View Episode 268
Originally aired 04.26.11
1:08:05
24:54 – UYD: Socially induced collective hearlucination
55:15 – UYD: Yesterday, did the kindergarten children watch television after breakfast?
10:55 – Discovery Network is launching a television network for rich guys and their toys called Velocity. It will be piped into about 40 million homes soon. The target audience is men with incomes of $150,000 and above – high net worth listeners.
16:43 – Gigolos is a crazy show. The dudes are so perved out. Seth describes it as The Hills meets Cathouse. Seth warns you not to watch it with grandma.
31:59 – Triple Rush on the Travel Channel profiles bike messengers in New York City. A “triple rush” is when you have to deliver a package in Manhattan in less than 15 minutes. Seth chooses to watch the show until someone’s bike gets stolen, and a dude loses both of his tires 20 minutes into the show.
38:16 – Seth watched the documentary Gun Fight on HBO about gun control directed by Barbara Koppel. She profiled Harlan County, Ky. There were also dudes in Philly talking about their guns and referring to them as “jawns.”
48:42 – Cee-Lo Green, who will be one of the judges on the NBC talent competition The Voice hosted by Carson Daly, has leased actor Frankie Muniz’s Hollywood Hills area house (Episode 004, 26:19) – listed at $3,195,000 – at $10,000 a month. Built in 1941, it’s been remodeled with an open floor plan. It’s a 4,200 square foot home. Muniz bought the house in 2006 for $3,499,000 and has been leasing it out since.
58:52 – Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel features mini competitive cheerleaders aged 7 and 8. It reminded Seth of when he saw little tiny kids doing ballroom dancing on Dancing With the Stars (Episode 114, 14:54).
40:51 – A man hit a woman in the face because she would not talk to him at a bar. This is a 21-year-old man. He was arrested and charged with battery at AJ’s Seafood and Oyster Bar on April 9. Two men allegedly became belligerent when a woman and her friends would not talk to them around 2:20 a.m. According to an arrest report from the Ocalusa County Sheriff’s Office, the 21-year-old became so angry that he struck the woman in the face. The woman had minor bruising and swelling on her chin. The man was charged with a first-degree misdemeanor for battery.
2:34 – Seth has decided to pepper in this journey with some Deepak Chopra wisdom. Occasionally he’s going to throw in some “Chopra-isms.” He starts with “understanding a quantum consciousness.”
18:59 – More Chopra: “Acausal non-local super position of possibilities.”
24:39 – Chopra: “Socially induced collective hallucination.”
30:02 – Chopra: “Virtual particles come into existence and then disappear into non-existence.”
36:57 – Chopra: “Purpose is activated only when you have receptivity.”
39:37 – Chopra: “Let go of the reality illusion.”
45:45 – Chopra: “Only the abstract infinite is real.”
58:37 – Chopra: “I am now.”
1:03:31 – Somebody sent Jonathan James Cameron’s Twitter account. Although he doesn’t have them laid out in front of them, Jah said his tweets were pretty awesome.
What Seth Learned on the Monsterweb
38:44 – Seth looked up “jawn” on Urban Dictionary, and discovered that it’s “a word used by Philly cats to describe anything and everything.”
4:20 – Jah talks bout Pavilions and Vons grocers, who have the most colorful cross-section of employees. They both have a strong mental handicapped program, and Jah frequently sees bag boys with Down’s syndrome. Jah thinks they also have a strong outpatient program where people are just getting off their feet and out of a halfway house. Jah hangs out in those stores much longer than he needs to.
7:48 – Jah didn’t realize that Pete Postlethwaite has been dead since January. The last time Jah was in London he had a very brief interaction with him. Jah was walking through a construction site and had to step aside for Pete to pass by him. He didn’t realize it was him until he was right in his face. In Jah’s typical style, he just says the guy’s name when he’s right in his face: “PETE POSTLETHWAITE.” (Episode 110, 19:20; Episode 133, 8:47)
15:43 – Jah went to Coachella. He didn’t rough it. He partied pretty well.
18:36 – One time Seth had to sleep over at his grandmother’s house, and the movie American Gigolo was on. There was a scene where the dude was hanging upside down and doing sit-ups and it really weirded Seth out.
21:02 – Jah announces that he is no longer on probation. It answered yesterday, on 4/20 – the same date that Seth got sober.
21:46 – Seth received some literature in the mail called “Hercolubus” or “Red Planet.” According to V.M. Rabolu, this is some realness. “What I am affirming in this book is a prophecy that will be fulfilled very shortly because I am certain about the end of the planet. I know it. I am not frightening, but warning, because I am distressed about this poor humanity. These events will not be long in coming and there is no time to waste with illusory things. So I have written this book with great sacrifice lying in bed, unable to stand or to sit up. But seeing the need to warn humanity of the coming catastsrophe, I made a great effort. I dedicate this message to humanity as a last resort because there is nothing else.”
25:25 – Jah went out last night and a girl that was out with them said she kept smelling weed everywhere, then she finally realized it was 4/20. Even J-dawg hadn’t realized it was 4/20. He guesses it’s still important to some people. Seth thinks they should have a cocaine holiday and just call it “Christmas.”
28:09 – Jah was once a young, sober 17- or 18-year-old teenager and was asked to speak at a panel to share his experience. He was flanked by two other speakers on the panel. It was David Crosby on his right and Rob Lowe on his left. Jah doesn’t even remember what he said but he remembers looking around and thinking, “What the fuck am I doing here?” Being a bored sober person at the time, Jah had gotten into Cuban cigars. Lowe was a Cuban cigar guy himself, so he remembers chatting to him about Cohibas.
45:25 – Jonathan saw Jackson Browne perform “Running on Empty” at the Black-Eyed Peas Grammy party he went to earlier this year. Then Cali Swag came out and performed “Teach Me How to Dougie.” Jah declares that it was a crazy party.
57:13 – Jah almost got turned away the last time he went through a border patrol checkpoint in Canada. He didn’t have the proper paperwork to show that he was on an unrestricted probation and was allowed to travel. They were brutal with him and he was there for hours trying to work through it. He also had the best question he’s ever been asked, coming back into America, the border patrol guy asked, “Is there any medical marijuana in the car?” Everyone answered no, then his next question was, “Any regular marijuana?” Everyone fell out laughing, which was almost a tell anyway, but the guy was dead serious when asking those questions.
1:01:01 – Jonathan and Seth saw 2 Fast 2 Furious together at Universal Citywalk, and Jah wonders if they could see Fast 5 there together as well. Seth reminds Jonathan that on that day, a coked-up pilot flying a small engine plane crashed into an apartment complex on Melrose and Fairfax next to Fairfax High School and killed everyone on the plane. Jonathan’s dear friend Jessica was on board (Episode 162, 39:47).
1:03:14 – Jonathan and Seth saw Minority Report in the theater. Someone stood up and shouted “Shame on you, Spielberg!” before walking out (Episode 051, 36:35; Episode 129, 15:42; and Episode 149, 11:10).
8:59 – Summer school has been cut in LA because of funding. Then Seth looked up the film Summer School, which was released July 22, 1987, starring Mark Harmon. The poster is Harmon wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a lei on and sunglasses in his hand. His dog is next to him with a lei and sunglasses on his face. It says “At Oceanfront High, what do they call a guy who cuts classes, hates homework and lives for summer vacation? Teacher.”
12:17 – Consumers filed 1.1 million complaints against North American businesses with the Better Business Bureau in 2010 – a 10% increase from 2009. The BBB said in a new release that cable and satellite television companies were the target of most of the complaints, as well as cell phone companies and new car dealers.
19:28 – According to a recent poll asking people if they thought the internet was a “good thing,” 84% of respondents answered “Yes.” Sixteen percent said, “Not really, we were doing just fine without it.”
26:01 – Rob Lowe wrote a memoir called “Stories I Only Tell My Friends.” One of the anecdotes was about Darryl Hanna: “I am deeply infatuated with her. But she informs me that she is a virgin and she is saving herself for Jackson Browne, whom she has never met. I swallow my disappointment, tell her she’s chosen well and wish her God speed.” Darryl Hanna then eventually dates Jackson Browne at age 23. Seth thinks it might be possible that she lost her V-card to JB.
30:20 – Several articles in the March supplement of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology have shown that antibiotic ointments do not aid in healing or reduce the risk of infection, but they do raise the risk of antibiotic resistance.
33:26 – Medicine apparently doesn’t work properly in space. Drugs crucial for treating everything from a mild headache to serious infection seemingly don’t work properly in the radically different environment away from earth. Radiation might also be part of the problem. On earth, medicine can generally remain effective for about two years as long as it is stored correctly. Proper storage generally involves keeping it away from direct sunglight and in a cool, dry space, but there are plenty of conditions we have taken for granted on Earth that are nothing like those we find in outer space – where radiation, excessive vibrations, microgravity and carbon dioxide-rich environments and variations in humidity and temperature are all potential issues.
42:07 – The United States Postal Service changed the price of postcard stamps from 28 cents to 29 cents on Monday.
45:08 – The soaring fuel prices have drivers running on empty, which Jah can attest to because he’s been dead broke. The Automobile Club of Southern California said that nearly 16,000 members a month are making one of those mildly embarrassing “I’m stranded and I need gasoline” calls. That is up 13% from last year. The pace represents the biggest jump since California motorists were paying a record average of $4.61 a gallon for regular gasoline in July of 2008. “It’s happening again to a lot of people,” Automobile Club spokesperson Jeff Spring said. “Our presumption is that these current high gasoline prices have a lot to do with it.” California’s average Friday was $4.19 a gallon, according to the AAA. Only Hawaii has more expensive gas than California, with an average of $4.46 a gallon. The U.S. average was $3.81. Jah wants Seth to explain why gas is so much more in California.
55:49 – If they do play NFL football this year, they released the schedule. On the 10-year anniversary of the attacks on 9/11, on Sunday night on NBC, the first week of the season, the Dallas Cowboys will travel to New York City to play the Jets.
32:39 – Jah thinks that people who carry iPads down the street in Seattle deserve to have them stolen by junkies.
3:07 – Doctors researching Alzheimer’s found that the sign of a rare dymentia is the failure or inability for people to detect sarcasm or lies.
51:07 – There was a study that came out that claimed that women’s voices would change throughout their cycle due to hormone levels. New research presented at the Experimental Biology meeting in Washington, D.C., challenges previous studies that there were detectable variations in a woman’s voice at various times over her menstrual cycle and those could be linked to hormone levels. Researchers from West Texas A&M University in Canyon analyzed 175 voice samples from 35 women that were recorded at four times during two cycles: the menstrual phase (estrogen and progesterone levels are low), the follicular phase (estrogen increases but progesterone is low), the ovulatory phase (estrogen is high and progesterone is low) and the luteal phase (both estrogen and progesterone are high). The women were asked to utter the sentence, “Yesterday, did the kindergarten children watch television after breakfast?” It was chosen because it’s a complete sentence, and “it’s voice rich and provides a variety of characteristics.” After measuring eight voice parameters, the study authors found no statistically significant variations in the women’s voices at various times during their cycles.
1:03:22 – The next movie Seth sees (probably the next Tyler Perry joint), Seth is going to stand up and shout “Shame on you Spielberg!”
36:40 – Seth goes off on all the comedy podcasts available on iTunes. All it takes is two dudes getting together in a living room.
42:07 – Seth goes off on the USPS for changing the price of postcard stamps from 28 cents to 29 cents on Monday.
6:34 – Seth can’t confirm this as fact, but he thinks Andy Rooney is dead.