Spun Today with Tony Ortiz

In this episode I speak about a few things I left out of episode 244 of the Pod, related to how to format, copyright and distribute your own book. I also speak about taking part in the latest Twin Lights Ride in Highlands, NJ by Bike NY. I also speak about this summer's blockbuster film, Oppenheimer.

The Spun Today Podcast is a Podcast that is anchored in Writing, but unlimited in scope. Give it a whirl.

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Links referenced in this episode:

Check out my Short Story collection: Melted Cold – https://amzn.to/3LXeM8K

Where to Copyright your work: https://www.copyright.gov/registration/

Self-Publishing site for Amazon: https://kdp.amazon.com/

Scrivener: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/store/scrivener?tab=macOS

Vellum: https://store.vellum.pub/?via=joanna98

BikeNY Twin Lights Ride: https://www.bike.nyc/events/twin-lights-ride/

Oppenheimer: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15398776/

The Imitation Game: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2084970/

Keefe D on Him & Orlando Anderson Pulling Up to 2Pac's Car, Shots Fired (Part 14): https://youtu.be/x3uoB8zvLdI?si=r3JIsz0iNH_5DGsV

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Check out all the Spun Today Merch, and other ways to help support this show! https://www.spuntoday.com/support

Check out my Books

Make Way for You – Tips for getting out of your own way

FRACTAL – A Time Travel Tale

Melted Cold – A Collection of Short Stories

http://www.spuntoday.com/books/ (e-Book, Paperback & Hardcover are now available).

Fill out my Spun Today Questionnaire if you're passionate about your craft. I'll share your insight and motivation on the Podcast: http://www.spuntoday.com/questionnaire/

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Background Music: Autumn 2011 - Loxbeats

Outro Background Music: https://www.bensound.com

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Sound effects are credited to: http://www.freesfx.co.uk

Listen on: iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | Pocket Casts | Google Podcasts | YouTube | Website

In this episode I speak all about my journey in writing: Melted Cold, my first Short Story Collection. Listen to hear about how I came up with the ideas for each of the eight stories, what tips and tools I used for writing, editing and publishing. Who I used for cover design and who I used for editing. Also find out my roll out strategy, my marketing strategy and much, much more.

The Spun Today Podcast is a Podcast that is anchored in Writing, but unlimited in scope. Give it a whirl.

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Links referenced in this episode:

GET YOUR COPY TODAY! Melted Cold: A Collection of Short Stories https://amzn.to/48tRQri

Or via

https://www.spuntoday.com/books/meltedcold

Get your Podcast Started Today! https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=SPUN

(Use Promo code SPUN and get up to 2-months of free service!)

Check out all the Spun Today Merch, and other ways to help support this show! https://www.spuntoday.com/support

Check out my Books: Make Way for You – Tips for getting out of your own way

& FRACTAL – A Time Travel Tale

http://www.spuntoday.com/books/ (e-Book & Paperback are now available).

Fill out my Spun Today Questionnaire if you're passionate about your craft. I'll share your insight and motivation on the Podcast: http://www.spuntoday.com/questionnaire/

Shop on Amazon using this link, to support the Podcast: http://www.amazon.com//ref=as_sl_pc_tf_lc?&tag=sputod0c-20&camp=216797&creative=446321&linkCode=ur1&adid=104DDN7SG8A2HXW52TFB&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spuntoday.com%2Fcontact%2F

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Outro Background Music: https://www.bensound.com

Spun Today Logo by: https://www.naveendhanalak.com/

Sound effects are credited to: http://www.freesfx.co.uk

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In this episode I speak about watching two Broadway Musicals: MJ and Back to the Future! I also speak about watching the HBO series, Succession and wrap it up with another addition to our legendary segment "GOATs doing GOAT $hit" where we celebrate the true champions of greatness and highlight the phenomenal achievements of extraordinary individuals.

The Spun Today Podcast is a Podcast that is anchored in Writing, but unlimited in scope. Give it a whirl.

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Links referenced in this episode:

MJ the Musical: https://newyork.mjthemusical.com/

Michael Jackson - Dangerous Diary MTV 1992 HD: https://youtu.be/OWC5uPK93fE?si=MQpzBldf_k9gqxoO

Back to the Future the Musical: https://www.backtothefuturemusical.com/new-york/

Succession: https://www.hbo.com/succession/season-1

Rebirth of a Bad Boy: Diddy Explains Handing Over Publishing Rights & Reveals His 'Total Truth' https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/rebirth-of-a-bad-boy-diddy-explains-handing-over-publishing-rights-reveals-his-total-truth/ar-AA1gEX69

Get your Podcast Started Today! https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=SPUN

(Use Promo code SPUN and get up to 2-months of free service!)

Check out all the Spun Today Merch, and other ways to help support this show! https://www.spuntoday.com/support

Check out my Books: Make Way for You – Tips for getting out of your own way

& FRACTAL – A Time Travel Tale

http://www.spuntoday.com/books/ (e-Book & Paperback are now available).

Fill out my Spun Today Questionnaire if you're passionate about your craft. I'll share your insight and motivation on the Podcast: http://www.spuntoday.com/questionnaire/

Shop on Amazon using this link, to support the Podcast: http://www.amazon.com//ref=as_sl_pc_tf_lc?&tag=sputod0c-20&camp=216797&creative=446321&linkCode=ur1&adid=104DDN7SG8A2HXW52TFB&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spuntoday.com%2Fcontact%2F

Shop on iTunes using this link, to support the Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTop?genreId=38&id=27820&popId=42&uo=10

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Background Music: Autumn 2011 - Loxbeats

Outro Background Music: https://www.bensound.com

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Sound effects are credited to: http://www.freesfx.co.uk

Listen on: iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | Pocket Casts | Google Podcasts | YouTube | Website

[00:00:00] What up? What up, folks? What's going on? Welcome to the Spun Today podcast, the only podcast that is anchored in writing, but unlimited in scope. I'm your host, Tony Ortiz, and I appreciate you listening. This is episode 243 of the Spun Today podcast. And in this episode, I speak about two Broadway musicals,

which I can't believe I took this long to mention them,

especially for one in particular.

So definitely stay tuned for that. I also speak about

watching the Succession Series.

An HBO series that I was definitely late to, but had the added benefit of being late

in that it allowed me to binge the entire series.

And lastly, I wrap it up with another addition to our legendary segment goats doing goat shit where we celebrate the true champions of greatness and highlight the phenomenal achievements of extraordinary individuals.

Stay tuned for all that good stuff. But first I wanted to tell you [00:01:00] guys about a.

Quick way that you can help support the spun today podcast.

Your support is greatly appreciated.

Not only can it help out financially

to help keep the lights on in good old spun today studios,

but it definitely adds fuel to the motivational fire

that I rely on to continue putting out episodes. And even more importantly, finding time to write.

Nay, making time to write.

So thank you. Thank you. Thank you to each and one of you,

to each and every one of you

that have shown your support to date. And thank in advance to each of you that will show support in the future. Here is one quick way that you can help support the Spun Today podcast. Definitely stay tuned for the outro of the episode where I'll tell you about a bunch of other ways

that you can show your support. But here is one of those ways. And we'll jump right into the episode.

The first musical that I wanted to tell you guys about was

MJ, the [00:02:00] musical.

Here is the official synopsis. He's one of the greatest entertainers of all time. Now, Michael Jackson's unique and unparalleled artistry has finally arrived on Broadway in a brand new musical centered around the making of his 1992 dangerous world tour. And created by Tony award winning director, choreographer, Christopher And two time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage, MJ goes beyond the singular moves and signature sound of the star, offering a rare look at the creative mind and collaborative spirit that catapulted Jackson into legendary status.

I went to check this out with my best friend, Steven. Shout out to Steven's Spun Today alumni, who has been on the pod several times in the past. We thought it would be cool to check out.

You know,

kid touching and molestation and all that,

which has obviously [00:03:00] tarnished

Michael Jackson and how we view him,

all that aside.

And I know in and of itself, it's like a controversial topic where some folks are like, no, they're all 100 percent rumors and nothing like that ever happened. Nothing was ever proven in court. And then the other folks on the other side where say. You know, the rumors have been rumors for decades for a reason.

It's all true. It was even worse. I know the audience is split when it comes to that.

From an artistic body of work perspective, he's obviously, as the little synopsis says there,

one of the most legendary entertainers of all time.

Now from attending and, you know,

watching this musical,

And for someone who likes going to like Broadway plays and musicals and enjoys that

genre of art and acting and singing and stuff like that as a consumer, from that perspective, [00:04:00] we had a great time.

And Michael Jackson in his heyday, I was a kid for that, a little kid, but I obviously know his music and his body of work and I think you'd be hard pressed not to find. Or to find someone that wasn't aware

of any of it,

but I obviously never saw him live or anything like that

going to see this play, though, the way they did it,

you definitely get that experience, albeit at a much smaller scale, but you definitely get the, like, you feel you're watching Michael Jackson. That's how good of a performance, not just the Michael Jackson characters did with it.

But just the entire cast and the world that they built and created around it.

And from a storytelling perspective, it was interesting how they did it. Because it is this very, and I guess, makes sense. In terms of it being like a deliberate conscious [00:05:00] move to do it this way. So you don't have to bring in a lot of like the things we know about Michael now. The allegations and court cases and...

Drug abuse and, and stuff like that. So they didn't have to bring too much of that into the story because again, from a storytelling perspective, it's a very myopic focused view of

his time around

his 1992 dangerous world tour, which is his biggest tour ever. One of the biggest tours ever.

And it was chronicling, the buildup to that,

all the practice sessions.

And how he was as an artist

getting ready for that performance.

And in the play, there

is an MTV crew that was given access to chronicle this whole thing to do a,

a piece on, you know, this very much anticipated world tour,

which was based on true events that MTV [00:06:00] piece. Actually exists and I'll link to it in the episode notes for you guys to check out.

So we got to see this interesting view of. That MTV camera crew. Trying to put together their creative vision of this documentary. While also getting close enough. Access to Michael Jackson to see his inner workings and stuff like that and picking up on.

Certain things like.

The beginnings of his drug addictions, which we know now ultimately led to his death in that he had a private doctor giving him shots or like IVs of

trim butyral or something like that. I forget the exact medication name of what he ultimately died of, but it's

supposed to be a strong ass, sleep aid. And so much so that he was getting that shit [00:07:00] injected on a nightly basis just to be able to try to get some sleep.

And ultimately that's what he died of. And the doctor that was prescribing him the medication wanted him to go to jail for a few years and losing his medical license, I believe. But in the play, it shows him getting drugs from his manager or other folks like that were part of the stage team. I think it was his manager.

And you get some insight into the all too common story of,

you know, people in positions of power, whether it's in our music, politics, whatever, just having a circle of yes men and women around them that do what they want and don't really check them.

And we saw that through the lens of, again, the beginnings of his drug addiction. And we also saw that same

dynamic playing out with his financial team and how he wanted to pay for [00:08:00] this over the top

concert and do like never before happened things like him being shot out of not a cannon, but something that shoots, shoots him out and onto the stage and him running out of money. And then Pushing his accountant and his financial team to mortgage Neverland Ranch, where he lived just to continue funding this artistic vision that he had, even though all the

financial folks around him, lawyers, accountants, financial advisors

warned him against it, he still ultimately got his way, i. e. via these yes men.

So that was definitely interesting to see. They also showed.

A direct correlation between his

abusive childhood with how Joseph Jackson, the father was always depicted as, you know, being super, super hard stage dad, forcing them to practice [00:09:00] all the kids when they were the Jackson five for hours and hours on end, no breaks, didn't really have a childhood. You know, they had fame when they were young.

So they didn't have a, you know, especially Michael being the youngest. Of them, of the Jackson 5, or second youngest, I believe. But never really having a childhood, or traditional childhood.

They showed correlations of that, instilled hard work ethic.

And they kind of papered over the, physical abuse in the play. With how hard Michael Jackson was on his crew and the choreographers and everything. And the dance team around him and how they were all exhausted and he would force them to to work hours on end just like his dad did to him and kind of showing that

traumatic shift, trauma shift of, you know, him being the recipient of that and then dishing it out as he got older in the same exact way [00:10:00] and then seeing himself as, you know, becoming his father in that sense.

But the play did a great job in also showing different.

Stages within Michael Jackson's life,

they showed him as a child, you know, as a flashback scene, because the entire thing again takes place around

him working up to this dangerous world tour and being interviewed by the MTV crew

and them filming and interviewing him in between rehearsals, etc. But while they were interviewing him, he would flash back and tell stories of childhood, of his mother and his father, Jackson 5, transitioning, going solo. And you got to see different actors, which did a phenomenal job of playing Michael Jackson.

Now we did go on an off day, I think it was like a Tuesday or Wednesday. So every cast member, including Michael Jackson, wasn't necessarily the best.

Number ones, if you will. I believe the young Michael [00:11:00] was, but I don't believe the middle Michael that they showed as well as the older Michael Jackson that's being interviewed. I think he was also the understudy,

but I mean, these are all top tier phenomenal actors, right? All did an amazing job. And we got to hear all the hits, all Michael Jackson's hits, all Jackson five hits.

And it really did feel like a Michael Jackson concert experience

as a narrative choice. Again, it does seem to me to have been a deliberate choice to

tell this story from a specific

point in time. And in doing so not have to, or I guess they had the ability to paper over

all the negatives that we know of Michael, like the drug abuse and

child molestation allegations, so on and so forth.

So you definitely lose something historically. From that perspective, but as a piece of [00:12:00] entertainment,

we do wind up enjoying a shitload of music

and just how they put the musical together. It was definitely an entertaining watch. And I definitely recommend it. MJ the musical, check it out

back to the future. The musical,

if you guys know anything about me, I am a huge,

Back to the Future fan. I've spoken about the movie multiple times. I've highlighted how the screenplay for Back to the Future 1 is considered a perfect screenplay and I think it's taught in theater classes. It's my personal favorite trilogy of any genre, any movies, all time.

And I've also said, controversial to some, that

it's one of the rare occasions where the sequel, Back to the Future 2. is even better

than the first movie. And I know that's blasphemous for some folks to hear. And even I myself go back and forth [00:13:00] between that thought from time to time. But just from the creativity of it alone to delve back into the first movie through the second movie and find ways to tie

into the first movie, And make things that already existed within the first movie, make them that way because of the actions of the second movie, which was filmed and created. I think it was something like five years later.

It's just fucking amazing from, from that standpoint. And I'm such a fan that my debut novel fractal Available now, SpunToday. com forward slash books, so you can find all the links of all the different places where you can find it.

Back to the Future is an inspiration for

that story. It is a time travel tale, as I like to say.

Furthermore, I dedicated that book to my first [00:14:00] born Aiden, and

the quote, the very first quote after the dedication section of the book, is a quote. From back to the future, part one

from George McFly to Marty McFly,

stating, if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish absolutely anything

in him speaking to writing his first novel. So there's a complete tie in on multiple levels there. I fucking love it.

I literally have a life size replica of the hoverboard immediately to my left right now. That said, I signed up, or, like, I follow all the different Back to the Future fan pages, official, unofficial. And I saw months before that they were developing the musical.

I also subscribed to a bunch of different newsletters having to do with Back to the Future and the DMC newsletter, even from the DeLorean Motor Company. And

I signed up to be alerted when the pre sales went on, [00:15:00] and I bought these tickets months in advance, I think something like seven months in advance. That's how much I was anticipating going.

So I copped the tickets and my wife and I, shout out to Zoila, sponsored alum,

went to go see it and had an amazing time.

Being such a fan holding, I'm both holding the musical to a very high bar. I don't want them to fuck it up while at the same time being completely biased

and knowing that I'll find a way to love it some way or another.

So holding my love for the story. And the history of the film aside,

as much as is humanly possible and attempting to be objective,

I personally thought they knocked it out the park. Now they clearly didn't have, I'm not sure if Back to the Future, if it's old enough, I think it came out in 89, where the story itself is public domain or if they actually got

the rights to [00:16:00] retell the story in this format. Because I don't believe that

Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale were involved with the musical. I could be wrong, but I don't believe they were. And

I wonder if certain choices that they made throughout the musical had to do with not having the full rights, or if they had to do with just trying to retell the story on the stage.

Because although it was still very, very, very true to the original Back to the Future 1 film, which was another thing that I was curious about if they were going to try to encapsulate all three films within the musical, but it wasn't. It was just a retelling of the first one.

But everything is not, you know, word for word, verbatim, although it does have a lot of the same key scenes. But then... Certain other key, certain other key scenes. For example,

the famous skateboard [00:17:00] scene

in front of the diner, when Biff and his crew chase Marty and wind up crashing into the manure truck

and Marty's getting around the skateboard, they didn't redo that scene,

but in its place, they kind of extend the scene of the lunchroom where. Marty first confronts Biff,

you know, where they both kind of grab each other and make fists and they're about to punch each other, but then Strickland shows up and breaks it up, essentially.

And Biff tells him, why don't you make like a tree and, and get out of here. They elongated that scene instead and made that the chase scene and made it so that Biff was chasing Marty throughout the lunchroom. He was jumping over tables and hitting him with lunch trays and running through the school.

And they had an original musical number there. So they took certain liberties that way. I guess it was easier to do [00:18:00] it that way. If it wasn't a licensing issue or concern, it was easier, it must have been easier to put that together versus the actual skateboard scene and having multiple cars and etc.

But it was something that I was curious about.

It was kind of interactive in that, you know, like they had the enchantment on the the sea dance and during it

when Marvin Barry and the Starlighters are playing Earth Angel there were in the actual theater there was Bubbles, there was a bubble machine or something. There was bubbles going all throughout so we were in the first few rows and you know, we could swat the bubbles and that kind of built the atmosphere around around the whole thing And of course he did the Johnny B.

Good scene in terms of the cast, all phenomenal. The gentleman who plays doc killed it.

Oh, and that was another thing also, they did not do the, you know, terrorist Libyan terrorist [00:19:00] shooting scene,

which I guess to make it more PG they made it that doc was using the plutonium for the 1. 21 gigawatt reaction that he needs. Within the flux capacitor to make the time travel possible, but that he was using an old

radiation suit, which wasn't completely insulated. And that's how he wound up dying initially versus getting shot by the terrorists. But yeah, the gentleman who played doc amazing,

super funny, steals the show. The guy who plays Marty's spot on, did a great job. But the person who played

Crispin Glover's character of George McFly dead on balls accurate to quote Marissa Tomei fucking amazing spot on like they could reshoot back to the future drop this gentleman in place of [00:20:00] Kristen Crispin Glover who legend has it was like an absolute asshole on set and that's why he wasn't in part two or three, but.

Drop him into that role and you wouldn't tell the difference. He was amazing. Fucking awesome.

The guy who played Biff was really good. Really looked the part.

Which brings me to the number one star of the show. The DeLorean.

They did it so ill that it looked like an actual real DeLorean that was up there. I guess they just, you know, it's just like the outsides or whatever, but it really looked like an actual replica real DeLorean.

And it's obviously the moment that all the fans are anticipating the most, you know, when they first see the DeLorean,

which they did the big reveal and like the same same way at Twin Pines mall, [00:21:00] which then becomes Lone Pines mall at the end when Marty runs over. Old Man Peabody's

Pine Tree.

Symbolizing how the littlest change in the past could affect have a ripple effect on the future. But they did an amazing job with the car itself and then with the actual time travel sequence. So the theater, the decor of it, can't also, this is how it also immersed the, the crowd aside from the bubbles thing from, from earlier.

The decor. The balconies on the sides, on the left, on the left and the right, they were also part of the decor. Like there weren't

people sitting in the seats there.

Instead, they had this metal

widgets and circuitry spanning all of the balconies. And during the time travel sequence, like when Marty accidentally goes back to 1955, all those start lighting up in different [00:22:00] colors and it's reminiscent of the flux capacitor and the lights around the actual DeLorean, which they also show

and really immerse you and bring you into it in that way.

And then at the end, which was even more amazing because they could have just done that again. They

with like a crane or something, something you couldn't see, but some sort of lift, they lift up the DeLorean. For the scene where, you know, the clock tower scene when he's going back to the future. They lift up the DeLorean and push it forward into the crowd. So it's hovering above us almost.

Like above, the first couple rows. Not completely, but just enough for it to be off of the stage.

Can you imagine the fucking lawsuit that thing would have fallen or something? But obviously it was secure and it was just so ill the way they did it. And I couldn't have been happier with Back to the Future the musical. I definitely, definitely highly recommend.[00:23:00] If I have the chance to see it again, I definitely will.

Tickets should be a lot more reasonable now.

That's the only

issue I had with it. Although I was willing to pay, so whatever. But apparently it's not doing well, or as well as anticipated. And the. Ticket prices. I checked the day of for my same seat and it Was like 40 percent less in terms of the actual pricing

But that aside it was an amazing experience.

I Loved every bit of it. If you're back to the future fan as I am you will too Back to the future the musical Check it out

HBO's original series succession Is a series that ran from 2018 to 2023. Like I mentioned in the intro, I didn't start watching the series until 2023. Literally while the final season was, was airing. [00:24:00] So,

that came with the benefit of being able to binge it and see it all the way through.

But in terms of sharing some of my personal takeaways and tidbits here. It's it shows a bit out of the zeitgeist.

And some references might be dated, but we'll share them nonetheless for posterity.

Here is the official synopsis. The Roy family is known for controlling the biggest media and entertainment company in the world. However, their world changes when their father steps down from the company.

And as we like to do here on the Spun Today podcast, I wanted to shout out each and every one of the writers,

starting with the show's creator, Jesse Armstrong.

Followed by Jamie Carragher,

Susan Soon Hee Stanton, Alice Birch, Miriam Batty,

She a Batty, she knows she a 10.

Georgia Pritchett, Tony Roche, Nathan Elston, Callie Hirshaway, [00:25:00] John Brown, Will Tracy, Lucy Preble, Jonathan Glaser, Ted Cohen, Anna Jordan, Mary Laws, and Will Arbery. Shout out to each and every one of the writers on Succession who put together an amazing show.

And I particularly want to shout out the, the writers

in this particular series, because they took what

is the embodiment of quote unquote evil rich people,

you know, just like the vile

borderline sociopathic

Narcissistic archetype of, you know, the greedy, quote, unquote, greedy, rich people.

And they made us, the viewers,

through the strong characters that they created, that the writers created,

and that the actors, which were phenomenal, and I'll speak to it in a minute, brought to life.

They made us, as the audience, connect [00:26:00] with those characters, and in some cases, in a lot of cases, actually root for them to win.

Which, if you take a step back and look at the ruthlessness with how they

navigate the world with little to no care of who or how

they affected others.

When you look at it objectively through that lens, it's like, fuck these people.

But since they're developed so richly as characters, and it's such a character driven show in my opinion.

we still connect with them and root for them on a human level. And that I think is a testament again to just amazing writing. So shout out again to the writers there.

Now the cast absolutely killed it. Kieran Culkin is one of my favorite characters. He plays Roman Roy, the youngest of the four children.

Brian Cox is the matriarch, the Rupert Murdoch like character

who [00:27:00] created this Conglomerate multi billion dollar company.

He's just amazing.

Tom Wombs Gans played by Matthew McFadden. Such a cool character. Very selfish. It turns out as, as all of them have traits of selfishness, but he was in it for himself from the jump and. He plays possum throughout, so much so that he's married to Shiv Roy, the daughter, played by Sarah Snook, also does a great job,

but she's like a, you know, princess, always gets what she wants, kinda has the quote unquote trophy husband, cheats on him,

and he just takes it all, and his character is such that you hate him at first, so. because he's such a pushover and you're like yo stand up for yourself you fucking pussy

then you wind up rooting for [00:28:00] him then you wind up finding out that either he's been running a game the entire time or he just got caught up in it and began running a game somewhere along the line and became fed up great characters both in real life British I believe it's

a good job with the American accents there Same as Logan Logan Roy's character, Brian Cox.

And by British, that's just my dumb American interpretation of their accent. You know, it could be Australian, Zealand, or who knows.

Conroy, the eldest half brother played by Alan Ruck. Shout out to Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Really cool character. Shout out to the Conheads out there. Jeremy Strong. Not the eldest, but the eldest of the full siblings of the three, you know, Kieran Culkin's character, Sarah Snook's character, and himself, Kendall Roy.

He was the heir to the throne, if you will. And in the very [00:29:00] first episode, which sets the stage for the entire series,

the first half of the episode is him going through

The process of getting ready to take over the company because the father had announced his retirement. He was gonna step down Kendall Roy is gonna take over and in that very first episode the father winds up Literally fucking him over and saying nah, I changed my mind. He's like, wait, what my You changed your mind.

I'm supposed to take over next week. He was like now let's give it a couple more years I decided to stay on He was like, but we announced it to the world and the, you know, it's a publicly traded company and the stock and this and that and blah blah blah. He was like, yeah, that's all bullshit. Don't worry about it.

And you have this tension within the family always throughout the entire series of the son trying to take over from the father, the father trying to maintain control, the father getting sick, the other siblings trying to vie for control,

sometimes being on the same page with each other, most of the time not, and just like this complete [00:30:00] dysfunction.

And it was such an interesting, family dynamic

that really keeps you hooked. I also thought it was particularly interesting the way that the show was shot. And I got this from some of the, not behind the scenes, but the extras of the show where they, you know, interview different characters and they also have a podcast, et cetera. So I don't remember if it's from one of the extras or from the actual podcast, but

one of the directors, I think the main one Mark Millard. Maybe it was Jesse Armstrong, the creator of the show, but they were breaking down how they shot in a way where they zoom in to the actual characters for emotional exclamation points. So they called it. And you notice that throughout the entire series where they'll, you know, they'll shoot a scene and then.

For the character reaction, they'll zoom in to the character's face, which is pretty interesting. And he also mentioned that on set, they [00:31:00] always kept live cameras around so that the art, the actors themselves, they didn't know when they were being shot or not. So it forced them essentially to stay in character.

And he likened it to filming theater, similar to when you go see a play. How all the characters, as long as they're on stage, they're in character, you know, that whether they're the main focus of a scene or not, or a background character, they're always doing something. They're always on, if you will,

then I'm going to jump to in season two, episode 10, I jetted down here. There was a dope line that Logan Roy said again, the matriarch of the family played by Brian Cox,

and he was speaking to money and wealth and how most things don't exist. Or companies rather. And he said that the Ford motor company hardly exists. He said that it's just a time saving expression for a collection of financial [00:32:00] interests. Again, all the Ford motor company was to this psychopath was

just a time saving expression for a collection of financial interests. I thought that was such an interesting way, such a financially motivated lens to view the world through.

And I just love the way that was phrased. All the four Ford Motor Company is, is just a time saving expression for a collection of financial interests. Jesus.

There's a lot of double crossing in the show the siblings with each other, the father to the, to the kids, the kids to the father.

There's a point in the season two finale where you think Kendall is going to rise to the occasion and, you know, be the

heir to the throne that the father, [00:33:00] you know, wants him to be, that is grooming him to be. But he winds up double crossing his father again,

as he did multiple times throughout the series.

And I thought it was interesting that he had a lot of ups and downs, you know, he had addiction issues in the show. They reference all the time that he had a stint in rehab.

And just from a mindset perspective, he was always

either completely out of it and crying and in the dumps or completely manic and on the fucking ball.

He reminded me a lot of Kanye. And or the public version of Kanye that we've been seeing in. You know, recent news and media cycles and all the drama around the Kardashians and all that shit and his manic episodes. That's what he was reminiscent of to me.

I loved the relationship between two main characters, both outsiders of the family in their own right,

which was Tom Wamskantz, which I [00:34:00] mentioned earlier, which was the husband of the daughter, Shiv Roy. His relationship with Greg Hirsch, played by Nicholas Braun, which is a second cousin, extended cousin to the family that they barely know, but that works his way into the fold and

Tom brings him under his wing kind of because he sees himself in, in Greg in some ways, you know, being an outsider of the family, but also because he wants to have someone to have power over.

And he finally found someone lower than him on the totem pole, if you will, within this family structure.

And they just have a back and forth, funny, quippy, really interesting dynamic throughout the entire series.

And I'll wrap it up with a, a line of dialogue from Alan Ruck's character, Connor Roy, when it spoiler alert, this happened in season four, episode seven. But Connor, who

decides to run for president, out of all things, of the [00:35:00] United States, and Kieran Culkin's character, Roman Roy, hilariously tells him, don't you think you should try

for something smaller first? You know, maybe like running a CVS or something? But Connor gets himself in a position where... essentially his actual, you know, the two rivals for, for president, the Democrat and the Republican running, they're neck and neck, like razor sharp, you know,

49 percent to 49 percent margins. And Connor is

polling at like 1 percent or something like that. It's something, something sick that pretty much put him in a position to make a deal with one of the other guys where he would drop out of the race and His supporters would vote for that person, and that person would essentially become the, the president.

And he's trying to see what he can get, you know, what position he could get from the person that would ultimately win. And one of them offers him to be the diplomat of Alman, which is a [00:36:00] country that I had never heard of.

And he tells him that it's an interesting thought. He'll, he'll definitely mull it over. And that Oman is

the poor man's Saudi Arabia and the rich man's Yemen.

And again, I just thought what an interesting way to view the world and view things. But yeah, yo succession dope show. I definitely recommend you guys check it out if you're into that type of thing. It's supposed to be loosely based on Rupert Murdoch and you know, Fox news, that type of

billion dollar conglomerate company and the tension and dynamics. Within his children, for example Rupert Murdoch, I think I've spoken about here on the past. One of them is like liberal, liberal leaning, which is kind of like Shiv's character in succession. And the other one is very conservative.

Then they're both vying for succession of Fox, for example. So this show is loosely based on that, or at the very least, it's like one of those are imitates life imitates art type of things. [00:37:00] But that is my little recap and review on Succession, streaming now on HBO Max. Check it out. Goat

doing goat shit.

And I want to create a drop for, specific to this segment of the podcast because it is a recurring one. And I have some things that I've been tinkering with and working on. But speaking it aloud to see if I can hold myself to task because I've been meaning to do that, , forever. I just haven't gotten around to it, but the goats doing goat shit segment is a segment where I like to celebrate the true champions of greatness and highlight the phenomenal achievements of extraordinary individuals, especially when they do things that they do not have to do.

And in this episode's

edition of goats doing goat shit, I'd like to welcome

none other Then Sean P. Diddy Combs to the list.

Now, for the longest time,

and still, [00:38:00] Puffy is known as being a ruthless businessman, if you will. Someone who

hustled and busted his ass and built and created bad boy entertainment,

which has brought us countless acts and

music that we all love to this day.

And many, many artists,

but one thing that he did in building his empire from the ground up was recreate the, what some may say myself included, archaic,

traditional,

let's call them music artist deals, where the label that signs an artist winds up owning their publishing their masters, essentially making the lion's share of the money that is to be made from the art created by the actual artist. And the artist is often times in doing this type of bad business

left fending for scraps.

And music artists, [00:39:00] historically, this has happened to across different genres since the beginning of time.

Some but few and far between have had more savvy, you know, teams and lawyers and sound financial advice around them

and just the foresight of ownership. of your creation, being able to reap the benefits of it in perpetuity versus, you know, taking a bigger bag up front, but then never being able to profit from it down the line.

So that's definitely been the biggest knock, in my opinion, on, on Puffy over the years in this respect. As of September of 2023, it became public that

Puffy was returning his publishing rights. Which, by the way, he did not legally have to do.

Returning the publishing rights to the artists and songwriters

that helped him build Bad Boy Entertainment.

Folks like Ma$e, which was the most vocal, [00:40:00] and actually recently dropped, and by recently I mean within the last year or two, diss tracks and

did a lot of interviews and references to all of this, which are actually pretty good.

Faith, The Locks, which is another vocal components of, you know, Puffy's business practices, 112, and the estate of Biggie, the Notorious B. I. G. They are all getting, or have gotten, their publishing back because the paperwork and agreements have all been signed and are actually finalized. And according to Puffy, in an interview that he gave to Billboard.

He had a lot of offers back in like 2021 when, you know, like folks like Justin Timberlake and Shakira and a lot of folks were selling their, their publishing, their, their catalogs for like a hundred million dollars, $300 million, et cetera. He got an offer, an alleged nine figure [00:41:00] offer. To purchase his catalog, which included all the publishing that he owned, owned legally from all these artists.

And that's when he supposedly decided to not sell and

give the publishing back to the respective artists.

It just took a lot of time between then and now to actually execute the

legal documentation, etc.

But I thought that was a dope move. It wasn't something that he had to legally do. Did Puffy make, over the decades, a shitload of money off everybody's catalog? Yes, of course he did. Was he legally correct to do so? Yes, he was. Whether it was ethical or moral or not, and hypocritical in some sense,

those are all valid criticisms in my opinion, but he wasn't technically or legally... it wasn't something he had to do. So I definitely applaud him for doing [00:42:00] so. I'm always of the mentality of just own your shit and be of the mindset that if someone, a publishing company, a label, if you're in music, a publishing company, if you're in, you know, writing or creating different types of art, a platform, et cetera, if they're coming to you with a bag, To purchase outright, whatever it is that you created big bag, small bag, whatever.

They would also pay you for just licensing it. It'll be a smaller bag,

but in my opinion, and I'm not the fucking Messiah here, but in my opinion, if you're offering me a big bag to just own my shit outright, it's because you from a financial standpoint, believe that you're going to make that money back and more over time. So it would also be a sound business move from your perspective to license [00:43:00] it for a smaller bag for a shorter period of time, because you will also make your money back within that shorter period of time.

And then some, and in that type of scenario, you keep your shit then afterwards, license it out to someone else, make money off of it yourself, maintain the ownership. So you could do whatever it is that you want with it in the future. Turn your book into a movie, turn it into a TV series after that, do both at the same time, turn it into a fucking VR

spectacle that hasn't even been created yet, but will exist in 10, 15 years. And since you have the ownership of your IP, you could do that instead of handing it over for a bit bigger bag now, and then the company that purchased it from you. Maintains that ability moving forward. So

again, with that said, I'd like to welcome Sean P. Diddy Combs officially onto the Spuntoday goats doing goat shit list.

[00:44:00] And that folks was episode 243 of the Spuntoday podcast.

Thank each and every one of you very much for listening. I really, really appreciate it.

Before I let you go, just wanted to tell you guys about a Few quick ways that you can help support the spun today podcast. If you so choose,

you continue support is amazing. I appreciate it very, very much.

Whether you're using my affiliate link to shop on Amazon, which you can find that spun today. com forward slash support, or you're buying t shirts or coffee mugs or my books sponsored. com forward slash books, or using any of my affiliate links that all can be found that spun today. com forward slash support.

Which will get you a discount on whatever said thing that it is that you're looking for that I have an affiliate link for. Whichever way you choose to support, it means a ton. I really, really appreciate it and just wanted to say thank you.

Here's a breakdown of a few of the different ways you can help support the [00:45:00] Spun Today podcast if you so choose.

And I'll check you all out next time. Peace.

In this special edition episode of the Spun Today Podcast, you'll hear a collection of firsthand experiences, from New Yorkers that lived through the events of 9/11. Memories are fleeting and have a way of fading away into a once-upon-a-time haze that we seldom revisit and when we do, they just seem like surreal experiences. I think that an important component to history not repeating itself, is continuing to share and speak about our learned experiences. Where were you during the events of 9/11?

Special thanks to: Jacey Rosa, to my Father Segundo Ortiz, to David Ortiz, Janet Velez, Yudy Azurdia, Raul Azurdia, Zoila Ortiz, Elaine Almonte & Steven Almonte.

*Original Release Date: 09/07/2017*

The Spun Today Podcast is anchored in Writing, but unlimited in scope. Give it a whirl.

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Links referenced in this episode:

9/11: TIMELINE OF EVENTS: http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-timeline

George W. Bush The Night of 9-11-01: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbqCquDl4k4

Angel in the Rubble: The Miraculous Rescue of 9/11's Last Survivor: https://www.amazon.com/Angel-Rubble-Miraculous-Rescue-Survivor/dp/1451635206/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1504562087&sr=8-1&keywords=angel+in+the+rubble

Elaine Almonte's Facebook Post: https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10100795821199994&id=26304929&set=a.836445090434.2248017.26304929

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& FRACTAL – A Time Travel Tale

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Welcome back to another episode of Spun Today! I'm your host, Tony Ortiz, and we have a jam-packed show for you today. We'll be diving into the world of UFOs and government cover-ups, talking about the latest John Wick installment, and saying farewell to a beloved podcast. But first, I want to thank our amazing listeners for their support. If you're enjoying the show, there are multiple ways you can show your support, from buying merchandise on our website to becoming a patron. And don't forget to leave us a rating and review - we love hearing from you!

Now, let's jump right in. We'll be discussing the recent congressional hearings on UFOs and the startling revelations brought forth by credible witnesses. You'll hear excerpts from none other than Congressman Matt Gaetz, who has been at the forefront of these investigations. You won't want to miss this eye-opening conversation.

Next, we'll dive into the world of cinema as we review the highly anticipated John Wick 4.

We'll also be bidding a bittersweet farewell to Ari Shaffir's Skeptic Tank. As a fellow podcaster, I'll be sharing my thoughts on the impact this show has had on the comedy landscape and why it will be missed.

But that's not all! We'll also be taking a trip down memory lane as I recount my recent bike tour in the stunning Hudson Valley. I'll share my experiences on the trail, from the challenges I faced to the amazing support I received from Bike New York.

So grab your headphones and get ready for a mind-bending, action-packed episode of the Spun Today Podcast. But before we dive in, I want to remind you to visit our website for some fantastic deals on merchandise, including t-shirts and a limited edition Spun Today coffee mug. And don't forget to check out my writing, including my books "Make Way For You" and "Fractal." Your support means the world to me. Now, let's get this episode started!

The Spun Today Podcast is a Podcast that is anchored in Writing, but unlimited in scope. Give it a whirl.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/spuntoday

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Links referenced in this episode:

Bike New York Hudson Valley Ride: https://www.bike.nyc/events/discover-hudson-valley-ride/

House holds hearing on UFOs, government transparency | full video https://www.youtube.com/live/SNgoul4vyDM?si=3LIU1a4iiLC61o1o

U.S. recovered non-human 'biologics' from UFO crash sites, former intel official says https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190390376/ufo-hearing-non-human-biologics-uaps

Blink-182's Tom DeLonge Discusses Congress' UFO Hearings on Social Media https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/celebrity/blink-182-s-tom-delonge-discusses-congress-ufo-hearings-on-social-media/ar-AA1fzRyc

John Wick: Chapter 4 - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10366206/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt

Goodbye Ari Shaffir's Skeptic Tank Podcast https://youtu.be/4qMmIAdCosM?si=3zwJjut0q6hURBkK

Ari Shaffir's Skeptic Tank: YouTube • Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Patreon

Get your Podcast Started Today! https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=SPUN

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Check out my Books: Make Way for You – Tips for getting out of your own way

& FRACTAL – A Time Travel Tale

http://www.spuntoday.com/books/ (e-Book & Paperback are now available).

Fill out my Spun Today Questionnaire if you're passionate about your craft. I'll share your insight and motivation on the Podcast: http://www.spuntoday.com/questionnaire/

Shop on Amazon using this link, to support the Podcast: http://www.amazon.com//ref=as_sl_pc_tf_lc?&tag=sputod0c-20&camp=216797&creative=446321&linkCode=ur1&adid=104DDN7SG8A2HXW52TFB&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spuntoday.com%2Fcontact%2F

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[00:13:05] Completed 30-mile bike tour, signed up for another ride. Whistleblowers testify about government cover-up of UFOs.

[00:28:47] "Conspiracy theories and unanswered questions in congressional hearing on UFOs."

[00:52:13] Ari Shafir cancels popular podcast, disappoints fans.

[00:59:56] Behind the scenes of Ari Shafir's podcast.

Tony [00:00:18]:

What up? What up, folks? What's going on? Welcome to the Spun Today podcast, the only podcast that is anchored in writing, but unlimited and scope. I'm your host, Tony Ortiz, and I appreciate you listening. In this episode, I speak about my Hudson Valley Bike Tour experience, which I completely forgot to tell you guys about a few episodes back. I also speak about the latest congressional hearing on UFOs. I also speak about watching John Wick Four. And lastly, wrap up by saying goodbye to Ari Shafir's Skeptic Tank podcast. Stick around for all that good stuff. But first, I wanted to tell you all about a way that you can help support this podcast if you so choose. Your support really means a lot. It helps me keep the lights on in the proverbial Spontane studios and really does help motivate me to continue doing what I love, which is putting out more episodes, more content, and making even more time to write. So again, thank each and every one of you that have already shown your support in some way, shape, or form, even if it's just by listening to the pod itself. If you want to take your support one step further, here is one quick way that you can do just that. Then we'll jump right into the episode. Do you want to start your own podcast? Have a great show idea that you want to get out into the masses but don't know quite how to get it from your head out into the world? Well, here's how. Use the podcast host Lipsin. That's who I use to bring the Spun Today podcast to you. And now you can use them the same way. Using the promo code Spun S-P-U-N. You can open up your Lipsyn account today and get two months of free podcast hosting. Here's how it works. Once you record your show, you upload it to your Lipsyn account, where you can fill in your episode notes, upload your podcast art, and schedule when you want your episodes to release. Once you do that, Lipsyn will take care of the rest. They'll distribute your show to Spotify, Apple podcasts, YouTube, and all the other podcasters that you choose instantaneously and Seamlessly. Again, go to Lipsin.com and use the promo code Spun spun to get two months free. Or use the affiliate link that's in the episode notes. Again. That's Lipsin.com promo code spun. Take that great podcast idea from out of your head and put it out into the world. The Hudson Valley Bike tour in 2023, sponsored by the good folks over at Bike New York. Now. I've done the Hudson Valley bike tour a couple times in the past. First time with my brother. Shout out to David Spun today, Alum, as well as with my friend Pablo. Shout out to Pablo. Also spun today. Alum. It was actually the very first Bike Tour marathon that I ever got involved in that I ever did and I think I've told the story here in the podcast, but just a quick recap of that one. I think it was back in 2012. I want to say maybe 2013, but I think 2012 and I just got my bike. I wanted to get into riding. I went out to train with my brother and Pablo, who were already into cycling. A couple of times I went out with them, but I didn't take it seriously. At the time, I was dating my girlfriend, now wife Zoila. At the time I was dating my girlfriend and now wife Zoila. Shout out to Zoila. Also spontanerella. And we were actually in a long distance relationship. I lived in New York and she was living in Massachusetts at the time. So what we would do is every weekend we would alternate, either she would come down to New York or I would go up to Massachusetts. The weekends is when David and Pablo would go training for this Hudson Valley Bike Tour that we signed up for. So I did happen to go with them a couple times, literally probably like twice, but didn't do much training at all and spent the time instead chilling with my girl. I figured I would just will myself through it, will myself through the marathon, which we signed up for the 55 miles version of the Tour. Long story short, my brother and Pablo finished hours before me in the middle of, or at least when I was in the middle of the Tour. We all got alerts on our phones of a monsoon or tornado warning or some shit like that in the area, and it just started pouring rain. So literally for 15, 20 miles, plus it was just pouring rain nonstop. So I had to deal with that. Plus the fact that, again, I was completely out of cycling shape and hours behind everyone else by the time I finished, which I actually did finish. The folks at Bike New York, which again sponsor and put together these events, they were breaking down the Finish Line Festival, which lasts again hours after the entire race is completed and is filled with food and booze and music and stuff like that for people to just wind down and chill after the race. They were literally breaking everything down, like the tents and food stations and all that, by the time I finally crossed the finish line. So that's my experience with the very first Hudson Valley Tour that I did then I did it once after that. I think 2019 ish I think it was the last Tour I did before the Pandemic, where we took a few years off and I did that one with Pablo, went a lot smoother. We actually signed up for the 30 miles one, which leads me to 2023. So the way it works is that you have the option to sign up for one of four paths, if you will, or course lengths rather you can sign up for a 15 miles run, a 30 miles run, a 55 miles run, or a hundred mile run. I think this is a 75 miles run option, actually. Or I might be misremembering that. I think it's 1530, 55 and 100 the century mile run, which will never see me on it. So 2019, we did the 30 miles. This year, in 2023, we signed up for the same. And if you guys remember, I signed up for the five borough last year. And when we were literally about to head to the event, I realized both my tires were completely flat for some reason, and they just wouldn't take air no matter what we did. And instead of going all the way there hoping that there were, like, an open bike shop or that they could fix my issue, we bitched out and didn't do the five borough. Similarly, for this latest Hudson Valley 2023 tour, I checked my bike the night before, and I had a flat tire. I was like, what the fuck? I had just a week before, the weekend before, picked it up from getting a full tune up. So the bike should be in as pristine condition as possible. So I checked my bike the night before, see that? It has a flat in the bike room of my building. It has one of those electric air pumps for all the bikes. I fill it up, like, all right, I'm good. Good thing I checked. So tomorrow, I just got to wake up, grab my bike, and bounce. The next morning, flat tire again. I'm like, what the fuck? I'm literally thinking, someone in my building's fucking with me or something. I'm thinking my tire. What is going on? I fill it up again, take my bike, load it up to the bike racks, we head out to Hudson Valley. It's about an hour and a half, 2 hours away from us. We get there, park the car, grab my bike, flat tire again. What the fuck? And we're already there. I'm like, fuck it. Let's just walk over there and see if there's a bike fixing station, thankfully. And again, shout out to the good folks at Bike New York and Trek, which actually had a bike fixing station set up there. And there were a few people online waited my turn, and basically they replaced the tube of the tire. They said the tube was actually fine. They found some shards within the rim itself, which seemed to be every time I would fill it up, it would stay full. But once I would park the bike and let it sit for a while, those little shards would empty the air very, very slowly. Which was the other interesting thing, because this continually kept happening. But only after I would park the bike, I could ride the bike, fill it up with air, ride the bike for 1015 20 miles while we were training, and it would be fine. But then after I parked the bike, the next day would be empty. So it was only when it sat. So I was good for the race, for the marathon, rather. And we got going. It was a nice run. It was super hot. Hudson Valley is very hilly, which while I was doing it, reminded me why I had this false memory of I liked it more than doing the five borough. Although the five borough is dope because it's like you get to ride through all five boroughs, streets, tunnels, bridges that are all close to traffic. So you get to see different parts of the city in that way. But then you have to cross the Verizono Bridge at the end, which is a bitch. Such a long, steep incline. And the Hudson Valley is different in that one. It's not close to traffic. So you are in streets and stuff like that with traffic. But it's Hudson Valley. It's not as populated as New York City, for example. And it's very scenic, a lot of greenery. You do cross a bridge, at least one. You ride through a park for a long length of it, but you're also in streets and it's very hilly. You have a lot of hills, a lot of ups and downs. Ups and downs, ups and downs. Not as long as, for example, the Verdel Bridge, but there's just so many of them. So while I was doing, I was reminded of not liking Hudson Valley then. So remember I signed up for the 30 miles one this time. Again, I'm at around mile 25, maybe 26 ish having a tough time, tired. I had trained for it, but just tired. Fucking dealing with all the hills. It's super hot and humid. But I'm close to the end, right? It's like 25, 26 miles in. And then my fucking quad tightens up on both my legs at first. So I have to get off the bike. It has happened to me before. So if it hasn't happened to you before, I'll try to describe it. It's picture the way your knees lock, or like your elbows lock if you stretch them out and you just lock them in place. Picture your quad, the muscle on your quad, right? So your thighs, the top of your thighs. Picture those locking and tightening up, which then makes your leg straighten out. And you can't bend it because it's locked in place, your quad. So I have to get off the bike and literally with my hand rubbing the muscle, just rubbing it, rubbing it, punching it, trying to get it to unlock. Like yo. Let's go. What the fuck? It's such a weird, uncomfortable feeling. And it happens from muscle exhaustion. Usually, though, after you could walk it off, you could rub it out. And you see people while you're riding going through the same thing. They pull over to the sides, take a breather. It happened to me, actually, my first time doing the Hudson Valley in that 55 miles run happened to me multiple times. And it was scary because I didn't know what the fuck it was. This time I knew what it was, but I was just so done. I had thought about quitting, like, 10 miles before and just dealing with hill after hill after hill, up and down, up and down, up and down, and no excuses. I completely bitched out. I'm three to 4 miles away from the finish line. My quads tightened up. It's not know. I try for a while, not loosening up. So I physically couldn't ride. And I wound up calling in reinforcements. Shout out again to the good folks at Bike New York. They do give you the option. If you get hurt, if you get sick or anything like that, you can call the coordinators of the event, and they'll send a van or something to pick you up and take you the rest of the way, which ultimately is what I wound up doing. And it's after I made the call, I had to wait probably ten minutes or so after making the call, 1015 minutes. So I'm there. I'm still rubbing it out, starting to feel better. I'm like, fuck, I think I can make it now. But I had already called them. Some people riding by, and the cycling community is pretty cool in that they look out for each other. Everybody that passed by were like, oh, you're okay? You good? You need anything? And give me words of encouragement to each other. One dude passed by. He was like, dance. Got to be near, bro. We're close by. I think it's just over that one more hill and that's it. The rest is, like, downhill from here. But I had already bitched out. I had called, the car was on the way, and I even text with the person. They told me to text them my location, told them, should I bike a little bit and then let them know where I'm at when they get closer? Should I try to go a little bit more? And they said, no, just stay where you're at, because that's the direction that we gave them. So, yeah, I did that.

Tony [00:13:04]:

Stood in place.

If I had signed up for the 15 miles one, I would have been done with the Tour. 10 miles before, 11 miles before. Which is, again, not an excuse, but yeah, they picked me up, drove me the other three or 4 miles to the end. I cycled down to the Finnish Festival, and there you get to listen to live music, grab a beer, get some food, you get your finishing medal, which, again, had I signed up for the 15 miles one and bitched out before, the 15 miles I would feel bad about having. But if folks get it for the 15 miles, I'm definitely getting it for my 26 point whatever miles that I completed of the 30 and you also get a finishing T shirt and yeah, just relax for a while. Taking the lake, taking the bridge, the views, and it was ultimately a good time. And lastly, we signed up for a second ride this year, which we have never done before. We normally are like one and done for the year. We train up for a couple months prior to either the Hudson Valley or the five borough, and then we're done with riding until next year's season. But this year we opted into doing a second run. It's called the Twin Lights ride. It's in New Jersey, so definitely don't expect it to be as hilly as the Hudson Valley, although I've never done it before. But it's in Jersey and we'll definitely see. And we're doing another 30 miles there. So we'll definitely keep you folks posted on that after it happens. So far, as of this recording, in the end of August, after the Hudson Valley, I've only trained one more time. I think we did, I want to say 15 miles. 15 miles or maybe a 20 miles. 15 to 20 miles. So hoping to get at least two more training sessions in prior to the Twin Lights Ride, which again is October 1, but we shall see. We'll keep you guys posted. And that, folks, was my Hudson Valley 2023 tour experience. Congressional hearings on UFOs. On July 26, 2023, three military veterans testified as whistleblowers in front of Congress to blow the lid off of the government's secrecy and cover up when it comes to UFOs and alien life on other planets. And it was must see TV. Now, I don't know where you guys fall on the spectrum of do you think that we humans know the other species here on Earth are alone in the entire universe in existence or not? Me personally, I don't think we are. To quote Carl Sagan and Movie Contact, for example, where they re quote him, it would be an awful waste of space if we were alone. Do I know for sure? Can I point to some concrete evidence or proof that we're not alone? Of course not. I don't think any of us can. Hence the question, hence the allure of the topic of the subject. But I love this type of shit and have always been intrigued by it and not just the conspiratorial side, know, space and alien life and stuff like that. I just mean space stuff in general, whether it's Elon and what he's doing with SpaceX and changing the game in that realm, whether it's NASA, whether it's Neil degrasse Tyson and StarTalk radio Hubble's telescope images and so on and so forth. I'm just fascinated by it all. So when these three gentlemen testified and they aired it, it was an absolute treat for me. Now, for those of you who don't know, the three whistleblowers were again three military veterans, starting with Ryan Graves, which was the executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace. Then we have retired Air Force Major David Grush. He was the main guy in this the main whistleblower here. And then we have retired Navy Commander David Fraver, which he, of the three is the only one that I knew of. He had been on Rogan's podcast. He had been on like Spreedman's podcast. He was the Navy pilot who famously was behind the Tic TAC footage video that exists that I'll link to in the episode notes, if you guys are interested in checking it out. But it was essentially he was flying his jet on a training mission, and they see this Tic TAC like device or something flying, I forget, 100, 200 yards away or something like that. And it's doing shit like going from 60,000 miles in the air or feet in the air rather, to 1ft above the water in a matter of seconds. Like things that defy what our known technology is capable of, with no signs of propulsion, et cetera, going super fast. And he was able to lock his radar, I think is the proper terminology there, although don't quote me on that, but he was able to lock into it and track its speed and its movement. Although he couldn't physically keep up with it, he was able to do so through the technology available on his jet. And that footage was released to the public some years back. I think it's from 2014 or something like that. And it's like one of those Holy Grail type of pieces of evidence that folks that are like the we're definitely not alone, aliens exist. 100% folks. That's something that they always point to. So I knew of him. I did not know of the other two gentlemen I saw before watching, because I actually watched the entire it's two plus hours, two and a half hours plus of testimony in front of Congress. And I watched the entire thing. But before I did, I saw just clips of it online, on Instagram, on Twitter. And the main whistleblower, David Grush, honestly, based on the clips, just seemed like, for lack of a better word, whacked out. I was like, this guy just looks crazy. Something about him or the way he's answering things in, at least in these clips, I don't believe a word of what he's saying. Now, when you watch the entire thing in full context, he actually comes off as very poised, super knowledgeable and credible. Now that's just obviously I don't know for sure that's just maybe it's my bias, maybe it's wishful thinking, but that was my gauge of him after watching the full congressional hearing in its full context. I think one of the ways to know for sure if he's full of shit or not is if there's any follow up to many of the promises he made. Or promises might not be the right word, but the offerings he made during his testimony to the members of Congress, which was to provide additional information, specific names, specific proofs, but only under something called a skiff or skiff conditions. My understanding of what a Skiff is is that for highly sensitive matters or something like that, a Skiff is a room that's designed to block out any and all recording devices, electronics, phones, computers. Nothing is allowed in the Skiff itself. And he said in that type of top secret, secure setting, he would give them answers to some of the questions that they were asking, which he said, by military standards and protocol, he could not give publicly in a setting like this, which was the public congressional hearing, which was fascinating. But yeah, if he came through with all those things, then I think that just adds an additional layer of credibility to him and everything that he was alleging in the public hearings. Now, let me just get a couple of other fun things out of the way before I get into some more important takeaways. In my opinion. Not that the fun stuff is unimportant or anything, but you'll see what I mean. So first thing is shout out to Jeremy Corbell, which was sitting right there on the front row, right behind the whistleblowers. Jeremy Corbell, for those of you who don't know, is the leading researcher and investigator and documentarian of all extraterrestrial government cover up, UFO, et cetera, related stuff. And by leading, I mean my opinion, and one of the most credible and actually has journalistic integrity and site sources and famously did the Bob Lazar documentary, which is a good one for you guys to check out, so on and so forth. But, yeah, he was there in the front row. Definitely cool to see him there. Something hilarious was that Tom DeLong, the singer of Blink 182, was actually referenced in the congressional hearing. He had like a shout out kind of him and the company he started called to the Stars Media. And for those of you who don't know Tom DeLong, singer of Blink 182, he went on Rogan years ago, years ago, I want to say five, six, seven years ago, talking about he worked with government and he couldn't say with who. But there's these stories that are going to start breaking and that the government is rebranding UFOs to UAPs. And it's the first time I have personally ever heard the term UAP, which is Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon versus UFO, which is Unidentified Flying Object. And all this stuff in that he kind of came off like, this is one of the singers of Blink 182, of the band. He's off his rocker. Something's off. But then to hear him referenced in this congressional hearing, which is the most legit place that this conversation can be taking place, is a fucking congressional hearing, right? It's not a documentary. It's not a podcast. It's not happening on some side conversation radio show or something like that. It's under oath in front of the United States Congress. The subcommittee that's in charge of this type of stuff, that's in charge of defense and protecting the United States. So just his mention there was just like, what the fuck? Was he telling the truth the whole time? I just found that nuts. Now, here are some of the more important takeaways, and by important, I just mean more practical. Whether you believe in UFOs or aliens or not, these are important points to take away from the occurrence of this congressional hearing, regardless of where you stand. You had members like Congresswoman AOC, which is part of this subcommittee, AOC from New York and Congressman Andy Biggs from Arizona, specifically asking questions to the whistleblowers of where should they look for certain things, where should they look for certain information that backs up some of the testimony that he's giving? Where should they look for background related to this information, where can they find files, where can they find and get access to footage that he's referencing, where that backs up his claims, et cetera. Who can they speak to asking specific questions? Kind of like my takeaway from that was if they don't know and they're this oversight committee that's supposed to be regulating this type of shit, and they're asking in this matter of fact way of, yo, who or how the fuck can we get our hands on this type of information? They're completely blind and oblivious to what is going on, if it is in fact going on. So that was a big takeaway for me either way. Congressman Gates of Florida was another one who congressman Gates of Florida and I'm going to play the clip for you guys said the following in speaking to being turned away from trying to obtain information about a UAP event, here's some of what he had to say.

Congressman Matt Gaetz [00:25:12]:

Several months ago, my office received a protected disclosure from Eglin Air Force Base indicating that there was a UAP incident that required my attention. I sought a briefing regarding that episode and brought with me Congressman Birchett and Congresswoman Luna. We asked to see any of the evidence that had been taken by flight crew in this endeavor and to observe any radar signature, as well as to meet with the flight crew. We were not afforded access to all of the flight crew, and initially we were not afforded access to images and to radar. Thereafter, we had bit of a discussion about how authorities flow in the United States of America. And we did see the image, and we did meet with one member of the flight crew who took the image. The image was of something that I am not able to attach to any human capability, either from the United States or from any of our adversaries. And I'm somewhat informed on the matter. Having served on the Armed Services Committee for seven years, having served on the committee that oversees DARPA and advanced technologies for several years. When we spoke with the flight crew. And when he showed us the photo that he'd taken, I asked why the video wasn't engaged, why we didn't have a FLIR system that worked. Here's what he said. They were out on a test mission that day over the Gulf of Mexico. And when you're on a test mission, you're supposed to have clear airspace, not supposed to be anything that shows up. And they saw a sequence of four craft in a clear diamond formation for which there is a radar sequence that I and I alone have observed in the United States Congress. One of the pilots goes to check out that diamond formation and sees a large floating, what I can only describe as an orb. Again, like I said, not of any human capability that I'm aware of. And when he approached, he said that his radar went down. He said that his FLIR system malfunctioned and that he had to manually take this image from one of the lenses. And it was not automated in collection, as you would typically see in a test mission. So I guess I'll start with Commander Fravor. How should we think about the fact that this craft that was approached by our pilot had the capability of disarming a number of the sensor and collection systems on that craft?

Commander David Fravor [00:27:47]:

I think this goes to that national security side. And you can go back through history of things showing up at certain areas and disabling our capabilities, which is disheartening. And for us, like I said, it completely disabled the radar on the aircraft when I tried to do. And the only way we could see it is passively, which is how he got that image. So I think that's a concern on what are these doing, not only how do they operate, but their capabilities inside to do things like this?

Congressman Matt Gaetz [00:28:11]:

And how should we think about four craft moving in a very clear formation equidistant from one another in a diamond in all of the phenomenon? Perhaps, Mr. Grave, that you've analyzed, have we ever seen multiple craft in a single formation?

Commander David Fravor [00:28:30]:

I have one particular case, and that was during the Gimbal incident. The recording on the At FLIR system shows a single object that rotates. You hear the pilots refer to a fleet of objects that is not visible on the FLIR system. And that was something that I witnessed during the debrief as part of the radar data on this.

Tony [00:28:47]:

So I'm going to cut it off there. You guys can definitely go listen to the rest of it, and I encourage you to, just for the full context. But again, my main takeaway there is how in the dark or how competing interests are at play. Right. So you have the military industrial complex. I'm going to just name it that, although it's comprised of folks both in the government sector, the private sector that comprise some of these entities, and groups that may or may not be concealing information, but. Whoever was on the opposite side of who, as Congressman Gates said, they had to reinform them on how the hierarchy of power I'm paraphrasing the hierarchy of power flows in the United States government, and only then was he able to get some of the information that he was seeking. Whoever's on the opposite side of that, whatever that entity is, whatever quote unquote team they're playing for, that's what I found fascinating about that little exchange there. Who are they? Why are they keeping it on the wraps, and how are they keeping it on the wraps? More importantly, which leads to my next takeaway here. You have the chairman of the subcommittee I think it was the chairman I want to say Congressman Chafitz, but I could be wrong there. Someone double checked me on that, but was pissed about the fact and he shared how the Pentagon fails their audits yearly. They failed their audits five years in a row, and they have billions of dollars unaccounted for completely, just like we don't know where that money is, as well as over 60% of its assets, of its known assets, also unaccounted for. And it's just aside from the fact that they fail their audit on a yearly basis, like, there's nothing else after that. For example, I'll give you a general vague example. I work in finance, as some of you know, for an institution that does work with auditors. And if we fail something within an audit, changes have to be implemented immediately. Proof of those changes, follow ups to make sure those changes work, possible fines, so on and so forth. It doesn't just stop at the audit being failed. You know what I mean? So, again, who are those folks in the Pentagon or on the other side of those failed audits that apparently have no accountability? And are those unaccounted for? And this is where the conspiracy theory comes in are those unaccounted funds going towards these shadow government programs? Now to Mr. Grush's .1 of his statements. Again. Mr. Grush being the main whistleblower. When asked by Congresswoman macy macei may be saying that incorrectly. Mace? Macy when asked what agencies, what government contractors, et cetera should be called in to a congressional hearing like this one to discuss programs and how they're being funded, et cetera. Like where's the money coming from and what programs exist within this realm. Gersh said that he could give that information immediately after the hearing. He couldn't give it in a public setting, but he said that he can provide them a list of hostile and also non hostile witnesses immediately after the congressional session in, again, one of those skiff settings or whatever, at which point a lot of the people that were there in tenants, they, like, WooHooed and clapped. And it was a moment. But again, that shadowy governmental cover up type of thing, that's where I have the more practical, regardless, on if you believe there's aliens or not, or that has anything to do with anything, those questions still remain. And Congressman Burleson from Missouri, which was very know there, he definitely doesn't believe in aliens or anything like that, came out the gate with that type of demeanor and statement. He asked questions like, could these retrieve the vehicles? Because Grush also alluded to the fact that we have shot down and retrieved some of these UAPs as well as non human biologics, quote, unquote, that's what he called it, and crafts. So Congressman Burleson asked, you know, could these just be weapons and vehicles from other secret departments within the government that we just don't know of? Which, again, ties back to my initial or my main concern and takeaway here, or my practical concern and takeaway here, which is, if that's the case, who's running the show there? And circling back to what Grush says, which is that the US has beings or quote, unquote, non human biologics and crafts in their possession, a lot of people after the fact were questioning like, what the fuck does non human biologics mean? A cow is technically a non human biologic. He needed to elaborate there, but obviously he didn't. Now, Grush did allude to that. The shot callers within this realm of this shattery government, whatever you want to call it, are a mix of folks that are in the government and folks that are out of the government and part of major corporations. He also referenced something called the Gang of Eight, which sounded interesting to me. I was meaning to look into it, but I haven't yet. So if any of you guys listening know what that is, definitely hit me up and let me know. But yeah, man, what a tangled fucking web we weave, what an interesting time we live in as well. But yeah, I definitely recommend that you folks check out the if you're interested in this kind of thing, but just from a historical perspective. It's the first time that a topic like this related to UFOs and UAPs was openly and honestly spoken about in a congressional setting like this, with the most arguably not even arguably, with the most credible witnesses and whistleblowers ever in the history of the whole UFO folklore scene, if you will. So just from a historical perspective, it's an unprecedented event that occurred. And if you're interested in this topic, this type of thing in and of itself, then it's definitely a fascinating watch. And I will link to the full congressional hearing in the episode notes, but you guys can easily find it on YouTube if you just search for it. But I'll definitely link to it in the episode notes to make it easier for you guys. And that, folks, was my little recap and review of the congressional hearings on UFOs John Wick Four. By all accounts, the fourth and final installation in the John Wick series, although it does end spoiler alert, with a slight nod to the actual ending not being all that it seems. And they actually foreshadowed as much in the final jousting scene leading up to the end. But John Wick Four here is the official synopsis john Wick uncovers a path to defeating the High Table. But before he can earn his freedom, Wick must face off against a new enemy with powerful alliances across the globe and forces that turn old friends into foes. And as we like to do here on the sponsored podcast, I want to shout out the writers. Because if we don't shout out the writers here on the sponsored a podcast that is anchored in writing, who will? John Wick Four was written by Shay Hatton, Michael Finch and Derek Kohlstad. Shout out to the writers. Now, I wanted to start off by sharing with you guys a fun fact that you may not know, which is that the muscle car that John Wick drives in John Wick Four is a 1971 Plymouth CUDA. And it's in the movie because in the first John Wick, for example, john Wick drove a 69 Mustang, which is a badass muscle car, but was also like a gift from his wife in the movie. But the fun fact is that Joe Rogan had always mentioned in his podcast after the first 2nd, 3rd John Wick, that the real badass muscle car that John Wick should be driving is the Plymouth CUDA. The 1971. And when Brogan had the director Chad Stahelski on the pod, he confirmed as much that the reason why he put the Plymouth CUDA into John Wick Four was because of Rogan. So I thought that was pretty dope. Shout out to podcast, man. Shout out to that fucking reach. Another fun fact that I learned on that episode actually if you guys want to check it out, I think it's episode well, I don't think I can actually look it up for you guys right now. Episode 1995 1995 of JRE. The director mentions that the John Wick story, the original character and story is loosely based on a book. It's not called John Wick, but a lot of the ideas came from that book and I wish I could remember and I can't find it, who wrote the book and what the book title is. If I do come across it, I'll definitely link to it in the episode notes, in case anybody's interested. However, he did say it's very loosely based and the movie is kind of nothing like the book. Supposedly in the book there's a few similarities in that he is a retired hitman, he wants out of the life and that type of thing. Certain ideas of High Table and this group, that shadow organization that controls it all, certain tidbits came from the book. But in terms of what we know and love of the John Wick franchise, which is mainly the killing and the violence and the fight scenes and the action, none of that is within the book. The book itself. He said that like one or two people die in the entire book, something like that. So definitely not something to check out if that's what you gravitate towards for these John Wick movies, as I definitely do. But I just thought that was interesting and fascinating how I guess a relatively unknown story or book can plant a seed that grows and flourishes into this blockbuster, four movie mega hit franchise that is John Wick, even though it's in a completely different form and whatnot it's like. You'd never know what it is that sparks the inspiration in something else. That's pretty cool. A couple of lines of dialogue that I want to share with you guys that I really, really liked. Shout out once again to the writers. One of them is Friendship means little when it's convenient. Which is so fucking true, right? It's like that adage of fair weather friends when shit is sweet, when money's flowing, when you're having good times, when things are enjoyable, you have a lot of quote unquote friends and folks around you that are enjoying from that, which is where the convenience comes in. But once all or some of that goes away, or conversely, when times get rough, when money's not flowing, when there are no parties are no good times and you're in times of hardship, that's when all those fair weather friends will poof disappear and the folks that you're left with that are still around are your true friends. They're not there just because it's convenient. So that's definitely one line that I enjoyed. Another one is a man's ambition shouldn't exceed his worth. And that's definitely a sobering line if you're looking at it from a self reflective angle. I've heard a similar line, which I think was from the movie below rip to Paul Rubens, by the way, Peewee Herman who played Derek for real in Blow. But that movie there was lines that I love something along the lines of when your ambition exceeds your talent. But this line here is slightly different in A man's ambition shouldn't exceed his worth. So it kind of has that undertone of if you ain't worth shit, don't even dream about being anything more. Kind of kind of a defeating line there, but very interestingly put. I additionally enjoyed this fourth iteration of the movie based on a few of the characters that were very interesting. I mean, you have obviously the staple main characters like Keanu Reeves, obviously, who plays John Wick. Lawrence Fishburne plays the Bowery King. It was bittersweet to see Lance Reddick bitter in that he passed away as well. R-I-P lance Reddick, who played Sharon. But it was sweet know, being able to see him one last time which this was probably the last role he acted in. It was either this or White Man Can't jump. But I think it was this. He had a Clancy Brown in this, which played the character of Harbinger he is most known to me for being the asshole kind of cool guard towards the end from Shawshank Redemption who was the right hand of the warden but kind of looked out a little bit for Andy DeFrain as well. You have Ian McShane's character again. Plays Winston. We had a couple of dope new characters starting with, in my opinion, Bill, who played Marquise. He's the main villain bad guy in this one who essentially wants to take over everything and wants John Wick dead. You have an amazing character, played by Donnie Yen, who plays Kane. He's this blind Asian dude that is in the same line of work as John Wick and also looking to like he wants out, basically. And he's given an ultimatum by the Bill Scars guard guy, Marquise, to hunt down and kill John Wick and then he'll be given his freedom and if not, his granddaughter would be killed. He was a great fucking character. Then you have one of my favorite characters in the whole movie called Tracker, played by Shamir Anderson. He was this black dude with a dog that he had trained as an extension of himself that was also in the same line of work as John Wick. And he, similar to John Wick, seems to have a code, a moral compass within himself aside from the fact that these are all contract killers. But think from a character development perspective, think like Omar from The Wire, how he was a bad dude, robber, drug dealer, but had a code. Every man's got to have a code, quote unquote. Damn. Then there was this other dude that I can't find his name. I don't remember the character name and I can't tie that to the actual actor name. But he played this, again, another guy in the same line of work, a big fat dude that just wouldn't die. He was super strong and he's actually fat suit kind of similar to how they did with the Kingpin, was it? Or Penguin, I think the Kingpin in the latest Batman movie. I was just a fat suit and a lot of makeup. It was a similar deal here with this character. But he did a really good job and he was an interesting, scary, strong, ruthless fucking foe that John Wick had to contend against. And then, as always, the fight scenes do not disappoint. You have a dope fight scene that starts off with an arrow being shot when they're hiding on the roof of the Continental and they're being ambushed, essentially. And this long fight scene ensues and that ultimately spills out into the street. And then he's dealing with cars coming for him and motorcycles and he's on foot and just sick, sick. There's another fight scene in this abandoned house warehouse that he runs into. And they did something interesting from cinematography, I guess, perspective, where they showed a view from above a couple different times throughout these scenes that took place in this abandoned house and it just looked really cool, like it really worked. It felt like you're playing Zelda or know, it just has that overhead top down view. But it was an interesting way of seeing where people were and where they were headed towards and then it would pan from that back to the normal first person view or camera behind John Wick, etc. I thought that was pretty cool. There's a flamethrower gun at one point that was fucking sick. And then of course, the most amazing fight scene happens towards the end when he is going to this agreed upon rendezvous point. And by he, I mean John Wick with a dude that is planning on taking over the high table, marquise, the Bills cards guard guy, I think he was already in power at that point, but via their protocol, he says the only way John Wick could have his freedom is if he agrees to duel. I called it a joust earlier, I meant duel. But instead of him dueling, he has the guy Kane duel in his place again, giving him the ultimatum that if he doesn't, he's going to kill his granddaughter and that if he does do it, he's further incentivized by the fact that he'll get his freedom. So on the way to this rendezvous point at sunrise, the Marquee character playing dirty as villains do, just throws everything and everyone at John Wick and wants him to be killed before that point in time, basically. So on the way to that duel, there's this huge outdoor staircase that he has to climb up very, very far like going from the A train to the J train at Broadway Junction far, super long steps like the Joker steps in the Bronx that they show in the movie the Joker. And there's mad people that have the high ground coming down at John Wick and he's just shooting and fighting and tossing and throwing and cutting and just fucking people up on the way up and getting knocked back down and fighting his way back up and getting knocked back down. And then the Cane guy, which he also has this moral compass about him, starts helping John Wick even though at the top of this know they're going to have that duel. But he wants it to happen if it needs to happen the honorable way. So he's on John Wick's side, he's helping him. The other dude that I mentioned that I liked, the Tracker character, he starts helping as well and eventually after a very long, very dope fight scene, he makes it up there. So spoiler alert, by the way, if you guys haven't seen the movie, you probably don't want to hear this part, but ultimately the duel happens. And the way it works is that the rules are they have to take like 20 steps apart and draw and shoot. Someone dies, the other person wins, that's it. If they both miss or if they both are still alive. Then they take five or ten steps towards each other and to do it again until they're literally in front of each other. So by the third shot, it looks like Kane got the best of John Wick, even though Kane already got shot once or twice, john Wick as well. But then John Wick doesn't get up, so it shows him as dead, essentially. Then Marquise, the Bill, played by Bill, his pussy ass, tells, no, no, give me the gun. I'm gonna do the final shot. A shot in the head or something like that to John Wick. Now, all of a sudden, he wants to be down, right? He wants to be in it. He goes to John Wick, and then they point out how John Wick never fired his third shot. He's like, what? And then John Wick right there, just gets up and shoots and kills Marquise. He was wounded, though, at that point, from the second or third shot from before from Kane. And then they show John Wick eventually collapsing and to make it seem like he died. Now, the conspiracy theory, if you will, is did he die or did he not? Earlier on, he had told Winston and the Bowery King that if he did die, he wanted to be taken home and laid to rest next to his late wife. And they show a scene at the very end of the movie with John Wick's tombstone and both Winston and Bowery King there. And they say something snarky something I don't remember exactly, but something to the effect of would you have ever thought that you would have seen the know speaking, know John White being dead? Then they kind of look at each other and smile, and one of them says, Nope, I never did. And it was kind of like a nod to wait. Is he dead? Is he not dead? Are you guys covering guys so this whole high table shit doesn't come back around again and want to kill John Wick? Are you guys giving him an out and faking his death so that nobody could ever come after him again and just leave him be type of thing? That's what it comes across as. Or it could very well be that, yeah, he's dead and they're gonna tie out the series that way. And what I meant by the fact that they foreshadowed know him possibly still being alive with the scene directly before then was the fact that they showed him as dead before Marquise went up to shoot him, just to make sure again, but he wasn't dead, and he got up and shot Marquis unexpectedly. So I feel like that was kind of foreshadowing the fact that maybe he's not dead at the end and he'll be coming back down the line. But we'll see. What I will say is that bumping that theory or idea up against the director chad Stahelski's appearance on JRE is that he did kind of make it seem that if Keanu was down to do another one that he would definitely do it. And he also alluded to them being in talks of doing spin offs with other characters, like Halle Berry's character, for example. She was in, I think John Wick two or three. She loves the series, like she she wants to do more. And also a spinoff, I think he said like a prequel type of thing, series about the continental and I think Winston and Sharon, stuff like that, something along those lines. So if John Wick doesn't come back directly himself, I would say I would think that we'll at least get other iterations from this franchise in the form of spinoffs. And just to tie things out, last thing I'll say is that I believe Derek Kolstad may be the gentleman that created the that wrote the book that the John Wick character is based off of because according to IMDb, it says based on characters created by Derek Kohlstad. Don't quote me on that part. There is a book that exists where some ideas came from that may or may not have been written by Derek Kolstadt. But again, if I clarify those details, I will definitely update that information within the episode notes. Either way, John Wick Four definitely recommend it's worth a watch, especially if you guys are fans of the previous movies in this franchise. It absolutely does not disappoint john Wick Four. Check it out. Ari Shafir's, Skeptic Tank I hate to end the podcast on a sad note, but alas, it's not all unicorns and rainbows, folks. Ari Shafir, my favorite comic and one of my favorite podcasters, has chosen after twelve almost 13 years of putting out gem after gem after gem of episodes on his Skeptic Tank podcast has chosen at the height of its popularity at the height of its financial benefit, generating.

Tony [00:52:11]:

At the height of its creativity and.

Awesomeness, some may even say has chosen to cancel it, to stop it, to end it, to put an end to an era. And if you all know Ari as I do not, although I have been a fan of his for over that decade and did meet him once, actually, and have a picture with him, I'll probably use that image as I put out clips of this episode. But if you all know Ari, none of those things in terms of financial gain and popularity and fame and stuff like that, have ever been at the top of his priority list. He's first and foremost about his craft, which I've always appreciated about him, and about being free and feeling free, not feeling tied down to anything. So much so that in a situation like this where most of us mere mortals would have been like, fuck that, I'm going to continue the podcast. It's making more money than it's ever made and it's as popular as it's ever been. And I obviously love doing it, but because it began feeling to him somewhat of a job at times and he felt it taken away from his true and number one love, which is stand up comedy, he chose to cancel it, which we have to respect, but fucking sucks for us fans. Ari's been absolutely at the top of the list of my favorite podcasters, literally probably top two after Rogan and Fun Fact, which I have mentioned in the past, I believe. But I'll reiterate here the very first episode of JRE that I ever listened to over a decade ago, before it was cool, when Re was a relatively unknown comic, when even Rogan was relatively unknown outside of comedy circles. The very first episode that I ever listened to, re was The Guest. It was like episode 190 something. And by one, I don't mean a thousand, I mean literally 190 something, or maybe it was even 90 something, but I think it was 190 something or 130 something or something like that. For some reason, I remember a nine in there. And it was literally the second podcast of any that I had ever listened to before I even knew really what a podcast was. I had heard the term and I was literally just searching on my phone, what is a podcast? And the first one ever that I listened to was the White House speech that was recorded and replayed in podcast form. It was a White House podcast or something like that. It was a speech that Obama gave. And then the second one I bumped into was JRE. And that episode with Ari and the conversation was so fulfilling is the best way I can put it. I had never heard people speak like that so freely, so openly, so deeply, so silly. The conversation flowed and ebbed in all different forms and directions. And in that moment, I fell in love with the medium of podcasts. And since never missed an episode of JRE. Became a fan of Ari's and started checking out his stuff, including Skeptic Tank podcast, became a fan of his standup, and he became my favorite comedian in that way that when you feel that you discovered someone, quote unquote, know about something and someone cool that nobody else knows about yet. And Ari's podcast I love for a lot of those same reasons in terms of his care and attention to detail for his craft. Now, the very last guest of Ari Shafir's Skeptic Tank was Ron Bennington, which I believe I don't think I'm wrong on this, but I can be that Ron Bennington is the Ron from Ron and Fez, which was a and I'm drawing this just from things that I've heard on different episodes of different podcasts. So, again, could be wrong, but I don't think so. Ron and Fez is a morning radio show that comics actually enjoy doing and, you know, as they travel from city to city, go on morning radio, morning TV, to promote their dates and try to sell tickets within the region that they're in, but it's a grueling thing for them. But the consensus behind Ron and Fez is know, it's a dope show that they actually enjoy getting up for and doing. Ron Bennington, I believe, is the Ron from Ron and Fez. He has his own series of interviews, which I've only heard one, so I can't attest to what Ari says about him just based off that one. But I did hear his interview with it's called Unmasked the Series. And I listened to the interview with Patrice O'Neill, which both Ari and he recommended folks listen to, and it was great. But Ari gives his style of interviewing, his interview style, he says it's an homage to Ron Bennington, and my interview style is an homage to Ari Shafir. That's how much I enjoy and loved Ari Shafir's, skeptic tank and still do. Now, primarily on this show, I do these solo episodes mainly where know, deep dive and review and speak to the writing, know, story conventions and structures of movies and books and, you know, speak about some current events and just whatever the fuck I want to speak about, right? Get some thoughts and ideas out. I also do the free writing session episodes, which are more to craft, more specific to writing. I tell you about what I've been working on, how often I've been working on it, share writing tips, share some of my own writing, reflect on it, et cetera. But another iteration of episodes that come out here on the sponsored podcast feed are interviews, which are far and few between. But when I do do them, I do them in the style that I learned from our Asian fear, which again, he learned from Ron Beddington, or at least is paying homage to. And that's where he takes a deep dive into his guests and a specific topic, and he doesn't mind if it meanders and goes off track and they get silly, or if they start talking about something deep, completely separate, they go off on tangents as well. But then he pulls it back on course to a specific topic and he has a series of questions lined up aimed at that specific topic. And I just love that interview style. And they're not cookie cutter interviews by any stretch. They are you hear from people that you otherwise, at least me, I've never heard of through any other medium or any other interview or any other I have no insight into some of these folks lives and already asks questions that I didn't know that I had. So he's interviewed prostitutes, drug addicts, drug dealers, other comedians, of course, one of which, Brad Williams, for example, which is a little he, but he interviewed him all about being a little person and just had uber specific questions like what do you do in the bathroom? Because little people are known, or at least some. To have short arms. So he's like, what do you do in the bathroom when you take a shit? He literally asks questions like that. And then Brad Williams says, oh, well, we actually have a contraption, like a arm extender thing that we use to help out there. That's something that I didn't even know existed and a question that I didn't even know that I had. You know what I mean? But when he asks it, you're like, oh, shit. Yeah, it's true. How do they he did also episodes with homeless people, with folks travelers, with writers, with episodes all about the first time a girl got her period and he interviewed a bunch of different women. Oh. One of my favorites are comedy special Breakdowns, where he would go bit by bit with the comedian that filmed the.

Tony [00:59:54]:

Special, and then they'll break down the.

Behind the scenes of how that joke came to be. What the? Real story is behind the joke, what's exaggerated, what's not, which is a masterclass on comedy in and of itself, but just from a writing and creative perspective. I love that type of shit. He has episodes specific to open relationships and just so many fringe topics and people like that that are just absolutely fucking fascinating. Fuck, I'm going to miss that show. And he also put me on to so many people just through when you take a deep dive into a person or an interest that a person has, it becomes contagious and you want to know more about that person in a way. And you get insights into that person as well because it's long form, not edited, no fluff, no bullshit. And you get to know if someone's, at least in my opinion, interesting or not, or if they're kind of a piece of shit, or if you want to know more about the person, etc. So it's definitely been the source of a lot of people that he put me onto that I wind up just like listening to Rogan's podcast. Put me onto Ari, and I started listening to Ari stuff and getting into his stuff, his podcast, his comedy. He also put me on Ari put me on rather in that same way to folks like Dave Smith from the Part of the Problem podcast. He's a comic as well. If you want to know anything political and have a fairly nuanced because he's very libertarian, nuanced in the sense of the traditional Republican versus Democrat view of things. You can definitely listen to his take on stuff. He's biased towards libertarians, obviously, but by definition, because he's a libertarian, you're going to get a more nuanced view of both the Republican and the Democratic side. He also put me on to Steve Simone, which good times with Steve Simone. And I've told him this on Instagram. I hope he brings that podcast back. That's a podcast that if you're ever in a bad mood, you just listen to an episode of that. And Steve is just like such a wholesome fucking good person that just spends his time fucking doing stand up comedy, like family friendly stand up comedy, and then volunteering the rest of his time at children's sick wards and hospitals and shit. His energy is just so pure and positive that you listen to that if you want to feel good, if you want to get in a good mood. Sadly, he stopped doing his podcast some time ago. I believe it was around COVID. And I heard through the podcast Grapevine, that both his parents got really ill and they thought they were on their deathbed, and thankfully they were not, or at least I believe, and I hope is the case, but I hope he definitely continues to do his podcast again. And so many other folks like Fahim Anwar, Big J, Oakerson, Dan Soder, Danish and O'Neill Joe List and the list goes on and on and on and on like all these people, I first heard of them on Ari Shafir's Skeptic Tank, which was an absolute fucking treat, the fucking tastemaker of this guy. And in many ways, Ari ended the west coast east coast beef, quote unquote beef, because there was, like I don't want to call it podcast wars or like an actual beef between comics, east coast versus west coast comics, but there was unspoken divide, at least in my opinion. Palpable kind of, you know, if there's allegiances, you know, where everyone's allegiance lies. And Ari was a West Coast comic, Comedy Store comic who moved to New York and kind of like, bridged that gap and brought all those barriers down. After that move, I feel by bringing a lot of the east coast folks onto his podcast like the Big J's, and then introducing them to Rogan and then them getting on Rogan and in doing so, blowing up to the rest of the world and to the West Coast and kind of just melding that comedic world. Comedic podcast world. Liemen he chose after 12,13 years. His first episode, according to what I'm looking at, came out, which was with Kurt Metzger, September 28, 2011. Fun fact, the sponsored podcast started September 29, but 2014, three years later. But yeah, first episode, September 20. Eigth, 2011. Last Episode june 7 2023 what a fucking run. Round of applause for Re Shafir and the Ari Shafir skeptic tank. Now, he did say that one. He's not going away. He's still going to do everybody else's podcast. So definitely happy for that and to get his perspective that way, although it won't be the same, obviously, but we also have this backlog catalog of hundreds of episodes that we will hopefully always be able to go back and listen to at our leisure whenever we want, which I have and plan to continue doing. So. Now, I did hear him say on I believe it was Joe List's podcast that he's contemplating just taking down the Skeptic Tank podcast altogether. Like just removing it from the Internet, which he definitely shouldn't do because one if it's on the internet already, which it is. All the episodes are. They'll always be people always repost and put them up and it's just going to be a bitch for people to track down and find, I guess. But that he has the thought of doing so just to protect certain guests from future PC culture bullshit down the line. Because five years from now, who the fuck knows what people are going to be upset about and some shit that we said ten years ago on the podcast in fucking 2011, 2012, that's going to get one of my friends canceled just because we were joking about fucking salt or something. And five years from now, salt is going to be the new N word or whatever the fuck. And to that I say, fuck that. Don't give in to that type of shit, because the act of removing your podcast would be giving into that type of shit. And that is so antithetical to who you are, Mr. Ari Shafir, and who you have been and how you've moved to date. So just know that your true fans will always have your back, which was essentially the point all along, right? At least I like to think so. Plus, selfishly, I don't want to have to scour the Internet to find old hidden episodes of Ari Shapir's, Skeptic Tank. But yeah, man, if you guys haven't checked it out, definitely do. Ari shafir skeptic tank. The end of an era. Still can't fucking believe it. But thank you, Ari, and all the folks that helped put together, edit, promote, post Ari Shafir's, Skeptic Tank. And absolutely to each and every one of the guests that have been on it in the past, shout out to Rhaeyer Skeptic Tank. I will link to it in the episode Notes for Folks to Check out. And that, folks, was episode 241 of the sponsored podcast. Thank you very much for rocking out with me, taking the time to listen. I really, really appreciate it. If you'd like to support this show, if you'd like to support the sponsored podcast, I'd really, really appreciate that as well. There's a bunch of ways that you can do so, and I'm going to tell you all about them right now. Until next time, peace.

In this throwback Spun Today Podcast episode I release three (out of five) separate recordings from my recent business trip to India (don't worry the focus is on all the cool sh*t I got to do and see outside of work). Come along with me on my first trip to the other side of the Planet!

**Originally released: July 2nd, 2015**

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Song used between recordings: Andala Rakshasi - Yemito Ivale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbCbho7aLYw

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In this episode I share my Writing stats for June 2023! I give you an update on my upcoming short story collection and how it continues to go with working with my editor. I share a writing tip that I picked up along the way and I tell you about what I've been reading. Lastly, I read and reflect on a free-writing piece, that can be found at: spuntoday.com/freewriting.

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Links referenced in this episode:

Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 3: The Thing Your Character Wants vs. The Thing Your Character Needs: https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/character-arcs-3/

I'd Like to Play Alone, Please by Tom Segura: https://amzn.to/3OFmC8p

Tim Dillon on Lex Fridman Podcast #156 https://www.spuntoday.com/freewriting/largertruths

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In this episode I recap and review three movies! The Machine, White Men Can't Jump (2023 release) and Flamin' Hot. Sharing insights, writing & story telling mechanisms, my favorite parts and much more.

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Links referenced in this episode:

Bert telling The Machine Story on Rogan (I love this animated version of the audio clip): https://youtu.be/8PAtFsJY5q0

The Machine Movie trailer: https://youtu.be/AwDKLEaJxMk

The Machine Box Office: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3287778049/

White Men Can't Jump: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6436620/

Flamin' Hot: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8105234/

LA Times Investigation into the Flamin' Hot origin story: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-16/flamin-hot-cheetos-richard-montanez

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This episode is the audio book version of the Short Story; Elevator. If you want to read along with the audio book, please visit: http://www.spuntoday.com/shortstories/elevator.

*Original Release Date: January 26th, 2017*

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Links referenced in this episode:

Elliott Hulse - 3 Kinds Of People In Your Life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyxeODanWJs

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Check out my Books: Make Way for You – Tips for getting out of your own way

& FRACTAL – A Time Travel Tale

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Fill out my Spun Today Questionnaire if you're passionate about your craft. I'll share your insight and motivation on the Podcast: http://www.spuntoday.com/questionnaire/

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Sound effects are credited to: http://www.freesfx.co.uk

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In this episode I speak about the time I saved the life of a little old lady! I also speak about going to Bert Kreischer's Fully Loaded Comedy Festival. I also recap and review watching The Flash movie and wrap it up with another addition to our legendary segment "GOATs doing GOAT $hit" where we celebrate the true champions of greatness and highlight the phenomenal achievements of extraordinary individuals.

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Links referenced in this episode:

Fully Loaded Comedy Festival Tour Dates: https://fullyloadedfestival.com/

Bert telling The Machine Story on Rogan (I love this animated version of the audio clip): https://youtu.be/8PAtFsJY5q0

The Machine Movie trailer: https://youtu.be/AwDKLEaJxMk

Bert telling Tracy Morgan Story: https://youtu.be/73Lkb8C_Rq4

Bert telling Will Smith Story: https://youtu.be/DDThPiAm40s

The Flash: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0439572/

Chris Stuckmann's The Flash – Movie Review: https://youtu.be/sJjH3vtf7Co

Michael Jordan agrees to sell Hornets stake for $3B: https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/37863644/sources-michael-jordan-finalizing-charlotte-hornets-sale

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