Transcript
Speaker: Good morning and welcome back to another episode of sweetness and light featuring me one of your hosts Eric Mark and me Justin aka Justy dude how you doing pretty good thanks buddy it's it's uh been a little while we we've we've had some ups and downs and some some interruptions but we are back and uh uh
Speaker: Unlike some other people in the world, our mansions were not raided.
Speaker: Thank God, right?
Speaker: Thank God.
Speaker: Well, yeah, because, yeah.
Speaker: Between the proliferation of porn and just total nothingness they'd find, it would be a total waste of time on everyone's part.
Speaker: Yeah, just a little humiliating.
Speaker: They'd be like, oh, wow, those guys have and do nothing.
Speaker: But that's what makes it so entertaining at the same time, though, don't you think?
Speaker: Well, it forces you to be creative.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: All the time.
Speaker: Living in your imagination.
Speaker: Now, to Eric's point, one of the things that's gone on on our side is that we joked about it, I think, in the last episode, that Kelly had gone back in time and gotten Delta or...
Speaker: Some other horrible variant.
Speaker: And I'm here to report that she has had it officially, I think, 15 days now.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: And she still has the cough, but she just this morning got her taste buds back.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Congratulations.
Speaker: That's interesting.
Speaker: Usually it goes the other way.
Speaker: I mean, when I had the COVID-19.
Speaker: My symptoms were pretty much gone, you know, certainly in the regular 10 days or so.
Speaker: But the lack of or altered taste and smell in my case, not lack of, but altered, lasted weeks if not months.
Speaker: Well, that's what, and so what made it funny to me was she had the exact same, she's the only other person that it was just your same symptoms where she tried a Coke and was like, oh, gross.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And like, who doesn't like Coke?
Speaker: That's my point.
Speaker: I mean, it almost drove her to Pepsi, which we know that that, it's embarrassing.
Speaker: Who does like Pepsi?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And actually my son, Seth, wanted to get into, just speaking of soft drinks and the side note here, wanted to get into Stranger Things.
Speaker: So we started watching it and we're on the episode where they try new Coke and one of the guys goes, oh, how could you not love this?
Speaker: This is so much better, so much sweeter.
Speaker: And everyone looks at him and goes, you're out of the group.
Speaker: Yeah, that was an interesting phenomenon.
Speaker: Certainly, you know, one of the, the, the,
Speaker: great business misadventures or successes of all time.
Speaker: I guess the Coke marketing person who introduced it was fired and then brought back because New Coke was a huge disaster and the sales plummeted.
Speaker: But then they were able to reintroduce
Speaker: old Coke as Coke Classic and have two brands and between the two of them have way more market share than they had previously.
Speaker: Which is so crazy.
Speaker: I mean, because I remember as a kid, my parents running to the store, they were so excited about Coke Classic.
Speaker: that they bought, I don't think I'm exaggerating, probably 24 cans of it or something like that.
Speaker: And they went home, stuck in the fridge, and we all had a Coke that afternoon.
Speaker: Wow, that's good parenting.
Speaker: Very rarely can I say it about my parents, that it was good parenting.
Speaker: Most of the time it was, you know, we were able to all survive each other kind of parenting.
Speaker: But this was an example of sheer beauty.
Speaker: I mean, what you guys had was sort of like a prison alliance.
Speaker: So it's just like, yeah, okay, well, you know, some factionalism and we'll let you guys survive if you let us guys survive.
Speaker: I think you summarized it beautifully.
Speaker: Yeah, maybe with some...
Speaker: Some cigarettes and pantyhose smuggled in from time to time.
Speaker: It was mostly for my mom, alcohol, and for my dad, it was just, you know, him being able to leave us alone.
Speaker: And the pantyhose were for you?
Speaker: I don't know why you say that questioningly.
Speaker: Of course they were.
Speaker: Well, everyone needs something over their face, yes.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, so...
Speaker: I was going to say, when you got gams like mine, but yeah, I like where you took that.
Speaker: I'll run with that.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So, hey, episode three of Broken Road just dropped yesterday.
Speaker: So our scripted podcast.
Speaker: I'm so excited.
Speaker: Now, how's it...
Speaker: Like, are you happy with how it's going?
Speaker: Like, are you, cause I've listened to the first episode.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I thought it was great.
Speaker: I'm going to listen to the next two.
Speaker: I love where you're going with this.
Speaker: I think it's recorded beautifully.
Speaker: I think the sound, all of it, it's fantastic.
Speaker: And I love the sound effects.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, it's been, it's been quite an adventure for, uh, you know, we've talked about it sporadically on the show, but, um,
Speaker: Our good friend E.J.
Speaker: Kavunas, who, among many other things, hosted a movie and music club during the pandemic that we met weekly on Zoom and who regularly hosts little get-togethers with drinks and good food and good cheer, had produced a film with our other friend of the show, A.J.
Speaker: Tesler.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hero Mode that came out just a couple years ago and starring Sean Astin and Mira Servino.
Speaker: And then his next film project was supposed to be Broken Road, which I was co-producing with him.
Speaker: And, you know, we started raising funds.
Speaker: We had a script.
Speaker: We'd cast and everything.
Speaker: And then this pandemic hit.
Speaker: And so, you know, some, a lot of projects got pushed back.
Speaker: Some people, you know, people did stuff in the latter part of the pandemic.
Speaker: We figured, you know what, let's just regroup and turn it into a scripted podcast.
Speaker: And, you know, hired one of the writers from Fear the Walking Dead to rewrite, you know, the feature into more of an episodic thing.
Speaker: He wrote eight of the episodes.
Speaker: E.J.
Speaker: actually wrote two of them.
Speaker: And... You didn't write any episodes?
Speaker: Me?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: So I... I was surprised.
Speaker: Because some of it sounds a little bit like you.
Speaker: And based on some of the stuff you've done in the past, I was just curious.
Speaker: But I have a question.
Speaker: Because that's what I've always wondered.
Speaker: Because I listened to the first episode.
Speaker: I'm like, why wasn't this film?
Speaker: And now that makes total sense.
Speaker: Because you guys were going straight to...
Speaker: the pandemic, you know, the conundrum that we were all going through.
Speaker: And rather than wait to film, you guys went into the podcasting.
Speaker: Smart move.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: With the idea that, you know, you know, assuming that this has a great success and interest that we will turn it back into a feature or into a TV series.
Speaker: One way or that, you know, given now that we have it laid out as more of a episodic type of entertainment.
Speaker: I was gonna say, I think it actually worked better because of the, I mean, just even the first episode, like I said, the way it lays the found work and everything else, it would be a bad-ass series.
Speaker: I don't know where it goes, you know, for the next six, seven episodes, but good luck.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Thanks, thanks.
Speaker: Well, based on a short story by a Canadian author.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: Eric, you don't have to tell anyone this.
Speaker: They all know, any loyal listener knows that no product is certified by Eric Mark or EGCM unless there's a Canadian besides yourself involved.
Speaker: Is that correct?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And so as a result of, you know, EJ saw this short story and snapped up the rights, you know, for other media.
Speaker: And that was the genesis of this and where we are right now.
Speaker: So, yeah, if you want to go, it's Broken Road.
Speaker: You can find it on all of your favorite podcasting platforms.
Speaker: and also at recursor.tv, which you should check in anyway, because it's EJ's team's sci-fi website.
Speaker: A lot of- Okay, so I was gonna ask you, because you mentioned that before, but I wasn't sure what it was, because I went to it.
Speaker: So it's their company kind of basically, right?
Speaker: Yeah, it's one of his companies.
Speaker: So he's- Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, EJ is a former consultant turned investment banker, turned movie producer and entertainment producer in general.
Speaker: Well, and we'll also put on our site the link to this, I think, as well, especially by episode if we want to.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Good call.
Speaker: So love to hear what you think.
Speaker: Let us know.
Speaker: A bit of a different tone from Sweetness and Light.
Speaker: But –
Speaker: equally engrossing uh yeah i'm looking at it here this is fantastic so i'm gonna definitely check out two and three today if i can if i can make time this afternoon because i gotta be in the car a little bit so i'll be listening to it so congrats dude that's huge so you can listen to things while you're driving nice nice uh believe it or not i can actually sometimes multitask not well but i can you're not one of these people who watches shows while driving or something
Speaker: No, that's the rest of the Texas population.
Speaker: There is actually an interesting article in The Atlantic today just talking about the demise of the manual transmission car and how less than 2% of cars these days are
Speaker: our manual, and that takes away one more example of us losing our connection with machines.
Speaker: As machines take over, we're becoming less connected to them, at least with a manual.
Speaker: It was more of an extension of your body and yourself.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, because you had to pay a lot of attention.
Speaker: I mean, I stalled a manual car.
Speaker: I don't think I'm exaggerating probably a thousand times in my lifetime.
Speaker: I did not do that many times.
Speaker: In fact, all the cars I've ever owned have been manual, interestingly.
Speaker: My Saabs and my Porsche and everything.
Speaker: And you were with me when the transmission in one of the Saabs finally went out, when the clutch died.
Speaker: On the freeway of all places.
Speaker: We were coming back from, like, I think the Museum of Art or something, right?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Because, and Justy mentions that offhand, but it just reminds you how cultured
Speaker: we all are.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Well, the best part was Eric was to put it in context to a part of what made it so funny and Eric did not find this funny.
Speaker: I could not stop laughing.
Speaker: No, and I will say before he even says that, oh yeah, because it's happened and Justy breaks out laughing on the entrance ramp from La Cienega onto the 10.
Speaker: Well, the best part, I can't even say the story about laughing.
Speaker: I mean, when I say breaks out laughing, laughing harder and longer than maybe I've ever heard you, which has been a lot.
Speaker: You can tell Eric still has a little bit of anger towards me laughing.
Speaker: Every time I drive up that egress onto the freeway.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm just a...
Speaker: A little PTSD.
Speaker: So we were getting on.
Speaker: And Eric, for those that don't know, has a little bit of a racing edge to him, which I don't blame him for.
Speaker: His car was very fast and sporty.
Speaker: And he went and was trying to beat this.
Speaker: I think it was an Audi or something like that.
Speaker: Well, I mean, try.
Speaker: Very successfully beat it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Very.
Speaker: And then all of a sudden, he went to put it in gear, and it made this sound.
Speaker: And all you hear from Eric is, that didn't sound good.
Speaker: And I could not stop laughing.
Speaker: like I am now just because his face and we pull over the side of the road.
Speaker: And if you've never been on an LA freeway in a convertible in, it wasn't super heavy traffic, but you know, I mean, people fly on the freeway down there when there's no traffic.
Speaker: It was, it was definitely intimidating.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it wasn't.
Speaker: But, but as far as the racing, yeah.
Speaker: So, you know, some,
Speaker: some people comment on my driving driving skills driving style but i'll tell you this my old roommate who was you know uh drove one like at one of the uh nascar smaller circuits not that not the big circuit but but drove like on like you know sort of c-level nascar um he said he said to me quite earnestly he goes you're the best non-race car driver driver that i've ever met now was he drunk
Speaker: No, but I think that he was reflecting on my style.
Speaker: So my style may be more suited for the track than the freeway or public roads.
Speaker: But for those of you who are – if that's what your goal is, I'm doing it right.
Speaker: Well, I gotta tell you, I mean, to your credit though, I've never seen you get an accident.
Speaker: I mean, and- Well, people call me Mr. Safety.
Speaker: Well, by people, you mean you, because I remember we were in the car on that same journey, I think, and you were swerving in out of traffic.
Speaker: I'm like, Eric, you gotta stop swerving.
Speaker: And he's like, but I put my signal on.
Speaker: Every single time.
Speaker: And swerving is the wrong word.
Speaker: Switching lanes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm not swerving.
Speaker: I'm consciously switching with signals.
Speaker: I've signaled every, not only every turn, but every lane change I've ever made, including in parking lots, I signal when I'm turning.
Speaker: Again, it's an aggressive signal, not a, hey, can you let me over?
Speaker: It's, by the way, I'm coming over.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: By the way, I mean, anybody, you know, any driving theorist will tell you, for one thing, you know, when you're entering or exiting a freeway or merging lanes, use the scissor method.
Speaker: People all complain about the person who drives up to the front on the one lane, you know, when two lanes are coming together.
Speaker: But that's the way you should.
Speaker: If everyone did that and then let people in one car from one lane, one in the next, one from the other, original, one from the second, it would be much more efficient and work much better.
Speaker: Of course, but that's not how humanity works.
Speaker: Well, again, I'm trying to create a better world.
Speaker: And Eric, that's your epitaph right there.
Speaker: Trying to create a better world, even in death, right?
Speaker: I missed the last word you said.
Speaker: There was a beep on my end and...
Speaker: Yes, trying to create a world, a better world, and then just silence.
Speaker: Oh, well, let's see if we can edit that out.
Speaker: If not, it adds for some nice, you know, true life weirdness.
Speaker: Yeah, but what did you say?
Speaker: What I said was, I said that that's your epitaph.
Speaker: That part of it.
Speaker: Yeah, okay.
Speaker: I heard a lot.
Speaker: I think I just missed the last word.
Speaker: Yes, that's what I said.
Speaker: I just said even in death, you're still trying to make a better world.
Speaker: See?
Speaker: So then...
Speaker: For our listeners who forget that Justy and I can see each other, in this case I could see him but not hear him, I could see that he was gesticulating wildly, said something he thought was very clever, and then looking quite asconced as I did not respond to it and was giving me the say something look, say something that responds to my clever words, my bon mot, as he likes to say.
Speaker: And I had no idea what he said, so it was very hard to respond to it.
Speaker: Well, and you know, because I use so much French, my beaumau was naturally on the tip of my tongue every time.
Speaker: So I hear you.
Speaker: I'll give you that.
Speaker: By the way, my mom and my sister and her family are in France right now enjoying the French.
Speaker: Oh, that's fantastic.
Speaker: Now, were you invited or was this a non-Eric trip?
Speaker: I think I'm always able to come along if I insert myself, but it was a family.
Speaker: It was Jill's family's trip, which they took my mom on.
Speaker: Well, no, because I don't like my family.
Speaker: Like, it's hilarious.
Speaker: Like, my brother went on a trip with my mom last year and purposely didn't tell any of us.
Speaker: It was just their family.
Speaker: Wow, wow, wow.
Speaker: They went on a cruise.
Speaker: Maybe it wasn't last year.
Speaker: It was a couple of years ago, and they went on a cruise.
Speaker: And that's fair because sometimes it's our family and theirs, whatever like that.
Speaker: But it's just funny.
Speaker: You mean sometimes it's your family versus theirs sometimes.
Speaker: I'm not sure it's sometimes.
Speaker: I think that's quite a bit of.
Speaker: But again, it's not really a versus.
Speaker: We know who wins that battle.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Fair enough.
Speaker: Fair enough.
Speaker: The Jedi.
Speaker: It's like when you realize there's – if they perceive competition, they've already lost.
Speaker: That's a good point.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Like sometimes, you know, you're in situations where, you know, you can tell the other person thinks you're always winning.
Speaker: You're always better at something.
Speaker: You're always, you know, the golden child sometimes.
Speaker: And you don't perceive that at all because –
Speaker: That's just nature.
Speaker: That's the way Mother Nature intended it, right?
Speaker: Yeah, that's just... That's life, as they say.
Speaker: That's the status quo.
Speaker: That's the norm.
Speaker: That's reality.
Speaker: Now, I have to ask you something here.
Speaker: So I want to see if you find this as humorous as I did.
Speaker: So I played a... Bassoon?
Speaker: I was doing one of my... Go ahead.
Speaker: Oh, you played a bassoon, you were going to say?
Speaker: Of course I always play a bassoon and sometimes a buffoon too, but this time it was just a bassoon.
Speaker: And I was playing Nirvana in a ride that I had and it was so weird.
Speaker: Wait.
Speaker: Eric, you know, I'm very talented.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Please stop.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, you're making yourself sound almost foolish.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Please.
Speaker: Please just continue.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So anyways, I played Nirvana and it was so funny because one of the younger ladies in the audience goes, I know, and she comes up to me afterwards and she goes, I know where I heard that song.
Speaker: And I'm like, where?
Speaker: Friends.
Speaker: She did never heard of Nirvana, but they played that song in a Friends episode.
Speaker: That's like, what?
Speaker: Like Nirvana seems so quintessential.
Speaker: It's like you two, like you should have heard it at some point in your life besides seeing it on a TV show.
Speaker: You mentioned U2, and I heard some girl was just saying she'd never heard of U2, and then somehow she heard Beautiful Day.
Speaker: Great song.
Speaker: Which is a great song, but it's certainly not old U2.
Speaker: I mean, I guess it's old at this point.
Speaker: It's 2000s, though.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That's her first experience, and she's like, yeah, I think they're overrated.
Speaker: Well, the good news is they're laughing all the way to the bank, so it's all good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Is your boy Bono a billionaire at this point?
Speaker: I mean, I know he was in the $900 million for a long time, and I don't know what's happened with all the market and the COVID.
Speaker: I was going to say, I can't imagine his value went up in this market, but he's still doing just fine, I think.
Speaker: Either way, he's in pretty good shape.
Speaker: I mean, speaking of, there was that crazy story about how, you know, in his building on Central Park West, he
Speaker: one of those several buildings with the two towers on top of them, you know, that are residences.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The other one that's on their building was owned by your boy Bruce Willis and his then girl Demi Moore.
Speaker: Oh, cool.
Speaker: During the divorce, he let her keep the penthouse.
Speaker: Oh, what a nice guy.
Speaker: Yeah, well, particularly because when they bought it, it was like, it was about 20-something million, maybe, and...
Speaker: Last I heard, both hers and Bono's were worth about $75 million.
Speaker: Easily.
Speaker: Yeah, just because New York real estate.
Speaker: But what I was bringing up is just sort of the differences in rock hierarchies.
Speaker: Because of the way the building is, smoke coming from chimneys, like from the fireplaces of other residents, would come up from the lower floors, up the chimneys, and then
Speaker: Enter their palatial homes on top of the buildings.
Speaker: So they got injunctions against the rest of the building.
Speaker: So they could burn, but no one else could?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And specifically, it just sort of showed rock hierarchy because – to me, of course.
Speaker: But Bono gets to have his fire, gets to stop everyone else.
Speaker: Down on the second floor is 80s rock star Billy Squire.
Speaker: So that is awesome.
Speaker: You gotta be bigger than Billy Squire.
Speaker: If you want to have this guy, keep the fire.
Speaker: I don't mean to be rude here, but I'm not so sure that's a hard thing to do, but all right.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Billy, we'd love to have you on, though.
Speaker: We'd love to hear.
Speaker: If you're listening, please join us.
Speaker: I can't speak for Justy, but we're on your side, and we love you, too, but we hate discrimination.
Speaker: We hate seeing the man being held down, and no one's more of a man than Billy Squire.
Speaker: Again, I'm not so sure I agree with that.
Speaker: But on that note, Eric, I want to say thank you for another fantastic episode.
Speaker: We covered quite a bit today, had a ton of fun.
Speaker: And thank you, my friend.
Speaker: Yeah, and didn't mention that this is episode 210, 210.
Speaker: I mean, it's very, it's, you know, this is the last time until we get to, I guess, 3,210 that we'll be able to just count down the numbers.
Speaker: So to sign off, I'll just say 210.
