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00:00:01
001 - “By Way of Introduction…”
12 Plays1 month ago
“Hello, Americans, this is Orson Welles…”
Join Hope and Stephen, your TAs for this course, as they introduce themselves, their objective, their respective histories with the subject, and their bona fides on the advent of this exciting new exploration into the life and work of one of the greatest filmmakers in modern history - the late, great Orson Welles!
Follow us on our (admittedly limited) socials to keep up with assignments and other exciting Welles-related news:
- @wellesupod on Bluesky and YouTube
- Follow Hope at @hopelichtner on Bluesky, Instagram, and Tumblr
- Read Hope’s blog at highimhope.com
- Listen to Hope’s other podcasts - High on Cartoons Presents DuckTakes! and The Matrix Reclamations
- Track Hope’s work as The Millennial Falcon, the announcer for the Philly Roller Derby
- Follow Stephen at @chewywalrus on Bluesky and Letterboxd
- Listen to Stephen’s other podcasts - Disenfranchised Podcast and; The Pod and the Pendulum
- Check out Stephen’s novel - Check In, Check Out - on Amazon, now available in paperback or ebook: https://amzn.to/44idk8y
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Transcript
Dramatic Start & Introductions
00:00:01
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, by way of introduction... I don't think any words can explain a man's life....the broadcasting system and its affiliated station presents... Columbia Network takes pride in presenting......Rogspot.
00:00:13
Speaker
We take you now to Grover Mills, New Jersey. Ladies and gentlemen, the director of the Mercury Theater and star of these broadcasts......was a voice. Just a voice. I never really saw him.
00:00:26
Speaker
He was only......the hero. Orson Welles. A great lover. Orson Welles. And a dirty dog. Orson Welles. Good morning. This is Orson Welles speaking. How do you do, ladies and gentlemen? This is Orson Welles. This Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen. This is Orson Welles speaking.
00:00:40
Speaker
An unicron. Well, here it is. anybody wants to see it. All right. Go ahead and come on in and take your seats. Class is in session.
00:00:51
Speaker
This is Welles I've already broken my TA. Yep. We're already. That's that's that's.
Podcast Format & Origin Story
00:01:02
Speaker
I'm just going to get this off to get this right up off the bat.
00:01:06
Speaker
Um, uh, I, I'm, uh, hi, I'm hope Lickner. One of your TAs chalkboard, chalkboard, chalkboard. Um, And I dropped out of college 18 years ago.
00:01:21
Speaker
So I'm going to bring what I think is a fairly accurate representation of the college life experience to this podcast. To wit, I am in pajamas.
00:01:33
Speaker
I'm very high and I have a drink filled with, um I'm just going to call it a beverage, but it is in a ah blank insulated...
00:01:45
Speaker
Cup, and ah all I can say on that matter is ah is it that I said dark and stormy night, and you can tell that I'm already tripping over basic sentence structure. So, going to be a real fun time.
00:01:58
Speaker
i and I'm your other TA. My name is Stephen Foxworthy. Shockboard, shockboard, shockboard. I was an educator for eight years, almost a decade. Actually taught in an actual school.
00:02:11
Speaker
i mean... private Christian schools. But if you can call that an actual school, then an actual school. um and And so I have the actual educational chops. So um I think we've got a couple different flavors, as the kids say. Do the kids say that? I don't know what the kids say. It's fine.
00:02:30
Speaker
I haven't taught in over a decade. So that's all the time. It's all woke now. So who cares? Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:38
Speaker
And we are your TAs for Wells 101, the only class offered at Wells U. um It will last longer than a semester.
00:02:49
Speaker
ah Boy, howdy, will it last longer than a semester. ah But this is intended. We will get to that. We will. ah This is intended to to be as comprehensive as the two of us are capable of a look at one of our favorite classes.
00:03:05
Speaker
like actors, filmmakers, historical figures, um the late, great Orson Welles. There's just... so Somebody got me talking about Orson Welles at a Renaissance fair a week or so back.
00:03:21
Speaker
I don't know how he came up, but I had to specify, because I hang out with a lot of, like... weirdo queers um it's like look i want to make it clear i never said he was a good person i said he was a fascinating person correct um yeah so that's that's that's something i lean on a lot when it comes to certain things absolutely about the good boy but uh yeah uh welcome to class we've got a teacher and a burnout this is gonna be fun this is gonna be a lot of fun And you mentioned what you're drinking. I have got in my glass to toast our first episode, a ah glass of Paul Misson brandy.
00:04:01
Speaker
French. right the French. Ah, the French. Cheers, my friend. Cheers. um So this... i put too much lime in that. Oh, is there such a thing as too much lime? i am inclined to disagree.
00:04:17
Speaker
i have tested the limits of that ah particular... stratosphere And I can tell you, it the atmospheric burn sets in after a little while. You feel the altitude, my friend.
00:04:30
Speaker
ah But yes. That's fair. Class 101. Is that our episode numbering structure? I feel like that's going to get really confusing if we start with 101 and go over that. Like, what happened to the first 100 episodes? Where did those go?
00:04:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:49
Speaker
It turns into like the DVD menu of Memento trying to decode. Which order do I watch these fucking episodes in? Correct. um Yeah, it's going to a good time.
00:05:03
Speaker
ah So hope i I think it's it's fair to say I hope you and I have been friends for a number of years, probably about five or six years now. Oh, God. I'm trying.
00:05:15
Speaker
Look, I worked second shift, 3.30 p.m. to midnight a couple of years back. And the the fact that I was clocking out tomorrow really broke how my brain perceives the flow of time. Fair.
00:05:30
Speaker
Between that and lockdown in twenty the whole of 2020, really. So it it's been more than five, but less than 10. That's as close as I'm going to be able to get that. Let's let's say five and a half.
00:05:42
Speaker
but if Five and a half, six. Somewhere in there. Compromise. Compromise. That's fair. That works. I like this for us. Good. And I think it's fair to say that Orson Welles is the reason, in a weird haphazard way,
First Exposures & Influences
00:05:55
Speaker
is the reason that you and I became friends at all. And I feel like as if if we're doing an introductory episode where we're introducing the two of ah the two of ourselves to our listening audience slash class, this is probably as good a place as any to start.
00:06:09
Speaker
um It's pretty perfect. This is going to get as self-indulgent as you could possibly get for reasons that we will get into. Oh, yes. Mostly ah quantitative.
00:06:20
Speaker
Yes.
00:06:23
Speaker
But ah yeah, no, it's literally like we were in the ah replies to a thread on the Blank Check podcast Twitter. Correct.
00:06:36
Speaker
And you had an Orson Welles profile picture. Which picture was it? Was it his big screaming face? it's it's the It's the one. He's like got his hands up and it's like old bearded Orson.
00:06:49
Speaker
But he's got his hands up like he's getting ready to orate something. Clearly opposed picture. yeah Clearly. The man knew his angles. He did. um He's a professional. Yes. if If nothing else, definitely professional.
00:07:02
Speaker
And we started talking and ah ah it's yeah it's been ah it's been a fun ride since. It has. Yeah. you you You came on my other podcast. Then I came on one of your podcasts and we just we kind of just started chatting, texting, DMing.
00:07:19
Speaker
And that's pretty much been our friendship until a few weeks ago when you're like, hey, we should do a Wells podcast. Oh, no. Oh no, I remember pretty clearly because I was in an energy much like this evening where I had, this was about, oh God, at this point, five or six months ago, just because lives have been insane and we've been trying to set this up in the meantime.
00:07:46
Speaker
But like five or six months ago, I was drunk and high and listening to um Probably my favorite episode of the Shadow Radio program. I'm going to plug that right now. ah The Silent Avenger. Look that up. It's on YouTube. It's pretty fabulous.
00:08:02
Speaker
um And I was just thinking to myself, gosh, I really would love to have an excuse, like a real solid excuse to just watch and read or and listen to everything Orson Welles has ever done.
00:08:20
Speaker
So because... I am impulsive. I texted you while I drunk texted a friend and said, Hey, you up. Do you want to go through every piece of creative output by Orson Welles in chronological order in podcast form?
00:08:36
Speaker
And I, I, I believe you responded in all caps. If I'm remembering correctly. That sounds right. That's yeah. Um, hell fucking yes. I believe was probably my response. Yeah.
00:08:47
Speaker
So my original idea was that we would go through every individual piece of media, every episode of um every radio show, every play he's ever been in, every movie, every TV show, every just every ah public appearance, essentially.
00:09:06
Speaker
Every time he shows up on a variety show, we're covering that episode. It's weird on Hollywood Squares this week in like 18 years. But like we did the we did the math and like that would take more than we are going to remain alive. The rest of our natural lives. and then Exactly.
00:09:24
Speaker
ah We'd have to bank up episodes after we die, basically. So so we we scaled it back to just every project he's ever worked on, which which gives us a lot more blanket stuff when it comes to the, you know, however many episodes of the shadow he did. And we can we can take longer on some projects than others. I have a feeling Citizen Kane is going to take like at least five episodes just because of how much there is to that movie.
00:09:50
Speaker
And again, because we're going to be going in chronological order, we might – I don't know. Do you have it up on the spreadsheet? Like what episode – quote unquote episode – The theoretical episode number is Citizen Kane. How far down is that on the spreadsheet? Citizen Kane, looking at the spreadsheet.
00:10:07
Speaker
Like what column does it fall in? That's that's on row 19. So it would be the 18th project that we have listed. Okay. Okay. All right. A total of 180 total projects.
00:10:24
Speaker
I really felt the enormity of this project sinking in the other day, and I started panicking. and Yeah, i got I got a panic text from Hope going, like man, I don't know. i i was I had done the math back when we first like you where you first set up the spreadsheet, um and it would take us just going like one episode every other week.
00:10:47
Speaker
um, as the list stands presently subject to chain, right? Um, I'm calling it the syllabus yeah subject to change, but this gives you a loose outline. Um,
00:10:59
Speaker
it would take us approximately seven years, if I'm remembering correctly. It was like 6.8. That sounds about right, yeah. Which is how we landed on the format of the show, because I offhandedly say it's like, well, shit, most college degrees take less than that.
00:11:13
Speaker
And it's like, wait, shit, are we just going to go to Orson Welles School? Ah, shit. And then that's ah the rest of it fell into place. right I will, ah hey, if we make it to the very final project,
00:11:24
Speaker
ah successfully, I will buy a cap and gown for myself fuck you and do a photo shoot. I will be... I love that for you. I will be 46 by that point, so it'll be fun. if it actually Assuming it actually takes seven years and not, like I'm thinking, probably closer to 10.
00:11:41
Speaker
Probably closer. Look, we're going to do and episode a year on the War of the Worlds. God, not really, but I'm going to do something for the War of the Worlds every year. that's that and that's I think this is probably as good a time as any to talk about some of our Wells touchstones. like What is it about Wells? What was your first Wells?
War of the Worlds & Fandom
00:12:00
Speaker
My first Wells. If I'm being really, really honest with you, my first Wells is the Muppet movie. and Yeah, the Muppet movie. I mean... Honestly, probably that's mine too. I just did not clock at a young age that that was...
00:12:16
Speaker
Orson Welles. How could you? If that's the first thing you see him in, he's just a large man behind a desk and you get that he's supposed to be like this kind of reverential figure, but you don't know why. i think the first like real experience I had with Orson Welles was probably around um eight or nine.
00:12:34
Speaker
And my parents, this is going to explain a lot about my speaking patterns too. Um, My parents raised me almost exclusively on golden age cinema classics, mostly like Marx Brothers or Abbott and Costello. it's And the one night I remember ah watching this really boring, not funny at all, black and white movie called The Third Man. And yeah, no, you you're you're dumb when you're when you're eight. exactly um
00:13:08
Speaker
But I very distinctly remembered his probably not even his own fingers, but like the character of Harry Lyme's fingers reaching up through the storm and drains towards the end of the movie. And that's just an image that stayed in my head all throughout my childhood.
00:13:26
Speaker
um If we're going to talk first regular exposure to Orson Welles adjacent, then that's the brain and' thinking in Pinky and the Brain. Absolutely. Anytime I do my Orson Welles voice, I'm not actually doing Orson Welles. I'm doing a bad imitation of an imitation by Maurice LaMarche.
00:13:43
Speaker
So, um yeah, that's... I should also note that I have a lot of time to just talk to myself at work, and I end up just talking to myself as Orson Welles a lot. That's amazing. Which that's not going to be obnoxious to this podcast in any way, shape, or form. By no my no account.
00:14:02
Speaker
No. Cheap, right? What are we going to do tonight? Same thing we do every night, Pinky. We try to figure out where the cat has thrown up and bring the ch Clorox wipes. ah It's... it's ah
00:14:18
Speaker
It's probably, that's probably as good a time as any to to mention that we we both have improv backgrounds. So this shit will get real goofy. Oh, it's going to get so stupid so quickly, but hopefully it will remain entered.
00:14:31
Speaker
can Can we file this under edutainment? God, I think we have to. I really want to. does does there's got to be There's got to be a drop-down selection in the genres on whatever we're going to publish to for edutainment. I've always wanted to use edutainment. And now you have. Look at you go.
00:14:52
Speaker
Fuck yeah. Every day we grow a littlest people. That's right. um
00:14:59
Speaker
ah But yes. in but i More recently... um This is going to come up a lot on the show, but I also live in Philadelphia and about six or so years ago, right before we started talking, actually like six or eight years ago, probably I realized like, I got really curious about the war of the worlds.
00:15:25
Speaker
Um, I rewatched that's honestly kind of my in for Orson Welles as a whole. Um, But I rewatched the Tom Cruise movie.
00:15:36
Speaker
i I watched the 1953 movie. I reread the book. And I finally sat down and listened to, because I'd never listened to it before, the 1938 Orson Welles Mercury Theater, War of the Worlds.
00:15:49
Speaker
And I became enamored of the whole thing because it's... kind of a perfect hour to spend your life you know but and i was poking around on the internet and i wound up on like weird new jersey on one of those things and they casually mentioned that grover's mill new jersey actually has a small monument to the broadcast and first i had to be like wait grover's mill is a real place Okay, and I went up there. I actually, my first time I went there was, I made a big road trip out of it. I went up to Grover's Mill, New Jersey.
00:16:26
Speaker
I went ah to the monument, which we will get into in much more gruesome detail later on. Yes. um I went to the local coffee shop, Grover's Mill Coffee, which is filled with War of the Worlds memorabilia, including a tripod made out of a coffee steamer, which is...
00:16:44
Speaker
Pretty cool. That's amazing. It's not functional, sadly. It's purely decorative, but yeah it's still. um And then I drove to Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash and the Quick Stop in ah in ah Red Bank and Leonardo, New Jersey. Yeah, it was a whole big New Jersey day for me. And um more importantly, the War of the Worlds, Grover's Mill, is like less than a mile, for ah less than a mile, less than half an hour-ish.
00:17:12
Speaker
ah From where I grew up. So insane to think. And from there, it just became this big spiral. um My knowledge and watch list is nowhere in near as extensive as yours.
00:17:28
Speaker
ah But I don't think any less passionate. No. um But every year I do make the annual pilgrimage. Up to Grover's Mill. That's awesome.
00:17:39
Speaker
Bex and I have this whole tradition. um And last year, we actually ran into, because we happened to go on the 85th anniversary, or at least the Saturday closest to the 85th anniversary of the but of the broadcast,
00:17:53
Speaker
um We ran into the ah ah the New Jersey Amateur Radio Society, and they were actually fielding radio broadcasts from all over the world. Like we heard, just sitting by eating our hoagies, because...
00:18:10
Speaker
New Jersey. it's It's New Jersey and Philadelphia. um ah We were eating our hoagies just listening. to They got calls from France and Hawaii. and It was like it was this so cool. That's awesome. but Bunch of fucking nerds here for ah Orson Welles. It was great.
00:18:25
Speaker
ah Yeah. yeah and I'm like... Do I get my radio license? I should. Shouldn't I? Can I afford another stupidly electronics-focused hobby? I
Deep Dives into Welles's Legacy
00:18:36
Speaker
don't know if I can. Yeah, it's a whole thing.
00:18:38
Speaker
You know, maybe not, but, you know, something to aspire to. Absolutely. i got i got that going for me. You do. um What was your first big, like, Wells passion, though? I mean, Muppet movie not included. Muppet movie is its own separate obsession. right You can go listen to an episode of my show that Stephen did recently. Yes.
00:18:56
Speaker
Talking all about it. We did, like, what? Two and a half hours on... um Two hours and 40. I think you broke your record of the previous episode. ah length episode of our show. That's right. well When we go, we go long. So sorry, there may be a few longer classes than others on this on this program.
00:19:15
Speaker
Oh boy. It's going to be great. so excited. Fortunately, unlike an actual in-person class or ah ah did or an online class, you can pause whenever you want and come back to us at a later of time.
00:19:27
Speaker
We don't mind. We'll still be here. We don't care, but we'll know. well i mean, we will. We will know. And we will judge. you You won't be able to hear it in our tones if you say, pause this episode right now and then come back at a much later date or any future episode.
00:19:45
Speaker
You won't be able to tell that we know, but we know. we're we're Yeah, we live in a nanny state. Accept it. We're watching you too. Give us your data. Well, look who finally decided to come back.
00:20:00
Speaker
I'm incredibly disappointed in you. How fucking dare you? um I'm not angry. I'm just disappointed. I am disappointed. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. i just stepped on your- Welcome back to disappointed parents ASMR.
00:20:17
Speaker
I'm your disappointed father. I'm your disappointed slightly butch mother.
00:20:24
Speaker
I refuse to vocal train, goddammit. No, not sure do. No. ah well is Your first real Wells obsession. So, right. i it it hit – I wouldn't say probably as early as as it did for you. It hit me in high school. I think it was right around the time. It would have been 98, I think, when AFI published their 100 Years 100 Movies list.
00:20:48
Speaker
And –
00:20:51
Speaker
Citizen Kane was number one, which of course I had never heard of before, but I'm like, this is apparently the greatest movie ever made. and a buddy of mine was telling me about it. Cause he, he had watched it and was kind of like giving me like the cliff's notes version of why it was fascinating and why it was interesting. I'm like, okay.
00:21:07
Speaker
So a couple of years pass and I think I get it from the library of all places. And I, I rent it and I put it on and i'm like, this is actually really incredible. It was probably the first like serious movie I'd ever watched.
00:21:18
Speaker
Okay. And I was like, surprisingly for, you know, a little nerd who was obsessed just a couple years earlier with Star Wars and all that it offered. I was like, surprisingly like locked in.
00:21:30
Speaker
Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, I'm jealous. and I'm jealous. and i was And so that kind of led to this quiet kind of almost backseat obsession of mine where every now and again, i would remember that I loved Orson Welles and be like, like my freshman year of college, I take ah an an intro to acting class and we have to choose an actor to do a presentation on.
00:21:52
Speaker
And I choose Orson Welles. um And like everyone else is choosing like modern actors like Denzel Washington and Brad Pitt. And I'm like, can I do Wells? And my professor's name was Wells. So he looked very confused.
00:22:05
Speaker
yeah And I said, no, no, no, Orson, Orson Wells. And he's like, oh, yeah, i guess. Like look at he's just very confused. um My sophomore year or no, second semester of my freshman year, I took a ah class. I took my my my freshman comp class.
00:22:22
Speaker
And we had to write a big research paper at the end of the year. I wrote mine on the War of the Worlds broadcast. Like, hell yeah just, you know, kind of these quiet little things throughout my my time. And then once I began teaching, I became acquainted with a good friend of mine who taught a film class at the school where we taught together.
00:22:40
Speaker
And he started to, like, ask me, like, well, what other Wells have you seen? And I, that point, had seen surprisingly little. So I kind of got into... Orson Welles a lot more. We used to do a thing called J-Term, which is for two weeks in January, we would...
00:22:59
Speaker
yeah Sorry. I'm trying to hold my phone up to the monitor. This is great audio podcast. It is. Beck says, hi, Steven. um So there we go. All right.
00:23:10
Speaker
That's a thread that was not set up, but is getting paid off anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's what we do, baby. That's, yep. Mm-hmm. All payoff, no setup. That's it.
00:23:22
Speaker
Boom. but Some setup. Just not as much setup as payoff, let's be honest. Yeah. It's good. Let's be real. It's going to be like eight years of setup. It's, it's yeah. It's just like, I hope you like a slow burn friends buckle the fuck up. I mean, yeah, we'll next week. We'll probably, or next episode rather, cause we're not doing weekly next episode will probably be our biggest like chunk of time that we're going to take out all at once.
00:23:46
Speaker
Um, but we'll get to that later when we discuss your homework for next week. So, um, Now you were saying, sorry, I interrupted there. um ah Research paper on the War of the Worlds. J-T. Okay, j there we go.
00:24:00
Speaker
For two weeks in January, every teacher at the school could teach whatever they wanted for two weeks. it was so It was kind of like a we're slowly getting the students back into school after Christmas break or or winter break or whatever. Christian school, we called it Christmas break.
00:24:16
Speaker
um Because that's what we did. um So I taught four different classes in the four years that I taught there. But the last year that I taught J-term class, um actually, i taught five J-term classes, but only taught there for four years. Go figure.
00:24:31
Speaker
um But the last year that I taught there, i did a class on the life and work of Orson Welles is what I called it. And that gave me an excuse to like dig in deep.
00:24:42
Speaker
And ah the the principal text I use for that class will be the principal text I'll be using for this podcast, most likely. um Perfect. Good. We've got experience on board. That's nice. The Wells Bogdanovich interview series. This is Orson Welles.
00:24:55
Speaker
ah Nice. So, so we i mean, that that is kind of like my quintessential text, one of the best books on ah film that I think I've ever read.
00:25:06
Speaker
ah not that I've read a lot, mind you, um but definitely one of my favorites for sure. For that class, I watched every Wells film released to that date, which of course included everything except for...
00:25:18
Speaker
um z the um The Other Side of the Wind, his last film that was released. I also weirdly, the only blind spot in my Wells filmography is ah The Immortal Story, which was like a TV program that he directed. So I own it. I just haven't seen it yet. And I might just save it so I have one first time watch for this podcast.
00:25:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:41
Speaker
I might im that respectable might hold it dear. um So I i mean, and and that kind of began the obsession proper. Like after that, I was just like, Wells is the greatest, you know, the greatest filmmaker ever.
00:25:54
Speaker
As Jean-Luc Godard once said, everyone will always owe him everything. Like that's just like, he's the guy, right? Like he's the man. He really is just such like a fascinating figure in terms of ah almost every aspect of his life. Like the people he worked with, the projects he put out, the level of like quality he constantly strove for, the fact that he was always, may he somehow managed to be an underdog after making the greatest movie of all time. And we will get into all of that. Like that's, yeah, 100%.
00:26:31
Speaker
It is. he He has such an absolutely fascinating life, uh, to me. And, and not to mention the fact that he's just a real, well, he was a living cartoon character. Now he's a dead cartoon character, but still he was a living sentient cartoon character, uh, uh,
00:26:53
Speaker
He just fascinates me as a figure in general. Baby girl, if you touch the cables and my mic goes is silent, I'm going to be pissed. Please. My cat. Sorry. You're fine. ah That's not me talking to the students. That would be harassment.
00:27:08
Speaker
um Literally my cat. ah
00:27:14
Speaker
She always waits until I'm fucking sitting podcasting. like Why did I buy her the collar with the fucking bell? What's wrong with me? ah So she can jingle it on mic. What other reason is there?
00:27:27
Speaker
Pretty much. She's not particularly vocal, so I'm sorry I'm not getting Mando up on the mic for the listeners that are cat curious. I mean, they probably heard one of mine mewling in the background because I've got a couple of my own. so Great.
00:27:40
Speaker
Good. Yeah. I mean, Hope, here's here's how big my Wells obsession got. Yes, please. I started celebrating Orson's birthday.
00:27:52
Speaker
No way. I love it. yeah I did. I haven't done it in a number of years. but Well, we're bringing that fucking tradition back, Mon Frere. Fuck yes, are.
00:28:04
Speaker
We will do an annual will Wells birthday episode for sure. Shots of Paul Masson and lots of cake. I made, I, so on his centennial, the centennial in particular was the one that I celebrated.
00:28:17
Speaker
So okay i there was ah an article I read online that was like his, his nightly meal consisted of two steaks. um A, it was like asparagus, baked potato, like two baked potatoes, an entire pineapple and a, like a fifth of scotch.
00:28:41
Speaker
Orson. And then you see what I mean? A tub of pistachio ice cream. God damn it. Do you see what I fucking mean? What did I just say about him being a cartoon character?
00:28:51
Speaker
And then you've just listed a Dagwood sandwich of a meal. Holy shit. He is like a man of enormous appetite or was i say a man of enormous appetites. like let's let's Let's start being creepy like Disney adults and referring to him as alive as if so.
00:29:07
Speaker
like yeah no Orson is ah is a madman for food. My favorite Orson quote is, um gluttony is not a secret vice. and it's just God damn it. He was self-aware as fuck. He is. Excellent. There's an anecdote Bogdanovich tells in This is Orson Welles where the two of them are like kind of squirreled away in like a kitchen and Orson just grabs a bag of Fritos and pulls out a handful and shoves it in his mouth.
00:29:31
Speaker
And he's like, it's not cheating on your diet if no one sees you. And I'm just like, God bless you, man. as As a portly gentleman myself, God bless you. Legend.
00:29:42
Speaker
Absolutely. Fucking Orson Welles with a bag of Fritos is now like, I'm going to think about that at least once a day now. Absolutely. Thank you for giving that gift to me. Baby girl, stop scratching the couch.
00:29:54
Speaker
I'll eat your alive. Christ alive. the um And so the year I got married, um I no longer am, but the year that I did um was Wells' centennial
Friendship & Podcast Impact
00:30:07
Speaker
year. And so okay my friends decided, and I got married in May, ah which is the year the month of his birth.
00:30:13
Speaker
Oh, Jesus Christ. And I lived at the time about an hour and a half north of Bloomington, Indiana, where lies um the Lilly Museum, which is ah one of the archives of a lot of wells's paraphernalia and books at indiana university and so they hosted a wells symposium for his 100th birthday and my buddies who know me very well decided that my bachelor party this is how fucking nerdy i am about orson fucking way my bachelor party was the wells symposium
00:30:51
Speaker
That's fucking incredible. Holy shit. So we know it was amazing. The night that we went, there was a panel discussion on the other side of the wind, which at that point had not yet been released.
00:31:02
Speaker
It was three years before the movie got released. And they had it was Joseph McBride who wrote whatever happened to Orson Welles. It was Jonathan Rosenbaum, um film critic for the Chicago, for one of the Chicago papers.
00:31:15
Speaker
It was Josh Karp, the guy who wrote Orson's last movie, and was also a producer on The Other Side of the Wind. And it was the three, and there was someone else whose name I am completely forgetting, and I apologize that I don't remember this fourth individual's name.
00:31:29
Speaker
But it was the four of them sitting up there talking about The Other Side of the Wind and then showing like, scenes from the movie like a couple of them had i had seen on youtube but others i had never seen before um it's fucking and then the next day the next day um i it was free comic book day was the next day so we went to free comic book day we went and we got um some pipe tobacco and we smoked our pipes in the in the pipe tobacco shop and then we went to respect the morning session of the well symposium which was like forgotten Wells ephemera, which is where I saw his very first short film, Hearts of Age, for the first time.
00:32:04
Speaker
um Shit. We saw other clips from the other side of the wind. Like, we... It was unbelievable. It was such an incredible experience. I only went to those two sessions, and it was like... The the evening session was like film students, filmmakers, Wells scholars, and my bachelor party.
00:32:22
Speaker
Like, it was... That's... It was amazing. in Insane. That's... ah We now add it to the fucking spreadsheet. We're going to do an episode on just that.
00:32:33
Speaker
Because I want, like, a drunken frat boy recollection of that fucking weekend. i legit always thought that I could out-nerd everybody in terms of... I'm i'm also no longer married.
00:32:44
Speaker
um But, like, I always thought I could out-nerd... Well...
00:32:51
Speaker
You know, Bex and I like to play coy on microphone. Sure, um yeah yeah. We've got to maintain the kayfabe. No, we're frog and toad. um
00:33:05
Speaker
um
00:33:09
Speaker
ah But I always thought I could out-nerd anybody in terms of what my bachelor party contained. um But my friend, you have you you have sunk my battleship very thoroughly.
00:33:23
Speaker
Holy shit. My bachelor party was my friends basically... They blindfold me and throw me in the car where we all sing along very loudly to Weird Al Yankovic on shuffle for what felt like 45 minutes.
00:33:39
Speaker
And then they leave me in the middle of... nowhere, apparently. Tell me to count to 100. I pull off the bandana, and there in front of me is a duffel bag full of Nerf guns, which a picture of my friend Sean with the instructions, this is the president.
00:33:55
Speaker
You have to assassinate him. You have three lives. Everybody else only has one. um And man, i i if if hey, if you're a college student and your professor is dr Sean...
00:34:12
Speaker
I shot that guy in the head 10 years ago. Like you can tell him hope says hi and then nerf him. Don't nerf him. That's ner very bad. No, don't nerf him. Don't nerf him.
00:34:23
Speaker
Um, we at the Wells U podcast do not condone nerfing your professors. It's nerf for nothing. Or your TAs for that matter. Or your TAs. Yes. Um, But ah yeah, no. So it was, then we nerfed for like several more hours. And then to really date this, ah we watched the live, the first episode of the 12th Doctor's Run on Doctor Who. So that was my bachelor party. Drunk Chinese food, nerf guns.
00:34:51
Speaker
You win. Congratulations. The Orson Welles fucking symposium. yeah That's insane. And now I really want to meet these friends. Yeah. Here's the thing. I was the one that was like, of all of them, there were probably three of us that were really locked in. Everyone else was just there for the bar afterwards.
00:35:09
Speaker
Great. Well, then I want to meet the three and maybe one of the bar people. ah I mean, look, I have a lot of really cool friends and they were but really cool to support me. um i will say four of them are locked in. And honestly, I can see a couple of them maybe coming on this show as a guest at some point.
00:35:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:28
Speaker
Depending on the content, I have several friends who'd be... I mentioned... I asked Bex the other day if they'd be interested in coming on a specific episode, and they said, without question, Transformers 1986, to which I said, that'll be
Orson Welles as a Cultural Icon
00:35:42
Speaker
in about seven years. yeah So, yeah good thing you're sticking around.
00:35:46
Speaker
ah Lock it down. Lock it down. Yeah, for it's for for the podcast. For the podcast. For the podcast. it down. Yeah. Yeah. We're technically in a polycule and the third member is the bit, uh, to which we are more committed to the bit than we are to anything else in the world. So yeah, we are again, we're improv people. We are always beholden to the bit.
00:36:10
Speaker
I'm not going to be any good at space work when I'm this high, so just heads up. That's fine. Yeah. Yeah. yeah You could say you're doing your fair share of space work already.
00:36:21
Speaker
ah Somewhere in space. This could all be happening right now. ah Future events like these will affect you in the future. but That's honestly my biggest um area of knowledge in terms of like Orson Welles ah viewership, watch history, I guess, whatever. It's, it's his radio stuff. I have a playlist with like 20 episodes of the shadow and the fall of the city and,
00:36:48
Speaker
Obviously the war of the worlds baby girl. That's one of my socks. What the fuck? All right. Um, at least she's entertained. I got that going for me. what one more could you that's That's all we can ask.
00:37:02
Speaker
Don't eat the USB cord.
00:37:06
Speaker
Oh my God. Anyway. Um, but yeah, it's all of his radio programs. So, um,
00:37:13
Speaker
Which is really stupid how I got into that because I grew up mostly with the NPR Star Wars radio adaptations. Right. So I'm just kind of attuned to listening to people narrate their lives constantly, which again, i think is going ah really explain my vocal patterns ah listening to me talk for hours at a time.
00:37:37
Speaker
i think i think that's something we both have going for us is we both at least have pleasant sounding enough voices. so ah Gosh, I hope so. It's very kind of you to say ah because I only hear my own voice when I'm talking and I'm just like, I wouldn't listen to this bitch.
00:37:51
Speaker
So, yeah. um It's, yeah. i'm I'm too close to the subject matter. Touche. That's fair. Yes. I look, I i did a ah play once upon a time when I played a radio announcer and great. I got some mad props for that performance. so you know, I'm going to I am. I am being used these days as the one of the announcers for Philly Roller Derby ah while we're just listing our credentials. So it's ah hey, I'll put a plug in for it right now. I don't know how many games of the year we have left at this point, but when it comes back around again,
00:38:28
Speaker
You want to see a bunch of athletic women just slamming into each other on roller skates? Boy, do I. um Yeah, it's Philly Rolling Derby, man.
00:38:39
Speaker
Philly's already got that underlying threat of violence ah that that people apparently love it for. I do, anyway. Apparently the Phillies are going to the playoffs or something like that. So it's like, ah, no god God willing. i get to God willing. I live close enough to Frankfurt and Cotman, which is like Riot Central, where I'll be able to hear the screaming and the sirens, but it will not affect me on a daily basis.
00:39:07
Speaker
life. So i got i really i really got lucky with this apartment. That's a good distance to be, I think. oh yeah Close enough to the action that you know it's got going on, but far enough away that it won't affect you. That's that's a good place to be.
00:39:19
Speaker
I have a friend or two who live a block away, and I'm like, what I'm glad you're an Eagles fan. That's all I can say. Because if they were me I would be trying to murder somebody every time Philly got anywhere near a championship.
00:39:37
Speaker
um Yeah. yeah Yeah. No, I want to see the telephone poles greased. I want to see some cop cars flipped. that's That's my ongoing threat. That's that's an ongoing threat I'm laying down now. um If I do see a flipped cop car in a Philly sports riot, I will let the listeners know. It was a good time.
00:39:57
Speaker
A fun time was had by all. It's going to be hilarious. um I should also probably mention if you don't know me ah from ah my podcast, because why would you? Or if you don't know me from Steven's podcast, which those are esoteric movie choices, i understand.
00:40:16
Speaker
um I should also probably mention that I am trans and have been for several years now. ah So it's probably just going to come up, not by me, like forcing it into the conversation, but that's just who I am as a person. That's your reality. And we are not going to die from that.
00:40:35
Speaker
Nor should we. I don't think Orson really did anything with queer identities ah unless you want to get really, really weird with Citizen Kane. I mean, um he didn't... None of his projects do, but I think people that he knew, people that he associated himself with, ah within within a few episodes, we're going to be discussing ah hilton ed Hilton Edwards and Michelle McLemore, ah who were his two men two of his mentors when he was traveling in Ireland.
00:41:05
Speaker
And ok they were ah they were a gay couple. And like he was go ah he was friends with that. Like Michelle Macklemore is in Othello. like Like they were friends yeah for all his life. So I mean, he had queer associations and queer friends. In fact, there is there's a rumor that in his younger years, he he died he was himself practiced at least bisexuality.
00:41:28
Speaker
but We can certainly, I mean, I'm super excited for our eventual episode. Orson Welles, fuck boy. um It's going to happen. It's definitely going to happen. It's already on the list. Like it's, it's an episode.
00:41:41
Speaker
The many of Orson Welles. I feel like we can also just go through a list of roster of like the characters he's played and do a game of smasher pass. yeah absolutely Um, but yeah.
00:41:53
Speaker
Uh, but, uh, yeah. Like anytime you talk about like that golden age of Hollywood, you run into, you know, confirmed bachelor and stuff like that. So like, it's going to come up quite naturally, ah maybe just not directly while we're talking about, you know, chimes at midnight,
00:42:10
Speaker
ah which which you can you can see I just kind of shifted over and looked at one of my Blu-rays just to pull a name out of my fucking ass. I had that one too. Hey, there you Guess what? I still haven't seen it. Very excited to watch that. It's so fucking good. Oh my God, girl. You're going to love it.
00:42:31
Speaker
I have this problem where I hate watching new things by myself, which is why I'm thrilled to hang out with Bex all the time. because That's literally all we do. What are we eating? What are we watching?
00:42:42
Speaker
Those are our questions for every single date night. Those are the only questions that need answered, frankly. Fucking owns. ah ah We're getting into spooky season. We just laid out a list, ah a stack of my Blu-rays and 4Ks. It's going to be a good time. I'm very excited. I'm very excited for you. That sounds amazing. Yes, thank you.
00:43:01
Speaker
Gonna make them watch Prey finally. I still need to watch Prey also. Oh, fucking owns, man. Do a double feature. Treat yourself. Predator, then Prey.
00:43:12
Speaker
It's gonna be a good fucking time. Sounds like a good fucking time. Yeah. it and it's be It's like the exact same movie, but under wildly different circumstances. I will i will say...
00:43:24
Speaker
Um, for my thoughts on the predator franchise, go, uh, listen to the episode of the disenfranchised podcast, uh, on predators, the 2010 film predators. And you'll get to hear me just be as effusive as a person can be about the predator franchise. Love that monster.
00:43:41
Speaker
One of my favorite movie monsters, like number three, favorite movie monster behind the Wolfman and the gremlins.
00:43:49
Speaker
Ooh, that's an impressive list. Oh, no. Okay. Shit, do I have a list of favorite? I mean, Godzilla's my number one. Obviously. Really? I mean, it's it's really funny that I'm doing an Orson Welles podcast, and we're going to be talking about things like the other side of the wind in a in a in a very academic, very
Media Collections & Dedication
00:44:09
Speaker
semi-academic format, if not fashion. Right. um ah Considering I am a stoner college burnout dropout, I'm ah who really, my favorite movie that I think I've seen this year was Godzilla X-Kong, A New Empire.
00:44:27
Speaker
um Because as I say, and I will say this again in the fullness of time, sometimes you want a plot Sometimes you want an excuse. Sometimes you want to see a man achieve everything he thought he ever wanted, but still fall horribly, horribly short.
00:44:43
Speaker
Sometimes you want to see the big monkey punch the big lizard. Yep. And, and I, yeah. Whereas i I rewatched, I rewatched aliens the other night on my, on my wall.
00:44:57
Speaker
ah Holy shit. 4k Sigourney Weaver immaculate. I believe it and then the queen starts running and you're just losing your shit.
00:45:08
Speaker
Yeah. Rules. I mean, you, you, you love Godzilla. I love King Kong, like King Kong, one of my favorite movie monsters of all time. So there you go. That's, that's, King Kong's probably where monster punched my monster in the face.
00:45:21
Speaker
There you go. And your monster shot atomic fire breath at mine. That's just what happens. Yeah, it's fair trade. Fair trade. He's my good, good PTSD boy. And I love him so much.
00:45:34
Speaker
ah it's It's been a great calendar year, too, for Godzilla PTSD between Minus One and X-Kong. um But Orson Welles, high cinema art.
00:45:47
Speaker
Godzilla, same number of Oscars as Orson Welles. That's true. Shockingly enough. That's wild. One each. Look at that. Okay, good. Orson does have a non-competitive one, so i we need Godzilla to win a non-competitive Oscar now, but...
00:45:59
Speaker
I mean, yeah, that's fair. um ah Should we discuss our... Lifetime achievement? Should we discuss our our resources and physical media ah with regards to... Yes, probably should. We're nearing we're nearing our our proposed cutoff time, so I want to try to at least steer the ship. No, that's very fair. ah my My proposed bedtime as well.
00:46:20
Speaker
um It's... I'm such an old lady. This will also come up in the fullness of time. ah There is nothing more than I like anymore than being in bed by 730 with a nice fanfic.
00:46:32
Speaker
That does sound nice. it's pretty It's pretty solid way to spend your evening. um Kurosami forever. Why don't I go through my stack? okay Because your stack of physical media is way more impressive than mine. It's it's bigger anyway.
00:46:49
Speaker
There's ah also a lot of overlap. So I feel like you'll be able to just go like, did I also have that right or whatever um yeah in my list. And then we can get into every fucking else thing you have because Jesus Christ.
00:47:04
Speaker
I sent you a picture of the other i think that's might've been what led to your existential meltdown. It's when I sent you that yes it stack of media with the caption, it's called research. Ever heard of it? Yeah, that was needlessly aggressive, my friend, because that literally spiral of like, that's the next 10 years of my life. Look, I'm not frightened of marriage.
00:47:25
Speaker
Don't say I have commitment issues. I'm not afraid of getting married. i i am terrified of just like, that's so much Orson Welles. But like, thank God we're doing this every other week. And thank God he did a lot of movies, because that means I only have to watch one movie.
00:47:42
Speaker
ah As opposed to like every episode of a television show. Jesus Christ. Yeah, exactly. That's going to be horrifying. um what's it's It's a real shame the podcast name, The Worst Idea of All Time, was already taken.
00:47:58
Speaker
Real shame. Okay, i'm going to go in um I'm going to go in chronological here. um This is just my physical media kind collection. I'm obviously not getting into the the digital files i have hoarded and that you have also provided.
00:48:13
Speaker
um But obviously, I've started off just the basic Blu-ray of Citizen Kane. Haven't upgraded to the 4K criterion yet. um Kane's not something I rewatch a lot.
00:48:25
Speaker
So I know you have it. yeah He's given me the eyebrow. I'm just, I'm just making faces at hope over here. He is. It's, it's, yeah, it's, um, uh, haven't upgraded to that glorious specimen yet.
00:48:39
Speaker
Uh, because I ah have a rule about non, non new release, new media and price limits that I try to impose on myself. That's why you got to wait for that Criterion sale twice a year. Exactly. like I got about, look, I got about eight months until we get to Kane.
00:48:57
Speaker
I'll be fine until then. fair I do have the Criterion Blu-ray. I don't think it's gotten a 4K release yet of Chimes at Midnight. ah which I fell in love with just that one picture of Orson Welles in a suit of armor.
00:49:10
Speaker
Had to know what it was from. Immediately bought the Criterion. Impulse purchase, not embarrassed by I have the DVD, not the Blu-ray. That was before I had a Blu-ray player. um Fair. But I do own the Criterion DVD of Chimes at Midnight as well.
00:49:23
Speaker
It is probably my second or third favorite Welles film and probably my third or fourth favorite Welles performance. It's so good. Nice. Nice. I'm super excited for that one.
00:49:34
Speaker
And Bex is actually a lot more into Shakespeare than I realized. So they're probably going to be joining us for a couple of his Shakespeare programs. oh i I'm counting it. And this is in chronological order to when it occurred in his life, not its release date.
00:49:49
Speaker
But I am including Jodorowsky's Dune. I'm counting that just to pad out my pile. Good for you. Just a little bit more. No, do We're going to skip... We're going to skip ahead from the mid-70s to the mid-80s with the 4K steelbook of The Transformers, the movie.
00:50:05
Speaker
If you want to hear me realizing that this piece of shit exists in real time, go listen to the Chipmunk Adventure episode of Disenfranchised. I hate this movie, but it was eight bucks cheaper on Steelbook 4K than the regular 4K. And I angrily bought it out of spite.
00:50:24
Speaker
So fuck you, the Transformers, the movie. But in good news, I did get a clip of Orson Welles saying, you must destroy the Matrix out of it. So how that factors into my other podcast. But yes,
00:50:40
Speaker
um This is one that I definitely have a leg up on you on. This is a physical Blu-ray of the other side of the wind. i I will not plug my sources on Mike. No, or should you?
00:50:54
Speaker
But I will say it's not something Jedi would teach you. Uh, and otherwise my one book that I have is Citizen Wells, classic hardback edition. I got the library edition off eBay, uh, for like eight bucks or something like that.
00:51:11
Speaker
But, uh, I did start reading this a couple of years back and it just, Part of the reason why I figured this podcast would be possible was because Frank Brady, the author of Citizen Wells, goes into every little thing about every little thing he was in in frustrating detail.
00:51:30
Speaker
And it was just like, okay, I'm not actually taking a class for Orson Welles. I'm going to put this down for right now and go back to reading fanfic. or I think I was reading through Dune at the time. Can't remember.
00:51:42
Speaker
Doesn't matter. i Can i just say as a sidebar, loved when you were reading Dune because every now and again, you just send me a text. it was just like, damn it, Frank. And then a picture of the passage you were reading.
00:51:54
Speaker
And i it just brought me so much joy. So thank you for that. if If you are invested for some reason in like the soap opera that is my life. um And want to keep track of it starting from when I first spoke about Dune on the disenfranchised podcast for three hours, six minutes. We outdid the blank check episode yeah we on 84 Dune by a minute, just like 57 seconds. Less than a minute, but we look, we did it.
00:52:20
Speaker
yeah Skin of the teeth. That's the important thing. Uh, exactly. Um, but, uh, uh, what's really frustrating with my relationship to Dune is now that Bex has seen parts one and two and actually understands a little bit as to what the fuck I'm talking about. Right. Uh, you know, three years into our relationship, they finally understand ah good 40% of my reference pool.
00:52:49
Speaker
Um, They've started asking me questions about lore and I'm like, oh no, I can explain this.
00:53:00
Speaker
So yeah, it, uh, I'm, I'm of your little nerd heart. Oh no, it actually makes me angry at Frank Herbert because I'm like, God damn it, Frank. Damn it, Frank.
00:53:11
Speaker
God damn it, Frank. When you first started doing that, my first my knee-jerk response was always, oh shit, what did her dad do now? Because your father's name is also Frank. was like, oh shit, what did what did her dad do now?
00:53:22
Speaker
No, Frank Herbert. And if anybody's keeping up with ah ah that Frank soap opera um ongoing, I think we last left off the thread like... two or three years ago when I stopped updating that podcast.
00:53:35
Speaker
Um, he's grown his own weed in his backyard. So legally go Frank. Yeah. Fuck. Yeah. Hell yeah. Uh, retirement suits him. Well, good um, and But yeah, that's that's my little stack of Orson Welles physical media, not counting like a good 10 or 12 hours of radio programs. I just have saved to my phone on a playlist.
00:53:56
Speaker
um The third man on on digital. Nice. But that's one that I really should get physical media of. um But yeah we've got time.
00:54:09
Speaker
We've got time before we get to. We do. Yeah. Those. Jesus. God. Oh, no shit. That's still the 40s. We don't have that much time. Fuck. Okay. Anyway. I mean. Wait, what am I saying?
00:54:21
Speaker
That's the tail end of the 40s. That's like 20 years away from where we're standing. You've got. Yeah, you've got the for the third man. That's that's number 40 of 180. of a hundred and eighty Great.
00:54:32
Speaker
Great. So we're doing about 26 of these ish a year. Yeah. We got couple. We're going to, going to be fine. I'm going to be fine. I've got a few more paychecks between now and having to buy that on Blu-ray. So. Right.
00:54:44
Speaker
All right. Your stack. You just pulled out with a very, very self-satisfied look, my friend. I don't look any other way. I'm afraid.
00:54:55
Speaker
ah You look the way I look when I'm describing my projector set up. ah To which Bex has described me a very specific size queen. um Oh my God.
00:55:07
Speaker
I got him with that one. Oh my God. You mean the aforementioned capital T, the capital W wall? The wall. I don't like to brag, but it's 11 feet wide. Fuck you.
00:55:20
Speaker
That's how I watch my movies anymore. it's just a projector on like an 11 and a half foot wide wall. Like I said, aliens in four k Oh, that was something special. projecting that is Projecting in more ways than one, are we?
00:55:33
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Hey, you want to talk projecting? I just rewatched. i Well, I just got my 4K steelbook of the Addams Family, parentheses 1991, which I saw in theaters for my sixth birthday. And I realized, wow, that is much more of a foundational text than I had ever realized. I believe it. Knowing you as well as I do, I believe that for sure.
00:55:55
Speaker
Yeah, check out check out one of the Tumblers I run, um Daily Christina Ricci. One of the Tumblers I run. Christina Ricci Daily. Yes, sorry. Christina Ricci Daily. That one's mine. The other one is run by an asshole.
00:56:08
Speaker
that don't Don't matter that. um We just, we're somewhere in day like 1,000 something. Anyway, your physical media stack. ah So in in no particular order whatsoever, just the order that I happen to have access to it, um I have here the Criterion, the recently released Criterion 4K of The Trial, um who which is, I've not watched yet, but I'm sure is gorgeous. This is the one that I've, of his films that I've probably engaged with the least ahead of um okay The Immortal Story. So this is one that I...
00:56:42
Speaker
I'm looking forward to covering for sure. um You mentioned it earlier. i also have ah the Criterion 4K Blu-ray release of Citizen Kane. but Oh, God. Just that big fuck-off K on the front.
00:56:55
Speaker
The best part is when you open it up, it's got the A, the N, and the E in there as well. Oh, it's so cool. Criterion always fucking knocks it out of the park. Holy shit. Yeah.
00:57:06
Speaker
I've got the... um I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, no, no, no, no. I was going to start... bullshitting about Godzilla. You talk about your thing, please, which is the reason we're here. On that note, I also have the 70th anniversary edition of Citizen Kane, the box set that includes, among other things, the film RKO 281 and the documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane, the Oscar winning documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane.
00:57:31
Speaker
Both of which will have their own individual episodes on this podcast. Fuck yeah, it will. Jesus. um I also have the ah Criterion, what is this, Blu-ray of The Magnificent Ambersons.
00:57:43
Speaker
Ooh, fancy. Okay. I am probably going to make myself reread the book, The Magnificent Ambersons, before we cover this movie. um Okay. ah Written by Indianapolis native Booth Tarkington from the same, my hometown, Indianapolis, Indiana.
00:57:59
Speaker
Oh, that's exciting. yeah Okay. And I've actually been to the neighborhood where that takes place. So. Kicks ass. All right. um And then, of course, the aforementioned Blu-ray of the Immortal Story, Criterion Blu-ray of the Immortal Story, which I own.
00:58:14
Speaker
um And again, haven't written this, haven't brought watched this one. Looking forward to watching this one. Well, to be fair, you haven't written it either. I haven't. I also have not written it. That is true. Yeah, that's fair that's very fair. um Now we're getting into some mild ephemera.
00:58:28
Speaker
I have the film that he wrote, directed and starring Charles Chaplin, Monsieur Verdoux, which is a film that he he wrote, gave the story to Chaplin.
00:58:39
Speaker
ah He wanted to direct it with Chaplin and Chaplin refused to work for anyone but himself. Wow. Yeah, I can't. hum Jesus. Fuck. Right. right um And so Chaplin basically took the idea and decided to direct it himself.
00:58:55
Speaker
And so that's what this is. Who's an older, bigger diva than Orson Welles in terms of the Hollywood filmmaking scene? Ah, Chaplin, right. Pretty much, yeah. No but no wonder fuck fucking Orson fucking hated that guy.
00:59:09
Speaker
Oh, Jesus Christ. Out-divying him at every turn. yes um Then I also have ah Oliver, Oliver? Is it Carol Reed? Carol Reeds also directed Oliver.
00:59:21
Speaker
Carol Reeds, the third band. This is the Criterion and DVD. ah wow. Not the 4K. This is the, what year did this one come out? This is the 1999 Criterion DVD. Right.
00:59:33
Speaker
So yeah one of the older Criterions that I own. And while we're on the subject of of movies that Wells had nothing ah directly, directorially to do with, I also have Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles.
00:59:47
Speaker
starring Christian McKay as Orson Welles, and also starring Cutie Patootie's Zac Efron.
00:59:55
Speaker
Oh, okay. Very nice. um Sorry, I just had to look it up on eBay real fast. Why the fuck is the third man $100? ah ah hundred dollars On eBay. What the fuck? It's probably out of print. Like that, that movie does not stay in print very long. That's the, the, damn the soft tragedy of, um, of the third man is it never stays in print for very long. Those print runs are very short.
01:00:22
Speaker
What about the basic Blu-ray? Okay. The basic Blu-ray is 15 bucks. I can suffer the basic Blu-ray. That's fine. That's fine. Uh, wow. Jesus Christ.
01:00:33
Speaker
Sorry, continue. Got distracted thinking about my own physical media collection. i Also have the Criterion DVD of Othello, his Palme d'Or winning film, Othello.
Preparations & Future Plans
01:00:46
Speaker
That's going to be a fun one to talk about. Is that is that his face? in In Blackface? In Blackface. Ah, no, Orison. Orison. Yes, it is.
01:00:59
Speaker
Oh, buddy, you had to go and do it. Son of bitch. Now, this version includes two different film versions of ah ah Othello, the 1952 version and the 1955 version.
01:01:12
Speaker
It also includes his ah documentary or his film essay, Filming Othello, um which we'll get into his film essays at a much, much later time. no. Yeah, we will. Those are things he did toward the end of his life um when he was just trying to get like funding for Other Side of the Wind and so he was making short movies about his other movies.
01:01:34
Speaker
um feel like we're going to have to make a stinger out of While he was trying to get funding for the other side of the wind. Yes. Like, say the line, Bert.
01:01:46
Speaker
That's going to be something. that That is going to be a huge... Once we get into, like, the 70s, Orson, um so roundabout year four of this four or five this that's going to become a recurring theme. Although, price like, he did shit like that to get funding for Othello, too, in the 50s. mean...
01:02:06
Speaker
Gotta respect the hustle. he And he did. Boy, did he. He hated acting in films, but it it got him the money he needed to to direct this stuff. um The aforementioned Criterion DVD of Chimes at Midnight. I will spend no more time on that. The two-disc edition of f for Fake, Criterion edition of F for Fake on DVD.
01:02:26
Speaker
um Still to this day, my favorite documentary of all time. ah Less of a documentary and more a film essay. It is amazing and I love it. Well, I certainly feel like I learned a lot about art forgery and how hot his girlfriend is.
01:02:40
Speaker
I mean, that's really, I mean... he he kind of pioneers the the trend still imposed by people like Tim Burton, who will put scenes in movies just to showcase how hot the person he's sleeping with is.
01:02:57
Speaker
It's literally the third act of the movie though. Yeah. It's not a scene. It's the entire back third of the movie. It's also like the first 20 minutes of the movie, if you remember correctly.
01:03:10
Speaker
ah where she's like walking around New York in this like loose flowing gown and everyone's like turning their heads to stare at her I get so distracted every time he shows up in a fucking like magician's costume that it it's that's like 90% of the movie for me I can't lie it's him in the outfit doing close up magic that is the nerd the quintessential fucking Orson look for me like it's it's ever fake so sudden Sudden new question.
01:03:39
Speaker
um Would Orson have done numbers on YouTube? Do you think he would have his own YouTube channel? And secondary question, how fast do you think it would take for him to get canceled?
01:03:51
Speaker
um One, he would be doing film essays. um but like he I mean, he is the he basically invented the YouTube film criticism format by making film essays.
01:04:02
Speaker
Yeah. um Like F for Fake is a long form YouTube video, essentially. Oh, incredibly so, yes. I mean, and we'll we'll talk about that later. So I think he would do huge numbers.
01:04:13
Speaker
ah He would have to have several apologies.
01:04:19
Speaker
That's Patreon content. We ever make a Patreon. Yes. One of the first pieces of of of things you'll get is ah is an eight-minute, like, I feel the need to apologize for my recent actions.
01:04:30
Speaker
um I'm so sorry. I did not understand the enormity of the geopolitical whatever. I don't know. I started that and had nowhere to go. i fell out immediately.
01:04:44
Speaker
You find me a jury that there would convict me and I'll go down on you. um A second, probably probably a runner-up to favorite quote, like, you find me a jury where that makes good grammar and I'll go down on you.
01:04:57
Speaker
um You find me and find me a world in which, I forget the exact quote, but it ends with, and I'll go down. You find me a world where you can put the emphasis on was In July. In July, that's what it is. there stop distance with in july and i'll go down on you just godam um its i'm going to say it again during the fullness of time to this podcast but i really love your impression of orson wells because you get the serious wells a lot better I can't not be a funny asshole or at least an attempted funny asshole when ah when i'm when I'm doing Wells. so If you want to hear my Wells impression, listen to the outros for a couple episodes of Hope's Matrix podcast, Matrix Reclamations.
01:05:40
Speaker
Yes, on temporary hiatus due to life events, but yes. Yes, ah Stephen was kind enough to ah stand in as ah Orson Welles, as Agent Smith. Right, which was so much fun, honestly. Just a ah blast um to do that.
01:05:55
Speaker
So thank you for asking me to do that very silly thing. of course you You had it back to me within about an hour and a half. I had nothing else going on. Ha ha ha ha ha.
01:06:06
Speaker
ah Ah, Jesus. Well, great news. Now we have a lot going on and it's all Orson Welles focused. Speaking of, I have the complete Mr. Arcadon on DVD, including three different versions of the movie, ah the theatrical version, the British version, and the recobbled version.
01:06:29
Speaker
Christ. And I don't think I have it out here, but I also have... Oh, I didn't bring it out here. Geez. I also have Touch of Evil on ah DVD, and that also contains three versions of that movie.
01:06:41
Speaker
ah There's the... Oh, shit. Wait, do I have... I know I have Touch of Evil on Blu-ray. That's got to be in my stick somewhere. How did we both forget to bring out Touch of Evil? Honestly, one of my favorite Wells films and one of my favorite best performances. That is embarrassing for both of us, honestly.
01:06:58
Speaker
i christ alive i will i will practice a penance later of self-flagellation. um Yes. now oh Only one steak with your dinner and half a pineapple.
01:07:10
Speaker
No!
01:07:16
Speaker
Slaps the Paul Masson out of your hand. um French. French. In terms of books. Now, I used to have a standing order every time I would visit a used bookstore.
01:07:29
Speaker
If I saw a Wells biography that I did not own, I made myself purchase it. yeah That's a very good rule. Shit. That's really good. i have I have gotten rid of a lot of those because I have moved a lot.
01:07:43
Speaker
And I got to a point where i didn't know this podcast was going to be happening and made myself like sell some of them back to a half-priced bookstore. um But as it stands, these are the ones I currently own.
01:07:55
Speaker
I own the aforementioned This Is Orson Welles, which will be my primary text for this ah podcast. Great. It's an amazing read. I've read it before. I have parts one and two.
01:08:07
Speaker
Of Simon Callow's, as of right now, three-part biography series on Wells. ah The first is called The Road to Xanadu. The second is called Hello Americans. The third one-man band is on my Amazon wishlist. If you would like to gift it to me, please feel free.
01:08:24
Speaker
Man, I was really hoping when you started that entire thing that the third one hadn't been published yet. And I'm just like, oh no, I hope he makes it in the end.
01:08:34
Speaker
i We were all kind of hoping that, but I think... Spoiler alert. Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. ah He dies. Oh, no. Oh, no. oh no Not Orson. Hey, I've been reading this. I've been reading this new book. I understand it's a bestseller.
01:08:51
Speaker
ah It's about this guy named Jesus. And gosh, I hope nothing happens to him. Not only does something happen to him, it happens four times throughout the book. um great Great news, though. Hollywood ending. He comes back. it You know, chalk what up for the good guys?
01:09:08
Speaker
ah Yeah. Yeah. He's like RDJ in Marvel. And who's playing Dr. Doom? Jesus Christ of Nazareth! I bet he'd play convincing Dr. Doom. I bet he's got the chops. He probably does. He can pull it off.
01:09:26
Speaker
Is Jesus mythin'?
01:09:29
Speaker
Sorry, you were just handed a drink from offscreen, and it was one of the slickest moves I've ever seen. Nice. Well done. Cheers. here to ya ah che Cheers. Cheers. I'm not 100% sure what i'm drinking, but it's very good.
01:09:45
Speaker
There you go. Nice. um i also also Two more books that I own. You own more books. Jesus. and And those are outside of my reach currently. That's so many books. Tell me about the books that are out of your reach. I have the play Moby Dick Rehearsed, which is a play that he wrote and eventually did perform on stage.
01:10:07
Speaker
ah My partner is now handing me these books. um And then the other one... I'm laughing because it'll totally come across and on an audio video for me. Right. Where two of us are wearing headphones. this yeah This is the cover of Hello Americans.
01:10:22
Speaker
And then the final book that I own, ah probably my least favorite and one that I was the subject of ah of a very funny text that I sent you um a while back. ah My Lunches with Orson by Ellie Jaglund.
01:10:37
Speaker
um She does not leave the lizard alone. She does not leave the lizard alone. She does not leave the lizard alone. um Let's not explain that bit.
01:10:48
Speaker
Don't explain it. Make him listen to the show. Just fucking explain it, But this is like he this is Henry Jaglum's attempt at replicating what This Is Orson Welles is to much less effect because essentially the Orson that you get in This Is Orson Welles is like thoughtful and...
01:11:08
Speaker
um like you know Orson Welles has got to think about his whole life before he gives an interview kind of a thing. Whereas this is drunken Orson at the back of Mamet San airing out every grievance he's ever had with Hollywood.
01:11:22
Speaker
hope Oh, that has... The bitch in you will love this. The bitch in you will love this. That is suddenly a priority of mine. Holy shit. Payday is ah in two days.
01:11:35
Speaker
Good. All right. All right. um lunches with orson that's not how you spell orson still drunk just in case you need a confirmation there it is fuck yeah it's less than five dollars add to cart um fuck yeah fuck yeah drunk orson is probably my favorite orson um ah when we'll well I'm sure we'll get into that as well.
01:12:07
Speaker
ah But that is why. Oh, and also I don't have it on me. It's packed at the moment. But I also have on vinyl the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast.
01:12:18
Speaker
Yeah, you want to be you want to be gentle with the vinyl. Yeah. I'm not busting that out just as a visual aid for a podcast. No. um Yeah, yeah. I have Out of the Blue by the ELO on vinyl.
01:12:30
Speaker
I keep it safe. It's a good time. I have ah the the Queen album that is often referenced on Family Guy on vinyl as well. was a gift from my aunt. Nice. And yes,
Physical vs. Digital Media & Podcast Aspirations
01:12:40
Speaker
I keep that. I keep all my vinyl kind of squirreled I've got Fleetwood Mac on vinyl. Not Rumors, but like a couple other things. Like, yeah. i i keep I keep the vinyl in a separate special place.
01:12:55
Speaker
ah it's it's it's It's also going to be fun ah going into physical media um because i I know I get mad about physical media and digital media quite often. You do. That's going to be another subject that comes up fairly frequently.
01:13:10
Speaker
Fuck you, George Lucas. Yeah. um But ah yeah. Is there anything else we wanted to cover for this introductory? um i guess three class like hopes for the podcast. Like what we what are what are you specifically looking to get out of this endeavor?
01:13:27
Speaker
ah It's incredibly ironic that i that I came up with the concept of making this like um ah academically formatted because i love learning, but I hate academia. So if I can co-lead a podcast where I am forced by my own hand and social pressures to learn much more about Orson Welles than I already know. Because just going through your physical media list, it is apparent to me that there are many blind spots in my Orson Welles catalog.
01:14:03
Speaker
So many. It's um part of the reason why, you know, Bex and I take gummies and go to museums. I love to hear info dumping. And this is going to be a fun excuse to really get into...
01:14:17
Speaker
everything ah about Orson Welles. um I certainly, I, I try to edit these shows that I do with the listener in mind. I generally talk with only myself in mind. It's like, I want to learn about this bitch and God damn it. This is an excuse to do so. Absolutely. So it's a real good thing that you actually have teaching experience because as I said, i dropped out and now work in a metal factory.
01:14:45
Speaker
so I mean, I work in a call center, so I spend my entire days talking just to like come on and talk some more with you. so um good thing I love the sound of my own voice. um I sing to my ah to my speaker at work. like um My coworkers tolerate me for some godforsaken reason, so that's nice.
01:15:10
Speaker
ah Probably because they can't hear me over the sound of all of the other machinery in the building. but That may have something to do with it. um I might have gotten lucky there. For the record, I'm i'm i'm coming off... like I blew out my throat throat screaming at um the season one ending of Arcane the other day.
01:15:27
Speaker
ah But typically, I have a relatively pleasing baritone. I see nothing wrong with your baritone as it stands right now. Yeah.
01:15:37
Speaker
Great. Well, the dark and stormy greased the pipes. I'm going to remember that for future reference and ah about to see an increase in my rum budget. So that'll be fun. Fuck yeah.
01:15:48
Speaker
ah Yeah. Fuck yeah. yeah I've got to figure out if any of the, I also live in Pennsylvania. Does anywhere near me sell Paul Masson? I need to figure that out. ah Fortunately, there are a shit ton of places in Illinois where I currently reside um that do sell Palmison. In fact, i found i I texted you when I found like a giant ass bottle of Palmison for like $20, like a pint or no, like a quart of Palmison, fuck a gallon of Palmison for like $13. And I was like, should I?
01:16:21
Speaker
Yes, you should. I will. God, actually I will. and And then mail me some Malort. Um, but I think like a sh shorthand, like just to tie it back into my own personal goals.
01:16:35
Speaker
Um, as I said, I dropped out of college. um I would like to come out of this with a ah ah a master's, if not a doctorate in Orsonology.
01:16:47
Speaker
um And considering that we are going to be going through his entire creative career and, by association, you his entire life off-camera, because the two are pretty inextricable, right ah I think that's possible.
01:17:05
Speaker
I think come seven or eight or... a dozen years from now, it's, it's, it's going to feel like fucking, uh, Belushi and animal house, seven years of college wasted. Uh, yeah. So, um,
01:17:22
Speaker
it's It's going to be a good time. It is. No, I i canno not i have texted you. and for I guess, I mean, when you've been texting me like you're anxiety ridden. Holy shit.
01:17:33
Speaker
You all right? ah No. Yeah. I'm just like thinking even like ah you you finish your sentence and then. ah Okay. ah Please. Yes. No, as I've been – as you've been like experiencing like your anxiety riddled, like I've been getting those like anxiety texts like, man, I don't know. This is so much.
01:17:49
Speaker
And i'm I'm kind of sitting back thinking like I am legitimately excited for this endeavor. Like I'm
Admiration for Welles & Personal Moments
01:17:56
Speaker
excited to start digging back into Orson again, to like getting to know that dude again. and Because I had – when I was teaching that J-term class and I did – a small amount of research for that class. I won't say that i was it was like and as exhaustive as I'm hoping this will be, um but I did a fair amount of research for that. And I felt like I was very well prepared. I feel like the the students that were in that class had a good experience with it, but like i am I want to dig in. like I want to know more. I want to have an... And this gives me an excuse.
01:18:28
Speaker
to like get into one of my favorite public figures, one of my favorite directors, one of my favorite actors, one of my favorite, as I've said before, historical figures, just because of how fascinating the man is. And, and I mean, my, my standard answer, if you could have dinner with two people dead or alive, who would they be? my My number one and my number two are always Orson Welles and Truman Capote because the two are like diva bitches and they would and they would dish all over everybody.
01:19:00
Speaker
They would have immense stories, but they're also like such incredible talents in their own field that you cannot argue with their level of just like functioning at the top of their game. And I i i love that about them.
01:19:15
Speaker
weird.
01:19:22
Speaker
And what was that? My cat makes an appearance. Yes. I'm leaving it in. no I'm not making it but in the notes. I'm leaving that in. That was amazing.
01:19:32
Speaker
Listeners, I'm going to say what I was going to say in another minute, but I just had an amazing jump scare because that cat launched at the camera almost. So it got you. It it fucking got me.
01:19:44
Speaker
That was fucking my bloody Valentine 3D. Jesus Christ. She was perched on the back of my chair and then lunged to the windowsill, which is on the other side of my computer monitor.
01:19:55
Speaker
Knocked over like a incredible a diet Coke can tower that I had crafted over here. My desk is a general plague area. And she kind of like just made up ah a wreckage of it. Um,
01:20:06
Speaker
As she went. And um yeah, no, she's a good kitty. But yeah, she had a she had a scare. Very skittish. um So there you go. Both of our cats have made an appearance on this.
01:20:17
Speaker
i've got ah I've got another one around here somewhere that I'm hope sure will make appearance eventually. Deep breaths. cleansing, purifying breaths. You were saying something before the cat jumped.
01:20:31
Speaker
I mean, probably just talking about my love of Wells and Capote. Like I... Understandable. And and I... and i of Those are two people who I have such a fascination with that I will engage with anything of theirs that I can find.
01:20:48
Speaker
And to have an excuse to like start digging into all of this... Because I own ah all of this stuff, but I have not engaged with all of it to the extent that I want.
01:20:59
Speaker
And so to have the excuse to like dig into this and learn more, um I'm so excited for it. And I love doing research. That's a weird thing. But one of my favorite parts of teaching was research. And I have just invited so much of that onto myself. Like I – I have got probably close to 300 pages of reading to do in the next a couple of weeks before we record our next episode.
01:21:22
Speaker
And I'm kind of looking forward to it. Like, God, looking forward to like, you know, early in the morning, if I'm awake, if I'm the only one awake, like cracking a book, reading through it um on my lunch break, cracking a book, reading through it.
01:21:34
Speaker
um Yeah. Afterward, we are going to turn ourselves into it. into like post postdoc college students
Endurance & Motivation in Podcasting
01:21:41
Speaker
for this goddamn nonsense. um But, like, listener, just like kids, students, class, um just to give you an idea as to Stephen's enthusiasm for this, I drunk texted him, basically.
01:21:54
Speaker
And then, like, three days later, you had made a spreadsheet, not only, like, of all of his projects, but, like, all of his... ah Just peripheral stuff, like bonus episode content ah concepts and all sorts of, like the level of commitment is obscene and I'm super excited to like have accidentally hooked myself onto this.
01:22:19
Speaker
Yeah. um like that's And that's what my enthusiasm does. Like, that's my enthusiasm in action. Like, oh, yeah you get I can have new hyperfixation? Yes, please.
01:22:31
Speaker
um And so then it just becomes like, you know, the singular obsession. Now, a couple of things I do want to mention to art to our class. One, we're not professional Wells Scholars, if that has not come across. No.
01:22:44
Speaker
um We're not. We're not. The phrase that I really love ah that I stole from the James Bonding podcast, which I think in turn stole it from a different podcast, but the phrase I really like is ah lovers, not experts. Yes.
01:22:58
Speaker
Eventually, eventually, just because of the nature of this program, we will become fucking experts because I don't see how we couldn't become experts at at at that point. so or ah functional experts at least, like amateur experts. but Yeah.
01:23:13
Speaker
I mean, we're we're learning yeah a lot of this along with some of you. And some of you may know a lot more about this than us. And in which if that's the case, come on the podcast. We'd love to have you on as a guest. We'd love to interview you or talk to you. You know, pick pick a thing. And we'll talk about it with you. Absolutely. We'd love to have you.
01:23:29
Speaker
um But the second thing I would like to point out is we're going to do this until it stops being fun.
01:23:37
Speaker
ah Yes. An excellent point. Like, we're were're two friends who thought who thought this would be a fun idea, and so we're going to keep doing it until it stops being a fun idea.
01:23:49
Speaker
i we We reserve the right to pause if our life pause the updates if our lives become too, respectively, catastrophic. Right. And then possibly pick it up again a little later. Right. Or just unduly hectic. Like... attack like This is such an enormously stupid project that is going to require such a level of time commitment in many examples.
01:24:18
Speaker
ah We're going to be taking it. We're going to be trying to just keep having fun with it. yeah that's yeah Yeah. And when it stops being fun, well we might we might stop. And and then if if it did we decide it might be fun to pick it back up again, hell, we might pick it back up again.
01:24:33
Speaker
Who knows? I mean, um the the example I always use to try and describe that feeling is um you're you're going through your day. Maybe you're at work. Maybe you're out doing errands.
01:24:45
Speaker
And you think to yourself, when I get home, I'm going to do the dishes. And you feel really good about that that decision because maybe you've let them pile up and you need to get them done. And you've like, yeah, you know what?
01:24:57
Speaker
I'm going to get home and I'm going to do the dishes. And then you get a phone call or a text from somebody and says, hey, do the dishes. What's wrong with you? And then all of a sudden you don't want to do the dishes anymore.
01:25:09
Speaker
That is all that motivation. Go on zone. That is honestly a hundred percent the way my brain works. And so I have a feeling that if I am, uh, if, if I am pressured into doing a thing, it makes me want to do the thing less.
01:25:23
Speaker
Uh, it's called anxious avoidance and I have it. Um, boy, do I, so we will get there. Not to but not to mention it. Yeah, not to mention it's September now while we're recording this. Who knows when it's going to be actually released?
01:25:37
Speaker
But the Christmas season tends to be insane. Correct. forever For everyone. For us. So yeah, it's going to suck. ah So yes. Hopefully we'll have we will have enough of these banked up that we'll be able to play catch up here and there. Right. That's that's our ultimate goal.
01:25:53
Speaker
um Yeah. Is, you know, just to give ourselves a cushion before we start. um How long it takes us to demolish that cushion remains to be seen.
01:26:04
Speaker
um But otherwise, yeah, the whole idea is to go through the light the creative life of Orson Welles project by project and get as in-depth as a couple of nerds with microphones can, ah given the resources available to them, which is mostly...
01:26:26
Speaker
books and movies right and radio programs. I mean, and we're going to, we're going to use every, and thank God for the internet. Thank God for, we didn't mention it, but Wells net, I have a feeling is going to be a huge resource for us.
01:26:38
Speaker
Oh, invaluable. Yes.
Goals & Social Media Engagement
01:26:40
Speaker
Such an incredible resource. Like there there they're, they're, they're, the the amount of information they have assembled on Citizen Kane alone is enough to put any anyone else to shame. Like it's such an incredible resource. And, you know, I there we've got ideas for days of special podcasts, one off episodes, so much other fun shit to to to work on and talk about um that. Yeah.
01:27:05
Speaker
you know, we'll, we, we've got a lot to cover. We're going to be here for a while and we're going to take our time. We're not in any kind of a rush. And I hope you're not either because we're, we want to enjoy this and we want to enjoy this with you. Yeah.
01:27:18
Speaker
You're really holding out for history of the world. Part one. um It's going to be a while. 1981? Is that right? Yeah, that sounds right. I check my watch as I'm trying to remember years.
01:27:34
Speaker
ah Is there anything else we want to cover? I think that's all that I have. Anything else that you want to cover? Yeah. I think we we got the basics out of the way. um Why don't we...
01:27:45
Speaker
uh, do our respective plugs and then you can pass out homework for next episode. it Sounds good. So it's fresh in the students' minds before we say goodbye. go ahead Um, so, uh, Hope Lickner, um, you can find me on various forms of social media.
01:28:03
Speaker
Please don't. I really hate social media. Who knows? By the time this comes out, maybe I'll finally built my own fucking website. Otherwise Philly roller derby. Um, you can listen to my other podcasts that I do, uh, with, uh, with Bex, uh, called high on cartoons. Right now we're going through all of the 2017 duck tales. It's incredibly niche and we have fives of listeners.
01:28:26
Speaker
It rocks. I have a lot of fun with that. And then ah on and off, I have an ongoing, ah more sporadic podcast with ah Ella Cesare, where we ah go through everything that can cross our minds about The Matrix, another one of my hyper obsessions.
01:28:41
Speaker
And also, if I'm being real... partly inspiration for this podcast, which was, why don't I use a podcast that as an excuse to learn as much as I fucking can about this weird?
01:28:53
Speaker
The difference is I've been studying the matrix for 20 years. I have not been studying Orson Welles for 20 years. I got you. So way, way different knowledge bases for me there. ah But that's, that's, that's what I got.
01:29:07
Speaker
I am Stephen Foxworthy. You can find me on a couple of forms of social media at Chewy Walrus at the time of this recording. I'm mostly on Blue Sky and Instagram. Who knows what I'll be on later.
01:29:21
Speaker
um You can listen to my other podcast, the Disenfranchised Podcasts. ah where we talk, my friends, Brett Wright and Tucker and myself talk about movies that were supposed to get franchises and then didn't.
01:29:35
Speaker
ah We're currently entering our fifth season as we record this episode. ah Just recorded our third episode of season three, ah fourth, actually. So yeah, that's very, very fun. We're we're having a blast ah going into our fifth season. So ah that's a lot of fun. I also appear occasionally on the pod in the pendulum.
01:29:56
Speaker
podcast kind of the opposite of disenfranchised where they talk through every horror franchise uh one franchise and one movie at a time i am a frequent panelist on that show um and i'm a i'm the horror baby of the group so like everyone else has been into horror for all their lives and i've been into horror for less than a decade so that's kind of the role i fell on that show um And you can also buy my book, buy my book, buy my book.
01:30:25
Speaker
um My partner, Mandy Gossage, and I wrote a book called Check In, Check Out. You can purchase it on Amazon for Kindle or paperback. ah It is a book about it's basically the Hunger Games with 20 somethings in a hotel.
01:30:42
Speaker
um is is the essential premise of that. It's about a a group of relative strangers that are assembled in a hotel for a medical study only to realize that they've been drugged and have to kill their way out.
01:30:54
Speaker
um So that is what that is all about. um But yeah, in the meantime, you can also find ah the Wells U pod on right now. I think we are only on Instagram, Facebook and blue sky at Wells U pod.
01:31:07
Speaker
You can also shoot us an email at Wells U pod at gmail.com. If ah there's something you would like to say, if you want to compliment us, compliments only please. And thank you.
01:31:19
Speaker
And also if you're going to insult us, I want it to be the most eloquent fucking insult you can possibly come up with. I want it to be, I want you to use SAT words.
01:31:31
Speaker
I want you to get your point across as clearly as possible. And then I'll read those. Hope and I will read those on the podcast using our Orson Welles impressions.
01:31:42
Speaker
ah First episode promise. Stop doing on the book stop Stop doing those horrible impressions all the time. i don't understand why you do them. doesn't even She doesn't even sound anything like the brain.
01:31:55
Speaker
Jesus Christ. Yeah, it's going be a good time. It is. And also, what's gonna be a good time while you're on the internet, swing on by your podcatcher of choice, especially if it's Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Leave us a five-star rating
Impressions & First Episode Reflections
01:32:07
Speaker
and review so that we can try to take over the world quickly as possible. Take over the world.
01:32:14
Speaker
um but Yeah, or at least a very specific part of it. right just Right. Just the pod sphere, really. Same thing we do every night, Hope. Try to take over the pod Try to take over the pod sphere.
01:32:26
Speaker
Oh no, am I pinky? No. Gee, Olsen, what are we going to do tonight? um
01:32:35
Speaker
That, I think, honestly, we should do Pinky and the Brain both as Orson, both as our respective Orson impressions. The same thing we do every night, Pinky. We eat two steaks, an entire pineapple.
01:32:47
Speaker
And an entire fifth of scotch. ah A carafe of mashed potatoes. um Christ alive. Rosebud frozen peas full of green penis.
01:33:01
Speaker
Anyway, that is all we have for. We only went like a half an hour over this time. That's not bad. What is our homework for next week? Your homework for next week. Next week, um the tentative skip plan is to study the early years. Orson Welles, the early years. So basically recovering from his birth 1915 to when he leaves for Ireland 1931.
01:33:21
Speaker
Okay.
01:33:26
Speaker
ah So if I will be reading specifically from This is Orson Welles, The Road to Xanadu and ah Young Orson by ah Peter Bogdanovich, Orson Welles, Simon Callow and Patrick McGilligan.
01:33:40
Speaker
i will also be listening. I didn't talk about the audio books that I have, but I will also be listening to the early chapters of Barbara Leeming's biography on Orson Welles, which I do have on Audible. Friends, he
Podcast Homework & Conclusion
01:33:51
Speaker
keeps just pulling references out of nowhere. Oh, my God.
01:33:57
Speaker
Horrifying. i it's ah It's a sickness. um yeah a Fun in fact, if you stacked all of Stephen's Orson Welles collection end to end, you would die. um i will put it I will put the picture that I sent you up on our Instagram horrifying and probably put the same caption with it, ah which is it's called Research Ever Heard of It.
01:34:22
Speaker
Anyway. Absolutely mortifying. Okay, so the first 16 years of Orson's life. Correct. From birth to getting to Ireland. Yeah. We'll basically stop right as he's leaving for Ireland, and then and in a couple weeks, we'll or in a couple episodes, rather, we'll pick up with him in Ireland and basically how he lies his way into a professional Shakespeare company. Fucking...
01:34:46
Speaker
Legend right from the word fucking go. Fucking incredible. What a chance. This will also be the biggest chunk of time we cover in the space of one episode. Easily. Without question. Like nothing else will compare um to this. after Because after that, his creative life starts in earnest.
01:35:04
Speaker
Yes. So true truly. And to be truly insane, to be clear, and san and insane, insane. ah insane No, you had it right the first time. It's environmental you're good. That's my bedtime. Let's go. It is. And in fairness, there's a lot to cover on and the next episode. So that is what we're going to be covering.
01:35:22
Speaker
um We invite you to join us. That is your homework. That is the next on the syllabus. ah So until next time, ah class dismissed.