I know I should record this too. And we are alive. A surprise edition of the Metal Voice Allen, shall we say? They're pro. The last minute edition. You're looking at a focus, Jeff. Recording in progress. Recording is in progress. So I kind of. You and me had a great idea today here on the Metal Voice. I relabeled it. I relabeled it, Allen. It's top 10. We started with Metal Concept Albums. I put in Hard Rock Metal Concept Albums. So it's a little loosey-goosey there, OK? So what we're going to do is count them down. And if everybody could hear the vacuuming in back, just please tell me if you hear vacuuming in the background. There's a little bit of a mess from renovators who are just here. And my wife's kind of just cleaning up a bit. I think what we've got to do is set this up. I mean, there's songs that are conceptual. And we're trying to go with an album. But there's a common thread and a narrative from A to Z all the way through the album. That's what we're aiming for today. That's what we're going to limit ourselves to. Not the 2112 side of Rush. We want the whole album to contribute to the overall concept. That's the basic premise. I like that, Howard. An album, and I Googled this right before we got on, an album featuring a cycle of songs expressed a particular theme or idea. That's exactly what you said. You should be an English teacher. Try not to be as vague. Like, you know, there's a few out there. There are albums that there's an overall kind of blurry concept. Those are gone. We're not using those. We're really going to try to focus on a linear storyline and some, or everything contradicts. Right off the bat, I'm seeing some comments saying Nostradamus by Sigmund. So how do you want to start? And we'll start off right now. So we don't want to start with the honorable mentions or you mentioned those at the end. I think we'll mention them at the end. That'll be the suspense of it all. Lots of suspense today. All right, let's go. With number 10, this is an album. Oops, there we go, let me go back. There we go, there it is. Kiss the Elder. A lot of people are going to give a lot of flack on this one, but let's be honest. 1981. Including myself. 19, Bob Ezrin, Mr. Pink Floyd, you know, The Wall, which is basically, The Wall is the one of the greatest, at least in my opinion, one of the greatest concept albums of all time, probably not for this show. If it was called Rock, Hard Rock Battle, then it would work. But of course, Pink Floyd is the bar, the bar of all concept albums. And I think Kiss the Elder deserves a nice number 10 because there are a lot of good songs on the album. World Without Heroes, Dark Light, The Oath, Mr. Blackwell, I, yes, it's a little weird because Kiss, we're so used to them singing about party rock and roll all night.  So that's pretty much it. I love the artwork, Alan. I just love the artwork. Jim loves this album. I do. I mean, this is their attempt to finally get Rolling Stone to notice them. They turned their backs on their fans. They try to do some high concept that Ace freely couldn't even understand it and didn't wanna do it. So it is what it is. It's one of Jim's favorite and that's why we put it on the list. I think I love it because it's Kiss out of the box. And Ace, he's got a great Dark Light. They're just out of their element and they're sort of, I'd look at Gene, A World Without Heroes, Alan. It's a beautiful song. Yeah, yeah. And Tanvir agrees I do like A World Without Heroes. Okay, so there we go. That was number 10. That was Kiss, The Elder. And Alan didn't do well at the time. I remember back then, Alan, The Elder comes out. It was like, I don't even know if they toured, maybe they toured Australia for that album, but it was basically a tank. But I grew, I've grown to love it after all these years, all right? It's a simple, organic-like album.  All right, let's move on. I'm listening to, I'm just a boy in that album. It's like, it's a farting part from- I'm just a boy. He's not Pete Townsend, man. There's a fart cry from I'm a boy off of Tommy there. But listen to the overall album. You can tell it's definitely Bob Ezrin influence, the sound and everything. Like you said, it's like so many other albums, including the Alice Cooper albums that Bob Ezrin did. I went back and revisited it. Equally unimpressed as the first time I heard it for 30, 40 years. All right, Alan, let's go. Number nine, let's go to number nine here. Look, a lot of people might criticize this choice. Blaze Bailey, Infinite, Entanglement, part one, part two, and part three. Blaze, you know, people could criticize this, but I think the amount of work that he put into this sort of a trilogy of three albums, there's a lot of made and influenced there. He's singing in the right key, so he doesn't kind of seem out of step, like back in the made and days, you know, out of reach perhaps, vocal-wise. It's just three great albums, and I find that, I'm not gonna name the songs. Number one, number two, and the albums just get that much better as you get to number three. I was fairly impressed with number three, but you know what? A book is supposed to come out, and as Rune says, Blaze is well-deserved. Look at his output, Blaze Bailey. It's just phenomenal. A lot of work went into those three albums, that's for sure, and we were lucky enough to have Blaze on many times, and the passion that he had, semi-autobiographical, I think, the three albums, and the passion he had to get this music out there to the people says a lot, and again, some of your favorite music that he's released in his whole career, I know that you really enjoy those three albums. And you know, hats off to Chris Appleton, his partner and writer, you know, from Obsolva, and of course, Obsolva, and just so everybody knows the concept, just in one sentence, the story follows William Black, who actually appeared in the 10th dimension in 2002, a man selected to take a journey into outer space. He lives for a thousand years, and it's basically his sort of his journey. We'll just say, is he a man? Is he a machine? Is he both? Well, you gotta pay attention to the albums and listen to the albums and you'll find out. All right, you guys ready for, do you agree everybody out there or disagree? All right, this is number eight. This is Alan's fave. I love this album. You'll love this album. Borealis Purgatory is the album. I love Borealis, they're great, their albums I find always interesting. But Purgatory was just, when it came out of the time, it really affected me. We got to interview the band when they were here opening for Evergrey. So this is a concept album where mother dies giving birth and the father can never forgive his daughter for the loss of his wife, to the point where the daughter is so neglected or feels so disenfranchised from her father that she decides to commit suicide, to go to alleviate him of his pain, alleviate her of her pain and she can be with their mother except the catch is by committing suicide, she's condemned to Purgatory for the rest of her life and she'll never get to see her mother. So that's the concept behind this album. It's just that the, again, the sound, the music, the vocals, everything, drums, guitars, it's a great listen. And a little known band from Canada, Borealis. But I highly recommend you guys checking it out. I don't think you'll be disappointed. So it's good, Alan, not only putting up the ones that everybody expects, but we're tossing in a few of the Solar Smaller bands or mid-level bands. Right, B. People might not know. That's right. All right, let's go to number seven. This is another fave of Allens. Aventasia. Aventasia. The Metal Opera. It's not my favorite Aventasia album, but I mean, we gotta choose that one because it's kind of led to, you know, that offer to the trilogy concept albums, the Scarecrow, Wicked Symphony, and Angel of Babylon. Here's another one, All On Its Own, The Mystery of Time, that's a concept album, Ghostworks, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So we'll start with the Metal Opera that started it all. The concept, oh my gosh, we have two or three hours to explain the concept. Let's try to do this briefly. Monk, Junior Monk, Senior Monk are there, getting the demons out of witches until he discovers his stepsister is accused of being a witch and he questions everything around him. He questions them and then there's the materialistic world where senior clerics are condemning people as witches and he gets to go to a fantasy world called Aventasia that's non-materialistic and there's a tower and there's the seven seals and the gang, you know, it's very, very intense. So that's briefly, it's kind of questioning the, you know, the rituals with the witches and finding a better way to go about things. So, but a great cast of musicians like always, you know, Kai Hansen, Michael Kiske, Sharon Den Adel, Andre Matos, Timo Tolki, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, various. And of course, I think Bob Catley, Bob Catley should do this, maybe not. Bob Catley was all the other ones, so. Bob Rock from Impelletary, Axel Rui-Pel, right? It's a great listen, they're still playing farewell, songs that they play, you know, not only every time they tour for Aventasia, but even Ed Geis played farewell in their tours. Aventasia farewell, reach out for the light, unbelievable, Toby and Michael going head-to-head, signed the cross and then the great finisher of the tower. If you haven't had a chance to check out any of Aventasia, this is a great start to their career. All right, that's it, so let's go. We're gonna go move up to number six, and listen, number six, this is where the hard rock category comes in, right? Welcome to my nightmare by Alice Cooper, and of course we could also do number two as well, you know, we could put it in there because it's part of the same sort of concept.  And Stephen, you know, like only, I'm not sure how Only Women Bleed works into that, but it does. Little boy. Some great songs, you know, very 70s, late 70s disco-ish feel sometimes, but still, still very, like, I mean, the sax, just on a welcome to my nightmare and the drum beat, it's got a little bit of that disco vibe happening, but nevertheless, it's a very, an album that, you know, has held its own, you know, from the 70s or whenever it was released in 705 to today, right? When you were listening to your Kiss album, I was listening to Alice Cooper, so great, I love, I mean, we can name so many Alice, we can name the Last Temptation, we can name this one, Along Came, Comes a Spider, Along Came a Spider, there's so many concept albums that Alice Cooper has done, but of course, this is the originator, I would say welcome to my nightmare. You know, not only a great opening track, but if you listen to the three that I really love is years ago, Stephen, and then leading into the awakening with that piano, and it sounds like the soundtrack from Halloween, you know, it's just great, great, scary. You got to listen to that with earphones on and you get the chills out when you listen to that, so. And then I think it needs to be mentioned because lots of time we do reviews, and Jimmy's like, come on, let's do a review, and I don't have time to get into it and listen to it, and I'm trying my best, and I'm giving first impressions, and Jimmy's had it for three weeks, so this gives me a chance to revisit my original review from welcome to my nightmare two, and I think this is a great album of much more variance, and the concept again, it's all little snippets of what all the different nightmares could be, and just Stephen alone on the original one is worth it. So, you know, somebody at K-man goes, I think Keeper The Seven Keys is a loose concept. I don't think the first two key albums were even concept, they just tried to make it seem like they were concept albums, but they really weren't, but I think the third one, even the third one is a very, very, very loose. I think the only thing they had in common was the Keeper The Seven Keys, those words, but if there was, you know, I mean, read all the tracks on Halloween's album. I don't think it's really, really tied in. It's just tied in. But no, it is, again, that's why we had to kind of narrow this down. Yes, I guess in theory, they're conceptual albums, but are they really, you know? Like 2112 is the perfect example. A lot of people think that's a concept album. It's not. It's just one long song with many little songs that have nothing to do with each other, right? So 2112 is not on the list. And even Aaron Maiden. Spoiler alert, spoiler alert. Jimmy just tells everybody we're only at number five. We'll talk about Aaron Maiden very soon, okay? Let's move on. Do you have anything else to add? Black Widow is another great song, Black Widow. I love it. We can name quite a few of his albums, the concept albums. Yeah, all right. So the next one is one that I chose. And you know what? It's in this room. It's somewhere in this room. It's somewhere in this room. There it is. There it is, Alan. Jimmy's able to sneak in another King Diamond on every show. King Diamond, Abigail. Yes, King Diamond, you know, almost every album he has, solo album that is, is a concept album. But I'd have to pick one that is the most loved by fans. Time and time and time and time again, it's Abigail, right? I don't know how many times I could talk about this, Alan. It's the story of a young couple. Let's look at this. Miriam and Jonathan Lafay, and where Lafay came from, who move into an old mansion, takes place in 1845. And the ghost of this stillborn child, Abigail, possesses Miriam and the baby comes out as Abigail, as it sort of possessed the little baby and Miriam dies. And that's just basically the story, you know? Of course, there's a lot more to it. Great songs like Omen, Omen's Abigail, Mansion in the Darkness and the Family Ghost. King Diamond at his best, you know? There's not too many highs. There's a lot of, you know, it's kind of like 50, 50, 60, 40 on the highs and lows, because I know Alan, you get really frustrated with all that falsetto singing with King Diamond. But you made me listen to this album years ago, and I think I really enjoyed it compared to some of the other ones. So, and I know it's one of your personal faves. Are you saying it's probably one of your top 10s? It is. And again, I probably have, I love a lot of King Diamond albums and there's a lot of themes and a lot of stories. But the point is I had to pick one that everybody loved, equally. Cecile's saying, Jimmy, what was Canadian actor Chris McApeace involved with the... Make peace. Make peace, that's right. He's the kid from the meatballs and my bodyguard. You are correct, my friend. I think they hired him because they were going to do the movie and there are sort of some sort of snippets with Chris McApeace, but it just kind of all fell, just all fell apart. So I'm still waiting for that elder movie, Alan. I'm still waiting for it. Keep waiting. And I just want to say something about the elder. When it was originally released, it was out of sequence of the story, but they corrected it on the CD on the remasters later on. Oh, great. I can't check the album that I'm sorry. Cut to the middle at the beginning. We'll tell you the end at the beginning. Then we'll put the beginning at the end. Tavir is saying, I will pick up Abigail tomorrow. I haven't heard it in decades. I want to know what Jimmy thinks about Abigail 2. I will tell you quickly before we move on to the next number, Abigail 2 is probably one of the worst King Diamond albums that he has a couple of good songs, but overall not as good as Abigail 1. All right. We're off, Alan. Number four, you ready for this? The Crimson Idol, right? Look at this. There it is, the Crimson Idol. Yeah. Wasp, Blacky. Maybe semi-autobiographical story of a rocker, right? The highs and lows, reaches these top drugs, alcohol, sex, destroys them. How's all this followers? Bad management, everything, just the works. Blacky and a boy. Here's a little bit that we forgot. You know, he has a brother. Before he moves out and he goes into the world of rock and roll, he has a brother that his parents love more than him and his brother dies in the story. And the parents, you know, sort of wish it was him instead of, what was his Jonathan Steele? What was his name? Jonathan Steele, that was the name of the main character. And he goes through all these sort of, you know, his parents trying to, you know, please his parents as it, as you will. And then at the end, he takes the guitar string, puts it around his neck and kills himself. I think he kills himself or he tries to kill himself. Anyways, that's the story. Put on the scene. I mean, again, with Wasp, we could have done, you know, Neon Guard, God, part one, part two, try to get other concept albums in there. Yeah, but I don't know. Go, maybe, you know, it was supposed to be a solo album, right? Cause if you notice, like Chris Holmes wasn't on it and Ben kind of fell apart and Frankie Benally plays on it, Bruce Coolick, Bob Coolick plays on it. And yes, came out saying Blackie, Rob Lawless, re-recorded this album. But I want to say something, and I know this is gonna hurt your feelings there, came out, I have the re-recorded version too. I like it. They include, they re-did the vocals, they re-did the sound. I like it. I really do. I don't know. Did you ever see the movie? It's here. You got the movie? The DVD is here too, but it's sort of like a very, like you and I could have made it. No. That's what it's like. All right, Roone is saying rehash besides as inflated and pompous as Blackie's ego. He's referring to the remaster or the remake. It's a poor man's The Wall, very overrated. That's what I envy you're saying. Roone says Crimson Isle was and remains such a disappointment. Alan, do you agree or disagree? I don't think it lives up to the hype. It's a good album. I love the drumming, of course, Ranki Van Alley. But I was expecting more of myself when I first heard it because I mean, it's been hyped up for decades and... But yeah, I don't disagree with what people are saying. For me it was, it's a great album, but just not as great as I thought it was going to be. Interesting enough, last note on the Crimson Isle when it was released, I was working at a record store and absolutely nobody knew in Canada that this was even being released. Very little promotion in Canada, probably last in the US as well, but in Europe it seemed to have done a lot better than in Canada was 1992 at the time, so times are changing. Tough times. All right, here we go, number three, are you ready for this? Yeah. Let me get this ready. Number three, here we go. There it is. Dream Theater, Metropolis. We gotta put this on. This goes out to my buddy Cork, a huge Dream Theater fan. Kind of a concept of reincarnation and lust and love triangles and I think if I had to do it short, I'm real short. Hypnosis, my, Alan, the main character is put under some sort of hypnosis where you realize that there was some sort of murder mystery. Past lives. That's right. And he has to solve this murder mystery. It was inspired by the film Dead Again in 1991. Again, this is just like Wasp when the album came out at Metropolis. It wasn't like this big, like they sold millions and millions of copies. It was good. It did okay. But over time, it has become their sort of go-to masterpiece. Again, having the live show with the actors and you know, kind of like Operation Mind Crime and other ones, it's an interesting listen to it. Got the DVD special edition, so I've always enjoyed watching this. Now, as Skander says, hello, guys. My advice from Venezuelan, from a Venezuelan band, it's a concept album. It's Gilman Escalofro, part one and part two. I'm sure there's other bands around the world who have great concept albums. The idea of a concept album goes back way back in the late 60s, you know, from Genesis and actually the 70s, Genesis, Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. And you know, there's so many bands or prog bands used to do concept albums, but metal has really taken to it in the 80s and 90s and beyond. All right, let's go. Number, where are we at, Alan? Two. Number two. This was a, we didn't know if we were gonna do this or not. Do we know The Chemical Wedding by Bruce Dickinson? Like this was, we had a little bit of a discussion this morning about this. Is it really a concept album? Should we put it on the list? What should we do? Is it really a story? And we decided that we're gonna put it on the list. Great album inspired by the art and poetry of William Blake. William Blake, sorry. Yeah, yeah. And it's about alchemy and the failure of alchemists. Alchemists are a part chemist, part magician, part philosophers, and they're sort of, they used to turn, they used to believe they could turn metals into gold. And their ideas or the ideas that they had sort of failed and it's about failure. That's what it really is about failure throughout and just different parts of failure throughout the whole album. So yeah, it's a very loose concept, but it does, you know, it doesn't veer off into other songs or anything like that. So what do you think about that album? Yeah, I mean, I had it here on cassette, actually, in a cassette worn out. So, oh, it's a great album, it's like, it's sort of a Bruce's better solo album, as I find. Yeah, I think it's, yeah. When you listen to songs like Chemical Wedding, you know, Title Track or The Tower of Tempo and it's just, you know, like a line, like there are 12 commandments, you know, like just the way Bruce is singing on that, and Adrian Smith is on that album too, right? He's a, he co-writes a track or two and Roy Z, of course, co-writing and producing it. It's, to me, it's one of Bruce's best solo albums. Though before getting to number one, we can do our honorable mentions. I got two honorable mentions. All right, go ahead. And I know I'm going with, and I love this album because they really stepped outside their wheelhouse. Judas Priest, Nostradamus. We weren't allowed to say it. I know some people are like, don't even mention it. Don't you dare talk about it. But you know what? It was great that they did something really, really different. They attempted something different. I think KK was right. It would have been fantastic if they did the whole album live on tour. And again, it's all about the predictions, various predictions of Nostradamus and they were able to incorporate it on there. What I think is a very interesting listen, so. And KK's last album with Judas Priest. Did you mention that? No. Then I mentioned it. So that's one of my honorable mentions. Yes. There was Clockwork Angels by Rush as well. I think they could have made this quite easily. The Old Magica, it's not my favorite album. We both agreed it was a little weak to include. I think some of these other albums are stronger. But that is another concept album that would support. There it is. I would throw in Blue Oyster Cult, Imaginose. It's similar to the Kiss. They, there was a story. It was supposed to be like a three album trilogy story. And just because of the record company got involved, to sort of putting things out of sequence. And it's a very bizarre album by Blue Oyster Cult. Not to say that the other stuff isn't. Sandy Proman and Albert Bouchard put that together. And if you listen to it today, it holds, it stands a test of time. I just think it's great. And I'm sure there's a couple other ones I forgot. But I think we're gonna go to number one now, Alan. But if anybody else has something they'd like to throw out there before we go to number one.  All three days into one song. It was great. And the whole album, I mean, Ice Earth, we can name, you know, the horror show, right? It's all about these horror, but it's individual songs telling individual stories. Yes, the overall concept is a horror show. Thank you, thank you, Weir Wolf, I should say, but did it feel a linear storyline? And like you said at the beginning, that was our criteria for today. An A to Z kind of storyline that goes right through the album. So I think our number one choice illustrates this. Yes, yes, but let's hold on. Seven Son of the Seven Son. That was a controversy, yes. That was a big, that was like phone call in the afternoon. Is this a concept album? So sure it was based on a story, you know, that Steve Harris wrote and Bruce Dickinson got involved, but the band has stated that the whole album is not part of that. It's sort of just because it's their seventh album. Very loose concept album. Yeah, yeah. You know. So to Rune, who's saying without Seven Son is a joke, it's not a concept album. It's like 2112. Yes, there's a lot of it that is. Oh, here we go. Somewhere in time, they were obsessed with time, right? After touring for what, 18, 20, 23 months there across the whole world. So he had all these songs that were written about time, but you can't say it's a concept album either, so. Yeah. So Phil was saying guns and roses, use your illusion. Well, it's not really, not even close to a concept album. Maybe the part one and part two, two albums with the same name, with the part one and part two, it could be perceived, but it's not. Okay, here we go. Number one. And I think there's a no brainer. Yes, yes. I'm just kidding. Unbelievable album. Not that one, this one. My favorite from back in the day, still one of my top 10 favorites. Well, I talk about a storyline from A to Z.  It's an unbelievable, fantastic story. Revolution calling, revolution's calling.  It was just amazing. I love Queens right when they do that, so. Yeah, yeah.  Evil Dr. X. And then who? The needle lies. The needle lies. Who killed sister Mary? Who killed sister Mary? That was like, nobody knew for 10 years, Allen, right? Nobody knew, nobody knew. Recorded at the studio, More and Heights as we spoke about this many, many times inspired by the Quebec separatist movement. The political angle as Jeff Tate has told us. And he wrote the characters in Le Pub Saint Sulpice on St. Denis Street where he had friends and used to hang out there and look at all the different characters and based the characters off the people that he saw, having a couple of pints. So there you have it, Operation Mind Crime. Some great songs. What are your favorite tracks of it, Allen? Everything. I love every song. I think that album, that album was just so influential in my life. When it came out, I just couldn't get enough of it. I wanted to make films to reflect it. I wanted to write stories that reflected it. It had that much of an effect on me. One of my top 10s. You talked about Abigail for yourself. This is definitely one of my top 10 all time favorite albums. Yeah, same here. I mean, there's not, I remember when it was released and it didn't take off right away, right? It was more like an underground, people were like the real, there was no radio on Operation Mind Crime. There was no videos. That was kind of after the fact, like after six months or so, they started releasing the videos in the album actually then, took off. But I don't think they were playing any songs on the radio, at least not in Canada. Do you remember? Nada. No. Zip, zero. I was just waiting for them to see them live, to see what they were going to do with this concept, how they released a box set with the CD and the VHS at the time. You know, that gives you a feel of kind of what they're doing. But I mean, the stage show was quite elaborate, grew more and more over the decades. And again, if you have the chance to, the more, I think it's the more theater, the DVD Operation Mind Crime one and two, back to back. We were there, we saw the tour when they came here and it was just, it's a great DVD as a memento of that fantastic tour where they did it for the back to back. Yep, and there you have it folks. The top 10 according to us. There's lots more out there. There's lots more out there. Feel free. Yeah, yeah, feel free to add. Yes, of course. And that's it. So, leave your comments. Thank you for watching and we'll see you again. Here on the.


Thanks for checking out this movie review video. This is for the 2019 release the color out of space or I'm sorry color out of space To be exact now this one was done by Richard Stanley Thank goodness Richard Stanley has come back for people who don't know although if you're pretty plugged into the horror community prior to Know this Richard Stanley took a very long hiatus from filmmaking after he made the film The island of dr. Moro. Well, he didn't even complete it. There's a really good documentary about it. I think it's called lost soul Look into it. I I originally saw it on Netflix I don't know if it's still on there because that was years ago But I think it's called lost soul and it's something about the island of dr. Moro in the title But it's a documentary about how Richard Stanley tried to get that film going all the things that went wrong What turned him him off a film for like 20 years or so like actually doing film But he was an up-and-coming director at that point He had been highly praised for his films dust devil and hardware and I've seen dust devil I've not seen hardware yet, but I do plan to so my point being it's really great to see him back after a long hiatus And being so turned off a film and this is a good film for him to come back with because I quite enjoyed it I'm not gonna do this isn't gonna be a spoiler review per se But I'm gonna talk about kind of thematic stuff in it So that might spoil the thematic things if you want to go in 100% blind But I'm not gonna tell you about the events of the film So I won't be spoiling that aspect of it. So anyway also just so people know there's a interview with Richard Stanley that Mick Garris did for the postmortem podcast with Mick Garris Definitely check that out. I'd listen to that a while back When this film would come out and Richard Stanley on that talks about How he came to make this film about writing the script and about directing it and kind of his mindset Going into it, which is very important I think for really putting things into context and seeing what the film actually is now to give you that background If you don't already know or haven't heard that interview he wrote it Because a he had a childhood filled with Lovecraft his he and his mother would read Lovecraft and He you know was a big fan of of his stories Now it's been very very hard for people to put Lovecraft Especially certain stories of Lovecraft into the film version of it Although people would point to things like reanimator and say that reanimator is like the best Lovecraft inspired film ever done Now people are saying color out of space is really well done a Thing like color out of space people have said is hard to do just because there's a lot in the stories apparently that are not Easy to do visually it's more of like dread and unknowns and space related Horrors that the human brain has a hard time kind of comprehending and therefore it's very very hard to put into film So yeah, so just know that so he he loved Lovecraft He would deal with his mom read it with him his mother all the time And then after he lost his mother to cancer is when he was working on this film and he you know part of his terrible ordeal Seeing his mother being taken by cancer and the the degradation that it does to to a loved one Mentally and physically is kind of what brought him to you know making the script in addition to you know His love of Lovecraft and that shared love with his mother So it's important to know that watching the film because it gives it more context in my opinion so It was written by Richard Stanley obviously was directed by written Richard Stanley, but also written by him and Scarlett Amaris Obviously based on color out of space the story by HP Lovecraft Stars Nicholas Cage He's the biggest star in this by far and I know people have really been loving some Nicholas Cage Especially with like Mandy which by the way this film is put out by Spectre vision who also put out Mandy and There are like visually some similarities between the two especially like color usage Which is really interesting to me and the Nick Cage, you know experience so if you liked Nick Cage and Mandy you'll probably like Nick Cage in color out of space just saying So there five other films you need to know this five other films came out in 2019 with Nick Cage in it So he had six films. He was in come out in 2019. That's crazy. This dude is still really really really working He's putting it in good for him Stanley says this is actually the first in a trilogy of Lovecraft Lovecraft films that he hopes to make the next one He's gonna work on is based on the Dunwitch horror Obviously know their Lovecraft because it's all about the Lovecraft the budget for this was 12 million dollars and it made a little bit under a million so financially not a success, but It's getting a lot a lot a lot of love since it made it to DVD and Blu-ray. So I'm sure it's gonna be alright. Oh And by the way if people didn't know Spectre vision the company that put this out The production company is owned by Elijah Wood. I don't know if people knew that but I feel like a lot of people know that at this point So the actual film They they very very early on have some tie-in have a tie-in to Lovecraft stories They reference the city of Arkham, which is something that's used a lot in Lovecraft stories And then later on there's actually a character who's wearing a mischatonic university shirt So it's just these kind of cool nods to Lovecraft That I like quite a bit I actually have a mischatonic university historical society shirt that I you can probably see I've worn in some of my reviews It's a really cool one If you know Stanley's history with Lovecraft and his mother's passing from cancer this film seems very personal And I already talked about that but it does feel very personal if you keep that in mind while you're watching the film You feel how personal it is Everything feels very remote with beautiful cinematography Focusing on nature very early on in the film. It's very important that aspect of it being very remote and closed off and a close Connection with nature the characters that is and I'll talk a little bit about the connection with nature The families established in a believable way with their dynamic Established very very early them as a cohesive family unit how they interact with each other It feels very believable They feel like real characters and they take enough time to actually Help you understand who they are as people and how they communicate with each other and how they feel about each other So it's a good setup for the actual characters so that when things start going crazy You care more it works good writing There's a point of starting to feel obsolete and less wanted as you age that's made in this There are actually a lot of points made in this film. It's not just a few overarching themes It's a few quick moments of other points being made And this is one of them a kind of feeling of as you age you're kind of aging out of life You're aging out of society. You're you're having less of a usefulness people don't want you as much You start to feel obsolete and sometimes that's Based off of how society treats you or how other people treat you but sometimes it's based on just your own personal feeling and It's not really based on anything else happening, you know outside of your own brain But there's that's an interesting point that's made in this film. The color is described Because as we all know it's color out of space. It literally has to do with a color coming out of space That's not a spoiler if you've seen the trailer. It's 100% in there and actually, you know If you know the title it's 100% in there But anyway, so the color that comes out of space is described by Nathan Nichols cage's character as pink at first But then he says it's a color. He's never seen before This shows the natural human reaction of Trying to tie everything to something you already know But some things don't fit in what humans know and I thought this was a really interesting moment because his initial reaction is to make sense of what's going on and That's any humans initial reaction is trying to make sense of what's going on and how do you do that? You tie it to what you already know But then he steps back and he says well It's not like any color I've ever seen and that's kind of an indicator that it's something else and that's kind of an indicator of Doubt kind of creeping in and saying, you know, maybe what I know Is out the window at this point and that and that plays to the audience as well One of the characters in this film at one point is holding a book up and you can see the title clearly And it is called the willows now. This is a book written by Algernon Blackwood. I looked it up Who influenced the writings of HP Lovecraft by the way this particular book the willows ties in very closely to Color out of space. So if you know the story, you know where the film is going So showing that book in the film is a very clear indicator of what is going to happen Not the exact events, but you know the underlying progression of the film what is going on so I Would say don't look it up prior to seeing the film look it up after seeing the film There's a kind of horrific moment where you know things have turned and a terrible impact is actually starting and it's It's not played out super horrifically. That's why I said kind of horrific like the thing that happens is horrific But everything around it seems much less horrific. It's downplayed quite a bit, which is an interesting moment film-wise There's a noise used in here From time to time that sounds like tinnitus, you know when you get that like ringing in your ear That you kind of can't can't explain why it's happening So I was looking into tinnitus a little bit because I was like it sounds definitely like tinnitus because I've had that And it's a problem. They say medically speaking. It's not a problem itself But it is an indicator potential symptom of other underlying problems now some of the stuff They said is you know having trauma to the ears But also just aging in general But I think it's in there as just like an indicator especially early on in the film of a symptom Popping up to indicate that there is something wrong that something has changed that there's an event that has occurred that has kicked this tinnitus off and and things are There's an underlying thing that needs to be addressed basically that's creating this symptom The pink and purple colors in this look great and they're used in very very cool ways The color is amazing and the combination of the pinks and purples are really really cool And then at at certain points they also mix in a little bit of blue So it looks great Well, and that's in general like the directing is really good in this that cinematography is really good The practical effects when they're done are really good and the CG used in this art It's used in interesting ways, and it looks really good. So overall visually a very nice film There's a point of when there's a point made that when communication is hindered or non-existent things tend to rapidly break down and I think that's kind of a pointed message that's kind of put to You know now with society forever with society is when you don't effectively communicate or you can't There's so much room for issues to occur based off of that inability to communicate or just communicate properly Cage is acting by the way makes me laugh sometimes He has really weird ways of delivering certain things and that's definitely on display in this film But I like that. I think it's a quirky thing I think it's kind of fun to have those weird line deliveries because it's kind of funny But it doesn't take you out of the film. It doesn't ruin anything if anything it kind of adds to it by being quirky So I like that this raises a point of how sensitive the human body is to stimuli and Raises a question of how much build-up of foreign bodies the human body can take before the whole system basically goes haywire now it's interesting because It kind of feels to me like There are two Levels in this film and it's the human body level and it's the body of nature as in mother nature as in the entire earth that are having The same thing occur at the same time and it's how does the earth react? How does the human body react now? There's also a pointed Message here about things like pollutants like how much of a pollutant Do you think that human bodies can take before it builds up to a point that there are negative reactions to it? But then it's not just that it's you know chemicals. It's pollutants It's you know natural Stimulation from things outside the body things that work their way inside the body in different ways It just kind of makes you think about that whole idea of foreign bodies because foreign bodies can be a lot of things I mean even allergens, you know when when pollen gets into your body that causes reactions that aren't I Mean I was gonna say aren't beneficial to your body, but it doesn't feel good It changes you it makes you it makes you live differently in a in a less comfortable way And then also to that point, you know going back to what I was saying partially inspired the script for Stanley Cancer, you know the foreign body of cancer getting into the body and spreading. So I think that's a play well You can get an extended Kate Nicholas Cage freakout scene in this kind of like a Mandy, but toned back a lot So for all you people who watch Mandy and you like that Nicholas Cage freakout scene You get a much lesser version of that, but it's fun to watch in this There's some echoes of the film the thing in this Echoes it's not like a hundred percent or anything, but if you see it, you will know what I mean There appears to be an aspect of dementia explored in this film as well Which is shown heavily in a scene toward the end now I think this may be tied into what had gone on with Richard Stanley and his mother that that's Particularly seen was kind of inspired by that just because in the podcast interview I listened to with Mick Garris he had kind of talked about the degradation of his mother physically, but also mentally Because of the cancer, so I think that that dementia what I think is kind of making a point about dimension how You know weird and sometimes, you know heartbreaking it basically is I think that's kind of where it probably spawns from Lots of visual effects in the end that are really interesting really cool It's like a visual explosion basically at the end and it's very engaging. You know, sometimes you have in films where there's a lot of Interesting cool stuff going on and then by the time you get to the end of the film it kind of peters out and you're just like Oh, okay, but this one's not that way I feel like it keeps you interested all the way through and the end is a Good payoff in my opinion and at least visually it is very very engaging at the end most engaging at the end I would argue So all the technical components of this film I thought were really good like I talked about you know cinematography directing acting all that type of stuff Really good the CG and the practical effects you so good It's kind of a slow pace to this film But you actually need that for the realistic gradual build-up of the actual story also the development introduction and development of the characters and their relationships and changes that occur with those relationships, so It is kind of slow. It's an hour and 50 minute film So it seems like maybe it's kind of long, but it doesn't feel that long even though you're very Cognizant of the fact that it is kind of slow paced you need it for the story though. It works There's such a focus on nature in this and the characters all have strong ties to nature in different ways. There's a witchcraft tie. There's Communing with nature through marijuana. There's farming and there's animal husbandry in this But there's also modern draws that are seeking to pull people away from their connection to nature Those being things like video games fast food and telework Nathan who's Nicholas Cage's character in this Nathan Gardner is the only one who doesn't have a modern connection Which is very interesting. It kind of paints him as more of a in tune with nature individual, which You know may lead me May leave him a little more open to certain things. That's all I'm gonna say I want to be cryptic about it. Hopefully that was cryptic enough Mother earth has a foreign body embed itself and changes occur which feels like cancer It's kind of goes back to what I was saying about, you know How many foreign bodies can the human body take but how many foreign bodies can the earth take basically? It changes the natural state of things, but also how the infected body interacts with things around it now anytime you have You know an infection or you have like I was talking about allergens or just foreign bodies chemicals build up in your body or in nature it elicits different responses and that goes from a normal state a Normal static state where things are comfortable and easy to an elevated state where things become more erratic things become More disturbing more dangerous They change and and a lot of in in those instances. They're usually not changing for the good. They're changing negatively At the least in an uncomfortable way Now my last thought on this is what if everything we know is flipped on its head and our senses can't be trusted any longer How do we deal with that and I think that's a very key set of questions that are at play in this film And I think that's one of the coolest things about this film in my opinion Like I was saying earlier people say that Lovecraft is really really hard to adapt to film because it deals with these types of concepts of trying to Visualize trying to process Something that you don't know something that doesn't fit into normal human knowledge something. That's from out Out of this world basically a color out of space in this instance and What happens when that shows up and it doesn't line up with what we know it doesn't line up with what is Normal for our senses you have a hard time Processing what's going on or what's in front of you or what's going on around you? And that's one of the interesting things about this film for that reason though. I think while you're watching the film You can have a lot of moments of confusion I felt a lot of the time when I was watching this like I know what's going on on the screen but I was trying to think like what's really going on like thematically what's trying to be said and and What what else is going on past what we can't see on the screen here and Story-wise what's really going on and it's just it gets confusing at times And you feel like you start to like lag lag behind a little bit with the film Because you're still trying to think about something that just happened while the film still moves. So for this reason I think this film Would probably need more watches. I only watch it once when I'm doing this review because that's how I do reviews but I think it can use many more watches I think you'll catch other things when you go through it and for that reason I think this could be a good one for me to do one of my discussion live streams Because there's a lot there's a lot of material there. It's very dense in that sense. So I dig this film Obviously, I really did now out of five stars with half stars in play. What am I gonna give it? It's not a perfect film. It's not the best thing I've ever seen but I did quite like it I'm gonna give it a four star rating I I did quite like it. I thought the themes were very interesting No, you know what I'm gonna bump it up It's for it's gotta be four and a half for me at the moment the more I think about it And I do think about it quite a bit after watching it. Yeah, it's gonna be a four and a half stars for me It's really good Yeah, and that's what makes sense to me rating wise So thanks everyone for checking this out real quick. Do me a quick favor hit that subscribe button If you like anything I do this review or any other reviews I appreciate that it keeps me going if you're already subscribed hit that thumbs up Just to let me know that you're still watching put some comments down there Certainly if you want to talk about this film, I will warn people I will allow spoilers in the comments So if you haven't seen the film don't look at the comments then go watch the film come back Then you we can comment and we can talk about spoilers down there. So let's talk But thanks everyone for checking this out and until next time keep it real


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Let's say I think we're getting the hang of this. It's a hard flick But we're managing. Oh, wow, we have plenty. We have angles for days in this car Hello, everybody. I'm EvilRabbit. We're here on torque drift 2 With a proper car. Make sure you guys follow me on all social media all found in the description box below Let's get into this So before we get started with this episode you got to give a massive thank you to the developers of torque drift To for hooking me up with Adam Lz's S15 as well as a few other cars here in early access here in torque drift To this car does look super sick and you guys can see it in the garage, but nobody's been able to drive it Until today where I'm gonna go drive it. So we actually have a proper Full-power FD car here. We're out of streets along beach We're gonna go full send and see what we can do so they were telling me to try the different camera Which is a little bit further back So the camera I was running before was right here It's to try a little bit for the back camera follows the car a little bit more So we're just gonna go full send and see How this works because from what they're telling this car is just oh, yeah lights up all gears. Oh Yeah Gonna take us a little bit easy at first. Oh, it's totally different when you have a car that's got power, okay We got this oh Yeah When you get a car that's just basically power on command I need to be able to adjust my braking a little bit my brake my front brakes gonna lock up like right away And I don't know if that's maybe just my braking curve set on my wheelbase Or maybe if it's something just that I need to tweak all this different Then driving a lower power 370, but we're getting it now. Oh, yeah It definitely feels so different when you have a lot of power, but it feels so nice Kind of got that feel of like almost like trying to overcome a wisefab which is Very nice to feel in a wheel Let's say I think we're getting the hang of this. That was It's hard flick But we're managing. Oh, wow. We have plenty. We have angles for days in this car Angle for days Phone's going off. I wonder who it was might be at an LZ saying hey, why are you drifting in my car? Was it paying attention alright, so yeah, this car has power for days thing lights it up in almost every gear. Oh man, this is Yeah, this is a This is definitely a lot different than when I was trying that through to see with the wheel physics The wheel feels really heavy when you're kind of a stop It's kind of like almost like a manual rack style It could just be something with my mosa base. I know they were testing it with the thrust master as well as the fan-tech DD So there I believe they are getting some mosa bases to Fully test it. We're gonna try to Actually get a score will run I guess like pedal the throttle Just to get going all that curve Part is not like curves as I say that we go over the other curve So a lot of power difference as you can see when you have a Car with a lot of power if you give me another car with a little bit less power, but they say it's a riot to drift So we're gonna give it a try Can't thank the game does enough For the hookup with animals these s15 For a full drift car to fully kind of throw around and feel how the wheel Kind of reacts definitely we need to get some wheel settings dialed in and stuff like that because they do feel a little bit of Hesitation in the wheel, but that could just be my settings. Like I said, I really need to figure out my braking my braking situation because right now kind of like My front brakes are locked. I'm kind of barely pushing on it So I think it's either something in my pit house app that you do adjust the brake curve or it's Maybe just something I would need to adjust when I have the ability to tune the car with say Brake bias control or pressure and stuff like that But for early access on this car. Oh, yeah, we're getting it now We're gonna make that all see I would need a little bit of left foot brake there to slow down a little bit and not a Lock up the prompts because since a lot of the front brakes it kind of just went right into the wall So that's something I need to look into maybe a see if that's maybe a tuning thing that I can work with or Something on the long lines of maybe just adjusting my brake control, but yeah When you have a full car like this It's just so much fun just to Smoke it up So it's gonna take a look at the other car. They sent me that they said is a riot Drive, even though it's lower powered. Let's go take a look. So like I said, we have a few cars So we have animals these at 15 that they graciously gave me to drip around Some reason I'm still having a weird loading thing going on You know, it could be just something on my computer. It says I got so much background going on or Early access not a big deal though. We have a 240 z So they've hooked me up with 240 z and said it sounds amazing and It's fun to throw around even though it's low power so Let's go throw it around And see what kind of phone we can have in a low-foward 240 Make sure you guys follow me on all social media all the time It's going to box below make sure you guys found torque drift to if you guys want more updates on this Once again, a big thank you to the game devs for hooking me up with some early access stuff to Bring you guys some content and shake around the game with wheel physics for testing and you know input and stuff like that Great to work with these guys since the original torque drift and now. Oh Yeah, all right, see what it sounds like I'm gonna show them in the right camera. Oh That sounds good. Yeah, definitely lawless power But we're kind of just gonna clutch kick this car Say that we're gonna hammer again Okay, other than that won't grab me That's that energy prison banner was like hey, we're gonna stop you So That was pretty fun off the rip. So we're just gonna go and see about just trucking this car around I can see what they say why they say it's a oh It's a fun car to drive and so you're into the wall so I think I'm gonna go through and try and Very fine tune some settings on the wheel and stuff like that and see if we can't get the most optimal feeling Right now now like I they are working On wheel physics and stuff like that all the curves This is kind of a ride to just check around now Yep, I Can see what they mean by this car is a fun car to drive But the wheel physics probably are not fully there yet for the moza But I know they are working on getting it to feel great on all wheels But I'm actually very happy with how it feels right now Yeah, this car's up this car the rides adrift all this car. You can just chuck it around Oh, my thumb wouldn't have fallen off my wheel Let's kick it. Yep. No, not as much smoke, which is kind of cool that There's not crazy months of smoke on the lower power cars compared to like say Adam LZ's car Which is kind of true to You know real life where lower power cars wouldn't be throwing up as much smoke. Yeah, see that's an instant lock-up That's something I need to address I'm gonna try this one more time though if you guys want to keep seeing more torture to let me know down in the Comment section up below as well as like and subscribe. I would appreciate all the support The devs are looking me up with stuff periodically so I can bring you guys more stuff Okay, so that we can get a little more into this game Well, it's still here in early access once again. I think you guys come back for another episode. I'm evil rabbit.  Oh, no wall wall paps People rabbit. I'll see you guys on the track


The populism question is central to understanding it's kind of libertarianism right now in 2023. We had this conversation, we went into this topic with Dave Smith on the first episode of the show, and I wanted to just play a little bit of Dave's argument. He's very much in the pro-populism camp, and this is a debate that stretches back to kind of the beginnings of modern American libertarianism. Let's have, I want to have Dave articulate his case for libertarian populism, and then kind of delve a little more deeply into this. So let's roll that best. I'm a big believer in the Rothbardian kind of like populist idea that, and look I think you see this with Javier Malais, right? Like this is the way it can be done. Like this is the way to do it is to tap into this kind of populist streak, particularly at a time when the elites have so mismanaged everything, and kind of like talk to people about how they're being ripped off. Like how they're being ripped off and these guys are doing it to you, and then the problem with populism always is that it's completely devout of any type of theory. Trumpian movement in general, there's just no it's always like he's railing against everything that is pretty horrible, and then he's like, so what's your, and it's like good deals, make the best deals, only me, only I can, it's like there's nothing really there. But libertarians already have that. It's like libertarians have all the theory, but we're missing all of the like populism to make it like appeal to people. So what do you think of that argument that, you know, at the end of the day, there are, there is a sort of, you know, managerial elites or at least people who have that ambition to plan our society and that libertarians should be defining themselves in opposition to that agenda? I think a lot of things about that. One is that I should always preface that my job, my self-conception, is not about the wielding of political, the attainment or the wielding of political power. And so when I am asked about, you know, how should we attain and wield political power, I don't have great answers or at least you should take them with all the gray of salt. My job is to do journalism, libertarian journalism. A lot of that can be very righteous and angry and frothing and pointing out the just brutal mismanagement by the elite political class. It's a huge percentage of what we do at Reason and what I've done in my life before. And I ever worked for Reason or really knew much about the place. So it's part of it, yeah, but also journalism is just a different thing. It's gathering of facts. I would point to if we're going to be talking about Marie Rothbard's strategy as being something that is helpful, you should point out that it wasn't always helpful. The Marie Rothbard went to some bad places in the early 1990s.  And there's something elite about this attempt as well or at least not elite. It's a temptation that intellectuals and people who work in the knowledge class always are tempted by, which is that if I can just harness this populist feeling out there, I'm going to produce my intellectual ideological outcome. You see this with Marie Rothbard and Lou Rockwell in the early 1990s, with the Rothwell Rothbard report. They were talking about Senator Joe McCarthy, tail gunner Joe as being a role model. They were saying nice things about David Duke. They cozy it up to Pat Buchanan at the time as a kind of predictive element of where a segment of the population was going to go as a sort of John the Baptist figures for Donald Trump. They were onto something, absolutely. And they were onto something much more than I certainly expected. So hats off for sort of like describing a world as it exists, rather the world than I thought it was. But as a place where a person can go and hold on to one's libertarianism or one's ideology, it was corrupting. Those types of things are corrupting. It's going to lead you to positions like Lou Rockwell had of like defending the cops against Rodney King of writing just really horrible things. Like the early 1990s stuff that came, whether it's in the Ron Paul Newsletters or the Rothbard Rockwell report and all these kind of things, it's very noxious. It's very anti-libertarian. It went to a bad place. And you could say that admiring Rothbard for plenty of other things that he contributed in his life. But he was always kind of a political schemer. One way to look at this and take Rothbard and take libertarian politics out of this for a second is look at the difference between what Chris Ruffo does and what, for instance, the foundation for individual rights and education does. They are always at loggerheads, even though they frequently have the same kind of opponents in the world. It's just a different approach. Fire uses a sort of tethered to a set of principles, which they apply hopefully and in my view, usually very consistently across time. Ruffo is going towards power, political power like Ron DeSantis in Florida, and trying to influence it. I think both approaches are valid, by the way. And I think like absolutely Chris Ruffo has influenced American policy and debate more than a lot of private actors have for a long time. But I think it is also corrupting. You're going to lead to bad laws, which I think some of that has happened in Florida. I think libertarian is naturally populist in that sense. It is a position from which you critique the application of power and you correctly identify that, especially those people who say that, oh, we're just over here trying to solve problems, that that is actually ideological, even as much or more ideological or more influencially ideological than libertarianism is.  I would love to see that as I would love to see someone articulate in the way that he has in those videos that we've all seen talking about economics and just rapid fire insane, you know, Nick Gillespie on on crank kind of mode. That's that's all thrilling and exciting. But let's also remember the conditions that brought him were so horrible. And I hope we don't live to see them in this country. Yeah. And there's a it's it's also it's also, you know, targeted at a the from a libertarian perspective, it's grounded. We talked about this with Dave, too, it's grounded in libertarian theory. And he is when he's, you know, saying off when and ripping things off, he's talking about dismantling unnecessary government bureaucracies, which all of us in this conversation agree with. And like, when I think about populism, I agree largely with what you're saying, Matt, that there's a sort of cynicism to libertarians embracing it, because populism can almost be its own ideology. It's like it is the belief that there is just that elites themselves are kind of inherently bad. And I think for libertarians, it's like, well, no, it's more like people who are using their elite status to infringe on others, liberties are bad. Like in a free society, they're, you know, we would have, you know, academics, and we would have, you know, titans of industry and so like, so there would be kind of like natural elite. So we're not against that necessarily, but we're against natural elites, Zach Weismiller. Well, we're against like, you know, the cloud swabs of the world, who is himself defining himself against libertarian.   They have this idea that, you know, we're going to kind of meld public and private, and we're, you know, we're going to have stakeholder capitalism. We're going to kind of go the China model. That is something to be alarmed about and worried about. And to the degree that, you know, resisting that is quote, unquote, populism, fine, but this kind of unmoored populism and appealing to just like a vague sense of the elites are controlling everything. I think that is where we start to run into big problems. Well, wouldn't libertarian populists counter to both of you? Because I do want to sort of play devil's advocate for a second here.  Matt, you know, same for you in New York City. I mean, you have basically been betrayed by the state that has locked you inside your houses for many months on end and basically removed public schools as an option available to your children. What has the state done for you? And Liz, and Liz, they blocked you from going to church, right? Well, yeah, I mean, legitimately, people from going to church. That is such a radicalizing notion. I mean, a long time, they did all of this to us.  Because they required multiple doses. Oh, and then by the way, Zach, those questions you had about the origins of this whole virus and whether or not there was a lab leak, well, actually, we're going to censor and suppress a whole bunch of information, journalistic information that attempts to get to the bottom of this, even though it's all happened in China, you know, where the CCP, sorry, I did my best Donald Trump-esque China, but like where the CCP, we know it's not generally transparent with us, right?  Like at a certain point? Well, it's not, yeah, it's not about that. And let me just give one counter that. And I'm curious to hear Matt weigh in on this, but, you know, when you talked about they locked me down in Los Angeles, it was basically one person named Barbara Ferrer, who was the public health authority for L.A. County, who was like a, you know, a master's of public health or something like that.  It was a bunch of robed elites from Ivy League, from the Ivy League, sitting on the Supreme Court. So it's not as simple as like the elites versus the non-elites are on your side or not on your side. And that's, I guess, my point is like, we should be looking more at what is, what are the mechanisms for these infringements, rather than like, what kind of strata of society or culture is it coming? But I do think it is worth pointing out that like Barbara Ferrer and, you know, big city mayors, whether Garcetti or de Blasio, were all taking their cues from Anthony Fauci and then the teachers unions and Randy Weingarten, whom Matt has written about extensively, right? Like to some degree, there was a level of coordination, maybe not in the sort of sense that people envision of like, well, the deep state is conspiring against us. But there is certainly, well, the CDC says one thing and Anthony Fauci says one thing. And then all of these big city mayors take their cues from that and so on and so forth. Matt, what do you make of all this? That is, I mean, I've always used the phrase political class in that in many cases. And this is absolutely true. And it was an actual conspiracy in that people met together and made decisions. I mean, the classic case is the February 2021 new Biden administration guidelines at the CDC about distancing in public schools, where the new CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, made a recommendation that was counter to her own personal recommendation of the summer previously, when she was a private citizen, because she had Randy Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, in on those scientific discussions. And since a huge swath of the country, the one run by Democrats for the most part, basically followed CDC Dictat on these things, that meant that sentenced kids to further time in halftime or remote schooling. And there was a revolt that happened in Massachusetts and elsewhere. And they had to scramble and revise those calculations a month later. But it showed that that thing was corrupted from from root and branch. And yes, the the elites and this and I would include here of the journalistic class too, as part of the political class right now, you have a large swath of journalism dumb, who are cheering on censorship by the Biden administration, like we have to combat COVID misinformation. And if that means, you know, taking Joe Roganoff spotify, well, darn it, that's just what we've got to do. It's insane. And we should have contempt towards that. I would just say in my own little hippie corner over here, we just had Martin Luther King day here. And I'm always glad to see people look up his various writings and speeches about everything. And I've always been, I think the perhaps greatest or certainly, you know, top five pieces of American political writing and rhetoric is letter from Birmingham Jail, which has the four steps essential steps in his position or his point of view, towards creating a nonviolent campaign of non violence resistance. And two of those steps are always kind of overlooked. But one of them is the gathering of facts, right, not fictions, but facts. The other one is self purification, which is to say, if your heart is filled with hate, you're going to do bad at doing persuasive convincing protest.  And I try not to be governed by hate. I don't think encouraging people to hate the state is going to lead to great outcomes. But that's just me personally. And again, I'm not in the power wielding business. I know that if I'm governed by hate of, you know, the protesters blocking the Williamsburg Bridge when I want to cross it, that I'm probably going to get to some bad policy ideas. So I try to not do it. that happens. Or should the Just Asking Questions podcast on Apple, Spotify, or any other pod catcher?