858 – You’ve Changed Man | The Good Place to Sleep S4 E10

EPISODE 858 – Good Places S4 E10

 

[START OF RECORDING]

SCOOTER: Alright ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and friends beyond the binary, it’s time for the podcast, patrons, that you support and hopefully…I don’t support you.  I get you room to sink in and get comfortable. I don’t know…I support healthy sleep and you support me. Thanks.

INTRO: [INTRO MUSIC] Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing, trouble getting to sleep?  Trouble staying asleep? Well, welcome. This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep.  We do it with a bedtime story and alls you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press play.  I’m gonna do the rest. What I’m going to attempt to do is create a safe place where you could set aside whatever’s keeping you awake, if it’s thoughts, things you’re thinking about on your mind, past, present, future, today, tomorrow; those are number one and number two.  It’s like today, tomorrow, for me. Then you know, anything general future, anything beyond the next few hours. That’s kind of…I mean, I think you know what I’m saying if you listen to this podcast. I say oh boy, or you know, one of those brain bots or my nana says just wait.  Then it’s like, oh, five years ago. Then high school.

 

I don’t have a lot of…probably those come up, though.  You know, they bubble up. They say what decade should we…which of your greatest hits that aren’t hits or great should we bubble up for you, Scoots?  If thoughts are keeping you awake, I can relate to that. If feelings, emotions, coming up for you…when I have thoughts, then I have feelings. Sometimes I have feelings and then thoughts but other times I just have those feelings and I say well, huh…so, feelings, physical sensations, anything going on with your body, or anything else.  It might be something external; changes in time, temperature. Got a couple things I was thinking about talking about tonight in the intro; external…I got a lot of wind today so wind can keep you up or it can keep your pets up and then it keeps you up. Wind can also cause thoughts or feelings, you know. Totally. Any of those things keeping you awake.

 

What I’m gonna do is I’m gonna create a safe place like I said, where you could set aside those things; right at the door or as we talk about on a lot of these episodes, you know, we have cubbies, storage areas.  We just put in lockers ‘cause we did some market research on these great, safe places. We’ve made a lot of expansions in this safe place. Even though it’s portable, you can also come…you’re also welcome to come and, you know, drift your way over here.  We said okay, let’s put some lockers in, right? We have lockers that lock and don’t lock. They don’t have those locks like you had…that’s one repetitive dream I might have every once in a while, where you say okay…what is it…I mean, who invented those locks?  Maybe it was just based on the tech at the time. I didn’t think I’d be talking about this in the intro. Talk about a gripe. This is something…has any candidate ever taken this up before?

 

Probably not because of the great lock lobby that we never hear anything about because it’s so strong.  It’s iron-clad, like they say in the commercials. They don’t advertise anymore. Once upon a time, I guess before there was the great lock conglomerate which I don’t know which…you know, that probably did happen.  When I was a kid, the lock business, the padlock business was so competitive. This might sound ridiculous to some of you. It was so competitive, they had TV commercials for locks. You might think, locks? ‘Cause right now, if you’re in the market for a lock, you might say okay, well, specifically, what am I locking?  You say okay, a padlock for a locker that’s not annoying like those ones…the combination ones. I mean mostly they’ve moved away from that but really…sorry, I was gonna talk about the TV commercials ‘cause it was such a big business, I guess.

 

Everybody was locking stuff up in the 80s.  ‘Cause now, I guess I would say if I needed a padlock…now, where I live, we have a local hardware store but I also might say well, is this a $0.99 store lock or a hardware store lock?  I don’t think I would buy a padlock online. I don’t know why but I just wouldn’t. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; padlock.com or whatever the heck. You could still sponsor the podcast if you’re gonna get back into that business.  Maybe there’s Upstart. They say oh boy…I’m surprised I haven’t seen that in an online ad ‘cause everything else is getting disrupted. They say oh, by the way, this is a sleep podcast; it puts you to sleep. I go off-topic. Let me finish my…off-topic.  I’m sorry if you’re new but this does feel relevant because it’s probably taking your mind off of stuff. Oh yeah, if you’re creating a startup to disrupt the lock business, count me in because you know, I’d have to create talking points that are soothing.

 

Like these, you’d say well, aren’t those…here’s a free business for you.  Hey, aren’t those locks annoying? Our locks, they’re not. They actually…I don’t know what you would do differently ‘cause you could put fuzzy stuff on the outside.  I think that’s been done before. Do you know I had a job once when I was selling fuzzy dice? We also sold fuzzy things for your wrists, if you know what I’m saying. Cuffy-poos, we called them.  We didn’t call them that but on a sleep podcast…quick release, of course. Where was I though? Oh, I was gonna say once upon a time there was a big…block business was big. Maybe one day, I don’t know what you would do differently.  That’s why I’m not a startpreneur or thought…what are they called? Thought-walker. Leader of thoughts; that’s not my job. That’s one thing but then the other thing, anybody that’s gone to high school before, for the most part realizes what the heck was going on with those locks?

 

Really, ‘cause sometimes you had the padlock and then sometimes it was the build-in lock for lockers.  Why did you have to go left and then right? I could never remember that. I have dyslexia so that was another thing.  Could also never remember my password because it was numbers and that was one of the things I was most impacted by. But the other thing was, you say what, do gotta go left three times, then right, then all the way around?  I mean, that would be a podcast I’d listen to. Maybe that could be an episode of our friends Lauren and Phoebe over at the podcast Looking In Stuff. You take this person a task and they say oh yeah, that person was trickster god, actually, or goddess who decided yeah, I’m gonna invent…you didn’t realize that?  The padlock, the combination lock was invented…I don’t know which trickster goddess it was but they said oh boy, Zack and…how come no one’s ever made that connection?

 

That’s 100%.  You could take that as a fact; if the person wasn’t an actual trickster goddess, they were being influenced by a trickster god or goddess, probably a splainer.  Probably a trickster god that wanted to then splain how to use the lock. Holy moly, I went off-topic…I always say that but that was a pretty…but those are all facts that could keep…I don’t know how we got onto that but that’s stuff that could keep…I’m gonna create a safe place.  Oh, well, our locks don’t do that here at that safe place I’m creating for you. That was my point in case you had any stuff and you say well, I prefer a lock to a locker. I say no problem. I got you covered. That’s how safe this place is. Also, so safe the locks aren’t annoying or archetypal where you say well Scoots, I can’t handle any…emotionally.  I’m trying to get to sleep here. You can’t handle any archetypal combinational lock issues ‘cause I know I gotta deal with that in my dream later.

 

I say this one, it smiles at you and also, it doesn’t…don’t worry about it.  We got it covered. Holy moly. Can’t get into the specifics ‘cause I’m still work…may be under the influence of…I’m sorry, I’m under the influence of a trickster goddess.  I didn’t realize that. Create a safe place; I’m gonna send my voice across the deep, dark night. I’m gonna use lulling, soothing, creaky, dulcet tones, pointless meanders, superfluous tangents, furry and fuzzy stuff.  Also, you could set aside what’s ever on your mind. If you’re new, this is a little late. I’ll be honest, this information…I’m glad you’re here and usually I try to do this earlier but a lot of times, like 90% of the time, I go off-topic.  A few things you might want to know if you’re new; well, we got those lockers so that’s one, or a cubby. [00:10:00] You say well, I just got this…I just got my lunch for later. I say wow, you brought your lunch to a safe place. Good thinking.

 

Yeah, we got cubbies for that, or a locker.  We even have overhead bins. We have the most overhead bin space of any safe place.  Any of those things you put your stuff in and yeah, no upcharge, of course. Of course not.  Oh, so, okay. What was I trying to…if you’re new, a lot of people come to this show and you hear about it and you say what?  What is that? Then you start listening. You say what is this? Are you gonna get to the point? What are you doing? Are you really gonna put me to sleep?  Those are totally normal and natural reactions and questions so give it a few tries, is what millions of people have said. Give it a few tries, kind of see how it goes ‘cause it doesn’t work for everybody but those people that said it, they said after two or three tries I realized I was trying to figure out what was happening at first or pay attention, or I was waiting for Scooter to start and then he started talking about whatever it was last time, you know, bubblegum or something.

 

This time it was lockers.  Then he got mixed up. Then he went from lockers to two separate tirades about locks.  Well, one was actually informative; then I wrote my thesis paper on you know, the marketing of locks.  Then I also wrote a book about John Locke and then also a book about…then I wrote another book about hair locks and the marketing business there.  That’s how I got into…that’s how I found my way. I said holy cow, could I get like, 10% of both of those? What was my point though? I already forgot.  Oh, so if you’re new or skeptical, totally normal. Most people are when they get to the show. Kind of just…if you can, you don’t have to let your guard down or your skepticism down.  I’m not asking for that. Just look at the show loosely, just like you’re…what if you didn’t need to open a lock and you’re just spinning it, like one of those combination things for comfort or fun?

 

That would get old fast but it’s just a quick analogy.  That’s one thing to note. The other thing is that this podcast doesn’t really put you to sleep so much as keep you occupied a little bit, barely occupied while you fall asleep.  I’m here to keep you company. Could you imagine that if you had a friend, you’d say do you think you could come over and talk about something I haven’t ever thought about but I have thought about in the back of my mind, for like twenty minutes?  But I’m not gonna listen. I’ll barely listen. Your friend says I’ll be right over, or we could do it by…what if I just do it by phone? You’d say okay, you can talk about anything. Do you have the ability to talk about something that is barely relatable?  They’d say yeah, that’s what every review of the podcast says; barely relatable. That’s the truth, I guess. Just kind of see how it goes.

 

It’s a podcast to keep you company, take your mind off stuff while you drift off.  If you can’t sleep or you’re having trouble sleeping, don’t worry. I’m here to the very end to keep you company and the reason the shows are an hour is so you have plenty of time to drift off or somebody here to keep you company if you can’t sleep or if you wake up and you can’t get back to sleep, or if you’re having a day at work.  What if you’re a student and you say I had that thing happen with my locker and everybody was looking. I say pop in the old earbuds and Scoots will take you away. Those are a couple things. Structurally, now this is really late to tell you this but the show, here’s how the show goes structurally so moving forward, you know what to expect.  One, expect me to go off-topic. The show starts off with business and that’s how we keep it free for everybody. That’s a little bit faster and you know, initially disruptive.

 

But it’s a necessity to keep the show available without a pay wall.  If you do want to skip that stuff or you listen all night, you might want to think about becoming a patron just ‘cause it’s most conducive to all-night listening.  There’s not really a way for me to make a free sleep podcast that’s good for all-night listening. It just doesn’t work out. That’s the business. Then there’s an intro which is almost over.  The intros are about twelve to eighteen minutes long of me explaining the podcast and going off-topic about stuff which you’ve seen already. Some people will wonder about that and they say what’s up with that?  I say well, the whole idea is that the intro…that me…the whole thing is that I’m here to keep you company and take your mind off of stuff as you drift off. The intro gives you a little wind-down so some listeners listen as they’re getting ready for bed or as they’re just getting in bed and getting comfortable so that after about fifteen or twenty minutes you’re comfortable; your teeth are brushed, your elbows are balmed, you got everything in the way you want it and then you’re in bed.

 

That’s the beginning of the show.  The intro is a wind-down. Patrons get two to three story-only episodes a week or you could skip ahead to about twenty minutes and then just go into me…tonight we’ll be talking about The Good Place.  There’s the intro, then there’s business, then I’ll talk about The Good Place, and then there’s thank-you’s at the end. That’s the structure of the show. I think I covered most of the other stuff. Again, just kind of see how it goes.  I wish this podcast worked for everybody; it just doesn’t. My personality clearly is not for everybody. My creaky, dulcet tones are not for everybody. It’s creaky, dulcet, pointless meanders, superfluous tangents but it does grow…I mean, I’m not here to…it does grow on people or you just become…you say oh, it's not…just think about that friend example; if you invited someone over to talk over in general and they started talking about locks, you might say huh, I don’t know if we’ll be able to invite…honey, I don’t know if we’ll invite them back.

 

They’re okay but if they came over…and then if you invited them over at bedtime you’d say well, I’m not comfortable with that or I gotta…what if they leave crumbs or what if I got to tell them to…what if I fall asleep?  Do I know that they’re gonna shut all the light…shut out the front hall light? Turn on my night-light or whatever? Me, you don’t gotta worry about that. I’m coming to you. I’m riding a wave of ones and zeroes right into your ears, here.  I make this show because I truly believe you deserve a good night’s sleep and I want you to breathe that in. You deserve it. I don’t know if I can provide it but if I can help in any way, it would be my honor ‘cause I want that for you. I want you to have a safe place, a place of solace and respite.  I’m glad you’re here. I really appreciate you whether you’re listening for the four hundredth or eight hundredth time or it’s your first time. I’m glad you’re here and I really hope I can help you fall asleep. I appreciate you coming by and here’s a couple of ways we keep this podcast free for everybody.

 

Alright everybody, Scoots here.  We’re talking about season four, Episode 10, Chapter…Chapter something.  We’ll know the chapter in a few minutes, from The Good Place. It starts out with a dot on the screen.  Let me just see…then the dot…well, there’s the old peacock…as I make sure the…it’s actually not a dot. You can see it’s two people.  It does a quick zoom-in; it’s a judge and the Janet…inside a Janet void which is…I don’t know if it’s a taupe but it’s the color of one of those sport coats that people can pull off.  I can’t pull it off, though. They’re in a neutral Janet void, the most nothing. The judge or someone says it. Janet’s saying hey, don’t cancel Earth please, Judge. Judge has just watched Justified season three or about to watch it.  Janet’s kind of talking…please don’t, don’t give up on Shakespeare, pyramids, Timmy…not Timmy Olyphant. Timothy Olyphant. You say Olyphant, I say Olyphant. Samwise Gamgee says oliphaunt.

 

I don’t know if it was Pippin…Pippin; was that one of the…I don’t know, it’s been a little while.  Not to go off on tangent…usually I don’t do this but so, I had bought the extended Lord of the Rings on Blu-Ray.  I’m not up to 4K yet. I won’t be…I’ll be at 4K in about four years I think, but I am at Blu-Ray, just for this. Very few things I would watch on Blu-Ray but this is one of them.  I made it through The Fellowship. I know this is The Good Place podcast. I made it through The Fellowship over a few weeks ‘cause it [00:20:00] was the extended version. Then I went into The Two Towers and I just, I guess I got busy.  It’s hard for me to sit on the couch and watch something even over two or three nights. It’s literally been six months since I’m right at the midway point of The Two Towers, I think. Something about Rohan. Maybe the White Wizard had shown up; maybe he showed up and left.

 

Maybe he was going to find Rohan.  That was one of my favorite sitcoms, only it lasted one season, The Rohans.  It was a good one. But so, back to this ten-gallon hat. Fifty gallons a man and a ten-gallon hat, the judge says.  She also says I’m the friggin’ judge or the freakin’ judge and you gotta love that. Oh wait, where’s the…I have to do a little scrolling back, here.  She goes up to a computer which looks like…I thought it was like…I guess…no, it does, from the back it does look like…where did I put it? 1086 PC clone, so 90s-era PC IBM clone where I ran MS-DOS or just DOS.  Green screen; she types where’s the clicker thing? Humanity eraser, garage-door button open…she searches; it’s not there. End of words, bye…I don’t know what that is. Oh, she says in neutral Janet, what are…any last words?  She goes end of words, bye. Turns out, Judge has some stuff, other stuff going on she talks about briefly.

 

She talks to one of the sassier Janets, then she goes into one of the sassier Janet’s…mkay, she says…mkay…she doesn’t say it like that character, like mkay.  She says something like mkay? I don’t know. I don’t know how to do it. I’m no Maya Rudolph for sure. Let’s see…oh, Janet says…then the Soul Squad’s there in the lobby, the Judge’s chamber, whatever the room is.  Keep away; Eleanor says Chidi, can I check in with you? Vis-à-vis, she says. He says okay, and he goes, I love you. Do you love me? She goes yeah, yes, I do. Then he goes well, cool. You and I are on our way to Coolsville.  Chidi’s showing some confidence. He says after you deal with a thousand versions of yourself, multiple timelines, you get a sense of clarity. Michael says you saw the time knife. Chidi wasn’t impressed, though; he said it was neat.  Then he says hey, can one of you James get me a chalkboard and a copy of Judas Shklar’s Ordinary Vices, and some warm pretzels?

 

If you’re going out, warm pretzels will be a good way to do it.  Yummy, yum, yum, yummy. Then the episode opens; it’s Chapter 49 and then we cut back and it’s 2:51 on my thing which might be different on yours.  Donny and Jason are sitting at school desks. They said is this a lobby with elevators? There’s pneumatic tubes, there’s comedy with Jason having an idea ‘cause he says if you cancel Earth, it would be a bummer.  He says are you gonna write that down, Michael? He goes oh yeah, you just gotta watch it. They kind of talk about the conundrum they’re in. They got to come up with a new afterlife that the Good Place and the Bad Place agree on, which seems impossible.  Donny says compromise is always possible. She tells a story about Bruno Mars, LeBron James, and Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Let’s see, there’s 2:51 when they come back. I’m just checking this.

 

Looks like they’re taking tests, Donny and Jason.  Again, when I’m recording this, I haven’t seen the last two episodes.  I’m probably just gonna wait and just watch them as after I record. So, I’m way behind most people but when you’re listening, you know what I’m saying.  Scribble, scrabble, oh, we gotta pause it again at 3:40. They talk about…Chidi starts talking about Judas Shklar’s essay about being mean is one of her primary flaws.  I’m gonna pause that when it’s on there. Also, Chidi’s in roller skates. He got those from Disco Janet. Actually, Michael does write bummer down on one of his legal pads.  He goes jeez, like, here’s the thing; the punishment doesn’t have to be mean. Michael kind of…or, no. Then Jason talks about yeah, remember the time I took the Wienermobile?  That wasn’t fair. Let’s see, I guess it goes from Mon…M-O-N-T-A-I-G-N-E. Montaigne…and then M-O-N-T-E-S-Q-U-I-E-U, then to Shklar, unified in zeal, disfigures human character, being mean, punishing people in a mean way.

 

Goes together with hypocrisy.  That’s what Chidi wrote. Shklar was…we’ll talk about it later but 1920 to 1992…Wienermobile; that’s the problem with the current system.  Anything unless you’re perfect and you end up in the Bad Place. Doesn’t match…punishment’s worse than life. Chidi does a spin. We have to come up with a system that’s the least amount of cruelty and suffering to those who don’t deserve it.  Problem of justice; I believe Eleanor says that and then Chidi kisses her. Yeah, they kinda hubba-hubba at first, let’s say, and then they get back into the thing. I think coming up here in about forty seconds for me, they’ll end up in a bad Janet void.  Looks like Eleanor has on Stan Smiths again which Chidi has a sweater vest that’s the same color as the neutral Janet void. He matches the neutral Janet void or just his sweater vest does. Now we’re in a neutral Janet void. Holy, I mean, a lot to look at.

 

You go in through a port-o-potty.  There’s a monster truck, tires that…flying stuff, sofas, terrarium, leftover pizza, barrels, shopping carts, dumpsters, Pirates of the Caribbean 12.  I wonder what the tagline of that one is. Let’s see if we can see it. The Pirates of the Caribbean…I don’t know. You can’t read it; something Jack Sparrow.  I guess you were right, Scoots, you really should…this is your job. Dig in. I don’t know if I can zoom in on the screen; we’ll see. Oh, we can. Mark is not a…I guess ‘cause I’m not a…Mike Muldrow mights…oh wait…Jack Sparrow versus Aqua Man.  That’s what it says. I guess I did figure it out. Then it says some other stuff I can’t read for sure. Janet and the judge are in the bad Janet void. Who else? Let’s see, Chidi’s thing, a couple of kegs, a lot of leftovers, a trebuchet. She gets to the computer which looks like it’s a Windows.

 

She has trouble searching zero root but then she finds out zero results so she goes back and she says okay mom, I’ll see you in the next life.  Then there’s some more funny stuff and then she says Disco Janet, you’re up. She goes, out of sight, man. Then, let’s see…oh, first the judge says what are you guys still doing here?  Go back to Mindy’s. Have a lukewarm beer and wait for me to come get you. Then she says except for you, Cookie Puss. To Chidi; I’ll always make room for you. Then somebody says wait a second, that’s a great idea.  Let’s go to Mindy’s. Oh no, Jason doesn’t see it yet…Chidi should hang out with the judge and get us out of trouble. Jacksonville [00:30:00] plea bargain. Then they say no, no, it was Eleanor’s idea; it would be a Medium Place for medium lives.  A Medium Place could be a third option. Yeah, here’s an idea; they go through…your own personal Cincinnati. You know, you can watch the episode.

 

Then they go to the Good Place…to the Good Place and people are having yogurt at the yogurt place.  That’s funny. They say hey, they’re all so super happy, mouthful of compromise. They say okay…Chidi’s confident now.  He says quiet, please; we’re short on time. We got a new idea. They go, count us in. They go, don’t you want to hear it?  They go no, we love it. Then they say, well we’ve gotta convince Shawn. Donny says I think I can do it. I convinced Ruth and Bruno Mars and everything to agree to stuff so I think I could pull it off.  Then, let’s see…oh, then there’s an ad break. Then the three officers with Shawn. Tahani is finishing up her point and she goes, there you go; in the Bad Place, that’s the compromise. New threshold. He says well, I like that you’re…my side stays the same, your side gets worse.  What the heck, I’m in. Everyone was like, really? He fakes them out. Everyone’s kind of mad.

 

He’s mad at Michael.  He goes, this is a lose-lose situation ‘cause the bad place will be empty, too.  He goes, but I don’t care as long as you lose. You’re the one who had to come up with these new ideas and new ideas are gross.  I sort of get the idea ‘cause Jason…or, the episode title ‘cause Jason says, Shawn, you used to be cool but you’ve changed, man. Then Shawn goes are you gonna write a big speech?  Ring my bell…or is that…oh, that’s…we go to the…judge is with Janet in the Disco Janet void. They’re dancing to ring my bell. Infectious disco grooves…what was I doing here? Oh, I was about to erase the Earth.  They say we almost got Shawn on board. Maybe we could get an agreement. Maybe you could help. The judge is like, I’m a judge; I’m impartial. She goes, gotta go erase the Earth. Then we see the search engine in the Disco Janet is an 8-track.  Says whatcha looking for, baby?

 

There’s also a hanging plant.  She goes to marbleize that Janet.  She goes, later skater. Janet, the Disco Janet, says keep on truckin’.  Then they’re in the soul…Shawn’s in the office. I can’t believe Shawn’s not gonna do it.  How are they gonna get Shawn to change his mind? What does he want? Then we see Shawn…he’s at a side of a Ponzi scheme at a cart called Joanie Loves Chachis and he’s messing with the chachis.  We hear about Donny’s inability to pull off the mod look. That might have been the second time but they go, we gotta give Shawn what he wants, being not nice. They go listen; we’ll go to the not good place.  We’ll go to the Bad Place if you let us have a Medium Place. They go what? Then Jason goes, call back to season two which we haven’t covered yet; classic trolley problem. One of your boys…I won’t ruin it. There’s a good joke there.  Chidi puts a nice topping on it.

 

Oh, that’s what the mob…Donny says I’ll give you a head start.  I can’t pull off the mob look. Shawn says well, it’s a tough call.  Taking you to the Bad Place would be great but he goes…basically, he’s stringing them along.  Then the Good Place representatives come and they say well, okay Shawn, whatever you want, basically.  They’re like, one of you’s gotta keep…they go, we gotta keep him happy. They go let’s lose on our own terms, Soul Squad Eleanor.  Let’s come up with an even better idea. They say we only got about ten minutes. Then Michael makes a speech. Everything we’ve been led through; all the lives, ethics training, further corners, the very best versions of ourselves to solve the…then nine minutes.  Then they go gee, can you come up with an idea? Then Michael goes, wait a second, I got an idea; let me go talk to Shawn. Or somebody gets an idea. Michael’s speech…they had a break, then their lobby.

 

Judge and Janet…oh, they go into the Janet void.  No, this is a different part. Michael doesn’t try to solve it here.  They go into the Janet void to try to come up with another idea. The judge is in the void.  There’s a door; it says the humanity clicker thingy’s in here. Let’s see; right now, Michael’s making his speech that goes from ten to nine minutes.  He’s really, like…he’s got his hands clasped, he’s in front of everything fits, there’s a little breeze behind him, and on the awnings. Shawn’s behind him and he touches Chidi; Chidi, can you do this?  That’s when Chidi says actually, I have an idea; let’s go. Everybody heads off. That’s when the head ray comes. Then they’re with the judge. Judge goes into…she marbleizes a bad Janet and they go into a regular Janet, or the Janet, her last…our Janet, actually.  They have to go into our Janet’s void. Now the clock really is ticking. They say, we got an idea; not interested. She goes into Janet.

 

She says let’s go in me; we’ve all advanced so it’ll be fine.  Judge won’t listen to us. We gotta get her attention. She goes, I have an idea.  They get the judge to sit down after the secret meeting place sign and she goes, give me one good reason I should hear you out.  They’re standing in front of a chalkboard. Then they go here he is; Timothy Olyphant. It’s the real one. He says, I think you should hear them out, Judge.  She goes, oh, okay. She’s a little bit stunned. She’s stunned and happy. Really funny stuff, really. He’s got a cowboy hat on. He’s very cas, then Shawn shows up and he talks about puppies.  They sit down, there’s a sign about the afterlife. Everybody kind of takes turns handing on and off a new vision for humanity; life on Earth and then the new afterlife. They take turns explaining the rules, how they got there.  It used to be on Earth, you get one shot.

 

Most of the time you end up in the Bad Place but we want to give people a chance.  Even Timothy keeps getting involved. He walks up to the…interesting, why don’t you walk us through it?  They go, your time on Earth isn’t pass/fail but it’s a class and then that test is in the afterlife. You keep on learning.  Then Jason tries to rest the case early. They talk about the new point system, how the Bad Place and the Good Place will work together; design something to help you confront your moral shortcomings.  Eleanor’s selfishness, Jason’s impulsivity, Chidi’s indecisiveness, and Donny’s inability to carry off a mod look. Test could be anything, then you keep taking these tests, you keep improving, get rebooted.  Olyphant says…he says Tim’s fine at one point but he goes if you get rebooted, what about your memories? They go, you start over. They go, you’ll remain…get a vague memory.

 

Then they say you’ll become a better version of yourself and eventually you’ll get into the Good Place or you [00:40:00] won’t but at least you have a fair chance.  Then Shawn says what are my demons doing the whole time, my lava buddies? They go well, we’re gonna have to re-train them. Even Timothy says, fair question. They go, you still have jobs.  You’re gonna help design the test, roleplay, just like in Michael’s neighborhood. They go, remember? You had fun doing that, pretending you were the judge. They’re like, do you think this would work?  They said well, Chidi had eight hundred versions of himself. He’s way cooler. Yeah, even Janet’s like, I’ve evolved, even. Four humans in my void conjured Timothy Olyphant. I’m the better not-a-person that I’ve ever been.  Maybe humans should get that opportunity. They say, what do you think? Shawn says, pass. The Judge says jeez, I thought you had it but sorry.

 

Where’d Shawn go?  James is like, we’ve got seconds, you know.  She goes, it’s been a pleasure with you, Timothy.  Michael goes, I think he’s toying with us. Might give me hope.  Let me go talk to him. Genuine pleasure, sweetie. Seconds away…they go to Shawn.  He’s going…he’s visiting a fountain and he’s putting pee in the pool and he goes, I had to do it one last time before it’s all gone.  What are you gonna offer me now? Michael goes, nothing, man. You beat us. Shawn goes, oh, too bad. All the humans are gone. Mike goes yeah, you won.  See you in a billion years. Shawn goes yeah, well, when it happens again, I’ll be right…your competitor. Mike goes yeah, I guess a million years from now.  He goes oh, you’ve really bested us. Then Shawn’s like, wait a second, don’t you have one more plan? Mike goes, isn’t this fun, having what I call the anti-whatever?  You were bored, weren’t you? He goes, yeah, I guess so.

 

He goes, something changed and I was having fun again.  I’m not ready for that to end. Mike goes, I know, it’s hard when things end but one way or another, it’s over.  But what’s next? ‘Cause this system wasn’t working. He goes, don’t you want to try a new way? I mean really, Ted Danson is at his finest.  It’s unbelievable. They go, let’s try a new way together. Then the judge is about to eliminate everything. They go, hang on, Your Honor. She goes, are you kidding me?  Can’t I just get this over with? They go, Shawn’s in, in principle. Just some kinks to work in or out. Then Jason has a moment with the clicker. They go, okay, well, if we’re gonna redesign the entire afterlife, what do we do first?  Chidi, what are you gonna do? He goes, don’t look at me; I’m just the idea guy. The episode comes to a close. A pretty good one. I think we have three more left to go.

 

Now, let’s run through some of the stuff I looked up, here.  Timothy Olyphant; I had a couple questions about it. American actor off Broadway, performance in 1995 really was his first role.  Then he was in David Sedaris’s Santaland Diaries, ’96. Then he was in Go. He was in another movie before Go but I remember seeing him in Go which John August wrote.  Then he was in a famous western show on HBO, Seth Bullock. He’s in a lot of other movies and then Justified from 2010 to 2015 and of course, The Good Place. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, and then Modesto, California.  That’s interesting. Then yeah, oh, no, no, I just wanted to check in and post a link to that Wikipedia article about it. But then he’s a fifty-gallon man in a ten-gallon hat. I had to go to history.com to find the article.  Why do we call it a ten-gallon hat? This is from Evan Andrew’s February 26, 2014.

 

I’ll paraphrase and quote from it…a popular image wouldn’t be complete without the ten-gallon hat.  The conventional explanation is it refers to how much liquid can be put in the hat. Even an ad for Stetson showed that.  Obviously, it’s an exaggeration but it’s actually, a ten-gallon hat isn’t actually an import from south of the border. Cattle drivers and ranchers in Texas and southwest often had sported braided hat bands called jlons, J-L-O-N-S, on their sombreros, a ten jlon.  I think a sombrero hat was large enough that it could fit ten hat bands and that maybe, or probably, an American cowboy’s…co-opted that term to their own hats and called them ten-gallon hats. Another theory is the corruption of the Spanish phrase ton jalan, J-A-L-A-N, which translated to very gallant, really handsome.  In that sense, it definitely fits Timothy Olyphant who is also in another movie this year. Really having a hit year.

 

What about vis-à-vis?  It's a French expression.  That’s another one…I don’t know if this is an expression; vis-à-vis.  V-I-S – or whatever. Anyway, it means face-to-face, a French expression in English.  Also, a Spanish TV series, an episode of Star Trek Voyager, an album, and a type of carriage I guess where you sit face-to-face, I would assume, or presume.  We get into Judith Shklar. Judith, J-U-D-I-T-H and Shklar, S-H-K-L-A-R. Originally from Latvia but obviously had to deal with some…like the w…so, made it to Canada, studied at McGill in Canada, then Harvard.  Started teaching at Harvard in ’56, let’s see…various academics. Reviews are centered on two main ideas, though; this is from Wikipedia, that being cruel is the worst and the ‘liberalism of fear’ in quotes. She talks about in her essay that Chidi talked about, from Ordinary Vices.  Her second idea…oh, the liberalism of fear is focused on the idea that governments are prone to push around the inevitable inequities and power that result from political organization.

 

She advocated for constitutional democracy which she said was flawed but still the best form of government possible; prevents people from some of the power struggles.  Every adult should be able to make as many effective decisions without fear or favor about many aspects, writes less in moral liberties. She was deeply interested in injustice and political things that aren’t good.  Philosophy fails to give injustice its due and most philosophers probably…the dudes ignoring justice are only talked about justice, likewise ignoring vice and only talking about virtue. She wrote Ordinary Vices, The Faces of Injustice…oh, that looks like that was another book that I couldn’t pronounce…M-O-N-T-E-S-Q-U-I-E-U.  That came out in 1987. American Citizenship: The Quest for Inclusion, After Utopia. Yeah, just a little bit…I linked to that from Wikipedia.

 

Chidi also said yum, yum, yummy which made me think of two things; a pop song Yummy but it also made me think of Yum! Brands or Yum!  [00:50:00] Formally Tricon Global Restaurants. Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, WingStreet. What used to own Long John Silvers and A&W. I thought it also owned Jollibee.  Let’s see, PepsiCo’s fast food division, and what else we got? International focus. I don’t know, it just made me think of that but I don’t see A&W…I don’t see it on there.  I thought they did but anyway, that’s a little bit about Yum! Brands. What about the song Yummy? Just came out, right? When I’m recording this, the beginning of 2020. It’s gonna be on…it’s from Biebs, Justin Bieber.  Solo single…first solo single in three years. I’ve waited so long. It’s R&B, straightforward R&B number, according to these guys. He’s got his signature falsetto in the bridge.

 

Biebs said it’s about his love life, you know, ‘cause he’s so…I don’t know if you know but I know it’s a little bit catchy ‘cause it comes up in the car with my daughter and then I say oh boy, but speaking of transitions, how about the Wienermobile?  The Wienermobile is a series of automobiles shaped like hot dogs. I’m sure this has come up on the show before. The first one came out in 1936. Turned out Jason took one. I think I knew somebody that worked in one of these, drove across the country.  Nowadays the drivers are known as hot-doggers. They had whistles shaped like the Wienermobile known as Wiener Whistles. It was evolved…fuel rationing kept the Wienermobile off the road during World War II. In ’69 they were built on Chevys. Just a little bit about…let’s see, they were GM, then Dodge, then Jeep, then they were made of plastic in 1975.  Oh, the old plastic era.

 

Then the Chevy van with Ford Thunderbird in the 80s, then Pontiac Grand Am Trans Am.  I think they’re custom-built. Let’s see…actually, here’s something weird; notable incidents on Wikipedia says one of them had a license plate that said YUMMY.  You can’t make that up, so you better move on after that. I just wondered what the temperature of lukewarm water was. I think something lukewarm came up. This is from culinarylore.com, January 13, 2015.  The meaning of lukewarm is a very inaccurate instruction. Usually it gets the job done. No agreed-upon temperature or even a relative scale. Some say it’s body temperature, others say room temperature. Of course, room temperature can vary from 72 to 74 or more or less.  Lukewarm and tepid are still considered to be synonyms. No good definition. Originally, the origin of the term is from the 1300s, maybe.

 

Lukewarm water for yeast; using tepid or lukewarm water will generally be okay.  I don’t know, this is just…I guess we didn’t…that was inconclusive. I never miss a chance to talk about Cookie Puss from Carvel Ice Cream or Fudgie the Whale.  I think I bought a Cookie Puss, or maybe it was Fudgie the Whale, every time I go to visit my sister which is usually once a year or maybe a little bit…actually, the last two years I’ve gone to see her, I buy…I stop at Carvel and I buy ice cream cake, usually a Cookie Puss if I can get it.  Then I have them write on it. Carvel Ice Cream, freshly-made exclusive products along with the Hug Me Bear and Fudgie the Whale. It’s a cake with a face, with cookies for eyes, an ice cream cone for the nose. According to Carvel’s back story, Cookie Puss is a space alien who was born on the planet Birthday.  His original name was Celestial Person but the initial CP appeal started calling Cookie Puss Cookie Puss.

 

In the television commercials, Cookie Puss has the ability to fly though interplanetary travel, he needs a space craft, obviously.  Originally repurposed to serve as cake for St. Patrick’s Day was Cookie O’Puss, still sold annually. That’s just a little bit…I mean, who can’t get enough of Cookie Puss?  Cincinnati came up. It’s in the state of Ohio, Hamilton County, seated in 1788, northern side of…looking in Ohio rivers on the state line with Kentucky. It’s a metropolitan area with a population of about 2.19 million.  It has the largest metropolitan area. Wow, and the nation’s 28th largest. I would have thought it was the second-largest city. It’s bigger than Cleveland, I guess. The city population is 302,000. Third-largest city…okay, so its metropolitan area is larger but it’s the third-largest city in Ohio.  ‘Cause you know Columbus is big and Cleveland’s big. Of course, Cleveland rocks.

 

It looks like one of the pictures is of…I don’t know what that is.  Let’s see…downtown Cincinnati, Union Terminal, over the Rhine something.  It looks like the Hall of Justice. What else do we need to know about Cincinnati here?  Incorporated in 1802 as a town in January…oh, January 1st, 1802. That’s handy. Mayor of council or government…79.54 square miles in the city.  Highest elevation is 482 feet. Elevation is…highest elevation is on Mount Airy. Beautiful Mount Airy Lodge is not in Cincinnati, though. There’s a little bit about Cincinnati.  Maybe you and me were…I forgot that that show…there was a show called W. Caribbean Cincinnati. Town to town, up and down the dial. My friends played that song in their band. They’d play it…I think it was on repeats when I was a kid.  Howard Hesseman and other people were on that show that I forget. It’s Cincinnati.

 

What about my…I was gonna say, my own private Cincinnati remind me of My Own Private Idaho which was a 1991 indie movie by Gus Van Sant.  By Gus Van Sant; River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves are in it. It's a road trip movie to Mike’s home town in Idaho and then to Rome. Loosely based on Henry the IV Part I and Part II, and Henry the V premiered at the 48th annual Venice International Film Festival.  I know I’ve seen it but not in a long, long, long time. It’s considered a landmark in the nuclear cinema movement, a 1990’s movement. It’s a cult classic. I remember seeing it probably in the mid-90s, just like one of those…actually, maybe it was even earlier than that.  Maybe I saw it when it came out in the movie theatre but I mean, you really can’t go wrong. River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves…it was based on a 1963 novel by John Rechy, maybe, City of Night. I mean, I would consider it a classic film.

 

I really…I barely remember that I’ll have to re-watch soon.  My Own Private Idaho. Ring My Bell was the song. I did look up the lyrics; there’s not that many lyrics.  It’s a disco song by Frederick Knight. It was written for Stacy Lattisaw about people talking on the phone but they must have rewrote it.  Anita Ward wrote the version that became a hit and it doesn’t seem [01:00:00] like it’s talking about talking on the phone. It’s definitely a good disco song.  What about…I think we talked about 8-track tapes on here before. They were before my time but I guess they were still around in the 80s. I remember one of my cousins had it in his car.  It was created by a consortium in 1964 by Bill Learjet; he impacts Ford motor company GM, Motorola, RCA…has a magnetic tape similar to the real…but it was a lot bigger than cassette tapes.  But the Learjet stereo 8-track cartridge…’cause it could have…I don’t know if it meant ‘cause it had eight tracks on there.

 

Yeah, ‘cause there could be 4-track or 8-track cartridges to listen to something in your car.  Yeah, there was a lot of…even karaoke machines. That’s where you could do quadraphonic mixes. Yeah, that’s right.  Quadrophenia, right? Milton Bradley had an omni-entertainment electronic quiz game similar to Jeopardy or you don’t know jack using 8-track tapes but it declined in the 70s with the compact cassette arriving.  They did diminish just slowly across the globe and phased out of retail by ’82. Interesting part of history. I just want to link to it. Then there’s…let’s see what time we have…how much time we have for…okay, keep on truckin’ came up.  There’s a couple things; there’s a TV series that never aired, or I guess it says it says it aired on ABC but it was a Rod Serling series. I don’t know, there’s only four episodes and that’s all that there really is about it in Wikipedia.

 

But that caught my eye ‘cause that’s one of my heroes.  Then there was Zap Comix, Robert Crumb’s Keep on Truckin’ in the late 60s.  It did have some…it became such a thing that the copyright…it was just a one-page comic, I guess.  Oh, that came out…it was a visual rift on the lyrics of the song Truckin’ My Blues Away. Yeah, Crumb was offered $100,000 by Toyota to reproduce the image but they turned it down.  Crumb uses…this is from Wikipedia; he uses the example…it was an example of the discomfort he felt when he got fame in the 60s, saying I became acutely self-conscious about what I was doing.  Was I now a spokesperson for hippies or what? I had no idea how to handle my new position. Take Keep on Truckin’, for example; it’s the curse of my life. Caught on hugely, there was DJ who would yell it out every ten minutes; and don’t forget to keep on truckin’.  Big feat equals collective optimism.

 

You’re walking, so…just a little bit about Crumb.  That wasn’t easy. That was another…then there’s Keep on Truckin’ the song from Eddie Kendricks.  It was on Motown. I don’t know, there’s more than one song. This one was after Eddie Kendricks left The Temptations.  The song came out in August 1973. Let’s see, it was recorded in Motown Studios in LA. It’s a funk song. I don’t know, said there’s more than one entry about keep on truckin’.  Then I’ll link to the mod thing but there’s way too much mod. We’ve covered this article before, the kind of mod movement that spread in London in the 50s which I think is a little bit different that the style that Donny’s saying but maybe not.  I’ll link to that. Yeah, thanks for listening and goodnight.

 

 

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