There's Bass Ass In The Chattahoochee Coochee!

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Speaker 2 I'm starting with the man

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Speaker 2 I'm asking him to change his ways.

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Speaker 2 On this episode of the Commercial Break.

Speaker 2 And I'm not naive enough to believe that there's not poop in most of our waterways. That's probably how it works.

Speaker 2 That's how it's worked for eons and decades, you know, since humans have been around, since animals have been around. Animals, yeah, animals poop in that water all the time, too.
All the bass poop.

Speaker 2 Listen, I can get over that. The bass poop, that's what I worry about, is the bass poop.
Bass ass. That's what I'm worried about.
When I'm going down that Chattahoochee River, I think about bass ass.

Speaker 2 The next episode of the Commercial Break starts now.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, cats and kittens, welcome back to the commercial break. I'm Brian Greene.
This is my dear friend and the co-host of this show, Chris and Joy Hoadley. Best to you, Chris.
Best to you, Brian.

Speaker 2 Best to you out there in the podcast universe. Thanks for joining us.
I certainly do appreciate it. I was just here reading, there's a Facebook page called

Speaker 2 I Grew Up Atlanta. okay and they are talking about the beginnings of the great American ramblin' raft race which then became shooting the hooch shooting the hooch shooting the chattahoochee

Speaker 2 I'm sure every town that has a river or a big stream has some version of this A million people decide on one day that they're going to get together put their rafts inside of the flowing water and head on down a big old boozy Sunday

Speaker 3 of beer, yeah.

Speaker 2 A bunch of beer and rowdy teenagers and, you know, just have a good party of it.

Speaker 2 This was a huge ordeal in Atlanta for a long time. Now, it was coming to kind of a ceremonial close as I moved to Atlanta.
So I didn't like at the full, it started in 1979.

Speaker 2 Apparently, some Georgia Tech students decided to get their fraternity and sorority sisters and brothers together and do this. And then it became a big thing.

Speaker 2 The radio stations locally would sponsor it and they would hype it up. And so it became tens of thousands of people riding down the Chattahoochee River on their rafts.
Now,

Speaker 2 I often say to people, people come in town and they say, hey, hey, Brian, because I am a noted tour guide. They say, hey, Brian, what is there to do in Atlanta? What about that Chattahoochee Hoochie?

Speaker 2 That Chattahoochee Coochie that everyone's talking about. And I say, if you want Strepococcus A, Feel free to dip your toes in the Chattahoochee Coochie because that's exactly what it is.

Speaker 2 It's a Hoochie Coochie. And it is known to have bacteria in it that you probably don't want the human body coming in contact with.

Speaker 2 Like a lot of other places with flowing water and bodies of water around it, the water is not always so clean. Now, we've done a good job of cleaning it.

Speaker 3 It was a good cleanup effort. Yeah.

Speaker 2 The Chattahoochee River keepers are a favorite charity of mine that do God's work by going out there and picking up old condoms and dead cows out of the Chattahoochee River.

Speaker 2 But still, you're taking your life into your own hands if you're riding down that Chattahoochee River in a raft. I swear to God.

Speaker 3 I did it once. I'm not doing it again.

Speaker 2 No fucking way. I asked her to say, this is a conversation we have once a year.
She says, what if we do... Every summer.
Every spring. Yeah.
Yeah. When we see those, because we live near the river.

Speaker 2 So we drive over the river a lot on the bridges over the river. And she'll say to me, hey, look, those people out there.
And I say, yeah, those fucking lunatics out there,

Speaker 2 you know, with an early death wish out there in the Chattahoochee River. There are so many things that could go wrong in flowing water.

Speaker 2 And she, once a year, thinks it's a good idea to take our small children and all of them onto an inner tube and ride down that Chattahoochee. To which I say, nah-uh-uh-uh.
We're not doing that.

Speaker 2 Because not only do we have to contend with flowing water, rocks, and all kinds of other stuff. Like

Speaker 2 with adult, I've seen adults get in trouble out there. I've done this probably 10 times, 11 times in my life.
And I've seen full-grown ass men.

Speaker 2 get caught, you know, somewhere on the river in some kind of trouble because you're not a,

Speaker 2 these aren't motorized crafts. They're just inner tubes that were blown up by some teenager getting paid $12 an hour.
And then they throw you in the river and they say, good luck.

Speaker 2 And you're like, oh, where do I stop? I don't know either. But when you do, there'll be a bus there waiting for you.
Yeah, good luck with that. There's no sign.
No one knows what's going on.

Speaker 2 They don't tell you where the rocks are. They don't have anybody there directing traffic.
It's a big cluster fuck. And besides all of that, you can't be assured of what's in or out of the river.

Speaker 2 Now, I'm a noted germaphobe, not like Howie Mendel germaphobe, but I'm a noted germaphobe.

Speaker 2 I just can't take the thought that I would put my mouth, my head, my hands in a river where people have been known to get brain-eating amoebas inside of their nostrils and die from it.

Speaker 2 It's not for me. So while this looks like shits and giggles, you know, 10,000 people on a raft in the middle of the Chattahoochee.
It's not like that anymore, Chrissy. It's not like the good old days.

Speaker 2 Now we got microplastics in our brains.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, that's already there.

Speaker 2 So, all of that is to say, the first annual commercial break, TCB Shooting the Hooch for Charity will be down there.

Speaker 2 I remember one year we're driving along in my dad's radio station, whichever one, you know, one of the, we were either listening to Angry Talk Radio,

Speaker 2 B98.5, which was like the soft rock channel, you know, you know, she's like the wind,

Speaker 2 you know, all those frilly love songs. The Eagles.
The Eagles. Yeah.

Speaker 2 take it easy

Speaker 2 easy or we were listening to z93 which was classic rock right led zeppelin purple haze stuff like that one of those three stations all of them were promoting that damn shooting the hooch shit i was a young man and one of the radio stations had the brilliant idea that for a dollar you could get a rubber ducky and they would put your name on the rubber ducky they would throw it down the hooch with the rest of the rafts and then the the one whichever one came in first had a chance chance to win $10,000.

Speaker 2 So it was like a contest that they had. The race of the duckies? Yes, the race of the duckies.

Speaker 2 Now, I'm thinking about this many years later as I'm looking at this post that I think my dad was convinced to buy one of those rubber duckies at one point. My dad,

Speaker 2 he did not, like, he wasn't a frivolous man. He did not do things like this.
But for some reason, I remember there was a rubber ducky that we bought or something.

Speaker 2 Of course, we didn't win the $10,000 because who's keeping track of those rubber duckies? Once they get in the river, who? Who's keeping track of those? How do they make sure they catch all of them?

Speaker 2 Where are you you going where was the rubber ducky going where was it supposed to get off who was in charge of making sure the rubber ducky got off it is a non-motorized rubber ducky without even a human being on it what are you doing unbelievable how things have changed yeah that's when you used to everybody threw everything into the river everybody threw everything into the river i think there was a river in buffalo new york that was on fire for a decade or something in uh ohio Oh, the river of fire in Ohio.

Speaker 2 Yeah. It just didn't just set itself on fire and it was on fire for like 10 years or something.

Speaker 2 It's like that.

Speaker 2 Remember they were trying to clean up the Seen River for the French Olympics? Yeah, I don't ever think they really, I don't ever think they had swimming there. No, they did.
Oh, they did.

Speaker 2 People were complaining. The Olympians were complaining.
Oh, they were like, ah, this is not.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, that was never a good idea. That was never a good idea.

Speaker 2 I've been to Paris.

Speaker 2 I saw them pulling stuff out of the river. There were like, I don't know what you call them.
They're people who take the magnet fishers.

Speaker 2 do you know what i'm talking about so they take huge magnets they put them in the water and they see what they can pull up so we were watching some magnet fishers around the lovelock bridge for like old coins and artifacts yeah that's not what they were picking up they were picking up

Speaker 2 bicycles left and right because apparently in Paris, it's just a thing when you get done with your bike, when your bike's old, it doesn't work anymore, you just throw it in the river. Okay.

Speaker 2 So they took out tens of thousands of bikes from that river, but they still couldn't clean it up to a point where human beings should be in there. It's a sad state of affairs when you think about it.

Speaker 2 When I really don't want my children playing in the Chattahoochee River, and I, I don't know, like

Speaker 2 to me,

Speaker 2 my dad lives on a lake. Let me give you an example.
My dad lives on a lake. The lake is controlled by the, by Duke, Duke Energy.
It's controlled by the dam, and Duke Energy is in charge of that dam.

Speaker 2 Therefore, Duke Energy is responsible for the cleanliness of that lake. That's their job.
They made the lake. It's for their private uses to make money.

Speaker 2 It is their responsibility to make sure that that lake stays in some kind of good shape. Well,

Speaker 2 the lake has this weird film on top of it, like this weird, frilly, foamy film that kind of goes all over the place. It's dark in nature, in color.
It looks like floating poop.

Speaker 2 If I'm just being honest to you, it just looks like, it just looks like a pile of shit is what it looks like floating in places, not everywhere. And I wonder what that is.

Speaker 2 And while my dad tries to convince me that it's just the natural comings and goings goings of mother nature, I think it looks like the natural comings and goings of a lot of drunk rednecks, in my opinion.

Speaker 2 But that makes me nervous when I send my children out to go swimming in that.

Speaker 3 We talked about that. I remember.
Yes. It does.
Didn't somebody get sick last summer?

Speaker 2 Many people have been sick coming out of my dad's house. There's lots of different reasons, I think, for that sickness.

Speaker 2 But it does seem to be true that, you know, there's a better chance than not someone's going to come home. It's not helping.
It's not helping, I don't think.

Speaker 2 I actually saw a person take a poop in that lake one time.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm not going to get into all the details, but there was an incident where someone had to go and they just let it rip right off the side of a dock. And I was like, oh, kids,

Speaker 2 kids, roll them up. Roll them up.
Big Ben, Parliament, let's go. Come on, out, out.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we took the kids out for the rest of the day and then had to leave early the next day because you don't know where that poop is floating.

Speaker 2 And I'm not naive enough to believe that there's not poop in most of our waterways. That's probably how it works.

Speaker 2 That's how it's worked for eons and decades, you know, since humans have been around since animals have been around. Animals, yeah, animals poop in that water all the time, too.
All the bass poop.

Speaker 2 Listen, I can get over that. The bass poop, that's what I worry about is the bass poop.
Bass ass. That's what I'm worried about.

Speaker 2 When I'm going down that Chattahoochee River, I think about bass ass because those bass, they just open their mouth. They're bottom feeders.
They suck in whatever comes.

Speaker 2 That means if they have, if human poop is floating down the river, they just open up their mouth and they're the cleaners. Yeah, they're the cleaners, but then what,

Speaker 2 but everything poops. You know what I'm saying? So if it goes in one end, it's got to come out the other.
I'm a little nervous about this. I'm just a little nervous.

Speaker 2 I don't think anybody should, I don't think anybody that doesn't have a great immune system should be running down that chattahoochee on a raft, my personal opinion.

Speaker 2 And I will argue that with my wife until my kids are long out of this house, that no, we shouldn't go shoot the hooch.

Speaker 3 And then they're going to go do it when they're a teenager.

Speaker 2 Of course they are. They're going to go do it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a thing. They're going to go.
I'm going to say wear a face condom. Watch out for the bass ass.
Watch out for bass ass, kids. We never know what they're sucking in or throwing out.

Speaker 2 Do you, if you, when you shot the hooch, why would you not return to it?

Speaker 3 It was awful. Like you said, you know, the kid kind of set us off and said, go for it.
And we had rented like this big, huge one.

Speaker 2 The eight person, the 10 person.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 And then we had also, we were overambitious, thinking we were gonna like go off and do our own little so we had like three little ones or something too two or three of the little ones wow you had a whole flotilla took us forever to go into the point of finally I mean it was like dusk and we were like

Speaker 3 where is the end of this yes it's been like eight hours nine hours we had to call the company they had to come and tow us back to the

Speaker 2 place

Speaker 2 yes yeah that is that was my challenge every time I did it. I'm done.
So they would say to you, like, you know, and listen, these are companies that have been around for a long time.

Speaker 2 They're reputable places. I'm not trying to knock their business model, but, you know, the shoot and the hooch or the chat,

Speaker 2 whatever the name of the company is. But every spring they open up and there is a landing here and there's a landing there and there's a landing landing.

Speaker 3 And so like the very furthest landing up.

Speaker 2 Oh, okay. So you're like up in North Georgia somewhere.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 So, and what they tell you is they give you a piece of paper and it says about two hours to get to landing A, about two hours to get to landing B, and about an additional two hours to get to landing C.

Speaker 2 So you, your call, you do whatever you want to do. And when you get there, we have a bus that'll take you back to your car with the raft.
So you rent the raft, but these are kids.

Speaker 2 They're literally children, you know, 16, 17 years old that are filling these rafts. Some jobs.
Summer jobs. And they push you off.

Speaker 2 And you have no, there's no fucking clue about like, okay, about two hours.

Speaker 2 But that largely depends on how how fast the water is going, how much water is in the river, whether or not the dam has released water over the last couple of days.

Speaker 2 There's like a lot of X factors that go into it, and that doesn't include the rapids, the rocks, the shallow water, the P breaks, all the different stuff that you have to do.

Speaker 2 And there's parts of the river where you can stand, and there's parts of the river that are way too deep.

Speaker 2 And you get yourself in real trouble out there drinking all day long in the hot sun, trying to guesstimate exactly when A, B, or C is coming up. That's right.

Speaker 2 If you're lucky, you'll see ahead of time that people are getting off, right? They're like, okay, there's one of the landings. That's if you're lucky and if you're paying attention.

Speaker 2 But I've never been accused of being attentive about anything to anybody. So for me, almost every time I went out there, we ended up floating too far and we had another two hours in.

Speaker 2 It always, you're right. It always became like a way too long adventure.
Two hours, I can handle. But now imagine you brought an 18-pack amongst three people.

Speaker 2 You're two hours in. You miss the exit.
There's no way to turn back.

Speaker 2 You're not going to hand paddle upstream on a flowing river that's pretty big, actually, you know, half a mile wide at some places. So you're not going to, you're not going to get very far.

Speaker 2 So you miss that first exit. It's not like a car where you get off at the next exit and turn around.
Now you got to make sure you hit the second one.

Speaker 2 And I remember one time we also missed the second one. And now we were six hours in.
It was almost dark.

Speaker 2 Like it was basically dark, and we were lucky, lucky, only because now we were super attentive for two hours. No water, no beer, no food,

Speaker 2 no fun. Yes, I'm done.
I'm done, but now we're in for another two hours. Here we go.
Because you can't just like pull off on the side.

Speaker 2 Like it's a river with a bunch of trees and bushes. You can't just yank your and then hope that someone finds you and comes picks you up.
You never know where you are. Here's my point.

Speaker 2 Don't shoot the hooch. If I'm going to tell you to do something, I'd rather you go to the dysentery-filled Whitewater Rapids theme park here

Speaker 2 in Georgia, where at least it smells like chlorine. You know there's bleach in the water than go into the Chattahoochee River.

Speaker 2 No knock on all the wonderful people who are trying to keep it clean, but I'm not sure. I like going on a walk.
Yeah, take a walk on the banks of the, yeah. Sure.

Speaker 2 Don't get your feet anywhere near the water, but sure.

Speaker 2 It's like that New Orleans soup. Is that what they call it? New Orleans stew, New Orleans whatever, the water that collects in the streets.
Some guy was making a video of it. He's like, you see that?

Speaker 2 He had like in that New Orleans twang. He's like, you see that? That's New Orleans stew.

Speaker 2 It had like this film on top of it. And there's like rats eating at it.
And I was like, oh,

Speaker 2 and he's like,

Speaker 2 he was, he's doing God's work because he explained that every time he sees a tourist in sandals, he alerts them that they should go immediately back to wherever it is they're staying, the hotel, and change their shoes or buy a pair of closed-toed shoes because you you do not want to have open-toed shoes walking down Bourbon Street or any of those places.

Speaker 2 All that water that sits on those sidewalks is not fresh rainwater. That's not what it is.

Speaker 2 Water, booze, peek, poop, puke. Yeah.
I mean, honestly, Vegas and New Orleans, keep your shoes on. That's all I got to say.

Speaker 2 Even though Vegas does a good job of keeping itself clean, you still never know what's on top of there. And that is much like that Chattahoochee water.
You would never drink that.

Speaker 2 Most people in Atlanta don't even drink the tap water. That's like a no, and a no, no, no, no, no.
You don't drink the tap water. Why?

Speaker 2 Because it comes from the Chattahoochee River, which for years, let me just give you an example.

Speaker 2 For years, the city of Atlanta would rather pay an enormous fine to the United States government than clean up the raw sewage that it was just pouring into the Chattahoochee River.

Speaker 2 Only, only when the federal government decided to withhold funds for the 96 Olympics, did the city of Atlanta get in motion and start fixing their sewer problem.

Speaker 2 Only, and still to this day, to this day, you can drive in some parts of downtown Atlanta and they are still fixing the sewer system in the city of Atlanta.

Speaker 2 Still to this day, you hear about raw sewage releases because of too much rain or rainwater or whatever. So don't shoot the hooch.
Come by the TCB Studios for $50.

Speaker 2 We'll give you a tour and a sticker for free. Let's take a break.
I'll be back with more advice on what to do in Atlanta.

Speaker 2 Let me do something Brian has never done.

Speaker 1 Be brief.

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Speaker 2 Yeah, we're all sharing horror stories about

Speaker 2 the hooch or related waters. It's just not clean.
I mean, it is a major, a major city with it used to be an industrial city. And so I get it.

Speaker 2 You know, there's years and years of just shit in that place.

Speaker 2 But, you know, Tina was just sharing that one of her friends had to get two layers of stitches because the nurse was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't go in that water.
What are you thinking?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's crazy. And it's dangerous.
Anyway,

Speaker 2 it's local politics.

Speaker 2 All politics is local, if you don't mind. But let's talk about non-local politics.
Let's talk about Oscars. The Oscar season is coming up, and there is already a ton of drama.

Speaker 2 Let's talk about a non-Oscar related film first, and that is that damn whatever, This Is Us

Speaker 2 story with Blake Lively and that Baldoni guy. This starts with us.
It starts with us.

Speaker 2 Oh, it stops with us? Oh, I thought it starts with us. Apparently, it starts with us because those two Yahoos are just throwing shit back and forth.

Speaker 2 they are destroying their careers someone needs to get a hold of both of those human beings and put them in a room together and say you both did something wrong shut the up before you never work in hollywood again i mean blake lively is getting dragged through the mud but justin bound it ends with us oh it ends with us yeah sorry stops with us starts with us

Speaker 2 it begins with us it ends with us who cares

Speaker 2 yeah it's pretty crazy the drama with that listen i made the mistake of following that perez hilton on uh Instagram.

Speaker 2 I'm soon going to unfollow him, but he has been talking about this non-stop for weeks. Every time something else drops, he comes in.

Speaker 3 They're in court now, right?

Speaker 2 They're throwing lawsuits back and forth with each other. And Justin Baldoni has now put a website together called AboutTheLawsuit.com or something.
You can go Google it.

Speaker 2 I don't know that that's, but it's something about the lawsuit.

Speaker 2 He's put a website together where he is literally sending out every text message, every communication, every email that happened between him and Blake Lee Ivy, even the Blake Lively, even the ones that don't make him look particularly good, he's still sending them out there saying, I'm going to show you everything that happened during this movie, piece by piece, so you understand that it's not the way that Blake Lively's people are spending it.

Speaker 2 And this goes super deep. And let me share just for a minute, if you don't mind.
Drama drop. Drama drop.
Let's get into the Blake Lively situation.

Speaker 2 Not that I know enough about it to be dangerous, but I'm going to make up the parts I don't know.

Speaker 2 Just so you're forewarned. Story time with Brian.
Storytime with Brian.

Speaker 2 Bring blue. Blake Lively got the rights to make this movie after she read the book.
She went and petitioned the author for the rights to the movie. Many, many people read the book.

Speaker 2 Apparently, it was a hot bestseller. It's about domestic violence and the relationship, getting in or out of the domestic violence.

Speaker 2 I don't know the story because I haven't seen the movie, nor have I read the book, just to be clear about that. But that has never stopped me from pretending like I know something.

Speaker 2 Weigh in.

Speaker 2 I'm weighing in. Regardless of being completely misinformed, I'm weighing in.
I'm yet another idiot on the internet just saying shit to say shit. Hey, listen, I got a lot of time to fill on this show.

Speaker 2 Do you want to hear it or not? Okay, all right.

Speaker 2 Do you tune in for the facts or do you tune in for my misinformation in the voice of Bright? Of course you do. All right, here we go.
Blake Lively makes this movie.

Speaker 2 She hires Justin Baldoni to do the directing, or maybe he's, maybe the production company does, I don't know how he gets involved, but Justin Baldoni, who cares? That's not important.

Speaker 2 Justin, yeah, thanks. Justin Baldoni.

Speaker 2 And Justin Baldoni is also going to star in the movie. So he's starring and he's directing.

Speaker 2 At some point during this film, things start getting, there starts to be a little friction between the two stars who have a lot of lovemaking scenes, a lot of intimacy scenes.

Speaker 2 And some friction starts. And Blake apparently does not like the direction that Justin is taking the movie, nor does she like the way that the editor is cutting the movie under Justin's direction.

Speaker 2 So Blake calls a meeting with who? The most important people in the world. Travis Kelsey, Taylor Swift, and Blake Lively, and the other guy that she's married to.
Ryan Reynolds. Ryan Reynolds.

Speaker 2 So they all get in a room and they kind of beat up Justin. And they say, listen, these particular scenes shouldn't go like this.
That needs to go go like that. We need to have this cut of the movie.

Speaker 2 We need to have that cut of the movie, which rubs Justin the wrong way.

Speaker 2 But he quickly realizes that going up against Ryan Reynolds, Taylor Swift, and Blake Lively in an argument about editorial direction is probably not the best idea. So he quickly

Speaker 2 apologizes, sending like a eight-minute voice note. Now, I listened to that eight-minute voice note.
He talks about a lot of stuff during that voice note.

Speaker 2 But basically, what he's doing is he's groveling. He's saying, yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2 I wish I had friends like yours. They're so good to you.
They got your back.

Speaker 2 I see the error of my ways. Lotty, dotty, dotty, do.
Okay. So Justin capitulates to Taylor and Ryan and Blake's suggestions.

Speaker 2 But that doesn't satisfy Blake because Blake believes that Justin is treating her poorly on the set and off the set. So Justin, so Blake

Speaker 2 is now saying that Justin was sexually harassing her, not staying within the intimacy coach lane, doing gross things, you know, walked in on her breastfeeding and then talked about her boobs or whatever.

Speaker 2 If any of that is true, it's creepy at best,

Speaker 2 harassment at worst. But it's hard to tell because it's all he said, she said.

Speaker 2 If you piece all the stuff that Justin is putting out there, some of it might make sense that he was bordering on a little bit inappropriate. Is it harassment? I don't know.

Speaker 2 I guess that's up to the judge to decide at the end of the day. But now

Speaker 2 Justin, Blake comes out and puts a big to-do about this. And she didn't like the last cut of the movie, and he sexually harassed her, and all this stuff went wrong.
And so she sues him.

Speaker 2 That's what you do in America. You sue.

Speaker 2 And so Justin says, wait, wait, wait. That's not how it went down.
Let me show you how it went down. Counter suit.
Yes.

Speaker 2 And so now they're both suing each other for hundreds of millions of dollars in court. They're both throwing dirt all over the place.
Blake with her big,

Speaker 2 you know, high-priced PR people. Justin just trying to fight the good fight.
I'm sure he has nowhere close to the same PR people, but they're trying to fight each other's fight.

Speaker 2 But at the end of the day, they are both destroying each other's careers. Justin has now been fired from his next director job.
I don't know what he's doing.

Speaker 3 Dropped by his representative or whoever, you know, his agent.

Speaker 2 Dropped by his rep. Blake is getting dragged through the mud.
Everything she ever said is getting scrutinized and questioned. Perez Hilton calls her a B-list celebrity at best.

Speaker 2 I don't know if that's necessarily true, but both of them are just absolutely getting destroyed. And they will not have careers after this because no one's going to want to work with them.

Speaker 2 People are going to be afraid that Blake, all she's going to want to do is take over the movie and going to pressure, have a pressure campaign if she doesn't like something.

Speaker 2 Justin's known as a creep who sexually harasses and reveals all the secrets of the world afterwards. They're both killing each other.

Speaker 2 If I'm either of these people's management, I am saying you have got to sit down with this person and figure out a way to shut the fuck up before you never work in this town again.

Speaker 2 Now, Blake has made some money and Ryan Reynolds ain't hurting. So maybe they feel like

Speaker 2 they're going to fight. just to make sure that her name is cleared.
And Justin is trying to make a living in Hollywood. So maybe he feels like I got to reveal it all so that everybody thinks.

Speaker 2 But I'm just like blown away at how these two egos are absolutely going at each other with no regard for the consequences when we're all watching going, what a bunch of morons. What are you doing?

Speaker 2 Don't you think?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I haven't really paid attention that much to it.

Speaker 3 I've seen the headlines. I'm not subscribed to Perez.

Speaker 2 If there is one person in this world that is less informed than I am, it is Chrissy.

Speaker 3 Well, I remember there was a big to-do when it first came out because Blake Lively wasn't

Speaker 2 showing up at the press tour or something. There was something about the press tour.

Speaker 3 Yeah, there was a lot to do with that. And she wasn't denouncing domestic violence enough or something.

Speaker 2 She was making it all about her and talking about the movie. There were just things about the press tour.

Speaker 3 And I meant to watch the movie, but then I just didn't. And so now I'm now.
Maybe I should just watch the movie.

Speaker 2 But I kind of don't want to watch the movie. I don't know.
Astrid watched it a couple times. I think she said it was good.
She liked it. And

Speaker 2 I think I walked in on her crying at one point watching that movie. Yeah, I don't cry.
Yeah, I'm not interested in all that. Domestic violence, I just abhor it.
I think it's gross and nasty.

Speaker 2 But I got to be in the right mood to see a story like that. Like, I have to not be full of rage, which is hard for me right now at my age and my profession and my circumstances.

Speaker 2 You know, no money, many children. 50 shows a day.
You know, I'm just a little bit upset about everything. Yeah.
I'm irritated. I'm in a constant state of irritation.

Speaker 2 But I still think even in my constant state of irritation, I just think that I would see through

Speaker 2 the noise. I would try to make amends in some way, shape, or form.

Speaker 3 If I did wrong, it seems like it's gotten out of control. And now people are past the point.

Speaker 2 Now people are way past the point.

Speaker 3 They're just like, nope, I've got to prove myself right.

Speaker 2 Everything Blake Lively ever said is now being rehashed and everybody hates her. Not everybody, but people dislike her, right?

Speaker 2 they think that she's a kind of a snotty human being when she was doing press for that movie a couple questions were asked about domestic violence and she was like that's that's not what the movie is all you know kind of like uh you know look at my jeans don't don't look at my domestic violence look at my jeans kind of thing maybe she was just not jazzed with the questions or the interviewer i don't know who knows what's in blake lively's head But they both have the world at their disposal.

Speaker 2 They both have the world at their

Speaker 2 fingertips. It was one of the best, like, it was one of the most popular movies of 2024, regardless of whose cut got out there.
It doesn't matter. You're part of a project that did really well, right?

Speaker 2 Now, if you were actually sexually harassed, I can understand fighting to make sure that doesn't happen again and that people see who Justin Baldoni is so that they don't get in a similar situation with him.

Speaker 2 But now there's so much noise, it's hard to know what's true or not. There seems to be no truth.
Everybody's just giving their version of the story.

Speaker 2 Welcome to the age of 2025 when truth doesn't matter. It's just about who talks the loudest.

Speaker 2 Done with it. Done with it.
All right. Let's move on to the Oscar contender.
Yes.

Speaker 2 Amelia Perez, Pertez, Perez. Speaking of Perez, Amelia Perez.
Is it Amelia Perez? Is that it? The movie?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Amelia Perez.

Speaker 3 That's another. controversial one.

Speaker 2 Very controversial. And I didn't know until I started digging in on the drama drops around Amelia Perez.

Speaker 2 This is a story

Speaker 2 like many other Hollywood stories. It's your typical

Speaker 2 drug lord gets a sex change to avoid any kind of responsibility for all his heinous actions and then misses his family. And so he becomes a woman to get back with him.
Kind of love story.

Speaker 2 We all know it. We've all seen it.
It's another retelling of

Speaker 2 the age. Another retelling of

Speaker 2 another retelling of that story. But in inexplicable fashion, form and fashion, it is a musical.

Speaker 2 Now, I took the time to go watch some of the clips of this out there, and I have a hard time understanding how this is a best picture contender. I don't knock the performances.
I don't knock the

Speaker 2 sensitivity or insensitivity with which they handled the trans issues in that.

Speaker 2 That's for someone who has a dog in that fight to really vet out, right?

Speaker 2 But they at least used a trans actress to portray the drug lord who got a sex change operation so that he could go back out into the public. It's actually

Speaker 2 an interesting story. It is, yeah.
But why it's a musical and why they have an actual entire five minutes dedicated to a song about Vaggioblasty, I have no idea. Like, it's just a little weird.

Speaker 2 It's a little bit of a strange story.

Speaker 2 And many critics out there are curious as to how this became an Oscar contender because they named it in one of the weirdest, weirdest, oddest, worst movies of the year. This is

Speaker 2 the Oscars, like every other award out there, are bought and paid for. It's just a fact.
If you have any other illusion, let me put that illusion to rest. It is bought and paid for.

Speaker 2 They lobby the voters to make sure that they get votes, and they do that in a lot of different ways.

Speaker 2 If you open up any trade rag, like the Hollywood Reporter, if you go to LA, they have billboards sometimes for your consideration, right?

Speaker 3 Which is a great Christopher Guest movie, by the way.

Speaker 2 He is a great Christian movie.

Speaker 2 I started watching it a few weeks ago, and I was like, this is such a great movie. I just love that movie.
I think it's wonderful. But this is how the Grammys happen.
This is how the Oscars happen.

Speaker 2 This is how the Golden Globes happen, the foreign press, all of them. They all happen in the same manner.

Speaker 2 You have to have a PR machine that's making sure you get in front of the voters so that you can get nominated.

Speaker 2 And then once you get nominated, if you get nominated, then you really have to, then the heat has to come on.

Speaker 2 You have to to really try and win the affection of the people who are voting for this the uh actors guild screen actors guild or whatever it is so amelia perez is kind of an outlier in the sense that

Speaker 2 many critics did not think this movie was that great but for some reason it got voted in. Okay, let's assume that there's a lot of people out there in the voting community that did like this movie.

Speaker 2 Don't know, haven't seen it. Again, I have no information.
I'm just speculating. But what's crazy is now the woman who played Amelia Perez in this movie cannot go and be a part of the Oscar scene.

Speaker 2 She cannot lobby. She cannot be a part of the Oscar scene because she has

Speaker 2 lost it a little bit. And people have dug up old tweets that they say were racist and, you know, homophobic and all this other stuff.
I'd read the tweets.

Speaker 2 I think some people are being a little bit sensitive. I don't think she was being super offensive.

Speaker 2 But I get it. Everything is a reason to get upset if you're looking for a reason to get upset, right? And that's the way that it is.

Speaker 2 But now she has to disconnect herself from the PR machine and the fun and all that other stuff because of

Speaker 2 these things that were said in the hopes that they can soften the landing a little bit on this bad press and be in contention for Amelia Perez.

Speaker 2 Can we all just say the wicked was the best movie of the year and get on with life?

Speaker 3 Is it nominated for an Oscar?

Speaker 2 I think it is. I think it is.

Speaker 2 Wicked

Speaker 2 Oscars.

Speaker 2 Astrid wouldn't know this.

Speaker 2 Yes, best picture. Wicked.
Okay.

Speaker 2 Best actress. Best supporting actress.
Best original score. Best production design.
Best makeup and hairstyling. Best visual effects.
Best filmetting. Best costume design.
Best sound design. Wow.

Speaker 2 It won.

Speaker 2 I'm not one. It got nominated for a ton of stuff.
For everything.

Speaker 2 Oscar. Let's see the other ones.

Speaker 2 Nominees 20.

Speaker 3 I watched one of the nominees the other night. Anora?

Speaker 2 I think that's the name of it. Nora? Anora.
Anora. Look at the best picture.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 2 Amelia Perez, A Complete Unknown. Conclave.
Conclave was good. I want to see Conclave.
Real. Really bad.
Nickel Boys. I do want to see that also.
I'm Still Here. The Substance.
Dune Part 2.

Speaker 2 Also a fucking fantastic movie wicked anora and the brutalist wow that's a lot yeah you have five and now they have ten yes okay interesting i do think i do remember that happening at one point like they they changed up the yeah they upped it so anora is the one about the uh sex worker who marries the russian

Speaker 2 oligarch's son okay it was good you liked it i enjoyed it okay now i don't want you to tell me the plot because i want to watch this movie but i want you to give me the i want you to agree or disagree with this statement okay i saw someone on instagram Instagram that said this was the best movie of the year.

Speaker 2 It had me laughing for the first hour and 30 minutes and crying for the last 15.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I can see where that comes into play.

Speaker 2 That's all I need to know. Thank you.
Thank you. I wasn't crying.
You weren't crying?

Speaker 1 No, I wasn't crying.

Speaker 2 She has no feelings, folks. Can't you tell? She's like Frankie Valley.

Speaker 3 She just some parts where it's a sad situation.

Speaker 2 Okay, it's a sad situation.

Speaker 3 But it is, it is funny and it's very, it's different. And it was good.

Speaker 2 Fernanda Tor uh Fernanda Torres for I'm Still Here, Best Actress, Demi Moore for The Substance, Carla Gascon, who's Amelia Perez, this that's the woman who

Speaker 2 is apparently causing trouble. I don't know how.
Cynthia Arrivo for wicked, and Mickey Madsen for Anora.

Speaker 3 Demi Moore was great too. That the substance is a great movie.

Speaker 2 We still haven't watched that. We still got to watch that.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Is that on Hulu?

Speaker 3 No, I don't subscribe to something on Amazon.

Speaker 2 I can't do any more subscriptions. I know.

Speaker 3 I had to cancel the subscription after it.

Speaker 2 Would you do a free trial? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I can't do free trials anymore after it's mad at me because

Speaker 2 I keep not remembering. I've got to use it on my calendar.
Yeah, I do that too, but I still don't remember.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Best actor, Ralph Fiennes for Conclave. I think he's such a great actor.
He is so great. Sebastian Stan for The Apprentice, playing Donald Trump and The Apprentice.
That's another movie I want to see.

Speaker 2 Timothy Shalala

Speaker 2 for a complete unknown.

Speaker 3 He was fantastic in that movie. Have you seen that movie?

Speaker 2 I haven't. I want to see that too.
Coleman Domingo for Sing, Sing. Don't even know what that is.
Sorry.

Speaker 2 And Adrian Brody for The Brutalist. I want to see The Brutalist too.

Speaker 3 And every time I think about watching it, I know it's like three and a half hours.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a long movie.

Speaker 2 It took them like 15 years to make that movie. I'm glad I saw that.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Best International Film. Who cares?

Speaker 2 Sorry.

Speaker 2 Best Supporting Actress, Zoe Seldana for Amelia Perez, Felicity Jones for The Brutalist, Monica Barbaro for Complete Unknown, Ariana Grande for Wicked, and Isabella Rosalini for Conclave.

Speaker 2 Isabella Rosalini. What a beautiful name.
I love her.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 She's really good.

Speaker 2 Animated feature. Flow, which won the Golden Globe, which I don't even know what that is.

Speaker 3 I don't know any of the animated ones.

Speaker 2 You're going to have to. Inside Out 2, which I heard was fantastic, now available on Disney Plus, just giving a shout out.
Wild Robot,

Speaker 2 Wallace and Gromit. Wallace and Gromit.
Wallace and Grommet. Are we doing Wallace and Grommet? Take it easy.
Okay. All right.
I know there's a bunch of Wallace and Gromit fans out there.

Speaker 2 I never got into it. You like it? Loved it.

Speaker 7 Big fan. Yeah, we watched all of it in our household.
It's actually in my list to watch, and I'm grown, and so are my kids.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 7 And it's just such a household favorite. When mine were young, I will be watching it.
I know.

Speaker 2 It's that like British, dry, slapstick kind of. You are British.
I know. I don't know.
I just never, you should, you would love it.

Speaker 7 It's, I mean, it's dry and it goes, a lot of the humor goes over the kids' heads. I think that's why it stood the test of time.

Speaker 2 It's because it also appeals to.

Speaker 2 Yes. I'll stick with Bluey.

Speaker 2 Maybe I'll watch it. I don't know.
Okay. Best Supporting Actor.
Guy Pierce for The Brutalist.

Speaker 2 I'm going to slaughter this name. Yuri Borozov for Anora.
Okay. Edward Norton, a complete unknown.
Kieran Colkin for

Speaker 2 A Real Pain. And Jeremy Strong for The Apprentice.
I wish I had watched more of these movies. I really do.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, there's still time.

Speaker 2 Yeah, there is still time, but do I have the time? Is the question. I know there is still time.
This might be our farewell show. I don't know.
Who knows? We showed up for one more at least, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Best Director, The Substance, A Complete Unknown, Honora, Amelia Perez, and The Brutalist.
Well, listen, I don't know. I haven't seen Amelia Perez, but, you know, I read enough about it.

Speaker 2 And I read enough, like,

Speaker 2 for every two good reviews, there must have been eight not good reviews. So he did surprise me also.
But you know, reviews are like assholes. Everyone's, you know.

Speaker 3 Exactly, I don't always go off the reviews.

Speaker 2 Opinions are like assholes. Everyone's got one and they all stink.
And that's all I got to say about that. Who's your favorite Oscar contender? Yeah, let us in the audience.

Speaker 2 Give us a call and let us know. And you might be on the next episode of the commercial break, 212-433-3TCB.
Leave us that voicemail if you want to to hear yourself.

Speaker 2 If you want to be in front of literally tens of earballs,

Speaker 2 leave us a message. All right, we'll take a break.
We'll be back.

Speaker 2 Let me do something Brian has never done.

Speaker 1 Be brief.

Speaker 4 Follow us on Instagram at thecommercial break. Text or call us 212-433-3TCB.
That's 212-433-3822. Visit our website, tcbpodcast.com, for all the audio, video, and your free sticker.

Speaker 4 Then watch all the videos at youtube.com slash the commercial break. And finally, share the show.
It's the best gift you could give a few aging podcasters. See, Brian?

Speaker 2 That really wasn't that difficult now, was it?

Speaker 4 You're welcome.

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Speaker 2 Yes. Thank you, Tina.
Yes.

Speaker 1 And we do me a favor and hit those cameras when you get a chance.

Speaker 2 Thanks so much. You're the bestest in the Westist.

Speaker 2 What's that? I already did it. Oh, you already did it? Oh, my gosh.
I'm not even paying any attention here at the studio, but there's nothing new there.

Speaker 2 Tina helping us today. Thank you very much, Tina.
We love you. We appreciate it.
That's the voice you're hearing in the background.

Speaker 2 This will have changed by the time this episode comes out, but I want to say that there are a lot of dumb things that I've heard in the last 10, 15 days out of the new administration.

Speaker 2 But one of the dumbest things that I've heard is: let's turn Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East.

Speaker 2 That's unbelievable. We're going to take over Palestine, just occupy it, just take it over and build golf courses.

Speaker 2 You got to be kidding me. I don't know.
What are we thinking?

Speaker 3 I saw that last night.

Speaker 2 What are we thinking?

Speaker 2 Yeah. I think he's trolling us.
That's my opinion. I think it's just, he's trolling us while other stuff goes on.
We're looking

Speaker 2 at it. Look over here so you don't look over here.
Yeah, I know. I just got to say,

Speaker 2 that's a bad idea. If we really want our chickens to come home and roost, take over a population of, what is there, 20 million people that live in Gaza or some shit like that?

Speaker 2 A lot of people that lived in Gaza. And I don't think it's 20 million people, but either or.
It's a lot of people. That's their home.
Like, you're just going to take it over and build golf courses?

Speaker 2 Come on. Really? Honestly.
Go to the Caribbean like everybody else does. Go to the Caribbean.
Speaking of the Caribbean, I saw a video about a cruise ship.

Speaker 3 Guy Fieri taking his family?

Speaker 2 Oh, no. Tell me about this.
What is this? The Guy Fieri.

Speaker 2 Kristen texted me the other day, and she says, you want a good laugh? Watch Guy Fieri's Ultimate Cruise Takeover. What is that?

Speaker 3 I guess his son, I didn't end up watching it, but you know our history with Guy Fieri.

Speaker 2 Oh, God, Guy.

Speaker 3 What concert was he at?

Speaker 2 Oh, he was at the Rage Against a Machine concert with that fucking hairdo and that visor.

Speaker 3 We talked about that seasons ago. So, anyways, I thought it would be fun.

Speaker 2 I'm here at Lucy Lou's Cafe, and they're building a burger you've never seen before.

Speaker 3 I guess his son graduated from high school, so he decides to take the family and a lot of their friends and family on this cruise.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 So I watched a little bit of it, and it's him kind of, you know, going into the, they're all doing their adventurous stuff. And I think it's a big commercial for Carnival.

Speaker 2 Of course it is.

Speaker 2 Of course.

Speaker 3 And then all the food that's on board.

Speaker 2 Okay, gotcha. All right.
I'm here at the Food Network headquarters, and I'm convincing them to spend $1 million on my family vacation.

Speaker 2 You're listening to Drive-In Divers and Dives, or whatever the fuck you call it. Triple D is on the way.
Now,

Speaker 2 far be it from me to make fun of the Triple D. No, it's no person in the history of living on this earth, because it's now been on for like 15 years.
It really has. It's been on for the longest.

Speaker 2 I remember when he was part of a competition.

Speaker 2 Next greatest food network star, the next food network star, and he won that. And that's how he got that show.
Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

Speaker 2 And that show became a runaway hit with people that are hungover. That's what that show is.
People trying to take a nap on a Saturday afternoon. That's so true.
Golf. Whenever I've watched it.

Speaker 2 Golf and Triple D. Two of my favorite things to fall asleep to.
So far be it for me to make fun of the Triple D, because I get it. It is mindless entertainment.
Mindless.

Speaker 2 And when I say mindless, literally your brain turns off.

Speaker 2 You could do surgery while watching that show. That's how mindless it is.
You don't need to know anything. He's going to say, well, bam, yeah, yo, put the onions onions in.

Speaker 2 He's going to tell the people. The part that bothers me about Triple D

Speaker 2 is that he thinks he's so good at being a chef that no matter what someone is cooking, he knows what's coming next before they do. Then you're going to throw a little cumin in there.

Speaker 2 How'd you know that cumin? Then you're going to throw the ground beef in there, ground beef, cook it at 350 for four hours. It's like, dude, let them talk.
That's why they're there.

Speaker 2 But I will say this: good for him

Speaker 2 because apparently, when you, when Triple D shows up to your your place, you better be ready because your business is going to go fucking wild.

Speaker 3 He does a lot with charity too.

Speaker 2 So I mean, I like Guy. Listen.
I just think he's funny. And after we did the show about it, people were writing to him in the reviews.
They were like, leave Guy. Leave Guy alone.

Speaker 2 He could go to a concert. I know.
We got so much shit about making fun of Guy at the Rage Against the Machine concert. But I just want you to think about that just for one second.

Speaker 2 Think about Guy Fieri at the Rage Against the Machine concert. When he's saying, when they're saying those, some of those who want forces are the same that ride horses,

Speaker 2 he might or might not be talking about the executives at Food Network and Guy Fieri. Okay? I'm just saying.
The revolution will not be televised. Not with Guy Fieri, it won't.
I don't hate the guy.

Speaker 2 As a matter of fact, I like the fact that he does all the charity. And I do appreciate all the nap time he's given me over the years.
Not anymore. I have children.

Speaker 2 But I do appreciate the fact that he didn't wake me up. At least he didn't wake me up.
I can't watch. There's a lot of shows I can't watch because my brain is tuned in while I'm sleeping.

Speaker 2 And if I hear something, you know, interesting, I wake up. Yeah.
Not with God.

Speaker 2 I can be assured nothing interesting is going to happen. And

Speaker 2 that food network has gone all in on Triple D. It is on 24 hours a day, it seems like.
It appears, apparently. I haven't turned to that channel in a while.

Speaker 2 You know how at least the local Fox station here turned into the Judge Judy channel at one point? Yes. And then Lifetime is the Dr.
Phil channel. I mean, the MTV is the teen mom channel.
It's just

Speaker 2 TLC is the 90-day

Speaker 2 fiancé channel. When they find something that works, they will beat you over the head with it 24 hours a day.
And that's Guy. So I say all this to say that Guy has the best fucking luck in the world.

Speaker 2 He is literally like,

Speaker 2 a nobody chef, shows up, wins the food network competition, becomes a very famous person in short order doing that Triple D. Now he hosts, you know, guys grocery games, guys, this, guys, that.

Speaker 2 I'm getting a guy's special tour, guys in adventure, guys with his kids, guys with his mom, guys, whatever. Everything that he does is televised and is getting paid for by the fucking food network.

Speaker 2 Why can't we have that kind of?

Speaker 2 I can go to local dives. Brian's dives.

Speaker 3 I mean, we should technically be sponsored by TLC. A Triple B.

Speaker 2 Brian's boobs and bars. I'll be happy to take you to every strip club this side of the Mississippi.
I'll show you which ones are good or which ones are not. Left hit coming out.
All right.

Speaker 2 There it is. Left hands next.
Okay, here we go. Listen, this is not a particularly difficult job, but there is something that Guy does.
There is some X factor about Guy. His hair.

Speaker 2 It's that visor.

Speaker 2 It's the visor.

Speaker 2 Now I want to watch it. Yeah.
Now I'm interested in watching it.

Speaker 3 Interest has been peaked.

Speaker 2 Now I want to watch it. What was I talking about before? I totally forgot

Speaker 2 where I went off with this. I was going to say something, and then you told me.
Oh, the cruise ship. Oh.
Cruise.

Speaker 2 So world's worst cruise line is apparently the Margaritaville cruise line. There is a cruise line or a cruise ship, I should say, called the Margaritaville cruise ship.

Speaker 3 They just slapped Margaritaville and everything. They do.

Speaker 2 He's dead. And what can we do now? I mean, you know, it's just a corporation that's going to sell his name to anything.
I think the Margarita Ville,

Speaker 2 like the resorts and the housing, like the retirement places, I think that Margaritaville, the company, is somewhat involved in the management of those.

Speaker 2 Well, you went. I went to the Margaritaville Resort.
Yep.

Speaker 2 And we were just talking about this the other day. Listen, is this

Speaker 2 even in my top 30 places I have ever stayed, resorts that I have ever stayed? no. No, it was a quick hit.
It was a quick hit. It was a quick getaway.
Yeah, we went Thursday. We came back on Sunday.

Speaker 2 We went, you know, right as school had started for most kids, but not our kids yet. So it was very quiet.
We went to Panama City. I told the story.
The place was brand new.

Speaker 2 It had just opened a couple of months earlier. So it was not very busy.
And I will tell you something. That Margaritaville.
Didn't impress me much.

Speaker 2 It was kind of like, you know, a neighborhood, essentially, with a really cool pool. You still had to a football field to get to the actual beach.

Speaker 2 And the beach was beautiful, but it was not on the beach, unless you rented one of their huge houses for like, you know, ten thousand dollars a week or whatever.

Speaker 2 But those kids, my kids, still talk about that place

Speaker 2 on a weekly basis. That's a great time.
And they want to go back every time.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 Oh, by the way, I have news about the Great Wolf Lodge.

Speaker 2 One of their team members, let's put it that way. I don't want to give away any identify any identifying information.

Speaker 2 One of their team members is coming on the show to tell us all the gory details about Great Wolf Lodge. Next week, we're going to have a phone call.

Speaker 2 We've got to disguise the name and do some things to make sure that they don't lose their jobs.

Speaker 2 But they have agreed to come on air and tell us some stories, not about the one here in Atlanta, but in another location around the country.

Speaker 2 And I actually can't wait because they texted some stories to me and I was like, oh, you got to come on and tell some of these stories. So they'll be on next week.

Speaker 2 We're doing an expose at Great Wolf Lodge, and I'm never going to be invited back. It's yet another place I cannot go.
But anyway, that Margaritaville cruise, that's exactly what happened.

Speaker 2 They slapped the name. They bought the rights, essentially, to put the Margaritaville on there.
But it's been called the worst cruise ship in America by many travel critics.

Speaker 3 It's got to be saying something.

Speaker 2 It really does.

Speaker 2 It's a tiny boat, and it is really disgusting. Like, it's old.
It's not renovated well. The rooms are like Motel 6 has better rooms than these rooms.
And most of them do not have balconies.

Speaker 2 They're all like, you know, porthole windows, which I can't go on a cruise ship unless you give me a balcony.

Speaker 2 If I don't have a way to get some fresh air or jump off the boat in case of emergency, I don't have any interest in it. But this Margaritaville is taking it to a new low.

Speaker 2 The food is sickening. The activities are zero.
And the boat is in bad, bad shape. So

Speaker 3 who regulates that stuff?

Speaker 2 The National Cruise Ship Place of America.

Speaker 2 Elon Musk.

Speaker 3 Doge. Cutting costs.
Doge.

Speaker 2 Doge does. Good old Doge.
Anyone else find it funny that Doge is the name of the organization that Elon, wasn't he like

Speaker 2 Rahra Sispumba about the Doge coin at one point? Okay, just checking to make sure I got my math right there. Yeah, Elon Musk is apparently in charge of the cruise ships.

Speaker 2 But it got me thinking, and it got me thinking seriously about maybe, maybe taking some equipment.

Speaker 2 By the way, the cruise ship, the room rates, I looked for like a three-day Caribbean cruise, Caribbean cruise, is like $180 a person.

Speaker 2 We can bring some of our own supplies, right? Like, you know.

Speaker 3 You know, me and my view on cruises, and I can't believe this is your pitch.

Speaker 2 This is my pitch. This is for my very first pitch.
And I'm doing it on air so that you feel pressured to do this. We'll find a way to get a balcony room, we'll find a way to get on there.

Speaker 2 But we, I think we must do the commercial break from a place that is worthy of the commercial break.

Speaker 2 The Margaritaville cruise ship.

Speaker 2 If you work for the Margaritaville Cruise Line, if you know of anybody that works for the Margarita

Speaker 2 Cruise Line, or you just want to sponsor us going on the Margarita Cruise Line, I know if I can get it for free, Chrissy might entertain the idea. Listen, it will be fun.

Speaker 2 We'll have a great time, Chrissy. I promise.

Speaker 3 The last time we talked about cruises, we talked about going on a Ritz cruise.

Speaker 2 Right, but no one called us.

Speaker 2 No one reached out about the Ritz cruise.

Speaker 3 So we've now just, the pendulum swung completely.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but I figured, well, let's lower the bar all the way to the bottom and then maybe we can jump above it. You know what I'm saying? I don't know.

Speaker 2 I just saw this guy doing this review video. Like, this was last night or night before last.

Speaker 2 I saw this guy doing a review video, and I thought, wouldn't it be funny to do a podcast from the cruise ship, report on what we see and what we do, and then get some feedback from the other people that are on the cruise ship?

Speaker 2 By the way, the cruise ship, mostly empty. There wasn't a whole lot of people there.
We could have the cruise ship to ourselves. I need to look into that.
Yeah, okay, look into it.

Speaker 2 But just know two things before you get into this. We can bring disinfectant and all

Speaker 2 our own food. That's right.
We could sneak our own food onto the cruise ship. It can't be that bad.
We'll be together. We'll be together.
We can bring Jeff and Astrid.

Speaker 2 Doesn't Jeff have some extra time to go on a Margarita cruise ship?

Speaker 3 And so does Astrid. Yeah.

Speaker 2 This is a step.

Speaker 3 Would you bring your kids on this cruise?

Speaker 2 Fuck no. Okay.
Fuck no. Fuck, fuck, no.
Fuck no.

Speaker 2 Well, generally, I don't think Margaritaville cruise ships. Well, I mean, I did bring them to the resort, but I guess they had a water slide.
So what else do you want?

Speaker 2 All right. Do you want to see Chrissy and I go to the Margaritaville cruise ship? Sponsor it.
Tell us you know somebody over there. Get us some free tickets.

Speaker 2 Or just stay tuned and we'll figure out a way to do it ourselves. Well, I guess that's all I have for today.

Speaker 2 From the wrist.

Speaker 2 From the rips.

Speaker 1 Down to the...

Speaker 2 The bottom of the ship. Down to the bottom of the ship.

Speaker 2 Down to the bottom of the ship is more like that's what I said down to the bottom of the ship

Speaker 2 Yeah, listen. I think this would be fun.

Speaker 2 I think this would be fun. I think we would have a good time.
I think you and I would have a good time anywhere we went

Speaker 2 But if we went you know what like you know what my real vision was

Speaker 2 go on the Margaritaville cruise ship and because it's so dirt cheap invite some of our listeners to come like an unofficial commercial break Cruise. We don't tell the cruise line.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 2 We don't put any kind of organization You come at your own risk, essentially. You pay for it.
Don't bother us.

Speaker 1 But we'll be there.

Speaker 2 And then we can all have some fun together and we'll report back on what we'll do.

Speaker 2 We'll do a show each day and we'll report back. It's three days long.
What could happen?

Speaker 2 Why?

Speaker 2 Why don't we be friends? What could happen? What's going on?

Speaker 3 We could get definitely ill.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I just want to know who the captain is. I just want to make sure the captain has all his eyes and legs.
That's all I care about.

Speaker 2 I mean, you know.

Speaker 2 If we're just going to the Caribbean, I feel like we could swim if something happened. If something bad happened, we could be in the water for a couple of days.
It's warm water.

Speaker 2 I'll look into it.

Speaker 1 Okay, look into it. Let me know.

Speaker 2 I feel like this is the kind of thing that the commercial breaks should do every once in a while. It's better than going to the gathering of the juggalos.
That was my next idea.

Speaker 2 But I don't know that my body can take too many more drugs, so I think I got to put that idea away for a little while. Yeah, I just had surgery to remove a tumor.

Speaker 2 I don't think I should fill it full of cocaine and fago.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 If you love the show, sharing is caring. Do us a favor and share with one of your friends.
Leave us a positive review. Leave us a negative review.
Whatever. Do whatever.
You know.

Speaker 2 Buy us tickets to the Margarita Bel Cruise show.

Speaker 2 We'd love it. We'd love you forever.
Text us 212-433-3TCB. Questions, comments, concerns, content, ideas.
We take them all right there. TCBpodcast.com.

Speaker 2 All the audio, all the video right there from one location and your free sticker. Also at the Commercial Break on Instagram and youtube.com slash the commercial break for all the episodes on video.

Speaker 2 All right, Chrissy, that's all I can do for today. I think so.
I'll tell you that I love you. And I love you.
Best ya.

Speaker 2 And best you out there in the podcast universe. Until next time, Chrissy and I will say.
We do say and we must say. Goodbye.

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