#146. 'Weird'
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Ryan Kinney (of the SSU podcast) sits in for the still-recuperating Vic — whom Sonny jokes might have "a third and fourth Gabriel" jump out of his head — as the trio reviews Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, the mockumentary biopic starring Daniel Radcliffe, streaming exclusively (and ad-laden) on the Roku Channel. Sonny describes it as Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story crossed with MacGruber — a clever-funny rather than laugh-out-loud-funny parody of the biopic genre, slightly overlong and hampered by Radcliffe lacking quite enough charisma to carry it, though he singles out Toby Huss's performance as Al's disapproving father as the highlight and gives it a thumbs up. JVL agrees, rating it "the shelf below Zoolander," and pivots the film's fictional premise into a theory that a figure like Weird Al — like Bo Jackson, "the last folk hero" — could never emerge from today's fractured, algorithm-splintered media culture. Ryan, a longtime Weird Al fan through his years listening to Al's improv appearances on Comedy Bang Bang, loved it (dinging only a draggy Pablo Escobar/Madonna subplot) and also praises Toby Huss and the Dr. Demento pool-party sequence; all three land on a thumbs up. The opening stretch runs long with catch-up banter: JVL recounts obsessively researching and buying a Stihl BR 700 backpack leaf blower (197 mph top airspeed) after his new house's leaf volume overwhelmed his old rake-and-handheld-Ryobi setup, Sonny describes a bewildering trip to Cavender's Boot City to buy a cowboy hat for his kid's rodeo-themed school fundraiser, and Ryan details his Suddenlink/Spectrum internet-monopoly saga as fiber finally gets laid in Pflugerville, Texas. As ever, the episode closes on a scabrous Bo Jackson anecdote — this one from a new biography — too colorful to fully print.
From the show notes
I'm reusing the image from the earlier post because there's only a handful of images at MovieStillsDB, sue me. Fun movie! Thanks to Ryan for sitting in. Hopefully Vic is back next week. We'll see!
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00I'm tired of people thinking I'm some kind of joke. Your dad and I agreed it would be best if you just stop being who you are and doing the things you love. My whole life was all I wanted. I'm afraid we found your son at a polka party. It's to make up new words to a song that already exists. Oh. Well you should do that then. My Bologna. Oh my little hungry one, hungry one. Open up a package of my Bologna.
Sonny00:00:40Dude, I've got chills. Welcome back to the Sub-Beacon. It's Sonny. I'm here. I didn't pull up my script so I'm just winging it. I'm winging it. Vic will be back next week, hopefully. Fingers crossed. Assuming the third and fourth Gabriels don't jump out of his head and take control of his body. We'll see. We'll see what happens. Thank you very much for being here today, everybody. JVL is here, of course. And we have a special guest. Introduce yourself to the people. My name's Ryan. I'm from the SSU podcast. I'm in the two-time guest host chair. I got to go in the two-time host green room. There's Mulch in here and Ham. I don't know. Whatever.
JVL00:01:31This is Ryan Kinney. Ryan Kinney, our buddy from the SSU show.
Sonny00:01:36Ryan Kinney's getting a two-timers jacket.
JVL00:01:38I have been on the SSU show only maybe three times. Is it only three? So, you know, like, we're close to. It has been a while. It's been a while. I've been jonesing for it, actually. I've been kind of. I've been. I don't want to, like, beg for an invite. No, to be clear, JVL hasn't opened.
Sonny00:01:55But I've been thinking about, like. Has an open invitation.
JVL00:01:57Passively be like, hey, do you guys need anybody? Yes. This is ridiculous. Do you guys need anybody on the show next week?
Sonny00:02:02He can come on whenever he wants. But it's been. It's been a busy time for him. Like, literally, if he told us tomorrow, hey, I want to come on. He'd. He'd be. He'd be free. Oh, JVL. JVL doesn't. JVL doesn't have anything. I know. He. I know. It's just an excuse. He's not doing anything. I can't imagine. I think.
JVL00:02:23I think. I think he's actually going to murder me. Do you know? Do you know what I. Do you know what I spent some time doing this week? So, a. A. A major American newspaper, whom I have never written for, came to me a couple of weeks ago and asked me to pre write a story about the midterm elections and under the working theory that that one of the two major parties would do very well and the other would not. So I spent time writing this piece early last week based on available polling data and went through a really unpleasant editing. Process only to then at midnight last night call my editor and say, hey, you got to you got to kill that piece like you can't run that.
Sonny00:03:09And she was like, well, do you think we could rewrite it and, you know, maybe put a different hook on the time?
JVL00:03:14I was like, no, no, we can't do that because that would not serve your readers. The facts on the ground have changed and and she's like, yeah, no, you're you're right. You're right. So I not in addition to all the crap I wrote and all the shows I've done, I went and wrote
?00:03:29a piece.
JVL00:03:30It didn't even see the light of day and that I probably won't even get paid for. Hmm.
Sonny00:03:35Well, that's ridiculous. You should definitely get paid for it. There should be some sort of kill fee there. But also that's like I am I am shocked that this major American publication would ask for a free write like that from like a freelancer. I feel like that's the sort of thing you ask your like regulars to do. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
JVL00:03:56So but my sense is that they. Pre write for like multiple scenarios, right? For for major news events, they say, we want you to pre write for the Giants winning and we want you to write for the Cowboys.
Sonny00:04:10Why wouldn't they want to kill it and win? You know, they've got other pre rights for what actually happened in the hopper.
JVL00:04:19I don't know. For all I know, they've got their editors separated into red teams and blue teams, right? They're competing against each other the way like tech companies will have multiple teams working the same project. Trying to kill each other. They've also got a slow house. But can I I know we want to we want the slower.
Sonny00:04:37I have been I have to make my way through those books, Brian. When I had the drive to Florida, I asked you what I should do. And you said the first Slough House book is really good. I have been Slough House Slough House tearing through the Slough House. Yeah, they're great. Yeah, they're make make what?
JVL00:04:58McHeron. McHeron. McHeron. The Slough House books. It's on Apple. They've turned into a serious episode. Plus.
Sonny00:05:06Yeah. Yeah. With. Yeah, I liked it. Is it good? Gary Oldman as Gary Oldman as Jackson. Did we not? Did we not do? No, we did not. Slow horses. No, we should. We should have. Because it's great. I will. You finished the first season. I thought it was very, very good. Thanks. This is right. That's right. Right. He's great, too. I don't know what that actor's name is. He's good. He's. Is that the guy who? The guy who looks like he's the guy from Jack. Jack. London. Is his name Jack London? His name can't be Jack London, but yeah. Something like that. It's something like that. No. But that that show. That show is great. It's one of the showrunners. Graham Yost is the guy who made Justify. Yeah.
JVL00:05:51Yeah. Oh, I didn't know Graham Yost was a show running.
Sonny00:05:53And there's and there's a there's like a definite justified vibe to it. To it. In the sense that like justified it, it really is kind of like Brit justified, at least at least from the perspective of justified of the villains, because like in justified the way the villains always worked is that like the villains were idiots at first and then became like like genuinely evil often like that. That is like how the like arc of the villain, the villainous, you know, individuals on that show usually went. They were like kind of interesting. Like kind of dumb. But then like there's a turn and there's and you get that in this show, which is like the premise of the first season. I won't I won't spoil anything with the premise of the first season is like these these UK white supremacists take the first book Indian. So the first season is the first hostage. Yeah, right. Yeah. And as the as the first as the season goes along, you realize that like the government like kind of set this up. But anyway, I want I don't want to spoil it.
JVL00:07:00It's got Kirsten Scott Thomas in it.
Sonny00:07:02And she has always been my Mrs. Robinson, who was Alicent in the House of Dragons series. She's she plays Sid Baker, JBL, Sid Baker is.
JVL00:07:13Oh, who does not who does not come back after book one, sadly. So so, Ryan, what did what's been going on? How was your weekend, Ryan?
Sonny00:07:23My weekend, though, my weekend was, you know. The typical things, you know, I've got one potty training two year old. So I mean, just where I love to be, my hands full of cherish these moments.
JVL00:07:42Cherish them.
Sonny00:07:43They go by so fast, Ryan. Yeah. So, you know, that's exciting. Just how how many I'm sorry, how many kids do you have? There's there's five of them. Currently, there's five. Yeah. Five. See, that's that's at least, oh, five too many children. Yes.
JVL00:08:06That's that's so many children.
Sonny00:08:08That's my that's my basic take on that. That's that's awesome. Five kids. Yeah. Is this the youngest one? Yes. Yeah. That is the last one. The final child. The. So you're done for now. There's no for now. I know. I know. I'm not interested in talking. I want to talk about your your cable situation in Austin because we were we were discussing this right before the show started. So they're they're laying fiber optic cable in your neighborhood. And this is going to be the first time you will actually have the choice which cable providers the strangest thing in this in this neighborhood, this area. We technically live in Pflugerville, which is just northeast of Austin, and that's P.F. That's that can't be a real man. Pflugerville. The the school, the the school, the school district trucks say P.I.S.D question or P.F.I.S.D. So fist is what the school district trucks do.
JVL00:09:10They do a lot of fisting over there on a fisting is is this is this a is this a place where
Sonny00:09:17I could get good like a German cookies? No. And stuff. No, I mean, it's not even is there like I think I think at one time. It's a lot of like German bakeries around the Austin area. But right now, I mean, I can't think of any. It's just it just was the name. And now it's it's basically have any Taco Bell Taco Bells.
JVL00:09:40That's a good question. I mean. Because I enjoy Tex-Mex fare, and I imagine if you go to a Taco Bell in Austin, either
Sonny00:09:50that or I mean, Taco Bell in Austin or South Dakota. Those are the two hotspots for they use pita pockets for instead of tortillas in South Dakota. So those are the two places where the they get the ideas for Tex-Mex food here anyway. The we yeah, I have no choice for Internet here. I have what was up until a couple of months ago known as Suddenlink Suddenlink Internet, which is Hidden Valley Valley. Suddenly there is no link. And it was the literally I would go I could go to AT&T's website. I could go to any other Internet service Comcast put in my address and I've never seen this before, but it would redirect me to Suddenlink's website. And this was that was the only option to sign up for Internet and it's terrible. It's if if it doesn't go out during this recording, then you know, they'll that'll be a huge success. But they are laying they're laying. There's a huge project going on where they're digging up in the half the out in front of the sidewalks in the entire neighborhood. It's just a pile of dirt everywhere and they're laying fiber all the way around. So we're getting flyers on our door. We'll soon be able to sign up for Google Fiber or AT&T Gigabit Internet or any of the other fast ones. But we'll have a choice, which is. It's America. It's what America is about. The free. Nice to have a choice. It's it's nice to have a choice. Yeah. And I feel like everywhere I live, I never get a choice on what the actual Internet provider is. I mean, in in in Alexandria, it was Comcast like you could get Comcast and that was it. There was no there was no Verizon FiOS in Alexandria. So my experience is more common than what I'm. There is. I think. No, totally. No, it's it is. It is one of these fascinating remnants of like the baby bells and that whole breakup that like just makes no sense to me whatsoever. But it is every. So like here. In in Texas, I think I've told this story on the show before, but the I wanted to just I wanted to just transfer my Comcast service from Alexandria to Texas. I just wanted to, like, keep everything the same and I called up Comcast. I called up Comcast and they were like, Yeah, we don't you. We don't have service in Dallas. I was like, Really? Yeah. Don't know. Service in Dallas. All right. Well, I guess I guess we have to cancel that. And so I was like, Well, like, is there like cancellation fee? What do I? They're like, Don't worry. We take care of all that. So I was like, Oh, okay, fine. Yeah, I guess because I'm moving, there won't be an early an early service cancellation fee. That was wrong. That was incorrect. But and I know I've told this story before, but they they didn't just send me a bill. They said they they there's like an $80 cancellation charge, but they don't send you a bill. They send it directly to a collection agency. They send it directly. They send it directly to a collection agency. And then I started getting phone calls and letters from like, Joe, Thumb Breakers, Vinny, House of House of Pain. You owe us $80. And I called them up. I was like, What are you? What? What is this? What is it? They're like, Oh, yeah, no, Comcast does this with everyone. And anytime you move, they don't send you the final bill. They send it to us and then we have to collect it. And I was like, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard because I would have just Comcast. I would have just like, here's like, I signed a contract. I'm breaking the contract because I'm moving like whatever I get it. And instead, they they they send it to this collection agency. I refuse to pay on general principle. I still get calls sometimes from a collection agency that's like, we'll take we'll take 40% of what you owe. We'll take $30. And I'm just like, No, absolutely not. I did not contract with you. Nothing. Go. Go fuck yourselves.
JVL00:13:52Your offer is nothing.
Sonny00:13:53Yeah. I like I'll ask I'll I'll ask you to pick up the tab from Comcast. That's what I'll do because I'm not doing it. I like I'm just I refuse again, just on absolute 100% general principle. That situation is unsatisfactory. I refuse to get hassled by a collection for no repo man for Comcast. So anyway, if I ever go back to Comcast, it's probably gonna be a problem. But the but the. But in and by I think I can I think I can get AT&T here. I think I can get AT&T here, but I just wound up with Spectrum because it was easiest. And yeah, it's like Spectrum or Dish, Dish TV, Dish Network or whatever. And like, I'm not.
JVL00:14:38Do you have a subscription to Peacock?
Sonny00:14:41I do.
JVL00:14:43Peacock and Comcast are the same company. Interesting that they will they will do business with you, a scofflaw. Who has broken your your terms of service contract with them on the Comcast end. But then Peacock is fine with that.
Sonny00:14:59They'll take your $4.99 a month. Well, again, I would have. I would have.
JVL00:15:03Tighter integration.
Sonny00:15:04I would have happily paid my fee to to Comcast like they didn't even give me the option to. They just they were like, we're skipping ahead to the part where we send random people to your house to collect the money with like sacks, like sacks with dollar bills on them. And I just like I refuse. I don't. I know. Absolutely not. So anyway, I find the whole thing weird if I and you said JBL that you don't have an option either. Right. That is just like we have one. I guess I didn't realize everywhere else I've lived in Texas, I've lived at, I don't know, a few other addresses. I've had multiple options for Internet. This is the first place I've moved to where I had no option. So I guess I should have counted myself lucky at the other at the other places that I even had an option. Because to me, having no option was it was not experience, but it seems like that's that's typical. How do you like living in Austin? How's how's? I mean. Or living just outside of Austin, I guess. Pflugerville is so close. That's what I was trying to say is that it's it's lost all of its identity as Pflugerville. It's basically Austin at this point because it's so close to where I mean, it's even though it's outside the city limits, it's still so expensive to live here. We're going to end up having to move to. You know, another 20 miles east to to to make it really affordable or affordable. It's it's blowing up so fast and there's always traffic. But I mean, everywhere has traffic. Dallas has traffic. But I guess here just seeing that the traffic gets worse every day because it's something like I don't know, I don't know what for a while it was like twelve hundred people like I don't know if it was a month or a quarter moving here. And so it's just it's just getting worse and it's not going to get better. There's a new high rise. The skyline has changed. I've only lived here for like ten years and I wouldn't recognize the skyline of Austin ten years ago from what it is now. Yeah. But yeah, if I didn't have kids, it would be cool because there's lots of really cool stuff. Like I made it. I did. I did. I've done one thing in the last year, and that was go to Tim Miller's trivia, the trivia that Tim Miller hosted at for the Trib Fest a few weeks ago. And I only did that because, you know, he he got me in. It was that fun. I just got to stand in the back. I didn't have to do trivia. I just got to watch Tim basically do a stand up routine, stand in the back with his friends and his husband and just talk to them. So it was actually fun. JBL, how are you doing?
JVL00:17:48So I I bought a leaf blower and I wanted to talk to you boys about this. Are you going to do a ranking?
Sonny00:17:55Because I was told to ask you about a ranking.
JVL00:17:58Back when I lived in Virginia, I had a rake and a Ryobi handheld battery powered leaf blower that works just fine. We didn't. You know, we had I thought a normal amount of trees and so dealt with a normal amount of leaves. And at the the new place. At the new place, the level of leaves is unlike anything I've ever seen before. And part of this is because we back to a park. And so we give all these trees, you know, going up this hillside, their leaves come down to ours and we have more more property. And I spent all of all of a weekend raking to just do like one third of the property. And then four days later, you couldn't even tell that that I had done anything. So I decided to have to do a leaf blower and so I went into research mode and had to get a backpack blower, got to go backpack blower because of the way our ground is uneven. You don't want to push mower the handheld. The handheld ones are simply no good. Seemed that now I went into this thinking I'd be willing to spend as much as $200 on a leaf blower. I was really ready to go nuts. And it turns out. It turns out you can't really buy a leaf blower for $200 and and all the ones anywhere near that price point are puny and made in China and don't work for. The answer is steel, steel style, steel, steel. I don't know how you pronounce this company and they make so echo and steel. They make chainsaws mostly, but and and leaf blowers. And the steel ones are made entirely in in Virginia. Actually, the others are Chinese components that are assembled here. Steel is entirely made here. And so I targeted a low end steel. And so they they you the two things you want to look at are your CFM, which is your cubic feet per minute of blow capacity. So that's that's how many leaves you can blow. You can blow and then your max top speed, how much how much it can blow and then your max top speed and the the higher the top speed, then the faster it can move the leaves.
Sonny00:20:26Right. So the faster it can blow.
JVL00:20:29So I, I, I, I was dialed in on a steel BR 300. And so I went to my local ace ace, the hardware place is the place because they are steel. You can't buy steel tools. Uh, anywhere except from an authorized steel dealer, you can't get them at home Depot. You can't get them in Amazon. And so I show up and I say to the, the guy who, uh, you know, who has rough hands who works there. And, uh, like, so what, what, what should I get? I was gonna ask him to touch your face. I, uh, so I said, you know, look, here's the deal. I think that what I need here is the, the, the steel BR 300. What do you think? And he looks at me, he's like, yeah, what is, what does your yard look like? So I described the setup for him. He says, look, we don't do anything on commission. We are paid out. We are paid hourly employees. This is not, not, I don't get nothing for this, but you should get a bigger, bigger machine than that. You'll hate yourself. If you get this, I said, why he said, because the CFMs are too low, you'll, you'll, you'll get the job done, but it'll take you three times. It doesn't blow hard enough. It doesn't blow enough. Not the hard enough. It just doesn't blow enough. And so you need it to blow more. He said, you can, you know, for only. Only 50% more dollars. You can get nearly four X the, the blow volume.
Sonny00:21:56That's good. I look, that's, that's 0.5, 0.5 increase in price leads to four X that, that sort of the,
JVL00:22:05I believe in, in the finance world, we call that leverage. And so I, uh, I, I just was like, okay, you know what? Let's just do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. I bought it and I bought the fancy steel noise protector headphones. And I came home and I fired it up. I can't explain why, but this machine gives me so much joy to use. It's like a little game like Twister girl or. Cyclone. Cyclone. I felt like cyclic. I just point my hand and pull the trigger and like a thousand cubic feet of leaves. They're like Iron Man. Are blown away.
Sonny00:22:54Which kid could this knock over?
JVL00:22:55And so I certainly G money. If I turn this thing on G money, he is 100%. The max is 197 miles an hour is the airspeed.
Sonny00:23:08Oh my God.
JVL00:23:09You have 97 miles an hour. You should line them up.
Sonny00:23:11You should line them up in a row from smallest to biggest and just and see how see how far you can get down.
JVL00:23:19A lot. It was. It was so satisfying. And and if anything, my only regret is maybe I should have gotten the BR 800 Magnum because they so I got the second the second biggest one available. And if I had gone up to the the BR 800 Magnum. Then I could have gotten a little bit more CFMs, another 100, another 100 CFMs off this puppy and almost another 20 mile per hour on the top.
Sonny00:23:50But all of this is say that I find myself a 200 mile per hour stream of air to 16, I
JVL00:23:57believe, is the you basically make your own wind tunnel at this point. Yes. Yes. And I found this so wonderful that after having bought the thing. I probably spent a half hour on YouTube pulling up reviews of these things to watch the joy of other people who had used it. So thinking about how great it was, you know, like I had already looked at all the reviews before I bought it, and then I wanted to go read more of them because I wanted to just increase the bask in the validation of having got. And you know, the guy from Aces I'm checking, I was like, Yeah, you won't need another one of these for like 20 years. I was like, Great, great.
Sonny00:24:39Do you have to get it serviced? You have to bring it in like once every winter or whatever.
JVL00:24:43Every few years you can bring it in for for a basic service where they'll like, you know, check the carburetor and replace the spark plugs if you need it. But in general, if you use canned fuel, got to use canned fuel, right? You don't want to you go you don't go to the gas station and fill up your gas can and pour that into your BR 700 unless you are unless you're a damn fool, because that's no good.
Sonny00:25:07Wait, what kind of? What kind of fuel does? Is it like is it like especially is it like jet fuel?
JVL00:25:14I believe it is unobtainium I know what it is. So what it is, it's pure gas with no ethanol mixed into it, right? Which is corn out of the air and ethanol is like death for small engine car corning blower. And and and they're because it's a four cycle engine. You have oil mixed in a 50 to one ratio. So one part oil. It's 50 parts petrol. And so you put it all I'm saying is this thing is amazing. And I'm going to like I think when it snows in the winter, I'm going to try blowing snow with it. Like just go out while the snow is coming down just like it's well.
Sonny00:25:56But you also got it. You also got a snow blower, right?
JVL00:25:58I do. I do have a snow blower. I can't imagine it's going to be as much fun to use as this thing, though I it's just awesome. And I'm looking. I'm looking forward to spending this weekend.
Sonny00:26:10How long did it take you to actually blow all the leaves?
JVL00:26:15So when I came home and fired this thing up, a portion of our driveway, which took me three hours to do, I did it 30 minutes and I did not just like I didn't just do that portion of drive. I did it better. And like I actually increased the area that I did. I didn't just do the driveway. I did the grassy areas around the driveway and I did it all in 30 seconds of 30 minutes and my back felt fine afterwards because I want to assume that yeah.
Sonny00:26:46Do you do you like bag all the leaves or do you just blow them back into the woods? I blow. I got it. I got an answer for this. I want I assume your neighbor across the street, however close a neighbor is, doesn't have one of these things. I want you to don't have it. I want you to demonstrate your dominance over the neighborhood. I want you to with this thing, blow your entire yard full of leaves across the street into the neighbor's yard. And there is somebody else. I dare you to do. You don't have this. You can't. You can't blow them back. Arms. Right. It's so great. It's so great.
JVL00:27:16Now, I wonder if next year I could rationalize it to myself going and getting a BR 800 Magnum and under the the auspices of saying, well, if I could make this job go even faster, if I put the BR 700 on flash. And I use and the two of us could go out together like our own little landscaping crew to do it. And then we'd have the entire property. Go do the whole neighborhood and just say, yeah, here, just there, right? And so that way I could I could justify this not as this was a test expenditure to trying out the BR 700 and we can go get the 800 Magnum next year. Oh, well, that's all I just want to share that.
Sonny00:28:05Because it does feel a little bit like we're talking about, like handguns here. Like you're like this is like Dirty Harry style. Like I need the Magnum. I need the forty four.
JVL00:28:15Seeing as this is a BR 800 Magnum, it could blow your blow your head clean off it all. It works perfectly right. It could blow you to the block away. It's got this thing has twelve hundred CFM in blow capacity. Top speed. Exactly. 217 miles per hour anyway, Sonny, how are you buddy?
Sonny00:28:39I'm fine. I'm fine. I, uh, I had, I, I did, I did a very Texas thing this week and bought a cowboy hat, a
JVL00:28:49cowboy hat.
Sonny00:28:50Do you wear it? I bought a cowboy hat. No, we, we're, we're, we're going to, uh, a fundraiser for my kids elementary school and it is rodeo themed. And I was informed that I. That I need to purchase a hat of the cowboy variety because, uh, that is what all of the men in at the party will be wearing. I was, it was, it was, it was made very clear to me that this was not an optional thing.
JVL00:29:20And did you go to the Halloween spirit store and get one of their clearance? No, no.
Sonny00:29:24Well, first I went, first I went to, first I went to a used, a used clothing store called, and this is the name of, this is the name of the store. Plato's closet. Where they don't actually have, they don't have, they don't have mirrors. They have like, they've, there's a, a light that flickers and then you see your shadow on the wall. And that's how you have to decide if the thing that you are trying on fits. They sell, they resell clothes that Plato's closet. It's yeah. It's like a used clothes. So I went in there and I was like, I went out, I went in there and I did a loop around the store and I saw nothing but like, I saw nothing but like 13 to 15 year old kids in there with like, uh, you know, and I was like, I was like, ah, fuck, I'm in it. So I went to the front desk. I was like, Hey, uh, do you, y'all got any cowboy hats here? And they looked at me like I was the biggest fucking idiot on the planet. They were like, no, sir, no, sir, we don't have any cowboy hats here. Get out of here. So they, and they literally said like, well, you should try party city down the street. They probably, and I was like, okay, let me, uh, let me, let me go somewhere else. So I went to. I went to a place called Cavender's Boot City and it is, it is, uh, it's a, it's, it's, it's legit. It's like they had, I mean, literally have like 7,000 pairs of boots, but it really is a boot city. I don't know what Justin's is. I don't know. But I do know what Cavender's is. Cause I see it. I see it all the time. Uh, so I went, I went there, I went and I, I, I like tried on some hats and I realized as I was trying on these hats, I have no idea what a cowboy hat. Cowboy hat is supposed to fit like, so I literally just put one on my hipster glasses
JVL00:31:07and your beard. That's gonna be an exceptional look.
Sonny00:31:11The whole thing is the whole thing really came together.
JVL00:31:13Uh, but anyway, so cowboy hats made of, are they leather? Are they felt?
Sonny00:31:18Well, there's a leather band, uh, it's wool. It's like wool with like a felt felty finish, uh, and it's got a leather band in it. So it like expand and fit to your, to the size of your head. I, they're, they're, they're made out of, they're made out of, it was funny. So it was, I mean, it really was, it really is interesting because it's like anything else. You go in there like nice ones and there are less nice ones and then there are less nice ones. Right. And like, there was a wall of Stetsons, like I've heard of that name.
JVL00:31:51What is a step?
Sonny00:31:52And I was like, that's literally, literally exactly what I said. I was like, I know that name. I know what Stetsons are. That's a real thing. But like. Yeah. And they weren't outrageously insanely expensive. I feel like the cheapest one was like 150 bucks or something like that, but they went up to like a thousand dollars. You could, you could get a thousand dollars Stetson at Cavender's boot city.
JVL00:32:15I did not get almost buy a leaf blower for that much money.
Sonny00:32:19Almost. Wow. Uh, so I, so I, I, what is the thousand dollars Stetson?
JVL00:32:25Can you give me a, is it, I assume it's materials. I assume it's like made of ostrich skin or something.
Sonny00:32:31I, I, it looked like all the other hats to me. They all look the same. They all. I don't know. I mean, I've seen like the, the expensive hats and tried them on like here, like, uh, we have Justin's and, uh, I, I've gone in there, I've looked at them. I couldn't tell you the difference between the a hundred dollar hat and the thousand dollar hat, except for other people seem to be able to tell, um, I don't know. Hmm. It's this people seem to know. And like, I looked at it, I was like, I was like, yeah, that, that hat looks like all that. So anyway, I, I got like an $80, but anyway, I like, I put the, I put the hat on my head and I was like, I just went to, I went to like a collection of four store employees who were standing around kibitzing. And I was like, Hey, does this fit my head? And three of them immediately turned their back on me. And one of them looked at me, laughed, looked at me and see them laughing. Or I mean, I, I, yes. I like, and one of them was nice enough to be like, ah, you know, it's, it's a little bit high. It's a little, you want it to be a little bit, um, or it's a little bit low. It's a little bit low on your head. What is that? A seven, seven and a quarter. You, you probably want like a seven, uh, just a, it wants to be a little bit, little bit higher than that. I was like, thank you. Thank you for that. So I went and I got a seven. I put it on. I was like, this feels exactly the same. I don't know. Uh, so I, I was like, I guess this, I guess this fits better. So I bought that. I bought that. It was, it was, again, it was just, it was, it's interesting because I looked at, I look, I look at this wall of hats and I'm like, it is very clear that there's an entire universe of hat buying. There's like a, there's a guy there with a steamer. I have no idea what that steamer is supposed to do. Like it, I think it like makes the hat like more pliable. So it'll fit on your head better. And he was like, and they're like JBL comes with his leaf blower and he blows it at you. And if he can blow it off your head, then you have too big a hat. Well, this is, this is what the, this is what the guy I w I asked about the, the sizing told me. He was like, you want it to be on your head. So a stiff breeze will not knock it off, but you don't want it to be too tight that it like leaves a mark. You don't want there to be like a red mark. When you take your hat off, you want it to be, you want to sit on there properly and not blow away when you're riding your horse and capturing the cattle that have escaped
JVL00:34:54red mark on your head.
Sonny00:34:59Yeah. I like when. All right. So when you're on the set of Yellowstone and you got it, but like, uh, you go out to Ms.
JVL00:35:05Mary's whorehouse, take your Stetson off. You don't want no red mark on your forehead.
Sonny00:35:13Then they see a mark and they're going to look like you'll, you'll look like a moron. So I, but it really is just one of these fascinating things where it's like, there's a whole world. There's a whole world.
JVL00:35:29Visible to you.
Sonny00:35:30Of, of consumer choices here that make no sense to me whatsoever. I mean, like just, I, I don't understand them at all. I could look at the boots and I could, I could tell you like boots make sense to me. Cause I can understand. I know what, how you make shoes. I know how you make boots. I know what the materials are, whatever. If I was looking at the shirts, I'd be like, okay, I know what these shirts are. I know like whatever the hats mystery, total mystery to me. And it, it is, it's like, it's a reminder. That the whole world is filled with things like this. It's just like the world is an endless series of things that are mysterious. Once you get down to a level beyond, like, here's what a thing is. I like, I don't know. It was, it was a, it was a very weird moment for me, but I also had fun out in the world,
JVL00:36:15Sonny. Wouldn't you say weird speaking of speaking of weird this week, we watched a, we watched a movie that is streaming only on one place called the Roku channel. The Roku channel. And there's no option to purchase it and you can't subscribe to it. It's just, they just make you watch ads. Weird Al had some. No. Am I wrong? Ryan? Did you guys have to watch ads?
Sonny00:36:40So many ads.
JVL00:36:41Well, I had to watch Roku ads.
Sonny00:36:42I didn't have any ads. I had to watch Roku ads. That's it. For the Roku.
JVL00:36:46Oh no. I watch ad after ad after ad. You did? There must've been 15 ad breaks.
Sonny00:36:50How did that happen? In the, the midst of this. I seriously, I had, I had, I had maybe three ads and they were all like 10 second ads. Hey, subscribe to the Roku channel or download the Roku channel. And that was it.
JVL00:37:00These were.
Sonny00:37:01Wait, wait.
JVL00:37:02Each ad break was two minutes long.
Sonny00:37:03What the fuck? I have a question. Do you guys are what? No. So this is really interesting to me because I had zero ads. I had zero ads throughout the entire time I was watching it, but that's because I logged in through my Roku account. So once upon a time I had a Roku, I have a Roku stick somewhere. I don't use it anymore, but I like created a Roku account. I have, you know, I had all my apps on there or whatever. Have, have you guys ever owned a Roku before?
JVL00:37:27So in fact, I watch it on my Roku. Television. Whoa. And you had my entire TV is powered by the Roku operating system and so I am logged into it. It knows who I am and all that.
Sonny00:37:38And this is the problem with this.
JVL00:37:39And uh, they don't respect their subscribers and their customers.
Sonny00:37:43I watched it. That's fascinating. I downloaded the Roku app channel on my Amazon fire TV box. I have the big box, the uh, not the stick, the, the one that can, you can hardwire it. You can plug an ethernet cable. I have, so I, I have an Apple TV. That's how I watch most of my things, but you can't there. You can't get the Roku app on your Apple TV.
JVL00:38:12Right. Correct.
Sonny00:38:14Can't do it. Can't on Amazon. Correct. Like Apple and Roku. Apple and Roku do not talk to each other. It does not. It doesn't work. So, uh, I, but I, but I, but I could get it on my iPhone. I downloaded it. I downloaded the app to my iPhone. I watched the whole thing. Yeah. On my iPhone. Okay. Just like Eric Appel wanted. Like nails on a chalkboard. All right.
JVL00:38:35Nails on a chalkboard to me. But. So this movie is a weird, the weird Al Yankovic story. It is a parody biopic about Al Yankovic as if Al Yankovic was the character, Derek Zoolander.
Sonny00:38:53Is that about right? Well, what it is, what it. Yeah. So here's. I got a lot of. All right. Here's how I would describe weird to people. Weird is basically Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox story crossed with MacGruber. Yes.
JVL00:39:10A lot of MacGruber.
Sonny00:39:11Those are the two kind of intellectual forebears of this thing. It's a parody of the biopic format. And as such, it is not as successful as Walk Hard, Dewey Cox, which has like ended the need ever again to aim, make a musical biopic or be parody musical. Like you just there's no reason to do it after Walk Hard. That that should be. Well, except for unless you're like in like Weird Al is a real guy like it. So I think there was a place for him. But that's and so that's so that's so that's so that is the interesting thing about that's the only reason this movie is actually interesting. So it's basically the other the other third kind of intellectual forebear of this is that it's a it's a bio. Pick of Weird Al that bears no actual resemblance to his real life. It's like entirely fictionalized. It's well, whatever, but the but the thing it reminds me of most outside of those two movies is the Norm Macdonald. I was going to say that to Norm Macdonald's memoir novel. It's like it's it's that it's that same kind of idea where you have a guy who is like going through his regular life, but it's fictionalized in such an obvious way that it like is not it's not it's it's novelistic. It's not. Yeah. So there there's a lot of different weird things going on in this and it's a movie that I I don't know how to critique exactly because if you're not on its wavelength, if you're not on the kind of absurdist wavelength that this movie is on, I imagine it would be miserable to watch because it's kind of long. It's almost two hours long. It is funny, but not that funny. It's funny, like clever, funny, more than like laugh out loud, haha, funny. And it in it. And Daniel Radcliffe is. I like Daniel Radcliffe as a supporting actor in his post Harry Potter roles. He does not have the charisma, whatever, to carry a movie of this sort. I just don't. I like I he is. He is not. He's not. I don't think he is. I don't. I don't love him in this role just because I like I don't think he is really strong enough to carry the whole. Thing. I'm at it. That said, entertaining. I thought it was fun and kind of absurd and silly. And I enjoyed trying to pick out all of the little cameos throughout a fun, weird movie. The sort of thing that absolutely deserved to be on a channel like the Roku channel. I don't know what you guys make of it.
JVL00:41:54Ryan, you loved it, right?
Sonny00:41:57I so. I do. The one thing I'll agree is it was a little long. Some of that stuff with, who am I thinking of? The drug lord. What was his name? Madonna? Pablo Escobar. Pablo Escobar. Some of that dragged on a little bit. Some of the Madonna stuff did drag on. When I looked up, when I was like, at that point, I actually went and looked at the running time and I was like, okay, how long is this thing? I saw, you know, an hour and 48 minutes and I was like, you know, this could have been 90 minutes and we would have been great. Um, but other than that, I, I loved it. I mean, but I'm a, I'm a big, I'm a fan of weird Al in kind of like a strange, like roundabout way in that, like, I didn't really start liking him because of his parody songs, which is crazy. Cause that's like all he's known for except for he is, um, so there's a long running podcast called the comedy bang bang podcast. Which has been going on for like 15 years. And Al has been on that show for like 15 years, as long as I've been listening to it. And he is a hilarious, just like the podcast is all improvised. He's a hilarious improviser, uh, like comedian, like he's just funny. He's naturally funny. And I've just come to really like him. And then through that, I kind of started liking some of his songs. So I've just been a big fan. Of his, um, as a comedian, as a person for a really long time, because he's, he's, he's an interesting guy. He's really smart. And, um, he, he's just, he's just really funny, right. In my type of weird, you know, absurdist kind of humor. Um, so I liked this because it was exactly what I thought, Hey, what I thought he'd do with a dumb, like fake biopic. And he said that when Eric. And him were going and watching, um, they, when they were going to do this, they watched a whole bunch of biopics and they just picked out the beats and of like, they said like, well, basically every biopic has almost all the same beats and they're like, let's just do that, but let's just do it ridiculous. And I think they mostly pulled it off. And I liked Daniel Radcliffe. I think I, I, you know, I don't, I don't know if he's ever been in anything else, but he's a good little actor and I think he could probably, you know, he could.
JVL00:44:29Little.
?00:44:30He's very small.
Sonny00:44:31He's wee. He is. He is. He's a small person. He's well, he's small, he's small, but he's clearly been working out. That's like the most jacked weird Al has ever looked. Yeah.
JVL00:44:41Well, Daniel Radcliffe has been jacked for a long time. He's a, he's like built like a wrestler, um, but yeah, I, you know, I don't actually like Daniel Radcliffe very much, but I thought he was great in this, um, because he, he carries with him an undercurrent of being a prick. Yes. Even when he's not trying to be a prick and the writing leans into that where weird Al is a, a sympathetically written character until the times in which he's not, he's just an absolute prick, right? And it's, and when those happen, like they're hysterical and uh, I dunno, my, my favorite moment in the movie is, so one of the conceits is that he writes, eat it. Independent of before Michael Jackson's beat it and when, when he is told by Dr. Demento that uh, that Michael Jackson has released a parody of his song called beat it, he flies into a rage and he says, for the rest of my life, I'm going to be inextricably linked with Michael Jackson. Dr. Demento says to him, yeah, but you know, how could that ever be a bad thing because it's a very quick throwaway line. Uh, I don't know. The whole thing was filled with that. The, the, the Dr. Demento pool party with tiny Tim and Peewee Herman and Devine and, uh, uh,
Sonny00:46:11and Andy Warhol and like Andy Warhol, what the one real musician there is the who Roger
JVL00:46:17what is his name? Roger Deakins from queen. Yes. Yeah.
Sonny00:46:21Played by the guy who was like, he's the one who they all hate Deakins something right. And they all hate played by David from the dark night. Um, he was like the, the cop in that.
JVL00:46:32Yeah. I, I don't know. I just, I, it tickled me in ways that, especially if I was, if I was like a high school senior or in college, the, I, I just would have loved the crap out of this movie and I wish I could have seen it without it being interrupted every 15 or 20 minutes with like two minutes of ads, because I found that really annoying, you, you are also a huge weird Al fan, right? No, not at all.
Sonny00:46:58Oh really? I know.
JVL00:47:00I have been around weird Al since the dawn of time because, uh, like I remember my friends getting the tape, the cassette tape of the album with eat it on it because I was around when thriller came out and, uh, so, you know, like weird Al has been part of my cultural soup the whole time, but I'm not a weird Al fan. I don't, I don't know anything about him beyond the parody stuff and the stuff I've read. And like, there's a whole cottage industry of long form. Four magazine profiles about him, but he turns out to be a very attractive subject probably because as you say, Ryan, he seems to be very bright and very interesting. And like, he's the whole thing about how he doesn't drink.
Sonny00:47:40He doesn't really curse. He's he's like never like he, like his whole life. Like how he talks about how you can't like that part where he's like, you can't just like all of a sudden go from not being famous to being famous. Like that part, that's literally how it happened. He sent in some like tapes and then he was like a huge hit. And like he never had anything bad happen to him. And he makes fun of this about himself, like on on like things I've listened to him on where he talks about his real life to where like he's just like he mocks himself for like having no angst and no nothing has really happened to him. He's just had a charmed life and it's just he's had a great time. The worst thing that's happened to him is like some artists have gotten pissed when he's parodied their songs. And so from then on, he started asking before. He had because he became a star and he could ask. But prior to that, he would just do it and some of them would get mad. There's there's there's a very funny shot in this movie where he's he's playing Amish Paradise and it scans through the crowd and you see the guy playing Coolio, who's just like furious, just like sitting there stewing.
JVL00:48:50Did you guys stay for the credits? Yes. So the the the credits begin with a photo montage of actual. Well, we actual Al Yankovic, and it begins with child as all these things do. It begins with the childhood photos and, you know, progresses through their life. But they move from real photos to maybe doctored photos to like Forrest Gump level, right? Faked photos of, you know, Reagan speaking at his funeral and and then at the very end, he you know. He appears as a zombie from beyond the grave to kill Madonna.
Sonny00:49:32Well, that's it's the it's the last shot of Carrie. Oh, is that? Oh, I didn't get that either.
JVL00:49:37That's what that's a.
Sonny00:49:39Yeah. Well, the I do I again, I kind of admire how much they commit to the bit and like it is funny, like like just just the the alternate reality where, you know, you know, Weird Al is the biggest single artist. And in the history of music like he has more more number one, more more hits in the top ten than the Beatles had, you know, like he he's going quintuple platinum, he's, you know, and then and then he is like having to go to war with Pablo Escobar, who was replaced by Madonna as like the head drug lord of South America. Yeah. Like it's just it is funny and silly. And I dig I dig that about it. I just I could see it being a very, very narrow. A narrow spectrum of humor to itself. But my favorite my favorite actor in this movie is Toby Huss. Oh, yeah. Toby Huss, who plays the dad, who he I love him. I love him in everything. I love him in everything. And I was so glad he was playing that role here. He's the whiz from Seinfeld. He was already strongest man in the world on Pete and Pete. That's like the first The Adventures of Pete and Pete way back from the from the early 90s. He's been he's been in a million things, a carnival like he's been he's he's he's been in a bunch of weird, smaller stuff. And I like I love him being in this because there is one very specific moment near the end where where, you know, Weird Al is giving his thank you speech at the at the Oscars or the Grammys or whatever. And he's like, ah, suck it down. And the look on Toby Huss's face like, OK. OK. It was just this is like after they reconciled because it's a whole it's hard. It's hard to describe just the granular level of work that this is doing in that early.
JVL00:51:39It's amazing. The early scenes with him where with young Al, when he's Thomas Lennon shows up as the
Sonny00:51:47accordion.
JVL00:51:48So what is it you what is it you make in the factory? You learned about what you make in the factory when you work in the factory and he calls it.
Sonny00:51:55He calls the accordion the devil's squeeze box.
JVL00:51:57The devil's squeeze box. Yeah. See, this is we're all sitting here laughing about it because it's actually pretty funny. My favorite.
Sonny00:52:04It is. And again, funny. I get I like I enjoyed it more than I did.
JVL00:52:09Zoolander level funny. Not quite Zoolander. But I'd say this is the shelf below Zoolander.
Sonny00:52:12This was 100 percent. If this if this movie had come out when I was a second year in college, I would have watched it five thousand times in my dorm drinking, drinking Jim Beam and my two favorite things are doing Al make. So Al, like in his improvise in when he's improvising, he's constantly just making fun of his career, like how stupid it is just that he changes the words of songs and the fact that this whole movie is making fun of it and that like he like they act like just like making parody songs is like this great inspiration. He's this genius, which people in real life called him a genius.
JVL00:52:56And he laughs so much. And I make the words better, right?
Sonny00:53:01It's like I make them I give them better words and it's just such a stupid thing to be known for. And he recognizes that. And so I love that part of it. But the second thing I love is on the pool party scene. So Paul F. Tompkins plays Gallagher and Paul F. Tompkins plays Gallagher on like he he parodies Gallagher in real life. It just mocks. It's so stupid of a thing that Gallagher is famous for. My favorite line is what he says, I bet they don't even hand out plastic sheets at his concerts. Just he says it was just such disgust. Can I can I ask a like serious question, a serious like theoretical question about Weird Al? Because I find I find Weird Al's career to be interesting and I find this whole movie to be interesting. And for a very specific reason, which is that, like, I don't think a person like Weird Al could exist anymore because the culture is too fractured for a parody, a person who is parodying pop songs to be to reach that level of success because no individual artist has that level of success anymore. I mean, like maybe you're Taylor Swift's, I guess, but like but like the the the I feel landscape, the modern landscape is so fractured that you could you can never have a a figure like Weird Al anymore. I just don't think that I don't think that that he'd be a YouTuber.
JVL00:54:41He's it's like he'd be a YouTuber with he'd be PewDiePie or something like that.
Sonny00:54:46So he wouldn't be a YouTuber with like five hundred thousand subscribers or five million extremely successful.
JVL00:54:52He'd be tremendously successful and not known out, you know, not in the same way. Nobody knows nobody over the. Age of 40 knows who PewDiePie is. Right. It would be like that.
Sonny00:55:02He's the he's like he's the music equivalent of Bo Jackson. Like Bo Jackson was like the last folk hero. He was the last like guy that did these amazing athletic feats that were right before you had just like video of everything, because like all the stories about these ridiculous things that he did, like throwing a football up and hitting the the the the scoreboard of the Superdome or in New Orleans, like the punter was trying to punt the ball up and couldn't do it. And Bo Jackson picks up a ball and throws it and just boom, like nails it 200 feet in the air. Maybe like people say it happened, but we don't know because people didn't have cell phones. I think like Weird Al is kind of in that same. It's just right before YouTube or maybe not right before, but in the same category of it. It wouldn't. It wouldn't happen the same way if they were young today. Oh, yeah.
JVL00:56:05All right.
Sonny00:56:06Well, that's a good movie. Three, three thumbs up. Thumbs up. Yeah.
JVL00:56:11I think Vic would have really liked this, honestly, although I don't know that he in his current condition should be watching a movie that might cause laughter and smiling. Yeah, it would probably be bad.
Sonny00:56:24The the demons would jump out of his face. Might not be good. It would be. All right. That's a fast forward. Every time he starts talking about it, I get sick. All right. Do we have any corrections? No. Shout out. I had a shuffle. I'm ready to go to bed. What are you drinking? I have shuffle. What are you doing? What are you drinking? Oh, I'm drinking drinking a Tufts. But I did say that I would shout out that Jason Cooper is going to be having in the megathread. Anybody still in the megathread is going to be having a Christmas movie bracket. Election's over. And I guess he didn't think that we were all. At each other's throats enough. So he wanted me to.
JVL00:57:03You know, I was emailing that really I was emailing with Jason this week and I did not realize that his kid is in kindergarten already. Like, I remember his kid getting born. Yeah, that happened.
Sonny00:57:15I don't know.
JVL00:57:17I remember when you only had three kids. I don't. All right. That's all the time we're giving this week.
Sonny00:57:25It's all the time we're giving to the show this week. Sign up for the Patriot on Sub-Beacon dot com. Go to T-Public. Google us. You'll easily find us. I don't know.
JVL00:57:41Ryan, you said you had something for us. I have. Is it a poop knife?
Sonny00:57:48No, no, no, no. So we're ready for it. So reading Jeff Berman, speaking Bo Jackson, he just came out with a book. On Bo Jackson's life called The Last Folk Hero. And in it, there's a story where during the latter days of Bo Jackson's time with the Royals, where he was he was before he's injured, but he was kind of ornery. He's kind of upset about his contract. And so there were these there's this kid that worked in the clubhouse. He was like 11 years old. He wasn't a bad boy, but he just did a lot of stuff. The clubhouse. And so one day he came in, he'd broken his arm and he came in the clubhouse with a cast on his forearm and no one had signed it yet. And so Bo decided he was going to be the first one to sign it. So he wrote right on top of it in big letters. Bo Jackson, 12 inch cock. I'm sure it's fine.
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