WEBVTT
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Hi.
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Hi, honey.
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How are you?
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I'm good.
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How are you?
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I'm good.
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We're talking about something very cool today that I know that you are a super fan.
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Yeah.
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And uh has kind of taken over our TV a bit.
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And what is that?
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Uh we are talking about the shards and more specifically the culture and society of Brett East and Ellis and the intersection where he meets Ryan Murphy with the shards.
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So kind of a little bit of Brett East and Ellis, a little bit of Ryan Murphy, and a whole lot of fun.
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I love it.
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Yeah.
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It's cool.
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I um I wasn't aware of Brett Easton Ellis.
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Until we met.
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Until we met.
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Yeah.
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No, honestly, because I hadn't seen any of the work.
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Um I think you had, you just didn't know it was Brett Easton Ellis.
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I think you're probably right.
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And and more specifically, the laws of attraction.
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Yeah.
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Or the rules of attraction.
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Yeah, I had no idea.
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With James Vanderbeek.
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I think I also saw um the uh American Psycho.
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American Psycho.
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Yeah, I did see that one too.
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That is also Brett Easton Ellis.
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Yeah.
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So some of his um most well-known works are uh Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, uh American Psycho, The Informers, which is a lesser known piece of work, but I think a really important piece of his body of work and one that I really enjoy.
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Yeah.
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Um, and then Glamorama with Lunar Park, which are not that well known.
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No, I don't think I've heard of those.
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The follow-up to less than zero, Imperial Bedrooms, which when we talk about is a very interesting sort of meta-concept as well.
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Um, and now the shards.
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That's a lot.
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That's pretty prolific.
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Yeah.
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And the and the ones that have been made into movies that I've seen are Less Than Zero, Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, Um, The Informers, and Now the Shards, which is uh TV show premiering on um, well, it has premiered, it's showing on FX or Hulu.
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Yeah, it's been pretty great.
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It's good, it's really good.
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Um, this Wednesday is the third night.
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So they did the first two episodes on the premiere two weeks ago, and then last week we got episodes three and four, and it continues this Wednesday.
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Yeah.
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So that'll be that'll be tomorrow for those of you that are listening to this podcast.
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Yeah.
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And it is really exciting.
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And so starting with the shards, um, it's basically my interpretation is that it is a fictional retelling of Brett Easton Ellis' time as a senior in high school.
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Semi-autobiographical.
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Semi-autobiographical.
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Um, but there are some very real elements to it.
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Uh, it's basically 1981.
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He and his friends are seniors in high school.
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There is a new kid, a mysterious new kid that shows up.
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And at the same time this guy shows up, a serial killer starts stalking the senior class.
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How convenient.
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And sort of like killing them in cultish ritualistic ways.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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Which we know Ryan Murphy loves.
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Totally.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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It is kind of a match made in heaven.
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I I would say I am not necessarily a Brett Easton Ellis fan in the way that I find the work to just be really dark and difficult for me to watch and enjoy.
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But stylistically, uh I find it really intriguing and beautiful and uh uh seductive.
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Absolutely.
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In a way that while I'm uncomfortable and I really don't like watching it, I can't stop watching it.
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Yes.
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Um, and then when you add in the Ryan Murphy element, you you've just completely you sold it with the gloss and the music and the fashion and the beauty of the people that he's chosen to be in the show in the first place.
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Yep.
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Um, so it's it is kind of like a match made in heaven for the two minds for sure.
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I agree.
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Both of them do beautiful veneer really, really well.
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Um, and I do want to point out that the trawler serial killer is a fictional character made up for this story.
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Oh, okay.
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It's not there was not a real trawler serial killer at the time.
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So again, it is a fictional pseudo-autobiographical retelling just simply because the lead character is Brett Easton Ellis.
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And in one episode, we saw him writing on the typewriter, and I saw the name Julian, and I think he was writing the less than zero book because that one was published in 1985, and this takes place in 1981.
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It's a cool little Easter egg.
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I think so.
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Yeah, that's cool.
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Um so Brett Easton Ellis uses his own life for the majority of the work that he writes.
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He was in high school in the late 70s, early 80s, and in Los Angeles, part of the Beverly Hills crew that had total absentee parents, total freedom, total access to their money, drugs, sex.
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And it was all very glamorous.
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But underneath all of that glamour is a loneliness, a feeling of alienation, um, sort of, I call it chasing the dragon.
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Like these people were just doing anything and everything at such a young age to feel like they mattered because the people that were supposed to make them feel like they mattered the most, their parents, were absent from their lives at this point in time.
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I I think that's what I have a really hard time watching uh in this show specifically, because I I especially am not a fan of uh this the familiar high school tropes of TV shows and movies where it's like, oh no, this poor rich kid, oh my problems, I have everything.
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But but homecoming is the most important thing in the world.
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How am I gonna so when I'm watching this play out, I'm like, you guys, shut up.
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Like, I don't do the drugs, it'd be fine.
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You're you're great, you'll be okay.
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I can't connect with it because I don't care about them at all.
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Sure.
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But as this show plays off with many of Brett Easton Nellis' uh work, is that you you actually see, like you just described, the pain and the loss and the loneliness in these characters that that's what makes them interesting.
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It's not all the the bullshit that they're surrounded with.
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That's just like you said, the beautiful veneer.
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Yes.
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Where you're like, well, yeah, anyone could really do that.
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Whatever, who care, who cares?
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But then you see what these people are actually going through with that absentee parent situation.
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You're like, wow, these kids are really troubled.
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They're broken.
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Yeah.
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They're broken.
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And they're they are 18-year-olds, 17 and 18-year-olds living like 25-year-olds.
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Right.
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And I think when you are that age, it's very fun and exciting to be able to have that level of autonomy and freedom so early on.
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But it it comes at a price because you are still at an age where you need guidance, you need support, you need your parents letting you know that you matter because without that sense of feeling like you are an important person who matters, you're going to make very self-destructive decisions.
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And that's what all of these characters through his entire body of work have in common.
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They all make incredibly self-destructive decisions.
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And it's not just the kids, it's also in the parents.
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We see this in The Informers with Kim Basinger and Billy Bob Thornton's character.
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Yeah, totally.
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Right.
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We see it in the shards with Debbie's parents, played by Wes Bentley and Rachel Evan Wood.
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I mean, just total, complete dysfunction.
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Yeah.
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And it just gets handed down from generation to generation.
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I think with the baby boom generation and the very early Gen X generation, there was a very much of a sort of absentee latchkey kid kind of scenario going on.
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Yeah.
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And kids were really left to fend for themselves.
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And when you have to fend for yourself, you feel like you don't matter because your parents aren't there, then not only do you make self-destructive decisions, but you make those in survival mode.
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You are learning earlier than you should how to take on the responsibility of the world so that you can manage your survival.
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That is a lot for an 18-year-old.
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That's where the drugs and the alcohol and the sex and the really bad decisions come in, which the shards, like all of Brett Easton Ellis' work, is full of.
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I mean, cocaine, booze, sex.
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It really doesn't hold back on any of it.
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It does not hold back on any of it.
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And again, as we've talked about in previous episodes, this is art.
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Art is meant to be subversive in the way that it is designed to make you think, to make you be self-aware, to make you be mindful, to think about thinking and why are these people doing this?
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I can see it being perceived as sensationalism or uh that that we're somehow uh promoting or highlighting um these acts.
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These uh types of human nature.
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And so I can see people watching it and just being turned off by that.
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Ask like, why do we have to show that?
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Why do we have to do that?
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And I I remind myself too as I'm watching it that this this is a TV show, it's not real, but this is the kind of life that some people live because of everything that you just described.
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Yeah.
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And I think at one point in the last episode or the one before that, um Brett's character, his name is Brett in the show, right?
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Yeah.
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His character even says we are living our lives as though we are adults in a world where we know we are not, or something, something along the lines where like we know we're living far above or we're doing the things that we shouldn't be doing that only adults do.
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And part of the reason that we do that is because there's no one here to tell us not to.
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Right.
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Because what else are we gonna do?
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Yeah.
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I and I think that not only are they missing the guidance from the parents, which may or may not be the case, but they're also finding kindred souls that are also lost in that way.
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So they really have no guiding light.
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We're like sometimes violating the blind.
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It totally.
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And you'll you'll find, especially in the queer community, you'll find people who find their chosen family.
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Yeah.
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And that's usually where you find your mother figures.
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Like someone who helps to guide you along that path that maybe you're missing in a traditional maternal, paternal situation.
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Um, but you can see that these kids don't have that and they're finding it in each other.
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And yeah, blind leading the blind, they're making mistakes, and the other ones are like, Yeah, do that, cocaine.
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That's a perfect.
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We're we're doing great.
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And and the sad thing about that, which Brett in the shards also mentioned, is that too early on in his life, he realized that he was no longer a kid.
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And he didn't realize that he was no longer a kid until well after that last moment of being a kid had passed.
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And I've said to you many times before, you know, your childhood is so short.
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The world is intent on making it shorter, right?
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And you only have one go at being a child.
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And I think that the world, including parents, need to let children be children.
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Yeah.
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Because once it's done, that's it.
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It's done.
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And you can't control when that moment is gonna happen.
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So let every moment while your kid is still in childhood count as a childhood moment.
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Right.
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Without perpetuating infantalization.
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There's a yeah, you don't infanalize the child, but you also don't leave them to their own devices before they are at a moment where they are ready to cross over and say goodbye to their childhood.
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And it should be a transition.
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Yeah.
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I think a lot of times there's a traumatic situation that happens in our lives that forces us to grow up very fast.
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When you found out about Santa Claus.
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Well, I mean like that kind of No, I I mean like traumatic situations because the world can be a predatory place in many different ways.
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Like true traumatic situations.
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There could be divorce, there could be abuse, there could be um something that, you know, the the death of a friend, you know, whatever it is that takes you and pulls you and plucks you out of childhood.
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Yeah.
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And we don't know when that moment, again, is going to happen.
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So the job is to make sure that until that moment happens, again, without infanalizing your child, give them their childhood.
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Yeah, it's interesting you say that too, because I I can think of so much film when I was growing up almost was deliberately sending those messages, those traumatic messages when you have movies like My Girl and you're watching this girl's best friend die, or you're watching the never-ending story, and the kid is like trying to save his horse from drowning.
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Like, there are so many of those moments that are traumatic storytelling elements that now looking back, thinking, like, oh well shit, there goes that part of my innocence just floating away through that's crazy.
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And they are all metaphors to the loss of innocence that are recreated in a tangible form of entertainment so that you can put those feelings onto something that represents that loss of innocence.
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When as a human being in the child stage of their life, they realize the world is not like my second grade classroom.
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The world is not like summer vacation, the world is not like Christmas break.
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Yeah.
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The world, you know, when you once you start becoming aware that the world doesn't really care about you, it's an eye-opening experience.
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And I think that the people who are better prepared to navigate that moment are the ones who, up until that moment, have been given the sense that they do matter, that they are important, that they are worthy, that they are valued.
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Yeah.
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And I think more times than not, people make that leap into adulthood without that, which is why we see so many broken adults, so many narcissists, so many people in need of therapy.
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Yeah.
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So many people being mean and hurtful and vindictive to the world at large, the Karen's, the, the, the peace disruptors, because they're really just trying to be seen, like in our episode that we recorded about people being distracted.
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Yeah.
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And why do you matter?
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Because you really want to feel seen.
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Right.
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And if you don't get that from very early on, then you don't know how to productively manage and navigate that in the arena of basically, you know, politics, which is navigating people to get what you want out of this world or what you need out of this world.
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Quick observation.
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I I've noticed it's interesting how many of our episodes have kind of like intertwined in that way.
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Like as we're talking, realizing like, oh yeah, that kind of connects to what we were just talking about in the in a recent episode.
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Well, I think when you do a podcast about human nature, you are inevitably going to come back to what your conclusion of the foundation of the human experience is.
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Yeah, I think you're right.
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And first and foremost, our job is to survive this experience.
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Now, what does that encompass all the things that we talk about on our podcast?
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And each episode has the same common denominator, the human experience.
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Yeah.
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And there are many different types of human experiences.
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And going back to something that you said about, you know, the the glamour and the lascivious nature of work like this, people could tune into and be like, oh, why do I have to watch this?
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Well, I don't look at this as gratuitous because we're not seeing nudity, we're not seeing sex acts actually played out, right?
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The implication is there so that we understand what's happening.
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But gratuitous is, you know, in like the 80s slasher movies where we have to see boobs just for the sake of seeing boobs.
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Right.
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Right.
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Or the sex scene has to be explicit and graphic by nature because you have a storyteller who's really trying to grab the audience by the balls and force them to pay attention.
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Yeah.
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The problem is that the thing that you're doing to get their attention is where their attention stays.
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And so they might miss the rest of the story.
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In example for example, movies like Showgirls or Basic Instinct.
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Right.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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So, which I personally love.
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I don't necessarily feel that I need to watch explicit sex scenes in order to get the idea or the understanding of what is happening to the relationship between these two people in that moment.
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You can start it off and then you can cut to I don't need to I don't need to see any at that point.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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But what what Ryan Murphy and Brett Easton Ellis are doing in the shards, to me, it's not gratuitous.
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And if it makes you uncomfortable because you don't like the idea of knowing that people live this way for whatever reason, that's maybe all the more reason to watch the show because you are the person that this message is for.
00:17:52.480 --> 00:18:01.600
You are the person that needs to expand your breadth of mindfulness and not even self-awareness, but awareness.
00:18:01.840 --> 00:18:09.120
Because I've mentioned many times before, we all view our life through this keyhole perception that's created by our personal experience.
00:18:09.360 --> 00:18:11.680
But our experience is exclusive to us.
00:18:11.840 --> 00:18:20.640
And if we're going to be empathetic people, we need to be able to understand that there are people out there who are living their life through a very different keyhole.
00:18:20.960 --> 00:18:22.240
I would agree with that.
00:18:22.560 --> 00:18:28.320
I think for me growing up, I uh I was pretty naive about most of this kind of stuff.
00:18:29.520 --> 00:18:38.320
Um just generally speaking, I think part of it was uh how I was brought up, but also a lot of it was I think I chose that.
00:18:39.040 --> 00:18:47.840
I felt safe staying away from scary movies, I felt uncomfortable around movies that had sexual moments in it.
00:18:48.000 --> 00:19:04.640
And so I think for me, not forcing myself to watch it or to experience it, but being open to it and knowing that this isn't just gratuitous or shown for the sake of doing it.
00:19:04.800 --> 00:19:16.800
We've seen that, but being able to watch it in in in the understanding that this is someone else's life or someone else's story that may be so far off of my own, take a minute and take in what I can from it.
00:19:17.040 --> 00:19:17.200
Yeah.
00:19:17.440 --> 00:19:18.400
It's there for a reason.
00:19:18.560 --> 00:19:24.800
Maybe I'll learn something, or maybe I'll get a brand new uh perspective or empathy for this type of situation.
00:19:25.280 --> 00:19:38.320
Well, and I think by nature humans are voyeuristic, but yet sometimes the thing that we are most intrigued by for whatever reason are the things that we associate the most shame around.
00:19:38.480 --> 00:19:38.880
Yeah.
00:19:39.120 --> 00:19:44.720
And so there's this internal struggle, and I think you've you've gotta you gotta do away with it.
00:19:44.800 --> 00:19:44.960
Right.
00:19:45.040 --> 00:19:48.240
Like sometimes you just have to walk through the fire rather than around it.
00:19:48.320 --> 00:19:48.480
Yeah.
00:19:49.040 --> 00:19:51.280
And that's the point of life is experience.
00:19:51.440 --> 00:19:57.040
Um now doesn't mean you have to go down a rabbit hole with all the bad things that life represents.
00:19:57.360 --> 00:19:58.000
Right in the dark way.
00:19:58.400 --> 00:20:05.200
But, you know, it it's I referenced the 90210 episode when they were talking about condoms in school.
00:20:05.600 --> 00:20:12.240
And Donna Martin's comment was like, you know, you if you have a pool, you can put a fence around it.
00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:17.440
But if you know that the child is going to find some way to get into that pool, shouldn't they know how to swim?
00:20:17.600 --> 00:20:17.840
Yeah.
00:20:18.080 --> 00:20:27.920
And I think that, you know, in order to be able to properly navigate the world and all the different types of people in it, familiarize yourself with people who are different than yourself.
00:20:28.240 --> 00:20:39.920
Because you're going to that's where conflict comes from, is not knowing how to communicate, not knowing how to touch base with somebody that you inevitably are going to have to from time to time in this world.
00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:41.440
Yeah, I agree with that.
00:20:41.760 --> 00:20:54.240
So, and and it's interesting too, because I do think that, especially in the early stages of our relationship, you were very much um, you know, a rainbow and gumdrops kind of person, I called it.
00:20:54.400 --> 00:21:15.120
But in reality, it was a it was a deliberate intention on your part to stay away from the things that made you feel uncomfortable, I think, in the hopes that you could hold on to that innocence of your childhood as long as you possibly could before coming to terms with the idea that the world is not what we are sold when we are growing up as children.
00:21:15.920 --> 00:21:18.240
I agree with that a hundred percent.
00:21:18.560 --> 00:21:20.640
And then enter me, stage left.
00:21:20.880 --> 00:21:21.680
And you ruined everything.
00:21:21.920 --> 00:21:26.240
And I I I blew the lid wide open on the first night we met.
00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:29.120
I asked if you had ever watched Less Than Zero, and you said no.
00:21:29.440 --> 00:21:30.240
No, no, it sounds fun.
00:21:30.320 --> 00:21:30.720
What is it?
00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:31.120
What?
00:21:31.280 --> 00:21:36.320
I was like, you're coming over tomorrow night, we're gonna order a pizza and we're gonna watch Less Than Zero.
00:21:36.640 --> 00:21:37.600
Oh and we did.
00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:38.400
And we did.
00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:45.920
That was that was the the gateway into so much of what my world really was growing up.
00:21:46.080 --> 00:21:52.000
I mean, I was a very precocious child, I was very eager to be ahead.
00:21:52.240 --> 00:22:01.200
Um, I think a lot of that was that my my school days were spent being bullied and teased and feeling less then.
00:22:01.360 --> 00:22:14.640
So whenever I was out of school, uh whether it was evenings or weekends, I was doing very adult things, not just to numb the pain that I felt during the day, but to engage in something that made me feel.
00:22:15.040 --> 00:22:23.360
Feel like even if these kids aren't aware of what I'm doing, I know that I'm doing something that contradicts the negative message.
00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:36.400
But again, not knowing as a kid how to exhibit boundaries and how to make productive decisions, those led to a lot of counterproductive and self-destructive decisions.
00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:42.000
Like I've been totally open to people who know me that I did my first line of cocaine when I was 12 years old.
00:22:42.720 --> 00:22:43.920
And it was the 80s.
00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:45.840
It was the Brett Easton Ellis era.
00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:46.000
Yeah.
00:22:46.160 --> 00:22:48.560
And I was hanging out with older kids in the neighborhood.
00:22:48.720 --> 00:23:04.000
It was there, and I went along for the ride because when I was doing that with them, it was the complete opposite experience to what I was experiencing as the kid during the day in school in my collegiate uniform being teased and made fun of.
00:23:04.480 --> 00:23:18.960
Do you I've I I've always wondered this, and it's not an assumption on my part, but just the connection that you have to Brett Easton Ellis and his stories and the types of film that we see.
00:23:19.520 --> 00:23:26.000
Do you feel that that connection to those characters or to those experiences yourself?
00:23:26.080 --> 00:23:31.360
Is that is that what draws you to it that you see like that that kindred experience in there?
00:23:31.440 --> 00:23:34.640
Or is it just something that you see strictly as entertainment that you're like, that's fun?
00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:36.640
No, it's not strictly entertainment.
00:23:36.720 --> 00:23:50.720
I think there is a bit of a kindred spirit, but it I think it goes more to what you said earlier, where like the characters in the shards didn't have the guidance, and so they found what they needed in that chosen family.
00:23:50.960 --> 00:23:51.280
Right.
00:23:51.520 --> 00:23:52.560
And that's what I did.
00:23:52.720 --> 00:23:52.880
Yeah.
00:23:53.120 --> 00:24:02.080
And so when I watch movies like Less Than Zero or The Informers, it's almost like, okay, the cheese doesn't stand alone.
00:24:02.320 --> 00:24:03.280
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:06.080
I'm thinking I'm not exclusive to this experience.
00:24:06.240 --> 00:24:08.320
There are other people that feel the way that I do.
00:24:08.400 --> 00:24:09.920
There are other people that feel broken.
00:24:10.080 --> 00:24:16.320
There are other people that do self-destructive things to try to fix what feels broken in them.
00:24:17.040 --> 00:24:25.600
And once you find that you are not alone, you don't work so hard on trying to hide the broken pieces of yourself from the world.
00:24:25.760 --> 00:24:38.800
And then all of that time and energy that you waste on that ends up going into actually building mindfulness and self-awareness and not fixing those broken parts, but healing from those broken parts.
00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:43.600
Because as we grow older, we all come into adulthood with some form of trauma.
00:24:43.760 --> 00:24:48.320
You can either choose to heal the hurt or to perpetuate the hurt.
00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:51.840
And for a big portion of my life, I perpetuated the hurt.
00:24:51.920 --> 00:24:53.920
I mean, I was just full of piss and vinegar.
00:24:54.080 --> 00:25:00.560
I wasn't a horrible person, but I, you know, when we first met, I was a very different person than I am now.
00:25:00.640 --> 00:25:03.280
I I lived life as if I had something to prove.
00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:05.040
And now I couldn't give a shit.
00:25:05.280 --> 00:25:06.320
And my life is so much different.
00:25:06.560 --> 00:25:07.440
It's a great place to be.
00:25:07.840 --> 00:25:08.080
Right?
00:25:08.320 --> 00:25:09.600
It really is a great place to be denied.
00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:11.520
I don't give a shit about people.
00:25:11.760 --> 00:25:12.000
Right.
00:25:12.160 --> 00:25:15.040
I don't give a shit about what people think of me.
00:25:15.120 --> 00:25:15.200
Yeah.
00:25:15.440 --> 00:25:19.760
Because I give them the true, honest, and authentic Jared.
00:25:19.920 --> 00:25:20.160
Yep.
00:25:20.320 --> 00:25:23.680
If you make something bad out of that, that's on you, not me.
00:25:23.920 --> 00:25:24.160
Right.
00:25:24.560 --> 00:25:27.520
And I think that's what a lot of these characters are missing.
00:25:27.920 --> 00:25:30.560
Well, they haven't discovered it yet because so many of them are so young.
00:25:31.120 --> 00:25:31.520
Exactly.
00:25:31.680 --> 00:25:32.000
Yeah.
00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:36.400
Um, and Ryan Murphy is to me a master of detail.
00:25:36.560 --> 00:25:52.880
So when you take something that is from the mind of Brett Easton Ellis, and you combine it with the uber attentive Ryan Murphy to detail when it comes to cars, clothing, music, so important.
00:25:53.280 --> 00:25:53.440
Yeah.
00:25:53.680 --> 00:26:00.800
All of the details and how people act in situations, it really is, as you mentioned, a match made in heaven.
00:26:00.880 --> 00:26:03.440
It is, I think it is pinnacle storytelling.
00:26:03.600 --> 00:26:13.840
And I'm just so pleased as someone who is a huge Brett Easton Ellis fan since Less Than Zero to see him uh in the Cultural Zeitgeist again.
00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:14.160
Yeah.
00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:17.600
And of course I saw Less Than Zero when I shouldn't have.
00:26:17.760 --> 00:26:20.080
I was 12 when I saw that movie.
00:26:20.880 --> 00:26:31.920
You know, it was so it was the end of the 80s, and I was entering junior high, and I, you know, I was like, fuck all to my elementary school experience.
00:26:32.240 --> 00:26:34.720
And I was just gonna go balls to the wall.
00:26:35.520 --> 00:26:39.760
And I had a really good time.
00:26:39.920 --> 00:26:42.080
I'm not gonna lie, I had a good time.
00:26:42.320 --> 00:26:47.680
I definitely stunted my growth, but you know, now that I'm here, I don't care.
00:26:47.920 --> 00:26:48.240
Yeah.
00:26:48.400 --> 00:26:53.040
You know, it's like once you get your driver's license, every day you didn't have your license doesn't matter anymore.
00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:53.440
Right.
00:26:53.600 --> 00:27:02.160
Once you reach a certain stage in your life, every part of your life that you weren't in that stage doesn't really matter anymore because we are meant to move forward.
00:27:02.320 --> 00:27:02.880
Yeah.
00:27:03.200 --> 00:27:06.400
So I I I really do love the person that I am.
00:27:06.560 --> 00:27:15.840
I'm very happy with the person that I am, and I am only that person because of the experiences and the decisions that I've made along the way.
00:27:16.080 --> 00:27:25.920
And the older I get, the better I am at understanding how to make decisions that are productive to my goals rather than counterproductive to my goals.
00:27:26.080 --> 00:27:32.080
And understanding balance and boundaries when it comes to my naturally hedonistic tendencies.
00:27:32.560 --> 00:27:34.400
I love the person that you am too.
00:27:34.960 --> 00:27:35.600
Thank you.
00:27:35.840 --> 00:27:42.560
And less than zero was uh it was a very big moment of realization for me.
00:27:42.640 --> 00:27:57.680
It was the first time I actually saw a movie that did not sugarcoat the experience of being a lonely child, being an ostracized child, being a child who felt like you didn't matter, regardless of how much attention people may have paid on you.
00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:00.240
It's the wrong kind of attention at the wrong time.
00:28:00.400 --> 00:28:00.720
Yeah.
00:28:00.960 --> 00:28:03.680
And the book is extremely different than the movie.
00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:05.760
Didn't you say there's vampires or something in it?
00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:06.960
That's the informers.
00:28:07.040 --> 00:28:07.440
Oh, okay.
00:28:07.760 --> 00:28:12.560
Less than zero is a lot harsher than the movie.
00:28:12.880 --> 00:28:31.040
There are some things in the book that actually do make me uncomfortable because it shows how far these people have pushed their boundaries, their human boundaries, in the search to feel whole and in doing so damage anybody else that crosses their path.
00:28:31.360 --> 00:28:40.960
Um there's a um just a disregard for human life and it is bothering.
00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:51.440
And the movie is, even though I said it didn't sugarcoat things, it did tone things down because the book was written about the children of Hollywood.
00:28:51.520 --> 00:28:51.760
Yeah.
00:28:51.920 --> 00:29:03.520
And none of the producers and the studio execs are going to let a movie or a book about their children depicted so honestly become a movie for the world at large to see.
00:29:03.760 --> 00:29:07.040
So it's very different than the book.
00:29:07.360 --> 00:29:14.800
And I appreciate both, but the movie will always have a special place in my heart because I saw it first.
00:29:14.960 --> 00:29:16.560
I love Jamie Gertz.
00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:23.920
Uh, I love the way that the movie was able to still get the message across, even in a toned-down way.
00:29:24.240 --> 00:29:26.480
So, like a little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down.
00:29:26.560 --> 00:29:26.880
Yeah.
00:29:27.040 --> 00:29:40.160
But still very raw, very real, very um acute in its perception of the situation and the time in these kids that were just like out of control.
00:29:40.800 --> 00:29:43.040
I think that's I think that's a great approach to it.
00:29:43.120 --> 00:29:52.240
In the same way that you mentioned not needing a full sexually explicit like moment in film to get the point across.
00:29:52.400 --> 00:29:54.080
It's the same kind of thing for me.
00:29:54.240 --> 00:30:05.920
Like it, yes, the book is going to be a little more in-depth, a little more detailed, and and and show or or reveal some things about these characters that maybe is a little too hot for TV, so to speak.
00:30:06.080 --> 00:30:06.240
Yeah.
00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:10.240
But I also think we don't need all of that to still get the point across.
00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:16.000
We still, it's still as impactful as it need be or could be with the story that it's telling.
00:30:16.240 --> 00:30:29.280
It's kind of like with uh it, when there are specific scenes taken from the book and not put into movie intentionally, we know that it's some of it would be depicted and could be controversial, but it also tells a great story without it.
00:30:29.360 --> 00:30:31.520
We don't need everything to be one for one.
00:30:31.920 --> 00:30:32.800
I agree with that.
00:30:32.880 --> 00:30:37.440
And anytime you turn a book into a movie, you have to edit for just tiny steps.
00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:37.920
Absolutely.
00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:38.160
Yeah.
00:30:38.480 --> 00:30:43.520
So I think that there were some very smart decisions made.
00:30:43.840 --> 00:30:52.160
I as an artist and as a creator, putting myself in Brett Easton Ellis' shoes, I could see why he might not be a fan of the movie.
00:30:53.040 --> 00:31:06.320
Um, but as an audience member and as somebody that was living that life as close to somebody could without going down the full rabbit hole, I appreciate its message um and its sentiment.
00:31:06.800 --> 00:31:13.200
And um I I just I really enjoyed it, and I was very happy when the sequel came out.
00:31:13.440 --> 00:31:17.360
I mean, almost 12 years or 22 years later.
00:31:17.600 --> 00:31:18.480
What was that called again?
00:31:18.800 --> 00:31:19.920
Imperial Bedrooms.
00:31:20.080 --> 00:31:20.240
Okay.
00:31:20.560 --> 00:31:27.440
And that one was I think in Informers, the movie came out in 2007.
00:31:29.840 --> 00:31:33.840
So I think Imperial Bedrooms may have been like around 2012.
00:31:34.080 --> 00:31:36.160
I'm not 100% sure, but sounds about right.
00:31:36.480 --> 00:31:51.360
Anyway, the thing that was interesting about the um Imperial Bedrooms novel was that it was the same characters from Less Than Zero, and these characters were aware of the Less Than Zero movie that had been made about them.
00:31:51.600 --> 00:31:52.000
Oh, right.
00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:58.880
So that's kind of like the meta experience of Imperial Bedrooms is that we rejoin these people years later.
00:31:59.040 --> 00:32:01.440
Julian is still alive somehow.
00:32:01.920 --> 00:32:13.280
Well, yeah, I mean, that was a decision that I think they made to give the characters of Blair and Clay the catalyst to step away from that life.
00:32:13.760 --> 00:32:16.400
In the book and in real life, that doesn't always happen.
00:32:16.560 --> 00:32:21.040
Um, but he's I think he's a homeless prostitute at this point in time.
00:32:21.760 --> 00:32:32.720
And like I said, the characters are all acutely aware of how they were altered and depicted uh in the less than zero movie, which is a part of this universe.
00:32:33.040 --> 00:32:33.360
Right.
00:32:33.600 --> 00:32:35.200
Uh and I I really liked it.
00:32:35.440 --> 00:32:39.040
I I would have liked to have seen it made into a movie, but it just Oh, they didn't.
00:32:39.280 --> 00:32:42.320
I they did they did not make Imperial Bedrooms into a movie.
00:32:42.480 --> 00:32:55.520
Now they did make the Informers into a movie, and the Informers, the book was actually like it's almost like different short stories that had the same common denominator strung together.
00:32:55.840 --> 00:32:56.960
Kind of like an anthology.
00:32:57.280 --> 00:33:04.320
Yeah, or or like uh that movie Crash, where all the different characters have one underlying thread that connects them all.
00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:14.400
And that one did dive into like vampires in Los Angeles and um other things that were just sort of like, how do you how do you turn this into a movie?
00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:20.160
So the movie again, it was altered to tell one continuous storyline.
00:33:20.480 --> 00:33:26.560
And this this is about the kids that came up a couple years before the kids in less than zero.
00:33:26.880 --> 00:33:32.160
And they were, I think they were out of high school.
00:33:32.720 --> 00:33:35.200
Um, so they were a little bit older.
00:33:35.440 --> 00:33:38.880
And I mean, but it's the same same thing, just broken people.
00:33:39.360 --> 00:34:01.600
Um, one of them is the informers, is a reference to the band that is playing throughout the movie, and the lead singer of the band is uh a heroin addict and an alcoholic and a pedophile, and then you've got the central characters um who kind of branch out into their friend and family group.
00:34:01.680 --> 00:34:04.240
And I don't want to give too much of the movie away.
00:34:04.560 --> 00:34:13.920
Amber Heard is in it, and I think she's great in it, and she is like the one thing that connects all of these characters.
00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:17.679
So at the end of the movie, you're like, fuck everybody.
00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:18.239
Yeah.
00:34:18.480 --> 00:34:26.079
It's it's more of the same, but in a very unique and uh isolated storytelling sense.
00:34:26.160 --> 00:34:27.200
That's that's very cool.
00:34:27.360 --> 00:34:34.320
I I again, it's another one that's very difficult for me to watch, but as I watch it, I find it very intriguing and seductive.
00:34:34.559 --> 00:34:34.960
Yeah.
00:34:35.200 --> 00:34:47.119
And then we have something that steps outside of the realm of teenage early adult angst, and we go to American Psycho, which is a phenomenal movie.
00:34:47.440 --> 00:34:47.920
It's a lot.
00:34:48.079 --> 00:34:50.480
It's it is, you know what, it is a lot.
00:34:50.640 --> 00:34:52.400
Uh I don't mind watching it though.
00:34:52.720 --> 00:34:55.680
I I I have to be in the headspace to watch it.
00:34:55.920 --> 00:34:56.640
Well, that's true.
00:34:56.800 --> 00:35:01.119
Like I can put on less than zero anytime and just be fine having it on even in the background.
00:35:01.280 --> 00:35:01.440
Yeah.
00:35:01.599 --> 00:35:04.400
Yes, American Psycho, I have to be in the headspace.
00:35:04.640 --> 00:35:11.519
I I guess I'll say I find myself in the headspace more often than I would think I would be to watch that movie.
00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:16.079
But it's, I mean, it's it's a great story, it's great acting.
00:35:16.320 --> 00:35:24.880
And I cannot confirm this, but I have been told that um what's his name?
00:35:25.039 --> 00:35:33.280
Christian Bale's character in American Psycho is the older brother to James Vanderbeek's character in the rules of attraction.
00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:34.800
Oh, that's right.
00:35:34.880 --> 00:35:35.760
You did mention that.
00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:36.400
That's cool.
00:35:37.039 --> 00:35:38.240
I I like little things like that.
00:35:38.800 --> 00:35:40.160
Just extended lore moments.
00:35:40.480 --> 00:35:44.880
I think all of his work I think it exists in the same universe.
00:35:45.200 --> 00:35:45.920
That would make sense.
00:35:46.079 --> 00:35:46.400
Yeah.
00:35:46.640 --> 00:36:04.240
Um, American Psycho was also kind of a little bit of a head trip for me, too, because you have this guy who's viciously murdering these people, and his his lust and zest for murder grows exponentially over the course of the movie.
00:36:04.400 --> 00:36:10.720
But then you have these people that are a part of his quote-unquote day life or work life that he doesn't even touch.
00:36:10.960 --> 00:36:11.200
Right.
00:36:11.440 --> 00:36:20.240
And it's like, how does a serial killer decide who is worthy of living and who is going to be on the chopping block?
00:36:20.480 --> 00:36:26.160
And that was really weird for me because you know, his girlfriend played by Reese Witherspoon, never in a million years would he kill her.
00:36:26.240 --> 00:36:31.680
His his mistress, the the douchebag guys that he hangs out with at the clubs.
00:36:31.920 --> 00:36:41.039
No, but some homeless guy and a dog in an alley, some woman that he just happened to be at a stopwalk, uh crosswalk with.
00:36:41.119 --> 00:36:41.440
Yeah.
00:36:41.680 --> 00:36:43.200
Like, sure, no problem.
00:36:43.440 --> 00:36:52.480
So it's it was very weird because the decision making seemed so intentional yet indiscriminate at the same time.
00:36:53.360 --> 00:36:54.320
And arbitrary.
00:36:54.640 --> 00:36:55.200
Yeah.
00:36:55.440 --> 00:36:57.280
That's I mean, at least from my point of view.
00:36:57.599 --> 00:36:58.640
That's well, for mine too.
00:36:58.720 --> 00:37:01.440
That's that's part of what makes it so dark and difficult for me.
00:37:01.599 --> 00:37:01.760
Yeah.
00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:08.160
Is that it could be anyone doing this, and it could be at any time, and it could be you.
00:37:08.800 --> 00:37:13.440
Another reason why it's important to make yourself aware of the world around you, right?
00:37:14.079 --> 00:37:33.680
Do you think do you think that Brett Easton Ellis writes these stories as a means to as a warning, or does he write them as a as as just like a storytelling, like, hey, my life was fucked up and here's what it was, or what I think would be a fun, entertaining version of it?
00:37:34.240 --> 00:37:41.760
Do you think he has a message where he's just trying to say, like, this world is really bad, you guys, and I want you to keep an eye out on yourselves.
00:37:42.320 --> 00:37:42.960
It's possible.
00:37:43.119 --> 00:37:44.960
Maybe we should listen to his podcast.
00:37:45.360 --> 00:37:45.680
Oh.
00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:46.800
Yeah.
00:37:47.119 --> 00:37:51.519
Um I I think that there's gotta be a cathartic process.
00:37:51.840 --> 00:37:52.480
Oh, cathartic.
00:37:52.720 --> 00:37:57.360
Cathartic, or it's so cathartic, to his story writing and storytelling.
00:37:57.680 --> 00:37:58.000
For him.
00:37:58.240 --> 00:37:58.400
Yeah.
00:37:58.559 --> 00:38:00.320
I I think that there is something of that.
00:38:00.559 --> 00:38:10.640
I think that also when you create something regardless of the intentional motivation behind the creation, if it's something that takes off with the general population, you're gonna continue.
00:38:10.960 --> 00:38:11.599
You're gonna keep doing it.
00:38:11.680 --> 00:38:12.480
Yeah, you're gonna keep doing it.
00:38:12.559 --> 00:38:13.200
It's validating.
00:38:13.440 --> 00:38:14.960
It's that's what Stephen King does.
00:38:15.119 --> 00:38:15.280
Right.
00:38:15.519 --> 00:38:18.720
He he releases this because they're dreams or nightmares of his.
00:38:18.880 --> 00:38:22.400
And part of that processing is releasing what he has experienced himself.
00:38:22.720 --> 00:38:43.760
It's I mean, it's one of the reasons why I enjoyed doing this podcast so much because being able to have these conversations with you out loud and for other people to listen and comment on is a way for me to process what I see happening in the world around me that I don't understand because it's not from my keyhole perception of life.
00:38:44.559 --> 00:38:50.320
But I understand that there is a whole other world out there outside of my own little keyhole perception.
00:38:50.480 --> 00:39:03.519
And I I want to be made aware of that because the more I'm aware of it, the broader the scope of my keyhole perception becomes to the point where maybe someday it won't be keyhole.
00:39:03.920 --> 00:39:06.960
It's kind of the premise of this podcast to stay curious.
00:39:07.280 --> 00:39:08.400
To stay curious, absolutely.
00:39:08.640 --> 00:39:11.360
We don't just say it because it's like, oh, how fun and catchy.
00:39:11.519 --> 00:39:23.440
We're saying it because that curia curiosity really helps to drive the human experience in a way that I think is very beneficial, enlightening, and ultimately just makes it a bit more bearable at times.
00:39:23.920 --> 00:39:28.320
Well, maybe someday we'll we'll get Brett Eastonellis as a guest on one of our episodes.
00:39:28.800 --> 00:39:29.440
That would be cool.
00:39:29.760 --> 00:39:38.960
We can really dig into where it all comes from and why it keeps coming up and why he chooses to constantly revisit something.
00:39:39.119 --> 00:40:02.000
And you know, one of the other things that I think about too is there are people in my life that whether their perception is accurate or not, or even just slightly exaggerated, view points in my life or things that I do even now as being wrong, being out of control, whatever negative connotation you want to add to it.
00:40:02.480 --> 00:40:09.920
But to me, it's my experience and it's wonderful and it's fascinating and it's my journey.
00:40:10.079 --> 00:40:12.480
And so for me, it's not a bad thing.
00:40:13.119 --> 00:40:18.880
Um, especially if you weren't the one that got pulled down into it.
00:40:18.960 --> 00:40:19.119
Right.
00:40:19.280 --> 00:40:24.720
You know, like I did all the things very fast, very early on.
00:40:25.200 --> 00:40:35.680
And I guess my lust for life and my desire to want to do all things kept me from getting sucked into just one thing.
00:40:35.920 --> 00:40:42.400
But there are people in my life that have really gone sideways.
00:40:42.720 --> 00:40:54.720
And I mean, we started out partying together with Blow in high school and then cut to 10 years later, and one of them is a heroin and crystal meth addict and injecting it.
00:40:54.880 --> 00:40:55.280
Right.
00:40:55.599 --> 00:40:58.960
And bad, bad, bad story.
00:40:59.360 --> 00:41:00.960
So what you're saying is just do everything.
00:41:01.360 --> 00:41:02.160
For me, no.
00:41:02.320 --> 00:41:06.000
For me, what I'm saying is that I'm the eye of my own storm.
00:41:06.160 --> 00:41:08.240
When you're in the eye of the storm, it's calm.
00:41:08.400 --> 00:41:08.880
Yeah.
00:41:09.119 --> 00:41:28.960
So for Brett, he might be putting all of this stuff out there that might seem extreme and and out of control for people, but when you've experienced the roller coaster, it's not as scary to you as it is to someone who's just standing on the ground watching the roller coaster go around, never having experienced it themselves.
00:41:29.280 --> 00:41:30.160
That's pretty cool.
00:41:30.480 --> 00:41:36.000
So if it's something that you like, if it's something that you enjoy, why not revisit it?
00:41:36.559 --> 00:41:39.200
As long as you're not repeating the same mistakes over again.
00:41:39.280 --> 00:42:02.400
And maybe that is another part of the process, too, is the more he writes about this, the more I talk about some of the things that felt out of control from my past, the more I'm able to realize how anchored I am now and how grateful I am that I am the person that I am that went through that storm, found the eye of it, and then got spit out the other end unscathed.
00:42:02.720 --> 00:42:04.400
He probably feels the same way.
00:42:04.640 --> 00:42:14.400
If if this is as truly uh autobiographical as it claims to be, which I have no reason to think otherwise, he probably feels the same way.
00:42:14.559 --> 00:42:14.720
Yeah.
00:42:14.960 --> 00:42:18.240
There's probably it's his process to process.
00:42:18.480 --> 00:42:18.880
Right.
00:42:19.119 --> 00:42:20.160
And I love that.
00:42:20.400 --> 00:42:22.400
That that really just resonated with me.
00:42:22.640 --> 00:42:25.519
It's his process to process.
00:42:25.760 --> 00:42:32.559
And we all have that right to process what we've experienced and to process the processing of it.
00:42:32.880 --> 00:42:36.000
It's very much like thinking about thinking.
00:42:36.160 --> 00:42:36.480
Yeah.
00:42:36.640 --> 00:42:41.280
And that breeds mindfulness, if not the definition of self-awareness.
00:42:41.440 --> 00:42:41.920
Right.
00:42:42.240 --> 00:42:47.680
Taking yourself outside of yourself and getting a bigger picture of the world around you.
00:42:47.760 --> 00:42:47.840
Yeah.
00:42:48.079 --> 00:43:13.280
Rather than just sort of bulldozing your way through life with your blinders on, which is, I think, so much of what we see on social media, on Instagram and TikTok, the bad behavior that we see on the social media platform is, I think, definitive of what we're talking about when we talk about traumatic, broken people who are choosing not to heal themselves because it's too scary to walk through the fire.
00:43:13.440 --> 00:43:13.599
Yeah.
00:43:13.840 --> 00:43:24.320
But yet here you have this example of however many other people you can find in your universe that have chosen to walk through the fire and are better for it.
00:43:24.480 --> 00:43:24.640
Right.
00:43:24.800 --> 00:43:35.119
Like we have a friend who is very intimidated by therapy and the change that therapy induces because, well, then I won't be me anymore.
00:43:35.440 --> 00:43:38.720
No, you will be a better version of yourself.
00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:40.880
It's not like pod people time.
00:43:41.039 --> 00:43:41.200
Right.
00:43:41.440 --> 00:43:52.160
You will be more self-realized, more self-actualized, more in control, not just of your actions, but of your emotions and your perceptions and how you choose to respond and react to the world at large.
00:43:52.320 --> 00:44:08.720
And that puts you in the driver's seat of not giving you control because there's very little we have control over, but it puts you in the driver's seat of your own life because now you start to understand why instead of just witnessing what's happening around you.
00:44:08.880 --> 00:44:16.880
And it's that shift in thinking of things happen to me, right, to things happen for me.
00:44:17.039 --> 00:44:17.360
Yeah.
00:44:17.680 --> 00:44:21.119
Everything becomes to your advantage rather than your disadvantage.
00:44:21.200 --> 00:44:25.599
And you remove yourself from being a victim of the experience of life.
00:44:26.079 --> 00:44:40.880
That mindful processing, uh, whether it be through therapy or just through your ability, if you've if you've figured that out for whatever reason, that that is what allows you or introduces you to yourself.
00:44:41.039 --> 00:44:41.360
Yeah.
00:44:41.599 --> 00:44:48.079
It gives you the opportunity to really discover who you have the opportunity to be, who you could potentially be.
00:44:48.320 --> 00:44:52.000
It's going to be different, but we have to strive for that too.
00:44:52.640 --> 00:44:54.480
Well, isn't it absolutely wonderful?
00:44:54.720 --> 00:44:57.760
It's pretty to look at yourself in the mirror and say you.
00:44:58.000 --> 00:44:58.160
Yeah.
00:44:58.480 --> 00:45:04.960
And I think a lot of people feel so little about themselves as the world intends to make us feel.
00:45:05.280 --> 00:45:05.680
Right.
00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:10.079
That people look in the mirror and they think, I don't want to know who that person is.
00:45:10.559 --> 00:45:15.360
Or they'll get messages from other people who say, I'm not interested in that other version of you.
00:45:15.680 --> 00:45:17.440
And that's why you have to not give a fuck.
00:45:17.680 --> 00:45:18.079
Right.
00:45:18.320 --> 00:45:19.360
It's really important.
00:45:19.519 --> 00:45:19.840
Yeah.
00:45:20.079 --> 00:45:20.960
It's really important.
00:45:21.360 --> 00:45:23.519
I I completely agree with you.
00:45:23.760 --> 00:45:26.000
I I want to be my friend.
00:45:26.160 --> 00:45:27.920
I want to know myself.
00:45:28.240 --> 00:45:33.119
And that is a really good feeling because for a big part of my life, I ran from that.
00:45:33.200 --> 00:45:35.280
And I think it's the only reason.
00:45:35.920 --> 00:45:39.440
Only reason that I can speak to it.
00:45:39.680 --> 00:45:40.079
Right.
00:45:40.320 --> 00:45:40.480
Yeah.
00:45:40.800 --> 00:45:42.240
Because I experienced it.
00:45:42.320 --> 00:45:42.480
Yeah.
00:45:42.640 --> 00:45:45.760
I'm not coming from a place of inexperience and judgment.
00:45:45.920 --> 00:45:48.400
I'm coming from a place of experience and empathy.
00:45:48.720 --> 00:45:53.440
Not just for other people who are struggling with that fight, but for myself.
00:45:53.680 --> 00:46:01.680
And if you can treat yourself the way you treat the person that you like the most in this world, that is a wonderful place to be.
00:46:02.160 --> 00:46:04.320
Because charity starts in the home.
00:46:04.559 --> 00:46:13.200
So if you can fix yourself, if you can heal yourself, if you can love yourself, then everyone else around you is going to benefit from that as well.
00:46:13.519 --> 00:46:13.760
Right.
00:46:14.320 --> 00:46:14.640
Yep.
00:46:15.519 --> 00:46:24.160
So I think that's probably maybe another reason why Brett Easton Ellis writes what he writes, why Ryan Murphy produces what he produces.
00:46:24.480 --> 00:46:35.840
Why there are certain people that choose to tell stories that make people uncomfortable because if it wasn't uncomfortable, then where would the growth come from?
00:46:36.160 --> 00:46:37.280
No pain, no gain.
00:46:37.519 --> 00:46:37.760
Right.
00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:39.920
So I applaud their efforts.
00:46:40.079 --> 00:46:41.440
I applaud their art.
00:46:42.079 --> 00:46:47.519
And it definitely is something that I find entertaining, but I also find thought-provoking.
00:46:48.240 --> 00:46:51.200
And I quite like it.
00:46:56.160 --> 00:46:58.640
So uh thank you guys for listening.
00:46:58.800 --> 00:47:00.079
I think we're gonna end on that.
00:47:00.240 --> 00:47:05.280
Don't forget to tune into the Shards Wednesday nights at nine o'clock on FX or Hulu.
00:47:05.840 --> 00:47:09.840
And um we're gonna go have a Brett Easton Ellis evening.
00:47:10.079 --> 00:47:11.920
We will see you guys next Tuesday.
00:00:15.760 --> 00:00:16.080
Hi.
00:00:16.400 --> 00:00:17.039
Hi, honey.
00:00:17.199 --> 00:00:17.600
How are you?
00:00:17.839 --> 00:00:18.320
I'm good.
00:00:18.400 --> 00:00:18.960
How are you?
00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:20.080
I'm good.
00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:25.200
We're talking about something very cool today that I know that you are a super fan.
00:00:25.520 --> 00:00:26.000
Yeah.
00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:28.960
And uh has kind of taken over our TV a bit.
00:00:29.039 --> 00:00:29.840
And what is that?
00:00:30.240 --> 00:00:43.679
Uh we are talking about the shards and more specifically the culture and society of Brett East and Ellis and the intersection where he meets Ryan Murphy with the shards.
00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:49.600
So kind of a little bit of Brett East and Ellis, a little bit of Ryan Murphy, and a whole lot of fun.
00:00:49.920 --> 00:00:50.480
I love it.
00:00:50.640 --> 00:00:50.880
Yeah.
00:00:51.200 --> 00:00:51.840
It's cool.
00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:55.359
I um I wasn't aware of Brett Easton Ellis.
00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:56.480
Until we met.
00:00:56.800 --> 00:00:57.520
Until we met.
00:00:57.679 --> 00:00:58.000
Yeah.
00:00:58.320 --> 00:01:01.440
No, honestly, because I hadn't seen any of the work.
00:01:02.080 --> 00:01:05.519
Um I think you had, you just didn't know it was Brett Easton Ellis.
00:01:05.760 --> 00:01:06.799
I think you're probably right.
00:01:07.039 --> 00:01:10.959
And and more specifically, the laws of attraction.
00:01:11.359 --> 00:01:12.000
Yeah.
00:01:12.239 --> 00:01:13.519
Or the rules of attraction.
00:01:13.760 --> 00:01:14.719
Yeah, I had no idea.
00:01:15.039 --> 00:01:16.159
With James Vanderbeek.
00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:21.519
I think I also saw um the uh American Psycho.
00:01:21.839 --> 00:01:22.399
American Psycho.
00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:23.519
Yeah, I did see that one too.
00:01:23.839 --> 00:01:25.199
That is also Brett Easton Ellis.
00:01:25.439 --> 00:01:25.679
Yeah.
00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:46.640
So some of his um most well-known works are uh Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, uh American Psycho, The Informers, which is a lesser known piece of work, but I think a really important piece of his body of work and one that I really enjoy.
00:01:46.879 --> 00:01:47.439
Yeah.
00:01:47.679 --> 00:01:53.599
Um, and then Glamorama with Lunar Park, which are not that well known.
00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:55.199
No, I don't think I've heard of those.
00:01:55.519 --> 00:02:03.759
The follow-up to less than zero, Imperial Bedrooms, which when we talk about is a very interesting sort of meta-concept as well.
00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:05.839
Um, and now the shards.
00:02:06.319 --> 00:02:06.959
That's a lot.
00:02:07.119 --> 00:02:08.159
That's pretty prolific.
00:02:08.400 --> 00:02:08.719
Yeah.
00:02:08.879 --> 00:02:29.599
And the and the ones that have been made into movies that I've seen are Less Than Zero, Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, Um, The Informers, and Now the Shards, which is uh TV show premiering on um, well, it has premiered, it's showing on FX or Hulu.
00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:30.799
Yeah, it's been pretty great.
00:02:31.599 --> 00:02:32.960
It's good, it's really good.
00:02:33.120 --> 00:02:35.680
Um, this Wednesday is the third night.
00:02:35.919 --> 00:02:44.560
So they did the first two episodes on the premiere two weeks ago, and then last week we got episodes three and four, and it continues this Wednesday.
00:02:44.879 --> 00:02:45.280
Yeah.
00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:49.359
So that'll be that'll be tomorrow for those of you that are listening to this podcast.
00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:50.079
Yeah.
00:02:50.479 --> 00:02:51.919
And it is really exciting.
00:02:52.079 --> 00:03:04.799
And so starting with the shards, um, it's basically my interpretation is that it is a fictional retelling of Brett Easton Ellis' time as a senior in high school.
00:03:05.120 --> 00:03:06.479
Semi-autobiographical.
00:03:06.719 --> 00:03:08.479
Semi-autobiographical.
00:03:08.719 --> 00:03:13.519
Um, but there are some very real elements to it.
00:03:14.079 --> 00:03:16.400
Uh, it's basically 1981.
00:03:16.639 --> 00:03:19.199
He and his friends are seniors in high school.
00:03:19.439 --> 00:03:23.519
There is a new kid, a mysterious new kid that shows up.
00:03:23.840 --> 00:03:30.719
And at the same time this guy shows up, a serial killer starts stalking the senior class.
00:03:30.879 --> 00:03:31.519
How convenient.
00:03:31.759 --> 00:03:35.199
And sort of like killing them in cultish ritualistic ways.
00:03:35.439 --> 00:03:35.680
Right.
00:03:35.759 --> 00:03:36.000
Yeah.
00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:37.759
Which we know Ryan Murphy loves.
00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:38.479
Totally.
00:03:38.639 --> 00:03:38.799
Yeah.
00:03:38.960 --> 00:03:39.280
Right.
00:03:39.680 --> 00:03:41.519
It is kind of a match made in heaven.
00:03:41.680 --> 00:03:54.159
I I would say I am not necessarily a Brett Easton Ellis fan in the way that I find the work to just be really dark and difficult for me to watch and enjoy.
00:03:55.039 --> 00:04:05.599
But stylistically, uh I find it really intriguing and beautiful and uh uh seductive.
00:04:05.840 --> 00:04:06.319
Absolutely.
00:04:06.560 --> 00:04:12.799
In a way that while I'm uncomfortable and I really don't like watching it, I can't stop watching it.
00:04:13.039 --> 00:04:13.599
Yes.
00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:24.960
Um, and then when you add in the Ryan Murphy element, you you've just completely you sold it with the gloss and the music and the fashion and the beauty of the people that he's chosen to be in the show in the first place.
00:04:25.199 --> 00:04:25.519
Yep.
00:04:25.759 --> 00:04:30.319
Um, so it's it is kind of like a match made in heaven for the two minds for sure.
00:04:30.639 --> 00:04:31.120
I agree.
00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:36.159
Both of them do beautiful veneer really, really well.
00:04:36.639 --> 00:04:43.600
Um, and I do want to point out that the trawler serial killer is a fictional character made up for this story.
00:04:43.839 --> 00:04:44.319
Oh, okay.
00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:48.560
It's not there was not a real trawler serial killer at the time.
00:04:48.800 --> 00:04:58.240
So again, it is a fictional pseudo-autobiographical retelling just simply because the lead character is Brett Easton Ellis.
00:04:58.399 --> 00:05:08.959
And in one episode, we saw him writing on the typewriter, and I saw the name Julian, and I think he was writing the less than zero book because that one was published in 1985, and this takes place in 1981.
00:05:09.279 --> 00:05:10.480
It's a cool little Easter egg.
00:05:10.719 --> 00:05:11.120
I think so.
00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:12.159
Yeah, that's cool.
00:05:12.399 --> 00:05:20.079
Um so Brett Easton Ellis uses his own life for the majority of the work that he writes.
00:05:20.399 --> 00:05:36.000
He was in high school in the late 70s, early 80s, and in Los Angeles, part of the Beverly Hills crew that had total absentee parents, total freedom, total access to their money, drugs, sex.
00:05:36.639 --> 00:05:38.879
And it was all very glamorous.
00:05:39.040 --> 00:05:47.920
But underneath all of that glamour is a loneliness, a feeling of alienation, um, sort of, I call it chasing the dragon.
00:05:48.079 --> 00:06:01.279
Like these people were just doing anything and everything at such a young age to feel like they mattered because the people that were supposed to make them feel like they mattered the most, their parents, were absent from their lives at this point in time.
00:06:01.600 --> 00:06:19.279
I I think that's what I have a really hard time watching uh in this show specifically, because I I especially am not a fan of uh this the familiar high school tropes of TV shows and movies where it's like, oh no, this poor rich kid, oh my problems, I have everything.
00:06:19.519 --> 00:06:22.399
But but homecoming is the most important thing in the world.
00:06:22.560 --> 00:06:26.159
How am I gonna so when I'm watching this play out, I'm like, you guys, shut up.
00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:28.319
Like, I don't do the drugs, it'd be fine.
00:06:28.399 --> 00:06:30.240
You're you're great, you'll be okay.
00:06:30.480 --> 00:06:33.120
I can't connect with it because I don't care about them at all.
00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:33.680
Sure.
00:06:33.839 --> 00:06:47.360
But as this show plays off with many of Brett Easton Nellis' uh work, is that you you actually see, like you just described, the pain and the loss and the loneliness in these characters that that's what makes them interesting.
00:06:47.519 --> 00:06:50.319
It's not all the the bullshit that they're surrounded with.
00:06:50.480 --> 00:06:52.800
That's just like you said, the beautiful veneer.
00:06:52.959 --> 00:06:53.279
Yes.
00:06:53.519 --> 00:06:56.639
Where you're like, well, yeah, anyone could really do that.
00:06:56.879 --> 00:06:58.079
Whatever, who care, who cares?
00:06:58.240 --> 00:07:01.600
But then you see what these people are actually going through with that absentee parent situation.
00:07:01.759 --> 00:07:04.480
You're like, wow, these kids are really troubled.
00:07:04.800 --> 00:07:05.199
They're broken.
00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:05.600
Yeah.
00:07:05.759 --> 00:07:06.319
They're broken.
00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:11.519
And they're they are 18-year-olds, 17 and 18-year-olds living like 25-year-olds.
00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:12.159
Right.
00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:22.480
And I think when you are that age, it's very fun and exciting to be able to have that level of autonomy and freedom so early on.
00:07:22.879 --> 00:07:42.319
But it it comes at a price because you are still at an age where you need guidance, you need support, you need your parents letting you know that you matter because without that sense of feeling like you are an important person who matters, you're going to make very self-destructive decisions.
00:07:42.399 --> 00:07:46.719
And that's what all of these characters through his entire body of work have in common.
00:07:46.879 --> 00:07:50.399
They all make incredibly self-destructive decisions.
00:07:50.560 --> 00:07:53.279
And it's not just the kids, it's also in the parents.
00:07:53.439 --> 00:07:58.800
We see this in The Informers with Kim Basinger and Billy Bob Thornton's character.
00:07:58.959 --> 00:07:59.279
Yeah, totally.
00:07:59.600 --> 00:07:59.759
Right.
00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:05.519
We see it in the shards with Debbie's parents, played by Wes Bentley and Rachel Evan Wood.
00:08:05.680 --> 00:08:08.480
I mean, just total, complete dysfunction.
00:08:08.639 --> 00:08:08.800
Yeah.
00:08:08.959 --> 00:08:12.560
And it just gets handed down from generation to generation.
00:08:12.800 --> 00:08:26.879
I think with the baby boom generation and the very early Gen X generation, there was a very much of a sort of absentee latchkey kid kind of scenario going on.
00:08:27.199 --> 00:08:27.439
Yeah.
00:08:27.600 --> 00:08:30.159
And kids were really left to fend for themselves.
00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:40.399
And when you have to fend for yourself, you feel like you don't matter because your parents aren't there, then not only do you make self-destructive decisions, but you make those in survival mode.
00:08:40.560 --> 00:08:46.960
You are learning earlier than you should how to take on the responsibility of the world so that you can manage your survival.
00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:48.879
That is a lot for an 18-year-old.
00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:58.559
That's where the drugs and the alcohol and the sex and the really bad decisions come in, which the shards, like all of Brett Easton Ellis' work, is full of.
00:08:58.799 --> 00:09:01.840
I mean, cocaine, booze, sex.
00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:03.679
It really doesn't hold back on any of it.
00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:06.000
It does not hold back on any of it.
00:09:06.159 --> 00:09:09.600
And again, as we've talked about in previous episodes, this is art.
00:09:09.840 --> 00:09:21.840
Art is meant to be subversive in the way that it is designed to make you think, to make you be self-aware, to make you be mindful, to think about thinking and why are these people doing this?
00:09:22.240 --> 00:09:36.159
I can see it being perceived as sensationalism or uh that that we're somehow uh promoting or highlighting um these acts.
00:09:36.559 --> 00:09:39.279
These uh types of human nature.
00:09:39.600 --> 00:09:42.320
And so I can see people watching it and just being turned off by that.
00:09:42.399 --> 00:09:43.919
Ask like, why do we have to show that?
00:09:44.080 --> 00:09:45.439
Why do we have to do that?
00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:57.039
And I I remind myself too as I'm watching it that this this is a TV show, it's not real, but this is the kind of life that some people live because of everything that you just described.
00:09:57.200 --> 00:09:57.360
Yeah.
00:09:57.600 --> 00:10:06.000
And I think at one point in the last episode or the one before that, um Brett's character, his name is Brett in the show, right?
00:10:06.080 --> 00:10:06.240
Yeah.
00:10:06.639 --> 00:10:22.559
His character even says we are living our lives as though we are adults in a world where we know we are not, or something, something along the lines where like we know we're living far above or we're doing the things that we shouldn't be doing that only adults do.
00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:26.159
And part of the reason that we do that is because there's no one here to tell us not to.
00:10:26.399 --> 00:10:26.720
Right.
00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:28.799
Because what else are we gonna do?
00:10:29.120 --> 00:10:29.360
Yeah.
00:10:29.519 --> 00:10:42.639
I and I think that not only are they missing the guidance from the parents, which may or may not be the case, but they're also finding kindred souls that are also lost in that way.
00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:44.399
So they really have no guiding light.
00:10:44.960 --> 00:10:46.480
We're like sometimes violating the blind.
00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:47.200
It totally.
00:10:47.279 --> 00:10:51.759
And you'll you'll find, especially in the queer community, you'll find people who find their chosen family.
00:10:51.840 --> 00:10:52.000
Yeah.
00:10:52.159 --> 00:10:54.240
And that's usually where you find your mother figures.
00:10:55.679 --> 00:11:03.439
Like someone who helps to guide you along that path that maybe you're missing in a traditional maternal, paternal situation.
00:11:04.080 --> 00:11:08.559
Um, but you can see that these kids don't have that and they're finding it in each other.
00:11:08.639 --> 00:11:14.960
And yeah, blind leading the blind, they're making mistakes, and the other ones are like, Yeah, do that, cocaine.
00:11:15.039 --> 00:11:15.840
That's a perfect.
00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:17.120
We're we're doing great.
00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:30.240
And and the sad thing about that, which Brett in the shards also mentioned, is that too early on in his life, he realized that he was no longer a kid.
00:11:30.559 --> 00:11:37.200
And he didn't realize that he was no longer a kid until well after that last moment of being a kid had passed.
00:11:37.439 --> 00:11:44.720
And I've said to you many times before, you know, your childhood is so short.
00:11:45.439 --> 00:11:48.639
The world is intent on making it shorter, right?
00:11:48.879 --> 00:11:51.120
And you only have one go at being a child.
00:11:51.279 --> 00:11:58.000
And I think that the world, including parents, need to let children be children.
00:11:58.159 --> 00:11:58.480
Yeah.
00:11:58.639 --> 00:12:01.039
Because once it's done, that's it.
00:12:01.200 --> 00:12:01.759
It's done.
00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:04.799
And you can't control when that moment is gonna happen.
00:12:05.360 --> 00:12:11.439
So let every moment while your kid is still in childhood count as a childhood moment.
00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:12.000
Right.
00:12:12.080 --> 00:12:13.919
Without perpetuating infantalization.
00:12:14.240 --> 00:12:28.960
There's a yeah, you don't infanalize the child, but you also don't leave them to their own devices before they are at a moment where they are ready to cross over and say goodbye to their childhood.
00:12:29.039 --> 00:12:30.480
And it should be a transition.
00:12:30.720 --> 00:12:30.879
Yeah.
00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:36.639
I think a lot of times there's a traumatic situation that happens in our lives that forces us to grow up very fast.
00:12:37.039 --> 00:12:38.559
When you found out about Santa Claus.
00:12:39.360 --> 00:12:48.000
Well, I mean like that kind of No, I I mean like traumatic situations because the world can be a predatory place in many different ways.
00:12:48.399 --> 00:12:49.519
Like true traumatic situations.
00:12:50.000 --> 00:13:03.439
There could be divorce, there could be abuse, there could be um something that, you know, the the death of a friend, you know, whatever it is that takes you and pulls you and plucks you out of childhood.
00:13:03.519 --> 00:13:03.679
Yeah.
00:13:03.919 --> 00:13:07.919
And we don't know when that moment, again, is going to happen.
00:13:08.080 --> 00:13:15.600
So the job is to make sure that until that moment happens, again, without infanalizing your child, give them their childhood.
00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:37.679
Yeah, it's interesting you say that too, because I I can think of so much film when I was growing up almost was deliberately sending those messages, those traumatic messages when you have movies like My Girl and you're watching this girl's best friend die, or you're watching the never-ending story, and the kid is like trying to save his horse from drowning.
00:13:37.759 --> 00:13:49.759
Like, there are so many of those moments that are traumatic storytelling elements that now looking back, thinking, like, oh well shit, there goes that part of my innocence just floating away through that's crazy.
00:13:50.080 --> 00:14:05.919
And they are all metaphors to the loss of innocence that are recreated in a tangible form of entertainment so that you can put those feelings onto something that represents that loss of innocence.
00:14:06.559 --> 00:14:15.439
When as a human being in the child stage of their life, they realize the world is not like my second grade classroom.
00:14:15.679 --> 00:14:19.439
The world is not like summer vacation, the world is not like Christmas break.
00:14:19.519 --> 00:14:19.679
Yeah.
00:14:19.919 --> 00:14:27.679
The world, you know, when you once you start becoming aware that the world doesn't really care about you, it's an eye-opening experience.
00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:44.000
And I think that the people who are better prepared to navigate that moment are the ones who, up until that moment, have been given the sense that they do matter, that they are important, that they are worthy, that they are valued.
00:14:44.159 --> 00:14:44.320
Yeah.
00:14:44.559 --> 00:14:55.200
And I think more times than not, people make that leap into adulthood without that, which is why we see so many broken adults, so many narcissists, so many people in need of therapy.
00:14:55.279 --> 00:14:55.439
Yeah.
00:14:55.679 --> 00:15:10.720
So many people being mean and hurtful and vindictive to the world at large, the Karen's, the, the, the peace disruptors, because they're really just trying to be seen, like in our episode that we recorded about people being distracted.
00:15:11.279 --> 00:15:11.439
Yeah.
00:15:11.519 --> 00:15:12.559
And why do you matter?
00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:14.720
Because you really want to feel seen.
00:15:14.879 --> 00:15:15.360
Right.
00:15:15.679 --> 00:15:31.519
And if you don't get that from very early on, then you don't know how to productively manage and navigate that in the arena of basically, you know, politics, which is navigating people to get what you want out of this world or what you need out of this world.
00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:33.120
Quick observation.
00:15:33.279 --> 00:15:38.720
I I've noticed it's interesting how many of our episodes have kind of like intertwined in that way.
00:15:39.200 --> 00:15:44.639
Like as we're talking, realizing like, oh yeah, that kind of connects to what we were just talking about in the in a recent episode.
00:15:45.039 --> 00:15:54.080
Well, I think when you do a podcast about human nature, you are inevitably going to come back to what your conclusion of the foundation of the human experience is.
00:15:54.320 --> 00:15:55.519
Yeah, I think you're right.
00:15:55.759 --> 00:15:59.120
And first and foremost, our job is to survive this experience.
00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:05.840
Now, what does that encompass all the things that we talk about on our podcast?
00:16:06.080 --> 00:16:09.519
And each episode has the same common denominator, the human experience.
00:16:09.759 --> 00:16:10.080
Yeah.
00:16:10.480 --> 00:16:13.439
And there are many different types of human experiences.
00:16:13.679 --> 00:16:24.000
And going back to something that you said about, you know, the the glamour and the lascivious nature of work like this, people could tune into and be like, oh, why do I have to watch this?
00:16:24.320 --> 00:16:32.399
Well, I don't look at this as gratuitous because we're not seeing nudity, we're not seeing sex acts actually played out, right?
00:16:33.039 --> 00:16:38.320
The implication is there so that we understand what's happening.
00:16:38.639 --> 00:16:45.120
But gratuitous is, you know, in like the 80s slasher movies where we have to see boobs just for the sake of seeing boobs.
00:16:45.200 --> 00:16:45.279
Right.
00:16:45.519 --> 00:16:45.679
Right.
00:16:45.919 --> 00:16:56.320
Or the sex scene has to be explicit and graphic by nature because you have a storyteller who's really trying to grab the audience by the balls and force them to pay attention.
00:16:56.480 --> 00:16:56.720
Yeah.
00:16:56.879 --> 00:17:01.919
The problem is that the thing that you're doing to get their attention is where their attention stays.
00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:04.240
And so they might miss the rest of the story.
00:17:04.559 --> 00:17:09.440
In example for example, movies like Showgirls or Basic Instinct.
00:17:09.600 --> 00:17:09.840
Right.
00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:10.240
Right.
00:17:10.400 --> 00:17:10.720
Yeah.
00:17:10.960 --> 00:17:13.279
So, which I personally love.
00:17:13.680 --> 00:17:25.200
I don't necessarily feel that I need to watch explicit sex scenes in order to get the idea or the understanding of what is happening to the relationship between these two people in that moment.
00:17:25.360 --> 00:17:30.000
You can start it off and then you can cut to I don't need to I don't need to see any at that point.
00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:30.320
Yeah.
00:17:30.400 --> 00:17:30.640
Yeah.
00:17:30.880 --> 00:17:36.960
But what what Ryan Murphy and Brett Easton Ellis are doing in the shards, to me, it's not gratuitous.
00:17:37.040 --> 00:17:52.320
And if it makes you uncomfortable because you don't like the idea of knowing that people live this way for whatever reason, that's maybe all the more reason to watch the show because you are the person that this message is for.
00:17:52.480 --> 00:18:01.600
You are the person that needs to expand your breadth of mindfulness and not even self-awareness, but awareness.
00:18:01.840 --> 00:18:09.120
Because I've mentioned many times before, we all view our life through this keyhole perception that's created by our personal experience.
00:18:09.360 --> 00:18:11.680
But our experience is exclusive to us.
00:18:11.840 --> 00:18:20.640
And if we're going to be empathetic people, we need to be able to understand that there are people out there who are living their life through a very different keyhole.
00:18:20.960 --> 00:18:22.240
I would agree with that.
00:18:22.560 --> 00:18:28.320
I think for me growing up, I uh I was pretty naive about most of this kind of stuff.
00:18:29.520 --> 00:18:38.320
Um just generally speaking, I think part of it was uh how I was brought up, but also a lot of it was I think I chose that.
00:18:39.040 --> 00:18:47.840
I felt safe staying away from scary movies, I felt uncomfortable around movies that had sexual moments in it.
00:18:48.000 --> 00:19:04.640
And so I think for me, not forcing myself to watch it or to experience it, but being open to it and knowing that this isn't just gratuitous or shown for the sake of doing it.
00:19:04.800 --> 00:19:16.800
We've seen that, but being able to watch it in in in the understanding that this is someone else's life or someone else's story that may be so far off of my own, take a minute and take in what I can from it.
00:19:17.040 --> 00:19:17.200
Yeah.
00:19:17.440 --> 00:19:18.400
It's there for a reason.
00:19:18.560 --> 00:19:24.800
Maybe I'll learn something, or maybe I'll get a brand new uh perspective or empathy for this type of situation.
00:19:25.280 --> 00:19:38.320
Well, and I think by nature humans are voyeuristic, but yet sometimes the thing that we are most intrigued by for whatever reason are the things that we associate the most shame around.
00:19:38.480 --> 00:19:38.880
Yeah.
00:19:39.120 --> 00:19:44.720
And so there's this internal struggle, and I think you've you've gotta you gotta do away with it.
00:19:44.800 --> 00:19:44.960
Right.
00:19:45.040 --> 00:19:48.240
Like sometimes you just have to walk through the fire rather than around it.
00:19:48.320 --> 00:19:48.480
Yeah.
00:19:49.040 --> 00:19:51.280
And that's the point of life is experience.
00:19:51.440 --> 00:19:57.040
Um now doesn't mean you have to go down a rabbit hole with all the bad things that life represents.
00:19:57.360 --> 00:19:58.000
Right in the dark way.
00:19:58.400 --> 00:20:05.200
But, you know, it it's I referenced the 90210 episode when they were talking about condoms in school.
00:20:05.600 --> 00:20:12.240
And Donna Martin's comment was like, you know, you if you have a pool, you can put a fence around it.
00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:17.440
But if you know that the child is going to find some way to get into that pool, shouldn't they know how to swim?
00:20:17.600 --> 00:20:17.840
Yeah.
00:20:18.080 --> 00:20:27.920
And I think that, you know, in order to be able to properly navigate the world and all the different types of people in it, familiarize yourself with people who are different than yourself.
00:20:28.240 --> 00:20:39.920
Because you're going to that's where conflict comes from, is not knowing how to communicate, not knowing how to touch base with somebody that you inevitably are going to have to from time to time in this world.
00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:41.440
Yeah, I agree with that.
00:20:41.760 --> 00:20:54.240
So, and and it's interesting too, because I do think that, especially in the early stages of our relationship, you were very much um, you know, a rainbow and gumdrops kind of person, I called it.
00:20:54.400 --> 00:21:15.120
But in reality, it was a it was a deliberate intention on your part to stay away from the things that made you feel uncomfortable, I think, in the hopes that you could hold on to that innocence of your childhood as long as you possibly could before coming to terms with the idea that the world is not what we are sold when we are growing up as children.
00:21:15.920 --> 00:21:18.240
I agree with that a hundred percent.
00:21:18.560 --> 00:21:20.640
And then enter me, stage left.
00:21:20.880 --> 00:21:21.680
And you ruined everything.
00:21:21.920 --> 00:21:26.240
And I I I blew the lid wide open on the first night we met.
00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:29.120
I asked if you had ever watched Less Than Zero, and you said no.
00:21:29.440 --> 00:21:30.240
No, no, it sounds fun.
00:21:30.320 --> 00:21:30.720
What is it?
00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:31.120
What?
00:21:31.280 --> 00:21:36.320
I was like, you're coming over tomorrow night, we're gonna order a pizza and we're gonna watch Less Than Zero.
00:21:36.640 --> 00:21:37.600
Oh and we did.
00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:38.400
And we did.
00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:45.920
That was that was the the gateway into so much of what my world really was growing up.
00:21:46.080 --> 00:21:52.000
I mean, I was a very precocious child, I was very eager to be ahead.
00:21:52.240 --> 00:22:01.200
Um, I think a lot of that was that my my school days were spent being bullied and teased and feeling less then.
00:22:01.360 --> 00:22:14.640
So whenever I was out of school, uh whether it was evenings or weekends, I was doing very adult things, not just to numb the pain that I felt during the day, but to engage in something that made me feel.
00:22:15.040 --> 00:22:23.360
Feel like even if these kids aren't aware of what I'm doing, I know that I'm doing something that contradicts the negative message.
00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:36.400
But again, not knowing as a kid how to exhibit boundaries and how to make productive decisions, those led to a lot of counterproductive and self-destructive decisions.
00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:42.000
Like I've been totally open to people who know me that I did my first line of cocaine when I was 12 years old.
00:22:42.720 --> 00:22:43.920
And it was the 80s.
00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:45.840
It was the Brett Easton Ellis era.
00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:46.000
Yeah.
00:22:46.160 --> 00:22:48.560
And I was hanging out with older kids in the neighborhood.
00:22:48.720 --> 00:23:04.000
It was there, and I went along for the ride because when I was doing that with them, it was the complete opposite experience to what I was experiencing as the kid during the day in school in my collegiate uniform being teased and made fun of.
00:23:04.480 --> 00:23:18.960
Do you I've I I've always wondered this, and it's not an assumption on my part, but just the connection that you have to Brett Easton Ellis and his stories and the types of film that we see.
00:23:19.520 --> 00:23:26.000
Do you feel that that connection to those characters or to those experiences yourself?
00:23:26.080 --> 00:23:31.360
Is that is that what draws you to it that you see like that that kindred experience in there?
00:23:31.440 --> 00:23:34.640
Or is it just something that you see strictly as entertainment that you're like, that's fun?
00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:36.640
No, it's not strictly entertainment.
00:23:36.720 --> 00:23:50.720
I think there is a bit of a kindred spirit, but it I think it goes more to what you said earlier, where like the characters in the shards didn't have the guidance, and so they found what they needed in that chosen family.
00:23:50.960 --> 00:23:51.280
Right.
00:23:51.520 --> 00:23:52.560
And that's what I did.
00:23:52.720 --> 00:23:52.880
Yeah.
00:23:53.120 --> 00:24:02.080
And so when I watch movies like Less Than Zero or The Informers, it's almost like, okay, the cheese doesn't stand alone.
00:24:02.320 --> 00:24:03.280
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:06.080
I'm thinking I'm not exclusive to this experience.
00:24:06.240 --> 00:24:08.320
There are other people that feel the way that I do.
00:24:08.400 --> 00:24:09.920
There are other people that feel broken.
00:24:10.080 --> 00:24:16.320
There are other people that do self-destructive things to try to fix what feels broken in them.
00:24:17.040 --> 00:24:25.600
And once you find that you are not alone, you don't work so hard on trying to hide the broken pieces of yourself from the world.
00:24:25.760 --> 00:24:38.800
And then all of that time and energy that you waste on that ends up going into actually building mindfulness and self-awareness and not fixing those broken parts, but healing from those broken parts.
00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:43.600
Because as we grow older, we all come into adulthood with some form of trauma.
00:24:43.760 --> 00:24:48.320
You can either choose to heal the hurt or to perpetuate the hurt.
00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:51.840
And for a big portion of my life, I perpetuated the hurt.
00:24:51.920 --> 00:24:53.920
I mean, I was just full of piss and vinegar.
00:24:54.080 --> 00:25:00.560
I wasn't a horrible person, but I, you know, when we first met, I was a very different person than I am now.
00:25:00.640 --> 00:25:03.280
I I lived life as if I had something to prove.
00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:05.040
And now I couldn't give a shit.
00:25:05.280 --> 00:25:06.320
And my life is so much different.
00:25:06.560 --> 00:25:07.440
It's a great place to be.
00:25:07.840 --> 00:25:08.080
Right?
00:25:08.320 --> 00:25:09.600
It really is a great place to be denied.
00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:11.520
I don't give a shit about people.
00:25:11.760 --> 00:25:12.000
Right.
00:25:12.160 --> 00:25:15.040
I don't give a shit about what people think of me.
00:25:15.120 --> 00:25:15.200
Yeah.
00:25:15.440 --> 00:25:19.760
Because I give them the true, honest, and authentic Jared.
00:25:19.920 --> 00:25:20.160
Yep.
00:25:20.320 --> 00:25:23.680
If you make something bad out of that, that's on you, not me.
00:25:23.920 --> 00:25:24.160
Right.
00:25:24.560 --> 00:25:27.520
And I think that's what a lot of these characters are missing.
00:25:27.920 --> 00:25:30.560
Well, they haven't discovered it yet because so many of them are so young.
00:25:31.120 --> 00:25:31.520
Exactly.
00:25:31.680 --> 00:25:32.000
Yeah.
00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:36.400
Um, and Ryan Murphy is to me a master of detail.
00:25:36.560 --> 00:25:52.880
So when you take something that is from the mind of Brett Easton Ellis, and you combine it with the uber attentive Ryan Murphy to detail when it comes to cars, clothing, music, so important.
00:25:53.280 --> 00:25:53.440
Yeah.
00:25:53.680 --> 00:26:00.800
All of the details and how people act in situations, it really is, as you mentioned, a match made in heaven.
00:26:00.880 --> 00:26:03.440
It is, I think it is pinnacle storytelling.
00:26:03.600 --> 00:26:13.840
And I'm just so pleased as someone who is a huge Brett Easton Ellis fan since Less Than Zero to see him uh in the Cultural Zeitgeist again.
00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:14.160
Yeah.
00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:17.600
And of course I saw Less Than Zero when I shouldn't have.
00:26:17.760 --> 00:26:20.080
I was 12 when I saw that movie.
00:26:20.880 --> 00:26:31.920
You know, it was so it was the end of the 80s, and I was entering junior high, and I, you know, I was like, fuck all to my elementary school experience.
00:26:32.240 --> 00:26:34.720
And I was just gonna go balls to the wall.
00:26:35.520 --> 00:26:39.760
And I had a really good time.
00:26:39.920 --> 00:26:42.080
I'm not gonna lie, I had a good time.
00:26:42.320 --> 00:26:47.680
I definitely stunted my growth, but you know, now that I'm here, I don't care.
00:26:47.920 --> 00:26:48.240
Yeah.
00:26:48.400 --> 00:26:53.040
You know, it's like once you get your driver's license, every day you didn't have your license doesn't matter anymore.
00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:53.440
Right.
00:26:53.600 --> 00:27:02.160
Once you reach a certain stage in your life, every part of your life that you weren't in that stage doesn't really matter anymore because we are meant to move forward.
00:27:02.320 --> 00:27:02.880
Yeah.
00:27:03.200 --> 00:27:06.400
So I I I really do love the person that I am.
00:27:06.560 --> 00:27:15.840
I'm very happy with the person that I am, and I am only that person because of the experiences and the decisions that I've made along the way.
00:27:16.080 --> 00:27:25.920
And the older I get, the better I am at understanding how to make decisions that are productive to my goals rather than counterproductive to my goals.
00:27:26.080 --> 00:27:32.080
And understanding balance and boundaries when it comes to my naturally hedonistic tendencies.
00:27:32.560 --> 00:27:34.400
I love the person that you am too.
00:27:34.960 --> 00:27:35.600
Thank you.
00:27:35.840 --> 00:27:42.560
And less than zero was uh it was a very big moment of realization for me.
00:27:42.640 --> 00:27:57.680
It was the first time I actually saw a movie that did not sugarcoat the experience of being a lonely child, being an ostracized child, being a child who felt like you didn't matter, regardless of how much attention people may have paid on you.
00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:00.240
It's the wrong kind of attention at the wrong time.
00:28:00.400 --> 00:28:00.720
Yeah.
00:28:00.960 --> 00:28:03.680
And the book is extremely different than the movie.
00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:05.760
Didn't you say there's vampires or something in it?
00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:06.960
That's the informers.
00:28:07.040 --> 00:28:07.440
Oh, okay.
00:28:07.760 --> 00:28:12.560
Less than zero is a lot harsher than the movie.
00:28:12.880 --> 00:28:31.040
There are some things in the book that actually do make me uncomfortable because it shows how far these people have pushed their boundaries, their human boundaries, in the search to feel whole and in doing so damage anybody else that crosses their path.
00:28:31.360 --> 00:28:40.960
Um there's a um just a disregard for human life and it is bothering.
00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:51.440
And the movie is, even though I said it didn't sugarcoat things, it did tone things down because the book was written about the children of Hollywood.
00:28:51.520 --> 00:28:51.760
Yeah.
00:28:51.920 --> 00:29:03.520
And none of the producers and the studio execs are going to let a movie or a book about their children depicted so honestly become a movie for the world at large to see.
00:29:03.760 --> 00:29:07.040
So it's very different than the book.
00:29:07.360 --> 00:29:14.800
And I appreciate both, but the movie will always have a special place in my heart because I saw it first.
00:29:14.960 --> 00:29:16.560
I love Jamie Gertz.
00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:23.920
Uh, I love the way that the movie was able to still get the message across, even in a toned-down way.
00:29:24.240 --> 00:29:26.480
So, like a little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down.
00:29:26.560 --> 00:29:26.880
Yeah.
00:29:27.040 --> 00:29:40.160
But still very raw, very real, very um acute in its perception of the situation and the time in these kids that were just like out of control.
00:29:40.800 --> 00:29:43.040
I think that's I think that's a great approach to it.
00:29:43.120 --> 00:29:52.240
In the same way that you mentioned not needing a full sexually explicit like moment in film to get the point across.
00:29:52.400 --> 00:29:54.080
It's the same kind of thing for me.
00:29:54.240 --> 00:30:05.920
Like it, yes, the book is going to be a little more in-depth, a little more detailed, and and and show or or reveal some things about these characters that maybe is a little too hot for TV, so to speak.
00:30:06.080 --> 00:30:06.240
Yeah.
00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:10.240
But I also think we don't need all of that to still get the point across.
00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:16.000
We still, it's still as impactful as it need be or could be with the story that it's telling.
00:30:16.240 --> 00:30:29.280
It's kind of like with uh it, when there are specific scenes taken from the book and not put into movie intentionally, we know that it's some of it would be depicted and could be controversial, but it also tells a great story without it.
00:30:29.360 --> 00:30:31.520
We don't need everything to be one for one.
00:30:31.920 --> 00:30:32.800
I agree with that.
00:30:32.880 --> 00:30:37.440
And anytime you turn a book into a movie, you have to edit for just tiny steps.
00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:37.920
Absolutely.
00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:38.160
Yeah.
00:30:38.480 --> 00:30:43.520
So I think that there were some very smart decisions made.
00:30:43.840 --> 00:30:52.160
I as an artist and as a creator, putting myself in Brett Easton Ellis' shoes, I could see why he might not be a fan of the movie.
00:30:53.040 --> 00:31:06.320
Um, but as an audience member and as somebody that was living that life as close to somebody could without going down the full rabbit hole, I appreciate its message um and its sentiment.
00:31:06.800 --> 00:31:13.200
And um I I just I really enjoyed it, and I was very happy when the sequel came out.
00:31:13.440 --> 00:31:17.360
I mean, almost 12 years or 22 years later.
00:31:17.600 --> 00:31:18.480
What was that called again?
00:31:18.800 --> 00:31:19.920
Imperial Bedrooms.
00:31:20.080 --> 00:31:20.240
Okay.
00:31:20.560 --> 00:31:27.440
And that one was I think in Informers, the movie came out in 2007.
00:31:29.840 --> 00:31:33.840
So I think Imperial Bedrooms may have been like around 2012.
00:31:34.080 --> 00:31:36.160
I'm not 100% sure, but sounds about right.
00:31:36.480 --> 00:31:51.360
Anyway, the thing that was interesting about the um Imperial Bedrooms novel was that it was the same characters from Less Than Zero, and these characters were aware of the Less Than Zero movie that had been made about them.
00:31:51.600 --> 00:31:52.000
Oh, right.
00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:58.880
So that's kind of like the meta experience of Imperial Bedrooms is that we rejoin these people years later.
00:31:59.040 --> 00:32:01.440
Julian is still alive somehow.
00:32:01.920 --> 00:32:13.280
Well, yeah, I mean, that was a decision that I think they made to give the characters of Blair and Clay the catalyst to step away from that life.
00:32:13.760 --> 00:32:16.400
In the book and in real life, that doesn't always happen.
00:32:16.560 --> 00:32:21.040
Um, but he's I think he's a homeless prostitute at this point in time.
00:32:21.760 --> 00:32:32.720
And like I said, the characters are all acutely aware of how they were altered and depicted uh in the less than zero movie, which is a part of this universe.
00:32:33.040 --> 00:32:33.360
Right.
00:32:33.600 --> 00:32:35.200
Uh and I I really liked it.
00:32:35.440 --> 00:32:39.040
I I would have liked to have seen it made into a movie, but it just Oh, they didn't.
00:32:39.280 --> 00:32:42.320
I they did they did not make Imperial Bedrooms into a movie.
00:32:42.480 --> 00:32:55.520
Now they did make the Informers into a movie, and the Informers, the book was actually like it's almost like different short stories that had the same common denominator strung together.
00:32:55.840 --> 00:32:56.960
Kind of like an anthology.
00:32:57.280 --> 00:33:04.320
Yeah, or or like uh that movie Crash, where all the different characters have one underlying thread that connects them all.
00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:14.400
And that one did dive into like vampires in Los Angeles and um other things that were just sort of like, how do you how do you turn this into a movie?
00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:20.160
So the movie again, it was altered to tell one continuous storyline.
00:33:20.480 --> 00:33:26.560
And this this is about the kids that came up a couple years before the kids in less than zero.
00:33:26.880 --> 00:33:32.160
And they were, I think they were out of high school.
00:33:32.720 --> 00:33:35.200
Um, so they were a little bit older.
00:33:35.440 --> 00:33:38.880
And I mean, but it's the same same thing, just broken people.
00:33:39.360 --> 00:34:01.600
Um, one of them is the informers, is a reference to the band that is playing throughout the movie, and the lead singer of the band is uh a heroin addict and an alcoholic and a pedophile, and then you've got the central characters um who kind of branch out into their friend and family group.
00:34:01.680 --> 00:34:04.240
And I don't want to give too much of the movie away.
00:34:04.560 --> 00:34:13.920
Amber Heard is in it, and I think she's great in it, and she is like the one thing that connects all of these characters.
00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:17.679
So at the end of the movie, you're like, fuck everybody.
00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:18.239
Yeah.
00:34:18.480 --> 00:34:26.079
It's it's more of the same, but in a very unique and uh isolated storytelling sense.
00:34:26.160 --> 00:34:27.200
That's that's very cool.
00:34:27.360 --> 00:34:34.320
I I again, it's another one that's very difficult for me to watch, but as I watch it, I find it very intriguing and seductive.
00:34:34.559 --> 00:34:34.960
Yeah.
00:34:35.200 --> 00:34:47.119
And then we have something that steps outside of the realm of teenage early adult angst, and we go to American Psycho, which is a phenomenal movie.
00:34:47.440 --> 00:34:47.920
It's a lot.
00:34:48.079 --> 00:34:50.480
It's it is, you know what, it is a lot.
00:34:50.640 --> 00:34:52.400
Uh I don't mind watching it though.
00:34:52.720 --> 00:34:55.680
I I I have to be in the headspace to watch it.
00:34:55.920 --> 00:34:56.640
Well, that's true.
00:34:56.800 --> 00:35:01.119
Like I can put on less than zero anytime and just be fine having it on even in the background.
00:35:01.280 --> 00:35:01.440
Yeah.
00:35:01.599 --> 00:35:04.400
Yes, American Psycho, I have to be in the headspace.
00:35:04.640 --> 00:35:11.519
I I guess I'll say I find myself in the headspace more often than I would think I would be to watch that movie.
00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:16.079
But it's, I mean, it's it's a great story, it's great acting.
00:35:16.320 --> 00:35:24.880
And I cannot confirm this, but I have been told that um what's his name?
00:35:25.039 --> 00:35:33.280
Christian Bale's character in American Psycho is the older brother to James Vanderbeek's character in the rules of attraction.
00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:34.800
Oh, that's right.
00:35:34.880 --> 00:35:35.760
You did mention that.
00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:36.400
That's cool.
00:35:37.039 --> 00:35:38.240
I I like little things like that.
00:35:38.800 --> 00:35:40.160
Just extended lore moments.
00:35:40.480 --> 00:35:44.880
I think all of his work I think it exists in the same universe.
00:35:45.200 --> 00:35:45.920
That would make sense.
00:35:46.079 --> 00:35:46.400
Yeah.
00:35:46.640 --> 00:36:04.240
Um, American Psycho was also kind of a little bit of a head trip for me, too, because you have this guy who's viciously murdering these people, and his his lust and zest for murder grows exponentially over the course of the movie.
00:36:04.400 --> 00:36:10.720
But then you have these people that are a part of his quote-unquote day life or work life that he doesn't even touch.
00:36:10.960 --> 00:36:11.200
Right.
00:36:11.440 --> 00:36:20.240
And it's like, how does a serial killer decide who is worthy of living and who is going to be on the chopping block?
00:36:20.480 --> 00:36:26.160
And that was really weird for me because you know, his girlfriend played by Reese Witherspoon, never in a million years would he kill her.
00:36:26.240 --> 00:36:31.680
His his mistress, the the douchebag guys that he hangs out with at the clubs.
00:36:31.920 --> 00:36:41.039
No, but some homeless guy and a dog in an alley, some woman that he just happened to be at a stopwalk, uh crosswalk with.
00:36:41.119 --> 00:36:41.440
Yeah.
00:36:41.680 --> 00:36:43.200
Like, sure, no problem.
00:36:43.440 --> 00:36:52.480
So it's it was very weird because the decision making seemed so intentional yet indiscriminate at the same time.
00:36:53.360 --> 00:36:54.320
And arbitrary.
00:36:54.640 --> 00:36:55.200
Yeah.
00:36:55.440 --> 00:36:57.280
That's I mean, at least from my point of view.
00:36:57.599 --> 00:36:58.640
That's well, for mine too.
00:36:58.720 --> 00:37:01.440
That's that's part of what makes it so dark and difficult for me.
00:37:01.599 --> 00:37:01.760
Yeah.
00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:08.160
Is that it could be anyone doing this, and it could be at any time, and it could be you.
00:37:08.800 --> 00:37:13.440
Another reason why it's important to make yourself aware of the world around you, right?
00:37:14.079 --> 00:37:33.680
Do you think do you think that Brett Easton Ellis writes these stories as a means to as a warning, or does he write them as a as as just like a storytelling, like, hey, my life was fucked up and here's what it was, or what I think would be a fun, entertaining version of it?
00:37:34.240 --> 00:37:41.760
Do you think he has a message where he's just trying to say, like, this world is really bad, you guys, and I want you to keep an eye out on yourselves.
00:37:42.320 --> 00:37:42.960
It's possible.
00:37:43.119 --> 00:37:44.960
Maybe we should listen to his podcast.
00:37:45.360 --> 00:37:45.680
Oh.
00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:46.800
Yeah.
00:37:47.119 --> 00:37:51.519
Um I I think that there's gotta be a cathartic process.
00:37:51.840 --> 00:37:52.480
Oh, cathartic.
00:37:52.720 --> 00:37:57.360
Cathartic, or it's so cathartic, to his story writing and storytelling.
00:37:57.680 --> 00:37:58.000
For him.
00:37:58.240 --> 00:37:58.400
Yeah.
00:37:58.559 --> 00:38:00.320
I I think that there is something of that.
00:38:00.559 --> 00:38:10.640
I think that also when you create something regardless of the intentional motivation behind the creation, if it's something that takes off with the general population, you're gonna continue.
00:38:10.960 --> 00:38:11.599
You're gonna keep doing it.
00:38:11.680 --> 00:38:12.480
Yeah, you're gonna keep doing it.
00:38:12.559 --> 00:38:13.200
It's validating.
00:38:13.440 --> 00:38:14.960
It's that's what Stephen King does.
00:38:15.119 --> 00:38:15.280
Right.
00:38:15.519 --> 00:38:18.720
He he releases this because they're dreams or nightmares of his.
00:38:18.880 --> 00:38:22.400
And part of that processing is releasing what he has experienced himself.
00:38:22.720 --> 00:38:43.760
It's I mean, it's one of the reasons why I enjoyed doing this podcast so much because being able to have these conversations with you out loud and for other people to listen and comment on is a way for me to process what I see happening in the world around me that I don't understand because it's not from my keyhole perception of life.
00:38:44.559 --> 00:38:50.320
But I understand that there is a whole other world out there outside of my own little keyhole perception.
00:38:50.480 --> 00:39:03.519
And I I want to be made aware of that because the more I'm aware of it, the broader the scope of my keyhole perception becomes to the point where maybe someday it won't be keyhole.
00:39:03.920 --> 00:39:06.960
It's kind of the premise of this podcast to stay curious.
00:39:07.280 --> 00:39:08.400
To stay curious, absolutely.
00:39:08.640 --> 00:39:11.360
We don't just say it because it's like, oh, how fun and catchy.
00:39:11.519 --> 00:39:23.440
We're saying it because that curia curiosity really helps to drive the human experience in a way that I think is very beneficial, enlightening, and ultimately just makes it a bit more bearable at times.
00:39:23.920 --> 00:39:28.320
Well, maybe someday we'll we'll get Brett Eastonellis as a guest on one of our episodes.
00:39:28.800 --> 00:39:29.440
That would be cool.
00:39:29.760 --> 00:39:38.960
We can really dig into where it all comes from and why it keeps coming up and why he chooses to constantly revisit something.
00:39:39.119 --> 00:40:02.000
And you know, one of the other things that I think about too is there are people in my life that whether their perception is accurate or not, or even just slightly exaggerated, view points in my life or things that I do even now as being wrong, being out of control, whatever negative connotation you want to add to it.
00:40:02.480 --> 00:40:09.920
But to me, it's my experience and it's wonderful and it's fascinating and it's my journey.
00:40:10.079 --> 00:40:12.480
And so for me, it's not a bad thing.
00:40:13.119 --> 00:40:18.880
Um, especially if you weren't the one that got pulled down into it.
00:40:18.960 --> 00:40:19.119
Right.
00:40:19.280 --> 00:40:24.720
You know, like I did all the things very fast, very early on.
00:40:25.200 --> 00:40:35.680
And I guess my lust for life and my desire to want to do all things kept me from getting sucked into just one thing.
00:40:35.920 --> 00:40:42.400
But there are people in my life that have really gone sideways.
00:40:42.720 --> 00:40:54.720
And I mean, we started out partying together with Blow in high school and then cut to 10 years later, and one of them is a heroin and crystal meth addict and injecting it.
00:40:54.880 --> 00:40:55.280
Right.
00:40:55.599 --> 00:40:58.960
And bad, bad, bad story.
00:40:59.360 --> 00:41:00.960
So what you're saying is just do everything.
00:41:01.360 --> 00:41:02.160
For me, no.
00:41:02.320 --> 00:41:06.000
For me, what I'm saying is that I'm the eye of my own storm.
00:41:06.160 --> 00:41:08.240
When you're in the eye of the storm, it's calm.
00:41:08.400 --> 00:41:08.880
Yeah.
00:41:09.119 --> 00:41:28.960
So for Brett, he might be putting all of this stuff out there that might seem extreme and and out of control for people, but when you've experienced the roller coaster, it's not as scary to you as it is to someone who's just standing on the ground watching the roller coaster go around, never having experienced it themselves.
00:41:29.280 --> 00:41:30.160
That's pretty cool.
00:41:30.480 --> 00:41:36.000
So if it's something that you like, if it's something that you enjoy, why not revisit it?
00:41:36.559 --> 00:41:39.200
As long as you're not repeating the same mistakes over again.
00:41:39.280 --> 00:42:02.400
And maybe that is another part of the process, too, is the more he writes about this, the more I talk about some of the things that felt out of control from my past, the more I'm able to realize how anchored I am now and how grateful I am that I am the person that I am that went through that storm, found the eye of it, and then got spit out the other end unscathed.
00:42:02.720 --> 00:42:04.400
He probably feels the same way.
00:42:04.640 --> 00:42:14.400
If if this is as truly uh autobiographical as it claims to be, which I have no reason to think otherwise, he probably feels the same way.
00:42:14.559 --> 00:42:14.720
Yeah.
00:42:14.960 --> 00:42:18.240
There's probably it's his process to process.
00:42:18.480 --> 00:42:18.880
Right.
00:42:19.119 --> 00:42:20.160
And I love that.
00:42:20.400 --> 00:42:22.400
That that really just resonated with me.
00:42:22.640 --> 00:42:25.519
It's his process to process.
00:42:25.760 --> 00:42:32.559
And we all have that right to process what we've experienced and to process the processing of it.
00:42:32.880 --> 00:42:36.000
It's very much like thinking about thinking.
00:42:36.160 --> 00:42:36.480
Yeah.
00:42:36.640 --> 00:42:41.280
And that breeds mindfulness, if not the definition of self-awareness.
00:42:41.440 --> 00:42:41.920
Right.
00:42:42.240 --> 00:42:47.680
Taking yourself outside of yourself and getting a bigger picture of the world around you.
00:42:47.760 --> 00:42:47.840
Yeah.
00:42:48.079 --> 00:43:13.280
Rather than just sort of bulldozing your way through life with your blinders on, which is, I think, so much of what we see on social media, on Instagram and TikTok, the bad behavior that we see on the social media platform is, I think, definitive of what we're talking about when we talk about traumatic, broken people who are choosing not to heal themselves because it's too scary to walk through the fire.
00:43:13.440 --> 00:43:13.599
Yeah.
00:43:13.840 --> 00:43:24.320
But yet here you have this example of however many other people you can find in your universe that have chosen to walk through the fire and are better for it.
00:43:24.480 --> 00:43:24.640
Right.
00:43:24.800 --> 00:43:35.119
Like we have a friend who is very intimidated by therapy and the change that therapy induces because, well, then I won't be me anymore.
00:43:35.440 --> 00:43:38.720
No, you will be a better version of yourself.
00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:40.880
It's not like pod people time.
00:43:41.039 --> 00:43:41.200
Right.
00:43:41.440 --> 00:43:52.160
You will be more self-realized, more self-actualized, more in control, not just of your actions, but of your emotions and your perceptions and how you choose to respond and react to the world at large.
00:43:52.320 --> 00:44:08.720
And that puts you in the driver's seat of not giving you control because there's very little we have control over, but it puts you in the driver's seat of your own life because now you start to understand why instead of just witnessing what's happening around you.
00:44:08.880 --> 00:44:16.880
And it's that shift in thinking of things happen to me, right, to things happen for me.
00:44:17.039 --> 00:44:17.360
Yeah.
00:44:17.680 --> 00:44:21.119
Everything becomes to your advantage rather than your disadvantage.
00:44:21.200 --> 00:44:25.599
And you remove yourself from being a victim of the experience of life.
00:44:26.079 --> 00:44:40.880
That mindful processing, uh, whether it be through therapy or just through your ability, if you've if you've figured that out for whatever reason, that that is what allows you or introduces you to yourself.
00:44:41.039 --> 00:44:41.360
Yeah.
00:44:41.599 --> 00:44:48.079
It gives you the opportunity to really discover who you have the opportunity to be, who you could potentially be.
00:44:48.320 --> 00:44:52.000
It's going to be different, but we have to strive for that too.
00:44:52.640 --> 00:44:54.480
Well, isn't it absolutely wonderful?
00:44:54.720 --> 00:44:57.760
It's pretty to look at yourself in the mirror and say you.
00:44:58.000 --> 00:44:58.160
Yeah.
00:44:58.480 --> 00:45:04.960
And I think a lot of people feel so little about themselves as the world intends to make us feel.
00:45:05.280 --> 00:45:05.680
Right.
00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:10.079
That people look in the mirror and they think, I don't want to know who that person is.
00:45:10.559 --> 00:45:15.360
Or they'll get messages from other people who say, I'm not interested in that other version of you.
00:45:15.680 --> 00:45:17.440
And that's why you have to not give a fuck.
00:45:17.680 --> 00:45:18.079
Right.
00:45:18.320 --> 00:45:19.360
It's really important.
00:45:19.519 --> 00:45:19.840
Yeah.
00:45:20.079 --> 00:45:20.960
It's really important.
00:45:21.360 --> 00:45:23.519
I I completely agree with you.
00:45:23.760 --> 00:45:26.000
I I want to be my friend.
00:45:26.160 --> 00:45:27.920
I want to know myself.
00:45:28.240 --> 00:45:33.119
And that is a really good feeling because for a big part of my life, I ran from that.
00:45:33.200 --> 00:45:35.280
And I think it's the only reason.
00:45:35.920 --> 00:45:39.440
Only reason that I can speak to it.
00:45:39.680 --> 00:45:40.079
Right.
00:45:40.320 --> 00:45:40.480
Yeah.
00:45:40.800 --> 00:45:42.240
Because I experienced it.
00:45:42.320 --> 00:45:42.480
Yeah.
00:45:42.640 --> 00:45:45.760
I'm not coming from a place of inexperience and judgment.
00:45:45.920 --> 00:45:48.400
I'm coming from a place of experience and empathy.
00:45:48.720 --> 00:45:53.440
Not just for other people who are struggling with that fight, but for myself.
00:45:53.680 --> 00:46:01.680
And if you can treat yourself the way you treat the person that you like the most in this world, that is a wonderful place to be.
00:46:02.160 --> 00:46:04.320
Because charity starts in the home.
00:46:04.559 --> 00:46:13.200
So if you can fix yourself, if you can heal yourself, if you can love yourself, then everyone else around you is going to benefit from that as well.
00:46:13.519 --> 00:46:13.760
Right.
00:46:14.320 --> 00:46:14.640
Yep.
00:46:15.519 --> 00:46:24.160
So I think that's probably maybe another reason why Brett Easton Ellis writes what he writes, why Ryan Murphy produces what he produces.
00:46:24.480 --> 00:46:35.840
Why there are certain people that choose to tell stories that make people uncomfortable because if it wasn't uncomfortable, then where would the growth come from?
00:46:36.160 --> 00:46:37.280
No pain, no gain.
00:46:37.519 --> 00:46:37.760
Right.
00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:39.920
So I applaud their efforts.
00:46:40.079 --> 00:46:41.440
I applaud their art.
00:46:42.079 --> 00:46:47.519
And it definitely is something that I find entertaining, but I also find thought-provoking.
00:46:48.240 --> 00:46:51.200
And I quite like it.
00:46:56.160 --> 00:46:58.640
So uh thank you guys for listening.
00:46:58.800 --> 00:47:00.079
I think we're gonna end on that.
00:47:00.240 --> 00:47:05.280
Don't forget to tune into the Shards Wednesday nights at nine o'clock on FX or Hulu.
00:47:05.840 --> 00:47:09.840
And um we're gonna go have a Brett Easton Ellis evening.
00:47:10.079 --> 00:47:11.920
We will see you guys next Tuesday.
