#59. Tiger King, Cinema in Crisis, and Family Blackjack
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
Tiger King gets the full treatment, and Sonny opens with the thesis he texted the guys: if The Great Gatsby is the definitive artistic statement on 1920s America, then Netflix's seven-part Joe Exotic saga is the definitive work on the new roaring twenties, a story in which every dream — the presidential run, the governor's race, the reality show — ends in disaster and fire. Asked to name the true villain, Sonny picks Carole Baskin without hesitation: not for probably murdering her husband and feeding him to the cats, but for the unforgivable sin of public life, hypocrisy, since she attacks the other cat farms for exploiting unpaid labor while running on unpaid labor herself. JVL agrees and goes further, calling Carole a walking argument for libertarianism, an insane busybody sitting on a dead husband's fortune who can afford to destroy Joe with a trademark suit, since everyone in the series is a grifter but only the rich ones can pervert the system to help them; his deep-think read is that the whole business is a pyramid scheme built on cubs that are profitable for maybe twelve weeks and then cost money for twenty-two years, and that the real subject is decadence — "the Tiger King is the people," which is why he thinks democracy can't work. Vic, who meant to watch one episode and finished all seven by that afternoon, holds out for Doc Antle as the best of the three, undeterred by JVL's Scientology-with-tigers analysis and his question of whether the odds Doc has slept with an animal are 99 or 100 percent. They also worry over the documentary's ethics — the reenactments, the withheld twists, the strip club owner talking on what he thought was off the record — and cast the movie version, with Michael Rooker as the one-armed Allen Glover, Will Ferrell as Doc, and Danny McBride as Joe. Box Office Mojo's weekend chart is now simply a hole, prompting JVL to put a one-in-four chance on every exhibitor from AMC down going belly up with nobody to buy them, against Sonny's flat guarantee you'll be able to see a movie in a theater by September. Before that: JVL's $900 Costco run including a $199 TV to separate his fighting children, and a family blackjack night with Father Harrison on an iPad, where he taught them to split eights against a dealer's five.
From the show notes
#cdata-section -------------- On this latest episode sponsored by Warby Parker and DoorDash, we break down the Netflix docuseries Tiger King
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00There's not every day that a zookeeperer went to prison for murder for hire. There are more captive tigers in the U.S. than there are in the wild throughout the world. Animal people are nuts, man. They're all crazy. I'm sure y'all got a story to tell.
Vic00:00:25Hello and welcome to another edition of The Sub-Beacon, sponsored by Warby Parker and DoorDash. I'm Victor Matus along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. Just a reminder, The Sub-Beacon is available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Look on our podcast and search for Sub-Beacon. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. Gentlemen, how are we? Hey, boys. JVL, what's going on?
JVL00:00:52Can we talk about Sonny first? Because I'm in transit. You're touched by the hood. The hood is back up.
Vic00:00:57Is it working? Sonny, I want to know, is the shtick working? I feel like it's becoming a thing. On Twitter, telling people what movies to watch every day. Yeah, from the Rebeller Bunker.
Sonny00:01:07And it's got to be the same outfit every day. Are we 100% sure that Vic's mic is working, by the way? Because I don't see any little colors when he talks.
JVL00:01:15Yeah, I'm on it.
Sonny00:01:17Okay.
JVL00:01:18So I am...
Sonny00:01:20Is that an American Giant hoodie? This is an American Giant hoodie. But the hoodie that I wear for my videos? Not in America. It's not an American Giant hoodie. It's a Hugo Boss hoodie. It's my dress hoodie. That's the fancy hoodie. That's the hoodie I wear when I need to impress gentlemen and ladies alike.
Vic00:01:34Hugo Boss. You know, he used to design uniforms.
Sonny00:01:37I know.
Vic00:01:37Very stylish gentleman.
Sonny00:01:40I mean, define working. I don't know. The videos get generally between 6,000 and 7,000 views. So that's not bad. But what does it get me? It keeps me from going. Totally insane by pretending to be an insane Alex Jones type in the in this. Yeah. So if you don't know what he's referring to, I've been doing a series of videos on Twitter live from the Rebeller bunker where I offer both streaming tips, you know, for the thinking man's movie movie watching person and also some life some life hacks, some life tips. So, you know, it's been fun. It's been. But I think I might just keep the hood up all the time from now. I think when I go back to the office, I might just buy 10 hoodies and wear like one every day for like you're like your own Zuckerberg, if you will.
Vic00:02:34Yeah, but like way of poor Kylo Ren or like sleeping with the hoodie with the hoodie around you.
Sonny00:02:42No. Well, I did once a couple of weeks ago when I had a fever, but it's fine. Yeah, it's fine now.
JVL00:02:48That's right. You know, Sonny, none of us are ever going back to any offices.
Sonny00:02:53This is it for the office. This is the office.
JVL00:02:55The office is the office is as dead. The office is as dead as just walking onto a concourse was. This is then the people I am. I remember the we don't want to go to deal into serious stuff, but I remember the long, long ago change. Things are going to change about the way we live in ways that they changed after 9-11 and that people then just totally like, OK, you remember what it was like getting on an airplane on, you know, like August 31st, 2001 Victorino. I do.
Vic00:03:25I went on an airplane for my college buddies. We always get together once a year and we I flew out from Dulles to San Francisco the week before 9-11. Yikes. Yeah. I mean, that's probably that's like the same on United Airlines. That's the same. That was a murder route there. That was a murder. And it turned around. In fact, so that was weird. And of course, I do remember how easy it was to go up and your family could go with you all the way to the gate. And then when you got out of a gate, your family was there. You know what I mean? Not that my family was there, but I'm saying in general, it was very easy to get through security.
Sonny00:04:01I really see. I don't remember this at all, really, because I was a you were a baby. Yeah, I was only I was 19. I was either 18 or 19 when 9-11 happened. So I was not doing a lot of like travel around or not a lot of flying, you know, before then.
JVL00:04:17Anyway, the office is dead. And if we work wasn't already dead, it would be dead now because the idea of just co-working, with strangers so that you don't have to like be in your living room. Gonzo.
Sonny00:04:28Yeah, I do think that you will see more working at home, but I do also think that people here's here's what this this has revealed to so many people is that nobody wants to be around their family all the time. Nobody.
Vic00:04:44That's exactly right. So it's the other way around.
JVL00:04:46There's going to be people need to get out of school is happening. Once school is running again, that all takes care of itself. No, don't you see? Yeah, I need to get out. I got to get out.
Vic00:05:00In fact, I do.
Sonny00:05:01You're a you're a see Vic. Vic is a very social person. I'm not a social person. I just want to be by myself. And like being at home is not the same as being by myself.
JVL00:05:10Oh, what are you? What are you drinking there, Santino? Forsythia. What is that?
Sonny00:05:15What you haven't you guys seen Contagion? Oh, right. See, this is so the in Contagion, the Jude, Law's Miracle Cure in Contagion. There's a character who was played by Jude Law, who is basically an Alex Jones like figure. I thought it was Julian Assange says who says, you know, you drink your Forsythia and that will cure you of the plague, the N.E.V., whatever. And so this is one of the this is one of my bits on the video is that I tell people to drink their Forsythia, you know, because it's it's a bit it's funny. It's very clever. It's very amusing to everyone. I killed here. Yeah, I know. See, this is this just is making me rethink all of my life choices, frankly, doing podcasts, doing, you know, everything.
JVL00:05:58I how are you? You know what? Yesterday I had the first truly great day that we've had in a very long time. I'm so happy to hear that. What kids paired off together and played together almost all day. I mean, it was just a great like yesterday. I was just like, you know what? We could make this work. We could make this work today. I went to Costco this morning when they I was there when they opened. There was no line when I walked in. Oh, that's good. And when I left, there were like 70 people in line waiting outside, waiting, you know, in the holding pens because you can't go in until somebody comes out. And, you know, I bought like $900 worth of stuff at Costco. I got toilet paper. I got M&M's. I got Oreos. I bought. They didn't have cheese powder. I bought a television. I just bought everything that I could fit into my car. What kind of TV did you get? I got a disposable TV for the basement. To try to encourage the children to go separate places, to watch different things on television so that they could not fight with each other as much. Fair. It's a genius. It was $199 for a 43-inch 4K TCL Roku TV. I'm sorry. That's basically giving it away. Yeah. So it was, it was good.
Vic00:07:18And you know what we did on Friday?
JVL00:07:20Victorino, you'll like this. What did you do? Lenten dinner with our buddy, Father Harrison. Streaming? Streaming. So we put him on the, on an iPad. You put him in front of like a chair at the table?
Sonny00:07:32You put the laptop on like a blow-up doll?
JVL00:07:36And then it's like- We just put the iPad on a stand right at the, at a spot on the table. We called his pizza place in British Columbia.
Sonny00:07:47Do you not?
JVL00:07:48Like, well, like good boys, right?
Sonny00:07:50Yeah. They have a CPL. They have a TPR doll. I mean, that's much- We have a TPR doll. That's much nicer. You have a- That's very realistic. You have, that's a much, much nicer sex aid than, than I have. That was something.
Vic00:08:00Yeah, no.
JVL00:08:01And it looks like Allen Iverson. So we, uh, so we put, we put Father Harrison's, uh, iPad there. We sent pizza to him from his pizza joint out in Canada. We got pizza from our pizza joint here. They have pizza in Canada? Yeah. Really? And then we, we sat there and we had our pizza together and then we ripped some hockey cards. I bought a tin of hockey. And we opened hockey cards with him. And now we're going to mail his hockey cards to him because he's a hockey card guy. And then, then after we put G money down for bed, we whipped out the cards and we played blackjack with Father Harrison and my children. And I told the kids any money they could take off the house, they could keep. Wow. And you don't- So what was the, what was the-
Vic00:08:45Father Harrison, he knows his- What was the, he knows his stuff. What's the minimum bet?
JVL00:08:49Minimum was nickels. Max was quarters. Minimum was nickels. You had to bet in single coin increments. You couldn't like do like a 15 cent. You couldn't do a dime and a nickel.
Vic00:08:58Can you double down on a nine or does it have to be a 10 or 11?
JVL00:09:01Who is the house? I wouldn't tell them to double down on a nine unless the deal was showing like a three or a four or something.
Vic00:09:07Who is the house? Did anyone split aces? Did anyone split aces?
JVL00:09:10Nobody split aces. There were a couple split tens against weak cards. I was the house. You don't split tens. That's a 20. God.
Vic00:09:17I've seen it done. It's insane.
JVL00:09:19But listen, if you, if you, if the dealer is sitting on like a- A five and you don't split tens, you're a sucker. You don't split tens. You don't split tens. Four, five, or six. Because you know what you could do after you split the tens? If you get an ace, you could double down.
Vic00:09:34Boom!
JVL00:09:36This is Trent. We call him Double Down. You know what? Actually, there was a moment where I advised Flash to split eights. No, not Flash. Favor. I advised her to split eights against a dealer's five and then double down because she got a two. And she won both hands plus the double down.
Sonny00:09:56Yeah, well, that makes sense. Of course you split eights because you can't sit on a 16. Father of the year.
JVL00:10:03You know, we had a... You don't have to call child services because I had a priest helping to teach my children to gamble.
Vic00:10:10It's all for fun. And it's math. You're learning math.
JVL00:10:14I was talking to Cody about probabilities. Probability.
Sonny00:10:16You know what I just...
JVL00:10:18I should probably go back and bleep that.
Sonny00:10:20You know what I just thought? I just realized we're going to have the worst group of like unfriended style computer screen movies in the next three years because this is how everyone lives now. We're all going to be... It's just going to be nothing but like people having terrible movies where all three people are talking on a screen and then a ghost shows up and it's just going to be miserable.
JVL00:10:46Wait, Sonny, you think they're going to still be making movies in three years?
Sonny00:10:49Yeah, of course they will. But they're going to be making bad ones like unfriended.
Vic00:10:52No, it'll be video on demand. Unfriended dark web is good. It'll work out for you, Sonny.
Sonny00:10:58How do you get people... Let me... Vic, let me ask you a question. Do I really care? No, but go ahead. How many people do you think work on a movie set? Because it's more than 10. I was going to say 12.
Vic00:11:12I was going to say 12.
Sonny00:11:14Never make...
JVL00:11:14No, I'm serious. Is craft services... Will there ever be craft services again on a set?
Sonny00:11:19So it was funny. We ran a piece this week from a guy. He makes props. He lives down in Georgia.
JVL00:11:25I'm sorry. On Rebellermedia.com?
Sonny00:11:27At Rebellermedia.com, where you can get 25, 20%, I don't know, some percentage off with the code Sub-Beacon. That's right. Sub-Beacon at Rebellermedia.com. One of my writers wrote... He's a prop maker who lives in Georgia, and I asked him to write a piece about how he is using his 3D printer to make shields for the doctors. And it was very interesting, whatever. But at the very top of his piece, he recounted his last three days of work. And it was like, we showed up to the set one day, and there were stools everywhere with little bottles of hand sanitizer, and we were all encouraged to use them constantly. And then the next day, we got there and craft services had shut down the family-style meals. Because usually what they have is they just have trays where you put the slop on your plate and you go eat it. But then he's like, and then they had gotten rid of that, and they just had to They had a single-serve, like, you know, pre-packaged meals. And then on the third day, they told us to just come home and never come back. Because, you know, we're not doing this anymore.
JVL00:12:34I have a very serious question for you, Sonny. Let's pretend you are a major studio. You are Universal, and you would like to make an action movie starring an aging action hero, like Bruce Willis or Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sly Stallone or something. Yeah. Are they insurable in the world that we live right now?
Sonny00:12:57I would say they are as insurable. On a movie set? Well, they're as insurable as anyone else. Because the whole point of insurance is that you get it in case production shuts down. And if anybody of any age gets COVID-19 or coronavirus or Wuhan flu or whatever the F we're calling it now. The yellow death? The yellow plague. Is that not right? The Chinese, the Chinaman's torture. If you get any of these diseases, or if you get this disease, you are sign-lined for 14 days minimum. Bare minimum. Right there. Right? So, anybody, any movie star who gets this instantly destroys the ability to have a movie running. Right? So, it's not a function. I mean, the thing with old people, right, is it's not like they get it more frequently. It's just that when they get it, they die. So, you know, anybody. Any movie star who gets this will shut down a set. That's just like. So, I actually. This is a very interesting question. I have no idea how this works insurance-wise. If there are. If studios are even going to be able to get bonded on this sort of thing. I don't know.
JVL00:14:10Yeah. We may move to a world where everything has to be CGI and animated. Incredible style and Pixar style. Or everybody is acting against a green screen. Opposite somebody filmed someplace else.
Sonny00:14:25Yeah. Great.
JVL00:14:27Yeah. That's basically what it comes down to. Victorino. How are you? You look great. You look like you were just killing Contagion.
Vic00:14:34Are you just running every other? I'm running every other day and planking. Wow. Doing the whole thing. And you mentioned playing Blackjack. And it's funny. I grabbed the dice from the Monopoly set we had that was out on the table. While the kids were like watching TV or something. And with Kate. I started rolling dice on the rug playing mental. I had the whole mental craps board laid out. And I just said, roll the dice. Okay. Oh, the point is six. Okay. Here we go. The point is six, eight, nine. And it was like, you're totally getting strung out. Okay. Two. Okay. Now 11. Everybody wins. And then seven. And just did that for a few rounds, you know, because it's all up here. It's all up here. Now they were watching something else, but it's all up here.
JVL00:15:17So you're playing craps by yourself.
Vic00:15:18Yeah. Yeah. With Kate. You are so starved for friendship and camaraderie. Yeah.
JVL00:15:22But you're inventing an imaginary craps table. I didn't even need it.
Vic00:15:25I'm like, you're the star. I'm like the prisoners in Alcatraz when they're in the hole and they start imagining the TV there in the hole because there's, you can actually see it in the darkness. I actually wanted to talk about when I said, please leave a review. I went to iTunes and checked out. We got a bunch, a bunch, so to speak of reviews. Are they good or bad? There was a couple bad. And I don't understand. It was from like a month ago where people accused. One of us of eating while on the set, like while we were recording. And I don't remember anybody. You know, you know what happened?
JVL00:16:00I actually, as I have started to actually learn how to use Adobe Audition, which is so vastly overpowered for our needs, but is what everybody uses. So when you play, when you try to fix audio levels by using compression and volume levelers, it winds up doing things. Like taking breaths and wildly exaggerating. So there have been a couple of shows in our past where it's been, right? And that is because somebody, somebody being me, thought that by using compression, they and volume equalization, that they were actually going to make everything better. And the answer is no, don't do that. Just set the levels right before you start recording.
Sonny00:16:49Set the levels right before you start. And then there's a, there's like a noise filter that you can do to get the background noise out. I've showed you how to do that, right? Yeah, no, I'm getting very good at this. So you should hear.
Vic00:17:00You are.
Sonny00:17:01You should hear my secret podcast. Yeah.
Vic00:17:03Okay. But I did want to address.
Sonny00:17:05That would entail listening to another podcast, which is something I've sworn off doing.
Vic00:17:09Let alone this one. I did want to address two particular reviews. One from a listener, E&E Broad, he compared our friend and sometime producer, Paul Crookston, to Cousin Oliver from the Brady Bunch and asked if that means we had jumped the shark. And the funny thing is, for this listener, Paul kind of actually looks like Cousin Oliver. Do you remember Cousin Oliver from the Brady Bunch?
Sonny00:17:33Not blonde enough.
Vic00:17:35Not blonde enough, but just as funny and adorable. So yes, we jumped the shark. The second one, this is an interesting one from a listener, C.D. Cannavari, who asks me about my strategy regarding not all you can eat buffets, but hot bars where you have to pay at the end based on the weight of your food. And what is my strategy?
Sonny00:17:56Why would you ever use one?
Vic00:17:57Well, you'll never go back to a hot bar or a buffet. What? You have gone to your last hot bar and to your last buffet. Right. So this will be useful, like, if you have a time machine. But I will say this. I mean, I've given this some thought. And Sonny, you know, we've, I don't, I'm sure you've done.
Sonny00:18:12We used to go to the food trough.
Vic00:18:14The food trough, you could do that there. And I would say two things. One, you know, I do work out, right? I can do curls. Like a 35-pound dumbbell. So conceivably, I can get 35 pounds of food on my plate. So that's one thing. If the plate is big enough, theoretically. Okay. That's the first thing. The second thing, there's three things. Second thing, nothing bulky, right? I see people put bread on their plates. That's the worst thing I've ever seen. That's ridiculous. Okay. Things that take up too much space. That, that's a bad thing. And the other thing is heavy starches, like mashed potatoes. You will pay a price. That stuff is way too heavy. So the answer is fried shrimp. That's really what it is. It's light, it's tasty, and it's, but it's light. And that's expensive, but they don't, you know, they're not, they're not discriminating about, you know, what you're getting. And there's clearly certain trays that are more expensive than others. And so that's the answer. And one of our listeners said he just had 30 fried shrimp and he had gout. So I wish him well.
JVL00:19:16Do you know how the economics of this work, Victorino? Yes, go ahead. So, so when they're setting out the bar, right, it's true that there are some things where the weight to value ratio is dramatically skewed in the customer's favor, like shrimp, but the proprietors insulate themselves because they know that, you know, that the shrimp also carry the heavier risk of food poisoning. And so they trust that to hedge your consumption of the high risk food poisoning things. Not, they guessed wrong.
Sonny00:19:48Not fried shrimp, not fried shrimp. Come on. You're not going to, you're not going to get 100%. No, come on.
Vic00:19:53You never get the fried shrimp, but you can tell that they didn't actually devein it. And I'm like, eh. They never devein fried shrimp. Are you kidding? It comes out of a bag.
Sonny00:20:00They've got a, they've got a five, they've got a 5,000 count bag in the back where they just dump in 40 at a time. None of which have been deveined. Well, yes. It's fine. It's fine.
Vic00:20:10Okay. That's it.
Sonny00:20:12We're eating out of a food trough already. What difference does a little more shrimp shit mean? I like, who cares?
Vic00:20:20Very good. I don't know. I don't have any transition. I just have to jump to this ad. So listen, Warby Parker is committed to providing exceptional vision care online and in stores, offering eyeglasses, sunglasses, eye exams, and contact lenses. Glasses start at $95, including prescription lenses, sunglasses, progressives, and blue light lenses are also available. I took the online quiz, got the home try on kit. It was a piece of cake. I had a selection of pairs to try on in different styles. I chose the Eaton, my style of big frames for my big head. It fits great. And still, there are no scratches on those lenses. Try Warby Parker's free home try on program. Order five pairs of glasses to try at home for free for five days. There's no obligation to buy. Ships free and includes a prepaid return shipping label. Try five pairs of glasses at home for free at warbyparker.com slash sub beacon. And I'd say there's no better time to try on glasses at home than now. Sonny, what do you have?
JVL00:21:29Oh, what a ridiculous shot for shot.
Vic00:21:32What are you drinking? I say Jonathan looks like he's drinking fruit punch sangria. Oh, fancy you. Is there a fruit in there or is it? Did you?
JVL00:21:41I don't know. It's from it's from Costco. This is the Kirkland Grand.
Vic00:21:44You can throw in apples and oranges. That's not a two liter bottle.
JVL00:21:48It's literally a two liter bottle for $4.99. It's amazing.
Sonny00:21:52I am drinking the old Forrester 100 proof bourbon.
Vic00:21:55Good for you. Good for you.
Sonny00:21:56I brought the whole bottle over so I could keep pouring it over the ice ball before it before it disappears.
Vic00:22:02That's the best way to do it. But I also thought. Oh, sorry. Tell me about it. I was going to say box off. Oh, wait a minute. There is no box office. If you go to box office mojo.com, it's just it's not there. There's nothing there that this. So that means there are now officially zero theaters. Is that what's happening?
JVL00:22:22Wait, box office mojo is gone.
Vic00:22:24No, the site's still there. But there's just a hole.
JVL00:22:27There's a hole.
Sonny00:22:27It's just because I assume that the page is like coronavirus. It just says coronavirus. It's just a picture of a plague ball. The well, like box office mojo has like on its homepage, right? They have like the daily chart spot and the weekend chart spot. And the weekend spot is just empty now because there's nothing to put there.
JVL00:22:48So who would want to like go in and change your style sheet in your CMS?
Sonny00:22:52But I mean, what are they going to put there? I like there's nothing to put there. I like you might as well just you might as well just leave it blank and remind people links to rebeller media. Rebellermedia.com. That's rebellermedia.com. The just leave it. Just leave the hole there and remind people of the hellscape that we live in now. I think it's I think that's actually the most responsible thing that box office mojo could do is to remind us that we live in hell. I have a question for you boys. Oh, for both of you.
JVL00:23:21Yes. Victorino, am I stepping on you? Did you want to?
Vic00:23:24No, I have nothing.
JVL00:23:25Go ahead. I would like to ask each of you what you believe the odds are that you will see a movie in a theater in the next 24 months.
Sonny00:23:38One hundred percent.
JVL00:23:40You think that you will have the ability to go to a theater and see a movie in 24 months?
Vic00:23:46Yes.
JVL00:23:46In the next two years?
Sonny00:23:47Within the next two years, certainly. I mean, like that.
JVL00:23:49How about the next year?
Sonny00:23:51One hundred percent. Yes, I'm with Sonny Bunch.
JVL00:23:53So you think there will still be theatrical exhibitors who will not be bankrupt, who will not just simply chain up the doors because they have gone out of business?
Sonny00:24:00I think that there will be enough theaters showing enough Marvel movies that the entire experience will not go extinct. I don't think that this is that cataclysmic an event. Look, I am on record here and elsewhere saying that I do think that this is an extinction level event for certain distributors. And exhibitors. I think that this is going to be an ongoing problem. How about Phil Ansch?
JVL00:24:29It's a shitty little movie house. Well, I don't think they're likely to go away.
Sonny00:24:33But I don't think he owns it anymore, right? Didn't he sell that to Cineworld? He does.
JVL00:24:37Yeah, whatever.
Sonny00:24:38I'm pretty sure Cineworld bought Regal, I don't know, 12 months ago or something like that. But I think there's, look, I would say that I don't want to go too far. Out on a limb, but I think that there is a 100% chance that if you want to go to the movies, which is a separate question of whether or not movie theaters will exist, you will have the ability to do so by September.
JVL00:25:06I will take the other side of that. I think there is a non-trivial possibility, call it one in four, that all of the major exhibitors from AMC all the way down to Darling Little Dinner Theater type movie theaters go belly up and that there is nobody in a position to buy them out of distress. And if that happens, everything goes to streaming and video on demand. One in four chance.
Sonny00:25:40I think that Disney has enough money and enough stake in this to ensure that that does not happen.
JVL00:25:47Well, they did before, like three months ago, but if their theme park revenue is down 40% and their cruise ship line cannot make any money whatsoever, and they've got these giant boats that cost like $400 million each and they are simply wasting assets. I don't know, man. I mean, it's much more bearish about everything than you guys are, I think.
Sonny00:26:08They are. Yeah, but movie theaters are going to come back before fucking cruise ships. You kidding me? I like cruise ships are cruise ships. I think the cruise industry is much more likely to get sunk to the bottom of the ocean than theaters. Are to get blown up or whatever. I like I like are we just not bleeping anymore, by the way? Can I just.
Vic00:26:28Yeah, I think the last step was no, it doesn't matter.
Sonny00:26:32All right.
Vic00:26:32Hi, Kate. I can see my wife doing laundry back here. I can't.
JVL00:26:37They can come talk on the show.
Vic00:26:39Mom, I'm in the middle of taping my meatloaf. Mom, it's like Wayne's World. They're in the basement. OK, you know what I mean?
Sonny00:26:49But I think so to answer your question, David. I think I think you are much more likely to never see a Disney cruise again than you are likely to not see a IMAX quality Disney movie in theaters before the end of the year.
JVL00:27:06I reject your false choice. I think both are going to go away.
Vic00:27:11I think right before the cruise ships and you might get a great deal on one of the fancy ones like Crystal Region or Oceania. I have my eye on it because I look at it all the time. I want to be on. The one with the one with Jack Pepin. Victorino, can I get you?
JVL00:27:25Can I give you a little something that you're just going to eat up like it's chocolate? So I have a reader who wrote to me last week from something I wrote over at the other place and he was telling me that his daughter works in the cruise industry and she had come home and had to self self quarantine for 14 days. And so I asked, I was like, tell me everything because my buddy Vic and I are fascinated with the back of operations and she is the entertainment director. Oh, yeah, she does. And he said her big tip was that if you go to dinner and instead of having salt and pepper shakers on the table, there are salt and pepper packets. That means watch out because that means that there is a virus on board the ship.
Vic00:28:09Oh, when you see if you don't see the salt and pepper shake.
JVL00:28:11So if it says if they have like like sugar packets, but with salt and pepper, if those are out instead of the little glass shakers, that is the first sign of like, hey, they've got a virus on board and they're going to try to lock everything down.
Sonny00:28:25But why wouldn't they just have the packets all the time?
JVL00:28:29No, that's a good indicator because it's fancy.
Vic00:28:32You want to be in a dining room the way you would go to sunny the way you would go into
JVL00:28:36saying, why not just have everybody wear masks all the time?
Vic00:28:38Well, if you went to a fancy restaurant, you would not expect to see the packets at the fancy restaurant. That's what they want you to feel like. But like in the Poseidon adventure.
Sonny00:28:48But if I'm but if I'm on a cruise ship, I already know that I'm on a floating hospital death. No death on the ship. I don't mind cruises going away because I find cruises to be the most disgusting things on the entire planet. You know what?
Vic00:29:02Like you're floating. There's part of it.
Sonny00:29:04I kind of floating there and there's disease everywhere. There's old people. Death hovers over the whole thing. Well, I think the Grim Reaper at all times. Why? Why on earth would anyone want to do that?
JVL00:29:16Can I can I do like the service? Can I do a straight shoot on this?
Sonny00:29:20I don't know what that means.
JVL00:29:21Yeah, go for it. JVL. So an actual shoot.
Sonny00:29:23Yeah.
JVL00:29:24So at the old place, we were I believe you were on this this cruise, Victorino, where I've done like six or seven cruises on at the opening night. So you pull out of the harbor and you're heading away. There's a big cocktail reception on the Lido deck and somebody dropped dead.
Sonny00:29:41Oh, no, I wasn't on that one.
JVL00:29:42I wasn't on that one.
Sonny00:29:43No, I did. One of the guests. One of the guests.
JVL00:29:47I feel like we discussed this, but maybe we didn't. Stone cold dead. And they have like Russian Toledo deck, the middle of everything. And so they they rush out a medical team and then they get a bunch of waiters who stood around them holding up tablecloths to just, you know, because they couldn't move this guy holding up tablecloths around him to make it like a room. And while the doctors worked on him and all the other guests simply milled around and kept drinking their stupid drinks and eating their stupid food. And I heard I sat there like horrified. I believe I'm. I went and sat down with my wife and we like prayed for this poor guy and whatnot. And I heard more than one guest who was just like, oh, don't they understand we're trying
Sonny00:30:30to have a party here? This is what goes on on cruise ships.
JVL00:30:34Now, you know, the old people on cruise ship, they delude themselves into thinking that everything's great because they're old people and they're rich and they feel like they won life's lottery and the world owes them a big old BJ.
Vic00:30:46Wow. So I am a little angry at the olds. I love you. I, I, I, the guy who died, I assume was old JVL.
Sonny00:30:55Do you think that this plague is God's vengeance upon the olds?
JVL00:30:59I think it's his vengeance upon all of America.
Sonny00:31:05Actually, just America.
JVL00:31:07We'll talk about that when we get, you know what?
Vic00:31:09Actually, my feelings on this tie directly into the thing we're going to talk about today. Oh, okay. I was going to say transition transition, which would that be? Tiger King, uh, you know, so, uh, movie theaters may be gone, but thank God for Netflix and this amazing five plus hour documentary, uh, uh, seven episodes, seven episodes called Tiger King. And my plan was, I was only going to watch the first episode. And by this afternoon, I had finished all seven because you really have to.
Sonny00:31:40Vic was like, I want to do the least amount of work possible. I cannot, I cannot possibly put in one extra minute. I'm telling you for what really?
Vic00:31:51For this, for who, for what? So when we go to Patreon, then I, then they give you the teaser. You know how they immediately, you don't even get the rest of the credits. Like it's like two seconds of credits and then you're in the war over sleep against
Sonny00:32:04Vic Mattis.
Vic00:32:05I know. And then, uh, and then you just got hooked and you're like, what else crazy thing could happen? And every episode got crazier than the neck and then the one before it. So, uh, here we are talking about Tiger King. Uh, and I just want to say, first of all, I was a little disappointed when I decided that we should do this. Cause I thought it was going to be a documentary about the tank, but that would, the, the pans are six, but that's the King Tiger, right? It's the Panther, the Tiger and the King Tiger. Imagine if they made those in 1939, I'm just saying, okay. Uh, Sonny, how about a, uh, a big boy review?
Sonny00:32:36I don't know how you really do a big boy review of this. Give us a summation. What is happening?
Vic00:32:40Well, here's, here's what I texted you guys are talking about it and listeners want to hear about it, but go for it.
Sonny00:32:45Here's what I texted you guys. If, if F Scott Fitzgerald's the great Gatsby is the definitive. Work of 1920s America, right? If that's the definitive artistic statement on what American life was like in the 1920s and the roaring twenties, then I don't see how we can have any choice other than, you know, stating right now for the rest of the decade. This is the whole thing that, uh, Tiger King is the definitive work about 2020s America about the, the new roaring twenties. Um, because it really hits on all of the absurdities of our modern life from, um, uh, the uh, the, the breakdown of sexual mores. I mean, like one of the, one of the things that you see in this movie is that, uh, the, the, both the, so there are three, there are essentially three main characters. Uh, there's a, there's a crazy guy named Joe exotic who is a gay polygamist, uh, who lives in Oklahoma and has the biggest, uh, wild cat farm in the blah, blah, whatever. Um, there's a second guy whose name is Doc Antle who basically runs a sex cult tied to his tigers.
Vic00:33:50If I had to be any of them, I'd be Doc Antle.
Sonny00:33:53Also, also a polygamist, also crazy, also surrounded by giant cats. And then there's a third main character, Carol Baskin, who probably murdered her husband. That's what, at least what the documentary probably murdered her second husband. Uh, so he would not divorce her and take her giant cats away from her essentially is what we are led to believe in the third episode of this series, not only divorced, but not
Vic00:34:18only murdered, but they think that.
Sonny00:34:20Murdered and fed to the cats. That's, that is like, so the, there, there, it's like this escalating series of insane people who we meet through the first three episodes of the series. And then in the next three episodes, uh, it's, it's all about how Joe exotic and really the main character here is Joe exotic, the, the kind of crazy Oklahoma gay polygamist who loves his guns, who ran for president in 2016, which is again, where like the, this is the story of America. Where you have this Huckster running for president in 2016, and then running for governor in 2018 and, uh, not only losing, but getting himself into trouble by like funneling money from his enterprises into the, into the race. Um, uh, and just like, uh, it is, it, and, and like on top of that, you also have like a kind of a tertiary subplot where this guy who worked, uh, with Bill O'Reilly on a hard copy or whatever. Whichever ridiculous, uh, tabloid show, um, it was that, that they all worked on. Uh, he's trying to make a reality show out of the, the tiger King phenomenon, the Joe exotic, uh, like world of the insane people and, and cats or whatever. And that ends up in arson that ends in arson, that whole dream. And that is really like the metaphor for America that I'm talking about. Everything, everything in this movie. Ends in disaster and fire. Um, and it is just like where we find ourselves now. Am I wrong?
JVL00:35:56JVL tell me, Sonny, does it rise?
Sonny00:36:02Oh, the fire rise. No, no, but you're doing that wrong.
JVL00:36:06Cause it's like the guy who gave me a weird setup for it. That's why. But clearly the fire rises is what I'm trying to say.
Sonny00:36:12Yeah.
JVL00:36:13The fire rises, rises, stop doing that.
Sonny00:36:17Okay.
JVL00:36:17So you watched the whole thing, Sonny.
Sonny00:36:19I'm through the six episodes. I, we have one episode left. I'm through five episodes.
Vic00:36:24Episode seven is really just, it's the wrap up, you know, it doesn't end well for Joe. Uh, but I'll tell you one thing is for sure. There's no better time for delivery with a selection of your favorite flavors from across the globe, you could order world cuisine from the comfort and safety of your living room with DoorDash DoorDash brings all of America's flavors to your door, um, ordering is easy. Open the DoorDash app. Choose what you want to eat and your food will be delivered to you wherever you are, not only is your favorite pizza joint already on DoorDash, but there are over 310,000 restaurant partners in 4,000 cities, so you might find a new favorite too, with door to door delivery in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, and Australia. You can order from your local go-tos or choose from your favorite national restaurants like Chipotle, Wendy's, Chick-fil-A and the Cheesecake Factory. With DoorDash, you'll never have to worry about your next meal. Right now, our listeners can get $5 off their first order of $15 or more when you download the DoorDash app and enter code SUBBEACON. That's $5 off your first order when you download the DoorDash app in the app store and enter code SUBBEACON. Don't forget, that's code SUBBEACON for $5 off your first order with DoorDash. I give the tigers to you, the people. You really need to lay off that sangria, man. Have you ever had white sangria? Have you ever had white sangria? That's also tasty. You'd love it. You'd love it. Yeah, would I? Yeah. Even fruitier? Yes. Okay. So, JVL, again, you had not heard of this until we told you we were thinking about doing this.
JVL00:38:01So, what's funny about this, of course, is that I wrote, read, wrote. I read the Texas Monthly piece that this is all based on forever ago. So, I knew large chunks of the story going into it. I did not realize it had been made into a Netflix docuseries. Anybody who has not seen it yet should understand that Sonny's summary of the plot does not reveal even, like, 20% of how insane it all is.
Sonny00:38:30No, no, no. Yeah.
JVL00:38:31Like, for instance, Joe Exotic also records himself and makes music videos of him as a country singer. Yeah. Not a bad country singer. No, no, he is a bad country singer because that's all the process.
Vic00:38:44I thought he used a different guy's voice.
JVL00:38:48Because when you see him driving around in his truck listening to himself, as he tells the camera, I just like, this is where I find my peace. I like to drive around in my truck and listen to myself singing. And he tries to sing along with himself. He sounds nothing like the recording.
Vic00:39:02But there's no mention of that. I assume they have all sorts of mixers or is it an entirely different dude? Is that what you're saying?
JVL00:39:08So one of his husbands dies. He commits suicide in front of his campaign manager. Yeah. And you see the closed circuit.
Sonny00:39:18Wait, can I ask just a quick question here? Yes. Do we, do we, I was, it was not a hundred percent clear to me if that was an intentional suicide or if that guy was just fucking around with guns and blew his head off.
JVL00:39:32Unclear to me too, because we see many, many, many, many videos of this guy pointing live guns at other people and shooting guns at other people. Steven Gutaski would not approve.
Vic00:39:42Would not approve. Steve Gutaski would not approve. It was a Ruger. So I'm, I'm assuming he had. He had a revolver. And so, I mean, you'd have to, you know, it's not like, oh, I didn't know there was a gun. A Ruger's an automatic.
Sonny00:39:57A Ruger's a semi-automatic, isn't it? It depends.
JVL00:39:59It could be a Ruger .357, right?
Vic00:40:01Look, the ballistics of this is not what's interesting. What is interesting is there was a bullet in there.
JVL00:40:05At the funeral for the like 23-year-old kid who is 32 years younger than Joe Exotic, Joe Exotic stands up at the podium to deliver the eulogy wearing a black cowboy hat and a priest cap. And then he starts singing his country songs to the people who clap.
Sonny00:40:26And talking about the kid's golden balls. Talking about how the kid who died liked to just kind of come up behind him and put his balls on Joe Exotic.
Vic00:40:35Have you guys ever watched Eastbound and Down? His poor mother. Have you guys ever watched Eastbound and Down with Danny McBride? Yes, yeah. You know, there's the scene with Jason Sudeikis' twin dies, and then he appears at the funeral, Danny McBride. And then he brings... He performs his music at the funeral and reminded me of that. It's so shocking.
JVL00:40:53The whole thing is so crazy. And the Doc Antle, the guy who's the successful tiger guy...
Vic00:41:00Who seems the most adorable.
JVL00:41:02It's Scientology. So what he has done is he's essentially recreated Scientology, except around tigers. Right. So instead of Thetans being at the center of the cult, it's tigers. And so he gets, you know, like 17-year-old girls to leave their... To leave their homes and move in to intern on his wildlife preserve. And then eventually they all wind up... Where they live in stables. Where they live in stables, unless they're willing to screw it. Unless... Right, right.
Vic00:41:28Cockroach infested stables unless...
JVL00:41:33Well, according to the one girl... But that's because how they reach enlightenment is by...
Sonny00:41:37The whole thing is... I don't know.
Vic00:41:38My first thought when I saw that was, why didn't I think of that?
Sonny00:41:42And can we... So I want to do a ranking here in a second. Surprise ranking. But can we just... I had a discussion with my wife, the lovely Beth, last night about which is the worst. Which of these characters is the worst? And I think that Carole Baskin is by far the worst. Because A, the murder. She almost certainly killed her husband.
Vic00:42:04She kind of sounds like Hillary. You ever notice that too?
Sonny00:42:06B, that's exactly what Beth said. That she looks kind of like Hillary. But C, also, she's just a giant hypocrite. She's a giant, enormous hypocrite. She gets all upset about these... These other guys who have their big cat farms and they don't pay their people. And then it turns out she has a big cat farm. And she doesn't pay her people anything. And they work for free. And then it's all in the service of the mission. And she is the worst. Not because, again, she murdered her husband. But because she committed the one last sin of public life, which is hypocrisy.
JVL00:42:43Oh, Sonny. So deep. So, Victorino, what do you think of the three? Who is the true villain of Tiger King?
Vic00:42:54Well, I understand what Sonny is saying. Because she is, you know, and she plays it so well. Like, well, you know, I'm the victim. She's constantly the victim in all this. You can't help feel kind of bad for Joe Exotic. Except for when you see him fly off the handle and he has the inflatable doll that he pretends to be Carol. And then he actually blows the doll's head off on camera. I mean, and he's always shooting, you know, like dummies.
Sonny00:43:23That's just art, man.
Vic00:43:24You can't. Why would you try to restrain his art? All right. What about? So, I'd say the one I said, if I had to be any of those three guys. Also, Joe Exotic.
Sonny00:43:35Just having just, again, having not watched the last episode. I don't know for sure. But through six episodes, 100%, it seemed like Joe Exotic was entrapped.
Vic00:43:44Yeah, because those two other guys. The strip club, the ex-strip club guy, and the other fellow from Vegas. Yeah. Who helps him. Jeff Lowe. Jeff Lowe, who they really sort of lead him on in terms of, you know, getting this done. And they taped everything, as you know, right? Everything was videotaped secretly. I'll tell you what was really fascinating is Jeff Lowe's associate, the guy named Alan. Alan Glover.
JVL00:44:07He's the one-armed man.
Sonny00:44:08He's the one-armed man, right? He's the one-armed man. In the movie version of this, if Michael Rooker doesn't play that guy, it's criminal malpractice.
Vic00:44:18Well, speaking of movie, that's what I was going to say is, you know, somebody said Danny McBride should be Joe Exotic, but I was going to say the other, the last, Pedro Pascal would be Travis. Yes.
Sonny00:44:32Yeah, definitely. I can see that. And then he gets replaced by Daniel Brühl. And Will Ferrell. Will Ferrell should be Doc Antle.
Vic00:44:39Yes. Yes.
Sonny00:44:40Will Ferrell should be Doc Antle.
JVL00:44:41You want me to blow your mind? So the big, long-haired, spindly dude. With sunglasses, who is either the general manager of Exotic Joe's place or whatnot. Yes, I know exactly who you're talking about. He looks, he, imagine Aaron Eckert, but with a giant blonde wig. That guy is a dead effing ringer for Aaron Eckert. Possibly Thomas J. Very sort of ruddy, ruddy complex.
Vic00:45:01Or possibly Thomas J.
JVL00:45:02Yeah.
Vic00:45:03So Victorino, who's the villain? I don't know. Maybe, I don't know, man. Maybe Carol. Well, I, you know, Joe, Jeff Lowe, he's potentially, you know, and he's still had. No, no, no. You have to pick.
Sonny00:45:16It's either, it's either Joe Exotic, Doc Antle, or Carol Baskin.
Vic00:45:20Okay, well not Doc Antle. Okay, not Doc Antle. He's clearly the best.
Sonny00:45:25His sex call is clearly the least harmful thing that is going on in this whole situation.
Vic00:45:29So they raided his place. You'll find that out at the end that his place gets raided. Justice for Doc. I guess Carol. But, you know, by it, it's, I mean, everything is weird about that and including the, the envelope that, that Carol. Carol's husband gives to the executive assistant saying, please open this in case something happens to me.
Sonny00:45:50And she is a murderer.
Vic00:45:52She's a murderer.
Sonny00:45:54Murderer. Okay. I have a question. Here's my question. Hold on. Hold on. Before you can't move on yet.
JVL00:45:59I have a question for you, Victorino, about Doc.
Vic00:46:01Yeah.
JVL00:46:02Oh, yes. Give me the odds. The odds that Doc Antle has had sex with one of his animals. Are they 99% or 100%? I was going to say, I was going to say 80%. I was being very conservative. At the very least, he has banged his groupies with the tigers in the room.
Vic00:46:20With the tigers there. Yeah. No. Did you notice there was that one giant couch, which was like the size of a room? Yeah. The whole thing was a couch. It was roll around in there. But here was my thought after looking at those guys, including the guy you said looked like Aaron Eckhart and then the other guy with no legs. And then the first husband, Joe Exotic's first husband. Yeah. Do you have to, if you want to work in the zoo business, do you, does everyone have to look like Wayne Groh from Heat? Yeah. That's what I want.
Sonny00:46:53No. The best line in the movie and the one that is most like America, this is maybe the most American line. We lost JVL.
Vic00:47:02He's not even on the screen here. The most American line. I thought they all looked like Wayne Groh.
Sonny00:47:06The most American line in the movie is the guy who's like, yeah, people assume tigers took my legs, but I lost them in a zip lining accident.
Vic00:47:14In a zip lining accident. Like what?
Sonny00:47:17Of course. Of course you did. Sure.
Vic00:47:19I was, you know, I was looking at his prosthetics and I had forgotten how he lost his legs. It was a zip lining accident. Yeah. He fell 50 feet and landed on his legs.
Sonny00:47:26I look at all, I look at all those. Landed on his feet.
Vic00:47:29Yeah. No, I, I look at, I look at all those guys and all I could think of is you just been with the Grim Reaper. You know, you just been with, you don't have a truth telling way about you. Oh my gosh. So JVL, your thoughts.
JVL00:47:50It's clear that Carol is the real villain of the piece and not because of the hypocrisy.
Sonny00:47:56No. Well, that's 100% the reason, but go on.
JVL00:47:59No, it's Carol is a walking. If you were to go over to our buddy, Pete Suderman and say, I would like you to give me the best possible argument you can for libertarianism. You could just point to this woman because Carol is one of these insane busybodies whose busybodying is actually tied to her own hypocrisy, right? Like she loves these cats and one, but she doesn't want anybody else to be able to enjoy the cats. And America is full of busybodies who try to make other people's lives difficult. But what sets her apart is that she's sitting on a giant pile of money from the husband she murdered.
Sonny00:48:41She has, she has enough money to sue everyone she hates.
JVL00:48:44And so a busybody with money is the worst. And so here she is and she's running around and she's the victim of everything when she is clear, again, she's just clearly the villain.
Sonny00:48:57She's clearly, she started all of this. She started all of this by going after all of their livelihoods. It's not, it's not just that she's saying like mean things about them on the internet. Correct. She is trying to destroy their lives systematically point by point.
Vic00:49:10And that lawsuit was really what broke Joe was that law that she had. The money for it. She could afford that. She could afford to go to court and afford to try to collect when she didn't need the money. She just wanted to break him. That's correct.
JVL00:49:22And the, the, the manner in which rich people can pervert systems. Cause here's the thing. So everybody in this is a grifter, right? And everybody, every single one of these characters is on the make, but only the rich people can use the system to help them be on the make. I mean, that's what, what brings down Joe exotic is a. Is a stupid copyright infringement case because he tries to get back at her by gaming SEO on Google, by standing up a website organization. And she then sues him for trademark infringement. And that's what triggers his entire downfall here because she has the money to use lawyers to hurt people. And it's, I mean, in addition to the fact that she is the type of person who, for instance, you know, was walking around on the street. While married to one guy, another guy pulls up in the car and says, Hey, they're pretty girl. And then she like goes to a motel with him and bangs it out. And then, you know, leaves her husband and takes this guy, breaks up his marriage. And then, oh, he just disappeared. He just disappeared. Disappears into thin air. Who could say? And then invents all sorts of like weird hoes dementia. He probably just got lost. Yeah. Fell out of the plane.
Vic00:50:34He went out of the plane. Question for you guys. The the Joe exotics, two husbands, right? Neither of who is gay, right?
JVL00:50:46Not who is gay.
Vic00:50:48Is that really? You know what I'm saying? Is that really technically?
JVL00:50:53What? What are you saying, Vic? I'm going to need you to spell it out.
Vic00:50:57Kind of. They kind of are. I think.
Sonny00:51:00What do you mean? Are you asking if they consummated the marriage?
JVL00:51:07I also wondered. Can you do the motions again?
Sonny00:51:11Did you just make that noise?
Vic00:51:13I can't do it. The microphone's in the way. But the bottom line is, obviously, they did. I mean, why would he be with? He wouldn't be with them that long. They're all young. He's going after young men. You know, I mean, it's a weird thing.
Sonny00:51:26Yeah, it's weird. It's weird. All right. I don't mean.
Vic00:51:29I mean, I mean, they're going after these young, young. I mean, seriously. Could you imagine me as a 47-year-old trying to go after an 18-year-old woman? Could you imagine that? Woman.
Sonny00:51:4218-year-old woman. The gay polygamist. Yeah, I couldn't imagine you going after an 18-year-old. That's three years over your age limit.
JVL00:51:50No, but the problem with the problem with the whole series, right, is that it's that
Sonny00:51:58is that like the fact that Joe Exotic is a gay polygamist is like the 10th most interesting thing about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like it is. Here's a question. Do you guys think he burned down the alligator shack?
JVL00:52:12No. 100%. OK. Yes.
Sonny00:52:15All right.
JVL00:52:15So here's my question, though. Where did the video footage come from? So, OK, so for people. So there's an arson. His alligator shack slash production room is burnt to the ground, consuming all of these videotapes, which he does not technically own and which he is afraid of. And we get video of him getting out of his car, telling somebody to tape every single word of this as they walk into a lawyer's office. And the lawyers say, well, are there any copies of these tapes anywhere? And he says, no, isn't there all in your little production studio? He goes, yeah, well, then I don't know. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?
Vic00:52:51I can't believe he says that. So where did where did this tape?
JVL00:52:55How did this tape go to the fire festival?
Sonny00:52:57That lawyer played by Bill Murray, of course, from Wild.
JVL00:53:02No, but this is a serious question, right? This is the thing I struggled with throughout the series is hold on. Whose footage is this that we are seeing? Are we seeing the hard copies? Are we seeing the footage from Fire Festival guy who is the director of this? Are we getting footage from Joe Exotic's own people who were shooting for his Internet TV show?
Vic00:53:25Do you guys have clarity on that? Yeah, I don't know where he had the extra. He had the extra roles. I don't know where he got that.
Sonny00:53:32I think there is a real, real ethical issue with this this documentary. If we're talking about it as a like from a formal perspective on the art of documentary filmmaking, right? Is it you have a lot of people talking on camera who do not know that they are talking on camera and it's not that surprised me and it's it's not done in a sort of like Dateline news gathering sort of way. It's almost all like to add spice to add spice and sensationalism to the mix and that that that is look I I I don't think that they fabricated anything which would be a mortal sin. I do think that they have a series of kind of venal sins of like putting people in this thing who do not necessarily deserve to be.
Vic00:54:21I was I was thinking about that when the director guy has the conversation with the fat ex-stripper ex-strip manager guy. Yes. What was that?
JVL00:54:34The strip club owner. Yes.
Vic00:54:36Yes. The fat guy, Garretson and Garretson says he goes, it's just between us is off the record. You know what? And then he starts talking about how he believes, you know, the murder plot. And everything else. I'm like, what did he think after he saw this show? You know, I don't know.
JVL00:54:48So I had a, you know, it's funny you say that, Sonny, because I had a few of those questions to one of which was about the reenactments, which they only do a couple of, which I really don't like. No. Another is the hiding the football on twists that are coming. So, for instance, I knew that Travis was dead five minutes after we met the character because there are no contemporaneous interviews with him once the character is introduced. And so I said, oh, so he's clearly dead. I didn't know that. It was a complete surprise to me. But there's a lot of stuff like the drugs, right? So it's clear that John, the husband who has no teeth, is a meth head. Right.
Vic00:55:27It's not bad dental, you know, hygiene. Right.
JVL00:55:31So the director is holding these things back from us in order to tell the story. And I don't mind that in fiction. I worry about it a little bit in documentaries. But here's my question, Sonny. Is this the guy? Is this the guy who had Billy McFarland on his documentary? I can't remember. The Netflix one, the one that had McFarland? Because the other thing they did that really bugged me, there's a scene when they show up to Doc Antle's house and they're with Doc and they've got camera rolling and Doc says, do you want me to come out the front door and shoot me? Yeah. And this is the type of thing that is just included to make him look like an a-hole.
Sonny00:56:09Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I.
JVL00:56:11They don't need to do that to make him look. Like a bad dude.
Sonny00:56:15Yeah, no, I mean, yes, agreed, kind of. I am I'm I'm I'm actually kind of OK with that sort of stepping on the scales when it when it when it comes to him, because it's not like they were having a discussion right about like, well, we want you to come. We don't we want you to come out of the door. And he's like, well, maybe I do this instead. He's just like, all right, now you guys are going to you're going to shoot me coming out because that that. I'll let you introduce. And they kind of joke with themselves like, God, he's a better director of this thing than we are. And like, I thought that was actually OK. That didn't that didn't bother me too much. I thought the stuff with the the like guy who's going to be played by Paul Walter Hauser, the the strip club owner. I thought that I thought that was much I thought that was much shadier. And again, it's like it's it's you can get away with this sort of thing. If you have pitched your thing as a hidden camera investigation, blah, blah, blah. But when you start jumping back and forth, when you start mixing how one thing bleeds into the other, I think it's much dicier. Agreed. Totally agreed.
Vic00:57:28Question, how do JVL, the way tigers and lions kill humans, don't they snap the neck first? Isn't that what they do most of the time?
JVL00:57:40Although sometimes that's if they want to kill you, often they will kill you by accident because they're just. They're just mauling you. Right, right, right, right, right.
Sonny00:57:46Well, that's how they kill you. That's how they kill you when they're trying to surprise and kill you. Like when they're coming at you from behind, they get you by the neck and snap it.
Vic00:57:52And then snap it, I guess.
Sonny00:57:53Yeah.
Vic00:57:54There are worse ways to go. But did you notice the scene where the tiger could not stop sniffing Joe Exotic's shoe?
JVL00:58:03The shoe, yeah, yeah.
Vic00:58:03That was kind of scary, wasn't it? That was kind of scary.
JVL00:58:06Start shooting the ground in front of him. Yeah.
Vic00:58:09But it just barely keeps them at bay.
Sonny00:58:11But it's also a great scene because you see. You see all of the other people standing around watching it happen. Nobody, nobody, nobody there is shouting, get some help. We got to save Joe. They're just like, all right, let's watch this guy die.
JVL00:58:25So can I give you like my 90-second pitch for the deep think part of it? I want to basically blow out your idea of this being the Great Gatsby of the 20s. Go ahead. Because I think it might even be the Great Gatsby of the 21st century. Like our century so far.
Sonny00:58:44We're not, we're not that far through it, but yeah, go ahead.
JVL00:58:47So I kept watching this and asking myself, what is this really about? Is this, is this about media and celebrity or is it about money? Because there is a way in which the entire business these people are in is a pyramid scheme. So what you learn is that you can make a lot of money off of tiger kittens because people will pay money. But the problem is you only get about six months of that as a moneymaker.
Sonny00:59:12You get like less. You get like 12 weeks. They grow fast.
JVL00:59:16And then they're too dangerous for people to be around. And then they live for 22 years and they cost a lot of money to feed and keep. And so it is a classic pyramid scheme where you breed them to get more kittens, to make more money, to pay for the upkeep of the ones who can't, can't work their asses in the corner and bring in money. You get more meat from Walmart.
Vic00:59:37Yeah. You know, I, you, by the way, that scene was, was, you know, where they, they opened the truck open and it's like the meat that some people, you know, they decide they can't buy or they don't buy when they're at checkout and it doesn't go back. And so that goes into this, you know, waste bin and the stuff that's about to spoil or not. I probably would have been like those guys. Hey, this one's pretty good. I think, I think I could still, if I cook it to well done, if I cook this to well done, it'll kill it. Anyway, sorry, JVL, you were saying.
JVL01:00:02But I don't think it's about the money either. I think this is about decadence. It's a society that has room for people like this in it and has room for people who, who apparently are quite well to do. Joe Exotic is buying Travis four trucks in four years. I cannot afford to go out and buy four trucks and I have a pretty good white collar job. The, the dead businessman who we are never told what he does, but somehow is sitting on $20 million and he just owns a bunch of airplanes. And what, what does this guy do that he was, what he likes to do? He goes bury cash and gold bars in his backyard. And we're supposed to think, oh, he's just a normal businessman, right? Jeff Lowe, the other, the, the guy who we meet in from Vegas, who is super duper rich. What is this guy? You look at him and you listen to him talk. But he's, he's fake rich though. He's, he's renting that house.
Sonny01:00:54He's, you know, he's got a bunch of leases on Ferraris that are no good. But yeah, I take your point.
JVL01:00:59I take your point. Like, well, how does this, this is what happens in a decadent society. And the final. Nail in the coffin for this, for me. And this is like vaguely political. Democracy can't work. Like this is the people. These people, the Tiger King is the people. These are the people who vote. These are the people who say, oh, why are you making such a big deal? There's no, but the Chinese flu, it's no big deal. These crazy people who cannot keep their lives together for five seconds, who assemble islands. Islands of misfits and sex slaves and idiot do-gooder volunteers to sue other people. That's America. That is the people. And this whole experiment we have cannot work when the people are the Tiger King. Why don't you move to Canada then, JVL? I'm working on it.
Sonny01:01:58Yeah. I mean, obviously this is true, but this is why I've never believed in democracy.
Vic01:02:05Benevolent dictatorship. Is that what you're going to say?
Sonny01:02:06Yeah. You just need an enlightened despot. Yeah. That's what we need. Somebody who will give us our freedoms and then export those freedoms by force around the globe.
Vic01:02:17Okay. On that lovely note, corrections, shout outs. I have two. Listener and author Sam Finley, who is a friend of the show. He works for the VA and he says that if any of the listeners are interested, they can if they're interested in volunteering, contact your local VA director's office. For example, if I had time, because I'm combat lifesaver certified, as you all know, but unfortunately, I'm busy editing. You did go to Georgetown. I did go to Georgetown. Also, a shout out to a listener, your buddy Spooky, who was hoping for a shout out. I hope that peps you up. Thanks for listening. Hope you feel better. Thanks, Spooky. That is all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Sonny Bunch. At Victorino Matus. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher. Just type in Sub-Beacon at a podcast. We are there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time. So is there anything else you wanted to add?
JVL01:03:29You know, I'll just say this. I have tried very, very hard to be I don't want to get sucked into. The trap of rooting for the virus, because that would be terrible and monstrous. I am. And I want to make clear, I'm 100% Team America.
Vic01:03:44Thank you for clarifying that.
JVL01:03:46But when you watch the Tiger King. Oh, yeah. Don't make a generalization. A handful of a lot of decent books out there. Awfully hard not to be like 1% Team Captain Trips.
Sonny01:03:59Well, but the problem with Tiger King is that it is it is insanely watchable because it is so absurd. Unrealistic, right? This is not this is not actually America. This is not actually what we we surround ourselves with. It's not it's not like anybody in your life. Nobody in this movie is like anybody that we know and deal with on a regular basis.
Vic01:04:20There are decent people in all these states. Doc Antle, that's somebody you can aspire to.
Sonny01:04:24I can't. So, I mean, it has an aspirational.
Vic01:04:27I found him. I found him aspirational.
Sonny01:04:29It has a clear hero. Look, if America is nothing else, it is the ability to trick 17 year old girls into living on your giant tiger farm while you make them live with cockroaches until they sleep with you. That is America. That is what we live. That's what we aspire for. That's in the Constitution. It's in the Declaration of Independence. That is what George Washington wanted. Settle down. Started this thing.
JVL01:04:54Settle down. I'm sure it's fine.
Spot something wrong in this episode? Suggest a correction →
Comments
Loading…