Transcription
Sit back down, stay a bit. Oh, okay. You do know CAC was ours, right? That Al put that polak's fat ass in office, but now this fair is coming, this World's Fair. A lot of money to be made; gambling and beer right there on the grounds if it's legal by then, or if not in the speaks. Either way, it's our beer they'll be drinking.
Now the city fathers want 10%. Tony Camac to clean up the town, but how can Tony do that and give people what they want? Like, gambling and beer? I'll tell you how: by putting the screws to the old Capone mob. The fed's got a lot of mileage out of sending Al up, so Surmac teams up with the smaller mobs. Then Roger Tui, Ted Newberry, small fry he can control, and throw us to the goddamn wolves—the outfit that made the son of a—.
I don't doubt you're right, Mr. Nitti, but what does it have to do with me?
I just thought you might like to know Ted Newberry put up 15 grand for anybody who'd bump me—open contract.
You sure of this?
I don't fuck with three leaking wounds in me. Added to all the different ways the two Haries screwed you over is they wasn't going to cut you in.
Fuck a duck.
Yeah, fuck a duck indeed. Just thought you'd like to know something for you to, uh... what's the word? Contemplate before this goes to trial.
Thank you, Frank. I hope you get well. You know, Nate, I believe you do.
Uh, Louie, I'll need my gun back. Okay? It’s got sentimental value—give the man his gun back, Louie.
[Music]
I’ve heard it said before, like it was a very smart man named Robert Meyer Burnett who said the currency of our current age is authenticity, and it’s so true.
[Music]
Well, greetings. Imagine Con once again; it’s I, your Duke of Dope Discourse, your master of fun and wonder, your Viceroy of Vera Similitude, your sayer of SII and cinema, your evangelist of the imagination. This is artwork by Mark Churay, who's no longer with us. Mark C, I miss Mark C. And, of course, your existential Mr. Rogers, Robert Meyer Burnett. And I'm, of course, Rob casting to you, imagination connoisseurs, right here from the Rob Observatory.
It's Saturday night... um, dance to the rhythm of the rock and roll, right? Or Saturday night's all right for fighting. You know, whatever your '70s music is that you prefer, which is what we're going to be talking about... uh, hey, I don't judge. I don't judge at all. Yes, I do; that's not true, I judge. I'm very judgy, as Elizabeth says.
Uh, I'm a snob. The first place I look when I go to people's houses or their bookshelves, and I judge. I admit! And if you have a physical media collection, you're judged. You're judged! Judging McJudgerson is in the house.
But anyway, you know what I did? Yesterday, I finished TR Noir episode two. That was a clip from TR Noir episode 2. That's the second time that our hero, Nathan Heller, meets Frank Nitty, David Strathairn’s Frank Nitty. He's been shot three times in that scene.
And, um, yeah, I'm very excited for you to hear all this. It's coming soon. I don't know; it’s probably not going to come next week but the week after. I just want to catch up a little more, get episodes three and four done so we can keep on our release schedule.
And of course, if you sponsored the show on our Kickstarter, which you can still go and pre-order at TR Noir, you’ll get it early. You’ll get your own digital download, which is exciting!
So anyway, you know I always get articles and things sent to me by you, you beautiful imagination connoisseurs. And Stubble McShane sent me a really interesting article that came out of Time that I thought was great. So thank you for that, Stubble.
But I want to talk about nostalgia and entertainment. You know, I frequently, when I opine about these things, especially about Star Trek, there's always somebody that comes after me and goes, "You know, um, you just want things to be the way they were in the past, the way they were when you were a kid." And when it comes to Star Trek, that doesn't make any sense to me because, as I've said many times on this show, Star Trek evolved as I got older. Literally, Star Trek evolved with me.
I started watching it as a 5-year-old; then the Animated Series came on, and then after the Animated Series went off the air, five years later, there was Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Three years after that, there was Star Trek II, then Star Trek III, then Star Trek IV in '86, Next Generation in '87, Deep Space Nine in 1993, Voyager in '95, Enterprise in 2001, and now the swill we've been served up since 2009.
So it's devolved! I've watched Star Trek evolve and now devolve. But anyway, that doesn't hold water. I am not somebody that wallows in nostalgia, even though it might seem like I do. I'm always looking for the new—I'm always looking for something exciting. The things I particularly like? You know, movies mostly.
But I do like television. I think there is a stagnation. Look, there's still good shows—The Diplomat Season 2 is shaping up quite nicely. I really like season one. But we, I think when it comes to the art form, I love cinema. It has kind of reached a place where there’s not a lot further it can go, really, because unless you're going to change the actual medium.
Um, obviously, film was something that wasn’t possible, really. The first movies were made in the late 1800s, and then we got the first feature in the early 1900s and the 20th century. And then it went from there and our technology grew.
1927 was the advent of sound. And then, of course, we went from black and white to color, and then we had—we went from our optically printed effects technology to CGI. But I don't think that there's a lot further film can go.
It's going to change. It's going to morph into things. We now have video games. I mean, I've often said that movies are the art form of the 20th century; video games, as they progress, and probably virtual reality environments and sandbox games, whether it's Neuromancer, Snow Crash, or Ready Player One, I think that's where we're going to evolve the gaming.
I've often thought that where film was in '27 with the advent of sound, gaming would probably be there—maybe a little later. But we're going to get some incredible stuff as AI technology dovetails with gaming technology.
So, if anything, I do hark back to the time when films mattered more to our culture. Nowadays, entertainment is so bifurcated, fractured in so many different ways—it’s not bifurcated; it’s blown apart into millions of tiny little pieces.
But the point is I'm still looking for something that's new. Like, I don't just go back and watch movies I love; although I do that more and more. Movies that have had an effect on me or movies that resonated with me—the stories, the acting, the filmmaking.
Um, it's funny; I was listening to NPR, and they had a clip. Terry Garr was talking about how she got cast in The Conversation. She really only has one scene, and I’d forgotten about that. I’d forgotten Terry Garr was in The Conversation. And I enjoyed that, so I went back and watched The Conversation.
Great film! You know, I've probably seen that movie... but I find that movie even now more fulfilling, even though I’ve seen it a dozen times. And I think it's because, I don’t know if it's a product of the educational system, but I think that movies were more mature somehow. There was a maturity to our dramas, the films that were released in theaters.
Now, I would say that, you know, I've talked a lot about this. If they made The Verdict, which is a favorite film of mine, if they made The Verdict today, they would make it as an 8 to 10 episode streaming series, and it would have that same emotional gravitas—probably.
But because the studio system has evolved out, they're not interested in making those kinds of movies anymore. That stuff’s gone to streaming. So entertainment has changed.
But nostalgia is still a big thing, and I wanted to start out by reading a first—this was Stubble sent me this article. This is not the article he sent me; I'm going to read that next—but this was something I wanted to delve into. I thought it was interesting.
I got this from a website called Beyond Philosophy, creating consumer-driven growth. It's like a marketing website. And I found this—I thought this was pretty interesting just to see. You know, I cast a wide net when I'm surfing the web, finding things interesting to bring to you.
So here's this article:
"Why Nostalgia is Not Just a Thing of the Past but the Present."
People look back on their childhood and talk about how terrible it was—mine wasn’t, however. They often do it with a fondness that belies their words. Looking back at the earlier period, they feel good about it, no matter how terrible it was in their description.
Customers do this too, so the question I pose today is: what part of your customer's past would they want to relive? People do want to relive their pasts. For example, at our global customer experience consultancy, we take clients on study tours. These tours are a behind-the-scenes look at organizations that we admire for their outstanding customer experience.
One of the places we often go in London is to the largest toy store in the world, Hamley on Regent Street. It’s a lot like FAO Schwarz in New York's Times Square, but it’s not there. This must be an old article. We learn from management that nostalgia drives many of the purchases by parents. Parents want their kids to play with the same toys they had.
That's why Monopoly is still around and causing family rifts to this day. I would say Monopoly is still around 'cause it's a great game. I still have a scar from an injury inflicted by my brother during Monopoly—he cheated, by the way.
I am guilty of this too. We have some special toys that our kids used to play with up in our attic. We brought them down for our grandchildren. It's surprising how much enjoyment they get from it and how much money it must have saved us. Buying all those toys again would have cost us an arm and a leg.
This Toy Story example poses an interesting question that we asked during a recent podcast: What place does nostalgia have in your customer experience? Nostalgia is a form of memory, or looking back at earlier periods in our own lives and feeling good about it.
So nostalgia creates a positive emotion. We look back on childhood, high school, college days, or even when our kids were babies because they evoke pleasant feelings. However, the things that we remember don't always have to be positive. We can be nostalgic about adverse events too. In those cases, we often feel nostalgic because of how far we've come or what we've learned from it.
For example, people who grew up in London during the bombings of World War II will still feel nostalgic about it—well, those that are still here. However, they don't think that way because they want to relieve the terror of it. Instead, they feel nostalgic because of what they learned from it or how close that it made them as a family or something like that.
There's a fantastic Monty Python sketch called "The Four Yorkshiremen." It's a group of older men sitting around one-upping each other about how terrible their childhoods were. However, it is distinctly nostalgic. It's funny in part because it is such a common phenomenon.
People look back on their childhood and talk about how terrible it was. Many of you have heard the trope about walking uphill both ways to school in the snow or how in the old days the reusable water bottle was a garden hose, or watched middle-aged people laugh when you play the sound of a fax machine or dial-up internet tones. Each of these things is distinctly worse than what is available today.
Still, people are nostalgic for them—talking in favorable terms about how tough or resilient it made them, or how good it made them appreciate the good things. We have a positive reaction to those memories.
My son, who’s 32, sent me a picture of a vinyl turntable. I thought to myself, "Don’t you have Spotify on your phone? What’s the point of having vinyl?" But then I remember the touch and feel of listening to a record.
First, you can see the artwork on the front, which you don't get on streaming. Then there was the process of loading the record. First, you pull the album out of the sleeve and place it on the deck. Then carefully guide the arm to set the needle on the outside edge. All types of things bring you back to days gone past.
A vast industry exists around nostalgia. For example, the entertainment industry thrives on it. There are reboots and remakes of properties that existed decades ago, like the He-Man cartoon. The 1980s version of He-Man featured bad animation and almost nonsensical storylines. I can hear people crying out from here.
Nonetheless, people who grew up watching them have very fond memories of them because it recalls a part of their childhood. That’s only one example of dozens in entertainment. Online music streaming services have channels dedicated to the '70s, the '80s, or the '90s. Cable channels play classic black-and-white films like Casablanca or Harvey.
These old songs and movies draw on these positive feelings for earlier times in our lives. Twenty years ago, we went on a family holiday to Florida. Whenever we go away on holiday, there's always one piece of music that sticks. For this trip, it was "It’s a Fine Line" by Hootie and the Blowfish. If I play that now, it reminds us of that holiday—that vacation.
So it's as if some things, like audio or tactile stuff or even smells, that got pushed into your memory—so when you reencounter them, you recall that moment. Nostalgia serves psychological benefits for us, so we seek it out.
For example, if you're feeling low or missing a loved one who has moved away, you might seek out things like songs specifically because they will help you make you—they will help make you nostalgic, which can help strengthen us or make us feel better. People love telling stories in a customer experience setting. I would advise people to listen to them. Every person you meet gives you an insight into that person and what's important to them.
Consider how firms leverage nostalgia in some cases. The nostalgia creates a halo effect.
For example, car commercials use songs that appeal to their target customers. I still remember back in 2001 when Cadillac used "Rock and Roll" by Led Zeppelin in their commercial. The implication is that if Led Zeppelin let them use the song, the cars must be as cool as the band.
You see a similar effect in celebrity endorsements. People like the celebrity endorser, and therefore, they like your brand more. It can work the same way with nostalgia. If people feel nostalgic while having a customer experience, that can bleed over and make them like your experience more.
For example, I'm buying my first electric guitar, and I need an amp. I'm looking at the Fender amps. When you look at one, they look like they're straight out of the 1950s or '60s. They have knobs and dials. They are not modern looking, but that's what I want.
Applying this to your experience, my buying experience for the amp shows that understanding what makes your customers feel nostalgic is essential for replicating the experience. When people look back in time, things seem more authentic.
For example, the food was better, and the fabrics and clothing were more excellent. By contrast, some experiences in the present can feel less authentic—with convenience foods and synthetic materials and other things like that. By incorporating reflective elements into your experience, you can increase the feelings of authenticity, which can evoke nostalgia.
We've talked about nostalgia as being a memory concept, construct, and it is, but it's also an emotional construct. Many complicated emotions are tied up in nostalgia too. For many people, nostalgia is a feeling of security. It happened in the past, and they survived it, so it must have been okay. Even in negative memories, people feel okay about it because they made it through.
I recommend looking for ways to leverage nostalgia in your experiences. Is the experience a nostalgic one? Disneyland theme park is an example. Despite constantly evolving and innovating, the experience is heavy on nostalgia.
The Small World ride hasn’t changed much since it opened in 1966 or 1971 in Florida. People crave the nostalgia of the ride because of how it makes them feel and what makes them remember about being a kid.
If your experience isn't nostalgic itself, are there ways of leveraging nostalgia alongside what you're offering? Including elements in the experience or advertising that are nostalgic could create a halo effect for people. They feel good about your nod to the past, which carries over to their feelings about you.
Leveraging nostalgia requires research. You've got to get past what people say and discover what really evokes nostalgia in people. Is it friendliness? Is it peace and quiet? Is it a song or a cartoon or an aroma? Any of these elements can drive emotional reactions, whether it’s for their old cassette tape collection, their trek through the mountains to their school barefoot, or the smell of their favorite bubble gum when they were a kid.
Bubble Yum or Bubblicious—put it in the comments below! Bubble Yum or Bubblicious—what did you like? And don't give me some third option. The question is: Bubble Yum or Bubblicious? What was your favorite? Because you could fly with Bubblicious. Remember that; it's the ultimate bubble. Uh, it’s even true. It's true because the incident was... it is true even if the incident was negative because, hey, they survived.
Moreover, using nostalgia as a tool to create moments for people in your customer experience can create positive associations with their brand too. If you can make people feel good while looking backward at the past, you might get them to move forward into the present with you.
So, that was from a marketing perspective. And you know what? I didn’t realize, but I was scrolling along, and this article did not scroll along with me on the thing, and I apologize for that. I don't know why that was, but you can watch.
Now, here's the thing about nostalgia though: one of the things that when people talk about nostalgia, it's always like, "Oh, we're looking back wistfully at the past. We're remembering things." That's all true, but one of the things that I've been fascinated by my whole life is that basically, if you think about the fact that say your average life expectancy is 80, you know—that means, and I've always been fascinated by the fact that our lifespan... the biggest problem, I think, humanity—the biggest problem that we have to surmount, the problems that we have now in the world, is that our lifespans are what they are.
If, you know, AI, the promise of AI and biotechnology can help us open up ways like in Jupiter Ascending, we can be like the people in Jupiter Ascending and drink the populations of planets with human beings on them to stay young forever. If we can somehow change our lifespan, like, significantly—like to be like 200, you know, so you're elderly in your last 40 years or something—if we could do that, I think human perspective would change.
Because I'm fascinated by the fact if you break up your life into eight chapters, if you live to be 80 and each chapter is 10 years long—the first 10 years of your life is basically a wash. You know, you're a kid; you’re learning about things, you don’t have a care in the world; you're not full of anxiety. You're a kid, you know, for the most part.
I mean, nowadays we're trying to do everything we can to take childhood away from people and, you know, put more adult concerns into childhood, which is bullshit in my mind. But, you know, you're a kid—the first 10 years of your life a wash. Next 10 years of your life: big growth spurt. You're getting into—you're becoming an adult.
By the time you get to be in twenties, you might have gone to college; you might have gone into the military; you might have done something—trade school, whatever you've done. By the time you get to twenty, you're an adult. You have more questions than ever.
So between your twenties and thirties, you're on a path to figure out, "What the fuck am I going to do with my life?" You know, where are you going? You have adventures, you try things, you fail.
You know, and then you get into your—by the time you're thirty, you’re pretty much on a career path. You're doing something, and then for the next 35 years until you're 65, you're going to have a family; you're going to start developing; you're going to start changing. You're going to grow into the person, professionally, that you're going to grow into based on all the experiences that you have.
And then by the time you get to 65, you've only got 15 years left, and those years are accelerated decrepitude. And I mean, I don’t ever want to stop. I mean, I thought that, you know, I want to—I want to, on the last day of my life, if that's home plate, I want to slide into home plate with a martini in one hand and a pretty girl in the other and then check out. You know, something like that. That's the way I want to go.
But, so you've got these eight chapters in your life, and when it comes to things like nostalgia, because the perspective of where you are in your life changes when you're younger. You know, things like—for entertainment specifically, which I'm going to get into—like music. Music were—if you think about a pop song that’s three minutes, or certain pop songs are longer, but music also gave you not just toe-tapping, you know, fun to listen to; it also evoked emotion and it evoked times and places and people.
But you had most of your life. Like when you started listening to music and became important to you as a teenager, most of your life was in front of you. So those things that you loved, the things that you did with your friends, they were also very exciting because the promise of the rest of your life was there.
Now, for me, I don't really get nostalgic. I mean, there are things in my life that I just discovered that I loved. For instance, I, you know, Bob Fosse's All That Jazz, when I saw it when I was 12, it was mind-blowing to me. It became still a top 10 favorite film of all time because it was about—a man who was doing things I wanted to do.
Maybe not direct Broadway shows, but certainly direct movies, and he was in show business, and there was insight into the career that I wanted to pursue as a 12-year-old. Now, as somebody who is, you know, on the upside, closer to 60 than I've ever been, you know, you—that, I still love All That Jazz. I don’t look at it and feel nostalgic; I look at it through different eyes. Call it nostalgic if you want, but I'm not nostalgic for the 12-year-old I was when I saw All That Jazz. I just still love that movie because it’s resonated with me through time.
One of the things too that I thought was—like I was really heavily into music before I turned 20. I worked at a store called Overkill Platters, and I was—I would buy every disc that was on the Rolling Stone College Album charts, and I would go to lots of shows, and I, you know, I loved music.
And I always vowed, you know, I'm going to start to get really old if I don't pay attention to the Rolling Stone College music charts anymore. But what I never thought would happen—look, there are lots of great music being made now. The problem is music itself doesn’t hold the place in my life that it used to.
It might have. I mean, I like listening to good music. If somebody turns me on to something new, like my friend Clark Von Tra, I’ll hear something and be like, “Oh, that’s—that’s really good. I mean, I’ll really like that.” But the problem is I am incapable at this point in my life in letting a song in the way I used to.
The way albums—look, the new Cure album came out this week. I think it’s fantastic. I love it, but it’s not going to inhabit my life the way say Disintegration did when it came out in 1989.
I mean, that album came out—I moved to L.A. in '88-'89. I don't know if Disintegration came out before I began my second year, I forget when in '89 it came out. But I remember getting that album saying, "Oh my God, this album is a masterpiece," and I would play it all the time. I would drive to work to it; I’d go on dates with it. I'd go all over the place.
And so Disintegration became a product of it; it became something I loved that also inhabited other parts of my life. Like it went places with me. Uh, it went places with me and other people—drive to Vegas, throw on Disintegration. There were a lot of other albums that we threw on too.
But it was—and now that was '89. Now it’s 2024. I mean, it’s wild to me how long were The Beatles around—eight years—and now we've got these. Like, I love Duran Duran. Their first album came out I think in '81. Rio came out in '82 and Seven and the Ragged Tiger was '83, but it came out in '81.
I still love Duran Duran in 2024. Depeche Mode's still recording. You know, and it’s not like I’m not nostalgic for those bands; I just like those bands and the fact that they, too, have evolved and have grown with me.
I mean, people don’t remember the Duran Duran album Astronaut that I think is actually a really good album or Pop Trash, you know, or things like that. I love, uh, Reach Up for the Sunrise. But they stay with you.
So I don’t think there’s—nowadays we have pop culture that has endured. And I’m not—I’m not like a lot of people; they didn’t follow Duran Duran as Duran Duran kept recording, or a band like A-ha. You know A-ha recorded, or Alphaville. People remember "Forever Young," but Alphaville continued to evolve, and a lot of their records after that were—they didn’t get released in America.
I would buy imports. Alphaville was very expensive to buy, import CDs—I don’t know why, like 28 bucks—but still love them, you know. So I’m not nostalgic for "Forever Young," even though yes, I did buy the "Forever Young" disc that just came out with Dolby Atmos mixes of that album.
But, you know, it—it—the pop culture we have has lived and grown. Now, in some cases, like the bands that I've liked, like Paper Gods, I love Paper Gods. I went and saw that with Elizabeth when Paper Gods came out, that Duran Duran record. It was not disappointing, so I've never, I’m still listening to Duran Duran; they haven’t disappointed me.
You know Dance Macabre, their Halloween album last year—that was really cool. I really liked it. I didn’t sit there, "Oh, that sucked," because they’re the same band, same people.
Sometimes they’re going to have move albums you really love, sometimes hit and miss. I mean the Cure has been hit and miss over the last 35 years, but this new album is a banger. I really liked it. But that’s CU; I like the Cure.
So nostalgia, yeah, sure, there are times when you see things in the past and you remember. I'm more nostalgic for people and relationships I had in the past—not just girls but just people—people in general. There are people I had relationships with that I had really good times with that, you know, they come in and out of your life, and they either go away or you drift apart, or you guys work and life carries you in different directions.
But I'm still—I have fond memories of people, you know? But when it comes to things like Star Wars, Star Trek, the problem is eventually those things have run out, and there are various reasons for that, which is what I spend the rest of these shows talking about.
But I wanted to read another article—the article that Stubble sent me—which I thought was really interesting and I’ll be curious to hear what you think about all of this.
This article is in Time, and, uh... let me see if it’ll follow along. Okay, we don’t want new music anymore. This is by David R.
And David R worked as an editor and writer at the Washington Post for nearly 25 years. He’s taught literary journalism at American University and is currently a senior editor at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. He’s the author of the book, "The Endless Refrain: Memory, Nostalgia, and the Threat to New Music."
This is a good article. Recently, my wife and I went to a performance by a band whose debut album came out in 1986. Every couple of years they produce yet another collection of well-crafted, well-played, midtempo albums of songs about life and all of its mysterious—in all of its mysteries and heartbreaks.
More than 20 studio albums in these 38 years—considerably more than Pink Floyd or Fleetwood Mac or The Eagles. If, like me, you're prone to thinking like that, these days their new music gets modest attention, and the venues they play are decidedly smaller.
Still, here they were touring behind their latest album, but it was also clear the singer knew what she was up against with that. After the band kicked off with two older tunes, the singer, in a manner so sheepish that it made me feel both pity and anger, announced they were going to play a few new songs tonight.
Cue the uneasy smattering of applause. She immediately added, lest there be an immediate walk-out, that they'd also be playing all their old favorites we expected to hear. It was all I could do to not stand up and shout, "Play your new music!"
They more than earned that right, but I was sure by the crowd's stiff reaction that if I voiced such support, I’d be beset by the 60-somethings around me in their flowy Smocks and Spartan sandals. I'm coming—I’m going to be there soon!
For me, all of this is only underscored a question I’ve been asking for several years, despite feeling sure I know the terrible answer: Do we even want new music anymore? I've asked the question of friends, strangers, and also famous musicians who could have been offended but weren't, despite the fact that their response revealed some uncomfortable truths.
I asked it of people who toiled in the music industry and of people who made a living writing about music. Once, I asked it of a woman at the Quail Creek Country Club in Naples, Florida. I’ve been there!
After watching a Tom Petty tribute act—tribute acts being a surefire way to avoid hearing anything new—I explained that I was writing a book exploring this central question. But this time, instead of posing it like I had a million times before, I just said what I’m writing about and arguing in this book is that we don’t really want to hear new music anymore.
To which she quickly said, "Correct! I would fully agree with you on that." And then her friend standing next to her added, "For a certain age group." And I said, yes, she was right about that!
I wasn't talking about teenagers or people in their early 20s but pretty much everyone older than that. Over the years, the answers I got were sometimes nuanced, but on the whole, people tended to answer with sighs of knowing resignation—even relief.
The old hits are today's hits too! In 2024, we've arrived at the point in which a remarkably select number of songs within the scope of the history of recorded rock and pop music—a great many of them from the '80s—are always playing somewhere across this once great musical landscape.
On the airwaves, they're hawking everything from GEICO insurance—Homeowner, we do have a rat problem, which cuts away to rats playing in the basement—to TurboTax. Spandau Ballet—this much is true!
To “YOP Play Yogurt,” Boston's "More Than A Feeling," to fiber ones, "The Scorpions—Rock You Like a Hurricane.” And for those of you who watch this channel, you'll know that song!
Hey, Scorpions, come clean! The impetus behind "Rock You Like a Hurricane" was always about the importance of fiber!
Somehow, we got so content with the music we knew from long ago that we became dangerously well-gorged on it. And at such a state, we decided, however consciously or unconsciously, that we just didn't need any new music.
To be clear, I'm aware that music keeps coming—Bad Bunny, Beyoncé, more Taylor Swift—and we can listen to that new music in more ways than ever before. And yet, digital album sales continue to be down, dropping about 8% compared to 2023’s totals according to Luminate, an entertainment data company.
And while the sale of vinyl albums is up at an estimated 6%, that's largely because people want classic albums on vinyl—less Coldplay, more Led Zeppelin! Sure, you might check out the new album by the Foo Fighters, Adele, Post Malone, or The Weeknd, and for a few weeks it’s what all the music press and bloggers and podcasters are in rapture over.
Maybe you try and listen to it intently for a few weeks because you understand you’re supposed to love it. It’s supposed to be the best album they've put out; everyone is saying so, and you either come to believe that too, or just as likely, you accept it without actually feeling it.
But in a month's time or less, it’s as if that big album never dropped at all, and you go right back to listening to everything that came well before it and it never finds a place in your playlist closest to your heart.
Because on your playlist and in steady rotation is Journey’s greatest hits album released in 1998, which as of this writing has spent 828 weeks on the Billboard 200 album chart—828 weeks in the Hot 200!
We’ve arrived at this strange juncture with new music and old music due to two powerful forces: one deeply commercial, the other deeply human—repetition and nostalgia.
With the arrival of MTV, the video age was here, and with it came consequences that still play out today. As MTV became more mainstream, Top 40 radio and MTV fed each other incessantly.
If a song was a hit, it had a video and concert rotation; if that video was popular, then the song was on the airwaves non-stop. Sometimes the video was insipid, but that hardly mattered. We were stuck in a new loop of musical periodicity.
In the years before MTV, had we really settled for all that bowling coverage on ABC and Beretta? Despite all the new music made after the height of MTV, it turned out we still couldn’t get enough of those songs from the era of video killing the radio star.
No matter how lame or shoddy they were, they have survived like the Great Pyramids thanks to the deepest layers of fervent nostalgia for the era that birthed them.
My experience is that pretty much everyone believes that music from this century won’t nearly have the same afterlife because it’s vastly inferior to music that came 40 or 50 years before it.
But you also can’t rate what you’ve never listened to. According to a 2022 Luminate report, Boomers are listening to more music from the '70s than from any other decade, which is no great surprise. Both Millennials and Gen Xers prefer '90s music; only Gen Z prefers the music of this decade.
Also, only 63% of Boomers even like it when their favorite artists release new music. New Blondie, new Doobie Brothers, or Kansas—mostly Boomers prefer the oldies!
The consequences of this are worrisome. The more we’re apathetic to new music from even long-established artists we love, the more they’ll just settle for touring for a living and playing the songs they recorded back when Thursday nights meant staying home and watching Seinfeld.
But even with our endless capacity for endless repetition, the greatest hits eventually stop feeling well, as great.
What does this all mean for new artists? Increasingly, they’re going to be on the outside looking in due to one major and well-documented development in recent years that will have a profound effect on the music we’ll be hearing in the future.
What and how—the massive acquisition of artists’ catalogs! When the pandemic took hold and it was clear no artists were going on tour for who knew how long, some established musicians tried to soothe our anxiety and themselves by performing live via their Instagram accounts.
They strummed their acoustic guitars in their kitchens and home studios and on their porches, often covering other artists' songs, perhaps to remember better days. Some made what came to be known as COVID albums—predictably, on the whole, a lot of themes of isolation set to four-for-time.
But other artists hatched plans that I would not consider soothing: they sold their back catalogs to venture capitalists for vast fortunes! And that music is going to show up in ways you can't even imagine.
So if you think you hear an awful lot of Huey Lewis and the News and the Steve Miller Band now in 2024, you’re about to find out just how stuck with you Huey and his peers from the '70s and '80s really are.
There’s always going to be the next Chapel Rone and Sabrina Carpenter. What this century has shown us, though, is how dicey it is for breakout artists to keep making new music we want to hear in the years that follow.
Snow Patrol? Anyone? Gnarls Barkley? Daniel Powter? It may be hard to remember, but we used to want so much from music. Today, mostly what we want is for it to remain deeply familiar.
The internet makes this exceptionally easy. Yes, we’ve always been prone to nostalgia in music. Think of groups like Sha Na Na, who performed at Woodstock right before Jimi Hendrix's mind-bending set, and whose entire career was made up performing '50s music.
Or the Stray Cats, an '80s band whose very look and sound paid tribute to the '50s rockabilly scene. But today’s nostalgia is so immutable because so much about the internet exists to remind us of life as it once was.
Whether it’s a Facebook post from your childhood friend of a Casey and the Sunshine Band album he dug out of his basement, or Joan from book club putting another clip of the Macarena on her Instagram, the internet can lull us into a perpetual state of looking back and believing that what the culture offered us through the previous decades was more gratifying and more fun.
And that life in the past was inherently a better and richer time—that’s how it was with the music!
On YouTube, old music reigns. We can watch whole episodes of American Bandstand or full grainy footage concerts of Grand Funk Railroad and the Carpenters, or an endless line of music sites. You can pore over the latest ranking of a band’s albums who peaked when TV Guide was still at the grocery store checkout.
Or maybe you like Rolling Stone’s incessant polls of greatest guitar players of all time, greatest singers, or greatest drummers. There’s certainly room for that reflection on music from the past, but all those lists and the impulses behind them ultimately help keep us in exile on Main Street.
Nothing to get hung up about, you say? I think I disagree.
So first of all, shout out to Stubble McShay for that article, and I would say also when it comes to music—when I was growing up, music meant—like, it—the music I love, like the bands like Depeche Mode and New Order and The Cure, and all the other '80s junk bands, to all those things I love, like Clan of Xymox, the entire 4AD catalog—Cocteau Twins, you know, Skinny Puppy.
I liked everything that was on Network Records, 8009—what is it? 8009 foot Jesus? Something like that. Remember that? I loved all that stuff, and it was—that was all about that music! I mean, you heard New Order’s "Blue Monday" and "World in Motion" that they did for the World Cup, you know?
I would just be like, "This is music that's looking forward!" And then, again, you know, there was also—I think one of the things about music in particular was a lot of us nowadays, it seems like everybody's always talking about their feelings all the time.
I never talked about my feelings when I was a kid. I mean, sometimes we talked—we used music as the externalization of how we felt inside when I was growing up. And if you wanted to explain to somebody, you know, what you felt inside, it was music.
You know, you would trade records or you'd trade songs, or you’d sing songs. You’d go to the band that meant something to you at that particular time. Nowadays, I don't think—I think, you know, maybe the thing about Taylor Swift is I think her music is important, clearly.
But it's Taylor Swift herself! I think the relationship people have—there's no distance anymore between Taylor Swift and her fans. Like I never thought that I was ever going to meet Styx as much as their album, The Grand Illusion or Pieces Of Eight or Paradise Theater meant to me—or even Equinox going back further.
I never thought to myself, "I'm ever gonna meet, you know, James Young, Dennis DeYoung, Tommy Shaw." I wasn’t going to meet those guys! I wasn’t gonna meet them, ever! But their albums sure meant a lot to me.
I never—it never occurred to me. Nowadays, because we didn’t have social media, so nowadays, I’d probably follow Styx on Instagram or some shit like that if I was a kid. But then the band would have become more important.
I think Taylor Swift herself is more important than the music. And not necessarily in the way that chicks followed around the Beatles, you know, in the '60s and screamed at John, Paul, George, and Ringo, or whatever. But because Taylor Swift's music itself is about the experience of her audience!
It’s just a different thing. It’s just a different—a different thing! And nowadays we have social media, so people’s awareness of their favorite artist is as important as their music itself.
The art used to be the only thing, and now I don’t even think it’s the most important thing. I think that it’s just a different world.
So do people want to listen to new music? Well, I would be hard-pressed. The problem is the people that are making the new music are like chapel run—has nothing to say to me! Let me tell you, I mean—that’s what I find!
I find the drama that she has with her fans online or the people that got mad at her for whatever—that was something I briefly followed last week—you know how Chapel Rone kind of got in trouble for some of the things that she was saying, which I thought was really interesting because, in—I think what’s happened with, like, again, I never thought the musicians were like my peers or my friends. They lived in a rarified air for me that I could never do that.
It’s never something I aspired to be. I never wanted to be in a rock band—not really! So I just love the music! I can enjoy the music. I like to hear about the bands, and I have an endless fascination with watching documentary shows about rock and roll.
You know, I wasn’t a particularly big Grateful Dead fan, but I watched that whole documentary; it was fascinating! That documentary about the Eagles is great! I mean, it’s because also, it’s not just about the band, but it’s also about the time they lived in.
I mean, most bands have the same—excuse me—the same problems! So to watch one documentary is kind of like to watch them all in a way. But I just think it's a different time.
I think music is—it used to—I think music used to mean a lot more. Now, now that everybody is the center of their own story, everyone is there. Everyone’s either performing on TikTok or they’re performing on Instagram.
So the audience for music, they have more of a window. They themselves become more a part of the world than ever before. So music, I think, means less to them.
And, you know, for me, even talking to you right now, I never would have dreamed, if you told me when I was a teenager, that I would have had this kind of technology as an older person talking to people about movies and being surrounded by lights that belong in a teenage girl's bedroom and action figures and books.
I mean, it's weird to me because this is the same shit I had in my room when I was 12, you know? And now it’s still here! And I would say that, I guess, what does that say about me?
I don't know. I can say my authenticity is off the charts! But, um, you know, I didn’t just… this is not an affectation. It's a lifelong avocation, I guess. But I am kind of bummed out that I still get excited for things like—look, as much as I will—I will always get excited for a new James Bond movie, even if I haven't liked them, you know?
I’ll always get excited for them. I mean, it took a long time for me because there weren't that many of them, but Rise of Skywalker finally made me—I will never, ever, ever be excited for a Star Wars movie again!
I was excited for the prequels. I even survived that. I was excited for The Force Awakens, even though I, you know, I thought with J.J. Abrams, I had no hope, and that was a letdown! But I was excited to see The Last Jedi.
You know, I still get excited to see these events! This week it was announced that Tom Cruise is exploring the possibility of making Days of Thunder or making another Days of Thunder.
Now here’s the thing, I like Days of Thunder, by the way! Tom Cruise's character in that movie, his name was Cole Trickle! Come on, what the fuck? But that movie has a lot of stuff in it that I like: Michael Rooker, you know Robert Javal, Nicole Kidman—I like that movie!
But it didn't do well at the box office—not very well! It was really expensive; it was a total boondoggle or debacle, you know? It was—Jerry Bruckheimer at their very worst! Or pardon me, I don't know if Jerry Bruckheimer has ever been at his worst, but it was Don Simpson. I mean, even slipping down to play a race driver briefly in that movie!
But it was—it was talk about propagating Hollywood spending! But, yet, is there a nostalgia factor for Days of Thunder?
I mean, I would much rather see—I think Tom Cruise, who’s now in his 60s, it would be really nice to see him try more things like Les Grossman. But, you know, do the world need another Days of Thunder movie?
I mean now we’ve got—you know, F1 is big. Stock car racing is still big, I guess? We can—we could have another movie, but is it going to be any different?
I mean, I love Top Gun: Maverick, but, you know, it’s a combination of Top Gun and Star Wars. It wasn’t any groundbreaking—you know, I didn’t bask in the amazing plot machinations and surprising storyline.
So it’s an odd—it’s an odd thing. Like, I wonder if pop music—you know, and you think about it. Really rock and roll, and if you go back and you see the difference between what teenagers were listening to in the '40s, and what teenagers were listening to in the '60s, that 20-year post-war—post World War II to the middle of the 1960s to the end of the 1960s, let’s go 25 years—is astonishing!
From 1999 to 2024? Not very much—different artists doing different things, but for the most part, you know, same kind of stuff, which is amazing! So I do think we can see that the growth in our pop culture—I mean even the growth in movies from the 1970s to the '80s was vast! Vast! A vast difference, I say!
But, uh, vast! And nowadays there hasn’t been much. And maybe I think that you don’t have—I mean, people are rediscovering things on YouTube.
But I wonder if why don’t kids want to go back further? Why? Why aren’t kids delving further back? Why don’t kids watch? Why haven’t they discovered wacky movies like Elvis? How come Elvis movies haven’t become a hip thing to watch?
You know, rockabilly was big in the '80s and '90s. Rockabilly— is there any rockabilly now? I saw a couple—not too long ago, and they were great! They were really—but it seemed so odd to me. It's like seeing punk rockers that look like they should have been in the '70s today!
Like, the world isn’t the same! And wouldn’t there be a new fashion statement? I mean, goth kind of is eternal, timeless, because that’s basically coming out of the 18th and 19th centuries.
So that's okay! But what about you guys? What do you think? I don't know! Um, I'm curious as to what you might think about all of this.
So let's see if you have anything to say about it. I don't know.
Story Arc Welder says, "I'm JZ." So thank you for the cinema history lesson, Sensei.
Brett, excited for TR Noir as I'm a huge audiobook enjoyer! Happy birthday, by the way! Well, I hope you enjoy it! It’s a movie—that’s—it's, like I said, it's cinema that's missing the cinema!
200 Watt Studio says, "Hey, Barnes & Noble, Criterion 50% off sale started. Thinking about getting the John Cassavetes 5 film box set." I have it! I've had that box set for years. It's great! Get it! Get it! Get it! Get it! Why not?
Yeah! Go get that! Why didn't you? It’s great!
Major Chai Chai says, "Rob, I watched The Conversation recently." You talk about a movie having one ask. Well, I'm saying a movie gets—some movies don’t need an ask.
I don’t know if The Conversation is a movie that has—it has a necessary ask because all of the technology and the way it’s done seem pretty believable. And it's funny—I just watched The Conversation recently.
So I don’t think movies of the '70s don’t make—I mean, asks are more like science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
But I think the reason The Conversation was so effective, and especially it’s so haunting at the end, is because it felt so real that you buy into the conversation or you just believe it utterly.
It’s not asking you—when I say a movie has one ask, it's like if it's time travel or there's a vampire or something like that. But The Conversation—I don't know if this conversation has an ask in it.
That’s interesting! I don’t have an answer for you off the top of my head; that would be something I would have to think about. But that is fascinating!
Signal Strength says, "You grew up in Seattle; did you see any of the grunge bands, Nirvana, Mudhoney, Green River, Soundgarden, Alison Chains, before they got big?" I did! Nirvana used to play at my college!
Like, one of the girls—so I went to The Evergreen State College, which is a crunchy, chewy, granola school that was great. And I was there for three years. I went there from ’85 to ’88.
Nirvana was like from Aberdeen down the road. If you—the road that the college was off of, if you took the freeway and you just kept going, you got out to the Washington coast. And Nirvana was just down the road. They would come play, and I did see, uh, Green River because they were around for a while, and I did see Soundgarden.
But here was the thing: I left in '88, so I saw Mother Love Bone! Um, but I W—I left in '88, so I really missed the grunge explosion. I wasn't in Seattle for that!
I saw Proto— and the problem also was I wasn’t 21, so I kind of—I couldn't go to a lot of rock shows that I would have liked to have gone to. But it was, you know, you were very aware of the Seattle rock scene growing up; I was just kind of—I missed the brunt of it, unfortunately.
I, I wish I didn’t, but I did because I moved to LA in June of '88.
Steve Langford says, in your best Palpatine voice, "Say this quote: In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire for a safe and secure society."
Thanks for happy birthday!
Well, Stephen, that was tough to get into! Although that was more Palpatine; that wasn’t—that was after he’d been blasted by the Jedi. That was—that was, um... yeah, but that— you know, that wasn’t Senator Palpatine. That was Sith Lord Palpatine.
It would be more like, “In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire for a safe and secure society.”
That would be more like Senator Palpatine!
Tor Toat Studio says, "That short scene with Terry Garr and Hackman in The Conversation says so much about both characters in such a short time. Great acting!" Yeah! You know, I was listening to Terry Garr tell the story of how she got that, and they had her fly up, and she didn't know how big the part was and was kind of disappointed that it was one scene.
But she wanted to do it anyway because it’s post-Godfather Coppola, so why not?
Absolutely!
Thomas Logan says, "I watched Gummo in a sold-out theater tonight. Amazing to hear today’s kids react to the movie—giggles, gasps. What was your first watch like? VHS?"
No, I went and saw that in the theater. Gummo? I didn’t—you know Harmony Korine, yeah, Provocateur. I mean, I get it, but Gummo was like—I mean, it was fine. I liked it, you know, but I didn’t love it.
I don’t think I actually loved the Harmony Korine movie until Spring Breakers. I don't know what that says about me; my shit, I could relate to. I could relate to; what was it? Alien? Was that James Franco’s character’s name? Is Alien?
But Gummo was interesting! I can’t decide whether I want to buy it, whether I want to own Gummo! I’ve never owned it but man, I love—I mean, I love going back and watching movies.
Kids today are—I don’t know, the things that we watch, the things that we were able to see—it blows me away compared to what kids today. Nowadays, I mean everyone is so sensitive and so—compared to that, we were a lot like—I would love to sit in a theater full of kids and watch Solo! What does it say about me? I don't know!
But it would be—it would just be interesting to see how they react because they haven't been challenged! I don't think! I think that everybody has tried to make the world as safe as it can possibly be for these kids, and there are—even if their feelings are fragile, and it’s weird.
And I think it’s really wild to go watch them watch a movie that essentially punches them in the face—that they’re not used to seeing.
Interesting!
Major Chai Chai says, "I have to send a letter explaining why I asked the question, or maybe we can discuss it on the 1000th." Absolutely! By the way, 98, 99, 1000. I would say the 1000th show, maybe next Saturday. You know?
Maybe next Saturday. I will get to it this week, but maybe next Saturday would be the 1000th show. We’re going to go for that 16-hour show. Get up early in the morning and hit it! So that could be a lot of fun! We shall see what will happen!
'Cause I—I don’t know—but yeah, the one ask thing! I wonder why you asked that question—that’s now I’m intrigued!
I want to know!
101 Johnny says, "Indeed, for if you should survive to 105, look at all you’ll derive just by being alive. Now here’s the best part: you’ll have a head start if you’re amongst the very young at heart. Good night, Mr. and Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are."
That’s pretty good!
Nostalgia: Nostalgia can return home, plus Algos pain. So this is an unhealthy longing for what was before, like when you leave home for the first time.
Though I think rather we should be young at heart. I like that!
Um, I don’t know how I did pronounce the pronunciation of those things. Probably wasn't the best. I was there—I was doing there for you there, 101 Johnny.
But yeah, that’s interesting that nostalgia is a bad thing! I think too much nostalgia is a bad thing.
Um, you know, I’d like to sing "Young at Heart," but I can't sing it like Frank. I can’t do that, but I don’t know if nostalgia is a bad thing!
I guess that if you're going to wallow in the past—the only thing about the past I think about is mistakes. There are things I should have done. There was always a time—the only thing I think about in the past is I regret not being—not seeing what I had when I had it.
And I regret there were opportunities that were presented to me that I didn’t take—that I—but I don’t—I don’t harp on it really, except for one. There’s one particular thing and one particular person that I will never stop—I will regret it till the end of my days, and there’s nothing I can do to fix it.
But I will regret it. It was an opportunity that was offered to me that I should have taken, but I wasn’t—but I wasn’t smart enough to do so. I was too immature!
Signal Strength 5 says, "The Cure album stream: 3 hours—checked out the Cure album stream, three hours of nostalgia."
Oh, I got to check that out too; that sounds great!
I got to! I keep forgetting they did that.
John Miller says, "Nostalgia can be a form of pessimism, a belief that the past is better than the present. Modern Star Trek's reliance on it is pure corporate cynicism."
Oh, I agree! I mean, that’s what makes Star Trek—that's why I can’t watch, like, Lower Decks. To me, I know they’ve had some good stories, but I’m like, it—it—Lower Decks to me might be one of the most annoying television shows that I’ve ever watched because if you already are a Star Trek fan and you know all that stuff, it’s really difficult to get through an episode of that show.
I really—I’m like, "Yeah, I get it! I understand everything you’re saying! I get it!"
Um, and oh, drives me crazy!
Rick Beato says—we love Rick Beato even though I’m mispronouncing his name—says, "We used to discover new music from the radio, save up for and buy a new album, play the crap out of it, share and talk about it with friends. It was social and took effort! Now it’s all on your phone!"
I totally agree! Well, a lot of our entertainment is. That’s why music does not hold the place that it used to when we were younger. The music was our emotional states.
Music was like—again, how we bonded. If you wanted to explain how you were feeling, you’d give your friend an album and say, "This is exactly how I feel," and people would get it. Nowadays, I mean, Taylor Swift's music is important, but Taylor Swift is more important than her music.
When the individual Eagles were okay, but, you know, "Life in the Fast Lane," "Hotel California," "Tequila Sunrise"—those songs were more important to me than the members of The Eagles.
I felt that the songs collectively meant the Eagles, you know? But when you have all these—the Swifties, the songs are there, but it's all about Taylor Swift herself.
And I think that's a direct inversion. I mean, sure, people love rock stars, and girls and groupies wanted to be around rock stars, but they wanted to be around rock stars because the rock stars encapsulated the way they felt inside.
And by definition, if their music did that, that means they themselves must have done that. So, yeah!
Um, it was so—some old guy in—in Hawaii, you’re absolutely right about that. Music was a very different—it held a very different place, you know?
Music was bonding! The music was bonding! The bands—you'd go see them because they made the music, but the music was more important than the individual members of the band, where I think Taylor Swift is more important than her music. But that's just a theory; I could be wrong!
Tom Jr. Jackson says, "I went down a rabbit hole of watching The Joe Franklin Show today! Plus I watched The Greatest Beer Run Ever!" And I like that movie!
I liked it! It wasn’t great but I liked it! I liked that movie.
Secular Monks says, "I just finished Adam's Family Values on 4K. Great transfer! Needs a legacy sequel!"
Nostalgia can—well, isn’t that kind of what, um…I guess it does, you know? But doesn’t—isn't Wednesday kind of a legacy sequel? I guess as a series!
Just finished that in 4K—great transfer! Needs a legacy sequel!
Nostalgia can be great, but is it overdone today? I would rather have something original than another reboot! Happy birthday!
Me too! I mean, nowadays, it’s a corporate decision. I can’t stand it! I mean, make some more great—what IPs are they going to remake in 20 years?
I don’t know; it’s really bizarre! I don’t understand, like, why do you not want to make something new?
I think spec scripts—I read something today that said spec scripts are coming back in favor at the studios, so I would love it if that were true. Honestly, I think that would be fantastic if that were true!
So maybe one day it would be true!
I don't know, though; it’s an interesting question!
Well anyway, I'd be very curious to hear what you all think. I just wanted to come on tonight and do this quick show and talk about this article that Stubble sent me, 'cause I thought it was interesting—the idea of nostalgia 'cause I'm—it's always getting thrown in my face, you know?
That, "Oh, you want to recapture things the way they were." No, I was like the way they were. I watched something evolve, and by definition, Star Trek has gone backwards!
You know, Strange New Worlds? It’s gone backwards and become stupid. So Discovery is a prequel, Strange New Worlds—and then they recon—the thing is, then they do things happen because they think that Star Trek has to reflect our history, or whatever, and they change things, and I’m like, "That’s—you’re wrong."
It’s wrong! How can it be wrong? It’s fictional! No, it’s wrong because it existed for a certain way for 40 years, and you’ve come along and said, "Nope, I hate that!"
Well, anyway, I'd be curious to hear what you guys have—what you have to say in the comments below. For those of you who like physical media, dear, and I will be back at noon and or, no, 11, 11 Seattle plan—
All is right with the world!
All I can say is: Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote locally, vote at your state level, and vote federally, and vote your heart, vote your conscience, get educated! Vote for the person you think is going to best—I mean, you know, front the Illuminati that controls the world!
But anyway! Hey! Stephen Langford says, "Thanks for going above and beyond saying that quote in both regular Palpatine voice and a Sith Lord voice! The Nostalgia was awesome! The things you do for your fans, Rob, is admirable regardless of payment! *laughs*"
Well, Stephen, you know, you’ve been very generous, and I appreciate that. But it’s fun! It’s fun when people ask me to do stuff like that, you know? I have to stop and think. I mean, I’m not a good impressionist, but you know take your Jedi weapon!
So, yeah, like—uh, it’s—it’s fun.
Yes! I will—CH! I was going to check—I was going to check, Johnny!
Young at Heart by Jim Durany? Rob, Mrs. Calabash was his wife’s pet name! Didn’t know that!
Well, Young at Heart, Sinatra popularized that song! I didn’t know that Jimmy Durany sang it!
But that was a Sinatra tune!
Mrs. Calabash was his wife's pet name—I like that! I like that!
Um, so there you go! One more tip! Rob, that’s what she said.
Um, Thomas Logan asks if I've seen In Nora yet? I can't wait! Watching it tomorrow night! I’ve just been so—I haven’t done anything except edit TR Noir and mix TR Noir! That's—I’m—I’ve got so much more work to do!
Um, yeah—we’re over budget! Gotta find some more money somewhere. We are, um, yeah—but it’s turning out great, and I put another—that clip I played at the beginning is from Episode Two.
But I’m really, really happy with it, and it’s going to be dropping soon. So I can't wait for you guys to experience that!
And on that note, I think I'm going to end the show early and go back to editing! I’m editing the—the long Episode Three has a very long scene between Nathan Heller and Katie Sackhoff.
There’s sex involved!
Uh, so that’s great! So that's what I’m editing now!
So I’ll see you all tomorrow at 11! And remember, every person you meet has a story to tell that you have yet to hear, and all you have to do is listen!
And I want to thank everybody for generously supporting the channel via super chats, tips, and memberships! I'm sorry we didn’t have a membership call today! I've just been—I've just been slammed with work, so we'll do one next week!
Actually, I might combine a member call if I—if I do the thousandth episode Saturday. And I’ve got—I’m going to start compiling everybody’s—I’m going to make a chart with everybody who wants to be on the show!
So if you’re interested in being on the 1000th episode of Robservations, send me an email at RM Burnett—RMBurnett171gmail.com, and, um, send me an email! In the subject headline, put Robservations 1000 and tell me what you want to talk about.
And I’m going to start compiling a schedule tomorrow to see how many people want to be on the show! So there you go!
And on that note, remember every person you meet has a story to tell that you have yet to hear! And all you have to do is listen!
And with that, I say to all of you, have a better night!