Who?
10/13/17 - Fresh off our annual retreat, we're tackling our 2018 goals and you can, too. Plus, our dear friends at Who? Weekly, Lindsey Weber and Bobby Finger, read the tabloids and fill us in on some of the celebs you've never heard of so you don't even have to do a Google. (Fear not Wholigans: this episode's totally original for you, too).
Transcript below.
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CREDITS
Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci
Ad sales: Midroll
TRANSCRIPT: WHO?
[Ads]
(0:58)
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman. On this week's agenda our friends at Who Weekly have some treats for us, but first quick announcement.
Aminatou: Midwest divas, tickets are sold out for our Chicago live show. We can't wait to see you. Minneapolis ladies, you can still buy a ticket to come see us on Saturday, October 21st at the Woman's Club of Minneapolis. Perfect name, right?
Ann: Perfect. And also if you are planning on coming to the show in Chicago or in Minneapolis we'll be taking one or two listener questions in each place but we're not doing it in real-time. We would love for you to pre-record, i.e. leave us a voicemail with your question and then we will take it onstage. So if you're coming to Chicago or Minneapolis and have a question for us you can call our voicemail at 714-681-2943 and leave your question in a voicemail for us. We're super excited to hang out.
Aminatou: See you so soon!
[Theme Song]
(2:33)
Aminatou: Hi Ann Friedman!
Ann: What's up? We're in the same room.
Aminatou: We are in the same room. We're sitting on the couch and we definitely ate too fast. [Laughs]
Ann: We are just off the heels of our weekend-long 2018 planning retreat.
Aminatou: That's right, the CYG off-site.
Ann: The CYG off-site, which is to say it's our only on-site pretty much of the year.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Ann: In Palm Springs.
Aminatou: Always, spiritual home. It was really fun. You know, I think -- I remember this time last year when we went into retreat and it was a little more stressful and just very like "What are we doing?" And this year I feel like we had a handle on a lot of things and it felt great.
Ann: It felt really good. We had like six or seven big goals for 2017 like get our money right, like get some support when it comes to merch and music and things like that, and it felt so good. There were like one or two big things we couldn't cross off but we crossed off a lot from our to-do list last year.
Aminatou: We did. And more importantly we made like a big one-year goal and some five-year goals which we've -- I don't know about you, but five-year goals are terrifying.
Ann: I know. This was like the first time in my life that there has been a five-year goal that I'm actually excited to work towards. Like normally I'm like "Oh, goal, get through the next year."
Aminatou: What are we doing today, Pinkie? [Laughter]
(4:00)
Ann: But you know you always say this family thrives in Q4. I feel like there is . . . there is something to be said for thinking about the next year of your life and what you want to do before you get into the very, very end-of-year crush of like the holidays and lots of time off work and lots of other obligations to just be like actually, let's be real. If we want to accomplish something big it's probably not going to happen before the end of the year, and focusing real hard on the next year.
Aminatou: Just thinking about all of the goals that you have for yourself but also collective goals that we have for CYG and I feel like everything just seems a little easier because there's somebody else there. I was like oh, I'm less scared about the things I want to do for myself because you and Gina are there to support. And so, yeah, all this to say I'm really into collaboration in general.
Ann: I want to talk about some of the tools we used at our retreat because some of them are things that you brought into my life even though I forgot that you were the one to bring them into my life.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Ann: So before we got together we all personally did our own review and goal-setting for the coming year I used this Get Bullish guide which I thought came from a different story but apparently you were the originator.
Aminatou: Love it.
Ann: But yeah, the Get Bullish guide which prompts a lot of questions about what you did and didn't like about what you did in the previous year, what you want to do going forward. What else? I feel like there are a few other . . .
Aminatou: Yeah. And that guide is tied to a conference so if you want to find it just Google like -- I think it's like Get Bullish or the Bullish Conference.
Ann: The great thing about this conference too, we pretty much need to go.
Aminatou: The tagline is amazing. Ann, please read the tagline.
Ann: The tagline is Aggressive Lady Advice and the conference is called The Bullish Conference and the tagline of the conference is Meet Your New Ambitious Feminist Friends. [Laughter]
Aminatou: Check out those ladies because they know where they're going. And so we use that guide for ourselves and that's been really useful. We also used some traditional MBA tools. [Laughs] That I am really embarrassed to talk about.
(6:02)
Ann: No, all of your business book reading has borne so much fruit on this retreat.
Aminatou: That's true, we do SWOT analyses.
Ann: What is a SWOT analysis, Amina?
Aminatou: Listen, strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. [Laughs]
Ann: SWOT with an O.
Aminatou: SWOT with an O. The thing that's really useful about the way that we run our off-site I think, you know, as somebody who used to go to off-site for work for money, is we write everything down and these things are really concrete. It helps to also be just in the same brain space. We're really good about working far apart but when we're together the magic is insane.
Ann: It's real. The sparks are flying. The other thing that we use that was good advice that came from Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs who does our music is thinking about things on a one to ten scale. So if there's an aspect of your work that you're doing right now, saying like okay, we're at like a three of ten when it comes to getting our live tours in order for example. Like what does it look like to take it up to five from three? Or what does it look like to dial it back down to a two? And how does that change your overall work to play with how much you invest in one aspect of it? Which was very, very cool. I don't know if there's a name for that. I think of it as like the dial.
Aminatou: Yeah, the CPR dial.
Ann: Yes.
Aminatou: You know, and I think the other useful thing that we did is that we sat down and we put on a calendar all of the deadlines and things that we have for next year which already -- like it's daunting to look at your calendar and it's filling up, but also, I don't know, like staying organized is important. Thank god I have you to do that for me.
Ann: Please.
Aminatou: Works out.
(7:44)
Ann: Yeah, and to what you were saying about collaboration too, what I thought was interesting is how much of the goals we each had individually for the next year involved learning skills that other people on the team have. Like I think that for me that's also born directly of like I have so much respect for what Gina does in editing and producing and mixing the show. It's like I want to learn some of those skills because I've been able to witness the magic that is her in her full flow.
Aminatou: And she's such a good teacher so we're going to be the best apprentices.
Ann: Right. And I think you're going to hear Gina a little bit more because Gina wants to do more hosting. And it's like yes, please, get that yummy voice.
Aminatou: Yeah, Gina has the yummiest voice so everybody wins really.
Ann: Right.
Aminatou: And it's good too to just get out of the space of just doing the same thing all the time and nice to know things will change on the show but they're not like drastic changes.
Ann: Sure, sure. Like the dial analogy, like how do you click it up?
Aminatou: Yeah.
Ann: So yeah. So it was really good. I mean also our snack game is unparalleled.
Aminatou: Our snack game is really on point. We definitely lost some avocados to desert sun but . . . [Laughs]
Ann: We lost some good soldiers.
Aminatou: Yeah, we lost some good soldiers but I really blame Whole Foods for that. That was not our problem. And we got some good thrifting done also. But probably the best thing that we all did for ourselves was the stop at the Nordstrom rack.
Ann: Oh my god.
Aminatou: Where I have not been inside a brick and mortar store to shop and try clothes on . . . like we didn't even have a black president when I did that the last time. Like it's crazy. And it was like -- it was very pleasant. It was a fun trip but I think really in keeping with our CYG is a good place for bodies, you know, like actually going shopping with your friends is fun and you can swap things out. You know, and having other people look out for things for you when there's no shame and only posi stuff. It was like fun.
Ann: Oh, it's true. Like important. Just as important as all our 2K18 goal setting, for real. But yeah, so I don't know. That's where our heads are. We are kind of still not working. We're still on a little bit of a break. What's going on with this episode?
(9:55)
Aminatou: Ann, ugh, I'm so excited about this episode. Oh my gosh. So we are having our pals Lindsey and Bobby from Who? Weekly.
Ann: I was just about to say who?
Aminatou: Who? It's Lindsey and Bobby who? Lindsey Weber and Bobby Finger, triple threats in everything. They're going to come on and talk to us about their podcast and Who? Weekly and tell us what Whos are and . . .
Ann: Who Whos are?
Aminatou: Tell us who Whos are and why it's important that you know them. Really I think it's just going to be delightful and fun.
[Music]
[Segment starts]
Lindsey: Welcome to a very special Call Your Girlfriend edition of Who? Weekly the podcast where you'll learn everything to know about celebrities you don't. I'm Lindsey Weber.
Bobby: I'm Bobby Finger.
Lindsey: You might recognize us from past episodes of Call Your Girlfriend, or if we're so lucky that you happen to also listen to our podcast Who? Weekly you might know us as the podcast that also has Amina on a segment we like to call Who Dat? Amina is not here. We are filling in so we're really excited to do our own Call Your Girlfriend themed version of Who? Weekly.
Bobby: And really quick self-promo, if you want to listen to Who? Weekly you can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't know what you use. Lindsey uses a different app than I do, so, you know, I can't tell you which one to download it on.
Lindsey: But why don't you stick around here and listen to us and then you can go subscribe to Who? Weekly. [Laughs] And let's say you really enjoy this, this is the upfront promo, you can come see us, we're on tour right now, either this weekend in Chicago, San Francisco on the 25th, D.C. on the 30th, and Boston in November. Plus we'll be back in Brooklyn on November 19th for the Brooklyn Podcast Festival. Now let's get this podcast actually started.
[Music]
(12:05)
Bobby: So Who? Weekly is a podcast is about not Thems, as in the person you see on the cover of a magazine and say "Oh, them." They're about the people you see on the covers of magazines and on your headlines and all your blogs like Just Jared or E! News where you go "Who's that? I don't know who that is." Usually that person is Julianne Hough or Rita Ora but sometimes it's someone else. So we talk about all those people every week because fortunately for our business there's a new indecipherable new person in Hollywood every single week. And that's what we talk about in our podcast.
Lindsey: Fortunately for the business of Us Weekly, In Touch Magazine, Star Magazine, People Magazine, and the like.
Bobby: Fortunately for the entire industry there's always someone on the come-up. Whether or not they become Thems is not up to us but we just help explain who these people are that you are inundated with every day of your life if you are ever on the Internet.
Lindsey: Therefore everything you need to know about the celebrities you don't know. Or that you don't need to know, but the point being is that we need to know and we often do know. So that is why we have chosen to dedicate our lives to imparting that knowledge to you.
Bobby: I like that, we often do know. We don't always know. We know enough.
Lindsey: I know more often than I'd like to admit is what I'll say, and I sometimes imply that I don't know when I definitely knew the whole time.
Bobby: Yes. And so on the show if you listen you may learn the sort of language of Wholebrity and Themdom. And it's not always as easy as they're either a Who or a Them. Sometimes you have little variances and subcategories of Wholebrity as in a Them with Who tendencies which is someone who is objectively famous, objectively A-list, objectively a Them, but they act like a Who. And I think a good way to explain this to people listening now who've never listened to Who? Weekly is with a big story that's in the news now which is about Tyrese Gibson.
(14:00)
Lindsey: Well, this is something we didn't mention on our podcast because, you know, we forgot, but also because it is a little bit of a wavy territory in that Tyrese, people do know who Tyrese is. In fact he goes by his -- he used to go by just his first name, right?
Bobby: Ultimate sign of a Them.
Lindsey: Right, and then he added in Gibson, kind of like Lady Gaga going by Stefani.
Bobby: Germanotta.
Lindsey: When she acts, right? Or who else added -- Madonna putting on her last name when she acts sometimes.
Bobby: The Rock going by Dwayne Johnson.
Lindsey: Yeah, you get it. So Tyrese Gibson. Maybe Tyrese is the Them and Tyrese Gibson is the Who. Does that make sense?
Bobby: [Laughs] I think that's a good distinction, yes.
Lindsey: Okay, so what is going on with Tyrese Gibson, the Who?
Bobby: Tyrese is really upset as far as I can tell. So Tyrese has been with the Fast and the Furious family. As anyone who watches the Fast and the Furious series knows everything is about family all the time, 24/7. It all comes down to family. That's it. That's all that matters. But this doesn't just exist in the Fast and the Furious cinematic universe. This love of family and obsession with family and brotherhood crosses the boundaries of the set. It extends past the fourth wall.
Lindsey: I mean this is marketing. For the most cynical of us this is marketing.
Bobby: I know, but what I'm saying is Tyrese takes it seriously and I think to some extent Vin Diesel and The Rock do too, not to this extent. Like Tyrese is being very passionate here. Somebody who has been with the franchise since day one, he is accusing The Rock of breaking up -- I'm quoting a Vanity Fair headline here -- breaking up the Fast and the Furious family. Because he kind of came in late in the game. So did the person he got a new franchise -- a spin-off franchise with, Jason Statham -- they weren't part of the original crew and now they're doing their own thing. The original Fast and the Furious franchise is on hold while they film this thing. And Tyrese is understandably annoyed by it, but whereas a more famous person probably wouldn't have started gossiping like this Tyrese took to Instagram and complained publicly.
(16:05)
Lindsey: I mean he's been complaining for months now. First it was an insinuation then it was an open complaint. Now he's going on different platforms complaining all over the place. The interesting thing is it's very Rock-themed to not really . . . he's not going to respond. Like there's just no way the Rock is going to respond to this.
Bobby: Right.
Lindsey: It goes against everything about his image and nature and also he doesn't want to ruin his new deal, which why would you obviously?
Bobby: Why would he?
Lindsey: The best part is recently -- the most recent news -- is Vin Diesel has stepped in, like the ultimate good guy, who I believe is genuinely a good guy as opposed to The Rock who I think is a mostly good guy. Do you know what I mean?
Bobby: [Laughs] I know what you mean.
Lindsey: There's a little difference there to me. And he stepped in and he was like "Oh, family, family, family, family." You know, like he added to it, right?
Bobby: Brotherhood, brotherhood, brotherhood, brotherhood.
Lindsey: Meanwhile you have the added kind of sensitivity that because of Paul Walker, that's what I think really brought them close together and made it very real, like IRL family versus movie promotion family.
Bobby: Yes. It's sort of at the end of the day what matters the most is what Vin Diesel says because he's the biggest name in this franchise now, you know? He's the star now that Paul Walker has died.
Lindsey: Right.
Bobby: So Vin Diesel is the patriarch of this family, Michele Rodriguez the matriarch, and anyone else is sort of -- is what does the shirt say? The rest is just details. So now that Vin has chimed in it's kind of over and if Tyrese keeps talking he has to realize that he's not going to win. Against Vin you can't win.
Lindsey: You know about Vinbook, right? Like Vin Diesel's Facebook.
Bobby: Of course.
Lindsey: Yeah, so Vin Diesel has a very active and loving Facebook fandom because he is very engaged in his Facebook and he creates weird fan images of himself and puts them on Facebook and he sings songs and he does all this stuff. He's wonderful. And so what's really funny is the Instagram he posted to be like guys, guys, guys, guys, family, it's a picture of him and The Rock like holding each other. And the caption is "Brotherhood . . . and all its complexities. This scene was filmed in Puerto Rico. I can remember it like it was yesterday, such a beautiful island. The people were so warm and welcoming. I turned 43 that summer and my son Vincent was born." This is my favorite part. "A woman named Jan Kelly responded to a question I had asked on Facebook, who they would like to see me work with. She said I would love to see me work with Dwayne. I listened to her request and he became Hobbs." Hold up, so a woman on Facebook named Jan Kelly told Vin Diesel that he should work with The Rock?
(18:35)
Bobby: Talk about an origin story.
Lindsey: And then The Rock . . . [Laughs] Isn't that amazing? And then it basically goes on to say "The release date has been pushed but we should be mindful and take stock of the roads we took to get here. The pillars of authenticity, family, and most importantly our loyal fans' perspective have been instrumental in procuring success." Wow, that's a lot of words.
Bobby: But it's really funny how . . . so basically the distinction here is Tyrese named names, started drama. Meanwhile Vin Diesel and The Rock have acted like true Thems and complimented not just each other, not really . . . they've also dodged the controversy. They haven't called out Tyrese. They've responded to Tyrese without responding to Tyrese if you know what I mean. And then at the end of it they compliment the head of Universal, Ron Meyer. [Laughs]
Lindsey: So insane.
Bobby: They're like "Thank you, daddy." You know, at the end of the day it's all about him.
Lindsey: Right, that's the real family. I mean this family is being . . . they know where their allowance . . . they know where their allowance comes from. But anyways, that's kind of them sliding back into Whodom, protesting too much, and becoming dramatic. Thems know when to shut their mouths and kind of not respond to the drama because if you can rise above, truly Them behavior.
(19:49)
Bobby: Yeah. I will say there was an interesting tidbit in Tyrese's caption. He says that they were once offered a spinoff and they turned it down, as in we knew not to go against family.
Lindsey: That wouldn't surprise me.
Bobby: I don't know. I'm going to take Tyrese at his word.
Lindsey: Tyrese does have a Benihana in his backyard so he is . . .
Bobby: [Laughs] He does.
Lindsey: He does, he does, he does.
Bobby: So we should move on to another Who. Actually she's sort of a Them at this point but let's talk about her.
Lindsey: No. No she's not.
Bobby: Who's a Who.
Lindsey: No one even knew what her voice sounded like.
Bobby: That's true.
Lindsey: This is amazing. Literally. So Bella Hadid, sister of Gigi, daughter of Yolanada, model, former girlfriend of The Weekend, model -- I would say not Them.
Bobby: But she's the more . . . she's the more fashion model whereas Gigi is a little more, I don't know, accessible? Because Gigi does Calvin Klein. No, Tommy Hilfiger, right?
Lindsey: It's just funny because you're like oh, Bella Hadid is a them but no one knew what her voice sounded like because this week there's a huge meme going around which is hilarious based off this one video she did where I guess Complex goes shoe shopping with people now? They go sneaker shopping?
Bobby: They've been doing this for a while, yeah.
Lindsey: And they went sneaker shopping with Bella Hadid and it is wild. Let me play you a clip.
[Clip Starts]
Female: If homeboy is coming through with these . . .
Male: Right.
Female: It's quite. Yeah, I know, it's quiet for them. But if he comes through in these . . .
Male: Yeah.
Female: You've got some Air Maxes out here. You've got some Jordans. Homeboy's going to get it.
[Clip Ends]
Lindsey: The scene everybody likes to quote where Steve Buscemi shows up and is like "What up, kids?"
[Clip Starts]
Steve: How do you do, fellow kids?
Female: What?
[Clip Ends]
Bobby: It was on an episode of 30 Rock.
Lindsey: And so basically people are kind of saying that about her being like dope, like homeboy's going to get it, you know? [Laughs] But also I just think that people genuinely have not heard her talk before. Like the main tweet that started this whole thing was this guy wrote "LMAO, I've never actually heard Bella Hadid talk before and I'm screaming does she actually talk like this?" [Laughs]
Bobby: Right, and I think so . . . to your point, I shouldn't have called her a Them, because if you're a Them people know what you sound like. And for all we know this is Bella at her most authentic. Bella has never been more authentic. The thing is we had no idea because we've never seen her in a situation like this. She doesn't normally do things like this. So whether or not she's being her true self, her authentic self, is irrelevant. The point is we don't know. So she's a Who.
(22:10)
Lindsey: I feel like I see so much content of Bella Hadid but have not seen a video of her speaking which is like . . .
Bobby: Right.
Lindsey: When you think about it, so crazy.
Bobby: It's kind of wild. Even just to use her sister as a comparison Gigi has done on-air things before. She was embroiled in a minor stupid controversy about that Melania Trump impersonation from earlier this year. We know what Gigi sounds like.
Lindsey: Right. No, and she also did 73 Questions or something.
Bobby: Oh, yeah.
Lindsey: That Vogue series.
Lindsey: That Vogue does, the really great Vogue series.
[Clip Starts]
Male: I need to get this answer right away though.
Gigi: All right.
Male: Does anybody ever call you by your real name?
Gigi: Jelena?
Male: From this point on should I call you Jelena?
Gigi: If you want to, but Gigi's fine.
[Clip Ends]
Lindsey: Anyway, she does press where she speaks. She does campaigns where she speaks. She is dating Zane. They do public appearances where they speak. Whatever. It's weird that we're like . . .
Bobby: Had you ever heard Bella's voice?
Lindsey: No. No.
Bobby: So you were as shocked as everyone else?
Lindsey: Yes. I could not place her voice, no. I did not know that that's what she sounded like.
[Clip Starts]
Bella: It's a no-go for me.
[Clip Ends]
Bobby: Moving on, what's going on with Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Who in his life?
Lindsey: Honestly nothing. I just love this headline from The Daily Mail. It is his ice cream -- like in parenthesis -- maiden, referring to his role as the ice guy in Batman Forever.
Bobby: In Batman and Robin, yeah.
Lindsey: Arnold Schwarzenegger treats lover Heather Milligan to a cone on shopping trip. So this is Whoey because I don't know who Heather Milligan is. Also because they call her his lover. That's a little . . .
Bobby: It's strange.
Lindsey: Daily Mailish, yeah?
(23:49)
Bobby: It's strange. I don't see that even -- it's not even very typical for The Daily Mail, actually.
Lindsey: To call someone his lover?
Bobby: Yeah. I would think it would be something more . . . they would use strange language, yes, like female companion or like lady friend. But lover is sort of presumptuous also. Lover is more presumptuous than girlfriend.
Lindsey: I'm also loving the caption, speaking of lovers, I'm loving the caption under them eating ice cream. It says "Getting a raw deal, Arnold seemed to finish his ice cream before his much younger lover." [Laughs] They're really digging into this aren't they?
Bobby: And then of course nothing The Daily Mail loves more than a pun, "Soon to be terminated, a tasty cone does not stand much of a chance when a hungry Arnold is around."
Lindsey: Oh, man. And this is -- you know, The Daily Mail's ability to draw out four or five paparazzi photos of Arnold Schwarzenegger and his young girlfriend is unparalleled, you know? I mean they could get hours of content from these five photos.
Bobby: Definitely our favorite website is The Daily Mail.
Lindsey: [Laughs] Definitely. Definitely.
Bobby: So they've been dating for a long time. Do you know anything about her? Do you know what her occupation is? Can you guess?
Lindsey: No. Did you look it up?
Bobby: She's a physical therapist.
Lindsey: Oh, that makes sense doesn't it? Hmm.
Bobby: Yeah, so they've been together for a while, a number of years. At least four years. Yeah. And they love ice cream. Let's move on to another topic.
Lindsey: This is also from The Daily Mail but I thought it was really funny. The Daily Mail likes to say people come out of the closet when The Daily Mail finds out that they're gay. So it's like he's out and it's like you just found out. You know, like he was out. You just found out that he was gay.
Bobby: You've severely misunderstood the terminology here.
Lindsey: So they have a headline, I don't know if you watch Younger, Bobby, but there's an actor named Dan Amboyer who plays Hilary Duff's -- I don't want to spoil it -- Hilary Duff's ex-boyfriend and ex-boyfriend's twin.
Bobby: Okay.
Lindsey: And this headline says "Hitched: Younger actor Dan Amboyer confirms he's gay as he ties the knot with long-time boyfriend Eric Berger." What's amazing is that Daily Mail is like he's getting married on the same day he's come out of the closet. [Laughs]
(25:55)
Bobby: Yeah. I mean there's something to that because he never came out publicly.
Lindsey: Right.
Bobby: But I think that's a pretty important distinction that they failed to make. This wasn't like he invited people to a wedding and didn't say who the other spouse was going to be and he was like "Surprise, I'm gay. Surprise, this is my husband." No, his friends all knew.
Lindsey: Well that's what -- because Daily Mail links to People who had the exclusive and People's headline is "Younger's Dan Amboyer Comes Out as Gay (And Gets Married)." What's funny is you can tell what they're prioritizing for their coverage which is the fact that he's gay. They could give a shit that he's married.
Bobby: Right. This is particularly frustrating to me because both places do it and then just a few paragraphs down they explain that this was just a public thing, you know?
Lindsey: Right.
Bobby: To frame it as this is -- I don't know, it cheapens it and it makes it less serious than it sort of is.
Lindsey: Right.
Bobby: Like this is sort of a big deal about why people are afraid to come out publicly, like why people are afraid it could ruin their careers, which is then actually an interesting conversation to have. But instead it's like he came out as gay.
Lindsey: Right, right. Yeah, because that's the most important point of this. Also my other favorite thing is that if you scroll down the People article, guess what's embedded right in the middle of this article is, yes, related video, sexually-fluid Younger star Nico Tortorella on his queer "family" with long-time lesbian-identifying partner.
Bobby: Oh yeah.
Lindsey: That is one of my favorite interruptions, like you're getting gay married and Nico Tortorella slides in with his sexually-fluid Younger star and his queer family long-time lesbian-identifying partner? It's like hello. [Laughs] Hello.
Bobby: Hello. Nico Tortorella has a habit of just sliding in when you least expect him and here's another example.
[Clip Starts]
Female: What does that mean to people who don't really understand?
Nico: It means I do whatever I want whenever I want it. And I've never had a problem with it.
[Clip Ends]
Bobby: I love Nico Tortorella though.
Lindsey: I know you do. I just love his entire journey and all of the work that he does on behalf of himself and his family.
Bobby: I love it.
Lindsey: You could say it's a different type of family than Fast and Furious. [Laughs]
Bobby: Yes, I love it.
Lindsey: A slightly different vibe.
(27:54)
Bobby: Because he's all about talking about sexual fluidity and he's all about being in a very non-traditional relationship and it's actually really interesting but apart from that he's not that interesting of a person.
Lindsey: No, it's so great, because that's his entire . . . that's his thing and he's found the thing. It's great.
Bobby: Oh yeah, I love it.
Lindsey: It's just great that his literal coworker comes out as gay on his wedding day or whatever according to People and People embeds Nico Tortorella's . . .
Bobby: It's a little rude.
Lindsey: Yeah, it's a little rude.
Bobby: It's like let Dan Amboyer have his moment without Nico Tortorella sliding in. Nico Tortorella slides in enough.
Lindsey: He loves to slide.
[Music and ads]
(31:35)
Bobby: What's next?
Lindsey: What else is going on? [Laughs] This is really funny. I was browsing my favorite website Just Jared Junior. For those unfamiliar it's JustJared.com but for younger people, as if JustJared.com was not for younger people. It's like you're reading Just Jared and you're like I like this but I would prefer if they were younger and less-identifiable. So Just Jared Junior has a great headline, "Madison Beer reveals her favorite musicians of the moment." Madison Beer is a YouTube origin singer who signed with Scooter Braun who's Justin Beieber's manager.
Bobby: Mm-hmm.
Lindsey: She has had weird drama but mostly she's just a singer. She doesn't have like a single does she? No, no songs that I know?
Bobby: Yeah.
Lindsey: Point being what's great is she was interviewed for a magazine and her favorite musicians of the moment are, quote, "The Beatles, because all of their music is really different and they started their own wave," quote. That's pretty great, right?
Bobby: That's pretty great but also Just Jared made up the part about the moment. They asked her who her all-time favorite musicians were.
Lindsey: Oh, that's . . .
Bobby: That's completely different.
Lindsey: Oh, wow, so . . .
Bobby: They completely reframed that question. That's almost on the verge of misquoting.
Lindsey: No, 100%. I think we should leave this in. This is interesting because we were talking about this on our actual podcast which you should go listen to -- download it on Apple Podcast or Stitcher, wherever you get your podcast -- we were talking about something like this that happened this week which was with Scott Disick and Sofia Richie who are dating. Us Weekly interviewed Lionel at some thing and he joked, and it's very clear he was joking.
Bobby: Yes.
Lindsey: They were like "What's it like to have Scott Disick date your daughter?" And he's like . . .
Bobby: I'm scared to death.
Lindsey: I'm paraphrasing. Well he says that a dad talking about someone dating his daughter, I'm scared to death. Like a joke. A dad joke.
Bobby: Right.
Lindsey: And then literally every headline that happened after that was "Lionel Richie scared to death, scared to death, scared to death, scared to death of Scott Disick dating his daughter." And it was just totally taken out of context.
Bobby: Right.
Lindsey: To the point of being a little bit kind of like a lie essentially.
Bobby: Almost a lie. Definitely missing half of the story. But what Just Jared Junior has done here, which we just realized, is they reframed it. And it's almost . . . I mean to me this reads as ridicule, you know? Like they wanted to embarrass her by saying favorite musicians of the moment.
Lindsey: I don't know.
(34:00)
Bobby: When she does not -- this is not asked as "Who is your favorite current musician, favorite musician of the moment?" The actual question was "Who are some of your all-time favorite musicians and why?" So of course she's going to say an old group.
Lindsey: Right. I mean I took it as ridicule because I read it in that way but I wonder if Just Jared Junior readers who are way more junior than I would read it like that. But I guess it is weird to say music of the moment and she's saying Sam Cook and The Beatles and she's saying some . . . that's weird that that would be her response to that question because the question wasn't that.
Bobby: Right.
Lindsey: We should move on because it's so unimportant, this person and this question.
Bobby: It's unimportant but that does feel tremendously rude to Madison Beer.
Lindsey: Also you should always click through to the source.
Bobby: Always.
Lindsey: If you think a quote is weird go find out where it's from because God knows it could be a months' old interview that wasn't even an interview, it was like some thing from someone else from some . . . you know? You should always ask.
Bobby: And be wary. Be wary of any tabloid's interview that's in quotes and find out when that interview was conducted because these tabloids love to stockpile their interviews and then quote them as if they just asked for comment yesterday even though the interview is from several years ago. So always seek out the source of the interview.
Lindsey: Oh yeah, that's the most wild. Can't trust sources either, ever.
Bobby: Nope, ever. Never trust a source.
Lindsey: Speaking of Us Weekly they do have an exclusive this week, I'm not sure if you saw it just from an hour ago, Naya Rivera says she's doing great after calling off divorce from Ryan Dorsey.
Bobby: Ugh, I love it. Who's Naya Rivera? She's from Glee, right?
Lindsey: She is the Glee alum. A Glee alum who is famous for her actually very juicy book Sorry, Not Sorry.
Bobby: Oh yeah.
Lindsey: Not the Demi Lovato song, before the Demi Lovato song. She wrote a book that really dished a lot on her Glee costars and her ex-boyfriend Big Sean.
(35:52)
Bobby: And her own personal life, like she was very candid in it too.
Lindsey: It's a good book. I mean as far as celebrity autobiographies go that actually dish dirt hers was one of the more juicy ones of the past two years.
Bobby: And I love this though, she called off her divorce.
Lindsey: It's really fun to call off a divorce, right? Because usually you call off a marriage. It's weird to hear someone say . . . it's like a double negative, you know?
Bobby: She calls off the divorce.
Lindsey: If you call off a divorce it means you're still together.
Bobby: Yes.
Lindsey: Right? Yeah. Okay.
Bobby: Yeah, and she's doing great.
Lindsey: I mean that's what she said, she's doing great. She's doing great.
Bobby: "I'm doing great." Very succinct and good and we feel happy for Naya Rivera I guess.
Lindsey: I mean I'm happy for her because while she was on hiatus from her husband that she called off the divorce with she dated David Spade briefly so I think she maybe said to herself hmm, maybe I should call off the divorce. [Laughs]
Bobby: How did I forget that little flash in the pan romance? Weren't those photos a shock?
Lindsey: Yeah.
Bobby: I mean those photos immediately . . . remember Jessica Lowndes' and Jon Lovitz's fake relationship?
Lindsey: I'll never forget it.
Bobby: Immediately after seeing those photos I was like oh, this is fake.
Lindsey: It wasn't fake.
Bobby: Naya River is releasing a song. She's starring in a movie with David Spade. But no, it was real. It was real.
Lindsey: It wasn't fake. Us Weekly will never let you forget that that happened because it's literally their kicker. The last sentence in this article is "During her time apart from Dorsey the Step Up High Water star briefly dated comedian David Spade." Rude on so many levels, that sentence, if you read it a few times which I have.
Bobby: They split in June. It seems like Naya River has come to her senses and she's happy. She's doing good.
Lindsey: I mean, yeah, she's doing good.
Bobby: She's doing good. You know, sometimes it just takes a brief fling with David Spade to put your entire life into perspective.
Lindsey: That's so true.
Bobby: If we could all just go on brief flings with David Spade, you know, just to figure it out.
Lindsey: If you're ever feeling down see if you can get a date with David Spade and you'll feel so much better about yourself, and then you'll stop dating David Spade and maybe move forward.
Bobby: Or maybe at some point maybe someone's just going to fall for David Spade and they're going to realize their entire life before dating David Spade was a lie and all they've ever wanted was David Spade. It could work. You know, the inverse could work.
(38:02)
Lindsey: That is literally the nicest thing anyone has ever said about David Spade.
Bobby: Although after someone takes David Spade -- after David Spade is no longer single -- then what are people going to do for reevaluating their lives? Who are they going to date?
Lindsey: It's true, there'll be no more divorces that are being called off because nobody will be able to have that perspective switch.
Bobby: [Laughs] Yeah, we're going to need to find a stand-in for David Spade once he finally gets in a long-term, monogamous relationship.
Lindsey: [Laughs] There's plenty of men just like David Spade that could stand in for David Spade, I promise you that.
Bobby: Yeah, I feel like it would have to be a Saturday Night Live person. Rob Schneider. You're going to have to start dating Rob Schneider to put your life into perspective.
Lindsey: Yeah, well I'm sure he would be down for that as well for some reason. Next time Naya Rivera is considering calling off her calling off her calling off her divorce . . . I'm trying to get to the negative that means that she'd be calling off the calling off.
Bobby: Oh, you do it one more time. She's calling off the calling off the calling off. No, she's calling off the calling off. You only need two.
Lindsey: Calling off the calling off the divorce. Then she could date maybe Rob Schneider or somebody of that ilk.
Bobby: Yes, Rob Schneider. Then she'll be calling off the calling off the calling off.
Lindsey: Okay, okay, okay, okay. We need to move on. What's next?
Bobby: So we have a . . . we make two episodes a week and one of them is just the weekly episode.
Lindsey: We do?
Bobby: Yes, Lindsey, we do two episodes a week.
Lindsey: [Laughs] Wow.
Bobby: And one of them is a call-in show. We have a phone number, 619-WHO-THEM. And people call in. They ask questions about Whos they know about, Whos they don't know about, just fun gossip they don't want us to air but want us to know, or commentary on something we either got right or wrong or incomplete. And we love playing the wide variety of different call-ins because we love them all. But anyway, so people called in a few days ago and asked about this very topical moment and I'm just going to play the call now and then we can address it.
[Call Starts]
Maggie: Hi Lindsey and Bobby, it's Maggie. Long time, long time. Calling at a cabin with my friends. We're watching Hocus Pocus and we want to know have any of the kids from Hocus Pocus gone on to achieve anything? I know Thora Birch is in there, but like where is Thora Birch at right now? What's her status? What's she doing? Is she a Who? Is she a Them? Where is she? We've just got to know who are the Whos and Thems of Hocus Pocus? Okay, thank you so much. Good form, Bella Thorne. (?)
[Call Ends]
(40:33)
Bobby: This actually . . . so this is topical because it's Halloween month and we all love Hocus Pocus and they're making a remake of Hocus Pocus on the Disney Channel so Hocus Pocus is big in the news right now sort of because it's big in the news every October. But I think the answer might surprise a lot of you, especially the caller. Do you know what the other Hocus Pocus kids are up to? Or Thora Birch and the other Hocus Pocus kids?
Lindsey: Tell me, Bobby. I don't know.
Bobby: So Thora Birch has been consistently acting since Hocus Pocus. She had sort of a weird -- of course she was in American Beauty which won best picture. Okay. Her career didn't exactly take off after that but she was in a lot of movies. Like she got Ghost World after that. Ghost World, iconic, amazing movie.
Lindsey: She's had a pretty amazing career considering I think people thought she was going to be huge, huge, huge, huge. But even though she wasn't that she really has had an amazing run of stuff.
Bobby: Right. If you're not a huge, huge, huge child star people just assume that you crashed and burned but there is a medium. There's a whole range in-between that and she's fallen somewhere in the middle. She's been acting consistently, occasionally getting in a big movie, doing a lot of TV movies that did well, like well-received TV movies like Homeless to Harvard which was a big hit and then The Pregnancy Pact. Remember The Pregnancy Pact?
Lindsey: Yeah, that was pretty good.
(41:44)
Bobby: That was huge and did really well for Lifetime. But she's also just been in other movies. And the sort of sad thing is Thora Birch has a weird relationship with her parents and her parents are, according to gossip reports, very, very prototypical sage mom and dad. Like she apparently lost a film role because her dad was too demanding on set. Like her dad would show up on set. So that sort of clouded her career but she's still acting. She just starred in a movie with Emelia Clarke, Khaleesi of Game of Thrones fame, and Johnny Knoxville, and Jack Houston who is Angelica Houston's nephew. So she's in movies, not huge. But the other two . . .
Lindsey: Wait, before you move on from Thora Birch can I have you go to thora.org?
Bobby: Oh, thora.org. I forgot I have that tab open. You don't have to -- I was reading her blog earlier.
Lindsey: Thora Birch has an amazing website that is very much run by her. It's thora.org. My favorite page on it is Interests in which it has a list of her interests including Facebook, The New Yorker, The Economist, Lexus, Nexus, films obviously, anthropology, but the esoteric and non-professional variety, wink, wink. Also you can find me on Twitter. I'm @110Miss, see you there. But I think this was last updated in like 2008 so this seems like it's not necessarily the newest place.
Bobby: Yeah, and she tweets a lot. She only has 5,000 followers so you should follow her. She's verified. It really is her.
Lindsey: The thing about her parents is most really successful young actors, there's something weird about their parents because it takes a lot to do that. Let's say 40% are just natural and it just happens and they get found. 60% are sent on castings and moved to LA and kind of pushed and pushed. It's definitely a thing. It's not a natural thing to become a child actor, you know?
(43:45)
Bobby: Yeah. You need someone pushing you whether it's your parents or like an agent.
Lindsey: Right.
Bobby: Some sort of like . . .
Lindsey: Right. So it's always interesting to me when everyone is so surprised that people's -- child actors' parents are crazy and there are so many child actors that to get, what's it called?
Bobby: Emancipated.
Lindsey: Think about it though. What child could do this on their own in this way, you know?
Bobby: Yeah.
Lindsey: Anyways . . .
Bobby: To answer the other people, Omri Katz who played Max, the kid, the main guy, the virgin -- which is also strange. It's weird to watch Hocus Pocus as an adult because you realize how many jokes they make about virginity where it's like they make fun of this 14-year-old kid for being a virgin many, many times.
Lindsey: Right, and it's like of course he's a virgin. Yeah, of course he is.
Bobby: And it's like it's very weird that so many people ridicule him for being a virgin. Anyway, he's the one who did the least. He did a couple things afterwards.
Lindsey: He's retired.
Bobby: He's retired, yeah. He doesn't act anymore. He just went on to be a normal guy, out of the spotlight, a regular civilian. But the other two main child actors in this movie are actually very, very successful not just compared to Omri Katz but as working actors they are objectively very successful. The first one is Vinessa Shaw who played Allison, the love interest of Max, the neighbor who was like the rich neighbor who was cool or whatever. She's been acting in a ton of things. She was in Eyes Wide Shut. She was in a few comedies in the early 2000s, but then starting with in 2008 -- or I guess in 2007 with 310 to Yuma, she started doing a serious dramatic turn, like a dramatic adult actress. She was one of the two lovers in that movie Two Lovers that was actually really good.
Lindsey: [Laughs] One of the two lovers in that movie Two Lovers.
Bobby: Because the two lovers are Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw.
Lindsey: Yeah, I remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember.
Bobby: So good movie. Then she was in Side Effects as Jude Law's wife. Remember Side Effects? My favorite movie Side Effects.
Lindsey: I fucking love Side Effects. That is the best . . .
Bobby: Side Effects I think I've seen at least five times.
Lindsey: Every six months somebody talks about how good Side Effects is and everyone's like "Oh, yeah, Side Effects."
(45:45)
Bobby: I've never met someone who . . . I've seen people disparage Side Effects without having seen Side Effects, but the moment you see Side Effects you realize Side Effects is amazing. Anyway, but she was in many episodes of Ray Donovan which I feel Ray Donovan has a lot of sneaky, really good performances and a lot of sneaky, famous people appear on Ray Donovan.
Lindsey: Let's not talk about everybody's parent's favorite show Ray Donovan.
Bobby: [Laughs] I just feel like Ray Donovan is a place that A listers can hide really good performances.
Lindsey: Sure, because nobody will see it because critics don't watch it.
Bobby: Right. And not saying . . .
Lindsey: But a lot of America watches Ray Donovan. It's very popular.
Bobby: And not saying Vinessa Shaw is an A lister but she's rubbing shoulders with a lot of really, really good and famous actors on Ray Donovan.
Lindsey: Okay, moving on. Moving on.
Bobby: The last person I wanted to mention is the guy who played Thackery Binx, a.k.a. the cat. I always want to call him Salem the Cat but that's another thing. Sean Murray. You know how successful he is? This guy has been on NCIS for 14 years so he must have 800 houses.
Lindsey: I just love when there's such a thing where -- and I do this too -- where it's like where is that kid from Hocus Pocus? What's he been up to? And it's like uh, doing a very . . . like making so much movie on NCIS.
Bobby: He's making -- Pauley Perrette just retired from NCIS after 14 years and I bet she has, you know, a billion dollars in the bank. They make so much money.
Lindsey: Meanwhile this guy, this guy's been on JAG and NCIS and NCIS New Orleans.
Bobby: He's on the spinoff, yeah.
Lindsey: And NCIS the special agent Donozo visits Dr. Phil TV movie. It's literally crazy how much money this guy probably has.
Bobby: But the last thing I want to say about Sean Murray . . .
Lindsey: There's more?
Bobby: The best fun fact about Sean Murray is that he has another Who in his family. Do you know who that is?
Lindsey: Who?
Bobby: His stepsister is Troian Bellisario of Pretty Little Liars fame.
Lindsey: [Gasps] No.
Bobby: Yep.
Lindsey: No.
Bobby: Yep. I don't understand the family tree that led to that but his stepsister is Troian Bellisario.
Lindsey: Wait, that's an amazing connection you just made.
Bobby: It's really . . .
Lindsey: For those who listen to Who? Weekly the podcast on a regular basis, you'd know that's an important person to us, just meaning one of the Pretty Little Liars that we've never known the name of that keeps coming up and whose name we'll never learn. That is one of them.
(48:00)
Bobby: Can you name Troian's character in Pretty Little Liars?
Lindsey: Are you kidding me? No, I can't.
Bobby: No, you can't? Okay.
Lindsey: Can you?
Bobby: No, I had to look it up. It's Spencer. She was Spencer.
Lindsey: That's like the rudest thing to ask me to do and you know it. And you know it. And you know it.
Bobby: The fun thing about the podcast is that this started as a phone call. This is really just a phone call that we have every week.
Lindsey: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bobby: So before we end this we just want to thank Amina and Ann for letting us on their podcast yet again.
Lindsey: And Gina.
Bobby: Oh yeah, because really without Call Your Girlfriend our podcast wouldn't exist. Because a thing about being friends with Amina is she's very supportive and so when Amina found out we wanted to do a podcast, who gave us the most support? Amina. And told us we have to do it, and told us it was a good idea.
Lindsey: Yeah. And who said "Here's how you do it?" Because basically just like Amina and Ann were across the country from each other, when Who? Weekly started Bobby and I were across the country from each other. I was in Los Angeles and he was in New York. And Amina basically was like "No, you can make this happen. You still can do a podcast even across the country." And, you know, they talk about what they want to talk about and this is basically what we want to talk about every week.
Bobby: Yeah. And it started as a phone call. It still is. We record on the phone even though we're in the same borough in New York.
Lindsey: [Laughs]
Bobby: But we just talk on the phone and it really is a weekly catch-up even though we see each other 800 times a week outside of a phone call.
Lindsey: But we don't always talk in-depth about the stuff that we like to talk about on Who? Weekly because it gives us the freedom to do that. It gives us the freedom to talk about all this garbage in such depth. And we hope that you guys enjoyed our little preview and we hope that you'll go and maybe subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. Maybe you'll also come see us in person. I promise you'll have a good time. We'll be in Chicago this weekend but we'll also be in San Francisco, D.C., Boston, and back in Brooklyn in the coming weeks.
Bobby: Yes. So thank you to Amina and Ann and Gina. This has been wonderful. And always call your friends -- your girlfriends.
Lindsey: [Laughs] Call your girlfriends. And also Bobby, I guess as Ann and Amina say, I will see you on the Internet.
Bobby: I'll see you on the Internet. Bye.
Lindsey: Bye.
[Music]
[Segment Ends]
(50:25)
Ann: Ugh, thank you Lindsey and Bobby. Also thank you for just giving us a reprieve from the kind of newsy news and political news which honestly is pretty difficult right now.
Aminatou: Yeah. You know the other thing I like about this and listening to Who? Weekly is that I feel like I'm in the real media studies class.
Ann: Mmm.
Aminatou: You're like oh, this is actually what they should be teaching in college. These are the useful skills.
Ann: Yes.
Aminatou: So yeah, that was really fun. Thanks for coming on. You can catch them on tour. Just go to their website whoweekly.us. [Laughs] Whoweekly.us, and catch them in a city near you.
Ann: Oh god, yes, they're on tour. And thanks to Lindsey and Bobby of Who? Weekly and thanks to Zara and Taz from Good Muslim, Bad Muslim and thanks to Sophie and April from She's All Fat who have been our guest segment folks while we've been taking this little fall break to get ourselves together. Thanks for being so great, y'all.
[Music]
Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet, on our website callyourgirlfriend.com, download it anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts, or on Apple Podcasts where we would love it if you left us a review. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. We're on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at @callyrgf. You can even leave us a short and sweet voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. Our logos are by Kenesha Sneed and this podcast is produced by the beautiful, luminous, and gorgeous Gina Delvac.
Ann: See you on the Internet. [Laughs]
Aminatou: See you on the Internet. See you at Gina's house.