Stephen Glover on His Secret Star Wars Movie, Inventing Memes with Donald, and Inspiring Atlanta

Speaker 1 Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

Speaker 1 People are like places like, man, this show Atlanta sucks. You know, like, I got to sit around long enough to see the full spectrum of it.
We're like, man, who wrote this stupid episode?

Speaker 1 I'm like, man, that was. I didn't feel that long ago.
I was at a Golden Globe party dancing the bad and bougie, you know, like

Speaker 1 right after this ad.

Speaker 1 You're listening to DraftKings Network.

Speaker 1 What are you allowed to talk about when it comes to your actual profession right now? The one you are currently on strike from?

Speaker 1 I think everything is fine as long as I'm like.

Speaker 1 As long as, so I can say, like, Steve, congrats on you and Donald doing this New Lando show, which I read about. Oh, boy, you shouldn't have said that.

Speaker 1 But that's, that, that, literally, that's the extent of what you can say, is that.

Speaker 1 All right, so that is the voice, the already regretful voice of my friend Stephen Glover, the genius screenwriter and rapper and producer.

Speaker 1 The guy who may be best known as the head story editor of Atlanta, the TV show which won pretty much every award in Hollywood and is also one of my absolute favorite shows of all time.

Speaker 1 Steve and his brother Donald are now making a widely reported and super highly anticipated new Star Wars show, a Lando Calrissian show for Disney Plus.

Speaker 1 Or at least I thought they were until now.

Speaker 1 No, yeah, I mean, I could pretty much be like, yeah, you know, we're doing,

Speaker 1 it's not even.

Speaker 1 should we should we bleep it

Speaker 1 i'm sure like the nerds will figure it out anyway like they'll read my lips or something wait you said it's it's not even a show and no the idea right now is to do a movie you know but uh

Speaker 1 like that's the thing like right now because of the strike it's kind of like telephone all the information like

Speaker 1 i can be an information broker yeah between you and the walt disney company

Speaker 1 guys they're doing a movie

Speaker 1 You got to pretend like you just got a text, Alex.

Speaker 1 I'm hearing. My sources are telling me.

Speaker 1 Did you ever play a game,

Speaker 1 and I hesitate to call it a game,

Speaker 1 but in high school, we played the passout game.

Speaker 1 This sounds like something on a date line. It was definitely some things that like some white kids at school were like, hey, check this out.

Speaker 1 And you would like stand there up against the wall. You'd cross your arms like this, like hand over shoulder, crisscrossed.
And they would like press up and under your like.

Speaker 1 rib cage until like you lost consciousness. See? And you would pop back in like 15 seconds later, and people would be like, Yo,

Speaker 1 that was like being inside of like Mortal Kombat or like it was like a Mario Kart level.

Speaker 1 I didn't even know you could do this. I'm about to go home and play the pass out game right now.
So I should say that I never played it, but I was in the room socially

Speaker 1 watching.

Speaker 1 And I was like, this doesn't feel like a thing that my mom,

Speaker 1 I couldn't even lie to her about this.

Speaker 1 I always kind of wanted to like faint just because I wanted to know what it was like or what was happening.

Speaker 1 But like, yeah, I remember like I, like, I played football and there was like a kid who like an offensive lineman. He's like, really big.
And I remember we were like taking like the photos

Speaker 1 and we're like all standing. A team photo.
Yeah, yeah, like a team photo. And we're like all standing on like these little makeshift like, you know, bleacher things.
They set up or whatever.

Speaker 1 The offensive linemen are like in the back because they're the biggest. They're like on the top thing.

Speaker 1 We're like getting ready to take it. And also you're just here,

Speaker 1 like this like giant offensive lineman just tumbling forward over onto everybody. And everybody is like, what's going on? He like passed out.

Speaker 1 And then the coach is like, I told you guys, stop locking your knees. Like,

Speaker 1 don't lock your knees. I'm like, lock your knees.
I'm like, that's all it takes. I'm like, I lock my knees all the time.

Speaker 1 So I want to just set up a little bit about

Speaker 1 the fact that I think I was trying to do the math on this. I think I first encountered you and or Donald and or Ibra and or Swank like 10 years ago now, like 2013, which is wild.

Speaker 1 I don't think I've ever asked you a single question about what it was like to play high school football. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I honestly forgot until you just reminded me about that now. Nah, it's a part of my life I'm trying to like forget.
I've been like running away from.

Speaker 1 I mean, high school football. What was the scouting report on Stephen Glover? What position did you do? I don't know any of these answers.
Honestly, I told you.

Speaker 1 I played running back.

Speaker 1 I played running back.

Speaker 1 So me getting to see the devaluing of the running back position personally

Speaker 1 affects me.

Speaker 1 At what point were you like, oh, I'm not going to be doing this in college? Man, I didn't play a whole lot. Like, I didn't have like.
I'm shocked to hear that.

Speaker 1 I wasn't like

Speaker 1 highly recruited, Pablo. So at what point did you, at what point did you resolve in yourself, like, oh, this is like a thing that's, this is, this is where this ends for me.

Speaker 1 Man, it's funny. I remember

Speaker 1 how quickly did you get disabused of this idea? There's a, there's a funny story, man.

Speaker 1 Like, everybody who played football remembers this feat because it was hilarious at the time.

Speaker 1 We had a coach, and my 11th grade year,

Speaker 1 we found out like at the end, it was going to be his last year coaching there. So like, but it's like the last game, like right before.
And he gives us like this speech. He's like, you know,

Speaker 1 like we're all like huddled together. He's like, you know, you want to like take this time.
Like, this is like a special time right here. Like this is, you know, remember this moment.

Speaker 1 Like look at the guys like around you. Cause like.

Speaker 1 Some of you know some of you, this will be the last time you ever play football. Like this will be the last time you ever touch a football field.
Like, kind of thing. He's like, hmm.

Speaker 1 That's like kind of insightful. He's like, you know, a couple years from now, like, some of you will be in jail.
Some of you will be dead. Like,

Speaker 1 it's like really like,

Speaker 1 yeah, it was like, like, yeah, like, some of you, you know, you're going to have problems with your wife, kids. Like, you might.
1.6 of you will be involved in a heavy machinery accident.

Speaker 1 Some of you are just going to, you're not going to make it home from this game. Like, statistically, at least one of you is dying in a car crash we're all just like looking at each other like

Speaker 1 like wow i mean i guess like i thought this was a celebration but now it's like getting increasingly specific kind of like an evil fortune teller yeah no but what was funny too is he was right it's

Speaker 1 that's why i can't be mad at him because i'm like man he he was trying to tell us the truth and i and i think when i thought about that it's not like basketball where it's like you go to like the pickup game there's like an 80 80-year-old man like shooting three-pointers.

Speaker 1 Like football, once it's over, like there's no like pickup football game. There's no recreational football over a certain age.
You're never going to put on a butt pad again. That's, that's it.

Speaker 1 So Atlanta, like for me to provide context for the listener on like you, I almost need to like say stuff like, you are the real life inspiration for Paperboy.

Speaker 1 And I don't know if people really appreciate that. And no, they, they don't.
They don't appreciate it enough. I am the real Paperboy.

Speaker 1 Okay, so I should just do a crude summary here, I think, for anybody who has never seen Atlanta, which is a shame because the show ostensibly is about a rapper named Paperboy, who is...

Speaker 1 played by Brian Tyree Henry and his manager slash cousin Ern, who is played by Donald. And it speaks to, I mean, truly, like so many different things.

Speaker 1 It speaks to viral video culture and magical realism and race in America.

Speaker 1 And anyway, I'm writing a fink piece at this point about my friend's TV show. Anyway, know that it's ostensibly about music.
In reality,

Speaker 1 hijinks ensue. I do do all of the tracks.
But you're the closest. So A, you're the actual voice.
You're like on those songs. Yeah, I do all the tracks.
That's me.

Speaker 1 You're rapping for Brian Tyree Henry. You're his ghost rapper.

Speaker 1 I'm the ghost rapper for Paperboy. Paperboy, paperboy.
Always about that paper boy. If you ain't on your brand, no you flexing.
You're the Ada boy. Paperboy, paper boy.
Always getting paper boy.

Speaker 1 And, you know, because

Speaker 1 I grew up in Atlanta and spent like a good part of my formative years out there. Like a lot of the stories are based on stuff that I've seen and like gone through.
But also like

Speaker 1 our friend like Swank, you know, who he's also a writer, he's from Atlanta and like my friends.

Speaker 1 It feels like you, but you and Swank, though, in the lore around you guys, as I've gotten to know you, it's like the sh that is the most absurd that is in the show seems to be inspired by like you and or swank's actual real life adventures.

Speaker 1 No, very, very much so. Very true.

Speaker 1 What's an example, just so I can express this like accurately? What's an example of an episode that is is in fact inspired by something that happened to you guys that seems like it happened to nobody?

Speaker 1 Cause it's ridiculous. The second episode of Atlanta, where

Speaker 1 you know, Ern's in jail and Paperboy gets out of jail. Like, that was like me and Swank.

Speaker 1 You know, like, we went to jail. Yeah, we went to jail when we were like

Speaker 1 college.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 That's exactly when I knew. I was like, wow.

Speaker 1 I was like, I'm never playing football again, and I'm in jail. Just like he's.

Speaker 1 Wait, what were you in jail for? So it was funny. We were shooting a music video.
I was just getting ready to move to LA, but we were shooting a music video.

Speaker 1 And it was funny. Because we were shooting at this like...

Speaker 1 These like artist warehouse things. It was like kind of like private property, but we had this director,

Speaker 1 like this guy. He was like, directing.
I said he was living there in like the artist thing.

Speaker 1 So we're like,

Speaker 1 we're like shooting in this like car. It's like Friday night.
So it's all or Saturday night. It's like already kind of hot out there in like Atlanta.

Speaker 1 As far as like cops are out, they're looking for like in every sense, literal and figurative. It's real hot.
This block is extraordinarily hot.

Speaker 1 They're looking for like troublemakers, but we weren't doing anything. We were like, we shot this video.
We're in the back of this like place, this like these warehouses or whatever.

Speaker 1 And the kid, so the director is like, I'm going to go inside my house and like grab something real quick. So he walks into his like house or like the little studio thing.

Speaker 1 We're standing outside and this like cop car just comes around real slow. And like, it's like a lady, she's like, what are you guys doing here? We're like, oh, we're like shooting a music video.

Speaker 1 You know, we just finished. And then she like looks around.
She's like, I don't see any cameras.

Speaker 1 And I was like, oh, this isn't going to

Speaker 1 like I already knew. I I was like, this isn't going to go well, right?

Speaker 1 Her first follow-up question indicated a lot about the rest of this conversation. She already doesn't believe us.
So I'm like, all right, well, yeah, you know, the director,

Speaker 1 he has the camera. He just like went inside.
She's like, uh-huh. Like, yeah.
And then, like, she gets out. The funny part about this

Speaker 1 is the direct, the dude who's directed the video.

Speaker 1 He like saw this cop car from inside and he ran out out the other side of the building. He just ran out, got this car, and left us.
He was like,

Speaker 1 later he was like, yeah, man, I got like warrants, you know? So like I, once I saw that, like, I just, and so, so it really felt like we were lying. Like, we're like,

Speaker 1 we'll leave this video. She's like, where's this director? I'm like, he'll be back any moment.
He like. never came back.
He ditched us like completely. So

Speaker 1 we're there. She's like, she calls for like backup.
You know, we're like, okay, like we're standing there looking in the car. And then there was like a gram of like weed in the car.

Speaker 1 And she's like, whose weed is this? And we all like looked at each other. She's like, all right, you're all going to jail.

Speaker 1 So we went to jail. What's also funny about this story, too, is it was such a small amount of weed, they lost it.

Speaker 1 On the ride over to the jail, they lost the weed.

Speaker 1 The one piece of evidence that they were... You're saying the chain of custody on this evidence was not especially rigorous?

Speaker 1 It was not.

Speaker 1 The whole case was botched from the beginning. It was like the OJ trial.

Speaker 1 That's what many say. Many people say this about your arrest.
So the whole thing was just like a kind of like silly thing.

Speaker 1 People were protesting outside for you and Swank over freeways, holding shirts with people running after the car, the cop cars that were in.

Speaker 1 So it was like, yeah, like the whole thing was like very like, just farcical and like funny. It all ended up like, we just had to,

Speaker 1 we spent like 18 hours in this you know holding area in like jail and so that's this is something i do want to find out about though briefly is what's that 18 hours like man it's it's just like the episode it's terrible you know there's like a simpsons episode where like the school gets like those cheap like chairs that have they have like a hump in them and like none of the kids can get comfortable in the chair constantly

Speaker 1 trying to find a groove that doesn't ever arrive that's how it felt like the chairs in there are like super uncomfortable you're just like so my first thing i've learned about being in jail from you is that the chairs are suboptimal yes they suck they're not comfortable at all the other thing too is whenever you go to jail you will be hungry you will never go on a full stomach you know

Speaker 1 Like only my bosses get arrested right after dinner.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 as soon as you get there you're gonna be like damn i wish i had eggs i wish i had thinly sliced some some garlic yeah you know because

Speaker 1 the food they had given us they're like here's like this bologna sandwich you know with that's was made who knows hold on though hold on at this point you're sounding a little bit like a snob

Speaker 1 actually sorry the jail bologna wasn't up to steve's specifications i personally hate bologna i've always hated bologna so you know i'm like I wish it was turkey, you know, a turkey sandwich in jail would have been great.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 yeah, so I am kind of a snob on that. I'm like,

Speaker 1 so you've got chairs and the lunch meet. The lunch is terrible.
Terrible. And it's a lot of sitting around.
And there's a joke in the episode where like...

Speaker 1 Like you try and like go to sleep and they're like, you can't sleep in here. And it's like, so what am I supposed to be doing? Saying, I don't know, just stare forward,

Speaker 1 think about your life.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 what's the logic behind don't sleep? Is that a rule that's imposed? It's probably so that you're not mentally, you know, there enough to fight back. You know, that's the first move of mind control.

Speaker 1 It's like sleep deprivation. They're like, let's keep these guys up for the next 18 hours and they'll be.
easy to mold and you know they'll do whatever we tell them to do kind of thing

Speaker 1 and so the the resolution of this 18 hours passes and then what happens at hour 18 or thereabouts well you get bailed out and you

Speaker 1 who bailed you out who did bail me out that was it was our friends uh who didn't you ask to bail you out i well that was the thing everybody my friends me uh terrence and swank we were shooting the video so we all got arrested so we had to call our other friends who weren't there to like bail us out and it's like, you know, it's like college.

Speaker 1 So it's like trying to. You're a Georgia Tech at this point.
Yeah. So like trying to get together, trying to scrape together like 200 bucks between your friends is still hard.
Everybody's like,

Speaker 1 I don't know how much

Speaker 1 patting of pockets. Yeah, like,

Speaker 1 got to like get eight people together to get this bail to happen.

Speaker 1 Before I end up like getting in trouble for changing the story. I'm like, my, my ex-girlfriend bailed me me out.
That's true.

Speaker 1 Let the record show. She's like, somewhere like, I'm the one.

Speaker 1 Where am I in the episode? Is what she's asking right now. She's van.

Speaker 1 Van comes at the end,

Speaker 1 bails Earn out. That's for real.
And she's mad about it.

Speaker 1 And she knows she's van in real life. She knows she's van in that situation.
You know, for sure.

Speaker 1 Because Van's character arc does get.

Speaker 1 Yeah, she didn't go to Paris and beat anybody up.

Speaker 1 it's important to point out that like you go from that

Speaker 1 to like

Speaker 1 being

Speaker 1 an objectively successful.

Speaker 1 Do you feel highly respected in Hollywood? No, I don't.

Speaker 1 No, I don't.

Speaker 1 Because like you guys won golden globes, you've been got WGA awards. You've been nominated for Emmys.
I've seen you on red carpets. I've snuck into parties with you after you've won things.

Speaker 1 And it's, it's, I, I've gotten the sense that it's sort of like you're living a lucid dream, except for some

Speaker 1 reminders, I guess, that you're not in the most inner, inner sanctum yet. No, I mean, it's funny because it's like,

Speaker 1 you know, like, especially early on, the success was like it was like strange because like it came so

Speaker 1 so quick it haven't it was i i just want to if i can salute myself for just being a great stockholder yeah i mean you you know how to pick them

Speaker 1 you can tell early on you're like this kid

Speaker 1 i'm a i'm a yeah i'm a gm a gm of friends

Speaker 1 yeah this guy there's a glint in his eye his motor

Speaker 1 he's an unstoppable motor. I've got all the intangibles you look for in a writer, in the TV writer.

Speaker 1 Wait, you were saying, though, that like it happened immediately, which was how it felt to me watching it. And I was like, holy f ⁇ .

Speaker 1 You know, I mean, the success like was, was very early on, which was, which made it, like, crazy.

Speaker 1 But I mean, now that we're past that, you know, like, I've gotten to see like, In the beginning, it's like, wow, Atlanta, it's like the greatest show. And like, it's awesome.
So, like, Now I'm like,

Speaker 1 people are like, places like, man, that show Atlanta sucks. You know, like, I got to sit around long enough to like see the full like spectrum of it.
We're like, man, who wrote this stupid episode?

Speaker 1 I'm like, man, that was, I didn't feel that long ago. I was.
at a Golden Globe party dancing the bad and bushes.

Speaker 1 It wasn't so long ago that you literally introduced Hollywood

Speaker 1 to the Migos. To the Migos.

Speaker 1 And now no one cares anymore. Now everybody, I'm like, check out this ice vice chick.
Everybody's like, shut up.

Speaker 1 Nobody can. You watch comment sections turn.
Yeah. You know, it's, but I mean, like, you know, I just feel like that.
But hold on, you're making a, potentially, you're making a Lando movie.

Speaker 1 So on some level, like...

Speaker 1 But, but, so explain how it is that both things can be true. Like, how is it that you're doing the shit that like is a dream, but also, you know.

Speaker 1 I like

Speaker 1 you know there's just a baloney situation you're like look

Speaker 1 well my sweet at the at the chateau marmand they didn't they didn't fluff my pillow well no it's like you know now i'm now i know enough to be like there are pitfalls to all of this you know this like

Speaker 1 when episode one of star wars came out People were excited. I remember that.
Like,

Speaker 1 yeah, you know, they were like, oh, man, it's going to be cool. And then it's like, you see Jar Jar Binks, and like people were upset.

Speaker 1 Like, man, like, there's always room for people to be disappointed. There was always room for decades later, a series of think pieces.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 You only now reckon with the racialization of the Gungans.

Speaker 1 Are you ready? So, by the way, that's, and that's the part where, like, I actually do want to know how you and Donald on some level, like, because you guys are

Speaker 1 something that I respect respect and fear for both of you guys is that you, as much as anybody I know, you guys are attuned to the internet. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like both, both in ways that are like speaking to the creative sort of like fuel that you guys get from it and also like the cynicism around how it works.

Speaker 1 But also that means that your antenna has to be way up for how this can be dangerous. No, for sure.
I mean, you know, like the, just the internet in general.

Speaker 1 Like, like I said, I've gotten to see the, I've gotten to see the love and the hate several times in just different contexts, you know, I got to.

Speaker 1 What was your favorite moment of Steve getting high off the internet?

Speaker 1 I won't say this is my favorite moment, but just showing like the highs and lows. It's like, you know, in Hollywood, like especially, it's like, you're only as valuable as the last thing you did.

Speaker 1 And it's like. Until you're like Martin Scorsese or something, like everyone is like, this could be the last we ever hear from you.
So like

Speaker 1 Swarm, we just did Swarm and Swarm didn't have a lot of fanfare like going into it. I don't think.
I think a lot of people may not even have known it was going to come out at first.

Speaker 1 But then it like came out and it was like a big deal, big hit. Everybody was watching it.
It was crazy. Right.
Inspired by the super fans of...

Speaker 1 Inspired by the internet for sure. Yeah, and the hive.
Yeah. And it's like,

Speaker 1 that was like a cool moment to like just like, yeah, it was like, I imagine being DMX, you know, in the 90s, like you go outside and you're just hearing your album playing on the streets.

Speaker 1 It was like everywhere I went, there were people talking about swarm. It was, it was crazy, you know, but it was like, yeah, like just a reminder, like, oh, okay, like, I know what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 You know, like,

Speaker 1 maybe I'm not as terrible as everybody thinks I am, you know, like, maybe we still got something.

Speaker 1 you know so that that was just like a good like reminder of like yeah you know

Speaker 1 on to the next thing you know and like

Speaker 1 you don't get too high or too low ever because it's all coming back around so wait a minute but i'm i what i'm registering from all of this is that like

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 your experience releasing swarm and people having it resonate with them on some level made you think to yourself

Speaker 1 i want to do something else that has some element of, does it feel like this thing has risk with it? Well, I mean, everything, everything has risk with it. And unless it's like...
But like, look,

Speaker 1 Swarm, it's like, I'm going to do a show about what it's like to be an unhinged, animalistic Beyoncé super fan. And then I'm going to do a show or a movie.

Speaker 1 about Star Wars Lando, which obviously Dials had portrayed Lando before, but like the idea of like, this is going to be our thing, it feels like it's also daring the hive that you just commemorated

Speaker 1 to then attack you.

Speaker 1 I think that

Speaker 1 this is not me trying to persuade you to not do this, by the way.

Speaker 1 I'm just curious. I'm not doing it.

Speaker 1 I've already decided. Like, this sounds just like a dangerous idea, guys.
You should have called me first.

Speaker 1 No, but I think, you know, everything that's worth doing has some risk to it, especially when you care about

Speaker 1 the quality of things you know i think that's like a big part of us is like we don't want to do things that are just going to be mediocre or just gonna be like yeah they came and went or like that was fine enough you know you guys take swings exactly so there's always going to be some risk and with something like this

Speaker 1 You know, there's going to be people who are going to, who are really going to like judge you.

Speaker 1 They may realize you guys made Lando white yeah it's gonna be when they realize that lando is everything has been run past the dnc first before this thing woke lando

Speaker 1 woke lando that's right like none of his none of the stuff you saw in the other movies is canon so critical race theory lando is not gonna play well on reddit

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, people are, they're not going to like it. But I mean,

Speaker 1 I think it's just like, yeah, you know,

Speaker 1 i think a lot of people would probably be worried to do something like this because of the pressure of pissing off these fans you know but i think it's like yeah you know

Speaker 1 you're like bane is what you're saying i i hear you like rounding your way to like being born in the darkness exactly it's like i was molded exactly this is what i want this is what i live for you know i want i want to because because that's the other thing too it's like it's like eli Manning to circle this back to football.

Speaker 1 I have no idea how this is like Eli Manning.

Speaker 1 Let me explain how this is like Eli Manning.

Speaker 1 Eli Manning comes into the NFL. He's supposed to go to the Chargers.
He's like, nah, I want to go to New York. He comes to New York.
So there's already that. hanging over him.
Then he comes in.

Speaker 1 People are like, man, you are nothing like Peyton. You got this look on your face.

Speaker 1 You know, you got this body language we don't like. Everybody's like, man, I don't know.
This kid has it.

Speaker 1 And then it's like he beats the Patriots on a crazy run with Randy Moss and all. And now it's the greatest team of all time.
Exactly. Dirt face, Peyton Manning.

Speaker 1 And now I'm sure Eli can walk into any bodega in New York and get a chopped cheese for free. You know, he's the man now.
It's like most people do not want to step into

Speaker 1 that cauldron of the New York Giants quarterback position.

Speaker 1 And for years, people were like, this team is terrible.

Speaker 1 It could have went the wrong way. I just like how you have Eli going into a bodega.
I guarantee Eli Manning is not walking into. I saw Eli Manning in the Hamptons.
He could be. He could go.

Speaker 1 I saw Eli Manning. Dude, I was eating lunch with David Samson, who works for Metalark.

Speaker 1 Very stoned. We're eating lunch at like a dock side fancy restaurant in like the Hamptons, right?

Speaker 1 And in walks Eli Manning. And Eli Manning is like 6'5,

Speaker 1 like just tall, confident, perpetually dressed like he's at an Easter function.

Speaker 1 Just like shorts, polo, just like

Speaker 1 the dude, the confidence that he has in any setting in the new, in the tri-state area, that part is real.

Speaker 1 That's what I mean. He can go anywhere now.
It doesn't matter what he did the other years of his career. It's like that was enough.

Speaker 1 Like this fan base that has chewed people up and spit them out a million times. Yes.

Speaker 1 No, that's, by the way, that's, that's some of the sh that I love about New York, like the mythology of New York that I do subscribe to.

Speaker 1 It's like, if you survive the media here and the spotlight here, that shit is real. We were talking about like the ways in which attention and spotlight can like melt your brain.

Speaker 1 The people who have won, who made it to that highest level, Derek Jeter, is like fascinating for this reason.

Speaker 1 Eli, too, they escaped unscathed, which is the hardest thing you it's like we did everything we could to try and break you and you didn't break so now you can be our friend like kind of thing that's how new york operates it's like yeah like of course we were hazing you the whole time like

Speaker 1 but but you passed so now you're now you're the guy you know but it's like yeah that's kind of how i feel like with you know doing something like star wars it's like there's a

Speaker 1 i get the metaphor yeah see now you're bringing it all home it's like you you take that risk. It could end up badly.

Speaker 1 You know, you could end up like, I'm trying to think of a New York Giants quarterback who flamed out.

Speaker 1 Who was the

Speaker 1 oh,

Speaker 1 Joe Pisarchyk? See, I know. Greg Morton,

Speaker 1 Scott Bruner. I think the point is being proven.

Speaker 1 And we don't even know who these guys are.

Speaker 1 Frank Filchok.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 You don't. You don't remember Frank Filchak from 1946?

Speaker 1 He had a 60.2 cube.

Speaker 1 You don't have to go back that far to find a Liance quarterback.

Speaker 1 No, Danny Connell.

Speaker 1 Danny Connell from 96, 98. That's a good one.

Speaker 1 So I should say that

Speaker 1 you identifying with Eli Manning feels a little on the nose.

Speaker 1 I am a me and Eli are shit, you know, we're like kindred spirits. He's the younger brother, too.
You know, he gets what I'm going through.

Speaker 1 So, I texted Donald and I said that we're gonna do like a podcast. He was like, Is there anything specific you guys are talking about? And I was like,

Speaker 1 What should I ask him about? Let me know. And Donald said, quote, ask about the clip art jokes we used to make as kids.

Speaker 1 End quote. I have no idea what the clip art jokes are.
Man, Donald, Donald likes to be like, we invented memes.

Speaker 1 We invented memes in the 90s, early 2000s, like you guys.

Speaker 1 What does this mean?

Speaker 1 Well, there was a computer

Speaker 1 game program called Spider-Man, like Comic Book Maker, which we had on our family computer, which is like, it had really

Speaker 1 sh kind of like animation that would just do like certain things like Spider-Man walking weird or and you could spider-man cartoon maker i did comic book maker oh my god yeah photos of a cd-rom yes with this as the cover art so we would just make funny stuff with that you know we would make little like comic book things it was pretty terrible there was that but then what i started doing was you know powerpoint had all the clip art oh right in it and so we i just started doing things where i would find clip art that I thought was funny and I would just like put it there and it like kind of like put like a blurb or like a meme of like you know explaining this out of context like clip art so in a way like making memes based off of like the

Speaker 1 stock clip art that you find in PowerPoint it sounds like you were making New Yorker cartoons pretty

Speaker 1 PowerPoint this sounds far more highbrow than I imagine

Speaker 1 No, that's what I mean.

Speaker 1 It was ahead of its time. This is me as like a 13-year-old being like,

Speaker 1 let me find these, these funny like clip arts and be like, this is, this is great.

Speaker 1 One that I remember specifically, there's like a clip art of like an umpire in between two people. It was like a black, because it's like, you know, it's like corporate stuff.

Speaker 1 So it's like one guy in like a tie and another guy in a tie. And it's like a real umpire like in between them.

Speaker 1 And because it's like clip art too, like one guy's black and one guy's white. So I just remember I had that clip and I just underneath, like, hey guys, save that racism for the game.

Speaker 1 Just

Speaker 1 trying to keep them apart.

Speaker 1 But just like, yeah, stupid stuff like that to make each other laugh. We, we probably did, we probably had like 80 of these things that we we would just go at different times.

Speaker 1 You and Donald had a uh a hard drive full of mostly based on hard drive sizes back then, mostly full of clip articles, 90% clip art memes that we made so yeah that was that's how we changed the world once Bill Gates got a hold of it it was out

Speaker 1 but wait

Speaker 1 you and Donald at that age like making each other laugh

Speaker 1 to what extent were other people laughing I mean my

Speaker 1 a lot of people I mean my family in general it was like it was pretty funny my sister is also funny my sister Brianne she would make clip art she joined in with us doing that too.

Speaker 1 So a lot of it was always just like making each other laugh. You know,

Speaker 1 my dad was also like a silly guy, like loved to laugh. And I remember we had a,

Speaker 1 Donald had a talk boy. If this is really going back, yeah, like the home alone talk boy boy.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And like, we would like just make like fake commercials and like fake stuff on that, you know? So it was always just like,

Speaker 1 you know, we

Speaker 1 like not to like be like we never had much you know but it's like no it's like if we

Speaker 1 like as kids i think our imagination was really good because we could just take something as shy as that spider-man comic book maker which i think my dad bought like secondhand for like

Speaker 1 10 bucks or so. It was like

Speaker 1 your dad bought a ripped version of bootlegs Spider-Man cartoon maker. It was already 10 bucks.
On a burned CDR. I'm sure it was like on sale for like five bucks.

Speaker 1 I'm sure somebody had already bought it and was like, this is terrible. And like returned it.
That stuff would be... You could like sell all of those as NFTs now.
You guys got to find that hard drive.

Speaker 1 Like two years ago would have been the first time. I know, actually, right now, no one.
Yeah. Like

Speaker 1 $7 million.

Speaker 1 They'd have like the arena in like LA is named like the Spider-Man comic book maker arena. There's a shot of it being airlifted off.

Speaker 1 They had to rename. They had to unrename the staple center.

Speaker 1 Spider-Man. That's going to be funny to look back at it in a couple of years.
People are going to be like, the crypto sin, what is that?

Speaker 1 It's like an old man explaining like, well, Jimmy, there were these bored apes.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 in that way, you did foresee. I mean, if that is clip art fundamentally.
It is. You know, they should have put something funny underneath these bored apes.

Speaker 1 Nope.

Speaker 1 They took themselves too seriously. That was the problem.
They should have been memeing themselves.

Speaker 1 So, wait, so just give me a sense of you. So what year is this roughly? I want to place myself in this timeline.
Oh, man. It was probably like

Speaker 1 2019 99, maybe. Like right around there.
Were you guys, were you and Donald on AOL?

Speaker 1 I didn't. What was your IST?

Speaker 1 To what extent are you guys of the internet? Man,

Speaker 1 it's funny. I remember we went over to a friend of my dad's house and like

Speaker 1 he was like,

Speaker 1 we came in there. And I remember he was like, I got like the internet.
I got like the computer. And like, I remember Donald was super excited.
Donald's like, what? Like, he like ran over there.

Speaker 1 He's like, and I didn't really know what it was. I was like, and I like went over and I'm like, look at that.
His big Eli Manning face wandering over there.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, look, and I'm like, so what is this? And he's like, you know, you can like go on, you go like to all these different things. I'm like, so I'm a kid.
I'm like, go to nickelodeon.com.

Speaker 1 That's okay. Like, let me see that.
It's like, you pulled it up. It was like so early that you would go there and it would be like under construction.
It's like a picture of like a one

Speaker 1 cartoon, like Chucky from the Rugrats, like shrugging. Like, like,

Speaker 1 like literal clip art of like those orange construction cones on either side, like a web counter.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's like you're first enough for 628

Speaker 1 to come here. It's like disappointed? Like, you shouldn't be.
Like, soon, one day we'll have something. And I remember we went to a couple of like sites and they were all like that.

Speaker 1 They were all like under construction. Like, you know, what, and I was like, I don't get this.

Speaker 1 And I remember like, like a year later, a couple months later, like my dad was like, he got a computer and he was like, yeah, you, you all need email addresses. You guys got to have like email.

Speaker 1 What were we using? We were using like Juno.

Speaker 1 I don't even know if people,

Speaker 1 I mean, all you needed to do to express your poverty was say, I was, I was

Speaker 1 Eve Glover at juno.com. Somewhere out there, there's a Juno account racking up like Nick Toon's like newsletter.

Speaker 1 I appreciate my dad about my dad, like his enthusiasm for like new technology. He was always like on the cusp.
He was like, like he was excited about the internet.

Speaker 1 He said, we got to like have a computer. My dad is the same way.
My dad brought us a joystick before we knew what it was. You know, like, my dad, like, was somebody

Speaker 1 who loved a sharper image catalog.

Speaker 1 Or so it seemed in retrospect, just like devices and stuff. Here's another, here's another deep cut.

Speaker 1 There was a video game called Monster Rancher. Yes.

Speaker 1 yes yes monster rancher was a great game where you raised a monster kind of like pokemon but the cool thing about it was like these monsters are like trapped on disc disc stones was like the thing so you could find any disc put it into the playstation and it will create you a random like monster like based on the data on this disc.

Speaker 1 So because my dad had hundreds and hundreds of CDs,

Speaker 1 it was like the greatest game ever, you know, and like they're like super rare ones that you could only get from certain discs. And he would like, it's like this in living color CD.

Speaker 1 You could get this cool monster. I'm like, my dad has this CD.

Speaker 1 Wait.

Speaker 1 So I should say that my memory of Monster Rancher ends at there was a thing called Monster Rancher.

Speaker 1 And the idea that there would be specifics, there would be specific CDs that resulted in like triggering, unlocking a special monster.

Speaker 1 Exactly. And you're saying that literally the programmers of Monster Rancher were like, if you have this CD,

Speaker 1 you will get this special edition like limited Kenny G monster. Well, he wouldn't like look like Kenny G or anything, but it might be.

Speaker 1 The monster might be called something, you know, winking at Kenny G, like a, I don't know, like a jazz, jazz a source. I don't know.
But it would be like. This is an incredible.

Speaker 1 It would be like a special, like one of, like you couldn't get it on any, like by using any other disc. Like sometimes you could use two like CDs and you'd get the same monster.

Speaker 1 You're saying you'll get like a David Allen Greer monster after plugging in like your In Living Color CD?

Speaker 1 See, this is also taken it back. In Living Color, like Living Color, there's a rock, there's a black rock band called Living Color, and then there's the show In Living Color.
Oh. Yeah.

Speaker 1 See, this is, I should, I should, I should now reflect on why I thought In Living Color would have a CD. There's like the soundtrack to like this

Speaker 1 soundtrack to Living Color. It's like Jim Carrey doing songs.
But you know, it's funny, is back then, that's how it used to be. My dad had the original Batman soundtrack that Prince did.

Speaker 1 He actually had like three Batman soundtrack CDs.

Speaker 1 A lot of great music came from Batman soundtracks. Very true.
You know, Kiss from a Road. Oh my god, I mean, the Batman Forever soundtrack is an all-time classic.
Man, there's a.

Speaker 1 I remember there was a song, Method Man does a song about the Riddler.

Speaker 1 I think he raps from the perspective of the Riddler. Wait,

Speaker 1 hold on. I'm going to play some of those.
Hold on. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Observe it if you will.

Speaker 1 I'm in my hideout in the back of the head.

Speaker 1 I crack a board and I quarter by the mill.

Speaker 1 Codyfending, Johnny Blazing, Bobby Stales.

Speaker 1 We was blazing hot with hot win. So at this point, we should point out that the music video is interlaced with like almost like strobe-like clips of Jim Carrey becoming the Riddler in Batman Forever.

Speaker 1 It's like the least hip-hop thing you can see.

Speaker 1 And weirdly also bring us back to In Living Color. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Everything's connected. Everything is connected to Jim Carrey.
This is

Speaker 1 incredible. Yeah.

Speaker 1 My dad has. How many views do you think this video gets?

Speaker 1 Like, I'm going to say 700.

Speaker 1 It has 13,000. Wow.

Speaker 1 This is the official music video. It has 13,000.

Speaker 1 We're going to chart chart the success of this episode based on how many views this gets after this comes out.

Speaker 1 I want to come back to that video in two weeks and just see people in the comments. Came here because of Pablo.
Only here.

Speaker 1 Came here because Steve referenced his dad's CD collection.

Speaker 1 If you told me, Steve, that this podcast would end in us playing the music video for The Riddler by Method Man, I would have said, yeah, it's about right.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't have guessed it, but I'm not surprised.

Speaker 1 I look forward to being cast as a character in your Lando movie. You can be one of the senators.

Speaker 1 You can be a space senator. You guys got that? That's a legally binding.

Speaker 1 I'm turning to our producer. That's a legally binding contract.
I'm sure Lucas Philms is already canceling our contract. They're like, you weren't supposed to say,

Speaker 1 you're already making promises to people. You're casting people?

Speaker 1 The WGA is going to come down on me pretty hard, too. So

Speaker 1 this may not happen.

Speaker 1 Steve,

Speaker 1 thank you for getting in trouble with me. Yeah, no, thanks for having me.
Anytime, man. Anytime, a good excuse to come to New York.

Speaker 1 Okay, so I'm sitting down at my computer and reflecting on what I found out today.

Speaker 1 And I knew this, but I should just reiterate it.

Speaker 1 I love Steve. I think he's just brilliant, one of the most brilliant writers in entertainment in general.

Speaker 1 I'm definitely gonna demand to have Steve in our regular rotation here as a friend of Pablo Torre finds out.

Speaker 1 Because today,

Speaker 1 specifically, what I found out is so clear to me.

Speaker 1 If you have a friend who's making a secret Star Wars movie,

Speaker 1 you can just invite him onto your show and shamelessly pressure him until he finally agrees

Speaker 1 to make you a galactic

Speaker 1 senator.

Speaker 1 This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Metal Arc Media production.

Speaker 1 And I'll talk to you next time.