil being by actually doesn't surprise me at all. I knew the devil was by the devil is a chaotic bisexual. The devil is chaotic bisexual. I do want to ask Sam before we move on. I don't think so, honey. I feel like I feel like it's been a minute. Is truly like the perfect synthesis of like pop culture again, like I said, and like news of the day, news of the week, What are what are like? How do how do you and the team like figure out what to cover? Because I really think that there is the specificity and this like art to like the point of view of the show, and like it makes me always want to listen and consistently like thank you, I appreciate that. I mean, I think there's a few things, like in general, if there's a story that it feels like everyone is covering to death, our goal is to either find a different angle on it or just skip it. So we skipped this second impeachment. We were just like what we add? What do I add? You know, like I can't do anything with that that won't that would feel new, So we just went elsewhere. And then I think the other thing besides that is like when we started the show we probably covered more topics, and we probably wanted our our main desire was to help people laugh about the week of news. But as the news cycles have gotten more depressing and the world has just started to feel worse, we've kind of leaned into also allowing the show to be a space for people to just like shed some tears and like have a little emotional catharsis. Um. So it's still a fun show, but we're laughing less than we were two years ago. And of also, uh, we talk about less every week now. In the earliest iterations of the show on the Friday shows, we might cover three or four different stories, and now we really just lean into less to give it more time and let it breathe a little bit more. Um. But my philosophy about like a mix of news and popular culture. My philosophy is that you can never understand the news fully without understanding pop culture. And I think that this dividing line that a lot of journalists have, where you know, this was the hard news and this is a soft news, I think that is structurally and systemically oppressive and racist and phobic, sexist, because all the stuff that the old school journalist voice that God reporters want to say, is the soft stuff but they don't care about always happens to be stuff about women and black and brown folks and gay people. And so my desires to say that everyone who listens that that stuff is just as important, and to also say that you cannot understand these quote unquote hard stories about just the facts until you understand the cultural significance and emotional stuff that's in these softer stories. For instance, like people want to there were years where journalists at all kinds of news outlets, including my own, we're saying that Trump voters were motivated by economic anxiety and because in their lizard brain logical journalists minds, they couldn't see what it was really about, and they wanted to put logic into it. But if they had done a better job, if we have done a better job of understanding the significance of culture and of cultural stories and the way that people feel and the direct reaction of some parts of white America to see a more diverse America on screen, we might have seen earlier that it was never economic anxiety. It was a lot of in some instances racism. And so I think in order to really under stories are never just facts. Stories are never just numbers. Stories are usually always about feelings, and the feelings are always more important than the facts. I'm not saying the facts don't need to be right. I want to get the facts right, but I'm not going to understand the story until I understand the emotions behind it as well. And journalists who cover heart and soft news are better at speaking to and feeling those feelings. I think. So I'm kind of ramble it now. This is this is this is really fascinating because I actually i'm and when you're while you're talking, I'm thinking about like the way that I've learned history throughout my life, and I think that like when you especially when you when you look at like the American public school system, when you learn history, it's a lot of like this was the president, this is the date the spill was passed, this, this, this, this, this, and it's sort of just bleeds all in together and it feels irrelevant, Whereas I think that I would have absorbed more of those things had I known, like what do people of the time, like, what did they do? What were the interests? What was popular at the time, Because facts without context, you know, you can't get much from it, and so pop culture is the context for everything that happens. And we especially see that over the past five years, you know what I mean, when the two truly collided and we may never go back. And so I think that in that way, like this, this ideology that you have is exactly the way we need to be moving because it helps give a more well rounded understanding of life. And it would be more exciting to learn the world and to learn history that way. Imagine if our teachers had taught us the Civil Rights movement with Motown records as the sound track, because it was and so much of the ballism of Motown and the way that they presented their black artists as polished and ready for white consumption was this was paralleled in the way that Dr Kane was marking through the streets in a suit and tie. These things are connected, right, and so that I want to have those kind of conversations and I want It's like, it's like, I hate it when people are like, well, this story is just about the facts. It's never just about the fact. It's about all this ship wrapped up together. Understand it holistically, you know, And yeah, and it's almost like when Trump became president, all the serious people were like humiliated that this could be true. And it's it's it's like they were mortified this could be true. How dare they, um, you know, have to share the screen or time or give attention to this creature of reality television. And it's like, girl, it's knocking on your door, Like what is happening like in the in the homes of people and this man, for better or worse, has been in people's homes for decades and they understand him as something. So if this makes people have to understand and grapple with the fact that, yes, the Kardashians aren't quote unquote famous for nothing, then maybe we'll have a better understanding of the American people. Yes, And gotta say, speaking of Trump reality TV, the journalists out the gate who were covering him the best. We're journalists that had previously covered television or pop culture, and like my favorite reporting about him in the campaign or the articles that tied back everything he was doing on the campaign trail and in office to the crap you saw him doing for years on the Apprentice. It's the same playbook. He uses, the same playbook, So like I honestly want to have political reporters that have watched every season of Survivor and American Idol, because like, that is the culture, and that is a culture that our politics now operates in. You know, you hit a perfectly man. I got on soapbox about this ship, as you can tell. But you know, it's it's almost like like somebody said to Andy Cohen, like, um, after he was doing a reunion, he was a great job with that reunion. He should moderate the debates, and then a couple a couple of people who are like, well, you know, yes, maybe he would actually ask questions that people want to hear answered or wouldn't bail because these journalists have this sort of like they pretend that they're still decorum. It's like when Savanna's got three Savannah three and one of the last presidential elections, she said to him, in so many words, like you can't like like I'm not going to ask you this question like a journalist. I'm asking you this question like a human like you hear you, but they don't behave like that, you know, and it's like we keep and this was the thing that we all had to figure out at the start of the Trump administration. Every White House reporter walking on that White House expected Donald Trump to like and his press team to follow the rules of like the way that like you work with the press. Those weren't rules, they were norms. They were never written in stone. They were there because previous presidents chose to do it. Donald Trump has proven that everything that we thought was like etched in stone about the way DC works, it was just a gentleman's agreement. There's no rule book, you know, and and there's never gonna be one again. Even things constitutionally are just suggestions that this After the second impeachment, it's like, oh, so this is all meaningless? Got it? Like it's I don't know um. Early on in his term, so I so I covered the last campaign for NPR, and I was following Brownie around for a lot of yeah yeah, And then once Trump became president, I began making my new show in earnest, but I still did a little bit of political reporting. And I remember early on doing a story about Trump's like first violation of the Hatch Act, and I was like, are they going to get them? This is an ethics violation? And he violated the Hatch Act and now you're just like, it's a joke, a joke. It's a joke, you know, And that's I guess what worries me about. Um. Whenever anyone is like we need a healthy Republican party or rich across the aisle, or like Biden as president, I'm like, this is a return to what didn't work for such a long time. And I at least have to be hopeful that like he because he's so because we were never going back after Trump like that, he'll have to listen to progressives as we um continue to hold him accountable and make sure this country is moving in the direction needs to move. But I just it's hard to know that that we're returning to a place of like bro code, you know what I mean, Because that's really what the Constitution is is. It's like bro code. It's like a bunch of dudes being like like drunk at a frat party writing rules for their frat going forward hundreds of years, and the idiots and hundreds of years from that point are like, well, the dudes who made this said this, dude, and it has to be two thirds, dude, it can't just be a majority. Dude that when you when when it's impeachment, bro. Because when it's impeachment, bro, it's actually bigger. It should be bigger, So it should have to be more people. Though you know what I mean. Though it justels like stupid. It's like it was forty three this mote and we can't fucking say this guy is guilty of his crimes, Like, give me a break. I think what is most interesting to see happen in this moment because like, in spite of all of America's attention being squarely focused on Donald Trump for the past four or five years and actuality, very little got done in d C. You know, like DC was not passing while safe for the tax cut, there were no major packages and a lot of the stuff that made a lot of you know visual like woe was just Trump kind of screwing around on the border and like, but that was happening outside of Congress, right, And so in that absence of action, you see a larger role from big business and like the making change for the country. And like what I am watching and I don't want to say scared of, but maybe it's like we're gonna end up in a society where if Washington keeps on doing nothing or being ineffectual. The Zuckerberg's and the bezos Is and the Dorseys are gonna actually run the world because they're gonna be able to move more quickly than DC ever can. It's um yeah, that's the whole premise of this video game that came out in December called Cyberpunge, and where it is like it's society is run by corporations. It's terrible, um I, but I did love it really quickly. I did love that, Um you covered the Amazon um the best sumer uh sort of that that whole sort of unionizing story instead of the in lieu of the impeachment, right, but that was I loved that just deliberately is a choice. Now we're gonna we're gonna say no. I was just saying with with the one corporation of it all. And I also listened to the Amazon episode and thought it was great. I mean it was like earlier when I was seeing when I was watching the Conways on American Idol, I'm like, American Idol is owned by Disney. This is the biggest company in the world presenting the biggest show in the world, presenting the Kelly Can Conway Redemption arc, and I was just like, this feels disgusting to me because and then it feels like I almost was hesitant even like saying something about it because they are one of the one companies that owns everything. And it's just like, that is that's how you get situation when one corporate identity owns everything. And if we are headed to just a battle royale with Disney and Amazon, it's like, that's really scary, and that's that's that's something that needs to be top of mind because you, like God forbid, you were to get into a trouble with one of the few companies that runs the world. What are you gonna do? Yeah, it's sucking. It's crazy that you bring up Disney and their corporate power, because we're gonna drop this on Tuesday of this week tomorrow, I interviewed Abigail Disney, very critical of the company, and she lays out how she just thinks Disney has become a different company and it's it's they've got some like evil empire tendencies that she thinks need to be checked. But she was going through the disparity between their lowest earners and their highest earners. It's bonkers. It's bonkers. And they were giving out big bonuses in the midst of the pandemic year or like stock buybacks of some sort, while they laid off like twenty like thousands of people who were like making the lowest wages. And it's not just like Disney. This is like corporations right now period. And I feel like we don't talk about it enough, like companies. Companies are doing a lot that we just don't look at, and we need to look at. Sorry, I'm I'm really just diet driving down, no, no, no, taking it all in. And the thing about Disney is what's really funked up about it is they do it with a smile, and they do it with their happy brand um, and that's that's that's nefarious. Well, because they're able to do two things at once, were like numerically by the numbers, some of their financial practices draw a lot of scrutiny and a lot of folks say that's bad. But visually and the symbolism of Disney, it is so woke. Black Panther was the most impressive rollout I've ever seen from a company like that doing black stuff, and they made all of us love and regardless of race. So like, on the one hand, Disney as a company gets representation symbolically, but are they are they taking care of all their people? Don't let me, let me stop lose my job. It is sometimes just it almost feels like refreshing to talk about how dark it is, because at least as a knowledge of it, you know what I mean, Like, at least we're not like fifty years ago, like I'm drinking Coca CoA. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we got to talk about it. But anyway, Um, this sort of sentiment, how perfect for I don't think so, honey, but perfect for I don't think so honey. I'm just sitting here like taking it all in, being like, yeah, oh my god, this is so I have nothing to add. I'm just kind of astonished at how dark everything is. But this, this is the perfect seguet. I don't think so honey, I mean truly. So this is where we literally work it all out. It's our sixty second segment where we take something in pop culture that we sorry, hate to say this word but hate. I hate to say the word hate. Um, and we sort of exercise the the First Amendment. Okay, yeah, okay, Matt this is I think, do you want to go first? You have something? I have something? Okay, So traditionally Matco was first. This is Matt odds Is. I don't think so, honey. His time starts now. I don't think so, honey. President's Day? Who gives the fun? Why do we need to celebrate these fucking white slave owners, Like, what is the fucking deal? Change the name to American Citizens Day? Celebrate us the people that put them in fucking positions of power since the beginning of this country, just so they can abuse that power against us. No fucking thank you. I don't think so, honey. Also, I'm sorry, but after the last four years, I'm not ready to freaking kick my heels up and celebrate the person that happens to be president, especially when they can become president based on shitty, fucking illegal means. So no thank you. President's Day. I don't think what Joe Biden me right now is fucking pats on the backs and fucking yea, Joe. He needs to get to work. He needs to get to work for the American people. President's Day, I don't think so, honey. I also don't think so honey. The Hall of presidents in Disney World knock it down and put up a damn roller coaster. I don't think so, honey. And that's one minute. That's a small roller coaster. It's not that girl. It ago in one circle. I don't care. It would still be more thrilling and more entertaining than anything in the Do you know what the title of that entertainment? Entertainment? Yes? Um, but like um, I just feel like one, I'm like, shut up. We don't have to do this anymore. Also, I don't know why we just don't go to a system where like the holidays don't have to have a name. Just so you got a day off, just say Federal holiday number five, you know, give us one every quarter and just say day you know, it's like every year you get twenty five days. You fucking deserve off. I don't need to know what they are, and they don't actually be able to pick them. Yes, I also have no more excitement about new holidays. You know, after the protest last year, they're like, we're gonna push for June tenth. They become a holiday. And how do you feel? I don't know, girl, I don't know. It's it's another it's a holiday. Also, half of the folks talking about June teenth have never done June tenth. At the folks have never done. It is not a thing that all the blacks do. As someone who's speaking for the blacks, well, that that is the danger and some and some like cultural like like a thing like that where it's like, oh so then like from an outside point of view, like people think that everybody does this, I'm not like I I like Lunar New Year, not exactly exactly, but there's a pressure, it seems like now to like really like go get into it. Yeah, and it's like it is kind of very specific to East Asian culture. Um and and yeah, it's it took to apply a wholesale to like a whole group of people is really interesting to me. I don't now. I feel like usually when when it comes to holidays, like the one that gets shipped on the most nowadays is fourth of July obviously because it's like we're not down to celebrate America. But President's Day is one that we really need to be targeted. That's just that's literally going out of its way to celebrate like this group of people that like suck. Yeah, yeah, it's exactly. It's what Bowen always says or has been saying recently. It's the individualism over collectivism. It's like, why the funk. It's like, it's like, you're y'all are mad that we live in a celebrity obsess culture, but we have a thing called President's Day. No yeah. I also, speaking of that bone, I really loved when you called out the folks who were kind of trying to be like, well, I wasn't mean to Brittany in that time, and your and your clap back was perfect because you're like, we're not talking about you were talking about these systems and structures and love. And thank you for that, Bowen. I real appreciate it. You're welcome everyone, and thank you for being you. And I love you so much. And we had a sister conversation. I love this sister conversations um to the moon and Okay, so now I love you so much that I'm actually gonna say it's your turn to do I don't think, and it's the highest anticipated moment of my life and I don't think so, honey, and his time actually starts now, I don't think, so, honey. Diane A motherfucking Sawyer. Get your Nixon standing ass away from this, this, this whole converse. I don't even want her to apologize at this point, she's disappeared special in the pandemic. I think I think the best thing for her to do is not even an announced that she's retiring, is just to never show her face like she. I mean, the Brittany of it all is disgusting, but then the Whitney of it all is also equally as dark. She viciously goes after her in that damn interview, and it's honestly good for Whitney for like standing her, like asing that by being like, I don't know what it is, Diane, do you know? Do you know like truly this woman like was this like media like she she's the she was a tool for misogyny in the in the adds, and like terrorized Connage Chown. Will never tear it, will never forgive her for terrorizing Connage Chong. Diane, So you found dead, not as dead as Mike Nichols, but still found dead. I'm like, I love love Mr Nichols in his work, but I think there's some darkness there. If I don't know, I just she's that lady has always been suspicious to me. She never and can I just say this speaks to a larger theme that I'm trying to do with my work. Stop with the gotcha journalism. It's never good for anybody, And you will get more out of your guests if you're nice to them. But you know, the very comfrontational nature of her interviews and then where it's like I got you, got you guys, that's bad, that's malpractice. We don't have to do it like that. Yes, we don't have to do that because you know, you know who's actually a really good model for this today. I think I might be wrong on this, but I think Gail King is like she doesn't do got She just has a grace. Even with r Kelly like she was, it wasn't about like getting him, It was just being like what is this? What do you have to say? Whereas with what Dion story, it was like just shoving that picture in front of in front of Whitney was just like so yeah. And also not for nothing, but for her to be like a wealthy white woman and be like what is this to like to like to Whitney Houston, it feels really disgusting in retrospect. And also, you know what other interview of hers I didn't like at all, Michael Jackson Brianna interview after everything happened with Chris Brown and Rihanna was ready to talk about it. And I'll tell you who looks mortified the entire time is Rihana because you can tell it was not her choice to sit down with her. And I don't know what big PR company Rihanna was with that was like, Oh, you're gonna do the interview with Diane Diane Slayer because that's what we know, because it's gonna get ratings. Because it certainly wasn't to the benefit of Rihanna, who looked miserable the entire time. So I'm in full agreence with you. Boy, Radar are great album razing, I mean so many of I mean, we were just talking about Loud. Um. We fucking love Loud, we love rated are I love talk that talk, unapologetic of them, grow gone bad obviously to close the loop on this Diane thing, I mean this to get into trouble with the Disney of at all um like ABC News just owes America an apology. I come up, come apologizing to Brittany or like Whitney Houston's family, it's just like apologize to us for the way that you like not to use this word, but like normalized that kind of interview style. Yeah, like that kind of I don't know us, it's just it's it's yeah. Barbara Walton's was the pioneer, of course. And the thing here's the thing, though, we pick on these women because because like they got these again celebrity interviews, probably because it's what you're saying, Sam, the networks handed off the interviews about the celebrities to these women network and they were like, you know what that's and and so guaranteed if Peter Jennings does that interview, it's worse, you know what I mean. Like, so it was all of media at the time. It's it's it's it's the way that we were cultured that those kind of interviews went. And we're picking on the women because the larger structure, which was the networks, gave the women those interviews. So we we didn't start to I think the media industry, popular culture at large, we didn't even unders begin to understand the era of those ways. We didn't even understand what it means to be woke until Obama. And I think Obama was just like a cultural reset because all of a sudden, having a black man in the space where it just to be just used to be white man meant that we had to question everything, We had to question everything. I really think that, like the emergence of okenness is tied to the cultural reset that was Barack Obama. It's him, but but but that is again like you like having the connective tissue of pop culture like suspend together these like political hard newsy facts, which is like that's I mean, no, that's that's perfect. That's like such a holistic Also, like so much of that narrative of the two eight election would set the stage for what happened in the election because it all took place in the media. It's all I mean, Barack Obama became a media star. Yes, he he was celebrated by the very thing that would then, whether they want to admit to it or not, champion Donald Trump in two thousand and sixteen. It's about who is the star. That's why I always feel like something I always think is the start of the election will win the elections. That's why people go to extremes, to to create stories all the time. That's why Trump was as chaotic as he was, because he constantly wanted to be the star. And I think that he may have been the star of election, but he also was the villain. It's hard to be both, and it's hard to be both that you can't with you can't keep being both exactly. It's like like any television program, people are going to want to change the channel. So that's that's the dark side to the media controlling so many things. It's like they will lose control. We have control. Oh yeah, well, and and like even the fact that like a lot of us are still grappling with I still grapple with it. Some of the moments in which my career has moved to the next level the quickest have been on the backs of like disaster like I the cacaphony of election and all the bad things that happened in that campaign a around Donald Trump catapults in my career. Then, um, after George Floyd died, the ratings from my show, the weekly users per week per downloads for the podcast version doubled in one episode, then they tripled. They're still back at double but like it feels weird to know that some of your professional success has literally come on the back of a dead black man, you know, But this is what I indust read that. This is how it's so weird, Like our life blood is tragedy. I mean it is not. I mean it's it's not. It's not because of anything. You didn't within your control or power to like make that that happen. It was just circumstantial and unfortunate. But but yeah, I mean that is so interesting. I just don't think that you should like carry any sort of like no, and yeah and not dread. It just makes you really wonder and and like I think that I've I think the best thing that I can do to honor George Floyd's legacy is to amplify the voices that are shouting to the rooftops stop killing us, which is what we have been doing on the show since that happened. So I don't feel guilt about it, but it is there's a certain there's a certain perverse, there's a certain perverse economics to the news media industry because we never want to say it, we never want to admit it, but the bad ship is often good for us. It's weird. It's weird, that's all I mean. It was just so funny to me when people were saying on Twitter like l O L the news is boring now, and it's like the last thing anyone wants to hear is that they're boring. So in that way, you know that news media was like, is like, fuck now they're quaking. Let me tell you every TV exactly, every TV exact doing TV news is scared shitless because Joe Biden is many things, but one of them that he is not He's he's not exciting. He's like, he's just not. So it'll be interesting to see how, particularly like a place like CNN chain is their coverage over time we'll see who well, uh, we have we have come to the point where it is time for Sanders. I don't think so, honey. Now are you ready and are you prepared? Can I tell you how much I'm ready and prepared? So I was able to meet up with a group of friends safely for a week with them in a cabin in the woods around New Year's And what we did one night is went around the fire and did I don't think so, honey? Come that is the best thing we've ever heard. Oh my god, and so my friend Megan making Cain. Hey Megan, she's listening. I know she's gonna be listening. I don't think so, honey. And I was like, girl, you need to record her. I don't think so, honey, because I can just make sure. Well, maybe hear it. So I'm going to send it to you. She had the best one. We love to hear it. Okay, well, but in the meantime we are, we are quicking like a cable news hosts umh my god, I can tell you. I'm sure you won't. This is Sam Sanders. I don't think so, honey. As time starts now, I don't think so honey. Duvet covers, why though Jester flop entergy, there's no need gives you a blanket, then you can just wash there. Why are you making easy ship hard? So for all the time the duvet covers have existed, they've never given us like a guide on how to get it right. Why isn't then why aren't the Why aren't the corners of duvet covers color coded to match inside the cover and the top thing make it? It's like the duvet family wants to make my life hard. They want to make it rough. And when I go into an airbnb where they even just a goddamn blanket, but there's a duvet and a duvet cover and all that ship, I give you a three star to star review. I don't like them. Get him out of my face. Don't make easy ship hard. I don't think so, honey, Duvet covers, you are dead on. This is something in the culture that must be rectified. Now, why do they exist? Why do they exist? Why do you have to scuba dive into a stack of cloth every time? Literally, and everyone's gonna everyone's gonna mention, Oh, there are the ways, you know, you roll it up and then you flow. Those are the same pools that tell you how to fold the fitted sheet. There is no way, there's no I didn't even know about this duvet until I had to make a room of my own and I bought a bed of my own, and I had this duvet, and I was like, I thought that was just a thicker blanket that went on top. No, bitch, it's stupid duve nonsense. You have to put this on that, on this on that. It's why are you making simple things hard? It's exactly what you said. And family is one of the worst families in the world. Criminals. Oh yeah, no, they are horrors. They're responsible for horrors. Clarissa Duvet Morton Duvet, Ashley Duvet. Ashley Duvet. Ashley Duvet is Megan McCain's best girlfriend. And they go to they go to tah together. They do Oh they are so you know, how did you did? You all both watch Barbon Star? Alright, Trish, okay, and you get that joke. You'll get that joke when you see the movie. But fucking Ashley Duvet. She is not Trish. Energy is not trash. She's not Trish. Just get a blanket. Just get a fucking blanket. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you both. Is it not okay to sleep with a duvet without a cover because it just feels weird and too soft? I mean, I don't think it's weird because it's just like you, you live the way you want to live. And also like if if you skip the step of needed to put the duvet cover on it, then good for you, more power to you. Unfortunately, it doesn't look right because we've been conditioned to think that we got to put the duvet cover on the thing, and that's how a bed looks. But girl, it's a whole extra step and it is complicated, very complicated, Levin. It's one of the songs. It's one of a vine songs. Yes, yes, that felt. That was a good release for me. Thank you all for giving me that space. That was an incredible one. You've been giving top shelf, top level pop culture commentary and then to get your I don't think so many opportunity And it's duvet that is so that the power that that has the power that has the international inflisra that has I love it. I love it such a delight I have been, I'm telling you, and I'll keep playing it because I mean, I've been listening out for a while and I love what y'all are doing. Like there's there's such a great balance between like totally off the dome riffing free association matched with and I know this, I can tell when y'all have really thought deeply about a thing and spend time processing how you feel about it before you tell us about it. So y'all do it really well. You make it seem like you just show up, But I know you're preparing and I hear it and it's just great and I love what you'll do. Like linguistically, you're playing with language in a way that I just find it's like any playing like jest or flop making that I don't think, so honey a thing the whole meaning of the word cathartic like this is like like playing with the language in a way that like, honestly, I think like pushes the English language forward. So I don't know, I just come into work. Language is ridiculous to please. You are so incredibly smart. You are such an aspirationally good host. You're such a warm host. I think and I both know that from being guests on your show and being made to feel so special and so interesting by you, and you really do um um. You really just have such a great way of getting in there on all the topics. And I, like I said, this Whitney episode was a highlight. I also loved your fashion episode about it during the quarantine. I thought that was really illuminating and to be it would be an honor if we could call ourselves a sister podcast to yours and listen sisters sisters, all the sisters. And also I realized now I've had both of you on separately. Next time we do this, I've gotta come on together. We would be figured out. Always love to be asked anywhere. Well, everyone, please check out. It's been a minute with Sam Sanders. Um and I mean, just what, what a true pleasure this was? I loved, I mean, one of our best answers to the question, one of one of my favorite. I don't think so, Honey's truly this episode has it all and um and I can't think of a the better just a better all around episode. Now do you agree? I would, I would agree this was a classic and this and we had an amazing time and I think that bowen, Um, we have to finish with the song we and I know just the song impossible, play possible or play country bokings to the Prince and joined a marriage. I don't know, just yeah and then wait they'll hold on weight. We gotta say, just just just just finished with these two words. Same knees and fools, all right, bye, I stoop to boot