Ira and Louis are joined by guest co-host Damon Young to discuss athletes who’ve excelled as actors, the SAG and NAACP Awards, racist closed captioning snafus, Putin being besties with Steven Segal, and Keke Palmer’s baby’s name. Damon brings his Ask Damon segment from his own podcast Stuck with Damon Young, to answer listener questions. Plus, Ira is joined by Tennis (indie pop duo Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley) to discuss their new album Pollen.

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TRANSCRIPT

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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 James Hong’s speech is still wrapping up, but we’re going to let him talk. It was pretty awesome at the SAG Awards.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. We are excited to have a co-host this week. A guest co-host. Damon Young is back on Keep It.

 

Damon Young Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to come back. I really appreciate it. That means that I didn’t do as terribly the first time as I thought that I did so.

 

Louis Virtel So it was a unanimous vote. Please. No, everybody. We were in tears knowing you would come back. Yes.

 

Damon Young Wow.

 

Louis Virtel Welcome back.

 

Damon Young Thank you. Thank you. I greatly appreciate that.

 

Ira Madison III Now. The SAG Awards were fun. But Damon, did you see any of the NAACP awards this past weekend? Do you care about the NAACP awards? Do you care about the NAACP?

 

Louis Virtel This is  an inquisition, by the way.

 

Damon Young I was I was actually nominated for one.

 

Ira Madison III Okay.

 

Damon Young Back in 20, 2019. My book was nominated for one. What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker. I went out to the award ceremony in 2020. I lost to Toni Morrison because Toni Morrison won by my category because you know.

 

Louis Virtel And what a fraud she is. What a fraud. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Damon Young I was robbed by Toni Morrison. So I’m a Keep It a buck. I didn’t even realize that they had categories for books. You know, I’m so used to watching the live show and seeing on a movie shit and you know, the music. I didn’t. I had no idea until I was nominated that this was a thing.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, yeah. Did they even air your segment?

 

Damon Young Oh, hell no. Hell no. If my segment was the day before in like, a ballroom, you know, with, like, the. You know, like the rubber chicken and the lasagna and the green beans. So I had to.

 

Ira Madison III The creative arts Emmy’s, you know? Yeah.

 

Damon Young So I do pay attention to the NAACP Awards, you know, when they’re on and I home, and nothing else to watch, I do watch.

 

Louis Virtel Who accepted on behalf of Toni Morrison?

 

Damon Young Ah, shit, um.

 

Louis Virtel It wasn’t Oprah being like, You all should be ashamed to even be nominated this year.

 

Damon Young Oprah. Oprah was not Oprah was not in that room. That was not in that was not an Oprah room. Right. This was this was more of like, I don’t know. Niecy Nash sort of room.

 

Louis Virtel Nothing wrong with that.

 

Damon Young Ain’t nothing wrong with that at all. Like, I actually appreciated seeing her more than I would have appreciated seeing Oprah, but Oprah wasn’t showing up that day.

 

Ira Madison III I would want to see that on TV, though, like presenting on behalf of Toni Morrison is Niecy Nash, and then they play like the Claws theme, and she walks up.

 

Damon Young Well they could have had a hologram. You know, we had the hologram technology that would have been extremely disconcerting and probably blasphemous, but they could have done that if they really wanted to, you know, get the full, you know, Toni Morrison vibe going. But yeah, it was a good time. And and I did watch a little bit this year. I saw Viola Davis win something. I think I saw there was a hip hop montage also, too, about the 50 years of rap music. So I did witness that.

 

Ira Madison III Those montages will be going on all year.

 

Damon Young Oh, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III The 50 year,  there going to be every there’s going to be one on Sesame Street.

 

Louis Virtel The Teen Choice Awards. Yeah.

 

Damon Young Yeah. You know, and I felt like there was a note. I did. And I also watched it, you know, the the segment where they showed all the people that died last year. And I felt like there was one notable admission, Zach Knight. I was waiting for him, you know, And he wasn’t acknowledged at all during that part. So, you know, I was a little disappointed with that. But. But oh, well, I guess you got to make some editing, some hard editing choices when it’s an honor to did.

 

Louis Virtel What do you think about the assessment of Angela Bassett as Entertainer of the Year? Provocative question. She was up against Mary J. Blige, Quinta Brunson, Viola Davis and Zendaya. And again, my bone to pick with Angela Bassett. As you know, she’s an extremely problematic performer, never good on screen. So you know where I’m coming from. But in Wakanda Forever, I would say she’s maybe like the sixth most memorable performance. It’s just such a weird movie to like zero her out for as like the star of when like, I mean, I don’t think I was spoiling it. She, like, fucking dies in it. It’s like. It’s like that. We sort of wrote a weird way out for her.

 

Ira Madison III The sixth?

 

Louis Virtel This is what the movie’s about.

 

Ira Madison III Who’s doing the top five?

 

Louis Virtel I, I mean, I would put Leticia ahead of her.

 

Ira Madison III That’s one.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, Honestly. Well, this is bad. I would say like, Lake Bell’s scene was more memorable than hers.

 

Ira Madison III Not Lake Bell.

 

Louis Virtel I know. No. This is one of my hardest takes, so you have to go slow with me today.

 

Ira Madison III All right. Casting director in 2013.

 

Damon Young Well Angela Bassett got that speech, right.

 

Louis Virtel Speech. Always. Please.

 

Damon Young You know, in the speech. And again, she is, I think, the first ever actor nominated for a MCU movie.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Damon Young I yeah, I think she’s the first one.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Damon Young So.

 

Louis Virtel If I have it my way, the last. Watch out for that.

 

Ira Madison III What is extra funny about that is Marvel always and I think honestly someone had tweeted about this like it adds one not really like a gravitas to a Marvel film by adding like an actor. But I think at this point with all the CGI, with all the, like random shit going on in these movies and they have like, you know, new younger actors who have to sort of deal with all that shit. If you add like people like Angela. Cate Blanchett You know, like if you’re adding, you know, like, I’m sure Philip Seymour Hoffman would have been up in one, you know, like if he was still you know, if you add these actors into it who are sort of the old guard, they sort of bring maybe sort of like a permanence to the set or something like it feels like it gives the other actors something to sort of act off. But I do find it funny. Like at the SAG Awards, watching Angela Bassett, you know, the nomination for hers, like watching the clip and she’s nominated like with like Cate Blanchett there because she’s nominated for Star. And she was watching that being like, well, they couldn’t nominate however, they couldn’t nominate me for Thor Ragnarok.

 

Damon Young Well, and to your point about the gravitas, you know, and I think that’s one thing that that maybe separated Black Panther a bit from the other MCU movies. I mean, you have Forest Whitaker, you got it. You have an Oscar winner right there. You have Daniel Coogler, who hadn’t won yet but would win eventually. You know, I mean, and Angela Bassett, who’s been nominated before. And so you did have this you had this presence that made the human moments a bit more tactile than they are in the rest of those sorts of movies. And I think that I don’t know, like I. When I heard that this was the first actor, the first performance ever by an MCU actor to be nominated for an Oscar, I was a little surprised that all of a sudden Vin Diesel has done some great voice work.

 

Louis Virtel Sure.

 

Damon Young As Tree or whatever the fuck his name is. I mean, I was like VIn Diesel didn’t get nominated?

 

Louis Virtel Like definitely the best actor named Vin. And believe me, I’ve ranked them.

 

Damon Young Exactly.

 

Louis Virtel No, I was going to say. But then I became defensive on behalf of Angela Bassett when she lost to Jamie Lee Curtis in Everythin Everywhere All at Once.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Are we? Are we not clear that that is just fun stunt casting? Like to me, the ideal version of that kind of performance, getting a little bit of awards traction. And he wasn’t nominated for that much but Bradley Cooper in Licorice Pizza. Okay, you hire the guy and then he’s at a fucking ten and he has like two big moments on screen. And we applaud him for stepping outside his usual box. And he’s crazy. And in that case, he was playing a real life person. But Jamie Lee Curtis, in this movie, it’s just another person. Like I think most of the other performances were better. I would I would I would pick Stephanie in that movie if anybody to win that award. So.

 

Ira Madison III It’s it’s really random because obviously she has all of the support because she’s Jamie Lee Curtis.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III You know, I was wondering like what does the support really come from? Truly every generation has a Jamie Lee Curtis hit. And then there’s the Activia and Laurie Strode been running from Michael Myers for like eight decades at this point. So, you know, like everyone has a moment, like we have Freaky Friday, you know, like Trading Places, you know?

 

Damon Young Trading Places, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III People love Jamie Lee Curtis, so I could see it. But yeah, that role was just sort of like, you know, who would normally have that role in a movie? Sigourney Weaver was she just was Sigourney Weaver pops up for 5 minutes in any random movie you’re watching and it’s a cameo and it’s like, Oh my God, they got Sigourney Weaver. But then at a certain point around that, that Alien movie where she appeared again, I was like, okay, enough. And I can’t remember the name. It was Dave.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, Oh, right. Yes, yes. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III When she appears at the end.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Yeah. She’s also she has a couple of great nineties cameos. There’s a movie called Jeffrey. She’s in. Yeah. But anyway, you.

 

Ira Madison III She has an Evolution, too, you know.

 

Louis Virtel Imagine me watching that. I can’t but no, you’re right. Yeah. Again, it’s just a stunt part. I just think that the adulation has gone in a minute and a half too long. I’m a little annoyed by it. But you’re right. That was actually a provocative question on Twitter you had, which is we act like Jamie Lee Curtis is sort of owed this Oscar moment. And it’s like I remember her being funny in A Fish Called Wanda. And I remember, you know, I’ve seen every Halloween movie, etc., But.

 

Damon Young You’ve seen every Halloween. You watched every Halloween.

 

Louis Virtel I actually for someone in my generation, it’s pretty easy to have seen them because they would just play them all in a row on television. So you looked like 30. No. Right. And even the extremely dubious one season of the Witch, whatever. I’ve given them all a chance.

 

Ira Madison III Have you seen the Rob Zombie’s?

 

Louis Virtel I’ve seen the first one. That’s Scott Taylor Compton, right? Yeah, I’ve seen that.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Yeah, they’re pretty. Plus, I’m a horror fan, so I’ve seen all of them. Unfortunately. Okay. But I will say the also other annoying thing about the Jamie Lee Curtis. When is I don’t know if it’s just like. Whether she’s just like an old person, like sort of repeating things vibe because old, like, older people do that all the time. Like they’ll get one thing stuck in their head and they’ll continue to repeat it. Or I even have a friend who’s like 28. You tell him like he there’s one fact that he knows about each of our friends and he will always bring that fact up. When you’re having a conversation, it’s like, okay, we’re done talking about this, but that’s the one thing you remember. And you know that like you get a laugh out of it, so you’re always bring it up. But when she was up there being like, and I know you’re all looking at me like, here’s this Nepo baby winning, I was like, Girl, that conversation was never about you, okay? It was about like. Hailey Bieber.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III Kaia Gerber is Lily Rose Depp. Like, if no one was having the nepo baby conversation online and thinking Jamie Lee Curtis, that someone who’s just skating by Janet Leigh. Right. Had to have seen like one day they’re going to find out that she’s a fraud. It’s like, come on, girl.

 

Louis Virtel Well, I think all those speeches at this point, like there’s you can expect some acknowledgment of privilege, like in Sally Field speech, she said, look, I had to fight to be an actress, but I didn’t have to fight, you know, 1/100 as hard as all these other people. So, I mean, it’s a little bit expected.

 

Ira Madison III But that’s mother. Okay.

 

Louis Virtel That’s different.

 

Ira Madison III Sally Fields. Like that’s mother. Okay.

 

Damon Young And there is an expectation of of like a certain cluelessness. Particularly I’m thinking that even like with Harry Styles, when he gave his, you know, his speech when he won a Grammy and he said, I know people from places people like me don’t usually win. And, you know, we’re all thinking like motherfuckers, like you went all the time. Like this is. But but obviously, he was talking about his background in England, you know, coming from, you know, where he came from. But so, yeah, I think that there’s just a presumption of like a self-centeredness. And I actually expect that like if, if, if an actor is not that way, then I just don’t consider to be authentic. It’s like, yo, this stop, stop trying to be humble. So I’m trying to be conscientious and just just be yourself on it.

 

Ira Madison III Everyone should be.

 

Damon Young Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Everyone should be Matthew McConaughey’s Oscar speech, where he basically started rambling that God had decided that he needed to win this and not in a.

 

Louis Virtel You don’t know if  that’s not true. You don’t know that’s not true.

 

Ira Madison III Not a black people winning an award, being like, thank you to God. His was no, this was preordained. It’s a it’s in the testament.

 

Louis Virtel Their partners. He doesn’t even have to thank they were not together.

 

Damon Young And I’m glad you brought him up because, you know, if we’re talking about stunt casting, I feel like his his his like what? He was in a Wolf of Wall Street for, what, 4 minutes, maybe three things. And he was coked up. They probably paid him in cash. But that performance is a thing that you remember from the movie. So if you’re going to do the stunt casting, do the five minute performance thing, you have to knock it out of the park like how he did. Yeah. If you want to get an acknowledgment for it, you have to knock it out the park the way he did with Wolf of Wall Street.

 

Louis Virtel I would call that the Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross. Yeah, Got a couple catchphrases in there. Get some rage going. Yeah, some Coke Energy.

 

Damon Young Some Coke. Definitely big Coke energy.

 

Louis Virtel As you said. In fact, I think most kind of indelible award show speeches have a a critical self-absorption component. Like I think one of the greatest Oscar moments ever is when Faye Dunaway wins for best actress. And if you ever do that Google search of Faye Dunaway plus problems, you’re going to it’s going to be a long list. So just be aware. You have a lot to learn. But in her speech, the first thing she says is, I didn’t expect this quite yet. Quite yet, which is so amazing. Start as you’re giving me the Oscar now. I was thinking this would be like a 1979 thing. Amazing.

 

Damon Young Wow. Okay.

 

Ira Madison III I just recently did one of our future guests of the show is going to be Michael Shulman, who has this amazing book called Oscar Wars. And we’ll talk about that when we get closer to the Oscars. But I recently participated in his live show that he did at Joe’s Pub. It was called You Like Me, and it was like a bunch of actors who were there to do speeches from like different award shows. And I did.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, that’s so fun.

 

Ira Madison III I did. I played Lee Daniels to Jordan E. Cooper’s Mariah Carey when they won at the Palm Springs International Film Festival for Precious. And I think that was one of my unexpected favorite awards. I love an award speech at an award show that, like nobody’s giving a fuck about. She was wasted. She’s mentioning the fact that she’s wasted in it. She’s like, Give it up for Palm Springs. Come on Palm Springs. They’re making in-jokes. I think that is fun because it’s also the way you get actors to those things is all of those awards come like right before the Oscars, like before the nomination period, and you show up to shit like that to get out, to show that your game and that you’re like in it and like you’re going to like you don’t care about just the Oscar. You care about, like accolades from everybody in your industry. And I think that that’s just fun.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, like literally, I think a huge part of the Jamie Lee Curtis torrent carrying her into awards wins is that she has several public speaking moments that have led up to this that we really remember. I mean, she’s like game to be funny and self-deprecating. So, you know.

 

Ira Madison III She went on Real Housewives.

 

Louis Virtel Why not nominate her? She might say something funny on that stage. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I’m starting to think her Real Housewives appearance was a scam to help with the Everything Everywhere All at Once Oscar campaign. So.

 

Louis Virtel Well, if we’re talking about scams, let’s talk about Halloween Kills. I’m still mad. I saw it. So.

 

Ira Madison III All right. Well, I think we could agree that the thing that I was most happy about for the SAG and NAACP Awards, anyway, was Zendaya returning to the red carpet because it’s been a minute. And truly, every time she called, I would actually feel bad for other people when she comes out, Every every magazine, every Instagram is always like Zendaya looks fucking amazing. Everybody else pack it up and go home. And honestly, it’s true.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right, right.

 

Damon Young Yeah. I just saw her. She negotiated, renegotiated her deal for Euphoria where she’s making a million an episode now.

 

Ira Madison III Well they need to pay me a million to watch that show.

 

Louis Virtel  Zendaya making Kelsey Grammer money though. That is, that does speak to me. I enjoy it.

 

Ira Madison III It does. It does. I’m looking forward to her. She is a person who could Faye Dunaway. Walk up there when she gets her Oscar. It’ll be like I didn’t expect this. Yet.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. Because, you know, it’s going to happen early too, like, Faye Dunaway is probably like 35, 36 when she won that for, I mean, Zendaya will probably win it next year.

 

Damon Young Yeah, we got Dune. What Dune Two. Is it Dune Two? Is there a better name? Is it actually Dune Two?

 

Ira Madison III I think it’s just Dune Two. Not even Dune Part Two.

 

Damon Young Second, the Second Dune.

 

Ira Madison III Not even Dune: Part Two. It’s just called Dune Two.

 

Damon Young All right. So maybe.

 

Ira Madison III That’s really going to roll off the tongue, during the press cycle.

 

Louis Virtel Look who’s talking, Dune.

 

Damon Young The rural drawer.

 

Ira Madison III But she could get nominated for Dunes. Listen, If we’re handing out awards for Black Panther Wakanda Forever, like the the gates are open, you know. So, Dune Two.

 

Louis Virtel Open seaso.

 

Ira Madison III Dune Two.

 

Damon Young And you start the campaign right now for.

 

Ira Madison III Florence Pugh gravitated for Dune two.

 

Louis Virtel Timothee Chalamet already preparing his clavicle centric pseudo menswear for us to look at.

 

Ira Madison III All right, Well, we are excited to have you back on the show this week, Damon. And also, there’s a new season of Stuck with Damon Young, which is out on Spotify. It’s a Crooked and Spotify joint, a collabo, if you will. And so we’re going to chat a bit about some things that you talk about on your show. We’re going to talk about athletes in film this week, athletes who’ve made the jump to film, the ones that are good, the ones that are bad. We know our listeners love it when we talk about sports on Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel Oh God, the authority we bring. Finally, to this topic.

 

Ira Madison III Plus, we’re going to introduce your Ask Damon segment where our listeners ask you questions on your podcast. So the three of us are going to answer those questions. We’ll see if we’re as good as you at answering questions. I’m probably not. I’m a Leo. I answer questions by by talking about myself.

 

Damon Young And have you actually heard the question? It’s like me answering these questions, right? I mean, it’s a it’s a cool segment. You know, it’s fun. But like, I am not good at this. I would not take I would not take my advice.

 

Louis Virtel Well, I cannot wait to bring you lower. Get ready

 

Damon Young Right. Except for maybe some head wear advice or something. But that’s that’s about it. But we’ll see. It’s fun. You know, I should put a disclaimer before each segment like, do not do not hold him accountable. Like, I feel like all of like the toxic male energy of like, you know what? I’m not going to be accountable for anything that I do. I want to kind of use that for my advice segment where any any answer that I give. He denied. And I say that I did not advise you to do that, so do not use it against me if my advice makes you do some fuck shit.

 

Ira Madison III Well, that’s a general Keep It disclaimer not to hold us responsible for anything that we the show.

 

Louis Virtel We’re drunk. I mean, yeah, this is a drinking podcast. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III And also in this episode I have a conversation with Tennis, one of my favorite bands that you’ve heard me mention on this show before. Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley joined me to discuss their new album, Pollen and going on tour this spring/summer. So I’m going to chat with them at one point during this episode as well.

 

Louis Virtel And it’s a cheeky way to keep the sports theme going. So good for you.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, they actually play tennis on stage.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, that would be cool. I would watch a Chris Evert Martina Navratilova musical. Sure.

 

Ira Madison III We will be right back with more. Keep It there.

 

[AD]

 

Ira Madison III Now, after being ordered by Crooked to appeal to a midwestern audience. We found a way to talk about sports and Keep It. So who do we believe has survived the athlete to actor pipeline?

 

Louis Virtel Well, I’ve got bad news for you. If you’ve seen 84 Brady, Tom Brady could be worse. I did enjoy his interactions with Lily Tomlin, as I said, in a couple of weeks ago. Lily Tomlin basically is deranged in the film thinks she has a psychic connection with Tom Brady. And they have these conversations where he’s in her head and eventually she’s in his head climactic early in the movie. But for as silly as it is, I did sort of believe him. But also there’s something about Tom Brady where he says everything at the same, like monotone, like polsturing kind of voice. So it’s not like he can ever sound great or bad because it’s always in that midsection.

 

Damon Young Mm hmm. So I’m not quite Midwestern, but I am Appalachian since I’m in Pittsburgh. So I do have some insight about about athletes and movies I think could have been worse is the metric right where you were, where they should be assessed. So like Ray Allen, He Got Game. He could have been worse. He could have it worse. Kevin Garnett. Uncut Gems. He could have been worse.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, you know what? He was really good in that movie, actually.

 

Damon Young He was really good. He was. I’ll I’ll take that back. He was really good. And I think that LeBron was good in Trainwreck.

 

Louis Virtel Totally.

 

Ira Madison III He was.

 

Damon Young You know what I mean, he had he had good timing here, you know, good interplay with what’s his name? Bill Hader

 

Ira Madison III John Cena.

 

Damon Young And I don’t think he shared scenes with John Cena in that?.

 

Louis Virtel John Cenahad like a couple of moments in that movie. It’s mostly him and Bill Hader.

 

Damon Young And so I don’t. You mentioned John Cena and also The Rock, obviously is, you know, the most successful athlete to actor, you know.

 

Ira Madison III I think wrestlers do it the best.

 

Damon Young But I don’t consider them to. It’s almost like cheating because professional wrestling is acting already.

 

Ira Madison III That’s fair.

 

Louis Virtel You know what I mean? And so they already have some acting chops before they become, quote unquote, professional actor. So someone like The Rock, John Cena. Dave, what’s his name?

 

Louis Virtel Batista.

 

Damon Young Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Even Mike “The Miz”, from the Real World.He stays booked. He does stay booked.

 

Damon Young Yeah. So so those people, you know, it’s cheating they consider them on the same level as like a team sport athlete.

 

Louis Virtel Wrestling is drama club. Sorry. I mean, like, it’s not the same thing as, like, you did an athletic achievement based on, you know, how amazing you are. It’s like, no, there’s choreography. There’s, you know, scripted lines. There’s, you know, kerfuffles backstage where one person gets too much star time and you all fight about that. I mean, this is me doing up the down staircase in 2002 with my friends.

 

Damon Young And I feel like the best the best performance, though, and it’s the most underrated actor two actor athlete actor performs is Cam Neely in Dumb and Dumber, where he was Seabass, right, you know who was a sociopath, sociopathic, possibly a serial killer rapist. But he was really good at that. He was a memorable character. And also he was the stunt cast that made the movie. You know, I mean, he was only in maybe two scenes. You know, they had a callback, I think, in the sequel to Dumb and Dumber or whatever to fuck it. But he again, he did what we want stunt casting people to do.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm. Now, I promise, I’ve never seen Dumb and Dumber.

 

Louis Virtel Very good. No, I was going to say, the the problem with athletes in movies is if I laid eyes on you and I recognize you, which is already improbable, but. If I if I see an athlete in the movie, they’re already coming in at a deficit for me. Again, it’s a stunt casting moment. So you have to prove your worth, that you’re like that. You have value beyond the gag of you being in the movie. It’s like when you would watch like a sitcom and Dr. Joyce Brothers appears. It’s like, Well, I know Dr. Joyce Brothers agent must know people on the show or something, because why does she get to do this? This is insane that she would even be written into this program. So, yeah, I can only think of a few instances where athletes were exactly like. Like Andre the. Oh, that’s a wrestler. Andre the Giant in The Princess Bride. Like, perfect. Like, take advantage of the physical thing he is. We use it. It’s great. I think LeBron James is actually one of the best examples. And Alex Karras in who just became an actor in general, he was in like Victor Victoria, but in Blazing Saddles gives a really good performance, too. Yeah. Ira, I’m surprised what you would think about this. Do you have a favorite athlete in a movie?

 

Ira Madison III Oh, well, I mean, mine’s usually like the wrestling people, you know? I mean, I feel like, you know, listen, I think a lot of them do have like the acting component. But I would say that, you know. I would say John Cena is someone who did surprise me because I feel like he is actually sort of acting and I feel like there’s a lot of camp that’s involved in wrestling. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. That, you know, you sort of have to strip away. You know, it’s like it’s like kids who were Nickelodeon or Disney actors who then somehow become good actors later, you know, like, you would really call that a lot of the same. They are. I did like I did like Dan Marino in Ace Ventura Pet Detective.

 

Louis Virtel Mm hmm. Which is a movie that holds up in a politically correct fashion, if you haven’t seen it recently.

 

Damon Young And another one, another one that has aged perfectly well is is There’s Something About Mary where Brett Favre also is stunt casting, you know, and they mentioned him throughout the movie. Brett Brett Corn Fit white boy, Brett, Brett, Brett. And then you see oh it’s it’s Brett Moffat and for you know who was the ex. And then there’s also Kareem an airplane who you know I guess broke the fourth wall or whatever with his performance. But I, I think the problem, you know, and I think wrestlers kind of have their own carve out is that actors are just too big and that big in terms of like status wise, but too physically big to really make that transition in a way that seems natural. Because, I mean, you know, again, you have LeBron, who is six foot eight in even disorder, particularly with basketball players, even a shorter basketball player are still giant people, are still six foot three, six foot four. And in Hollywood, you are basically Andre the giant if you are that size. And it just makes for an extremely disconcerting experience when they are trying to be something other than who they are in real life.

 

Louis Virtel Totally. Oh yeah. It’s very conspicuous. Yeah. There are only like, yeah, we only get like one Elizabeth Debicki or Gwendoline Christie. Like a generation. Somebody who is extremely tall and then continues to belong on the silver screen. I was going to say about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Airplane. That’s the rare movie and a movie that legitimately holds up extremely funny. The dialog in that movie is designed to be said without any affect whatsoever. Like nobody laughs in that movie. Nobody is is emotional in the movie unless it’s like for like Johnny, the gay character has like a couple of breakdowns or whatever. But for the most part, people are playing the quote unquote drama of this airplane disaster really straight. So Kareem Abdul Jabbar, monotone, pseudo bad acting is completely in line with the rest of the movie and then also makes it funnier because it’s supposed to be like a stodgy old disaster movie. So sounding a little contrived or sounding like a traditional bad actor is good acting in that movie.

 

Damon Young I agree. Yeah. You know, another one, Wilt Chamberlain. He was then I forget which Arnold movie he was in, where he was. It was either an Arnold movie or some movie from the eighties where he was actually like a in a villain. And he gets defeated by the Arnold Schwartz. Maybe it might have been CONAN the Barbarian for.

 

Louis Virtel CONAN The Destroyer.

 

Damon Young CONAN The Destroyer up close. All right. Well, one of the Conan,something in the Conan cannon, right? But but yeah, you know, I think, you know, the best use of actors in movies is when you can allow them to be themselves that where they don’t necessarily have to act. You know? And to your point about Kareem and Airplane, it’s like, you know, this is we don’t need you to act. We need you to be Kareem. We need you know, we’re playing this straight. And yes, we need the audience to recognize the ridiculousness of this seven foot three person as an airplane pilot who was very obviously Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, right. Liberia is obviously Kareem and is pretending not to be.

 

Louis Virtel In the movie. He gets kind of like defrocked. He’s wearing an airplane pilot outfit. And then you see his uniform underneath that. It’s really, really So there’s not there’s not many cameos like that in movies, actually.

 

Ira Madison III I’m going to throw out a basketball player that we have not mentioned. And no, it is not Michael Jordan, who I think I think we finally now all acknowledge that he is awful in Space Jam. Shaq.

 

Louis Virtel In Shazam.

 

Ira Madison III In many movies, like.

 

Louis Virtel Shaq is legitimately very funny.

 

Ira Madison III Very fuuny.

 

Louis Virtel If I had to see a clip, if I see a clip of him on ESPN, generally speaking, I’m laughing.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I feel like Shaq is naturally funny, charismatic, and like I there was a time when he was, like, popping up in everything, you know, like you pop up in, like, Scary Movie, you know, he’d but like, he was in that movie Steel, which is not good. But you know, he’s like, he’s fun. I think he’s in What Men Want, you know, like it’s he’s fun in a movie. He’s fun in commercials. He’s just generally funny and fun to watch.

 

Damon Young Yeah, he doesn’t take himself too seriously on screen. He takes himself a bit too seriously with NBA related stuff. But when he removed himself from that context and, you know, gets in and gets in front of the camera, he yeah, he’s okay. Making himself the butt of the joke.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm.

 

Damon Young You know, he’s also a good audience member. Like, I’ve seen him, you know, during a few Comedy Central roasts and also during like a couple like Kevin Hart stand up skits. And when Shaq is in the audience, he he knows he’s going to get joked on. At some point, someone is going to make a joke about his size, the slowness. Also, there’s going to be a reference to his dick at some point and he takes the jokes in stride.

 

Ira Madison III Although Chelsea Handler is hosting.

 

Damon Young I mean, how hard could it be to take a joke in stride when he was talking about how big your ticket is? But anyway, Shaq is good. Kyrie Irving, I forgot to mentioned him. He had his own movie with Uncle Drew. You know, that was based off of the viral, you know, Sprite campaign. And he he’s also a normal size, relatively normal sized athlete is six foot two, which is big for regular person. But for an NBA player is is is actually tiny.

 

Ira Madison III Definitely shorter than me, so.

 

Damon Young It wasn’t bad. So yeah, he wasn’t bad as Uncle Drew.

 

Louis Virtel There aren’t, there aren’t many female athlete performances in movies come to think of it.

 

Ira Madison III Ronda Rousey.

 

Louis Virtel Well, let me tell you something. I didn’t see the Entourage movie in which Ronda Rousey starred. You know what? She could have been worse. And also that movie could have been worse. And I was no super fan of the original show.

 

Ira Madison III I loved  Entourage movie.

 

Louis Virtel It was good, Right? And also, Debi Mazar awareness is sorely lacking from this generation. So we need things like the Entourage movie to guide us.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I feel like I’ve been rewatching Sex of the City because I just moved back to New York, obviously, and I’m like in the West Village. So I’m like having that moment. But I was also realizing like, one, Gen Z hasn’t really rediscovered Sex in the City yet, and I’m terrified for when they do because they’re going to drag that show to hell. One thing it’s  about sex.

 

Louis Virtel Which they don’t want to see.

 

Ira Madison III No, and it’s, a lot of the jokes are problematic. But Gen Z and also I think even millennials have not revisited Entourage. And I know that Entourage was, you know, very misogynistic, You know, very like, you know, toxic masculinity. But let me tell you something. I thought that show was funny and I feel like I may rewatch it at some point. Maybe I’ll try that this summer and see if like, it still holds up for me, because I will say the majority of people that I would talk to about Entourage were women and gay men who watched it, and that was definitely not a show for us, made for us specifically, but we found it funny.

 

Louis Virtel Well, it’s also a little bit like Veep, where it’s like the the point is the viciousness of the lines. You know what I mean? In a way that you would intuitively you think is not necessarily really a gay thing or a woman thing, you know. On Veep, besides Anna Chlumsky and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, it’s a show about guys. You know what I mean? But we do love well-honed fuck you type humor, generally speaking. I think there’s a causticness that really gay men and women can respond to, especially if, you know, we get to just watch it from afar. You don’t have to participate in the toxicity ourselves.

 

Damon Young Yeah. Entourage. Entourage, for me is in the boat with, like, craft beer, the city of Atlanta and Harry Potter, all these huge cultural entities that I’m completely out on, and not necessarily because I tried it and had like a distaste, it’s like I just when people had the Entourage, conversations like Entourage to me is like the song in the club or line dancing. When it’s line dancing time at the party, that’s when I go to the bar. And when the Entourage conversation starts. So, okay, this is my time to go get another drink or go get some more food or something, because I think I only watch like maybe one or two episodes, the entire show. Oh, also, I almost forgot, you know, we’re talking about, you know, I guess, female athletes and movies. Serena Williams. She also did stunt casting in Glass Onion. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel That was very funny.

 

Damon Young I forgot about that. Mm hmm.

 

Ira Madison III It was very funny. But then I was also like, does she know what’s going on in the movie?

 

Louis Virtel Right? Yeah. Is she complicit? Right. I want to know more.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, there’s also, like, we wish Ronda Rousey, like, the bad version of that is Gina Carano. Before she became a super villain of the far right, she was also just abysmal at Haywire.

 

Louis Virtel Haywire actually pertaining to my Keep It later. I just missed when movies were called things like Haywire, just like expecting no quality whatsoever, just stupid. You can picture the firiness of the cover and also.

 

Ira Madison III Like plain.

 

Damon Young Yeah. I was about to say.  Gerard Butler. He’s he has that mantle now.

 

Ira Madison III I will always posit that Haywire could have been a good movie, but she is so abysmal. And I think that we’ve maybe talked about this like years ago on this show. But you know what we talked about like the Gus Van Sant version of Psycho. Right.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III I think that we’re so used to revisiting art in theater, you know, you do revivals of it, and then we’re sort of doing that on TV a bit. Ah, we’re redoing some of those scripts like during the pandemic and stuff. But I think that more movies should be remade and either by a director who is sort of like really a fan of that movie or not like one that was really successful, that needs to be remade, but something that feels like, you know, like it was maybe a mess and you want to redo something and it’s not a it’s not like The Hustle, which sort of like, you know, is sort of like a big as remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, but like, you’re really just redoing this film and maybe fixing something that didn’t work. Do Haywire with someone who can act and do the stunts. And it’s a better movie immediately.

 

Damon Young See, I, I agree. I would also like to see things recasted. Just have the same movie, same director, same of everyone behind the scenes. Just have a different cast.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Right. Why change it up stylistically at all? Even though I think what you’re talking about, Ira, the best ideal case is the Ocean’s 11 remake, because it’s like you watched the first one and you want the glamor of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr, all those people. But the movie is slow and the movie is just not as good as you want it to be, which is almost an exact quote from George Clooney. And so when you remake it, it’s like, all right, well, let’s make the movie. We wanted to see that. We thought we saw the first time, you know.

 

Ira Madison III And that is an artistic reason to remake a film. You know, it’s not some dumb remake that, you know, basically, a studio is like, we want to cash in on this property. You know, I will always say that even though it’s not very good, I appreciate it. Why Jonathan Demme wanted to remake Charade Into the Truth About Charlie.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. I know, because Charade is so fabulous and like two of the greatest stars of all time. A Great Conceit, probably top five Best Non Hitchcock, Hitchcock movies, which is a category I think about all the time. You know, movies like, like Gaslight or something like that.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Pardon me for always calling it Charade.

 

Louis Virtel I know. Oh, yeah. You hate an accent. I’m simply blown away that you would make the attempt. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I think maybe one more actor that I want to throw out there.

 

Louis Virtel Here we go. You look like you’re about to throw up, you’re stick with yourself already.

 

Ira Madison III Caitlyn Jenner.

 

Louis Virtel In what?.

 

Ira Madison III Can’t Stop the Music.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, my God. Oh, no. No way. Damon, do you know about this movie?

 

Damon Young I have an awareness of it.

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Damon Young Yes.

 

Louis Virtel Well, the Village People, Once upon a time are thespians for about 25 minutes before we canceled the fuck out of that. And the movie is directed by Nancy Walker of Rhoda fame and also features Steve Guttenberg, very sexy young Steve Guttenberg.

 

Damon Young Oh wow.

 

Louis Virtel It was a ton of roller skating in this movie. It’s a sort of disco themed romp in New York. It’s very aimless. It’s one of these movies that’s like trying to do 25 different things.

 

Ira Madison III Somehow not as gay as Xanadu, which is also a disco movie.

 

Damon Young Was this was this was this pre or post Police Academy Guteenberg?

 

Louis Virtel This would be beforehand.

 

Damon Young Before. Okay.

 

Louis Virtel But also like right right at that moment like right at that is that’s about the jump off but it’s just the I just I can’t believe people thought oh, The Village People these personalities were so obsessed with it’s like girl I don’t know their first names.

 

Ira Madison III For your California Raisins movie.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Which they’re just they’re due for a comeback, actually. Like, why are people still obsessed with California Raisins? Because I personally, I don’t know if you had family members, Damon, or someone who were into that, but I want to tell you that my grandmother collected those California raisins figurines. The the home was full of California raisins and Betty Boop.

 

Damon Young Yeah. I was also out on the California Raisins era. I was in I was I think at that time I was in the Garbage Pail Kids. And and also too, where is the Garbage Pail Kid movie? That hasn’t happened yet. I mean, we got the Jet, the Ninja Turtles, we got the Transformers, we got everything else from that area. So where to Garbage Pail Kids?

 

Louis Virtel California Raisins, though. That was a shockingly huge hit. Correct me if I’m wrong, They are simply raisins that know Motown songs. That is what they are.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel They’re just sitting there singing the Big Chill soundtrack for children.

 

Damon Young And it feel and it feels. I don’t remember how racist that was, but just hearing that again. And also the composition, the physical composition of a raisin, it just feels racist. It just feels extremely extra racist to do to have that. I mean, what I and I do not remember, I remember the ads like in it, I guess in a theoretical sense. But was there a controversy about these raisins singing Motown songs they don’t give a shit about that back then?

 

Louis Virtel You would think there would be. Yeah. But like, we just put it right alongside the the Garfield Saturday morning cartoon and let it fly.

 

Damon Young Okay.

 

Ira Madison III Hmm.

 

Damon Young Shout out to the eighties.

 

Ira Madison III I can’t remember any particular, like, sort of like, scat. I’m from. I mean, I feel like I only ever saw the California raisins speaking razor black people’s homes. So maybe it was one of those, quote unquote, controversy things the same way that like whenever I visit. Family members like in the South, whatever, they still have, like the racist long jockeys.

 

Damon Young Hmm.

 

Ira Madison III You know, it’s like, yes, those are racist. But for some reason, my great grandmother collects them and they’re in the front yard. So maybe the California raisins were, you know, the Sambo’s of the eighties.

 

Louis Virtel That’s so beautiful. Ira, thank you for putting it that way.

 

Damon Young It was. That was poetic.

 

Ira Madison III Coming up, I sit with one of my favorite bands, friends of mine, Tennis, to talk about their latest album, Pollen.

 

<AD>.

 

Ira Madison III Our guests today are an innovative and genuine duo who have been guiding us on a musical journey for almost 13 years now. I’m huge fans of them. Friends with them and excited to have them on Keep It. Finally, to discuss their sixth album, Pollen. Welcome to Keep It, Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley, of Tennis.

 

Alaina Moore Hey.

 

Patrick Riley Thank you.

 

Ira Madison III Hi.

 

Patrick Riley Hey.

 

Alaina Moore What an intro.

 

Ira Madison III You know what? I had to. I had to. I love doing intros for our guests, but, like, I was excited to do this one. I’m excited to have you on.

 

Alaina Moore Thanks

 

Patrick Riley Also we could have done this in person.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I’m in New York.

 

Patrick Riley I know, but I feel like we’re just always near each other.

 

Ira Madison III I know. I know. Well, speaking of that, it’s nice to listen to the album in headphones, like at home now, because the first time I heard it was at your house for like, a listening.

 

Alaina Moore Listening party.

 

Ira Madison III Tell me a bit about how you even started doing things like that. Because I feel like one thing that I loved when I went to listen to the album was having your friends there, like musicians you’ve worked with. Like it had this whole, like community, you know, music artist vibe. And I feel like that’s something that, you know, not everybody gets to have.

 

Patrick Riley I think you’re seeing like our Cowtown roots come in where it’s just like we I don’t know when whenever we finish something we don’t know how to like.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah, we want to do something to signify that it’s real and that it happened. And I feel like that’s you have to do something that’s like public. And I guess shows are obviously a huge thing, but it’s so different because you’re so isolated, you’re just like on stage. So yeah, that experience of sharing it with friends and yeah, I guess that’s like just not really our energy to like, do a, like a fancy party things. Yeah, we just started having people come over to our house.

 

Patrick Riley But we’re also like reading body language like crazy to try to like figure out what songs are resonating with people,.P

 

Alaina Moore And we try to test. And that’s actually the appeal of having babies because I’m sure there’s babies at this listening party.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Alaina Moore And like, you know, they still have that like intuitive connection, primordial connection with music. So we stand in the back and see like, which one did the baby start moving to? And I’m like, okay, that’s probably the single.

 

Ira Madison III And this album is so much fun to what I feel like. It’s different from, you know, Cape Dory, your first one, which is celebrate his 12th anniversary this year. Tell me a bit about your musical journey. I guess sort of what it’s about. What inspired you to create Cape Dory in the first place? You know, people still refer to you as sort of like this beachy sort of yacht rock like dream pop group. But I feel like you’ve evolved so much past that. And this album specifically, Pollen, sounds a bit different from even those early vibes.

 

Patrick Riley Yeah, I think. I mean, when we started out, we were both like music school dropouts and we kind of like shunned music at that point in our lives. We never thought we would be making music for a living. So I think most of Cape Tori was like accidental success, where we were making music in our apartment at the time and just one thing led to another. Well snowballed into.

 

Alaina Moore It started with like a obsession with girl groups, basically. And our music was like not present in our lives at the time. And then we we like I heard like a Phil Spector produced song One Night in a Bar, and I was asking Patton and like, I wish modern music could sound like this. And he was like, I actually understand how that was recorded. And I didn’t know that he had that background. It was really interesting to me. And so we kind of set an intention of like experimenting with that, and Cape Dory came from that, but that was definitely meant to be a home hobby, which I might as well say for the first time ever on the record. That is why our band is called Tennis. I mean, the name has some meaning, but this was not meant to be like our career path for like 12 years. It was like a one time, like fun project that we did at home. Like we were also painting at night and I’m the worst painter. Paintings are disgusting, so we were like painting and writing music together with like no expectations. And now Tennis is like the creative moniker of our lives.

 

Patrick Riley Yeah.

 

Alaina Moore I’m, I’m glad we didn’t choose like a worse name. But, you know, if people ask about that, I’m like, you know, I don’t have a great answer for that.

 

Patrick Riley But band names are weird, though. They don’t.

 

Alaina Moore They are weird.

 

Patrick Riley They’re great for a minute. And then sometimes they get bad.

 

Alaina Moore If you think about them too much. Yeah.

 

Patrick Riley Yeah.

 

Alaina Moore But yeah, that was kind of the beginning of everything. And since then, honestly, it’s been like a musical journey through time. Like starting with, like the Brill Building songwriting, like, even like Carole King and all of that and just kind of working your way through time. And also since it started off with an interest in recording and production that’s just naturally evolved from like One Ribbon mike to tape.

 

Patrick Riley Yeah, we would like study. Producers throughout the eras and kind of just like I don’t because I was engineering major in college for a short minute, but also thanks to my dad for introducing me to recording at a very young age. I’ve just I feel like it’s for us together. We like will get very interested in an engineer, a producer, and just kind of dissect their whole career and kind of see like, you know, what things they did to evolve, what things they did to, you know, like capture sound in a new and exciting way. And as we’ve been learning about those techniques, it’s kind of been naturally influencing our sound.

 

Alaina Moore And in the same way that that music has like that natural cultural progression, like just responding to each movement in time. I feel like that’s kind of dictated the evolution of our records. Like we moved from like that very like reverb be surfy sound to getting into that more like drier seventies production. And now on this record, you know, we have like a little bit of a toe into the nineties, but still, I really liked how the nineties was obsessed with the sixties. So that’s how we’re trying to kind of like find our way to like.

 

Patrick Riley Yeah. So I think at the end of the day we both think that the best music was written in the sixties.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm. Well, I mean the Phil Spector of it all, too.

 

Patrick Riley Yeah, we we just still love girl groups. I mean, we still just like we put on the Shirelles album last night for, you know, kind of as a way to, like, remember our past of that being our number one influence.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah, And it’s like.

 

Patrick Riley Still holds up.

 

Alaina Moore It’s kind of silly. I mean, it’s like a.

 

Ira Madison III That’s Baby It’s You, right?

 

Alaina Moore Exactly. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Where did you where did you hear that that inspired you to, like, start doing that first album? Because I know that I first baby, I heard it as a kid, but I first heard that song, like, really resurfacing in the culture. I think it was because of Tarantino’s, like, Death Proof.

 

Alaina Moore Oh yeah, I loved that. Yeah, we heard it at a bar in Marathon, Florida, after when we were living on our boat and having that like, initial sailing trip after college. We heard it then and it was like a very magical night for us. And but yeah, I was actually for Baby, It’s You. If anyone goes and listens to this, there’s actually like an obnoxiously loud Farfeaster solo that’s mixed so loud it hurts your ears. And for some reason it’s so endearing and charming, like the bad mix of an incredible song. It’s like so heart warming. I don’t know why. So that’s like, that was like something actually, that was like one of the things that actually made us love the song the most.

 

Patrick Riley Absolutely.

 

Ira Madison III Um, speaking out, by the way, also sidenote, because you mentioned Phil Spector, when I come back to L.A., there is a friend I know who is now renting out the house where Phil Spector’s wife died. So you can have multiple parties there.

 

Patrick Riley Also, Phil Spector is terrible person. I mean, an.

 

Ira Madison III Awful, awful person. WALLACE Out.

 

Patrick Riley Can we please just say that?

 

Alaina Moore Yeah, Yeah. For the record and we don’t condone or like him one bit.

 

Ira Madison III I think Louis and I have like praised Phil Spector enough that people get that we either think he’s awful, I just love him or maybe we just love him. Maybe we can down murder. I don’t know.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I can’t speak for Louis.

 

Patrick Riley Cowboy culture that we have.

 

Ira Madison III Um, who would be some of, I guess, your musical influences that you would say would surprise people that inspire you or maybe even inspired this album?

 

Patrick Riley This is, Alaina’s going to. She has all this. All mine are like, so, like, boringly safe. They’re just like, Oh, yeah, you listen to quote unquote good music.

 

Alaina Moore He’s just like the cool guy. And I’m like, I love I love everything. I literally love everything. I, I what? But some like, weirder things that you might not have thought influenced, especially stuff we were listening to when we made this record was when, of course, Pat showed me this. But Life Without Buildings. Have you ever listened to them?

 

Ira Madison III No.

 

Alaina Moore Some amazing. Were they Scottish?

 

Patrick Riley Yeah, I think so.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah. And I feel like they only had like one or two records in the nineties, but it was like talk singing, like stream of conscious, like practically a Gertrude Stein poem nonsense over just like a really amazing band. And that was really amazing. And we also listened to some of like My Bloody Valentine and some country like, I really love Bobbie Gentry.

 

Ira Madison III Mm. Okay

 

Patrick Riley But I also, you were the first person introduced to me, Sisters with Voices, and we still just.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah, SWV.

 

Patrick Riley We even  heard the song that.

 

Ira Madison III I love It. You just said Sisters With Voices.

 

Patrick Riley Yeah, Yeah. Do you hear it though.

 

Alaina Moore He’s so proper. Yeah.

 

Patrick Riley But like, Hotel Valet. Like, I feel like we’re always chasing chasing the like SWV sound. And that’s how it comes out and is in a song like that.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, I definitely felt like more of like some R&B influences on this one, and SWV is always a great place to go. Speaking of Valet, which I fucking adore, I think I said that when I first listened to it. Tell me about the story behind that one, because I feel like that was an interesting one about the origin of even your relationship. Yes.

 

Alaina Moore Mm hmm.

 

Patrick Riley And we’re kind of realizing, too, it’s also the origin of the like, first. And this is just a can of worms. But we lived on a boat after college, and, yeah, I. I worked. I got obsessed with this idea of buying a boat after college, and I just worked overtime. I worked graveyards at this valet place, and my whole entire, like, four years of college is just bookmarked with nonstop working at this, you know, as a valet.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah. So the first time we ever met I was working, I was opening at the only Jewish deli in Denver called Zaidy’s, and I was working the opening shift at 6 a.m., and Pat had just gone off of his graveyard and I served him his breakfast, but we didn’t meet.

 

Patrick Riley And that was. I did remember her very vividly.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah. Then we had a, then we had a class together, like the next semester. And when he came in and he saw me, he remembered me from bringing him his plate.

 

Ira Madison III Aw.

 

Alaina Moore I know. Probably my hair was the clue.

 

Ira Madison III The hair is very memorable. I love how. I also love how watching. I mean, it’s so exciting watching, like your popularity with each album sort of grow, too. And I loved all the memes with this. Like with your past recent music, have you seen the ones like compare your Hair to, like Ice Spice.

 

Alaina Moore Indie Ice Spice. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Indie Ice Spice. Yeah.

 

Alaina Moore It’s like the most frequently tweeted thing about us and it’s I love it. I, I, I, it’s really funny, but yeah, I that was how we first met and it actually it was like kind of a slow friendship because I had this insane schedule of working the graveyards for like the first, like six months that we knew each other. But yeah, it was like it was one of those I feel like we kind of believe in determinism and it felt like we were supposed to meet not like destiny, but like determinism. Like I actually just felt like it was just going to happen. And the universe kept having our paths cross over and over and over.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I mean, one I mean, that’s a very romantic story and I love that you’ve been able to like, depict it on the album, and I’m so interested in the idea of both of you being two people who would sort of like were music majors, sort of like drop outs, but like had this like interest in music that was sort of dormant and like, how did like you to, I guess, reawaken it in one another?

 

Alaina Moore Hmm.

 

Patrick Riley I think, I mean, going back to hearing Baby, It’s You, I, I know we kind of gloss over this, but it really, really reinvigorated our interest in music. It was like hearing the song. Like was a rebirth moment where where we found interest again. And I actually, like, got my guitar out of my mom’s, you know what her attic or something.

 

Alaina Moore And yeah, we were actually really, really shy to show each other our musical past or abilities. It just wasn’t something that we were. It just wasn’t a part of our life at the moment. So I had never heard Pat play guitar. I actually saw he had a guitar in his closet once when we were dating, and I was like, No, I don’t want to hear you play like Smoke on the Water or Satellite by Dave MATTHEWS Show how you can hammer on. So I was just like, we’re not I don’t need to hear you play.

 

Patrick Riley But then for me, I didn’t want to play because I had already had so many like failed bands at that point and like failed interests in music. So for me, it was kind of like a sign of failure to me, and I never wanted to like, revisit it again.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah, and I didn’t I wasn’t really interested in singing because I had felt like it had been my identity as a kid. My dad’s a pastor and I grew up singing in church and it was it was a very, like, amazing formative time in my life. But I felt like it was the only thing I was valued for. And when I went to college, everyone wanted me to study music and just be a vocal performance major. And I felt like no other aspect of me as a human being was like, valued or cultivated, especially, especially my mind. And in church still, I feel like in general I have no problem saying this. Women are more of a like set dressing, you know, like I could sing in church, but I wasn’t like teaching or speaking or you know what I mean? Like, there was I wasn’t writing the songs or none of that, and I just felt like that wasn’t value. And I had to go through a huge differentiation of that where I was like, you know, I ended up becoming a philosophy major as far I tried to go as far away as I could. And so to like find out what else I had as a human being to offer the world other than just singing.

 

Ira Madison III What I’m also interested at and what listeners will find very funny is that I remember the one time I asked you, I was like, because I got your phone number and I was like, Wait, who am I to texting?

 

Ira Madison III Then you were like, Pat doesn’t have a phone. Like you just use yours. And I wondered Pat so like, how do you consume like, the news and like, even consume like media and things like, are you just are you read in the newspaper?

 

Patrick Riley My uncle just has a Facebook page that all. I’m just kidding. Yeah. I’m honestly like not that connected to the news.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Patrick Riley Yeah. It’s mostly I mean, Elena reads the news and so I would get it from her. Yeah.

 

Alaina Moore I tell him what I think he should know. Pat really doesn’t consume any media. He’s never had social media as long as I’ve known him.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, wow.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah. And actually, once in college, he and his friends were having a party, and he convinced three of his friends to throw their phones away. They threw it off like a six story window.

 

Patrick Riley I actually feel so bad about about this now.

 

Alaina Moore You broke their phones, they all immediately got phones the next day. They’re like, that was what were we thinking.

 

Patrick Riley Sorry Andy,.

 

Alaina Moore Scott.

 

Patrick Riley And Greg and Trevor.

 

Alaina Moore I thought Scott did too. Yeah.

 

Patrick Riley Yeah. I’m sorry. I’m a bad influence, but yeah, I don’t know. I’m such like a.

 

Alaina Moore You can say it. You’re a Luddite.

 

Patrick Riley Yes, I’m a Luddite, but I also am just like such a busy body with, like, just stuff, like, just. I feel like I’m, like, fixing a guitar pedal or, like, repainting a wall or, I don’t know, just stuff like that. Because I was after I was working as a valet at that hotel, I was a handyman at a art museum, and I guess that is just who I am deep down is just I’m just a handyman and I need to just work on little projects.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, but you. I feel like you two. Also like you busy yourself with, like, reading and consuming other things too. Because, like you, I mean, the first time we had, like you to recommend it two books to me. One was late fame, which was fantastic. Where’d you discover this book first?

 

Patrick Riley Oh. Oh, actually, yeah. Gave it to us.

 

Alaina Moore No, no, I found it before we went on a sailing trip, actually, to write yours conditionally.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm.

 

Alaina Moore I did like a deep dive into all these, like, like literary editors recommendation lists. I found I like to do that to find tons of books. And I’ll order like ten. And we take them on the boat and we read them all at once with like no notion of what it will be. In weight. Fame was like the by far and away winner of that.

 

Patrick Riley Like, I think every artist needs to read that book because it it just we’ve all. Especially now that Elaine and I have done this for almost 15 years or something, I feel like it is the most exemplary life of an artist. Like. Like where it’s just shows you the ups and downs. You can think you’re on top, but you’re really on the bottom, and it’s.

 

Alaina Moore Humbling and humiliating. Yeah, yeah. It really, really just puts you in your place.

 

Ira Madison III Which is appropriate for German literature.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah, isn’t it?

 

Patrick Riley Sure. But yeah. So I read, I do things. Yeah. I try and stay off my phone. I actually like the phone and social media. And just honestly, most technology things like ruin my ability to create music, ruin my ability to, like, stay concentrated on like, little stuff that we need done for the band. Hmm. I’m just not. I can’t juggle that stuff. My brain can’t handle both.

 

Alaina Moore Ira, this is the first time we’ve talked about the album with anyone.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, my God, I’m so excited.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Alaina Moore In our first interview. So I was actually thinking about it today because I was like, Any questions that you ask me about a song or anything, it’ll be the first time I’ve ever answered it.

 

Ira Madison III Oh, my God. Well, that’s so exciting. I mean, I’m so excited to even talk about your music with you, you know? So, you know, I’ve been such a fan for years.

 

Alaina Moore All right, Test me. Test me on Pollen. Ask me anything. And give me a test because I’ll never have answered it. Ah.

 

Ira Madison III Let’s see. Well, one, the name Pollen.

 

Alaina Moore Okay. Test number one.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Alaina Moore Okay. This’ll be the first time I’ve answered it. Mm hmm. Well, I. Okay, so anyone who knows me or anyone in my family knows that pollen is like Satan to us. We’re all so allergic. And there’s, like, whole family threads about, like, pollen count that day, like how.

 

Patrick Riley Their lives are truly impacted by it.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah, it’s pretty ridiculous. So I the very first song, the first lyric I wrote for this album was you point to the trail where the blossoms have fallen, but all I can think of is pollen fucking me up now. I can’t even just enjoy one single moment of beauty without immediately spinning out about like, how this is going to impact me negatively.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm.

 

Alaina Moore And so that was like the very first emotion and thought behind the record. And then. Yeah, yeah.

 

Patrick Riley The more we talked about that, too, the idea of, like, looking at something beautiful but then feeling pain or like it producing a painful quality inside of you, it’s.

 

Alaina Moore And also the power of something really small, whether it’s like a particle or a moment or a choice or a relationship. And it’s like long lasting effect on you. Mm hmm. Felt also like kind of a significant theme in the writing.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean, even so, just thematically, you know, like, I feel like you started your career with, you know, falling back in love with music, and it was about the time you spent on the boat and like this, you know, sort of like it’s sort of like an arc almost, because this feels like the album where, you know, we get back story and how you two met. And it feels like really just sort of a beautiful culmination of a story.

 

Patrick Riley This is the most internal album, I think, lyrically, that you’ve ever written.

 

Alaina Moore Mm hmm. Yeah. I actually set a goal to be more personal and more detailed face to kind of hide. I’ve realized I was kind of hiding a bit behind abstraction to make myself feel more protected, I guess.

 

Ira Madison III So would you say that maybe even some of your other albums were just sort of like you were thinking about sort of things and maybe just sort of like not really going that introspective?

 

Alaina Moore Well, I would start with a very personal idea, and then as I was putting words to it, I would choose the word that was intentionally more vague.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah. Just so it would be, like, still a little bit more mine than the world’s. But then I just challenged myself to do the opposite with this record.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm. I mean, that’s so interesting to hear, too, because I just feel like. So I feel like one of my favorites of yours. Like Modern Woman feels like a very personal song. I remember when I saw you at Red Rocks, you were even introduced it as like it was about how you had had you had stopped talking to a friend for a while. And then that’s what the song was about.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I think that was like my first toe in the water of being that personal. Mm hmm.

 

Patrick Riley That was definitely the first personal song we actually, like, toyed with at not even being on the album for a minute cause we’re like, Oh, this doesn’t fit the picture of tennis. And then we’re like, They obviously decided against it because it’s one of the best songs on that record.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah, I was also really, I was afraid, yeah. That it might be like alienating because it’s like, So honestly, I guess I do struggle sometimes with worrying. Obviously, this is so much less of an issue now that we have like feet the Phoebe Bridgers of the world and obviously Taylor Swift. But there was a minute where I would worry about something that was like so specifically my experience would be alienating to other people because, you know, the female perspective is not a universal perspective. But I think that that is I feel like that has been pretty much obliterated culturally. I think no one is.

 

Patrick Riley Really our band also was started during like the death of IMO music. And now that emo is coming back.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like it is far more as they’re going on tour. Yeah. So.

 

Patrick Riley Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I think there’s going to be an emo resurgence. You know? No, that’s truly one of my favorites and I feel like everyone has sort of had an emotion like that, you know, like a falling out with someone that you want to fix. That’s the beauty of being an artist, right? You can at least try and fix it with your art, you know, with your lyrics, with a story, with a song.

 

Alaina Moore Absolutely

 

Patrick Riley They’re friends now, by the way. Yeah.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah. That friendship was repaired. Yeah. Through the song.

 

Ira Madison III Through the song. Did you send this did you send the song to them or did they hear it?

 

Alaina Moore Nah. That would be too desperate.

 

Patrick Riley She heard it.

 

Ira Madison III Okay.

 

Alaina Moore I did not feel like hint, hint. No. Actually a mutual friend showed it to her and then she wrote me a letter and that was that.

 

Patrick Riley Oh.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I love that. That’s like a beautiful story. You know more people should do things like that. Maybe I’ll do something like that. Also, lastly, would there be any song of yours that people would not Listeners would be surprised that like, you were like, this completely doesn’t work live. And then also are there like, since you know music so well I’m always digesting it. Are there sort of like songs that you know that like you love by maybe like another artist or something that you’re like, I would have loved to do, like a cover or something of that. But you’re like, This does not sound good live. Or at least like with us playing it.

 

Alaina Moore Yes, Yes, that’s a great question. Well, I think one example of a song that we really want wanted we did play it live, but we were never very happy with. It was this song, My Emotions are Blinding, which was sort of yours conditionally, and that was one of the singles. So we were like, We need to play this live. And it was okay, but it just felt like a little bit flat for us without all the production suited up completely. Re Arranging it to something that feels.

 

Patrick Riley Like more balladry almost now and it weirdly.

 

Alaina Moore Well now it almost sounds like a Todd Rundgren or Carole King song. It’s very different and we only do it this way live and it actually feels like the way the song was meant to be written the first time. Oh, another really good example is the song Bad Girls. We knew when we wrote that that we it was really special and we rerecorded it like four times with two different producers. And it never felt like the perfect like we were capturing the song correctly.

 

Patrick Riley Yeah, I still don’t think the version we settled on is correct like we do at some point need to rerecord it.

 

Alaina Moore Well, because now the way we do it live is just no, it’s just part playing guitar and me singing a true ballad and we’re like, That’s what it was supposed to be. But we kept forcing it to be a fully arranged song with drums, bass, whatever. And it just now, in hindsight, we so live, we do it the way that it was meant to be recorded.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like 10 Minutes 10 Years is my favorite of your songs and I love the live version, the sort of slower ballad that’s the one I listen to the most.

 

Alaina Moore Oh good. And that’s the way that worked better, because, yeah, that was another song that we tried to do at the album version.

 

Patrick Riley We noticed.

 

That does not work.

 

Yeah, any time Alaina is in like her very, very like upper register voice, we notice that, like, you can’t have a lot of instrumentation muddying up that pretty voice. Yeah, but yeah. And so like, yeah, for a song like that, it just needs as much room as possible.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm.

 

Alaina Moore But actually, we were listening to, I don’t remember. It was like a podcast, but a song about how like there’s different approaches to songwriting and how, like, Leonard Cohen would never stop tweaking the songs, like after it was on record that didn’t mean that it was like done cooked. He would just keep tweaking and tinkering with things live until it evolved forever. And Hallelujah was an example of that, how that song was just like never finished. And I actually really loved that idea of that. And that’s been very liberating to me where I feel like we can we have permission to just keep evolving the songs live.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I love that, you know, I mean, it’s not in changing the album all the time the way like Kanye did, but it’s more of like a it’s more of like, you know, even thinking like, of playwrights, like Edward Albee is sort of like, you know, like changing the changing dialog or updating things like after new productions each year. But I think that I like ways that art can be sort of a living thing.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah, absolutely. And I it’s been a good for me to change my perspective because I used to think about a recorded piece of music, like a painting. It’s like unalterable, but it’s been, it’s actually been really helpful for me to think about it as, Yeah, living and fluid.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. Which is also lastly, which is also so weird to me because when I was just in Milan and I was looking at, you know, sort of like marble statues and things like that, I think I never really thought of was. You’re looking at pieces and, you know, there’s like the placard there that’s telling you where this what year this is from, etc.. So many of those pieces were like, oh, this head was removed like in this century. And like a different piece was put on top of that. So, you know, the idea that like so many of the like even like marble statues or things that we have from like ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, wherever, were sort of like modified in their own time or even centuries later because something was destroyed or something else was added to it. So a lot of art, even things that you think are sort of permanently done, were actually altered.

 

Patrick Riley Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III After that.

 

Alaina Moore That’s so cool. I love to hear that.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Alaina Moore Next. The next thing that I want to reimagine for Live is the song Runner, actually.

 

Patrick Riley Yeah, that needs it for that one’s a little Yeah. Against Yeah.

 

Alaina Moore When I sing a really high like witchy voice which I very deliberately chose for the song on record but live.

 

Ira Madison III Don’t want to hear me trying to sing that at home. That’s your like, highest.

 

Alaina Moore Highest. So, like, I just need more meat on it. So, yeah, I’m going. I’ve been working on that. That’ll be the next thing to be modified.

 

Ira Madison III Okay, Well, I can’t wait. Also, congrats. I mean, this album is great. I told you that already, but, you know, I and I’m sure Keep It listeners I’ve heard been talk about you both so much but if you are new to Tennis from this interview, listen to Pollen and then listen to the rest of their albums like you’re great.

 

Alaina Moore Oh, thank you.

 

Ira Madison III Thank you for being here.

 

Alaina Moore We’re so happy to be here. My only, I just wish we could have spent some time gossiping, but that’s not really our role as guests.

 

Patrick Riley Please don’t make me do that.

 

Alaina Moore Sorry. He won’t know who anybody is. Actually, when we do listen to Keep It, I have to pause and tell him who every single person is you’re talking about.

 

Ira Madison III Well, you should also follow @KeepItStans on Twitter. It’s wild that we have we have a Stan account but what they do is they take mostly every pop culture reference that we make in an episode, you know, find like a corresponding link or tweet or the video or song or whatever. And that’s helpful for some people.

 

Alaina Moore Oh, that can be Pat’s primer to pop culture.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Patrick Riley I still love I literally did a spit take when I don’t you you and Louis were talking about some artists and use the expression sounded like a calculator being thrown down a hallway a flight of stairs. I actually did a spit take in the car, so believe it or not, for me on during the understanding the cultural allusions that you might miss out, it’s still produces extreme joy for me.

 

Ira Madison III Louis will be happy to hear that. Yeah. I mean, even like I remember like one of my first forays into pop culture, like really thinking about it, like sort of seriously academically was reading like Chuck Klosterman’s  Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs. And just the idea that me even reading that and I’m like, well, I’m not, you know, a Gen X like him, you know, and like, don’t understand all these represents, but that’s why there’s footnotes. Yeah. And then like even the footnotes in like, you know, like Infinite Jest, which I’ll finish someday, you know, it’s like going back to going back and forth. I love, I love a footnote in a book of essays. So.

 

Alaina Moore Yeah. Me too.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. All right.

 

Alaina Moore On that note.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. The album Pollen is in stores now, and Tennis is embarking on their tour to support the album. So go and get those as well. When we’re back, our Ask Damon segment.

 

Speaker 2 <AD>.

 

Ira Madison III As hard as this is to admit, like Sway, Louis and I don’t have the answers.

 

Louis Virtel You need to not say that again. Oh my God.

 

Ira Madison III But luckily.

 

Louis Virtel He sometimes had the answers, I feel.

 

Damon Young Oh, okay.

 

Ira Madison III Serena Altschul had the answers more often than Sway.

 

Louis Virtel God, do I. You can’t just say that name. I love her too much. Just the utter. I’ve already used the word monotone, but like, it’s not even monotone, which she would. She would basically mutter the news at us.

 

Ira Madison III But luckily, our guest host does. We have a special segment today called Ask Damon where we take your questions, your queries, your quizzes, and  we asked Damon to judge you. So we’ve got a few questions here and we’ll see what Damon has to say. We’ll see if it lines up with what Louis and I have to say.

 

Louis Virtel The correct answer so to speak. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III And unfortunately, none of these questions are about why Hailey Bieber and Selena Gomez are feuding online this week.

 

Damon Young I saw somebody to post about that with the quote, tweet, the two most boring human beings alive. And I have to say, I concur.

 

Ira Madison III Like a canceled one season WB drama. It’s like what are they fighting about each week. They’re fighting over Justin Bieber.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III His tour was canceled today because no one was even fighting over Justin Bieber tickets.

 

Louis Virtel Is that why he’s like, not in demand as a concert fan?

 

Ira Madison III I don’t think he was selling out stadiums.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, wow.

 

Damon Young Mm hmm. That’s a shock

 

Ira Madison III Question number one. Do you have suggestions for managing social anxiety when needing to mingle with others, particularly people you don’t know well?

 

Damon Young I mean, my immediate answer is drink. Be intoxicated. That that that helps me as someone who has struggled with anxiety, with social anxiety. You know, it helps to have a little bit of a buzz when I’m in a room. But. There’s no real way to get around being anxious in public spaces. If you’re if you’re that type of person, I think the best thing to do is to try to curate spaces to your best, to the best of your ability. So you’re in spaces where people know who you are, you’re in spaces where you know that you know that you can escape if you if you need to, you know. But this is a tough one because, again, there’s no easy remedy to alleviate that. Aside from intoxication, which again, I said at the beginning, do not do not take my answers. Like I don’t want someone who is sincerely thinking about to go out and to start drinking, because I’ve I’m 44 and I have you know, I have learned over a lifetime how much I need to drink in order to be in public, in order to be good with people. So I don’t want someone to just start doing that today.

 

Ira Madison III Sounds very When a Man Loves a Woman, you know, you’re on the top of a car.

 

Louis Virtel I do not drink. I’m somebody who, uh, I guess in certain social situations I can find them to be tense. But I think you said something that actually is important, Which is. Escape whenever I’m surprised when you’re at a house party and it’s just like a ton of noise. First of all, I don’t deal with the noise quotient particularly well after a certain amount of time. I just need time to not think about anything or not speak or not be giving output or even just standing on the other side of like a long winded anecdote, which I’ve said several times in the show is my least favorite thing. People who don’t know when to get to the end of a story. But I think something I like doing and this feels like very dorky and very like trust fall oriented camp exercise. I like having, like an honest icebreaker question that you are curious about. Something I’ve brought up before in the show is literally just asking people, What is your one favorite song? Just ask because like, whatever it is, you’re probably going to have heard of it. It’s something they can probably put on right then, you know, it’s a conversation you’ll want to have, you know, and you can disagree, agree. It just I think it naturally leads into a fruitful conversation. And also one time we asked this question to a friend of mine, and he spent all party thinking about it. And then he came back with, I think it’s Work, Bitch. Imagine having the entire American songbook at your disposal and you chose Work, Bitch by Britney Spears. Brain worms are affecting the gay community every fucking day. That’s what you need to know.

 

Ira Madison III Okay, first of all, that is Hal Prince’s greatest work. So.

 

Louis Virtel You want a maserati? Quote, Hal.

 

Ira Madison III I love a question like that. I like an icebreaker. I was. I was recently at a dinner, and I have a friend who is. He’s one of those people. He’s, like, genuinely curious about what people think about certain things or, like, even asking a question, like, what do you consider a celebrity is? You know, and it’s like talking about like micro celebrities, big celebrities, you know, like what the difference is between celebrity and famous. He asked that at a dinner recently and everyone had like a different answer. And it was nice being at a dinner party again where we weren’t just talking about the same shit we always talk about like I was getting. And it was also with new people, so I was getting to know them by going back and forth on a question. And I think that there’s a reason why icebreakers sort of exist. You know, like if it’s a general situation, if it’s a party, something like if you’re around a group of people who you might not know, asking the question like that will always get someone to sort of step out of their comfort zone a bit, you know, and you can respond to people back and forth, you know, and that’s how you get to know someone.

 

Louis Virtel I think also what’s nice is having a topic to talk about that isn’t just say the news. We’re like people can feel a little bad for not being as informed or feeling like, you know, or feeling like necessarily they’re going to disagree with whoever they talk to. If, you know, there’s differing political views going on, things like that. Just in this way, I wish more standup comedy was about pop culture because we are all constantly consuming it. And it’s it’s something we have in common. You know, it bothers me.

 

Damon Young Yeah. And to your point, I think, you know, just thinking, when people you know, people who deal with anxiety, sometimes you do it in an effort to alleviate it. You perform, you perform extroversion. Right. And it comes off as inauthentic. It comes off as try hard, corny sometimes, because you could sense that, oh, this is a person who was trying to perform and are, you know, under over the overcorrecting for, you know, what they believe to be a deficit and that the. Best thing. One of the best things to remember is that it’s not a deficit. That’s just who you are. Like, if you are more introverted, if you are anxious, and you know, in these public spaces, that’s fine. Like, that’s not necessarily a thing that you have to change. You know what I mean? Like, now, if is to know if it’s something that you have to do and you are paralyzed with anxiety, that’s one thing. But if you feel some anxiousness, you know, when in a new environment like that is okay. Right. And I think that, you know. Another strategy to is to lean into that, you know, lean into that anxiety, lean into that nervousness, and you probably will not be the only person there who is feeling that. So, you know, maybe look out for, you know, your your neurotic homeboy, neurotic homegirl who’s also in some corner, also been at the bar the entire time and make a new friend in we think of wingman and like this dating context or whatever but it’s also I think it’s even more helpful for someone who deals with this sort of anxiety, social anxiety to bring a friend.

 

Ira Madison III I love a wingman. I love it.

 

Damon Young Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Because I, I do get I’ve actually exited social situations, and especially on ones where I don’t know everyone. You know, I love a curated room where like I do though, at least some of the people. That’s why I always love like the bane of my existence is invited to an event, not a friends event, but like a public event or something or media event where it’s like no plus one and it’s like, Okay, girl, well, I don’t know what you want me to do. Just wander around here by myself.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Stalk of the corridors.

 

Ira Madison III Right. And I suppose and those are always the ones when you or you have to go, you go there and like, you’re so excited to see like some of that you do, though you didn’t know they were going to be invited. Like at the end of the bar, you’re like, Oh my God, I got to talk to you. And those are actually been great moments where I’ve sort of like bonded with a friend that I’ve known tangentially, or maybe just online or like even casually, like you see them at an event like that and you’re the only two people who sort of know each other. Like that can be fun, but it is stressful going into it. And I’m also, you know. Turn off the podcast right now teens. But I love a smoke break.

 

Louis Virtel The smoke break really does facilitate something socially that I kind of sometimes wish I were a part of. I want to also say it to Damon’s point. Yeah, it’s not like a I can’t remember to use the word party foul. It’s not a party foul to acknowledge awkwardness, you know, In fact, I was just watching an interview with Get Ready. Aimee Mann I know. Ira can’t believe it. And she said she had been reading up on the fact that, like, actually telling the truth gives you, like, a dopamine rush. Like to be, you know, authentic. To say what’s actually on your mind, I think, is immediately calming. It just is what we should be doing anyway. So if you feel like you’re stuck with your nervousness, you know, relieving yourself of that immediately, just like, you know, realizing that other people are human beings, too, and acknowledging it, I think is probably the best first step.

 

Damon Young Yeah, exactly. And, you know, and I think that, you know, when people deal with this sort of anxiety and I know that I you know that this too, you tend to think that you’re feeling too singular, like you’re the only person who’s experiencing this. You’re the only person who’s anxious, the only person that’s nervous, you know, And that’s just that’s just not true. And and, again, you know, to this person who asked this question or anyone who has this concern, you know, it is very helpful just to realize that, you know what? You are not alone, right? You enter this space with like 15, 20, 25, however many people, chances are there are going to be other people there who have the same shit going on that you do.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm. Yeah.

 

Damon Young You know, I mean, and. And just knowing that this knowing that I’m not alone was something that helped alleviate, you know, my whatever anxiety I felt about going into new spaces.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Thank you. I always know Michael Jackson is at the party with. You know, I’m not alone.

 

Louis Virtel Fabulous video. Definitely very much that.

 

Ira Madison III All right. Next question. Mm hmm. At what age is the woman your father marries, my father’s wife, and not your stepmother?

 

Louis Virtel Speaking of Tyler Perry, like my father.

 

Ira Madison III My father’s wife starting Tichina Arnold.

 

Louis Virtel It also sounds like a movie from the thirties, when every movie was called like.

 

Damon Young My Father’s Wife.

 

Louis Virtel My friend Jordan has a fake funny title. He brings up for a thought as she saw her daughter. You know, just everything is like dramatic and basic.

 

Ira Madison III I love those. I always call I always call recent friends who’ve just broke up with a boyfriend. I call them the gay divorcee. Oh, please. Because I love that title so much.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Damon Young Okay.

 

Louis Virtel Kind of rhymes. Yeah.

 

Damon Young 18. I feel like once you graduated from high school, So was that 17, 18 or 19, if you’re from Ohio, then that is the age where you know it’s no longer step mom. It’s your dad’s wife. Yeah, but.

 

Ira Madison III Call them by their real name.

 

Damon Young Pretty. Yeah. Nancy, you know. Oh, we’re actually Nancy is there’s there aren’t many, like, four year old Nancy’s these days, so maybe Tiffany, Tiffany, Chloe, Zoe. But whatever her name is, that’s what you should just call her.

 

Ira Madison III Crystal Carrington.

 

Damon Young Yeah. Well, you know, it’s. It’s funny just thinking about, you know, that type of, you know, what they call people. I’ve been married for how long I’ve been married for? It’ll be nine years this year. Yeah, nine years this year. I still don’t know what to call my mother in law.

 

Ira Madison III Hmm.

 

Louis Virtel Interesting.

 

Damon Young Yeah. I don’t call her by her first name.

 

Ira Madison III Mm hmm.

 

Damon Young Because that’s just not something I’m going to do with a, you know, 67 year old black woman. I don’t call her Mrs. Her last name. Because that just doesn’t feel right. I don’t. Also, don’t call her mom because she’s not my mom. And I know there are some people who do that, but it’s just. Yeah. She’s not my mom.

 

Ira Madison III So how do you approach her?

 

Damon Young I say hi. Hey. Hey. How you doing? What’s going on today?

 

Louis Virtel That sounds like you need to manufacture a nickname for her, like Mrs. Boss or. Yeah, well, Dr. Lady.

 

Damon Young My kids call her, my kids call her MeMaw. And again, I’m not. I’m not going to do that either. So, again, this is I need to write in  myself, and figure this out because or maybe you all can help. Like what?

 

Ira Madison III It’s so weird.

 

Damon Young What should I call my in-law?

 

Ira Madison III It’s so weird because. So by my dad’s father, Since we were a kid, my sister and I have called him Pawpaw. But when referring to I don’t know what my mom and my grandmother on my mom’s side refer to him as. When they’re around, they probably just say Henry to each other. But when talking to us, they only say Pawpaw. So it is using that same language between each other. So it is weird that that sort of like nickname is just what’s used in the family.

 

Louis Virtel Though you actually bring up the weird point that it’s not too hard to get around not having to call someone a name. Yeah, you know.

 

Ira Madison III I do it at parties all the time. I mean, would you please, if you get a you go to any party, you know, especially us, you know, like I’d be at High Tops or anywhere. Like you run into some, some person that you met six months ago once is like, I don’t know this person’s name. I’ll be like, Hey, what’s up? You know, or like, you have like different, you have different nicknames for people or just like general things that you say that imply is sort of a familiar. I don’t know. I don’t know. There’s implied familiarity, but like, I don’t know this person’s name now.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, please, no. Well, you know what? My favorite activity to do is introduce somebody, you know, to that person, be like, Oh, here’s Ryan, and then they have to say their name. You’re like, Okay, I’ll bank that. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I feel like I’m so friends with it now. And sometimes I hate when you try to do that. So many times I’ve done that and then I ask a friend after, okay, what was that person’s name? Because I hear it or something and they’re like, Oh, I didn’t get it. I was like, What the fuck are you doing?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, So you’re worthless. Okay. Yeah.

 

Damon Young Yeah. The worse I feel like, the worse with that is when you have an unsaved number in your phone and someone texts you.

 

Louis Virtel It’s horrible. It’s horrible. It’s always a horror movie.

 

Damon Young And you’re just trying to read context clues. You’re having this conversation back and forth, like if I know them or they do, I know them from from school? Is this like, Oh, is this a friend? Is this something I used to date? Like, what’s up? Did I meet them at I didn’t meet them in Milwaukee. Like, what is happening?

 

Ira Madison III I think a few weeks ago someone messaged me and was like, I did not have the number saved. And we had not talked for like several months. And I did like the I did the oddest thing for once. And I said, I’m so sorry. I do not have this number saved, Who is this? And they stopped talking to me.

 

Louis Virtel No way.

 

Ira Madison III They were pissed.

 

Louis Virtel Come on. It’s how phones are. It’s just like there’s something always so depressing about looking back on a phone conversation like that where you didn’t save the name because it makes you realize, like, how similar all these introductory conversations are. Like, Wow, you couldn’t even establish an identity on the other side, just like I’m wasting my time, like not even making these conversations memorable that I think I believe in while I’m having them, you know.

 

Damon Young Or, you know, solution to this. It’s just something that I unfortunately discovered a couple of years ago. Get doxxed. Because you got if you get doxxed, you got to change all your numbers right And so someone you know text you or whatever, they find your number you don’t have you know new number saved. You could just say, hey, you know what, I just got doxxed. I don’t know who you are. You’re just, you know, you could just tell me, please, you know, share your name. So, again, if you feel any sort of anxiety about this social situation, just get doxxed

 

Ira Madison III I’m going to do that at the next party, though, when I when someone talks to me, I know who they are. I’m so sorry. I was doxxed recently, remind me your name again.

 

Louis Virtel Just completely out of context.

 

Damon Young Everyone everyone could use. Like everyone could use a good doxxing. Like just this once you know this one time. Does it go through it? I mean it you know, it was it was scary as fuck when it happened. But it also, you know, I never felt more alive.

 

Louis Virtel And character building, I’m sure.

 

Damon Young Yeah, It’s definitely, definitely for that first couple of weeks.

 

Ira Madison III That does remind me, though, that like now we’re in an era where we have multiple social media ways to contact someone now, right? Like one. I have a lot of people and I prefer it to I have a lot of friends who I may not even have their number for a first few months of us knowing each other because we’ve only communicating through like Instagram DMs or something. But it also brings up the fact that, you know, when you used to, like, get a new phone number or something, Right. Well, we only had like Facebook or something. You could just write on your Facebook status like, hey, I got a new number and your friends would see it. Now, if I got a new number, how the fuck am I going to contact all these people who have my number? Professionally? Friends? Like sending texts blasts of people. I’m like, It’s just not going to happen.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Wow. I can’t believe I do actually look back on Facebook with some nostalgia occasionally, but it was good for stuff, namely events.

 

Ira Madison III But it was really good for events. It was really good for the period where you were really only friends with your friends.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Right. Right.

 

Ira Madison III When you put up a message and it’s like you could be like, Oh, we’re at this bar or like, this party is like, here is something like when it was really just going to your friends. I guess that’s what close friends or something is. Now, if I my number change now, I’d probably put it on close friends on Instagram.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I guess that’s the closest.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Yeah.

 

Damon Young But I am still on Facebook. I still am active on Facebook. That’s where a lot of my family is.

 

Ira Madison III So you believes Isis works at Applebee’s?

 

Damon Young Yeah, I do. I do. I do. And it’s not Applebee’s is Chili’s. Did it get it, get it, get it right. You know, I stayed on Facebook because for my blog, that was what drove traffic like Twitter. Never really had fact on actual like engagement on on the site. But Facebook if you went viral Facebook viral been used is solid in the numbers on the site. So I always just stay connected to Facebook and I just haven’t left I appreciate what I appreciate that it allows me to sprawl in a way to Twitter. You know, I need to master it. And Twitter just, you know, limits the characters and Facebook doesn’t. And so that’s always was more of a, I don’t know, a platform for me.

 

Ira Madison III No, it’s fair. When we we get metrics on like all like MTV or like BuzzFeed, like articles and shit. Like it would always be like there would always be like a big number from Facebook, people on Twitter. Maybe this will shock you, do not click on links.

 

Louis Virtel No, it also runs a little bit more aloof on Twitter. We comment on the thing without having actually read the thing, etc.. Now I’m a boomer.

 

Ira Madison III Even when Twitter added that thing where it’s like You haven’t read this article. Are you sure you still want to comment? People ignore it.

 

Damon Young Yes.

 

Louis Virtel No. No. Watch me. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III All right. One last question, this is what they used to call a humdinger.

 

Damon Young Wow. Oh. Okay.

 

Louis Virtel You’re popping with terminology today. Wow.

 

Ira Madison III My 26 year old son works for an influencer who boasts about his rich life functions as a life coach but has horrible conservative views about women.

 

Louis Virtel Ooh. He sounds hot.

 

Ira Madison III The influencer is 35 and a relative to his mother doesn’t know where he picked up his ideas. My son is quiet but must be a fan. He dropped out of college with good grades to do this. My question is how do you fight misogyny among younger mixed race men? The influencer is polite around family, but we want to say something. What do we say? What if this was your child? I’m going to say the mixed race was a twist.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, Ira and I are out. Yeah.

 

Damon Young So since, since this is a relative of Andrew Tate, I’ll address this person, Mrs. Tate. So Mrs. Tate is a tough one because, you know, there’s something about this influencer. You know, your nephew Andrew, that you’re that your son was attracted to. And and so even if you remove the influencer from the equation, those beliefs that your son probably possessed before, he still wouldn’t have. And so I think that, you know, he’s at an age where, you know what what would she say? He was 26, where, you know, you’re not in the house anymore. You don’t have that same sort of, you know, influence over your child that you would if the child was still in the house. I think if my nephew I have like to, you know, 20 something nephews came to me with some fuck shit beliefs about whatever. I would just pepper them with questions like I would just just hit them over the head like, so. So why do you believe this? And so. So is this true? And so did you read about it? And just keep  hitting, just bombard them like an avalanche of questions until they wreck. Until until they’re forced to acknowledge that what they believe is bullshit. Right.

 

Louis Virtel But really is about just asking questions where I think it sits with people, you know, like like if you can’t answer it, your brain is still working on it. It’s not like you just ignored it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, that’s what you do when someone says Tarantino’s their favorite director. Just keep asking questions. Really Hateful Eight?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Grindhouse Did that work for you? I was on the fence. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III He actually had the better one.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, definitely.

 

Ira Madison III Death Proof is better than Planet Terror or whatever.

 

Damon Young It is.

 

Ira Madison III I would say it’s something like this. I feel like this is it just that it’s like a agitate, influence, influences kind of question. I feel like this is sort of like an age old question taken to like maybe a darker extreme. You know, there’s always the question of how do you as a parent, continue to influence a son once they’ve, you know, left the nest? You know, it’s easier for rich people because this rich parent would just be hiring their 26 year old son to work in the family company and they wouldn’t be out of work for some influence, you know. But yeah, that it’s hard because I can’t imagine, you know, like my parents, you know, telling me like not to do something at 26 and me being like, well, I don’t give a fuck, you know, unless you’re, like, tied to them financially. And if this person is working for the influencer, then.

 

Damon Young You know, he might be living at home. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. It sounds like he’s living at home. So, you know, maybe. Maybe, maybe there’s a way to affect things there, you know?

 

Damon Young Yeah. Like, you know, it is a humdinger, right? Because, you know, you build an. We’re talking about an influencer, but yet the parent after a certain age just doesn’t have that same influence. And so.

 

Ira Madison III This is why people join cults, you know.

 

Damon Young I mean, do you? And also, you know. This might not be the most fair thing to say, but. What role have you played? You know what I mean? Like how, You know, what beliefs did you pass on to your son, where he now considers this like a good career option? Like, you know, because this shit doesn’t happen in the vaccum, you know?

 

Ira Madison III Does he hate women because of you? Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Asshole.

 

Damon Young Yeah, maybe.

 

Louis Virtel Well, also, there’s just, I think, a critical part of growing up. A crucial part of growing up is being fucking wrong. You know, it’s just a matter of. Do you realize it? Or do you reconcile with why you thought these things, etc.. But I think, generally speaking, most kind of well-formed adults have these come to Jesus moments where they realize, Oh, I was like completely, I don’t know why I needed to think that or whatever. So maybe it’s just the first step and finally coming around to being right. Who knows?

 

Damon Young Yeah. And this, this, this question kind of reminds me of like, the conversation that I feel like is happening in more, I guess, white spaces about what to do with family members who are like Quanon or, you know, or, you know, manga or whatever manga. I would say manga, but it’s manga. Manga or manga.

 

Louis Virtel I don’t really.

 

Damon Young Know to make America great again. So how I met Maga.

 

Ira Madison III Maga. Maga.

 

Damon Young Because I always say manga.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Which is like because I would say magets. Like, you know, So that’s how I heard it was like maga.

 

Damon Young And so what do you do? And I was asked this question like a couple of times. It’s like, what do you do with a family member who you know, is gone so far? Right. That, you know, you you know, that they’re almost unreachable. It’s like, can you just not engage them anymore like at Thanksgiving or, you know, whatever holidays, you know, do you just accept them as who they are and do it by them to the fall and. My answer is always held off. No, you don’t do that. Like, you have to make it uncomfortable for them. You know, I mean, because in in particularly in that context and we’re talking about like white person, you know. They’re not going to listen to me. Right. They’re not. There’s nothing that I could say that could possibly sway someone who is who is that far right. But maybe if you are your cousin there and their nephew, their son, their mother. You have some sway. And so I think getting back to the mom influence or the mom and the I don’t know, the assistant to the influence or make life uncomfortable. For your son.

 

Ira Madison III But if you make it too uncomfortable, do they leave home and then go under the wing of this person? Because that’s how Sydney joined the cult that Traci Lords ran on Melrose Place.

 

Louis Virtel Ira has a doctorate,  as you can see.

 

Damon Young I think you I think I think you run that risk because what’s the alternative? That you just do nothing.

 

Ira Madison III That’s fair.

 

Damon Young And allowed them to do that too.

 

Louis Virtel No, I think weirdly speaking on the maga relatives thing, I think weirdly speaking for myself, the problem is confronting in a way that ends up not feeling repetitive like. Like how many times can you possibly bring up? You’re wrong for these obvious reasons. Like you’re you’re not even approaching reality, you know, let alone you’re all these other things racist, misogynist, xenophobic, etc.. You know. How do you do that in a novel way? You know, keeping the conversation going. But of course, it’s not really a conversation. It’s just this is insanity. But yeah.

 

Damon Young And context matters, too. I mean, if this if it’s like your 98 year old grandma who’s still a like, you know, she’s going to die tomorrow. Let Ethel, let MeMaw continue to hate.

 

Louis Virtel Memaw really wanted to.

 

Damon Young Give her a gift giver that you could give her that at her in her last days. But again, if it’s someone who’s a bit younger, who has a bit more more years to live on Earth, then again, I think you you need to you need to challenge that. You need to confront that. You need to make it. You need to make them uncomfortable. Whether that’s physically uncomfortable or, you know, intellectually uncomfortable, you need to challenge them and make them make them cringe, make them you know, I don’t know. You just can’t allow them to continue to just exist.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, but.

 

Damon Young Unfettered.

 

Ira Madison III Got to be prepared to lose them too, you know, I mean, historically, this isn’t new. You know, like some people lost some kids to Manson, you know, like there were medieval death cults. It was it, you know, like, people are always going to be dumb.

 

Louis Virtel And who almost literally did lose a kid to Manson. It’s Angela Lansbury. She didn’t, though. It’s a it’s a it’s an uplifting story. Ultimately. Look that one up.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. That’s one of my favorite genres of stories. By the way, celebrities avoiding, you know, murder.

 

Damon Young Avoiding murder.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, right. Like weird, like, unseemly ness connected to celebrity families.

 

Ira Madison III Well, you know, like Blondie’s insistence that Ted Bundy tried to kill her.

 

Louis Virtel Deborah Harry.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I mean.

 

Ira Madison III That she was, like, almost picked up by Ted Bundy, but I’m like, Well, that happened. But maybe. It makes it the first time.

 

Louis Virtel You haven’t seen the first 50 minutes of American Gigolo that will make you fall in love with the song Call Me one of the best songs of the eighties, anyway.

 

Ira Madison III Alright.

 

Damon Young Okay.

 

Ira Madison III I actually will, because I think I thought that that was like in the genre of like. Because I remember years ago, specifically our Keep It too, you being like you were tired of hearing, like, specific Blondie songs because you felt like they had gotten overplayed and they had like sort of the energy of what it even means to like. I’m listening to Blondie.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, like punk energy.

 

Ira Madison III Like commercial songs.

 

Louis Virtel No, they feel like supermarket songs.

 

Ira Madison III Now, right? Yeah. Like. Like one way or another is only associated with me with, like, kids movies of the nineties.

 

Louis Virtel And also now, like, detergent commercials or something. I mean, you got to have the rowdy detergent commercial.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I’ve never seen American Gigolo, but I still watch it.

 

Louis Virtel I think it’s an Ira movie. I think you should watch it.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. All right. When we are back, it’s time for Keep It. And we’re back with our favorite segment of the episode. Keep It. Damon as our guest of honor. What is yours?

 

Damon Young Yeah, I just watched the movie Your Home. I have the caption on because you need to captions to watch movies now because the sound is all fucked up with everything that you watch at home and it don’t bother the show. One of the characters will use the N-word, will say, nigga, you know, which is the colloquial version, you know, as we all know, of a of a slur that has been used to, you know, to hate, subjugate, whatever. But then you look at the caption. They don’t have the colloquial spelling. Well, they have the traditional spelling.

 

Ira Madison III The -er.

 

Damon Young The -er. The hard -r

 

Louis Virtel That’s so insane.

 

Damon Young The word. The word that shall not be named is is what comes across in the caption. And it’s just like you, we the solution is, you know, we need more niggas writing captions like that that that’s that’s what needs to happen because again there is this there is this lexicon that is lost in the translation. And whenever that happens, it is just so disconcerting and it takes you completely out of the experience of watching this show was like, Yo, this character just called me a nigger and it didn’t. It is not what happened. Right? It is not what happened. But again, you’re not you know, you go into certain spaces, right, anticipating like, okay, this this is this might be a state like when I you know, I live in Pittsburgh, so I’ve spent time in West Virginia and it’s like, okay, I’m in West Virginia. There are certain things that might happen. And so you brace yourself, order of Now, fortunately, those things haven’t happened to me in my travels to West Virginia, but when I’m sitting at home on my couch. I’m not expected to be called a nigger by my TV. You know, I mean, it’s like I bought this TV. You know what I mean? I bought this TV. You’re in my house. I own you. You know? So why are you. Why are you calling me? Why are you calling me the slur?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Damon Young So. So, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III The hard -r feels a lot like getting Pepsi when you ask for Coke. I get it. And I would say the show that does that the most is Snowfall. Snowfall always use the -er and I need to know who is writing these captions.

 

Damon Young It’s those FX,  it’s those FX, Atlanta does it too. Atlanta. It’s those shows.

 

Ira Madison III Also, as a reader of August Wilson plays since college, I have always been concerned that all the black actors, whatever weirdo, whatever you do it artists will could show you use the colloquial version, but. Every August Wilson play, he has written it out with -er, and I just want to know what was going on in his head.

 

Damon Young Yeah. You know, August, you know, again, I’m a Pittsburgher. August, you know, August Wilson’s in my blood, you know, And it’s funny. So the thing that made me think of this, the most recent occurrence of this happening, I was on I was doing a talk in University of Pittsburgh a couple of weeks ago and before to talk to the moderator, I was in conversation with Michael Sawyer, who’s a professor showed a clip from Fences. The August Wilson play. And they showed the iconic clip of like a Denzel or the Troy character telling his son that, you know, I don’t I don’t know you, nothing, I’ll need to love you, etc., etc.. And they had, you know, Denzel and I forgot who the young actor was playing the son.

 

Ira Madison III Is that the nigger the street scene? He’s no.t that line.  Someone call somebody, I think it actually may be in jitney where what you ain’t nothing but a nigga on the street to me is a light in an August Wilson play and when we read that in college, the black kids in the Loyola University Chicago Theater Department used to say that phrase to each other every other day.

 

Damon Young Well, no, it wasn’t. It was the scene where he’s talking to the son. And a son is like, Do you love me? Do you know, do you like me? And I got like, don’t got nothing to do with it, you know, I got to like you, etc., etc.. And so we’re watching and it has the caption and instead of nigga, the -er version is shown. And so this was the entry. This was the first thing that was shown on this panel. I need to say a word yet. And so I had to address it. I was like, Yo, I’m here in front of all these white students. And this green has called me a [Unrecognized]. Like what? Why would you expect me to go from here? Right. So, again, there’s this captioning thing just needs to. I don’t know. We just need and I get again the. The difference in translation sometimes, but with this word in particular, because the difference is so jarring. I mean, we just got to stop doing that.

 

Louis Virtel Also, by the way, is this just a consequence of like texting culture? But now we all just watch TV and movie with captions now. Like, almost all the time. Unless it’s like Jeopardy! I’m putting captions up on the screen.

 

Ira Madison III I do too. Even when I’m watching a new film at home. It’s like, I mean, the theaters are loud, you know? But I feel like when you’re watching at home, the sound quality is so weird.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III You never know what people are saying.

 

Louis Virtel It must be a sound quality thing.

 

Damon Young Well, no, there was an actual there was an actual article or maybe series of articles about this like last year, about how the sound quality is so bad, like the mic thing or whatever. So bad watching things at home that you have to watch with captions now because you just cannot understand what people are saying. And, and yeah, and again, I always thought that, you know what? I’m just going, oh, my ears are getting bad. But apparently everyone is doing it now.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I love captions because as you know, I love a foreign film.

 

Louis Virtel The posture Ira just summoned was so insane. Demoralizing, really.

 

Ira Madison III Louis, what’s your Keep It?

 

Louis Virtel Well, my Keep It is full. Bizarro. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to honor the American actor Steven Seagal with the State Order of Friendship. First of all, is anything fucking lamer than an order of friendship? I mean, it’s giving sad. Second of all, they’re like longtime friends. Steven Seagal is a Russian citizen, but an additional Keep It to the fact that it sort of makes me nostalgic for the kind of celebrity that Steven Seagal was, which was no one ever expected a motherfucking ounce of quality from this person even once for 10 minutes. No one saw Executive Decision and thought, well, here’s some promise. This here. The road to Oscar begins now. You know, in a way, it could only be a male celebrity. I can’t think of any woman with like a sort of similar arc. But truly, like, if Jean-Claude Van Damme movies were too smart for you, please seek out the filmography of Steven Seagal. That is how bad and ridiculous they were.

 

Ira Madison III Marked for Death is iconic though.

 

Louis Virtel I was wondering if you had a favorite one.

 

Ira Madison III That or like, Under Siege.

 

Louis Virtel Under Siege is the one I saw the most often.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Damon Young Out for Justice is mine

 

Louis Virtel Wow.

 

Damon Young Out for Justice is mine. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III They were always on TV.

 

Damon Young Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Also, this man has never not had a and a both iconic and dubious look. So like a ponytail or is now with what I’m going to call velcr facial hair is giving Mr. Potato Head and he is entering his seventies with just shock jet black facial hair. It’s never been done before. I’ve never seen anything like it. But anyway, he and Vladimir Putin are friends and I guess needed to go to town hall and make it official. So happy for those two gents.

 

Damon Young Is Steven Seagal the white Tyler Perry?

 

Louis Virtel Well, is he making the movies? I guess he would sometimes write the movies. Right. Yeah. So. That’s a beautiful thought.

 

Ira Madison III But he’s only direct at one. So I don’t know. I feel like. I feel I mean, we were talking about them earlier. I feel that the white Tyler Perry might be the Farrellys.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Because it’s like. It’s like, not just silly. It’s like, embarrassingly scatological and wild.

 

Ira Madison III And it’s it’s very a very it’s very white ness. And they also then veered into Green Book. You know, and Tyler Perry tried to do The Prestige. I don’t know. We should try to figure out who the white Tyler Perry is at some point.

 

Louis Virtel I feel like we can have a tournament for that and vote, etc..

 

Damon Young Yeah, I feel like it. I mean, so it has to be someone who who has become extremely popular while existing outside of the mainstream and existing out of mainstream prestige and critical acclaim, too. And so what I was thinking of Seagall, that’s what I was thinking of. But it’s not a perfect analogy, obviously. I don’t know, like who are like the popular white stand up comics that that sell out, you know, or like who’s like the Kenny Chesney of White stand up.

 

Louis Virtel It still might be too too smart to compare but like Melissa McCarthy when she works with her husband, is that the white Tyler Perry? Because without she’s like, you know, an Oscar nominee. But when she’s with him, it’s like, what the fuck is going on?

 

Ira Madison III White people need to be slightly embarrassed, but also proud of them in some way because of the work that they do for other white people. Like a George Lucas.

 

Louis Virtel Sure.

 

Ira Madison III Awful director.

 

Louis Virtel Provactative. Oh, well, we’ll we’ll open this question to the public, please. Please jump in with your choices in this genre. Ira, what is your Keep It this week?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Only black people respond. Only mixed race people respond. Yeah. You Keep It intracommunity. My Keep It goes to the responses online to the name that Keke Palmer gave her baby. Now, the baby’s name is Leodis, Leo for short. Andrellton Jackson. Now. Listen. It’s an old timey name. She even said Born during Black History Month with a name to match. So let’s see. You see, there was he was doing. But the jokes then started to veer into like. Well, why is she giving him this? Damn? Like, it’s going to be hard, you know, like giving black people these, like, names, you know, like he’s going to have to go to, like, a Leo or something, you know, like talking about, like, black people. And then I started going to the conversations about black people with black names, you know, and like getting jobs and stuff like that. And I was like, I didn’t know we were going to veer so quickly anti black on the same day that the baby’s name dropped. But also. We just had this whole nepo baby conversation, right? I promise you, Leodis is not going to not be getting work because of his name. Whatever. Whatever field they choose, they will be fine. So it really just revealed a lot of people’s anger and maybe sort of self-hatred over like this name, because it was it got really out of pocket. It’s the same thing like when people maybe you’ve seen this Damon, when people get mad that everyone talking about Jonathan Majors being sexy.

 

Damon Young Mm hmm.

 

Ira Madison III They veer into, like, calling have like with his they talk about like his civil rights nose or like his or, you know, it’s like plantation looks or something. And I’m like, we can we can make jokes without having to jump all the way there.

 

Damon Young Yeah. Someone call him a Pullman porter at some point I saw on Twitter and. But to your point, like, I. I felt like. I felt like we were like there are certain respectability conversations that exist online. I thought that the black names having a black name will won’t, you know, won’t let you get a job. I thought that conversation was done Like I thought, that feels like very 2012.

 

Ira Madison III Yes.

 

Damon Young Maybe even 2005. Like, I didn’t I didn’t realize that they were still making the black person. They were still making the brand of black person who gets online and has that conversation. Not after fucking President Barack Hussein Obama. That after, you know, Beyonce, Serena, you know, Condolezezza. I mean, you just go down the line of these names that are some that you know, has some name to them. Right. And haven’t obviously stop these people from, you know, achieving whatever.

 

Ira Madison III Famously, a more interesting name makes you more memorable. I don’t know. I used to hate the name Ira, as a kid. Hated it until I got maybe like high school, like in a middle school, high school. And then I’m like, I loved it because my name was not the same as 80% of the other people that I went to school with. And it made me stand out.

 

Damon Young Yeah. And even if you, you know, think of like some of the professional athletes who are known on a first name basis, it’s not always just because they’re great, it’s because they’re named LeBron. Or they’re named Kobe, Kyrie. Right.

 

Louis Virtel You know what? It’s never Matt.

 

Damon Young Is never Matt. Like Tim Duncan was as great of a player as all of those guys, but he’s not known on a first name basis because he doesn’t have that, you know. No, you refer to him like who to for be talking about.

 

Ira Madison III Even last dance because I feel like the only reason we know like the white player Larry Bird that much is because his name.

 

Damon Young Yeah Bird.

 

Ira Madison III Bird.

 

Damon Young Bird. Yeah you know, Bird. So so yeah that that conversation again I thought I thought we were past that. I thought that the respectability niggas had, had updated their, their conversation, I don’t know, qu and at left the black names won’t get you employed being behind. Well, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I mean they’re usually just having debates from the movie Jungle Fever. You know, we’re we’re we’re we we’re still interracial dating at it will it will never progress. So they had to mix it up somehow. But, you know, we’re kicking in this baby’s name alone.

 

Damon Young I’m impressed. I’m impressed, Ira, that you knew how to pronounce the middle name. Because I was I was struggling.

 

Ira Madison III You know.

 

Damon Young With the middle name. Did you hear someone pronounce it?

 

Ira Madison III No.

 

Damon Young Can you walk me through how you’re able to do that?

 

Ira Madison III It may not be how you pronounce it. But I would like to say that in the theater, when you are given a script, you make a choice.

 

Louis Virtel Hmm. Oh, thanks. I was talking with your Maria Callas or Zoe Caldwell as you’re hogging.

 

Ira Madison III Ira Slovsky over here. Yes.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, Wolf, I can’t believe that’s not been stated before on this podcast. Was simply bone chilling.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. All right, Damon, thank you for being here. You can listen to Stuck with Damon Young for Free only on Spotify. We had a great time.

 

Damon Young Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. You know, it’s always a joy of a pleasure to be here. I always feel like I haven’t watched enough TV. When I come on this show and I feel like I watch the most TV of everyone I know, but when I come here I am like, Holy shit, I. I am not. I need to catch up.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, no. We have a syndrome here. Yeah. Yeah. We didn’t choose to be  this way is usually the excuse. So there you go.

 

Damon Young And yeah, you know, Stuck with Damon Young is Spotify monogamous. We, you know, we don’t do the polyamorous, you know, podcast platform thing there. So if you want to listen to our show, you have to.

 

Ira Madison III No stitching. No switching.

 

Damon Young None of that.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Thank you for being here. And thank you also to Tennis for joining us this week. That’s our episode. We’ll see you next week. Don’t forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to Keep It on YouTube for access to full episodes and other exclusive content. And if you’re as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a five star review. 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, the third, that’s me and Louis Virtel. This episode was recorded and mixed by Evan Sutton. Thank you to our digital team, Matt deGroot, Nar Melkonian and Delon Villanueva for production support every week and as always, Keep It is filmed in front of a live studio audience.