TRANSCRIPT

 

Ira Madison III And we are back with an all new episode of Keep It. I’m Ira Madison, the third.

 

Louis Virtel I’m Louis Virtel. And can you hear those losing horns? Bob Barker has passed away at the age of 99.

 

Ira Madison III So he parted ways with Scooter Braun as well.

 

Louis Virtel That’s right. He said, On my hundredth birthday. I will not let that bastard have any more of my masters.

 

Ira Madison III The Price is Right, Bob’s version.

 

Louis Virtel The theme place.

 

Ira Madison III All of that’s going to drop this fall, every single episode.

 

Louis Virtel He’s going to have Scooter spayed and neutered. You know what I’m saying? Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Of. Wow. It was you know, it’s very I’m going to jump into that. As far as what is very weird about Bob Barker dying was did you see that it immediately spurred conspiracy theories?

 

Louis Virtel No, I did not. I mean, he’s extremely old and I, you know, I. Yeah, it’s an old age thing, so.

 

Ira Madison III Well, there are tiktoks for people who believe it in their heart that Bob Barker died years ago.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, well, it’s a sort of a mandela effect thing. I understand being confused that he hadn’t already died because we hadn’t heard from him in so long. But, you know, it’s not like he had moved on to other projects. He’s like a Johnny Carson type. He was a legend and then stopped.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, it was tied also to this old article for like a year or so ago, I believe was called like an action news and website. So it’s cool. It’s a fake news website or something that says he died at 94 by like falling at work and his head split open. And I’m like, We would know this, if it had happened.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, that’s that would be a famous celebrity death in that case. Right?

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, I love that Americans are dumb, but also that feels so that feels so vintage. Conspiracy theory from like the era of when we would watch prices, right, As kids on TV, right where you hear a weird story about a celebrity and you have no way of knowing if it’s true or.

 

Louis Virtel Not and you have no idea why it originated or anything either. So you just assume it’s true if it got to you in Wichita, Kansas, or whatever. But yeah, we only recently were talking about The Price Is Right, because I was saying that shows like Survivor and Project Runway are kind of the new comfort viewing in the way that the Price is right once was because there are these venerable formats that we keep returning to because the action is so good and it’s so calming. Like you get to see, you know, a familiar host and then the familiar catchphrases, and that’s just like old game shows. But The Price is Right. I mean, at this point, I think eventually Alex Trebek did host more hours or episodes of Jeopardy than Bob Barker did. But Jesus Christ, when you were sick at home, as everybody has pointed out on the Internet, you would be watching this man. And for some reason you would find learning the price of Jiffy Pop popcorn or Crisco super engrossing. You would have to watch this four hour, an hour of a syndicated game show every time. It’s just like there is something about the the visual stimuli of that show, the the sound effects, the games, the way people would scream, and Plinko would come out of the Mountain Climber game. And then also, as my brother Greg pointed out, when we were watching vintage episodes of Price’s right not long ago, he goes, I think the magic of Bob Barker is the quality of his voice. There is something so deep and rich and kind of like Boris Karloff and like avuncular, but also paternal. There’s like a paternal quality, like everybody else in the studio. Studio would be screaming, but then he would bring it down with just that kind of rich, controlled voice. Dick Clark had a similar quality. Like Peacock. People could be screaming, and with that, like radio instinct he had, he could bring people down to a calm, like controlling the dynamic at all times.

 

Ira Madison III He was also very lightly shady. I would feel like not shady, but I just feel like there was always this air. Particularly there are clips going around now of a woman struggling to figure out the price of a car. Yes, Joy, She got it at the last. Yeah, she got at the last minute. And then he sits down and he’s sort of like, Oh, brother. And it was just sort of this like, oh, brother quality. He had a lot of the times when someone said something completely stupid, like you said, you know, peanut butter or something. People guessing, $10 for peanut butter.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III It’s it was very funny seeing people try to figure out items that you should maybe now. I mean, I feel like everyone in my family, we would get invested. You get invested shouting, don’t cost this much. It costs this much. Like I remember watching that show as a kid and just the fervor that you had during, you know, the showcase showdown.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Oh, absolutely. Also, you know, a host who has that quality now, Steve Harvey is very good at you know, some contestant says something and ridiculous. And then he deadpans to the. Camera. Ah, like, you know, rolls his eyes to the side or something. There are something about that dynamic that’s extremely watchable and extremely.

 

Ira Madison III But it makes them comfortable, too, right? Not in a it’s not in a degrading sort of weakest link way.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, it’s it’s very we’re all having fun and this is part of a bit and the audience gets really into it. Yeah, I truly can’t even figure out my favorite prices right game or moment with Bob Barker. But there’s he was also a fixture on other game shows You would see him I like the match game and stuff He was like And also by the way, he started on The Price Is Right in 1972 when he was about to turn 50 years old. So as long as he has done that job, he has felt like a legend. You know, there’s never a moment when you saw an amateur up on that stage. And of course, before that he hosted Truth or Consequences for more than a decade. So he had a lot of experience going into that moment. I do want to point out, though, I am a little surprised people aren’t talking about the dubious part of his legacy, which involves Barker’s beauties on that show. Diane Parkinson, with whom he claims he had a consumption consensual relationship. She sued him for sexual harassment. And then after that, Holly Hallstrom, who was a model on that show, she says she was pressured into going on to other talk shows and saying that Diane was basically a liar. And after that, she was, quote unquote, unceremoniously let go from the show. And then she fought him in court for a full decade, lived out of her car during that time and eventually got $1,000,000 settlement. And she said herself, she called Holly, never had any kids and was never married. So she had the space to be able to fight him and didn’t need money, her own money, to pay for other people. And she said, I’m not going to let that evil old bastard win. So just to let you know, there might be some problems with misogyny in Bob’s past. Also a bit of an ego test on his door. In his dressing room, he had a sign that said WG, AMC, which stands for World’s Greatest ABC. You know, when you need to see that every day, maybe there’s an ego at play, I don’t know.

 

Ira Madison III But yeah, I feel like if you are touting the world’s greatest at anything, it needs to come from a shitty mug that your kid made you at school.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, right, right, right. And, you know, but the P.T. Barnum vibes are particular and, you know, he wasn’t great, you know, with the employees sometimes. So.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, listen, that I hate that my mind goes immediately to like that has the makings of an excellent Erin Brockovich esque film.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Oh, please. Yes. I mean, the role of a lifetime to play, Bob. I will say Janice Pennington, who was the longest serving, longest serving Barker’s beauty, who was there for 30 years, she also was let go in a sort of dubious way. But then when Bob died, I saw her give an interview where she said he was, quote unquote, the best. So I don’t know, maybe some of this is water under the bridge. Haven’t solved a lot of this. But if.

 

Ira Madison III They ended the models around like 2007.

 

Louis Virtel They but they’re still models, but they added like male models, actually. Drew Carey to me seems like a pretty rad person. And also he’s been buying a lot of shit for the writers on the line and stuff, so I’m psyched for him.

 

Ira Madison III That’s right. I do know that they added male models because of what an actor, Robert Scott Wilson, who is currently while he was Ben Webster on Days of Our Lives. And then, you know, now he’s playing a different character on the show, Alex Carey, aka, it’s a whole thing. But he was cast on All My Children after being one of the first male models on, You know, Price Is Right shirtless on the price of Right rocking dinette sets.

 

Louis Virtel Right, Right. I have to admire how he I think he’s the male model I’m thinking of like the way women point at stuff when they’re modeling, you know, with like kind of limp Vanna White wrist or whatever. Like a man, you know, a man has to come up with his own version of that. And he was doing kind of mask, bro, pointing at things. Nice conversion. Nice conversion.

 

Ira Madison III You know, maybe that is the sign that Bob Barker wasn’t completely a perfect person because how do you how do you not have any sort of men doing this show before? I feel like give a little something to the gay people at home and the women.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Actually. The audience must have been largely women. So the idea of women having to watch Barker’s beauties every day while you’re a housewife is very, uh. And, you know, it’s almost like psychological warfare, because the hour of the Price Is Right is directly before you start hearing Nadia’s theme come in. And then you see The Young and the Restless. That’s all. That was my entire Saturday. Sorry, That was my entire weekday, by the way, when I was home sick. Price is Right. Young and the Restless. Bold in the Beautiful.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Guiding Light. As the World Turns. That was that was a that was a marathon and not a sprint.

 

Louis Virtel No, but I think when I think about the price is Right, I think. About watching it with my dearly departed late Aunt Sandy, who would smoke Winstons and we’d watch the episode. Basically, the reason I’m a huge game show fan is because I would watch syndicated game shows during the day at her house and then she would watch soaps for seemingly 14 hours. And I remember watching The Price Is Right. She never said much during the episode, but because of Bob Barker, that was the first time I ever heard the phrase male chauvinist pig. So I have to thank my Aunt Sandy for that because, by the way, the stuff with the models was was huge tabloid fair at the time. So like, you couldn’t avoid it anyway.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I guess women back then picked up what he was putting down.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III So.

 

Louis Virtel Come on down to a misogynist reality.

 

Ira Madison III It was a good pun.

 

Louis Virtel Thank you.

 

Ira Madison III You know, as good as your viral tweet too.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I did have a viral tweet about Bob Barker. Actually, I’m just going to read it to you because obviously it’s perfectly worded. Hold on one second. The tweet.

 

Ira Madison III World’s greatest. World’s greatest Bob Barker.

 

Louis Virtel Bob Barker tweet. The tweet was, I cannot believe Bob Barker lived as close to 100 as possible without going over. Now, let me tell you something. Other people also came up with a similar joke. I think, like the timestamps are like minutes apart or whatever. I’m not surprised. I am surprised more people didn’t come up with it because literally every picture of Bob Barker has the 100 behind him on the wheel. So it should have been easy math for everybody. I actually am mad at the internet for not doing doing the same thing I did.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like I’ve seen it in a few articles about it.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Oh, no. I’m sure like People magazine put right click, embed, tweet into the article. I love how you can just do that in journalism, though.

 

Ira Madison III Not on substack.

 

Louis Virtel Right. You’re right.

 

Ira Madison III Elon Musk hates Substack. I have not been able to put a single tweet in any of my newsletters.

 

Louis Virtel Can you put videos and newsletters like YouTube videos embedded?

 

Ira Madison III I feel like maybe you can use YouTube.

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Ira Madison III I got a double.

 

Louis Virtel Shot that would make me want to start a subtext. Substack like, Oh, let’s talk about, you know, the 40 minute video for Smooth Criminal. Whatever. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III People, people I think people would love and lose a virtual newsletter about game shows.

 

Louis Virtel I simply have got to get the nerve to write more than a tweets length of material. Once you get into the joke writing business, did you know that jokes are short? That means you don’t have to write things like prose or complete thoughts or paragraphs. And I’ve got to tell you, it’s like.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I mean, of course, you know, I think William Shakespeare first said that when I opened at the Comedy Cellar.

 

Louis Virtel The punch lines are the soul of wit. That’s right. He’s also paraphrasing Dorothy Parker, which is so weird of him. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Hundreds of years after his time. Okay, great.

 

Ira Madison III So we have got a fun show this week. First off, we have Cody Rigsby here with us, a.

 

Louis Virtel Complete reporting live from Fire Island, where I assume he does his best work.

 

Ira Madison III Just like me from last week. I feel like we have had more Fire Island recorded episodes than any other pop culture podcast.

 

Louis Virtel I know I did one there, and I remember I had a roommate at the time who was, shall we say, getting busy on the porch, and I had to close the blinds so the producers didn’t say I was near. You know, I like to keep my job here, you know what I’m saying? We got it was a dicey situation.

 

Ira Madison III Last week when I was recording, someone was arriving to meet one of my housemates and they were passing by while I was recording. And part of me and this is my ego here, was hoping that they listen to this show because what wouldn’t that be entertaining to know that this one timestamp in an episode, you were going to get fucked in a room.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Yeah. And then it’d be immortalized in podcast history where these episodes are relevant almost immediately after they come out. So that shelf life would have been short. But you know what I’m saying?

 

Ira Madison III Excuse me. I’ve gotten many emails from someone who says that they’re at the Smithsonian and want to put our podcast in it.

 

Louis Virtel A stranger can imagine how that would work visually.

 

Ira Madison III I just have to forward that my Social Security number and $5,000, but I believe it is on the up and up.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, sure. You have to send a little something to Nigeria. Yeah, right.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So we’re also going to talk about the new movie Bottoms this week, which is out. We both saw it will give you our little review of it. And because Cody is here, we’re going to talk about celebrity workout fads.

 

Louis Virtel What could be better, what could be more pop cultural, you know, celebrities who are like, have something to teach us about living our best lives. And it usually involves look hot. Yes. Yeah. Being hot. Yeah, we can do it, too.

 

Ira Madison III So we’ll be right back with more Keep It.

 

<AD>

 

Ira Madison III Well it’s the end of August, and a little movie that could is in theaters making a shit ton of money for only being on like I feel like ten theaters across America right so far. It is the new Queer Teen high School Fight Club film bottoms. You’ll be mistaken if you thought it was a documentary about gay men.

 

Louis Virtel Well, I mean, you would kind of think that it’s interesting why it’s called bottoms, because they refer to themselves as bottoms, like on the social ladder and high school. But you sort of mean you need a cut. You need to, like, process that before you realize what you’re actually why they’re calling it that.

 

Ira Madison III Emma Seligman and Rachel Senate, who wrote it together and Emma directed it as a follow up to her film Shiva Baby. They knew what they were doing.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. They were like, Okay, queer. We want queer blogs to report on this. Let’s call it Bottoms. Yeah. I respect it. I respect it.

 

Ira Madison III Hmm. Now, my question is. Louis. Yeah? Did you like.

 

Louis Virtel It? No. Did you like it?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I loved it.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, interesting.

 

Ira Madison III I loved this movie. I could tell you weren’t going to like it.

 

Louis Virtel I had a very great actress. Of course. Love her on the Bear. I just feel like the two main characters of this movie are still. Are doing the thing that I. It’s my pet peeve in in any comedy, which is their whole personality is awkward, like because they’re awkward, we, the audience, find them relatable. Let me tell you something. If you are awkward, I don’t find you relatable. You should not be awkward. Part of being an adult is not being awkward. It’s fun to talk to other people. It’s fun to socialize, stop. Like it’s like a form of narcissism to be like me. You’re talking to me. It’s I don’t like it. I don’t like that vibe. I don’t find it funny.

 

Ira Madison III That’s sad.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, that’s sad. Good performances from the both of them enjoyed the performances.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. Good performer, young performer.

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Ira Madison III Come on. Come on.

 

Louis Virtel Aretha.

 

Ira Madison III I really enjoyed it. And I feel like the and I feel like when I was watching it, I could sort of sense my my spidey senses were tingling. Yeah. And telling me that this was particularly a Louis film, if only because at first it seemed darker, almost as if it was heading towards Heather’s territory or something. It’s been compared to Mean Girls quite a bit, but I would still say that it is edgier than Mean Girls. I would say that it sort of feels in the line of Easy A-ish or Anchorman, very untethered to reality in its comedy and very specific with it being satire, which unspools. And then by the end of the film, it’s almost cartoonish with it’s sort of no plot point really needs to make sense. And it we’ve sort of got a plot. We’re going forward with it and everything is occurring in the final act. Me personally, I could not stop fucking laughing the entire film. Granted, I was on a 15 edible, so, you know, I was, I was, I primed the pump.

 

Louis Virtel You know, you rarely hear Siskel say I was high as fuck when I watched My Dinner With Andre. I was glad to have this new point of view here. Yeah, I think. Also, do you know what I mean? It reminded me totally of Pitch Perfect, which is to say it’s the friendships angle of it I found kind of grounded and cool and like, it felt like everybody had like a reasonable and real dynamic, but I felt like it was too often trying to be outrageous and instead coming up with garish and loud, you know, like, just like, I guess it’s just. Do you think it was funny or not? That’s what I’m saying. And I it mostly came up for me as, you know, like, not that funny.

 

Ira Madison III I find it funny. I feel like it used the Fight Club element as a sort of commentary on violence against men and women. I felt like the darkest moments were obviously talking about sexual assault feminism in the film and talking about queerness. I thought that those moments really hit. It was nice to see moments like those in a film that felt. At least like they were trying to punch up or trying to make something that seemed, you know, sort of an edgy joke, a joke that might seem uncomfortable at first, but then it is very funny. It did lean a lot into uncomfortable jokes. It’s like sort of you can’t do you can’t say that on television sort of thing. But for the most part, I think they really blend it with me. There’s a great joke about a black Republican in it.

 

Louis Virtel That I laughed out loud. And also she gives a good performance. I enjoyed her.

 

Ira Madison III That actress, Zamani Wilder, was hilarious. I will also say that our recent Keep It guest, Punkie Johnson.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Had one scene in the film and she stole that fucking scene.

 

Louis Virtel It’s a really funny saying, Oh, I.

 

Ira Madison III Really see it. And. This is coming from the LeBron James school of acting because I did not know Marshawn Lynch was so fucking funny.

 

Louis Virtel That was a good performance also. Actually, you know who my favorite one in the movie was? Kaia Gerber.

 

Ira Madison III Kaia Gerber. Kaia Gerber.

 

Louis Virtel She’s got a girl here. She’s given one sort of deadpan assignment where she responds like, Exactly, this is what she sounds like. Tiffany from Daria, who’s in the fashion club and who’s like, Everything’s like that. She does that and but it lands every time. And the look on her face is so funny. And of course, she looks exactly like Cindy Crawford. So there’s some retro fun there.

 

Ira Madison III But I was definitely getting the Daria Fashion Club vibes from her. She was so for minute it took me a second to place her. Then I’m like, Oh, she looks like fucking Cindy Crawford. Of course this is her daughter. She’s so funny in it. I thought she was really, really good. I also liked Havana Rose.

 

Louis Virtel Good. Another performance. Whose smile to me reminds me of Amy Irving, which immediately puts me at ease. You know, that puts me right back into Yentl, where I belong.

 

Ira Madison III I would say that if it’s a film that you don’t love and didn’t find particularly funny, everyone in the film is great.

 

Louis Virtel Similarly, having a good time too. It introduces you to a bunch of new talent too. So I think it’s just instructional in that way also. But I will say I do appreciate that there’s a queer movie just about, you know, young women being horny and nefarious. I mean, truly, it’s a movie about setting up how do I have sex? I’m going to use dubious ways to get it. And you know, there’s some comeuppance in the end, obviously, You know, like Dear Evan Hansen, their sociopathic ways are eventually warmed over into a lovely ending. That’s something I appreciate in theory more than I appreciate the whole parody thereof.

 

Ira Madison III See, that just reminds me that I wish Dear Evan Hansen was a queer film because.

 

Louis Virtel It’s not.

 

Ira Madison III He was doing all of that to get a guy.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III Who’s doing all that, to get a guy, it would make the movie at least 50% more interesting, right?

 

Louis Virtel No, that’s there are several movies or plays, whatever that feel like they are gay, but it turns out there’s nothing gay about them. I always bring up the movie Metropolitan. There were some in movie from 1990. I literally I’m like, Oh, my gay friends. And I would watch that movie all the time. There is nothing gay in this movie. It’s so strange. Dear Evan Hansen That’s no, that’s a gay actor, not a gay role.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And Evan Hansen is just a weirdo. Yeah, Not a homosexual.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Which, you know, the Venn diagram is like a perfect circle, unfortunately. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I would also say that it is a film that works better. Even though I did say that, you know, the manipulation in your Evan Hansen would be more interesting if he were queer. This particular movie, creating this fight club to sleep with these girls also felt like a fun throwback to an eighties 90 sex comedy and feel like it goes down easier with the women in this film.

 

Louis Virtel I think the throwback quality actually did bother me, though, because once we met the awkward protagonist, I had the thought, Let me guess, Everybody else in this high school movie is a broad high school stereotype, and it made me think like, that’s a satire we’ve seen before. I like the jock who is a complete idiot, you know, the the cheerleaders who are, you know, bimbo esk, whatever. Like, I just feel like we had seen that before. And so if you find a throwback vibe to that, I mean, there’s throwback and then there’s cliché and I felt like we got more cliché in that instance.

 

Ira Madison III I will say that it was fun to see Nicholas Goulet singing.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, right.

 

Ira Madison III In Bottoms. Just a couple of weeks after seeing him in Red, White and Royal Blue. Seeing that he can play two different sides on film.

 

Louis Virtel Because he does not remind me of that other performance at all. Like, actually, it’s a good testament to his versatility along lol gay people that he gave both those performances.

 

Ira Madison III I will say you mentioned the characters were sort of felt like they were cliches, felt like they were, you know, just a throwback to something we had seen before. I wish we had seen more of the really villainous football player, Miles Fowler.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yes.

 

Ira Madison III I think was great. And I think that he really sort of leaned into this sort of the movie felt more like a Heathers when he was on screen, right?

 

Louis Virtel No, because he was very like playing with his most sinister set of sinister, you know, Vincent Price character or something, just like a villain and loving it kind of performance. Yeah, he was he was really good at it, too. Actually, it’s been a pretty good summer for, like, gay fare. Like you’ve had lots of options and that’s it’s been zany and sometimes emotional and sometimes romantic. We talked about that Ben Whishaw movie Passages. I mean, there’s like plenty of options this summer.

 

Ira Madison III And it’s nice to see a queer film with women in it.

 

Louis Virtel Just never.

 

Ira Madison III Has. Well, it’s nice to see them with cell phones.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Yeah, because.

 

Ira Madison III Because every time we get a queer woman film, there’s always. There’s always the bodice ripping. There’s always. We’re walking through this dark house by candlelight. Yes. There’s always a horse in a carriage.

 

Louis Virtel Somebody dying by throwing themselves in the ocean in 1901.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Queer women seemingly do not exist past 1910. Yeah. Cinema. So this was very nice to watch. And the audience fucking loved it. But of course I watched it with it’s playing on, I believe, one or two screens in New York at the moment, so it was nice to see the film with the audience it was intended for, obviously, because they all showed out for it. Just, you know, every queer person who lives in the Flatbush vicinity, right?

 

Louis Virtel Yes, yes, yes, yes. I will say my favorite queer lady film of the past ten years. Still, Carol, still no competitors to Carol. So, I mean, like, I think that’s a bar that everybody should aspire to. And I welcome.

 

Ira Madison III Everyone to, man.

 

Louis Virtel So. Yes. Well, also. But written by a lesbian woman or adopted by a lesbian lesbian woman.

 

Ira Madison III Who tried to destroy the WGA a few years ago. True.

 

Louis Virtel By the way, do you know a movie I watched over the weekend that I had never seen before? Primary Colors. Did you know that in that movie, Kathy Bates goes, I’m a gay lesbian woman. I just want you to know that that’s on the record. I’m a gay lesbian moment. By the way, good performance from Kathy Bates. She was nominated.

 

Ira Madison III Actually, I don’t believe I’ve seen Primary colors.

 

Louis Virtel Is that the Bill Clinton romance? No, it’s not. That’s the American president. Elaine May wrote the script for this and was nominated for it.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. The American Presidents surprisingly very underrated.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah. Very good. That might be my favorite Sorkin thing, period. Besides the Alec Baldwin speech in Malice.

 

Ira Madison III I think it sort of gets lost beneath the West Wing of it all. That was sort of a springboard for that. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel It’s like In The Loop as compared to Veep, you know what I’m saying?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Yeah. I should watch Primary Colors. Yeah, Actually, who else is in that? Is that Travolta?

 

Louis Virtel Yes. John Travolta plays the Bill Clinton e character, and you can tell he is going for Bill Clinton. No doubt about that. What’s interesting is Emma Thompson plays his wife and she does not remind me of Hillary Clinton in it. I don’t think it’s really about Hillary Clinton ultimately.

 

Ira Madison III Well, you know, both married to captive women. Yes. Both married to captivating women.

 

Louis Virtel Certainly, sir.

 

Ira Madison III For Travolta.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. May she rest. Kelly Preston.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And may she rest from having to be on morning shows talking about Trump for the rest of her life. Hillary Clinton.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. That’s tough. That’s tough.

 

Ira Madison III That’s a noose. I’m sorry. That’s a that’s a new special. How I feel like I went through the typical liberal thing of I’m tired of seeing Hillary Clinton everywhere enough. And then it went to I’m not tired of her. I’m tired of every white guy who’s obsessed with Hillary Clinton posting a meme of her laughing every time something happens to Trump to now it’s turn around to I’m worried if she is trapped in starts no exit. Look.

 

Louis Virtel Let let her rest. Yeah, right, right.

 

Ira Madison III She’s going to be talk about that man for the rest of her life. People will be talking about Donald Trump in her obituary probably.

 

Louis Virtel Certainly. And also, by the way, she already wrote the fucking book on it, which I’ve already congratulated the title of 10,000 times.

 

Ira Madison III What happened if I did it?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, where was she on that? And I want to know. There was at the White House. She was at the White House anyway. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III The Tarantino esque film where it’s. Where it presupposes. Just it just has ten different celebrity options of who else could have murdered Nicole.

 

Louis Virtel Right. And you think Hillary is one of them? Yeah. Okay.

 

Ira Madison III She’s one.

 

Louis Virtel Of us. All right.

 

Ira Madison III I was reading about it online. There was this thread. You know, I think it’s. It’s on this website for channel.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And it says news. There were. There were helicopters.

 

Louis Virtel Heard.

 

Ira Madison III That night in LA. And some people believe it was the Air Force One copter.

 

Louis Virtel The Air Force One helicopter. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Because they also have a helicopter.

 

Louis Virtel Which they’re always in, if you know Hillary. She’s like, I’ll take the copter. Thanks. Right. I mean, like, I don’t even need to close the door. It’s fine. Ddrop me off in L.A..

 

Ira Madison III All right. Well, we are back. We will be joined by Cody Rigsby.

 

Louis Virtel <AD>.

 

Ira Madison III Our guest today has many titles. That means a lot of jobs. He owns businesses. Uh, he’s known as a dancer, fitness instructor, influencer, comedian, leader of the Boo crew is now adding author to that resumé with the release of his first book, XOXO, Cody: An Opinionated Homosexuals Guide to Self-love, Relationships and Tactful Pettiness and now is here on Keep It with two homosexuals who have never expressed an opinion before.

 

Louis Virtel I’m such a cat, I can’t wait to express my first opinion.

 

Ira Madison III Please welcome Cody Rigsby.

 

Cody Rigsby Hi, boys. How we doing today?

 

Ira Madison III We’re good. How are you?

 

Cody Rigsby I’m great. I mean, I’m, like, coming out of a very rambunctious weekend, which included tea yesterday, so, you know, it’s been a three day weekend for me, so I’m. I’m finding it. I’m finding my life.

 

Louis Virtel No, you’re currently entrenched on Fire Island, but you should establish. And that’s where tea occurs. It’s there’s the big meeting time at like 5 p.m. ET on Fire Island, where everybody, you know, has something to drink. But you, like, spend a lot of time on Fire Island there. Is that a haven for you?

 

Cody Rigsby For sure. I mean, I’m usually out here like every other weekend and it’s it’s nice. It’s always a choose your own adventure. It’s like, what do you want? Do you want to be a party girl? Do you want to be at home in like, cooking girl? Do you want a beach girl? Like, sometimes you get it all. Sometimes you you do one or the other.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. It’s like your new line of, like, a mattel toy, you know?

 

Louis Virtel Exactly. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III I’ve been to your Fire Island home, which I think is gorgeous. And I want to ask you about sort of what went into you being like, I love this island and not that I’m getting a place here and I also want to renovate it.

 

Cody Rigsby But I feel like I came here ten years ago for the first time as a day tripper with my bag, put my bag down at someone’s house, and I couldn’t tell you who it was, where it was. And I just thought always, it’s like fun and magical. And there’s so much like queer history here, and it’s just like such a safe haven for us to be whoever and whatever we want to be. And I’ve just been coming out here over the years and I just wanted my little slice of heaven and, you know, all these houses out here as old as as fuck. So, you know, it’s a nice DIY, do it DIY little project and making it my, my own. So, yeah.

 

Louis Virtel You’re right about queer history in a number of ways. I was like walking down the boardwalk once and a friend of mine greeted me and then he goes, Oh, by the way, meet my friend. And his friend was Stephen Schwartz, who’s written like Wicked and, you know, Godspell and stuff. And I can’t just talk about Gilda Radner and the Toronto Godspell that just anybody. So it’s a very magical island. You’re in the right place. Now, I have to ask you, I mean, of course we know you from your famous bike riding peloton. Yeah. Videos where you’re fabulous. You were among the most gregarious people I’ve ever seen, so I can only assume that writing a book for you about yourself and your opinions would be easier than the average person. But how was the book writing process? Was it difficult? Did it come to you naturally or what?

 

Cody Rigsby Yeah, I mean, I’ve been getting in trouble since like fifth grade for talking too much in class, so it’s very easy to just talk and talk and talk and talk. The process was actually like really therapeutic, really fun. Like I said this in other interviews, I don’t we think of our our lives. I don’t think we go back in such detail to be like, oh, like what happened here? And so fun, like little memories pop up where you forget little details and you have a nice little laugh. And then you also get to like the traumatic parts of your life. And I think you realize on the other end of it, like you’ve gotten through it, you figured it out, you’ve let it go and you’re in a much better place. So it almost felt like. A therapy on roids.

 

Ira Madison III Hmm. Well, I mean, you know, Florida armed school system aside, books tend to be permanent.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III But, you know.

 

Cody Rigsby We might get banned. And I don’t know if.

 

Ira Madison III That would be great for you. That’d be great for you, to be honest. Who doesn’t want a banned book, at this point?

 

Cody Rigsby That’d be freat, honestly.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. But books are permanent, you know, like, you put your trauma into where you put stories about yourself that might not make you come out in the best light. And they’re just sort of there forever. Did you have any reticence about including any portion of the book or, you know, your persona just generally, you know, is very open? You know, did you well, you’re not going to alienate anybody?

 

Cody Rigsby No. I mean, I’m pretty much an open book. If you take my class, I talk like about everything and anything from silly to sex to, you know, traumatic stuff about my life. So I didn’t really feel like I had to hold hold back. There’s nothing that I like regret about it. I feel like if it’s about part of this book is about self-love and my own journey with that. I feel you can’t preach about self-love if you’re not willing to open up about the hard things about your life, the things that you might have shame or guilt about. Because, as Beyoncé says, we need people to love us, flaws and all. And I had to like, put that in so people will love themselves for their messiness too.

 

Louis Virtel Now, people often claim that Taylor Swift is the ultimate parasocial relationship with her fans, as you know that people people relate to her in a very extreme where I have to disagree. I believe you are the ultimate parasocial celebrity. People tune in to be your friend every day and get your energy. And so I assume when you’re out in public, people approached you. We were talking about Bob Barker today, like a like constant episode of The Price Is Right is a correct, like just screaming Beatlemania, like reactions to you where wherever you go, is it daunting to be that quote unquote relatable to people?

 

Cody Rigsby Oh, I mean, a little bit. I always say this like I feel like I’m Mickey Mouse sometimes where I’m just like at a moment’s notice. I have like take the picture and give the full Peloton magic to what people think about. But, you know, I feel like I get to live my life in a very, like fairly normal way and just know that that’s part of the part of the process. But you got to think about it like it feels like a one on one experience. When you’re taking a class from your home, you’re working on like fitness goals or mental health goals. So there’s that, that attachment to it. And then, you know, like I don’t know where I’m sharing a lot of my story in people. People relate to it. So usually I do hear that, but a lot of the times it’s like, Oh my, my sister or my boss or my mom really loves you. Can I take a picture and send it to her?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, Yeah. That happens a lot. That happens a lot. I was at the movies last night and someone was like my wife. Big fan of the podcast. Let’s take a photo. And I was like, All right, okay. I’m sure you’re I’m sure your wife will get some sort of, like, connection to this. Maybe it’s for you. But I have to ask, too. You know, the people who listen to you, the people who watch you ride with you, you know, obviously, you know, you’re a fitness instructor in that, you know, your Peloton, you know, king here, you know, like, do you find that people then sort of like are expecting also like, let me ask Cody, like what my new like workout routine should be? What should my, like, diet plan be? Do people try to see you as sort of like your, you know, your Billy blanks? You know, like you like you’re I want a whole routine from you.

 

Cody Rigsby You know, I feel like that question only comes up with like most people who, like, don’t know who I am and they, like, find out I’m an instructor and I’m just like, You don’t want to ask me about your diet. Like, go ask her nutrition about this. Like, I have a I have a a horrible, like, not refined diet, like I love Cheetos and ice cream and whatever, whatever. And I’m cocktail I’m cocktail. I’m not going to give you I’m not going to give you a fitness fix. You know, go find a personal trainer and jump on the peloton. That’s what it’s for.

 

Louis Virtel Go find a personal trainer. You scream at them. That’s so exciting. I approach to celebrity. I have to say, I admire people need to stop being finding random people so relatable. We talk about this all the time on the podcast, but what was your favorite part of the book to write? Oh.

 

Cody Rigsby I feel like a lot of people come to my rides and that Zamboni, which is a ride, a peloton, it’s mostly about like relationships and people sending me questions about their chaos. And I love like giving very brash, in-your-face commentary on their lives. So I really did enjoy that aspect of the life of that book. I like having people sending me their questions and be able to respond. And I think just sharing my dating history in the book was a lot of fun. I feel like throughout the relationships I’ve had or the dating experiences that I’ve really been able to like make a lot of rules and have found, I don’t know, a lane and a voice that that’s I really do. I really do enjoy that.

 

Ira Madison III I thought that it was lovely that you shared your dating history. And I also was like, knowing that you are currently still with Andres. I was like, It was. I was reading it. I was like, Did this book get finished before they got back together or did I? Because it was through the break and then.

 

Cody Rigsby They went through the breakup and then we got back together. So before I had the final no, before I even had the first draft, then I was able to be like, okay, I’m going to shift gears a little bit and I got a little bit more of the story.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. What do you find that you know, if you’re giving relationship advice to people on Peloton, usually I feel like is is it largely to women? And I feel like is there advice that you would give to gay men or your gay friends that you would find would be slightly different than what you would give to, you know, your average fan base?

 

Cody Rigsby Well, I feel like I preach about being a whole lot, and I feel like that is mostly towards women. I feel like women in this society, you know, patriarchy, misogyny don’t give get permission to be sluts. I don’t I don’t think I need to tell you to to be sluts. I have to be good at it.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. You know.

 

Cody Rigsby I have a I have a feeling you guys are pretty good at it. I think when it comes to queer people, it’s. I. I think the most important it is loving ourselves. I think we have a lot of barriers, a barriers to that. And I think a really important thing that I feel like I talked about in the book was, was really prioritizing friendships and their opinions and like using those people as sounding boards. Sometimes I feel like we jump into relationships or dating someone. They’re like, Oh my God, he’s amazing and there’s nothing wrong with him. And we kind of put blindfolds on to the people that are important and their opinions towards the person that we’re dating because they’re dating. If someone’s dating me, they’re dating me and my friends and it’s kind of reciprocal there.

 

Louis Virtel Nothing is more mystifying to me than when somebody starts dating a guy. This is among my gay friends. And then that that guy doesn’t gel with the rest of the friend group or whatever. Like, I would be acutely aware of somebody I was dating didn’t fit in with the people I spent all my time with. What is that? What is How do people get that wrong?

 

Cody Rigsby I feel like people are very dickmatized or it’s like he’s hot right now. We’re going to figure it out and we’re not and they’re not going into the depth of it. It is vital for someone I’m dating to get along and gel with my friends and they’re not easy. Like we’re all quick. We’re all, you know, a little bit shady where we draw them to the sharks. And so if you can’t gel with that, you’re not going to be a good fit for for me. But it’s it’s hard to like get to know someone’s friends. I’m I’m always up for the task, like I’m coming in ready to literally slay any friend group.

 

Ira Madison III I always do kind of wonder, though, you know, if there is some sort of middle between gay relationships where, you know, you have a new boyfriend. And obviously if you go to the same parties, you have the same interests as your friends, like you’re bringing them almost everywhere. And then the other extreme of, you know, heteronormative relationships where the their boyfriend, you might see them like if you’re having girls night at the house or something, or if they’re all having dinner or something together. But he sort of has his own life. And on friends, too. I feel like sometimes there are gays who have a boyfriend who maybe if you don’t have the same interest as someone’s friends, you see them at birthday parties, but they don’t necessarily need to be around your life all the time. I’ve told a friend of mine I’m not going to name names because he listens to the show, but it’s very he is very in the theater, you know, and he’s a theater critic and his boyfriend doesn’t really love theater. And my thing was, you know, you don’t have to take him everywhere.

 

Cody Rigsby Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III You know?

 

Cody Rigsby Like, can you do it specifically like. That, either you love it or hate it. And I would hate to, like for someone through 3 hours of song and dance when they don’t want to.

 

Ira Madison III And take free tickets away from your friends. Who were used to that before, you know?

 

Cody Rigsby Exactly. I feel like when you first start dating, they might go to one show just to be like, Yeah, I’m trying to like court you and be nice. But I think it’s those are implied like, Bitch, I’m not going.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, you seem like somebody who has had very long term gay friendships. What do you get out of your specific friend group? That is so I would assume, revitalizing to your life.

 

Cody Rigsby Yeah I like my my friends are so like it’s our chosen family. I think we all moved to New York or bigger cities looking to feel like you can be long and like find your girls, that you can do a multitude of things like travel party for each other in your careers. So I mean, I’ve had a lot of these these friendships for over a decade, and some have, you know, some have fallen to the wayside. I think that’s natural. You you like lose, you lose friendships. And that’s okay. They’re just like not part of part of your season right now or or they’re ever coming back. But I don’t think of my friend Clinton. If you were I don’t know if he was here when you were here. I can’t remember. But my friend Clinton and I known for like 11, 12 years we’ve lived together and we’ve used to dance together. He’s like like a little brother to me. So I feel like he’s also been my my Sherpa into nightlife and gay social life and really helped me, like, find my stride here. I didn’t feel like I felt like I didn’t feel like New York felt like home until I met Clinton.

 

Louis Virtel Hmm. It goes underrated. How much like gay people have to teach other gay people things like just like, the basics of going out or like, you know, preparing for gay sex or whatever. Yeah, sure.

 

Cody Rigsby And a lot of the girls haven’t figured out the latter part.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah, I know. But, you know, education in this country, as you know, is a shambles. So there are some holes, if you will.

 

Ira Madison III That’s why they should be. How you learn by doing.

 

Cody Rigsby And you should wait till the water runs clear.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Well, you know, we learned that from Charlie XCX.

 

Cody Rigsby Thank God. Thank God.

 

Ira Madison III Very, very informative song.

 

Cody Rigsby And that’s called ally-ship.

 

Louis Virtel If there’s one thing she is.

 

Cody Rigsby Yeah. An ally.

 

Ira Madison III And you talked about, you know, you met Quentin because you were both dancers, too. I’m going to have to ask you. You know, you used to be a dancer, you know, for you’ve danced at the box where I’ve been to dance for pop stars, you know, like. Do you have fond memories of doing that, or was it sort of like a nightmare being like, I’m dancing for Katy Perry, I’m dancing for Nicki Minaj? Like, did they make you eat bananas? I don’t know. Like, what was the tea there?

 

Cody Rigsby There was none of that. We never got we never got close talks with them enough to be in a band. Oh, no, It was such a long time ago. I mean, I haven’t danced in a decade and a lot of that, a lot of that life was like, so bittersweet. You’re like, so excited to be dancing for Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj and you’ve been working so hard to get there and it comes and goes so quickly, but you also realize, like, what you’re building is not for you, it’s for somebody else and maybe a measly paycheck. So it was a lot of fun. But I also it’s it also felt very toxic because you’re putting your whole like validation yourself on someone else’s opinion if you’re worthy of like working for them. And sometimes I put a little too much weight into that validation. I feel like I had to realize, like, I’m sure both of you have this to me. Like in the casting process, you can be like the most talented, but sometimes you’re just like, not the fit. Like look, lies or energy or they’ve got somebody else’s friend that they want to work with. So it was really hard to like, separate those two. That makes sense.

 

Louis Virtel No, something that always sticks with me as there’s this. In 2004, Madonna released a tour documentary and she’s auditioning dancers and then they leave the room or whatever. And she says, not in a super pejorative way. It just like comes out of her mouth. She goes, Man, that is a dog’s life. And I was just thinking like, she’s just like, Brian, these people are just waiting for a gig. And most of the time it has nothing to do with whether they are, quote unquote, good enough. If you’ve gotten into the room, you’re probably good enough, you know.

 

Cody Rigsby And that’s that’s how it feels.

 

Ira Madison III I’ve been in. Sometimes you go just for the fun of it. I was in college, My friends and I went to watch Beyonce. They had she had an open call dancers.

 

Louis Virtel Help me, God.

 

Ira Madison III For like the B-day experience

 

Louis Virtel The Full Monty. What is this?

 

Cody Rigsby Wait for Beyoncé?

 

Ira Madison III Beyonce. She had. No, I think it was the I Am world tour. At that point. But she had had like open opened dance calls in Chicago. And my friends, you know, in my like hip hop dance team at the time everyone was like, let’s just all go up in the morning and wait in line. And I was never trying to be a dancer. So it was like, but it was fun being in that line and just sort of like taking in, you know, the whole like got a sense of it. It was very intense.

 

Cody Rigsby Very intense. I mean, like my last audition, like one of my last big auditions was for J.Lo. And I remember just being like. Put through the ringer. And I was like, You know what, guys? I’m out. I’m good. I’m going home. Thank you. Like, did you see her?

 

Ira Madison III Did you even get to see her?

 

Cody Rigsby Yes. It was just I read about in the book like it was one of those things where I felt like I was getting used, like I’d. I’d. I’d audition. Then we went to it. We went from, like, Pearl Studios to Alvin Ailey where there’s, like, rehearsal going on. But the art director says choreographer was like playing games and not being like, You have the job. So I was there for like 8 hours dancing in front of J.Lo, eating arugula and salmon salad, and then they don’t go. And then the guy’s like, okay, we’ll see you tomorrow. I’m like, okay, this is like one day we get contracts. He’s like, Oh, no, we’re still rehearsing. I was like, I got to go. This is this is too much like. And my friend who did that gig, he got a contract like a week later, so he worked a whole week without knowing if he was in the show or not. And I just started Pelaton so I was like, I’m out.

 

Louis Virtel They call the movie Hustlers for a reason. Okay, shut up and fucking dance, bitch. That is fucking right rough.

 

Ira Madison III I’m just loving the idea of her sitting there with a salad and a rigorous salad, though, you know, just chomping away. Being J.Lo.

 

Cody Rigsby Someone definitely made it for her.

 

Louis Virtel Cody Rigsby thinks J.Lo does not have motor skills and did not create that salad. That’s the scare headline I wrote myself.

 

Cody Rigsby No, she has to have a very well balanced diet. So she doesn’t have to use Botox, allegedly.

 

Louis Virtel I mean.

 

Ira Madison III Yes.

 

Louis Virtel We’re all still trying to solve how she does it.

 

Ira Madison III She also says she doesn’t drink. You know, she’s always I believe that. I believe that. And now I just one of my favorite things about her working out is like are. Where was it? Maybe it was Thanksgiving Day or something where she just uploaded like an Instagram of her leaving the gym or something. It was very early in the morning and she was like, R.I.P. to these calories. But that was just like the cat said. It was the day after Thanksgiving letting you down. Like I got up. I figured because you’re because you’re reading this in bed.

 

Louis Virtel Cody, thank you so much for being here. But the book, by the way, is about pure joy as you are on Palatine, etc. So thank you for bringing that energy to the page. Where do you think I run? I know how to read. So thank you for for keeping us glued.

 

Cody Rigsby As long as you know how to read it at third grade level, you’re good.

 

Louis Virtel That’s about it. So yeah.

 

Cody Rigsby That’s about it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Thank you, Cody.

 

Cody Rigsby Thank you, boys, for having me. What a pleasure. Life.

 

Ira Madison III You know, riding bikes is scary to me, but, you know, the book. The book was about safer.

 

Cody Rigsby So I’m glad. I’m glad you can find a safe space.

 

Ira Madison III <AD>.

 

Ira Madison III After talking to Cody Rigsby, we decided to go down the spandex clad road that is celebrity workout fads and videos. And which of them has stood the test of time? You know, workout tapes by Fonda, for instance. But as Sir Mix-A-Lot taught me. Fonda ain’t got a motor in the back of her Honda.

 

Louis Virtel Right. And as you know, he is nothing but a journalist.

 

Ira Madison III Fonda’s workout tapes started with that. Did you? If you’ve seen them, obviously. They’re fine.

 

Louis Virtel Also, I mean, they remain, I think, still among the best selling VHS ever. She basically revolutionized the idea of owning a home video cassette. Well, what’s interesting about her reign as the workout goddess in the early eighties was it was still in the very prime of her being a movie star. So she was releasing those tapes as movies like On Golden Pond and 9 to 5 are coming out. So she basically, you know, in those days, people rarely mixed, being a movie star in a TV star, period, let alone I’m going to be this available to you as a like a VHS star. So I think she kind of bridged a couple of worlds in a way that hadn’t been done before. And also, it’s just the way she looked. I mean, when you see her do a back flip in on Golden Pond into the water, you’re like, all right, well, I want to be 43 and have the craziest town of all time to how can I do it? And she’s like, putting your leg over your head. And I. I would have believed it myself.

 

Ira Madison III It’s interesting to think of Jane Fonda as this sort of pioneer in this realm, if only because you expect every celebrity, male or female, now to have their own workout gear, if not a workout line or some sort of beauty regimen that they are selling you. And it’s interesting to think of how that might dilute someone’s brand. Now, if it’s not done properly, and how do you think that that worked in tandem with Jane Fonda’s brand at the time? Because she was winning. She was winning Oscar itself. So I don’t think it really affected her. And I didn’t really get a sense of it from her documentary that we watched a few years ago. But even how people would have perceived her then, like, oh, here’s Jane Fonda doing these workout videos, but also she’s winning Oscars. So it’s not like you can drag her for it.

 

Louis Virtel I think also at the time, though, it was still part of image rehab for her because she went through all of these years where she was persona non stop. Yes. And so like when she came back to the spotlight with her quote unquote, issues, movies that she was a producer at the time, she would pick these projects and do them like coming home and the China syndrome, whatever that was, her returning to the fore and America returning to, honestly palatability in a certain way. And so to I think this was a good and masterful move to remind people like, oh, I’m I’m still like all American Jane Fonda, daughter of Henry, in a way, you know, which is, of course, what we got out of on Golden Pond, too. But this being like, oh, I have to work out and keep up with the times. You know, I have to keep up with my health just like everybody else does. I’m aging, too, you know. So I think it really established her as a relatable celebrity who got.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean, even to take it back to, ah, Bob Barker Barker’s beauty conversation. Right, You know. I remember seeing the infomercials airing for Jane Fonda’s workout videos long after she would have been doing them. Yeah, obviously. But they were they were still in heavy rotation. And obviously the cervix, the locks on baby got back references. So I knew about it in the nineties. And it’s just interesting seeing that that has really shaped our as younger generations perception of who Jane Fonda was. And it’s really only older people who remember the sort of Vietnam era and also.

 

Louis Virtel And Megan Kelley. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Who is a thousand years old to be, to be fair. Yes, I like Al Gore guns. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, that bitch was Dracula’s Basement. And she was one of the three. She was one of those. She was one of the three. But, Jonathan, I think even the idea that she was Henry’s daughter, you know, growing up, I didn’t know who the fuck Henry Fonda was until I went to film school.

 

Louis Virtel Right, Right. I will say I had this realization recently speaking of famous workout tapes. Absolutely, no doubt in my mind, that someone will win a Best Actor Oscar for playing Richard Simmons. Absolutely. No. If I could be sure of one thing in this life, it is that that will happen. And I also am positive that the actor who plays him will not be gay. Now, what’s interesting about that is it’s not like Richard Simmons has ever, quote unquote, come out. And I’m not saying I have any evidence that he is gay. That said, what a character. And also when that podcast about him, it came out a couple of years ago, it was really illuminating that everybody was touched by this man. Like, his energy is the original Cody Rigsby, if you will. His shear I would guess I would call it vulnerability in a way, how he was just like it was all about having a ton of energy and working out together and but otherwise not having vanity. You know, so I don’t know what that is, but I feel like we will commemorate that on film after a certain point, probably after he’s dead. I assume he’s cagey about his life, right? Since it hasn’t happened yet.

 

Ira Madison III I would be heavily invested in that because I remember when that podcast dropped. Not just the idea that we were all touched and moved by him, the idea that he was still a celebrity who existed within our public consciousness. Right. If we hadn’t been thinking of him.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III See, every day, right? Yeah. Vanished. Just missing. You know, it was called Finding Richard Simmons. So. But going back and looking at those clips. Yeah, it’s definitely from a period of television where. You could have someone on TV being gay as all get out.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III And yet we would still not call them gay.

 

Louis Virtel Totally. He is totally that kind of celebrity where it was just like he’s that exuberant, you know, and so coordinated. And we didn’t have a word for that because we live in, you know, Lamont, Illinois, where I’m from, and we’ve never heard of gay people.

 

Ira Madison III We are actually referring to him as the Cody Rigsby prototype that we have now got into the era where someone like that can be open about who they’re dating with, the people who are consuming their content. Yeah, you know.

 

Louis Virtel Right, Right. Those videos, by the way, slap. When you watch sweatin to the oldies, you’re like, Wow, I am absolutely stepping to On Broadway by George Benson or Martha and the Vandellas or whatever.

 

Ira Madison III Those commercials were also on in the middle of the night alongside. Tybo with Billy Blanks. He’s hot as hell. And I remember those commercials always aired at night.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yes. Oh, please. That was the gym class for me growing up. You would do Tybo, maybe even to the drops of Jupiter song mentioning Tybo and shout out, Yeah, to my high school very fit gym teacher Diane Statement.

 

Ira Madison III Now sometimes I always confuse them because they’re both bald black men who do workouts and from that same era. But do you also remember Shaun T from P90X?

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III Those workouts, which was basically, I feel like a generation’s introduction to HIIT workouts.

 

Louis Virtel Correct. Correct. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Now he’s gay.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, he is.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So check out his Instagram. It is. He is always posting pics of him and his hot boyfriend.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Thank God. All right. P90XXX. I’d like to see it.

 

Ira Madison III I remember doing my P90X in my room, stealing my grandmother’s tape, and I was like, This is a lot.

 

Louis Virtel I hate sweating in my home. I’m shocked. People like working out at home.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So I feel like a Billy Blanks limited series would be very good. I don’t know if his life was as traumatic enough to warrant a film in the way of a Richard Simmons. Although I feel like we’re destined for a Oscar winning Richard Simmons film. And then also a very shitty lifetime Richard Simmons film that comes out around the same time.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I would love to see that, obviously. And so I contain multitudes. I want to see both.

 

Ira Madison III And so who plays him in both?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, God, that’s so hard. I mean, like. Well, I mean, like Taron Egerton. He didn’t get the Oscar nom with Elton John. Could he feasibly go back and do Richard Simmons and and, you know, dip his toes back into the queer and flashy realm?

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Well, much like Richard Simmons, he also does have a nebulous personal life.

 

Louis Virtel Right, right, right, right. Yeah, You I’ve told you my favorite tongue twister of all time, right? Whenever Taron Egerton comes up, I have to go. Joel Edgerton, Taron Egerton, Gemma Arterton. I have to do it every time. Every time you try it at home.

 

Ira Madison III My friend’s favorite one that I’ve heard recently is Gideon Glick had his book release Party at The Cock.

 

Louis Virtel Wow. That is so Henry Higgins. Oh, my God. That’s all right at The Cock. I knew Gideon Glick. He really does have, like, a super cool name.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. And so now you have current celebrities who have their own clothing lines. There’s fabletics.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, I have a couple other things. Q Clothes.

 

Ira Madison III But shout out to Kate Hudson for being so successful with Fabletics, but also still loving to act.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, She’s like, All right, I’ll do the knives out movie. Great. She’s like, I’m an Oscar nominee. I’m going to act like it. Gwyneth, we’re looking at you. What’s happening?

 

Ira Madison III Give us something.

 

Louis Virtel The power show comeback.

 

Ira Madison III I know. Just one little morsel. And I don’t mean just a Ryan Murphy show. I mean, I want a film where Gwyneth Paltrow is in it and she just skates right. To at least a nomination, if not another Oscar win, because I know she has another.

 

Louis Virtel No, because she has one nomination, one win, which, of course, is very clean. And I love that for her. But, you know, lesser even just a supporting something. Do the Sally Field and Lincoln thing. Just give us a couple of strong scenes. You’ll be on your way. I’m telling you, it’s three days of work, by the way. I’m like her agent now. Okay.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like the other celebrity workout thing truly is. They just like to put themselves working out on it.

 

Louis Virtel I was going to say that.

 

Ira Madison III I was doing.

 

Louis Virtel That. Everybody was like Plank for 10 minutes on Instagram. Like, I know, like what? Busy Philipps His forearms look like, You know what I’m saying? Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III You could truly feel the sweat coming through the screen on the Instagram lights when she would be working out.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like so many celebrities. Just sort of do that now. Mm hmm. It makes them relatable. Working out makes people relatable, which is very it’s it’s weird because it’s it’s either relatable to people who work out all the time or it’s aspirational to people who feel like they want to work out more.

 

Louis Virtel Right, right, right, right. At the I think there’s rarely a celebrity who’s working out where you think like, oh, they’re doing it wrong or something. So like when you see a celebrity working out, you’re like, they have advance knowledge. I don’t have there’s I think even to people who are sophisticated with exercise, there is something aspirational to it because you’re like, well, they’ve got access to some world of intel that’s really expensive or strange or rarified, you know?

 

Ira Madison III Except for fine, except for my little queen J.Lo, who we brought up with Cody. There is no aspiration in her workouts or seeing her in workout gear. I see an Instagram with J-Lo, and I just think of that Mo’Nique quote, and them fat bitches will burn in hell.

 

Louis Virtel I mean.

 

Ira Madison III You can’t be me. And that and that is the that is the J-Lo brand. You can’t be her. She doesn’t want you to be hurt. She doesn’t want you to relate to her too much. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Or even understand how she does it, right.

 

Ira Madison III I don’t know how she does it, too.

 

Louis Virtel I know. Also, it’s. I mean, it’s like the track lighting not to sound like Olympia Dukakis and Steel Magnolias, but just how is she even lit from within all the time? There’s lots we’ll never understand about J.Lo.

 

Ira Madison III Is there a celebrity who you feel like maybe you sort of wish we had their workout routine? I feel like maybe Keep It. Listeners want Louis’s now. Look at him these days.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, I have no patience to work out by myself. I always have to have somebody screaming at me, so I have no tips. I literally am constantly reminding the tips of other people. Is there a celebrity I’d like to know? I mean, not really. I will say this. I find the culture of. Needing the workout routines of other people on Instagram to be a little I mean, I guess the word is toxic because I always feel like their angle as you’re doing it wrong, listen to me. And I feel like there’s, like a shame based element to how we get people to pay attention to certain people on certain people. In regards to exercise, for instance, I know this one guy who’s a trainer and he went to a very famous chain of of HIIT, high intensity interval training classes. And he goes, Well, I finally did that and let me tell you that they were terrible or something. It’s like it always feels like they have to come at it with an angle of some people are doing it wrong, but I’m not doing it wrong. I just feel like you never know who’s an actual authority on these things. So I get a little testy about how everybody’s angle when they’re teaching exercise to people on Instagram as well. You’re whatever you’re doing isn’t enough. And only with me and my nutrition and my exercise will you succeed? I don’t know. I just find a kind of gross.

 

Ira Madison III Listen, the only thing I know is that like Angela Bassett.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, God, he loves that

 

Ira Madison III Ezekiel bread.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III No, you got to eat the Ezekiel bread.

 

Louis Virtel When she said she goes, you can eat right through any exercise routine that hurts. I knew she was right. Also, that woman is fucking sharp as a tack. I, I would listen to her on anything.

 

Ira Madison III It was when she was being interviewed for Mission Impossible. It was Monday. Tuesday. I may eat carbs, fruit Tuesday, Wednesday, protein, veggies, veggies every day, no fat those four days. And then the last three days are flooded with fat. Good fat, though, maybe coconut oil, salmon, almonds, almond butter, you know, olive oil, that sort of thing. I don’t do any dairy, all right. I don’t do any bread, flour. I’ll do Ezekiel bread which is sprouted.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, that’s that should be the new you know that the McDonald’s song like to all beef patties special sauce like we should put this to a jingle.

 

Ira Madison III All right, Well, when we’re back, it’s time for Keep It. And we are back with our favorite segment of the episode. It’s Keep It. Louis, what are you keeping this week?

 

Louis Virtel I’m going to Keep It to the supposed greatest cameo of our generation. Keep It to  Kim Cattrall coming on And Just Like That. I’m sorry. I saw like half of Twitter say things like, And for once, the girls are all back together just for a minute. And it was perfect. Name one thing that was perfect about this. First of all, they were not back together. Kim Cattrall was on a soundstage in like Windsor, Ontario or something. Second of all, honestly, it just was not a strong performance from Kim. The cameo lasted about a minute and 10 seconds or so. She gets on the phone with Carrie to say she can’t make it to her apartment and off. She’s supposed to fly in for it from Europe. And what honestly, it proved on the phone this back and forth between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall, who of course, the part of the conditions of Kim coming back to the show was she didn’t have to speak to anybody involved. The only person she spoke with was Pat Field, who outfitted her, I guess, for the segment. Sarah so.

 

Ira Madison III She did look good.

 

Louis Virtel She looked pretty good. Sarah so handily I would acted her. I mean, it was kind of a joke. That’s what I took from that scene. And then, of course, I completely forgot the scene because later we were awash in a seven minute sex montage of every character from the show. And I now know everything about every character on the show. Libidinous.

 

Ira Madison III Do you remember that they opened the season with a large sex montage to add up? Like who in the writers room was really feeling themselves, being like, We are bookending the Michael Patrick case. We are bookending the season with sex because it’s Sex and the City still.

 

Louis Virtel Congrats to everybody involved. Yes, right, right, right.

 

Ira Madison III It’s a stretch. It was a stretch. We’ll see the watch. And also, I hated the cameo, too. I was making jokes, obviously, because it became a meme of her clutching her phone to her chest, smiling. But it made no fucking sense because, one, you have to talk to this bitch all last year. You’re avoiding her phone calls and then all of a sudden you’re going to surprise her by showing up to see her. For a dinner party that for some reason she is still inexplicably hosting in the studio apartment when she just bought $1,000,000 home.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III Multimillion dollar home. Also, your husband had millions and died. Girl, this dinner was tacky. Dinner right in the apartment for one, too. Samantha was tacky, too. Like, maybe they fixed things during the moment where they had that meeting in Paris between season one and season two or whatever, or at the end of season one. But. I don’t like calling someone to be like, I was going to come and surprise you at this dinner, but.

 

Louis Virtel Very shoehorned in.

 

Ira Madison III I’m turning around. It felt. It just felt yeah, it felt shoehorned in. It felt very lazy. It felt very unplanned out, felt like an afterthought. It felt like.

 

Louis Virtel Three’s Company.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah

 

Louis Virtel Suzanne Summers calling in from whatever booth she was allowed to be in while she was having disputes with the producers or whatever. And with Joyce, Joy started.

 

Ira Madison III Speaking of celebrity workouts.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Oh, how did we not bring up the ThighMaster?

 

Ira Madison III Come on. Yeah. The ThighMaster was omnipresent in my home growing up. It was just always sitting over there in the corner.

 

Louis Virtel And also a hilarious name. Like, I need something to master my thighs, Please God.

 

Ira Madison III It was just another in a long line of inexplicable decisions on this show, which was funny because that you want you watch the show because it’s awful. I was I was on a date with someone last week and talking about this show and they said, I seem to get they’ve never once had Sex in the City. They were like, I’ve seen to get that. People say Sex in the City is a great show. I use it, watch it. People say that. And just like that is one of the worst shows ever made, but they can’t stop watching it.

 

Louis Virtel There is an amazing Esquire article from Dave Holmes, one of my favorite writers, so I can’t believe it’s not going to Keep It yet about this particular feeling with and just like that, how it’s disastrous in certain ways. And yet he’s I think the title of the article is and I will watch this show for the rest of my days. There’s like people are committed to the uncomfortable, strange, almost dystopian Sex of the City vibe it delivers.

 

Ira Madison III The Kim Cattrall thing honestly pales in comparison to the previous episode in how they wrote out Stanford. He decided to become a monk in Japan.

 

Louis Virtel No, he didn’t.

 

Ira Madison III Yes.

 

Louis Virtel What.

 

Ira Madison III He became a monk in Japan. And that’s how he left the series. Discuss it like he wrote a letter to Anthony that Carrie read for him. And it was it was stems from. It stems from the fact that after the reviews were so abysmal for Sex and the City two, Michael Patrick King and Sarah Jessica Parker went to Japan and went on this sort of like retreats. And that’s how we got in his head. The idea to make Stanford a monk, because apparently Willie Garson had requested Don’t Kill Me on the show. But I think that there are a myriad of ways to write out a character. Then to have that happen to them, because none of that makes any fucking Sense.

 

Louis Virtel No, I mean, that’s how you write out a very problematic actor on a soap or something. I mean, it’s very strange. I mean, Willie Garson, of course, much beloved. Ira, what is your Keep It this week?

 

Ira Madison III So my Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel I have the feeling this is about me somehow. Go ahead.

 

Ira Madison III This Keep It goes to my co-host Louis Virtel.

 

Louis Virtel Oh! Me? Okay.

 

Ira Madison III Saturday at 8:58 p.m., I took a screenshot.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my God. Am I going to jail?

 

Ira Madison III That you posted.

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Ira Madison III You put your dirty ass shoes up on your couch like that. And the pillow. Where is your home training?

 

Louis Virtel I. Okay, here’s what happened. So, you know, I’m obsessed with the old movie star, Tyrone Power. He’s in the original Nightmare alley. He’s in a bar in old Chicago. Lots of interesting old movies. A witness for the prosecution. That’s my favorite. One of his. I have a poster of him in my living room. It’s gorgeous. I posted a picture where I have. I’m on my couch and you see my I’m wearing shoes and they’re up on a velvet pillow. I have here a couple of things here.

 

Ira Madison III Gym shoes.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Couple of things are occurring here. One, I actually hate the fucking pillow. My interior designer, my interior designer pick this color for me. And it’s a little too primary red for me. It’s giving Harlequin romance. I don’t need to see that pillow. It’s like the color of a red in a deck of cards. Just don’t like it. Secondly, I relax how I want to relax. You ever enjoyed leisure? You ever enjoy quality? That’s me hanging out with Tyrone Power at my house.

 

Ira Madison III You probably let people sit on the edge of your bed in their outside clothes. Don’t you?

 

Louis Virtel No. first of all, I barely. I almost never let people in my house.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, that’s right. You know, famously, Louis does not let anyone into his home.

 

Louis Virtel I don’t think I’m thinking of all of my best friends. Two of them have seen my place before.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Okay, you know what? That’s fair. If it’s just you, the germs are yours.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Right, right, right. And also, by the way, my shoes are relatively new, so I bet they’re kind of germ free. If you’re concerned about germs, which is a whole new fucking angle on you. I had no idea germs were your fucking thing.

 

Ira Madison III I’m Adrian Monk. Okay.

 

Louis Virtel I met him very briefly backstage at the Emmys when we were. I was producing something for Guillermo for Kimmel. What a nice man. And also his lovely wife, Brooke Adams from the Dead Zone. Always nice to see her when she’s around.

 

Ira Madison III I met him because he was what I used to live in L.A. when he was standing in the only available parking spot at Hugo’s. And I had to lean out of my car and say, Hi, would you mind moving? Because he was having a conversation with someone. I’m like, Listen. Tony Shalhoub.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Tony, shuffle off.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. So OCD yourself out of the fucking parking space, bitch.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, that was my Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, Got it. I appreciate that you are staying vigilant about my Instagram and what I put out there into the world.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. You know, I’m not going to I’m not going to be like the strange gays who are who comment on your Instagram. It’s like, why is Louis always at a pool at a Speedo?

 

Louis Virtel Would you prefer me there in tails? I mean, it’s summer in L.A..

 

Ira Madison III I like it.

 

Louis Virtel We’re trying to have a good time together.

 

Ira Madison III That’s the content that we want. That’s not the not the Louis needs, you know, a Supernanny content.

 

Louis Virtel God, I miss her. Supernanny was the best show she ran across.

 

Ira Madison III  You have a crisis, I’m on my way.

 

Louis Virtel I should be in the naughty corner for that picture. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Honestly, Supernanny was doing it better than Marie Kondo, you know.

 

Louis Virtel Please, no. She basically suggested if kids don’t bring you joy, put them in the corner. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III All right. That’s our show this week. Shout out to Cody Rigsby. What a doll for being here. And we will see you next week. Keep It is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Kendra James. Our producer is Chris Lord and our associate producer is Malcolm Whitfield. Our executive producers are Ira Madison III and Louis Virtel.

 

Louis Virtel This episode was recorded and mixed by Evan Sutton. Thank you to our digital team, Megan Petzold and Rachel Gajewski, and to Matt DeGroot and David Toles for production support every week.

 

Ira Madison III And as always, Keep It as recorded in front of a live studio audience.