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Ira and Louis answer listener questions and revisit your favorite moments, interviews, and takes from the podcast for Ira’s final episode. Plus, one final Keep It… to Beyoncé??

Coded Justice by Stacey Abrams: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/697037/coded-justice-by-stacey-abrams/

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TRANSCRIPT

Ira Madison III And we are back for an all-new Keep It. Captain’s Log, Stardate 9529.1. This is the final cruise of the Keep It Enterprise for Ira Madison the third.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my god. I wish I had ever seen that show or could make a reference that would help me navigate that. But I can’t. I’m Louis Virtel. I will be remaining with the enterprise is what you called us. Is this my first Star Trek reference on the show ever? I will legally it has to be because I’m sure I have it written that you can’t do that. But two things, one, happy birthday, Ira, which was now two days ago. Thank you for testing the age of 39 for me because I will be turning it next week and I’m very scared and you seem To be alive, so I’m thrilled and I want you throwing a lady’s age out there like that Oh, I know sorry, but my second message to you is go fuck yourself. You’re leaving the show.

 

Ira Madison III Thank you. You know, for a happy birthday. And I don’t know, yeah, it’s very weird. It feels real now, I guess, or it doesn’t feel real.

 

Louis Virtel That’s just it. It doesn’t feel real to me. That’s, just it, like, like whenever people reference things that happens on the show, whenever, it truly is just talking to me, it’s like you’re referencing a conversation I had one time and I’m like, let me think back to that. And also it’s in the morning where I’m just going to say you and I don’t do our best work, generally speaking. So like my brain isn’t fully formed, like the, like the hemispheres aren’t fully functioning yet.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I mean, first of all, let’s take it back to the original days of Keep It, where we used to record at like 8 a.m.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, and we were at the Largo in LA, which was so whack. The original little ramshackle office of crooked media. Yes, correct. And like I would never see Amy Mann there who always performs at the largo. So I don’t know why we were there. And by the way, we lived all the way across town. I lived in Atwater Village and drove forever to get there.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, and I don’t know, the first time we ever did a live show, I remember it was at night. We were drunk. The one at South by Southwest? The one of South by South West.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, we were lit. Well, we got there really early and then needed something to do in the green room and they just don’t give you many hobbies. They don’t like a coloring book. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III But no, that is just a precursor to the memory lane we’re about to go on in this episode. But it’s gonna be a lot more eventful than what we used to do. Do you recall that we used to do clip shows on this show?

 

Louis Virtel Yes, which is so like we’re at Norman Lear sitcom in the 70s. We’re like, remember that time we got stuck in that elevator or whatever.

 

Ira Madison III Um, what if all the clips were fake this week? We just came up with fake moments.

 

Louis Virtel They’re all like, like what would they play for the Oscar nominees when they’re read off? It’s like, it’s like Andrea Riseborough and two Leslie weeping or something.

 

Ira Madison III Um, some things that happened to me this week, by the way, I went to see a fantastic play that I would be remiss if I did not bring up. I went see Ginger Twinsies by Kevin Zach.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I’m good friends with his brother, but I know Kevin’s out too, yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I’m friends with his brother, too. His brother did my DC tour stop, by the way, for my book. And Kevin’s play is a parody of The Parent Trap. It sort of was inspired, I guess. I don’t know how long he’s been working on it, but about a year and a half ago, Jeffrey Self and I played the. Twins in a just stage reading of The Parent Trap. And then we made it funny. But now this is just a fully realized parody of the movie, but you like do not need to know the movie to enjoy it. I took my friend JT to see it and he like cracked up. He couldn’t even remember like seeing the movie or if he had, and I know it’s fucking great.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I’m so psyched to hear that. Speaking of weird twin movies, I am going to be seeing the fabulous comic Josh Sharpe’s show in New York this coming week, which he’s in the movie Fucking Identical Twins, if you remember that, with just a zany movie, one of the zaniest Megamal Ali showings of all time. He has this new show where it’s him in a thousand PowerPoint slides and he’s just whipping through it. And it’s very funny. I can’t wait to see it.

 

Ira Madison III I had no idea what it was about. You just see posters that say ta-da and it’s like, well, I don’t like magic.

 

Louis Virtel Keep that hair away from me. Also, I gotta say, I love, my favorite thing about Oprah is how she hates surprises. The whole show is about surprising people. The whole. Show. It’s so hypocritical.

 

Ira Madison III That’s why she terrorizes people. Yeah, right. I mean, speaking of surprises, remember that was like Ellen’s whole thing too?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, right. And you know no one hates surprises less than her. Like, she’ll slap you.

 

Ira Madison III For sure. No, speaking of people that we used to talk about ad nauseam on this show, there was a whole, I feel like there was this three years where we talked about Ellen.

 

Louis Virtel Well, she is sort of emblematic of the whole 2010s in a way. It’s like aside from Trumpism, there’s just so much pop cultural-ness from that time that has just dissipated. There’s no further dialog about it. And Ellen is kind of that. I mean, it helps that she basically removed herself from entertainment and the continent.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, actually, when I think about the Ellen Show, I feel like no one was made more like famous by that show than Nicki Minaj.

 

Louis Virtel I completely forgot about that connection, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like she was caused it.

 

Louis Virtel On Ellen all the time. Yes, and Ellen even dressed as her for Halloween that one time.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. And then she has that lyric. I am degenerous queen. Ask miss Ellen.

 

Louis Virtel Question about her we should just ask more often. What’s wrong with her? I’m just saying, can we just get an answer on this? Which one are you talking about? Yeah, I’m talking about Mickey right now. What else happened this week? Oh, God. Well, I’ll say this. Have I brought up the singer Sombra before? Do you know who this is? No, Sombar? Yeah, he has a song called Undressed. He has these kind of like longing breakup-y songs. They’re really cool melodically and he produces his music. He’s 20 years old. He was on Kimmel last week and I was excited to see him live. I’ll sneak down and watch the people perform their songs if I’m into them. We don’t have a celebrity like this right now. This man is easily six foot seven and weighs less than I do. Wow, who else is doing that right now? Like Carol Stricken from the Adams family, he was lurch.

 

Ira Madison III Literally trying to think who would have been somewhat like that in the past. Lurch or I feel like there was a tall Beverly Hillbilly.

 

Louis Virtel Uh, was Jethro that tall? He could have been. Yokels as character actors. Oh, that kid from, uh, power of the dog. He’s a little bit of a tall person.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, um, of Mice and Man Reboot?

 

Louis Virtel Favorite reference, your only literary reference, Cody Smith McPhee is who I was just talking about.

 

Ira Madison III Uh, Lenny and them rabbits.

 

Louis Virtel I think we had a cut joke one time in the show, we were talking about Melania, and you made an of my cement in reference and they actually cut it for Melania’s sake.

 

Ira Madison III Who was our producer then? I know. They were just being nice. Being nice to Melania, our queen, our future. Our future queen. Kennedy Center honoree. They got to name the building after her, right?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I hope there’s a Barbara Cook-like tribute to her, where, you know. Get out. Operatic divas walk out and with all of Melania’s famous coats or whatever we’re honoring her about

 

Ira Madison III It is so wild that I feel like we see her now. Melania? In this era, what we see and hear about her now, the whole first Trump era, which we covered extensively. Oh, yeah. The whole joke was that the bitch could.

 

Louis Virtel And then something in the contract shifted. They changed the terms. They’re like, you have to put in appearances.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, listen, we covered Trump presidency number one, Biden’s, and Trump presidency, number two.

 

Louis Virtel It really always annoyed me that in the long line for this podcast, it was like we’re politics and pop culture collide. I was like, can it just be pop culture and pop-culture colliding? What about that? We have all these other people who want to talk about that shit.

 

Ira Madison III Well, you know, we’re Crooked Media.

 

Louis Virtel Right. So we know we had to put up appearances for a while before I turned my glance only to the discography of Madonna.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. Um, what are we talking about this episode?

 

Louis Virtel Very little. Uh, we are going to get into…

 

Ira Madison III Well, it’s over.

 

Louis Virtel We’re gonna get into some of the classic keep it moments that Ira and I have shared. We’ll re-investigate them. Some of these are very old, by the way. So I’ll have to jog my memory and see what I can even recall of them, but we’ll get into those. We also took questions and comments about the show from seemingly long-time listeners, and we’ll respond to those and hopefully have answers for you. And then I guess we’ll have one final keep it. And hopefully that’ll be productive and we both learn something from it.

 

Ira Madison III We’re going to transvestigate Candace Owens.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my God, just the other day I said, do people use the word transgenda as in what’s on the transgenda tonight? And it turns out I have asked my friends that before I found it in a text. So I’m like, it’s fully still Alice. I don’t remember what I’ve said before.

 

Ira Madison III Maybe we’ll bring that up in the Keep a Segment. It’s so kooky. Wait, are you talking about Candace Owens? I’m talking about her. Wait, what did she do this time? Oh, baby, she’s being sued by the president of France.

 

Louis Virtel His wife that is so oh right right right but I knew that yes yes yes because she has her whole theory that about the wife being trans yeah that’s very annoying okay

 

Ira Madison III It’s actually just very funny that she doubled down on it and made a series because as you know, this is how she backdoored people into her transphobic and racist shit by talking about the Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively case.

 

Louis Virtel No, right. Like that was her Nancy Grace, Natalie Holloway thing. Like, that became her signature, whatever.

 

Ira Madison III And now people are just listening to her and she’s crazy. But she is probably going to be like buried under a building at some point because a whole country is suing you bitch.

 

Louis Virtel Impressive? I don’t know what to say about that. You did it?

 

Ira Madison III But the thing I just do just wonder though is like this feels like a new Like social media podcast world like phenomenon, right? We’re there Candice Owens running around during in in the past I was whenever we see like someone like that or like a Marjorie Taylor green, right I’m like who were the crazy psychos in like the 1800s in Congress?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, sure. Or political commentators. The rabble rousers, you know. Yeah, the weirdos, yeah. You unfortunately said the 1800s. I was all ready to say 20 years ago it was Ann Coulter, somebody I haven’t thought about since then.

 

Ira Madison III Which she seems so quaint at this point now, right? Right?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, she also just seems sort of like a bastard lawyer person, whereas these people are truly off the chain awful.

 

Ira Madison III But it also does remind me that Ann Coulter got away with a lot of what she got away with, just because gays and other people thought it was cute to hang out with her.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Well, she always kind of played up that she had gay friends. Did she really? Yes. I don’t know. Well, She had that gay friend on the A-List Dallas. Which was remarkable television. Actually, it was so much worse than the other A-list, which was also bad. So it was actually impressive that it got worse. And we need to bring it back. Yes. And also just the term A-list, words don’t mean anything anymore. I mean, why have words if you’re going to call that show the A list? Alright

 

Ira Madison III Well, when we’re back, we’re going to find out if Louis is trans or not.

 

Louis Virtel Why?

 

Ira Madison III [AD]

 

Ira Madison III Well, just like Eminem, Louis and I have been spittin’ behind these mics for seven years.

 

Louis Virtel Wow. Do the right thing kind of intro here. All right.

 

Ira Madison III I did the real Slim Shady at karaoke for my birthday.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, that’s fun karaoke. I haven’t heard that song in a long time. I’m sure it would take me right back to being bullied in middle school.

 

Ira Madison III Also, a friend of mine who performed at karaoke was flirting later with the karaoke, person who was running the karaoke.

 

Louis Virtel The maestro, yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, the maestro on Grindr later, and he said the person who sang Real Slim Shady was pretty good.

 

Louis Virtel Wow, you better run with that.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, anyway, while we have our own favorite moments from the show. We wanted to hear yours. So in this segment, we’re going to take a walk down memory lane and revisit some of you, the listeners, favorite takes, interviews, and running bits from the Ira.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, wow. Era and Ira are close in lettering. That should be taken advantage of. I don’t know what you’re going to do with that, but have a meeting.

 

Ira Madison III The Iras tour.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, my God. Multiple Ira’s?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel You have like when Madonna had that tour where there was like 60 Madonnas in trench coats. That’d be 60 Ira’s.

 

Ira Madison III Actually, it’ll be me and just Ira Glass taking it on the road.

 

Louis Virtel Hologram of Ira Gershwin, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, like Bob Hope and whoever that other guy was.

 

Louis Virtel Bing Crosby, sure. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, okay, right. Well, he’s got a website now. So, okay. Yeah, have you binged it lately?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, that bit. Got it.

 

Ira Madison III Okay, first up, this was obviously the number one vote getter.

 

Louis Virtel Which is by the way crazy because it’s so old this is like within the first couple months of the show.

 

Ira Madison III Let’s cue this up. It was my interview with Karamo in 2018.

 

Ira (Clip) On the red carpet in February.

 

Karamo (Clip) Yes.

 

Ira (Clip) Your t-shirt.

 

Karamo (Clip) Yes.

 

Ira (Clip) With Nigger, Nigga, crossed out, neither, neither there.

 

Karamo (Clip) Yes, yes, yes.

 

Ira (Clip) So what’s up with that neither?

 

Karamo (Clip) I wore the shirt for myself and just said this is who I am.

 

Ira (Clip) Okay, I’m perfectly fine with people who don’t want to use that word. I’m perfectly  fine with people.

 

Karamo (Clip) So then why do you have an issue with me wearing the shirt?

 

Ira (Clip) I had an issue with you wearing the shirt because it was on a red carpet. It was in Getty Images. It got put online and that then obscribes of you sending a message out that you don’t like the word.

 

Karamo (Clip) I do not subscribe to cancel culture.

 

Ira (Clip) You do not?

 

Karamo (Clip) I do not uh-ugh.

 

Ira (Clip) The whole.

 

Karamo (Clip) Cuz what happens if.

 

Ira (Clip) The whole meaning of keep it, is cancelling people.

 

Karamo (Clip) What happens if someone cancels you?

 

Ira Madison III If someone canceled me, I would just go to Europe and chill.

 

Karamo (Clip) Yeah, just hang out.

 

Ira (Clip) I’d be fine. Cancel me, please.

 

Karamo (Clip) No, I don’t want that to happen.

 

Ira (Clip) You want to reach out to Kanye, then. You want someone to reach to Kanye.

 

Karamo (Clip) Yeah, I want his physician to encourage him to get back on his medication, which he has openly admitted that he is off. I don’t know the man, but I think we should be rallying around him instead of canceling him.

 

Ira (Clip) Okay. Alright.

 

Karamo (Clip) This is literally the same reason why I ended up in the White House earlier this year, because I’m like, I can’t cancel Trump and Pence. I might not have voted for them, but must go in there and try to advocate and try to change some hearts and minds in hopes that things can change.

 

Ira (Clip) But sometimes you gotta throw a brick at Stonewall.

 

Karamo (Clip) Ha ha, you do. Truth be told.

 

Louis Virtel Well, he was REV’d! I had forgotten how to energized he was to save us.

 

Ira Madison III Well, first of all, this was in 2018 when I was still doing solo interviews on the show, but we had already started doing group interviews at this point. I recall no one wanted to interview Karamo.

 

Louis Virtel And I said, let’s get into it. You’re like, let me put on my creamy white Diane Sawyer suit, sit down, let us make that lighting gauzy and get going.

 

Ira Madison III And he was like, but do you really know Ira? Do you really now? No, you know. That was actually really fun to re-listen to because first of all, I’ve been listening to a few 2018 episodes over the past week. It’s like the wave of nostalgia did finally hit me. And I listened to our first episode too, just as a side note. And I was like, this is pretty funny.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, that’s lucky. No, I mean, like, when you watch something you’ve done years and years ago, my instinct is always, oh, I got better and better at it over time. But no, like talking is talking, you know? It’s- I’m sure I’d be relieved to hear it. Talking is talking.

 

Ira Madison III They say that in New York all the time, on Yancey Street. Linden, Richmond, okay, yeah. What I love about this interview is the fact that it is, it is clear that I kind of went into the interview with an agenda. Yeah, but no, I thought you were playful. Yes, I actually do not think the interview itself is as antagonistic as everyone assumes it is in retrospect. I think everyone assumes it’s antagonistic in retrospect because I am currently blocked by Karamo. Oh, I see, okay. But that’s only because after this was the him butting up with Sean Spicer. Oh my.

 

Louis Virtel It’s really cruel to bring up things from 2018, like it hurts the brain.

 

Ira Madison III Right, that happened and then I made a joke about it and then, I was called out via text for not supporting him.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, okay. As a brother. Well, I believe he has nine or so Emmy nominations and at least one Emmy win. So I think it all worked out.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I ain’t got shit.

 

Louis Virtel No. We do have a co-

 

Ira Madison III couple of Webby’s, right? Actually, we have two Webby Awards. Yes, that’s right. For Best Pop Culture Podcast, we were nominated for an iHeart Award. Oh, but we did not win that. No, well now that’s a racket. I feel like only iHearts shows win that award.

 

Louis Virtel Packet is such an underrated word. Sympathy and Paola. Remember that? Paola was that. Nicky versus Cardi. Paola is such a important concept that people don’t understand. Okay, we have to go to another Ira clip right now and it involves another solo interview of yours. My God, the journalistic journey you’ve been on on this show involves a man who I thought was fabulous in The Northman and even more fabulous in Big Little Lies, Alexander Skarsgard.

 

Ira Madison III MTV Movie Awards. I think it was when you did Tarzan. I was at the bar trying to order a drink and there were a ton of people there. Then you showed up at the Bar and the bartender immediately went to you because who wouldn’t? But then you pointed out that I was at the bar and had him get my drink first.

 

Louis Virtel I pointed out that you were at the bar and said, you’re in my way, get out of my way. Was I wearing pants?

 

Ira Madison III Uh, well, I mean, you usually don’t wear pants, uh, in anything I’ve seen you in. Uh, which was going to be one of my first, um,

 

Louis Virtel But that was the night that I presented an award with no pants on, at last.

 

Ira Madison III At the movie awards. Yeah, you had pants at the after party. I did, okay, all right. Yes, yes.

 

Louis Virtel I don’t have to apologize for walking up on you with no pants.

 

Ira Madison III I don’t think you’d have to apologize for that anymore. Jesus Christ.

 

Louis Virtel And you slept at night, that night. That is my favorite interview I’ve ever done. He is a lovely man, and we put him through that. He’s shameless. Sure, sure, sure. Wait, that was for The Northmen, I believe. It was for the Northmen. He was very good in that movie, yes.

 

Ira Madison III I find him to be one of those fun celebrities who is sort of like that with every person. Sort of like how Andrew Garfield sort of is and was with us.

 

Louis Virtel And was with us, right? He was so much fun.

 

Ira Madison III You just get that from non-American actors sort of all the time. They’re always- Yeah, yeah.

 

Louis Virtel They’re always flirting with the interviewer. It’s a playful game to them. Every other country seems to value like fun banter. Like it’s just not a thing we care about here. You know what I mean? Like light sophistication, et cetera, light flirtation, a frisson in the air, if you will.

 

Ira Madison III This was probably the second most requested because people are always asking me about this interview.

 

Louis Virtel And also he sounds like he’s a million miles away, like he is reporting from a space shuttle or something. I don’t know what happened with the audio that day.

 

Ira Madison III He was in his hotel room, I believe, and did not have headphones.

 

Louis Virtel No, okay. And he’s good in that robot show where he’s like, it’s like called robot killer or something. I have no idea, but he’s really good on it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I’m sure you watched 20 minutes of it.

 

Louis Virtel I watched one episode of it in Palm Springs and then I went back to not watching it.

 

Ira Madison III He is quite a good actor and I love him in True Blood, obviously, which I have thought about revisiting. I’m sort of wavering between revisiting True Blood Desperate Housewives or.

 

Louis Virtel I really am curious if revenge holds up because I haven’t said the words Emily van Campen so long

 

Ira Madison III Yes, and it sort of spins off the wheels in its fourth and final season, where Courtney Love joins the series as an assassin named White Gold.

 

Louis Virtel Merry American Gladiators!

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Okay, this next one is Louis, you doing an ad read for LaCroix.

 

Louis Virtel Ah, yes. That’s right. This was about 2018 also. And I think what happened was it was a La Croix ad. There was a new Limoncello flavor. One of the more polarizing flavors. They’re not paying us, so we ain’t playing no clip. Okay. No, absolutely not. I said, though, I was like, this reminds me of when I was in high school, my grandfather died. And when you’re, you know, when somebody in your family dies, another family makes you food. And so they made us this like Meal And there was a giant lemon cake with lemon frosting. I remember eating it and thinking, I would bring my grandpa back to life and kill him again if I could have one more slice of that cake. Still holds true. I remember saying it to my dad, my dad listened to that episode. He goes, I would too. I would do like that.

 

Ira Madison III I love like lemon flavored desserts. I hate it, limoncello, but a lemon dessert, let me tell you my favorite fucking cookie that used to just, baby, this is why I was fat as a care, okay? I used to go to the store and get, if you remember Archway cookies, they were the red box. Okay, I’m thinking. They were like a frosty soft lemon cookie.

 

Louis Virtel Well, I know the flavor of what you’re talking about, like the kind of lemony-ness, loved that. I mean, every time I walk into Starbucks and there’s the lemon loaf, I have to pass it up. Like it’s, there’s a romance between us and like brief encounters about to break out and I have stop it.

 

Ira Madison III I used to get at least two boxes of this fucking cookie every week if I had the money for it. And at a certain point, the cookie vanished.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I hate when snacks go away. Nabisco’s doodads, I speak your name. Anyway, next up, this is another most requested interview. And I barely have any memory of it because it was filmed during the pandemic, which means I was doing this from my closet and those episodes don’t feel real to me. But anyway, one of the most mysterious, now mysterious Housewives, it was Bethany Frankel.

 

Clip You know, I’m realizing, and you guys have a podcast too, so you get this, that doing a talk show is directing traffic and you can’t get meaty, you can get deep, and you got it, you know, it’s totally cancel culture because talk shows mostly suck and don’t do well. And it’s like, hey, when we come back, we have a nice pumpkin pie recipe, someone’s coming out of the closet and Clorox has a few messages. But you’re like, okay, and then someone comes on and you’re like, Hi, how have you been balancing your summer? Oh, and I hear you have a new book out. Okay, hold on one second. We’ve had a big check for you. Because what you did was so amazing. But the second you get in there at 730 in the morning with a pit crew on you about what you want for lunch and your fucking makeup and your pin and your hair and your boobs are too down and we’ve had too many white guests, the black guests are raiding and now we only can have black guests. I’m like the host of Soul Train. I’m, like, it’s okay, we can also have white guests. I am white. You can have a black guest, but guys, you can’t just go where we had a Latino guest so now we’re only Spanish people. There’s a Polish guest that works and now we are only cooking Polish food for a month. Like, it’s like. Can’t be fear based and like run after the whole thing. It’s just like, take it fucking easy, but on a podcast and also on some like streaming television, you can let it breathe and work your way into it. And a talk show is exhausting and they make it look easy and it’s just cheery and you have to be in a good mood every day. And it doesn’t matter how you really feel. It’s like, spin that wheel and we’re wearing a costume and we are baking a cake. So it is needless to say, not for me.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my God, my brain stopped. Wow. She was at auction year speed. I was, are we at Christie’s?

 

Ira Madison III Too many white guests, you got to get the black guest in. I had forgotten about- I don’t remember that at all.

 

Louis Virtel No, we always bring up the fact that you asked her… Oh yes, like what celebrities do you vibe with? I know you’re always hanging out with celebrities, and she named every celebrity who has ever lived. She started from the beginning. She was like, Jesus Christ, and then…

 

Ira Madison III I haven’t hung out with Judas

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. No, she went through all of it. It was so funny. So funny. Hopped up. Wow. I mean, the energy is appreciated. When, you know, an interviewee doesn’t seem invested or ever, like, I hate silences hanging in the air. So to be overstimulating is a gift.

 

Ira Madison III It’s wild, because I feel like the Real Housewives of New York broke her. I was going back to a scene where she’s arguing with Luann and she’s sort of like, you know, she had supported Luann through a lot of trauma and then Luann was not there for her when her fiance died of an overdose. And she’s screaming at Luann, which is that’s what she’s scream, life is not a cabaret. Yes. And it’s just. She’s having a mental break. And I just think that Bethany has been that person ever since. Now, if you watch her on TikTok, she talks just like that on TikTok about when she does her reviews of food or just events and parties at the Hamptons. This week, she was talking about how she’s living in Florida because the Hampton’s, it has an off vibe this summer.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my god. Well, I believe that but also she was like the reason I used to actually consider watching those shows because she was Sort of like the Groucho mark She like called the shots and like leaned over to the camera and said like what a bunch of shit or what? But you know we related to her and then you know, well something changed

 

Ira Madison III Would you call Girls Aloud the gradual marks of pop stars since they also called the shot?

 

Louis Virtel I love that song every time that comes on. It’s like get out of my way by Kylie Minogue. You can’t help but strut That is a perfect

 

Ira Madison III album, by the way, it has sexy no no no, can’t speak French, control of the knife.

 

Louis Virtel Get into Girls Aloud. Instantly replayable. They kind of take you back in time, but in a good way. Like the music is really good.

 

Ira Madison III All right, when we’re back, we’re going to discuss Donatello Versace’s favorite movie.

 

Louis Virtel Mmm, I know exactly what it is

 

Ira Madison III [AD]

 

Ira Madison III Okay, we’re back with more takes of fame, according to Keep It Listeners, and this one, The Shape of Water, was nominated for an Oscar. Quite. And many, by the way. That movie was poppin’.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, one buzz picture.

 

Ira Madison III Wasn’t Sally also nominated?

 

Louis Virtel Yep, mm-hmm. Imagine not nominating Sally. Yes fabulous act. Yeah

 

Ira Madison III And you were discussing Octavia Spencer’s role in this movie.

 

Louis Virtel Uh… The shape of water okay you know what apparently some people are in the sea monsters and this is not a case podcast so we’re gonna let it slide

 

Ira Madison III Was one of the only movies that I was concerned that I hadn’t seen, so I watched it last night.

 

Louis Virtel How do you feel? I would say it’s too predictable.

 

Ira Madison III I think it’s goofy, too. By the way, it’s about a mute woman who wants to fuck a fish. Totally. And by the way. And then it’s like happy. There’s like a happy gay character wandering around. And Octavia Spencer, once again, playing a domestic worker. I don’t have time for it. Octavia, Spencer also got nominated because they love when, you know, she plays a woman who cleans up stuff.

 

Louis Virtel Said she’s like, you fucking that fish? I mean that was all her. And she was like, okay, she did not have one problem with it. That became, for like six shining months, the catchphrase of keep it.

 

Ira Madison III We even had it on the Keep It calendar. Do you remember that we had at least three Keep It calendars? Like we’re Garfield. It makes no sense. At home.

 

Louis Virtel They’re not collector’s items. And also 2018 has passed. They’re simply not valuable as timekeeping mechanisms. I’m sure some…

 

Ira Madison III Everyone does have them at home. But I actually do think it’s lovely that they exist because I think honestly when the book was coming out, I was in this mode of podcasts are ephemeral, who really listens to them? But first of all, here we are revisiting memory lane. It’s sort of interesting. We do, no, but it’s interesting that people do re-listen to episodes. I find that fascinating. I was like, listen, a book is a real thing. It’ll be sitting in someone’s home. But then I was remembering we have calendars, there are t-shirts with our quotes on them. There’s like Keep It merch out there in the world. Oh, we’ll survive the apocalypse. I’ve made sure of it, yes. I haven’t seen it in a while, but I would love to run into someone with a vintage Keep It shirt.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, or make your own, whatever. I’m sure you have your great ideas out there. Everybody’s a fucking graphic designer nowadays. Yeah, don’t get crooked, anybody. Make it on Etsy.

 

Louis Virtel Another classic and I’m putting classics in quotes here are, um, I was mastery of accents and by mastery, I mean just not that word. Pick any other word. Uh, but first of all, we’ll start with the Spanish flair of Amelia Perez. What a shocking name to bring up now. Amelia Perez, it’s like almost illegal to say. And by the way, that was technically this year. A Karma San Diego villain. Yes. And also, of course, Madonna’s favorite movie of 2024. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a clip.

 

Ira Madison III Last week, the Oscars finally dropped this year’s nominations. There weren’t many surprises on who made the cut and who got snubbed. But I’ll tell you what, nobody’s happier than that puta, Emilia Perret. Bye! I think my keep it this week is Catherine Deneuve issued an apology for a letter that she and a bunch of French women wrote about the Me Too movement and said that in their initial letter she was like, you know, they touch you, they put a touch on your leg, they kiss the breast, you it’s for play. I don’t know what accent that was. Famous cartoon skunk I started to love Sylvie by the end of the series though. Because I’m like, this is just a French, I’m just like, this is a French woman who just wants to have sex all the time and like smoke and like love sexual harassment because that is what the French do, you know? You’re right, Lily Collins is just, you now, like plucking her way through the show. While I was drinking during the weekend, I must’ve missed it, but I did get DMs. Someone that sent me like one of your stories, but it was already gone.

 

Louis Virtel I want to look. It’s okay. I screen recorded. Oh, you did? Thank you. The question was, do I prefer Ira’s French accent or English accent? And I said, um, murder, suicide. So.

 

Ira Madison III I do have a murder-suicide accent. I feel the same way.

 

Louis Virtel That would be a great. Oh my God, that used to be your whole thing. Literally, when my mom talks about the podcast, she goes, and of course, his wonderful accents. I was like, you’re the enemy.

 

Ira Madison III I have not spoken in a French accent in quite a good time on the show. It’s getting very

 

Louis Virtel It’s getting very Hercule Poirot, and I do mean Branagh.

 

Ira Madison III Just Kara and I eat a cackling in the background, too Wow, I forgot that I read that Catherine to know the letter

 

Louis Virtel in her accent, that seems wild. Yeah, I didn’t know that that was the story we were referring to, because when I think of her, I think that insane Me Too era faux pas to put it in her language. But very French. Quite, no, you don’t want an older French woman’s opinions on anything relating to social issues. I’m sorry, I can say that definitively. I can that definitive.

 

Ira Madison III Why are you eating so much? You look fat. Fat, my favorite French word. Except those bitches love butter. Oh, quite. You’ve been to France, they are smothering you in butter. It is wild that the French woman diet is so, you remember those books too that we grew up with in sort of like our high school era? I think it was called something like, How to be Skinny.

 

Louis Virtel Like a French woman. Oh, yeah, of course. Of course. Which, by the way, calls to mind one of, I think, our greatest accomplishments on Keep It, Isabelle Hubert somehow did not hate us. No! She was like a fan. You know she was like most of these people I could take or leave. Yes. Now, the other French lady. Oh. Juliette Binoche. I did mess up there. Yeah. She was mostly on our side. And then, unfortunately, I brought up her worst cinematic experience, which was the movie Damage, which is her best movie. And She said it was horrible to film and I’m like, well, it was lovely to watch and she’s like, I don’t care as you should know that And you should have known that Louis But she was so compelling to watch even while she was reading me the filth because she’s got that interiority Yeah, yeah now is about who pair was a highlight to be on also again The thing with like genius performers is there’s no guarantee They’re gonna be a genius interviewee or even really remember their career that much So when you get someone like her or Kate Blanchett who is of course the greatest interviewer ever. It’s such a relief It’s like oh my god, and you have this other dimension of you That’s as good as what you bring to the silver screen And finally, speaking of actresses we love, and one who should have been on this show, though maybe she just hates us. That could be it too. You guys ever heard of this Ruth Negga woman? What did you call me? It’s nice that you gave it a new reading.

 

Ira Madison III On the last day still caught me off guard. That’s why I’m leaving this show. By the way, it’s always a negative this negative that Now you got it, no more niggas on the show.

 

Louis Virtel In the future, when her name comes up, I think I will have no choice but to just sit in silence. Like there will literally be like 15 seconds of dead air.

 

Ira Madison III You know what, listeners, I’ll come back if Rivnegg is booked.

 

Louis Virtel I think it’s literally a Bloody Mary situation, she’s mentioning you pop on the podcast.

 

Ira Madison III And our next guest, please welcome to Keep It, Ruth Negga. What did you call her, Louis? No one knows I was on the show until that point. Also, what did you called her? God. Well, that’s my name, love. She is British, right?

 

Louis Virtel She’s I believe she’s from Ireland Yeah, I think she has a British accent. I think shows British accent Oh, well, my British accent sounds like it’s from Dublin Yeah, no, I’m gonna say there’s something not geographically super astute about what you bring to the accent world, but also

 

Ira Madison III Ever seen Ruv Nega and Zadie Smith in the same room.

 

Louis Virtel I have often had the same question.

 

Ira Madison III Why, you think they look alike?

 

Louis Virtel Next topic!

 

Ira Madison III Cue the clip.

 

Louis Virtel Jake Gyllenhaal is explaining is beginning to explain to his wife who in the original movie this is a spoiler is the person who did it the his wife did it and she’s played by Bonnie Bedelia in the original and this one and sorry remind me who plays his wife

 

Ira Madison III In the new one?

 

Louis Virtel Ruth Negga?

 

Ira Madison III What you call me?

 

Louis Virtel There we go.

 

Ira Madison III Hahahaha Ruth neither, okay?

 

Louis Virtel Hehehehehehehehe You really put me through it, bitch.

 

Ira Madison III I guess you could say I was Ruth-negging you.

 

Louis Virtel You, I, you certainly could say that. And in fact, please don’t. I’ve had enough. When we did that, when we did that episode of Keep It Live in Boston, somebody came up to us in line and brought that up, that segment, or that segment that bit you do. And it’s just rough to talk about. I have nothing to say about it. Other than that, I love her as an actress and she was amazing in passing.

 

Ira Madison III Passive for Zadie Smith, according to you. Fuck off! Alright, we will be right back. Had enough! We will be right back to answer all of your burning questions, but before that, some quick housekeeping. If you’ve been side-eyeing Sydney Sweeney’s brand deals all week, you’re not alone. On Hysteria, Erin and Alyssa break it all down and revisit some favorite episodes of This Fucking Guy, their YouTube series about the worst men in power, no matter the party. Think corruption, scandal, and straight-up bad vibes. I guess everybody’s doing a clip show this week.

 

Louis Virtel You can catch this fucking guy on YouTube and Spotify and listen to Hysteria every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the show on YouTube. All right, when we’re back, you ask, and you know what? We might answer.

 

Ira Madison III [AD]

 

Ira Madison III Last week, we asked all of you to send in your most cutting questions about me, Louis, the show, pop culture, literally anything, even Shelley Miskovic’s whereabouts, which Thomas told me, and I’m not at liberty to say.

 

Louis Virtel That’s nice that you have that relationship.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, he’s a really good friend.

 

Louis Virtel Oh yeah, you have a lot in common too.

 

Ira Madison III Thankfully, some of you finally found that comment section we’ve been telling you about forever on Spotify, YouTube, and our Instagram page. So now we’re going to answer all of those questions that you’ve been asking.

 

Louis Virtel Some of them, you guys were a bit naughty. I have to say some of them.

 

Ira Madison III Asking the same damn question for seven years.

 

Louis Virtel Also, listen the first time.

 

Ira Madison III All right, let’s get this one over with. What really happened with Heather Graham?

 

Louis Virtel Okay, so I feel like when we last talked about this, somebody asked us like, oh, who was the worst guest or whatever. And we said Heather Graham, but we didn’t mean that Heather Graham herself was bad to talk to. She had a PR person who was in the room like dictating we ask certain questions and that’s never happened before. People like usually leave us to our own devices here. And it actually would have been okay if the questions ended up being, I don’t know, cool or interesting, but they made her more awkward too. So it was just like not helping anybody in the rooms communicate. It was just really tough. Yeah, plus…

 

Ira Madison III We began asking her questions about her movie. And our whole thing is usually we ask about the topic at hand and then we get into people’s careers, their interests, et cetera. We’re doing that. And then the publicist, it’s like, you’re going to ask her any questions about the movie and we’re like, bitch, what do you think we started with?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. It was just, it was just I’ve never been treated like that while I was doing my job before. So I didn’t know professionally how to respond to that, even though I guess you’re supposed to be very diplomatic in those moments.

 

Ira Madison III But Heather was lovely.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, oh, she was totally nice. Yeah, no, if we misrepresented that, that’s on us because she was a lovely person. Next question. Oh, this is a good one. Why is Ira leaving? What’s his next adventure? Well, bitch, you have the floor.

 

Ira Madison III I’m going west like Fievel.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, my gosh, I love that movie about Jewishness and being a mouse. Yeah, I think so. I mean, it’s a Steven Spielberg joint. Right. It was not Disney. Correct. And there’s a good song from one of those movies, too. I haven’t seen those in ages. First of all.

 

Ira Madison III You all will have a front row seat to what next book I write, anything I do. If you had bothered to subscribe to my sub stack, like I’ve been telling you all to subscribe my newsletter for years, whores.

 

Louis Virtel I love insulting the listeners as we have done several times so far.

 

Ira Madison III Iramadison.substack.com. My newsletter is called Three. It’s, you know, a beautiful name.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, sure, I’ll subscribe. I’d like to see what you were doing. Well, let’s see the next step we have here. What takes have you held back sharing over the years because you wanted to get into parties that you can share now? Well, I mean, if you truly hate a celebrity, there’s not really room to talk about that on the show. Like if I have a personal interaction with somebody that sucks, though I can’t even really think of those.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I’m like, what have we held back on? Just liking a movie that’s so when we know made.

 

Louis Virtel There’s that or occasionally disliking a movie that a guest has made. Because, and by the way, like you can usually still key into the movie and say something productive about it or something you liked about it. So it’s not like it’s lying entirely, but sure there are people coming on promoting a movie and you can only think to ask about how amazing their hair looks, hint, hint. I’ll let you guys dig that up.

 

Ira Madison III And they’re gonna dig it up, because you know what? They’re always busy, keep investigating on this show.

 

Louis Virtel We really needed to coin more phrases in conjunction with keep it. I feel bad about that. Louis, do you ever plan on writing a book? Uh, God, that seems so boring, but I will say I do kind of plan on writing a sub stack at some point. I feel like that’s a productive use of my time. Why not? I think you should. I mean you sort of

 

Ira Madison III I just started with that. And everyone’s getting back to it, to be honest. People want thoughts from you coming into their inbox and sort of my sub stack, my newsletter right now is just in general, like I write about things we don’t talk about on the show. And now it’s sort of like, you know, when there is a movie or something I care about, I will not be weekly updating on everything that comes out listeners, I’m sorry. You’re not gonna get the weekly takes anymore. But if there’s something big, that I want to dive into, of course I’ll write about it, and that’s what a newsletter is sort of for. It’s really just like getting into the mind of the person that you’re following.

 

Louis Virtel Also, truly something about the 2000s internet I miss, which by the way is a very small category, is live journal. I miss just like reading all of somebody’s thoughts, devoting my time to that and moving on. I’m not reading just their tweet and a long stream of other tweets that are plaguing my brain.

 

Ira Madison III Call me Mariana. Where the bloggers at? Where the bloggers at. Where they at? Where they, where they at.

 

Louis Virtel Call you who?

 

Ira Madison III Rihanna.

 

Louis Virtel Oh Rihana. I thought you said Mariana. Who’s that? An Italian restaurant you go to? Uh, let’s see, where do you think pop culture is heading next? Uh, not very far, not going much. Uh, where’s the money who’s, who’s who’s fronting it. I personally, myself have resisted things like Tik Tok so much and it has been to my detriment, but I also think I’ve saved a lot of my mental health that way. I think you would actually be good on Tik Tok though. It needs to be just curated old things. Tik Tok needs to just be like 1977 Oscar ceremonies. Or like Night of a Thousand Stars, like kitschy old things. I can’t get into front-facing people. I can get into the front-facing people.

 

Ira Madison III But you could do that. I guess I could, yeah. People just love people sitting there talking. If you had a TikTok that was just, you picked a random category from the Oscars just any year. You were just like this year’s best actor’s race of 1971 and just went through that.

 

Louis Virtel People would watch it. Even though everybody knows Jane Fonda should have won that year. Maybe Julie Christian McCabe and Mrs. Miller was second place, but definitely Jane was the winner. See, that’s what they want to hear. Oh, okay. Is that a TikTok? Did I do it? Subscribe. Yes, you did. Let me twerk. Look at my, my references are so dated. I have no idea what’s happening on TikTok.

 

Ira Madison III Okay, this one is for me and Louis. If we could pair any two actors, one living, one deceased in a project, who would you pair up and why?

 

Louis Virtel They would both have to be very formidable and they would also both have to be women because, as you know, I didn’t know until recently that men act, just about women. I’m going to go with gotta be Cate Blanchett now and then I’ll pair her actually with Catherine Hepburn because I feel like Catherine Hepbrun would be intellectually intimidated by Cate blanchett and I want to see her quiver in those long pantaloons. Hmm, okay.

 

Ira Madison III Honestly, I have two men. That’s too bad. Which is shocking. Because I think the tension on this set would be simmering. Oh, we’re talking.

 

Louis Virtel I’m talking about closeted men. Potentially closeted man. Okay.

 

Ira Madison III Talkers.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Oh, well, I think he’s straight, but go ahead.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I do think he’s straight, but I just think, you know, the tension on the set, because of like secrets and Cary Grant.

 

Louis Virtel Cary Grant would definitely respect him, I have to say.

 

Ira Madison III I think that they would make a great thriller. Honestly, I thought of pairing Tom Cruise with Katharine Hepburn, if you hadn’t said her, just because he’s so great with a woman like Vanessa Kirby, right? I think he’s good with a stern woman who has a sense of humor. I think the Tom would make an amazing sort of comedy with Katharin Hepburn. And I think Tom Cruise would make an amazing-

 

Louis Virtel thriller with Cary Grant. Well, also I think North by Northwest is one of the few movies that reminds me of a Tom Cruise movie then. Like even, it sticks out among Hitchcock movies as less Hitchcockian, even though it’s got like the icy blonde and certain tenets that we’re familiar with from Hitchock movies. It’s more like a movie we would get much later on, a different kind of thriller.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, and I didn’t mean so much that Tom Cruise is closet. I just mean that, you know, with all of his Scientology and the sort of like secrets and mystery surrounding him. It sort of fits all of the just conversation and mystery that was surrounding Cary Grant, but for a different reason. Did you read the Vanity Fair piece this week? No. About him and it’s about Cary Grants relationship with Randolph Scott.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, right, they always had those bachelor photos together where they’re living together and like, they’re like extremely tan in the pool all day and we’re like, oh, I wonder what’s going on with those two best.

 

Ira Madison III The piece actually sort of included quotes too from the fan magazines that used to interview them and the quotes are

 

Louis Virtel In a telling way, or is it just a more innocent time and they didn’t know what they were saying?

 

Ira Madison III No, it’s really just sort of like, about how knowing what each other likes to eat, to just sort like, oh, and he always does this for me in the morning, et cetera. And just all the reports from the other fan magazines too, just about how even when, they started out obviously as actors who were not making a lot of money, so they were living together, but even through their marriages, they were still living together.

 

Louis Virtel Right, right. Suspicious. In fact, it should have been investigated. We should have thrown a brick that way. And then that famous Hollywood pimp talked about fooling around with them. I still have to say, I always am wondering how true any of that was. I know there’s some stretching of the imagination and I know it can’t all be true, but it’s like, can it really all be fake too? We’re talking about Scotty Bowers, who wrote the book Full Service, and he was like a gas station attendant who became this like bisexual pimp for everybody in Hollywood. It’s like a fascinating story, if only it could possibly be real, which it doesn’t feel like it could be. Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood. And then there was Ryan Murphy’s, Hollywood, which is largely based on his tales, except it moves away from them. And I think it’s because Ryan Murphy realized, oh, this can’t possibly be true.

 

Ira Madison III I don’t know. Does it really matter if something is true or not when it comes to a Ryan Murphy true crime or like historical story? Because first of all, Ryan Murphy’s a Hollywood pimp. He’s just pimping out dead people’s stories constantly. I cracked up this week when I am really sort of amused by Jack Schlossberg, cause I sometimes find him annoying. But. When he told Ryan Murphy, say that shit to my face, bitch, this week about Ryan Murphy basically saying that he should be quiet with his criticisms of his new show about JFK Junior and Jaclyn Bissette because he didn’t even know his uncle, which is a crazy thing to say to someone.

 

Louis Virtel Carolyn Bissette, you just said Jacqueline Bissett. Jacqueline, Bisset, by the way, oh, that might be my favorite story in Keep It History. When Jacqueline Besette won that Golden Globe and she was seated in like a nearby football field, walked to the front to accept it. She was flustered as fuck. Go back and revisit that story. That was maybe the greatest award show moment of the past 25 years. Are they related? No, that’s B-I-S-S E-T, Jacqueline Bisett. And then, Carolyn Bessette, I believe is B-E-S S-E T-T-E.

 

Ira Madison III Bisous bisous, as they say.

 

Louis Virtel Also, her long frosty blonde hair reminds me, you know who else was fun on the show, Elizabeth Holmes. We would talk about her. That was a good 2018 topic.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, oh, I was about to say, where’s she at? But she’s currently in prison with Jen Shaw.

 

Louis Virtel We know exactly where she has like the square footage. Constantly doing press photos. What else? She was great at them, I have to say. She brought it.

 

Ira Madison III Okay, I would say one last actor, by the way. I would love like James Dean paired with someone who’s very good in Young Hollywood now.

 

Speaker 3 Hmm

 

Ira Madison III Like a Zendaya or Chalamet, one of these people.

 

Louis Virtel I would say Zendaya. I would like to see, he also was somebody where, if you watch old James Dean movies, he does have a mystique and an angst about him. I’m not quite sure about sexuality. Like when people read that into him, like I don’t get like a, you know, like Marlon Brando had that quality. James Dean feels a little bit more vulnerable and scared to me. He seems asexual to be honest. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Speaking of Marlon Brando, someone was recirculating the clip of Christopher Reeves reading him for film.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I haven’t seen it. I need to look.

 

Ira Madison III I forget which talk show it was on, it might’ve been on Johnny Carson or whatever.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it, yeah, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III He’s giving an interview that he’s just like Marlon Brando sucks to work with and he could be great, but he refuses not to be

 

Louis Virtel Right, I mean, and then Marlon Brando didn’t work for the entire 1980s until he did that pretty good movie, A Dry White Season. So he basically went away right after working with Christopher Reeve. Someone asked where popcorn.

 

Ira Madison III Culture is going. If we want to keep doing nostalgia, can we take celebrity interviews and culture back to shit like that? Back where people would just be like, who was it that said Faye Dunway sucks?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, that would be Betty Davis.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, Lily, just bring that.

 

Louis Virtel Shit back where people are just honest about celebrities they don’t like. I wonder if celebrities in general though are so much better behaved because they’re aware that other people can give interviews at any time or drop a tweet at any time so they’re less likely to be divas but no like egos are egos.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like they’re not because I feel like you always still get a story from someone who’s like, this actor was horrible to work with, but they’re always teasing it, you know? They’re like, I’m not gonna mention who. I feel it still fucking happens.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, general honesty, and then also be hilarious. That gives you an opportunity to be funny in a winning way and then we like you even more. Do you think everyone is well behaved on the SNL cast, for instance? Every time I hear about any era of that show, it just feels like you would have a hemorrhage. Like it’s not fun. It’s not unless you work with Beck Bennett, whom everybody loved. Also kind of hot. Oh, I’ve always thought that, certainly. Also, hot name.

 

Ira Madison III Louis, is there a pass keep it hot take that present day you?

 

Louis Virtel Disagrees with?

 

Ira Madison III I have to say…

 

Louis Virtel I was 100% right, every single time.

 

Ira Madison III All the movies you predicted that were going to be awful. Such as? Based on the trailer. Like what? I’m trying to remember specifically which ones.

 

Louis Virtel Well, I will say, I remember at the time being like, Renee Zellweger in this Judy movie is going to be so bad and we’re going to so regret giving her this opportunity that this would be her comeback after we all love Renee Zelleweger. And then she was amazing in that movie, specifically in the moments where she was performing on stages Judy Garland, which I did not expect at all. I didn’t even know that would be a component of the movie, really. She was fabulous. And then we did not that much with her. We put her in The Truth About Pam. I was indifferent about that. And then Bridget Jones recently, that was good. That new Bridget Jones thing, I feel like that might be up for Emmy consideration, because it’s secretly a TV movie or whatever. She was amazing in that.

 

Ira Madison III Kenny Chesney’s Revenge.

 

Louis Virtel Also, Wright. Is he co-star? One of the great divorces, cause she cited fraud.

 

Ira Madison III Um, I think one of my takes that I disagree with is I’ve rewatched it recently and I do not hate practical magic.

 

Louis Virtel Would you describe yourself as entertained the whole time? I find it enjoyable. I mean, they throw Diane Weist in there for me, so they can’t really be missing.

 

Ira Madison III Is it a great movie? No, but I mean, is it an amazing movie? Like is it five stars on Letterboxd? No, I think it’s a three.

 

Louis Virtel Maybe three and a half I’m psyched to see them do what they’re gonna do with the sequel I guess they’re shooting that right now. There was some behind the scenes footage of Sandra and Nicole hugging it out before the work began

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I’m surprised that Nicole had time. She wasn’t shooting eight Netflix series.

 

Louis Virtel The most employed woman who ever lived. Meanwhile, Sandra just hangs out. What’s the last thing she did? Bird Box? It must be Bird Box. I was about to say Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or whatever that movie was called. No. Whiskey Tango Foxtrots. Yeah. YHF. Yes. That’s the Wilco album anyway. Wait, there’s one question here I think you should answer. Ira, what will you miss about Louis the most? Is that on there? I seem to be reading it. I can answer for you too. Okay. No, why don’t you answer? Oh, that does make more sense, doesn’t it? You know what I like? There’s no area about pop culture you don’t know about. The conversation could always go anywhere and you would always be game to go there. That is what I think my favorite thing about this podcast is we ostensibly are talking about what’s happening in pop culture week to week, but there were no fences. You could talk about old pop culture, new pop culture. You were never too cool for any area of pop culture and sometimes I am. Like, oh, I don’t know about whatever, Housewives, or whatever, but you don’t have any restrictions that way. It might be a standards issue, I dunno, but I really appreciate it in conversation.

 

Ira Madison III No, I’ve really appreciated the conversation on this show. I obviously feel like I have, honestly, I have always been a big TV person, right? And a big theater person and music person, but movies I enjoyed, but I feel like up to my watching movies more, caring about movies more just by being on the show with you, so I could, you know, back and forth, you know? There’s definitely a lot of movies and genres and classic films that I, started watching because I was on the show with you. So I really sort of appreciate that. And no, I’m gonna miss the back and forth each week. I think that we have very good chemistry talking about this stuff. It’s weird, because I feel like the show that we started, there’s so many of them now. There’s so may like.

 

Louis Virtel Just gay guys gapping, you know? Which might be the name of our sequel podcast if we ever start one up, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, and it’s, I don’t know, it’s weird to go back and listen to older episodes and think about when we were brand new, when we first started, when the show was very big, and it was, you know, Crooked Media’s pop culture show, you now? And I don’t know, it’s been a really nice run. I wish that there was a lot more we could have done with the show.

 

Louis Virtel We could have had a TV show. We had two failed attempts at it. Conceptually, what we were trying to do with the TV show was not right. The TV show needed to resemble what we’re doing right here and it kept turning into all sorts of other fucking things.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I mean, so we first had 824, try and develop one. And for some reason, it was right after Positive America had done their like live taping of a show. And everyone was just sort of obsessed with the fact that the show didn’t need to be us just talking about pop culture behind a desk, right? Which worked for the Bodega Boys, Desus and Mero, which remember that era of pop culture?

 

Louis Virtel I loved them. They were great interviews, by the way, on the show. Loved them. They were so much fun and game for anything. And also, again, people who talk at 500 miles per hour, but you don’t miss a word. They were amazing.

 

Ira Madison III Right. And then we had a version at Freeform, which the pandemic kind of killed, but this was with Aida. Girl, it was a show about us being at an RV, traveling around like we fucking

 

Louis Virtel Scooby-Doo. There was only one time in pop culture history when an RV was okay and that was the television series Road Rules. That’s it. Exactly. Now, if someone wants to bring back…

 

Ira Madison III I will gladly sign up for that show, okay?

 

Louis Virtel Please, let me rappel off a mountain, and then give a confessional about how I’m scared. I can’t do Big Brother, but I would do Road Rules. Road Rules is one of the best shows. I mean, truly, nobody remembers any of the cast members anymore unless they were on The Challenge, which some of them were on for quite a while.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, some of them are still on. Precisely.

 

Louis Virtel Yes

 

Ira Madison III But no, we tried that and I’m just really also happy that my book came out this year because it gave us the opportunity to do our live show in Boston and see so many fucking fans of this show. And I got to see so much across the US when I was on different book tour stops too. And it’s just, it’s really heartening to see just how much the show has meant to so many people. I think when you’re doing a show like this and you’re just recording it week to week and you not really interacting with fans a lot, you could sort of feel very like panic room or something. It’s sort of like, you have no idea who’s listening, when they’re listening. That’s why when someone like Alison Williams pops up on the show and is like, I’m gonna miss you on the shell. Or like when Adam Scott first appeared on the Show, right, and was like, my wife listens. And that stuff always feels so weird. Because it’s like, you can’t sense them. You don’t know, I guess you just never know who’s at home deciding to press play on Spotify.

 

Louis Virtel Right. No, I myself don’t really listen to podcasts, so when, you know, even my friends say they listen to the show, I want to criticize them. They’re like, you can just talk to me. It’s the same. I’m talking here, and I’m also talking with you then. There’s not much difference. But no, the fans have been rad. And also, every time a fan comes up to me, the conversation is always good. We always talk about something that’s bothering us both, or we talk about old movies and I do my Marlena Dieter compression. It’s A lot of fun.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, yeah, but you know, to answer people’s other question, you know it’s like, I just turned 39. You’re about to turn 39. And this is just the last, I feel like this, I’ve had this going on since 2017. It feels like it’s the, it actually, it doesn’t feel like it is the last sort of pre-pandemic thing that exists in my life, you know? I’m even moving out of this apartment soon. All these errors are ending. I’m moving to Bed-Stuy, which is crazy. Oh, wow. Yeah. Breaking news. It’s so weird that I didn’t read that in Page Six. Yeah, right? Iris steps out in Bed-Stuy with Justin Trudeau.

 

Louis Virtel Did you see Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau had a dinner date last night? In like Montreal or something? What are they talking about?

 

Ira Madison III Shout out to TMZ with the Bon appétit headline.

 

Louis Virtel One of her best songs, to be honest. I assume a queen picked that out.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, but we always add arbitrary milestones to ages and things. And I feel like it really doesn’t matter now, especially when you’re dead, because what does hurting 40 mean to us anyway? It’s not like we have biological clocks ticking.

 

Louis Virtel And we look great. And also, gay guys just keep doing the same thing. I guess some people do have kids eventually, but you go to a party and like, oh, there’s a guy who’s 58, still wearing the same outfit I’m wearing. Like the future is, you’re living it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Um, so I don’t know. I think it’s just time to try something new, some independence, independent woman.

 

Louis Virtel Part three, as I feel like the next chapter in Beyonce’s career may involve Destiny’s Child this serious way, since they obviously just appeared at her Vegas concert with her.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I’ll get to that with my final keep it.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, very good.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, if there’s one last thing I can say about Keep It, is go back and look at like interviews, the first press images from our first episode of Keep It. The best thing I could say is that Louis and I both look insanely better.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I have to agree with that. I mean, starting from the hair, working through every piece of clothing.

 

Ira Madison III Ah, I really went for bald now, which is great because I feel like I used to have the thinning hair thing. The glasses, I brought the glasses back after LASIK, but listeners, these are fake.

 

Louis Virtel You’re like Buddy Holly. Yeah. Wait, were Buddy Holly’s fake? No, but they had to have been. He could not have been seeing out of those big fucking things. Were you Waldo? Well, is that why the plane crashed? His eyes were not on the road. His eyes we’re not on the road and he was flying it. He was flying. The big bopper said, who’s looking? Yes.

 

Ira Madison III God don’t like ugly or fake glasses. All right, let me take mine off. Ooh, I look just like Buddy Holly, but I don’t want a beard.

 

Louis Virtel And on that current pop culture reference. Our first Weezer reference? Maybe, maybe.

 

Ira Madison III I like weezer, okay. Yeah, um, all right. When we’re back, that’s our last keep it. Mine, at least. And we are back with our favorite segment of the episode. Let’s keep it, baby.

 

Louis Virtel And it’s time for Ira and I’s last Keep It Together. But before we get into that, I’ve been told that we’ve received a few messages in the Keep It voicemail. Did you know we had that? I didn’t.

 

Ira Madison III I did not.

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Ira Madison III Is it like a tip line?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Baby we could have used the tips. Let’s take a listen.

 

Clip Ira, Ira, so good they named you thrice. Hello, it’s Graham Norton here, two time guest, long time fan.

 

Louis Virtel Love him.

 

Clip What’s going on, Ira? The podcast is literally called Keep It, and you are leaving. I can’t pretend to understand, but hey, it’s your life to live as you see fit. I just wanted to say thank you for all the great listens, but especially thank you those great interviews. You’re so thoughtful and well prepared. You put other interviewers to shame. I’m looking at myself in a mirror right now. Good luck with everything in your future. I’m thrilled that you’re going to be writing more and delighted that you are spreading your wings and flying. Well done you sir. You will be missed but we look forward to reading what you’ve got to create. Take care now, lots of love. Ira, it’s Andy Cohen. Just want to wish you congratulations on an incredible run. Thank you for all the support, all the great feedback and your devotion of quality programming. Thank you, Ira.

 

Clip Ira, we just wanted to join, obviously, Graham Norton and Andy Cohen in saying how sad we are that you’re leaving. Obviously, the opportunity to work at Tesla was one you couldn’t pass up, but we’re sad to see you go. We’ve been so grateful to you for all the takes. Yeah, look, while I was the worst live show quiz guest in Keep It History. Oh, we remember. Epic failure, if you guys recall. No, really. Not really. How many years? It was a long time. It’s like five years. I was Keep It’s Biggest fan. I remain Keep It’s biggest fan. You are the only way I’ve stayed tethered to pop culture in any way, shape, or form as I’ve entered my 40s. I love you for it, and I will miss you. Yes, we love you, Ira. We’ll miss you. But one thing I’m looking forward to is maybe getting on Keep It now that you’re gone. Maybe, because Louis told me the ban has lifted. Hate to tell you, so. I don’t have it to blanket it. I did not. In fact, I’m actually gonna be the new co-host. Oh God.So, take that, Ira. Keep that. Anyway, you’re great.

 

Ira Madison III Hahahaha Five Menches. Wow. Wow. Okay. That was lovely. That was sweet. Oh my God. I’m like sweating. I’m sweating because my AC is off and it’s so fucking hot in New York City. But there’s also, you know, some tears in my eyes too. That was Sweet.

 

Louis Virtel Well, I just want to assure viewers at home that there’s no way in the future that Ira won’t be doing some version of commentary like this because I’m so sorry, baby, it’s what you’re born to do. So I know you’re spreading your wings and doing other things and you consider yourself literary or whatever, but let me tell you something, Charlotte Bronte, you should be yapping.

 

Ira Madison III Listen, I’m going to put my paws up, because my mama told me when I was young, we were all born to talk about power culture.

 

Louis Virtel Right. That’s so sad that your mom knew that you would be doing that even then. That is crazy.

 

Ira Madison III Oh my god, I feel like I’m even sweating through my shirt, so let’s wrap this up.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, sure. Okay, you want me to get to my keep it first? Yeah, you go first. Okay, very good. I was thinking about what like unites the lives of me and Ira, and I was just thinking my keep-it goes to people who come to a fun, gay-ass function, you know, maybe like gay guy music video night, a club, whatever, pre-game, any time of hangout, and don’t bring a vibe. Please, when you go to like hang out with everyone, like look, Ira and I are on phones all the time. We like keeping up with people. Knowing what’s happening in the news and pop culture, whatever, but we love socializing more than anything. The point of this all is that we can come together and talk about this shit and be active and there for each other. And I just feel like in the age of social media, people give themselves lots of excuses to be fucking rude. And I think my criticism of like gay guy culture is people are rude. Can you just like converse? This is something I regret about not living in New York where I feel like the barrier of entry is that everyone has something to talk about. You know, like it’s a very chatty city and L.A. Is, shall we say, not. So my keep it goes to people who don’t feel like who one don’t overcome their shyness to say something if that’s what’s going on or to just kind of stand around. It’s like this is only fun. Pop culture is only fund if we bring it, if we bring a vibe with it and discuss it openly and enjoy each other’s company. So my Keep It is to sucking at social situations. Sometimes sucking at social situations is fun. Okay, all right. Well, what is this? Match game 77? What is this, the newlywed game ass answers here? Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I want to piggyback off of that, by the way, and say, when I hand you the remote in my apartment at gay guy music video night, do not freeze up or hand it back and be like, oh, I don’t know what to play. We’ve been listening to music videos for an hour. You know you want to play something, bitch. Like, just…

 

Louis Virtel Just come up with something interesting. Take a big swing, go ahead. You want to play that weird Cass Elliot video from 1970? I’m talking to myself. Go ahead and play it.

 

Ira Madison III Okay, so my keep it goes to Beyonce.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, what a great final keep it. I hate this loser

 

Ira Madison III Listen, I’m sweating through my shirt because it’s hot as hell in my apartment and in New York right now. But I’m also hot about Beyonce and this Destiny’s Child reunion.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, okay.

 

Ira Madison III I’m not joining the chorus of people who are mad that I didn’t get the Destiny’s child reunion at my show. Because let me tell you something, it wasn’t a fucking Destiny’s childhood reunion.

 

Louis Virtel Oh yeah, where where was Latavia? Where was Latoya?

 

Ira Madison III I don’t even mean that I mean first of all we saw them together at the Super Bowl Yeah, I saw them live at Coachella. So I but I’ve seen them strutting down a runway to lose my breath before.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III Like where is bootylicious nasty girl Okay, where is get on the bus if I’m gonna get a Destiny’s Child reunion in the future I want to hear a new fucking song

 

Louis Virtel I think we will. Don’t you think this like third era, this is gonna have something Destiny’s Child related in it? There’s some TikTok-y rumors that, obviously everyone thinks it’s gonna be a rock album, but she, apparently in her show, there were like interspersed images where she’s kind of dressed up as rock icons or something, or that’s what people are claiming.

 

Ira Madison III Also, like the interstitial of hers, Little Richard, that’s also included in the show. I think the beehive is turning into Swifties right now. And stop being brain dead and coming up with puzzles. You know, like they’re trying to like solve riddles. And I promise you, Beyonce is not the mastermind from Big Brother 27, okay?

 

Louis Virtel One of my favorite characters, yes.

 

Ira Madison III Right? She does not care that much at all.

 

Louis Virtel And who knows when we’re going to get it? I’m excited for it though.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, everyone’s like, she’s dropping it soon. She’s retiring soon. I’m like, first of all, also stop saying the bitch is retiring.

 

Louis Virtel No, don’t give her that idea.

 

Ira Madison III One, don’t give her the idea. And two, just because she is 42, almost 43 now, it’s like she’s not retiring. Stop throwing that on her.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, she’s 43 now. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Tina Turner had the best era of her career in her 40s.

 

Louis Virtel I was just saying, you know who sounds better than ever right now is Kylie Minogue. Like when you go and see her live, the vocal is, I mean, you think of that, well, she’s not like a Maria Callas type vocalist. She sounds fabulous. And she’s in her mid to late fifties.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, baby, I don’t hear any tension in that voice.

 

Louis Virtel No! No, no attention too. And that’s because she’s not using those songs because they’re not that good.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, they are. They are horrible songs. You know what? Shout out to the disco era.

 

Louis Virtel I have come to appreciate it more and more and in fact bought a disco album chain recently because I’ve always loved the song Say Something, but I’ve come around to the rest of the album too.

 

Ira Madison III I have a K necklace around here somewhere, it’s for Kylie Minogue or whatever you choose it to be.

 

Louis Virtel Any Kardashian you want!

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I actually bought two more and I love wearing all three of them at once.

 

Louis Virtel I’m sure you’ll fit right in there. Jesus Christ on that note

 

Ira Madison III The Kylie Kids Klub. Duh

 

Louis Virtel I think the KKK is your favorite reference in the history of Keep It. It’s come up quite a bit.

 

Ira Madison III Baby, I love the KKK, okay, O-K-K.K.

 

Louis Virtel That’s what you always say.

 

Ira Madison III Actually, one of my running bits, sort of like Rufnego on the podcast, one of our running bits IRL with friends is whatever one of the, you know people love to, millennials love to add extra letters to words when they’re typing. Whenever a friend says like, O- K-KK, I’m always like, but watch them K words.

 

Louis Virtel Cute. Love your comedy.

 

Ira Madison III Thank you. Well, it’s over.

 

Louis Virtel I can’t believe it. I mean, to be honest, I’ve been in denial about this moment. I can believe one, I never expected to be doing this podcast without you. So we’ll see how my mental state progresses as I continue doing this podcast, which I’m happy to do. And I’m excited to bring the listeners along with me.

 

Ira Madison III And I’ll be listening. And I’ll be in the comments.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, okay. That’s kind of a good gig for you. I like you as a troll of this podcast now. Kind of Willem energy, if you will.

 

Ira Madison III Kind of like Bethany, kind of like one of those housewives who leaves and yet they’re still watching and commenting all the time. I could actually start a Keep It Listening podcast and just review each episode as it drops.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, good. Be vicious. Reveal secrets.

 

Ira Madison III I actually would love a fan to do a Keep it Review podcast, but go back to the beginning. Has anyone ever done that for a podcast?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, God. I mean, that would be pathetic, but they should do it, yes.

 

Ira Madison III I’ll go back and listen to each episode and I’ll do it.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. That can be what your substack is about. Great.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, no, I’m going to take a nap.

 

Louis Virtel That sounds like you also. I just want to say for the past seven and a half years, literally going to see a movie, listening to any song, any album, whatever, knowing I would get to come here and discuss it with you. And you would already have some take that I would either love or fucking hate was very motivating and very fun. So even though I’m continuing on with the podcast, an era of my life is closing too. And I’m like nostalgic, but also thrilled for you. And also there’s absolutely no way we won’t do some live bullshit sometime in the future where we’re discussing pop culture. So this is not the end.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, well… Guess this is the end for this Ruth-negga. HAHAHAHAHA.

 

Louis Virtel You know what? I guess it is. Get the fuck out.

 

Louis Virtel All right, well, I will be back next week. Ira will not be. Maybe he’ll drop by sometime in the future if some topic begs for him to be here. We’ll see. But in the meantime, I’ll be here and we’ll have some guest hosts and we will chat things up and it should get offensive really quickly. So it’ll be just like Ira’s here. We’ll you next week

 

Ira Madison III Don’t forget to follow Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. You can also 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 review.

 

Louis Virtel Keep It is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Bill McGrath. Our associate producer is Kennedy Hill. And our executive producers are Ira Madison III, Louis Virtel, and Kendra James.

 

Ira Madison III Our digital team is  Delong Villanueva, Claudia Sheng, and Rachel Gajewski. This episode was recorded and mixed by Jarek Centeno. Thank you to David Toles, Kyle Seglin, and Charlotte Landes for production support.

 

Louis Virtel Our head of production is Matt DeGroot, and our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

 

Ira Madison III And as always, keep it as filmed in front of a live studio audience.

 

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