the Mentally Oddcast transcript: Jonathan Harford
00:00:04.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, so looks like we're good there. um ah You are listening to the Mentally Oddcast.
00:00:14.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
My name is Wednesday, leave Friday, and we are sponsored by Sometimes Hilarious Horror Magazine. Please do find us on Ko-fi. ah This week, our guest is Jonathan Harford, and this is a dude that I have known forever. Like, we went on LiveJournal, didn't we?
00:00:32.33
Jonathan Harford
We did. We did.
00:00:33.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:00:33.50
Jonathan Harford
i was wondering if that was going to come up just because it's, I don't know, some something naturally embarrassing about LiveJournal. But no, it's fine.
00:00:41.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, it is. It's like knowing somebody since high school, almost. I mean, so i have a bio for you here, so I'm actually going to read it because it says, Jonathan is a software developer who transitioned to tech after a 10-year career as an actor in New York.
00:00:44.54
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:00:57.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Following a layoff, he has been using the time to tackle freelance work and build personal projects, including Exquisite Monster, a website for the drawing-based party game Eat Poop You Cat. We're going to talk more about that later.
00:01:11.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
A recent adult diagnosis of ADHD has fundamentally changed his ability to approach large-scale work, and he joins the podcast to discuss how this has impacted his creative process as he seeks a full-time role where he can apply his skills in hopefully making the world a better place. Oh, that is lovely. Welcome, Jonathan.
00:01:32.82
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, it's big talk, big talk, making the world a better place.
00:01:36.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
i know, right?
00:01:36.10
Jonathan Harford
But it's it's a target.
00:01:37.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, it's funny, we had a guest last season um who felt that Elon Musk wanted to make the world a better place. um So it's just interesting, the variance between the the sorts of people who say that and and what they mean when they do say it.
00:01:46.54
Jonathan Harford
Hmm.
00:01:55.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
So we'll definitely get into that in a bit. um We'd like to start by asking guests to tell us about the first horror movie that they remember seeing. So let's have it.
00:02:06.27
Jonathan Harford
I'm sure there were other horror movies before this that I saw, but the one that really affected me was the, what has to be the scariest PG movie ever made, Poltergeist.
00:02:18.16
Jonathan Harford
I saw it in the theater.
00:02:18.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Yep.
00:02:19.89
Jonathan Harford
That tree messed me up. I was scared of trees for, I saw it when I was like seven, maybe eight. And that tree, I was scared of trees until I was well into being a teenager.
00:02:34.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, yeah, that the that's actually a pretty common answer depending on age. If that movie hits you with just the right age, yep, that'll stay with you. That and In Ground Pools.
00:02:45.46
Jonathan Harford
Yes. Real skeletons, right?
00:02:47.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
we I've heard that. I have heard that.
00:02:51.69
Jonathan Harford
a little hard to believe, but OK.
00:02:53.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
Maybe, maybe not. I mean, you know, because as a ah modern person, it's very easy to say, well, people would never be that disrespectful towards dead bodies, but we we all know enough history to know that, yes, of course we do. Of
00:03:08.63
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:03:08.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Of course we do. Well, not to mention that like the whole premise was about being bad to bodies. I mean, that's that's where we get the whole ancient Indian burial ground trope in the first place, isn't it?
00:03:19.78
Jonathan Harford
Right, right. I think think that's right. It wasn't Amityville. You would know. i don't know.
00:03:25.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah No, Amityville was about ah like psychic leftovers from a murder.
00:03:31.63
Jonathan Harford
okay
00:03:31.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
But then people might have said that maybe even that murder was caused by some triggering thing already in the house. I don't really believe in ghosts per se, like the the movie interpretation.
00:03:44.84
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, i don't I don't either, but it is fun to think about.
00:03:49.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, totally.
00:03:49.16
Jonathan Harford
And the other night i was i was staying up late and I just thought to myself, wouldn't it be wild if like, I don't know, I heard something scurry under the bed or like a bleeding skull came out of the wall.
00:04:01.84
Jonathan Harford
That'd be so unexpected. Just so like refreshing. But I mean, I wouldn't enjoy it, but yeah.
00:04:09.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right, right. I mean, because how, like, I don't know if if you're familiar with the the movie Cat's Eye. It's an anthology film that has a couple different Stephen King stories in it. And one of them is ah Drew Barrymore has a a monster that lives in her wall.
00:04:19.95
Jonathan Harford
It rings a bell.
00:04:26.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it comes out at night and it's just this little, like, trollish monster thing.
00:04:26.29
Jonathan Harford
OK.
00:04:30.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
And she gets a cat and the cat battles the monster. and you know, it's it's a whole thing. But as a kid... i'm like, why don't I have a monster that lives in the wall? That would be dope.
00:04:41.62
Wednesday Lee Friday
I could probably convince it to smite my enemies.
00:04:44.52
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, there was that old, well, not old Twilight Zone, but there was a ah Twilight Zone in the 80s where there was the the Shadow Man. does that Do you remember this?
00:04:54.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes, yes.
00:04:55.41
Jonathan Harford
A kid met a Shadow Man on a playground, and then he had the Shadow Man ah fight all of his enemies.
00:05:00.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:05:00.98
Jonathan Harford
And then he one night, he went to the the playground and saw the Shadow Man. The Shadow Man was like, oh, I'm not your Shadow Man. And that was the end.
00:05:07.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh.
00:05:10.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. they yeah they They love those ah those ironic endings.
00:05:11.95
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:05:16.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's, that i well, I don't want to go off on a whole thing about Twilight Zone, because we could make a whole show about that. um
00:05:23.40
Jonathan Harford
Oh, ah ah you know i actually, i did want to say them I saw the movie recently because I watched it with my kid, 11 old.
00:05:29.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh wow, that is like the perfect age for the Twilight Zone movie.
00:05:29.89
Jonathan Harford
ah ah scaries
00:05:33.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh my god.
00:05:34.17
Jonathan Harford
The scariest thing about that movie was how bad the Spielberg segment was. Oh my god. just made me cringe.
00:05:43.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
which Which one is his? I i actually...
00:05:45.08
Jonathan Harford
that's That's the one with the um the ah the old folks home, and then a guy shows up and teaches them all to play, and they all turn into kids.
00:05:55.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, the thing is, I love Scatman Crothers.
00:05:59.05
Jonathan Harford
Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:05:59.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
and And I'm very surprised to hear that that's the Spielberg one because the kids were not good in that. And one of the things that I think of when I think of Spielberg is that he does a great job directing children.
00:06:05.95
Jonathan Harford
No.
00:06:12.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Even 8mm, which is not a great movie, he had great kid performances.
00:06:12.79
Jonathan Harford
Absolutely.
00:06:17.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, Jaws, Jurassic Park. I mean, he's he's not messing around with with getting kids to act properly. So yeah, I have to agree, now that I know that. That's a big miss. That is a big miss.
00:06:30.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
um So what I would like to know... Because you were an actor for a long time. Now, how does one decide that they want to be an actor?
00:06:37.39
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:06:40.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
Did did anything in particular inspire that?
00:06:43.75
Jonathan Harford
That's OK. Well, in in college, I was doing a mathematics degree, and I just did not feel fulfilled. And there was a ah poster for open auditions for a play.
00:06:56.07
Jonathan Harford
And i I auditioned for it, and quite possibly because it was sexual perversity in Chicago, and it was in Liverpool.
00:07:03.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
00:07:05.81
Jonathan Harford
And I have an American accent. I don't know if you noticed. that might That might have been the secret to me getting cast. But I had such a good time that like I just, you know i was in after that, I was in as many plays as I could.
00:07:19.25
Jonathan Harford
And then when my wife and I, we moved to back to the States, um we decided to go to New York. And I was like, well, if I'm going to be in New York, I got it ah got to try this.
00:07:32.34
Jonathan Harford
So yeah, that was that.
00:07:34.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow. That's kind of amazing. Because you hear from lot of actors, you know, there's pictures of them being like seven or eight years old already being a total performance ham, you know.
00:07:46.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
um but But not until college. That's interesting.
00:07:50.80
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, yeah, I guess that is kind of strange.
00:07:54.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, well, i was the
00:07:54.32
Jonathan Harford
I mean, I've always had a it's kind of a silly nature. but But yeah, playing a part was new to me.
00:08:00.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and, you know, movies like live theater, it's it's a very collaborative medium. Like, you have to know how to work with other people to do it successfully.
00:08:10.63
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:08:10.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
As opposed to being like a writer or a musician where you can potentially just lock yourself in a room and make art until you can't anymore.
00:08:18.39
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
00:08:20.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, do you have a favorite film director?
00:08:23.66
Jonathan Harford
i I was thinking about that. I have i have a few. it might be It might be George Miller, just because he made both ah Mad Max Fury Road and Babe Pig in the City, which I will tell you, they have a surprising number of connections.
00:08:40.90
Jonathan Harford
ah They both have a lot more heart than you might immediately think. And they are both scarier than, well, Mad Max Fury Road is already pretty like you know ah harrowing. But Babe Pig in the City, pretty harrowing.
00:08:54.27
Jonathan Harford
Great movie. I unironically recommend it.
00:08:57.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
Really? I've never seen any of those.
00:08:59.54
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, usually I tell people and they say, well, you know, I never saw Babe. And I'm like, well, you don't you don't need to. that's Babe is fine. But Babe Pig in the City is magic.
00:09:08.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
Really?
00:09:09.62
Jonathan Harford
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's weird. It's so weird. it was a It was Gene Siskel's best movie of 1998, have you know.
00:09:19.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, Gene Siskel talked a lot of shit about Anthony Perkins, so I've never been fan. Like, you say that about Fear Strikes Out to my face, sir! like
00:09:33.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
But yes, I do recognize that a lot of people trusted his various movie-related viewpoints. Yeah. Because, you know, I think we're about the same age. I was a teenager for most of Siskel and Ebert doing their thing, arguing about movies, saying that slashers were going to be the downfall of cinema, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:09:54.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, no, chill out, you couple of failed screenwriters.
00:09:59.35
Jonathan Harford
Well, I mean, to be fair, we do have kind of civilization falling. And it could be the slashers that's making it happen.
00:10:06.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, first of all, no. It's the death of ah Bill Paxton and David Bowie that has made us completely splinter as ah as a species. um Yeah, ill I'll stand by that.
00:10:15.11
Jonathan Harford
You make a compelling argument. Yeah.
00:10:17.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, the thing is, I was still, like, Bill Paxton was my favorite, favorite actor. My favorite living actor at the time had been, well, since Anthony Perkins died. Because that's how I do things.
00:10:28.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then after Trump was elected the first time, Bill Paxton died the following February. And I was just like, well, there's nothing for me in this world anymore.
00:10:40.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
Which, you know, my husband did not appreciate hearing. but
00:10:43.30
Jonathan Harford
Well, sure.
00:10:45.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
But yeah, they they were they were dark times. um So, okay, so I've watched a couple of your shorts with Untucked Films. um What do you want to tell us about Untucked Films for people who are not familiar?
00:10:58.60
Jonathan Harford
Well, I mean, it it was it was just a a team of ah of team of creators. ah There's one director that I worked with. Actually, one of the one of the untucked team I knew from acting class, and he left his apartment and I claimed it.
00:11:17.63
Jonathan Harford
And that was my tenuous connection to them. And I ended up, they needed be they needed one more actor one day. So they just came by and grabbed me. And then they liked what I did. and then they cast me in ah in a few other projects. And, and you know, this was this was many years ago. there You know, everyone's moved on. But definitely the the most interesting projects that I was in, i went to i got to go to the awards because they they submitted a number of their films to Tropfest.
00:11:48.84
Jonathan Harford
and which is a film festival.
00:11:49.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
okay oh neat
00:11:51.69
Jonathan Harford
And I got to go to their, like I don't know what it was, the Tropfest 10th anniversary thing in Las Vegas. And I got to you know have my my the movie I was in, the The Wildflower, on the big screen. And afterwards, I got to meet Rebel Wilson.
00:12:09.99
Jonathan Harford
And you know ah ah James Woods complimented me on my um my performance, which mixed feelings about.
00:12:13.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh wow right
00:12:17.19
Jonathan Harford
but Yeah, that was great.
00:12:21.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
00:12:21.13
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:12:22.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. So one of the shorts is ah the switch actually is, um I mean, one one of the themes is how beautiful it can be to get your heart broken.
00:12:29.12
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:12:36.09
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:12:36.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
um What would you like to say about that?
00:12:36.65
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:12:39.56
Jonathan Harford
How beautiful. Well, i I told you I moved to England ah for a little while. That was to, i followed my first girlfriend to England and we are still together.
00:12:53.60
Jonathan Harford
So I can't say that much about it.
00:12:57.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow!
00:12:57.43
Jonathan Harford
ah
00:12:59.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
that
00:12:59.84
Jonathan Harford
um
00:13:00.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's just incredible. It really is.
00:13:02.99
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, on paper, Really bad idea. It worked out so well for me and arguably for her.
00:13:12.15
Jonathan Harford
I don't want to put words in her mouth, but she seems okay with it.
00:13:12.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, no, but you guys have been together for as long as I've known you, and that's a considerable amount of time at this point. Because, uh,
00:13:19.18
Jonathan Harford
Yes, it is. Yes, it is.
00:13:21.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, left LiveJournal when the Russians bought it because that was like, what, 15, 20 years ago? And I was like, yeah, i don't like how the Russians are getting into our social media, man. That's not cool. That's going to have bad consequences down the road.
00:13:33.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
And everybody was like, Russia doesn't care about us.
00:13:33.43
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, I think I left at the same time.
00:13:36.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Why would Russia care what we do? Like, yeah, I don't know, man. um yeah so once again, witness was right. Yeah.
00:13:49.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, so, wow. Because I love that theme about the beauty of getting your heart broken because it means that you are able to put yourself out there. um
00:14:00.14
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, yeah. That's really what it's about, isn't it? ah you know It's been a while since I saw it, but it's definitely but my favorite thing that I was in.
00:14:09.84
Jonathan Harford
It was just so much fun.
00:14:11.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
We're going to have links to a couple of your shorts in the description. I don't know if you have a link tree or not. Everyone should have a link tree. I don't mean to advertise for them, but
00:14:16.83
Jonathan Harford
I have no Linktree.
00:14:19.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because Linktree doesn't cost anything, and it's great for those websites where you can only put up one link because it takes people to all your links.
00:14:24.68
Jonathan Harford
Right.
00:14:27.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
um And people need to see those films because they are evergreen. It's not like, oh, that's not relevant anymore. Do people even fall in love? No, they're still very, very much relevant. and So we'll have links for people that want to check them out.
00:14:37.23
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm
00:14:40.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Because I'll tell you, when H and I got together, i um we met in June after talking on the internet for maybe a month or two. I met him on, on a dating website.
00:14:55.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then, um, we were, he found us apartment, an apartment and told me I should move into it with him in October.
00:15:03.89
Jonathan Harford
hu
00:15:04.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
So that's, that's how long we knew each other. And all of my friends were like, are are you serious? You just met this fricking guy.
00:15:12.33
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, real red flag.
00:15:12.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know Well, yeah. And like, I had done that previously with like, I mean, two alcoholics in a row. Like, I did not have good luck. And I would i was raised by, like, redneck-y conservatives who were suspicious of education.
00:15:26.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
So that's how i I grew up, like, thinking.
00:15:26.86
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:15:30.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then was like, hmm, that doesn't seem right. Well, know that's not right. You know? And so by the time I was in my 20s, I was like, well, okay, I understand that all those people are full of shit, but now what do I do?
00:15:44.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, how do you be in a real relationship where two people are respectful to each other and and don't date anybody else? How do you You know, how do you figure out how to live with a person and not scream at them every time they annoy you? Like, I did not know any of these things.
00:16:00.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I had to learn all of that. And, you know, it it takes a while. And one of the things when you feel off balance or off your game is that you you don't share as much and you you tend to shut down. and So the the idea that, like, putting yourself out there enough to love someone and allow yourself to be loved.
00:16:22.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
even if it doesn't work out, that is a truly beautiful thing. It's one of the best things about being a human, I think.
00:16:30.47
Jonathan Harford
Oh, I like that.
00:16:33.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, it's your short film, dude.
00:16:35.22
Jonathan Harford
I know, I know.
00:16:35.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's what made me think of it.
00:16:35.86
Jonathan Harford
i
00:16:39.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
um So one of the other films of yours that I saw ah is called The Funeral. And um and and it's it's a little triggering, frankly, but the first question I have is,
00:16:45.93
Jonathan Harford
Yes.
00:16:52.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Your character actually gets to say, you'll have to go through me.
00:16:57.53
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, yeah that's not that's not something I would normally say.
00:17:01.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, how much did you love that?
00:17:01.54
Jonathan Harford
so So my question...
00:17:03.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
That was so great.
00:17:05.49
Jonathan Harford
but Well, from that makes makes me think that you you saw that and you thought I pulled it off, which is wonderful. oh that's fantastic. Yes, it's, ah I mean, yeah, it's great to say something like that.
00:17:20.62
Jonathan Harford
and don't know, something so cheesy.
00:17:22.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, would you say that the genre of that particular short is absurdist?
00:17:28.58
Jonathan Harford
Um, yeah, I, I, I mean, the genre most broadly, I would say is a, is a dramedy because, you know, it's, it's very funny and, uh, but it's about, you know, sad, dark things, uh, until ah certain point.
00:17:46.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, but it's like you think it's about something very sad and then...
00:17:46.27
Jonathan Harford
And then, Yeah.
00:17:52.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
it's more sad because it's like, hey, wait a minute. That's not what I thought happened, but it seems kind of worse.
00:18:01.59
Jonathan Harford
I don't know about worse, but it is, yeah, it's sad in a very different way. ah Yeah, i
00:18:10.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, i'm I'm trying not to give spoilers because I want people to be surprised, but yeah then I realize like nobody knows what we're talking about.
00:18:13.05
Jonathan Harford
yeah absolutely.
00:18:18.00
Jonathan Harford
i just feel like there's betrayal. If something like that happened to me, I think the betrayal would overwhelm me, the feeling like,
00:18:31.57
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, that I've been maybe unintentionally toyed with because someone couldn't handle their shit.
00:18:38.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, right, but if they really, honestly, cannot handle their shit to that point, what do you even say? hey asshole, don't be so insane. You let them break you too much.
00:18:47.86
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:18:49.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, what?
00:18:49.97
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, yeah. I mean, fair point. And yeah, if you can't take advantage of your family emotionally, who who can you?
00:19:00.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, I had to go out and find other people to take advantage of emotionally, but, you know, that's just a me thing.
00:19:06.15
Jonathan Harford
Oh, well well, that's very nice.
00:19:08.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I don't know if you know that. I i mean, I went no contact from my family in the ninety s so before we met...
00:19:12.52
Jonathan Harford
i i had i had some awareness of that. Yeah, I know that you had a ah like a really rough family situation.
00:19:21.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. so So, yeah, so when I watch family dramas... i I tend to have a different take on them than like your average family drama viewer, but not so much these days because if you do a lot of your socializing on the internet, the people that are messed up in the same ways that you are messed up will just sort of gravitate toward you.
00:19:41.34
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:19:42.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
you're looking for an upside to the algorithm, that's probably it.
00:19:46.07
Jonathan Harford
Yeah. Yeah.
00:19:49.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
So are you are you still open to acting roles?
00:19:52.98
Jonathan Harford
Well, I wouldn't say no. I mean, it i've ah you know last year, I actually ah took some improv classes just to just to you know just to flex that muscle, which felt felt pretty good.
00:20:08.38
Jonathan Harford
um
00:20:08.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool.
00:20:09.95
Jonathan Harford
you know I don't have a and don't have a yearning, but like if the opportunity presented itself, that would be but be so much fun. I mean, it's it such a fun thing to do, to just like become somebody else. That's really what it's about. It's like, just just, I don't know, yeah being someone else, I guess I can't say my case. I can't elucidate on that.
00:20:33.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, but it's, it I mean, it sounds like a small thing, but it's actually a huge thing because, I mean, you like inhabit a character. So it's not just, I'm going to say the line how I think they would say it. You know, with acting, it's it's everything from your gait to your outfit to the way you hold your head. You know, it's all parts of character creation.
00:20:54.71
Jonathan Harford
Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:55.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then you get to know more about the character.
00:20:55.55
Jonathan Harford
yeah
00:20:57.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, and I mean, you know how sometimes when you read a screenplay, separate from watching a film, you're like, you can see so much more of what the actor has done for the character.
00:21:08.58
Jonathan Harford
Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. And i also i also think you know this goes for acting, but I think it goes for so much art that if you make explanations, not explanations, but if you if you have context for the things that the audience never sees, like it bleeds through into what you do present, and it makes it like so much richer.
00:21:33.32
Jonathan Harford
And that's one thing I really i really like about acting and and movies.
00:21:38.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. I know one time i had to play, was a very small role, but it was the maid. And i wanted it to be interesting because, you know, i require attention.
00:21:44.76
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:21:50.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's why was a theater manager. And so I had remembered something I heard in an acting class. And all I did was I invented that I had a boyfriend in the other room.
00:22:04.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
And so every time I was supposed to exit the stage, I would exit in this like super excited, like I cannot wait to get into the other room kind of way. And, you know, didn't say anything else about it really. And then afterwards, somebody that I had never met before came up to me and were like, where were you going?
00:22:21.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
You were so excited to leave the stage.
00:22:24.76
Jonathan Harford
Oh, I love that.
00:22:24.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
And they actually, didn't even know that it was part of the performance. They really thought they actually thought I was going backstage to like drink or party or something. Like, no, no, no.
00:22:34.37
Jonathan Harford
wow
00:22:35.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
We we don't start drinking until after curtain. Come on now.
00:22:40.23
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, i I love that kind of, the the tricks that you play on yourself. i I, yeah, I really enjoy them. Although I keep, every so often I'll i'll um oh read about an actor who like, they just they just like, no, I don't pretend I'm someone else. I say the lines, I do acting. I just like, I pretend to have an emotion. I don't feel the emotion.
00:23:04.32
Jonathan Harford
And that just seems so bizarre to me.
00:23:06.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah, I mean, I'm a Stanislavski person. Like, that's that's the kind of theater that I'm into. The memory of emotion, the theater of cruelty, the, like, getting into the human experience and ripping it up and figuring out how to show it to people so that it means some things.
00:23:22.49
Jonathan Harford
Yes, yes. And i mean even if you even if you do a good job without you know trying for that kind of depth, why why are you doing this? like Are you really having fun? Mm-hmm.
00:23:32.66
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:23:33.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and that's, I mean, that's, you know, not to denigrate anyone's work in particular, but that's Bradley Cooper your shit.
00:23:33.86
Jonathan Harford
like
00:23:39.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's like, look how handsome I am. I'm going to perform for you now by saying these lines. And they may or may not get into the the deep stuff. Now, I say that about Bradley Cooper because I was thinking of The Hangover, but now I'm remembering Star is Born and being like, yeah, see, he went for it.
00:23:58.55
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I didn't see A Star is Born. But I'm trying to think what if she's doing.
00:24:01.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
it's It's a pretty good version. I didn't know a whole lot about Lady Gaga until she was on American Horror Story.
00:24:09.55
Jonathan Harford
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:24:10.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that lady can act. OMG.
00:24:13.17
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:24:13.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
She really can. um Which is why I was so disappointed to hear that she went to Fash Prom over the weekend. There's, you know, the the big...
00:24:21.83
Jonathan Harford
She went to what?
00:24:23.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, the Fash Prom, the the Bezos wedding. Yeah.
00:24:26.15
Jonathan Harford
Oh, oh, oh, god. Yeah, ah you know both my my parents and my partner are or having taking trips to Europe right now. And I'm beginning to suspect that that's where they are too.
00:24:38.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh my gosh.
00:24:39.35
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:24:40.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know My godmother went to Rome this year, but she was like there and back before all the fast showed up. Which I love how they're protesting it over in Venice.
00:24:48.03
Jonathan Harford
Oh, me too.
00:24:48.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
I just think that's swell. ah you know It's like the the French guy that's like, they're doing this in America and you do not burn anything. Why you don't burn things?
00:25:00.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, well, you know, every time someone lights a cigarette, they send out the army now, so... Yeah, no no burning of things. Speaking of which, I know that you're living in California.
00:25:07.85
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:25:13.22
Jonathan Harford
Oh, yes.
00:25:14.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
How's that going?
00:25:16.22
Jonathan Harford
um Well, I mean, where I am, it's it's a hotbed of liberalism. I mean, and I don't know. it's It's calm here right now, but I'm always worried that things are, I mean, like LA, this stuff shouldn't be happening LA.
00:25:37.45
Jonathan Harford
Like...
00:25:37.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
or America in general,
00:25:39.13
Jonathan Harford
Or, um well, I mean, more importantly, America. But like I don't know. i would have thought that like California would be able to protect its cities better. um Yeah.
00:25:50.74
Jonathan Harford
Yeah. A few, like a week ago, i saw a post on Reddit of some flyers in my town saying that there was, that people had seen ice three blocks away from where I live, at the park three blocks away from where I live.
00:26:08.12
Jonathan Harford
and I don't know if maybe people were just messing around with that flyer, but... ah
00:26:14.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
I doubt it. I mean, I'm sure there are people that think this is all hilarious and joke worthy, but people who experience it, man, because I mean, they were here.
00:26:25.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm in Michigan. There's i mean, our our nearest border is Canada.
00:26:26.79
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:26:29.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I did not see. Well, but yeah I don't know how much I should actually say, but they were they came to our building and I don't even know if they were actually ice because people have said, oh, how do you know they're ice?
00:26:42.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's part of the point that you don't know a bunch of guys show up.
00:26:44.94
Jonathan Harford
Oh,
00:26:47.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, and I mean, they look a little more intense than regular Michigan militia guys, which are already fairly intense. And, uh, and they asked for, and I quote the family upstairs.
00:27:00.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I'm like, and I'm thinking to myself, is that what it says on the warrant that you certainly have because you're doing this legally, but I wouldn't let them into the building.
00:27:01.14
Jonathan Harford
God.
00:27:11.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
And they kind of caught me of high, so I was like snarky and belligerent. Because they asked me my name and I said I didn't have it with me.
00:27:16.89
Jonathan Harford
Oh, but that's wonderful.
00:27:23.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, the thing is, though, I try not to tell cops my name if I can help it because they just think I'm lying anyway.
00:27:30.55
Jonathan Harford
Right, yeah, no, of course.
00:27:31.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know? Like, it's more dangerous for me to tell a cop my name and have him think I'm lying than it is to just be like, dude, I don't have to tell you my name. I didn't do anything.
00:27:40.07
Jonathan Harford
yes. yes
00:27:41.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I'm a white lady, so I can do that without getting shot. So I do.
00:27:44.22
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, fingers crossed.
00:27:45.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well.
00:27:46.07
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:27:47.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:27:49.43
Jonathan Harford
ah So grim.
00:27:51.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
But but like, for the most part, is it just business as usual where you are?
00:27:57.33
Jonathan Harford
Where I am, yeah. it's ah I mean, i was taking ah ah but I took a bike ride like last week, and there's there are some corners where there are like
00:28:07.37
Jonathan Harford
people who they just look for people to pick them up for work. And I'm like, boy, i don't wonder how long these guys are going to and to be hanging out here. doesn't seem like it could be that much longer.
00:28:19.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, yeah, apparently Home Depot parking lots that used to have people looking for work all the time do not now.
00:28:25.02
Jonathan Harford
Right.
00:28:25.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
and it's and And I don't get it because, first of all, I don't know why Home Depot allows it. Because I happen to know that if someone is sitting outside selling those big buckets of Boy Scout popcorn or Girl Scout cookies or something, Home Depot employees will come out and make them leave.
00:28:44.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know like you You need permission to do that sort of thing.
00:28:44.40
Jonathan Harford
Oh, really? OK.
00:28:48.52
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:28:48.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
But yet, if you are a couple of kidnappers in a car that is not marked for any sort of police work, and you're just grabbing people, throwing them on the ground, and cuffing them, i mean...
00:28:59.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
Just the fact that but the whole thing is is just so terrifying that they don't have to prove who they are and you're just supposed to go with them. And, you know, I'm not in in especially good shape.
00:29:08.46
Jonathan Harford
Yes.
00:29:11.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
I use a wheelchair when I go out. But I swear to you that if someone tries to grab one of us and it's just like some guy with a mask and camouflage in the middle of a city, I'm fighting.
00:29:24.86
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:29:24.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's the hardest part to to watch is that people just go with them.
00:29:29.79
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:29:30.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's like you you don't know who they are, and we know they're not doing due process. We're being led by some guy who thinks the Constitution is optional. And the most frustrating part is how many people, you know, it's like when they they do some fash crap at a college and everybody resigns.
00:29:47.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, oh, we're not going to have DEI anymore, and so everyone resigns.
00:29:48.24
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:29:50.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, what the fuck good is that supposed to do? So they could just yeah bring in a bunch of new fash to take your place?
00:29:53.43
Jonathan Harford
Yeah. um
00:29:57.69
Jonathan Harford
One of the big rules of ah of facing fascism is don't obey in advance.
00:30:03.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
00:30:03.55
Jonathan Harford
And I'm seeing too much obeying in advance.
00:30:06.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
00:30:08.10
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, it's it's so scary. I don't want it to get scarier. i i like i I keep talking talking to my wife about like maybe we should look into threatentten getting out of here, like seeing if we can find another country to hang out in.
00:30:24.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, because, I mean, it it started out being, like, state by state.
00:30:24.69
Jonathan Harford
but
00:30:27.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, I have a friend in Texas who has kid who is trans. So he had to send his kid out of the state to live with his ex so that the kids could go to a proper doctor and not some bigot doctor um that pretends trans people aren't real or whatever the hell.
00:30:45.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, it it but that's the thing, that, like, soon you won't be able to go from one state to another because it's going to be everywhere. And it's, it's right.
00:30:55.17
Jonathan Harford
You won't be able to go from one state to the other to escape it.
00:30:58.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Exactly.
00:30:59.10
Jonathan Harford
Right.
00:30:59.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cause I mean, I'm in Michigan. We still have our, most of our rights here because our governor is a bad-ass, you know, Whitmer is, is not just going to lay down and let the FASH take our rights.
00:31:11.04
Jonathan Harford
Yes, good.
00:31:11.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, but that's the thing is that like, now people are like, yeah, I'm in such and such state. And I'm wondering if I can stay at your place so I can go to Planned Parenthood in the morning. And my initial reaction is, yes, of course, but we don't even have a spare couch right now.
00:31:21.66
Jonathan Harford
Oh, god. Mm-hmm.
00:31:27.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, we don't have it because we're poor and we don't have a lot of space. But that shouldn't be a thing. There shouldn't need to be an underground railroad so that women can go to the friggin' doctor so they don't die of sepsis.
00:31:41.41
Jonathan Harford
Absolutely not.
00:31:41.73
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, I mean, it's just... But I don't want to make the whole show about this because I think that we're both agreement with...
00:31:47.94
Jonathan Harford
It has a way of like taking over any conversation.
00:31:51.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and that's the thing. People say, oh, why do you always have to get political? Like, okay, tell me something impacting my right my life right now that's not political.
00:31:59.35
Jonathan Harford
Absolutely.
00:32:00.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, Dexter is a cinematic universe now, and that's good news. But otherwise, everything that's happened in this country in the last 20 years has been pretty fucking horrible.
00:32:08.27
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, yeah.
00:32:10.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
And, yeah, that's that's that whole, ah well, why does everybody have to make... You know, like, why do trans people always have to talk about being trans? Like, they they weren't until you tried to make it against the law.
00:32:20.04
Jonathan Harford
Right.
00:32:23.78
Jonathan Harford
Right. why do they have to Why do they have to shove it in my face? Old, old refrain.
00:32:29.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
You mean, why do they have to exist where you can see them?
00:32:29.57
Jonathan Harford
used to it used to be said to to gay people.
00:32:32.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
That that it's that upsetting for you?
00:32:32.75
Jonathan Harford
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
00:32:36.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:32:36.84
Jonathan Harford
ah
00:32:37.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:32:38.11
Jonathan Harford
I just, I hate it. I hate it so much. Hmm.
00:32:41.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
it's It's hard to have empathy and be in the world. Like, i'm I'm honestly envious of people who can go through life without a drop of empathy and just not give a fuck when people are hurting beside them.
00:32:53.36
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:32:53.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know? And it's funny, because, you know, i used to be a fast food manager. manager I was a big McDonald's breakfast manager for a couple of years after undergrad.
00:33:01.37
Jonathan Harford
Mhm.
00:33:03.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I had a degree doing that, which which was just great. But the church people... are like the worst in terms of treating people badly and being demanding and also sorry, but also racism on, on in like a lot of different levels.
00:33:15.98
Jonathan Harford
Mhm.
00:33:22.66
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, yeah.
00:33:23.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, there was a guy that used to work at our store and his name was Abdul. And he was amazing.
00:33:28.64
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:33:30.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
He was an incredibly hard worker.
00:33:30.76
Jonathan Harford
Oh, this is going to be a sad story.
00:33:32.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
The guy worked circles around me. Well, there was just, there was a customer who would come in and they always had some kind of problem with Abdul. Oh, my sandwich is incorrect.
00:33:42.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
Did Abdul make it? Like, you know how racists will mispronounce someone's name on purpose to pretend like the problem is the name and not them being a dumbass.
00:33:49.34
Jonathan Harford
Oh, yes.
00:33:53.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
it was that thing. It's like, how are you going to be mean to Abdul? Like, he's the nicest, sweetest guy. how do you know he's not a terrorist?
00:34:03.06
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, it doesn't doesn't work that way. It doesn't matter how nice they are. and if they don't know them If they don't know them personally, it's just one more person to like think you're superior to, right?
00:34:14.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, and it's funny because, like, what What the bigots are saying about trans people now, for example, is what they used to say about gay people like 30 years ago.
00:34:22.93
Jonathan Harford
Oh my god. Yep.
00:34:26.77
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then everybody met a gay person and went, wait a minute, Rick Santorum is actually wrong.
00:34:26.94
Jonathan Harford
Yep.
00:34:32.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
And so that doesn't work anymore on gay people, but not everybody knows that they know a trans person yet, so...
00:34:32.27
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:34:40.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, people have that ignorant shield of like, because I mean, during Obama, there were people that thought Obama supporters literally ate babies and that that's why they wanted there to be abortions.
00:34:50.16
Jonathan Harford
Oh, yes.
00:34:52.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like adults were walking around thinking that and living in the world. You know, which is why it it weirds me out because of like...
00:34:57.91
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, I know.
00:35:01.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
When Obamacare, when they were trying to put through the ACA, what everybody was screaming about was that it was going to kill their grandparents, that there wouldn't be enough money and it would kill their grandparents.
00:35:08.76
Jonathan Harford
oh yes. The death panels.
00:35:12.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
And they are literally, the FASH, are passing a bill right now that's going to kill a whole lot of people's grandparents. mean, you can't just take Medicaid away from people and...
00:35:19.65
Jonathan Harford
Yep.
00:35:22.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
and expect, I mean, there's there's a reason those programs existed and it's not so lazy people don't have to work. It's so elderly people and sick people and disabled people don't just sit there and die.
00:35:35.03
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, there's there's so many things that ah so you know I used to think that, like oh, there's these people that I disagree with. We just see the world in a different way.
00:35:45.87
Jonathan Harford
And so many of them have turned out to be just like, no, they see the world as in they get what they want, and everyone else is less than them.
00:35:55.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep, yep. Well it...
00:35:56.83
Jonathan Harford
it's not it's not It's not a principle.
00:35:58.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
No. No, and you know, yeah that you you find that out every time Disney becomes the slightest bit more inclusive and everyone loses their mind.
00:36:00.63
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:36:08.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, my daughter's so sad that the little mermaid doesn't look like her anymore. So you understand that representation is important. You just think your kids are the only ones that deserve it.
00:36:18.81
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:19.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Gotcha!
00:36:21.71
Jonathan Harford
ah
00:36:23.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, I mean, Disney can go to hell right now. Disney's anti-DEI bullshit is so, so offensive to me because their media reach is is so big.
00:36:34.21
Jonathan Harford
hu
00:36:35.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know? Like, Disney...
00:36:36.19
Jonathan Harford
I don't know to what extent they've, I don't i don't pay that much attention to Disney.
00:36:36.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well,
00:36:40.67
Jonathan Harford
But I can only imagine, there i mean, they seem like a very cowardly company just because they have to appeal to so many people.
00:36:40.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
was just
00:36:47.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, they've gotten...
00:36:47.49
Jonathan Harford
um
00:36:48.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
they They used to... I mean, even like 10 years ago, Disney was making it a point to say, hey, gay people exist. Trans people exist. Calm down. It's a thing. It's not a big deal. You don't have to lose your minds about it.
00:37:01.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
But they had a show that's about ah kids in a softball team. And there was a trans character. And they cast a trans actor to play her.
00:37:11.05
Jonathan Harford
OK. huh
00:37:11.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then they decided, after parents complained... that they were going to keep the character, but the character was going to be a cis girl and they would have the same actress. um That same year or later that year, they axed a show about Okoye from ah Black Panther.
00:37:30.22
Jonathan Harford
okay
00:37:31.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
They they ah also canceled the Princess Tiana show, which was going to be like their first show with a black female lead and black female directors.
00:37:40.98
Jonathan Harford
Yeah. Yeah. yeah
00:37:41.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
so they they axed that show and then moana was supposed to be a whole series and it was supposed to they they had like a three season order for it it was supposed to be huge and then they scaled it back to a sequel movie so most of the the brown and black stuff that they had planned is either going away or was drastically truncated um around the same time that Disney started talking about woke this and you know DEI that and it's I almost wish that people wouldn't use the abbreviation like say it say it every time
00:38:17.32
Jonathan Harford
O-D-E-I. Yes. Yes. Say so you don't like don't fake you don't like diversity. Say you don't like equality. Say you don't like inclusion.
00:38:25.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
inclusion pisses me off like how do you know you're not the bad guy of course
00:38:25.31
Jonathan Harford
Please spell it out.
00:38:29.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
We just had a bunch of ah old people in wheelchairs zip tied at the Capitol because they were protesting. So I think appealing to people's humanity is, um I think we're past that.
00:38:36.11
Jonathan Harford
Yes.
00:38:41.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
People are very out loud and proud about not having any humanity, it seems.
00:38:45.31
Jonathan Harford
Oh, I don't think we're... See, i don't think we're past it. I think we still have to always, like, try to reach the humanity, but still protect ourselves when people disappoint us.
00:38:57.21
Jonathan Harford
Like, always try to, like... Like, if you can if you can do so safely, talk to the people who to believe the worst things. um And if you can't, absolutely don't.
00:39:10.08
Jonathan Harford
But like, I don't know, the only way to like change minds is to to like show that show whats what's happening, show that these that though you know people are people and these things are hurting them.
00:39:24.54
Jonathan Harford
And I don't know.
00:39:27.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
i No, I hear you.
00:39:27.41
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:39:28.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
I hear you. And I think that that's a valid point.
00:39:28.85
Jonathan Harford
yeah
00:39:30.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I definitely am back and forth between just protecting my own peace and saying, hey, wait a minute. That hate you're spewing is actually based on bad information. Here's the real information.
00:39:42.42
Jonathan Harford
Right.
00:39:42.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Just on the off chance that that works.
00:39:43.09
Jonathan Harford
But of course, yeah, the real information is in you can't inform people of something that they, what was it? the What's that saying? Like you can't persuade someone.
00:39:59.45
Jonathan Harford
Oh, I don't remember. Something that persuade someone out of something they didn't logic their way into.
00:40:04.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, yeah.
00:40:04.66
Jonathan Harford
gone. It's gone. it's gone
00:40:06.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
That makes sense. Like, the people that aggressively say, when did Trump lie? Like, when did Trump lie? Like, um, when did he tell the truth?
00:40:16.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, what are we talking about here?
00:40:18.80
Jonathan Harford
It's such ah such a completely different point of view that like there's no way to like grab a hold of that shape to answer that question.
00:40:27.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Yep. Let me just finish nailing this jello to a tree and I'll be right with ya. Um... So, okay, the game Eat Poop, You Cat.
00:40:37.45
Jonathan Harford
Yes.
00:40:39.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, I did not know that that game had a name. I was familiar with it, but I did not know that. And for those of you who don't know, it's a game where somebody will draw a picture and then someone else will look at that picture and write what it is.
00:40:55.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then the person will see what is written there and try to draw that as a picture. And it kind of goes, I played it at a NaNoWriMo meetup. before NaNoWriMo started accepting AI and and it was good.
00:41:09.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
um i was doing that. And it's really fun. So you seem to like the game even more than I do. Tell me what's going on with that.
00:41:19.38
Jonathan Harford
Oh, I mean, it's i guess I just, I don't know where I started playing it. But like i've I was playing it at parties. And I was like, this would just be so good to play online some way. And I kept waiting for the perfect online version to show up.
00:41:34.54
Jonathan Harford
And you know what's out there is good. But it's you you end up finger painting on your phone. So you can't make like a really beautiful detailed picture.
00:41:45.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:41:45.32
Jonathan Harford
Now, play Epoop You Cat. over email with a bunch of friends. And so that way people can like take hours, if they want, drawing a beautiful picture of you know ah yeah Elon Musk picking his nose with a cabbage or you know whatever.
00:42:05.32
Jonathan Harford
And yeah, it's it's so good when people have the time and the tools to make nice pictures for it. um And here's here's the trick for when you play Eat Poop You Cat, because I used to play it where everyone starts and you pass around the paper. And at at the end, once it gets back to the original person, yeah everyone gets to look at the paper and give a soft little chuckle about like oh how how funny how the message changed throughout the game.
00:42:33.10
Jonathan Harford
No, no. What you have to do, this takes much longer, but what you have to do, each person presents each turn. Everyone has to justify their sentence and their drawing.
00:42:45.89
Jonathan Harford
And ah it's so much fun, that ending bit. So now when I do the emailed games, we always have like ah like an hour-long video chat where we do that. And it's it's really a delight.
00:42:58.27
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. Now, there are people who think that, in general, adults should not spend their time playing games. And I'm sure that both of us strenuously disagree with that. disagree with that?
00:43:14.81
Jonathan Harford
Oh, I've got the perfect C.S. Lewis quote. Are you ready?
00:43:18.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
00:43:19.51
Jonathan Harford
When i was 10, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am 50, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
00:43:35.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice.
00:43:36.93
Jonathan Harford
It's a good one, right?
00:43:37.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Nice. Yeah. And that's interesting because that's something that, like, occurred to me as a kid because I'm the person that always loves looking ridiculous.
00:43:51.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
If it's funny hat day, I want the biggest, funniest hat.
00:43:51.56
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm. Yep.
00:43:55.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
If it's looked like a Smurf day, i will be head to toe in Smurf merch.
00:43:55.83
Jonathan Harford
ye
00:44:00.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like I always want to do whatever is the funniest, loudest thing. And it occurred to me later, it's because I was faking confidence. I was like pretending that I was confident enough to do all these things, which I suppose you could argue that maybe that means that I was, but it wasn't. Like I've always been a fake it till you make it person.
00:44:22.20
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:44:22.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
But my friends were always like, oh my god, that's so childish, why would you do that?
00:44:27.08
Jonathan Harford
Interesting.
00:44:27.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
and And then around the time we all turned 30, they stopped saying those kinds of things.
00:44:33.76
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:44:33.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know? And I'm like, I never really, like, I wanted to be, like, normal and included, but I was a weird fat chick named Wednesday, so that wasn't gonna go my way. Like, and then I found out in my, like, 40s, like, oh yeah, you're you're actually autistic and you have ADHD.
00:44:52.48
Jonathan Harford
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
00:44:52.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, oh. Well, that makes my entire damn life make more sense. um And that's that's something that happened to you as well. ah ADHD diagnosis as an adult.
00:45:05.34
Jonathan Harford
Oh, yes.
00:45:06.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
So how did that come to pass?
00:45:06.56
Jonathan Harford
ah Well, I'd always had, not always, but I'd had a suspicion for a long time. A friend of mine from high school, he got diagnosed, I don't know, when he was 19 or 20, and we were having lunch, and he was like, you know what?
00:45:20.99
Jonathan Harford
I think you probably have it too. And I was like, yeah, OK, whatever, maybe. um And then they ADHD. you know in twenty twenty everyone thought they had eightyh d ah And of course, that's when you know I was it was, it was a banner year for mental health.
00:45:40.64
Jonathan Harford
um And a lot of people were were're um you know asking psychiatrists if they might have ADHD. And and i I got screened then. And you know it was kind of inconclusive.
00:45:53.40
Jonathan Harford
um But then a few years later, kid got diagnosed and all the things he was saying, i was like, wait, that's that's not that's not unusual.
00:46:06.19
Jonathan Harford
Is that other people don't feel that way?
00:46:06.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right?
00:46:09.74
Jonathan Harford
um And I went and I i saw a different psychiatrist and got screened and Yeah, yeah. and ah ah Ever since I've been getting treatment for it, like so many things are different. Mm-hmm.
00:46:28.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, now that you know that
00:46:29.17
Jonathan Harford
ah
00:46:32.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, it's one of those things where just having an explanation makes it, like, even if it doesn't come with a cure, like, just knowing what it is makes such a profound difference.
00:46:43.25
Jonathan Harford
huh
00:46:44.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, oh, I'm not just lazy. have an inability to do this because of a specific reason. And maybe if I employ these specific tools, that will help it be different.
00:46:51.17
Jonathan Harford
Right.
00:46:56.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
I had been beating myself up. for not having finished another novel.
00:46:59.35
Jonathan Harford
Right.
00:47:00.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
I had not finished a novel since The victor Finster Effect, which came out in 2012.
00:47:05.40
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:47:07.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I still had a day job at that point.
00:47:08.22
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:47:10.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then I started writing for a living after I left my last day job, and I didn't write creatively for a long time. And then when I sat down and tried to do a novel, I i couldn't do it. i I couldn't keep it straight.
00:47:22.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
And then finally that diagnosis came along and i was like you know what i'm just gonna try short stories for a while and i have been extremely i mean had i've had two anthologies come out since 2020 or well i guess you're not supposed to call them anthologies it's just you collections i think is the word yeah that's a snooty writer thing but um
00:47:30.23
Jonathan Harford
Oh.
00:47:42.57
Jonathan Harford
Uh-huh.
00:47:47.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
So yeah, I had two collections of stories come out. I started, well, I started the magazine and the magazine at first was just me. I was just trying to write regularly. But I guess the point that I'm making is that once you understand what your limitations are, you can really throw yourself into the things that you know that you can do.
00:48:07.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
you know and And there's still that sense of like, all right, I'm going to hone my skills and work toward this or work toward that goal.
00:48:07.61
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:48:14.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
But it doesn't seem as hopeless because knowing what the problem is means that you can see a path forward.
00:48:23.88
Jonathan Harford
sir Yeah, i um I remember, you know, all the all the potential that I had as a student that teachers said I wasn't, teachers would say that I wasn't and wasn't living up to
00:48:38.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
mm-hmm yep and
00:48:38.95
Jonathan Harford
Like, oh, maybe maybe it's not just because I'm a a bad person. you know Maybe there is like real reasons for it. And I know there's real reasons for it. Because since I've been getting treatment, I feel like I can do things that I just would have seemed completely alien a while back. Like this the the the exquisite monster.
00:49:03.66
Jonathan Harford
like ive ah Let me tell you how many times I've started making an Eat Poop You Cat game, a website Eat Poop You Cat game, like four or five times.
00:49:14.74
Jonathan Harford
And every time I'm like, OK, well, that was fun. Now I'm going to do something else. ah But yeah, i I got this made. I'm not getting anyone to play it yet.
00:49:25.65
Jonathan Harford
ah that the The demand is not quite where I was hoping it would be.
00:49:30.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, it will be once this episode goes live.
00:49:30.44
Jonathan Harford
but
00:49:32.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Come on, man.
00:49:32.76
Jonathan Harford
Yeah. Well, yeah, obviously.
00:49:33.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah Tens of people will know that this is happening.
00:49:40.05
Jonathan Harford
i yeah I look back at like decisions that I've made. And i like going into acting was really appealing because um you know once you have your lines, everything else is kind of pulled out of you.
00:49:55.07
Jonathan Harford
right
00:49:55.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:49:55.95
Jonathan Harford
like Doing something where I have to sit down and be be productive on my own. like i i ah I tried to get a master's degree, and I could not hack that thesis.
00:50:09.09
Jonathan Harford
like ah Every time I tried to work on it, it was just like, I don't, like the gears in my head, they're just like two slippery wheels, like rubbing against each other. Nothing's going on there. I couldn't make anything move in my head.
00:50:26.65
Jonathan Harford
ah But now, yeah, it's it's kind of amazing.
00:50:32.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
That is so relatable, because, I mean, it's like when you get overwhelmed because you have so many things to do you don't you can't do anything.
00:50:43.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because everything seems like it's the wrong decision.
00:50:43.04
Jonathan Harford
huh
00:50:46.52
Jonathan Harford
huh
00:50:47.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it just... ah I mean, like, I'm not... medicated for ADHD. Um, I take, um, mushroom supplements, the lion's mane, everybody's talking about lion's mane now.
00:50:59.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
And, uh, there's like willow bark.
00:50:59.14
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, yeah.
00:51:01.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
There's like a couple different supplements. And, um, I, I am actually a believer in, in supplements. Like I take all my vitamins individually to make sure I'm getting exactly the ones I need and nothing else.
00:51:15.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, um, I can't, I can't necessarily say with certainty that like these supplements are helping me, but I know that I feel better and I feel a little clearer when I take them.
00:51:23.32
Jonathan Harford
huh Yeah.
00:51:28.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
So if it is psychosomatic, like if I'm just tricking myself into thinking I feel better, i don't care. It's nine bucks a month. I'll just do it. Cause I mean,
00:51:38.31
Jonathan Harford
If it works, yeah.
00:51:39.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, mind games are a thing like, you know, being a woman in particular, you get taught a lot of mind games as a kid because you have to tolerate a lot of bullshit. And like finding out now that I have something that is called justice sensitive autism, which is one tiny part of the spectrum, but it's like when I have like just a breakdown
00:51:55.84
Jonathan Harford
Oh, wow.
00:52:03.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
Even as a kid, I'm, like, understanding that the big breakdowns I used to have were because I knew that things that were happening were not fair. And that nobody was doing anything about it.
00:52:15.28
Jonathan Harford
Oh my gosh.
00:52:15.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know? And so so America is kind of kicking my ass right now.
00:52:16.46
Jonathan Harford
Wow.
00:52:20.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because...
00:52:20.45
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, yeah, I could see that. Yeah, that makes sense.
00:52:23.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
when When you know that what's happening is not fair and not right and that decent people are getting screwed and a bunch of wife-beating alcoholic rapists are making everybody's decisions for them, it's it's a little much.
00:52:37.47
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, that doesn't seem very compatible with this country. should ah i got that You should update your software. I don't know.
00:52:46.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
you
00:52:46.73
Jonathan Harford
ah That's terrible.
00:52:48.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
00:52:49.00
Jonathan Harford
It's almost like a bad joke.
00:52:50.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well. Or a very, very hilarious joke.
00:52:55.10
Jonathan Harford
There you go.
00:52:55.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's just a little so bitter. You know, well, that's why we do the magazine Sometimes Hilarious Horror. Because just people are dying horribly doesn't mean you can't laugh about it. That's just what black comedy is.
00:53:08.52
Jonathan Harford
absolutely absolutely yeah i actually something i wanted to uh wanted to talk about just because uh in your question about me asking you something was the um what does horror mean to you um just because it means to me like it's kind of the other side of comedy like it's always about subverting expectations and tension and release
00:53:09.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Dark, dark, dark. Um.
00:53:36.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
I mean, there are a lot of different answers to that that question, certainly, because horror, I mean, it's it's supposed to be frightening, for example. Like, I'm always of the mind of of, like, I always want to use the most inclusive definition of horror as possible.
00:53:54.98
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:53:55.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
So when someone says that a movie like White Oleander or Jaws are not horror because they have other elements. Oh, no, that's a drama a drama with horrific elements. Like, look me in the face and tell me that Jaws isn't horror, and I'll think you're nuts because if a small child is eaten alive in front of you and you're not horrified, i don't want to know you.
00:54:15.28
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
00:54:16.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
that's not a That's not a person that I want to hang out with, someone that's not horrified by that. um Some people say that, like... sci-fi is about where we're going as a society and horror is about looking at who we are as individual humans like exploring the depths of like the human condition how much we can tolerate you know how what what does it take to push someone over the edge you know but but a lot of values that are not horror talk about what happens when you push someone over the edge i mean the whole
00:54:37.13
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:54:50.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
Batman Joker one bad day thing is is essentially that and you know whether or not the Joker is ah is considered a horror character kind of depends on who you ask because again the Joker is is a bad man he does bad things for bad reasons but
00:54:52.81
Jonathan Harford
Yeah. yeah
00:55:01.06
Jonathan Harford
Right.
00:55:08.15
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of it has to, well, I mean, your your point is that it doesn't have to do with the tone, right?
00:55:15.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
not necessarily no
00:55:15.98
Jonathan Harford
But not necessarily. But I mean, I don't know. That's that's kind of what what means horror to me. like ah There's a ah movie, Cresha. Have you ever seen that one?
00:55:27.31
Jonathan Harford
Trey Schultz?
00:55:27.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm not from right now.
00:55:29.19
Jonathan Harford
it's it's It's a Thanksgiving dinner movie, a family Thanksgiving dinner movie. And it's not like, oh my gosh, this family is so messed up. I mean, there they're messed up, but like...
00:55:40.51
Jonathan Harford
It's horrifying, this movie. And it's just from the way it's filmed, ah it's so tense and upsetting.
00:55:51.21
Jonathan Harford
i really I really loved it. I don't know if I could watch it again. But it's I just love that there's no violence.
00:56:00.26
Wednesday Lee Friday
Tell me the title again, because I'm going write it down.
00:56:00.37
Jonathan Harford
There's no, it's Krisha. Your autocorrect will replace it with Krishna. But it is just Krishna without an N.
00:56:12.68
Jonathan Harford
And Trey Schultz went on to make some bigger movies. i
00:56:15.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay, well I'll have to check that out. um Because, yeah, I mean, movies that don't seem like horror movies, one of my quintessential examples of this is The Lovely Bones. Because it does not follow any horror structure, really.
00:56:26.27
Jonathan Harford
OK.
00:56:29.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, nobody's running around with a knife. There's no, like, torture in it or whatever. But i don't know if you're familiar with the story. It's...
00:56:38.93
Jonathan Harford
I've heard of it, but i don't I never saw it or read the book.
00:56:38.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
ah
00:56:41.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, it's a little girl who is kidnapped. And, you know, all the things happen to her that would normally happen to a kidnapped little girl. And then her her ghost is trying to...
00:56:50.40
Jonathan Harford
Uh-huh.
00:56:55.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
figure out what happened and find a way to like give her parents closure and and stuff like that and it's it's pretty horrifying
00:57:04.14
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:57:04.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, I mean, the premise is horrifying, but it's considered, like, the book is considered chick lit. It's not considered horror by any, and, like, women have gone off on me for saying, oh, I didn't know you were a horror fan, and I wasn't trying to diss them.
00:57:16.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
i was just like, man, that story is really heavy and terrifying and intense, and they, you know, and people are like, oh, it's not horror.
00:57:22.47
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
00:57:26.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
You see Michael Myers in there? Like, that's not the only thing that's horror.
00:57:31.29
Jonathan Harford
Maybe same with science fiction.
00:57:31.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, but, But that's like a horror thing. Like once a horror movie wins an Oscar, people want to say it's not a horror movie. You know?
00:57:39.93
Jonathan Harford
it can It becomes fiction, or maybe it becomes a speculative fiction if they're trying to if they're trying to play both sides.
00:57:41.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
it's Yeah, it's drama.
00:57:48.41
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah Yeah. Well, I don't know that anyone has sufficiently explained to me the difference between sci-fi and spec fake. I think it's the very eye of the beholder.
00:57:56.92
Jonathan Harford
Oh, yeah. No, I don't think there is one. Yeah, absolutely. If even that.
00:58:03.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. um so so what ah So how exactly, like when you're planning new projects with ADHD in mind, like how is it different than what you used to do?
00:58:20.56
Jonathan Harford
um what it well it used to be that like i just wouldn't have any projects and then like suddenly i'd have this idea and and it would stay with me long enough that i would get started on it and like work on it for a few weeks and then just magically lose lose um impetus um and now i I mean, well, okay.
00:58:48.91
Jonathan Harford
The thing about the thing about software development in this day and age is that it's changing very, very rapidly with AI and like coding something is so completely different than it used to be.
00:58:57.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
00:59:03.93
Jonathan Harford
I almost want to tell like people who aren't coders, like you see if you can make something because now you're just a manager telling telling the AIs like what to do and checking to make sure they did it right.
00:59:18.43
Jonathan Harford
um It's so different and so it feels productive when it doesn't feel like cookie clicker. do You know cookie clicker?
00:59:28.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
No. Okay.
00:59:29.90
Jonathan Harford
OK, indulge me on this tangent. There is a game you can play online called Cookie Clicker.
00:59:33.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
ok
00:59:37.14
Jonathan Harford
And all you do is you cook click a cookie to earn money. And then with the money, you can buy more ovens, more stuff to make cookies.
00:59:48.07
Jonathan Harford
And the more you play it, the faster you get money. And the more money you make, the more stuff you can buy, and then the faster you can make money. And these games always go the same way, which is at the end, like you've basically turned the whole universe into cookies.
01:00:01.94
Jonathan Harford
But when you play these games, you can be like, OK, I'm just going to play a little bit, and then I'm going to leave the browser tab open, and it's going to earn money, and then I can come back to it when I feel ready.
01:00:14.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:00:15.21
Jonathan Harford
Vibe coding, right, where you have the computer do everything, feels exactly the same way. Like you tell it to do a bunch of stuff and then you just leave it alone.
01:00:26.35
Jonathan Harford
But you're always coming back to it. So you're – I feel like I'm, like, not making any sense.
01:00:33.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, no, i I'm totally following you.
01:00:34.23
Jonathan Harford
Oh, I am? Okay.
01:00:35.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:00:36.15
Jonathan Harford
Okay, good. Because you're always – You want to leave it to do its thing, but then you're always going back to it to make sure like, oh, how's it going? How's it going? Is it going good? Oh, let me just adjust this one thing, adjust this one thing. OK, going to leave it alone.
01:00:49.27
Jonathan Harford
Now I'm going to leave alone, let it do its thing. And then you're always coming back to it and redoing stuff. And it's not as, it feels really productive.
01:01:00.70
Jonathan Harford
And it is much more productive than working on your own, but it's not as productive as it feels it is. But it's still great.
01:01:09.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
Interesting.
01:01:11.23
Jonathan Harford
I hope so.
01:01:12.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, the thing about like, well, because people talk about like AI in programming and I don't know anything about programming.
01:01:18.05
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
01:01:19.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's all too meticulous for me. you know And I mean, ever since like Apple basic, once I learned to scroll my name up and down the screen, I felt very accomplished and I was done. um But I mean, that's, that's what like AI is supposed to be used for, right?
01:01:31.38
Jonathan Harford
one
01:01:35.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like meticulous tasks that a lot of people just can't, sit down and like writing code or whatever. like it's It's very meticulous and specific.
01:01:47.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
So if if an AI is doing it for you, that i mean I would think that that frees people up for more creative work, which is why it instead of humans to do creative work.
01:01:48.47
Jonathan Harford
Yes.
01:02:03.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Not just because it puts me out of a job, but because... Why is it being used for that? Like, I don't... it It seems like there should be... Like, it should be expensive.
01:02:15.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
I think that that's the thing that that would would ah make this where it needs to be.
01:02:15.66
Jonathan Harford
yes
01:02:20.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
It should be expensive to make a book or make anything with ai in such a way that, like, mostly businesses would do it. So that everyone isn't using AI for everything.
01:02:30.67
Jonathan Harford
Oh, God.
01:02:33.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, I'll be in a writing community on Facebook and people will use AI... to write their posts in the writing community to ask about writing.
01:02:42.37
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
01:02:43.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
And and i I can't fucking stand it. i can't like I'm mad that more people aren't mad about it. When this thing happened at NaNoWriMo, there were people that were like, oh, why is everybody so mad?
01:02:50.03
Jonathan Harford
yeah
01:02:55.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Why are we mad that there's a writing competition where writing is no longer required? You need an explanation as to why people are mad about that.
01:03:05.40
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, I mean, there's, yeah, I have so many thoughts about AI. Like, I find it fascinating, and I also find it scary. And I find that, like, I tend to be considered on the on the wrong side of things because I'm more enthusiastic about it than and many people.
01:03:25.52
Jonathan Harford
um ah Most people that I admire, I should say. Yeah. ah So, I mean, there's there's somebody many there's different ways of thinking about it, which is that, like, is it about the process or is it about the result?
01:03:39.31
Jonathan Harford
And people who are, it's about the result, um it makes sense that they would be like, well, why why why do this thing that I don't have to do, right? Yeah.
01:03:49.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, exactly. Why do it if you don't want to do it? Why? why You know, like, because with novels in particular, people want to be a person who's written a novel, but they don't want to write a novel.
01:03:57.42
Jonathan Harford
yeah
01:04:00.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
And those things aren't separate. You know, a ghostwriter if that's I don't know. I mean, I i guess I do feel gatekeepy about noveling because I know what it takes out of you to write a novel, like a real novel that means something to you.
01:04:12.48
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
01:04:16.26
Jonathan Harford
Right.
01:04:18.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
And so the fact that someone will sit at a keyboard and say, ah you know, write a 60,000 word novel about blah, and it'll be done in, you know, half an hour and they'll be formatting it and publishing it and trying to sell it.
01:04:35.74
Jonathan Harford
Right, right.
01:04:35.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
01:04:36.99
Jonathan Harford
And they'll be saying, well, they'll, I mean, generally they'll be taking credit for it. They'll be saying that, yeah, yeah, I wrote this.
01:04:42.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
yes
01:04:44.81
Jonathan Harford
I mean, I wrote the prompts, so I wrote this. um i The thing ah thing that frustrates me about the way like artists tend to, to to address AI is that they talk about like stealing the work ah or plagiarism, right?
01:05:09.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep.
01:05:12.27
Jonathan Harford
You've heard them called plagiarism machines.
01:05:13.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh sure, yeah.
01:05:14.88
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, and I think that, like, I don't think that that holds water for me, right? I mean, it may have been fed on ah whole bunch of literature, and it's spitting out literature because it was fed literature.
01:05:27.61
Jonathan Harford
But, like, so were we all. Like, all writers were were fed literature. And they're not, and if a writer chooses to copy the styles of another writer, we don't say they're a plagiarist.
01:05:41.33
Jonathan Harford
We say that they're hacky as hell, maybe.
01:05:44.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, and an imitator.
01:05:44.95
Jonathan Harford
ah
01:05:47.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:05:47.13
Jonathan Harford
Yes.
01:05:47.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I think, though, that the limitations of human memory do mitigate that. Because an AI program, when you feed something into it, it's all there.
01:06:02.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
You're not remembering the parts that you found most impactful.
01:06:02.70
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
01:06:05.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Every single word of it is there for reference. And... it I mean, i guess it isn't even so much... I think visually, I feel really strongly that because it was fed so much actual art from artists, that what it spits back is not... Because, like, AI, for example, doesn't understand three dimensions.
01:06:31.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
And so...
01:06:31.84
Jonathan Harford
Depends. They're getting better at that. Okay.
01:06:34.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, i I wasn't actually going to say this publicly, but I think I will.
01:06:39.67
Jonathan Harford
okay
01:06:40.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
um i was i For the last ah year or so, i had been looking for reasons to keep my job because I'm not really in a position to turn down work. I can't get on disability because I have a husband with a job.
01:06:52.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
So even though I'm disabled, I don't have an income unless I work. So when my boss decided that the company was going to lean into AI, I wanted to quit and I couldn't quit right away. i could only quit certain aspects of the job.
01:07:08.95
Jonathan Harford
huh
01:07:09.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
So part of my job was making AI videos and they are absolute slop. They're eight second videos and you just go to this thing called Google Gemini and they pay a fee and I tell them what stupid little thing I want them to make a video of.
01:07:14.78
Jonathan Harford
Oh. make
01:07:25.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
And one of the things I tried to get it to do was to have someone walking their pet and the pet was going to jump through a flaming hoop.
01:07:34.72
Jonathan Harford
Oh, yeah, I've seen these.
01:07:34.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
And every time it made the video, it made the pet jump into the hoop and just sort of stay there. Like it's in the hoop and it didn't understand like through the hoop because of, of, of the three dimensions.
01:07:47.99
Jonathan Harford
Yes, I have seen these exact same things.
01:07:51.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I didn't understand that. I actually found it out when I watched, uh, I think maybe like a Wired interview or something where a guy was talking about AI and how it works.
01:08:02.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
And like, I hate the the idea of AI. I actually, on Friday, I quit the job for good because they, yeah, thanks.
01:08:09.10
Jonathan Harford
Congratulations.
01:08:10.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Yeah, my my my bank account is not as thrilled. Did I say find us on coffee, everybody? um No, but but the um the idea that like,
01:08:25.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
because i I can sit down and type a few sentences into that that little box and then it creates a video, that doesn't make me a film director.
01:08:33.96
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
01:08:34.10
Wednesday Lee Friday
That doesn't make me a screenwriter.
01:08:34.12
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
01:08:35.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
That doesn't, like, those are real things, you know? And so when someone who has never typed an entire, like, page worth of prose is calling themselves a novelist because they were able to make a prompt, like, yes, there is a certain skill to making a prompt.
01:08:53.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, there's a certain skill to cutting an apple. You can cut an apple well or you can cut an apple poorly. But if all you can do is cut an apple, that's not how you make a pie. You're you're not a baker who makes apple pies because you can cut an apple.
01:09:09.49
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like that's not the totality of the skill that is needed to do trying to do.
01:09:15.25
Jonathan Harford
Well, what do you say to people who they want to create novels, but they don't want to call themselves a writer? They're completely open about the fact that like, oh, I prompted an AI to write the story that I wanted it to but i wanted the AI to tell.
01:09:32.18
Jonathan Harford
Here's the story. And they sell that as a book. How do you feel about that?
01:09:36.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
um I think it is their right to to do that.
01:09:40.18
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm.
01:09:40.54
Wednesday Lee Friday
um I question why anyone would pay to read something that nobody could be bothered to write.
01:09:46.56
Jonathan Harford
Yes. I mean, I i i tend to ah agree with that, that like art is not just about like, it's not, let's see, what am I trying to say?
01:09:59.81
Jonathan Harford
It's, wow, I completely lost myself. it's Art is not just about aesthetics,
01:10:11.88
Jonathan Harford
right?
01:10:12.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Of course.
01:10:12.95
Jonathan Harford
It's also about communication.
01:10:14.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
01:10:15.28
Jonathan Harford
And so if,
01:10:15.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, exactly. And then these are the humanities. The reason they're called the humanities is because they are what humans use to describe and define the human experience.
01:10:26.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
If you've never been in love with anyone, if you've never fallen down and been embarrassed, if you've never worked all day on a cake only to have it fall in the oven, if you haven't had these things happen, you could probably lie and say you have.
01:10:26.91
Jonathan Harford
Yes.
01:10:41.33
Wednesday Lee Friday
But the only way you're going to even feign authenticity is if you're imitating what other people who have done those things have told you the experience is like, which means it's always going to be flat. It's always going to be derivative.
01:10:55.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, like it's the difference between painting a wall and painting a picture. Like, yes, you've put paint on from one thing to another and changed what it looks like. One is art.
01:11:06.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
One is a task.
01:11:07.80
Jonathan Harford
OK, but I want to i want to put the the question of quality aside because you might, like maybe these things will never get to the point where they're like indistinguishable.
01:11:13.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:11:19.95
Jonathan Harford
But I feel like there's such a danger that they will be indistinguishable, that that's like the level we need to be thinking at, right? we need to be We need to be addressing like what happens when you can say, hey, give me a new Stephen King novel about Teddy Ruxpin.
01:11:36.53
Jonathan Harford
Um, so, so I, I feel, uh, what I was saying about communication is that if it's not a human communicating and it's just aesthetics, I think that that's going to eventually feel to people like eating sugar with a soup spoon.
01:11:55.25
Jonathan Harford
Like if you haven't had much sugar, that's going to be an amazing experience. But if you're, uh,
01:12:06.43
Jonathan Harford
At a certain point, you're like, OK, I get it. This is satisfying one part of me. But like people are I feel like people want ah communication. They want to feel like they're communicating with another human being.
01:12:18.64
Jonathan Harford
So I think that all the talk about, like hey, pretty soon I'll be able to put myself into a Marvel movie and be entertained by that, I don't think that's really going to go anywhere. That's my hope anyway.
01:12:29.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I can certainly see that. yeah You know, what that actually makes me think of is, ah oh gosh, I forget the the guy's name. that the The woman that painted all the big-eyed kids, and people thought it was her husband painting them, but it was actually her.
01:12:46.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:12:47.38
Jonathan Harford
Yes. Tim Burton did a movie about it.
01:12:48.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
There's a movie about it.
01:12:49.98
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
01:12:50.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
it's got Yeah, it's got Christoph Waltz. But um part of of what happens in that movie is that the artist starts selling prints at a time when that really did not happen.
01:13:02.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
But he wanted to make art affordable and available to people who did not have hundreds or thousands of dollars to buy original paintings. And the art world was super pissed about that because it you know, their, their whole thinking was that it's not really real.
01:13:19.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's not really art. It's just mass duplicated. So you're not really having an original thing that was made by an artist. And the counter to that of course is people want art. They think this looks nice and they want to display it in their home and now they can.
01:13:32.61
Jonathan Harford
Yep. Yep. yeah
01:13:34.32
Wednesday Lee Friday
So it it is kind of a similar argument of, well, do you want nobody to be able to have this? Or do you want the people who want it to be able to have it?
01:13:43.51
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, yeah, it's really it's really tricky, especially when it comes to things that, to art. I mean, we're surrounded constantly by art that we don't think of as art because it's it's ah so integrated into our world.
01:13:56.84
Jonathan Harford
Like when that gets replaced with AI, you know we're not goingnna we're not going to question, hey, did an artist make this?
01:13:57.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh.
01:14:04.31
Jonathan Harford
You know what I'm saying?
01:14:05.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, sure. I mean, and it depends on like, whether you're talking about like functionality, like what an architect does, for example. I mean, when I walk into a building, it has to be pretty fucking spectacular to make me stop and consider what the architect was thinking.
01:14:21.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
But with art, it's pretty much immediate with me.
01:14:21.54
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
01:14:24.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
That's why it's one of the reasons that I don't like a lot of video games, because I can't tell
01:14:28.13
Jonathan Harford
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:14:30.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
what Like, the way that I'm thinking about them is never the way that a gamer thinks about them. You know, my husband got us this game that was supposed to be about solving a crime.
01:14:41.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
And he thought I would like it because I like crime shows and stuff.
01:14:45.67
Jonathan Harford
h
01:14:46.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I didn't understand it. Because I didn't understand, like, what I was supposed to do. Because as far as I know, ah video game is when they put a bunch of stuff in front of you and you either have to solve the puzzle or kill everything before it kills you.
01:14:51.90
Jonathan Harford
Right.
01:14:59.96
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, you eat the dots and you kill the ghosts.
01:15:02.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right, right. Okay, zombies are after me. I understand what my role is in this situation. It is to not be eaten by that thing there. um But I don't, like, if I don't understand what the point of it is, then I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing.
01:15:18.34
Jonathan Harford
Right.
01:15:19.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it I just find it frustrating. And that in like one of my statements is always, like why is this fun? Why do people find this fun? i don't get it.
01:15:26.51
Jonathan Harford
Right, right.
01:15:27.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's like, work. but well And that might also be like why people who play video games feel like they've got a lot done in a day. It's like, well, I did 15 levels.
01:15:36.66
Jonathan Harford
Oh, yeah. Cookie Clicker. Cookie Clicker.
01:15:39.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
but
01:15:39.78
Jonathan Harford
I'm telling you, it's we're back to Cookie Clicker.
01:15:42.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, bro.
01:15:42.85
Jonathan Harford
It feels productive, but all it is is number go up. It just feels good.
01:15:46.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. And I mean, it's not like I'm immune to it because like when I get that big ass rocket ship at the end of Tetris, I'm like, look at my gamer ass.
01:15:48.55
Jonathan Harford
um
01:15:58.85
Jonathan Harford
Nice. um i This is a perfect point to mention this about AI, the use of it for for like leverage.
01:16:09.51
Jonathan Harford
So like someone who has an idea and wants to make something of that idea, there's a there's a video game. it's a It's a crime video game. So I thought for a moment it might be the same one. It's called The Root Trees Are Dead.
01:16:23.09
Jonathan Harford
And it's fantastic. It's all kind of logic puzzles the whole way through. And this one developer made the whole thing. And it has a lot of, ah um don't want to say art, has a lot of pictures in it.
01:16:36.39
Jonathan Harford
And the game was very well received because it was an excellent game. But people were like, I really don't like this AI art. ah This guy gave it away for free. And he got so much attention from it that he ended up selling it, selling a new version of it with the art all done by artists.
01:16:56.99
Jonathan Harford
And that was ah an instant purchase for me because I enjoyed it so much. I haven't even played the new version yet.
01:17:00.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow.
01:17:01.59
Jonathan Harford
But like this to me, that's like the optimal route, right? To use AI for like for prototyping and for making you know making the first version of something.
01:17:17.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like giraffe.
01:17:17.51
Jonathan Harford
And then like it like a draft, but I mean, this was more than a draft. Like if, if this had been less, this still successful, but less successful, like he would have seen it still as a success and just not made the, the, um, the second version, I think.
01:17:35.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, you also can't copyright things that are made of generative AI.
01:17:35.43
Jonathan Harford
But, um,
01:17:40.50
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I think that's also going to be a ah sticking point in the arts. Because, well, one of the things that I actually thought of after you had mentioned that about, you know, putting in a prompt, making a novel, and then publishing it.
01:17:53.81
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because if someone does that, there's nothing stopping me from picking up their novel, typing in the back cover blurb as a prompt, and having AI make me essentially the same damn novel and just selling it. you know Like, cause I actually talked about that with my husband. i thought I said, what would be funny is if I find all the AI books online, I do exactly what I just described. And then I title the book better than whatever their book title is.
01:18:22.08
Wednesday Lee Friday
And just, just just like I mean, i don't think I'm that petty or hateful that I would actually spend time doing such a thing. But I would laugh my ass off if someone else did it.
01:18:30.77
Jonathan Harford
No, but that's
01:18:33.80
Jonathan Harford
That would be perfect. I have to agree. ah yeah Oh, shoot. Now I've forgotten what i was going to say.
01:18:46.31
Jonathan Harford
Sorry. Oh, OK. Well, i have something I have something else, which is a there was an artist on LinkedIn, which, to be fair, LinkedIn, kind of a grind poison platform.
01:18:47.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh.
01:18:57.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:18:57.53
Jonathan Harford
right everyone's Everyone's there ah trying to make themselves look like the perfect worker. But there was a piece called The Great Flattening, and it was by this artist who was talking about how AI is is ah Like right now, the people who are the most afraid are the ones who are ah feel that they are the emperor wearing new clothes. like therere They're the ones who like they don't really have something to say, but they've been ah they've been treading water with the talent they have.
01:19:31.34
Jonathan Harford
But since they don't have anything to say, now anyone who has AI who wants to say something interesting is going to be able to do that and eat their lunch. And but the line from it I liked was, tools reveal they don't create, which I thought was interesting.
01:19:45.12
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, ouch, yes. My goodness. That, uh, wow.
01:19:54.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I need a minute with that. but that's That's pretty powerful. um
01:20:00.35
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
01:20:01.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, you know, with with that in mind, I want to tell listeners that the the only creative project you and I have ever done together, oh I guess there's two, because you've also done voice work for for some of my older stuff, but Resilient Brain Forest.
01:20:14.17
Jonathan Harford
oh that's right. Yes.
01:20:18.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
is it a fantastic project.
01:20:18.08
Jonathan Harford
Yes.
01:20:20.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
What made you decide to do that?
01:20:23.05
Jonathan Harford
ah you know I had a friend who, you know umm i I'm always someone who likes to to make drawings. I've never been trained. I'd hate for someone who's been to art school to critique my drawings, um but I enjoy it. And a friend of mine, he was writing a piece actually about bath salts.
01:20:44.77
Jonathan Harford
And he asked me to, and it was a it was a you know pros and cons leaning towards the pros, but that's neither here nor there. um He asked me to illustrate it, and I was so delighted to do it.
01:20:59.47
Jonathan Harford
I was daunted, but ah but the fact that like I had this obligation to do it made me really enjoy it. And I thought, I want and want more of that.
01:21:11.94
Jonathan Harford
And maybe this is something
01:21:12.14
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, isn't that, i I think that's an ADHD thing where that that when you have the the pressure of like having to do something, it's easier to make yourself focus on it and get it done.
01:21:15.72
Jonathan Harford
Oh, I have no doubt. I have no doubt.
01:21:25.05
Jonathan Harford
here Yeah. oh my My favorite ADHD
01:21:31.73
Jonathan Harford
idea is that for most people, there are three things that cause motivation, which is interest, urgency, and importance.
01:21:41.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:21:41.25
Jonathan Harford
And that when you have ADHD, it's only interest and urgency. Importance doesn't register. and
01:21:48.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, it's so vague. Important to who? When?
01:21:53.15
Jonathan Harford
Well, exactly. When is exactly it. Because if it's never if it doesn't have the when, then it can't be urgent. So who cares?
01:21:59.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right.
01:22:00.03
Jonathan Harford
that can I can put that off till tomorrow or next week. um But to return to Resilient Brain Forest, I thought I could i could like give this gift to my friends. We could all ah write these comics and and I would compile them.
01:22:21.41
Jonathan Harford
And yeah, that's
01:22:22.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
so It's a bunch of creatives who are not artists by ah by their own omission.
01:22:27.04
Jonathan Harford
right. Well, not not even creatives. Yeah, yeah.
01:22:31.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
And we all made comic books for for a monthly and we did it for a year.
01:22:31.90
Jonathan Harford
um Yeah, issues.
01:22:35.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
and And I'll tell you, that's not something that I ever would have done on my own.
01:22:36.74
Jonathan Harford
twelve issues
01:22:41.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
The very idea, like I know people who are professional illustrators and the idea that I would try to do such a thing standing next to any one of them is ludicrous.
01:22:52.35
Jonathan Harford
Right.
01:22:53.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, ah well, and not only did I do it, but I said, as long as I'm doing this silly thing, I'm not going to censor myself. I'm not going to hold back, which is why my comic was two serial killers who were roommates, and it's a comedy.
01:23:09.33
Jonathan Harford
Yes, yes.
01:23:11.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, and the, yes, and the wild thing about that is that since I started the magazine that I do now,
01:23:11.38
Jonathan Harford
Stig and the puppet man.
01:23:19.37
Wednesday Lee Friday
um sometimes hilarious horror, we get submissions from artists a lot. And I actually am talking to an artist now who likes the original Stig and the Puppet Man stuff. And I'm looking very seriously about redoing it and then extending it with an artist who actually does know how to draw stuff. And then I would just do the, you know, the writing part.
01:23:40.26
Jonathan Harford
Oh, wow, that is that is so pleasing to me.
01:23:43.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:23:43.29
Jonathan Harford
That would be great.
01:23:44.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:23:44.47
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
01:23:44.84
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because it's so fun. it's, you know, like we were saying before, it's it's so dark because, well, you know, there's a there's a clown that drives an ice cream truck and he kidnaps children and he turns them into marionettes.
01:23:59.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
And people are like, why are you called the puppet man if you turn children into marionettes? Just because I love that kind of nerdy infighting. um And then the other guy is meant to be as average, average, average as possible.
01:24:08.37
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, yeah.
01:24:14.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
He's medium height, medium build, not at all remarkable looking, except that he likes to kill women and and turn them into stew.
01:24:24.54
Jonathan Harford
Right, right.
01:24:24.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Which is generally frowned upon, so they have a tough time.
01:24:29.41
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was that was that was so much fun. It was so hard to get people to to turn in their art, but it was so much fun.
01:24:41.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
when i
01:24:41.10
Jonathan Harford
I would do something like that again, definitely.
01:24:42.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
You should. I mean, I remember the way that you went about it was done in such a way that it was like, all right, you guys, we know what human slacker is and we're not going to do it this time. We're going actually make these projects in tournament. and And I found that so inspiring because it was kind of an ordeal because I used like actual photography and I had to learn Illustrator, which I didn't know Illustrator yet. I was barely making my way through Photoshop.
01:25:10.79
Jonathan Harford
Uh-huh.
01:25:11.13
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I had to like develop new skills and I would take the the little sketches that I made and have H take them to work and scan them. And then I would digitally cut them out. So it kind of seemed like I could draw better than I could because I had like, I was drawing and then using graphic programs to, you know, to polish things up and make them look like they looked in my mind.
01:25:35.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
But I didn't know even like basic comic theory. You know, for some reason, I thought it'd be funny to have every character have their own speaking font.
01:25:38.67
Jonathan Harford
hu
01:25:43.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
And my friends that do comics are like, why the hell did you do this? This is not how comics work.
01:25:48.12
Jonathan Harford
Oh, no, i i I disagree. I think that's... I don't know. I appreciate that choice. ah yeah I keep thinking about how, like, when you're a kid in school and your teachers are always like... You know, there'll be ah like an art project and it'll be like some new technique.
01:26:05.10
Jonathan Harford
And I just remember finding it so silly and boring as a kid. And now as an adult, like, the idea of... having to do art in a new way that I've never done it before, like once every week, that would be amazing. And that's the kind of thing that I like, you know, getting people to do. Like, I i don't, I want to have parties where like, we're all coming to make this one type of art that no one there has made before.
01:26:33.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, dude, you know what's good for that, actually?
01:26:33.16
Jonathan Harford
That's the kind of thing I like.
01:26:36.04
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because, you know, well, you know I have the soap shop, right?
01:26:36.64
Jonathan Harford
What?
01:26:38.93
Jonathan Harford
Yes.
01:26:39.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
And from there, I got into resin crafting. And, like, resin crafting is great, but it takes a long time.
01:26:42.40
Jonathan Harford
Hmm.
01:26:45.39
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, if if I want to make, like, a box with a pretty picture on it, it can take, like, three days, depending on the design and stuff. But there is a new formula that's not really resin. It's more like Plaster of Paris, kind of, but it's stronger.
01:27:02.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
And when you make stuff with it and color it and pour it into molds, it sets up in like 30 to 45 minutes. So it is perfect for that sort of thing. I'm just saying, if you're wanting to have people over for a craft party, it's called Eco Resin.
01:27:17.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I freaking love it. Yeah, I'm actually doing some projects this week because I'm redoing my ah animal habitat for the lizards. And I'm going to make some stuff out of it.
01:27:26.30
Jonathan Harford
the lizards.
01:27:27.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, they need a new tank. I don't even know how many I have right now. I got five like two years ago.
01:27:33.83
Jonathan Harford
And they're all women and they keep breeding.
01:27:34.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
And.
01:27:36.04
Jonathan Harford
Do I remember that correctly?
01:27:36.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh yeah. That is correct.
01:27:39.16
Jonathan Harford
Good for them.
01:27:40.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. And it's funny too. Cause there's so many scientific words for it. Cause it's parthenogenesis is what they call it when species breed asexually, but it's not really without sex because they have girl lizard sex.
01:27:55.05
Jonathan Harford
Good for them.
01:27:55.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's,
01:27:55.77
Jonathan Harford
Hey, that's great.
01:27:56.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right? Well, and that's the thing, is if they don't do it, it doesn't stimulate the egg production. Like, it's it's legitimately necessary for procreation, even though they're clones.
01:28:07.43
Jonathan Harford
Wow.
01:28:08.31
Wednesday Lee Friday
And it may...
01:28:08.35
Jonathan Harford
that's I love it.
01:28:10.38
Wednesday Lee Friday
It makes manga people so mad when I talk about it, too. So I talk about it a lot online.
01:28:14.99
Jonathan Harford
Yes, please do. Please do.
01:28:17.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, oh, that's that's not natural for people to be gay. Like, okay, well, for lizards it is.
01:28:25.58
Jonathan Harford
it's It's so natural for animals. I don't know. It's so obviously natural.
01:28:31.53
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, it's weird to me because like, if you tried to tell ancient Greeks or ancient Romans that bisexuality was wrong, they would ask you what the word meant because that's the default.
01:28:42.02
Jonathan Harford
Right, right.
01:28:46.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, yeah.
01:28:47.74
Jonathan Harford
Yeah.
01:28:47.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
um So I'm looking down my list because I want to make sure that we get to everything. Now, one of the the questions that we ask in our questionnaire is ah whether or not a guest has had a situation where they were in legitimate fear for their life.
01:29:01.88
Jonathan Harford
you
01:29:02.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
And that's not a question that we spring on people, but we do have permission to ask you. So why don't you tell us what you have to say about
01:29:12.71
Jonathan Harford
Well, I had an answer, but then I realized I wasn't in fear for my life. But in retrospect, it's just terrifying. I got the flu ah many years ago, and it was very bad. I got a terrible cough.
01:29:29.40
Jonathan Harford
And then a while later, you know after after I'd gotten rid of the flu, I had ah this weird pain in my leg, made it hard to walk.
01:29:41.24
Jonathan Harford
And I still kept this had this lingering cough.
01:29:43.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh no.
01:29:43.99
Jonathan Harford
And one day i woke up and it felt like I had coughed so hard in the night that I had like pulled a muscle in my chest.
01:29:52.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah Yikes.
01:29:53.79
Jonathan Harford
um I don't know. Maybe you can see where this is going. But um I went to work and one of my coworkers was like, you look terrible. You should go to the hospital right now.
01:30:04.32
Jonathan Harford
And she probably saved my life because it was a blood clot that had moved from my leg to both my lungs.
01:30:09.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh no.
01:30:14.06
Jonathan Harford
Yeah. Yeah. Real sucky. um So yeah, I could have easily died. But I am still here.
01:30:24.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
Wow, man. So how did that, because I know I almost died in 2022.
01:30:25.94
Jonathan Harford
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
01:30:30.06
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I came home from the hospital and healed up and just started doing all the things. Because that was when I got the business back online. I started the um magazine. And then a little while after that, I started the first, well, this podcast and was just like thing doing all the time.
01:30:50.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
did Did that happen to you as well?
01:30:50.86
Jonathan Harford
um i don't I don't think so. It ah it was so abstract. It was like, i don't know. it It felt kind of like, well, I could have been you know hit by a car crossed crossing the street.
01:31:05.48
Jonathan Harford
like Yeah, it was just too abstract for me to um for me to to like feel like I was endangered. like Intellectually, I knew that I was had been in great danger, but I didn't have that that visceral feeling.
01:31:20.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
I see.
01:31:20.98
Jonathan Harford
So yeah, I just kept a messing around like normal.
01:31:26.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
i see. all right. um You know, I do like to spend a little bit of time with guests talking about like recent media. um
01:31:35.69
Jonathan Harford
Yes.
01:31:36.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Now, the last great movie that I saw was Sinners. Have you seen Sinners yet?
01:31:40.57
Jonathan Harford
I want to see it so badly.
01:31:42.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, you do.
01:31:42.55
Jonathan Harford
I have not seen it.
01:31:43.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
You do. I actually paid human money to get it from iTunes because I just heard that it was amazing. And it was. And I wasn't expecting it to be so, like, based in terms of the occult stuff.
01:31:57.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
It was extremely well researched. Like, I don't want to go on about it at length because you haven't seen it yet. But holy crap, dude, see it. so
01:32:06.96
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, OK.
01:32:07.93
Wednesday Lee Friday
So what what have you been watching lately?
01:32:07.92
Jonathan Harford
I will. I will. I promise.
01:32:11.53
Jonathan Harford
OK, you've mentioned the boys before.
01:32:15.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
yeah
01:32:16.04
Jonathan Harford
And I have not gotten into the, I read the books. I don't remember them at all. But I have not gotten into the TV show. But a very similar TV show in that it's like a deconstruction of superheroes, I've been watching with my kid, which is yeah ostensibly too violent for him. But it's Invincible, which is and animated.
01:32:34.74
Jonathan Harford
Also Amazon Prime, I think.
01:32:36.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, okay.
01:32:38.53
Jonathan Harford
it's It's very good. And I got to say, the cast is just fantastic. You got your J.K. Simmons, you got Zazie Beetz.
01:32:50.65
Jonathan Harford
it's it's It's a great show. ah Yeah.
01:32:53.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's weird because J.K. Simmons, I think, is predominantly thought of as a sort of a gruff good guy now. But that was not always the case. And people kind of forget that.
01:33:04.15
Jonathan Harford
Well, he's perfect.
01:33:06.87
Wednesday Lee Friday
Because ah I think the first thing I ever saw him in was Homicide Life on the Street.
01:33:12.12
Jonathan Harford
Oh, really?
01:33:12.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
And he is a virulent white supremacist in that.
01:33:12.48
Jonathan Harford
Wow.
01:33:15.28
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, that's one ah that's a great show for finding people that are super famous now when they were nobody.
01:33:15.75
Jonathan Harford
Oh, my god.
01:33:21.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like Steve Buscemi does ah an appearance on that show and he looks maybe 19. Like, it would not surprise me to learn he could not go get a beer after he shot that up.
01:33:27.13
Jonathan Harford
Oh, wow. OK.
01:33:33.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
um And then, yeah, but then Oz on HBO. I didn't watch all of Oz because it was too much for me.
01:33:41.18
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, it was a bit too much for me too.
01:33:42.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
but he was a monster on that show, you know? And now you see him as like, I guess it it kind of reminds me of, ah oh gosh, what is his name?
01:33:53.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Kurtwood Smith, who played Red Foreman on that 70s show.
01:33:54.82
Jonathan Harford
Yes.
01:33:56.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
And so most people think of him as like, oh yeah, he's the foot in your ass guy But I, I mean, he started out, he's the mean dad that drove his son to suicide in Dead Poets Society.
01:34:08.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
And he's a flagrant racist.
01:34:09.98
Jonathan Harford
Clarence Boddicker, RoboCop.
01:34:12.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh yeah. Yeah, that too.
01:34:14.50
Jonathan Harford
that's That's who he is to me. He will always be that.
01:34:16.35
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:34:17.23
Jonathan Harford
I love RoboCop. Oh, man. What a movie.
01:34:20.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, that's... And it's funny because, you know, I was saying I was raised by conservatives and the takeaway in in when I was growing up was that RoboCop is about why you should respect the police.
01:34:35.68
Jonathan Harford
Oh, my God.
01:34:36.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
po
01:34:36.80
Jonathan Harford
oh
01:34:37.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
because Because look at how bad police have it.
01:34:40.95
Jonathan Harford
Oh, I don't think that's the message there, but okay.
01:34:41.23
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like,
01:34:43.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, no, it was not. Well, but, you know, 80s movies were like that. I mean, think about think about, like, Ghostbusters.
01:34:48.96
Jonathan Harford
Yes, of course.
01:34:51.52
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ghostbusters was an enormously popular movie. Everybody loved it. The merch was everywhere. Who's the bad guy in Ghostbusters?
01:34:58.98
Jonathan Harford
It's the ah the um the the guy from who works for the city.
01:35:04.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's the, yes, it's the Environmental Protection Agency.
01:35:06.98
Jonathan Harford
Yes, thank you, yes.
01:35:08.30
Wednesday Lee Friday
that That is who is the bad guy in Ghostbusters.
01:35:12.12
Jonathan Harford
regulations are as bad as ghosts.
01:35:14.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, thanks Ronald Reagan, you prick. You screwed us over worse than anybody since Nixon and healthcare.
01:35:22.24
Jonathan Harford
Oh God.
01:35:22.40
Wednesday Lee Friday
But that was in the 80s. We didn't even know what it meant to be screwed over yet.
01:35:26.13
Jonathan Harford
Yes, indeed. Wow. We're back here. No, no, no.
01:35:30.95
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right?
01:35:31.05
Jonathan Harford
What, ah what other shows can, can we talk about?
01:35:34.78
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, we just watched a bunch of Star Trek. We watched a Strange New World and Discovery. And, uh...
01:35:40.69
Jonathan Harford
i I loved the shows as like that like chose as a kid, but I haven't watched any of the new ones. And i know I'm going to have to soon.
01:35:51.91
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I mean, i was kind of daunted because there's so much Star Trek that if you're not caught up, it seems like, oh my god, how am I ever going to understand it all? But the thing about Star Trek is that the series themselves are pretty insular.
01:36:08.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
So if you you you can pick a series and go from start to finish.
01:36:08.75
Jonathan Harford
Yes.
01:36:12.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
And yeah, there's probably tribbles in all of them. But for the most part, you're not going to miss a whole bunch of stuff. Like is much more into Star Trek than me. So he helps me.
01:36:23.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, uh, Because I actually like the stuff that's as close to TOS as possible. TOS and Next Gen is absolutely where it's at for me.
01:36:30.06
Jonathan Harford
Mm, yeah.
01:36:33.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
So, like, ah Discovery and Strange New Worlds, which are, like, way previous. And, you know, Strange New Worlds is Christopher Pike. So that's all about him.
01:36:40.79
Jonathan Harford
Right, right. The guy before Kirk, right?
01:36:44.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes. Yes. And there's a young Spock who is played by ah Gregory Peck's grandson. And not to objectify people, because that's morally wrong, but holy shit, that guy is hot.
01:36:57.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, but ridiculously so. ah So there's that. But but yeah, like, the the show Picard, which I think went for like three seasons, which is, you know, like an extension of of Next Gen.
01:37:10.05
Jonathan Harford
Uh-huh.
01:37:13.94
Wednesday Lee Friday
um
01:37:14.09
Jonathan Harford
Right.
01:37:14.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
And I think Star Trek... Like, the writers, not not the people that manage their merch, because Star Trek people are are treated badly by the people that do their merch.
01:37:27.05
Wednesday Lee Friday
but But the writers, very into fanservice. Very, very into...
01:37:30.88
Jonathan Harford
Oh, that's nice.
01:37:31.56
Wednesday Lee Friday
And and it it really is. Because the thing is that... I mean, I like it, and I like when people that haven't worked for a while get to go do TV again.
01:37:44.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
Like, Jonathan Frakes has stayed busy, certainly, because he's a director, but that's not true of, like, the whole cast.
01:37:44.89
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, for sure.
01:37:50.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Some of those people are coming back because, boy, they need their SAG insurance re-upped.
01:37:55.95
Jonathan Harford
Oh, geez.
01:37:56.72
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, and and I'm not blaming them, by all means, you know?
01:37:58.82
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, no.
01:38:01.00
Wednesday Lee Friday
But, uh, Yeah, I've been very into the Star Trek lately, but you know, it's one of those things, Star Trek and Star Wars both are shows where the fans can really, like, why there are conservative fans of those shows, I do not know.
01:38:15.94
Jonathan Harford
Oh, I know.
01:38:16.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
You know, like...
01:38:17.34
Jonathan Harford
It doesn't, they don't, they don't, well, it's like the people who, who think RoboCop is a pro cop show, right? Or that, ah oh God, yeah, the Punisher sticker.
01:38:24.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
but Or the Punisher. People think that about the Punisher, too. Like,
01:38:29.58
Jonathan Harford
Jesus Christ.
01:38:30.99
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah. You have misunderstood that media.
01:38:35.34
Jonathan Harford
um Let's two shows. I got, I got two shows. Well, okay. One show I've really been into is Succession. And we were talking about acting earlier.
01:38:42.97
Wednesday Lee Friday
Ooh, I watched that.
01:38:43.58
Jonathan Harford
Acting. The acting on Succession is so good. ah Brian Cox is so, alternates between so menacing and so like ah jovial and he does it so believably.
01:39:01.32
Jonathan Harford
ah He's great.
01:39:02.17
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, it really and and like just the, well, because you know I have that mental problem where I was sure that Don Jr. was a good person deep down.
01:39:11.34
Jonathan Harford
Oh yes, yes.
01:39:12.15
Wednesday Lee Friday
so So watching Succession for me is, um because you know, that guy is like super Don Jr. right down to the, like, thinking he can dance and sing and stuff.
01:39:22.74
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's like, dude, yes, Kendall.
01:39:23.17
Jonathan Harford
Oh, um ah Kendall, right? Yes, yes. Oh, God, he's he' he's horrible. I also loved Kieran Culkin in that. is He's...
01:39:33.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh my god. it It freaks me out that, like first of all, that he's a grown man. But like once I've accepted that, that's still a little much. Because when he's sending the dick pics to like the chick that had just date that looked like date his was considered way too old for his dad.
01:39:52.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
and Because the look on Brian Cox's face... Remember when he finds out? that He's like, well, who's he sending it to?
01:39:58.52
Jonathan Harford
Yes, yes I do.
01:40:00.68
Wednesday Lee Friday
Jerry! Like, he's so horrified that he's sending dick pics to someone over 40. Yep.
01:40:07.86
Jonathan Harford
sometimes Sometimes an actor, like you will like I'll be watching something and the actor, the character will be thinking something.
01:40:19.41
Jonathan Harford
And I'll have to pause it and say, like how do I know what that character is How is the acting so good that I know what that character is thinking when I don't so i don't know what it is on their face?
01:40:23.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yep. Yep.
01:40:30.01
Jonathan Harford
But Kieran Culkin, he was very good at that.
01:40:34.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, I agree. I actually feel that way about Nikolai Costa-Waldo from Game of Thrones.
01:40:39.89
Jonathan Harford
Oh, i didn't I wasn't a Game of Thrones-er.
01:40:42.03
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh, dude, the first six seasons, like, don't even bother with the last two, but the first six seasons is some of the best TV you'll ever see.
01:40:47.45
Jonathan Harford
yeah
01:40:49.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, ah and if you pretend that the season six finale is the actual finale, it is much, much better than the finale finale they actually give you.
01:40:58.12
Jonathan Harford
ah Well, I'll probably do that if I if i get around to watching it.
01:41:01.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
one Because like once they completely run out of source material, it it just turns to hot garbage.
01:41:05.86
Jonathan Harford
Right.
01:41:08.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
But Nikolai Costa-Waldo plays this dude called Jaime Lannister. And he's a very complicated character.
01:41:13.20
Jonathan Harford
Oh, yes. Wait, no.
01:41:16.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
But in ah in a lot of ways, he's the traditional knight in shining armor. And so a lot of the dialogue... It's kind of not there for him. Like, the things that he says are the things that you would generally expect someone to say in his position.
01:41:32.75
Wednesday Lee Friday
So the actor has to do so much more with his, if I may use this douchey term, his instrument. Yeah.
01:41:41.71
Jonathan Harford
Yes. Oh.
01:41:43.90
Wednesday Lee Friday
And and it's it's like it's so good for that alone because it would be very easy to just say, pretty boy with a lance, run out there and ride your little horsey to the dragon and and stick it, you know whatever. But but no, he he turns that character into something extremely complex that you, even though you see him do a lot of horrible shit,
01:42:10.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
fully understanding his his conflicts and his motivation make it all so much richer.
01:42:18.00
Jonathan Harford
That's great.
01:42:18.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
So I would certainly recommend it for for that reason, but also, i mean, the reason you watch Game of Thrones is because, mean, the women. Because it's it starts out, you got a bunch of kings, and by the end of the series, it's like this queen, that queen, this queen, and the other queen are going at it.
01:42:36.51
Jonathan Harford
I can appreciate that. I can appreciate that.
01:42:39.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah.
01:42:39.83
Jonathan Harford
I can also recommend ah the rehearsal. Did you see wefield wait jasonthan Fielder? <unk> field No?
01:42:49.98
Wednesday Lee Friday
No, I'm not familiar.
01:42:51.01
Jonathan Harford
that not mean anything to you?
01:42:51.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
Uh-uh.
01:42:52.91
Jonathan Harford
he he He had a show called Nathan For You, which It's kind of like he hates when people call it a prank show because it's not.
01:43:04.27
Jonathan Harford
But it's ah he would go to people, to businesses, and offer his services, his advice to these businesses. And ah they would end up being these elaborate, comedic, weird things that these businesses would do, that he would he would get them to do. And then
01:43:26.36
Jonathan Harford
It was, I'm not doing it justice, but the rehearsal is that but weirder. So it's in a way, it's a documentary, but it's also very, very funny and very, very strange.
01:43:39.70
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay.
01:43:41.78
Jonathan Harford
um oh Oh, yes.
01:43:41.85
Wednesday Lee Friday
I'm actually checking out that show on Apple TV about movie making that has Seth Rogen is like the main guy in it.
01:43:47.04
Jonathan Harford
Yes. yes
01:43:51.01
Wednesday Lee Friday
That show is hilarious. My buddy was telling me about it and he said it was based on a movie with Tim Robbins where he's a movie producer.
01:43:59.59
Jonathan Harford
Oh, the player, yes.
01:44:00.43
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes. So we watched that movie, which I had never seen before. And it's it's crazy because it has like a meta ending. Where, like, it's like by the end of the movie, the movie is, like, spoofing itself.
01:44:14.42
Jonathan Harford
Oh, gosh, I don't remember that. That does sound very appealing.
01:44:17.59
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, because it's, like, kind of a normal movie. And then it just turns into this, like, insane schlockfest. And at the end, the main guy is, like, gets the girl. And she's, like, out to here pregnant. And they're living in the little, like, fancy house or whatever. And, yeah, it's just, like, a storybook ending in a film that is not a storybook film. So...
01:44:39.46
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's pretty wild. And then the the movie is like... Or the the show, rather, is is Seth Rogen being that guy. And, like, the first episode, he's supposed to be making a movie with um Scorsese.
01:44:52.82
Wednesday Lee Friday
And he, like, fucks him over.
01:44:53.77
Jonathan Harford
Oh, yes.
01:44:54.67
Wednesday Lee Friday
and
01:44:55.03
Jonathan Harford
The Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid movie, yes. I saw that episode. I didn't see any any of the others, but yeah.
01:44:59.96
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes, Kool-Aid. So, yeah, that was um that was pretty hilarious.
01:45:06.13
Jonathan Harford
I like Ike Barinholtz. Did you ever see The Oath, his movie?
01:45:09.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yes.
01:45:10.87
Jonathan Harford
OK, I really liked that.
01:45:13.47
Wednesday Lee Friday
Right on.
01:45:13.59
Jonathan Harford
Maybe it's just because the, what's that?
01:45:15.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
said right on.
01:45:18.05
Jonathan Harford
ah yeah i Maybe it was just perfect for the time. But yeah, I thought it was great.
01:45:25.58
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool. Alright, um, oh, you know what, I also wanted to just make sure if people want to like, if if they've fallen in love with you during this interview and they want to like reach out and be your pal, is that something that you welcome?
01:45:38.89
Wednesday Lee Friday
Should people find you online?
01:45:39.05
Jonathan Harford
I, sure. I mean, they can, they can, uh, they should play a few turns of exquisite monster. And that way I know they really do like me and, uh, and then leave, post a message in the, on the contact me form there, which, um, is, ah exclusively for spam right now, but they could be the first actual human to use it.
01:45:54.60
Wednesday Lee Friday
Cool.
01:46:03.57
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, cool. Well, listen, it is actually time for the Madlib.
01:46:08.09
Jonathan Harford
Oh, yes. All right.
01:46:09.07
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, we we do end episodes with a Mad Lib. I don't have permission for Mad Libs to do this. So um don't don't sue me, Mad Libs. or Or do. Maybe it'd be the just the publicity I need. I don't know.
01:46:20.61
Wednesday Lee Friday
um All right, let's see. So we're going to start with one, two. Looks like, oh, just two adjectives.
01:46:30.66
Jonathan Harford
Oh, two adjectives. OK. ah Slimy and heavenly.
01:46:39.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, I need, looks like one, two plural nouns.
01:46:46.24
Jonathan Harford
OK, ball bearings.
01:46:48.71
Wednesday Lee Friday
Oh wait, I need three, three plural nouns.
01:46:51.00
Jonathan Harford
OK, ball bearings, um
01:46:58.94
Jonathan Harford
tacos, and bottles of bleach.
01:47:06.54
Jonathan Harford
Can I do that? Is that OK, multiple words like that?
01:47:09.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, yeah.
01:47:10.94
Jonathan Harford
right.
01:47:11.48
Wednesday Lee Friday
If I can write it down, you can do it, and I'm really talented at writing. um All right, so singular nouns, we need one, two, three, four, five.
01:47:22.83
Jonathan Harford
OK, headache, um capsule,
01:47:35.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
Mm-hmm.
01:47:36.13
Jonathan Harford
ah dust bunny, and sunspot.
01:47:45.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
One more.
01:47:47.03
Jonathan Harford
Oh, OK, pillowcase, he says as he looks at his pillowcase.
01:47:53.88
Wednesday Lee Friday
All right. I need a number.
01:47:59.18
Wednesday Lee Friday
Part of the body, plural.
01:48:04.54
Jonathan Harford
Oh, what's that thing called?
01:48:07.79
Wednesday Lee Friday
Pfft.
01:48:09.19
Jonathan Harford
Thenar eminences.
01:48:15.30
Jonathan Harford
You actually might know what a thenar eminence is. My wife, who's a doctor, told me what it is.
01:48:21.34
Wednesday Lee Friday
Um, no. I know the frontal eminence is your forehead.
01:48:25.36
Jonathan Harford
The phenar evidence is the like meaty part under the thumb, like basically like the ball of your hand.
01:48:33.36
Wednesday Lee Friday
oh okay.
01:48:33.57
Jonathan Harford
And apparently, it's the like tenderest meat.
01:48:36.92
Wednesday Lee Friday
I was just sitting here thinking, I heard that's delicious.
01:48:40.13
Jonathan Harford
Yes!
01:48:40.19
Wednesday Lee Friday
I have heard that cannibals say that it is delicious. Great mind, sir.
01:48:47.48
Jonathan Harford
Wonderful.
01:48:47.69
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, I need a part of the body singular.
01:48:52.15
Jonathan Harford
OK, elbow.
01:48:57.16
Wednesday Lee Friday
An exclamation.
01:49:00.14
Jonathan Harford
Crikey.
01:49:04.65
Wednesday Lee Friday
Verb, past tense.
01:49:07.65
Jonathan Harford
Tumbled.
01:49:11.09
Wednesday Lee Friday
and a verb, present tense.
01:49:16.26
Jonathan Harford
Download.
01:49:20.80
Wednesday Lee Friday
A part of the body, singular.
01:49:26.14
Jonathan Harford
Scalp.
01:49:29.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
And an adverb.
01:49:31.92
Jonathan Harford
um Embarrassingly.
01:49:37.86
Wednesday Lee Friday
Okay. Alright, so here we go. This is called Gimme a Sign. Oh, it's a sports thing. ah Being a catcher isn't as slimy as it looks.
01:49:51.29
Wednesday Lee Friday
Not only do I have to catch ball bearings coming at me at 14 miles an hour, right?
01:49:57.13
Jonathan Harford
Hey, that's pretty good. okay
01:49:58.63
Wednesday Lee Friday
I also have to use elbow signals to tell the pitcher which headache to throw. And those are hard to memorize. Yesterday, for example, I wanted the first pitch to be a fastball, so I pointed two phenol eminences to the ground.
01:50:17.51
Wednesday Lee Friday
To my surprise, the heavenly pitcher threw a capsule ball. Crikey, I cried, as the ball tumbled right past me, allowing all the tacos to advance.
01:50:30.45
Wednesday Lee Friday
Then there were two bottles of bleach on base, and their cleanup dust bunny was at bat. I pointed my scalp to the ground, which means intentional download.
01:50:43.21
Wednesday Lee Friday
But instead of embarrassingly walking the batter, the pitcher threw a curveball. The batter hit it over the fence and we lost the sunspot. As you can see, ah catcher's pillowcase is not an easy one.
01:50:59.57
Jonathan Harford
wow
01:51:00.20
Wednesday Lee Friday
And there you have it, the irreverence that is Mad Libs.
01:51:03.76
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, I mean, that sounded, at best, mildly eccentric libs. Like, this was a ah believable sports story, one that I might read in my local paper.
01:51:15.02
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's true. It's true. I should encourage more filth.
01:51:18.69
Jonathan Harford
Oh, that would be great, yeah. And i have to say, Mad Libs, not not a world away from Poop You Cat.
01:51:20.25
Wednesday Lee Friday
Well, i
01:51:25.55
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's true. It's true. We actually, we had Mad Libs at our wedding. We made our own Mad Lib books, and all the little Mad Libs were songs, and we just took out words for the the game. I'm i'm a great believer in Mad Libs just because it is the kind of game that you could play with absolutely anyone.
01:51:42.11
Wednesday Lee Friday
You can do it with a kindergarten class or a room full of perverts. It does not matter. It will be fun either way.
01:51:47.73
Jonathan Harford
Yeah, but how likely is it that the room full of perverts will know what an adverb is?
01:51:51.66
Wednesday Lee Friday
um You know what? A little conjunction junction, a little ah schoolhouse rock before you start, and it just hooks everybody up.
01:51:58.75
Jonathan Harford
All right, OK. I can see that then.
01:52:00.83
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, definitely. Dude, am so glad that you could be here. This was a lot of fun.
01:52:07.29
Jonathan Harford
This was a blast. Thank you so much.
01:52:09.42
Wednesday Lee Friday
Yeah, yeah. um We want to remind listeners that we are sponsored by Sometimes Hilarious Horror Magazine. And you can find us on Ko-Fi, which is ko-fi.com.
01:52:20.22
Wednesday Lee Friday
i And subscribe to us. Supporting the magazine is really a great way to support the show. And you know what? I also want to tell everybody about our second podcast, which is gratis Guignol.
01:52:33.24
Wednesday Lee Friday
It is free horror short stories that are read by me and some guests. And it's pretty dope, actually. You can find it on Spotify and, you know, like wherever you be getting podcasts.
01:52:46.44
Wednesday Lee Friday
um Actually, H and I just did Cask of a Montalato, and I'm so excited because that is my favorite, favorite Poe story. And women hardly ever do audiobook reads of Poe.
Find the audio version of this podcast here.
01:52:58.64
Wednesday Lee Friday
It's pretty rare. Other than the bells. Everybody wants to do the bells for some reason.
01:53:05.76
Wednesday Lee Friday
Alright, so cool. So thanks everybody for being here. Thanks to you, Jonathan. And we will see everybody next week. Bye.
01:53:14.86
Jonathan Harford
Bye.
Comments
Post a Comment