Unfun Statistics

So I came across some stats.

You know how much I love.

Comedy and stats.

I was thinking I should, I have all these
great ideas for projects, but I don’t have

the time to do the research
to make the projects successful.

You do a comedy show based
almost exclusively on statistics.

So you take statistics
and then you make jokes

about statistics and you statistics
jokes to make more comedy.

Statistically that would be humorous.

I don’t know.

I don’t, I don’t, again, I
will see, I’ll see a statistic.

I’ll think of some funny things.

And then I’m like, oh, you could
extrapolate that into an entire show.

You could if you had a research team.

I’ve had lots of ideas
like that where the

problem, the success
would have relied on having

a team in place that
could actually do the thing.

That’s not what we’re talking about today.

Well, we are talking
about some statistics and

it comes down to red
versus blue in America,

which is dominant in
the news because it is

fascinating how they
will sacrifice their own

self interests, hurting themselves
to prove a political point.

And I think that might be it’s more
true on the red side than the blue side.

I of course have a significant bias.

I’m not going to pretend I don’t.

I am a very liberal
person from a very liberal

country living in another
very socialist oriented country.

So I’m Canadian.

I’m a liberal Canadian, which is
essentially a communist socialist bastard.

I live in Japan, which is a very
social socially oriented country.

A lot of the programs.

You pay high taxes, all that other stuff.

And I’ve reaped the benefits.

That’s probably what
has kept me so so same.

Also I’m relatively poor.

I mean, I’m not.

I don’t know.

What am I?

I’m not poor.

I don’t even think I’m middle class.

I may be lower middle class.

Anyways, I am a target voting
demographic in most countries.

Sub Japan, which doesn’t
want foreigners to vote.

If you watch Ninja News, Japan, the other
day, I was actually talking about how there

was a town and they
said, we’re not going

to give foreign residents voting rights,
but we’re going to call them citizens.

96% of the people in the
town were like, fuck that.

We don’t want to call people
who aren’t Japanese citizens.

That’s just ridiculous.

So, I mean, there’s a lot of things
that need to be improved in all countries.

I don’t want to even claim the things that
I believe are the places I like or perfect,

but we are talking about America,
which is deeply, deeply flawed.

And the politics is
making it worse because

the politics have now
become message is more

important than the
reality of people’s lives.

And what am I talking about?

It has a lot to do with being
anti-vax and anti-vaxination.

I don’t believe you should
be forced to take a vaccine.

I don’t think you should be forced to
take anything that you don’t agree with.

But, there’s always going to be a but.

If you refuse to take
the vaccine for anything

and you catch that
thing, the state should

not then be burdened by your illness,
which is where the problems arise.

So, vaccines in oculations, all these
things, they are done for the greater good.

And that seems to be, again, the
individualistic nature of politics in America.

I think I’ve talked
about this before, but

you have the theory in
America is individual rights.

The problem with individual
rights is they cannot

exist in a world with
more than one person.

So, if I have my individual rights,
I have the most important thing.

And then you’ve
been taught that your

individual rights are
the most important thing.

If we fall into the same realm
of existence, we cannot agree.

Because how can my
rights be the most important

thing and your rights be
the most important thing?

Therefore, one of us must
be wrong if we disagree.

There can’t be any middle ground
and there can’t be any compromise.

I think this might be the major flaw
in American politics in modern times.

That said, should you be forced to
take a medicine that you don’t agree with?

No.

But then, I don’t think you
should receive help if you get sick.

This is something I think it was Sweden
tried to do this during the pandemic.

You don’t have to get
the vaccine, but if you

don’t get the vaccine and you catch
COVID, you don’t get to go to a hospital.

So essentially you die.

And I was like, I kind
of agree with that

philosophically, but
the reality of letting

people die, I don’t
think I agree with that.

So this is the problem.

This is what I’m saying.

There’s a philosophical level you think on.

And then there’s the reality of
humans suffering in front of you.

So where do you draw the line?

Philosophically, I think
if you don’t take the

vaccine and you catch the
disease, you should just suffer.

Honestly I believe that philosophically.

If you said this person
who did not take the

vaccine is sick, should
we give the medicine,

my inherent instinct
would be, yes, let’s give

the medicine, let’s give them all the medical
care we can and try to save their life.

So that’s that’s
sort of the first set of

issues I run into that
there’s a philosophical

realm that I believe
in, but then there’s also

reality, which requires me
to care for other people.

So that’s when you
get into, well, since we’re

going to have to take
care of the medically

in real life, we should
force them to take the

vaccine and you can see that to me
is where the divide becomes difficult.

The anti-vax movements has been
going on in America for quite a while now.

And I think to me, this
is one of those forms

of rebellion where
like again, Americans

seem to want to be
rebellious, but that rebellion,

the foundation of
that rebellion, rebellion

I think inherently means
you have to do something.

And so like something
like anti-vax, what

you’re actually doing is
nothing and then saying

that me doing this nothing
is a no, sorry, my dog

is just coughing right
next to the microphone.

I’m assuming it’s picking it up.

I’m going to wait till that’s finished.

Okay, he’s laid down again.

I died that threw me off.

So the anti-vax movement is a group
of individuals who want to be rebellious.

They want to be noble.

They want to have a cause, but
they don’t want to actually do anything.

So this is like the laziest form of social
resistance is where I’m going to not do the

thing and then tell everyone I’m
being super noble by not doing the thing.

Art I great.

You should all not do the thing with me.

We should actually all do nothing
and then everything will get better.

Now I fundamentally
disagree with that, but

again, we’re talking about
the philosophical realm.

I do enjoy statistics
because they pull the

philosophical into
the reality, which is

kind of what I actually
wanted to talk about.

Republicans did very much
push the anti-vaccination

message ironically
because it was under

Donald Trump’s introduction and fast
forwarding of the vaccine being produced.

So Donald Trump could
take credit for pushing

through the vaccine, getting it done,
getting it made, getting it out there.

But then his party was turning around
and saying, don’t take the vaccine.

So that’s, again, you can see
philosophically, problematically.

You’re saying like, let’s
be anti-establishment

wherein the problem is at the
moment we are the establishment.

How do we do that?

Well, we want everyone
to not take this

medicine that we put extra effort into
getting it done, getting that medicine made.

So I didn’t enjoy
that again, it’s sort of

like an irony in the
American political system.

So Republicans pushed sort
of an anti-vaxx regime ideology.

And the interesting thing
for me, and immediately

was like this puts the people who vote
Republican at greater risk of catching the

disease and therefore
at greater risk of dying

from sort of the
complications of the disease.

So if your political voters are not
being vaccinated and the disease is real.

So I’m going to go ahead
and assume the disease is real.

I’ve had a couple of people come at
me and say that COVID’s not a thing.

It’s just a flu and some other stuff.

I’ve had that argument multiple times.

Sorry, I just, I can’t, I can’t deal
with both of those at the same time.

If COVID is just the
flu and it’s a more

communicable flu
that it kills you, the fact

that it’s not called the flu and
it’s called COVID, does not matter.

I mean, nomenclature
in this case is not

the important issue
we should be looking at.

It’s whether or not it’s killing
people and it was killing people.

The number of people
at risk increased if you

were politically
Republican leaning because

you’re more likely to
not get the vaccine.

That I think is a
statement if COVID is real.

Now this actually goes
into another secondary

set of issues that in America, healthcare
costs because healthcare is not socialized.

If you catch COVID, you’re more likely
to catch COVID if you’re Republican.

If you catch COVID,
you then have to pay

into the privatized healthcare system,
which is very much broken in America.

I mean, the most common
stories you read on

the Internet are about
people going completely

bankrupt all the time because
their insurance won’t pay out.

Their healthcare isn’t there.

They won’t take them
to the hospital unless

they’re in their provider, which I
don’t even know what that really means.

My assumption is you
have a company you deal

with insurance wise
and only certain hospitals

will take you if you have
that insurance and whatnot.

I’ve never lived in a
country that did that.

If I get sick, I go to the closest
hospital and that’s pretty much it.

I mean, in Canada, that’s
the way it worked in Japan.

That’s the way it worked or they take you
to have some pretty horrible stories about

hospitals being closed because of the
hours in stuff in Japan and separate issue.

If you’d like to hear
more about that, you can

drop me a message
and I’ll look into a whole

bunch of stories and put them together
and do a special scenic view on that.

But Yale, which is a university
in America, did a study.

And it was focused
primarily on Ohio and Florida.

And they were focusing primarily on
counties with lower vaccination rates.

And these counties
were primarily Republican.

So Ohio and Florida,
Republican states, and

they were saying,
“Let’s find the Republican

counties within those
states and we’ll study

vaccination, COVID,
transmission, and deaths.”

So they ended up with 538,159
people that were kind of studying.

The first year of the
pandemic, if you were a

Republican or Democrat,
you had a similar death rate.

So in the first year of the
pandemic, we did not have a vaccine.

Everyone was in sort of
the same risk category.

They were saying wear
masks, don’t wear masks.

I mean, this actually
in a weird way proves

that if you were a
Democrat and you’re following

all the rules and you’re wearing
masks and stuff, it didn’t really work.

If we’re being honest, I still would wear a
mask because the number of flu cases did

drop, so you say like, “Well,
it doesn’t work for COVID.”

Well, if it works for every other
disease, it might still be worth doing.

But that’s a separate issue.

That’s not what they’re talking about.

But maybe the Republicans
were wearing masks

because the companies
told them to maybe not.

Maybe no one was wearing a mask properly
because we didn’t know about masks.

We certainly didn’t know about good
masks and how masks should fit in stuff.

There was a very big conversation in Japan
about like, you get the medical masks.

Should the sort of, what do you call it?

It’s not a string, the elastic that
connects the mask to wraps around your ears.

Should that, the
connection point beyond

the outsider, the inside
of the mask because

you want to create a
seal around your mouth?

That was a whole
conversation that went on

during the first year of
the pandemic because

people didn’t know the
right system or the right way.

Way, there were double
masks and all this other stuff.

But the first year of the
pandemic, the death rate

was relatively similar
regardless of political lines.

One month after the
vaccine became available, this

is a quote, excess
mortality was significantly

higher for Republican
voters, like up to 43%.

So what they’re saying
in that first month,

most likely Democrats
were getting the vaccine,

Republicans were not
getting the vaccine and

the death rate either decreased into
Democrats or increased in Republicans.

They didn’t actually look
at what was killing people.

So maybe for that month after the vaccine
was introduced, Republicans were jumping in

front of trains at an exorbitant
rate, something like that.

We don’t know specifically.

But we can say there’s
some causation, some

correlation between
people getting vaccinated

and people not dying during
that initial first few months.

Another study, June
2021 to March 2022, found

234,000 deaths could have been
prevented if people had been vaccinated.

So they’re saying these
vaccines, the people

who got them, they
were not dying people who

didn’t get them in the
same situation, 234,000

people died when they
didn’t necessarily have to die.

People from pro Donald Trump counties
were three times more likely to die.

Again, not specifically saying from COVID.

So you want to say
COVID’s not real, that’s true.

But there was a trend
that after the vaccine was

introduced, Republicans,
pro Trump Republicans

specifically were
dying at a higher rate

than non pro Trump
Republicans and Democrats.

So if you can come up with another
explanation for that, I would love to hear it.

It would be very interesting
to hear someone’s

other point of view
on what was killing

all these pro Trump
Republicans during this period.

In some places in Florida,
some small counties,

the death numbers
are so high they actually

outweighed the number of
votes you would need to do in.

So you have 48% Democrats in this county.

You have 52% Republicans,
5% of the Republicans

in that county died
because of something during

this period when
vaccines were available,

which meant the next
election that comes up,

that county would then
flip from red to blue.

And that to me is the core issue.

And it’s not even a
core issue of again, the

philosophical realm of
should we morally make

people do things they don’t
agree with and things like that.

It is more a case of if I’m a
politician, I want people to vote for me.

And if I want people to vote for
me, those people have to stay alive.

So it’s actually in
my best interest is a

positive politician to
provide my voters, let’s

say we’re going to be really awful
about it and only do this for my voters.

If you vote for me, you
get better health care.

If you vote for me, you get the vaccine.

If you vote for me,
you get all these things

that will keep you alive so that you
can keep voting for me in the future.

That to me is the
philosophical divide between

the reality of what is
happening with the way

this group is thinking and the
reality of how it’s going to play out.

If you’re thinking, do
you never get a vaccine,

never do these things
to take care of yourself,

never increase the
quality of health care.

Because Trump’s one
of his first platforms

was going to come out
with a new health care

system that was going to replace a
bomb of care and it was going to be better.

And that never manifested.

That never happened.

You said you’re going to be
able to choose your doctor.

You’re going to be a better deal.

I don’t, again, there were no specifics.

He’s going to be able to
be more likely speaking.

He says he has that plan in place.

He says that plan is possible.

So if that is the truth,
Donald Trump could

still in this moment reveal that plan to
everyone else and they could vote it in.

He could say, here’s my plan.

It’s the greatest plan that was ever made.

Let’s put it out there in the public.

They’ll still get credit for it.

Maybe he’s Biden’s
president and then it

will actually make
Biden look really stupid.

Why didn’t you come
up with this brilliant plan?

He’s working on his
platform for the next election.

Here’s the health care plan.

I’m going to put it into place,
but let me give you all the plan.

The biggest problem
with him is he never gave

any details of any plan
he ever came up with.

So it always came down to
this dude is just making shit up.

Hi, man.

Yeah.

I want to conclude in
a not wholly negative

way, but the whole
anti-vax movement in this

case and these numbers
don’t lie, it has nothing

to do again with the
philosophical differences.

Like I actually believe if you
don’t want to get the vaccine,

you shouldn’t have to get the
vaccine, but let’s make real clear.

The vaccine came
out and people just who

took it, they were dying less
than the people who weren’t.

And the anti-vax
stance of the rebellious

nature of I just want
to be counter culture.

And none of those
people were dying that that

philosophy was proving itself
to be faulty from the beginning.

I don’t, this is a huge downer to end on.

What a shitty story.

I was interested in the numbers.

I’ve said this many, many times.

I got to work on my conclusions
before I start because I don’t script.

I write notes so that I get my facts right.

I don’t script.

I think I got to start scripting and
ending or at least have an ending point.

Jesus Christ, what a downer.

I don’t know how I end.

How do I end?

This is it.

I talk about stats and people dying.

This is the problem.

So in the engineer’s
Japan, I have adopted a

philosophy of I don’t
talk about people dying.

Now I get pretty gross stories in there.

I actually do that less than I used to.

But because you
can’t end in any sort of

positive way and I don’t want
the endings of, this is like an elbow.

You make an elbow.

You don’t want the
last song to be a downer.

You want the last song
to be a great up note

so that you are willing
to play the album

against you put all your
sad songs in the middle.

I don’t know if that actually happens,
but it was a philosophy I’d heard about.

I need to adopt something
similar for the podcast.

I don’t want to end on a downer.

I don’t want people to
walk away going, man,

I listen to Chuck with
you just this morning

and God damn, do I feel
bad for the rest of the day?

I guess this whole story was about
moves all downers all the way down.

That’s the problem.

But I do talk about just shit all the time.

Like I can just ramble.

Like I am right now.

All I need to do is have Dave
in my lap, scratch his dumb face.

I’m just keep talking.

And there’s the positive note.

For those of your
political leanings, you can

get a stupid little poodle, stick him
in your lap and scratch his dumb face.

Can we get Dave in there?

This is the problem.

I had the mic up here and it was a really
good position, but it seemed to echo.

And so I had the mic down here.

Because it’s a front facing mic.

Because it was below
my mouth, depending on

where my head was, it was
picking up different levels.

So now I’ve put the mic down and angled
it so that it’s aiming sort of at my face.

I’m hoping this is the first time I’ve
done it, so I’m hoping that sounds better.

I’m going to stuff around my room.

I seem to have managed
to create a small echo,

which I think most
people wouldn’t notice,

but when you edit your own
podcast, you hear all this stuff.

What I really want to do
though is get down to Dave Cam.

Check that out.

That’s actually pretty good angle.

Because I worry about my
hairline because it’s so bad.

I do think the mic
and the nerd stuff in

the corner is more
interesting than my face.

People are always like, “Oh, you
got to do a video for the podcast.

You got to do it on YouTube.

I never wanted to do that because I never
really wanted to put my face on camera.”

But if I could get just
Dave Cam, if I did it from this

angle, actually that I think
that looks pretty good.

You get my mouth moving.

So there is motion in the image.

You get the dog.

I think the tech setup, the
mic and the pop filter and stuff.

I like the way that looks, but that’s
maybe just because I’m into this stuff.

This might be my… If Dave’s on
my lap, this might be my setup.

I might do that.

I can just… My
beard’s now big enough.

I can actually run my fingers through it.

Who’s so sexual?

I was going to do a
bit on the alien reveal,

but all I have to say
is that I don’t think

anyone gives a shit because
it’s not going to impact our lives.

Because the fact that aliens are really
real statistically is not a surprise.

The problem is everyone’s
life is so shitty right now.

How does aliens being
real help make us better?

So this is what I was doing before.

When you would comment,
I would actually just…

All I was saying is if aliens are
real and they crash into earth.

Man, they are shit-oilers
despite their ETL travel.

So this was my
thinking for when I do an

international Japan and when I do CMEB
is I put the voice on in the background.

Because I can then
just… It’s in a browser.

I can just turn it off.

But then you comment,
I can actually respond

to you like we’re
having a conversation.

I know there’s still like
the four-second delay.

I’ve turned the delay down as low
as possible, but it’ll make it more.

Because what I was
doing before is you would

write a comment and I would read it
and there would be a pause in the podcast.

The pause was long enough, I
could then drop that voice chat.

Like I could actually just
do it through an online thing.

And I did the last
couple episodes and I

actually really liked it
because it meant you

would say something
I could respond to it,

but it sounded more
natural because I didn’t

have to read it out
because often I’ll read

it and not realize I
haven’t set it out loud.

But I mean, aliens being real
is not a big surprise to me.

Everyone’s coming to
Earth is more of a surprise,

but they didn’t actually
say aliens came to Earth.

They were very specific in their language.

It was, “Does it contain alien biologics?”

I’m going to look into this a
little more, maybe do it next

week because I didn’t have
anything planned for next week.

But alien biologics, I mean,
it said, “Non-human biologics.

I have a non-human
biologic in my lap right now.”

So it doesn’t actually
mean it was an alien,

you know, green-headed little
dude who came down to talk to us.

I can encourage statistically
unlikely that no aliens exist.

I think factually speaking,
they’ve already found on

Europa the moon that goes
around, I think it’s Jupiter.

Under the ice, there’s Amoeba.

So I mean, I know that’s not
exciting alien life, but it is alien life.

I did a whole episode on that,
one of the old world podcasts.

And it wasn’t that
aliens don’t exist, it was

why aliens wouldn’t
bother coming to Earth.

Because you wouldn’t
come to a place, you

wouldn’t come to Earth,
you would send a probe.

And so that’s it, these alien
spacecraft that they’ve caught.

I don’t think there’s alien aliens in it.

I think it’s probably just
like a satellite or a probe.

And one of those crashing
actually makes perfect

sense because it got too
close to the atmosphere.

There’s a lot of shit
going on and it crashed.

That makes sense to me.

So the guys said they covered crash ships
and sometimes in a crash you find pilots.

Yeah, they recovered crash ships.

Again, ships is unspecific as
to what they’re talking about.

And again, they said biologics, they
wouldn’t actually say pilot or anything.

And the only question
that was interesting

is have, has the US
government, and not well

doing their FTL and
smacking right into the Earth?

Well, that you’ve made
an interesting assumption

that they’re using an
FTL that we understand

it because we’re bound by
our ideas and science fiction.

Their understanding of physics
may be different, first of all.

But a very interesting
concept that most

people don’t think about
that I hadn’t thought

about until I have a friend and
I talked to who studied physics.

He has a masters in physics.

And he was saying the
vastness of the universe

is so great that
there is the possibility

that if you get further, far enough away
from Earth, the rules of physics change.

And that I was like that
blew my mind because

basically he’s saying
if you get far enough

away, maybe gravity doesn’t
work the way we think it works.

If you get far enough
away and there’s enough

black holes, time just doesn’t
work the way we understand it.

So our complete
understanding of physics

and reality and time
and everything is based

on our area of space,
but space being essentially

infinite means that
within space there

is the possibility that
everything is different.

And so these guys
having existed in a different

place with different
rules of physics means

that their version of travel
may be completely different.

Whereas they just, you
know, it’s heart powered,

so they’re like care
bears and then they

use the care bear countdown
and then they’re in Earth.

Like that’s it.

So there’s no FTL, there’s no machine
involved, it has to do with passion.

And the more passionate you are,
the more distance you can cover.

The problem is when
they get here, maybe the

care bear countdown
doesn’t work on the way back.

So because again, the
rules of physics here

and the rules of physics
there don’t match up.

And that is something
like as I just assumed

as a kid, as a high
school student university

student, the physics
was a thing, it was a

rule and it just everything
would follow those rules.

I hadn’t taken into
account that just the

simple fact of distance,
great enough distance

meant the rules could
possibly change over space.

And that was something
I really, really enjoyed.

The math behind war drives is feasible.

They could be fourth
dimensional, which would

also fix the problem, but we’d really
struggle to perceive them coherently.

Yes, I cannot argue with that.

I mean, I know I like the, because I follow
all the science fiction shows and so they

all have their own theories on
how faster the light travel works.

Star Trek, basically
they encompass the ship

in a bubble and then
they fold space around it.

And then they did the
discovery show and they

had a whole different
system where they did

like these wormholes
that they essentially

created on the fly and they
just move through those.

Power wars, you basically bounce off suns.

So that’s why they
have to do, they actually

do a lot of like we
can’t fly until we do

calculations because
basically we’re going to

slingshot around different
gravities throughout

space and then as the
slingshots go, it’ll get

faster and faster and
faster, which is pretty cool.

And that’s why the Kessel
run for the Millennium Falcon.

So it’s whatever it
was, 12 parsecs and

parsecs is not the
classic nerd thing is those

made of measurement of
time, it’s a measurement

of space, but the Kessel run
is a race around a black hole.

And so the person
who gets closest to the

black hole is going to
use actually the least

amount of distance, but then
also be able to win the race faster.

So the Millennium Falcon got closest to the
black hole in 12 parsecs and survived and

pulled out because
the problem is if you get

too close to the black
hole, you get pulled

in and destroys your
ship, you don’t win the race.

So you have to find that line where your
ship could survive the distance to and from

the black hole and still win
the race, which I really enjoy.

So that was one of
those things, it was a

nerd thing where it
was like does not speed,

just tell me, or distance, and then I
was like yeah, but why is it distance?

And it turns out because
it’s a race around a black hole.

So the closer you get,
the less you have to,

you know, distance you have to travel,
but also the risk you’re up it comes.

And Han Solo being
Han Solo in the Millennium

Falcon, dude’s taking
some bitches risks.

Bad and slow, that’d feel.

Oh God, idea.

I don’t know how anything
would feel in space.

Space has been a big fantasy for me.

I mean, close to a black hole.

But they did, look at
these face, I’m sorry.

We’re going to stop
talking about space and

just look at these,
these little tongues out.

He’s getting his head scratched.

Ah, this is the best thing in the world.

Fuck aliens and space and
Republicans and Democrats.

It’s all just Dave with his tongue
out getting his head scratched.

Ah, I do this shit and I’m like, ah, I can’t
put this into the audio podcast because

for me, podcasting is still a
audio format, not a video format.

So this goes into the YouTube video.

It doesn’t go into the podcast, which is
too bad because all those people miss out.

And my audience is still primarily audio.

Podcast not video.

I think I get like maybe
20 views is a good video

on YouTube for me, which
is almost feels pointless.

But then I had the, the triple R video.

It had 15,000.

So that was like, for the scope of
what I do, that’s like a huge blow up.

It’s really cool.

Oh, Dave, how, how is
it that you do nothing?

They should be on the line recording.

I think, I think a lot of people are.

I need to, if I really want to do that, I
would love to set up a better schedule.

But because I have so
much shit to do, it’s very hard.

It’s nice during the holidays because
I can now just sit here and hang out.

But then my kids are at home.

So I do have to take care of my kids.

But taking care of my
kids because they’re older

now literally just means
making sure they get food.

And I like making them good food.

Oh, just get that all.

Then the nose massage.

Oh, this is like asthma if I would shut up.

Get the microphone down into Dave’s
face and just listen to the scratches.

RRR

The #bollywood movie RRR helped me define what I am looking for in films, and a lot of stuff out there is really lacking by comparison.

  • I had planned on talking about this maybe two months ago, but then the whole COVID thing happened and then I went to Canada and I ended up taking a month off. I have spent, I don’t evangelize many things.πŸŽ™ 00:00:00.00000:00:27.560
  • I, okay, let’s be honest, I’ve had an afternoon come. cocktail. So my normally fairly well planned out and yet still somehow messy podcast is going to be messy and planned out, but I’m going to ignore that because of my afternoonπŸŽ™ 00:00:27.56000:00:43.523
  • cocktail. Why did I do that? I don’t know. New Jersey, Japan this morning was a bit rushed. I don’t know why I had a steak and a rum and coke. That was my lunch. Oh, and some kimchi because I’m a very international kind of person. ButπŸŽ™ 00:00:43.52300:01:01.483
  • None of that matters because I’m here to talk about a Bollywood movie. And again, I’ve been evangelizing this film for months now. Basically, if you are a close friend of mine, I have insisted that you watch it.πŸŽ™ 00:01:01.89900:01:19.899
  • And probably if you’re a close friend of mine, you’re like, Peter, I’ve heard you talk about movies in the past. You watch a lot of dog shit primarily to analyze why it is dog shit. Like I’ll watch 70s Kung Fu movies.πŸŽ™ 00:01:19.89900:01:33.939
  • and look at like what they can and cannot do. I will look at cheap films and think about like did they achieve what they wanted to achieve? Did they do the thing they wanted to set out to do? I like to watch movies, even bad ones. I don’t necessarily watch the bad ones because I findπŸŽ™ 00:01:34.00500:01:50.485
  • them amusing. I want to watch the bad ones because I’m like this is a failure. What made it a failure? There is a Netflix movie with Ryan Reynolds. I think it’s Underground 6. There’s Underground number.πŸŽ™ 00:01:50.48500:02:22.805
  • It is to me the single worst film ever made and it’s because they had the money They had the talent they had the ability they had the time they had everything they needed to make a good movie and yet somehow fucked up every step theπŸŽ™ 00:02:07.38200:02:24.462
  • Michael Bay Camera work it does look good but It does not help this movie the throwaway lines and characters and lack of depth Ruins the film because you don’t feel connected to anyone in the film by the end of it. I think if I was going to run a movie,πŸŽ™ 00:02:25.22200:02:45.297
  • like a media film study class, one of the first movies we would watch is Underground 6, so that we could analyze all the things that went wrong with Underground 6. So that if you were to make your movie, you would not make those same mistakes. So for a lot of the bad movies I watch,πŸŽ™ 00:02:46.01700:03:04.657
  • it’s analytical. And I enjoy the analysis. It’s not necessarily that I enjoy the film. I enjoy the analysis. that I get to do while watching the film. So I watch a lot of movies that no one else would watch.πŸŽ™ 00:03:04.65700:03:15.505
  • This takes me out into strange paths. I recently watched a movie that happens at Taipei, so a Chinese film. It’s a zombie movie called The Sadness. And it was cheap, but gross. And the thing is, it was, the gross doesn’t bother me.πŸŽ™ 00:03:15.50500:03:33.185
  • Often I’ll quite enjoy gross, like Ricky O, The Story of Ricky, is one of my favorite films because the grossness is humorous in this. It was just gross and it was almost like gore porn and it did nothing for me.πŸŽ™ 00:03:33.18500:03:48.642
  • There’s a horror movie called The Hostile. Plot wise, it’s a very good movie. The gore porn held there within actually diminishes the film itself. It makes it less of an enjoyable film. There is a limit.πŸŽ™ 00:03:48.64200:04:01.682
  • I actually think implied gore, implied violence, implied things are more effective because your imagination fills it in and makes it more powerful. That said, we’re here to talk about one of the greatest films that was ever made.πŸŽ™ 00:04:01.68200:04:34.142
  • It is a film from Bollywood and I don’t watch a lot of Bollywood films because I don’t enjoy the dancing song sort of bits But they have these over Overly dramatic action scenes that are super fake and they’re not fun. They’re funny as clips on the internet almost like his giftsπŸŽ™ 00:04:15.26400:04:31.684
  • But they’re not funny as films. So I don’t tend to watch that many RRR rise roar revolt So I’m gonna refer to it as triple R for the rest of the podcast because that’s what I’ve been calling it It’s just easy to hearπŸŽ™ 00:04:32.60400:05:03.904
  • to say than RRR because the R sound is too hard to say three times in a row and the title itself is too long. Triple R is one of the greatest movie going experiences I have had in years. It is pure enjoyment and adulation and I’m not sarcastic. So what I was goingπŸŽ™ 00:04:46.12100:05:08.121
  • to say before my alcohol riddle brain kicked in was like I’ve made every close friend I know watched this and they’ve all been hesitant at the beginning because they think Oh Peter is trying to force a bad shittyπŸŽ™ 00:05:08.12100:05:47.161
  • weird, Bollywood film on me, I don’t want to watch it. And then I have to explain to them, no, I sincerely enjoy this film and I sincerely think you will too. Every single person who’s watched it, who’s come back afterwards, has said to me,πŸŽ™ 00:05:20.58600:05:33.386
  • this is one of the greatest movies they’ve ever seen. This is one of the most enjoyable films they’ve seen in years. This is a fun movie experience. And so the analytical part of my brain would not let it go. I’ve seen the movie in totalπŸŽ™ 00:05:33.38600:05:46.866
  • three times now. I’ve watched parts multiple times. I’ve had very set complaints about media in recent years. And one of those complaints is that every character, this actually started sort of the mid,πŸŽ™ 00:05:46.86600:06:00.909
  • sort of early 2000s, mid 2000s in video games. And it was primarily that men didn’t seem to be capable of writing women characters as strong women. Because what they did was they took every female characterπŸŽ™ 00:06:00.90900:06:14.909
  • and they made them sarcastic and kind of mean and bitchy. And these were supposed to be the tough, strong women. And this is how they showed it was by making them be really awful every time someone spokeπŸŽ™ 00:06:14.90900:06:26.372
  • to them. I know strong women and they don’t talk like that. They just talk like normal people. In fact, strong characters tend to be poorly written overall. The strongest, most powerful, confident men and women I’ve met are super chill becauseπŸŽ™ 00:06:26.37200:06:46.092
  • they can be because things don’t threaten them because, you know, stuff comes at them and they’re like, I can handle this because I’m a strong, capable human. being male or female. The strongest dudes I know have this quiet confidence and it justπŸŽ™ 00:06:46.09200:07:03.475
  • exudes from them and it makes you not want to mess with them. The boisterous ones are the ones I was like, ah, you just get him all riled up and he won’t be able to do things properly. You get him all riled up and he won’t be able to be effective. So I have aπŸŽ™ 00:07:03.47500:07:19.195
  • very direct idea of what a strong man is. So the writing of these characters. is problematic because I think the writers are not the character. I actually did an old Velocipod cast maybe three, four years ago and it was how that writers struggle to writeπŸŽ™ 00:07:19.19500:07:35.498
  • geniuses because the writer themselves is not a genius. So they’ll create a situation, create a solution and then have the genius figure it out or they’ll imply genius without actually demonstrating any sort of genius attributes because they can’t come up with themselvesπŸŽ™ 00:07:35.49800:07:48.538
  • because they’re not a genius. So that’s problematic. I think that also falls into the saying that they are probably not strong. confident men or women. Therefore, they struggle to write strong, confident men or women effectively.πŸŽ™ 00:07:48.53800:08:03.376
  • So they just make them sarcastic. They always have something to say back. The strongest, most confident men I know, you say something to them and they would just look at you and go, that response is so belittling. It’s just like almost like your attack on them isn’t worth theirπŸŽ™ 00:08:03.37600:08:18.896
  • time. And so I’ve struggled with in recent media, everyone is shitty and no one supports each other. So you have like a military. unit and everyone in the unit is Addy Chasar’s throats, but that’s going to be an ineffectiveπŸŽ™ 00:08:18.89600:08:34.116
  • military unit. They’re not going to come together and solve a problem. A truly effective unit of any sort is going to be a group of people that likes and supports each other. Yes, there can be some ribbing, but the ribbing would primarily come from one or two characters,πŸŽ™ 00:08:34.11600:08:49.036
  • not all of them. And I think that is maybe where the first mistake is made. Making every character sarcastic and shitty means that there is no such thing as not sarcastic and shitty. means there is no love behind the teasing or jibing or anything like that.πŸŽ™ 00:08:49.03600:09:04.552
  • So there’s a sincere lack of positivity in modern characterization of lead characters because they wanted to be strong. Therefore they write them as kind of shitty assholes. This is sort of the Rick and Morty Rick paradox where Rick is the bad guy.πŸŽ™ 00:09:04.55200:09:23.032
  • He’s broken. But because he always has as a quip, he always has something he can say back to people. He always has a sarcastic remark. People admire that and they want to aspire towards that where he is.πŸŽ™ 00:09:23.03200:09:59.352
  • for all intents and purposes, the bad guy of that show. He’s broken. He’s trying to get his shit together and he can’t actually do it. Whereas if you have a character come in and they’re soft and quiet and yet still strong and weirdly I’m thinking, Birdman, that’s the good guy. That’sπŸŽ™ 00:09:33.19500:09:50.715
  • the strong character and we need to emulate that. We need to see more of that. We don’t see that in Western media. So Bollywood being a different culture has a whole different take on this. And that’s why it was so refreshing for me as a Western viewer.πŸŽ™ 00:09:50.71500:10:04.555
  • The two main characters, now the thing is the first problem is they actually have to end up like having three or four names throughout the film because there’s their real name, there’s their cover name, then there’s kind of their like nickname.πŸŽ™ 00:10:04.18100:10:18.181
  • So I’m going to call one of them beam because I think that’s his real name and the other one the Raj, which I actually think is short form of Raj something else. I watched it in Tamil. It was it was Hindi over dubbed in Tamil with.πŸŽ™ 00:10:18.18100:10:34.181
  • subtitles. So there was a lot of maybe subtleties or confusion and like names and stuff like that. Because they start out, they’re both kind of undercover. So they’re using fake names and then they switch names part way through. And then they introduce what they’reπŸŽ™ 00:10:34.68100:10:45.761
  • full names. And then I kind of got lost with the name. So I have the names, it’s beam and Raj. These two men love each other like no two men have ever loved each other in the past. Now it’s a bromance. It’s it’s a purely platonic love. And this is something that’sπŸŽ™ 00:10:45.76100:11:02.561
  • also problematic because platonic love, sincere love between two is something that’s very difficult to depict on the screen. Because there’s a weird thing now where all love has a sexual undertone.πŸŽ™ 00:11:02.56100:11:19.376
  • And we’ve lost the idea of platonic love as a real thing that happens. And it’s probably because of toxic masculinity. It’s probably because men have trouble showing it. But these two men, there is a friendship montage.πŸŽ™ 00:11:21.05600:11:36.416
  • So they meet each other, they hang out for a bit. And the friendship montage is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, but it’s because it’s pure, magical, unadulterated joy. There’s part of it is, Beam gets radged up on his shouldersπŸŽ™ 00:11:36.41600:11:50.265
  • and starts doing squats. They start doing chin ups. They’re just exercising together. They’re running out in fields. They go to return a goat to a shepherd, but then the shepherd starts chasing them awayπŸŽ™ 00:11:50.26500:12:00.425
  • for attacking the goat and they run away, laughing and having a good time. One is very modern. It’s a dichotomy. He’s actually from a tribe out in the forest, but he’s the one he f- fixes motorcycles and rides motorcycles where Raj is the modern man and he’s undercoverπŸŽ™ 00:12:00.42500:12:18.568
  • as a police officer and yet he’s the one who rides a horse. So they kind of put all this stuff together but it’s the yin-yang aspect where they like the opposite things in every moment but at the same time they compliment each other.πŸŽ™ 00:12:18.56800:12:33.608
  • Which is, I would say it’s very difficult to do but RRR did it so well and so quickly. They establish that these guys love each other and then one scene for some reason really stands out where beam walks up to Raj and goes like what are you doing?πŸŽ™ 00:12:33.60800:12:47.168
  • I’m writing a letter to… my girlfriend. He’s like, Oh, you have a girlfriend. She must be wonderful. And he’s super supportive. He never says a shitty thing. And I think it’s been years and years and years that I’ve seen a filmπŸŽ™ 00:12:47.16800:13:00.542
  • where a character walks up to a character and talks about a love relationship or any kind of relationship and doesn’t say something shitty. And so just this like, Oh my God, you’re amazing. Your girlfriend also must be amazing. She’s lucky to have you. You’re lucky to have her. I hope thisπŸŽ™ 00:13:00.54200:13:16.062
  • is the best relationship that ever happens. And then Raj is helping beam. Like with how to hit on another girl, how to how I like set up a situation where he could actually spend time with and talk to another girl and it’s beautiful.πŸŽ™ 00:13:16.06200:13:29.269
  • Because it’s completely self sacrificial. I will spend my time. I will spend my energy. I will help you achieve your goal. And this leads us to the very first dance off in the film. So there’s a couple of songs and all the songs are good. They slap.πŸŽ™ 00:13:29.26900:13:45.269
  • There’s a thematic thing that repeats that I’m going to talk about in a minute. But they do a dance off and it’s beam and Raj versus all the white people. And the white people do not get a good take it.πŸŽ™ 00:13:45.26900:14:13.269
  • this but it’s awesome. It is so disparaging of the British and their occupation of India but it is so fictional that it’s awesome. Like I would put on a British accent just so I could go in there and get beat up or shot by Raj or beam or whatever. It doesn’t matter. I would have lovedπŸŽ™ 00:13:55.05900:14:12.739
  • to be the bad guy in this movie just so I could be in and amongst this story but they do this dance-off and the dance-off the woman that beam is in love with is watching and then it gets down to all the white guys have fallen to the side.πŸŽ™ 00:14:12.73900:14:40.979
  • They just can’t keep up. Beaman Raj are doing the final two person dance off. And what does Raj do? He sees that the girl that Beam likes is watching, she’s watching Beaman wants him to win. So he fakes losing, even though maybe he could have win, he probably could have because he’sπŸŽ™ 00:14:27.35700:14:43.017
  • kind of more, he’s more of the physically capable character in many ways. He’s presented that way. To the point where, and then he falls and then that means, Beam gets to win. So he sacrifices his loss.πŸŽ™ 00:14:43.01700:14:57.397
  • He takes a loss so that his friend can win just so his friend can look good in front of his girl It’s just awesome, and it’s just such a beautiful thing and that becomes the crux of the story becauseπŸŽ™ 00:14:57.39100:15:10.031
  • their goals For the most part of the film are antithetical Raj is trying to catch beam. He doesn’t know it’s beam yet beam is trying to kidnap or re-kidnap So a little girl is kidnapped at the beginning film beam is trying to get her backπŸŽ™ 00:15:10.03100:15:25.191
  • So it’s like an undoing of a kidnapping and then Raj’s task to stop him Raj has an ulterior motion that, but he has to complete this task to achieve his ulterior motive. And this becomes the conflict between the two characters because they both need to achieveπŸŽ™ 00:15:25.19100:15:42.752
  • their goals, their greater goals, goals bigger than themselves. But how can they achieve their goals? Are their goals worth achieving if they have to portray the only, like their best friend, the only person in this world they truly love in a pure and kind way?πŸŽ™ 00:15:42.75200:15:57.872
  • I mean, you can say that the love relationships between the men and the women are pure at their entire spirit. I don’t believe it. I think it’s uh, these the the the man love here is the purest You could ever see on filmπŸŽ™ 00:15:57.87200:16:09.231
  • So that’s the bromance and it’s all very positive and then you get to the there’s there’s the music which I mentioned before so i’m going to talk about it now the music is exquisite It’s but it’s also thematically connected because the first half of the film it’s a three hour film by the wayπŸŽ™ 00:16:09.39100:16:27.711
  • So if you’re gonna sit down you really want to plan this out The first half of the film they’re seeing this song about what happens when these two guys meet opposites, they have opposite goals. The line that stuck out to me the most isπŸŽ™ 00:16:27.79100:16:40.321
  • what happens when a volcano meets a storm. Surely this can only end a betrayal. Surely this can only end in violence. And it’s setting up the second part of the film where do they betray each other? Do they end up fighting eachπŸŽ™ 00:16:40.32100:16:54.301
  • other? And it’s amazing because the movie is planned out so well that the song is leading you to the like inevitable conflict. It’s predicting it and that makes the inevitable conflict even that more powerful because you know it’sπŸŽ™ 00:16:54.30100:17:09.181
  • coming because the song has been telling you it’s been coming. the whole time. The themes throughout. So beam is represented by water and Raj is represented by fire. So again, there are opposites but complementary. There’s aπŸŽ™ 00:17:09.18100:17:23.543
  • scene where I showed it to my friend and he goes, why are these guys walking underwater to shake hands? So they’re underwater, they’re shaking hands, but a tanker from a train that is caught on fire has sunk down in the background. SoπŸŽ™ 00:17:23.54300:17:36.543
  • it’s actually the moment when fire and water come together, the fire is in the water. It’s coming up from the gas. flames in the background, but they’re underwater and they come together in Shaeh Kansan. This is showing the connection between the characters isπŸŽ™ 00:17:36.54300:17:48.791
  • inevitable and it is the greatest thing. And that thematic consistency is throughout the film. So anytime you get a really you know strong shot of Raj there’s probably fire in the background or his that the screen is encircled inπŸŽ™ 00:17:48.79100:18:03.071
  • fire and then when they have battles and stuff there’s water around beam or he’s very wet and sweaty and then there’s one where he smashes a fountain in the fountain that’s fountain spraying behind him. This is also when you get to one ofπŸŽ™ 00:18:03.07100:18:14.591
  • the bigger action scenes of the film. Now, one thing I have complained about primarily like superhero movies is the inconsistency of powers. So powers in, let’s say the Marvel universe, it’s very hard to tell what a character canπŸŽ™ 00:18:14.59100:18:31.708
  • and can’t do. So Thor and the Hulk are the ones that come to mind first because in one moment, they will be able to do something in the next scene, like five minutes later, they’re not able to do something that’s actually much easier than the thing they did previously.πŸŽ™ 00:18:31.70800:18:45.948
  • And then at the end of the movie, when it’s necessary, they can do something. something. And that actually really bothers me because well, I should have a sense of danger because I know that Thor or I know that Hulk isn’t strong enough to do this thing.πŸŽ™ 00:18:45.94800:18:57.360
  • Boobies are actually making it so that they have whatever power they need at the time for dramatic purposes. But actually that needs to be established at the beginning what they can and cannot do. And either they overcome it and succeed or they, you know, do something to achieveπŸŽ™ 00:18:58.56000:19:13.920
  • the goal, which is beyond their powers. It was the Star Wars Obi-Wan TV show where most of the show he has very basic. He hasn’t been using the force. He has very basic, very limited force capabilities.πŸŽ™ 00:19:13.92000:19:30.012
  • But then in the very last one where he fights Darth Vader, he suddenly lifts up a bunch of rocks. And I’m like, that really took me out in the moment because I’m like, I don’t think he should be able to do thatπŸŽ™ 00:19:30.01200:19:38.812
  • just because he hasn’t been able to do anything even close to that. That is like a double 10 times stronger than he was 15 minutes ago or every other episode of the show. R-R does the exact same thing.πŸŽ™ 00:19:38.81200:19:51.492
  • Triple R does the exact. same thing and that their power is whatever they need to be in the moment. But why is it in this movie it’s okay? And I realized that this movie is the cumulation of all Kung Fu films mixed with Bollywood.πŸŽ™ 00:19:51.49200:20:07.716
  • Because it’s so open and honest about what it is, because it’s so clearly gold towards one thing, they have to be able to do whatever they need to be able to do in the moment because all we really care about is that they look cool or look interesting or it looks funny or it looks fun.πŸŽ™ 00:20:07.71600:20:23.416
  • They’ve proven these guys are strong. but they haven’t made them super superhuman strong and yet they have kind of established it. Beam at the beginning catches a tiger in um like a trap and he’s holding two ropes together toπŸŽ™ 00:20:23.41600:20:35.922
  • catch the tiger. He’s physically stronger than the tiger which is an impossibility. The tiger is probably like six, seven, ten times stronger than a human being. This would have been very easy for the tiger to get out of. There’s a scene probably one of my favorite scenes where Beam catches aπŸŽ™ 00:20:35.92200:20:49.042
  • motorcycle, picks it up and then hits two guys with it and you would honestly go why is he able to suddenly pick up a motorcycle and it’s a And it’d be literally the answer to me would be because he needs to do that in that momentπŸŽ™ 00:20:49.04200:21:00.355
  • to be able to do that scene. So there’s a sincerity to the silliness they’re willing to engage with. And because that’s consistent throughout the movie, they’re super powered and then normal people and then super powered and then normal people, they just are capable of doingπŸŽ™ 00:21:00.35500:21:17.155
  • whatever they have to do no matter what. But it’s to the singular goal of entertainment, whereas in a movie like any of the Marvel film or any of the… Star Wars movies where they’re trying to set up a narrative as being a serious thing,πŸŽ™ 00:21:17.15500:21:31.116
  • it now doesn’t make sense because it’s not serious if suddenly my power multiplies by ten when I just happened to need it and it’s convenient for the plot. But I think maybe more than anything else, honestly anything else was this may be culturalπŸŽ™ 00:21:31.11600:21:46.356
  • is that by the end of the film, throughout the film, I could never guess what was going to happen next. And maybe that to me was the best part. I was consistently surprised by whatever was going to happen.πŸŽ™ 00:21:46.35600:21:59.716
  • So it could have been serious, it could have been silly. It could have been dramatic. It could have been entertainment. Just just pure entertainment. I couldn’t guess what was coming next because they mixed everything in so well.πŸŽ™ 00:21:59.71600:22:09.350
  • So I didn’t I honestly by the end of the film could not tell if they were actually going to end up in conflict I kind of knew they were gonna end up being friends and resolve that issue because that’s the best way to end a filmπŸŽ™ 00:22:10.03000:22:21.190
  • It’s a happy film. So it’s going to end on a positive note So the only way to end on a positive note is everything works out in the end and all the British die because the end of any good Story all the British die, but I think maybe the last part I need to mentionπŸŽ™ 00:22:21.19000:22:34.510
  • is that this is perhaps the first film in my entire life. So I’m 50. I’ve watched movies, tons and tons of movies. This is maybe the first time I’ve actually ever watched a film and thought, why did these men still have their shirts on?πŸŽ™ 00:22:34.49200:22:47.992
  • They’re doing fights, they’re doing action scenes, take their shirts off. I’m all for gratuitous sexuality, for, you know, have tight pants and women wearing bikinis and stuff. But these guys were so awesome. I just wanted more of them.πŸŽ™ 00:22:47.99200:23:04.572
  • and the clothes were just getting in the way. So there’s a couple scenes, but it seems very early on, they do some high candy and it’s great. Like even as again, a heterosexual male, I had feelings and I was like,πŸŽ™ 00:23:04.59500:23:15.835
  • God damn, Raj should never have a shirt on and beams looking pretty good too. And they do another nice thing. Raj is completely, you know, smooth and beam has a lot of hair on his chest. So they even got like one for each sort of taste.πŸŽ™ 00:23:15.83500:23:27.075
  • No matter what you like, it’s in there for you. So I am sincerely recommending to anyone who listens to Seamik Bee. If you have three hours and Netflix because it’s on Netflix. I know that but if you have to type pirate it,πŸŽ™ 00:23:27.07500:23:39.189
  • it’s hard. It’s hard to find a copy without with English subtitles. But if there’s any way, spend some time and try to get a copy of Triple R and just sit down for three hours and watch it. I guarantee you’re gonna have one of theπŸŽ™ 00:23:39.18900:23:53.389
  • best experiences. Cinematically, you’ve had in years and years and years because of the purity of the emotion held therein, which a lot of movies, because I think maybe they’re done to committee or there’s too many people involved. They loseπŸŽ™ 00:23:53.38900:24:06.829
  • some of that purity of emotion. that we’re seeing again like Avengers films and Star Wars films. Those are supposed to be emotional stories but quite often things happen you’re like, well, I mean they got 50 characters on screen, who cares?πŸŽ™ 00:24:06.82900:24:19.488
  • You should absolutely try to get this film sit down and watch it. I’ve recommended to everyone, I recommend it to you. And I think if you stand and watch it, you’ll realize that I’ve just done you one of the biggest favors you’ll have had of this year.πŸŽ™ 00:24:19.48800:24:32.288