This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jess McKinlay: Hi guys, I didn't see you there.

[0:01] Andrew Dolph: Today's show is brought to you by the extremely kind donation.

[0:04] Jess McKinlay: We did that one last time, Jess.

[0:06] Andrew Dolph: By our donors over at Patreon.

[0:09] Jess McKinlay: Yeah yeah, you asshole.

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[0:31] Andrew Dolph: Merang Murray.

[0:34] Jess McKinlay: You're on a room and Alice in Wonderland.

[0:36] Andrew Dolph: I think that is the worst read you have ever done of that.

[0:39] Jess McKinlay: But these folks give us a little financial support that helps us keep the lights on here at Musicals with Cheese.

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[0:53] Jess McKinlay: Alright, Andrew, are you ready to start this show?

[0:56] Andrew Dolph: I'm ready to start this show.

[0:58] Jess McKinlay: Let's let's get it on.

[0:59] Andrew Dolph: Let's get it on, guys.

[1:00] Jess McKinlay: Alright.

[1:01] Andrew Dolph: Let's get it on.

[1:07] Jess McKinlay: Hello, I'm Jess McKinlay.

[1:10] Andrew Dolph: And I am Andrew Dolph.

[1:12] Jess McKinlay: And welcome to Musicals with Cheese, a podcast where I try to get Andrew to like musical theater.

[1:16] Andrew Dolph: How are you doing today, Andrew?

[1:18] Andrew Dolph: Well, I couldn't sleep last night, and then I woke up and I'm in this nightmare world where technology exists and it's it's awful.

[1:27] Andrew Dolph: Everything's awful.

[1:29] Jess McKinlay: Oh.

[1:30] Andrew Dolph: Me too. Would you believe that?

[1:33] Jess McKinlay: Yeah.

[1:34] Andrew Dolph: We're talking about our tech, guys.

[1:45] Jess McKinlay: But of course there's no more coming back.

[1:47] Andrew Dolph: No rehabilitation.

[1:49] Jess McKinlay: No nuance.

[1:50] Andrew Dolph: Just noise and complete annihilation.

[1:53] Jess McKinlay: The mob never forgets.

[1:55] Andrew Dolph: The mob never forgets.

[1:59] Jess McKinlay: Even though you don't fucking know me.

[2:09] Andrew Dolph: Fucking idea what you're talking about.

[2:14] Jess McKinlay: Octet is a chamber choir musical written and composed by Dave Malloy and directed by Annie Tip.

[2:23] Andrew Dolph: The show explores addiction and nihilism within the messy context of 21st century technology.

[2:29] Jess McKinlay: Featuring a score for an a cappella chamber choir and an original libretto, inspired by internet comment boards, scientific debates, religious text, and poetry.

[2:42] Andrew Dolph: Octet explores addiction and nihilism within the messy context of 21st century technology.

[2:49] Jess McKinlay: You bet it does.

[2:50] Andrew Dolph: Now what'd you think of a I don't know.

[2:54] Jess McKinlay: What?

[2:55] Andrew Dolph: I think this is the most mixed I've ever felt on a show here.

[3:01] Jess McKinlay: And we've been mixed on a lot of things before.

[3:04] Andrew Dolph: Like, how does it compare to like something like no one called ahead?

[3:07] Jess McKinlay: Things like um hello again.

[3:11] Andrew Dolph: Those just they either felt like good, but not for me, or kind of incomplete in a way.

[3:20] Jess McKinlay: Whereas this one, it feels complete, the music is good, and I agree with some of the stuff that they're trying to say, and I understand, I think, I think I understand what they're trying to say, um, but a lot of it, I think, is really uh I don't agree with, is I guess the best way to say it.

[3:40] Andrew Dolph: I mean, I have very similar thoughts to you, which is rare, but I'd bump and say that the music is great.

[3:45] Jess McKinlay: It's not just good, it's like fantastic.

[3:48] Andrew Dolph: A fantastic score.

[3:50] Jess McKinlay: I think it's very well written, but I I I do prefer when there's instruments.

[3:54] Andrew Dolph: Mm-hmm.

[3:54] Jess McKinlay: And you know the basic premise of like the story, so to say, that it is, where they're kind of like at a support group and they're all kind of like speaking their own stories to one another.

[4:05] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, and each song is a different person describing what their uh well, to use their terms, their monster is, which is either an addiction to social media or uh usually just something to do with social media, uh, or technology.

[4:23] Jess McKinlay: I I I have a lot of issue with the way that a lot of people just attack social media.

[4:29] Andrew Dolph: Like, do you ever see those like boomer-esque images where it's like everyone's looking at their phone and it's like no one's connecting anymore.

[4:37] Jess McKinlay: Yeah.

[4:38] Andrew Dolph: That pisses me the fuck off.

[4:40] Jess McKinlay: Because honestly, like this show wouldn't exist without you and me in as a connection through the internet waves.

[4:47] Andrew Dolph: Yeah.

[4:47] Jess McKinlay: We are, and I guess we we've never really gone into our backstory on the show, I don't think.

[4:52] Andrew Dolph: No.

[4:52] Jess McKinlay: At least not in full.

[4:53] Andrew Dolph: We have not, we have not given her this is the This is the best time to go into it because I mean this whole show is about how like it's it's one of those uh social media makes people disconnect sort of uh messages.

[5:08] Jess McKinlay: Yes.

[5:09] Andrew Dolph: And we are in a unique position where we have never met in person, and the only reason we even know each other is through social media.

[5:17] Jess McKinlay: A hundred percent.

[5:18] Andrew Dolph: So one hundred percent through social media, and we have known each other for almost like 10 years now, right?

[5:24] Jess McKinlay: Yes, and I consider you one of my closer friends.

[5:27] Andrew Dolph: Like, you probably know more shit about me than most people.

[5:30] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, so when we are listening to something like this, we may have a different perspective than someone who is just on social media talking to their real life friends.

[5:41] Andrew Dolph: Um, because obviously we don't do just that.

[5:44] Jess McKinlay: We we literally know people on social media that we do connect with.

[5:49] Andrew Dolph: Um so it's a little bit of a different perspective, I suppose.

[5:53] Jess McKinlay: And I'm you know, I'm not sure if the messaging in this is more heavy-handed than he the the uh writer intends because he's going to extremes.

[6:04] Andrew Dolph: Um, like maybe this is only about people who are like super addicted to social media, and it we're not really supposed to take these messages, but the way it's written, it's it's almost just like attacking social media as a whole in general, not just strict addicts to it.

[6:20] Jess McKinlay: It seems like it's t attacking technology as a whole.

[6:23] Andrew Dolph: Um Yeah, yeah, actually, you're right.

[6:25] Jess McKinlay: It is more technology, not just social media.

[6:27] Andrew Dolph: I wouldn't even say just social media, it's attacking I don't even know I don't I wouldn't even call them attacks, even because this is specifically an addiction group that the framing device is, and just like any other addiction, a little bit of it is fine.

[6:43] Jess McKinlay: Uh when you start overdoing it, it become and you become as a reliant.

[6:47] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, that's that's a bit of a problem.

[6:50] Jess McKinlay: But some of these stories I don't see it as a crazy addiction for these people.

[6:55] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, I think there's the one song where they're talking about someone who uses their phone in bed with their spouse, and they're acting like that is like an addiction and they're disconnected because of it.

[7:08] Jess McKinlay: It sounds to me like they're using their phone in bed because they don't like each other to begin with.

[7:13] Andrew Dolph: Um, you know?

[7:14] Jess McKinlay: Like if they're really not communicating whatsoever and all they do is stare at their phones in bed, there's probably a deeper problem than using your phone.

[7:23] Andrew Dolph: Right.

[7:24] Jess McKinlay: Okay, well, my thought was uh, you know, what is m what am I supposed to take away from that message?

[7:24] Andrew Dolph: Am I supposed to just think, oh man, I I better never use my phone in bed, or else, you know, my uh loved one will think that I am completely disconnected from them.

[7:40] Jess McKinlay: Uh like like what is the message there, you know.

[7:43] Andrew Dolph: A lot of these come from the point of view of public figures, so to say, like, especially the one or viral sensations.

[7:51] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, I think that's some of the some of the s better stuff in the rather than say the you and me's of the world that just go on there for their news and shit.

[8:00] Andrew Dolph: I think the best songs are the the opening and the second song.

[8:05] Jess McKinlay: I mean, I have my own disagreements there, but let's not go into the songs too much.

[8:10] Andrew Dolph: Let me talk a little bit about it.

[8:11] Jess McKinlay: I mean message-wise is what I meant.

[8:14] Andrew Dolph: Let me talk a little bit about Dave Malloy.

[8:17] Jess McKinlay: Um, who we've talked about a previous musical of his, which was Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.

[8:23] Andrew Dolph: Yeah.

[8:23] Jess McKinlay: And you like that, and I like I love that.

[8:26] Andrew Dolph: That's one of my favorite musicals of all time.

[8:29] Jess McKinlay: It is very good.

[8:30] Andrew Dolph: We'll not disagree.

[8:32] Jess McKinlay: Yes.

[8:33] Andrew Dolph: But it's hard to see and we brought up in that episode we're not gonna go over that entire story, but a lot of social media bullshit went down that resulted in the closure of that show.

[8:45] Jess McKinlay: Yes.

[8:46] Andrew Dolph: And it's hard for me to not see this as a reaction from Dave Malloy of that.

[8:53] Jess McKinlay: Of that entire situation that went down.

[8:55] Andrew Dolph: I I would go so far as I I could not believe, like if he told me it was not, I don't think I'd believe him.

[9:01] Jess McKinlay: Right.

[9:02] Andrew Dolph: It feels like a direct response to that.

[9:05] Jess McKinlay: Yeah.

[9:06] Andrew Dolph: Like it's like all you people are just obsessed with technology and harassing people, and geez, I'm gonna write a whole thing about how bad that is.

[9:17] Jess McKinlay: And I don't mean to shit on Dave Malloy, because I do think he is a genius.

[9:21] Andrew Dolph: Like properly a musical genius.

[9:24] Jess McKinlay: Say we're saying whatever we want about the messaging and everything, but the the music in this is really phenomenal, so you know, I I can't really critique that aspect of it at all.

[9:35] Andrew Dolph: I almost feel like I don't know a good comparison for it where The Incredibles, The Incredibles is actually a really good comparison to this.

[9:43] Jess McKinlay: Um I love The Incredibles, I think it is a gorgeously made film, the comedy lands well.

[9:48] Andrew Dolph: I disagree with the message wholeheartedly.

[9:50] Jess McKinlay: I think the Lion King is another good example where the messaging in that is awful, but the movie is good.

[9:57] Andrew Dolph: I mean, I think you disagree with that, but I think the movie's good.

[10:00] Jess McKinlay: I mean, you can't shit on like the quality of the songwriting by Elton John and the animation, but the messaging, and I don't much care for the story itself.

[10:09] Andrew Dolph: But we're not talking about Lion King today.

[10:11] Jess McKinlay: That's our other podcast.

[10:14] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, we'll do that, and maybe eventually we'll do the other Lion King on there.

[10:19] Jess McKinlay: If they ever put on Disney Plus, yeah.

[10:23] Andrew Dolph: They will.

[10:23] Jess McKinlay: We know they will.

[10:26] Andrew Dolph: But I don't know.

[10:28] Jess McKinlay: Uh it always bothers me.

[10:29] Andrew Dolph: Like, there's I Well, I was at film school.

[10:33] Jess McKinlay: There's about five films that had the exact premise of this, the technology bad, and I don't like quantifiable black and white thing bad.

[10:41] Andrew Dolph: Because that just removes the nuances of it.

[10:43] Jess McKinlay: And this tries to have the nuances of it, but it still is very much in the position of technology bad.

[10:49] Andrew Dolph: It feels really heavy-handed.

[10:50] Jess McKinlay: I can't even really think of an example where they kind of go the other way with it.

[10:54] Andrew Dolph: The framing device of them being at an alc uh uh basically uh circle for the addicts, basically.

[11:02] Jess McKinlay: I'm sure if we did a musical about alcoholics anonymous, we aren't gonna thinking boy, alcohol.

[11:08] Andrew Dolph: They really they really did a number on alcohol there.

[11:11] Jess McKinlay: Well, here's the thing though, that framing device is it's just that.

[11:16] Andrew Dolph: It's just a framing device, because those characters aren't really characters, and I think you're supposed to take them as this is society as a whole.

[11:24] Jess McKinlay: We are the addicts, you know?

[11:28] Andrew Dolph: I like that.

[11:33] Jess McKinlay: Yes, so I don't think that you can frame this as oh no, he's only talking about addicts.

[11:33] Andrew Dolph: He's only talking about a specific group.

[11:40] Jess McKinlay: Uh this is about society.

[11:42] Andrew Dolph: The addicts group is supposed to be society.

[11:46] Jess McKinlay: I feel this has more to say about our society than the Joker movie.

[11:50] Andrew Dolph: Like I have more things I want to talk about with this than that.

[11:54] Jess McKinlay: We live in a society.

[11:57] Andrew Dolph: I hate his Joker, guys.

[11:59] Jess McKinlay: Um stop stop jerking it off, folks.

[12:03] Andrew Dolph: It's great.

[12:03] Jess McKinlay: I like when he dances on the stairs.

[12:06] Andrew Dolph: To a song written by a pedophile, yeah, I love that scene too.

[12:10] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, me too.

[12:13] Andrew Dolph: I feel like we just have to get right into this, man.

[12:16] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, we do.

[12:16] Andrew Dolph: We do.

[12:17] Jess McKinlay: Let's just go track by track to this.

[12:19] Andrew Dolph: I don't think there's any other way to discuss this.

[12:21] Jess McKinlay: Let's go.

[12:22] Andrew Dolph: Let's dive in.

[12:23] Jess McKinlay: First song, him the forest.

[12:26] Andrew Dolph: Obsession isomia depression.

[12:30] Jess McKinlay: And the fear that I've wasted too much of myself on rapid and rapid click clicks.

[12:38] Andrew Dolph: Anxiety inability to assimilate the society.

[12:45] Jess McKinlay: And the fear that the monster will find me, infect me, and blind me.

[12:49] Andrew Dolph: But you're my heart and distort my soul.

[12:52] Jess McKinlay: It's starting to get to me.

[13:05] Andrew Dolph: Okay.

[13:06] Jess McKinlay: I'd like to hear your interpretation before I go into mine.

[13:09] Andrew Dolph: Oh god.

[13:10] Jess McKinlay: Um, I don't really have one aside from the fact that like being lost in the woods is kind of being lost in technology, or at least that's what I feel the metaphor is.

[13:21] Andrew Dolph: Maybe I maybe I'm misinterpreting it, but I thought the forest represented like before technology.

[13:29] Jess McKinlay: And I don't know.

[13:31] Andrew Dolph: This one I don't really have a clear this one doesn't have like this is a um song that like s just kind of sets the thing up, and it doesn't really have a clear message for me.

[13:43] Jess McKinlay: Do you want to hear what the artist because Dave Malloy, which is one of my favorite things that he does, um, he puts the lyrics up on genius and then he writes uh his own artist notes next to it.

[13:54] Andrew Dolph: Um he says the song was inspired by a phoneless sunset walk through a beautiful foggy park in Seattle, with dancing dewdrop fairies all round.

[14:03] Jess McKinlay: The moon was indeed in the sky, giving the song its territ card, um some roman numeral number, the moon.

[14:11] Andrew Dolph: We all start off as fools.

[14:13] Jess McKinlay: Most much of it is dancing and finding your way back.

[14:16] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, so my interpretation of it is the forest is without the technology, and then they sing about the monster is the addiction and everything to the technology, and they're trying to remember to go back to the forest.

[14:31] Jess McKinlay: Am I incorrect on that?

[14:33] Andrew Dolph: I think that pretty much agrees with what he's trying to say.

[14:35] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, I agree with that entirely.

[14:37] Andrew Dolph: Was that always your message of what you thought this song meant?

[14:41] Jess McKinlay: Um, yes, actually. That was my original.

[14:44] Andrew Dolph: What do you think of the song musically?

[14:46] Jess McKinlay: I think this song is very good, and it really sucked me in right away, musically. Um, and this one is not it's not quite so objectionable because you know, there probably is definitely times we should put the phone down and it's fine, you know.

[15:03] Andrew Dolph: So read a fucking book.

[15:05] Jess McKinlay: I like this song. That's basically the message of this song. Like maybe we should read a book.

[15:10] Andrew Dolph: Don't read any books.

[15:11] Jess McKinlay: Don't read books. Books are just as bad as phones; they'll give you eye strain, and we should go back to a time before books were invented, so people would stop reading them all the time.

[15:20] Andrew Dolph: Yep.

[15:21] Jess McKinlay: Look at Pierre.

[15:22] Andrew Dolph: Look at Pierre.

[15:23] Jess McKinlay: He is just sucked into his books. He won't communicate with anyone.

[15:26] Andrew Dolph: The books have destroyed him.

[15:29] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, so the first time he looks at someone, he cries and can't find his sleeves.

[15:35] Andrew Dolph: Books are awful and should not have been invented.

[15:39] Jess McKinlay: Yes, take that warm piece. Next song.

[15:41] Andrew Dolph: It was like my eyes were sewn open with the piece of electric thread.

[15:49] Jess McKinlay: Go to bed, go to bed, no, just one more.

[15:54] Andrew Dolph: One shallow little race would light my brain up like a torch.

[15:59] Jess McKinlay: I became a junkie for it.

[16:01] Andrew Dolph: Digging deeper on the memes in poster make me feel more shitty.

[16:06] Jess McKinlay: Make my shame hurt the most click swipe.

[16:09] Andrew Dolph: Fuck, click, swipe, fuck, click, swipe, fuck, click, swipe, fuck, click, click.

[16:16] Jess McKinlay: My name is that my name.

[16:27] Andrew Dolph: Is that my name?

[16:32] Jess McKinlay: Oh god.

[16:36] Andrew Dolph: Oh my little data.

[16:45] Jess McKinlay: As an eye called for allness and so then I went away.

[17:06] Andrew Dolph: Refresh.

[17:07] Jess McKinlay: What this one I like a lot, actually. I like this one because it is a story song. Um, this alongside Little God, which we'll get to later, which really isn't a song, but I like it anyways. These two are my favorite parts of the story, and I know you disagree with me. But what do you think of Refresh?

[17:24] Andrew Dolph: Well, I like this story. Cause I well. I mean, this one we're not we're we're not really public figures, and we've never dealt with this type of stuff. But you see a lot of public figures um go through this type of thing.

[17:39] Jess McKinlay: And I feel like this song is this song is probably the most direct response to what happened to him, I would say.

[17:48] Andrew Dolph: Yes.

[17:51] Jess McKinlay: Very much so. Um, and I that's why I feel like this one is it just hits home the hardest, because I think with his direct experience with what happens in this situation, he was really able to nail it.

[18:09] Andrew Dolph: And so basically what happens in the song, this woman had an incident in public. Um, it's called White Woman Goes Crazy video.

[18:20] Jess McKinlay: And they don't get into specifics for very obvious reasons. And Dave Malloy says that the song is based on actual internet shaming he witnessed on Twitter in 2018, or experience on Twitter in 2018.

[18:33] Andrew Dolph: Yep.

[18:34] Jess McKinlay: Um, and he even admits, and it was based on his own relatively minimal but nonetheless impactful experience with myopathy and righteous internet mobs.

[18:43] Andrew Dolph: And uh, and let's be real, I mean, who has not been involved in an internet mob at some point? I mean, I know I've been on the train. I know you and I kind of jumped on the pro-Jared train because it was fun.

[18:56] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, and and sure, it's fun, but then, you know, I honestly I regret it. That situation was a personal situation that I really shouldn't we shouldn't have talked about, and uh it's not something we should have been discussing.

[19:11] Andrew Dolph: I mean, you know, I feel kind of bad about it. I still don't even know the whole story.

[19:15] Jess McKinlay: Um, I don't know what if anything happened to the victims there, and I don't really want to go into it.

[19:21] Andrew Dolph: But neither do I, but that's not saying that it really wasn't my place to discuss it.

[19:26] Jess McKinlay: It wasn't our place to discuss it, and we turned something that was eventually serious into like basically a meme.

[19:32] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, and that happens a lot. I mean, these type of things go down, and then everyone makes memes about man, at least I'm not as horrible as uh topic of the week.

[19:44] Jess McKinlay: And it even goes to this line in the song, which is even though you don't fucking know me at all, no you know you've no fucking idea what we are talking about, which is basically us. In any one of these mob situations, we don't know the nuances behind it.

[20:00] Andrew Dolph: We know what is released to us via either Twitter or anything like that.

[20:05] Jess McKinlay: And sometimes you don't even know that. Sometimes you just see the memes, so you only see the very worst part.

[20:13] Andrew Dolph: And then you're like, oh man, that's horrible. I'm jumping on this train.

[20:17] Jess McKinlay: And you only read the sources that you want. Um, even with a lot of other internet hate mobs um that we see around, like specifically uh channel that might or might not be that awesome, like that entire situation has gone into a fucking huge mess that I don't even want to keep up with anymore.

[20:39] Andrew Dolph: Yeah.

[20:40] Jess McKinlay: But and and that's just something we're not gonna discuss here because honestly, I don't know. I don't know the situations.

[20:47] Andrew Dolph: And early days, in the early days of Twitter, this was a lot of fun to like hate mob on something that was easy to hate. But now nothing is as black and white as we thought it was.

[21:00] Jess McKinlay: Yeah.

[21:01] Andrew Dolph: So I this song in particular, I think is incredibly relevant and is something that made me think, even, because like, you know, I think we've all been involved in this, and and you when you aren't when you aren't the victim of it, you don't really think about it.

[21:17] Jess McKinlay: Until you hear it from that perspective.

[21:19] Andrew Dolph: That is pretty profound there, Mr. DeWolf.

[21:22] Jess McKinlay: We're not being very funny. We're just talking about shit now.

[21:24] Andrew Dolph: Like we're getting real deep into this one.

[21:26] Jess McKinlay: Well, this is a this is like, okay, so I'm saying I don't agree with all the messages here, and we haven't really gotten into any of the songs that we do disagree with yet, but we will.

[21:39] Andrew Dolph: Um, but uh I'm not saying that it's not thought provoking, because I can disagree with something and still say that's a decent point, or that made me think.

[21:50] Jess McKinlay: Uh I'm just saying I don't agree.

[21:54] Andrew Dolph: Um, you ready to move on to candy?

[21:56] Jess McKinlay: I play my candy anywhere and anyhow. No one around can stop me.

[22:02] Andrew Dolph: When I'm with candy, I don't have to think about all of the sound about me.

[22:09] Jess McKinlay: I play in my bed from the minute that my head cycles on on the John.

[22:14] Andrew Dolph: Take my meds in the bath from my hand off if it's wet in the kitchen on my email, someone's pitching that I don't care.

[22:22] Jess McKinlay: I just stare at the glare on the street, looking down at my feet, in the rain, on the train, in the crowd, in the loud, loud bow bow candy candy, no one's gone above me.

[22:35] Andrew Dolph: Uh this is the first one that I was like, really? We're gonna go there.

[22:40] Jess McKinlay: Well, well, you let's give context to our audience of where you're coming from, which I think we should do more often.

[22:46] Andrew Dolph: Um, if I've learned anything from our last week episode on Bear, we probably should give our own context for our own experience to understand and contextualize why we feel certain ways.

[22:57] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, it's true. Because obviously we are not omnipresent, we do not have all life experiences, so we try to sympathize with all of them and not shut out them, but sometimes things might hit us differently than others, which I'm sure is gonna be a lot of the reasons why we feel the way we do on here.

[23:14] Andrew Dolph: Okay, well, I guess if you want my context, um, I mean, you probably have guessed, but I am a gamer uh of sorts.

[23:23] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, I'm a Nazi. Sorry, a gamer.

[23:25] Andrew Dolph: No.

[23:27] Jess McKinlay: Oh no.

[23:31] Andrew Dolph: Okay. No, but um I've played video games for a long time, and I have met several friends playing video games.

[23:38] Jess McKinlay: Again, met friends that I have never met in real life and have been playing games with them for about ten years.

[23:45] Andrew Dolph: Um, I've played games competitively, certain games, um, so I do take it pretty seriously at times.

[23:52] Jess McKinlay: Uh and I I don't think it has detracted from my life in any way, and it has in fact improved it and made me more social and more confident with myself.

[24:02] Andrew Dolph: Um, so of course, this is the entire s the entire song here is about a person who eats Doritos and uh doesn't go outside.

[24:12] Jess McKinlay: So do you want to hear Dave Malloy's context of reference for this?

[24:17] Andrew Dolph: Um, so basically his main reference for this is Candy Crush.

[24:22] Jess McKinlay: Um and how he describes it as like this addictive brain trance.

[24:25] Andrew Dolph: And those are the kind of games I get into, like those small games like in between shit where I just need to look at a screen for a while.

[24:32] Jess McKinlay: He also brings up World of Warcraft, which has candy in it, um, Cookie Clicker and Universal Paperclips.

[24:38] Andrew Dolph: Um those are the games that he's mostly referring to.

[24:42] Jess McKinlay: And I I do you feel that games can be addictive, like video gaming?

[24:49] Andrew Dolph: Um in a way, I suppose. Though the thing is, it's not it's not really like an actual addiction addiction.

[24:58] Jess McKinlay: I don't know. It's like one of those things where you quite literally could stop and you probably would not experience any withdrawals or anything like that.

[25:07] Andrew Dolph: But there are certain people that want to just keep playing.

[25:10] Jess McKinlay: I guess it'd be most comparable to gambling, which there is gambling addictions, but it's not quite the same as like a substance addiction.

[25:17] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, that's a little different.

[25:18] Jess McKinlay: But do you remember this might be mid-2000s viral video talk? Um, the kid whose parents like deleted his World of Warcraft account and he like shoved a remote up his ass and freaked the fuck out.

[25:30] Andrew Dolph: Um, I don't remember that, but I do I know there is some gamer freak outs and shit.

[25:35] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, and I feel like those are akin to unhealthy behavior from addictive habits developed from video gaming.

[25:42] Andrew Dolph: I'd like to throw out a counterpoint on that though.

[25:45] Jess McKinlay: I'm welcoming it.

[25:46] Andrew Dolph: Um videos where like parents destroy kids' Xbox and the kid freaks out.

[25:52] Jess McKinlay: Um, have you ever had something that you use every single day? And what would you do if someone what like your parents just took it and destroyed it for no reason?

[26:02] Andrew Dolph: Like you'd probably be pretty pissed off, and if you were like a teenager, you may do something ridiculous.

[26:08] Jess McKinlay: So is that addiction or is that uh invasion of privacy and uh a rightful freak out?

[26:16] Andrew Dolph: I'm indifferent. I mean, it's not like they're beating the shit out of their kids.

[26:20] Jess McKinlay: I mean, psychology says that removal of things is healthy for like negative punishment, so to say.

[26:28] Andrew Dolph: But it also needs to be supplemented with the addition of things.

[26:32] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, and a lot of parents don't do that. They just take stuff away and that's it.

[26:34] Andrew Dolph: Or they just beat the shit out of their kids.

[26:39] Jess McKinlay: Yeah.

[26:39] Andrew Dolph: Which is technically a positive punishment. That's it's giving a punishment.

[26:46] Jess McKinlay: And that is a that is not good either.

[26:49] Andrew Dolph: Um, positive punishment.

[26:51] Jess McKinlay: Uh um so he does add a little disclaimer in his notes.

[26:58] Andrew Dolph: He says he loves video games, both are as mindless entertainment and as high art.

[27:01] Jess McKinlay: There are a few games that would count among the most profound and moving pieces of storytelling I've ever experienced with no ability to immerse you in a narrative that no other art form can match.

[27:12] Andrew Dolph: Um everything that it are breathtakingly beautiful and meditative use the medium to explore consciousness, spirituality, and metaphysics in deeply sophisticated and profound ways.

[27:21] Jess McKinlay: But yeah, video games can also have addictions and that people live literally died from playing them too much.

[27:27] Andrew Dolph: So I I like that he's written these notes on here to like add some contextualization for it, but also I preferred if there's kid that contextualization was actually in the songs and the material given.

[27:40] Jess McKinlay: Yeah.

[27:41] Andrew Dolph: So the contextualization there makes me be like, yeah, I c I agree with that. Definitely there are people that take video games way too far, and there are basement dwellers who eat Doritos all day and and play video games, and and that is a real thing.

[27:54] Jess McKinlay: Um, but at the same time, in the song here, none of that is mentioned.

[28:00] Andrew Dolph: All in and you know, stuff like uh I know that candy rots my teeth.

[28:05] Jess McKinlay: I thought it was a phase. Is that that made me when I was listening to the song, I was like, oh, so video games are a thing for kids, you think, and he should have stopped playing them at some point.

[28:13] Andrew Dolph: Is that what you're trying to say?

[28:15] Jess McKinlay: Like I think he was more referring to like a physical phase more than like an actual I'm growing up to get out of it.

[28:23] Andrew Dolph: It's more like the withdrawals of like having candy or something, like the sugar rush, or was more how I interpreted that line.

[28:31] Jess McKinlay: I guess. You know, there's just a lot of media that critiques video games because boomers hate video games.

[28:38] Andrew Dolph: So this song just reminded me of all that.

[28:42] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, I mean, no, literally really though, like how many times have you seen boomers make some stupid comment about where back in my day kids didn't play video games.

[28:51] Andrew Dolph: They play it with their dicks and nothing else. Am I wrong?

[28:56] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, so so when you write an entire song about that and you don't include any of the nuance, and it's from a perspective of someone who is completely addicted to it, um, you know, especially in the context of the previous song where it is meant to be taken pretty literally, uh, I thought that this was also meant to be taken pretty literally. Uh so that's you know, put it in the song. I don't know. I guess that would ruin that would uh ruin the lyrics, I suppose, because you'd have to there's no room in a song to do that type of thing.

[29:30] Andrew Dolph: I appreciate that he uh he mentions that in his comments though.

[29:35] Jess McKinlay: And I appreciate that he makes these comments, because if you are gonna make these lofty statements, you might as well, you know, contextualize them a bit.

[29:43] Andrew Dolph: Yeah. Song wise though, this is a really fun song. It's uh busy and great very fun. It feels like candy. Like the word candy and the sounds that you hear from it, it fits so well.

[29:56] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, this song is a bop, so if you're gonna listen to one of the songs and you want to get something that's gonna give you some high energy, it's a good one to start with. It's a good workout song. Let me say that.

[30:06] Andrew Dolph: God, I wish she would scream. I wish she would break down on the bed. I wish we would fight. Tear at our head with the bits and bites, dissolve in the night. It would be all right. What if you just missed something? What if you let something go just for the night? Would that be alright? Oh, I swear it'd be the same. They are all just moats of dust. We are all bolts of dust. Nothing is as vital as it seems. Tragedies, catastrophes, nightmares, horrors, heartbreaks, extremes. All these suffering souls that you cannot control, and you would find them all in a big enough to take in so much pain.

[31:10] Jess McKinlay: It beats on my brain. I'm all inside. Right here, and this way. You'd see it if you are so alone. Let's talk about glow. This one I was like, I'm kind of mixed on. I don't really know. I'd like to hear what it is. What he has to say. It seems to me like it's um saying that couples using their phones in bed is is making them disappointing.

[31:47] Andrew Dolph: Yes, and this is one of the big ones that I disagree with, but I've also heard contrary arguments. He doesn't have much to say about this song and recontextualizing it, which kind of bothers me. Mostly what he has to say is, yeah, um, the glow from phones is fucking up our brain and sucking out our melatonin. And he just mostly provided like a link to it.

[32:12] Jess McKinlay: Like the scientific study of that. Which yeah, I get, which is why I turned my um phone to the brownish kind of tint. Like, yeah, and literally speaking, that is true. Um, you know, people probably are having more trouble sleeping because using your phone that close to going to bed can cause problems, but that's not what the rest of the song is about.

[32:33] Andrew Dolph: Um the rest of the song is about someone complaining that their husband like doesn't love them anymore or some shit.

[32:41] Jess McKinlay: Mm-hmm. But it's mostly like there's other lines like all my dreams have been stolen, which is just saying that the glow uh is fucking up our sleep circulation, therefore we're not sleeping properly because we're staring at phones all day.

[32:57] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, I'm not in love with this song. I don't like what it's saying, but I can't disagree with the actual context, if that makes sense.

[33:07] Jess McKinlay: How do you mean?

[33:09] Andrew Dolph: Um, like I agree, like, yeah, the way our phones are made is probably fucking up our brains, but also it is not detaching me away from the people emotionally.

[33:20] Jess McKinlay: Yeah. I mean, there probably is situations where that is the case, but I feel like if your phone is causing this much problems, and I think I already said it earlier, it's probably not the phone. There's probably something wrong in your relationship. You know?

[33:38] Andrew Dolph: Mm-hmm. Uh yeah, but sometimes I get busy, and when I'm out with my girlfriend, I just stare at my phone sometimes because I'm trying to put out about nine other fires. She's like, you know, may maybe you can talk to me for a couple minutes before you pull out that shit.

[33:55] Jess McKinlay: Yeah. And that's a discussion to have.

[33:57] Andrew Dolph: Right. But I'm sure it's happened. I'm sure it's happened the other way around, too, where she takes out her phone, and you're like, oh shoot, well, like it happens to everybody. It's in the world we live in. People have lives.

[34:09] Jess McKinlay: People have lives. Things happen.

[34:11] Andrew Dolph: Mm-hmm. You know? It's about.

[34:16] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, I don't know. I think I think what I don't like about this one is it is it is incredibly uh exaggerating the problem, I'd say. It exaggerates the issue to an extent where it's not really relatable.

[34:33] Andrew Dolph: Like, this whole song is like she's absolutely breaking down about the fact that he was looking at his phone in bed, and it's like, yeah, this is a little far. I think we could have been a little more nuanced on this one.

[34:48] Jess McKinlay: Which yeah, that's fair. I might have a coupon, I might have a sniffer. There might be a morsel or a nugget effect on it. They already have a blurb. Why there might be a tidbit? Why can't I must check my tidbit? What if there's a pause? What if there's a lol at dinner at the movie? I got even at the theater! I have an argument. I have the most perfect argument you have ever heard. A completely devastating, demolishing argument. It is an elegant straight line, piercing and sharp. It's like lavender set. My argument! And you don't know how anyone would have ever fought anything ever! Not this! I found the secret! I found the secret! It is at HTTPS colon double slash Y U T U dot B E slash D capital Q W4 W9 Capital W G Capital X C Capital Q, click, click, swipity swipe! Diggity click ity check click!

[35:47] Jess McKinlay: What do you think of fugue state and what do you think it's trying to say?

[35:50] Andrew Dolph: Uh I honestly I don't know. Um I might have no idea. It's just I have a black JPEG. I have it saved to my desktop. When I'm feeling bad, I take the black JPEG and upload it to my avatar's profile picture.

[36:16] Jess McKinlay: What does that mean?

[36:18] Andrew Dolph: When people are depressed, they do that. It happens.

[36:21] Jess McKinlay: I've never seen that before. I didn't I didn't understand that.

[36:27] Andrew Dolph: It it seen it happen. I was like, oh, okay, this is real. And then it just goes into like pornography.

[36:34] Jess McKinlay: Yeah.

[36:35] Andrew Dolph: The pornography stuff in this is where I really start to disagree.

[36:41] Jess McKinlay: Hey, fun fact. Um, I think you'll get a kick out of this, and this shows a lot of um Dame Lloyd's sense of humor. They they read a link, which is H T T P S colon double slash YouTube.com slash capital Q W. All that it just takes you to never gotta give you up.

[37:00] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, I mean, that's obvious. I could have guessed that.

[37:04] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, just fine. But this is I would have sent it. You should have sent it to uh they should have sent it to like lasagna catally early. Not lasagna cat. I'm thinking more like like goatsey or something like that, like one of those really early ones. Cake farts. Oh, meat spin. Uh but it's like anyone want to buy some pens over at Pen Island. Remember that one.

[37:38] Andrew Dolph: But it's talking about obsession. I'm obsessed with my emails, I'm obsessed with my status, my updates, my game, my numbers, my markets, my profile. And this is the act one closer, so to say.

[37:49] Jess McKinlay: Yes. And they're all exception uh like basically obsessed with their own specific thing, be it video games or status, how they're reset represented. I'm obsessed with my monster, I'm obsessed with myself, and I think that that is the message they're trying to convey.

[38:09] Andrew Dolph: Well, that's more like, hey, we're gonna dive into that stuff into our own image. Well, we're gonna dive a bit more into this into act two, so stick around, kids.

[38:21] Jess McKinlay: You know what I mean? Like, what is our monsters and what is all that? Because those they're essentially asking questions that will get answered in act two.

[38:30] Andrew Dolph: Yes. Um, well, what's your overall thoughts on Act One then?

[38:34] Jess McKinlay: Overall thoughts in Act One, it's pointing out issues without a lot of the nuance I would uh expect from Dave Malloy. But I don't disagree with all of it. Like I get I appreciate the idea of what he's trying to do with a lot of these songs.

[38:50] Andrew Dolph: Um, but a lot of it is just like it feels like old man waves a cloud sometimes.

[38:55] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, it there's a lot of messages in this um where it's like okay boomer kind of thing.

[39:03] Andrew Dolph: Right. And I don't I mean we're on the younger side, so they kinda always lived in this world, so this is our normal, and we don't feel any anti-social apat antipathy because of it.

[39:16] Jess McKinlay: I understand that there is a lot of people that like to say like to blame social media and technology for the fact that they are apathetic, but I hate to break it to everyone, but people have been apathetic forever.

[39:31] Andrew Dolph: Um, and we're just finding new ways to become apathetic.

[39:35] Jess McKinlay: And it feels like technology is just an easy answer to blame all our woes on. Just like when Donald Trump says video games are the reasons why we have the mass shootings.

[39:44] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, it's just it's just a quick easy thing, like what's new that is causing all these issues and use technology as the quick answer.

[39:52] Jess McKinlay: And technology is the answer.

[39:54] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, except for we did used to have these problems before.

[39:57] Jess McKinlay: It just it wasn't with technology, it was with something else.

[40:01] Andrew Dolph: No, if you want to know the main thing of about technology that is bothering people, it's that people are too informed and that scares other people.

[40:09] Jess McKinlay: Being informed being the r the removal of ignorance is scary, and I get that. But also it's important if we're gonna keep growing.

[40:19] Andrew Dolph: That's why I think in Act One, the only song that really hits home is Refresh, because that is an actual new problem that exists only because social media exists.

[40:28] Jess McKinlay: Yeah. That isn't something where, oh, my partner is apathetic to me, or oh, I found this thing and I won't stop doing it. This is the mass shaming, and I and it feels the most honest because we know Dave Malloy has gone through this himself too.

[40:43] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, whereas Candy, I mean, if you wrote this this musical 20 years ago, or probably more than that, more like 40 years ago, uh it would have just been about a different thing. Like it would have been about gambling or TV something else that people do.

[40:56] Jess McKinlay: Just TV.

[40:58] Andrew Dolph: Uh yeah. Where and and then glow, I mean, there's always been stuff. I mean, the only thing with that is the blue light aspect of it. Obviously, that is something, but I think the majority of the song is not about that.

[41:06] Jess McKinlay: The majority of the song is about a couple falling apart because one person is apathetic.

[41:14] Andrew Dolph: Um, and that has always happened and always will happen.

[41:17] Jess McKinlay: Probably that's the way me and Andrew are gonna end up breaking up.

[41:23] Andrew Dolph: Exactly. We're gonna be laying in bed and I'm gonna be on my side looking at my phone.

[41:30] Jess McKinlay: On that note, do you want to go into a mid-show announcement?

[41:33] Andrew Dolph: Uh, yeah, sure.

[41:40] Jess McKinlay: Hey guys, sorry to interrupt you in the middle of the show, but we've got a shill at you. And today's show is brought to you by the extremely kind donations of our donors over at Patreon. Our current patrons are Stephanie L., Terry Needleman, Max Lunig, Lily Accles, Mackenzie Horner, John Donna, Terran the Duck, Melissa Goldman, Jess Lightning, Ewan Cassidy, Haley McDonald, Tess Gir, Kella McLeod, Fire of September, Sam Bergman, Mina Meneary, Monica Thorew, Brent Black, Haley Murray, and Alison Wonderland, who all give us a little financial support that helps us keep the lights on here at Musicals with Cheese.

[42:14] Andrew Dolph: If you'd like to join them in supporting us and get tons of fun perks, such as patron only commentaries, our episodes a day early, and so much more, come join us over at Patreon.

[42:23] Jess McKinlay: Are you ready to get back to the show, Andrew?

[42:26] Andrew Dolph: I'm ready.

[42:27] Jess McKinlay: I'm ready. Dripping fat and sick, bulging ass she know for sure.

[42:38] Andrew Dolph: Oh, how it teases its allure. Will the monster finally charge and gouging gorge. Will the monster finally go to fall?

[42:53] Andrew Dolph: Better check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check.

[43:10] Jess McKinlay: Michael cover trail in the forest.

[43:15] Andrew Dolph: Chip bags and beer cans.

[43:18] Jess McKinlay: Condom cigarettes.

[43:20] Andrew Dolph: Every time have a trick.

[43:23] Jess McKinlay: That's what happens to your mind.

[43:27] Andrew Dolph: Yeah.

[43:28] Jess McKinlay: That's what happens to your mom.

[43:31] Andrew Dolph: Alright, let's continue on with him, the monster.

[43:36] Jess McKinlay: There's a couple things we want to talk about.

[43:37] Andrew Dolph: This go for it.

[43:41] Jess McKinlay: Um, it only because I've actually read this book.

[43:45] Andrew Dolph: Um since the development of all these technologies, um, our brains have changed.

[43:52] Jess McKinlay: Since we've had the access to all this information, all this material, all the stimulation, our brain has changed.

[43:58] Andrew Dolph: And Nicholas Carr's The Shallows discusses it very much in detail, which is a book I had to read for one of my thousands of college classes I took.

[44:07] Jess McKinlay: Okay.

[44:08] Andrew Dolph: And it asks questions like, is Google making us stupid?

[44:12] Jess McKinlay: Yeah.

[44:14] Andrew Dolph: And there have been plenty of rebuttals to it that says technology isn't dumbing us down.

[44:19] Jess McKinlay: Um, but there is scientific statements that our brains have changed.

[44:24] Andrew Dolph: Okay.

[44:25] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, and another defense that it makes is uh that we're getting malnutrition because we're all focused on our technology, if that makes sense.

[44:39] Andrew Dolph: Fair, I suppose.

[44:41] Jess McKinlay: The statement in the song is for years you study the monster, practicing your irony and outrage on a scraping violin, ten thousand hours of shrieking malnutrition, your practice makes you a master of the monster.

[44:53] Andrew Dolph: So instead of like practicing the violin or mastering like any type of other skill, we're on our phones wasting those hours that we could have been spending on uh uh skill, more or less, is the argument of that statement.

[45:09] Jess McKinlay: I suppose you could argue that, but uh I mean, haven't hasn't our workforce becoming been becoming more and more skilled?

[45:16] Andrew Dolph: Yes.

[45:16] Jess McKinlay: So I feel as though I feel as though that isn't accurate.

[45:21] Andrew Dolph: And let's not pretend that we didn't waste hours upon hours at a time watching TV and other shit.

[45:28] Jess McKinlay: Reading books.

[45:30] Andrew Dolph: Yes.

[45:31] Jess McKinlay: But we have the basically belief that books is more intelligent and not a form of entertainment, which is what books are.

[45:39] Andrew Dolph: Um, just because we also read books to get education does not mean it is not entertainment in a form.

[45:46] Jess McKinlay: I'm sorry, when you read Harry Potter, you're not learning anything.

[45:50] Andrew Dolph: You're learning you're practicing this thing the skill of how to read.

[45:54] Jess McKinlay: So let's say I'm on the internet reading some Wired article. How is that any different than me reading a scholarly article?

[46:01] Andrew Dolph: Like in a well, a scholarly article in an actual book might be more research than a Wired article.

[46:08] Jess McKinlay: That's just like we read actual articles in scholarly uh publications online.

[46:14] Andrew Dolph: Right.

[46:14] Jess McKinlay: So you can do that if you want to. It's just why what makes a book seem so much more literary valuable than, say, uh reading material on your phone or anything else.

[46:26] Andrew Dolph: It's all the same simplistic materials.

[46:29] Jess McKinlay: It's an older technology, that's why.

[46:36] Andrew Dolph: It is elitism.

[46:37] Jess McKinlay: In years from now, books won't exist because everything will be published online because we don't want to waste paper.

[46:43] Andrew Dolph: And I agree with that.

[46:45] Jess McKinlay: Why the fuck do we still want to print on paper?

[46:50] Andrew Dolph: Because we look fancy when we have a bunch of books on a shelf.

[46:53] Jess McKinlay: I get it. But also, think about this fucking environment.

[46:56] Andrew Dolph: Sure, paper is biodegradable, but there's a thousand better uses of it than a book.

[47:01] Jess McKinlay: I love that we're arguing about this when he didn't even mention it in the songs at all.

[47:05] Andrew Dolph: So this is irrelevant.

[47:09] Jess McKinlay: That's something I just deeply believe, honestly.

[47:12] Andrew Dolph: I feel guilty if I ever read an actual book now.

[47:15] Jess McKinlay: That's the sad part.

[47:16] Andrew Dolph: Yeah.

[47:17] Jess McKinlay: This this song, the monster song is when he really puts all his cards on the table and he says he comes out that he thinks technology is straight bad for us.

[47:27] Andrew Dolph: And I think this act two is where I start to disagree with this uh the messaging a lot more than in act one.

[47:34] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, and he basically just flat out says we are in trouble.

[47:37] Andrew Dolph: Like we are a damn civilization.

[47:41] Jess McKinlay: And that bothers me.

[47:43] Andrew Dolph: Like being more educated, more able to access information.

[47:47] Jess McKinlay: I am I have learned more skills now than I ever could have without this technology.

[47:52] Andrew Dolph: If I want to learn how to play the guitar, which I self-taught myself, I use YouTube tutorials.

[48:01] Jess McKinlay: No, that's that's just mindless, my man.

[48:04] Andrew Dolph: You're on your phone. You can't learn anything from that.

[48:06] Jess McKinlay: It's mindless.

[48:07] Andrew Dolph: Mama wants a gambler.

[48:12] Jess McKinlay: Watching the reels go round and round.

[48:16] Andrew Dolph: When will I get lucky?

[48:18] Jess McKinlay: When will I get my shot?

[48:20] Andrew Dolph: When will those three cherries line up?

[48:23] Jess McKinlay: When will those three cherries line up?

[48:26] Andrew Dolph: When will those three cherries line up?

[48:28] Jess McKinlay: When will those three cherries line?

[48:40] Andrew Dolph: The arousal of uncertainty will pull the variable schedule reward.

[48:53] Jess McKinlay: Waiting through the fuck boy, thought seeker incel catfish creepers, and stumbling softmark!

[49:00] Andrew Dolph: Poetry magazine rejects.

[49:02] Jess McKinlay: I get so lonely after swiping.

[49:09] Andrew Dolph: And of course, when I actually do have sex with someone, it's usually like, Wow, you watch a lot of porn.

[49:15] Jess McKinlay: Alright, let's talk about solo.

[49:17] Andrew Dolph: You got it.

[49:18] Jess McKinlay: What do you gotta say about this one?

[49:19] Andrew Dolph: I don't think I have a lot to say about this one. I've never really used these sort of uh like Tinder like apps, so I I have no real Yeah, so with this one, I can sort of understand that hookup culture is probably not the most fun thing to be involved in.

[49:36] Jess McKinlay: But to be honest, I don't know if the dating world is the most fun thing to be involved in either.

[49:40] Andrew Dolph: I mean, going to bars and asking out ladies, it's not fun.

[49:46] Jess McKinlay: So.

[49:47] Andrew Dolph: But the one thing I do find interesting.

[49:49] Jess McKinlay: Yeah.

[49:50] Andrew Dolph: And I don't entirely disagree with it.

[49:52] Jess McKinlay: But what this has to say about porn, I find very interesting.

[49:58] Andrew Dolph: I uh I'm of two mind of this.

[50:01] Jess McKinlay: Now, you know me, and I've gone on the record about my experience with being a demisexual.

[50:07] Andrew Dolph: For some reason, yes.

[50:08] Jess McKinlay: Yes, yes, yes. This is something that's come up.

[50:11] Andrew Dolph: But I have heard it from other people that pornography does give you unrealistic expectations for what to expect in your own sexual relationships.

[50:21] Jess McKinlay: As does most entertainment.

[50:23] Andrew Dolph: Right.

[50:24] Jess McKinlay: But it is much more capable for, say, a 15-year-old to see fisting porn and all that other type of shit than they probably could have in, say, the 80s or even the 90s or the early aughts.

[50:37] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, and I mean if you can find someone that will you can do fisting with, congratulations, that's true love, but by I I'm very curious to see how the sex lives of the people one generation below Generation X are gonna be.

[50:52] Jess McKinlay: Because are their first sexual experiences gonna be them pissing on each other because they saw it on porn and that's more normalized for them?

[51:00] Andrew Dolph: Not that it's any of my fucking business, but and as long as no one's getting hurt hurt, I don't care.

[51:05] Jess McKinlay: But also I mean my mattress, so I'm gonna have to buy a new mattress.

[51:12] Andrew Dolph: I I s that's an one of the few points where I don't quite feel like I'd have enough context in my real life to have an opinion.

[51:22] Jess McKinlay: But it's like I never thought about either.

[51:22] Andrew Dolph: I don't think anyone would believe me if I said I don't really watch very much porn, but yeah.

[51:27] Jess McKinlay: That means he's watching it right now.

[51:31] Andrew Dolph: Um if you were gonna if you were gonna piss on some and this is for a friend, of course.

[51:31] Jess McKinlay: If you were gonna piss on someone on your bed, would you want to cover it in like a tarp or something?

[51:41] Andrew Dolph: Like how do you make it so the piss doesn't seek and seep into the mattress?

[51:44] Jess McKinlay: Um, the right way to do it is doing it in a bathtub that's dry.

[51:48] Andrew Dolph: Oh, right in a bathtub, that makes sense.

[51:52] Jess McKinlay: But bathtubs are so tight.

[51:52] Andrew Dolph: Like they're I don't know, it's a little close quarters.

[51:55] Jess McKinlay: Well, depends.

[51:57] Andrew Dolph: I mean.

[52:01] Jess McKinlay: That's kind of the point.

[52:00] Andrew Dolph: You kinda wanna be close.

[52:03] Jess McKinlay: Also, pee smells really bad.

[52:03] Jess McKinlay: Yeah.

[52:03] Andrew Dolph: I feel like that would be like a that'd be a real boner killer, you know what I'm saying?

[52:10] Andrew Dolph: Speaking of boner killers, let's talk about the next song.

[52:13] Jess McKinlay: One thing that's been on my mind is intelligence and how people evolve and how I evolved, you know, when I was a kid, I was really punk rock.

[52:21] Andrew Dolph: Just run it all down, man.

[52:22] Jess McKinlay: Catalyst pigs.

[52:25] Andrew Dolph: Sheep man.

[52:29] Jess McKinlay: Oh I needed that.

[52:31] Andrew Dolph: Oh, that's so well put.

[52:34] Jess McKinlay: Oh, how inspiring.

[52:36] Andrew Dolph: Exactly this.

[52:38] Jess McKinlay: This say it louder for the people in the back.

[52:43] Andrew Dolph: Fucking consensus driven monolithic fuckery.

[52:47] Jess McKinlay: Everyone blind with the conspiracies.

[52:49] Andrew Dolph: Dollar wits and nomination.

[52:58] Jess McKinlay: Monologue vampires.

[53:01] Andrew Dolph: Welcome to the echo!

[53:03] Jess McKinlay: Trainer, Taylor, trainer!

[53:05] Andrew Dolph: I'm a robot, please tell me what to be thinking.

[53:10] Jess McKinlay: It's just a matter of digging a little deeper.

[53:13] Andrew Dolph: Um, you want to talk about actually getting up?

[53:16] Jess McKinlay: Yes.

[53:17] Andrew Dolph: Alright.

[53:17] Jess McKinlay: Isn't it fucked up that they reference a Serbian film in like the first lines?

[53:22] Andrew Dolph: Not really.

[53:23] Jess McKinlay: I mean, he seems pretty in touch with uh internet culture, especially in this song.

[53:29] Andrew Dolph: Yeah.

[53:29] Jess McKinlay: What do you think of this song?

[53:31] Andrew Dolph: It seems like it's about like an internet troll.

[53:34] Jess McKinlay: It's like about Q Anon and like alt-right and all that, it feels like.

[53:38] Andrew Dolph: But not really, though.

[53:40] Jess McKinlay: Because he doesn't sing about anything alt-right related.

[53:43] Andrew Dolph: He's going against the uh, you know, clap in between every word you say, crowd.

[53:50] Jess McKinlay: Um but he's also not for anything alt-right.

[53:56] Andrew Dolph: At least not as far as I can tell.

[53:59] Jess McKinlay: I mean, he makes a specific reference, like um, when it says humans are very bad at understanding randomness, we believe X has to balance out Y, and if this doesn't, then it's not random enough.

[54:09] Andrew Dolph: And he said much of that test text was originally taken from a Hearthstone form.

[54:14] Jess McKinlay: The OP was convinced that his poor performance in the game was a result of Blizzard nefariously interfering with random card draws in the game, rigging the game so everyone loses, and it's just stupid.

[54:28] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, I think well, I mean, but that's not what it means, and I don't know, in the song.

[54:35] Jess McKinlay: He's talking about conservation bias, and he's talking about normies, so he's like a 4chan type.

[54:40] Andrew Dolph: He says he says keck, he says kappa, which is the Twitch meme.

[54:44] Jess McKinlay: Yep.

[54:45] Andrew Dolph: Um he's talking about um how everyone is numb.

[54:49] Jess McKinlay: It's like at some points he's like an exaggerated version of the person who is against phones, but at other points he is the person who is addicted to phones, and I I don't really know what he's trying to say with this song.

[55:03] Andrew Dolph: And at some points he is like totally against the like communist radical types, but then at the same time at the end of the song, he's like referencing stuff that they say.

[55:15] Jess McKinlay: So I I don't know.

[55:17] Andrew Dolph: Yeah.

[55:18] Jess McKinlay: I don't have much to say.

[55:19] Andrew Dolph: I I don't understand the message uh like you do.

[55:22] Jess McKinlay: It feels like just about like video game hate crowds or like Twitch streamers to begin with.

[55:29] Andrew Dolph: Well, he references Twitch memes, yes.

[55:32] Jess McKinlay: Um I it's definitely about like an internet troll ironic detachment type thing, which I can I can see, but at the same time, uh, it's not clear.

[55:45] Andrew Dolph: Because most of these ironically detached people don't give a shit about people being addicted to their phones.

[55:52] Jess McKinlay: Um, like they're addicted to their phones and they're addicted to the internet. That's why they're so ironically detached from everything.

[56:00] Andrew Dolph: Uh so why would they give a shit about whether or not the internet is making us stupider like this guy does?

[56:07] Jess McKinlay: Yeah.

[56:08] Andrew Dolph: Uh you want to move on to Little God?

[56:11] Jess McKinlay: I gotta say, little god was great.

[56:15] Andrew Dolph: She did whatever we asked.

[56:17] Jess McKinlay: What else did you ask her to do?

[56:18] Andrew Dolph: First we asked for a bunch of basically telekinetic and transformational stuff.

[56:21] Jess McKinlay: All the big Bible clichés, walking on water, water into wine, splitting the Red Sea!

[56:27] Andrew Dolph: You did that?

[56:28] Jess McKinlay: Oh yeah, we went to the beach.

[56:30] Andrew Dolph: Plus, little God is really in the historical accuracy, so we actually did it in Egypt circa 1400 BCE.

[56:39] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, wormhole, nothing.

[56:41] Andrew Dolph: And then the water or two?

[56:42] Jess McKinlay: Nothing.

[56:43] Andrew Dolph: Because we're postulating future technology.

[56:46] Jess McKinlay: Space-time distortions.

[56:48] Andrew Dolph: Gravity fluff.

[56:49] Jess McKinlay: And then any of that stuff quickly becomes just not that impressive.

[56:52] Andrew Dolph: I mean, sure, impressive, but not miraculous.

[56:55] Jess McKinlay: Sounds like maybe this is just some very evolutionarily advanced intelligence, right?

[57:00] Andrew Dolph: Where does the God stuff come from?

[57:01] Jess McKinlay: Well, first she claims to have created the universe.

[57:05] Jess McKinlay: So we carbonate her. And her age is infinite in both directions. Suggesting that she is immortal. But then that actually gets pretty dark because Jack Wong says, well, can we kill her? So Little God is basically about this rationalist character, so to say, who meets God and is trying to science it until it no longer means anything and dismissing anything as like well, this could be this, this could be that. Basically trying to scientifically analyze God until it becomes just a series of things. And eventually references um 2001's Clark's Law, um, that basically says when science is so advanced and it's indistinguishable from magic, which is basically how we would likely view God. Um Dave Malloy says he never wanted to write a piece that was just about the internet, rather I wanted to use that as a launching pad for examining how technology and addiction interact and what that does to one's spiritual life. Marvin's addiction is to his own rationalism, which causes him spiritual suffering, whether he is putting his mind against intelligent designers on the internet or an actual godlike force.

[58:24] Andrew Dolph: Yeah. I okay. I guess this is where you have to talk about your personal stuff again and where I'm coming from. Uh I would consider myself a rationalist of sorts. Um, and I feel I I feel uh very strongly that this is a gigantic straw man of that movement. Um it's like an attempt at a takedown of it, like saying, Oh, you guys wouldn't believe in God if he punched you in the face. Uh, but like, that's not true for most, or or I would say all. Like, this scenario where God shows up and literally reveals to everyone that they are God no one would be like, oh yeah, no, that's not real. Let's just science it away with bullshit. Like, that's not that's the opposite of what would happen. Everyone would change their mind instantly, pretty much. They'd be they'd probably want a little bit of evidence, and then that would be it.

[59:21] Jess McKinlay: But what if it's going to be away? I mean, in the days, explain the way news that we live in, where anyone could be like, well, that's just projections, or that's just this, or that's just that.

[59:33] Andrew Dolph: Well, the song is very specific. They turn everyone's phone into animals. Literally.

[59:39] Jess McKinlay: How do you know that's just not molecular recalibration or whatever they say it was?

[59:45] Andrew Dolph: What what does that even mean? Molecular recalibration. I have no idea. That can't happen. You can't turn a phone into an animal.

[59:56] Jess McKinlay: But once again, what if science has just become so advanced that we no longer see it as scientific and view it only as magic?

[1:00:04] Andrew Dolph: What does that mean? Like if we were to take a cell phone back to the caveman times, they would think we had a magic device. What if we are just the caveman type some future entity? Or all-seeing entity.

[1:00:35] Jess McKinlay: Why are we talking about this totally fictional scenario that cannot happen in the real world? Literally breaks the laws of physics. Um it doesn't happen. It doesn't exist. It will never happen. And if it does happen, then fucking everything will be flipped on its head instantly.

[1:00:54] Andrew Dolph: Molecular printing is a real thing, by the way. Molecular printing is a real thing.

[1:00:59] Jess McKinlay: Molecular molecular printing is not turning a phone into a cat. Mm-hmm. Um I don't I don't quite even I don't know enough about science and all that, and I've never really played it. Why is this song mixed into a show that is in actual talking about actual real issues that have actually happened? Why is this science fiction song mixed in?

[1:01:23] Andrew Dolph: Because it's more about the spirituality and how technology and having an answer to everything has ruined our own spirituality. I don't quite agree with it, but I get what it's trying to say.

[1:01:34] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, but it's not talking about that issue, though. It's not talking about how this person doesn't have spirituality, or it's not even saying that spirituality is necessarily a good thing. In fact, it never even really talks about that. In fact, I would like to hear a song arguing why spirituality is a good thing. The song doesn't discuss that whatsoever.

[1:01:53] Andrew Dolph: Because he becomes so obsessed with scientifically observing something that's just not of our mind.

[1:02:01] Jess McKinlay: Okay, what's wrong with wanting to know the truth? When the truth is this person. This person doesn't care about the truth. Marvin goes into situations and says, I'm going to prove that this wasn't a miracle. Um, and I'm going that's my hypothesis is that this was this bullshit. I can't test that it was this in any way whatsoever. Um, but I'm just going to believe it's that because I don't want to believe it's God. Um that's not relatable to real life. That's not how science works. That's not how people talk about science. Um, so what is the message here? Why why are we talking about this?

[1:02:36] ♪ Musical number ♪

[1:04:00] Jess McKinlay: Beautiful. I like this song. I like the song a lot.

[1:04:03] Andrew Dolph: Okay.

[1:04:04] Jess McKinlay: It's dark as fuck, though. Umly it's continuing on with like the full imagery of like the tarot cards and all that. Um, it sounds like it's about self-harm. Like, cause it says, Um singing my ugly tunes, tracing the lines hidden underneath my sleeves. Hashtag cuts a forest of dead trees. Um the lines underneath my sleeves representing basically cutting yourself, self-harm.

[1:04:35] Andrew Dolph: He's also referencing according to his own notes, not this is not me knowing this. Uh referencing that there is a community that cuts on Instagram or something like that.

[1:04:44] Jess McKinlay: Oh, that's so fucking obvious. Obviously, not a good thing, and that is fucked up, so yeah.

[1:04:50] Andrew Dolph: And that had become a thing. Like, did you like have the like the group of people in your school when you're in high school that just cut themselves for no reason? Just because they release endorphins and all that.

[1:05:02] Jess McKinlay: If I did, I did not know about it.

[1:05:04] Andrew Dolph: Yeah. Um did you?

[1:05:07] Jess McKinlay: I did, yeah, there's tons of them.

[1:05:10] Andrew Dolph: Yikes.

[1:05:11] Jess McKinlay: Yeah. Um, I think well, this one this might be the one song that's about positive. Positivity. Because it does describe it describes a relationship very much like you and me, where they made across the sea and all that.

[1:05:27] Andrew Dolph: Yes.

[1:05:29] Jess McKinlay: So this might be the one song that is actually positive about the whole issues.

[1:05:35] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, I love it because of that.

[1:05:38] Jess McKinlay: Yeah. And finding like someone can find you beautiful, like that can't even see you. See the beauty right in front of you.

[1:05:47] Andrew Dolph: There is no beauty between us two, I will say that. Um, yeah, we're assholes. We're entertaining assholes, but we are assholes.

[1:05:54] Jess McKinlay: And the entertaining part's arguable.

[1:05:56] Andrew Dolph: Yeah. That was literally just like just a response on Twitter we got like five minutes ago. You're assholes. Um, you're entertaining assholes, but you're assholes.

[1:06:08] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, I mean I never claimed to be a good person. Beyond beyond beyond, beyond me on beyond there is a field. I will meet you beyond beyond the field. I will meet you. So I is Jimmy God be home. I will meet you there wrong. So the title being wrong. They're wrong and right. Some be the honors. I will meet you be home.

[1:07:25] Andrew Dolph: Alright, let's talk about the field. What is this song about?

[1:07:28] Jess McKinlay: Fuck. I was hoping you knew, because I didn't understand it. It's pretty. It's definitely pretty.

[1:07:34] Andrew Dolph: Yeah, I'm not really sure it means much. I mean, it's kind of like the Great Comet song where it's like pretty and it kind of encapsulates a theme more than it does like an actual resolution.

[1:07:45] Jess McKinlay: Yeah.

[1:07:46] Andrew Dolph: I feel like beautiful is the actual conclusion.

[1:07:48] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, and this is just hey, let's end him on a pretty note. He tries to actually bring in a little bit of nuance to it. Like, hey, there is this one good thing that can happen, I guess.

[1:08:00] Andrew Dolph: Well, I guess let's let's talk about overall thoughts, because I feel like we talked a little bit too much negative-wise, because there is a lot of positive here, too. The music in this is phenomenal, and I would recommend listening to it, absolutely. Um I would say some will agree a lot more with a lot of what this has to say than I did. Um, though, of course, I told you where my perspective is. Um, so yeah. I think the I think the intent of this is very good, and I really appreciate that it's coming out there with actual opinions on modern issues that are a little bit different than what you may expect. Um, so I really appreciate it for that, and I really appreciate it for the music more so. Uh as far as a cheese rating, well, it's not really that cheesy. So, I'm gonna give it Parmesan and call it a day. Jess, what what are your thoughts on this?

[1:08:57] Jess McKinlay: I love this musical in a lot of ways. I don't agree with a lot of the message it's trying to say. I really admire Dave Malloy's intentions with this musical, even though if the messages are something I don't personally believe. But the music is absolutely phenomenal. Like, there is not a single fault in the music. It's a cappella, and you somehow forget that it's a cappella. It's not showy in the way that like a pitch perfect or the pentatonics are. It's super effective, and it's a great listen. I would love to see this live, like in any community theater, this would be fantastic. So I am giving it a piece of cheese sliced into eight pieces.

[1:09:45] Andrew Dolph: Yeah. Um again, just because we don't necessarily agree with the messages of some of these songs does not mean we think that they aren't good. I actually think this is one of the better musicals we've listened to recently, as far as music-wise.

[1:10:05] Jess McKinlay: Yeah.

[1:10:06] Andrew Dolph: Um, and we are not a review show. We are just discussing these things. That this was not us reviewing it and saying, oh, well, we disagree with this, so zero stars. Uh that's why we give a cheese rating, we don't give a star rating.

[1:10:20] Jess McKinlay: Yeah, so this don't take this as us saying don't watch this or we don't think it's good. This is us saying we don't agree with certain things, and this is our thoughts, and you can feel free to have your own thoughts. So I would go give this a listen because it is thought provoking.

[1:10:35] Andrew Dolph: Yeah. Uh so absolutely give this a listen, and I guarantee you will probably come out of it differently, feeling differently than we did. So, nevertheless, thank you guys for listening. We also have our second podcast, Disney Plus Cheese. Our title card is created by the amazing Jolene Casco. We're on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, all that nonsense at musicals with cheese. Our email, if you want to shoot us some hate mail, is musicaltheatrelives@gmail.com. If you could please, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, please, leave us some more reviews. We we we'd like some more positivity in our lives, and we think reviews are the best way to validate our existence. But hey, that's all we have this week. We'll see you next time on Musicals with Cheese.