Bonus Episode: The Robin Williams Flow State of Mind
In this week’s Wrap Party, Zeth is talking about flow states, improvisation, stolen jokes, and the late, great Robin Williams. Later in the episode, Disgraceland’s Jake Brennan joins to give flow state-themed movie and music recommendations. Plus, your voicemails, texts, and emails. Become an All Access member today by visiting disgracelandpod.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Speaker 1: Dear listeners of Hollywood Land, does it feel like you're
Speaker 1: stuck in limbo? Standing under a flickering street light at
Speaker 1: the corner of Hollywood and True Crime, waiting for the
Speaker 1: next episode of hollywood Land to drop.
Speaker 2: I got you.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Hollywoodland, the Rap Party. What is going on,
Speaker 1: my fellow movie geeks, you true crime freaks just like me?
Speaker 1: You guys like your movie history served up with a
Speaker 1: side of grit and grime. And this, of course, is
Speaker 1: the place where we rescue those stories from the cutting
Speaker 1: room floor, the stories that were left behind, the very
Speaker 1: same stories that have now made you the most dangerous
Speaker 1: person at the party. I'm your host, Zeth Lundy, writer, showrunner,
Speaker 1: good doctor, here at Double Elvis, and today in the
Speaker 1: hollywood Land Rap Party, we are talking about Robin Williams,
Speaker 1: which means we're talking about vineyards in the face of
Speaker 1: a great generational challenge. Wait what, Hang on, it'll make
Speaker 1: sense in a minute. We're talking about the flow state,
Speaker 1: which means I'll be joined later by Jake Brennan of
Speaker 1: Disgraceland to give y'all some dirty res for movies and
Speaker 1: music which either evoke a flow state or help get
Speaker 1: you into one.
Speaker 3: Plus.
Speaker 1: I've got your calls, your texts, your emails, So come on, everybody,
Speaker 1: let's party. I was reading in The New York Times
Speaker 1: the other week about how vineyards are being burned on
Speaker 1: purpose out west in California right now, about how vintners
Speaker 1: are ripping the grapes out of the ground, About how
Speaker 1: the seemingly robust wine industry is being hit with its
Speaker 1: hardest times in decades. In fact, wine sales, not just
Speaker 1: in California but everywhere in America are at their lowest
Speaker 1: levels in two decades. Red wines have suffered more than
Speaker 1: white wines. In fact, when it comes to California, California
Speaker 1: has historically produced more reds than whites, at least since
Speaker 1: the turn of the century, and now, for the first
Speaker 1: time in a long time, California is pumping out more
Speaker 1: whites than reds. Why is this, Well, some people are
Speaker 1: drinking less. Young millennials and Gen Z in particular are
Speaker 1: drinking less than previous generations. And those who are still
Speaker 1: drinking are jumping on the hard Seltzer bandwagon because they
Speaker 1: feel like a more youthful option, I suppose, less old
Speaker 1: fashion and stuffy. This is a big turnaround from twenty
Speaker 1: two years ago in two thousand and four, when Alexander
Speaker 1: Payne's great road movie slash buddy movie Sideways was released
Speaker 1: in theaters. This film, along with American splendor from the
Speaker 1: year prior, kind of woke us all up to the
Speaker 1: idea of Paul Giamatti, the great character actor, as a
Speaker 1: leading man. It also led to the surge and popularity
Speaker 1: of pino noir, which is the varietal that Giamatti's character
Speaker 1: Miles champions throughout the film, while also simultaneously hating on Murlau.
Speaker 1: This movie single handedly led many people not just in
Speaker 1: America but worldwide to investigate the misunderstood pino noir, which
Speaker 1: literally had this crazy impact on the wine industry. Sales
Speaker 1: of pinos skyrocketed, while sales of Merleau tanked. Merlau's reputation
Speaker 1: even took a hit for a while, as this inferior
Speaker 1: grape and inferior wine, And why am I telling you
Speaker 1: all of this? You're like, what the hell, dude, I
Speaker 1: thought we were talking about Hollywood. Well, I was Sideways, right,
Speaker 1: But more importantly, in the midst of this, New York
Speaker 1: Times reported on so called decline and wine as vineyards
Speaker 1: go up in flames and tractors rip vines from the soil.
Speaker 1: Another California vineyard founded on Robin Williams's former property is thriving.
Speaker 1: Robin's twenty thousand square foot Tuscan mansion on Mount Veeder,
Speaker 1: which is a designated wine grape growing region near the
Speaker 1: western border of Napa County, was purchased shortly after his
Speaker 1: death by the Tesseron family, longtime winemakers longtime cognact makers,
Speaker 1: best known for a winery they have in the Bordeaux
Speaker 1: region in France. So Robin Williams's former home is now
Speaker 1: a winery and the wine being produced there is called
Speaker 1: pim Ray. It's pym dash R, which is what Robin
Speaker 1: called his home. He named it after the middle names
Speaker 1: of his two oldest children. The label of this wine
Speaker 1: of this p Ray wine features an image of the
Speaker 1: globe from the Daily Planet in the nineteen seventy eight
Speaker 1: Superman film, because Robin's longtime friend and former roommate, I
Speaker 1: believe Christopher Reeve gave him the actual globe prop from
Speaker 1: the Superman movie and he hung it in his house.
Speaker 1: It's still there, as are a lot of the personal
Speaker 1: touches that Robin installed there over the years. Now, if
Speaker 1: you want to get your hands on a seven hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty milli liter bottle of this wine, pim Ray Wine,
Speaker 1: you've got to be ready to fork over three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars. And if you do fork over three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars for a bottle of this wine,
Speaker 1: according to wine enthusiasts, the perfect time to open and
Speaker 1: enjoy this wine is sometime in the years between twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight and twenty forty. This is all to say
Speaker 1: I find this very amusing, because you know, the twenty
Speaker 1: thousand square foot mansion on the six hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: acre estate of it all aside, I never associated Robin
Speaker 1: Williams with something as hoity toity as a three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars bottle of wine. Robin Williams was the
Speaker 1: great disruptor. He was the id run wild through popular
Speaker 1: culture in the nineteen eighties and beyond. He was the
Speaker 1: flow state come to life, even if his particular state
Speaker 1: was born out of thousands of hours of practice, you know,
Speaker 1: the Malcolm Gladwell reps as it were. And let me
Speaker 1: clarify a bit by what I mean by all this.
Speaker 1: Robin operated within mainstream culture, within mainstream movies, mainstream comedy,
Speaker 1: the highest of the highest mainstream stuff here, right, But
Speaker 1: he acted as this agent of chaos. He was a
Speaker 1: fly in the ointment. He said things you weren't supposed
Speaker 1: to say in certain situations. He did things you weren't
Speaker 1: supposed to do. And by saying these things and doing
Speaker 1: these things, he got you to look at the world differently.
Speaker 1: His defiance in the face of how everyone else saw
Speaker 1: the world made that world much more exciting, at least
Speaker 1: for me. And when he switched to more dramatic roles,
Speaker 1: whether it was Dead Poets Society or Good Morning Vietnam,
Speaker 1: he did a similar thing where he always played these
Speaker 1: people who wanted to fuck with the accepted way of things.
Speaker 1: He wanted to fuck with the system and break it
Speaker 1: and show you how there was another way, there was
Speaker 1: another way to think and feel and laugh. I used
Speaker 1: to love the comic relief stand up benefit shows that
Speaker 1: took place every year on HBO. This is back in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties when Robin, Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg
Speaker 1: hosted them, and Robin was just like a bomb that
Speaker 1: went off, and it just kept going off. His evening
Speaker 1: at the met stand up special was hard for me
Speaker 1: to get through without stopping the cassette to catch my breath,
Speaker 1: because I was laughing so hard, even at jokes that
Speaker 1: I didn't fully understand as a kid, because in many
Speaker 1: cases it was just how he said something, how he
Speaker 1: could pivot from one thought to another, from one voice
Speaker 1: to another, how he seemed to live within the flow state.
Speaker 1: Have you guys seen him on Bravo's old show Inside
Speaker 1: the Actress Studio. It's incredible. At one point, he gets
Speaker 1: a woman in the audience laughing so hard that he
Speaker 1: begins to ignore the host questions and walks over to
Speaker 1: her and performs entirely for her, like sixty seconds of
Speaker 1: on the spot improv based around her inability to stop laughing.
Speaker 1: And then at some point I don't rememb if it's
Speaker 1: the same woman or somebody else, he grabs like a
Speaker 1: handkerchief from someone in the crowd and proceeds to do
Speaker 1: all this crazy improv with it, and it appears that
Speaker 1: he's doing it off the top of his dome. Now,
Speaker 1: something I learned about Robin when I read David Itskov's
Speaker 1: great biography on him was that he honed this style
Speaker 1: of comedy over the years in the clubs, the style
Speaker 1: that appeared to be chaos and improvisation, when in fact
Speaker 1: it was the product of hours and hours of practice.
Speaker 1: So when you see him interact with this woman in
Speaker 1: the audience at inside the Actress Studio, what you don't
Speaker 1: know is that he's probably done that bit numerous other
Speaker 1: times in different iterations. And so for him, he was
Speaker 1: always kind of iterating this flow state, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Not that makes anything he did less impressive, you know.
Speaker 1: If anything, I think it's pretty fucking dope that he
Speaker 1: crafted a stand up routine that appeared to be off
Speaker 1: the cuff but was in fact very rehearsed. That seems
Speaker 1: to be the hardest thing to perform a very rehearsed thing,
Speaker 1: but make it seem totally free and completely surprising and
Speaker 1: able to go anywhere. It's a tremendous thing. Now, some
Speaker 1: in history would not agree with me that Robin Williams
Speaker 1: was tremendous. There's this other angle on Robin Williams, and
Speaker 1: this take was that he was he was a joke stealer,
Speaker 1: but he stole jokes from other comics. This is something
Speaker 1: that's been out there for a while. It's been talked
Speaker 1: about a lot that back in the day when Robin
Speaker 1: was on the come up, he was notorious for stealing
Speaker 1: other comics jokes that if he was called out on it,
Speaker 1: like he would pay the offended comic on the spot.
Speaker 2: I've read that like he had like his.
Speaker 1: Manager or somebody had like a check book ready to
Speaker 1: go in all times. I've also heard about some hotline
Speaker 1: that was set up for people to lodge complaints and
Speaker 1: get paid. I don't know if that was a real
Speaker 1: thing or not, but I do remember when Robin was
Speaker 1: on Mark Marin's show WTF, a legendary episode of that show,
Speaker 1: he talked about this, you know, Mark asked him and
Speaker 1: he talked about how when he was coming up and
Speaker 1: hanging out at comedy clubs in La watch other comics routines.
Speaker 1: Because of the style that he was developing, it was
Speaker 1: very much this like grab back style where he was
Speaker 1: just grabbing anything that flew by his peripheral vision, anything
Speaker 1: he saw or he observed, and there would be times
Speaker 1: when that thing would be someone else's joke and he
Speaker 1: would work it into his own thing and to his
Speaker 1: own flow state, and wouldn't even realize what he was
Speaker 1: doing until it had been done. And I think at
Speaker 1: some point he actually had to cut back on how
Speaker 1: much time he was spending in these clubs in order
Speaker 1: to prevent this from happening so much. Bill Maher told
Speaker 1: some story at one point about how I don't know,
Speaker 1: in the seventies or early eighties, some discgruntled comic literally
Speaker 1: came up to Robin in a club and punched him
Speaker 1: in the face. But I'm not sure if that actually
Speaker 1: happened or not. But all that said, dude, artists steal shit,
Speaker 1: that's part of it. Paul Schrader stole from Frank Nugent,
Speaker 1: the screenwriter for The Searchers, Elvis Scott Stello stole from
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan, and then Olivia Rodrigo stole from its Costello.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, Robin Williams just
Speaker 1: did it better. He heard something and thought, oh, that's good,
Speaker 1: but here I'm going to elevate it. And I guarantee
Speaker 1: you that if you were to go back in time
Speaker 1: and watch some random comics set at the Comedy Store
Speaker 1: or whatever, late nineteen seventies and then you watched Robin
Speaker 1: on stage and he recycled that dude's joke. Robin's version
Speaker 1: would be funnier. There's an argument to be made that
Speaker 1: what makes a comic great isn't the joke per se,
Speaker 1: but it's how they tell the joke. That's the entire
Speaker 1: premise of the Aristocrats movie about that notorious dirty joke.
Speaker 1: It's like he was an old blues player, right, cutting
Speaker 1: heads in the clubs, a carving contest, as it were.
Speaker 1: But instead of blowing the other guy off the stage
Speaker 1: by playing better, Robin would blow them off the stage
Speaker 1: by playing their stuff better. What do you guys think
Speaker 1: about all that? What do you think about the controversy
Speaker 1: surrounding Robin Williams stealing jokes? What do you think about
Speaker 1: Robin as the ultimate flow state? Do you agree with me?
Speaker 1: Do you have your own take on this? Let me know.
Speaker 1: You can call me, You could text me six one
Speaker 1: seven nine oh six six six three eight.
Speaker 2: Listen.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've you've bought a bottle of this wine. If
Speaker 1: you're not saving it and you're gonna drink it, give
Speaker 1: us a hauler or let us know how it is.
Speaker 2: Does it live up to uh? The price?
Speaker 1: Tag sixty one seven nine oh six six six three eight.
Speaker 1: So all this flow state stuff got me inspired. And
Speaker 1: later on in this episode, I'll be joined by Jake
Speaker 1: Brennan from Disgraceland for our weekly Dirty Rex section. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be providing some recommendations for movies and music that
Speaker 1: are somehow in the flow state. Maybe they evoke a
Speaker 1: certain flow state, maybe they help get you in the
Speaker 1: flow state for something you're doing. Okay, however, we both
Speaker 1: true choose to interpret that is yet to be seen,
Speaker 1: So hang on and we'll do that in a moment.
Speaker 1: Then on Friday, I'm gonna be back here with a
Speaker 1: new installment of the Screening Room in which I'll do
Speaker 1: a deep dive into the nineteen ninety one Terry Gilliam
Speaker 1: film The Fisher King starring Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams.
Speaker 1: This is my favorite Robin Williams performance of all time.
Speaker 1: I think it is astounding work. Jeff Bridges is no
Speaker 1: slouch either. This is an undersung film that has resonated
Speaker 1: with me for some reason ever since I first saw
Speaker 1: it when it came out in the nineties, and I'm
Speaker 1: psyched that I have an opportunity to talk about it
Speaker 1: at length. I need to dust off my Criterion collection
Speaker 1: copy of this beforehand, which I'm looking to as well,
Speaker 1: looking forward to as well. It's a heavy movie, but
Speaker 1: it's a highly watchable heavy movie in my opinion. And
Speaker 1: then next week on Monday, our fully scripted sound design
Speaker 1: episode coming at you from the Archive, all about the
Speaker 1: Dating Game Killer, who was this very real dude back
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies who appeared as a contestant on
Speaker 1: the popular dating game TV show while he was in
Speaker 1: the middle of gruesome killing spree wild stuff. Listen, it's
Speaker 1: time for me to check out your voicemails, your texts,
Speaker 1: your emails, what you guys all have to say. And
Speaker 1: we're going to do that right after this quick break.
Speaker 1: Don't nobody go nowhere?
Speaker 2: All right? What's up?
Speaker 1: This goes Doctor Lundi, hanging with you here in the
Speaker 1: Hollywood Land Rap Party. Six one seven nine oh six
Speaker 1: six six three eight. That's how you get in touch.
Speaker 1: You can also email me Disgrace Lampod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Some of y'all choose the phone number, like Charlotte. Did
Speaker 1: hear from the five one nine?
Speaker 3: Matt?
Speaker 2: Can you play this voicemail?
Speaker 4: Hi, my name is Charlotte Sexmiths. I'm calling you from
Speaker 4: Lindy to Ontario, Canada. I read the article on uh
Speaker 4: George threatened Star eighty. I've seen the movie twice. I'm
Speaker 4: haunted by it. I mean, she was such a lovely,
Speaker 4: sweet young thing of a vapor. I am a Canadian,
Speaker 4: so Dorothy of course was a fallow Canadian. I agree
Speaker 4: that Eric Roberts is just top notch as the horrible
Speaker 4: character of her husband. It's a great movie. A lot
Speaker 4: of people, I think, feel to understand it's it's a
Speaker 4: total tragedy. She was like a fragile Roles Pedal. Great show.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Bye, Hey Charlotte, thank you so much for listening and
Speaker 1: for calling in sex Smith. Ron Sexsmith is a favorite
Speaker 1: singer songwriter mind from Canada. Any relation to Ron Sexsmith.
Speaker 1: Thanks for calling in and and and talking about Star eighty.
Speaker 1: It really is it's just a it's a tragedy.
Speaker 2: It's awful.
Speaker 1: I mean, anytime someone with so much promise and innocence
Speaker 1: and all that has it all ruined and taken away,
Speaker 1: it's just it's tragic. And I don't know, it's like
Speaker 1: I said this last week, a bunch. It's it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's such a great movie, but man, it's it's just
Speaker 1: makes you feel it's so dirty watching it, you know.
Speaker 1: But anyways, thanks Charlotte for calling in and giving us
Speaker 1: your take there.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Six one seven nine oh six six six three eight.
Speaker 1: On this topic of Star eighty, which we featured last
Speaker 1: week in the screening room here in Hollywood, Lands, got
Speaker 1: a text from Chris and the five to one to
Speaker 1: two was that Eric Roberts real self grown porn stash
Speaker 1: in Star eighty.
Speaker 2: You think that was a stunt stash, Chris, I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it was real because I know that
Speaker 1: Eric Roberts went full method for this role, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to imagine that growing and grooming this perfect skezoid
Speaker 1: mustache was part of his hit for lack of a
Speaker 1: better term methodology for his method acting there, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say, I'm gonna go I'm not going to look
Speaker 1: it up. I don't know if if it's if it's
Speaker 1: real or not, but I'm ninety nine percent sure that
Speaker 1: thing is real. Six one seven nine oh six six
Speaker 1: six three eight. Jeff in the nine oh two, writes
Speaker 1: in Hey Zeth, I found a list of the best
Speaker 1: movies with Gene Hackman in them. So I just watched
Speaker 1: The Conversation. That's another PI movie he's in and it's great. Also,
Speaker 1: can't mention the best Private Eye movies without mentioning the
Speaker 1: Maltese falcon, Jeff, I totally agree. Jeff was talking about
Speaker 1: last week? Was it last week? I think recently Jake
Speaker 1: and I were talking about Private Investigator inspired movies and music,
Speaker 1: and I think I did mention the Maltese fel. I
Speaker 1: ran off a really quick list of like twelve movies
Speaker 1: that were classic PI movies in my in my book,
Speaker 1: and I thought I mentioned that. But if I didn't,
Speaker 1: shame on me. The conversation is it's been said before,
Speaker 1: but it bears repeating. The Conversation was the movie that
Speaker 1: Coppola made between making The Godfather and The Godfather Part Two.
Speaker 1: In fact, both The Conversation and Godfather Part Two, if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, came out in the same year, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four, which is just wild that he made The
Speaker 1: Godfather to two years after Godfather one, and meanwhile, in
Speaker 1: between that he like bangs out the Conversation as well,
Speaker 1: which is one of the greatest movies about paranoia that
Speaker 1: ever came out in.
Speaker 2: Nineteen seventies cinema. And I agree with you.
Speaker 1: Gene Hackman's great in that he plays a credible saxophone
Speaker 1: player too. He's not not only a guy listening into
Speaker 1: the wiretap, but he's a saxophonist. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of movies that really piss you off when if you're
Speaker 1: a musician and you see someone playing an instrument and
Speaker 1: they're not playing it, Like if you see someone playing
Speaker 1: a guitar and the notes are like really high but
Speaker 1: their hands are down low on the neck, You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this takes me out of it, because.
Speaker 2: This is bullshit.
Speaker 1: He's a very credible saxophone player in this movie, too,
Speaker 1: So I'll give Gene Hackman that he could do it
Speaker 1: all Man, Jeff, thank you for listening.
Speaker 2: Thank you for.
Speaker 1: Texting six one seven, nine oh six six six three
Speaker 1: eight texts from Let's see Oh, text here from the
Speaker 1: two five Oh Hey Zeth British Columbian here love the
Speaker 1: show Vancouver, right is the term you're looking for to
Speaker 1: reference the people? Why thank you to five Oh I
Speaker 1: was I was wondering that out loud the other day
Speaker 1: the other week in one of these episodes, what do
Speaker 1: you call people from Vancouver? And I don't know that
Speaker 1: I would have ever landed on Vancouver?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: I love it? Thanks too?
Speaker 1: Five, Oh appreciate that. Six one seven nine oh six
Speaker 1: six six three eight. You can also email me Disgrace
Speaker 1: Lampod at gmail dot com, just like our guy Delbert here,
Speaker 1: who emailed a few weeks ago. Uh, just getting around
Speaker 1: to this now, Delbert about Uh. The subject line is
Speaker 1: top five biopicks. We were talking about biopics back when
Speaker 1: we were talking about Marilyn Monroe. All right, here's Delbert's
Speaker 1: top five biopicks email. Okay, technically it's seven. Here goes
Speaker 1: in no particular order. One mess Reen, both parts are
Speaker 1: excellent and Vincent Cassel is incredible. Number two Amadeas It
Speaker 1: won eight Oscars for a reason. Number three ed Wood
Speaker 1: just as weird as his movies and are really slept
Speaker 1: On Burton flick. Number four The Aviator Wild and possibly
Speaker 1: the second best DiCaprio performance. Number five Ray complete in
Speaker 1: most ways, honorable mention to the Doors not a great movie,
Speaker 1: horribly inaccurate, and it paints Jim in a bit of
Speaker 1: a junkie buffoon light. But Val Kilmer's performance is astonishing,
Speaker 1: especially that he sang those songs. And while I knew
Speaker 1: who the Doors were, it really pushed me into their
Speaker 1: records and created a super fan. Sorry, I was long winded,
Speaker 1: Rock co Rolla. Thanks Delbert, you weren't long winded. That
Speaker 1: was great. I don't know, all right in your list here,
Speaker 1: I don't know Messreen. I love Vincent Cassell. I was
Speaker 1: just talking about him the other day talking about Lehane.
Speaker 1: Great Vincent Cassel performance there. I gotta check this out.
Speaker 1: Haven't seen this. I love Amadeas Big, love ed Wood.
Speaker 1: I'm on the record for that. The Aviator, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I feel like people don't like The Aviator
Speaker 1: as much as you and I do, because I think
Speaker 1: the Aviator is incredible. I just the way it looks.
Speaker 1: I know, he did some funky shit. Scorsese does some
Speaker 1: funky shit with the way that film was processed or whatever, right,
Speaker 1: something with that with the colors, and I think DiCaprio
Speaker 1: is incredible in that movie. And I think it's such
Speaker 1: a it's such a watchable Scorsese movie, just to it's
Speaker 1: just so entertaining.
Speaker 2: But I'm curious.
Speaker 1: Now you said that's possibly the second best DiCaprio performance.
Speaker 1: I'm curious what you think the best Leonardo DiCaprio performance is.
Speaker 1: If you guys want to want to throw your pick
Speaker 1: in the ring, let me know. Disgrace Lampod at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks Delbert Rock and roller Buddy. Okay, I
Speaker 1: got one more email here I want to read today.
Speaker 1: I'm running out of time. This is long, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to get to it. And this also, listen, we're
Speaker 1: crossing this dreams here a little bit. This is a
Speaker 1: little bit more Disgraceland related because I was talking recently
Speaker 1: about how I just wrote a Disgraceland episode on Queen
Speaker 1: more on Freddie Mercury, but about Queen and about the
Speaker 1: real Freddie Mercury. Freddie Mercury, that you're not shown in
Speaker 1: the biopic of Bohemian Rhapsody that's coming to you, I
Speaker 1: think next month. So here's an email from Alyssa with
Speaker 1: the subject line Freddy, Hi, Jake, Hi, Zeth. You guys
Speaker 1: are awesome storytellers. I love the podcasts. I absolutely cannot
Speaker 1: wait for your episode on Queen and Freddie Mercury. I
Speaker 1: have been wondering if you would cover them, and I
Speaker 1: know you'll do it right. Huge Freddy fan over here,
Speaker 1: and I have been since his untimely passing in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one. I was thirteen at the time, and up
Speaker 1: until then I had no real exposure to their music.
Speaker 1: The I Want to Break Free video was enough to
Speaker 1: get them banned from American airwaves. Such bigotry. The announcement
Speaker 1: of Freddy's death by Kurt Loder on MTV News. Remember
Speaker 1: MTV and Wayne's World are what really introduced me to
Speaker 1: Queen Thanks Mike Myers. I heard Bookeem Rhapsody and that
Speaker 1: was it. I was obsessed. I'm still obsessed. I had
Speaker 1: the tattoos to prove it.
Speaker 2: Lol.
Speaker 1: The next Christmas, I received the entire CD collection, or
Speaker 1: at least everything my day could find, which was like
Speaker 1: fifteen CDs. Listened to them in order, over and over
Speaker 1: and over. I annoyed the shit out of my sister.
Speaker 1: I must have I must not have owned headphones. Remember
Speaker 1: the CD jackets they came with. I studied those while
Speaker 1: I listened. It was a spiritual experience. Freddie spoke straight
Speaker 1: to my heart and soul. I am who I am
Speaker 1: today because of Queen's music. As for the biopic, uugh, cringe.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of feelings about this. I was
Speaker 1: so excited for it, and all my friends thought I
Speaker 1: was just gonna love it. I saw it several times
Speaker 1: in the theater, mainly to hear the music, but it
Speaker 1: only took one time to know I didn't love it.
Speaker 1: I can't help it. I'm a Queen nerd. I knew
Speaker 1: too much to be able to enjoy it. This email
Speaker 1: is long and I could talk about this forever.
Speaker 3: Sorry.
Speaker 1: In short, they messed with the timeline and the facts
Speaker 1: and made Freddie out to be a villain. That pissed
Speaker 1: me off. What really irks me are people who never
Speaker 1: cared to know about him until they saw the movie,
Speaker 1: and now they think they know his story. They think
Speaker 1: Live Aid was their last performance false. They think Freddie
Speaker 1: was the only one who wanted to do solo work false.
Speaker 1: Brian and Roger also recorded solo albums. They think he
Speaker 1: knew before Live Aid that he was sick.
Speaker 2: False.
Speaker 1: There are so many inaccuracies. The only thing that saved
Speaker 1: the movie for me, besides the music, was the casting.
Speaker 1: The band was perfectly cast, I am so looking forward
Speaker 1: to your episode. I can't wait to see if I
Speaker 1: learned something new. Have you heard the rumor that they're
Speaker 1: making a second one? God, I wish they wouldn't rock
Speaker 1: a rolla Alyssa from the nine to one nine with
Speaker 1: a three three six number. Alyssa, thank you for that email.
Speaker 1: Never worry about being too long winded, short long, I'll
Speaker 1: take it all. I'm so glad that you're so into
Speaker 1: Queen and listen, you're like reading my mind here because
Speaker 1: our episode literally opens with basically a list of grievances
Speaker 1: on this biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, in the ways in which
Speaker 1: it was wrong and of course things. You know, movies
Speaker 1: have to change things in order to form a narrative,
Speaker 1: to tell a story. You've got to have a hero,
Speaker 1: you gotta have a villain, you gotta have all this
Speaker 1: stuff that the Hollywood wants in order to sell you
Speaker 1: a motion picture, as it were. But I feel like
Speaker 1: the list of grievances here is just too long, and
Speaker 1: you're right, it buries the real Freddie Mercury. And that's
Speaker 1: the aim of our episode is to find out through
Speaker 1: all of our deep research that we do to find
Speaker 1: out who the real Freddie Mercury was and bring that
Speaker 1: portrait to you. So thanks for writing in here, Alyssa,
Speaker 1: and I really hope you enjoyed the Queen episode when
Speaker 1: it comes out. And thanks to everybody here for indulging
Speaker 1: me in a little bit of crossing streams. Crossing the
Speaker 1: streams over to Disgrace Lands, now back to Hollywood Lands.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get Jake Brennan in the room here, Jake Brennan,
Speaker 1: A Mike. We're going to talk to you guys about
Speaker 1: movies and music they have to do with the flow state,
Speaker 1: the elusive flow state. So stay tuned. I'll be right
Speaker 1: back with JB. Don't go anywhere. Welcome back into the
Speaker 1: rap party. We are here in the Dirty Rex section.
Speaker 1: Do we have a theme song for Dirty Rex yet,
Speaker 1: Jake Brennan, I don't know that we do. Can it
Speaker 1: be Rex in effect? It should be that absolutely should be.
Speaker 3: I thought you were gonna say, we're here in the
Speaker 3: flow state, man.
Speaker 2: We are in the flow state.
Speaker 3: I love man.
Speaker 1: I hit the flow state the other day and it
Speaker 1: was fucking glorious.
Speaker 2: It was great.
Speaker 3: It's uh there there is no greater proof of God
Speaker 3: than the flow state, like for real. I mean that wholeheartedly.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: How you just you get to a point where your
Speaker 3: body and your mind are doing things that you're not
Speaker 3: telling it to do right, creatively, right, and uh, it is.
Speaker 3: It is a beautiful thing, and it's it's impossible to define.
Speaker 3: I don't think you can reason with it. I don't
Speaker 3: think science can define it.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: It's just it's it's the Holy Spirit, it's the Universe,
Speaker 3: it's whatever you want to call it. It's John Coltrane.
Speaker 3: It's there and it's happening, and we are all blessed
Speaker 3: and lucky to be able to tap into it whenever
Speaker 3: we can.
Speaker 1: Amen, brother, that's a great way to put it. I
Speaker 1: also think it's a product of for you know, an artist,
Speaker 1: a creator, a writer or whatever, it's a product of
Speaker 1: like preparation.
Speaker 2: And you and I have been.
Speaker 1: Talking a lot about this this week offline, about how
Speaker 1: most of writing is research, you know, Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think the more you can research something, at least for
Speaker 1: us or for me as a writer, the more I
Speaker 1: can research something, the more I can really put the
Speaker 1: reps in for like getting my arms around a story
Speaker 1: and around the character or whatever. When you go to
Speaker 1: write it. I feel like the flow state is much
Speaker 1: more accessible in that way.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, it's preparation, it's you know whatever the perspiration preparation
Speaker 3: percentage is that that's saying, yeah, there's a great thing
Speaker 3: in mad Men about this that's really undefined. But but
Speaker 3: Peggy is freaking out about something she has to present
Speaker 3: to Don. Don is like such a dick about it.
Speaker 3: It's great, and he's he's just I think he says
Speaker 3: something along the lines of like, just think about it deeply,
Speaker 3: over and over again, and then don't. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's really it. That is it in a nutshell, and
Speaker 3: it's amazing what your body will in your brain will
Speaker 3: do for you. Like we were talking the other day
Speaker 3: about a particular story and you were having a hard
Speaker 3: time with you know, it was an octopus. You're like,
Speaker 3: how do I fucking rain this thing in? And I
Speaker 3: was like, just tell me what the story is, Like
Speaker 3: you would tell me the story if we were sitting
Speaker 3: down at a bar, and don't go over like a
Speaker 3: paragraph and then everything in that is everything you need,
Speaker 3: and yeah, you know all this other stuff that is
Speaker 3: underneath it that's going to inform what you're creating. When
Speaker 3: you're in this in the state of flow, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Mel Robbins podcast. Everybody here.
Speaker 2: People were like, what the fuck am I listening to
Speaker 2: right now? Exactly? Two fucking guys, exactly.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: So I'm talking about the flow state because I had
Speaker 1: a whole thing in the earlier in this episode about
Speaker 1: Robin Williams sort of like the king of the flow state.
Speaker 1: And it's also very interesting how Robin Williams. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to beat the dead horse here, but because I've
Speaker 1: already talked about this, but I haven't talked about it
Speaker 1: with you, his flow state was the result of like
Speaker 1: the Malcolm Gladwell, like thousands of hours of practice. Like
Speaker 1: when he did something that seemed like it was sort
Speaker 1: of off the cuff in improv, he'd probably done it already,
Speaker 1: like in a different iteration, like twenty thirty other times
Speaker 1: before in the past. That's just sort of the way
Speaker 1: he operated. And so yes, he's in the flow state,
Speaker 1: and yes he's improving, but he's doing again it's the
Speaker 1: research thing, you know what I mean, He's gotten all
Speaker 1: this preparation. So anyways, so I was thinking about Rob
Speaker 1: Williams thinking about the flow state, and I was like,
Speaker 1: let's talk about music and movies that are in the
Speaker 1: flow state. However we want to interpret that because my
Speaker 1: choice is, I know, I'm going to probably read some
Speaker 1: of these You're gonna be like, how the fuck is
Speaker 1: that the flow state? But I'm gonna explain to you
Speaker 1: my thinking behind it, as I'm sure you will as well.
Speaker 3: Okay, cool, Yeah, that's right, man.
Speaker 2: But let's go with you first as we usually do.
Speaker 3: Okay, we'll start with music and mine. It's funny you
Speaker 3: mentioned improvisation as you're talking about saying that about Rob Williams.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about Rob Williams climbing the walls on the
Speaker 3: David Letterman Show back in the day, and you know,
Speaker 3: going into this like you know, just like offhand impersonation
Speaker 3: of Tom Waits, who you know, nobody really knew who
Speaker 3: the hell Tom Waits was at that point in the
Speaker 3: television audience at least, and everything that Robin Williams was
Speaker 3: bringing to the table was it was years of experience
Speaker 3: and quote unquote call it research if you will, and
Speaker 3: he's able to, like you said, improvise. And this brings
Speaker 3: me this album that I'm about to mention here I've written,
Speaker 3: guessing at least half of everything I've written in my
Speaker 3: life listening to this record. Okay, and it is by
Speaker 3: a great improviser, but it is not a record that
Speaker 3: is one of his more improvisational. I've bought so many
Speaker 3: copies of this album for friends. I have a copy
Speaker 3: of this is so I'm talking about John Coltrane ballads. Okay,
Speaker 3: this is nineteen sixty three. It's the Coltrane quartet, McCoy
Speaker 3: tyner and Jimmy Garrison and Coltrane, and they're tacking traditional
Speaker 3: standards pop songs essentially. And they didn't rehearse this album
Speaker 3: at all. They showed up, they read the charts, and
Speaker 3: they played it and they recorded it in the studio.
Speaker 3: And for me, this album is now It's not like
Speaker 3: the Coltrane you know, Giant Steps, twelve tone, Massive, their musicologist.
Speaker 3: It's not the spiritual coal Traine a Love Supreme. This
Speaker 3: is very traditional, It's very romantic, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Like if I remember hearing this album like right around
Speaker 3: the same time I was in my early twenties, and
Speaker 3: it was right around the same time that I was
Speaker 3: living in Alston, but I had just watched like Rear
Speaker 3: Window as an adult for the first time, and I
Speaker 3: had read I had read a Tom Wolf book and
Speaker 3: I was not not Tom Wolf, Thomas Wolf, and I
Speaker 3: was I was really like in that adult moment of
Speaker 3: living in the city, and it was all very sophisticated
Speaker 3: and romantic. That's the key word. This album is very romantic,
Speaker 3: and it makes you feel like you're in the first
Speaker 3: act of a Hitchcock movie before shit gets weird, right right,
Speaker 3: you know? You know?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And like I said, I've bought this record. I love
Speaker 3: it so much. I've bought so many copies of it.
Speaker 3: I have a copy somewhere in this room for Matt
Speaker 3: that I still haven't sent to him. He doesn't know yet,
Speaker 3: but now does I'm saying it publicly, so I actually
Speaker 3: send it to him. But it's just it's absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's one of the best sounding records Elliot I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: It just sounds so great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's why I bought it to
Speaker 3: sendhim Mac because I think we're talking about how incredible
Speaker 3: it sounds. Yeah, So that's number one. I put it
Speaker 3: on and I write constantly.
Speaker 1: That's funny because I put on Coltrane's ol A is
Speaker 1: my my go to for writing, especially the first the
Speaker 1: title track is like basically just a one cord vamp
Speaker 1: for like what, I don't know how long it is,
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes or something whatever. That's like my go to,
Speaker 1: Like I love it can't be too far out there, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it can't be too slow for like, ballads is
Speaker 1: a little too slow for me to write to. I
Speaker 1: need something a little bit more kinetic in my head
Speaker 1: to write to.
Speaker 3: So oh, I got you covered there. It's not a wreck,
Speaker 3: but I'm gonna give this to here right now. Okakay.
Speaker 3: This is new for me because for the same exact reason,
Speaker 3: I've been like, I need something a little more fucking
Speaker 3: I can't how many times can I listen to Giant
Speaker 3: Steps while I'm writing right, which is another col Traine record. Okay,
Speaker 3: oh dude, where is this thing? Hold On? I got
Speaker 3: it saved in my playlist. Hold On, this is it's
Speaker 3: The playlist is called fast bebop jazz only in some fusion,
Speaker 3: and it's a lot of modern stuff, a lot of
Speaker 3: like Japanese stuff.
Speaker 1: Was this what you were playing the other day when
Speaker 1: we were we met up in Boston? When you were
Speaker 1: when we were having our team meeting and you had
Speaker 1: you were like, oh, yeah, yeah, I had it going
Speaker 1: on where you could call it like cocaine jazz or.
Speaker 3: Something cocaine jazz. It's absolutely cocaine jazz, Japanese cocaine. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3: But sometimes though you know ballads because it's pop songs,
Speaker 3: it's standards in Coultrane. Yeah, he's improvising with it, right,
Speaker 3: but it's not far improvisation. It's still a little too familiar.
Speaker 3: And if I'm writing, it'll take me, it'll It'll just
Speaker 3: cause me to focus on the music, which I don't
Speaker 3: necessarily want it to do. I wanted to be flowing
Speaker 3: in the background behind me, and I wanted to add
Speaker 3: to the ambiance and the romance of it all. So
Speaker 3: if I need something that is like musical white noise,
Speaker 3: like not literally white noise, but just like it's pleasant
Speaker 3: and it's in my noise canceling headphones and I can't
Speaker 3: hear the kids, there's this. There's a bunch of playlists
Speaker 3: by It's called Lo Fi Girl on on Spotify. This
Speaker 3: is You're gonna listen to this, You're gonna be like,
Speaker 3: what the fuck is Jake smoking. But it's it's very
Speaker 3: much like inspired by the whole Lofi j. Dilla type
Speaker 3: of instrumental hip hop.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but again it's like musical white noise. It is
Speaker 3: so nonspecific and it is it's just there's a blankness
Speaker 3: to it. Yeah, I forget it's there. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 3: doing what it needs to do. It's all instrumental. It
Speaker 3: predates artificial intelligence music. So when you hear it, do
Speaker 3: not think I'm listening to some AI bullshit. I mean
Speaker 3: there's a human involved with a bunch of electronics. Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how much how much real instrumentation is
Speaker 3: recorded in this stuff, but it inspired me in this
Speaker 3: weird way like it inspired I was like, oh, what
Speaker 3: if we made this noir and that's how we created
Speaker 3: all that music? That was the seed for all that
Speaker 3: music and blood on the tracks. Oh now I use
Speaker 3: all over Disgraceland. Yeah, but we use you know, for
Speaker 3: the most part, real instruments and you know a lot
Speaker 3: of plugins and stuff too. But okay, so those are
Speaker 3: the two. Now this one is when I need to
Speaker 3: get in an entirely different type of flow state. Okay,
Speaker 3: this is for when this next recommendation is for when
Speaker 3: I need to do shit I don't want to fucking do,
Speaker 3: like stuff I have to do after we tape this,
Speaker 3: I have to fucking set up cameras and lighting and
Speaker 3: microphones and shit that I will fucking procrastinate. I'll be like,
Speaker 3: now's a good time to make that big Z that
Speaker 3: I start a recipe in the New York Times for
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, like, and I'll go fucking
Speaker 3: do that, or I'll just like zone out in front
Speaker 3: of MLB TV and watch the fucking Pirates game that's
Speaker 3: on or whatever, you know what I mean. Like, of
Speaker 3: course this this is like, no, dude, get up and
Speaker 3: fucking do the thing you do not want to do.
Speaker 3: And it is this record. It's not like co It's
Speaker 3: not the cocaine jazz because that just adds a mania
Speaker 3: that I don't want to deal with at that point.
Speaker 3: This is a groove, but it's heavy and it's it's
Speaker 3: the Obsessed album from nineteen ninety four called The Church Within. Okay, Now,
Speaker 3: now you might look on Spot, if some might look
Speaker 3: on Spot of Hybrid's Records twenty fourteen, that's the reissue
Speaker 3: The Real Shit nineteen ninety four. I have a copy
Speaker 3: of this on vinyl. It is heavy as fuck, but
Speaker 3: it is groove. It is like all mid tempo groove
Speaker 3: by this incredible metal band from the Washington DC area
Speaker 3: in the nineteen nineties called The Obsessed, led by a
Speaker 3: singer guitar player named Whino who is the front man
Speaker 3: who was in a band called Saint Vitas as well.
Speaker 3: I don't know how we get onto this record as kids,
Speaker 3: because it was too mature for us. I know that
Speaker 3: I Makai from Fugazi and Henry Rowinds were big into
Speaker 3: this band. They're DC guys, and I think I think
Speaker 3: we read it in an interview or something, and that's
Speaker 3: what we had this shit when it was out like that.
Speaker 3: I mean, they broke up for years after that. Now
Speaker 3: they're like, they go on tour in Europe and they're
Speaker 3: celebrated and everything. This record start to finish, it does
Speaker 3: not fucking quit. It is a relentless groove and it
Speaker 3: is incredible. It's like it's like if Motorhead like did
Speaker 3: if they did more kayludes instead of amphetamines. That that's
Speaker 3: what this sounds like.
Speaker 2: Sweet. I love that.
Speaker 3: So those are my three The Obsessed in reverse order,
Speaker 3: The Obsessed Low Fi Girl Playlist on Spotify and John
Speaker 3: Coltrane ballads.
Speaker 2: Awesome Dude, Great Great Great Dirty Rex. I love those.
Speaker 3: Yeah, those are pretty dirty. They're all pretty dirty.
Speaker 1: So it's hard talking about movies and flow states in
Speaker 1: the same way because I don't put a movie on
Speaker 1: to sort of get in the flow state to do
Speaker 1: something else. I put a movie on to watch the movie.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, unlike you with you know, you got
Speaker 1: Criterion Channel in the background all.
Speaker 3: The time, right right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I was thinking about recent movies i've and how
Speaker 1: I could sort of shoehorn these into flow state ideas,
Speaker 1: and I got some good ones.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: The first one is I saw for the first time
Speaker 1: this movie from twenty fourteen called Nightcrawler with Jake Jillenhall,
Speaker 1: was written and directed by Tony Gilroy. No, Tony Gilroy
Speaker 1: is the other guy. Dan Gilroy is his brother. Tony
Speaker 1: Gilroy did Michael Clayton and lots of other great shit,
Speaker 1: and Dan was largely a screenwriter, and this is his
Speaker 1: first directorial effort. Nightcrawler. Jake Jillenhall, for those who haven't
Speaker 1: seen it, he's like this sociopath living in La. He's
Speaker 1: like a bottom feeder thief who steals scraps and metal
Speaker 1: and fences and whatever and sells them to like junk yards.
Speaker 1: And he comes across like an accident or something on
Speaker 1: the street at night, and there's like freelance photojournalists who
Speaker 1: show up to get the scoop, to get the footage,
Speaker 1: to get the pictures whatever to sell to the news stations,
Speaker 1: and so he sort of takes it upon himself to
Speaker 1: become one of those people and inserts himself into this
Speaker 1: and it's like you're in this eyes head and Jake
Speaker 1: Jonenhall is incredible in this movie. His eyes, he has
Speaker 1: the most bugged out eyes, Like his eyes are huge anyways,
Speaker 1: but his eyes are fucking saucers in this movie in
Speaker 1: the most disturbing way. And he's such a disturbed person.
Speaker 1: It's almost like Travis Bickle level disturbed. And you're just
Speaker 1: sort of in his head as he's just sort of
Speaker 1: like navigating this neon lit, grimy, bloody, violent again bottom
Speaker 1: heating sort of like uh environment, and it feels very
Speaker 1: like you're in You're you're he's in this flow state
Speaker 1: and you're in it with him.
Speaker 5: Okay, this is the Cocaine Jazz film recommendation because I
Speaker 5: would not. Maybe we have different ideas of what flow
Speaker 5: state films are, but I'm I'm like literally going like shit,
Speaker 5: do I need to do a wellness check on Zeth
Speaker 5: right now? Like?
Speaker 2: How listen?
Speaker 3: How the fuck is Nightcrawler? The flow state? This movie
Speaker 3: is psychotic?
Speaker 1: I know, it's like a psychotic flow state. You're listen,
Speaker 1: That's where I'm at right now.
Speaker 3: All right, Yeah, you've been up all the kids, kid.
Speaker 1: All right, then you're gonna love my next my next one.
Speaker 1: Then my next pick is David Cronenberg's History of Violence
Speaker 1: from two thousand and five with Vigo Mortensen, also with
Speaker 1: an fucking incredible Ed Harris disfigured Ed Harris never.
Speaker 3: Seen this movie?
Speaker 1: Oh man, dude, Ed Harris is like so chilling in
Speaker 1: this movie. Vigo Mortensen plays this this mild mannered father
Speaker 1: husband lives in this small town. He owns a diner.
Speaker 1: He has a very like basic quote unquote boring regular
Speaker 1: life or whatever, until these two drifters come through his
Speaker 1: diner and they try to rob the place, and they
Speaker 1: try to assault one of his employees, and he sort
Speaker 1: of jumps into action and takes these two guys down,
Speaker 1: kills them, and suddenly there are people coming ed Harris
Speaker 1: and others coming from the city looking for like talking
Speaker 1: to Vigo Mortenson, calling him by a different name, and
Speaker 1: because he's he's suddenly he's this like hero, He's all
Speaker 1: over the news, and like it's like his past comes in.
Speaker 1: And it's at this point that like Vigo's character sort
Speaker 1: of hits his own flow state and that he sort
Speaker 1: of gradually becomes this person that he used to be,
Speaker 1: that nobody knows about, his family doesn't know about, and
Speaker 1: you're sort of watching him become this person in real time.
Speaker 2: It's it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 3: That's cool.
Speaker 1: But anyway, his character is sort of in that that
Speaker 1: flow state. I think at that point that's what I
Speaker 1: was thinking about there, Okay, okay, and then my third pick.
Speaker 1: I may have mentioned this in Hollywood and somewhere recently,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if you and I have talked
Speaker 1: about this directly, But when I think about a movie
Speaker 1: that feels to me like it was conceived, written, shot
Speaker 1: in a flow state, it's shot in a way that's
Speaker 1: like it seems certainly illegal, though hey it was made.
Speaker 1: Is this new film Nirvana, the band the show. The
Speaker 1: movie directed by Matt Johnson, who just did There's a
Speaker 1: New Tony, the new Anthony Bourdain movie that's out. Matt
Speaker 1: Johnson directed that as well. He's a great Canadian director comedian.
Speaker 1: This movie is is, it's it's one of the best
Speaker 1: movies to not describe to anybody and just say you
Speaker 1: just need to see it.
Speaker 3: I've heard this, but I've heard that. I've heard that
Speaker 3: before from people, so now just I'm going to I
Speaker 3: have to watch this now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's I mean, you'll love it too, because
Speaker 1: it's about like there's music shit in it because they're
Speaker 1: they're basically they're like a two man band called Nirvana
Speaker 1: with two ends well I guess three ends total. And
Speaker 1: there's like a whole back to the future thing with
Speaker 1: it because they have a van which they've they've made
Speaker 1: to be like the DeLorean, and so it's like they're
Speaker 1: trying to get a gig and they go back and
Speaker 1: tell and when you're watching this, it just it feels
Speaker 1: like it's kinetic. You can see him like writing this,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that's not how it was conceived. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it was much more complex than that. But it
Speaker 1: just feels like you're in a creator's flow state mind,
Speaker 1: state of mind when you're watching this. So that's my
Speaker 1: third recommendation. Nirvana, the Band, the Show, the movie, A
Speaker 1: History of Violence, and Nightcrawler.
Speaker 3: All right, I'm gonna start with move on to the Band,
Speaker 3: the Show, of the movie, and then I don't know
Speaker 3: why I've been I've been putting off the History of
Speaker 3: violand since it came out because I don't know, it
Speaker 3: just feels like it's so in my lane. But I
Speaker 3: never thought of the Ed Harris of it all, So
Speaker 3: I'll go there. Yeah, you dig it real quick, super quick.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Three flow state movies for me, just finished for the
Speaker 3: upteenth time watching Good Shepherd last night. Definitely a flow
Speaker 3: state movie. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. McCabe and Missus Miller
Speaker 3: by Robert Altman, and the king of flow state movies
Speaker 3: for me, which is Billy the Kid H. Garrett and
Speaker 3: Billy the Kailly the Kid by Sam Peckhambott.
Speaker 1: I almost I almost uh did that because I just
Speaker 1: rewatched that recently.
Speaker 3: The soundtrack has so much to do actually with both
Speaker 3: of Leonard Cohen and mccab and Missus Miller for sure.
Speaker 1: I Altman actually, Altman might be the king of the
Speaker 1: flow state movie because Nashville is such a flow state
Speaker 1: movie too.
Speaker 3: I need to rewatch that, I absolutely need. I just
Speaker 3: read a James James Elroyd review of Nashville. Yea, and yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like when you think about James alroy in Nashville,
Speaker 3: You're like, what how does this work? But then I'm like,
Speaker 3: I gotta fucking remer.
Speaker 2: I mentioned this last week.
Speaker 1: I love the line where he says, this is the
Speaker 1: movie that Sin and Dinks thinks, Citizen Kane.
Speaker 3: Is whatever thinks Citizen Kane is.
Speaker 2: Oh god, He's like, this is this is the great
Speaker 2: American movie. And he might be right.
Speaker 3: We should do a thing somehow where where we celebrate creators,
Speaker 3: but specifically filmmakers who become like like ultra versions of themselves.
Speaker 3: And it doesn't work, like Altman went on to do
Speaker 3: the Altman thing so over the top, you know, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, everybody does it. You just keep
Speaker 3: indulging the thing that's working until it lets you right,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. Like, that's a really interesting
Speaker 3: thing to try and figure out.
Speaker 2: It's true. Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Can think of it. I don't want to piss people
Speaker 3: off because he's a sacred cow. But David Lynch has
Speaker 3: his version of this. Sure, that's what's worthy of discussion.
Speaker 3: They all do. They all do. David Chase from the Sopranos. Yep,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: You could uh yeah, yeah, you can argue. I mean
Speaker 1: it's it must be inevitable to a certain degree.
Speaker 3: I think, so unless you get out, unless you go,
Speaker 3: unless you put it. But the weird thing is, as
Speaker 3: a creator, you have to do something different, which can
Speaker 3: then in turn subvert the thing that you're doing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. Yeah, for sure, it's a
Speaker 3: very interesting concept concept. And then there's the revert the
Speaker 3: opposite of that, which is like the Ramones or ac DC,
Speaker 3: you just do the same fucking thing over and over
Speaker 3: and over again, right, But then they they hit a
Speaker 3: wall as well, and you get fucking blue Balls or
Speaker 3: whatever that ac DC album is, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: Like like, we're not having an ACDC conversation. You gotta go,
Speaker 3: I gotta go. I gotta put on fucking some cocaine
Speaker 3: jazz and get out of here.
Speaker 1: Sweet all right, I'm gonna put on a cocaine movie.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you later later, brother, All right, gang,
Speaker 1: there you go. Flow state recommendations. I'm curious what you
Speaker 1: think about when you think about flow states in movies.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to recommend an Altman film right off
Speaker 1: the top there, because I thought it was just a
Speaker 1: little too predictable, which is why I went with those
Speaker 1: other recommendations. Those are all movies i'd either seen for
Speaker 1: the first time recently or i'd rewatched again recently, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to find a way to talk about them
Speaker 1: as flow state films. But I'm curious, what do you
Speaker 1: think about when you think about flow states and film?
Speaker 1: Is Robert Altman the greatest film? Flow state?
Speaker 2: Dude?
Speaker 1: Do you think Jake is crazy for not thinking that
Speaker 1: Nightcrawler is a flow state film?
Speaker 2: Hit me up?
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm the crazy one.
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: What is that thing, the Reddit thing that maybe I'm
Speaker 1: the asshole? Hit me up and let me know. Six
Speaker 1: one seven nine oh six six six three eight, Leave
Speaker 1: me a voicemail, send to me a text. You can
Speaker 1: also email me disgracelampod at gmail dot com, or if
Speaker 1: you are a member of Disgraceland all access over in Patreon,
Speaker 1: get at me in the chat as speaking of Disgraceland
Speaker 1: all access in Patreon real quick. If you're not yet
Speaker 1: a member, you're missing out on. This film should be
Speaker 1: played loud. Of the video podcast that Jake and I
Speaker 1: host together. It's all about the great great music, soundtracks, scores,
Speaker 1: needle drops from some of our favorite movies of all time.
Speaker 1: We do that exclusively over in Patreon. Get over there
Speaker 1: and get caught up because we've got a brand new
Speaker 1: episode on Licorice Pizza that is dropping a week from today.
Speaker 2: Over there.
Speaker 1: All you gotta do is go to disgracelandpod dot com
Speaker 1: and there's info on the homepage to get you signed up.
Speaker 1: And even better right now if you sign up at
Speaker 1: the Sound and Fury tier, our video tier essentially, which
Speaker 1: gets you this film should be played loud. It gets
Speaker 1: you the edited video version of the Disgraceland after party
Speaker 1: every week with me and Jake. It gets you ad free.
Speaker 1: Listening to the entire catalog of both Disgraceland and Hollywood
Speaker 1: Land also gets you twenty four to seven chat with
Speaker 1: other discos there. People have been talking about the death
Speaker 1: of Hayden Panitieri. They've been talking about this new Manson
Speaker 1: show on Netflix. Someone was talking about implementing a new
Speaker 1: Friday recommendations discussion. So a lot going on over there.
Speaker 1: So again, disgrace lampod dot com to sign up. If
Speaker 1: you sign up right now through I think it's through
Speaker 1: the near the end of the month, it's like, not
Speaker 1: this Sunday, but the following Sunday. You can get twenty
Speaker 1: percent off either a monthly or an annual subscription on
Speaker 1: the Sound and Fury tier. So do that, do it now?
Speaker 2: Check.
Speaker 1: We got all kinds of episodes there on Bogie Nights
Speaker 1: and Goodfellas and Trainspotting and High Fidelity and the Big Lebowski.
Speaker 1: It's a great time.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: While you're doing that, let me recap real quick here
Speaker 1: before I let you guys go number one first of all,
Speaker 1: right now in your Hollywoodland feed our episode on Robin Williams.
Speaker 1: Number two coming at you this Friday. We've got a
Speaker 1: new episode of the Screening Room right here in Hollywood Land,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking this week all about the nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: one Terry Gilliam film The Fisher King. Number three. Next
Speaker 1: week on Monday, we're bringing you our fully scripted and
Speaker 1: sound design episode on the dating game Killer Number four.
Speaker 1: Over in our sister show, Disgraceland, We've got a previously
Speaker 1: all access exclusive episode that might be new to you,
Speaker 1: all about the mighty Alman Brothers and they're run in
Speaker 1: with the so called Dixie Mafia. Go eat a peach
Speaker 1: and check that out on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Number five. This film
Speaker 1: should be played loud our video podcasts. I know I
Speaker 1: just mentioned it, but it bears repeating. Available exclusively to
Speaker 1: Disgraceland All Access members on Patreon. Go to disgracelampod dot
Speaker 1: com to sign up today and for a limited time,
Speaker 1: get twenty percent off sound and Fury tear membership. Okay now, then,
Speaker 1: in honor of this week's episode, Here's what America was
Speaker 1: watching at the movies in August of twenty fourteen, the
Speaker 1: month that Robin Williams died at the age of sixty three.
Speaker 1: Number one Guardians of the Galaxy, directed by James Gunn.
Speaker 1: Number two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles directed by Jonathan Leebsman's
Speaker 1: Number three Let's Be Cops director directed by Luke Greenfield.
Speaker 1: Number four Directed Into the Blue Systrom direct directed by
Speaker 1: Luke soon the number number five into the store Patrick
Speaker 1: directed by Stephensuyale. Halls eight, number six one hundred Foot
Speaker 1: Journeys directed by Lassie Hallstrom. Hughes Number seven A The
Speaker 1: Expendables three direct directed by Patrick Hughes
Speaker 3: Quit talking and start mixing.