Episode [371] What To Do In a ‘Brewster’s Millions’ Situation - January 25, 2024

The podcast that was the Preakness short of the Triple Crown this year.

Participants

• Ian Karmel: recording his special-to-him March 23rd at Revolution Hall in Portland, pre-order T-Shirt Swim Club, bad at TikTok
• Sean Jordan: Aladdin Theater Portland September 26th for the AFE year anniversary show, special coming to YouTube, top 1% of unpaid drivers on the planet
• Josh Gondelman: between podcasts right now (the saddest sentence anyone has ever spoken), newsletter That's Marvelous every Monday at joshgondelman.substack.com
• Jesse David Fox: host of the Good One podcast, author of Comedy Book: How Comedy Conquered Culture and the Magic That Makes It Work, has one TikTok video of Anthony Jeselnik

Rock, paper, scissors winner: 
 

Jesse

Serpentine Draft Explanation:

It's like a Roomba in a very, very skinny hallway. It goes down to the end, bobs around, turns around and comes back, bobs around again on this side, turns around and goes right back — until the whole thing's clean. Probably a pretty quick job, but you get it." 

Draft Order: 

Josh, 

Jesse, 

Sean, 

Ian (Hot Corner)

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Round 1

Pick 1.1 | Josh Gondelman | Befriend and influence one or several Supreme Court justices 

Pick 1.2 | Jesse David Fox | Rent Leonardo DiCaprio's super yacht for the month 

Pick 1.3 | Sean Jordan | Buy up as many Super Bowl ad spots as possible and fill them with trailers for old movies he likes 

Pick 1.4 | Ian Karmel | Stage a Roman Colosseum-style naval battle in the Pasadena Rose Bowl

Round 2

Pick 2.1 | Ian Karmel | Slowly reverse the anti-aging progress of billionaire biohacker Bryan Johnson through subtle dietary sabotage 

Pick 2.2 | Sean Jordan | Throw a concert called "Now That's What I Call a Concert" — one song per artist, then they pack up their own gear and leave 

Pick 2.3 | Jesse David Fox | Fly in 98-year-old Jiro Ono as personal chef, with one $500,000 bluefin tuna per day 

Pick 2.4 | Josh Gondelman | Assemble a deeply eccentric entourage: a hype man, a humble man, an impersonal chef, a blacksmith, and Turtle (in character)

Round 3

Pick 3.1 | Josh Gondelman | Fresh Prince-style coast-to-coast cab ride 

Pick 3.2 | Jesse David Fox | Build a basketball court on the yacht; play Kevin Durant, Chet Holmgren, Victor Wembanyama, and Adam Sandler against a hated summer league team — wearing game-worn Jordan 13s 

Pick 3.3 | Sean Jordan | Commission a one-of-one, never-to-be-repeated Mountain Dew and Taco Bell culinary collaboration, served in a two-liter 

Pick 3.4 | Ian Karmel | Murder mystery experience on the Orient Express with professional actors (Helen Mirren-tier), full costume, Dana solves it

Round 4

Pick 4.1 | Ian Karmel | Post stand-up clips on the Las Vegas Sphere 

Pick 4.2 | Sean Jordan | Commission 16 martial artists from around the world for a real-life Street Fighter 2 tournament — all in character 

Pick 4.3 | Jesse David Fox | Stage reading of a hypothetical third season of The OA on the yacht 

Pick 4.4 | Josh Gondelman | Throw the Googler — a Met Gala competitor at the Guggenheim with much bigger themes and much stricter enforcement

Round 5

Pick 5.1 | Josh Gondelman | Tip 1,000% on everything for the entire month

Pick 5.2 | Jesse David Fox | Officiate 102 gay weddings — one more than Guy Fieri 

Pick 5.3 | Sean Jordan | Reverse Truman Show — get an entire city to Truman Show him while he's fully in on it Pick 5.4 | Ian Karmel | Build a town of eerily realistic marzipan people and devour them in front of an unsuspecting driver — filmed live on the Las Vegas Sphere

Producer's Pick 

Isaac Lee | Get Bon Iver, Kendrick Lamar, and Sean Jordan in a room and write an album together

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Quotes From This Episode

• "I want him to have the penis of a 32-year-old by the time the month is over." — Ian Carmel (on Brian Johnson)
• "You start with an improv group name and you take one thing off. That's how you name a horse." — Josh Gondelman
• "I wanna fucking die." — The Dunkin' employee (as recounted by Josh Gondelman)
• "I don't know how it's gonna work, but we're gonna do it. It's interesting. It's interesting." — Sean Jordan (on the Reverse Truman Show)
• "It's less than a cup of coffee. Just do it." — Ian Carmel (on the AFE Patreon)

Episode [368]- 2023 Pop Culture Draft-- January 4, 2024

The podcast that has showed great restraint and waited until pretty much the end of the year.

Participants

• Ian Karmel: recording this on December 29th, saw his last serious movie consideration 36 hours ago, pre-order T-Shirt Swim Club
• Sean Jordan: opening for the Sklar Brothers tonight at Healing Comedy Club, smash that subscribe button on YouTube
• David Gborie: heading to Snow Jam in Sioux Falls, was at the Denver Nuggets parade, getting a Red Bull
• Alison Herman: TV critic at Variety, responsible for everything on their 100 Greatest TV Shows list she agrees with, exclusively a Hailey Bieber strawberry glazed donut aficionado

Draft Order This week's winner of Rock, Paper, Scissors is Alison, scissors against two rocks — an unnatural victory. Alison sets the order based on the layout of faces on her Zoom screen. As Sean explains the serpentine draft: "It's like putting up Christmas lights. Back and forth." The order is Alison, David, Ian, Sean.

Round 1

Pick 1.1 | Alison Herman | Barbenheimer 

Pick 1.2 | David Gborie | The Taylor Swift Eras Tour (and accompanying film) 

Pick 1.3 | Ian Karmel | Succession (Final Season) 

Pick 1.4 | Sean Jordan | Jury Duty

Round 2

Pick 2.1 | Sean Jordan | John Wick: Chapter 4 

Pick 2.2 | Ian Karmel | The Bear (Season 2) 

Pick 2.3 | David Gborie | Bottoms 

Pick 2.4 | Alison Herman | Killers of the Flower Moon

Round 3

Pick 3.1 | Alison Herman | The Scandoval (Vanderpump Rules) 

Pick 3.2 | Ian Karmel | Ariana DeBose's BAFTA Rap 

Pick 3.3 | David Gborie | The Grimace Shake 

Pick 3.4 | Sean Jordan | The Mischief Big Red Boots

Round 4

Pick 4.1 | Sean Jordan | The Fall of the House of Usher 

Pick 4.2 | Ian Karmel | The Holdovers 

Pick 4.3 | David Gborie | The Denver Nuggets NBA Championship 

Pick 4.4 | Alison Herman | May December

Round 5

Pick 5.1 | Alison Herman | The WGA/SAG-AFTRA Strikes (and their resolution) 

Pick 5.2 | Ian Karmel | Olivia Rodrigo (GUTS) 

Pick 5.3 | David Gborie | The Arrest in the Murder of Tupac Shakur 

Pick 5.4 | Sean Jordan | Nate Bargatze Hosting SNL

Producer's Pick Isaac Lee | Ted Lasso (Season 3)

Honorable Mentions Beyoncé's Renaissance Tour; Stop Making Sense reissue; LeBron's scoring record; Draymond Green; New Jeans; Beef; Reservation Dogs; The Last of Us; Past Lives; Zone of Interest; Scavenger's Reign; Young Fathers album; Barry (series finale); The Late Late Show (series finale)

Quotes From This Episode

• "I felt like Homer Simpson eating the donuts." — Ian Karmel (on the overstuffed year in pop culture)
• "Picasso could have heard Aerosmith." — Sean Jordan
• "This is my Watergate." — Alison Herman's boss (on the Scandoval)
• "Stop putting hot people in weird stuff." — Ian Karmel (on Wonka)
• "It's good. We did a job." — David Gborie (doing his Nikola Jokić impression)
• "Angela Bassett did the thing. Viola Davis, my woman king!" — Ian Karmel (doing his Ariana DeBose impression)