0:07

You ever do any kind of high school play back in the

0:10

day? Hmm. Not

0:13

high school play. In

0:15

kindergarten, I was Mr. Garrett. I was

0:17

Farmer Garrett, I think, is old Mr.

0:19

Garrett. No, old Farmer Garrett? I forget

0:21

how to say it. Old Mr. Garrett

0:23

pulled the carrot from the ground, pulled

0:25

on the carrot top, the carrot top

0:27

pull. And I was the Farmer. And

0:31

the joke was this was a really difficult carrot to get

0:33

out of the ground. And

0:35

all the farm animals would help. So I

0:38

walked up, like the play was, you know,

0:40

it's like a five minute play. So the

0:42

play was Mr. Garrett walks out, he finds

0:44

this carrot, which was, you know, one of

0:46

my classmates, a young lady with dressed as

0:48

a carrot kneeling down. And

0:52

I grabbed the tassels of green at her hair

0:54

and started trying to pull. Doesn't

0:56

work. And then here comes

0:58

the horse to help me. Here comes the

1:00

cow, the pig, the chickens, everybody's helping. And

1:02

finally something happens and we get

1:04

the carrot out and everybody's excited. That

1:06

was pretty much it. That

1:09

was the last play you were in. I'm quite

1:11

the thespian. No, it wasn't. I've been in some

1:13

other plays as well, but that was the most

1:15

memorable, believe it or not. Well,

1:17

you still remember the rhyme. I do. That's

1:19

pretty good, man. I do. You have

1:22

to memorize your lines, man. Kindergarten, that's, of course, it's

1:24

kind of cheating because you have that

1:26

plastic toddler, almost kid brain. And everything

1:29

just welds in there, right? So I didn't

1:33

do a play in high school. We

1:35

had a couple of plays, like I would call them

1:37

dramas and in church growing

1:40

up and like youth group and stuff like that. That

1:42

was really fun. That's

1:45

about all I got, man. What about you? You

1:47

were probably like the lead actor with,

1:49

I don't know, the villain or something,

1:51

weren't you? Oh, wow.

1:54

That's a pretty good read. I played in

1:56

high school. I played Dr. Dr.

2:01

Einstein? I think it might have been Dr.

2:03

Einstein. It was basically the Igor

2:05

role in Arsenic

2:08

and Old Lace. Oh yeah! It was a little movie?

2:10

With Boris Karloff? We actually did Arsenic and

2:12

Old Lace. Now that you mention it, I

2:15

was a nothing, but I remember the

2:17

lady, one of my friends,

2:20

she's no longer living, but one of my friends was in

2:22

it and we did Arsenic and Old Lace. I didn't understand

2:24

the play. I was like, what is this? What are you

2:26

even doing? Yeah, so you were the bad guy?

2:28

Well, I was the henchman with

2:30

the gradually developing

2:34

conscience as things

2:36

went along, sniveling and begging, Johnny,

2:38

C-H-O-N-N-Y is Johnny, but

2:41

begging him all the time not to keep doing

2:43

the bad things that he was doing. And

2:46

then I think my character gradually

2:48

comes around and does the right thing.

2:51

You know that archetype, right? The

2:53

abused sidekick who's on the wrong team

2:55

at the beginning, but eventually

2:58

the abused sidekick compares the character

3:00

of the good guys with the

3:02

character of the bad guy he's

3:04

following around and in the end

3:06

makes the pivot to the good side at

3:08

the very important moment. I think that's what

3:11

happened. Yeah, that redemptive character arc

3:13

is one of my favorite characters in

3:15

anything. I love that. Yeah, I

3:17

do too. And I remember vividly, I

3:19

remember my body language. I remember kind of, I

3:22

mean, I'd make it sound like I built a

3:24

character. I didn't. I just watched the movie and

3:26

did whatever that guy did from the

3:29

1940s or 50s or whatever it was. But

3:31

that was super fun. We did Pirates of Penzance.

3:34

No, I wasn't in Pirates of Penzance. I was

3:36

just around it so much that I absorbed it.

3:38

I want to sing and dance. I

3:40

want to sing and dance. I

3:44

want to be a pirate in the pirate of pen sense.

3:46

Do you know this, Ray Stevens? No, but it wasn't very

3:49

hard for me to cobble together.

3:55

I want to sing and dance.

4:02

You've never heard this song? No.

4:05

I have now. Dude, go listen

4:08

to the Pirates of Pentant, or maybe

4:10

it's called the Pirates song. It's by

4:12

Ray Stevens, who's an old, like, 90s

4:15

comedian, the same guy that sung

4:17

Mississippi Squirrel Revival. It's beautiful. And

4:20

so, I play it for the kids all the

4:22

time. And the joke is,

4:24

you know, when we're sitting there, it's like, what

4:26

are you going to do? I want to sing

4:28

and dance. That's great. Anyway, go listen to it.

4:31

Your life will be better having listened to it. It's

4:33

basically... Yeah, probably so. ...these mean

4:35

pirates, and they're like,

4:37

going to go plundering and stuff, but

4:40

this guy doesn't want to do it. He

4:42

has this line that we say. He goes, I

4:44

don't like it, and I don't want to do

4:46

it. And that's what that's

4:49

from? That's what that's from. Yeah.

4:52

Yeah. Oh, I heard that. That's been

4:54

totally meme-ified from before there were even memes. Yeah.

4:57

I've heard people say that for decades, and

4:59

I had no idea where that came from.

5:01

Oh, it's beautiful. I don't want to do

5:03

it. And so, it's basically

5:05

this guy who, they're like, hey, let's

5:07

go take all this money and split

5:10

the booty, and if you don't like it, we'll kill-haul

5:12

you. And he's just persistent. You

5:14

know, he's a more kind

5:17

of a dainty pirate. He's not with it. He

5:19

just wants to dance. And so, at the end,

5:21

they all dance, and it's great. It's

5:24

wonderful. Dainty. He's a

5:26

dainty pirate. Yeah, absolutely. He's

5:29

a dainty pirate. I've derailed what you're talking about.

5:31

I'm so sorry. Is that how you know things

5:33

about Pirates of Penzance? Have you

5:35

ever seen Pirates of Penzance or just the Ray Stevens?

5:37

I have no idea what it is. All I know

5:40

is Ray Stevens wrote a song about it. That's all

5:42

I know. Is it an actual

5:44

play? Yeah, it's by Gilbert and Sullivan. You

5:46

know those guys? I have no idea. They're

5:48

taking us to Pen-A-Four as well. No.

5:51

Pen-a-four's, is that one of those little

5:53

Italian pastries? French pastries. French pastries. I'm

5:56

sorry. It has each OS in the

5:58

front, man. Now

6:01

you've heard the something Something Something something modern

6:03

major general they have on I for I've

6:05

heard that yeah would have happened says oh

6:07

is it really. It's. A song that

6:09

is about sort of a Teddy

6:11

Roosevelt kind of character, the ideal

6:13

of the enlightened, modern man who

6:15

dabbles and everything in those things

6:17

about everything and goes and inspects

6:20

the natural world and brings back

6:22

specimen. Put some is specimen box

6:24

in his office, Terry's his field

6:26

notes book and rights things down.

6:28

and he has spectacles and probably

6:30

an elephant gun. It's that sort

6:32

of character. Gosh, Man, I

6:34

want a president like that. Wouldn't. Be

6:36

awesome! With an

6:38

elephant gun? Yeah, I'm. The.

6:41

kind of present second away and on whether or

6:43

not football should still be a thing. Teddy

6:46

Roosevelt did out. He did

6:48

that. He. Took a dip. There's a

6:50

guy who's ready. Speaking of plays, Didn't want

6:52

to tie both of these together. It's amazing.

6:54

So there's a guy. A

6:56

Bleeding From When you're going to tie Gilbert

6:59

and Sullivan it's Pirates of Penzance together with

7:01

a play. I'm going to tie a play

7:03

together with Teddy Roosevelt. Isn't. Such

7:05

a good go go go I am. So

7:07

there's it. A gentleman that comes down to

7:09

my home town once a year. And.

7:11

He's an actor. And he

7:14

portrays Teddy Roosevelt. I've.

7:16

Gone to the theater to watch this man

7:18

that the local theater. And he

7:20

gets on stage and he just starts talk

7:22

and he's dressed like Teddy Roosevelt. These get

7:24

the vest, don't get the spectacles, and he

7:26

kills it. Did. I. Mean absolutely kills

7:28

that. I've actually tried to get him on

7:31

here so you could interview. Teddy Roosevelt says

7:33

he has everything memorized. My sound

7:35

him. So you took my kids to that? You

7:37

remember that. Oh yeah, yeah, I forgot

7:39

about get over here. Took my kids to that

7:41

performance and you asked him when we were all

7:43

there. but I was doing some move as soon

7:45

as church or something. whatever. I couldn't go. And

7:48

everybody came back all a glow at

7:51

how excellent that dude was. Always incredible.

7:53

Basically. He portrays Teddy

7:56

Roosevelt and it's it's a super

7:58

valuable service society because. He's.

8:00

Showing you what a President could be. Maybe we reach

8:03

out to him and get him. get him on until

8:05

take the time to do it. I would love that.

8:07

Dude. Has gonna make me so nervous the

8:09

whole time if he's Teddy Roosevelt. The.

8:12

The vicarious discomfort I felt

8:14

when they had that Benjamin

8:16

Franklin impersonator come into the

8:18

office in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Dunder

8:20

Mifflin Wise got on. Did.

8:22

You not feel discomfort level but having

8:24

to interact with him as though he

8:26

were Benjamin Franklin. I haven't seen that

8:28

episode yet so. We're We're

8:31

working for the office now as a family. Well.

8:33

As your work until you're getting close

8:35

cause it's early. I'm gonna tell you

8:37

what. okay we'll What's funny about what

8:40

in the office with your kids that

8:42

don't know all the jokes is randomly

8:44

do and that's what she said. jokes

8:46

who register with your kids at random

8:48

places that a target early fit. System.

8:51

Where they don't apply to the yeah to

8:53

why. Would

8:55

you like fries or that at

8:58

the zoo? start? To

9:00

get one or case you tawdry that you

9:02

said that he says of the kids would

9:05

love that and not also you elsa they

9:07

wouldn't understand it and you are right and

9:09

it's great The city's yes. I. Still

9:11

have the my kids have got that dialed

9:13

and they drop it at all the strange

9:15

his times, I think one of the three

9:18

has figured. A job. That.

9:20

Has connotations about special time the

9:23

other to another. They've connected the

9:25

dots on that and they continue

9:27

to. Say. It under their

9:29

ensnares said in other places

9:31

with scary some had no

9:33

idea. Thefts that spirits please

9:35

open your hymnals to him.

9:37

Number forty one a nice

9:39

old by and by. Else

9:43

not do that. Take to communion

9:45

today for that there though series.

9:47

This is basically write everything down

9:49

and does explain it all. During

9:51

the wedding speech said hey just

9:53

to give you things to think

9:55

about when you're falling asleep I'm

9:57

sorry, I'm all. over the place we need

9:59

it would either I'm having fun. Rain and day. We

10:01

haven't talked for a while. We're gonna talk more about drama.

10:03

I'm not, I got the pin. I'm the keeper of the

10:05

pin. It's still in there. Don't worry about it. What were

10:07

you saying? No, but basically Teddy Roosevelt, we gotta get him

10:09

on. Anyway, go ahead. Oh, okay. Simple

10:12

enough. All right. Yep. Okay,

10:14

so the Gilbert and Sullivan thing, we did that in

10:16

high school, right? Actually, I think my brother and my

10:18

sister were in it, and I was just around it

10:20

a lot. Mom directed these plays. She was my music

10:23

teacher in high school, and dad was

10:25

my music teacher in middle school. It just worked

10:27

out that way, was that the schools I happened

10:29

to be going to. Yeah. Dad

10:31

did seventh grade music appreciation,

10:34

which was a sweeping overview of all

10:36

the different movements in the history of

10:38

music that you could still go and

10:40

listen to. So formative.

10:42

I still have all of that knowledge. The other day

10:44

we're sitting down at dinner, and

10:46

he was like, you know, I taught you that seventh

10:48

grade music appreciation class. That was one of the most

10:51

frustrating times in my life. Not one

10:53

kid learned a dang thing, and I was like,

10:55

all right, dad, it's time

10:57

for some happy slash sappy Hallmark kind

10:59

of stuff that's gonna happen right now.

11:02

Well, dad, maybe one kid

11:04

remembered a few things, and I just took him

11:06

back through the whole class, singing

11:08

songs, talking about Giuseppe Verdi

11:10

and things like that, John

11:12

Cage and avant-garde music. Oh

11:15

yeah, all of it. I sang him

11:17

some stuff from Camelot and Man of

11:19

La Mancha, and I

11:21

like to, in my mind, just

11:23

write a tear, a single

11:25

tear streaming down his cheek, but I don't think

11:27

he cried. But in his heart, he was crying,

11:30

because one student listened. He touched

11:32

one kid that day. It's

11:34

pretty good. That's great. So mom

11:36

then was my music teacher and did all

11:39

the drama and stuff for school as well.

11:42

So we did one called Tumbleweeds. It was a

11:44

musical based on a comic book strip that was

11:46

popular in maybe the 1960s or something about

11:50

the old west and a sheriff. Do you

11:52

remember Tumbleweeds? Nope, I don't. Yeah, me

11:54

neither, but I remember being in that, and

11:57

I remember singing, home is where the heart

11:59

is. and I oughta know, cause

12:01

I've been a travelin' westward ho. Why

12:03

would I still have that, dude? I've

12:06

never heard the song before, I never heard

12:08

it since, but like you remembering that

12:11

you were Farmer Garrett, and that you were

12:13

trying to get, like this stuff imprints on

12:15

you. It does. You gotta have it

12:17

down so dang well, that

12:19

under pressure, you won't lose it,

12:21

and that under pressure, well you don't feel it. You

12:24

can just act and have fun and be playful with

12:26

it. You have to have it owned to that level

12:29

in your brain, and it really makes you think about

12:31

what kind of a play you would put your kids

12:33

in, because that's gonna

12:35

be a part of their mental

12:37

makeup forever, if you put them

12:40

in a play, and they memorize those

12:42

lines at that age, with that neuroplasticity.

12:44

And the last couple years, we've put kids in plays, and

12:47

it's been really interesting to see how

12:50

that is interfaced with their little brains.

12:52

We do this play in our community,

12:54

where at a certain age in kindergarten,

12:57

it's the kindergarten nativity play. And

13:00

every kid has a line, so

13:02

like all the kindergartners, they get together, and they all

13:04

have a line in the play, and

13:06

then there's this thing that, well

13:08

why is this the way it is? And they

13:11

say, God always keeps his promises. Seniors

13:14

in high school can go back to this

13:16

play and watch it, and they can recite

13:18

every single line, and in fact they do.

13:21

So basically they'll like, this thing is happening,

13:24

I'm Mary, and wow, blah blah blah, I'm Joseph,

13:26

and blah blah blah. And every

13:29

few minutes throughout the play, God always

13:31

keeps his promises, they all say that.

13:34

And then, it's just beautiful,

13:36

it's really really cool. And I know

13:38

people today would be like, oh you're

13:41

brainwashing your kids, or whatever. And

13:43

to those people I say, it's great, it's

13:46

beautiful. I'm kind

13:48

of gradually moving to the I don't care what you

13:50

think thing, because. Okay, dude, everyone

13:52

teaches their kids their values, And

13:59

if they say no, They don't. Well then those

14:01

are your values. And then. Your

14:03

values are not having values are not passing

14:05

value sound to the next generation. Your value

14:07

is. There. Shouldn't be parenting.

14:10

Parent. S it merely be provision

14:12

and putting up certain safety

14:14

boundaries while the values are

14:16

formed completely independent of any

14:18

human influence if. Is. Just

14:20

nonsensical if you made it to adulthood.

14:23

And. You sort of believe in the life the are living

14:25

enough to continue to live it that way. You're.

14:27

Going to want to impart it to your kids. Died.

14:29

On explain it anymore in the comments section said

14:31

on the the had the little guy do a

14:33

review video with me. We listed a bunch of

14:36

different editions of the bible and I'd Scott we

14:38

are his raw opinions, what he think of that

14:40

one, what you think about one, It's intimidating. I

14:42

like the way it looks, it's heavy and he

14:44

was sort of the keeper of the weight of

14:46

the bible's we gotta So he's a sitting there

14:48

in the video with you. Yes, the whole video

14:50

with me. Now and it's the whole

14:52

time is having a blast! We had so

14:54

much fun making that video! Hang.

14:56

Out as father and son editing

14:58

it together, given each other crap

15:00

seven, each other. Have. An Alaskan

15:03

between takes or whatever. it was. wonderful

15:05

time and he gonna comment section and

15:07

it's ninety nine percent awesome because most

15:09

people get it. but of course you

15:11

get that small percentage of people, tests

15:13

and doctrination. What's wrong with the world

15:15

As us and like that kids is

15:17

grand on camera for thirty straight minutes

15:20

and sad is the word you want

15:22

to put in your comments. Sex. I

15:24

doubt that they whatever on Weibo. Also,

15:26

you griping the me on the internet

15:28

is not exactly persuading me to try

15:30

to want to be like you. Said

15:33

that a psychotic how that works out there.

15:36

That stuff wrong with me. There's things I

15:38

want to change but that is not going

15:40

to be the agent of it that yeah

15:42

I'm in right there. I mean that being

15:44

said that the area just to be completely

15:46

clear, I think it's also important to at

15:48

the at some points your kids have to.

15:52

Do the way we do. It is we We. Is

15:54

a grammar? Stays there. There's a.

15:56

There's. several different ways to teach but

15:58

the most imp One towards the end

16:01

is rhetoric, you know, you have grammar logic

16:03

rhetoric and when they get to rhetoric they have

16:05

to be him And the quadrivium. What's the

16:07

quadrivium? It's it's

16:09

two different blocks of learning that you

16:11

do that are age-appropriate and complement each

16:14

other There's some overlap. It

16:16

was the style of education that was popular

16:18

in the I think it's like

16:20

Roman and then carried through into the

16:22

Middle Ages and has become popular again

16:24

in the West and the last hundred

16:26

years Yeah, so the trivia is part

16:28

of the classical model model of education

16:30

And so grammar is when you're a

16:32

certain age you're really good at memorizing

16:34

things and that's why we're talking about

16:36

these things are stuck in your head

16:38

because At a certain formative

16:40

age you can remember everything that it's

16:43

just give me facts. I can

16:45

regurgitate them yep, and then you move on

16:47

to logic you start to understand about how

16:49

these things play in and You

16:52

start to understand oh well if this

16:54

then that kind of thing and

16:56

then the rhetoric phase is when you

16:58

can articulate a defense a logical defense

17:00

for a certain way that you believe

17:02

things and so I think it's

17:04

important to equip and enable a child to Understand

17:07

the facts first of all also

17:10

understand the traditions and things of that nature

17:12

and then at some point They're

17:14

gonna get to a point where they have to either

17:16

decide to make faith their own Since

17:18

that's the implication of what all these people are yelling

17:21

at me for they have to decide to make faith

17:23

their own or not And I think it's very important

17:25

for me personally to stay out of

17:27

that That's between my child and

17:29

their maker and so they have to figure that

17:31

out for their own their own selves But

17:34

I want to equip them and I

17:36

want them to ask difficult questions like hey,

17:38

this is the counter argument to this What

17:41

do you think about that? And so

17:43

I'm actually doing a really interesting thing right

17:45

now I'm going through a book with a

17:47

young man and if the book is called

17:49

mere Christianity by CS Lewis One

17:52

of the presuppositions or that one of the prerequisite. I

17:54

don't know what the word is, but the

17:56

entering Condition into the conversation is

17:59

we're not going going to use the Bible

18:01

to articulate any of this. We're

18:03

going to use our brains and logic and

18:05

we're going to start here. Is there

18:07

a maker? And then we're

18:10

gonna slowly build on that. And there's

18:12

no scripture references. It's just like, hey

18:15

this is where we're at. What are your thoughts on this?

18:18

It's interesting that we have not compared notes on

18:20

that before. It is, isn't it? Yeah, we

18:22

did the same thing. I did the same thing before

18:25

I had kids. You build out

18:27

the learning and knowledge model to

18:29

get toward the rhetoric stage. I

18:32

mean, what do they call it? Move them past the grammar stage,

18:34

which is where you memorize. I think that's the term you

18:36

used. I think that's right. And then

18:38

into the dialectic or rhetorical

18:40

stage where you synthesize it. You're able

18:42

to process all of that. And

18:45

that stage is dangerous because

18:47

they got all this knowledge. They don't know what

18:49

to do with it yet. And then you refrain

18:51

from telling them exactly how to put it all

18:53

together. And it said you're bouncing questions that could

18:56

go a variety of ways. You

18:58

can tell them what to think, but that isn't

19:00

real and doesn't stick. So yeah,

19:02

I think there's something right on about dividing

19:05

it into a knowledge phase and a teach

19:07

how to think phase. Yeah, interesting

19:09

that we have not compared notes on that

19:11

and yet we both kind of

19:13

ended up there. I think what's interesting about

19:15

that rhetoric stage is when the

19:18

kids start to realize, oh I can

19:20

make an argument. I mean, that's the

19:22

point of rhetoric. I can make an

19:24

argument and try to achieve the outcome

19:26

I desire. And I saw the first

19:29

glimmer in my son's eye one day

19:31

when he realized, oh I have possession

19:33

of this fire. I can

19:36

articulate an argument and

19:38

I can destroy dad in this moment. And

19:41

I just kind of sat down and let it happen. And I

19:43

was like, alright, let's go. And ultimately

19:46

his argument, he thought one or two

19:48

chess moves ahead, not five.

19:52

But it was so fun watching

19:54

it come online and happen. And

19:57

I know we didn't start this talking about parenting, but I

20:00

think one of the most beautiful things ever

20:02

is seeing the mind of a

20:04

child come online and Challenge

20:07

you you have two options there. You can

20:09

crush it or you can welcome

20:11

the conversation I know you and

20:13

you know me we both I'm assuming take

20:15

option two We welcome it and

20:18

then it's important to conceive ground say

20:21

hey you made a good argument Therefore we're

20:23

gonna do your thing. Yep, and that's when

20:25

the fire starts and that's when it gets

20:27

awesome So beautiful my son

20:29

I had this moment this I'm learning

20:31

how to program CNC You

20:34

call it CNC music factory, but I'm learning

20:36

how to program Mills and stuff CNC in

20:38

the name So

20:42

he came in there and

20:44

just dominated like he was

20:46

doing coordinate transforms without even

20:48

having a understanding of Trigonometry

20:50

or algebra and His

20:53

brain just gets it and I'm excited about that.

20:55

Anyway, I'm sorry. I'm talking too much. I know

20:57

you feel the same way I'm assuming. Absolutely. And

20:59

you guys have used drama theater plays to

21:01

teach as well, right? The kids have been

21:04

in stuff Yeah, do you remember being at

21:06

the one with the kids? Yeah,

21:08

it was it was medieval. Was

21:10

it Camelot or something like Camelot but not

21:12

the musical maybe it was some weird Peter

21:15

and the wolf. Yeah, Peter and the wolf. That

21:17

was it. Yeah. Yeah, but without the bassoon and

21:19

the clarinet and the oboe Or no, no, it

21:22

had the musical themes didn't I think there was

21:24

some Yeah,

21:26

that was it yeah that was in there yeah Yeah,

21:29

it was good and it was really fun and my kids were

21:31

starstruck Afterwards to get to go

21:33

and mingle with the high school students who

21:36

had performed in it. They were really delighted

21:39

What about you guys you do plays like that? Well,

21:41

yeah, and thank you for asking that's kind of

21:43

why I brought it up is we're just coming

21:45

off of the intensity of play

21:48

season and Camilla

21:51

has been directing plays. She just

21:53

decided there should be more plays and

21:56

we should get more kids involved and so

21:58

she a friend have

22:01

been picking scripts and doing plays.

22:03

They get a little grant. It's fun. They write

22:05

a grant. I think this one they

22:08

had 250 bucks with the grant that they wrote.

22:10

That was enough to buy the scripts. And

22:12

then everything else we just cobbled together with

22:14

spare parts or whatever. But it came out

22:16

looking great. You know, we got my

22:19

lighting and stuff for the things that I filmed.

22:21

We were able to figure out lighting that looked

22:23

pretty good. A local

22:25

business owner has a great facility

22:27

for a production like what we

22:30

did. So he was kind

22:32

enough. He owns a little coffee shop downtown called

22:34

Pure Bean. He was kind enough to give us

22:36

the whole basement and let the kids use it

22:38

for weeks of practice. But it's just intense. I

22:40

mean, it takes over your whole family. It

22:42

takes over the rhetorical tone

22:44

of the family because everybody's always quoting

22:46

lines and going into character. It takes

22:49

over the shopping lists because everybody's trying

22:51

to get the costuming figured out. And

22:54

it's really fun. It's exhausting, but

22:56

it's fun. And so

22:58

there's an interesting conundrum, I guess,

23:00

with the plays that they've done the

23:03

last couple of years. They've got

23:05

a wide range of students

23:07

who have varying levels of

23:09

experience and boldness on stage.

23:12

And you're trying to figure out how

23:14

to get as many kids as possible

23:17

involved. And that informs

23:19

what kind of script you can

23:21

pick. So doing Midsummer Night's Dream

23:24

with just the time and the kids that you have,

23:26

it doesn't make sense. You need

23:28

to do something that has more characters

23:30

doing more things who are in and

23:32

out quickly. Yeah. And so

23:34

they found a play last year called

23:36

Bad Auditions by Bad Actors. Bad Auditions

23:39

by Bad Actors. Can I ask you

23:41

one question before we go there? Yeah.

23:44

Is the intent to create

23:46

bite-sized roles so that a

23:48

young student can memorize? It's

23:50

not an insurmountable task, but

23:53

it's still something they can digest. Is that

23:55

the idea? You try to strike the balance

23:57

between number of roles and the length of

23:59

things memorize? Yes,

24:01

and amount of time, you know,

24:03

the runtime of the play comes

24:05

into consideration for the facility

24:08

where you're gonna put it on. If the

24:10

venue isn't super comfortable, that might change things.

24:12

If it's sort of a chill environment like

24:14

where these occurred, maybe that changes. Yeah, there's...you're

24:17

making decisions about the script based on who

24:19

you have to work with, what you have

24:21

to work with, what locations you have to

24:23

work with, and what the educational outcomes are

24:25

that you're going for. And I've never really

24:28

thought about any of that. I've

24:30

always...well, I mean, you could guess what I've

24:32

always thought about when it comes to picking a script. It's just a

24:34

story. Is it interesting? Do I know

24:36

where it's going? Do I like the characters? Am I

24:38

invested? And eventually you start to realize

24:40

you have to be able to pull the thing off. Yeah.

24:43

And I mean, a long time ago I

24:45

started writing scripts and I had some

24:47

friends who were in the film industry and they're like,

24:49

ah, you're kind of fun

24:52

to talk to. You should take a run at

24:54

a couple of scripts. We'll see what we can

24:56

do. Like, okay. Then I wrote these big, elaborate,

24:58

insane action scripts and they're

25:01

like, huh, that's good. Do

25:03

you know how much money it would take to make

25:05

this thing? What

25:08

if you did another one but not that

25:10

at all? And so I

25:13

ended up writing four or five scripts. Maybe

25:15

a couple of those were just treatments, but I kept

25:17

writing them and they just kept

25:19

getting smaller and smaller in scope until I

25:21

wrote one that I'm really proud of that

25:23

I still haven't found the right occasion to

25:25

make, but that I still hope gets made

25:28

someday. But that was a tough learning curve. I

25:30

want to ask you about it in just a second, but there is

25:32

a science and engineering equivalent

25:34

to the phenomena that you just described.

25:36

So on the humanity

25:39

side, it sounds like there's this,

25:41

oh, well, I'm gonna design this thing

25:43

and then we'll just go do it.

25:45

But the act of doing is harder than

25:48

you first think. So for example, on the

25:50

engineering side, if an engineer

25:52

brings a machinist to print, you

25:54

can look at it and in five seconds you can be

25:56

like, oh, this engineer has

25:59

a degree. That's it. They've

26:01

never made anything because they

26:03

don't know you can't make a square corner on

26:05

the inside of a hole You

26:07

know that's an extremely difficult operation You

26:09

have to do something called broaching and

26:12

nobody has a broaching machine or you might have

26:14

to EDM it electrical

26:16

discharge machining So

26:18

this engineer made this stupid part

26:20

with a square hole and we

26:23

can't do that They're moron

26:25

or at least inexperienced and

26:27

so it sounds like you just described a humanities equivalent

26:29

where you can write a script that's Sounds

26:32

great, but you know, it's gonna

26:34

do exactly what the part needs, you know is what

26:36

the engineers thinking But on the humanity side you're probably

26:38

like oh, well, this would be great people will love

26:40

this part of the plot and you're like, yeah, but

26:42

we have to make an actual

26:45

see on the stage in

26:47

a floating boat Is

26:50

it is it that kind of thing? Yeah Yeah,

26:52

and these scripts that I were writing

26:54

they were screenplays. So Yeah,

26:56

I was just writing way way out of my league. I

26:59

was the moron and Funnily

27:01

enough is funnily a word. I'm using

27:03

it. Yep. The culmination of this whole

27:05

process of growth was the

27:07

drug stopper Yeah, yeah nation

27:10

script Whatever. Okay. What

27:12

do we have? I have a ton of

27:14

friends with lots of cool-looking guns that they

27:16

use responsibly and I

27:19

got like kind of a junkyard to shoot in I

27:21

have a warehouse kind of space Cool.

27:24

Let's just do a let's do a drug

27:26

movie about drugs that say the line up But

27:28

say you don't leave you say the line that

27:30

the line you wrote with one drugs

27:33

The best line you ever wrote now the

27:35

best line I ever wrote is Volkov

27:40

that's right. He's running drugs again

27:43

bad drugs the kind of drugs that have to

27:45

be stopped But that can only be stopped by

27:47

the drug stopper. That's my favorite

27:49

line I've ever written in my entire career.

27:52

It just explains everything

27:55

plot There's

27:58

a bad guy. This is the Plot

28:00

tension, this is the good

28:02

guy. Oh, it's gorgeous. Yeah,

28:08

if you haven't just a subtle plug for

28:10

the drug stopper, if you haven't seen the

28:12

drug stopper, go put that in the Googles.

28:15

It's so good. It's the most important film of the

28:17

20 teens. I played

28:19

that for my kids without telling them that you

28:21

were involved. And

28:23

then they were at one point, they're like, wait,

28:26

is that Mr. Matt? Like, yes, it is.

28:30

It's so good. You're

28:32

wearing the like, you're wearing the army

28:34

uniform, like the digital camo with like

28:37

the sleeves all the way down to

28:39

your wrists. So

28:42

good. This

28:46

episode of No-Dome Questions is brought to you by the patrons

28:49

of the program, or as I

28:52

like to call them, the people

28:54

that have Barnacles and Testicles stickers

28:56

now on their

28:58

cars and computers. Have you

29:00

seen the pictures coming in? Mugs, water bottles. Oh,

29:02

they're coming in. Yeah, I have. Yeah.

29:05

Oh, God. We did

29:07

that. We actually did that. Silly

29:10

as that, dude. Yeah,

29:13

so people are sending pictures in of,

29:15

so we have these time travelers

29:17

that come up from time to time in the

29:19

podcast named Barnacles and Testicles. And

29:21

for some reason, we thought it'd be great to send

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stickers out of their faces with

29:26

the words Barnacles and Testicles

29:28

next to them, which

29:31

people are putting on things. Did you see

29:33

the one from Arkansas on a car? Maybe

29:35

it wasn't Arkansas. Oh, I sure did. Yeah.

29:39

It just screams bravery, courage,

29:41

common sense. I love it. I

29:45

don't know, man. I'm sorry. I'm excited. I

29:48

think we need to make these stickers available to

29:50

anybody that's a patron. Maybe we make

29:52

a secret site on there where people can buy them

29:54

or something like that. You want to do that? Mm-hmm.

29:57

Yeah, that's a good way to do it. Now that we actually got

29:59

the mailing. system figured out and got them out. Yeah.

30:03

Built a new system for this one to get them out

30:05

the door so that we can do more of this in the

30:07

future. So yeah, I think we ought to.

30:09

At any rate, the point is, thank you everybody who supports

30:11

the program. You don't have to do that. And

30:14

yet you do. Thanks for understanding what we're

30:16

going for. And yeah,

30:18

also it's not weird if you don't support. So it's

30:20

not like the kind of thing where, I don't know,

30:22

we're grateful if you do. And it's, we're

30:24

totally grateful for everybody just being here either

30:26

way. Yeah. I like talking to

30:28

you and this is a great, I don't

30:31

know, it's a great thing. I enjoy it.

30:33

So if you're interested in supporting on Patreon,

30:35

it's patreon.com/no dumb questions. If not, no

30:37

big deal. Thank you so much. I

30:41

kept the pin on the last thing you said.

30:43

You said you had written a play that you

30:46

still want to be made and you were about to tell me the

30:48

title of it, but I derailed it. So what is the name of

30:50

it? Oh, I was going to tell you the title of it. Is

30:52

he made? I will now. It's called Freddie

30:54

Beckman Truth Hunter. And it's

30:56

about a Bigfoot hunter who's a blogger whose

30:59

parents were rich, but they have an elaborate

31:01

trust fund. And after they die, unless

31:04

he achieves a certain level

31:06

of education or success, all

31:09

of the trust fund money doesn't go to

31:11

him. It instead goes to a charity that

31:13

connects orphans in Southeast Asia with call center

31:16

jobs. And he wants the money

31:18

and doesn't want those orphans to be forced into

31:20

call center jobs. So he has to succeed, but

31:22

he wants to succeed at Bigfoot hunting. So he has

31:24

to go and find a Bigfoot or else

31:27

all those orphans are going to get call center jobs.

31:30

And then hilarity ensues. Yeah. Oh,

31:32

yeah. Yeah. It's

31:35

an important piece. Oh, dude, that

31:37

sounds Freddie Beckman. Honestly, it's like

31:39

comedies were in 2008, right

31:42

before things became less funny. Okay. So

31:44

I want to do it someday. I hope someday the

31:46

timing is right. Yeah. I got

31:48

some other stuff going on right now. So in

31:51

your mind's eye, who plays Freddie Beckman? Like who

31:53

is the actor that you've cast? Back then, it

31:55

was a little known actor who had a supporting

31:57

role on a NBC comedy called Parks and Rocks.

32:00

named Chris Pratt. That's who I wrote

32:03

and whenever I would talk about the script people

32:06

were like I don't know who that is.

32:08

I try to explain it like the character

32:10

name is Andy Dwyer. He's very funny, talented

32:12

guy. He'd be great for this. Now

32:15

people know who that is. Yeah they've heard of him

32:17

now. I hate to be the one to tell you

32:19

this Matt but Chris Pratt is not going to be

32:21

Freddie Beckman. Come on! If stuff

32:23

can happen he'd

32:25

be great. He would nail that role. I mean

32:27

he'd be great. Zach Galifianakis would be good in

32:30

that role as well. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah

32:32

let's be honest it's probably gonna be

32:35

me making sock puppets and just

32:37

doing the whole thing that way probably probably that's

32:39

how this will ultimately work out and it'll be

32:42

good that way. That would be good. So I

32:44

actually listened to an

32:46

interview with Zach Galifianakis recently

32:49

about his short stint as a writer on

32:51

Saturday Night Live. Have you heard

32:53

this interview? No. Huh. It's gorgeous

32:55

because he's talking about the things you're

32:57

talking about. Like he said

32:59

well I'm gonna write this stuff that's funny and

33:02

it was kind of the same thing you described

33:04

where you think you're writing it correctly but then

33:07

when it comes to the moment it doesn't actually

33:09

play and he said he was

33:11

pitching his ideas to all these people in

33:13

the writing room and they were like this

33:15

is horrible. There's nothing funny about this. Why

33:17

would you pitch this? He's like I don't

33:19

know I thought it was funny. He's just

33:21

like his humor is so off. He

33:24

described pitching face-to-face

33:27

Britney Spears. He said

33:29

he was face-to-face with Britney Spears and he's like

33:31

okay yeah so so let's read through the script

33:33

and they're reading it. It's like alright so you're

33:35

just doing a normal interview like

33:37

a normal like someone's interviewing Britney Spears

33:39

and you're Britney Spears as Britney Spears.

33:41

It's like yourself and then

33:44

suddenly just massive amounts of blood starts coming

33:46

out of your mouth. That's

33:52

great! That's what I want!

33:54

Right? And he's like and

33:57

you try to continue the

33:59

interview. He's describing it and

34:02

he's like He's like it

34:04

was the worst idea ever and I

34:06

say this out loud in person to

34:10

Britney Spears and he said there

34:12

was a pause and She looked at me

34:14

and he said she was so kind to me. She just

34:16

said that's funny Like

34:19

she was gonna go with it like For

34:22

her like some kind of super

34:24

celebrity To put all of

34:27

her celebrity credibility on the line

34:29

for some dumb skit. That's funny,

34:31

man. I love it Oh, that's

34:33

funny. I love it when these

34:35

super duper a list Celebrities do

34:37

something that is you know, seemingly

34:39

beneath them, but it's so

34:41

fun So fun. So

34:43

anyway, I'm sorry. Maybe you will

34:45

get Chris Pratt. Yeah Well like

34:47

Peyton Manning going off-brand with that

34:49

SNL United Way commercial where he's

34:51

being a horrible role model and injuring children And

34:55

giving them tattoos and telling them what

34:57

happens to snitches teaching them how to

34:59

break into cars it's just

35:01

absolutely wonderful to go completely opposite

35:03

the wholesome Peyton Manning vibe and

35:07

He just breaks the typecast. Yeah.

35:09

Yeah, it's funny, but also It's

35:16

just it's just so Anti-humor

35:19

it's just such broken humor. I adore that.

35:21

I would love to have seen that skit

35:24

Well, the reason it's funny is because Britney Spears would never know

35:26

how to go along with that And so

35:29

it's a pipe dream that kind of thing would

35:31

just never work, but he actually proposed it to

35:33

her I between two ferns is

35:35

amazing and I think yes, have you

35:37

seen the Hillary Clinton interview in between

35:39

two ferns? when

35:41

he reads the ad spot first

35:45

rump camp Why

35:49

would you do that? How cool of her to play along with that? him

35:52

for president right now Yeah,

35:57

she she understood the tones she

35:59

understood role she did really well.

36:01

I know that's very very complex

36:03

humor and very risky humor

36:06

and she did it and I

36:08

was so grateful. That's great. Alright

36:11

so Freddie Batman Truth Hunter,

36:13

Chris Pratt is the leading actor. Who's

36:16

gonna play Sasquatch or Bigfoot excuse

36:18

me? Maybe they still get the

36:20

guy from Harry and the Hendresons. I don't

36:22

know for sure.

36:25

Everyone will always be comparing themselves to

36:28

him anyway. Why not go get the

36:30

ogee? It's

36:33

so stupid I love it. This is so

36:35

dumb. Tell me

36:37

more about Freddie Batman or do you

36:39

want to keep it? Yeah, Carrie L

36:42

was was gonna need to be in

36:44

it as the snobby British Discovery Channel

36:46

monster chaser host who everybody hates. He

36:48

was gonna be super unlikable. Basically

36:51

the same role he played. He's in Twister

36:53

right? And he played that guy in Twister.

36:56

I had real good ideas. Who was it? I didn't

36:58

hear you. Carrie L was the

37:00

Dread Pirate Roberts. Oh wow

37:02

okay great. Now it's gonna work it's

37:04

gonna be funny there's a bunch of jokes that I want to

37:06

tell you but I still want to do these jokes someday so

37:10

they just got to sit. That's great man. It's

37:12

gonna be hilarious when this happens. Oh my goodness

37:14

it's one of my favorite things I've ever written

37:16

and it makes me sad that I've never. Carrie

37:18

L was would be great I'm looking up a

37:20

picture. Yeah yeah he'd be great. Princess Bride guy.

37:22

Mm-hmm yeah yep. That's

37:25

amazing. That'd be great. The point of all of

37:27

this is apparently everybody in engineering

37:29

and in writing eventually figures out that you gotta

37:31

work with what you got. You gotta write for

37:33

what you got. You got a design for what

37:36

you got or what you can do and it's

37:39

been really fun watching Camilla

37:41

and her pal Emily run

37:44

that equation and solve for that these last

37:46

couple of years doing these plays. Well let

37:48

me just ask you if you had

37:50

25 kids showing up

37:53

and you just said upfront hey this is

37:56

a family thing we want it to be great

37:58

but if you audition your getting a role,

38:00

you will be on stage. If

38:03

those were the parameters of putting together your play,

38:05

how would you build that play? What kind of

38:07

script would you need to make to make that

38:09

work? Well,

38:11

there would have to be some kind of choreography

38:14

component where everyone has a simple dance or something.

38:16

It has to be simple enough where everybody could

38:18

do it, but maybe you have two or three

38:20

skilled people that can do like a back handspring

38:22

or something, and you'd have them do that in

38:25

front of everybody dancing. You

38:28

have a lot of songs that everybody could sing

38:30

along, like background singers, and you have a couple

38:33

of solos. There's

38:35

a local version of Peter Pan going on

38:37

right now, and there's a lot of lost

38:39

boys in the background. I

38:43

will tell you this, at the end of a play like that,

38:45

I just feel overwhelming

38:47

joy because of that

38:49

thing that I have. I know the thing that

38:51

really gets to you is little girls running and

38:53

doing difficult things. That's your tear

38:55

trigger, right? It doesn't matter how bad the

38:58

movie is. If there's a girl doing something

39:00

brave, my goodness. Oh, yeah. For

39:03

me, it's when a lot of

39:05

people from different backgrounds work together

39:07

to do something. Without

39:09

fail, at the end of a play, I have

39:12

that emotion, and it's a

39:14

combination. It's not just for the actors

39:16

and the crew, but it's

39:18

for the audience as well because the

39:20

audience participates in a very interesting way.

39:23

My brother, actually, this is

39:25

a passion of his, so he acts

39:27

in local productions. I forget what they

39:29

call themselves, but it's a local art

39:32

thing they do here, and he's

39:34

in a play about once a year,

39:36

maybe once every other year, and he does great,

39:38

man. You go to all of them? Every time

39:40

I'm invited, I go. He did

39:42

some really cool ones. There was this

39:44

really old story about a bank robbery

39:46

in town, and someone wrote a play

39:49

about this individual bank robbery. The

39:52

play was about our town, the town

39:54

I went to high school in. I was learning

39:56

history about our town. I think there

39:58

is a play called Our Town. This one

40:00

was about specifically our town. It

40:04

was great. I mean, the bank robbery and

40:06

all kinds of stuff. In the

40:08

most recent play I went to with him,

40:10

I'm like, man, he's not in this play.

40:12

He's been practicing. And all of

40:15

a sudden, at the end of the play, he's

40:17

the focus of the whole play. He is

40:20

this German professor that was the secret love

40:22

interest, and he had two women fighting over

40:24

him. My

40:27

brother walks out on stage. You

40:29

know my brother. He walks out on stage,

40:31

and he rocks a German accent like a

40:33

professor and has women fighting over him. And

40:36

I was so proud. I was like, man, I am

40:38

so proud of my brother for doing this. And I

40:40

had that feeling that, I

40:42

don't know, the teary feeling, like, oh, man,

40:44

all this stuff came together. And as

40:47

my brother, I'm so proud of him. It's

40:49

great. And so I can

40:51

imagine at the end of something like

40:53

this that Camilla and her friend Emily does, do

40:56

you cry? I mean, like, are you there, or is

40:58

it so technical that you're in the weeds trying to

41:00

help her? Where are you at with

41:02

it? No, I simply took it in. I

41:04

don't think cry is usually the emotion I

41:07

feel, but beaming with pride.

41:10

The other four members of my family have been

41:12

involved in both of these plays the last two

41:14

years, and I'm very proud of them. And

41:17

I genuinely have enjoyed both of them,

41:19

because there are plays I don't know

41:21

that are written from scratch to accommodate

41:24

situations just like this one. Last

41:26

year, they did one called Bad Auditions by

41:29

Bad Actors. Both these plays they did were

41:31

by the same guy. I don't know

41:33

much about them, but apparently he writes plays that

41:35

are meant for these kind of circumstances. He's

41:37

writing plays that are very popular in high school.

41:40

They're very contemporary right now. His name's Ian McWeathy.

41:42

I think I'm saying that right. Bad

41:45

Auditions by Bad Actors is very simple. You

41:48

got A Table, and then you

41:50

have a character who comes and goes who

41:52

is demanding that this play be cast right

41:54

now, and then you've got maybe

41:56

two casting directors. It's been a year I

41:58

don't remember exactly. and they've got

42:00

all these roles that they need to fill, but all the

42:03

actors are terrible, neurotic, and

42:05

the auditions are horrid in

42:07

really funny ways. But

42:09

what it does is it allows you

42:12

to have basically no set. You

42:14

don't have to do anything, because it's already set

42:16

on a stage. And then one

42:18

at a time, they call in the next kid.

42:20

Well, sometimes you've got to recycle kids in a

42:22

couple of roles, depending on who auditions. It

42:25

just worked really, really well for what

42:27

they had to work with, how many kids they had to work with, and

42:30

it came off great. Super simple, super funny. The

42:32

kids did well. They didn't have to memorize a

42:34

mountain of lines, most of them, but

42:37

just come out and get into the character the

42:39

one or two times and absolutely nail it and

42:41

have everybody be delighted, and that's that.

42:44

So then this year's play was- Well,

42:47

one second before you go to the next

42:49

play, what kind of bad acting do the

42:52

actors do? Like, do they- What's

42:54

bad about their acting? All

42:56

the different ways you can screw up acting are

42:58

there. The super quiet,

43:00

I'm way too nervous, and I don't know if I

43:03

can do this type of acting. The

43:05

I don't understand the role at

43:08

all kind of acting, really

43:10

big and over the top. The

43:13

frenetic, nervous, the I just so

43:15

badly want to look cool while

43:17

I audition. All

43:19

the ways you can screw it up, all

43:21

the ways that your insecurities could boil over

43:23

into your performance and have you get it

43:25

totally wrong, I guess. Yeah, because

43:28

stage acting is very different than camera

43:30

acting, I think. Yeah. I don't

43:32

know what I'm talking about, but it seems

43:34

like it is. Yes, it certainly is, and

43:36

I've done both of those, a

43:38

decent amount, and I think

43:41

of stage acting as just being much,

43:43

much bigger. I think it's a

43:45

little harder to convey nuance and

43:48

more precise emotion strictly

43:51

with your performance in stage acting because

43:53

you're so far away from everybody. So

43:56

you gotta depend on the writing, the

43:58

mood, the music. Everything

44:00

the costuming a bunch of other stuff has to

44:02

do the lift to create the emotion and the

44:04

feeling of the moment that you Want to create

44:06

and again, this is all in my experience. I

44:08

don't know This

44:10

is what everybody thinks but whereas with

44:13

a camera man if you're tight on Somebody

44:15

they don't have to do much to convey a

44:17

lot of emotion I mean you can be 16

44:20

by 9 on someone's brow and

44:22

eyes and upper half of their

44:24

nose and they can communicate Tons

44:27

just with a little twitch or a raise

44:29

of an eyebrow or whatever And so

44:31

I think the proximity just changes what you can get away with

44:34

and what you can do Also having

44:36

the ability to edit and do multiple takes

44:39

Man, that doesn't hurt. Yeah. All

44:42

right. So the first one was bad auditions

44:44

by bad actors Yeah, it was

44:46

cute and it went really well, but this year's

44:48

went really really well. We just got done and

44:51

and The whole plot is

44:53

just this a kid sits down to

44:55

write the last two lines of her

44:57

play about the great Gatsby or of

45:00

her her reports on the book the

45:02

great Gatsby it takes her

45:04

an hour and a half to get it done

45:06

because she's writing it on an internet connected device

45:08

and So many things

45:10

keep happening. And so

45:12

she's trying to write it all of

45:14

these different personifications of Websites

45:16

keep appearing on her right and her

45:18

left almost like angels and demons except

45:21

there's no rhyme or reason to which

45:23

side and they come out Yeah distract

45:25

her and they all dress like what

45:27

that website would dress like if they

45:30

were a person and it's adorable I

45:32

would love this. I think you would love it,

45:35

right? I would love this Yeah.

45:39

Oh, that's amazing. There's a young

45:41

lady that is making

45:43

videos right now and Her

45:46

stuff is fantastic. Let me see if I can find her. I

45:48

think her name is Yeah,

45:50

El Cordova Elle

45:54

C-o-r-d-o-v-a Her

45:58

videos are great Like she makes

46:00

videos about all these different fonts, like

46:02

if the fonts got together and had

46:05

a font party. Okay. Her

46:07

most recent one was about all the

46:09

different world changing technologies getting together and

46:12

they're having a party and so like Firewalks in's like,

46:14

what's up everybody? And they're like, oh, what's going on?

46:17

Hey, how you doing, Wheel? Oh,

46:19

I'm doing great. And what's up, electricity?

46:21

And then AI walks in the room. Okay.

46:24

And they're like, whoa, what are you doing

46:26

here? He's like, oh, how's it going? Other

46:28

technologies. And so everybody's looking

46:30

at it like, you're gonna be good for

46:32

humanity, right? And then AI looks around

46:34

and is like, yes, of

46:37

course. You know what I mean? So

46:39

is it that kind of stuff? Only

46:42

it's basically a glimpse inside the ADD

46:44

experience that is the internet right now?

46:46

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. What

46:49

was your favorite person that pops in? Well,

46:51

I'm biased because it's gonna be my own kid, but

46:53

I had three kids in here. My

46:56

favorite role, no, let me put a pin

46:58

in that question. I gotta tell you

47:00

a little bit about who all pops in first.

47:02

Okay, you have, for example, Twitter. Well, X, no,

47:04

and they got that right. They called the character

47:06

X. X shows up

47:08

and most of the jokes are

47:10

written about real journalism versus community

47:12

journalism or whatever you wanna call

47:14

it. It just sort of riffs

47:16

on the obvious thing. Facebook shows

47:18

up and is dressed

47:21

like an old grandma with beads

47:23

and a shawl and

47:25

really wants to be relevant and hang out

47:27

with all of the other social media, but

47:29

they don't wanna hang out with her at

47:32

all. Everyone just sort of

47:34

makes this sound when Facebook

47:36

comes out. MySpace didn't

47:38

make an appearance. Bing,

47:41

oh, Google, Google's

47:43

a lot of fun. My daughter played

47:45

Google. She dressed in a white corporate

47:47

outfit, but with a belt and glasses.

47:49

All the accessories were all the Google

47:51

colors. And she comes out and

47:54

is just delighted to get to help you and

47:57

super overly enthusiastic, but keeps

47:59

accidentally. saying very evil

48:01

controlling things. And then

48:03

eventually the kid, the main character figures it out

48:05

and is like, why are you doing this stuff?

48:07

Or yellow and whatever. Finally, the kid's

48:09

like, I'm not gonna work with you anymore. I'm

48:12

gonna work with Bing. And the Google

48:14

character just starts laughing hysterically. Oh, that's

48:16

great, you're gonna Bing something. And

48:19

then the Bing character comes out. It's

48:21

a girl with just insane frazzled hair,

48:23

like a cat lady. She's in

48:25

a robe, she's got crumpled up pieces of

48:27

notebook paper torn out of a spiral bound

48:30

and is frantically trying to thumb through them

48:32

to find what the request was.

48:35

It's like, okay, nevermind, back to Google. That

48:38

kind of stuff was just super

48:40

funny. There's an old cowboy who

48:42

is email, because email is so old.

48:46

He has folksy wisdom and stuff

48:48

like that. All

48:50

the streaming services come out and fight

48:52

for attention and all of their insecurities

48:55

and the ups and downs of the

48:57

history of what they are. All

49:00

come through Hulu, Netflix, Disney Plus

49:03

gets made fun of firmly. It's

49:05

all super fun. But my

49:07

favorite character is a high

49:10

school girl who knows the answer to the

49:12

question about the great Gatsby thing. So

49:14

the main character's like, I'm gonna

49:16

reach out to this girl to find out. Oh,

49:19

so it's actually a human. We

49:21

have all of this way to find

49:23

this information, but we ultimately have to get to another

49:25

person. Yeah, and that proves to be one of the

49:27

big take-homes of the play, but

49:30

she has to go through all these different apps to

49:32

get a hold of this person. You can't call people

49:34

in this world. There are no phone calls, there

49:36

are no texts. That's just not

49:38

an option, which is kind of funny that that never

49:41

comes up at all. But

49:43

a big chunk of the plot is that the main character who

49:45

needs to know what color the light at the end of the

49:47

dock in Great Gatsby is, she

49:49

tries to go to Wikipedia and the

49:51

entry is unreliable. It's like, no, I can't

49:53

get this wrong. This is a very important

49:55

grade. And so she tries to track down a

49:58

girl who got a good grade on this paper the year before. before.

50:00

Oh cool, that takes her through

50:02

a bunch of different apps to try

50:04

to get to her. That probably makes it all

50:06

make more sense. I didn't explain that very well.

50:08

That sounds amazing. It is amazing. She

50:11

tries to track her down on X

50:13

through a DM and

50:15

instead of this high school girl named Nina stepping

50:17

through the curtain once she gets

50:19

DM'd, instead it's my

50:22

daughter with a big parka and

50:25

a long black mustache

50:27

and aviator sunglasses using

50:29

Russian accent. I am

50:32

Nina, high school girl.

50:34

You've reached out to

50:36

me. Let us have

50:38

normal high school girl

50:40

conversation about the Taylor

50:42

Swifes or the Bieber

50:44

or undermining American Constitution.

50:51

That is so clever

50:53

dude. It's so clever.

50:55

And your daughter got to use her Russian accent because

50:57

she has a very good one. She did

50:59

much better than mine. She did so

51:01

well. Yeah, I'm feeling emotions right

51:03

now. I'm feeling like to

51:06

see your daughter up there pulling that off

51:08

and all these kids. I'm feeling things. That's

51:10

great. She got

51:12

to come back out again on another platform when

51:14

they tried to reach out with the DM and

51:17

all she had to do was step through

51:19

the curtain and that outfit and everybody knew

51:21

to uproariously laugh because it's the Russian boss.

51:23

That made me really happy. Oh,

51:26

that's clever writing. That's very clever

51:28

writing. Well, I got a question

51:30

for you. So speaking of that, what

51:32

would you see as being the hurdle to

51:35

publishing a play like this and sending it out

51:37

to high school classes year after year for them

51:39

to do a play like that? Oh,

51:42

it's out of date. Yeah, it's out of date immediately,

51:44

right? So if you wrote it, what would you do

51:46

to work around that? I

51:52

don't know. There's many options. There's

51:55

many options. You could update it every year.

51:57

Do you buy the play?

51:59

How does that work? The person that wrote the

52:01

play, do you buy it from them? Yeah. Mm-hmm.

52:04

That's how they did it. That's awesome. I guess you

52:06

could just have a website and you would just update the play

52:09

every year. And people could

52:11

do that, but then your life becomes updating

52:13

a play. That one play out of the

52:15

40 you've written. I liked his

52:17

solution to it. I agree that would work, but

52:19

his solution was, hey, on

52:21

this one play, it's totally time

52:24

sensitive. It could change from month to month.

52:26

Whoever's doing it, just feel free to rewrite whatever parts you

52:28

need to rewrite to do that. Make it relevant. So,

52:31

we just rewrote the parts that didn't make sense

52:33

anymore. And it was kind of

52:35

fun, as an exercise, to be forced as

52:37

a family to think through how the internet

52:39

works right now and how we

52:41

nail each of these characters. We made some tweaks

52:43

and wrote some new jokes. And

52:45

that was a new aspect to doing a play

52:48

that I had not experienced before either. So, that

52:50

was pretty fun too. This is

52:52

an extremely clever thing because you're,

52:55

man, this is like layers to this.

52:58

So, you're getting the benefits

53:00

of having the students interact in

53:02

real life. They're having to

53:04

memorize lines. They're having to learn how to

53:06

communicate with emotion in a way that they

53:09

have to have empathy to see what the

53:11

audience is seeing. But at

53:13

the same time, they're having to think about

53:15

what the internet's doing to them and how

53:19

this is a very clever way, this play.

53:21

What's it called again? It is

53:23

called, The Internet is Distracted. Ooh, look

53:26

a kitten. That's the

53:28

name of the play? Yeah, it's literally the name of the play. I

53:33

love it. So, that, you

53:35

had told me that before. I had forgotten it. It

53:37

hit me anew. That was great. So,

53:40

I think it's genius because it's teaching

53:42

the students to rise above the internet

53:45

and understand that the internet

53:47

is a fallible tool. Yeah, I think

53:49

that's genius. So can people go buy

53:51

this play and do it in their own hometown? I

53:54

mean, I assume so. Yeah. Don't

53:56

get me wrong. It's a practical play. This

53:59

isn't Hamlet. or anything. It's

54:01

simple and practical, but it was witty

54:03

and it was fun. And it, most

54:05

importantly, it did the

54:08

things that you just said. It accomplished

54:10

all of those goals, ticked

54:12

a ton of boxes, and everybody

54:14

laughed really hard. The crowd loved it because nobody

54:16

knew the story. Nobody knew how it was going

54:18

to turn out. And so wherever it

54:20

went was brand new. And I think that makes the

54:22

humor hit harder and even the little theme, the little

54:24

lesson, if you can call it that, hit harder. So

54:26

it was just a cool experience. And I've been wanting

54:29

to pick up the phone and tell you about it.

54:31

And so I decided to pick up the phone and

54:33

turn on mics and tell you about it. That's awesome,

54:35

man. Thank you very much. This

54:38

episode of No-Dum Questions is brought to you

54:41

by the email list. Destin, what do they

54:43

need to know about the email list? Just

54:46

go to the website, notumquestions.fm, and there'll

54:49

be a little button that says email list. And

54:52

if you click that, every time we release an

54:54

episode, we will email it to you and we

54:56

won't spam you. It's that simple. The idea is

54:58

to get algorithms. I don't know. RSS feeds are

55:00

pretty good about stuff, but we would love just

55:03

to send you an email when we release an

55:05

episode. That'd be cool. That's it.

55:07

There's an email list. Thank you for considering it.

55:11

Did Camilla pick the play out? And she

55:13

successfully directed it in the whole bit. She

55:15

did. Yeah, she got flowers. There were flowers

55:17

at the end. That Camilla,

55:20

man. She does a lot,

55:22

doesn't she? She just does things, man. I don't

55:24

know. That's great. I'll come one day and be

55:27

like, hey, I bought a Volkswagen Beetle. I'm going to learn

55:29

how to fix it. Okay. You want help?

55:31

Nope. Just buy me the

55:33

Chilton for my birthday. Okay. That's

55:36

just what you're doing now? Yes. Great. Love

55:38

you. Yeah, she just

55:41

does things, dude. It's pretty

55:43

fun. Yeah. Dude, I

55:45

hate to be the guy, but I

55:48

need to go be a dad and get the

55:50

kiddos. I just have

55:52

to land the plane immediately. I'm so sorry.

55:55

I'm going to let you. I've been holding back telling you

55:57

about the play, so I'm glad we got it in

55:59

because Eventually these things go over the waterfall and then

56:01

we never talk about it. Once something

56:03

cool happens and we consecrate it to

56:05

the podcast, we got to get to it

56:07

or it goes away. That's true. Dude,

56:09

I love the concept of this play and I'm

56:12

jealous that you got to see it and I

56:14

kind of want to buy

56:16

it and get somebody to do it locally or something

56:18

or get the kids to do it. I

56:21

don't know. It was very fun. I'm not

56:23

vanilla. Normal American play. Make

56:25

the people laugh. Have the costumes.

56:27

Undermine American constitution. Wonderful play. See

56:31

you pal. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank

57:00

you.