When he was like directing traffic a little further up, I tried making a right and he comes running screaming, hey, hey, no, no.

It jumps in front of the car and he's like, go straight.

Go straight.

Screaming at me at the top of his lungs.

And then I'm like, but my parking garage is right there.

I need to park right there.

And he looks at me, I shit you not, at the top of his lungs, and just says, then call Donald Trump.

You got to call Donald Trump right now.

I was like, I was so like taken.

I was so taken back and my wife too.

And we were like, I was like, what Called down.

What the does he mean?

Call Donald Foreign what is up folks?

What's going on?

And welcome to the Spun Today Podcast, the only podcast that is anchored in writing but unlimited in scope.

I'm your host Tony Ortiz and I appreciate you listening.

In this episode I am going to break down watching and my little recap and review of the film Sinners along with bunch of writing insights that I took away from myself that I wanted to show my fellow writers and creatives out there that you may find useful as well.

I'm also going to share about meeting and getting to see comedian, writer, director, creative Mo Amer live, which was a super dope experience.

Definitely stick around for that.

And I'm also going to share some recent podcast news that has been making headlines, so stick around for that.

Although I feel a bit rusty, it definitely feels good to get back in the swing of things here with consistent episodes moving forward.

I let you guys know last time why it took a bit of a hiatus, but yeah, it definitely feels good to be back with you fine folks.

So before we get into all that good stuff, please listen to this one way that you can really help support this podcast if you so choose, and then we'll jump right into the episode.

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Sinners is a film that debuted on April 18, 2025 and I want to shout him out right at the offset by writer director Ryan Coogler.

Definite, definite shout out to him for such an enjoyable experience on many levels that we will get into shortly.

And here's the official synopsis.

Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.

And I think that little synopsis there definitely doesn't do the movie justice.

So let me flesh it out a little bit for you guys before I get into all the how the Sausage was Made stuff and writing insights that I want to share.

So the twin brothers, the Smokestack Twins, were played by Michael B.

Jordan, and throughout the film we find that they were gangsters in their hometown of Mississippi that were both in the army together and traveled the world during World War I.

The film takes place in Mississippi in the early 1930s and they travel around the world as soldiers and when they come back, settle in Chicago and start running with Al Capone and his gang, allegedly.

Then ultimately when they return home to Mississippi, they have a truckload of Italian wine and Irish beer and a suitcase full of cash that they intend to purchase a spot in in Mississippi to turn into a juke joint or nightclub with that inventory of liquor as their main source of what it is that they can be selling, along with food, so on and so forth.

Now the troubled behind, the troubled past that they're leaving behind is that in leaving Chicago, we see news clippings of the Irish mob and Italian mobs warring with each other.

And it's set up in a way that the Smokestack twins were essentially playing both sides, rob them both, and in doing so set them at odds with each other, with them thinking that the other mob was the one that stole all their liquor and money.

And as they get back home, they are confronted with dealing with their past, notably for Smoke.

His estranged wife Annie, played by Wunmi Mosaku, was amazing.

And we find that they lost an infant child.

So we see him, you know, having to confront that grief and part of him that he went away from.

And then on the side of Stack, most notably his love interest Mary, played by Hailee Steinfeld, which was Also amazing who he left behind, promised that he would return and clearly never did until years later.

And then a mix of a bunch of other old friends and acquaintances, which we meet throughout the movie and take them in with, like, mixed reception, right?

Because they were, like, notorious in their hometown.

So much so that folks are still, like, scared of just hearing their names.

But also had a handful of close folks that they ran with.

They then purchased the location.

They had this meeting set up with character by the name of Hogwood, played by Dave Maldonado, that we later learned was a grand wizard of the kkk on the low spoiler alert.

And he sells them this location for a bag of cash.

And one of my favorite lines in the movie, which I don't know why it hit so hard, the smokestack twins are standing in front of the place that they're going to buy.

Hogwood is clearly late because Smoke keeps looking at his clock and complaining, like, where is this guy?

He shows up nonchalantly.

He asks them, are you guys twins?

And then Stack responds, no, we cousins.

Like, sarcastically and smiling because obviously they're identical twins.

And they wind up buying the place.

And they clearly tell Hogwood, you know, this is.

Here's this bag of cash.

This is what we're paying for this in the property.

Don't come back here asking for more.

Don't come back here with your KKK buddies.

If we ever see you guys across our property line, we're gonna shoot you.

And then Hogwood says, kkk, that doesn't even exist anymore.

What are you guys talking about, you know, playing at them?

Then we find out later in the film, which I'll circle back to with a bit more detail.

But Hogwood has been running the scam in selling this place to black folks.

Remember, this is 1930, 31 deep south Mississippi, well within the throes of the Jim Crow era.

A lot of tension, racist, racist tension going on.

So he's had this scam going on in that, you know, he sells it the same place to some black folks.

Then comes later that night or the next day with his KKK buddies to shoot and kill and hang them all.

And then they wash the place up, do it all over again.

Now, the Smokestack twins are obviously oblivious to this, but that's what Hogwood has going on.

Then, long story short, they wind up, you know, going into town, meeting up with folks that they need to meet up with, telling them their plan to open up this juke joint, which, again, is essentially a nightclub.

And this is.

This is the business plan that they, you know, came back to town with.

And tonight's gonna be the grand opening.

So they're letting folks know in the town they are recruiting talent for music playing folks to cook, topple, making signage, so on and so forth.

And then the story culminates with that evening being a mix.

It culminates with three vampires.

Literal horror film, blood sucking vampires.

So not speaking metaphorically, although you can look at it through the vantage point of race again and pick up on the metaphor of the blood and soul sucking vampires which happen to be white in the film vers the the humans or the patrons of the juke joint that evening, which were all black and how they eventually all get turned.

But these vampires find their way into the juke joint, turn pretty much everybody that was there and the rest of the night plays out in this horror action film, fight for their lives against all these vampires.

So I think that fleshes out a little bit.

Although that two sentence synopsis that I read for you guys earlier without giving away too many spoilers, and I'll give you guys some additional details as I go through some of the writing elements that I definitely want to share with you guys.

So first I want to speak of the origin and inspirations for the film.

Two of the main inspirations were Ryan Coogler's uncle, who was a big blues enthusiast and left Mississippi for California back in the day.

Another inspiration that he's mentioned on multiple interviews was was the film From Dusk Till Dawn.

You can definitely see similar tones there.

So being partially inspired by his family, Coogler infused his family history and musical heritage into the script.

The character, for example, by the name of Sammy, played by Miles Catton, also amazing breakout role for him, which plays the younger cousin of the Smokestack twins, was named after Ryan Cooler's aunt Sammy.

And the legendary blues singer Buddy Guy, which was one of his uncle's favorites, actually plays the old man version of Sammy that we see in the mid credits post movie scene.

And I just wanted to highlight a writing insight that I definitely took away from that, which is using personal history as creative fuel which then adds authenticity and emotional depth to your characters.

I've definitely noticed that type of connection with my own writing with feedback that I've gotten on stories or parts of stories that folks have liked and also me just writing it and you know, the level of satisfaction with myself after writing a story that definitely has more personal history infused into it.

So adding that level of emotional depth definitely helps to resonate the story and characters more.

Now, let's speak a little bit about music as a narrative device.

Because the score in the film was great.

I definitely Shazammed a song or two that added to my.

My Go to playlist.

And for this film, Ryan Coogler partnered again with Ludwig Goranson, which has been a longtime collaborator of his since they met in film school at the University of Southern California, AKA usc.

And they've collaborated on multiple films from Fruitvale Station, Black Panther Creed as well, if I'm not mistaken, which creates a unique audio visual signature between the two.

And I've seen a couple of interviews with them both and you can see how fluid their friendship is.

And that chemistry bleeds back onto what we take in as the audience and how seamless that writing and directing matches up to the scoring and music that plays such a significant role in films in general.

But definitely in this one.

And I honestly never thought of, like, that collaboration between, like, writer, director and composer as much as I have with, like, director and actor combos, which.

Which I'll touch on later.

But it's absolutely an element that I appreciate much more now after watching this film.

And just for a bit, on Ludwig Goranson, specifically, he's a goat within his space.

Even outside of all the collaboration with Ryan Coogler and success that they've had together.

He did, for example, the score on the show Community, starring Donald Glover.

That was like his first, like, big show, and more recently on Oppenheimer, the movie.

So that weight of his expertise and that, that range definitely precedes him.

And it's dope that he can play all instruments.

He plays guitar, bass, guitar, drums, piano.

He does vocals.

And if you really want to geek out within that vein, he works with a program called Digital Performer, or at least he did in an interview that I saw when he was doing the the Score four Community.

I'm not sure if that's still what he uses now, but that's definitely what he used then.

And music is so important in film, right?

It's not just an aesthetic.

It helps to shape the mood, it drives the narrative, and it acts as a character in the film, which I've always heard said in many movies, but honestly, I personally got that or understood that with this film.

And it even acts as like a spiritual force.

For example, with there's this voiceover in this great scene, this montage scene when the juke joint is at its pinnacle of the night, everybody's having a great time, singing, dancing, eating, drinking.

And there's this voiceover stating that legend has it that Music.

Music that's so good has the ability to pierce the veil between the living world and the dead world and between different periods and times.

And there's this Steadicam scene.

I think that's what it's called.

Right.

Like the handheld that goes around the room.

Nonetheless, there's this scene where we see different historical and futuristic, or future, rather, ancestors and future relatives of the folks that are there also dancing and vibing out to their version of that almost spiritual moment that each of the folks are having there.

And a writing insight that I took away from that is to use music if, you know, in film and screenwriting, but even in writing stories, you know, short stories, books, novels, so on and so forth, which more so applies to myself.

You're not using music there necessarily, unless you're writing in, like, background, like in an exposition way.

Like this is type of music that's playing in the background, which I guess we can do.

But for pros, you know, instead of using music using like recurring motifs or ideas, not just for style, but to support your theme, to support the tone of your story, to support or show time shifts, that's definitely a good application of that.

Now let's talk a little bit about character craft and dialogue.

Because the performances in.

In this movie were the absolute heart of it.

It was great across the board.

Let's start off with Michael B.

Jordan, which plays both Smoke and Stack.

They're the twin protagonists of the movie and he absolutely knocks it out of the park.

You think you're seeing two different people and their brotherhood is.

Is layered.

They have very different yet subtle mannerisms and personalities.

Smoke is calculated, he's more business minded.

Stack is more reactive and led by his heart, or more emotional, if you will.

Smoke is also the protector.

He's the worrier.

He's the one always looking after and thinking about Stack.

And an Easter egg for you guys that either haven't watched it or will re watch it as I have for telling them apart, which I picked up on on one of the breakdown videos that I'll definitely link to in the episode notes.

But a great way to tell them apart is that Stack is usually wearing red.

Something red.

And he also smiles.

So if you see one of them smiling, odds, you know, throughout the whole film, odds are, is that it's Stack and then Smoke.

He's always wearing blue and never smiles.

Now, an interesting dynamic that I wanted to point out as well, which ties to that unique visual audio signature that we spoke about earlier with Ryan Coogler, working consistently with Ludwig Goranson is Ryan Coogler working consistently with his star actor Michael B.

Jordan.

So Coogler also directed Black Panther, where Michael B.

Jordan plays Killmonger.

He directed Fruitvale Station, based on a true story, also a great movie that I think I broke down on here years ago.

But I think that was their first collab together and also the Creed movies.

And in doing so they create this unique collaborative signature that intermingles with the written word and the theatrical expression and ultimately what we see.

And it made me think of other great recurring director actor collabs like Scorsese working with De niro and Leonardo DiCaprio or Quentin Tarantino working with Samuel L.

Jackson and Christoph Waltz, for example.

Now, Miles Catton, I absolutely have to shout out.

He plays Sammy Moore, which again is the younger cousin and one of the main protagonists of the film.

And this was his very first acting gig.

And he is absolutely the breakout star of the film.

Not only did he act his ass off, but.

But he's a really good singer.

Has been singing since he was a kid.

And there's actually a snippet of a video when he was really young that went viral of him singing in the back of a car, which I never saw at the time, but I found that that snippet of him singing was used in the beginning of the video montage to Jay Z's 444 music video is the very first clip of the montage for that music video, which I thought was pretty dope.

And he's currently the background baritone vocalist touring with Singer musician Her, which was the person that actually convinced him to audition for this role.

Also, before auditioning for the role, he didn't play a lick of the guitar and actually learned how to play it for the film.

So it's not like a double playing the guitar, it's actually him doing so.

Also, he's from Brooklyn, so Shout Out New York.

Really dope and excited to see what the future has in store for him.

Wunmi Musaku that I mentioned earlier, who plays Annie, is the estranged wife of Smoke.

She's fantastic.

She's kind of like the anchor and like the level headed one in the movie.

She has this.

She's also the spiritual influence in the movie.

She practices voodoo in the film, which as I understand it, is like an offshoot of voodoo or vice versa.

But she's definitely into like her spirituality and the other realm and definitely serves as the spiritual guide throughout the movie.

Especially when we get into the intense vampire fighting scenes and stuff like that.

Bo and Grace Chow, played by Yao and Li Jun Lee, respectively.

They were dope.

They were the Asian American characters who were known in that time, in the post slavery time.

So the Jim Crow south to there was a large Asian American, Mexican American contingency brought in to the states to replace the now illegal slave labor because they were willing to work for lesser wages and were also seen as not having like a political power or political voice.

And I'll get into a little bit more of like the symbolism and subtext to their characters in a bit, but just to round out a few of more of the actor shout outs here, Hailee Steinfeld, which again plays Mary, which is the love interest of Stack.

Her backstory is when she was younger, her mother took in the Smokestack twins after their abusive father, who we later find out Smoke wound up killing because he was.

He was abusing Stack and mostly and also him.

She took them in and raised them like her own.

And Mary's white.

She's like 75% white.

I think she said her grandfather's mother or father was black.

She wasn't one of the, you know, KKK racist ones.

And she winds up being actually one of the first ones that were turned by the three vampires that initially wanted to get in.

Delroy Lindo, which was part of like the comedic relief and kind of more grounded and realism characters, played the lifelong musician and alcoholic Delta Slim.

I always remember him from his role in gone in 60 seconds in a line that he says there when he catches Nicholas Cage, but then winds up letting him go.

So you that he understands why he came back.

And he says his brother's love is brother's love.

And then last but certainly not least, Jack o' Connell plays the head vampire, Remic.

He was also phenomenal.

So Orion also wrote in kind of this backstory of this known ship that washed up on shore in Massachusetts.

I forget if it was like the 1500s or 1600s or something like that that was like full of blood and burned, but no people on board.

And it was a ship from Ireland.

So he kind of wrote it as what happened in that ship all those hundreds of years ago was that this Remic character, you know, killed everybody aboard that ship and hasn't, you know, running around the Americas ever since.

One last thing that I wanted to say actually about the.

The dynamic of the twins is this scene that definitely stood out to me with Smoke when he initially goes into town looking for Beau and Grace and he's driving the truck that has all the liquor in it.

So he tells this girl, this young girl that's there to guard the truck for him, that he'll pay her 10 cents for every minute that's there.

And if anybody comes to the truck and tries to take something out of it, just to ring the horn so it can come out.

And it was like a master class in subtle mentorship.

Which also plays to Smoke's dynamic in the film of being the more, like, paternalistic of the brothers.

The one that's always, like, looking out, trying to, like, teach and show and help.

And she's, like, super excited.

She's like, 10 cents.

Yeah, sure, I'll do it.

And he's like, no, no, no, hold on a second.

You don't just say yes to the first number.

And, you know, he doesn't know this girl from a hole in the wall.

He just sees her and calls her over.

He has this intimate moment with her and schools her to, you know, not accept the first number.

He's like, we're talking numbers.

And quote numbers always have to be in conversation with each other, end quote.

And I thought that that line was dope.

And then he's like, so when I say 10 cents, you have to ask for more.

And she's like, 25.

And then he says, 15, and that's my final offer.

Or 20, and that's my final offer.

Something like that.

And then she agrees.

But that very small scene shows how, like, these details, even in tiny interactions like that, can reveal character traits and continue to add on to either the thematic message or how you're layering your character.

That's definitely a writing insight that I took away, which was that little moments like that, you should let small moments like even that bartering with the kid right there, reflect the broader themes like empowerment and mentorship or, you know, economic awareness that you are intending to imbue within your character.

It doesn't all have to be, like, large, clear exposition.

It's actually even better if it's not, in my opinion, let people find that kind of stuff.

Now, let's speak to symbolism and subtext in the movie.

I really liked how Coogler drew us in to this world of the Jim Crow south, where racism and systemic oppression are very prevalent throughout.

But it never felt forced.

It was just part of the world.

And he sprinkled it in subtly, I thought, throughout the film with scenes, for example, where we see the segregated storefronts.

So Beau and Grace, which I mentioned earlier, they run two stores across the street from each other, two grocery stores, and one is for the whites and one is for the blacks.

And looking deeper into that, you also see the dynamic of what I touched on earlier with Chinese Americans at the time being amongst the immigrants that were brought in to sort of offset the lack of having the free slave labor in the south and how culturally they weren't fully accepted by either side, blacks or whites, but also weren't fully rejected either, which put them in a very unique situation to be able to do things such as open up grocery stores and sell to both sides.

And he also showed it in the film with scenes and shots with the sharecroppers who had quotas for picking cotton and also chain gangs working on the side of the road.

And in particular, there's a scene where he took on racism head on, where the twins pick up their little cousin Sammy before the weekend after, by the way, he's met his quota for picking cotton by waking up early and working all morning.

Sammy's this wide eyed younger kid that looks up to his cousins, torn between his love for music and playing the blues and his father's take on life and what he should be and what he shouldn't be.

His father, who's a preacher in a church, they pick up Sammy so he can be one of the players in the juke joint that night.

And on the way there, Sammy's telling them and asking them to tell him about Chicago.

And he says, you know, tell me about Chicago.

I heard that there's no Jim Crow up there and that black folks could just go wherever they want without any issues.

Again, speaking to the segregated South.

And then one of the twins.

I think it was smoke, or maybe it was Stack, but I think it was smoke.

You know, more jaded by this point, by life and experiences.

He says, man, Chicago ain't nothing but Mississippi with tall buildings instead of plantations.

And I thought that was the perfect encapsulation of how Northern racism at the time was mirroring the South.

And it just showed how the oppression just doesn't change because of the setting, it just changes form.

This whole story, by the way, which leads to my next writing insight, takes place within a 24 hour period.

Within one day.

Yeah, it felt so like layer and epic and like so much shit was going on.

And the writing takeaway that we can take from that is that tight frames, tight time frames like that, they can enhance tension and create a sense of urgency and really force characters into like meaningful decisions quickly.

Like increases the pace of your story just has to.

Because everything has to happen within.

Again, that tight time frame.

And it was crazy because it Felt like we got a whole movie about family dynamics, about leaving home and then returning to a place that you left, about confronting the past about so much before we get the movie about the vampires.

And what was cool is how all the fantasy elements, once we switch over to nighttime and vampires get introduced, that whole fantasy element blended with the real historical oppression.

And the vampires weren't just mythical creatures, but metaphors for exploitation, for surveillance, for control, systemic control.

So in that sense, their presence in the story, rooted in the Jim Crow south, serves to magnify the horror of the real historical injustices.

And by layering the supernatural element over authentic historical drama, Ryan Coogler elevated the genre.

So he wound up using horror and fantasy not to escape that history or take away from it, but to confront it and reframe it.

And that's definitely part of what made the film so great.

Now, one of the final scenes of the movie, because it felt like the movie ended a couple different times or could have and would have been awesome, is this Tommy Gun climax scene that I'm sure you saw, like, in the trailers with Michael B.

Jordan shooting atomicun, like, the camera facing at him.

So we learn from Remic, the head vampire, when he's, like, negotiating with Smoke and Annie and Delta Slim and everybody and Grace, everybody who's still inside the juke joint.

After the vampires penetrated by using Mary, which went out to speak to the vampires, who I didn't mention, but they tried to get into the juke joint, they wind up getting turned away.

You know, the three white people.

The juke joint was for, like, all the black folks to, like, unwind.

And they're like, you know, we're not down with that racist stuff.

You know, let us in.

And, you know, vampires in.

You know, mythologically speaking, they have to be invited in order to get in, right?

They can't just, like, go in into a place, into your home, into an establishment.

You literally have to invite them in.

So part of Remick, you know, trying to negotiate his way in after, you know, everybody knows what's going on.

They know that they turned a whole bunch of people that.

That left the juke joint and are not vampires.

And there's only a handful of them left inside.

Remic reveals how every time he turns someone, like, he has, like, all their memories and all their thoughts and.

And everything, so that he tells Smoke that the guy who sold them Hogwood, the guy who sold them the juke joint, just plans to come back in the morning with his KKK buddies and kill everybody.

And that's where he gets put on to the fact that it's this ongoing scam that Hogwood has had going.

So after the long night and the battle with the vampires ensues, there's this really dope scene with Michael B.

Jordan, who has, you know, they prepped for their night just in case they needed weaponry.

So they have like a Tommy gun, a bunch of handguns, grenades, a bunch of ammunition.

And he pretty much sets up the Hogwart and his boys that come back, his KKK boys that come back to get into the juke joint to like kill everybody and light everybody up.

And they try to get into the place, it's closed.

And then Michael B.

Jordan comes out from behind them and just mows them all down, shooting them with his handguns, then winds up pulling out the Tommy gun and just has that really dope, cathartic scene where after everything that he's been through throughout the whole night, losing his brother staff to the vampires, losing his wife, who he himself had to kill before she turned into a vampire because that's what he promised her.

When, you know, right before the battle started with the vampires, just like unloads and takes it out on each and every one of the KKK folks, fucking gets every last one of them, uses the grenades.

It's like a dope gunfight scene.

And it was like a form of like cathartic violent justice.

And a definite writing insight to take away from that is that genre moments like that, like gunfights, they can carry symbolic weight when it's earned through the character's motivation and thematic buildup.

There's this other Easter egg that I wanted to leave you all with before I wrap things up, which ties to Omar Benson Miller's character, Kornbread, which was also a standout role in the film.

Be kind to one another.

If you know, you know, there's a scene when Remic has like all the vampires that are turned at this point dancing outside to this old timey Irish music.

And something that I noticed, which maybe it's just my own projection, because every time I see Omar Benson Miller, I think of his role in 8 Mile.

But in that scene he's like dancing with his hands in the air.

I felt like it was an homage to that scene in 8 Mile when they're like in a cipher and he does that 10 freaky girls, like, rap and dance, that one.

He winds up dancing the same way while he's doing like the.

The vampire dance in this movie.

If intentional, I thought that was dope, if not intentional.

I still think it's dope and actually take a writing insight from that, which is that when you layer in references, even if you don't explain them, or especially probably if you don't explain them, that rewards like really close viewing or close reading people and it deepens the world that you're building without the need for the exposition.

And in closing, just to wrap things up, I wanted to say that Hoogler's stated goal with this movie was to create a movie that people enjoy and are entertained by, and I thought he did so on multiple levels, regardless of how deeply you chose to analyze it.

Sinners was entertaining, it was genre mixing, it was deeply layered with historical and emotional and spiritual aspects to it, and I think his writing is a masterclass in how to blend personal stories with social themes and different genre devices to reach broad audiences without the need to sacrifice the depth and to my listeners out there, let me know in the comments what character, moment or scene resonated most with you.

To my fellow writers out there, what personal truths or cultural memories are you sitting on that could become story fuel for whatever it is that you're working on?

And like I mentioned earlier, I'll also link in the episode notes to other breakdowns like Jessica Clemens from New Rockstars, a few Easter egg videos, and some great interviews that I watched in preparation.

This little recap and review Sinners is a definite must watch.

It's a breath of fresh air to the movie industry in its originality and scope, so definitely check it out in theaters if you still can, is definitely coming to a streamer near you.

Getting to see and meet comedian, writer, director Mo Amer on his El Oso Palestino tour at town Hall Theater, May 10, 2025.

What a dope experience.

So I've been a Mohamer fan for years, way before his Netflix show.

I'm pretty sure I learned about him just being a fan of stand up comedy.

And the way I remember it, it was those old Ice House Chronicle podcasts for my podcast fan OGs out there that Rogan and Brian Redband used to do, and I remember them mentioning him as one of those like great up and coming comics that frequent the Comedy Store, so on and so forth.

That's how I believe I came to know who he was, but nonetheless was a fan of his after seeing him on a few podcasts, checking out his comedy specials.

So I was really excited when he got his Netflix show titled Mo, which I broke down the first season in a prior episode of the sponsored podcast so you guys can go check that out.

And I definitely will be breaking down season two, which aired earlier this year, probably in the next episode of the Spot Today podcast.

So definitely look out for that.

And my wife is also a fan.

She loved the show as well.

So I copped these tickets once I found out he was going to be in New York a few months back.

And I got, which I highly recommend, the meet and greet tickets.

It's like, the first couple rows.

It costs extra, obviously, but if you're a fan, it's definitely a dope experience and folks can get seats within the first couple rows.

And it's like part of, like, the VIP meet and greet package.

Actually, the first time I was going to do that was with Mark Norman tickets, and I bought them way in advance.

And then it coincided with one of my wife's surgeries from last year.

Like, she had surgery like, a day or two before.

That's why I wound up having to sell those tickets, which was a bummer, but actually got more than what I paid for them on the secondary market there.

But, yeah, I recommend going that route while you can, you know, for, you know, a comic or someone that you're a fan of.

Anyway, so I caught these tickets months in advance.

Day comes, my wife and I are heading out there.

I put the address of parking garage that I booked tickets for or a spot in, rather reserved a spot in, in advance.

And it's taking almost double the time, according to the GPS to get there.

It should take like an hour, like, from Queens to the city, 45 minutes to an hour.

It was taking like an hour and a half plus.

Then I would switch the address to the address of the theater on the gps and the time it would take to get there changed to, like, the 45 minutes to an hour that I expected.

And mind you, the parking garage was like, two blocks away, literally.

So I'm like, what the fuck?

So then I just put the address to the theater.

I did it a couple times.

I thought it was just like, wigging out or something.

And then I just wound up putting the address to the theater.

And I said, you know, when we get closer by, I'll switch it.

And, you know, maybe it's some sort of accident or I don't know what.

So we get close to there, and then we find out there's, like this San Gennaro festival, or I don't know if it was that one, but one of those festivals in the city where they closed down, like a full avenue.

And it was literally right around the theater, which is Town hall theater, which is right around Times Square.

So it's already a packed busy area.

And my parking garage that I had booked was on the other side of that.

Hence why I was taking so fucking long just to go around that, like, Street Avenue closed Festival.

So I'm like flipping out internally, like, fuck, fuck, we're gonna be late now.

What if they don't see this?

And, you know, we don't want to walk in on the middle of the show and, like, miss things and, like, stressing out, you know, trying to get to the.

To the freaking parking lot garage, contemplating just parking at another one and taking the hit on the spot that I reserved, but I couldn't find, like, any other ones.

And there was one point where there was like a.

Those like, crossing guard cops.

And he was directing traffic.

And then I was making a right because they were allowing the cars that were already on the avenue to keep going on the avenue, but the cars that were on the street, which is where I was to.

They would have to continue going straight.

But my parking garage was literally to the right hand side on that block.

So when he was like directing traffic a little further up, I tried making a right.

And he comes running screaming, hey, hey, no, no.

Jumps in front of the car.

And he's like, go straight, go straight.

Screaming at me at the top of his lungs.

And then I'm like, but my parking garage is right there.

I need to park right there.

And he looks at me, I shit you not.

At the top of his lungs, and just says, then call Donald Trump.

You gotta call Donald Trump right now.

I was like, taken.

I was so taken back and my wife too.

We were like.

I was like, what?

Call down.

Fuck does he mean, call Donald Trump?

He's like, but I was like, I just gotta park right there.

Have a spot there.

And I'm trying to, like, communicate this to him.

And he's like, no, call Donald Trump.

You gotta call Donald Trump.

And I'm like, what the fuck is he talking about?

And then I look at two other cops, like legit NYPD in full, you know, NYPD uniform look like a Spanish girl, A Spanish, Spanish dude.

And I'm like.

I look at them kind of like as like a saving grace.

And I'm kind of like, I gotta park right there.

And.

And the female cop looks at me with the look of, you know what my thing is?

They were like, sorry, this dude was, like, irate.

And then at that point I just started laughing.

I was like, can I call Kamala Also like, I don't know what, like, I didn't even know how to like interpret what the it was that he was meaning by you need to call Donald Trump.

So whatever.

I wind up going straight, then having to go like three avenues down.

I think it was to be able to make a right turn to then make another right turn to go.

Then the extra 20 minutes that it took or, or, or more to get to our parking garage eventually.

So.

And we're already a few minutes late.

I'm like speeding as fast as I could.

And we're speed walking to the, to the theater and going in right next to the theater.

I see Sypha Sounds there, which I recognized because when I went to the Burke Kreischer Comedy Festival that he had in Forest Park Theater, which I broke down here on the podcast the previous episode.

Sypha Sounds was the DJ for that show and also does like a little stand up.

You know, he hosts the event.

I saw him there and I was like, oh, cyph.

I literally worked right.

I walked right by him.

Could have given him £.

I don't know why I didn't.

I was just like, oh shit.

And kept walking because again, I'm trying to get to inside.

Then once I saw him outside, I was like, he must be here, like to the same capacity I would imagine, unless he's, you know, just here as a fan.

But I figured he would be hosting, which I didn't know before, and go in and the theater's almost completely empty.

I was like, oh, so everybody's dealing with this like traffic shit.

So then at that point I was like, much more like, all right, good, good.

So the show starts a bit late and the whole time I'm thinking I was like, yo, I hope this shit like fills up.

Because it was like empty, empty.

And it was like way

past, you know, supposed to start at 8 or 7:30.

And I think it was like 8, 8 something.

But then of course the show got completely, completely packed, sold out and starts.

Cypher Sounds hosts.

He's hilarious.

And then we have a writer from the Daily show, comedian, or comedian slash writer from the Daily Show, Dina Hashem, who opens up the show.

She was hilarious.

Then Hannibal Buress, which I've been following for years, a fan of, definitely from, from podcasts and stuff like that.

We got to see him, the comic out of Chicago.

He comes out next.

Then after that, Hasan Minaj comes out where?

Which we were like, what?

Holy shit.

Definitely been a fan of his for years.

You know, huge comic.

Was also on the Daily show has had his own Netflix show.

You know, a bunch of different standup specials.

Himself, great comic himself.

And then a sypha sounds comes on, and he says, you know, we got one more person before.

Before we bring out your boy Mo.

Is it this.

This guy from Jersey?

Let's just hear him out, and then we'll bring out your boy Mo.

So everybody's like, yeah, let's ago.

And he pretends he doesn't know how to pronounce his name.

He goes, the guy's name is John Stewart.

And Jon Stewart comes out.

How sick is that?

Jon Stewart of the Daily show, comedian Jon Stewart, and of countless movies.

And we're right there, literally second row from the stage the entire time.

It was so dope.

And to boot, by the way, like, the whole time we were waiting before, like, for the show to start.

Like, after we did get there and get to our seats, and we're, you know, waiting for the.

The crowd to fill up, for the venue to fill up, rather.

There was, like, the sweetest lady and her daughter next to us that was, like, I'm, like, kind of introverted, but, like, she drove, like, the conversation.

And me and my wife were both talking to her, learned all about, like, her life.

Her daughter's gonna go to NYU and this and that.

So that was just, like, a bonus.

That was, like, super cool.

We actually felt bad afterwards.

We didn't, like, get to say bye or anything like that because folks kind of, like, split up.

Once we got to, like, the vip, then we, like, lost track of where she was at.

She was super cool.

And then, of course, the cherry on top.

Then Moe finally comes out.

The crowd loses their shit.

He has a killer set.

We had such an enjoyable show.

And then since we.

We have that VIP meet and greet package, they tell you after, you know, they send you instructions, and after the show, let the crowd to clear out.

Just wait.

Wait in your seats.

And then somebody's gonna come to usher us to wherever they're gonna do the meet and greet at, which is in their.

The comics, like, green room area.

So we wait a bit, probably like, 10, 15 minutes for everything to clear.

And at this point, there's another.

Another show after hours.

So since the show started late, we're all like, are they still gonna do the meet and greet or, you know, what's gonna happen?

But testament to Timon and his team, it definitely still had the meet and greet.

Somebody came to get us, takes us to the green room, which was, like, a really cool layout.

So kudos to the Town hall theater for that.

And, you know, everybody lines up.

Mo comes into the room, and at this point, somebody came around to like, unlock because all the phones are in the yonder bags.

They unlock it, we get our phones.

And then part of his team pretty much we give them our phone when it's our turn to, like, say, what's up to Mo?

And take a picture.

They take the picture for us to take a few different pictures, show it to us, make sure we like it.

And that's essentially the meet and greet.

And his staff is like, super friendly, super nice.

Again, I was expecting them to be kind of like rushing us and a little pushy because, you know, they got to get the next show started.

But it was none of that at all.

Like, super patient with everybody that was there.

My only regret is that I didn't say two things that in retrospect I would have wanted to.

The first of which would be to ask him for, like, a book or doc or movie recommendation for writers to see if he had any insight or something he could put me onto there.

And the second thing, which I thought of after the fact, was to share the fact that, you know, because most of his audience is largely, well, it was definitely a mixed crowd, but you have a lot of Arabs, you know, that was like his core audience.

But I wanted to share and I was too much of a pussy to.

To do so, and also didn't want to be that guy holding up the line, you know, trying to, you know, talk to him and keep people waiting and shit.

But I'll speak it into the universe just in case it somehow reaches him one day.

But I wanted to say that my wife and I are first generation Dominicans, and his show Mo, which is available on Netflix, completely spoke to us and our experience.

And I just wanted to say kudos to him for creating something that was so unique to his life and his experience, yet universal enough at the same time that it resonates with folks that aren't from the Palestinian experience.

So hats off to Mo.

Definitely had a great, great experience.

If you have the chance, definitely check him out.

You will definitely not be disappointed.

And if you're not able to, for whatever reason, see him in person, he has a couple, I think two, maybe even three specials on Netflix, and of course his series Mo.

Definitely check them out.

Podcast news.

Podcast news.

I wanted to share that Marc Maron, one of the podcast ogs, one of the podcast goats, is going to end the WTF podcast after 16 plus years and 1600 plus episodes.

Yes, I said that correctly 1600 plus plus episodes he announced recently on a recent episode and got picked up by my median is a bunch of headlines and articles, a couple of which I will link to in the episode notes in case you guys want to check them out in their entirety.

But he announced that he was going to end the show and just being burnt out while also being completely satisfied with the work that he's done over the years.

Personally, I think he will come back after some R and R.

He even mentioned that, you know, it doesn't mean it's the last time he's gonna be on a podcast.

Or maybe he in the future might redo some sort of like interview style show.

So personally I do think that he'll come back in the future and but if he doesn't obviously teach their own and I hope he does get the rest and relaxation that you may be looking for.

And Marin started his podcast back in 2009 according to a Guardian article, after his radio show which was on Air America had been canceled and he actually wound up using the studio of that radio show to record his very first episode of the WTF pod, which he went on obviously to put out and then continue for his 16 year run.

And he wound up building his own studio in his garage, famously where his podcast studio is to this day.

And he's definitely an OG in space.

He's one of the pioneers in podcasting.

When I think about the the podcasting OGs, I think of Rogan, I think of Marc Maron, and I think of Adam Carolla, all of which started around that same time in 2009.

And although there's like this bitter angst to Marin, at least that's how I he's always like come off to me like personality wise.

I always liked his interview style and his perspective in interviews.

They're very intimate and conversational and he would always lean introspective, which I appreciate.

He was also the first podcaster to have a sitting president on a podcast.

Hit Obama back in the day, which literally went to his garage again where he has his podcast.

And that just gave I remember at the time a sitting president going on a podcast was just like put like the stamp of legitimacy approval on podcasts, which was then still like this little niche weird thing that nobody listened to or not nobody, but that only like cult followers listen to.

So that was like really dope and it was a great episode.

One more recently Mohammer was on which I spoke about earlier and I actually featured as my podcast of the week in my newsletter where I've featured in the past a bunch of different WTF episodes, notably Ron Howard's episode, Pete Davidson's episode, TA Nehisi Coates, and a bunch more.

And if you're listening and thinking, hey, that sounds like a dope newsletter, great podcast recommendations.

Where can I get that?

And then you can subscribe to my free newsletter@spunter.com subscribe Ryan Coogler was actually on as well, but I actually haven't heard that episode yet, so definitely going to go check that one out.

But yeah, he's going to air the final episode, he says sometime this fall, this year 2025.

So have a few more months of new episodes and a shitload of back catalog that fans can definitely listen to in the future.

But shout out to Mark Marin and the WTF podcast, Definitely one of the goats.

And that folks was episode 284 of the Sponsor Day Podcast.

Thank you very, very much for taking the time to listen.

I really appreciate it.

I felt a bit rusty this episode, to be honest.

Getting back in the swing of things, I'm definitely aiming to continuing to keep it consistent for the rest of this year.

Moving forward.

My fellow writers and creatives out there, hopefully you are able to glean something from it, specifically with the writing insights that I pick up on when watching shows or movies, so on and so forth that I share on here.

Or maybe it'll just pique your interest to want to watch something that I speak about.

Hopefully others are at least entertained by some of the content or at the very least just helps you pass the time while you're at work or driving or at the gym or whatever it is that you are doing when you listen.

Thanks again to each and every one of you for taking the time to listen and I will check you guys out next time.

Please stick around for a couple of.

Minutes so you can hear a bunch of different ways you can help support this show if you so choose.

I'd really, really appreciate it.

Peace.

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Tony here.

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I love you Aiden.

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