View Episode 247
Originally aired 11.29.10
1:04:12
4:37 – The Hallmark Channel has four Christmas movies coming in December. On Dec. 2, it’s The Santa Suit starring Kevin Sorbo; on Dec. 4 it’s Farewell Mr. Kringle starring Christine Taylor; on Dec. 9 it’s The Santa Incident staring Ione Skye; and on Dec. 18 it’s Battle of the Bulbs starring Daniel Stern. Jah thinks the best/worst one will be between Sorbo and Skye.
54:23 – A recent report from Mintel – a marketing research firm – predicts that the coffee industry might be facing some very lean years. Only 27% of 18-24-year-olds consume coffee lately, compared to 75% of 45 to 54-year-olds and 80% of 55 to 64-year-olds. These young kids are just chugging energy drinks.
46:47 – Nancy Collop, president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine: “Most people do not get enough sleep.”
27:22 – Meth Check – an electronic monitoring system allows pharmacies in the U.S. (16,000 of them) in real time to know whether someone is attempting to buy pseudoephedrine and has already succeeded the limit. It stops the person’s ability to “smurf” store-to-store. Oregon and Mississippi are the only states that require a doctor’s prescription to purchase pseudoephedrine.
52:16 – The bulletin of the AARP magazine featured a statistic that said 200,000 Americans ages 50 and older were admitted to U.S. substance sbuse treatment centers in 2008.
What Seth Learned on the Monsterweb
23:20 – Jah proves to Seth during the show that Lou Ferrigno and Steven Seagal have joined a posse in Arizona to crack down on illegal immigrants.
44:12 – Seth was reading the Bay Area Hip-Hop Dictionary, and discovered the phrase “flight to Boston,” which is getting head from a girl.
4:47 – Seth’s mother lost it watching a McBride marathon and saw Jonathan and Amir’s name listed on the screen with a music credit.
4:57 – Nosaj Thing showed Jah a picture on his iPhone of a shot of the McBride episode on his TV in his Paris hotel room. Jah asked him if he listened to the soundtrack.
8:27 – When Seth interned with talent manager Beverlee Dean at his first internship in Los Angeles, her main client was Kevin Sorbo. She also had Jim Caviezel, who Seth read lines with one time and thought he sucked.
26:17 – Jah’s brother might be moving to New York City. Jonathan’s father is going to star in the 50th anniversary Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying with none other than Dan Radcliffe.
27:54 – Seth had Claritin one time and a couple hours after he took it he felt a little hopped up. He was with a buddy who’s sober, and he got a homeopathic cayenne pepper deal that he put up his nose, and it had the rush of something going into his brain. Seth thinks it dislodged every bit of coke that had been circulating in his brain.
29:15 – Jah remembers two times the same person in his life got him back into the drug game – Justin, or “Jigs.” He was drinking Jack and Coke out of a Coke can, and Jah had grabbed the Coke can and took a sip of it. Another time, it was a boozie thing like that where Justin was hiding the alcohol in another container.
41:22 – Jonathan has been in Bed Bath & Beyond a couple times recently because he had a friend who was moving into his spot. As much as he is a meathead, he’s slightly more domesticated than most after living with a woman for many years. He describes it as a living SkyMall catalog. Jah can’t help but get kind of sucked into awesome knife collections or $400 juicers. Seth says J-dawg also gets this way in Sur La Table stores.
8:50 – A host of new websites have started to let people share items over the internet after paying a small fee – Snap Goods, Swap Baby Goods, Nei-Borough, Relay Rides, etc. These sites offer goods for a cheap price. They promote green lifestyles by not wasting, and they also foster a social community that’s missing from today’s high-paced world.
16:05 – There are several new smartphone apps designed to offer couples therapy for modern romances. (Jah thinks the title of this new segment should be “What’s The Haps With These Apps?”) The Daily Temperature Reading, Mind Over Marriage, The Marriage Fight Tracket, Fix A Fight – all designed as inexpensive ways to keep the lines of communication open.
20:05 – Being the holidays, there’s traveling and there’s a couple travel-related items you could take with you. Handicapped parking placards issued in the U.S. are not recognized in other countries. The blue badge scheme is recognized in countries that belong in the European Union. There’s going to be a problem with the run-up to the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics in London, England. The best thing you can do is talk to your rental car company and discuss options because policies usually differentiate locally from place to place. Seth brings this up because he doesn’t want Lou Ferrigno to try and fake the funk over there (Episode 185, 8:58).
23:46 – The average fee that airlines charge for an unaccompanied minor is $200. It’s supposed to cover the extra service and care a child is provided when traveling alone. These children receive personal escorts during all points of their travel.
29:59 – A Cathedral City, Calif., police officer will be arraigned on multiple felony counts after allegedly stripping off his uniform and jumping naked into a pool while on duty. Officer John Fox, 37, is accused of sexually assaulting one of three women in the pool during the incident. He responded to a noise complaint at a private home. He showed up, took off all his clothes, got naked and jumped in. The owner of the house called 911 and reported it. Different officers arrived, and by the time they got there he had put his uniform back on and left. He is facing felony counts of attempted sexual penetration and assault, two misdemeanor counts of sexual battery and one count of indecent exposure.
39:24 – Medicare covers 40 million Americans 65 and older, yet a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services says that each month, 13% of these people experience an extremely serious adverse event due to some sort of medical error, like surgical mistakes and/or infections. As a result of this, more than 15,000 of these patients die because of these mistakes.
44:02 – The 5 most dangerous cities in the U.S.: 5) Oakland, Calif., 4) Flint, Mich., 3) Detroit, Mich., 2) Camden, N.J. and 1) St. Louis, Mo.
59:01 – Time Warner CEO Jeff Bukes said Time Warner is near an agreement with movie distributors to launch a premium video-on-demand service to its customers by summer 2011. This would offer customers access to movies within days of the film’s theatrical release. Industry reports say that access to those “premium films” could cost up to $50 each.
2:25 – The 3 things that give Seth a full panic attack are shitty radio ads, pundits talking about the royal British family getting married and holiday gift guides where they pick a theme like “Dad” or “Gifts for Mom.” For Jah it’s a SkyMall magazine.
8:14 – Jah references Leonor’s, the veggie restaurant in the Valley. There’s an acting school right next door, and Kevin Sorbo went to the school, so he’s featured front and center.
11:57 – Jah spots something on the floor and thinks it might be a cockroach. He signals Seth over to look at it and Seth has no idea either. Seth hypothesizes that it might be a small cockroach. Seth then proceeds to speak while J-dawg removes it from the studio.
38:32 – The only two things Seth needs are television and food
56:12 – Jah holds up a residual payment statement from the Screen Actors Guild addressed to a Seth Romatelli. The performer’s name is also Seth Romatelli. Crossroads played on free TV but not paid TV or video/DVD. Strangely, the gross amount was for $24.89, yet the check was for $14.85. Seth looks forward to writing his name on the back of that paper and then handing it to the Armenian lady with huge cans at the Bank of America in Larchmont. All 7 girls that work there are Armenian, wear the same sweater and same diamond-encrusted cross that hangs over their enormous cleavage.
12:29 – There was a study by Quality Planning – a San Francisco firm that verifies policyholder information for auto insurers – and they found that the 5 vehicles that garner the most traffic tickets from law enforcement: 5) Scion XB, 4) Hummer H2/H3, 3) Scion TC, 2) Toyota Solara coupe, and 1) Mercedes Benz SL Class convertible.
32:48 – Recently, a team of researchers at Columbia and Harvard wondered not whether power can manifest itself in posture, but whether certain postures could make people feel more commanding. More powerful people – i.e., those who make more money and have higher-status jobs – reliably show higher levels of testosterone, no matter their gender, and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, than people lower on the totem pole. The researchers reasoned that if you put low-power people in high-power postures, their hormones might respond accordingly. To see if the researchers were right, the author went to a Columbia lab, sat down in his typical slouch and spat into a little tube. Columbia assistant professor Dana Carney gave him a piece of gum to help, then put him in the hawk-in-feet on the desk power postures. Fifteen minutes later he spat into another tube. Carney sent both spit samples to a lab at Penn State. When the results came back a couple of weeks later, it turned out his testosterone had doubled in the short amount of time he spent in the power posture. His response was not unusual. In the most recent issue of Psychological Science, Carney and her colleagues – Andy Yap at Columbia and Amy Cudi at Harvard – published a paper evaluating the responses of 42 people who underwent a test similar to the one he took. They found that cortisol and testosterone levels significantly changed for most people after they had been placed in a high-power posture. Conversely, testosterone levels fell significantly in participants who were put in lower-power positions – those who had to either sit with shoulders slumped or stand with ankles crossed and arms hugging their torso. All the participants were subsequently given $2 and told they could keep the money or possibly double it in a gambling exercise. Nearly all the people who had been placed in high-power poses opted to double-down. They were more likely to risk losing the money than the low-power people and also reported feeling more powerful.
50:34 – A survey released by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that 1 in every 5 American adults experienced some form of mental illness in 2009 – that comes to about 45 million people. Of those, fewer than 4 in 10 received any sort of treatment for it.
15:15 – Seth wonders when he’s going to get a new car. Jah ponders a guess and says within the 2011 calendar year. Jah won’t let it go on much longer. If it comes to it, he’s going to have a click-through on the website where people can donate to buy Seth another 1977 Chevy Cheyenne.