Daily Podcast (06.30.25)
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Casey brought an interesting concept up. What? Yeah, you did, believe it or not. We played a clip from somebody on a doctor, on a medical procedure show. And Casey had floated out the question of, why don't they do a show about a doctor who's

just barely good enough to be a doctor. And it led me to think, do they do any shows where somebody is just barely good enough to be in their profession or not? You know, like a pretty crappy lawyer or a lousy cop or something like that? They have. They have, whether it's just they're not good police or it might be a character. It depends on character or how broad a comedy it is. Right. Okay. And sell them a drama where it's someone who's

And they'll have people who are bad at their jobs who are investigated and sussed out by the heroes on the show. But it's seldom the hero. You know what? I'm not a very good detective. But that said, it did raise a point that you jumped on, Preston. Yeah, I have a friend who's a surgeon who told me about, you know, because I have all kinds of questions for people to do that type of thing for a living, you know. God bless him. It's amazing. And the amount of school that you have to go through and the amount of

You know, as an intern, you have to work to learn how to do that stuff before you're trusted to be able to work on people yourselves, especially specialists.

And I was asking him some questions about the preparation for it. And essentially, the word was, you would be surprised on who they let operate on people. And I was like, wow, okay. That's kind of terrifying. And then later on, he's like, look, I don't want to make you scared or anything like that. Essentially, some people are better than others. But it led to the thought of...

I work in this, so this is the statement. I work in this industry and you would be surprised at what inept people they allow to do what I do. Right. I would love to hear about this, even though it might scare the living bejesus out of us. Well, I mean, we've often heard the term, you know, oh, he or she is book smart, but not street smart and stuff like that. And when it comes to like the medical industry, you can be really, really book smart. But like, suppose you're a surgeon that doesn't have good hand-eye coordination. And that was my question.

question i'm like they teach you how to you know tie knots and and do you have to you have to be very dexterous as as well as incredibly intelligent and know what to do at the right time but you also have to have the physical capability to do these minute little things so that's where you'll have people who consult and you'll have people who are not you know they they they'll say someone's a maestro so for example like when i had my my uh prostate surgery

Dr. Lee is like a maestro on the Da Vinci machine, which is this very precise thing that allows them to go in. I couldn't see somebody with the hands of like a John Madden going in and doing that. You've got to have the chops. I got to point this out. He's a great guy, and he's really talented at what he does. But our friend Mike over at Shaving Grace...

Do you remember when we had... Well, he was nervous. We had Bill Clement come out and reshape his mustache. And Mike gets up there with his straight razor. And his hand is shaking. And it was just because he was nervous. There were cameras. There were lights. We were on the radio. We were live. And we built it up. I'm like, dear God, don't cut him. Oh, my God, he's dead!

We should have gotten somebody else from shaving grays. Listen, he does a great business. He's successful. He obviously knows what he does, but I just remember seeing that hand shaking going, oh my God, what are we doing? Wow. You know, not that...

All right, I don't even have the pre-statement here, but I've watched documentaries on the drug trade and these guys that are making and mixing heroin down in Mexico, and now they're lacing it all with fentanyl. You got these guys that are just kind of eyeballing it, you know what I mean? It's kind of like an important scientific...

thing going on there. You mean my illegal drug maker is not doing things on the up and up? Not by government standards? Wait a second. Don't they have to be licensed before they become cartel operators? Well, wouldn't you want them to be? Just a little bit? I think we're going for something a little more regulated. No, I know. Free-ranging drug trade. Let me go to some calls. This is open to interpretation, by the way. I'm going to go to Elizabeth. Hi, Elizabeth. Good morning. Hi.

Hi, good morning. How are you? Wonderful. Elizabeth, it says here you're a teacher. Oh, my gosh. There are so many teachers that I know that are not the brightest bulbs. Meaning just not intelligent or they don't know how to talk to students. No, they're intelligent. They're just goofy and off or odd or something along those lines. You know, they're not really with it 100%. Being a good teacher is a talent. It is. It's not an intelligence. It's being able to make a connection. I had so many teachers...

specifically in middle school, that I just... They just didn't want to be there. They didn't care about kids. And I was just, you know...

No, I absolutely agree. I teach middle school, yeah. So it's just some really goofy people that I don't know how they even got this far. And I mean people that have their masters and doctorates, and it's really interesting. So Elizabeth, like for example, so we watch the class, you know, at home before we watch Classroom and then Jeopardy. And maybe it's a product of occasionally teachers being nervous, but you'll have...

respected schools on there and the faculty, there'll be three contestants facing off against the students. Now, I freely admit I'm a moron, but they're basic things I think a teacher should know. That I'm like, I'll look at my wife and say, why

Are you kidding me? Uh-huh. Yes. But you were in that setting. You know. That's why I say that, yes. The whole nerves and stuff like that. That's why. But I'm like, I mean, things that even I think would transcend even the nervousness. Yeah. I mean, listen, I had a lot of great teachers, but I did have one English teacher in particular who...

She misspelled things all the time on the blackboard. I mean, like simple things. And I will never forget. So in the Declaration of Independence, it's inalienable rights, right? Right. Yeah. She would say unalienable rights. Unalienable rights. Unalienable rights. That was my English teacher, guys. Interesting. Your English teacher? That was my English teacher. Wow. Wow.

Unalienable rights. Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you. Have a nice day. Bye. We'll see you later. Listen, I also want to say there are teachers, they've been phenomenal teachers. Absolutely. And that is an unalienable fact. We'll have that caveat that there are also wonderful people in these businesses. That's a caviar fact. I bought a house two years ago and we went through some real estate agents who should have been in another line of work. And we ended up with one.

who was phenomenal and knew the market well and knew how to buy houses and sell houses and was so helpful. I'm so grateful to her. But there were some real estate agents. Maybe they just backed their way into that job or something. I don't know. But it just seemed to me like this is not the line of work for you. Nick, before we got the one who eventually got our house that's in Mount Airy. It's like dating, right, Steve? You find one. Yeah, you find the right one. But I'm tired of you. You hook up the real estate person and it's always, and in here is the kitchen. Right. Like,

They don't, they've never been in the house. And it's almost like, you know, this is a, and this room has some lovely crown molding. Oh, I hate it. It's, you're right. It's,

It can be changed. Come on! Have some backbone! Now, you see these windows. Now, you can look out of these windows, and then if you're outside, you can look through them back inside. Yeah, I know how windows work. Oh, my God. These doors have handles. Oh, my God.

Which you might find in a bacon, lettuce, and sandwich to quote Trading Places. But realtors are, that job is what you make it. My brother, we talked about him earlier, Jim, he's a real estate agent. And he is one of the most successful real estate agents that I know because he made it his job. It is his full-time job. He doesn't just go out to show houses every once in a while. He's passionate about it. He's passionate about it, yeah. All right, let's go to some other questions.

calls I'm going to go to let's go to Jared hi Jared good morning hey guys how are you good what's up man so my wife is a doctor and she worked with another one a couple of years ago who absolutely led to the death of multiple people because of incompetence oh my god so was this found out by the law or what happened in this case

So, you know, a lot of medical school is not easy to get into. And a lot of these foreign medical schools, if you pay the money, they'll let you in. Yeah. And then some underserved areas, they'll hire anybody. Yeah.

And they'll bring in these people who are just absolutely frightening, like missing the most basic things, messing up medicines, the dosages, missing obvious things on tests. And my wife told me at least twice people probably would have lived at least for a while longer if it wasn't for this.

So if you don't feel good about your doctor, you got to get rid of him.

Dr. Pospisil was his name. Pospisil. Pospisil. And the final nail in his medical career was that he amputated a leg that in no way needed to be amputated. And this guy had a lot. And then once you heard that story, you heard the other stories of things he had done. And he was one of these old school, a doctor who smoked back then when that happened. Yeah. And it was just, oh my God. Wow. I will go next to...

to let's go to Emily. Hi, Emily. Good morning. Hi, how are you? Good. We were talking about the profession. You wouldn't believe some of the people they let do it even though they're inept.

Yeah, so I work in hairdressing. And so the thing with hairdressing is you go to cosmetology school, but the program is only 10 months. And then when you go to take your state board, there's not even like a practical portion to it anymore. So it's like just a written exam that you take and then you can like go become a hairdresser. But

You've been doing it for 10 months. Wow. I would think, Emily, that they'd have you at least show some of your chops on one of those dummy heads there, like the Barbies, the big Barbie bus that you could – to show – see, so to your point, Preston, that's a thing where you would assume there is some sort of practical. Physical. To show that you have some – Emily, does that surprise you?

It does. Like there used to be a practical, but apparently it was in the past two years. They just removed it. I mean, I was kind of happy about that because it made it easier for me to get my license. But so then basically after you get your license, you can either go like be an apprentice for a couple of years and then kind of get, you know, earn your chops that way. Or you can go work at like other salons, like hair cuttery and stuff like that. All right. Well, let me ask you, Emily. So, so while you're in this school for 10 months,

Are you cutting any hair at all? Yeah, but because it's 10 months, it's like you learn a haircut, you practice it twice, and then you move on to the next thing. And then there was a couple months where we would take people in from the street, but I gave some messed up haircuts. So Emily, is there a classroom of people with safety scissors in the midair going, click, click, click, click, click, click? Like...

I'm cutting it this way because to me you would have to see, wouldn't you have to see how you can execute that cut? So Emily, I think also what she was saying is that a lot of them will go into a salon and you don't, if it's like a reputable salon, you're not going to get hired right away to cut hair. You're going to go in and be an apprentice and you're going to work under somebody for a

pretty decent amount of time. Yeah. Yeah. That's the path that I'm on right now because I was like, I don't want to go and make my mistakes like on people and have them be like really mad at me. I'd rather have, I take time with my boss and then I do cuts on mannequin heads and then I bring in models. All right. Yeah. All right. So I guess I can get that. If, if, if these, if the standard procedures you go to a salon and then you sort of intern, um,

And you try your chops there under the tutelage of another person who's already practiced at it. I can get it. But still, that surprises me, Preston, that the actual licensing test doesn't require a practical. I think it used to be where they would bring in volunteers and we get a free cut and they would be judged while they were. I'd like a haircut, please. Yes, exactly. Just don't touch his testicle. Right here, Mr. Lauer. He's got three of them. I got a problem. All right. Thank you, Emily. I had three testicles. Wow. No, I didn't know that.

Let's go to, let me go to Justin. Hi, Justin. Good morning. Guys, what's up? Gadzooks, bud. So we're talking about industries where you wouldn't believe they let people do this, even though they don't know what they're doing. Well, here's one that'll scare you. It's because they're everywhere. Truck drivers. Is that what you do? Yeah, I'm a truck driver. Okay. Are you talking about a semi or what kind of truck? And

Any kind of truck. I specifically, I drive a flatbed with a forklift on the back of it. Okay. But that's a large enough vehicle, you know, many tons, and it can kill somebody easily. Sure. Oh, my God, yeah. What's crazy about it, Justin, is that anybody can kind of drive a truck up into a certain weight. Is that correct? Yeah.

So a Class C is what, for motorcycles and stuff like that? A Class C is just for regular cars. You need a Class M for a motorcycle. When I went, one time I went to the motor vehicle, it was here.

And they gave and I remember getting the study material and I'm like, God, there's a lot of stuff about trucks and stuff like that. And they were giving me the wrong stuff for a truck license test. It's an entirely set of different set of information, correct?

It is. You have to know your weight classes and everything. I just want to drive my goddamn car. That's the problem. There is a lot of these rules. What happens is so many people go for that test and get pushed through and they don't have what's like

It's not in the book, but you really need to have good decision-making and good judgment calls. If you're driving in traffic, you have to always be prepared to have an exit route so you don't rear-end somebody or you can avoid danger that's up ahead. I'll tell you what. The guys we deal with, the guys who come out and work the camp out for hunger,

and do all the surgical nature, which they park those trucks and move that stuff out. Those are the good ones. Those are the good ones. The bad ones, like I'll give you a short story. A guy I used to work with, he scared me every day. I don't know how he had his Class A CDL. And I'm just like, he's driving tractor trailers. And I remember working with this guy. He's sitting in my truck. And I'm telling him because I can tell something's not quite taking with him. But I'm like, look, man.

we don't have proper GPS's in this truck. They will take you to low bridges. You have to be careful. And I kept telling him that he got into his, uh, his tractor trailer goes down towards the main line and wrecks the truck. And I'm like, he goes under a bridge. That's too short. And I told him that. And I looked at the bridge he hit and I'm like, how did you hit that on the, on the, on the, on the stoplight before the bridge, there is a laser warning that lights up and flashes saying your truck is too high. Oh,

Oh, it flat out can detect how big your truck is and says, and he's still hitting. Justin, is it a 252 and 30 by any chance? I don't think that was it. It was a different one. I'm just like, look, the lights weren't even the worst part. They have barrels hanging down from a pole that'll scrape the top of your truck. He ran through those so hard they looped around. He was playing like tetherball. So he ignored multiple signs, flashing lights, hanging barrels, and just straight up.

full sense it through the bridge. Oh my God. Wow. Yeah, that makes you, that worries you. Yeah, especially when you're driving around and stuff like that. Hey, Justin, I have a side question. You don't sound like it. Are you a big guy?

Uh, I'm getting fat because I got married. Well, not fat. Almost all truck drivers I see are big dudes. I mean, like, not just, not wide. I mean, just big guys. I see them all the time. They're usually big guy crawling out of that cab. I like to call myself big sexy, but I'm just like, I'm a normal guy. Big sexy. I ain't driving, I ain't trying to train. All right. All right. Thanks, Justin. Appreciate it, man. Wow. Uh, yeah, that one's interesting. Uh,

Let's see. How about we have a lot of different ones to go to. How about Ben on line eight here? I want to go to Ben. You're on the air. Ben. Good morning, guys. How are you all doing? Good, man. So you are a chemist. Yeah. So I'm actually a professor at one of the local universities. But before that, I was an industrial scientist. Okay. Hi.

As a chemist, we work with things that, you know, can explode. They're pyrophoric. They burst into flames on exposure to air, right? And one day, it was at a lab, and this scientist told me a science that he's got this bottle of a secret compound called butyl lithium. And he called the site safety officer and wanted to know what to do with it because they cracked down the side.

And it's the kind of thing that if you expose it to air, even a little bit, it'll burst the flames immediately. Jesus. Imagine a liter of a lot of material, right? So you know this, by the way. The other people don't know this, but you're well aware.

Yes, oh yes, and the safety guy is in the 5,000 person facility. He's supposed to be head of, you know, know all the stuff about safety. He told me just, oh, good, toss in a bucket of water. And I said, no, no, no, no, wait a minute. And, you know, because I had been a safety officer before this guy. And so I called the site fire marshal who works for the company, and, you know, 10 hours later we've got the bomb squad out with those big steel balls that take

take it out, clear it out the floor. And when they took it out in the parking lot at about one in the morning, it created a 20-foot fireball. Oh, my God. Jesus Christ. So he was telling you initially just to put it in a bucket of water. Yeah. Yeah, well, fortunately, the guy who we were speaking to knew better than that. It just got an inkling that didn't sound right.

Yeah, it would have. So in that lab, we had probably about 50 or 60 liters of solvent, plus other chemicals. So if you'd done that, it would have blown up, created a 20-foot fireball, ignited everything else in the lab, probably would have destroyed the building. Wow. To that point, to chemicals and being unaware, and this is totally...

You know, this is low end compared to what you were doing. But there was a thing, there's also an article, Preston, that just recently came out about combining cleaning fluids. And one of my first jobs was, you know, cleaning, just mopping up. I was what they called the porter. And the woman who was one of the managers of the place said,

Just we make a mixture. We put the Ajax in the Clorox. Yeah, ammonia and bleach. Bad idea. And I swear to God, I'd be mopping with this stuff. So I was young, but there'd be a lot of old people sitting in there at the counter with their coffee. And you start to see them start swaying. I was basically like making mustard gas, right? You're lucky. People die doing that. They'll do it in their home, like in a bathroom or something like that where it's a closed environment.

And they end up dead. Yeah. Ben, in your industry, do you from time to time come across people that you can't believe that they are doing, that they are chemists? Really? All the time, yes. You know, most of the time we have so many layers of safety and precautions that it keeps them from doing things that can really get in trouble.

but you know they're they're a thing that i believe with the smartest of people there was a i remember story a couple years ago probably about and fifteen years ago uh... uh... first president california was working with some people die metal mercury uh... it's very dangerous because it's uh... it's a very powerful outwitting agent you can happily d_n_a_ very quickly she spilled about a dropper so on her on her on her on the left hand

was dead six months later. Oh, so you're saying it will absorb right, it will break apart your actual flesh? Well, it doesn't break it apart. It will go, so it goes right through the skin and it alkylates the, so it puts the methyl groups or carbon,

CH3s on DNA where it shouldn't be. It screws up all sorts of stuff. We work with something called dimethyl sulfoxide, which on its own is not very dangerous, but it will go directly through the skin on its own.

And if it's got a chemical inside it, you know, so say anything, it carries it straight through the skin. So if you had, say, sodium cyanide in the MSO and you got a drop on your skin, well, guess what? You're dead from cyanide. Wow. That is... I would like to know everything. I'd like to... I want the smartest people working with that stuff. Yeah, that's interesting. There's a lot of very, very heavy precautions that we take. Yeah.

so that the people in the industry, even the ones who perhaps shouldn't be there, are safe just because we're so careful about how we do things. Right, I assume, yeah. Anybody who gets into our lab that doesn't do the right safety precautions

they get thrown out pretty damn quickly. Interesting. Or they blow themselves up. All right, thanks, Ben. Well, that too. Appreciate it, man. Have a good one. Someday we'll have to do another conversation of who has the most dangerous job that listens to the show because that sounds pretty wild. And also there's another thing. I saw a text come up that said, and whether it's true or not, I don't know, it said in Pennsylvania, you pay $60 and you can call yourself a contractor.

What? And that's another conversation. What can you just pay for and, you know, like Steve's a, he's a minister. Don't diminish it. It is what you make it. I spent

over four minutes yeah submitting my form and my credit card information yeah that's another one what can you pay this amount for and all of a sudden you've got this title maybe that's why there are all those contractors though they're constantly doing the stories about them just you know take it off well they need that's an industry kathy you're exactly right where they they you need to vet the person who's doing work on your home you know when we first uh

When I was living with my parents, the person who did our deck was my cousin. And he was just starting out. And the whole deck was fine.

The steps, on the other hand, he didn't like... I don't even know how to describe it. Didn't connect them. Well, so you know how... They were floating. Well, kind of. You know how like the frame of the steps kind of it's, you know, like they basically look like steps and then you place a board over top of them. He didn't do it that way. He basically just had like two slabs of...

of wood that went down and then nailed the steps into each other. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Right, right. That's not going to hold over time. It did not. I mean, but that was luckily for us because the deck was a little high off the ground. That was like the only, the rest of the deck held fine, but the steps on the other hand were like. Hey, 80% of it stayed perfectly intact. Let me go. We only have time for a couple more calls. I'm going to go to Danette. Is that your name, Danette?

Yes, that's my name. Hi, Danette. You're an RN? You're a nurse?

Yes, I am. That's true. Okay. And I can tell you, I can second the notion that there's a lot of terrible surgeons out there. So always ask a nurse who to go to. Okay. And also there are terrible, terrible, have no business being nurses out there. What if you ask one of them for advice on your surgery? You got to ask a surgeon. Go ask a surgeon. Obviously you wouldn't be.

Well, let me ask you this because I'll tell you my personal experience. Every time I've been having procedures done or whatever, it's the nurse that always seems to have the beat on what's going on. And it's always they're the ones. We have a great doctor. We have Dr. Mike, who's fantastic. But the people that I've encountered in the Penn group,

I have all very thorough. But I imagine with that many people, you're going to get some some bad or inexperienced or people just not good at their job. What's the worst dereliction of nursing duty you've ever seen?

Oh, God. That would require an entire show. Okay. It's that bad, is it? Yeah, it can be that bad. And, you know, it's just a lot of younger, newer nurses graduate from school and they think it's just like glamour job. And then they end up

You know, and they get straight A's in school and they love to talk about that. And the Ivy League schools that they get their nursing degree from. But yet they have no common sense whatsoever and end up, you know, making very dangerous and can be life threatening nursing mistakes.

So, you know, when you think about in terms of it's really the nurse who's there with you most of the time or all of the time. Yes. And what they need to know and be capable of, there's a lot out there who are not. And it's scary. And what's even scarier about that is that, unfortunately,

So they become truck drivers. Oh, geez.

And that's even scarier. Well, so my mom has had a very long career as a registered nurse and she has a lot of different certifications. But if you put a needle in her hand, she's... What is that? Get that away from me. She can't do... Oh, I wonder where that comes from. She can't do like an IV, any sort of inject... Like she...

we laugh at her. We're like, you, you did go to nursing school, right? But my mom has always worked in, in drug and alcohol. She's been a psychiatric nurse her entire time. And when she went to nursing school in the emergency room, she was like, I don't know if I can do this. Like I can't do this part. It's awful. The part right now, now the ineptitude of, of some would be, would definitely be scary. And listen, I understand in almost any industry, if you're in it for a while, you can become desensitized to certain things. And the ones that, that kind of bother me a little bit when it comes to, uh,

medical workers is when you have what you perceive as something is very important or very, you know, scary and are kind of brushed off because they see this type of thing every day. You know what I mean? It's happened on rare occasions to me. And I just like, I'm like, I had one situation. It was just a one, one guy. It wasn't a nurse, but it's a guy at, I was getting a barium swallow and

you know and i was getting the test and this guy was just totally like you know like stand aside i said to the left to the left and he's barking at commands and i went whoa whoa whoa this is new for me dude yeah yeah yeah so calm down dr feel good let's relax here and i mean you could see him and even the nurse was almost looking at me like finally someone's saying stuff to this jerk off and then later on i was asking other people and everyone would go oh yeah yeah that

That was the one guy. Otherwise, the nurses and all, you know, because again, Preston, you're right. You don't know what you have. And you're relying on their, A, their kindness and B, their expertise. Do we have time to go to Glenn, the anesthesiologist? Because I'd love to hear about all this. It's going to be a quick one. So let me go to him real quick. Glenn, you're on the air. Good morning.

Hey, guys. I think me and Danette know a lot of the same people. So you're an anesthesiologist or an anesthetist? Which is it? No, I'm an anesthesiologist. I work with... So you believe in God? No, that's an atheist. I'm sorry. Or an atheist. No, I do. No, I'm just kidding. Go ahead. I work with...

I've worked with all types. I've worked with great surgeons. Most of them are great. Seriously, most surgeons are great. But then there are the ones who just do whatever they want and figure they'll just kind of wing it. So when they get in there, they just look at the rep, and they go, the rep's the guy who comes and brings the equipment. And they go, so what do I do next? Ah.

And the rep goes, well, you know, you have to turn no doctor, turn it left, not right. I'm just standing there like, what the F is going on? Right, right. Like you didn't do your homework before you came in here. And I'm just trying to give anesthesia and keep this person alive because the doctor's doing his best part doing the opposite. And, you know, that's why I had one guy who was shaking. He must have been 85 years old.

he was shaking so hard i was ready to come in and take over for him and i mean i don't know if you didn't take a pill that morning or not

That was horrible. I'll tell you what, from a patient's point, you know, like when you people like, and I've had, you know, I've been put under for a couple of different things. You guys are very important. I've always had a good experience where you're made to feel comfortable that you're being put under, you know, and you don't know what to anticipate. And every time it's been, wow, that these people have been really nice and really cool. I think that's a key part as well. Just besides the expertise, you know,

The inability to relate to the patient, I'm sure, is a critical failure for a lot of these people. Oh, yeah. Well, a lot of anesthesiologists understand that after the years they develop this certain camaraderie with the patient to try to help them relax. That's kind of what we do. And again, you don't learn that in school. You just go, well, this woman's not calming down no matter what I do. Come on! So you just distract her and tell a few jokes. And after a while, hey, that kind of works. So then you develop this whole routine. Yeah. And it turned into this comedy show. It's kind of...

Some people just don't laugh at all. Well, you sound good at it. Yeah. Yeah. There wasn't. Yeah. No, sorry, Glenn. I was just going to ask you because there was an anesthesiologist and I forget the exact story. So I'm not going to give the details that I think they are. But basically, he was at fault for a few children that had died during surgery and was fired from his job. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about. But I mean, there's got to be some anesthesiologists that don't quite have it together either. Yeah.

Well, I know a lot of anesthesiologists, not including me, but that won't even go near children. I mean, I know I have a colleague right now. She's like, I want to take this new job, but I don't want to go near children because I can't have that on my mind if something were to happen. So that's why you have, you know, pediatric anesthesiologists that train an extra three

three gazillion years. Yeah, it's a very precise thing. It's a critical step. You know, but honestly, if you want to get that off your mind and not worry as much, say you're administering the anesthesia and really don't. And there you go. Yeah, there you go. All right.

All right. All right, guys. Thanks, Glenn. Have a good one. Appreciate it. Wow, it's interesting. Because there have been stories like that, Preston, where people were not given anything and were fully awake for procedures. Loads of calls that we're not going to be able to get to, obviously, of people who have seen, you know, scary things. Yeah. This individual should not be doing this yet. They are continued to allowed to do it. So...

Thanks for your calls. We appreciate that. I just want to remind you, we are professionals here at the Preston and Steve Show. We are surgeons. We are. We paid the 50 bucks. We did. Yeah, we got the policy. You don't even need to have a CC license anymore, man. You used to. You guys don't have them. Thank God there's no such thing in our industry as malpractice because we would be sued at the yin-yang. Stutter through live reads. Coming back with the Bizarre Files.

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Our next guest is going to be performing at Ardmore Music Hall tonight. I'm playing a little bit of music from his new album, which is titled Behold Electric Guitar, which I absolutely love. And I'm going to let this play out just a little bit. I'm going to try to hit this intro just right at the right time.

He's one of the co-creators of the band Mr. Big. He's one of the biggest, most badass guitarists in the world, in my humble opinion. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the program, Mr. Paul Gilbert! Woo!

How you doing, Paul? I'm doing good. I'm ready with my thoughtful answers. You're waiting for your thoughtful answers? I'm ready. Oh, you are ready. After the Jack White review, I've got to do my best. We have every confidence that you'll be thoughtful. Talking to you before this conversation right now, you presented yourself in a thoughtful manner. So we thank you for that.

Listen, I've been a fan for quite a while. I'm excited to have you in and finally meet you in person. I want to explain to some people who may not know the name Paul Gilbert. You have a lot of fans. Most guitarists would know who you are. Everybody who knows me knows me. Yeah, exactly, right? 100% of those people. But I was only famous for two weeks in 1992. So that's just...

Not so, not so. I mentioned to my brother who was in a band for a long time, a big guitar fan, and the second I mentioned your name, he was like, oh, really? So there's a big level of excitement, and especially with the show at the Ardmore. People are very excited. We played the Ardmore last year, and it was fantastic, so I'm really happy to come back. Of course. Go ahead. And last year, we just barely put together my electric guitar version of the Rocky theme.

But since then, we've got the whole thing and all the bells and whistles. Really? It's really sounding good now. Yeah, we're hearing a little tease of it as you were warming up, so that's very cool. Well, I love playing it. I play it at every city, but especially here. It makes more sense. It makes sense here. So, Paul, when I do meet people and we're talking music, and I'll say one of my favorite guitarists is this guy, Paul Gilbert.

If they're a guitarist, they'll know exactly who I'm talking about. Some people don't, and I have to explain. Okay, so he was in this band, Mr. Big. Before that, there was this band called Racer X. You may or may not know. Metal, real intense, shredding, crazy, really technical, awesome music. But then I try to explain your solo career as well. Good luck. And that's... So it's hard to quantify it, you know? I mean, because there's elements of blues and jazz and metal and all this stuff...

what's a good way to describe your music? Well, it's still evolving, and the discovery I made was that I really always wanted to be not a guitar player, but a lead singer. When I was a kid, those were the records I had. My parents had the Beatles records and Stones and bands that had lead vocalists. I liked Led Zeppelin because Robert Plant had a great voice. Now, I didn't have a particularly great voice, and that didn't stop me from trying. Right. But it also didn't stop me from kind of

not doing as well as I would have liked to as a lead singer. So the discovery that I made in this new album, Behold Electric Guitar, is that I can actually play the vocal line on the guitar. So take a really challenging vocal like... You know, the... Which, you know, with my little falsetto, it's not so great. Right. But, you know, you play it on guitar. Right.

And suddenly those notes are there. And it's just my responsibility to get them right, but at least I can hit them. Well, I was mentioning to you the song Let That Battery Die, which is on the new album, and that is exactly what I thought. I'm like, it sounds like someone's singing. Yeah, well, that's how I wrote the tunes, was that I would have a lyric, and the initial lyrics for that were like, what was it? ♪

My battery's low, but my mind is high. Again, I'm squeaking it out. But with the guitar... I can get a lot of control, a nice tone. And so for the first time in my life, I'm actually able to connect my inner melodic generator with an instrument that functions. What is that called, though, when the guitar line mimics the lyric?

Because Trey does that all the time. Like George Benson. Something would be scatting, which is jazz when you play. Yeah, yeah. But that's more improvisation, which I do too. There's a lot of improvisation in the show, but I try to base it. It's nice to have melodies. I'm a big fan of melodies and regular songs.

And rather than... You know, most guitar players who do the wittily-wittily stuff that I do, you know, will go off the deep end with the wittily-wittily and have, you know, really complicated and impossible to listen to progressive tunes. Yeah. And I'm still a fan of the Beatles and Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith and, you know, the

regular rock bands. And so now I can step on stage and really be the lead singer via my guitar. To that point, and I've seen, like I've recounted many times on this show, going with my brother years ago to see Yngwie Malmsteen and so on and so forth. Technically, very amazing. But again, at a certain point, that wittily wittily can become soulless.

And you're not that way. There's a panacea of stuff that happens when you're playing. And it's, again, talking to my brother about you and your appearance, saying that the thought might have been to lump you in with a lot of these people, but you're not. And so would you consider yourself – how important is jazz and that aspect of music in what you play?

Well, jazz, you put any label on it, it's a big label. Yeah, it is a big label. But to me, I got into jazz trying to be a better blues guitar player. Right. From playing blues, a lot of the guitar players play the same lick. They're good licks. Right, yeah. But if you're a guitar player playing blues, you sort of do the same things. And so I started going back to the 50s jazz horn players.

Duke Ellington, Johnny Hodges was a sax player in his band, and they'd have these really beautiful straight-ahead blues things. It wasn't like weird avant-garde jazz, real straight-ahead and melodic, but different than the way a guitar player would typically phrase. And so that's the jazz I got into, was really just people who played different instruments playing blues, and I could steal their licks. Yeah.

and get different stuff. All right, so to play the guitar the way you play the guitar, there's got to be a lot of things that work in your favor. Dexterity is one of those things, right? But Preston has shown me a lot of videos of you playing guitar

And when you play, I get blown away. And I wonder, like, what are you thinking as you're playing these notes? Like, are you thinking... You know? Or is it just a feeling that comes...

over time with a lot of practice? Well, that's a good question. I asked myself the same question. I realized a lot of the fastest stuff is the musical equivalent of going, um, and, um, um, you know, just like not knowing what to say and I fill it in with going, uh,

And when I actually have meaning to what I want to say, that's when it gets more melodic and I actually am hearing what I'm playing. Do you ever make yourself cry with a piece of music that you've played? Yeah. Because it can be very emotional. I did and it was wonderful. And so I'm not going to ask you what you were thinking as you were playing it, but...

It was just that the music was right. Okay. We have a couple of things in common, you and I, Paul. Number one, I have tinnitus. So I have hearing issues. I have hearing loss. And I'm a musician as well. I play drums. I gave it up because of...

the hearing issues it was doing too much damage but I've recently found it again because I now play an electronic drum kit and I put headphones on and I have volume control which is wonderful and I've seen you videos many videos of you playing with headphones on do you still do that first of all does that help you out

No, I just wear earplugs. Now you just wear earplugs, like in-ear monitors? No, they're just earplugs. Just regular earplugs. No kidding. I just try to block out the loud stuff. And, you know, it's still loud. Yeah, yeah. But it's just not as loud to me. Okay. And because, you know, earplugs definitely block out a lot of sound, so I have to know what I'm doing a little more.

which is actually a really good assignment to give yourself. Before, I would sort of listen as I played and make adjustments, and now I kind of have to know from inside. I have to be able to predict where the right notes are. So I don't have a perfect pitch, so I have to find my key first. But once that's planted, I can hit other notes and know what they are in advance. If I want to hit... I know where that is. Okay. Would that, like...

I can find those before I hit them rather than hit them and then adjust from there. Would that be like the equivalent of, I do a lot of audio editing and I can edit without actually hearing it. I'm looking at the waveform and I can sort of see. So you're sort of, in a way, you just feel it as more than... Well, this might be more of a dramatic metaphor, but I think of it more like a blind person knowing their way around their room because they've memorized where the couch is. Okay.

And I have... That's wild. I memorize where the notes are because I know in my brain what they sound. And of course, I hear them a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not totally deaf. But if anything, my hearing loss is just like the treble way, way down. Oh, okay. So, you know, I can still tell that red is red. I just can't tell if it's, you know...

Right, magenta. All right, and then the other thing we have in common is we have collaborated with some of the same artists before. Yes, I've had a drum off with Mike Portnoy in this very studio. Yeah. And I'm an honorary member of Steel Panther as well. Satchel gave me a name. My name is Tommy Tom Tom Thompson. Okay.

When I play with the band. But you go back with those guys with Steel Panther, right? Well, Satchel, I guess is his official name. Right. We had a cover band. He used to watch my house when I went on tour with Mr. Big.

And I'd get back and I'd have like a week off and we'd go, hey, let's learn some tunes. And we'd challenge ourselves. We'd learn like 20 songs in a week and go play them somewhere. And he used to borrow my... I had my home studio and he'd always make demos that sounded better than mine. Really? And you and Portnoy have done a few projects together. Yellow Matter Custard, the Beatles tribute band. Oh, that was a blast. Yeah, it had to have been. Well, Mike, besides being a good drummer, is a really good organizer. So he would put together...

The Beatles won. He put together a Led Zeppelin one. We did one for The Who and one for Rush. Yeah. And surprisingly enough, Rush was considered to be a hard-to-play prog band. That was the easiest one for me to do just because I had played that stuff as a teenager. Yeah, yeah. And The Who was the roughest one because all Pete Townshend's chords were much higher. They were just sort of different than I was used to. No kidding. They weren't the big chunky power chords. They were more high up. ♪

He plays rhythm on the high part, which sounds great. Yeah, that's cool. But I really had to study to get the Pete Townsend stuff right. Nice. I had recently kind of rediscovered you a couple of years ago, thanks to YouTube. I forgot I'd been searching around guitar players or something like that. And a video of you came up and it said, I think it said, Paul Gilbert handles hecklers.

And it was you on stage, I think in New York, and some people are talking like that. And you said something along the lines, you know what, I'm louder than you. You just hit like an E chord or something like that and shut them up really quick. That's the power of the electric guitar. The power of the electric guitar. And then it started leading me down a path of watching other videos of you perform. And I even found some videos of you when you were like a teenager. Because for those who don't know Paul, Paul was a bit of a phenom as a kid, like 15, 16 years old. You started making waves.

In the world of heavy metal, there were rumors of you maybe playing in Ozzy's band and so on and so forth. And nowadays, with this video medium, we see all kinds of people that are these virtuosos, these kids that can play like nobody's business. And it's interesting with all of these people who have this ability out there right now that we don't really have the guitar heroes like we used to, if you know what I mean.

I have no idea what you mean. You have no idea what I mean? You know exactly what I mean. Eddie Van Halen. In the height of Van Halen, it was like God's status. Eddie Van Halen had David Lee Roth. And he had Alex. To me, those two are twins. You have to have Alex to have Eddie. They sound so good together. But I also do a lot of guitar teaching. I have an online guitar school. And I've given over 7,000 video lessons on that school so far.

And so I get to watch a lot of young players and there are physical trends. I have to be careful because I'm a tall person with big hands. Yes. So I can reach things that not everybody can reach.

But the thing that I've sort of become passionate about, and again, this might be sort of arcane guitar stuff, but I am a thumb-overer. Yeah. If you look at any picture, you know, Google Jimi Hendrix or Ritchie Blackmore or anybody kind of pre-1985, and they're going to have their thumb hanging way over the guitar because it makes you strong when you bend a string. Ah!

You can sit there and bend a string all day. Now, a lot of the modern players are thumb behinders, which to me is like, ah! And they have more of a classical technique. You never hear a classical person bending a string. Now, they may play some beautiful Bach, but they're not going to wail away. Almost like a bad company song. Rockstar!

That's just not going to happen from Segovia. And then that's what I grew up, primarily, my era that I really feel I'm attached to is the late 60s when Hendrix came out and Led Zeppelin was born and Black Sabbath and then into the 70s with Ritchie Blackmore and Angus Young and Gary Moore. Of course, Van Halen came out in the late 70s.

So that language of guitar, I can't escape it. That's the language. That's what I speak. And even though I learned how to speed things up here and there,

Still to me, the voice that I speak with was born in the 70s and is best played with a thumb hanging way over the neck. It seems like, and I've seen videos of you, and we're going to get Paul to play here in a moment, that you've really embraced, gone back to falling in love with the blues and playing expressively and so on.

But shredding is kind of what you've been labeled as as well. I mean, your ability, your technical ability is amazing. Does that bother you at all that people see you as a guy who could just rip up through the... Oh, what a problem. The problems I have. It is what it is. I mean, I get up every day and I play my guitar. The YouTube thing you mentioned is amazing.

I grew up with albums, so I never expected to communicate with the world that way. And I do have to mention one, if you're on YouTube, there's one where I was doing a clinic and I had this little loop pedal and I decided to put the most scary, frightening shred lick that I could ever do

inside the loop pedal. So I just press the button and it goes... And I would pretend to play with my teeth. And then I would press that button and the whole audience was like, oh my God!

And so, of course... He's playing with his teeth! He's playing sweep picking with his teeth. How did he do that? And it was a guitar clinic, so everybody raised their hands and goes like, how did you do that with your teeth? And I said, well, you know, it's pretty impressive to do sweep picking with your teeth, but it's really impressive to do it

with your ass oh yes and then i just wiped the guitar that's great on my backside that's awesome and uh and there's you know it's on you know so if you you know google my name and and sweep and you know yeah the beat you know all right i asked if you can say that on the radio yes absolutely and we're definitely gonna check that out i love it uh well are you gonna play a song for us what would you like to do i don't know well do you have any requests

What, from the new album? No, well, from anything. From anything? Come on, the world is your oyster right now. A theme to what's happening. You know what I want to play? Since I'm in Philadelphia, I'm a huge fan of Todd Rundgren, so I've got to play like the Todd Rundgren, my favorite riff, which is that...

But you know what? With chords, you have to be in tune. That's the problem. Okay. Yeah, you may want to do that. And the other... Well, of course, there's the Rocky theme. There's...

I saw Todd Rundgren play with Daryl Hall on YouTube. That was great. I've seen them play together a couple of times. They're great. They did that. Didn't I blow your mind this time? Is it stylistics? They knew how to dress. By the way, Paul's in a full suit this morning. Yeah, looking quite dapper. Well, I figure at least the suit's awake. Oh.

All right, well, let's see. Let me just get some sound and figure out, get my bearings. Sure, yeah, go ahead. Well, you know what I got to show you is my slide magnet. I saw that. I saw it too. I put a really strong magnet inside by the lower horn of my guitar, so a steel slide will stick there. Wow. And it makes a very satisfying Chris Wonk when you put it back. But I can grab it really...

And actually, you know what led to all this was there was the Janis Joplin tune, Mercedes Benz. Yeah. And which is only her just stomping her foot, you know, it's like, Oh, Lord, what's a-bombing in Mercedes Benz? And I thought, if I can do that on guitar, then I've kind of accomplished something in terms of trying to get a vocal line, because there's no hiding behind the band. I just got to do...

Oh,

Nice. So, you know, that's really different from the typical, you know, it sounds like a piranha attack. Can you give us a little of the Rocky you were playing before the Rocky theme? Oh,

There you go.

Yeah!

All right, if we're going to request something, there's a video of you playing along in the studio to Technical Difficulties, which is a Racer X song. Amazing piece of instrumental music. And at the end of it, you do this run that just blows me away. I think it's the classic wittily wittily. Yeah, it is totally wittily wittily. ♪

It's amazing. It's amazing. By the way, have you ever measured how long your pinky is on your left hand? I have not, but I'm cheating today because this guitar has a shorter neck than most standard guitars. Oh, really? So, you know, I can actually do something like the 12th fret beyond the end. God, look at how...

But again, to me, the horizontal stretch is less important than the vertical, being able to get the thumb over. Okay. And that's, again, having a smaller guitar is helpful for that. That thumb thing makes sense because they were showing the original director's cut of Woodstock the other night and

And I'm looking at Hendrix and I, the only way to describe it is it's a sexy style of playing, but he's, he's, you know, he's basically giving a handy to the guitar, you know, and, and it's, it's, but the thumb is constantly, you know, out there. And I, now that you mentioned it, I like, yeah, that's, that was his style. He was strangling the, the, the guitar. Well, the,

For some reason, the metaphor I always think of is having to lift large pieces of furniture. Like if you have to push a refrigerator, you've got to line up your body in such a way where you can push it. You get your feet against something that's solid. And when you're pushing a string, you have to kind of get yourself in a position where you can get some power behind it.

Is it hard when you talk about teaching and doing the online course and stuff like that? Have you ever taught somebody one-on-one? And is it difficult, if you have, to have your ability and to have to ratchet down to take a beginner? Well, I love teaching beginners because there's still hope. Yeah. If you teach somebody who's been playing a long time, chances are they're setting their ways. Yeah, yeah. It might be really hard to untangle something.

Not if they're willing to do it. Right. With beginners, it's more of a blank slate. You can really get people moving pretty quickly. Right. With progressive songs that you put together, the really complex ones, the one that comes to mind is a song called Hurry Up, which is on Get Out of My Yard. And it is...

I'm a drummer. I can't figure that thing out. I can't figure out the time signature, where it is, any of that stuff. Do you still remember or do you have to go back and remind yourself how some of these really complex pieces of music are put together? I forget a fair amount of it. That one has enough of a melody that would piece it together. But that was a funny tune because the song is called Hurry Up and it was inspired by Rush.

Yeah, I totally got a Rush vibe from that. Rush means hurry up. That's my pun. And I missed it. But I was like their song Circumstances. Yep. And so I just sort of took that general structure and put my own notes in. Yeah.

Such a great song. So it's the same kind of variation on a theme. Okay. The classical guys used to do that. Speaking of titles of songs, you're great with coming up with them. And I don't know how you come up with them. So I'm going to rattle off a few titles from the new album, which is Behold Electric Guitar. There's I Own a Building.

is one of them. Let That Battery Die, which I mentioned a little while ago, and probably my favorite title is Sir, You Need to Calm Down. Are these, do you just throw a name on something or is there a reason behind it? Oh, they're all stories. Okay. You know,

Because one time we had a group called the Wooten Brothers in here. Right. And they had a song called Sex in a Pan. I'm like, all right, what's that all about? They were like, well, when we were writing it, we had breakfast one morning at this place and the dish was called Sex in a Pan. We're like, well, we'll name it that. There you go. There you go. But you usually have a story behind... Yeah, I don't know if the stories are interesting. With I Own a Building, we were doing a video shoot with Mr. Big.

And, you know, what do you do when you do a video shoot? You get a warehouse and you set up your gear and you look cool because you're in a warehouse. So the owner of the building was there and he loved his building. He kept, like, stopping us and going, you've got to stop. Come up and see the attic. And so I got home and I just, I couldn't forget this guy. I was like, I've never seen somebody so in love with his stuff.

I love my guitar, but he loved his building. And so, you know, all the melodies on the record came from lyrics. And that one was like...

Yes. Well, there is a little bit of spoken word on this with a song called A Herd of Turtles. Oh.

Oh, yeah. The Herd of Turtles was a whole poem. And I didn't really know what to do with it. Okay. I don't write poems a lot. Yeah. And I ended up reading it as Ringo Starr, you know. It just seemed to flow better. I noticed that. When I read it as Ringo. Yeah. But that was one of those things because I just read the poem and that goes into this raging funk. Yeah.

So it's got this cooking, you know, funk thing, and then it just stomps on a dime. And I read a verse about, you know, the rabbits that are being eaten and don't want to be. So it's kind of a stream of consciousness, but I think it emotionally has something there. A couple more titles real quick. A Snake Just Bit My Toe. Did that actually happen? That didn't happen, but I was doing, as you do, you have to do photos for the album cover.

And when I do photos, I can't help myself. I always end up doing these rock faces because whenever you bend the string with your thumb over the neck, it makes you do a rock face.

And so I was looking at photos trying to figure out which one should go on the cover. And there was one where I was doing the typical rock face. And I thought, well, what would be the caption that would go with this? And I thought, it looks like a snake just bit my toe. Boom. And then I thought that's good, you know, because typically blues can be like, you know, something horrible happened and I got the blues because of it. And I thought the snake just bit my toe could be that. Okay. The snake just bit my toe and it just fit right in.

You're sort of deconstructing a lot of these. And then one last one, and I'm curious if this is a nod to Queen. I love my lawnmower.

Well, I have a really small lawn. When I grew up, I had like an acre to mow. And it was a big job. In the summertime, you get all hot. I had to push more for a long time. And so my new lawn is like a postage stamp. And I went to Home Depot and I got a battery-powered lawnmower that's rechargeable. And it's like, and it's done. Yeah.

Just enough where I get the smell of grass to remind me of when I was a kid. But I don't have to spend an hour on it. And I just love it. It's the best lawnmower. So it's about loving your lawnmower. And so I'm showing you where the key is. It's like, well, I love my lawnmower because it's a great lawnmower. Loving all my accessories too.

Charging up the battery better than new. When I'm finished with mine, I'll do it for you.

I love it. And so then I replaced it with guitar and, you know, it sounds better because I'm a better guitar player than I'm a singer. Oh, that's great. Well, listen, we're going to have to wrap up. Can we get just a little bit more of one more song or... What song? What's the song that you really love that's sort of a simple one you said, sort of a low-key...

Well, I was telling him that Let That Battery Die is a beautiful song. To really properly do these, I need my band. But I should explain, sir, you need to calm down. Yeah, please do. Play a bit of that if you can. Well, first of all, I took the idea of Batman. And I just took that kind of rhythm and then added a little of my own riff to it. So...

I don't want to sing Batman, but just to let you know where the story came from. And then I had this melody. It was an old melody that nobody's ever heard because it was only big in Japan. But it's a song called I'm Not Afraid of the Police. And the bridge went like... I'm not afraid of you. I'm not afraid of broken glass. Anyway, that was the melody. I moved it up to...

And then the last, I want you to watch my eyebrow. I know you can't see this. You can't see this if you're listening to the radio. But the beginning of it's all in a major key, so I've got a major key eyebrow. And then the end, I decided I need a minor key eyebrow. Yeah!

They go down now, you furrow your brow. And that's a really good way to write. If one eyebrow is going on too long, you need some contrast. And then, of course, you get there and you need a lick to fill it up.

I just sort of spill all these ideas out and glue them together and then I've got a good band and it sounds good. Wow. Well, this is, it's really cool. I'm glad you had time to come in here and say hello. You guys are very nice to me and I hope the thoughtful answers were thoughtful. They were thoughtful. Even more thoughtful than Jack White, believe it or not. Don't tell him that. We won't. Yeah, yeah. No, definitely not. But no, listen, continued success. The new album is called Behold the Electric Guitar and it's phenomenal. Listen, whether you're a guitar player or not,

Paul Gilbert's music is absolutely worth getting. I just love your stuff, so thanks for cranking it out. Thank you so much. And lawnmower lovers of the world, unite. Paul Gilbert, everybody! Take a break. And we will be back in just a moment. Stay with us.

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All the news, videos, and photos that rock. All in your pocket whenever you want it. Now, back with more of the Preston and Steve Show podcast. Reddit has a lot of lame discussions, but every now and then they have something that are like, okay, that's kind of an interesting conversation starter. You saw something that spoke to you? It did, and the thread was, what is something that you act like you dislike, but you secretly really like?

And like some, like Rambo movies might be in there, you know? Oh, God, please. Are you kidding? But actually, you kind of like it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, yeah, actually, okay. You know, we were talking a little bit when you brought this up a while ago, and I was thinking about it. There's really nothing. And just as you were saying this now in Rambo.

There's something that I've fully come around on that I used to profess hating and now love with a deep passion. Right. Hallmark Christmas movies. There you go. But listen, you don't act like you don't like them, though. No, I used to act like I don't. I used to act like I hated them. So you went through a little denial, maybe. I went through denial. And now I savor them. Now you embrace it. I embrace them. Because there are times when you really, when you secretly like something...

But it's more embarrassed. You know, you don't want to admit it. Do you think you don't know how to you're being flood with emotion or whatever? You don't know how to process it. You're conflicted. Yes. Yes. Do I love this or hate this? It might be it.

Maybe I'm a little embarrassed at some of the songs that I like. And if you guys, if you're like, oh, you know, we like this. I'm like, oh, good. Oh, good. I do, too. Okay. You know what I mean? Like, I wouldn't come out and say, I love, you know, Shania Twain unless you guys said it. And then I'd be like, oh, good. It's okay to like her. You know what? I'm kind of that way, too, Kath. I'm a little embarrassed at some of the things that I might secretly like. And if there's someone else that I hear likes it, then I'm like, yes, definitely.

I'll say it. Yeah. I like that. You know what? For me, it's more like older music. It's not newer stuff. Like Beethoven? Well, no, but like the newer stuff, somebody's going to like it. So someone's going to agree with me. I'm okay with that. But like the old school songs where you guys might be like, that is so cheesy. And in the back of my head, I'm like, God, I love that song. Well, here's some examples that were in this thread. And we'll take your calls if you want to jump in. 215-263-WMMR.com.

Like, here's someone who wrote in and said, cheesy flirting pickup lines. It makes me roll my eyes, but deep down, I actually think it's cute. Okay. Okay. So you think most women feel that way? That's probably a split decision on that one, Kathy. Yeah, that's the thing. I don't think it's most people, do you think, Kath? No, I don't think. What was the line that the guy gave you in Nazarene? Listen, that I did not like. I was not into that. What did he say? I want you, girl. Yeah, I know.

I want you, girl. There's a great pickup line for people from Delco. So you ask the girl, are you from Aston? And if they say no, and you say, well, because I'm giving your ass a 10. I think that works. There you go. Cheers. That's good. Ass 10. What do you do for Springfield? I'm giving your spring a feel. I'll go into some other examples here. Let me get Andrew. Hi, Andrew. Good morning.

Hey, Chad Zooks. Chad Zooks, buddy. Okay, so something that you act like you dislike, but secretly you really like it. And feel free to use this as a confession here on the show. If you've never said this stuff out loud, you can certainly say it now. Even if you're a serial killer. Yeah, go ahead, Andrew. A few people that are close to me know this. When it was originally airing, I could not stand the TV show Jersey Shore. Jersey Shore.

I thought it was the dumbest test, and everybody on there was, like, wasting their lives drinking down the shore. Right. And I think only one of them is actually from New Jersey. Right. Most of them are from Sweden. All right. So that was your issue. And then what happened?

Now that they put it on Netflix and I get bored sometimes, I'll put it on in the background as just something to pass the time. So are you into like... It's actually pretty entertaining. Are you into the new, the reboot? No, no, no. I'm talking about the original. The original series, yeah. Like five or six seasons, whatever it is. Well, you know what? When it first came on, we were obviously...

tremendously critical of it. It's a terrible show. You ended up watching it and by osmosis you start to get, you know, you start to hear about it and it becomes something that you watch. And you sort of fell into that. Now you kind of like it. Yeah, and sometimes you even still see some of them in the area. Like, I know Pauly D is a legitimate DJ. He still does shows in the area. And then, um...

During the NHL half-season lockout a couple years ago,

Vinny was one of the celebrity coaches. You're more than just a passing... Yeah, you're totally hooked. All right, thanks, Andrew. Appreciate the admission. Have a good one, guys. I think sometimes, like that might have been with him, is you took a stand on something where other people were into it and you were like, no, I'm not doing it. And then you all of a sudden happenstance fall into maybe like watching a TV show or whatever it may be, but you took such a staunch...

position on it that you can't admit that you've come around on. And before you know it, you're sitting there going, where's that strap on? Here's a good one, Preston. This sort of encompasses it. I'm a New Jersey Devils fan. Flyers are my rivals, but I secretly love Gritty. Whoa. Yeah. See, Gritty is the bridge builder. Yeah, maybe. That googly-eyed bastard. Here we go. Let me go to Jimmy. Hey, Jimmy, good morning. Hey.

Hey, Gadzooks. Gadzooks, buddy, what's up? Nothing much. Country music. Okay, so you act like you hate it, but actually you love it.

If you see me in public, I'm always with a frown on, changing music. But I'll tell you what, I'm tapping my foot underneath that table, you know, anything like that. But I can't stand it in public, but I love it. Do you actually be with friends and put on like a little act, like you can't stand to turn the station? And then at home you put on your cowboy hat and do line dancing? Exactly. I've got my little boots on.

My bow tie, not my bow tie. What's that called? It's a cross between country and Pee Wee Herman. I'll go to a wine dance here and there, but I put on disguise. Okay. I got you, Jimmy. Thanks, man. There's also the opposite side of that, Preston. You act like you hate something, but actually love it.

Sometimes people drive me crazy who automatically love everything. Like, don't, you know, like it's, oh my God. It's unbelievable. You guys hate that. If someone goes over the top with that. Marilyn, who we used to work with, was known for, it was just her sense of drama. You haven't seen all dogs go to heaven? Oh.

Oh my God. Life-changing. Life-changing. Yes, there were phrases like life-changing. Good burger? Yeah. Life-changing. It's not a good burger. It's a great burger. Yeah, yeah. Really? Really?

Yeah. I've learned with you guys. I love Marilyn, but don't ever talk to her about a movie before you go to see it because your expectations will be so high. Yeah. You can't really, with you guys, use any superlatives when you're trying to describe something. Like I, you know, one time flippantly said that Spaceballs was the greatest movie ever, which was just my way of saying I love the movie. Right, right, right. Right, right, right.

You took what I said as literal. Wait a second. What did you say? It's a fun movie. Better than Good Burger? I love that movie as opposed to greatest movie ever made. I know what you mean. We got it. There's some interesting ones up here. I'm going to go to Doug. Hey, Doug. Hey, what? Something you act like you dislike but you secretly love.

You know what? I dislike when people judge me for the music I listen to. I will listen to Cher, Believe all day, radio blasting, and I am jamming out. Cher, Believe? Do you believe in live episodes? Do you believe?

Sing it, Doug. This is my jam. Do you believe in love after love? Oh, wow. Are you proud now? Do you let everyone know you love it? Oh, yeah. Now he is. All right, well, you don't pretend like you dislike it. Okay, that's the difference. Because in a way, it's like coming out of the closet, you know. Was there a time that you would hide your feelings about that, though?

Oh, yeah, all throughout high school. Okay. But he found these clubs where there are a lot of men who listen to it as well. Special after hours. All right, Doug, thank you. I appreciate it. Was this the first one that we heard that auto-tuning on? It was the one that was most obvious, where they did it as a gimmick as opposed to...

kind of hiding it. They did, because throughout the song she isn't using it, but at that point they do it as kind of a gimmick. Wasn't it T.I. who was the auto-tune king? You mean the winner of the Masked Singer? Yes. Oh, is that who won the Masked Singer? Oh, yeah. I saw a promo poster out here. Is it coming back? Oh, yeah. It's a new one? Oh, the new season. It was a huge hit for them. Oh, it's already signed for a third season as well. Really? Yeah. This one sounds weird. I'm going to go to Kayla. Hi, Kayla. Good morning.

Hi, good morning, Gadzooks. Gadzooks, what's up, Kayla? So, this is like a family thing that we're all pretty ashamed of. Okay. That we really love Korean soap operas. I did not even know that Korean soap operas existed here in the U.S. that you could watch them. Yeah.

Yeah, so it started off on this channel that my in-laws had. They didn't have, like, full cable, so they got this channel where they could watch soap operas. And they shared their like for it with me, and I started watching them. And now they are all over Netflix, and I am addicted but still embarrassed. Are you, in fact, Korean? I am not at all. Okay, so I'm sort of hearing that. I have a similar thing because I've never liked...

boy bands or anything like that. And then, lo and behold, I see this dumb BTS video on SNL. And now...

I'm into K-pop, Korean pop music. But you came out and admitted it right away. I did. It took a lot. It took a lot of encouragement from friends. Yeah, yeah. But I went to this club where there was a bunch of guys, Preston, that listened to the same music. So Caleb... Hey guys, you listen too! Will you embarrassingly admit this from time to time or you just kind of keep it to yourself?

Okay. Yeah. Kayla. My wife hates the Hallmark Christmas movies, and I love them, so I feel your pain. Thank you.

Thank you, Kayla. I appreciate it. My kids are watching some overdubbed kids soap opera thing. My daughter does for a while. I think it might be out of Argentina. Okay. But it's almost like, not quite Saved by the Bell sitcom-y, but that age, that high school age. And it's all overdubbed and they have songs and stuff. And they're watching it. They love it. All right. Let me go to... Yeah, let's go to...

Crystal. Hi, Crystal. Good morning. Good morning. Hi. So we're talking about something you act like you dislike, but you secretly really like. Yes. So for years, I've been telling people I would never watch a Star Wars movie. They're corny. I would never like it. But I've seen bits and pieces, and I think if I watched it, I'd really like it. But I can't go back now because I've been saying it for years. You're too far in, and you feel that you would lose all cred were you to suddenly pull a full 180. Yeah.

But you know there are many friends who would accept your shift. And do you think you might give it a try at all? But you're absolutely resolute. You can't go there now. I've been talking so much crap on those movies for years. I can't go back. So you would pay the price for doing it? Yeah.

Maybe, Crystal, if you do this, with your friends that have told you forever that this is a great series, maybe you make a deal with them and say, all right, let's all get together and watch it. You just can't bust my balls if I like it, okay? Because otherwise they're going to be like, told ya! Or, Crystal, here's another thing. It's a little bit of deflection. Burn down a hospital. Then tell them you like Star Wars. So they're going to be like, what?!

Right? You're all great ideas. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Chris. It's kind of how I feel like my wife is about Marvel movies. She is so dug in on her opinion of it all because – Why do I think she would like it if she gave it a try? You know why, Steve? Because it's brilliant filmmaking over a long period of time and it's wonderful storytelling. Even the most reticent person –

It is. You can extract a lot of what makes it the superhero stuff, and there's just good drama and good ensemble stories. But my wife, I had to chip away at her, and now she's into it, and she wants to watch Endgame with me. So I consider that a score. Yeah. I'm going to go to Jeff. Hi, Jeff. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Good. What's up, bud?

I actually didn't really like this until you brought the subject up. I secretly like the Kardashians, but I don't even want to admit it.

It's kind of like, you know, I would never tell anybody, you know, I would stay away from drugs just on the off chance that you like them. I won't watch the Kardashians just on the off chance. Yeah, that you might like it. Because I hate them so much. And then you find yourself in an allegory giving a handy to some guys because he has a set that's playing the Kardashians. Exactly. Well, my girlfriend watches all the time and she'll up all sleep and I still have the TV on and she puts the Kardashians on. I wake up and say, shut those effing...

Bitches. Bitches.

Oh, she watches that too. She watches those too. I only like 10 minutes. I feel your pain. Thanks, Jeff. I appreciate it. Does Chuck like The Bachelor shows or does he just watch them to watch them with his daughter and his wife? I think he likes them now. That'd be another one where we can't again...

I've tried to see what people are seeing and I can't. I loathe them and will stumble across them from time to time and I get angry that I'm even watching it at all. But then I feel like, well, maybe it's something I can talk about on the show a little bit and maybe educate myself on it. And then I'm like, I probably have to quit because this is just terrible. I like Dancing with the Stars.

You did in the first few seasons. I did, but my reasoning was because the professional dancers are so damn hot. And you liked the costumes. You thought they were hot. Oh, my God, yes. Well, they're non-existent. Yeah. Yeah, so I could see that. That's a little embarrassing to admit. Did you really like Hee Haw years ago? No. No? What did you watch it for? The Hee Haw honeys. The Hee Haw honeys, yeah. Let me see here. There's another good one coming up here. I'm going to go to Chris K. Hi, Chris. You're on the air. Good morning.

Hey, good morning, guys. Hey, good. So what's up, man? What did you want to admit? You secretly, you act like you dislike, but you secretly like. Well, I did it for Game of Thrones for all eight seasons. I'm like, I'm not watching it. I'm not giving it a shot because I was kind of like, you know, I was always into fantasy and all that. So I like, I saw the first like episode or two and I'm like, eh, it's just not drawing me in. And then I heard that, you know, if you watch through season one, you know, it'll draw you in and you'll be sucked.

And then, well, season eight premiered. Finally started watching through Episodic all season one. And yeah, I watched all eight seasons within like two months. But the entire time, were you denying that you liked it?

Um, for, well, no, like I said, I denied that I even wanted to give it a shot for eight years. I'm like, no, I'm not doing it. So when you're actually watching it, did you finally have to admit to people that you were telling you you had no desire that you had turned around and now you were a fan? Yeah, I'm like, yep, I love Game of Thrones. I bought a shirt, you know, I did all of that. Yep, yep. I'm like a super fan. A lot of it has to do with eating crow, though. It has to do with you sucking it up and just saying, all right, you were right. All right, how about this? This looks...

Oh, where did it go? Oh, no. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. This sounds interesting. I will go to Scott. I'll go to Scott. Hey, Scott. Hey, sorry to bother you guys at work. It's all good, buddy. All right, so something that you act like you dislike but you really secretly like. Little House on the Prairie. Little House on the Prairie. Wow. Laurie Ingalls.

And your reason that you were embarrassed to admit that? I had long, rare growing up, hung with all the headbangers and the jocks and playing sports. And God forbid if they ever found out that we'd be out playing football on a Sunday and I'd have to come up with some excuse so I could get in on time to watch it by 7 o'clock. Nobody would know.

That you were watching Little House on the Prairie. Yeah, and the weird thing is, if I'm flipping through the channels today and I see a rerun of it, I'll actually stop and still watch it. Did you watch it all the way to the series finale when they blew up the town? Yes, I did. Okay. Yes, I did. Wow. You were hardcore. I actually got a little teary-eyed on that, too. That's a good admission. That could really be like...

deep dark secret you know that you're holding totally especially if your image is you're a headbanger yeah and you're rushing home to watch the house on the prairie absolutely we'll go to our buddy Craig Legans hey Craig good morning sir what up white folks hey man

I know a lot of white people, so I began to hate the electric slide. Okay. Because I've been to at least 384 weddings in the last four years. But I thought I secretly liked it because I hated it when it was done. But when I saw it being done wrong, I was like, no, stop it. Do it like this. Okay.

But everyone always knew I hated it. But then our local sports team, I believe the Philadelphia Eagles, started doing it during their Super Bowl run. And then I really started liking it, liking it. And then I went to another wedding, my 385th. And the whole time I was like, no one's doing the electric stride? Really? No one? Yeah.

I'm kind of disappointed. So you're now into it. I think the thing with those kind of dances, especially at a wedding, too, if you're single, you get up and you're, you know, it's a good way to meet. I love the electric slide. Never. It's a way to get onto the dance floor because, you know, when you're just sort of freestyle dancing,

Kind of feel a little dorky. Agreed. Are my arms doing the right thing? Are my legs doing the right thing? And, you know, even if I have rhythm. It's regimented. Yeah. So the electric slide, I really do like. I can't stand the Macarena. I can't stand it. And that's not it. I don't even. You don't even secretly like it. Nope. It's not manly enough. Craig, your call on the Macarena? Yeah.

That's a whole different... Yeah, that's for another... That's another time. All right, thanks, man. What about the chicken dance? Yes. I love the chicken dance, but that's for kids. Thanks, man. We'll talk to you later. There are a lot of people that are texting in that they secretly like the Preston and Steve show, but their friends give them some guff. Well, that's the whole impetus for our black listeners. Yeah. That people would sheepishly call in and go, by the way, I'm black.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Wait a minute. So people are texting in that their friends don't like our show? Or that they pretend that they don't like the show. So it's this thing that people all secretly really like? Yeah, I can totally see that. If they're texting in in the first place, it's probably... But why would you be embarrassed of us?

Screw you. No, no, no. We should help them out by giving fake call letters now and then. Yeah. Kathy, because maybe it's a few... You're listening to NPR. Maybe it's a few upstanding citizens in society. Right, right. Or people with taste. Yeah. And they don't... People with stature. People with stature and taste. They don't want to... Who can discern quality who are making that call. I understand. We should have a secret...

like a word or something like that for the people who are embarrassed to admit they listen to the show that they can tell to other people. Keflavin? Keflavin. I'd like to know, I would like to know why though. I think it's because they're like upstanding citizens. They have like, I don't know, a certain...

I have a reason, and it's because radio is quote-unquote not cool. It's not the newest, hippest podcast or something. It's been around for a while. It's established, and anything that's around... It's like saying that Jim Gardner is cool. Of course he is, but people aren't allowed to admit that he's cool because he's been around for so long. You know what I get sometimes are people who are like...

or maybe embarrassed to admit to me that they listen. Like, well, I really don't listen to your show, but then we'll rattle off 19 things I said that day. You know what I mean? I'm like, why did you just say that? Well, I don't know. It's, but it's, it's, it's a weird, it's a weird dynamic, but I think we could have the equivalent of like AA Preston where people come in and, you know, donuts and they can all be chain smoking and, uh, they can write letters. Hi, I'm Bill. Oh,

I'm a listener. It's okay. You can admit it. You have to go to the people that you've other shows that you've listened to and apologize. You're in a safe space here. Let me go to our friend Brian. Brian Cunningham. Hey Brian, how you doing?

Good, derga derga. Derga derga. All right, so you used to work with our buddy, Senator Chris Coons. I do know that. Now, you wanted to admit something that you've been embarrassed to admit or that you act like you dislike?

I have hated on this particular musical artist for 10 years and have secretly enjoyed her music, and that is Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift. I heard him say it. Wow, you bite your tongue. She is wonderful. What's your favorite song? Probably 15. Really? You know, I didn't really care for her until 1989 album came out. I love her. Didn't she wear shorts? I was going.

Very catchy. But, yeah, I bought my wife tickets for the show two years ago, and I was having terrible FOMO that her and her father had. Oh, real? Let me ask you then, what's her favorite pet? See how much you know about it. Her two cats. There you go. He's in. He's in. I don't know that much. That's the extent of her. Taylor Swift and the cats. Yeah. Get that down.

All right, Brian, that's a good admission. Thank you, brother. We appreciate it. Actually, there's a couple. Bye. There are a few people that were saying Taylor Swift. Here's a guy Chris said we have to wrap things up. He's scared to admit that he likes Nickelback.

Melissa is a Dallas fan, secretly likes the Eagles. Whoa. We support that. Steve's been on hold for a long time. He secretly liked Cats, the musical. West secretly loves living in New Jersey, even though he tells everybody he hates it. That's funny.

Why do you feel compelled to tell people you hate it? That's perfect. And Scott was ashamed for people to know that he liked the big comfy couch TV show, the kids show. Oh, yes. I remember that. You remember that? That chick was annoying, though, a little bit. They used to shoot that down at Center City Film and Video. I used to see the set when I would go there to do voiceovers. Yeah, exactly. Well,

Well, interesting. Take stock in all this and see if maybe something that you're afraid to admit is something you can go ahead and open up about. You might feel better. It might be liberating. Or you might get your ass kicked. It might be possible. Especially our fans. We'll come back in a moment. Make sure you stay with us.

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But now, we can say we've joined the 21st century with one number for voice calls and texts. What is that number anyway, huh? 610-660-9333. Hey, welcome to the Preston and Steve podcast, which is brought to you by Acme Markets. Hungry and in a hurry? Acme's flash grocery delivery or pickup gets you fresh groceries in 30 minutes or less. Acme.

fresh foods, local flavors, and the official grocery partner of the Preston and Steve Show. Thanks for listening to our podcast, and thanks to Steven Singer for being the official jeweler of the Preston and Steve Show. Now, back with more of the Preston and Steve Show podcast. Next guest is no stranger to WMMR, as we've been proud supporters of Rush since day number one, or way, way, way back when. And, uh...

And you know what? If you write a... You've got to be qualified to write a book called The Big Beautiful Book of Bass. And I'd say that this might be, alone, just a pretty good qualification to write a book like that. And I'll let it speak for itself. Oh, that's just a little tidbit. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the one and only Mr. Geddy Lee. Yeah!

Good morning, Geddy. Good morning. How are you guys? We're wonderful, man. Thanks for coming on this morning. My pleasure. The Big Beautiful Book of Bass, you've been touring all over the country, and this has been how long in the making? When did you start this project, Geddy?

Well, I guess I got the idea for doing it about almost three years ago now, and then I wasn't really sure if we'd be able to pull it off in the way that I thought it needed to be pulled off, the quality involved. But I put a team together of...

some really fantastic people, Richard Sybil, who's an amazing photographer, my longtime friend and journalist, Daniel Richler, who helped me pound out the words, and my longtime tech, John Scully McIntosh. And after spending about eight months shooting instruments in my home, in the art studio that my wife very kindly donated to me,

She thought it was going to be for a month, but eight months later and 30,000 photographs later, we finally moved out. I love the genesis of this story and doing some research about the book and your idea to proceed with it. You say you're sort of prone to being a collector of things. You have eclectic sensibilities. Yes.

But you, this instrument, this tool that you've used to make your living for so many, for decades now, you didn't know a lot about. And then, I think it was, what, 2012, there's a deal for you to get, I think it's a 1953 Fender bass, an electric bass. And you're like, do I want this? Do I not want this? And was that sort of the flashpoint at which you started to say, I

I think I want to pursue collecting these and get a better knowledge of this thing that I've been holding in my hands for so many years. Well, yeah, that's exactly right. You know, I am a collector by nature. I have the collector mentality or the disease mentality.

as we refer to it. I know it well. And these things wreak havoc on my life, but at the same time, they become windows into the past for me. They become ways of...

of me learning about the world you know when i became a baseball fan uh... it was when i was traveling around america you know doing all these dates playing you know you know three hundred shows a year uh... and with my afternoon spree i would watch baseball games from w_g_ and or or you know the super stations at the time i table level you know before the net

So I became a manic baseball fan, and I started collecting baseball ephemera, and that really was an education in the history of America in the last 200 years. So when it came to, as you say, holding an electric baseball,

bass in my hand and I got the offer for this 1953 Fender Precision Bass which is also from the year of my birth. Now you know how old I am. And so I realized that I didn't know anything about the invention of this thing and what was the atmosphere like. Who were the people that were tinkering and trying to bring the modern age into the stand-up double bass players of the world. And so

I started researching it, and I started having so much fun, I decided, well, I'll start, put together a modest collection of basses that represent some of the great heroes of mine, you know, like an EB-3 that Jack Bruce played, or a Hoffner violin bass that Paul McCartney used to use, a 4001S Rickenbacker that Chris Squire used, et cetera, et cetera. Well, that modest wish list of about a dozen basses

quickly turned into over 250. Wow. And I was like, what the hell am I going to do with these now? I have to justify it in some way. I have to create some sort of, you know, reason...

So I also, during my investigations into the history and the past of this instrument, realized that there was no one compendium out there. There was no one book where you could find the answers to these questions about the various models and the various kinds of basses. So I thought, okay, there's a hole in the world of...

big, beautiful books, and there's room for the big, beautiful books. Absolutely. You know, and I love that you took the care for the proper photographs, because I've seen pictures of iconic instruments, and I'll use guitars in particular, like Lucille from B.B. King, or maybe Willie Nelson's guitar, or Big Red from Brian May. Of the bass guitars, you mentioned Paul's

Hoffner bass. Do you think that worldwide that's probably the most legendary, you know, single owner bass guitar that's existed that people just recognize? Well, yeah, he certainly, that violin bass is synonymous with Paul and synonymous with

The Beatles and the Beatles were the most impactful band really ever. So yeah, I would say that's one of the most identifiable basses out there. I loved your black and white Rickenbacker. I thought that was the coolest looking bass guitar. Now you've been through a few in your time and I know that your Fender Jazz is your number one, as you've said before.

But that was a pretty awesome bass. Do you have a connection to that and still have that, I assume? Oh, yeah. No, I still have that bass. And, you know, a lot of people still connect me very strongly with my Rickenbacker period. And, of course, the double necks, too. Right. Alex and I, there's an iconic photo of the two of us, you know, both, you know, strapped

behind these monster instruments. So yeah, I have all those and there's a part of the book that I called My Favorite Headaches where I go into great detail to show the instruments that really I made my living holding that were part of the Rush history and I sort of

treat those in the same way I treat the other vintage instruments. Every now and then you'll hear about a musician, particularly the guitarists, who let one get away from them in their tours, whatever it may be, or they sold at an earlier time.

Did you ever have a bass getaway from you that you wish you could get your hands back on, or have you managed to hang on to the ones that you really love? Well, I've hung on to most of them. I still wish I had my very first one, which was the $35 Canora Japanese-made bass that Alex and I painted. You know, we tried to imitate the bass...

bass and guitar that Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce had that were painted by these guys that were known as The Fool back in the psychedelic era. And so we did our own, you know, 14-year-old version of it, which was a little less than, you know, accomplished. But I still wish I had that one. And in a fit of generosity, I donated my number one double neck to the Canadian National Archives in Ottawa. So

So I thought I was doing a good deed for my country, but I kind of missed that one. But they loaned it back to me so I could shoot it for this book. Okay. Speaking about the nature of the collector and in a way what it does, I love the thrill of the chase. I love that in essence you become sort of an Indiana Jones. You're using – you become – your archaeology chops pop out and you start to go through these things and do the research.

And learning about just, you know, keying off your fascination with this and what you were relaying in a number of the interviews that I was reading, the whole genesis of the bass becoming the electric and precision bass, which I didn't realize existed.

to the actual frets on the bass, allowing the basses to be more accurate with their playing. And you sort of described prior to that that the double bass or the larger bass unit that we're familiar with prior to that was sort of the...

it kind of made those musicians have to lug that around, the Quasimodos of the music world because they had this huge thing. And it really was a pivotal point in music when these things came into being, correct? Oh, absolutely. I mean, one thing that was really fascinating to me was seeing the old ads that Fender used to put out. Like there's an ad where they have an old case for a double bass, which is this giant thing. And they just put a...

a precision-based sitting inside it, which looks tiny. And you realize, and you start doing your research and seeing pictures of these bass players that were schlepping these things around the country, and of course they didn't fit in any of the vehicles, so they were often just tied to the roof of the van or the bus or whatever mode of transportation they had at the time. So they were

really relegated to Second Citizens in terms of being a band. So I often put myself in that frame of mind and imagine that I'm a double bass player and I'm playing these clubs and all of a sudden I hear about this Precision Bass and you can plug it into an amp, which means you can actually control the volume and it sits on your shoulder and you play it like a guitar. It must have been such a strange moment for these guys. Yeah, yeah.

And not all of them took to it, of course. A lot of them just poo-pooed it, but some of them immediately took to it, and it changed really the course of popular music. And that's the benefit of my crazy indulgence, was that I learned sort of a secondary history of popular music through music.

the eyes of the bass manufacturers and the people that played these basses from the late 40s right up through the 70s. Getty, I saw there was a study a couple of years ago about what instruments are most important

in a live setting and it came down hands back that the bass is the most important instrument because it fills the room it's got so much presence and without it there's no real body that doesn't mean that music without it is not any good but if you really want to connect with an audience you've got to have a bass and you played for 40 years on the on the road with rush and i have to ask

When you would hit those really big, low-end notes, say those first few notes of Xanadu, when you go into that, you feel some kind of power. I mean, I know you did it for a long time, but you know, it's almost...

You know, you're shaking the room, you know? Yeah, you do. Yeah. By the way, that's a brilliant study. Thanks for sharing. You totally validate it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But, yeah, there's no question that the combination of a big, low, you know,

open E note resonating through, you know, a 20,000 seat venue combined with a power chord. That is one of the greatest feelings that a rock and roller can create. You know, it's just, it's a beautiful thing. And you do sort of bathe in that moment when you do it. That's cool.

But, you know, usually you're too busy thinking of the next note to spend too long with it. But, yeah, it's a luscious indulgence. Nice. I was reading about the Gibson Thunderbird. And correct me if I'm wrong, but initially you had said that this was not a bass where you had initially liked the sound of it.

And then later on upon expiration and finding out more about it and obviously proceeding along with the book, you now love this bass. And you started to bring, in essence, it started this thing that has you, you know, for the last tours of Rush, bringing along a whole, you know, a ton of basses so that you could get eclectic sounds. What is the holy grail bass?

that is not in the Geddy Lee collection that you are still looking for? Okay, that's a tough question to answer, but there are a few bases I'm still looking for, and mostly they are sort of esoteric desires. There's certain colors of pre-CBS Fender bases that I haven't been able to find. There's a particularly...

iconic bass from 1968. Fender made these two, they were sort of Precision Bass reissues. That's when they brought back the Telecaster Bass, which was sort of the first design of the Precision Bass. And because it was 68 and it was the Summer of Love and it was Psychedelia, one of them was completely

covered in literally pink paisley wallpaper, and the other was covered in blue floral wallpaper. For some reason, the pink paisleys are much easier to find than the blue florals, so I'm still looking for a blue floral 1968 Fender Telecaster bass.

Getty, in 2004, Canadians elected you or nominated you as the 96th greatest Canadian of all time. I'm wondering if you know who number 95 is. I have no idea. It's Lord Stanley. Lord Stanley. So you rank here. Stanley Cup. You rank right behind Lord Stanley who created the Stanley Cup. So I just want to congratulate you on that. Well, thank you very much.

That's quite an honor. You guys are full of interest. Hey, Ged, I wanted to ask, have you been getting the itch to write or play live in any way? Well, you know, I've always liked to play, and this book has been a wonderful distraction for me and a fantastic edifying journey in a sense. You know, every time you learn about something new or some different process, which writing...

writing a book is a whole new venture for me. It expands your mind, it expands the way you think, and so it's a good thing for you. But whenever I'm home, of course, I always have a base in my hand, and eventually I will probably try to seek some sort of gainful employment with that. Okay. I wanted to ask you, because this is your first swipe at writing a book of

of this nature and it involved a lot of interviews and you're usually the interviewee, not the interviewer. And you're, I believe your first interview for the book was Bill Wyman, which seems fairly formidable. Um, you, what, what did you bring into that? And what was your mindset approaching, uh, you know, obviously a legend like Bill Wyman, uh, any special techniques and was he immediately a good subject? Well, Bill, um,

If you read the interview in the book, you'll see the kind of character that Bill is. He is a fantastically funny and wry sense of humor, right? He's a very funny man. But he's also an incredibly fascinating and...

deeply talented person in many different ways. He's written nine books. He's an amateur archaeologist. He invented his own metal detector because, as he would tell you himself, I have very small hands. He was lovely to talk to, but he was a little bit daunting because he wants to talk about anything other than basses.

So it was my very first interview, so the first time that I was on the other side of the table, so to speak, and we were in a restaurant in Chelsea in London. And, you know, I had to keep trying to bring him back to the bass guitar when he wanted to talk about how he loved cricket. He had thrown a hat trick at the Oval. I'm the only musician ever to do that.

Well, you sort of feel like a border collie at that point. You know, he was great fun and it was really enjoyable, but I didn't know whether when I left there, whether I had the material that I needed. But of course I had that and, and way more.

As a baseball fan, I'm sure you've heard of the term the yips. And have you ever, is there a such thing as the yips as a musician? And I'm asking you specifically because of the type of music you guys played. It's so fast and progressive that intricate and intricate. Really? Have you ever experienced anything like that?

Well, only in terms of remembering lyrics. I mean, when you're playing a three-hour show, and some of those lyrics are rather complex. If you've ever read any of the lyric sheets that come with our record, it's

Yes. So there have been times where I walk up to the mic and I open my mouth and nothing comes out. I remember one time I was playing a concert in Leeds in England and it was closer to the heart and it's just guitar and my voice and I open my mouth and...

Nothing. And that's one of the most iconic beginnings. Yeah, and the crowd very kindly started reminding me of what the lyrics were, and so I got back into the game. They'll help you out when you need them like that. Speaking of baseball, two more book ideas, Geddeson said, and you are now an author, Big Beautiful Book of Baseball, or, being a wine aficionado, The Big Beautiful Book of Booze.

Yeah, or Burgundy. Burgundy is a classier way to approach it. Good ideas, but there are books on baseball by more respected writers than myself, and there are lots of books online, but the bass guitar, I felt, was the right thing for me to go out

and create a book for because I actually feel like I've held that instrument in my hand for over 45 years. Hey, I wanted to mention, I've watched Beyond the Lighted Stage probably a dozen times. Great documentary about the band. I just want to tell you,

Your mother is adorable. She is, she's the sweetest thing. She can tell, you can tell she raised a good boy and did it mainly on her own. And that's a wonderful thing. Now, didn't she and Dave Grohl's mom start to have a relationship together? Because I know she wrote a book about

rock moms no absolutely they're they're pals and uh you know my family and the girl family have gotten quite close over the years and largely due to jenny growl because she wrote that book about rock moms and she came up here to meet my mom and interview her and they just got on like a house on fire and and they're still they still communicate and and uh

They were just up here recently doing a talk. Ginny was doing a talk on her book with Dave, and so they were all over at the house. Yeah, it's a lovely thing that these two found each other. My mom's older, of course, than Ginny, but she's really a very sweet lady. And the way Dave treats my mom is just, I mean, he is really one of the good guys, I've got to tell you.

That's very cool. I have to assume at this point, and we know that Dave is a huge fan. You have so many fans, and the term fanboy is very applicable because, you know...

I'm sure you have encountered or you have a certain radar when it comes to people approaching you who might lapse into absolute adoration. You know, do you, does it get old? Are you always flattered by it? How, you know, because there's a certain level of fandom that I think surrounds you and your band in particular that sort of transcends a lot of other bands. How do you handle that?

Well, you know, that's an interesting question. When I started to plan the promotion of this book, of course, the idea of book signings came up, which is sort of a traditional thing that authors do. And there were so many ideas. There were so many complicated ways of handling it. People were trying to protect me in certain ways. And in the end, it all got very tiresome. I said, look,

let's just do a few of these things and see how they go. Right. And I started planning a few of them and,

and showing up not knowing what to expect. And, you know, I found lineups of Rush fans. And I have found, honestly, the whole experience so lovely. And meeting these folks, they're so appreciative of the two minutes they get with me just to speak their mind and to share some of their Rush history with me. And it's...

It's just been wonderful. Oh, that's great. There have been very few people that I've met in the course of all the signings I've done that have been, you know...

But, you know, for the large part of it, it's a very meaningful moment for them. And it turns into a very meaningful moment for me. So I've really enjoyed it. Also, Geddy, I want to remind people that Cinema Strangiato is coming out. There's one night screening that's happening at different movie theaters around the country. And this is a new documentary or is it mainly just cover films?

The R40, that final tour. Yeah, what it is is basically kind of a way of celebrating the R40 tour in a sense on the big screen. It's taken a lot of stuff that fans might have seen on that

video the concert footage, but it's added a few twists to it. There's some soundcheck footage, there's some pieces that people haven't seen and haven't been released, and there are interviews with various musicians blah, blah, blah-ing about us. So, you know, I think the intent of the record company in that regard was just to create something that you can't

have at home. Going into a venue with a ton of other like-minded Rush fans and, you know, celebrating the final tour at

as it were. I haven't had a chance to read the book and I can't wait to, but I do have a question. There doesn't happen to be a section with Paul Rudd called slapping the bed. No, but you have no idea how many times I've had to write that phrase. I'm sure. I love that he has kind of become a part of your family. Yeah.

In that way, because he's such a great guy. He is a super, super guy. Awesome. Getty, we're huge fans. Congratulations on the success of this book, and hope you enjoy your time here in Philadelphia. Thank you much, guys. I really appreciate talking to you. No problem. Getty Lee, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you.

Wow. That couldn't have been any better. Wow, wow, wow. What a nice guy. Oh my God. Let me ask you, when you talk to a hero like that and they're as nice as he is and as Canadian as he is, does it change your perception of having him up on a pedestal at all? I think we could be best friends. That's what I'm asking. Uh,

It humanizes them. It really does. For me, if I may jump in here, Preston, it raises them up even more. I agree. A nice, pleasant conversationalist

Whereas in the converse situation, someone that you hold up who is taciturn and cold, it destroys it. Here, it just embellishes. I didn't fanboy on him. I was thinking about it, and I have met him a couple of times, and he's been very, very pleasant, and I actually sat in on an interview with Pierre when Pierre had one of them. He was nice enough to invite me in on the interview. You ever see The Terminator? But I was thinking about what that was.

what I get from the band's music. And I just, you know, I would like to...

relay that to Getty, but he's heard it before and I'm just a guy to him and it'd be no big deal. But I was just thinking about all the enjoyment over the years that I've gotten out of their music. And Casey, the same thing could be said for Phish for you, Steve for Steely Dan or for Genesis or the bands that you really, really love, Nick Pearl Jam and all that. BTS. And BTS. I've just gotten enjoyment. I've gotten emotion. I've gotten

I've gotten musical intrigue from how precise and amazing and creative they are. I've gotten great advice. But more than anything, out of Rush's music, I've gotten great stories. Because the way Neil would write lyrically, I'm blown away. I can either sit there and I can either focus on Neil's incredible drumming or I can focus on Geddy's amazing musicianship overall or Alex's incredible and inventive creative ways on the guitar music.

or the message or the story or whatever it is, and I can focus on one of those at a time. And there are a lot of great stories that have been written in that music over the years. And the same can be said for your favorite band. My favorite band are the Beatles, and obviously I get all that from them as well. It's just great. Music is so awesome. You love it. When you want to fanboy out, because Time Standstill is in the pantheon of greatness,

of great, great songs that mean the world to me. Whenever you... To me, every time I hear that song, it's a re... A correction of how to approach life and to savor each moment. Yes. That is actually, on a technical level, it's probably one of the more simple songs that they do. But it speaks volumes to me. I know you feel the same way about it. It's just a great song that gets you at a gut level. But again...

He's heard it countless times. I enjoyed listening to that interview, guys. I thought it was a really good interview. Sorry, I kind of took over. This was for you. And Marissa was able to isolate, I think, she thinks, a pretty special part of the interview. Okay, here we go. That's a brilliant study. Thanks for sharing.

There he goes. I brought him something that he really appreciated. I got to punch myself on the arm. Way to go, buddy. Way to go, bud. Nice job. Man, that was really cool. All right, so we're going to go ahead and take a break. Be back in a second. Stay with us. Out of D batteries for your vintage boom box? Just tell Alexa to play WMMR at maximum volume. And you can annoy the neighbors just like the good old days.

Just when you thought you had WMMR's number, we've changed it on you. Yep, you can both text and call us at 610-660-9333. That's 610-660-9333.

Now, back with more of the Preston and Steve Show podcast. Our next guest is an accomplished writer and director. A couple little things you may have heard of before, like Loopers and Star Wars Episode VIII, The Last Jedi. Yeah.

And we... Oh, you want me to play his case? There you go. We need a fanfare when we bring somebody on board. But he is here to promote the film Knives Out, which is star-studded, looks really, really cool. Please welcome writer and director Ryan Johnson. Yay!

Thank you, thank you. Hey Ryan, how are you? I'm doing great, President. Thanks for having me. Absolutely, ma'am. We're excited about this. Tremendously. Yeah, we're fans of the murder mystery, the whodunits and all that, and you just don't see them that often. Yeah. This style, in the vein of Agatha Christie and in the vein of, you know...

12 Little Indians, Murder on the Orange Express, you know, the Hitchcock, that sort of stuff. And when they're done well, there's nothing like them. They just totally bring you in. Yeah, that's my, it's one of my favorite genres, man. Like I grew up reading Agatha Christie's books. I grew up reading like the movies based on them. And it's so much, like everybody loves a good murder mystery. Like a good whodunit, you know? Oh, absolutely. And what,

It also is one of the few that allows for great ensemble work. Yes. Yeah, yeah. You got like a rogues gallery of suspects. Yeah. The idea with this movie was let's do a star-studded cast. It's kind of like old school like that. Let's have it be so like everyone that pops up on screen, you're like, oh, it's that person. Yeah. Let me rattle off the names, okay, for those who may not be familiar. Christopher Plummer, Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Tony Collette,

Don Johnson, who's been doing some great stuff. The Watchmen. Frank Oz, even. Yeah, we got Frank in there. Awesome. Christopher Plummer. The great Christopher Plummer. The legend, yeah. Also, you get a chance to, with a cast like that and Jamie Lee Curtis, to, I think, I remember when I first saw the original Murder on the Orange Express, and that actually got me reading Agatha Christie.

You can high concept characters a little bit. You know what I'm saying? They're just on the verge of caricature. Yeah. And that's the thing with this. It's a fun movie and the cast, all of these stars, they just showed up ready to play. I love it. So they're having a blast, you know? I love Daniel Craig. And Chris Evans looks to be...

He's playing a jerk. He's playing a real jerk. And savoring. Everyone seems to say Michael Shannon is super intense, and yet he gets to... Oh, he's having fun. He's having fun? Daniel Craig, if you just know him from the Bond movies, you would think he's a really serious, intense guy. He is...

so much fun in real life. It's like a blast. And he's having a ball in this movie. So what's it like? I would imagine you have scenes where everybody's in it at the same time. Those were my favorite ones. What's that got to be like where in between takes where these people are just kind of, you know, it's got to be fun. It was a party, man. And also, I mean, we shot in a house in Massachusetts. It's like in a murder mystery mansion, but we're in like a real house.

And so everyone liked each other. And in between takes, people wouldn't go back to their trailers and get on their cell phones. They would all go down in the basement of this house, like around the pool table and hang out. That's exactly what you want. It was like summer camp for movie stars. It was great. It was really fun. And I think you can see on screen how much fun everyone's having. The conceit is a celebrated writer, 85 years old, I guess. He's having a birthday. The family's a little disenfranchised. He wants to bring them together, reunite them.

And in classic fashion, he ends up dead. Yep. And then you have your – but all the tropes that should be there are there. Yeah, yeah. And in a lot of ways, it's very traditional. But then it also throws some curveballs at you. And the big thing it does, a lot of times when you see the Christie adaptations, I mean I love them dearly, but they're period pieces. This is set today.

It's modern. I love that. And all the characters are modern types. And so it's very much updated for 2019. And you're inherently, you have a good sense of humor. You see it permeate all your work. And I think a lot of times people forget that the original Agatha Christie stuff and the original Hitchcock always had a sense of humor. Oh, yeah. I remember there's a scene in Frenzy, the movie Frenzy, where...

they're sitting having a meal and the meal is supposed to be analogous to the, to the, and it's just funny. And all that stuff works and that, that makes it even more, you know, to see what I'm saying. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Well, and Poirot, you know, Chris Tate's Detective Poirot, when Peter Ustinov, he's my favorite Poirot. I,

I think you're right. And he got the clownishness of him. I think Albert Frenney was a little hard to understand. Yeah, I love him. He's going all out, man. I think Branagh's Poirot is terrific. David Suchet is terrific. Ustinov is my favorite. And there's something funny about it. They're having fun with these characters. Well, Steve had mentioned a movie the other day that

I loved it. I run into very few people who remember it, but it was Murder by Death. Oh, God, yeah, of course. It was such a hilarious movie. Now it's a little more slapstick. Yeah, yeah. Neil Simon wrote it. It's more like Clue. It's more like a parody. Right, and he was a fan. He was a fan of that. So one of your works, which I love, is Brutus.

which has been, everyone always says a Dashiell Hammett sort of vibe to it with the sharp dialogue and everything. I mean, this is great stuff that doesn't get exercised a lot. Yeah, it's fun to go back. I mean, I don't know. These are genres that I grew up just loving.

And so the idea is to get the essential pleasure of what everyone loves about them. But then, you know, hopefully throw some stuff at you that you haven't seen in them before too. So it feels a little, you know, it feels like you are also on a ride and you're not quite sure what's going to happen next. And the story written by you? Yeah. And so this is completely original? Yeah, this is an original Houdini, yeah. Okay, so...

Do you start at the end and work your way back? I actually, I start way zoomed back. I start just thinking about the shape of the whole thing. Okay. But I need to have that. I need to have the whole thing. I couldn't start writing at the beginning and find my way through. Right. I need to have the whole shape in my head before I sit down. I think you would have to. Yeah. And there's a certain, the people who have done it the best, I think, approach it that way. Yeah. Because, yeah.

you know, it allows you to keep tagging things on, you know? Yeah. And MacGuffins and all that. Well, when you get to the end of a good murder mystery, you know, and you have the scene, one of my favorite types of scenes in all of fiction where the detective lays the whole thing out in the library, which we have, we have a really good one. And with that, you have to have laid the groundwork because it's only satisfying if you feel like, oh yeah, that thing. Oh yeah. If you recognize each of them and it's paying something

Did you have someone fact check and make sure that what you did was legitimate? You know who was the best at that on set? Chris Evans. Okay. He would bust my balls. He would come up in between every take and like, I just noticed this. And then every time my heart would clench up because I was like, oh no, he caught me. And then I realized, oh no, it's because of this. And I would explain to him. Yeah, I got away with it. That's a sign of a good...

because wait a minute. No, no, no, no, no. You know what I mean? I love it. And the critical response has been sensational. It's got to make you feel good when you invest time in something you love. Not that it's everything.

But it's something. You know, I'll tell you, the bigger thing is this is like a movie to be seen with an audience. And the audience has been playing really well. It's been, you know, it gets big laughs and then people are enjoying it. That to me is what's fun. So I'm psyched to show it tonight. Allow me to quote the Hollywood Reporter which says, an ingeniously plotted, tremendously entertaining, and deviously irreverent crowd pleaser. Well, that's it. That's what you want.

relatively speaking, you're a younger filmmaker. God bless you, sir. With a body of work, but...

And, you know, we've we saw obviously we're going to talk about this stuff and the Star Wars, you know, universe that you're now in. And now you have you've you have your own trilogy that you're responsible for that has been in this. If I'm not correct, tell me so I can start weeping. But I think you have this potential, this this new universe that you can create from the ground up that's in the same environment, but removed.

Yeah, that's what's really exciting moving forward because they've said with episode nine that JJ is doing right now, which I'm so excited for. I cannot wait. It looks phenomenal. Oh, God, that trailer just knocked me out. So, I mean, that's going to be, they've said over and over, this is going to be the end of kind of this era of the movies. And I think it's time. Honestly, I love, and I love, even the second trilogy, the Lucas trilogy, certainly there are issues. Right.

Perhaps you've heard some of the buzz about what fans think. I commend you for taking on something like that because you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. I love the fans so much. That's the thing. I grew up as a Star Wars fan. And so all of the passion for it. I was in my 20s when the prequels came out. So both sides of the passion for Star Wars I've been plugged into always. And that's what's great about it. I commend you for agreeing to do it. Absolutely.

because you're such a fan, you're like, did you ever, was there ever a thought of like, no, I can't do this? No, I don't, I mean, it's just something that's so deep. I know everyone is a Star Wars fan who like, when those first movies came out, if you're like my age, you saw them when you were like five and six. It's so deep in your bones. It's something you love so dearly. And also the people who make these movies, the producers and everything and the talent,

they're just the best people on the planet and everyone is just working from such a pure place of love for what this thing is you know and so no man I couldn't you know you had to you had to let that purity guide at least you could have control over it it's the only thing you can do yeah exactly it's just follow kind of what you want to do

So I want to ask you about ownership of movies because people take the Star Wars universe very seriously. And I'm a Star Wars nerd through and through. But people also confuse opinions and facts all the time. And it bothers me because if you have an opinion on a movie, that's not necessarily a fact about that movie.

But people state them as if they are. And I loved Last Jedi. There were so many layers to it that I think people misunderstood or they walked out of the theater with an opinion. And it's fine for them to have their opinion too. But what's your take on blowback or criticism or whatever? Does it bother you? Does it stick with you? Or how do you interpret it? Well, like I said, I got to come at it from, again, the perspective of being a Star Wars fan my whole life.

and realizing that the passion for it, there are two sides to that. The passion's going to land one way for some, and if you don't like something, that passion's going to apply back the other way, and there's no use...

You can't have one without the other, I guess. People feel strongly about this stuff because they care about it so deeply. And people are going to respond to different things. Every fan is looking for something slightly different from a Star Wars movie. There's nothing that's going to stay in there. That's the general... I was in the theater on opening night for the original Star Wars because I'm an old bastard. And I'd read the paperback

book that before the movie came out that had scenes that were not even shot for the movie it's from Lucas' screenplay and the movie was always intended to be a fun homage to the movie serials and that's it and it was supposed to be loving and fun but then as its own myth almost started to weigh it down and people lost sight of just go have a

good time. Well, but the thing is that I feel like there is always a gnome because it was that, but then, you know, with Empire, it dug a little bit deeper into the mythic stuff. And that's one of the, you know. That was a fish hook that got us all, you know. Empire really shook it up from A New Hope in every single way. I mean, not just the big I am your father twist, but tonally and also in terms of how deep it went in terms of digging into that kind of

mythological stuff, you know, the psychological stuff. And a classic second act. Oh my God. It doesn't end happy. And really turns everything up onto its head and then in a way that can be really satisfyingly resolved in the third one. You see where I'm going with this.

You did some things in this movie that we hadn't seen in any of the previous eight, or I'm sorry, seven movies, I should say. And one of them was using light speed as a weapon. Well, although the first, I mean, in A New Hope, the first time they talk about light speed, what's the context they're talking about?

They're talking about you've got to do your calculations right or you'll run into something and it'll be a big mess. But the blowback on that, and you know fans like that. I never quite understood that because the thing is that was the context that it was introduced in. It's not like it physically can't happen. So the only argument I've really heard is we don't want to think about the fact that it can happen because that complicates how we have to think about war in this world. You would have to make calculations and you had like shields and things. Exactly for that. But I mean it's your...

It's your toy. You'd run with it. No, no, no, no, no. So the eight-foot talking carpet, that's real? Relax! It has to make sense within the context of the world. But I feel like that I can stand behind.

No, it was a mother effer of a scene. Yeah, that scene. Yeah, the effects. It was great. If you're just tuning in, it's Ryan John. Writer and director Knives Out is in theaters. Speaking of fans, real quick, and I know you guys all have questions. Everybody's got their hands raised. I haven't gone back and watched The Last Jedi in a little while. I think fans...

had a bunch of fun with the fight scene where Kylo and Rey, you know what I'm talking about? They used the different pieces of music. Did you happen to see those? Yeah, that was really fun. Everyone started remixing it to different songs. Oh, or Nick Murphy, who I introduced you to. He did a whole... He did like a dozen of them. He did a whole album. Some funny ones and some other ones that totally, absolutely made sense. I love it. I think he might even use firework from Katy Perry. Yeah.

That's great. That's awesome. I totally see that. Yeah, that's a blast, man. You gotta love that fans are having fun with that. Well, that's what... I mean, they take it and they make it their own, whether it's that or fan fiction or fan art or, you know, people just take this stuff so personally. That's what's great about it, you know? In A New Hope, Luke meets Leia via a hologram, and in The Last Jedi, Luke says goodbye to Leia via a hologram. Was that your idea? Yeah. Yeah, man. You got... I mean...

the symmetry you know you're always looking for symmetry if you can hit that sweet spot with symmetry so that even if you don't you know the first time you watch a movie you aren't thinking of any of those terms when you step back and take a look at the whole thing laid out you're like oh this rhymes with this and this bookends this and

especially with something like the, like Star Wars, you're always searching for those, you know, those things to lay in there. Thank you for answering questions about it because I know you're here to talk about Knives Out and so, and I can't wait to see that movie as well. But while we have a director of one of the Star Wars movies in the studio. I love talking about Star Wars. We lavish love on Knives Out as well but I also have to ask because Looper is an amazing film and it also speaks to your ability to add, I remember watching that and go, wow, this is a really cool conceit. I'm thinking of like, as a,

Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick sort of vibe to it. It's cool. It's jumping around. And then it gets you emotionally too. And that's something that I think when you can do that in all this stuff where you can go down one path and phone it in and then it becomes something where it just, it gets you viscerally with the kid and what his future will be and how things have to be right. That to me was just such an amazing experience

and I don't want to give it away. If you've never seen it, you need to see Luber, but, uh, working with Bruce Willis and working with Joseph Gordon Levitt, who you worked with in, in a brick as well. Uh, you know, uh,

you start to build an ensemble of people you go to, you know, and, and, um, there are, there are people that are comfortable. Who, who, who do you consider your, your go-to, you know, people now? Well, I haven't worked with them for a few movies, but Joe Gordon-Levitt is one of my good friends. He's awesome. He's so good, man. He's such a good person, you know, he's such a lovely, wonderful guy. And, uh, I, I manage even, this is a Last Jedi, uh,

He wasn't... We got him in there as a voice, alien voice. Okay, I was wondering... Knives Out, we had to get him in there as a voice, too. Oh, that's great. Because he wasn't available. So you keep your ears peeled. He's in there. So you guys are friends? Yeah, we're buddies. Okay. Because he's in a scene of a movie. It's one of my favorite theatrical scenes ever. And it's a movie called 500 Days of Summer. Oh, yeah. And it's when the Hall & Oates song comes on. You know, to me, I just... And...

There's a Han Solo thing in it as well. But I would love to meet that guy. He is a good friend of yours? He's a sweetheart, man. He is so cool. We can tell him that I love him. Let's call him right now. Let's get him on speaker. Whenever I hear that song, I bounce around like he does when he's walking down the street. Like I want to do what he did in that movie. Yeah, no, he's a... Yeah, we made... The very first movie I made was called Brick. It was like a weird high school noir. I've heard that reference twice today. I haven't seen it. Oh.

Did you shoot that at the high school you went to? I did, yeah. I shot at San Clemente High School down in Orange County. That's wild. Yeah, yeah. It's got to be cool to come back with a film crew to the school that you... It was cool. We were really low budget. We were like micro budget with that movie. Still. So I think we were more annoying to them. I'm surprised that they didn't kick us out before we were done filming. Well, knives out.

honestly is I cannot wait to see it it looks phenomenal and so I assume have you done the full premiere route yet or is this one cog in the premiere well Philly is another

This is the main engine of the Premier The Toronto and I just came from the Chicago Film Festival and we're here tonight and I'm psyched to see it with every like I said man this is a

This is a crowd-pleasing movie. It's so much fun to be in the theater when a big crowd is watching this. Love it. Can I ask what the title refers to, or is it a plot point that we need to wait for? No, it's, I mean, sort of. There are knives in it, but it's, I mean, the Radiohead song is what I, it kind of stuck it in my head years ago. You know, Amnesiac, I think it's on? Knives Out. And so that phrase just always seemed like a cool turn of phrase to me. It seemed like a good

To me, it always indicates... And the knives are out for you. Your knives are out. Yeah, exactly. Somebody's got it. Which definitely applies to the family in this movie. Awesome. Can I jump in real quick? I just want to ask you, because I know that you do have your fingerprint on the Breaking Bad universe.

And you directed a couple of episodes of the final season. Yeah. I watched El Camino, and then I was like, oh, God, I got to go back and watch the final two seasons. So I did that, and then I watched El Camino again. So you directed Ozymandias. And I got to ask, is that the episode where Walt calls Skyler and has the phone conversation with her? Yeah. That is like some of the finest acting I've ever witnessed in my entire life because he is –

saying things to her... Without saying them. But he's also...

So what you're hearing through the phone is what he's saying, but emotionally he's not saying those words. So can you explain that better than what I just said? No, you put it just beautifully, man. Cranston, I mean, that's the explanation. It's one word. It's Cranston. That dude is just... Cranston. You didn't have anything to do with that? No, man. No, honestly, you show up and you do your work as a director, which is on set to be an audience for the actor.

and so you watch it if you feel something you say it to them if you feel try this try that the truth is though especially Breaking Bad the writing is so good those actors as a director it makes your job so easy you just show up on set and just roll with it and try and maximize it real quick how many takes for that particular scene I don't know I think it was freezing that night I don't think many I think it was maybe three or four

And then Anna Gunn, Skyler's side of the call. It's interesting because I remember...

with, uh, Yoda, you know, with Mark and Frank Oz, Mark Hamill and Frank Oz. Um, Frank telling me, you know, everyone talks about the expressiveness of the puppet and the performance of Yoda. And he said, 90% of it is Mark believing, you know, listening. Yeah. Yeah. I can believe that. Yeah. And yeah, it's, it's a weird analogy, but what, what Anna is doing on the other side, the amount of that call where we're on her face and hearing her realize what her husband is doing, um,

that's as much of the scene. Okay, and for that, was she in the next room? Was she actually on the phone with him while he was doing it? Or were you doing a playback? No, we had him there. So he was, obviously we shot them completely separately, but then we have both, and vice versa. She was on set, kind of on the phone with him there for his side of it, and then we were in the house shooting. It was a totally different day, but he was there for her side of it. So they were both there for each other.

Okay. That's wild. That's wild. And by the way, you should probably put some ointment on those fanboy burns you just got. Those could get infected. I'm scabbed over. It's all right. I got the scabs. All right. Thank you very much, Ryan Johnson. Thanks, guys. Thanks for coming by. Appreciate it. And with that, we are going to take a quick break. Coming back in just a moment, we've got some B-File stories up next. How's your content search?

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610-660-9333. Now, back with more of the Preston and Steve Show podcast. This is from Men's Health Magazine. They did this a little while back, but I don't think we ever explored this.

It is the 47 Sylvester Stallone movies ranked from worst to best. Worst to best 47 Stallone movies. That's a lot. Listen, we've said it. We're massive Stallone fans and he is...

I think he's on a tear with his capabilities lately, and he's just turning out great stuff. But even he, and what we love about him is that he's candid and admits his own failures, and his failures have been pretty staggering. Some of his best movies are probably not going to be on...

Well, according to me, you know, on the top five of this list. Okay. Because I do like the crappy movies. Well, listen, I'm looking at this list. There's a lot of movies here. 47. And some of these I've never heard of. Okay. All right. So let me roll through a few. If we're going to get to all these, we're going to have to move fairly quickly. All right, let's go. Get Carter.

Which came out in 2000. Right. I do remember that. That's a remake. It was him and Michael Caine. Yeah. Was he like a hitman or something like that? I don't remember. He was teaching Michael Caine English. Oh, really? Yeah. Number 46 is Stop or My Mom Will Shoot. We know that one. With Estelle Getty, right? Yeah, yeah. Hardcore.

Number 45, Rhinestone. Rhinestone. You listen to the show, you know Rhinestone. Yeah, Drinkin' Stein. And they call him Drinkin' Stein. Drinkin' Stein. It's transformation every time. That's why they call him Drinkin' Stein.

So that is number 45 on the list. Are you looking for drinking science? He is a cab driver. It's basically a pig head. You created a monster and they call him drinking science. Science.

He was doing that on purpose, obviously. Oh, dear God. The problem is all of this was done on purpose. Uh,

Number 44, Oscar. Yeah. I've never watched it. Dude, that was just on not that long ago. It was on maybe a month ago. He's wealthy, right? He's wealthy, but he's kind of like a gangster or something like that. Yeah. And I think is Marissa Tomei in that? I think so, yeah. We were looking at a video, yeah. Then we have Capone. Capone. You know who's in Capone? No. No.

God, so he's... From 1975. It's with Ben Gazzara. I believe Ben Gazzara plays Capone, and he's Capone's... Well, he was getting syphilis. We were climbing up the ladder below him. Okay. That's how he took over Capone. Okay. Frank Nitti, he played in this one. I played Frank Nitti.

And you know what the new mascot for the Flyers is called? What? Gritty. Oh, so Frank Nitty knows gritty. You see? Yeah, in the city. In the city. Uh-huh. Boy, the girls are so pretty. You're very witty. Thank you. God, this is really shit. Oh, yo. I can't say it. You can't say it. Capone was 43. 42, No Place to Hide came out in 1973. Don't know that movie.

No. Do you know it? No. I think no. That's not coming to mind. Uh,

Number 41 is The Expendables 3. I'm a sucker for The Expendables. I've never seen any of them. The first couple are the first number one and number two. It's all these action stars, Schwarzenegger and Dolph Lundgren and Jason Statham, and either you buy into it and enjoy it or you don't. He's in all of them, though, right? He's the writer and director. All right, so this is like the worst of the three. It's the worst of The Expendables. Okay.

Number 40 was lockup. Lockup is, yeah, that's where I age. I'm held illegally, and I'm a good prisoner, but I have to survive because I'm in lockup. Is the jail underwater? No. Underwater? What, with Schwarzenegger?

Is that the one I'm thinking of? Maybe I'm thinking of a different one. Maybe you're right and I'm wrong. Maybe you think about it right and I'm thinking about it wrong. Oh, no, I was right. I love it when he gets pissed off. Donald Sutherland. Yeah, okay. It came out in 1989. Was Donald Sutherland the warden? He was a bad warden. Evil warden. He was also an animal house.

Yeah, he was. Okay. Thank you. I just can't presume you know that. Okay. Were you thinking about daylight, Casey?

That's the escape from the tunnel. Yeah. Let me move on. We'll get to that one. That's the hiding tunnel. Number 39 is Avenging Angelo. Avenging Angelo. Angelo, I'm going to avenge you. That came out in 2002. I don't remember Avenging Angelo. No. Unofficial sequel to Lockup. How about this one, Steve? These are all of Stallone's movies, right? From worst to best. Number 38, The Party at Kitty and Studs. What was that?

The party of Gideon's thugs. That was his porn movie. He was listed as, now after it was released, after Rocky, they recut the credits and he was listed as the Italian stallion in the credits. Yep, yep, yep, correct. And there's, you see full long shot. Says there's no hardcore action which makes it less interesting than one might hope. He was desperate for rent money. Yeah. But the

Party at Kitty and Studs came out in 1970. Oddly enough, I mean, that beat out movies like Expendables 3 and Capone and Oscar. No, this is inverted. But let's keep going. It's a walk down memory lane. But you know what? Fun fact. You want a fun fact? I do. Fun fact. I used the money from Kitty and Studs to help finance the writing of Rocky. Well, that's a good thing. And then at number 37, Rocky V came in. Okay. The worst of the Rockies by far. Yeah, no question about it.

It's poor. It's like a billion horrible movies. It's like you said, Steve. They made him virtually brain dead in the movie. Yeah, honestly. They made him so staggeringly stupid. They should have had him just Talia Shire feeding him soft food with a... I'm sorry. Your face looks horrible. What are you doing?

That's where we got this. Do I hear reindeer on my roof? That's him hitting her. You're ruining it. He hits Adrian in the face. You're ruining it. You're giving it away. Hey.

I had it all, wrote it out. Stupid dumb bitch.

Do I hear reindeer on my roof? Shut up! He backhanded her. Is that who he practiced is?

You ruined it. They actually practiced it. Jumped in too early. You're so stupid. All right, take two. I can't believe we just come up on the roof. He just landed there and crashed. Who do you think it is? Do I hear reindeer on my roof? God damn it.

Rocky 5 is at 37. Number 36 is Reach Me, which came out in 2014. I have no idea.

It came out in 2014? Yeah, Keira Sedgwick, Terry Crews, Danny Trejo, Kelsey Grammer, and Sly are all in this movie. You know, sometimes these movies do... We will receive these promotional movies here. Yeah, you read the video. And you'll look at it and you'll go...

I mean, you know, a big name actor, you'd be like, De Niro did a movie? Yeah. I've never heard of this before. You're caught a tag thread off. Yeah, yeah. So, Reach Me was number 36. Then you had Paradise Alley. That is right after the success of Rocky. He did this movie with Armando Sante and it was a, took place in like the 20s and it's a, it's a,

Like street wrestling. And it was sort of like of mice and men. He had a super big brother who wrestled. Do you remember this? No. And he was sort of the schemer. Okay. And he sings a theme song. You remember that? Nope. He goes, paradise. Oh, my God. We have it. Oh, you mean the actual thing? Yes. The theme song to the very film that I'm talking about. Sly wanted to be a singer, too, which is partially why he did...

as well because he actually, near the end, he actually starts singing. But he was wrong. It was 1978 that that came out, Paradise Alley. Number 34 is Driven.

the Formula One racing. Oh, yeah. I never really saw it. I saw scenes from it, but it looked really cheesy. It was 2001 that that came out. I don't know if I ever saw it. Number 33 is Rambo First Blood Part 2. No! No! That's top five for me. Thank you. It's a junk food movie. I enjoy it.

Yeah, but it's, you know. You know what? It's way over the top. It's completely over the top, but it built a... Over the top has to be over the top, too, by the way. But that's what I'm saying. Over the top is definitely this. Exactly. I'll tell you what, though. The movie Rambo itself...

One of my favorites. Yeah, First Blood. Dude! Rambo and Rambo. And there's Rambo First Blood. I liked First Blood, the very first Rambo movie of all those, the best. No question. But then the Rambo, just no First Blood, which is the most reason, it's really incredible. So that was 33, KCS. But they have Rambo 3 above this? The one where he goes to the Middle East? Yeah.

I don't know. Let's find out. It was the Mujahideen? That's it! It's over! It's over! Number 32 is The Specialist. Yeah. This came out in 1994. It's about a neurosurgeon. No. You're going to have to remove your head. If you can't, you will kill the patient. Who's the doctor here? Are you wearing a stethoscope? What? A what? A what? A stethoscope? A what?

What is that again? It's the thing you stick in your ears. It's got a mirror on the end. No, that's... What is that? You put that on the chest. Oh, I've been shaving in it. You're not a very good neurosurgeon.

Shut up. Stallone and Sharon Stone were in that together. It was 1994. All right, there's another one I don't remember. Ratchet and Clank. I do remember that. Now, there was a video game series named Ratchet and Clank. Yeah, okay. This came out two years ago. Yeah. Is it animated? It's animated. It says the kid-friendly adaptation of a beloved video game is charming and diverting enough, but also instantly forgettable.

Number 30 is Judge Dredd. Judge, no, the version of Judge Dredd that's, I can't believe I'm in the brain fart. This is Carl Urban. It's so good. It's exactly what you wanted it to be. It's,

His version of Judge Dredd is a junk food movie. I still kind of enjoy it. But Dredd is the one you want to see. By the way, we may not finish this list today. God damn it. There's still 30 movies left on there. I made time. You made a lot of movies. Yeah.

Judge Drake came out in 1995. What, Casey? No, I made time. Oh, you made time. All right. Number 29 is Escape Plan. That's the one I was thinking of. That's it. And that's, it's not, it's junk food, but it's not bad. We're getting closer to the top here. We're getting closer to the top of the top. Grim to the grim. They made several escape plans. In fact, another one's coming out this year. Escape Plan 3, The Extractors. Yeah. All right. Let me move on. So that came out in 2013. Yeah.

Number 28 is Grudge Match. Oh, the boxing movie where he and... Him and De Niro. It's actually not bad. I never saw it. Was it not bad? It's not great. There are moments of the fact you have De Niro who's raging bull against Rocky, you know,

I mean, I probably was, it's probably worse than I thought it was when I watched it, but I kind of enjoyed it. How silly is that that I never even put that together? Rocky against Raging Bull. Yeah. I never even considered that because I never considered watching the movie.

But Grudge Match was in 2013. It's number 28. Number 27 is Assassins. Assassins. Is that with Sharon Stone? Antonio Benares was in it. I don't know if Sharon Stone was. No, she was in The Specialist. Yeah, she was in the other one. 1995. Stopper, my specialist, was shoot. Oh, so this came out in 1995. Right.

It's number 27. Then at number 26 is Bullet to the Head. Yeah, I remember this. This is like a John Woo type movie. Okay. He was hitman Jimmy Bobo. Jimmy Bobo. And this is my sister Dumbo. Okay.

And it says that he maintains the same cool demeanor as he ever did and delivers a surprising amount of emotion. Unfortunately, the plot is a disaster. But the director, Walter Hill, does pull off an impressive set piece, as it says. Yes, very impressive set piece.

Okay, how about this? Number 25 in 2002 was ICU. ICU. As in E-Y-E. Yeah, it's spelled I-C-U. Yeah. It's this failed thriller. It's about an FBI agent suffering from PTSD who has to put aside his trauma to have a serial killer nevertheless deliver some satisfying jolts. He is very satisfied. This is from Men's Health Magazine, if you're just tuning in. All 47...

Sylvester Stallone movies ranked from worst to best according to Men's Health. Yeah. Number 24, The Expendables, the original one. I enjoy it. In 2010. For anybody who went through the process of being into all those action movies and when you're talking about in the years of the Chuck Norris films and all of these things, you have all the guys who are involved in that stuff together and it's fun.

Then after that is number 23, Daylight. Daylight is the one in the tunnel. In the Holland Tunnel. The Holland Tunnel. That is correct. They need to get out. But it's not in Holland.

Fun fact. Yeah. Fun fact? It's in New York City. In New York City. It starts leaking. Yeah, they were in the Holland Tunnel. And we get wet. They were trapped. It was caved in by a massive explosion. And yeah, that's the story behind that one. It works out okay. Now, let me ask you, Sly, if you think The Expendables 2 was better than the original Expendables because that came in ahead of it. I sort of do. At number 22. Okay. I sort of do. You sort of do. Yeah. I sort of do. I sort of do.

Which is a hoity-toity cookie. That came out in 2012. 21 is Cliffhanger.

cliffhangers of junk food you know it's it's the classic he's up where are they in the in the andes and he's in a wife beater the dolomites in italy right yeah i love it right dolomite like the blaxploitation star i don't remember john lithgow is the evil guy and and uh who's from twin peaks the uh the real the the uh not twin peaks from uh northern exposure yeah janine turner it's got turner rookers in it i think it was shot in the dolomites but uh it was it took

place in the Robins. In the end, in the termites. Again, like all of these, not as good as Rambo 2, man. Okay. First Blood Part 2. It was the back's off as it could. When's the last time you watched Rambo 2? Has it been within the past few years? I'm just wondering if it stands up to your...

You know what, Press? Maybe I should go back and watch it. Maybe some of it's nostalgia. It's probably nostalgia. I smoked a cigarette for the first time in that theater. Well, it makes a big difference. In the theater? In the theater. While the movie was going on? Yeah. Oh, wow. Me and Patrick. It was a different time. It was. All right, so Cliffhanger, that's 2120, is Fist. Fist. That's where I'm basically playing...

Jimmy Hoffa. Okay. I'm basically playing Jimmy Hoffa. That came out in 1978. And that was... It's not bad. Okay. And then number 19 is Cobra. Cobra is a...

horrible movie it's rare that I can say because I will watch the biggest crap it doesn't matter I love crappy movies Cobra is so bad you're the disease and I'm the cure yeah

And there's the guy who has a super wide neck and he bangs hammers together. The sunglasses, the matchstick in the mouth. And of course, his tower of power, you know, who played Red Sonja. Bridget Nielsen. Bridget Nielsen.

Yeah, they ended up together for a little while. You only got married. You did get married. I did. Wow. You wouldn't mind marrying me much. You like this toothpick in my mouth? Yeah. It made me look tough, doesn't it? And you know what? You can clean your teeth with it. But he had the... No, it wasn't a toothpick. It was a match. It was a match. That's why I kept sitting up there. Okay.

But yeah, it was the sunglasses, the matchstick, and the car. Like Corey Hart. And of course, spoiler alert, the match is used for the climactic moment at the end of the movie. You're the Roto, I'm the Rooter.

I'm sorry, that movie was terrifying at points. It was terrifying that I was at it. The bad dude, the evil guy was freaking... Had a big face. Yeah. And he had a hammer. What else? And he had hammers. And he would clink them together and everybody would go, yeah. Nick, could you find out what else that guy was in? Because he's been in other movies. Yeah, he was in Pitch Perfect. No, he wasn't. I think those were axes, by the way, not hammers. Were they? Yeah. Yeah.

He looked like Hammer to me. Which guy was it? Was he Gonzalez? Was that the bad guy? Renny Santoni? No, not him. Hold on. Not him. We got to fish around. That's him. Big Necky Clicky. Oh.

Night Slasher, Brian Thompson? Yeah. Yeah, that's him. He was in a number of movies. He was in Joe Dirt. Yeah. Mortal Kombat Annihilation. Yeah. And Dragonheart. So maybe he wasn't in as many things as I thought he was in. But he still works today? Absolutely. Yeah. For pizza. He's still acting. Really? Yeah. But.

But did he have the knife with the spikes on the handle part? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And remember, they had made it. There was a cop that... This cult was entrenched deeply. Even some of the police were members of the cult. She was scary looking. Bang hammers together. The disease and the cure.

Number 18 is Shade. Shade. Don't remember Shade. Came out in 2003. It's about card sharks. You're the sun, I'm the shade. No, it's about card sharks. The TV game show? The old game show. He was the host. Family card sharks, not your own. And what do we have for him today? You want to use the black turtle wax.

Thank you for being part of the game. Now, may you tell me an interesting story. You come from Cincinnati, and it turns out your son is with vaudeville shacks, right? He spins dishes on a stick.

He spins dishes on a stick? It's a funny story. Back to the game. Let's go to the bonus round now. By the way, remember, if you lose, I kill you with a machine gun. I have a big guy with a thick neck come out and beat you to death with a hammer. I like to give my friends jobs. Alright, so...

You're the contestant. I'm the host. It starred Jamie Foxx, Melanie Griffith, Gabriel Byrne, and Thandie Newton. Thandie. Thandie. Thandie. Not Sandy, but Thandie. Thandie. Yeah. Thandie's up next on Card Sharks. Okay, so that's number 18. Then you had number 17 was Rambo. No, Rambo 3.

Yeah. No. Rambo 3 is the bombs on the end of the arrows, right? Listen to me. In Rambo 2, he blows a guy up with an arrow. That's it. So that's in 2. And then he also hides in a mud wall. A mud wall. The mud wall. The Asian chick that was the love interest, she was cute, man. What is a spendable? Is that the one where he grabs the mic and goes, I'm coming to get you. Yes, Murdoch. Murdoch. I'm coming to get you. And we're also doing a black and white.

I'm coming to get you. You're a jock. That's right. I didn't know. 61 degrees of the chance of rain. Don't forget. Song of the day at 3 o'clock. Smash or crash? Smash or crash? Oh, my God. I want what they want. And every other guy who came over here and spilt his guts and gave everything he had once again.

For our country to love us as much as we love it. Okay. That's from three? That's two. Oh, okay. That's two. Okay, so... I shoot a new one for Muse. Double shot Tuesday. Actually, you get shot twice. I shoot you twice. Yeah. And don't forget our super special contest that we give you when they send a guy over with a thick neck and a hammer to kill you. Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!

That's in the bonus round. All right, so anyhow, number 16 is Over the Top. Over the Top is... It's so bad. It's worse than 16. Great in its horribleness. I remember... I don't know how I ended up in the theater seeing that. I might...

Somebody bought you that ticket. Oh, but oh my God, how bad it was. The father-son plot, it says here, has a heartwarming charm to boot. No. By the way, here's a fun fact for you. Fun fact. The theme to that song was done by Sammy Hagar and playing bass on that song was a title track called Over the Top.

Eddie Van Halen. Is that right? Played bass guitar on that song. That's crazy. Yeah, he even does a little... Totally crazy. It's the arm wrestling movie if you're not familiar. Yes, exactly. And by the way, you know what makes this movie stink? What? The kid is annoying. Yeah, I agree. The kid is incredibly annoying. All right, so that's number 16. Now, this movie was on over the weekend and I watched a good portion of it. Victory.

I like that movie. Yes, Victory is a good movie. And he is good in it. He is good in it. And the whole thing with the water leaking out of the shower. Yeah, the tub. The tub and the whole thing. And the game. Michael Caine. Yes.

and Pele is in it. Absolutely. He was a soccer player. It's a good movie. Uh, I, I would sit down, you know what? I may have to go and watch it again. Cause I didn't get a chance to see the whole thing. Maybe I'll read the book. I don't know. Oh, but victory was number 15. Uh,

This I got to disagree with. Number 14, Tango and Cash. I hate that movie. Oh, really? I love it and hate it. I love it and hate it because, you know, we're both superstars. Kurt Russell is his number. We're vying for number one cop. Yep. You know, so we both have a lot of buzz. The only part I like about it is near the beginning is Stallone actually says the words,

Rambo is a pussy. Yeah. And it's pretty funny. You know what I like most about it? Cherry Hatcher's dance. She looks phenomenal in that. That's when she was just coming on the scene. You know she's my sister. That's right. And Kurt Russell wants to bang her. But I don't let him. Ah.

Tango and Cash was number 14, came out in 1989. How is... Okay, Steve, how about this? Number 13, Death Race 2000. Oh, so you know what? He plays Machine Gun Joe Perturbo, and he's hilarious in it. So this is a Roger Corman movie. It was remade, and it was remade terribly, but... It's a comedy? It's a comedy. It's a comedy. Probably the first...

video game movie ever made because the game Death Race 2000 did precede the movie and it was this it was an arcade game it was a flat table game where four people could stand around on either side and you had a steering wheel and you had to drive these cars and run into pedestrians and they would turn into little tombstones when you would hit them yeah the

And you'd get extra points for hitting kids. No. Well, in the movie, yeah. Senior citizens and strollers. And so David Carradine plays Frankenstein, who is the number one driver. Yep. And Machine Gun Turbo is buying for that position. But there's a scene where Stallone is sitting there, and they make him such an animal that he's eating mashed potatoes with his hands. Yeah. All right. That's number 13. These are the top strollers.

Stallone movies, all of them, 47 ranked from worst to best. Number 12, Steve and I love this movie, Rocky Balboa. I will put Rocky Balboa up just below the original Rocky. Yep, I agree. I'm with you. 2006 when that came out. Love it. It's a great film. It's got a real heart to it. It's a perfect coda to the whole deal. Now, number 11 puts it a tick above Rocky IV. Yes.

That was Casey saying yes. Wait, they have Rocky III above Rocky IV? And Rocky II. Wait a minute. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're still to come. Okay. I know you all here have never seen Card Sharks. I want to explain it to you. It's a game where if you lose it, this guy's got a huge neck and a hammer. And send him to your house to kill you.

I don't even know if he's saying the right stuff. Rocky IV. Your Russian is amazing, Steve. It's just astonishing as far as gibberish goes. So number 10 on this list was Nighthawks. With Rutger Hauer, right? I don't know. Yeah, so he's a terrorist.

And Billy Dee's in it as well. Okay. And I remember a shot that takes place on the Roosevelt Tram in New York, and they're holding people hostages. And it's not a bad movie. It's pretty good. Okay. What's the one where he dresses as a girl at the end? This is it. Okay. Yeah. Stallone does? Yeah. What happens is that the terrorist is going to come, and he's going to kill what he believes is my girlfriend. Oh.

Oh. Like you couldn't tell that it was a dude in a house dress. I mean, it's freaking rocky. My lats spread as enormous. All right, so Nighthawks came out. He must be a swimmer. Yeah, yeah. In 1981. My God, this is a huge bitch. Number nine is The Lords of Flatbush. The Lords of Flatbush. With Henry Winkler? Pre-Winkler.

Rocky, yeah. Henry Winkler was in that. 1974 is when that came out. It's a good movie. It's a weird movie because it's actually what got Henry Winkler the Fonzie role. Yeah, you're correct. The only thing I know about that movie is the joke of what's the difference between... What do pantyhose and Brooklyn have in common? Flatbush. No. It came out in nine... No, it came in at number nine. Number eight is Rambo, the movie you were talking about, Steve. Yeah. It came out in 2008. 2008.

I love this depiction of Rambo, who's just disconnected. It takes the very sort of cartoony, except for the first one, Preston, which is a little bit more rooted in reality. But on a pure...

almost laugh at the violence depicted so graphically. This description says it doubles down on the visceral brutality. The hyper violence isn't for everyone but it's executed with sophistication. Were they made of this movie if not for the success of Rocky Balboa?

I don't know. I don't know if they're being made concurrently or what the story was. It came out two or three years after. If you've not seen it, it might not be for everybody, but I think Stallone's acting is really, really solid in it. Is there another one coming out though, Steve? I believe there is. Yeah, actually there's one. It's Domestic.

All right, well, speaking of domestic, number seven on this list is First Blood. First Blood. Which is the very first, that's where we were introduced to the character Rambo. You do for blood. The word Rambo wasn't in the title. Some people think that it is, but it's not. It's just called First Blood 1982, and that's domestic. It takes place out in Colorado. I'm just walking through town. Yeah, yeah, that's it. And they taught me. They put, they take me in, and they shower me, and I don't like it. David Caruso tried to shave you. I don't like to be shaved. Yeah.

Rambo 5, Last Blood, comes out this year, September 20th. Last Blood. No more blood. We have you, period. All the blood. Riding the cotton pony. You riding the cotton pony. Number six is Rocky 2. Rocky 2 is a solid movie. Yep.

They had Rocky 3 ahead of Rocky 2. Well, that's stupid. It comes in at number 5, Rocky 3. But you had Mr. T and everything. And that's when Apollo became his trainer. Well, Rocky 2, she goes into the hospital. She's pregnant.

and gives birth to the kid and she gives the okay for Rocky to go fight and then Mick, let's go die. And Mick dies in that one, right? Yeah. In number three. Yeah. Oh, wait, you're still on Rocky II. Yeah, Rocky III. So I said, no, number five is Rocky III.

Oh my God, I can't do math. Number six is Rocky II. And that's where the baby comes in. And then Rocky III is where Mickey dies. I still love from Rocky II. They will play it at the Wells Fargo Center Flyers game and the whole scene where she says, there's one thing I want you to do. What's that? Win. And then you get Mickey. What are we waiting for? You win is the one where you win, right? Yeah.

But I like that music that comes right after that. Yeah. The... Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know the song. I do. Yeah. I hear it when I train in my montages. So Rocky III was number five. Number four is Demolition Man. Really? Yeah. It's a fun movie. It is a fun movie. I liked it. With Wesley Snipes and Sandra Bullock and...

What's his name? I forgot the guy's name. Rob Schneider? Yeah. Is he in it? Yeah, he's in it. Is Armand Arsante in this one or is he in Judge Dredd? He's in Judge Dredd. This is with the murder-death kills? Yes. I'm trying to think of the male partner cop as well. Benjamin Bratt. Yeah.

Benjamin Bratt was in it too. Yeah, it's a fun movie. It's fun. Better than Rocky 2 or 3? No. Better than First Blood? I don't think so. I think Rob Schneider's in... He was in Judge Dredd. He's also in this. But...

But Demolition Man was very, very successful. It made a lot of money. It was huge. Yeah. 1993. All right, number three, and we're getting into the top of the top here in the more dramatic roles. Number three is Copland. He's really good in Copland. He's great in it. He's a bit overweight.

He is the patsy that's put upon, but that he finally... It's almost like High Noon. He finally steps out and makes a stand. Yeah. You know what I don't like about Copland? I like him a lot, but I don't watch the movie anymore because I don't like all those slimy cops. I don't like Ray Liotta. I don't like...

Who's the older guy? Harvey Keitel. Harvey Keitel in it. I don't like those slimy characters that they're playing in it. Michael Rapaport is in it. He's slimy. Yeah. But anyhow. He's slimy. But yeah, you can barely hold on to him. You can't even take this in a pig. Yeah, that's right. But he's in it. De Niro's in it. And Stallone himself is great in it. Yeah.

Number two, and this is going to get a little controversial. Number two is Rocky on this list. What? I don't know how you can not make that number one. I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to have to sit down. Have a seat, please.

There's a scene, I watch the movie almost any time it's on television. I at least spend some time with it when it's on. And there's a scene where Steve and I love this part where Mickey tries to come and convince Rocky that he needs to be his trainer or be his manager. And Rocky starts letting all this stuff that he's been holding back fly out. And then Mickey walks down the street, he leaves, and then Rocky, after he said his piece, goes...

track him down and say, which is arm around him. There's a great, what I never noticed until last time I saw it, Steve is right when he's shaking his hand, he's out there. There's no dialogue. You just see it from a distance. Right. And he goes in and hugs him at that moment.

an elevated train goes by at the very top of the frame. And it's brilliant timing. It's fantastic. It's just sort of accidental probably. I'm guessing it's one of those accidental moments that they left in there. But it's such a beautiful moment. Hey, the train can come now.

All right. So that's number two. What do you think? Well, it's pretty obvious. There's only one movie that's not. Well, two actually. Two of them. Yeah. So there's two. There's two. There's two of them. Creed is what they ranked as number one. No. Creed's a great movie. Creed is a solid movie, but I don't think Creed is better than Rocky and I don't think Creed is better than Rocky Balboa. I agree. I think Creed is right there. I think it's a great movie. Yeah.

And I have not seen Creed 2 yet. I have it at home. I saw it. And I got to see it. I mean, a minute. Did you enjoy it? It's good. Okay. It's not as good as Creed 1. Okay. All right. But you can't have Creed without Rocky. Right. You know, the movie. You can't have hamburgers without French fries. Thank you. You can't have Rocky 4 without Rocky 1, 2, and 3. You can't have the disease without the cure. Right. Yeah. Well, you can. Well, yeah. You can't have the cure without the disease. I'm Robert Smith, and you're the cure. Fuck.

Could you see him in the story of the man? The telly's beauty is going to take off. If you only give it a chance. You give me crap for wearing an eyeliner and my hair. You say it looks weird. I'm telling you, this is the beginning of something big. Smeared lipstick. I don't know. Look at this. It's Friday is the day I'm in love. Oh. Friday. That's the day for love. Come on.

Take it again. I can't take it. Thursday, I'm in love. What the hell does that mean? Friday. That's when people to Disney fall in love. Sylvester Stallone is Robert Smith from The Cure. It's what you call a new wave. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Somebody please Photoshop a picture of that.

So they have Creed as number one. This is from Men's Health Magazine. I'm not buying that, but I don't hate... I think they did a pretty good job with this list. Not bad. Some of the earlier placements are weird. But no, when you got down to the thick of it, pretty good. And a nice memory because he's dismissed quite often and there's some great, great stuff. If you were to pit Schwarzenegger movies versus...

Stallone movies. Stallone has better movies, I think. Isn't it crazy? Because action movie-wise, I mean, if you were to take... All right, so what's the top action movie for Stallone? Is it Demolition Man? It's better than Rambo. It's Demolition Man. Yeah. I mean, I would rank so many Schwarzenegger action movies above Demolition Man. Listen, you have great Schwarzenegger stuff. There's no two ways about it. I love...

They're popcorn pop culture movies. I mean, Predator is one of my favorites. And Schwarzenegger has... Two Lies. Yes, exactly. And Schwarzenegger, I mean, he's got... He does have chops. You can see him... There's a movie where his daughter slowly...

succumbing to a zombie-like disease. It was an indie film and he actually can act. He's really pretty good. But on the whole, Stallone's probably a better actor than Schwarzenegger. I think so. Also, you gotta remember Stallone's writing them and directing them in a lot of cases and that's

It's funny because, Preston, I was talking to you about this. I follow Stallone on Instagram, and he and Schwarzenegger were adversaries. They really were for quite a while, and now they're buddies, and you see them out all the time. There's a video of it. The new Rocky Collection is out on Blu-ray. I would go get it. He's doing little commercials for Stallone. It's nice.

Nice walk down memory lane. So I thought that was a fun list to roll out. We're going to take a break. We'll come back in a second with a bizarre file tour. We'll be right back. Stay tuned. We'll be right back.

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Hey, welcome to the Preston and Steve podcast, which is brought to you by Acme Markets. Hungry and in a hurry? Acme's flash grocery delivery or pickup gets you fresh groceries in 30 minutes or less. Acme, fresh foods, local flavors, and the official grocery partner of the Preston and Steve show. Thanks for listening to our podcast, and thanks to Steven Singer for being the official jeweler of the Preston and Steve show.

Now, back with more of the Preston and Steve Show podcast. What's happening, Steve? Well, Nicolas Cage deciding to go method in his approach to portraying Joe Exotic, the Tiger King, for an eight-episode miniseries. Cage says he is currently only having sex with toothless straight guys. Oh, my God.

Gang member and rapper Tekashi69 addressing being placed under house arrest after his release from prison early due to a potential outbreak of the COVID-19. Tekashi69 says things were getting very dangerous in prison. Not from the virus, but from the toilet banana bread. Hey!

And we talked about this earlier, the wife of Baltimore Raven star Earl Thomas was arrested for holding him at gunpoint in an Airbnb after she discovered him with another woman. Nina Thomas says she's not the kind of woman who just rolls over and was going to fight for her favorite Airbnb. Okay.

Their next group in the studio is here to... Polite British applause. Oh, very polite, yes. Yes. Are here to promote a polite British movie from a polite British show. Now, actually, very, very incredibly popular program. We need some music to give us a little bit of... Does that fit? There you go. You think that fits properly? Great PBS. All right, thank you.

They are here to promote the Downton Abbey film, which opens on Friday. And we have a whole group of people here this morning. Please welcome Imelda Staunton, Jim Carter, Michael Engler, and Kevin Doyle. Yes. Yes.

To our program this morning. So great to have all of you here today. Thanks for being here. We appreciate it. Thanks for having us. So how long has the film been in the works? This was an idea before the series ended? I think it was talked about before the series ended, which was three years ago. But then the pressure grew thanks to you, the media, because every interview we ever did always ended up on.

Off the record, is there going to be a movie? And then the fans, everybody we met in the street. Will there be a film? Will there be a film? And three years later, there is. The main question I need to know, and since you want to get as many moviegoers as you can to go see this, I did not watch the series. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to watch the series. I shall, but...

Can I see the movie? Yes. Okay. You don't need to have seen the show. Okay. All right. That's what I need to know because these two are fanatics about Downton Abbey. Love you guys. When you started talking, I was like, oh, it's Carson. Carson is a butler.

You should not watch the television series. So I went in and out of the series. I love stuff like this. I go back to upstairs, downstairs and shows. Anything that has the classes together and this interesting dynamic that's existed and we're perpetually drawn to this scenario. And what I wanted to know is, so you leave the roles for a little bit. Now, Imelda, you were not part of the series. You're just joining the movie right now. But

But was it hard to pick right up or was it just like copping on a bike? It was easy. Yeah, easy? Yeah. Easy to get right back in? We played it for six years. I always wonder as an actor though, if you go off... The waist goes on now.

I was back being a butler. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As soon as I put the dress back on. So does the movie start off where the TV show ended? It picks up about 18 months after the finale of the series. This is the voice of Michael Engler, our director. He's American.

but we like it. One thing that Kathy and I sort of agreed on when we first started watching it was that, first of all, it's great escapism and it's just, it's a terrific show with all sorts of drama, but people that may not have been into it, we always would just say to them, you know, they're not afraid to kill off characters on Downton Abbey. And there was no shortage of, you know,

this guy may die and you never quite knew what was going to happen. And so it wasn't just people were protected because they were on this British highfalutin series. You know, they would just kill somebody off, you know, to add to the plot lines. And so I can't wait to see what the twists and turns in the movie are.

I wanted to ask Imelda because you are a new character to this storyline can you tell us about who you're playing and how she fits in I'd have to kill you everything about my character but what is great is that it's got a very powerful storyline which does affect

the family. And I have my scenes with Dame Penelope Wilton and Dame Maggie Smith, so it doesn't get better than that. Well, you yourself are a dame, correct? Oh, I wish. You just cast that off. I thought you were. No, I'm far too young. She is a commander of the British Empire. There you go. All right. Yes, I am. All right. So what was great, A, it was a shock

to be asked to do it, but then to have a really good, strong female storyline was really nice to play. So I wasn't just dressed up in a nice costume having a cup of tea. So it was very good to play those scenes. And the events are based on something that happened in real life, is that correct, Michael? That's right, the royal family. George V and Queen Mary did do a tour of Yorkshire. It was actually much earlier than the setting of this, but they would tour around because in those days there was no...

Social media, television, anything. And people might have seen photographs, you know, memorial kind of things done of them, but nobody would have ever seen them live. So the idea that this is an extremely exciting, prestigious visit is...

not over exaggerated in any way. Now, Michael, you've done a lot of ensemble work with different casts and then the West Wing and other shows like that you directed. There's a certain, anything like this where the ensemble is as top notch as this ensemble has to be really cool, but it also, it places a big...

onus on you to deliver to the hardcore fans and to also do something that's going to invite new people in. How did you approach the movie version as opposed to the TV version of the show? Well, we did want it to be something that would stand alone, that you could come in as a fan or as a new viewer, and the whole story would make sense from beginning...

you know, to end and bring in all the characters who the fans loved and were missing and wanted to see again. So we tried not to change the DNA and throw the baby out with the bathwater, but we wanted it to feel that we were also bringing some new life and new opportunities to it and giving it more cinematic scale. And you could spend more time, I would assume, than you would on a TV schedule, right? Absolutely. And there were so many characters that I loved. So a lot of the main characters are going to be in the movie? Yes.

Pretty much all the main characters from the series are in there, yeah. Which is quite a skill to, you know, have satisfied 20 actors over a two-hour movie. It's fine if you've got eight hours of, you know, in a season, but to do in two hours is a hell of a skill. You know what always occurs, though? There's always someone. I mean, it's the natural, it's the nature of the beast. You have something that becomes, look at the way Game of Thrones, with all the rabid fan base...

you're always going to upset people. So I assume the idea is to just put your head down and soldier on, correct? It is, and there are worse pressures to have than trying to satisfy people who love what you do. There are worse problems. I wanted to ask Imelda, did you meet Maggie Smith on Harry Potter, on the set of Harry Potter? Of course I did.

Okay, I didn't know if you'd met her before. Well, no, we'd actually worked together before Harry Potter. And I'd worked with Maggie a couple of times. I'd worked with Penelope on stage. So, you know, it wasn't intimidating because we all know each other and, you know, they're great heroines of mine anyway. But at the same time, you know, you have to go to work together. Yes. And you can't let that get in the way. I saw an interview with you, Amel, actually, doing research, and it was leading up.

the show you're on, they asked you if you would be part of a Downton Abbey movie and you said, no, I don't think that's going to happen. And here you are. Were you lying when they gave that answer? No, not at all. Because it was a huge surprise.

Oh, was it? Oh, yeah. Okay. And to me as well, I'll tell you. Yeah. I mean, Imelda and I have been married for 35 years. Yeah. Your research has shown that. So when she came into the kitchen and said, I've been offered a part in a film, I said, yeah, what is it? Downton Abbey. What the hell? That's my territory. And I thought, I really thought, no insult to you, my darling, is that you would be playing an undercook. So when I found out you were playing a major aristocrat, I was, you know.

Here you are laboring, and she's above you. But you guys didn't work too much together on the film. You didn't have scenes together? No, we didn't. I mean, we got a bit overexcited. We traveled to work three days together, a bit overexcited in the car. But that's private, love. But no, he was one end of the dining room, I was the other, or across a field. But no, we didn't have any scenes. The marriage survived.

It's so cool about a show like this because it's penetrated into so much of pop culture that you hear Downton Abbey mentioned in other movies, in other TV shows. All the time. On Sesame Street, it showed up. Yes, it did. It was great. We've made it. At what point did you realize the...

the weight at which this show carried with the viewing public. I think an invitation to the White House kind of sealed it. Wow. No kidding. Yeah, yeah. Michelle was a big, big fan.

We'd been to a reception at the British ambassador's residence in Washington, which was fancy enough for some of us. But then at 10 o'clock at night, there were a fleet of limousines that took us to the White House. This is the winter of 2012, I think. Wow. And we had a private tour of the White House after hours conducted by the Obama's housekeeper. They'd wisely gone to bed. We thought, this is surreal.

Very surreal and a huge honor. Let me ask each of you, were you to exist in this time, in this environment, do you think you would be the moneyed elite or would you be the serving staff? The three of us, the three actors here are solidly down. I wouldn't even get into the big house. I'd be a guard.

I wouldn't be allowed anywhere near the estate. We just found out this morning that the actual building, the estate, is going to be opening up for a night as essentially a bed and breakfast. Have you guys been made aware of this? It's $187 a night. That's it. Well, I don't think you get the whole cast. No, that's not it.

But you're still on the premise. Yeah. That's pretty cool. That's quite a savings. Yeah. Now, Michael, we can't let this interview go by without mentioning that you do have some acting credits yourself. Steve had said to me as I came in this morning, he goes, do you know who Michael Angler played? What's that? Oh, it was Jim. Yeah. Oh, my God. It was you. I have a few acting credits. Yes, you do. Yes.

Then I apologize. I was saying the wrong thing. It was Jim, and now it makes sense. One of our favorite pop culture mentions from time to time. We reference him all the time. Top secret, he was deja vu. Have we not met somewhere before?

You have no idea how that has permeated our references throughout the show. It's over 30 years ago, and I love it when people come up and say to me, are you deja vu? It's the one thing that makes me the most proud. The underwater fight scene deserves a lifetime achievement award.

And I got to kiss Val Kilmer on screen. It was only a farewell kiss on the cheek. But, you know, that's not everybody's thing. It was my first screen kiss. Are you jealous, Imelda? Tiny bit. Now, Jim Abrahams and the Zucker Brothers were the directors, and they're fantastic. And they were such good fun to work with. It was great. I love them.

Well, here you have something that's decidedly different, but still an ensemble piece. And so the reviews have been great. And a lot of the reviewers are saying exactly what you would want them to say is if you're a fan of the series, you're going to get exactly what you want, though it is a wonderful...

And for fans of movies, I would assume like Remains of the Day or any of the things like that, which I am a huge fan of, all that stuff, it's going to give you what you want. And great movies take you away for a while. And that's what they're saying about this. So that's got to be very rewarding.

Very much so. Especially now, for people to be taken away now and just to bathe in this warm glow of romance, nostalgia, drama, relationships. I think it gives them everything they want, as you said.

And it keeps sort of going back to this. It's funny because we've had our shows that have dealt with this, whether it be Dallas or Dynasty or Falcon Crest, so on and so forth. But nothing quite catches like – and I wonder if in England, if you guys – if it's the same sort of adoration for this because we focus in on it and you do as well. If it's the same – how does it read to you? It's more fervent. More fervent, you think, yes? Over here.

Because this, again, it's sort of like the little show that could. But, you know, you talk about it on a theatrical level. The show, when I was watching it, always looked very theatrical. So I assume, you know, is it that much more that you can do? Because it was looking pretty good as it was. Well, that's the thing. And we always knew that. And it had always been referred to as something that was so cinematic, even as a television show. So...

Like I said, we didn't want to change that. We just wanted to grow it in some ways. But sometimes just the simple fact of taking two people sitting in a room talking and seeing the room at full scale automatically changes your perception of it. You feel more like you're inside it. You see much more detail and depth. So aside from the big...

grand spectacle elements of the film that are more cinematic. I think just scaling it up in that way surprised us. Were you cautious a little bit so it doesn't, as far as from a cinematic point of view, so it doesn't...

too much against the television show? Yeah, I think we were always trying to balance it so it felt like itself, but it felt like a bigger version of itself. Okay. Without giving any spoilers away, we got to see it at the premiere in New York a couple of nights ago. We never get to see the TV series with anybody else. You sit and you watch it in your own sitting room at home. So to see it with an audience was astonishing. And this is not a spoiler, but there's a moment where

when we see the house revealed and the theme music kicks in and there's this spontaneous round of applause. That's fantastic. And that's the moment and that's only minutes into the film you think, ah, this is working here. This is brilliant. Great, great. It's at home on the big screen.

That's really cool. There's one theme that seemed to be kind of timeless on the TV show, and I'm curious if it shows up in the movies, but there's generational gaps. And it seems to me like it's really applicable to today, just as it was then, that the younger generation wants to go run off and play in London or do something, whereas the older generation is a little more conservative and staid. Would you say that's accurate, Michael? I would say that. And it's also about the kind of, you know, what makes sense in perpetuating this tradition, this house, right?

what makes it worth it because it's a huge amount of work and effort and money and labor and everything and at what point it needs to change and in which ways and that's sort of the handing off of the baton to Mary as the next generation sort of caretaker of it. I can't imagine how much it would cost to run a place like that at any era. It's apparently $186 a night. laughter

You get it wherever you can. It seems a lot to us in England. Melda, with your work in the Harry Potter series, have you been to conventions, Comic-Cons and so forth? Because they're rabid for anything along those lines. And especially the Harry Potter series.

No. No. You're not there as a fan yourself wandering around with helmets on and things? I could make a fortune. You could? It's funny because at King's Cross Station in London, they've got a... Platform 9 and 3 quarters. Platform 9 and 3 quarters. Because when I go there, I think...

what am I doing? I could get here at 8 in the morning, I could put on a pink cardigan, and I could make a fortune. Yes, you could. I never noticed, and was it you that told me that her, your costume got darker and darker as your character became more and more... I never even noticed that. In Order of the Phoenix. Well, that's a woman thing, do you see? Yeah. But listen, I...

love you in that movie even though your character is evil. He has a crush on you. I have a crush on you and I know you're there with your husband and I'm married as well. He's history. What's wonderful is playing a character that is so seemingly sweet and nice and just with a...

steel heart yeah and so naturally they went after remelda there's just typecasting but but i mean you're also in the uh the new maleficent movie uh when we were fans of are you i assume this and yes and tiny of tiny tiny pixie oh yes and and so we loved you in the first one as well but yeah that has to be weird and i assume on that level of special effect because you're

Yes. How is that because you're a trained actress? You have all these standard acting chops and you're there, I assume, doing a lot of special effects or green screens and things like that? Is that a little... Yes. Look, but that's what the gig is. It is, yeah. And also, different mediums and different types of work are fascinating. You have to think on your feet and you have to work in a different way and that's always...

Quite invigorating. So you're intrigued by the process alone is enough. Absolutely. It's cool because I would geek out were I to see it. I would not be able to keep it together. You have to remember, of course, you're still doing your little story. But yes, you're surrounded, whatever, with nine cameras and you've got a head thing on with lots of cameras on it. You just have to focus on one spot. But you still have to remember what you're talking about. Is it like acting in a black box? Not really.

I'm not... No? Because you have to... It's like, actually, it's interesting here being in radio. And in England, you know, I did a lot of radio. And you're doing a scene. And the person you're talking to is the microphone. Yeah. Actually. That's who you really have to... As you guys, you know, you've got to... You're talking to that one person at home listening to you. Correct. And that's what you have to have in your mind. No, that's the way to approach it. I want to ask you, because of the success of the series, where's the...

Where's the weirdest place you've been recognized by a fan of Downton Abbey? Me? I was doing a cycle ride in Cambodia, the temples of Angkor Wat, and dressed all in lycra, skin tight. I don't want you to dwell on that. Purple with perspiration and a busload of Chinese tourists decanted in front of me and one of them went, Mr. Carson! Hello.

This is beyond strange. I was in a vineyard in Bordeaux and a couple of Americans came up to me and said, Oh my God.

This is like Brad Pitt. I took that as a compliment. And Brad Pitt has a vineyard, so there you go. It works out. Oh, my goodness. Wow. Well, you guys have traveled the world, had some exotic locations, and people recognize you, and it's going to get even more so with the film opening up on Friday. So I'm on board. I definitely want to see it. So it's wonderful to meet you all. Continued success.

And I'm sure this isn't the last we've probably heard of Downton Abbey. No, no, thank you very much. Thank you so much for being here. Good luck with everything. Thank you, guys. Let's hear it for everyone, Michael and Kevin and Jim and Imelda, of course, from Downton Abbey. The movie opens on Friday. We'll take another break. We'll be back shortly. Stay with us. WMMR loves new toys with cool blinking lights and stuff. However... Our phone system was last state-of-the-art in 1983.

But now, we can say we've joined the 21st century with one number for voice calls and texts. What is that number anyway, huh? 610-660-9333. How's your content search?

Preston and Steve have 20 years of podcasts for you to catch up on. Doing the math, that's about 4,762 episodes. Give or take a vacation day here and there. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Or go to PrestonAndSteve.com for the episodes Hidden in the Vaults.