Mentally Oddcast Transcript: Writer and Actor Vann Weller
Find an audio version of this podcast here.
Find more from Vann Weller here.
00:00:01.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
You are listening to the Mentally Oddcast. My name is Wednesday, leave Friday, and we are brought to you by Sometimes Hilarious Horror Magazine. Find us on Ko-fi. This week, we have Ben Weller, who is a writer, musician, actor, and a TV production assistant, actually, currently living in New Jersey.
00:00:22.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
He's written several novels, at least one of which is Hilarious Horror. He's produced multiple documentaries and worked on well-known shows including Good Morning America and The View.
00:00:33.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
He is currently retired and his focus has switched to, well, he's finishing his third novel and dabbling in songwriting and short stories. He's been published in sometimes hilarious horror and he appeared in one of my favorite horror movies of the 90s, The Last Broadcast.
00:00:53.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Welcome, Van.
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Vann
Well, hello. Thank you.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm glad you could be here
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Vann
i love your theme song, by the way.
00:00:59.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, thanks! Our music is by Peter Alway, and he is... goddammit, I said his name wrong. He'll hate that. He'll hate it. It's Alway. No, Alway.
00:01:10.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Shit, now I don't remember. whoop I never say it. I just always write it down. um But yeah he yeah, he's been so generous with his music, so I probably should learn how to say his damn name.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
ah
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Vann
All right.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
But we like to start by asking guests to tell the story of the first horror movie that they remember seeing, so I cannot wait to hear yours.
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Vann
Okay. Well, I have three impactful horror movies I could tell you about, but the first one I think was the blob.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
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Vann
and I was probably like eight years old. And for some reason that movie just freaked me out. Uh, I had trouble sleeping for a couple of days after that. And then, uh,
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Vann
Around that time, I also saw something called Dr. Terror's House of Horrors.
00:02:02.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh wow.
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Vann
And ah I think there's like five different stories in this movie, but one of them involved a chopped off hand that was moving by itself and terrorizing a guy. And it that freaked me out too, ah big time as a little kid.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
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Vann
And then The only other real one was later on, like in college, when I saw The Exorcist. And that was very impactful. Another sleepless night after that.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Are you religious?
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Vann
ah No, not no, not in that way.
00:02:42.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, it's curious to me because obviously people who are, who lean that way, like that type of flavor of religion, handle the exorcist much worse than people like me who have never been able to like sincerely follow a religion because i was so sure that everybody was pretending.
00:03:04.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
um So, yeah, I just wonder if, if like, if The Exorcist scared you, was it the general creepiness or the Because I think that the movie, it got so much scarier later.
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Vann
Yeah, it was it was that.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, that new release with the crab walking and everything.
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Vann
Oh, i don't know. There's just a lot of elements in that movie that were disturbing to me at the time.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
and Okay. Alright, so would you say that you have a strong connection to horror?
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Vann
No, no, not really at all. um It's not my favorite genre. I don't really enjoy being grossed out or, you know, scared if I can avoid it.
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Vann
ah I'm trying to think the last one that's and even like that, that I did watch. It's been a while. I usually avoid them, I guess. um
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Vann
ah What's the? So Julia Roberts, where they go on vacation and ah all the technology gets screwed up.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
I don't know. I don't watch Julie Roberts movies.
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Vann
Well, it wasn't her fault she was in that, but anyway. So, yeah, it's it's not it's not a big thing for me, but.
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Vann
um
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
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Vann
So, yeah, but I can answer this next question.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, tell me the next question.
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Vann
about horror writers that i particularly admire.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
month you
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Vann
um I was actually pretty heavily influenced by Dean Kuntz as far as like storytelling and, you know, between him and Stephen King, I guess, I i sort of lumped them together in the same boat.
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Vann
And, but, you know, I liked the way both of them write. And to me, it was more about that than the actual horror.
00:05:05.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so you just, you're like their their style of prose.
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Vann
Yeah, you familiar with Koontz at all?
00:05:11.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
um I'm gonna have to admit that I don't remember offhand if I've ever read anything by Dean Koops.
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Vann
Okay.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Tons of King, tons of it.
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Vann
Yeah, I bet.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
But, well, you know, I was reading horror novels when I was like 10. You know, because I saw The Shining when I was about 10, and I had already read it at that point.
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Vann
Wow.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Yeah, King and and Flowers of in the Attic, you know, all the V.C. Andrew stuff were my big reads as a kid. Like, I also read kid stuff. I read, like, the Roald Dahl books that are for kids.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
It wasn't for a long time that I realized he wrote adult stuff and was like, oh, holy crap, this is filthy.
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Vann
i I was reading Danny Dunn books when I was a kid. He was a kid that got into science stuff. He was like a, he hung around with Professor Bullfinch and they did all kinds of science stuff.
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Vann
That was fun to me.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh wow. Did you read, um, Cyclopedia Brown?
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Vann
No, I didn't.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh yeah, that was something I liked as a kid too. Cause he was smart.
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Vann
I also read a lot of the Beverly Cleary stuff, which is definitely not horrific.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, okay. Yeah, actually h H and I just went through this whole thing, um like parsing the differences between Nancy Drew and Trixie Pelton, because he grew up reading Nancy Drew, but I had both series because I got all my books came from garage sales.
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Vann
Ah.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
So someday you would you would just come home with like a set of 30 books in the same series.
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Vann
hu
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Vann
Nice.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
So what was your initial plan when you decided to get into film production?
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Vann
Well, it sort of happened by accident. I was more interested in television production when I first started. I went to Ithaca College and they didn't have room for me in that program. So i enrolled as an English major and sort of switched over to the television and radio part.
00:07:12.85
Vann
When I was a kid, I was intrigued by the behind the scenes workings of media production. I mean, ah in third grade, we had like a play that I wasn't in, but I was backstage, you know, pulling the curtain and turning on lights and stuff.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
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Vann
And I just thought that was so cool. And also around that time, I was watching the Dick Van Dyke show and i was very intrigued by the behind the scenes of putting on a television show.
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Vann
So it was sort of always in my mind and that's where i you know leaned, it came time to choose a school and I went there and ah eventually switched over to the film side of things in that program and ah worked on, you know i made some films in school.
00:08:04.20
Vann
And I sort of got sidetracked over into the audio aspect of that. And so I ended up becoming more of an audio guy than a film guy.
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Vann
Although much later in life, I did do some more film production or video production. But for actual college, I just sort of ended up in the film department and I liked it.
00:08:27.71
Vann
And, ah you know, it went on from there, got into the audio into things and ended up doing a lot of live sound for local bands and some recording. We had a little recording studio that I operated and then eventually i got back into doing an audio for video production, doing a lot of corporate stuff.
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Vann
Uh, Unisys was a company, you know, computer company back in the day.
00:09:01.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:09:02.41
Vann
And they had a department for making videos for training, you know, internal stuff. And they would actually have like do these scenarios with actors and stuff.
00:09:13.69
Vann
So I got a lot of experience working with actors and doing the audio engine and started working with actors.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
I would think if you have to work with actors, you'd get less attitude making training videos for workplaces as opposed to doing, you know, theater.
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Vann
Well, yeah, I mean, these weren't very full of themselves kind of people.
00:09:35.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
maybe
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Vann
I mean, they they were doing that. So they were they're all cool that way. but ah So I was...
00:09:47.59
Vann
i In my intro to broadcasting class in college, one of the my classmates ended up being the executive producer of the Mets games on Channel 9 in New Jersey here.
00:10:02.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:10:04.05
Vann
And I saw his name in the credits one day and said, hey, well, I know him. I'll call him up. And he it was right around the time they were going to start doing a new show with Joan London, who was like the host of Good Morning America at the time.
00:10:17.33
Vann
And she wanted to do her own show. it was like a daytime talk so show. She would go be Good Morning America. You know, she had to be there like four in the morning or whatever. And then in the afternoon, she would come over to New Jersey and we did this talk show. And I was on the audio crew there. I, you know, was miking people up and dealing with any music we ever had and stuff like that.
00:10:42.65
Vann
And then after that, They were also producing the Howard Stern show there, the TV show he had for a while. ah did Did you ever know about that show?
00:10:57.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:10:58.67
Vann
okay. Well, I worked on the second season of it, and that was that was interesting. And then then I got a job at ABC.
00:11:06.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'll bet.
00:11:10.54
Vann
TV in New York at the network and went on you know to do The View for 10 years and then Good Morning America and then World News and then I got downsized out of there.
00:11:23.85
Vann
And 2006, I think.
00:11:23.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
When did you stop working for The View?
00:11:27.25
Vann
before all.
00:11:30.07
Vann
six i think
00:11:31.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:11:32.92
Vann
so before got all
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Wednesday Lee Friday
So you weren't there when when Don Jr. was there. had to ask.
00:11:36.50
Vann
no no ah
00:11:38.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's the only episode of The View I ever watched.
00:11:40.73
Vann
Well, good. um' sorry I'm sorry I had to sit through that much. No, back when I was working on it.
00:11:46.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah it It was not to my taste. I mean, I don't want to sound all like anti-woman. I really liked Whoopi Goldberg for a long time. um She said some things in recent years that I...
00:11:59.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
found puzzling and not endearing.
00:12:03.56
Vann
yeah
00:12:03.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, so, you know, i'm a little more ambivalent about her than I used to be, but I mean, come on, Whoopi Goldberg, she's done so much.
00:12:05.48
Vann
Well.
00:12:10.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, cinema, theater, owe her a lot.
00:12:14.23
Vann
Oh, yeah.
00:12:15.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
So,
00:12:15.44
Vann
i I have a lot of respect for her. I was gone by the time she got there. When I was there, the show was a lot different. It wasn't this political nonsense they're up to now.
00:12:27.20
Vann
it was you know We had a lot of live music on that show back then.
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Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, okay.
00:12:31.72
Vann
And that was kind of why I was there, because I would interface with the musicians and you know, do monitors and stuff. i was I was running the PA system for the audience for the regular show. And then we had music. I mixed that for the audience.
00:12:46.17
Vann
you know, someone else was mixing it for the air upstairs, but I was doing it for the audience and I was involved in setting up all the mics and everything for the bands and dealing with their monitors or whatever else they needed.
00:13:01.83
Vann
So, I mean, that, that was a good gig. And I left, um, after the first year of Rosie O'Donnell being there.
00:13:11.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, okay.
00:13:12.15
Vann
And, uh, so I, you know, I missed, I missed Whoopi being there. I, when I first saw her being there, she seemed like, and I'd heard from, you know, coworkers that she was real nice and, you know, great to work with.
00:13:26.19
Vann
And, ah Rosie was a challenge for most people, but I think I was the only one there that actually liked her.
00:13:33.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, wow.
00:13:34.37
Vann
And I was the one that got canned, but oh well. If that didn't happen, I'd probably still be there, which that sounds horrific to me now.
00:13:44.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
So moving on to your be ru more current work, um the 13th book. Now, I have had a copy of this book in my possession for some time. um And I have read some of it and got just into it enough to be like, okay, I need to give this thing my full attention because something is happening here.
00:14:04.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then I set it down and I cannot find it. So I know it's, it's killing.
00:14:08.59
Vann
Can't find it. oh
00:14:10.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, if if you saw my apartment, my God, it this place is just nuts with stuff.
00:14:13.78
Vann
ah ah that's
00:14:16.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
We look like hoarders except that everything is useful and we need it. um But there's just like stacks and boxes of stuff everywhere like we just moved in.
00:14:23.85
Vann
Well, that's that's really funny to me because ah I'd actually like to start with Urge from Urge because 13th book,
00:14:36.32
Vann
is related to that. The story of the 13th book is related to what happened with Urge to Merge.
00:14:41.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:14:42.55
Vann
So Urge to Merge is my first novel, and it was based on my experience in the very, very beginnings of online chatting in the early 90s. Like I was on CompuServe doing this.
00:15:00.07
Vann
And then I switched over to a couple of it and there was a thing called Bix at the time, which had, you know, chat facility. And then I think I ended up yeah on Yahoo near the end.
00:15:12.41
Vann
But back then they would have actual chat rooms where you could go in and there were very few bots and, you know, people could just actually talk with each other about, you know, and each room might might have a specific subject or somewhere general purpose.
00:15:17.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:15:30.75
Vann
but it's a lot different than it is now. I can't even find anything like that right now. But, ah so I was doing that and I just developed a lot of stories from that realm.
00:15:44.70
Vann
And at the same time as when I was working at Channel 9 TV and ah one of the shows I worked on there was Richard Bay, who don't know if anyone's ever heard of him, but he was like a local,
00:15:56.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:15:58.57
Vann
Jerry Springer wannabe kind of a act. So he had a show like that going on. And so I sort of merged those two concepts into this story about two coworkers at a TV station who also go online at night and they know each other online at night, but um the guy decides he wants to get to know this girl better by being someone else online. So he, you know, pretends to be someone else and there's there's a whole relationship and hilarity ensues.
00:16:37.44
Vann
And at the same time, the reason it's called Urge to Merge is because there's also in the background while these guys are at work and at night doing their stuff, there's ah the TV station they work for is merging with the internet provider they use.
00:16:53.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, okay.
00:16:54.32
Vann
So it's kind of prescient because that has happened since, you know, a lot of that kind of stuff has been going on. So, all right. So I wrote this book about all that.
00:17:06.08
Vann
And I decided i was going to make my own books. And I printed them out and I made covers for them. I used an inkjet printer for the cover and laminated it and bound them together with glue. And I made like 300 of these things.
00:17:25.73
Vann
And I'd send them out to people trying to get somebody interested. And every time I sent one to somebody, you know, something would happen like, oh, my dog got sick or I'm getting divorced or something would happen. Some reason they wouldn't read it.
00:17:43.30
Vann
And... you know, i tried to find an agent and that didn't work out too well. And so I decided that
00:17:55.42
Vann
this would be a good idea for another story. And that's where the 13th book comes in. And that's about a guy who writes a book about internet relationships. And every time he sends it to somebody, something bad happens to them.
00:18:09.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:18:11.08
Vann
And, uh, he's trying to, he's, frantically trying to figure out what's going on. And then he himself is in the very first chapter. He gets struck down. He gets stung by a bee and he is dead.
00:18:25.17
Vann
So the detective he had been talking to about all this has to figure out well what's going on with these books. So that's the genesis of that story.
00:18:36.57
Vann
And, uh, It ended up being, ah you know, kind of horrific in places, which isn't my normal style, but I went with it.
00:18:46.94
Vann
And, you know, it's more of like a detective story-ish. But um so that's that's how that happened.
00:18:58.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
So is it really detached, like your short stories?
00:18:59.12
Vann
And
00:19:02.55
Vann
detached.
00:19:03.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:19:05.57
Vann
um
00:19:05.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like emotionally.
00:19:07.53
Vann
Emotionally. Well, I guess I i yeah try to take a objective view of most things when I write.
00:19:19.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:19:20.11
Vann
And like in Urge to Merge, I mean, it's romantic. ah
00:19:27.68
Vann
But it's more from the perspective, like trying to see in the head of each of the people in this relationship. And It's not like a gooeyly romantic, but ah it I think it does have some romance, too especially very end.
00:19:50.27
Vann
I think the very end is very romantic, but it's still it's still written in a ah kind of a, I don't know, observational way somehow.
00:19:53.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:20:02.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. I get it.
00:20:04.08
Vann
You should, you should,
00:20:05.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
So what are you doing with those?
00:20:05.67
Vann
read the last couple of pages of that.
00:20:07.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
why are you Are you spiffing them up to for a new edition? Or but what are you doing with them?
00:20:11.89
Vann
No, well, okay. I think both of those books have some historical value, especially Urge to Merge. And I would like to, I would like to re-release that or re-release. I'd like to, nowadays, i think it has some potential as a retro 90s nostalgia kind of thing. I think People of all generations can relate to it. So like boomers like me will, you know, have some, there's, there's some little things in there that nobody would get unless they lived at that time.
00:20:47.08
Vann
So younger people might not get some of these references, but that's okay. The boomers will, uh, people of your generation who are just getting started with this back then will relate to it.
00:20:58.31
Vann
And then I think newer generations,
00:20:58.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I'm not a boomer, I just want to make that clear.
00:21:01.06
Vann
No, no, I said your generation, your ex, I believe.
00:21:01.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm an Xer.
00:21:04.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
00:21:05.50
Vann
Right, so I mean, that generation would also find things to relate to. and And then I think newer generation would just be fascinated by you know limitations of technology. This is a time when we were using dial-up modems and floppy disks and only rich people had cell phones.
00:21:26.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
00:21:27.22
Vann
So I just think that maybe younger people might find that interesting. I don't know. So I'm trying to think about.
00:21:35.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, it's kind of weird to think that something you wrote as a younger person is now considered historical fiction.
00:21:41.47
Vann
Yeah, but I think that has value these days. And what I had said before about changing it, ah you know, both of those books have things in them that don't line up with today's sensibilities.
00:21:45.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Of course.
00:21:55.10
Vann
You know, there's some you know, you might be in an occasional epithet that no one would ever say now or ah some mild misogyny here and there. And just, it was a different time.
00:22:12.57
Vann
And I just want that to be preserved. I don't need to, you know, worry about, I actually, I actually paid a friend of mine to do a sensitivity edit on it. And she flagged a bunch of stuff. And the more I thought about it the more I'm thinking, know, so what? I mean, isn't going to hurt anybody. And I think people should see what things were like back then. So that's that's where I'm going with it.
00:22:39.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
I see. I see. Well, that actually brings me to the next topic. um Because you and i you know, we we have a pretty good rapport on most things. um
00:22:49.41
Vann
Hmm.
00:22:50.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
But we do disagree on Elon Musk. So I'm going to let you go first. Because you you have corrected me several times when I have referred to him as a Nazi and a fascist.
00:23:04.06
Vann
Yeah.
00:23:04.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
um And then you don't you don't agree. So please...
00:23:07.08
Vann
I don't. I look at Elon through a completely different lens. First of all, I've been investing in Tesla for years now, and I've always thought of Elon as ah ah visionary and you know basically the Edison of our time. And I think he genuinely...
00:23:29.35
Vann
wishes to make life better for humanity by, ah working on sustainable energy, uh, you know, transport electric car. I have ah Tesla car and I love it.
00:23:45.36
Vann
Um, I, it drives itself. I use the full self-driving like 90% of the time now, and it's only going to get better. And when they, you know, finally,
00:23:56.86
Vann
get to the point where everybody can do that. I think everybody would and should do that because that's safer. I feel safer. I don't consider myself a terrible driver, but I think the car drives better than I do.
00:24:10.76
Vann
So i I really like that. I'm very yeah just impressed by the way Elon runs his business. He's a forward thinker.
00:24:22.59
Vann
e ah
00:24:24.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
um I'm sorry, when when you say you like the way that he runs his business, can you be more specific? Like, what specifically do you like?
00:24:32.93
Vann
Well, he's he's he's a hard taskmaster. He makes sure that people do what needs to be done, but he yeah
00:24:43.85
Vann
he he encourages the people around to do the best they possibly can, and he attracts really good engineering talent, and he makes things happen.
00:24:50.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
Thank
00:24:54.72
Vann
ah You know, this whole doge thing, I don't know. I have mixed feelings about it, but he's applying a lot of his business sensibilities to the government, which may or may not be the best thing to do. But his, his philosophy in his business is like, he'll, he'll do a staff cuts. And he, his feeling is that if you don't, if you cut so many, if you don't have to hire 10% the people back, then you didn't cut enough in the first place.
00:25:27.54
Vann
That's kind of his line about that. And I think he's trying to apply that to the government now, which, I understand is troublesome and problematic in a lot of ways, ah but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt because i like I said, I see him through a completely different lens.
00:25:39.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well,
00:25:43.62
Vann
i'm not you know There's people that probably never heard of him until now. And for me, it's it's not like that. So I defend him and I don't you know worry about a lot of the things that people like you know and you know seem to worry about.
00:25:50.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
well
00:26:03.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I have trouble with the idea that he wants to but help humanity. And the most obvious argument for that is that he said that he would solve world hunger, that he could afford to do it.
00:26:22.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
And if someone showed him the numbers, that he would do it. And several organizations got together, including like Amnesty International and the World Health Organization.
00:26:33.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
And they got together a list of numbers. And it was well within his budget. And he changed his mind and reneged on ending world hunger.
00:26:41.98
Vann
well o
00:26:44.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
He literally could have ended world hunger. And he did not even try after telling everyone that he would do so.
00:26:54.24
Vann
Okay. Yeah. i
00:26:57.77
Vann
I looked into this a little bit last night because i knew this was common and he actually does have some philanthropic initiatives going on and part of it is related to that. ah You know, his brother is, I think he has some restaurants and he's he's into, you know, food for people and I think they're working together and there's there's, it's maybe not being talked about a lot, but I think there is stuff going on. ah Like I said, I can't defend everything he says or does
00:27:33.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because that's indefensible.
00:27:34.14
Vann
I can see why you'd latch on to that.
00:27:36.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, I'm sorry, it it that's indefensible.
00:27:39.20
Vann
ah
00:27:40.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
You're not a good guy after you do that, and you're not trying to help humanity.
00:27:44.64
Vann
Well, okay. ah You know, right now he's talking about the concept of sustainable abundance and ah you know, it gets crazy because he's starting you know's talking about robots and how they're going to all the work and nobody's going to have to do anything, but there'll be plenty of everything for everybody.
00:28:04.76
Vann
it gets really, well, no, no, no, no.
00:28:05.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
But it it's not for everybody, though. It's for rich people.
00:28:09.07
Vann
no I mean, that's, e he's not motivated by money. He's got, he's got, no, seriously.
00:28:15.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
I disagree.
00:28:18.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
I disagree.
00:28:19.81
Vann
Well then disagree, but I don't see it that way. I don't think he's motivated by that. He's not, what he's doing now is costing him money. If anything, at this point, uh,
00:28:31.02
Vann
he's really trying to make a difference for people. He's trying to make the government more efficient and save everybody some money. Now I get that, you know, there's no immediate results.
00:28:41.67
Vann
And so everybody's freaking out about it, but I, I think it gotta be more longterm.
00:28:44.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, there are immediate results, but they're terrible.
00:28:47.24
Vann
What's that?
00:28:47.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
There are immediate results to what he's doing in the government, and they're terrible.
00:28:52.09
Vann
ah Yeah.
00:28:52.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
As you know, i have a relative who works for the IRS.
00:28:55.55
Vann
yeah
00:28:56.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
When they were told that they all had to return to the office or be fired, one of her disabled coworkers died.
00:29:02.30
Vann
Mm-hmm.
00:29:05.18
Vann
Mm.
00:29:06.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
They had a heart attack and died from the stress of being told that they were going to lose a job that they had excelled at for decades.
00:29:06.78
Vann
Okay.
00:29:09.49
Vann
Well.
00:29:16.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because some idiot who isn't even from here that no one elected decided to haphazardly fire and change the work conditions of thousands and thousands of loyal government workers.
00:29:21.32
Vann
ah oh
00:29:31.18
Vann
Mm-hmm. I get that. I do. i i it's ah hu It's not cut and dried, though, I don't think. And i don't think it is.
00:29:42.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's not?
00:29:44.33
Vann
I think there's a lot more ah nuance to all this than people want to consider. But I understand.
00:29:53.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, no, I would genuinely like to know what I'm not considering.
00:29:53.58
Vann
Yeah.
00:29:58.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
If there's a facet of this that is beyond my knowledge or her experience, beyond just common sense and how to run a business and things like that, I mean, if if there's more,
00:30:10.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
I would like to know, but...
00:30:11.64
Vann
Well, I think Elon, as you know, is quite neurodivergent.
00:30:21.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
who As am i
00:30:21.41
Vann
i think he I think he's
00:30:25.61
Vann
detached from individual personhood in some way, you know, as far as like so-called caring about individuals, you know, like a situation like that, you know, he's he's looking at
00:30:36.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
You're describing a sociopath.
00:30:40.75
Vann
yeah
00:30:41.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, you're you're saying he lacks empathy, right? He does not have interpersonal connections and lacks empathy.
00:30:46.15
Vann
um
00:30:46.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
That is what a sociopath is.
00:30:48.97
Vann
Okay. um What I'm saying is like empathy for individuals maybe, but as far as for,
00:30:55.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
To be clear, I'm not arguing. i agree that he is a sociopath. I'm just surprised to hear you say it.
00:30:59.30
Vann
yeah. Well, I'm not, I didn't really say he's a sociopath, but he's a,
00:31:07.48
Vann
ah he's a much more of a big picture person. thinker and i think and in the long run there's potential for his way of doing things to actually help out in the long run.
00:31:15.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
you
00:31:21.72
Vann
i cannot deny that there's there's a lot of problems with all of this. I didn't vote for this, just so you know. i i did not vote for Mr. Trump.
00:31:35.81
Vann
ah But since he's there, and we all are stuck with it. I'm trying to be optimistically fatalistic about it. I mean, here it is. gotta, look, there's a lot of problems with that whole scene, I understand.
00:31:57.52
Vann
But at the same time, there's a lot of people that I respect that feel differently. And I'm trying to listen to more of that because here we are. i mean, we're stuck with it. So I can be...
00:32:11.66
Vann
miserable or I can be hopeful. So I choose the latter because I'm so old. I just don't have the energy to freak out about every little thing that's being said and very few of the things that are actually being done. So, you know, what can I say? um
00:32:30.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, but you you've said that he's not a Nazi, and I'm legitimately flummoxed as to how one could arrive at that conclusion.
00:32:30.59
Vann
I'm...
00:32:36.80
Vann
i like What do you think a Nazi is?
00:32:39.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah Someone who throws up Nazi salutes and believes that people that...
00:32:42.37
Vann
Oh, for fuck's sake, that was not a Nazi salute. God damn, it freaks me out when people think that.
00:32:49.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Really?
00:32:50.91
Vann
Yeah, I don't believe that. One second.
00:32:56.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
um and I'm speechless. I am speechless.
00:32:58.20
Vann
Why would he embrace Nazism? What is Nazism?
00:33:01.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, his family money comes from slavery.
00:33:01.60
Vann
It's...
00:33:04.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Why wouldn't he?
00:33:05.76
Vann
It's family money...
00:33:06.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
i mean, decency, but yeah, that there, what? Of course, but their family money comes from apartheid and slavery.
00:33:16.07
Vann
His dad was partially involved with an emerald mine. His dad has has his own problems, and I'm not a big fan of him either. but And neither was Elon for a lot of his life. I mean, i don't know if he still is or not, but ah he did not have a great relationship with his dad. He took off from ah South Africa,
00:33:38.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
Most of the people in the cabinet now, the like wife beating addicted fascists did not have good relationships with their dads. That's why they're like this.
00:33:48.68
Vann
Well, right. I get that too, but
00:33:54.94
Vann
I don't know.
00:33:55.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, you're talking to somebody who would have bet my last dollar that Don Jr. was going to turn out to be good. I believed it for most of my life.
00:34:04.67
Vann
in
00:34:04.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
and And so i I don't want to be spoken to as if I have just a knee-jerk hatred for these people that I've never considered, because I don't.
00:34:12.62
Vann
Right. Okay.
00:34:15.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
I was raised by conservative, blue-collar rednecks. I did not see a Black person in person until I was a teenager.
00:34:19.49
Vann
Okay.
00:34:24.90
Vann
Okay.
00:34:25.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so i am not like bleeding heart liberal. Oh, I hate Elon because CNN told me to. ah du
00:34:32.48
Vann
and
00:34:33.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
That was a Nazi salute. There's no way that it was anything else. And he did it twice to applaud.
00:34:39.21
Vann
But he's not...
00:34:43.77
Vann
Nazism, as you know we know you know... you know had a completely different agenda. and this isn't that it there's there, may you know, maybe it echoes.
00:34:57.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wait, what do you what do you think is different about the agenda except that it targets a different minority?
00:35:06.78
Vann
I don't think Elon is targeting any minorities.
00:35:10.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Uh, you don't think he's targeting trans people?
00:35:16.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
He said that he was. Why?
00:35:18.66
Vann
Targeting? All right.
00:35:19.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, you you know what whats what's up with with his child, Vivian.
00:35:20.59
Vann
Yeah, I know. That's... i know. That gets complicated, too. Look, I can't defend everything he says or does. I get that. But I just think...
00:35:31.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm not sure why you would defend anything he says or does. Because there's nothing happening at any of his companies that wouldn't be happening without him there. He buys things and remarkets them and uses the work of other people.
00:35:40.92
Vann
Ah, that's not true.
00:35:46.40
Vann
Ugh...
00:35:47.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
to, I mean, we all thought it was cute and funny when he sold flamethrowers and called them not a flamethrower.
00:35:48.27
Vann
That's.
00:35:54.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, ooh, what a rebel. How fun. Edgy, edgy dude, bro. But the the shit that they're doing is is hurting people right now. And if you will pardon my saying so, you and I are very different in terms of how insulated we are from government goings on.
00:36:15.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, when when Trump makes a bad call about health care, my literal life is endangered by that.
00:36:21.89
Vann
I understand.
00:36:21.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
When he tells people that DEI is optional and that I don't need a ramp to get in and out of my building, that impacts me.
00:36:30.14
Vann
Yep, I know.
00:36:30.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
And and it it ah I mean, you know I like you. You know, we're friends.
00:36:37.84
Vann
Right.
00:36:37.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
But it is galling to hear your plan to grin and bear it when what you're bearing is so very different than people that can't leave the country because they can't renew their passport because they're trans.
00:36:54.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it's not because they're trans, it's because the government has decided to oppress trans people.
00:37:00.86
Vann
I know.
00:37:00.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
And
00:37:01.66
Vann
it's Look, I don't agree with that. i I get it. I get it. I get it. I just don't know what to do about it myself. I'm not going to sell my car because of it.
00:37:16.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, has anyone asked you to sell your car?
00:37:19.79
Vann
Well, I actually went to a Tesla protest a couple of weeks ago. outside the Tesla dealership or the showroom that I got my car at. I just went up there to see what it was like.
00:37:29.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
00:37:31.17
Vann
And, you they're saying, you know, you should sell your car. And I'm like, well, who am I going to sell it to? Someone else that you're going to complain to? I mean, well what's the point of that?
00:37:42.06
Vann
It doesn't hurt Elon. You know,
00:37:44.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, no, I mean, the point is that we all have to make those decisions for ourselves. You know, we all have to find those lines. You know, I'm not going to sit here, like, if you ask me whether or not I support slavery, i do not support slavery.
00:37:57.23
Vann
how Neither do I.
00:37:57.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
But guess what? But guess what? I eat chocolate. And I know that some of the chocolate that I eat must come from slavery because non-slavery chocolate costs a whole lot more.
00:38:08.98
Vann
and Okay.
00:38:09.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, you know, am I a terrible person because I, by eating chocolate, I support slavery? Some people would say yes. Some people would say, well what are you going to do? Do without chocolate?
00:38:21.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, cell phones, computers, same thing. The labor practices are not good. And we're not all collectively going to do without cell phones. And that's how they get away with it. So I think that if you want to drive a Tesla, that's your choice.
00:38:33.05
Vann
OK. All
00:38:36.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
If you want to say it's good for the environment and that's worth it to me to support this company, then it is. And stand by it. You know, and don't think that people necessarily have a right. Like Jeff Bezos is a bad man.
00:38:50.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I'm a disabled person who didn't drive even when my health was better. i get shit delivered. So I give Bezos a lot of money.
00:38:57.17
Vann
right.
00:38:59.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Until he pussed out on the election, I was subscribed to the Washington Post because i I think it's important to pay for good journalism.
00:39:00.09
Vann
Mm-hmm.
00:39:09.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
But after that shit, I couldn't. So it is not my point to judge you for decisions that you make. You know, I kept all my Harry Potter stuff. I didn't get rid of it.
00:39:19.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I got rid of some of it and I took it off display.
00:39:19.69
Vann
hu
00:39:22.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, it no longer is a part of my aesthetic in my home.
00:39:23.35
Vann
Mm hmm.
00:39:26.51
Vann
Mm hmm.
00:39:27.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I'm not gonna burn my books. I'm not gonna destroy things that I've already purchased just because one, the most, you know, the most prominent person associated with the franchise is terrible now.
00:39:32.63
Vann
OK.
00:39:41.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because you know what? Dan Radcliffe is still great. David Tennant's still great.
00:39:44.35
Vann
Mm hmm.
00:39:45.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Rupert Grint named his daughter Wednesday. i mean... i I've got nothing bad to say about the bulk of the cast. So yeah, I mean, we all, we gotta to decide where those lines are, certainly.
00:39:53.05
Vann
right
00:39:58.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, uh, the Nazis thought it was a Nazi salute, and I have no reason to disagree with them.
00:40:04.82
Vann
Well, well, I have a lot of reasons to disagree with Nazis, but um yeah, I mean, you see what you want.
00:40:07.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
So,
00:40:10.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
well, yes.
00:40:12.34
Vann
You see what you want to see. You know, Nazis saw that and said, oh, good. He's part of us. You saw and said, oh, good. He's horrible. He's part of them. I look at and say, oh, he was expressing his love to the audience.
00:40:25.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
You really bought that?
00:40:26.02
Vann
So I did, i do. So, you know, yeah we're going to have to agree to disagree at some point here because i neither one of is going to convince either of us of anything.
00:40:40.42
Vann
And I'm really trying to convince you, but I am trying to, you know, maybe it makes me a less, uh, enlightened or something in your eyes, but you know, all I can say is, you know, how I feel about it.
00:40:54.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, I'm um' legitimately baffled. I cannot imagine how someone could see that twice and not see it as as anything but what it was.
00:41:04.37
Vann
All
00:41:05.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
I just, I can't say, I mean, and I'm not saying you have to explain it to me or justify it. I'm saying i don't see what you're seeing. I really don't.
00:41:13.89
Vann
right, well, I,
00:41:14.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
um so This might be a good time to move on, actually.
00:41:17.20
Vann
Okay, yeah, I'll just say that I i did ask, well, I asked Rock, but you can ask ChatGPT or anybody, you know, and one of those things. just Just type in the question and see what they say about Elon being a Nazi.
00:41:30.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, Grok said that Elon was one of the biggest spreaders of and misinformation on Twitter.
00:41:37.01
Vann
Okay, well, okay.
00:41:38.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's what Grok said. So...
00:41:40.79
Vann
ask Ask Rock about whether Elon's a Nazi or not and just, you know,
00:41:44.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
And i I only check in at Twitter once a week, so I won't be able to do that for a few days. But...
00:41:50.75
Vann
oh You can just go right to Grok online.
00:41:53.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, really? You don't have to go through Twitter?
00:41:55.67
Vann
No, not anymore, at least not now.
00:41:57.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Huh. Interesting. i don't think.
00:41:59.57
Vann
That's what I did last night.
00:41:59.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
I like that. I think it's weird that he could just steal that name, too. I find that sort of offensive.
00:42:05.71
Vann
Steal it. I thought it was great.
00:42:07.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Grok?
00:42:09.27
Vann
but I thought it was very appropriate. I mean, you steal a name. Come on.
00:42:13.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, of course. What? That is a Heinlein word. Heinlein made that word.
00:42:17.23
Vann
I know that. I know that. That's one of my favorite novels, actually.
00:42:21.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, but, I mean, it's it's neat that he referenced it, but he just straight, because he's never mentioned it.
00:42:30.21
Vann
Who has it?
00:42:30.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
He's never- Elon has not- Really?
00:42:32.12
Vann
Yes, he has. Yeah, I've heard him talk about it. I have. Yeah, yeah. he he wrote
00:42:36.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now I'm gonna look again because I did look for it at one point and did not find anything of him.
00:42:40.06
Vann
There was an interview he did not, he did an interview not too long ago, and he did actually mention it.
00:42:45.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, that's- that's slightly better. I will say that.
00:42:49.84
Vann
and Okay, you know and he you know, he has a Mars connection and he's he's trying doing unique and useful things with space flight.
00:42:49.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um.
00:42:58.50
Vann
You know, his company rescued those astronauts. I mean, that was a thing, you know. So, you know, there's it's not all bad. And I don't disagree that there's some troubling things to be found here and there.
00:43:12.39
Vann
But overall, big picture to me, it's I'd rather support him than not. So. There we go.
00:43:21.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
So you've mentioned not necessarily being a big horror guy, but yet you're in one of my favorite horror movies from the 90s. How did that happen?
00:43:29.39
Vann
ah Ah, all right. Well, I knew Stefan. um I got a job at a place called World Phone.
00:43:44.06
Vann
And that's where I met Stefan. So what this place did was the guy that ran it was from India. And he had this business going where he would get horoscopes each week.
00:44:02.94
Vann
And ah we would get cassettes of these horoscopes in like 12 different Indian languages. You know, there's several languages there, right?
00:44:14.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:44:15.41
Vann
So we'd get a stack of cassettes and we would digitize them in a computer. We'd play the cassette into the computer and make a file, you know.
00:44:27.02
Vann
So this week, you know, Aries in Gujarati is a file. um You know, Pisces in ah Hindi is another file. You know, so we'd have all these files of all the languages and all the horoscopes and we'd put them up in the server, and he would advertise in India, call this number for your horoscope.
00:44:49.75
Vann
And it was a number in the US. So the idea was that he generated so many long distance minutes for AT&T that they gave him a kickback, and that was his revenue stream.
00:45:03.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
00:45:05.13
Vann
Isn't that crazy?
00:45:06.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, it is.
00:45:07.44
Vann
So my job was to sit there and digitize these files and, you know, sort them out and put them where they need to go. And Stefan was doing the same thing. And there was like three or four of us in this little office doing this.
00:45:20.45
Vann
And so we all got to be friends. And then at that time, Stefan was working on his first movie called The Game. ah Do you ever hear about that or know anything about it?
00:45:33.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
The game? Like the Michael Douglas movie?
00:45:36.24
Vann
It's the same title. Actually, we changed the name because of that money. It ended up being called The Money Game. And it was about these young guys that figured out how to counterfeit money and they got involved with some ah mobsters or something.
00:45:41.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, okay.
00:45:51.28
Vann
it was it was a cool story and it was fun. And I worked on that movie. I did the sound for it. And we spent, you know, like a month shooting it and then editing it.
00:46:02.42
Vann
ah He was editing it at home on a he had this giant flatbed film editor in his bedroom in this house that he had for like a month doing you know editing this thing and uh so that's how I know him and that's how uh you know he we you know and we're friends and he was doing this new project and he thought that I would be good for the forensic pathologist so uh he sent me like
00:46:34.57
Vann
an email, I guess, with some information about what this guy would know and how he, you know, what he was adding to the the story of that movie. And so they came over and set up a camera in my office.
00:46:49.58
Vann
I had to put on a jacket and tie, which I never wear.
00:46:52.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
So that was your offer.
00:46:54.20
Vann
That was my house. Yep. I think they liked my messy office look. And so I just sort ad-libbed all the information I needed to convey. And they were there for like, you know, maybe an hour.
00:47:10.05
Vann
And they left. I was never involved with any other aspect of the production.
00:47:14.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. and it Do you know if that is the case for anybody else? I mean, do you have any like inside dish about that? Because it seems like it. All of the performances seem very natural, but then you look at the cast and it's all people that aren't actors.
00:47:31.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
None of them have ever been and anything else that could see.
00:47:34.42
Vann
Right. Well, he was like,
00:47:34.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:47:38.26
Vann
so a few of the people were just, you know, other friends of his. And and he would just, I think he did the same thing. He'd tell them pretty much what they need to say and they would just sort of ad lib it.
00:47:50.70
Vann
um So, and I didn't really know any of them except for Stefan. And I sort of knew Lance, who was his partner in crime on that film.
00:48:02.63
Vann
ah But the other guys are in it. I never really met. Maybe Mark Rubley I might have met. But of the rest of them, I just, you know, we never interacted because that my only association with that film is they came to my house for an hour.
00:48:18.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. That is wild. Because, I mean, I know people that make small films, and we usually end up, like... you go on set and everybody's just there hanging out because most of them are friends anyway and bring their partners or whatever, but
00:48:33.67
Vann
Yeah. Well, that was, that's what it was like for that first one, the money game. But for this one, you know, it was, well, at least for my part, it was, it wasn't like that, but, um, you know, that movie was also history making in a way, cause it was the first thing that was ever like digitally released. Did you know about that?
00:48:53.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Not really. i encountered it because I was managing for Hollywood Video.
00:48:57.86
Vann
So you saw it on video.
00:48:58.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it was, yeah, it was an exclusive there. So we had it on VHS.
00:49:03.49
Vann
Okay, well, i I think what they were trying to do is have have like digital distribution for theaters back when that wasn't really a thing.
00:49:11.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm. Yep.
00:49:13.45
Vann
So he sort of, I think he pioneered that concept at the time.
00:49:19.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, well that that what i would make sense because I know that it took longer for, but it like the the tricky part is that at the time smaller theaters didn't necessarily have digital projectors yet because they were expensive and so it was something that the bigger chains had and the bigger chains are going to be less likely to pick up independent films.
00:49:35.21
Vann
Right.
00:49:44.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, because they're big chains and they make all their money from concessions and not the films itself. So you got to get the people in the seats buying food.
00:49:51.11
Vann
Right.
00:49:54.00
Vann
Right.
00:49:54.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's why movies for stoners do so much better because for the theater, they they love us.
00:50:03.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so did you end up doing like any of the promotional stuff?
00:50:07.61
Vann
ah No, no. I went to a premiere of it, I think, in Philadelphia.
00:50:14.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, okay.
00:50:14.79
Vann
or And let's see.
00:50:17.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
So you would have got to meet everybody. Because, I'm sorry, but the villain, I don't want to, like, give it away, but the villain in that movie is so spooky.
00:50:25.23
Vann
Yeah, yeah.
00:50:26.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah i mean, speaking of sociopaths, my goodness.
00:50:30.32
Vann
Yeah, that was that was that was a great story. And ah so the
00:50:34.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I like it. And I think for for viewers or listeners that they don't know, the last broadcast actually got really eclipsed by the Blair Witch Project. And I would say, as someone who has seen both of them lots of times, I think the last broadcast is the superior film.
00:50:53.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
It makes the most sense.
00:50:54.10
Vann
Ah.
00:50:54.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
It has fewer glaring errors.
00:50:57.59
Vann
Mm-hmm.
00:50:57.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Because the last broadcast, the thing about the Blair Witch is that It's about three people that went into the woods to do a project. And we are to believe that one of them forgot that they had an entire pack of cigarettes.
00:51:13.57
Vann
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
00:51:14.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's not possible. It simply isn't. Because the real story is the director felt bad for them, for the cast, because the shooting conditions were so difficult that he gave them a pack of cigarettes and just had the character say, oh, I forgot I had an extra thing. knew Come on.
00:51:32.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Come on, that that insults my intelligence as a viewer and a smoker.
00:51:36.86
Vann
That's funny.
00:51:37.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
I don't smoke cigarettes now, but back in the day I did.
00:51:37.22
Vann
You know...
00:51:39.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
I smoked Camelites in my 20s.
00:51:42.22
Vann
ah boy.
00:51:43.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:51:44.41
Vann
Well,
00:51:44.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, they're the filters. They were the light ones.
00:51:47.39
Vann
the last broadcast was actually produced first, you know, before Blair Witch. And I don't know if there's any real speculation about...
00:51:59.97
Vann
anything nefarious going on with those people as far as co-opting something that was already there. But yeah, but
00:52:06.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, I wouldn't think so. I wouldn't think so, but, you know, it's like spaghetti got invented in two different parts of the world around the same time, and, you know, it's not necessarily left.
00:52:15.55
Vann
all right, there you go. So it's not like, i just wouldn't want anyone to think, oh, that you know, Stefan saw the Blair Witch and said, oh, i got an idea.
00:52:23.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, no.
00:52:24.02
Vann
It wasn't and wasn't like that at all.
00:52:24.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
but i wouldnt I wouldn't think so. I would not think so. Um, but but do you know, like, whatever happened to Jim Seward? Because i i can't find any trace of him online.
00:52:38.24
Vann
i don't I don't know.
00:52:38.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I've looked.
00:52:39.96
Vann
Oh,
00:52:40.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because at the time, i did third I was sure I heard he was coming out with an album. And I was fully prepared to purchase it and never found it.
00:52:45.94
Vann
really?
00:52:49.85
Vann
Huh. Well, he might be using a different name or something. i can ask Stefan.
00:52:55.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Please, please, because I must have asked him at some point, but he didn't say.
00:53:00.53
Vann
Oh, okay.
00:53:01.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, so when we did your pre-interview questionnaire, you described yourself as uninterestingly neurotypical.
00:53:05.30
Vann
Yeah.
00:53:10.46
Vann
Yeah, well.
00:53:11.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean... From where I'm sitting, like, everyone I know either has occasional depression or anxiety, they're on the spectrum, they've lived with trauma, um, so I, that, what, what you've got going is, is actually pretty exotic from where I'm, you know, like, how, how is that going?
00:53:32.15
Vann
Well, I mean, so far, so good. I... I keep it together for the most part. I really have. I mean, I've been pretty well blessed in a lot of ways in my life, you know, both materially and and emotionally and hey even physically, I guess. I mean, nothing terrible has happened to me, but, um,
00:53:56.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, I have been the only sober person at a party full of drunks, and I find it irksome. Is there like a mental health equivalent to that, where you just feel like you're surrounded by crazy people?
00:54:10.08
Vann
Oh, well, not in a bad way. I mean,
00:54:15.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ha ha ha ha.
00:54:19.61
Vann
you know, um, I, I understand that everybody has their struggles and i feel bad about it. I have family members that have struggled with addiction uh, I've been, you know, spared from all that.
00:54:37.50
Vann
Uh, I haven't had any real bouts of depression. I got a good, solid relationship at home. i got two great kids. And, you know, obviously there's going to be things here and there where you're worried about things for whatever reason, but I'm not suffering from any, you know, crippling depression or anything because of anything.
00:55:01.64
Vann
ah I'm not, ah I don't know, I guess compared to A lot of people, I'm in pretty good shape.
00:55:11.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now what I wonder is, for a lot of people that have some of the conditions that I was describing earlier, um creative work is is a necessary outlet.
00:55:25.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it's something that we use to to process a lot of the things that make us stand out from the population at large, ah you know, mentally and emotionally. so
00:55:37.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Is that, is any of that a factor for you? Are you like working through things with the work?
00:55:42.33
Vann
with ah
00:55:48.53
Vann
Not really. i mean, I guess mostly I just like to play with words and that's my motivation for writing, whether it's a story or a song.
00:56:03.16
Vann
ah But ah i I wouldn't say it's like that. and In fact, that's Maybe some of the stuff I write isn't genuine enough because I don't have that.
00:56:20.39
Vann
i don't know. um
00:56:22.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, is that is that why it's detached?
00:56:25.69
Vann
Maybe, maybe so. Yeah, yeah.
00:56:27.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
Huh.
00:56:28.37
Vann
That's good. Good insight there. I don't know. um I guess, you know,
00:56:34.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because, yeah, when when i read I read things, because some of the things that you've written are, I mean, there there's bad things that happen to people that don't necessarily seem to deserve bad things.
00:56:47.13
Vann
Mm-hmm.
00:56:47.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
And yet it is written with a detachment that, like, You know, obviously when you read something, you think about how you might write it if it were you. And I always think of like, you know, like I wish he was hitting that emotional spot. I wish that that was grounded in something that we already knew about the character. Like, you know, the the stuff that makes a story rip your heart out.
00:57:10.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
and And I was saying that to H at one point. And H said, ah you know, not everybody wants to rip people's hearts out.
00:57:18.36
Vann
Ha!
00:57:18.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, well, what? well, why? what What are we here for? What are we doing this for? Because, you know, like, to me, if you're not feeling it and relating to it with every ounce of yourself, what are you even doing here?
00:57:33.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, what is, what's the point of that? Because for me, everything is a coping mechanism. Everything I read, everything I watch, all of it is like, You know, it's it's all mentally and emotionally related to my life and and things that I've, you know, which isn't to say like, you know, Tony Soprano reminds me of when I used to be in the mob, because that's not the case.
00:57:58.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, you know, the the things that are relatable, the the family strife, the frustration and co-workers and, you know, all that there. So I just wonder what it's like to be, I mean, that's kind of why you're here.
00:58:13.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
but Why why a a self-described sane person would be involved in the arts. Like, what is that like? How is it different? And it seems like it is different. Like, the desperation isn't there.
00:58:24.91
Vann
Right. And, uh, So yeah, most of my writing is not does not come from pain. um So I did mention the ah a third novel that I've stopped working on, but that came from the idea of, all right, so when I was 12 years old, I broke my leg going to the bathroom.
00:58:53.54
Vann
um which actually means I was walking towards the boys' room at summer camp, and I fell and snapped my femur. And that was very painful.
00:59:05.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I would think.
00:59:05.37
Vann
And that was, you know, the biggest trauma I've had in my life. And I i got through it, and here I am. But ah about 10 years ago, i got the idea of writing a story – about the idea of being able to talk to your former selves in different ways.
00:59:27.96
Vann
And so i actually came up with this concept of being dimensionally diminished so that all of your, each day of your life is happening at the same time.
00:59:47.41
Vann
So this character goes to this place where all his former daily iterations are all in the same place and they can all talk to each other. And each one of them that's there only has experience from before they got there other than talking to the new people that come in.
01:00:02.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
Thank you.
01:00:07.37
Vann
So it's like a progression of, you know, a person's life all interacting. And one of the central characters is the 12 year old self who had broken his leg and he,
01:00:20.97
Vann
made a deal with God or the devil or whoever to with the idea in mind that, look, I don't ever want to have that dynamic pain again. was terrible. Here's what I'll do. I'll suffer through little minor discomforts every day for the rest of my life.
01:00:39.98
Vann
As long as I don't have to have anything severely happen to me like that again. so it's kind of a weird concept, but I was running with it.
01:00:50.24
Vann
And I think yeah I've sort of taken that to heart because it's sort of worked out that way.
01:00:54.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
you
01:00:56.38
Vann
You know I always have some little thing that's bothering me and then that goes away. And then before you know it, something else happens, you know, like ah muscle a muscle ache or a tooth or whatever. But I think that that same concept also applies to me emotionally where,
01:01:17.26
Vann
I don't have a lot of highs and lows of emotion, but I just sort of have this burbling of like, I'm okay. You know, sometimes I'm a little depressed. Sometimes I'm happy, but I'm never really like ecstatic or, or horribly depressed.
01:01:33.33
Vann
So I've just become, you know, mediocre.
01:01:38.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I was on a medication that made me like that once.
01:01:41.86
Vann
Really?
01:01:42.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I stopped taking it because i couldn't get any writing done.
01:01:48.90
Vann
Interesting.
01:01:48.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. that I just realized that. Yeah, because it was when I was writing, I was writing Kiss Me Like You Love Me, my my serial killer book, and I couldn't figure out how to end it because I wasn't sure what the theme was.
01:02:03.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I couldn't, I just couldn't get there mentally. Like I couldn't figure out what the the point is, what I was actually saying with the book. Because it's, you know, it's a pretty good story. And it's got point of view stuff from the, like half of it is POV of the serial killer.
01:02:22.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it's gross because he's killing like young teenage girls for sexy, sex not sexy, but sexual reasons. And and it's it's a rough read in that way.
01:02:32.89
Vann
Blech, okay.
01:02:37.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
And there has to be a reason to put the reader through it. And I couldn't decide exactly what, I mean, because the point is about, you know, having empathy and paying attention and realizing that even though situations seem messed up and hopeless and and you're detached from them, you still have to do something. You still have a responsibility to to take the steps.
01:02:59.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
That basically, when there's a serial killer and they're going out about their business, a million different people had opportunities to to stop things from progressing, and they didn't do it for reasons that seem reasonable.
01:03:12.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, that's the theme of the book. But I wasn't clear on whether or not the killer should live or die and whether or not they should learn anything from it.
01:03:22.65
Vann
Oh
01:03:24.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that was the part that I was stuck on. And I ended up cold turkey in my meds and having like just a full on breakdown. And it was not good. But I did finish the book and it's a great ending.
01:03:36.16
Vann
oh my.
01:03:37.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
It is a wonderful ending, but I sacrificed my mental health for it. And so I, ah yeah, I had to promise H I would never do that again.
01:03:41.91
Vann
gosh.
01:03:44.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
and
01:03:47.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:03:48.19
Vann
Wow. Well, ah yeah, I guess I've never really ah properly suffered for my art.
01:03:56.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I don't know that it's required, but I will say that I have very much romanticized that bullshitty, like, my suffering is what makes my art.
01:04:08.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it's, I'm sure that it's possible.
01:04:09.09
Vann
Mm-hmm.
01:04:11.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, I mean, there are plenty of writers whose work I admire that do have you know, characters that are torment tormented or really brave because of their trauma or, you know, like, as far as I know, John Mayberry, for example, is not is not someone who lives with mental illness. Like, maybe he is, I don't know, but I i don't know that he is.
01:04:35.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, if he is, it's not obvious. And that's actually one of the things that I have issues with on the show, because thematically, do invite people that are neurodivergent, or they have some sort of mental illness, therere you know they're they've lived through addiction and recovery or you know trauma, so...
01:04:57.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
If people are not already outspoken about those things and I don't know them personally, i haven't found the right way to say, hey, are you a wackadoo of some sort?
01:05:07.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because we talk about wackadoolery on my show. Please come on. You know, I don't know what the polite way is to to go about it. And i I worry that I'll be offending people.
01:05:20.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because Brian Key never hit me back. So...
01:05:25.96
Vann
Oh, well, ah yeah. ah From what I've seen of the way you present yourself, I don't see anyone would be you have a problem with it unless, you know, they they just have a problem with it.
01:05:39.31
Vann
And that's part of their problem. So.
01:05:41.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, but you know, that guy called me a terrorist. So some people obviously have... have Wait, did you did you hear about this?
01:05:48.38
Vann
Now, who called you a terror?
01:05:49.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:05:49.82
Vann
for I mean, for why?
01:05:51.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
He said I was terrorizing him because I joked about something that we had talked about earlier, and I guess he didn't remember that we had joked about it or something. And he told a bunch of people that I was terrorizing him.
01:06:03.61
Vann
Oh, okay.
01:06:03.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, it was crazy. It was somebody who was on the show. And yeah, it was nuts.
01:06:10.50
Vann
Well, you know, I mean, it sounds like ah an element of paranoia or something maybe is part of the whole scene.
01:06:10.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
That was was a while ago now, a couple months ago.
01:06:18.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah Yeah, well it turned out that it it turned out that actually one of the, all these people started contacting me after it happened, like you know DMing me and saying, oh, I guess it's your turn.
01:06:29.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
i guess, like, you've arrived. Because now that, you know, he, like, has done that with so many people, just, like, taken an errant comment and multiplied it into some crazy, twisted, like...
01:06:37.54
Vann
yeah
01:06:44.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know, but bunch of accusations. And he'd apparently done it to a whole bunch of people. And then he, you know, I didn't know that because when I met him, he was saying that somebody had just screwed him over really bad and they were trying to ruin him.
01:06:57.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I was like, Oh no, why don't you come on my show and talk about it? You can set the record straight.
01:07:01.25
Vann
her
01:07:02.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then like, you know, a month or two after that, he did that to me. was like, Oh, so it's, it's not your crazy exes.
01:07:08.57
Vann
yeah that's kind of sad actually yeah
01:07:12.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's your crazy you.
01:07:15.13
Vann
yeah yeah yeah
01:07:17.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, you know, like when you find out that everybody is, you know, like you have your friend and they had a crazy ex, but then it turns out all their exes were crazy. And then you realize, no, no, it it was him. Actually, it was him the whole time.
01:07:33.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, um, you have a song for us. I am told that you are going to sing live and we've never had a live music performance on the show.
01:07:38.47
Vann
Oh.
01:07:41.58
Vann
Well,
01:07:42.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
We usually take it on the end, but you're going to do it live. And I think that's real brave.
01:07:45.09
Vann
we'll try this. If it doesn't come out good, you can edit it out.
01:07:49.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, okay.
01:07:50.07
Vann
this the This is just a little thing I've been playing around. I think, you know, lyrics need some work or whatever, but I just want to play it because I like playing it.
01:08:00.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, cool.
01:08:02.60
Vann
Okay. ah
01:08:03.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Is there a title?
01:08:05.79
Vann
Tentatively, I'm calling it, where did the time go? Okay. I'm gonna take off my headphones for this so I can hear what I'm doing.
01:08:17.75
Vann
So, I'll be right, I'll be back, but I'm still here. Okay.
01:08:20.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:08:27.81
Vann
Oh no.
01:08:32.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Uh-oh, we're still warming up.
01:08:32.64
Vann
Wrap my headphones around my guitar here. That's not good.
01:08:35.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
Where are your roadies? Your roadies are supposed to be doing this for you.
01:08:36.73
Vann
Alright. you
01:08:43.81
Vann
Open the door and let us in. It's time for this party to begin. What are you doing over there all by yourself?
01:08:57.31
Vann
Come over here and tell me about what's going on.
01:09:00.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Thank you.
01:09:03.88
Vann
Nobody cares what you've done, and nobody knows where you've been. You've got to present in a way they will remember.
01:09:16.69
Vann
It's not who you were, but who you are. They need to see.
01:09:26.09
Vann
This place needs to be livened up. I've got some magic in my cup. What do you say we both go insane for a while?
01:09:34.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Thank you.
01:09:40.58
Vann
Close your eyes and let it find you. Pretty soon colors could talk. We went outside for a walk.
01:09:54.07
Vann
Why do we go Why do we go anywhere?
01:10:00.75
Vann
Time's on our side for now, but it won't always be there. Then what do we do with the time you have left?
01:10:22.49
Vann
Time is the school in which we learn. And time is the fire which we burn.
01:10:35.84
Vann
But I still believe in love life.
01:10:46.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yay.
01:10:50.43
Vann
ah So yeah, i I don't know, somehow that just sort of came to me. went to a play with my wife and the director of the play wrote this whole long ah director's notes about this show. It had something to do with time travel.
01:11:11.59
Vann
And at the very end of what she wrote is a quote from somebody named Delmore Schwartz. And that's the The time is the school in which we learn and time is the fire in which we burn. That stuck with me, so I decided to write something around it.
01:11:26.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Alright, I get it.
01:11:30.92
Vann
So, yeah, hold on second.
01:11:32.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, also...
01:11:33.67
Vann
I gotta, hold on, I gotta detach myself here.
01:11:37.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:11:40.07
Vann
but Okay, I'm back.
01:11:42.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright. So, what about, psychedemia?
01:11:47.52
Vann
Oh, okay. ah Yeah, you mentioned nine perfect. It has nothing to do with that. I don't know why you thought that, but
01:11:52.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Well, the the premise seems similar, because that's...
01:11:55.01
Vann
um
01:11:57.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
have you Did you watch or read Nine Perfect Niners?
01:11:59.75
Vann
I watched the trailer.
01:12:01.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, okay.
01:12:01.61
Vann
It looked pretty disturbing, actually.
01:12:01.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:12:04.09
Vann
ah We're talking about nine perfect strangers. i i knew nothing about that. Psychedemia is a documentary, and it was an actual conference that took place at the University of Pennsylvania 13 years ago.
01:12:16.20
Vann
thirteen years ago And they gathered together all these educators and doctors and people that were using psychedelics as part of therapy, people that are studying the, you know, effects and usefulness of these substances. And they're there were artists there talking about how it influenced that. There was doctors talking about how it's used in various kinds of psychotherapy.
01:12:47.88
Vann
um And it was fascinating. And it was, I think it was the first time they did this. I think they've done it a couple of times since, but there's ah there's a whole community out there people that are really studying this stuff and think that it's, you know, can be useful if, you know, done carefully and properly.
01:13:12.64
Vann
So that's what that was about. And it came out really good. My son and I worked on that together. His friends were the people running this thing. And he and I produced it and shot it and edited it.
01:13:26.51
Vann
And it was it was a great experience. And it came out really well, I think. Yeah.
01:13:32.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah i'm I'm a great fan and proponent of that. I use mushrooms, ah microdose mushrooms for various things.
01:13:39.66
Vann
yeah i
01:13:41.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
I use them short term. I don't do it all the time. But yeah, when i' but I'm like working on mental and emotional things in particular.
01:13:50.26
Vann
I'm very interested in that. curious about I'm a little trepidatious. I did some stuff in college, and I never really liked it.
01:14:00.34
Vann
I had friends that were like into the whole scene, but it...
01:14:04.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, you know, recreational as opposed to microdosing, or it's a world of difference.
01:14:08.99
Vann
Yeah, I assume it is. i don't I don't know how much of an effect a microdose would have, but I guess I should try to find out sometime.
01:14:18.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, um I would never say on the show that I would hook you up, but...
01:14:18.95
Vann
Does it... it
01:14:23.12
Vann
No, i get it. We've talked about it before, but ah it does it last a long time?
01:14:29.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
It can. i mean, cause actually, if I microdose in the morning by the time I like, it's dinner time and I eat dinner, I'm not really feeling it, feeling it after that.
01:14:41.49
Vann
Oh, so it's all day, basically.
01:14:44.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Can be, yeah.
01:14:45.35
Vann
Okay, Okay.
01:14:45.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. But like, if you take mushrooms, they tend to, like if you're tripping on them, they tend to last less time than LSD.
01:14:46.17
Vann
interesting
01:14:54.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cause LSD is like a solid 12 hours before you start coming down.
01:14:57.85
Vann
Yeah.
01:15:00.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Whereas I think Mushroom's closer to like a day at the office, like eight, seven, eight hours. No break. No break. you
01:15:13.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right.
01:15:13.63
Vann
you
01:15:14.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Let's see. I'm just looking over my notes, making sure that we got to everything. You actually describe yourself as having a couple of brushes with greatness. that ah Other than Joan London, because you did mention that.
01:15:24.50
Vann
Well, all right.
01:15:26.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
But like, who else?
01:15:28.37
Vann
Well, you know, I worked with Howard Stern. That was fun. yeah
01:15:33.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wait, did you work with him when he was still a complete dick? Because I don't really remember where he was at that point in his journey.
01:15:40.51
Vann
Oh, back then. Yeah. Most people considered a complete dick, but I knew him when he was not being his persona. I mean, even then he was still, you know, but I've definitely caught glimpses of him being like a normal person.
01:15:54.71
Vann
And
01:15:54.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah, because, I mean, back in the day, he was really the the foreshadowing of of, like, the programming that we have now, like, the Charlie Kirk, the Joe Rogan, like, all that crap.
01:16:03.37
Vann
yeah, yeah.
01:16:05.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
He was the beginning of that, the whole, like, hey, let's treat women badly.
01:16:06.31
Vann
ah
01:16:10.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
They love that. And then guys were like, oh, my God, really?
01:16:11.70
Vann
Actually, one one day my wife came there because she was in the area for something else. And She got to meet She was afraid to meet him because she didn't know what, you know, how he would treat her or anything. But he was really nice to her.
01:16:26.33
Vann
And she was pleasantly surprised. you He was so nice.
01:16:31.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
when When you say nice, do you mean he was polite or like he was genuine?
01:16:31.66
Vann
um
01:16:36.26
Vann
Well, he was polite. ah It was funny because she had just been at a photography seminar. That's why she was up there. And that day he happened to be doing a skit where he was going to be a fashion photographer.
01:16:51.94
Vann
And ah so my wife said something to him about, you know, and you might want to tell some of these girls when you photograph them to turn a little bit sideways because it'll make him make them look a little thinner.
01:17:04.65
Vann
i guess that was a tip she had just picked up. And so she said that to him and then he used that in his skit. So I thought that was pretty funny.
01:17:11.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
don't know. I see. i see
01:17:15.51
Vann
So, but yeah, no, he was, he was nice to her and, uh, he was generally ah nice guy. mean, he'd fool around. Like I, I, my job was Mike everybody. So I'd go into his dressing room and I have a belt pack that I'd put on the back of his pants.
01:17:31.17
Vann
And every time I did that, accuse me of trying to feel his ass or something, you know, just silly little comments like that. But, uh, he's actually generally, ah ah a nice guy, I think. And i haven't listened to him very lately, but in the past few years, I know he's done some really insightful interviews with people and he's, you know, he's a thoughtful guy.
01:17:54.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I mean, he certainly seems different now than he did when I i saw i saw the movie Private Parts in the theater.
01:17:58.42
Vann
Yeah, well, he's, he's, uh-huh.
01:18:03.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
And i I swear I am not making this up. I went with my friend Lydia. and Because she she had wanted to see it. I was not particularly into that. um But it was it was her turn to pick. Because when it was my turn to pick, I think right around that time, i picked the what turned out to be like the worst Batman movie.
01:18:23.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
and it was the one with Poison Ivy in it, and she was so terrible. Like, it was just, the whole movie was so bad. And so I was like, okay, and had to sit through private parts. And in front of us, like, two rows in front of us, there were four dudes, and they left an empty seat in between each one of them.
01:18:42.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I did not, I was like, oh, they must be waiting for their dates. But they they were not waiting for their dates. They were doing, um... you know, the no-homo thing.
01:18:53.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
They had to make sure everybody knew that they weren't together, they weren't dates, they were, you know, just this, and yeah, that was a thing at that time, just this homophobic thing of putting a seat in between each one of you.
01:18:56.09
Vann
Oh, oh, geez. Oh, geez. Okay. Oh,
01:19:06.13
Vann
uh-huh.
01:19:06.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm like, oh, wow, and it's a Howard Stern movie. I get it.
01:19:12.69
Vann
okay
01:19:13.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, yeah, I never forgot that.
01:19:14.65
Vann
and
01:19:15.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because you know what movies that didn't happen at? UHF. like all the nerd movies. Batman movies.
01:19:22.96
Vann
oh
01:19:23.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
People can just like, yeah, I don't know, that that whole toxic masculinity thing.
01:19:24.14
Vann
ah hu
01:19:31.77
Vann
Okay.
01:19:32.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
um So was there anything that we did not talk about that you wanted to talk about?
01:19:38.88
Vann
ah
01:19:41.70
Vann
I don't think so. ah i mean, just, you're asking about brushes with greatness. I did, you know, when I was at the view, we had a lot of musicians there.
01:19:54.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, okay.
01:19:55.79
Vann
And so that was fun. ah You know, I got to meet Ringo was there and,
01:20:00.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
01:20:02.49
Vann
Tony Bennett was, you know
01:20:03.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, I just heard that Zach Starkey got fired from The Who. Did you hear that?
01:20:07.46
Vann
know, didn't fire.
01:20:08.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I just found it out like two days ago. Yeah, I don't know anything beyond that, but I read it online and made a mental note to look it up, and then I forgot until just now.
01:20:12.49
Vann
Oh gosh.
01:20:19.44
Vann
Well, I can't imagine why he would get fired unless he wasn't crazy enough.
01:20:25.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, he's been with them forever. I mean, when I saw The Who, the last time I saw The Who, I was still living in my mom's house.
01:20:28.24
Vann
Yeah.
01:20:33.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
So that would have been about five years before I met H.
01:20:36.78
Vann
Oh, gosh.
01:20:36.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
And my my boyfriend at the time took me to Pine Knob to see The Who. And I was like, and i' I actually recognized him. I'm like, I did not know this, but I think that's Zach Starkey playing drums for The Who.
01:20:49.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then, you know, later on, they introduce everybody. So yeah, it was him.
01:20:52.68
Vann
Yeah. How about that? um So, yeah, that was that was, you know, fun meeting guys like that. i said, Tony Bennett, my favorite personally was getting to meet Alanis Morissette.
01:21:07.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, is she cool in person? Yay!
01:21:08.85
Vann
Yeah, I mean, she was, I just always loved her songs and her music and it was good to get to, you know, meet her. And now when I say and meet these people, i don't talk to them. I mean, like, is your monitor okay? You need anything?
01:21:22.41
Vann
You know, it's not like I'm conversing, but it was so nice to, you know, be in the presence of some of these people.
01:21:28.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, sometimes it doesn't take very long to notice if somebody is a rude ass.
01:21:33.97
Vann
ah Yeah, you know, the,
01:21:34.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
i
01:21:36.10
Vann
The country acts we had and they were always the nicest people. And then we had, think we had Britney Spears and her crew were just assholes, you know, but the the country people were much more chill and that was fun.
01:21:53.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Alright.
01:21:58.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I always hoped that Alanis would turn out to be cool in real life. Because I always liked Alanis, and I always really liked Liz Phair. And I don't like Liz Phair now as much as I did in the 90s.
01:22:11.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
I try not to throw around the word sellout, because it's actually two words. But, yeah, I don't, I mean... You know, i mean, not not a sellout on the level of like LL Cool J or anything, but still kind of a bit of a sellout to us ladies.
01:22:30.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
um So, you know, I also like to give guests a chance to ask me something if they want to. So is there anything you want to ask me?
01:22:40.58
Vann
Yeah.
01:22:42.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:22:44.07
Vann
um Are you okay?
01:22:50.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um, no, not really. ah mean, you know, my day to day is all right, but I'm, I'm pretty confident that this is the year I'm going to die.
01:23:03.18
Vann
Oh!
01:23:04.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like pretty confident. Although I got approved for the medical charity thing that, uh, you know, so they're going to cover my, like, we won't go broke for medical bills this year.
01:23:14.42
Vann
ah Good.
01:23:15.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Well, yeah, we got it in 2022 because remember I got really sick and then we got that hospital bill for $149,000.
01:23:19.83
Vann
Yeah.
01:23:24.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
And and it it's funny too, because our insurer is UHC.
01:23:25.00
Vann
Oh,
01:23:29.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
So a couple months ago, I woke up one day and checked the news and was like, oh my God, H, our The CEO of her insurance company got got shot to death. And he's like, oh, yeah, I could see that.
01:23:43.64
Vann
geez.
01:23:44.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
like
01:23:44.37
Vann
Yeah.
01:23:45.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. So we applied for the program again because I need to have a thing for my heart. It turns out that like I had apnea. I was born with obstructive apnea, but it wasn't treated until I was 37.
01:23:57.32
Vann
Mm-hmm.
01:23:59.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
And one of the impacts of that is that my heart is like wrong. And in addition to like, you know, some other health problems and then like also but like led to like weight gain and ah the you know, the things that that exacerbates and it's a whole rich tapestry.
01:24:17.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I got to have like a procedure. But I don't know, man. I'm one of these people that anytime anything decent happens to me, I'm sure I'm gonna die. Like, I never thought we would make it back alive for our honeymoon.
01:24:30.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
I was positive that we would be a story where we, like, died tragically on the road trip back from Chicago.
01:24:30.72
Vann
Oh,
01:24:37.13
Vann
ah gosh.
01:24:38.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, um I'm mentally ill. You know, I don't, and but like, it isn't just that.
01:24:43.00
Vann
Yeah, I mean,
01:24:45.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's also, it's, you know, the, the lifetime of trauma, like the things that happened to you in your formative formative years, you kind of low key expect those things for the entire rest of your life.
01:24:58.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, I've been living with H for over 25 years at this point, and it still strikes me someday that that just, like, that nobody screams at me in my home.
01:25:10.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nobody raises their hand to me in my home. I'm still not, like, used to it, you know?
01:25:13.64
Vann
ah
01:25:17.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, ah no.
01:25:17.69
Vann
Yeah.
01:25:18.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, as a general rule, no, I'm i'm absolutely not okay. Plus, like, I do all these projects and everybody that sees my projects or reads one of my books or listens to my show says, wow, you're really good at this. And I go, oh my God, what? Thank you.
01:25:33.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I'm never sure if they're just being nice because i don't really get any notice, which is a nice thing. It's nice to not get any notice because I can say whatever the fuck I want and nobody knows.
01:25:46.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
I just called Elon Musk a Nazi. If he doesn't think he's a Nazi, he might sue me for that.
01:25:49.01
Vann
yeah
01:25:52.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
but But that's also the nice thing about being poor. It's like, you're going to sue me for what? I got a tank full of lizards and a five-year-old computer. You know?
01:26:01.94
Vann
My God.
01:26:02.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
It wouldn't even be worth it to send a car to pick it up.
01:26:06.71
Vann
Well, I've...
01:26:07.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
but But thank you for asking, though.
01:26:10.17
Vann
Yeah, well, i you know, I...
01:26:11.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
or Or did you mean because I had the flu last week? Because, yeah, I'm better.
01:26:14.42
Vann
No, I meant in general. ah Okay, good. I know you've you've had a lot of struggles and I just wanted to see how you are in general because, you know.
01:26:23.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I mean, that's kind of why we do the show is so that people can give voice to those things and and explain like how it it goes.
01:26:31.79
Vann
but
01:26:34.62
Vann
But I can relate to you, you know, not feeling noticed or, i don't know, appreciated or whatever. i got the same You know, like like I said, the story of that,
01:26:47.16
Vann
one book where every time I tried to get someone to read it, something would happen. and And then you lost it.
01:26:55.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, no, I want to be clear. I did not lose it. H does this weird thing he calls cleaning, and it's where he just, like, picks up all the stuff that's where I put it, and he puts it to a different place that he calls out of the way.
01:27:01.32
Vann
Oh, ew.
01:27:10.00
Vann
Ah, that's where I belong, I guess.
01:27:09.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
don't know where the fuck out of the way is, but whole bunch of my stuff is there. And one day i will discover it. So...
01:27:17.27
Vann
OK.
01:27:18.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it's it's in this apartment and and H will but eventually remember where he put it.
01:27:25.07
Vann
OK.
01:27:27.49
Vann
Well, good.
01:27:29.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
So so it's it's time for the Mad Lib. Are you ready for this?
01:27:32.18
Vann
Oh, sure.
01:27:33.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, good. Let me get my pen. So you you know Mad Libs. I don't have to like explain any of this, right?
01:27:36.52
Vann
Yes. Oh, yeah.
01:27:38.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so we're going start with a bunch of nouns.
01:27:39.30
Vann
Since I was at 10. ten
01:27:41.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
Holy crap, I need one, two, three, four words. Five, six, seven singular nouns.
01:27:48.83
Vann
Oh, okay, you're doing it that way. Do all the nouns first.
01:27:51.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
can do it whatever way I want. Yep.
01:27:53.15
Vann
Okay, no, i never did it that way. That's cool. ah Singular nouns?
01:27:58.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Uh-huh.
01:27:59.95
Vann
Okay. um
01:28:04.90
Vann
Okay, tiger. are Rubber ball.
01:28:12.17
Vann
um
01:28:16.37
Vann
Shake weight.
01:28:19.65
Vann
um Teacup.
01:28:26.05
Vann
Oil can. How many more do we need?
01:28:29.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah two.
01:28:31.52
Vann
Okay, ah bowling ball.
01:28:37.02
Vann
And ah let's see, one more graham cracker.
01:28:46.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
all Alright, and one, two, three plural nouns.
01:28:54.23
Vann
Plural nouns, oh, okay. um
01:28:58.30
Vann
Chickens.
01:29:02.43
Vann
ah
01:29:08.48
Vann
Okay, hold on, spacing out here. Just looking around for nouns here. Pillows.
01:29:18.36
Vann
And...
01:29:26.27
Vann
Screwdrivers.
01:29:30.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Should we think of the tool or the drink?
01:29:34.00
Vann
Oh, ah yeah, let's go with the drink.
01:29:34.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Adjective. ah adjective
01:29:39.58
Vann
Adjective. Incorrigible. ah How many of these do we need?
01:29:45.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
I don't know, I'm just going down the rest. A part of the body.
01:29:50.51
Vann
Oh, part of the body. Nostril.
01:29:54.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
A verb, past tense.
01:29:58.43
Vann
um
01:30:04.95
Vann
Drove.
01:30:09.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, and a verb ending in ing.
01:30:14.53
Vann
ah Cooking.
01:30:16.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
Two adjectives.
01:30:19.65
Vann
Two more adjectives. ah
01:30:24.24
Vann
Pickled.
01:30:27.30
Vann
And flagrant.
01:30:31.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
And finally, a place.
01:30:34.94
Vann
A place. ah Like a location, I mean a geographical place or a...
01:30:42.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
Your call.
01:30:43.86
Vann
Okay, bowling alley.
01:30:48.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
Really? Okay, cool. So this is called playing by the rules.
01:30:52.22
Vann
Oh my God. Uh-oh.
01:30:57.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
We all know the basic rules of baseball. Each team tries to hit the tiger and score as many chickens as possible. However, there are many incorrigible rules that even a knowledgeable rubber ball might not know.
01:31:15.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
For example, there's the infield shake weight rule. which states that when a player hits a pop teacup into the infield, there are pillows on base, and that player is automatically out.
01:31:30.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
The umpire throws his nostril into the air and shouts, Infield fly, oil can and out!
01:31:39.44
Vann
Mm-hmm.
01:31:40.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Another lesser-known rule of baseball is the drove third strike rule. The rule is used when the catcher fails to catch a bowling ball for a third strike.
01:31:51.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
The umpire shouts, Graham Cracker's still in play! The batter cooking as fast as he can all the way to the bowling alley. Now that you know the pickled rules, you can go out into the ballpark and impress all of your screwdrivers with your flagrant knowledge.
01:32:14.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, see, Mad Libs.
01:32:15.67
Vann
um Okay. Well, that was very silly.
01:32:17.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
Irreverent. I love those.
01:32:20.88
Vann
Thank you.
01:32:21.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes, well of course we always like to end on a silly note when we can.
01:32:25.44
Vann
Good.
01:32:26.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, i mean the Mad Lib rarely turns deadly serious. um Well, Van, thank you for being here. It was great to have you.
01:32:33.69
Vann
Thank you.
01:32:34.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
I knew it would be. um
01:32:37.64
Vann
Thank you.
01:32:38.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
And i want to let listeners know that this is actually our Season 3 finale. I'm going to be taking a break for a couple of weeks and getting the new issue of the magazine out. If you want to follow us, we are on Ko-Fi. That's ko-fi slash sometimes hilarious horror.
01:32:57.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah Sometimes hilarious horror is a quarterly fiction mag and boy do we have some great stuff coming up. Bunch of new writers you've probably never heard of that have great stories to share.
01:33:08.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
So check that out and we will see everybody next season.
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