Adam Levin (4:33)

Welcome to Uncertain Things. I'm Adam and here is Mike Pesca. Joining me, host, creator, dreamer of the Gist and any other titles that I should be throwing at you.

Mike Pesca (4:48)

Dream Architect. Yeah, I breathed it into being. I looked upon the world and I said, this shall be. I also have a substack called Pesca Profundities. Think of changing the name now. What do you think someone said? Someone said that it's the sort of thing that you'd name your that a clever kid who writes a high school newspaper column would name it like that was the name of my high school. Now it wasn't, but could have been.

Adam Levin (5:14)

It is. It is either it's the bookend of life. It is either A high school student or a retiree writing for their local Connecticut newspaper.

Mike Pesca (5:25)

Yes. About these library closures.

Adam Levin (5:32)

People in the, in the home talking about. Did you read the latest profundities?

Mike Pesca (5:38)

I don't know where this guy gets his stuff. Where it was all the talk of mahjong. I don't know why everyone. I've turned everyone vaguely Jewish or specifically Jewish.

Adam Levin (5:48)

Yeah, that happens. Everything leads back to it. It's like a big drain. Big Jewy drain. Before we talk about the Jews, I do want to ask you, and I warned you, I will. I want to ask you as a businessman, as an entrepreneur of sound and innovator of media. Give me your survey now of the landscape in the world. Actually, maybe take a step back. What world do you see yourself in? Do you see yourself as a podcaster? Do you see yourself as a news adjacent reporter?

Mike Pesca (6:30)

Yes, I know what the answer would be. If this were one of those business podcasts and I was looking to get clipped onto a social media feed, I'd say you have to be everything. That's the old way of thinking that you can only be one thing. And yeah, it's true. Here's the deal. I think of myself, I think of podcasting as radio, just kind of on demand radio. I think it's as if you were in a band and you were like, no, I don't make albums for wax anymore. I make them for cassette or I make them for CDs or I make them for Spotify. I don't think a good musician thinks like that. So I think of it as radio. And sometimes the radio becomes, you know, available in podcast form. But now radio podcasting, insufficient. Everything is video. Spotify has tried to tell us that. Turn all your radio shows into videos. We're dealing with a video here. Doesn't work on Spotify. But the, the thing is, and what it's trying to address is that when it was radio, there was a radio that you could put on and it had, I don't know, 30 stations on each part of the dial. And that alone would get you listened to. People would say, what's on the radio? So I'm getting at the issue of discoverability. And there is no discoverability in audio. People do not share audio clips. And that's for good or bad, but for growing an audience, it's bad. Discoverability can only happen through video. So this is why we do video. Weirdly, a lot of people just kind of use their, their video as a podcast. They say the number one podcast player is actually YouTube. And they're not using it in a different way other than everyone else watching videos, but people will, especially younger people, watch videos in the background and count it as a podcast.

Adam Levin (8:17)

It feels like those words don't mean anything anymore. It's just. These are just formats of people talking. Right?

Mike Pesca (8:22)

Yes. It's all content. It's all information. The information superhighway.

Adam Levin (8:29)

So I'm not. This is not a business podcast, but I do have the occasional naval gaze, curiosity about how people in, in, in my pathetic little world of news, academic curiosities, reporting and, and audio content.

Mike Pesca (8:50)

That's not little. That's neither pathetic nor little. It's a.

Adam Levin (8:53)

This, this, this, this punt, this pond of ours. I do have to confess though that the only reason that I'm doing a podcast, and I think maybe listeners know this, it's pretty clear considering how much I have or how little respect I have for the, for the medium as a whole, I was, I got into it. My, my colleague partner, Vanessa, who is now on maternity leave but usually co hosts this podcast with me. She was a devotee of audio. She, she literally wrote the book about podcasting. She did. That was one of academic works for Columbia journalism schools who study the history of podcasts. That was never my interest. I love doing reporting and talking to people and then writing it down. And then I just realized that the writing it down part and turning it into an article where you also refine the eloquence of the people that you interview and pull out the nuggets. That's a lot of work and interviewing people and publishing a lot easier. So I think it. I got into podcasting by being lazy.

Mike Pesca (9:58)

Well, there's a certain kind of podcast that does that. They let's put it all up and let it all hang out. Then there is the, you know, bespoke, exquisitely crafted audio podcasts of serial. And those are great.

Adam Levin (10:10)

That's true.

Mike Pesca (10:11)

Yeah. Economically speaking, they used to be, they used to be podcasts. You'd think of podcasts and maybe you wouldn't think of anything and then you'd think of cereal. And then I think you started thinking about the, the daily. But, but those are. Or at least people in a certain world would think about the daily. Those are still staffs of, you know, 20 something people and hours, hundreds of person hours put into every minute of radio. Then there's other shows that like. It's not like Megan Kelly or Ben Shapiro don't have a staff, but that's more like an old radio show. You talk into a microphone Maybe you film it when. Here's the big difference to tell how exquisite every piece of audio is in the world. I come from the NPR world. The following would just drive people. I mean you couldn't do it. Which is something that Ben and Megan do every day. Oh yeah, let's go to SOT4. It's that it's signaling the producer in real time. Yeah, let's play clip three. And the thing is, you know, I always. There is this whole discussion in the world of public radio ask. But also, you know, really highly produced podcasting, how do we make the economics work? Why is no one listening to the extent that we can monetize them? Because no one cares. One cares about, I don't know, some people care and in a certain world, you don't want the world broken up. If you're doing a documentary with, hey, let's turn to clip four. But by and large people just want to hear clip four. They don't necessarily have to hear the smooth transitions getting into clip four. And I think a lot of the people in the public radio world or the documentary world of podcasting mistake. How mistake the demands of the audience, the aesthetic demands of the audience. Because we really talk about aesthetics, we're not talking about a difference of information. Megan, Ben being more conservative than most, most the public media. So I think you can lose a lot of the, a lot of the bespoke kind of finely tuned portions of public radio esque podcasting without actually losing much and saving some production budget along the way.

Adam Levin (12:10)

If we're shifting a little bit to the question of content, like the content of content substance, how do you feel about our information environment right now? I mean it's, it's a big question considering that we, even if we're just limiting ourselves to the United States, we're talking about how 300 million people are consuming information. But surely you have some thoughts about how people absorb information and, and sift through bullshit.

Mike Pesca (12:42)

Yeah, it's pretty bad. It's pretty degraded. One of the things that's most annoying to me is that the vast majority of will agree with me, will then say, and it is because of something like misinformation and disinformation. I think way too much emphasis has been placed on people actively trying to lie to you. And I don't think that's what's going on. I think people have different opinions. Some of that's going on. But is it so much more than has all, than has always ever been thus? I think first, first of all, misinformation and disinformation. It's one of those pairings like Medicare and Medicaid where they're totally different things. You know, misinformation is just something that's wrong. Happens all the time. We're going to talk for an hour or so and we'll transmit to each other probably two or three bits of misinformation. Disinformation is totally different. I think that was overblown. There was attempts at disinformation, but the last election or the election two elections ago, so much got blamed on that and it became this boogeyman, this shibboleth and all of that.

Adam Levin (13:45)

But you're talking about 2016 and yeah.

Mike Pesca (13:49)

The whole idea of if we only had better hygiene in our information spaces, we'd be better informed. I don't think that's true.

Adam Levin (13:55)

If we had the firewall to prevent Putin's fire hose of bullshit from entering.

Mike Pesca (14:01)

Yeah, if we had the systems within Facebook, Facebook, Metta, all our platforms to call out and to suss out disinformation, misinformation things would. That's impractical. And I don't think that diagnoses the problem. I think that technology allows all these voices to be heard and then all these voices are not exactly heard, but there is a cacophony and it becomes more of what? It becomes more audience driven and the audience doesn't always know what it wants to hear and it doesn't know what.

Adam Levin (14:39)

Does become more audience driven. The.

Mike Pesca (14:41)

Everything. Yeah, everything about our information space is fractured and siloed. And so 30 years ago, when there was broadcasting and newspapers that strode communities like behemoths, those newspapers knew that they were kind of writing for everyone. And as such there was an incentive to be accurate. Because if you were inaccurate, your. A large percentage of your readership or listenership would notice and object. But these days, since everything is fractured, you could be inaccurate or only portray one side of the issue and you're really only going for a narrow slice of the audience. So to take a newspaper, you know, it used to be that you had a lot of take a left leaning newspaper now, Philadelphia Inquirer, they knew that they had many readers within their coverage area that were going to object not just if you told them something that they didn't agree with, but if you misrepresented facts. Right. And you'd have advertisers who objected to that. And you were hiring, you know, the whole world was different and we weren't as polarized, but you were hiring a bunch of People who didn't come up being ideologically driven in the first place. Now all those incentives have fallen away. So you could basically just tell one side of the story. That's fine. The Philadelphia acquirer doesn't aspire, realistically aspire to be a newspaper for all people and hopefully it works out with your third of the audience. That is more or less where you are ideologically and it's even truer for podcasts. So I think that, that I think we're in a pretty bad place. We don't have, we don't have totally accurate or sufficiently accurate gatekeepers. Bad information gets out there and you just want your fellow citizen to have some sort of basis of reality, some sort of shared reality. And I don't think we have enough of that. And I know that there are going to be a whole bunch of people who are ideological or trying to convince you of something, but I would like it for some sort of referee or the self appointed fact checkers or the big legacy institutions to still really take seriously. I can't be wrong on this. If I call something fact checking, the facts have to be right. And I don't see that going on. I see ideology having inflected so many portions of media.

Adam Levin (17:13)

So I, I of course heard that the, the story being told as we have lost the centralization of media and as a result, and the result of that and the fracturing, the, the, what's the phrase, the disbundling or unbundling of products, all that together, all those processes together lead to the, the loss of any kind of central authority to, to sift through truth and the loss of the incentives to even do so. But don't you feel like we're also going through something a little deeper than that, Some, some actual epistemic change in our priorities? Because I don't know if I can even really point to many people in our fields that seem to truly prioritize a sense of accuracy above anything else. And that comes not just from the changes in incentives. The changes in incentives perhaps highlight it and galvanize it. But you, you'll be hard pressed to, to name 10 people with, with prominent spots that seem to truly care about holding their own quality of reporting to a higher standard and are not swept by whatever delusion their side might have at a single moment.

Mike Pesca (18:34)

Oh, I disagree with that. I think that there are a lot of, lot of people who really, really want to be accurate. And I think Sulzberger of the New York Times wants to, he wants to be seen as accurate. But he also wants to be accurate. He's operating within a system like anyone. He has a constituency, right? He has a lot of people who write for him who are maybe further to the left than he would like them to be publicly, but he has pulled the newspaper back. He knows that the whole trend of rejecting objectivity wasn't good for the credibility of his newspaper. He wrote about this in cjr. He can't go straight ahead and say, no, objectivity is what we do. The phrase. I mean, we. We engage in these word wars. The phrase has been degraded, but essentially that's what he's saying. We need to get back to objectivity. Many of your listeners will say, he hasn't done it yet. We're always going to criticize the New York Times. I just had an article, and the day we. Speaking out on the Free Press today, very, very critical of a piece of New York Times coverage about a police shooting. But at the same time, they've also hired writers and thinkers who are corrective to that sort of thing. So I think. I think the New York Times essentially wants to do it. I think some of the retired people at the Washington Post and some of the people still there want to do it. Jeffrey Goldberg's in the news today. I mean, I know people on the right will slam him, but I really think he wants to be accurate. He carried himself with. He carried himself pretty heroically in this whole signal situation. I think that we could go through some of the big newspapers, some of the even big networks, and they do. There are many people who really do want to be accurate, saying, you think.

Adam Levin (20:10)

That the, that the driving motivator there is an ethical belief in accuracy, in putting aside the word objectivity, just in being factual. And.

Mike Pesca (20:19)

Yeah, yeah, I think the New York Times. Yeah. I was just talking to an editor at the New York Times, and I know that he and his colleagues talk all the time about being accurate. It's accurate within a world which the best among them will recognize comes from, you know, a certain milieu. And, and the assumptions are not that, you know, abortion is bad. The assumptions are. Sorry, the assumptions are. Yeah. Not that abortion is bad. The assumptions are not that, you know, tariffs are good. There are certain assumptions based on where they come from and what they all believe. But, yeah, they do want to be accurate. Many, many of them do. Most of them do. I mean, there is a debate, right. Wasn't there a debate within journalism whether to go with what was called the moral clarity journalism, the jettisoning of object versus. No, let's Keep on doing. Call it something else if you will, but objectivity has its place. The fact that there was a debate about that tells you that there's more than 10 people who believe in accuracy, objectivity, that moral clarity, that kind of journalism will get us into a bad place.

Adam Levin (21:20)

Okay, so put aside my, my false minion of. Of 10.

Mike Pesca (21:24)

The false menion. Yeah.

Adam Levin (21:28)

I. I might be misreading vibes, but the, I don't think that the Lowey argument which was the, the journalist who wrote. Was it. I don't remember who he wrote it about the. Against objectivity. And then the whole.

Mike Pesca (21:44)

Yeah, yeah, he wrote an op ed for the New York Times.

Adam Levin (21:47)

For the Times.

Mike Pesca (21:48)

Yeah, they also profiled him, Masha Guess and wrote a big profile of him that set that along in the New Yorker. And then he was brought in to sort of remake the Philadelphia Inquirer in the wake of, you know, huge scandals like an editor saying buildings matter too and being fired after the Black Lives Matter protest took hold.

Adam Levin (22:09)

Right. And. And then A.G. salzberger, the publisher responded to this. We actually interviewed him about his. His piece at the Dispatch. Yeah, the. That conversation has its own in like internal self satisfied, you know, almost academic quality to it. But the truth is that the, the consumers are. Are not interested in it seems to me really in. In. In any kind of that high minded self standard self standard towards accuracy. And the. In even in the. In such a. A lofty organization as the New York Times. And, and I say actually lofty more in the sense being able to still being held being held accountable to a wider audience. The way you're imagining the publishing houses of yore. They have probably the biggest reach and therefore the most diverse audience just going through some of the reactions in their own comment sections. And then in the conversation outside of this, it doesn't seem like any. Shouldn't say anybody shouldn't exaggerate, but it seems like very few people are there to put money for that kind of internal struggling. I know that the people who pay for the Dispatch are almost entirely there for the sort of self criticism and nuance and when they hear the whiff or experience just a touch of heat from a take, they are turned off. But those are people who have been literally trained in our audience, I'm afraid to say, does not quite meet the New York Times or the Daily Wires numbers. I do think that the majority of people who are willing to actually pay for news want some kind of righteous indignation on one side or the other at the expense of accuracy.

Mike Pesca (24:01)

Yeah, it's probably true that for the majority of news consumers, or at that point, are they even news consumers, opinion consumers, but there are plenty of counterexamples. The Dispatch, you know, it's probably true that Dispatch readers, if you serve them just a bunch of things that challenge the worldview, their worldview going in, wouldn't like it. Who does? I have this conception that there is a certain kind of person, and I'm one of them, who does like being challenged, but I don't like being challenged 75% of the time. Right. And even if there is an outlet that will challenge me 75% of the time, I have to mix that into my news diet kind of gingerly. So that's one thing. But I think the Dispatch is a good example. There's this other news service that Isaac Saul has started called Tangle News. Do you know it?

Adam Levin (24:51)

Yep.

Mike Pesca (24:52)

So it's great. It's. Isaac writes up. Here's five views from the left, here's five views from the right, and here's my view. And he really, really, he's like a monk. He tries to take himself and the ego out of it. He'll give you his opinion, but he really tries to be unbelievably fair. And they've just hired their, hey, look, this isn't going to blow you away and it's not going to make the New York Times jealous, but they've just hired their seventh or eighth staffer and they make in the low single digits of billions of dollars in revenue. So this to me, and the Dispatch is doing well, this to me shows that there, there is an appetite for it. It's also strange, when I read the New York Times comments section, a lot of the articles that go against what you would think would be the stereotypical critique of the new, a left leaning rag, I think specifically on the transgender issue, there will be so many comments saying if there's an article that is just a good journalistic article and they have done them on what W Path or some of these other organizations that are rethinking or at least thinking critically about gender identity and youth. You know, so many people say, thank you, this is sensible. This is what I need. I'm trying to navigate this and get to the truth. Now, look, people will say that about the very ideologically inflected places to pick a place that we're like, all right, we know where they stand. Be it the Daily Wire or the Intercept. You'll get a bunch of comments saying, thank you for telling the truth. Everyone defines the truth. That way. But as I see the willing to be challenged and know that my truth isn't the only truth, as I see that as a niche, I think it's a, I think it's an I think that there is possible and demonstrable money to be made there. I think that there's a big, big enough market for that.

Adam Levin (26:47)

So let's assume that your optimism is justified or that you're it's not optimism that you're just seeing things clearly. Where, how does this help us? The reality is that you, you alluded to the Signal story and maybe you can unpack it to our listeners. I know that a lot of the uncertain things listeners are not necessarily so news obsessed. So they sometimes come here for more esoteric discussions of, I don't know, Tom Holland. I think I have a good hold on the Tom Holland fan club in my listenership. So they don't necessarily have read the news today. So maybe give them a rundown on this and then let me ask you a question about news as it pertains to this.

Mike Pesca (27:36)

We're speaking on two Tuesday is today Tuesday. I never know the day. Yeah. So I don't know. Is this going to air today?

Adam Levin (27:43)

Tomorrow, probably tomorrow.

Mike Pesca (27:45)

This is going to be I predict it's going to be ubiquitous. But Jeffrey Goldberg was invited to a Signal chat.

Adam Levin (27:53)

Berg, chief editor in chief of the.

Mike Pesca (27:56)

Editor in chief of the Atlantic. A journalist who didn't ask for this gets a Signal invite on the app Signal, which is an encrypted app from Mike Waltz, who's the national security a national security advisor. He doesn't really know Waltz. He joins this group and the group winds up being a principles committee that is discussing what turns out to be the strike on the Houthis that the United states took on March 16. And for a long time, Goldberg says, I thought I was involved in some sort of operation where they're fishing for my information because that happens a lot. But then it turns out to be real. He's privy and reports on the internal discussions of Pete Hegseth, JD Vance, other people debating and discussing what's going to happen. It does happen exactly as they say it's going to happen, thus confirming that he was in the group. The interesting and then Goldberg is very responsible and doesn't give away undercover identities of CIA operatives, doesn't give away details of the mission that couldn't peril anyone. What's interesting to me is two things. One, Democrats are making hay of this hay should be made. Was this, is this a violation of the Law possibly could be certainly a violation of regulations, certainly unsafe, certainly incautious. All those questions should be made. I appreciated the insight that I got of how the deliberations occurred where you saw J.D. vance in private and with a group of 18 people he thought were, you know, high cabinet officials and such kind of behaving like he does not in private where he raises what he thinks are the most important issues, which are, let's not do this to help the Europeans. Europe benefits more from the shipping of the Suez Canal. This is why they hit the Houthis, because the Houthis were striking at ships in the Suez Canal. You know, this is something that will help Europe more than it will help us. And I don't want to help Europe. The other members of the channel were like, well, even though you're right, J.D. of course we all hate Europe. You know, we should hit the Houthis because President Trump said hit the Houthis. And then in this dynamic is fascinating Stephen Miller adviser who titularly or on the org chart certainly in the aren't as high as he is, certainly aren't in line to be president. But he comes in and said, no, I heard the president say he wants to hit the Houthis. Boys were hitting the Houthis. And hit were the Houthis. The Houthis were hit. So that's all really interesting. Another interesting aspect is Hegseth were like Hegseth said, you're right, J.D. no one really knows who the Houthis are. So how we have to sell this is one, Biden was weak and two, they're backed by Iran. And I remember on my show on the gist, I played a bunch of clips and one was Mike Wall saying, you know, they're backed by Iran and Biden was feckless. And then I played a clip of Hegseth going on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo saying the reason we did this was shipping lanes and freedom, but also Biden was weak and they're backed by Iran. So it was really interesting to see the difference between the private and the public. I shouldn't have been able to see it, but that's, that's the, that's the lesson. And the gate of the signal gate, as they're sometimes calling it.

Michelle Pesca (31:21)

I don't even know where to start.

Mike Pesca (31:23)

You know, that is summertime. The only person I'm having a problem with is you.

Adam Levin (31:29)

Do you even know me? Do you even know me? Dude?

Michelle Pesca (31:32)

This was years of friendship that I thought would last forever.

Rob Schulte (31:37)

These are the best days of Our life.

Michelle Pesca (31:41)

You're being an obnoxious person right now, Katie.

Rob Schulte (31:44)

You're just a bitch to me all the time.

Michelle Pesca (31:45)

You can't be real for one second, Kristin. Suddenly everything kind of turned upside down.

Mike Pesca (31:52)

Just raise your glasses high.

Rob Schulte (31:56)

So you're not exclusively dating this girl?

Mike Pesca (31:58)

I'm interested in you. Were you guys hanging out alone?

Michelle Pesca (32:01)

It's great to have new faces, but their problems seem as complicated as their predecessors. Knock in the. You've never been happy in your life. Woman to woman, Be careful.

Adam Levin (32:12)

If you don't love me for who.

Mike Pesca (32:13)

I am, then bye. Bye.

Michelle Pesca (32:14)

This is called a dysfunctional relationship.

Mike Pesca (32:17)

Look at her in the eyes.

Rob Schulte (32:17)

Until you don't have feelings for her.

Mike Pesca (32:18)

I do.

Michelle Pesca (32:19)

You selfish, egotistical piece of. I just want to get in my.

Mike Pesca (32:23)

Car and drive away and never come back.

Rob Schulte (32:28)

This one's for you tonight.

Michelle Pesca (32:32)

Okay, let's get started.

Mike Pesca (32:33)

Okay.

Rob Schulte (32:34)

Mark it.

Michelle Pesca (32:35)

Wait, Rob. Is that who we're talking about?

Mike Pesca (32:36)

Yeah.

Michelle Pesca (32:37)

Rob and I are very much in love.

Mike Pesca (32:40)

Yeah.

Michelle Pesca (32:41)

Rob has a very hard time expressing that. Vander pump. Bander pump. Vander pump. Bander pump. Rob.

Mike Pesca (32:52)

Yeah.

Michelle Pesca (32:52)

Rob makes me so happy.

Mike Pesca (32:55)

Yeah.

Michelle Pesca (32:56)

Rob's never mad. I've never in 11 years seen him mad.

Mike Pesca (32:59)

Yeah, Rob.

Michelle Pesca (33:01)

He likes coffee with his creamer. Like, I can't wait for, like, Rob and I need a house. One day, Rob and I are gonna.

Mike Pesca (33:06)

Have, like, two kids. Yeah.

Michelle Pesca (33:07)

Sander pump. Sander pump. Sander pump. Sander pump. Rob.

Mike Pesca (33:15)

Yeah.

Rob Schulte (33:17)

Welcome to Vanderpump Robs, a podcast about Hollywood. On today's episode, I welcome my former Park Slope neighbors from the Gist podcast team. It's host Mike Pesca, and C. Of Peach Fish Productions, Michelle Pesca. Welcome to Vanderpump Robs.

Mike Pesca (33:36)

Thank you, Rob.

Michelle Pesca (33:37)

Thanks, Rob.

Rob Schulte (33:37)

Hey, this is. This is a long time coming. You know, when I. When I used to live above you, I was like, I hope I'm just not stomping too loud, you know? But one day. One day they're gonna come on my Vanderpump podcast that doesn't exist yet. And we were just talking about this.

Mike Pesca (33:54)

And we said Rob had a light, almost balletic touch which creeps upon the floor above us.

Rob Schulte (34:00)

I. I sprinkled sand on the floor and did a little soft shoe.

Mike Pesca (34:04)

It would do that. When you would do those acts, it was just bring us back to a simpler time of vaudeville.

Rob Schulte (34:13)

Huh? Well, this is great. I wanted to just. Right off the top, if any of my listeners have been living under a podcast rock, I want to give you the opportunity to just. Just pitch the gist let them know why they need to listen to it and then we'll get into all of this other business of Vanderpump.

Mike Pesca (34:30)

Shall I, or would you like to?

Michelle Pesca (34:32)

I think you're best suited.

Mike Pesca (34:33)

The Gist is the longest running news and analysis podcast we think in existence. I don't know. I haven't surveyed the Spanish speaking world, but that is our, that is our understanding. And every day I talk about the news and I give it some analysis and I do an interview. And my take is, although it's an opinion show, I really don't bludgeon you with an opinion. I really try to draw out of my guests the best arguments that they could offer. So sometimes that's by challenging them, sometimes that's by follow up questions. I have been accused recently of going too easy on the artsy guests. I should go harder on them. Like I do the political or philosophical guests. And I was like, and I was thinking about that. Maybe it's true. Maybe I have. I'm overly deferential to the arts because what they do and what they create is amazing. It's also opt in. Right? It's not torturing the rest of us if they get it wrong. But I have done the show for over 11 years and if seeing how our civilization is going, I hope to do it for 11 weeks more.

Rob Schulte (35:42)

Hey, it makes sense. And I do have to say you could have gone harder on past guest of this podcast, Jim O'Hare. He, I, I think stated them.

Mike Pesca (35:51)

That guy just stated. Yeah, you know, he was. Was he Larry? Was he Gary?

Rob Schulte (35:58)

We need to know. He needs to be honest with us. And it's quite all right. But I love the podcast and I'm so happy you're both here. But let me, let me ask you both this and Michelle, we can start with you. Where does reality TV fit into your lives? Like, is it something that you once watched? Were you Survivor fans? Were you, were you Bachelor fans? Do you watch Vanderpump Rules or any shows other than that?

Michelle Pesca (36:22)

So there's a divide in our house, and I'm not going to say it's obvious, but maybe it is to some. I have been a longtime reality TV watcher, not an obsessive one, but I have my, I have my favorites. I've been a big Bravo person. I've watched most of the Real Housewives franchises and then of course, obviously Vanderpump Rules being a major offshoot of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. So I've watched it from the beginning. I will say, though, there was A fall off for me, not an unintentional one. But it has not been a big part of my life as of late. And so I didn't see season eight or beyond. Although I do know some of the chatter around the scandals.

Rob Schulte (37:13)

Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Mike Pesca (37:15)

And as for me, I'm going to say some things, possibly overstate some of my opinions, just to be provocative as a provocateur, but I think reality TV is a deleterious development that is threatening society. There, I've said it.

Rob Schulte (37:36)

Okay.

Mike Pesca (37:37)

I do think that one of. One of the first ever interactions I saw between Michelle and her mom, they started talking about, oh, my God, did you see when they went to the medium? And I thought that, I don't know, like, who's one of the New York housewives who went to a medium? Or maybe it was.

Michelle Pesca (37:52)

No, it was Beverly Hilled.

Mike Pesca (37:53)

Anyway, did you see that, Lisa? The medium sent it. I'm like, who are these people? Well, you think you're talking about. Never heard you talk about these people. And they were. I sure was Beverly Hills, the medium.

Michelle Pesca (38:05)

I am. I thought they were like, yeah, it was a big dinner thing with Kyle and like.

Rob Schulte (38:11)

But it could have. It could have been any Housewife franchise or any episode of Vanderpump Rules, because a medium or a psychic or someone with crystals or a Reiki healer, they're always going to infiltrate the case of emergency break glass. Yes.

Michelle Pesca (38:27)

I also want to say that Mike has always been a huge critic of reality tv. Just like, you know, he couldn't believe that, like, I was watching it yet, however, I would be watching it. And he would, like, just kind of dance around in the background, like, coming in and out of the room and asking me questions about the episodes. He obviously was, like, very interested, even though that he was not.

Mike Pesca (38:51)

A couple of things. One is because I'm uxorious. Do you know what uxorious means?

Michelle Pesca (38:56)

Nobody does.

Rob Schulte (38:57)

I'm not going to pretend to know what it means.

Mike Pesca (38:59)

It's one of my favorite words. And it's. It's so apt. It means it describes an excessive love for one's wife. So I am uxorious.

Michelle Pesca (39:07)

Oh, my God.

Mike Pesca (39:08)

If her interests are my interests. And all these things take so much time. And I want to know. So that's point one. Point two is I'm not saying these things aren't effective, and I'm not saying these shows aren't interesting anthropologically. And I'm definitely not saying they don't hit the reptilian part of our brain. So they are interesting, right? We're human beings. We like looking at other human beings. The editing is wizardry. So, you know, I'm interested in it in a meta way, but also I'm interested in Michelle so we could talk about things that occur on the show. I remember watching the Bravo network when it was the Ovation network and they programmed a lot of opera and that is, you know, more of my high growth.

Michelle Pesca (39:51)

Oh my God, he is so going hard on trying to make sure that everybody who is watching this knows that he's an intellectual and it's a sad wife who has an interest in reality TV and he's only interested in an ancillary way.

Mike Pesca (40:07)

Can I tell you what my reality TV is? Fantasy football and fantasy basketball. I'm not a highbrow intellectual.

Rob Schulte (40:15)

Well, I will say that, like, there's been an argument made lately, especially after some of the bigger scandals that resulted in this show totally, like retiring the current cast and like rebooting the series next year, that people have made arguments that reality TV is now a new form of sports. Right? It is. You're invested in something that really doesn't have an effect on your day to day life. You talk about it at the virtual water coolers. You know, it's, it's big on social media and it's just a different echo chamber than, you know, talking about the Chiefs or the 49ers or, you know, the Denver Nuggets. You know, those are all sports teams because I'm big sporto too, and, and I kind of like that idea. I think it, it makes shows that are seemingly eye rolly a little bit more approachable in, you know, social situations.

Michelle Pesca (41:11)

I like that comparison because there's always this amazing justification of this huge waste of time for people like this guy about like sports consumption. And I mean, there's no difference, Rob. And I think you, I think you've nailed it here.

Mike Pesca (41:27)

Among the differences with these. First of all, I liked how you, you said Denver Nuggets with suspicion. I think the ultimate team to be suspicious of it would go something like the Knicks or the Lakers or the Jacksonville Jaguars. There's something about them, especially during the Blake Bortles era, that lended itself to suspicion. Here's the difference. It would be like sports, as if the greatest athletes of the world were not, in fact, the greatest athletes just maybe looked pretty good and they went out onto a field and played some game of mediocre pickup basketball. And then through editing it, it's. They made it seem like they could dunk and shoot three pointers and come back from injuries. That's why that's, that's how it would be. Sports. It's a, it's an interesting human where as human beings, we're storytellers, we're interested in stories, we're interested in other human beings. It's interesting anthropologically and the way that reality TV and sports are alike is that as animals who are interested in the other human animal, the anthropology kicks in. And so we're interested in the story of our sports teams and we're interested in the stories of these concocted characters. And I'm overdoing it. I really don't look down on anyone who watches it. Get your, get your information how you want, play video games, glory in anything that makes you happy in this hard work a day world.

Rob Schulte (42:49)

I say, well, I mean, the Costco guys were just on AEW Pro Wrestling, so everything's up in the air. I don't know what to believe anymore, but maybe we should move into what we're watching today. I wanted to bring you on for season eight, episode one, because I feel like season eight of Vanderpump Rules was a turning point that everyone now in the fandom looks back and was like, oh, I hated that season. It was. They tried to introduce too many new people. They tried to. But really what it was was this was a point where the show could have gone one way and it could have gone the way that it did go. And the way that it did go is that because of some of the social movements happening or rehappening during the COVID lockdown and some past tweets that came up. Like a lot of people got fired after this season. Some argue maybe it was, you know, Bravo covering their ass. Some people say they're actually trying to, like, put it. But then they rehired some of the cast for a spinoff show years later. So what does that tell you? But really, when we look at this season and we look at this pilot episode, they are trying to do something where we're like, these people no longer work at this restaurant and we are just following their lives as millennials who were once in one bedroom apartments and are now buying houses and moving to the Valley and moving on with their lives.

Mike Pesca (44:16)

Lives.

Rob Schulte (44:16)

But we're going to introduce new people that still have to work in the service industry and try and have the best of both Worlds. It aired January 7, 2020. The title is There Goes the Neighborhood. And the Bravo TV.com description is Jax, Brittany Schwarz, Katie Sandoval and Ariana all move into their very first grown up houses while Stasi struggles to rebuild her broken friendship with Kristen. Newly sober Lala confides in Lisa Vanderpump about her desire to make amends with an old friend, disgraced James Kennedy. And TomTom general manager Max breaks the rules by dating the new hostess, Dana, much to his ex girlfriend Sheena's dismay. Finally, Jax retaliates when Tom Sandoval skips one of his wedding events. A lot of this is. Well, I was gonna say that was written by ChatGPT, but I think it was just written by an unpaid Internet. But because now they are all written by Chat GPT and it shows. But let's. Before I dive into the tent poles of this episode, any questions about Vanderpump rules I can clear up? Leading into this episode, I have some.

Michelle Pesca (45:27)

Questions because the mic was asking me a lot of like while we were watching the episode. Like, really? Like, I'm like, you obviously know nothing about this, but I have for humanity. Yeah. I mean, he was asking such basic questions like, oh my God. But because I was an avid watcher and then apparently I dropped off and I'm not really sure when I dropped off, but like you said, like, there were new characters in this episode that I didn't know. Like, I know the Stasis and the Poms and like, I know those people, but there were like new characters and I'm like, are they first being introduced now or was I supposed to know? Because they just went hard into a plot line and I'm like, like, was I supposed to.

Rob Schulte (46:11)

No, these were, these were just brought in. This. We had, we knew nothing about them and they're just trying to, you know, maybe retroactively make us think maybe they're gaslighting us. Maybe they.

Michelle Pesca (46:24)

Yeah, I, it made me question my knowledge of the show.

Rob Schulte (46:28)

They were here the whole time.

Mike Pesca (46:29)

Sitcoms, Right. On Family Ties, Mallory has a favorite ant who dies. And they never mentioned the ant before. Said.

Rob Schulte (46:36)

Yeah, yep, yep.

Mike Pesca (46:37)

Classic.

Rob Schulte (46:38)

Why is my cousin a different actor every single time he comes onto the show?

Michelle Pesca (46:42)

Yeah. Yeah. So that was, that was one thing that I was like thinking as we were watching the episode. And then I was also, you know, knowing some of the future stuff. I was sort of thinking about that, reflecting, but I don't know all of the details. So I wanted to ask you if you thought there was anything relevant in the, the future that was important to know while watching this episode.

Rob Schulte (47:09)

Yeah, the big thing Here is season 10 was the scandal season. Season 11. That just ended a few months back was like the fallout of that scandal, of course, being the Tom Sandoval scandal, where he has moved into this house with Ariana. They've been together for eight or nine years, but it turns out over the past, you know, it probably started like just after this season filmed, but he started dating or having an affair with the woman named Raquel, who we see briefly at the beginning of this episode.

Michelle Pesca (47:42)

Now, Rachel, right now.

Rob Schulte (47:44)

Rachel. Her real name was Rachel. Raquel was her TV name, I guess. Which is something important because as you see him interact with people, and especially this argument he has with Jax throughout this episode, I think it's fair to say that Tom Sandoval is someone who believes his own lies to justify actions and like a greater good sort of situation. And that can come up a little bit more as we talk about it. But I do think it's important to know that he has a wandering eye. So to see him like moving in with Ariana is kind of like, oh, God, I. I know what's coming. This is a terrible.

Michelle Pesca (48:24)

Is it controversial to say, like, because I'm not in the fandom world?

Rob Schulte (48:27)

Sure.

Michelle Pesca (48:27)

It's controversial to say that Tom Sandoval is disgusting. Like, yes.

Rob Schulte (48:31)

No, no, it's not controversial.

Michelle Pesca (48:33)

What is the appeal? I do not get it.

Rob Schulte (48:35)

Well, he shaves his forehead, which is apparently for exfoliating purposes. And I've always questioned him ever since then. But I also think there's something interesting to say that like, culturally speaking, the guys more often than the ladies get get passes on this show. And a lot of Bravo shows I do think tries to pit women against each other. And it's interesting to see like the fight between Jackson. Tom is really just like two bros having a misunderstanding.

Adam Levin (49:05)

Right.

Rob Schulte (49:05)

We all get it. And that's just something to keep into the backyard. So it's a beautiful day in West Hollywood and Tom Sandoval and Tom Schwartz arrive to their bar. Tom. Tom looking like a couple of spray tanned James Bonds at TomTom, which they own 2.5% of. Lisa Van.

Mike Pesca (49:23)

No.

Rob Schulte (49:24)

Yes.

Michelle Pesca (49:25)

Right?

Rob Schulte (49:26)

Yeah, it's not their bar, but yeah. We meet Max and Dana, who work together and recently hooked up. Naughty, naughty. But luckily there's no HR department in the vanderpump verse because it doesn't matter. Dana is moving to Sir, AKA the sexy unique restaurant. So Dana and Max can date all they want in West Hollywood.

Mike Pesca (49:53)

Is Max with. By the way, your description and analysis does make it quite fascinating. Is Max in the fandom considered like, good looking and attractive? Because I was a little confused by that.

Rob Schulte (50:07)

That's a good question. I think most people just dislike him and.

Mike Pesca (50:13)

But not for aesthetic reasons. For more personality.

Rob Schulte (50:16)

More, I think more personality and past tweet reasons and past tweets. Right. Most, you know, public notes, app apology reasons. And realistically, he's just a, you know, playboy.

Michelle Pesca (50:30)

Mike was very confused by the fact that he could even obtain that status. The whole time he was like, I don't like, you know, Mike has like a particular, I guess, sensibility about like what an attractive man is without actually being attracted to men. And so he was like, I don't, I don't mind getting this. And I'm like, I can't explain it either. I mean, he's all right.

Mike Pesca (50:52)

But yeah, I'm like, he looks like a guy who works in a shoe store. Right. And anyone could work in a shoe store.

Rob Schulte (50:58)

That's. That's true. And I think that it's. When you wear that many colors, you're overcompensating for something. But yeah, we'll see that tall, skinny.

Mike Pesca (51:07)

Guy who's the new server at sir, that's a good looking guy. And I think some of the Toms like 2.5% of the times, you know.

Rob Schulte (51:18)

Yeah, yeah, Max is, Max is questionable. And I think we see that later on when he's. Yeah, he's very sus. I think he, he likes to get his Apple watch and run is really the situation. But speaking of sir, we do head over there where we do meet Brett, the new server, who in, in a future episode we find out he was actually Lisa Vanderpump's like, personal trainer and that's how he got a job there. So he should be looking fit if that's his, his day job. You know, I do love Sheena explaining the unwritten rules of working at sir, which is like, hey, don't date anyone. I did it. I ended up getting my heart crushed. But I also am divorced, but it doesn't define me. And it's like, where are we going with this conversation?

Michelle Pesca (52:09)

That was so crazy. Also, I do have to tell you that while we were watching the episode, I kept saying, they're divorced, they're divorced, they're divorced, they're not dealing. I just can't. Like, nobody's together anymore.

Mike Pesca (52:20)

But I thought I just kept. And when she said, I was like, well, that's good. I mean, obviously none of these people should be married or would be without the artificial of the show. Good.

Michelle Pesca (52:29)

No, that's not. I, I told them that's not true.

Mike Pesca (52:30)

Not married to anyone. Just married to each other.

Michelle Pesca (52:32)

No. Katie and Tom were like, together for a long time.

Mike Pesca (52:36)

You're saying it was a pressure cooker and they maybe.

Rob Schulte (52:39)

Yeah, I think there's a little bit of. I'm on both of your sides here. Oh, God. But because I think there's pressure from the show to feel like whether it's subconscious or not, that you feel like relationships keep you employed.

Michelle Pesca (52:57)

Relevant. Yeah.

Rob Schulte (52:58)

Too and relevant. Yeah. It keeps you, gives you a storyline. But also, like, Tom Schwarz does not like Katie. Like it is. It's unfortunate. And like when you go back and watch these old episodes, I think it's just a relationship of convenience. And look, no judgment. I get it. It happens. But when you pair that to income and household income, it gets really messy really quickly.

Michelle Pesca (53:26)

He always struck me as like the kind of guy that's like, can't really think for himself too much and he just like, waits to be told what to do. And like, he's a good looking guy and maybe that's part. And he's like a chill guy, so maybe that's part of his appeal. But, like, he seems to just go where he's told. And I don't think that's a good, good, good way to get the best out of life.

Rob Schulte (53:49)

Yeah. I think he. Tom Schwartz very much is a. Hey, hey, I'm just gonna take it. I don't make a plan because if I make a plan, a plan can get canceled. And we all hate that sort of person, at least on this side of the computer screen. And it is one of those things where, like, that. He's not the only one I've heard that from. Right. I think a lot of these people really don't like to commit to anything, whether it be relationships or work.

Michelle Pesca (54:17)

Yeah.

Mike Pesca (54:18)

Is Katie the one from Kentucky or the one, the only brunette?

Rob Schulte (54:21)

No, Katie's the brunette. Britney's from Kentucky.

Mike Pesca (54:25)

Okay. Katie's the only brunette in the show.

Rob Schulte (54:27)

Right. Sheena is also a brunette.

Michelle Pesca (54:30)

Right. Yeah.

Mike Pesca (54:31)

I remember, I think Katie, during one of the reunion episodes, whatever that they showed a clip of, she had either a scratch or lipstick right on the side of her lip.

Rob Schulte (54:40)

Yes, Katie, actually. And this is, you know, I'm no doctor, but at one point Katie, like, fell through a ceiling and shattering the glass ceiling.

Mike Pesca (54:52)

Good for Katie.

Rob Schulte (54:53)

That's what we're, we're all saying. But I think that's where that scar came from.

Michelle Pesca (54:57)

Oh, it's a scar. That's right. That's right. That's right. Oh, I remember that.

Rob Schulte (55:03)

Yeah, yeah.

Mike Pesca (55:04)

But the scar doesn't define her.

Michelle Pesca (55:05)

But I also want to point out that Mike claims that he did not watch this show and has no in it, but somehow just referenced a reunion atmos.

Mike Pesca (55:14)

No, they showed the flashback. It was in. It was in grainy, like saturated tone. So you know what happened.

Rob Schulte (55:20)

Yeah. Letting us know that it's old times.

Mike Pesca (55:24)

They not orient the viewer. The viewer's never confused.

Rob Schulte (55:26)

Like where am I have to applaud them on editing on this show because at one point, probably around season four, I think the editors got together and were like, we can really make this a comedy if we just play with this audio a little bit.

Michelle Pesca (55:41)

Very good.

Mike Pesca (55:42)

Yeah. That's it for today's show that just is produced by Cory Wara and Michelle Pesca as our far flung cbso Peru, Julie do Peru. Thanks for listening.