High Low Brow
Our Roundup of Hot Docs Film Festival Hits including Union, Disco's Revenge and Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted
For this week's episode, we're taking you to one of the best film festivals our city of Toronto offers: the Hot Docs Film Festival.
We share some of our hits from the festival, including Disco's Revenge (directed by Omar Majeed and Peter Mishara), Union (directed by Brett Story and Stephen Maing), Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted (directed by Isaac Gale and Ryan Olson) and Look Into My Eyes (directed by Lana Wilson).
We also discuss a bit about the culture of Toronto, how Robin Williams was ahead of his time (RIP to a legend), and Ama briefly recaps her trip to NYC which included getting to see Jinx Monsoon on Broadway in The Little Shop of Horrors.
So, sit back, press play, and savor the rich tapestry of pop culture—one heartfelt tribute, one pulsating beat, and one provocative discussion at a time.
For this week's episode, we're taking you to one of the best film festivals our city of Toronto offers: the Hot Docs Film Festival.
We share some of our hits from the festival, including Disco's Revenge (directed by Omar Majeed and Peter Mishara), Union (directed by Brett Story and Stephen Maing), Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted (directed by Isaac Gale and Ryan Olson) and Look Into My Eyes (directed by Lana Wilson).
We also discuss a bit about the culture of Toronto, how Robin Williams was ahead of his time (RIP to a legend), and Ama briefly recaps her trip to NYC which included getting to see Jinx Monsoon on Broadway in The Little Shop of Horrors.
So, sit back, press play, and savor the rich tapestry of pop culture—one heartfelt tribute, one pulsating beat, and one provocative discussion at a time.
Welcome to High Low Brow, the show with highbrow takes on lowbrow culture. I'm your one host, amanda Scriber, and I'm your co-host River Gilbert. Ah, we're, I say this every week. We're'm your co-host, river Gilbert. Ah we're, I say this every week, we're back.
Speaker 2:Do you remember? No, it wasn't. We're back, was it? We're back, the dinosaur. Oh my god we're back again. No remember the dinosaur movie. I think it was a Don Bluth one in the 90s. Was it, we're back or we're here it's? It was like Jurassic Park, but they also edited their jeans. Am I talking nonsense?
Speaker 1:I have zero clue what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Okay. So it's like Lost Media, like a troll from Central Park. Okay, and like all Don Bluth movies are just Lost. Media fever dreams Cool. You remember Ferngully, though right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Okay, okay, okayully though, right, yeah, okay, okay, okay, like that that that were you had me and then you lost me.
Speaker 2:I lost you and then I brought you back with Ferngully, tim Curry. Tim Curry was the voice of the, the swamp guy and many people's sexual awakening.
Speaker 1:Many queer people's sexual awakening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, robin Williams was a rapping bat.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, robin williams was so ahead of his time when it comes to like fashion I was gonna say fashion and just like as a human. Yeah, nobody's rip rip like is there even anyone like robin williams nowadays?
Speaker 2:well, it's hard to say nowadays, because I mean we're living in nowadays like fair come like 2030, 2040, we'll be able to look back and be like, oh my god, they were so ahead of their time when it came to their comedy and their fashion and, oh my god, we probably should have seen things coming. Maybe we should Chicken and our well-dressed funny friends, are you okay?
Speaker 1:Well, if the happy smiley faces on my shirt are any indication, I'm doing great.
Speaker 2:Emma, do you remember Robin Williams' manic character? Yeah, the happy faces, if anything, are a red flag.
Speaker 1:What I was going to say, though, was should we make an AI of Robin Williams?
Speaker 2:I'm sure it exists and no, I don't think the AI of Robin Williams.
Speaker 1:It just would. It would hit different, it would hit different no.
Speaker 2:No, You're like. No, I'm thinking of it.
Speaker 1:Let no, you're like no, I'm thinking of it, let's not, let's not. I went away last week. We mentioned it in our last week's episode. I was in New York. While I was in New York, I actually got to do some. I did two very cool things. That's not what the episode is about. However, I will mention them. I got to see a little shop of horrors. James Monsoon is currently she's part of the cast come on, harrah yeah, feed me, seymour audrey too.
Speaker 2:She was audrey one, though she was the audrey one yeah the og audrey.
Speaker 1:Audrey, not the plant not, not plant now.
Speaker 2:Would audrey to eat plant or lab grown meat? Oh could we have a reimagining?
Speaker 1:I mean, that's a great question. And then like instead of the dentist being like the main love rival slash, asshole to kill. It's just a billionaire and a CEO. Yes, I love that. We'll have to. You know what you should write that.
Speaker 2:I will write that, you write that and you create it. Little Shop 2. Yeah, slightly bigger shop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Is Little Shop of Horrors. Is it in the public domain now?
Speaker 2:No, definitely not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to say like, could you do something like a poo?
Speaker 2:Like a poo.
Speaker 1:When they made. Could you do a poo?
Speaker 2:I'm like, no, he's not on the Simpsons, and there there was, in fact, an entire movie about why white people should not do a poo. Slash a poo was not to be done by anyone.
Speaker 1:Anyways, what was the second?
Speaker 2:really cool thing you did.
Speaker 1:Oh, I went to see Sasha Velour's Nightgown show. I have wanted to go to this for so long. If you are a fan of Sasha Velour, who is the winner of rupaul's drag race season nine, I think so. But she used to run a monthly in new york called nightgowns. It's been a while since it's been hosted and earlier in the year, around january, she announced that there was going to be I think it was like a bi-monthly nightgowns happening. So I bought tickets for the April show. It included Pithia from Canada's Drag Race. It included Utica, queen and SM Noche from New York, which, honestly, excellent lineup.
Speaker 2:Well, I was going to say, like saw sasha velour when she came to toronto best show I've ever seen, I think yeah, and utica just is a weird arty fashion queen like I've seen utica perform live two or three times now they're just built different they're built well. I mean that was clear by the constructing a sleeping bag, quilted gown yes, their first outfit dress that they wore at nightgowns.
Speaker 1:Literally, they had to be helped onto the like the underskirt and the tulle and the grandness of it all was just like incredible, and that wasn't even like the best outfit they wore, anyways. So those were the two things I got to do, which was really exciting, but as soon as right before I left and as soon as I got back home, what our episode is actually about today is there's a film festival in Toronto called Hot Docs. Do you want to explain a little bit about what Hot Docs is?
Speaker 2:about. Yeah, I mean it's a series of there's a lot of government funding behind it, so they kind of bring new and up-and-coming filmmakers into it. I believe part of it's like a public forum where they help, like more experienced documentary makers help the younger ones, and it's just a bunch of documentaries. So yeah, lots of world premieres.
Speaker 1:We went and saw. Union before I left, which was about Christopher Smalls and his work with the Amazon Union.
Speaker 2:Creating the Amazon Labor Union, the ALU Yep, fascinating, only slightly tainted by where we were sitting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we are not experienced film festival goers, and so we were like ah yes, we'll just show up like maybe 10 minutes early We'll get a reasonable seat. That was the wrong choice.
Speaker 2:That was the wrong choice. We sat in the accessible seating front row, so not like the front front row, but like where you can sit if you have mobility devices. So they're bad seats.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my sciatica was flaring up. If you go to the tiff bell light box, do not, don't send those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do whatever you can if you're on a date and you are like, oh, it's either this row or we sit separately.
Speaker 1:Sit separately, yeah, like it's not worth it but the film I, if we start with Union.
Speaker 2:I'll start with.
Speaker 1:Union. It was really well done and what I love is that, because it was the kickoff of our festival experience, we ended up having a little intro discussion from the directors. Stephen Meng I hope I'm pronouncing that right. Probably not, yeah, I'm bad'm pronouncing that right.
Speaker 2:Probably not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm bad at pronouncing things and Brett Story and what I loved was that you know they talked a little bit about their experience filming. They mentioned that they actually got union funded at Hot Docs last year so they were really excited to have its premiere at Hot Docs because you know, kind of was a full circle moment for them. But the thing that stuck with me was because it was our first film that we were seeing the directors actually called for a ceasefire and said they were for a free Palestine, which I thought was incredible and amazing.
Speaker 2:Incredibly important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and interestingly enough one of the main sponsors for the festival is Scotiabank, and here in Canada they are the largest bank that funds.
Speaker 2:IDF yeah.
Speaker 1:There's been a few gripes this year. We'd be remiss to not mention that there's been a few gripes this year with the Hot Docs Film Festival.
Speaker 2:Yes, there have been Working conditions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, working conditions. Several of the programmers just quit weeks before the festival was starting and then also too, because of their majority funding comes from Scotiabank, which, when you think about arts funding and you think about the arts just period in a place like Ontario, where we live in Canada, or just if you think about arts funding in Canada in general, Arts funding period, like the systematic removal of arts programs the world over, at least at the very least Western hemisphere, has been terrible for the past decades.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's gotten worse and exacerbated because of the pandemic, with budget lines shrinking and shrinking and I know that I sit on the board for a few organizations and they are even struggling where it's like funds that used to be available are no longer available. They don't know how much longer they'll be able to push forward. And when you think about how we went to see a film about union busting- and it's like where else would we be able to see something like that if not at a place like this?
Speaker 2:well, I mean certainly concerns. There are concerns about who is funding the art and like who's so. So, yeah, all this is to say, uh surprising and very important to hear the both directors be like yeah, free Palestine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like we acknowledge where this funding has come from. We also want we want hot dogs to divest from scotia bank and we also and the audience reception was great.
Speaker 2:Yes, I was scared. I was honestly surprised, like pleasantly surprised, like I remember when we went to the heine gatsbury show and she made a joke about anti-vaxxers yes, it was pre-pandemic yeah, uh. And the people who were thinking that there was a tie between autism and vaccines, despite the fact that that's been disproven not only disproven, but the paper has been redacted as not even remotely true. Yeah, but there were people who got up and left. Yeah, and no one did this. And I'm like, oh, fuck, yeah.
Speaker 1:Cool, awesome yeah.
Speaker 2:I love that we have people in the arts community that are on the right side of history.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Party, absolutely.
Speaker 2:We should talk about the film, though. We said what we needed to say. It's a film about union. No, go ahead, oh no. I was just gonna say as a former barista, as somebody who has been like downtrodden and wanting to unionize in many positions, seeing how much fucking work went into it and the fact that they did it without the support of any established unions is unreal. The overall success and the overall long-term success and the fact that people were raising some, I think, very fair criticisms Like, for example, natalie, who was somebody who was on the original team for organization and she left one because she got fired from amazon for being assaults and two because she was, she said I don't, didn't want to have one.
Speaker 1:Like, leave one boys club for another boys club because there's very little female representation in this union yeah, and I think the film was very honest, showing as the organizers were sort of pushing forward and having meetings.
Speaker 2:There was tension, there was a lot of infighting yeah like even afterwards, there was a lot of infighting and it was like one of those wow, hey, did you know?
Speaker 1:forming a union is hard, apparently, especially if it's your first time doing it from scratch yeah, it's like they did it and I think someone else also brought up a valid concern as well where they were like like great, now that we have won this, this is now our problem forever. It's not like we've won it and it's over. It's not like a one and done. It's like we have to deal with the issues of everyone forever.
Speaker 2:Well, I also thought it was a very interesting thing that they decided to go. They won one of the warehouses this was strictly one of the warehouses and then they, instead of trying to shore things up, negotiate contracts, because Amazon was like, oh no, we don't trust this, so they were just trying to stall and get it thrown out. They decided to continue to go on at other plants. And while I understand that, like hey, yeah, you do need additional support, and the more support you have, the more bargaining power you have it's also like your leadership positions are so tenuous right now.
Speaker 1:So it was very interesting yeah they actually brought christopher smalls in to do a conversation but, as we mentioned, the seats were terrible, so I had to leave.
Speaker 2:Sciatica was not giving us any options, but yeah, no, highly recommend it. Whenever it comes out on whatever streaming service, you should definitely go see it. It's a very important movie, especially nowadays.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, important movie, especially nowadays. Oh yeah, I think there were a few scenes where I I started getting really choked up, um, because it was just like you could see how difficult this was, and then you put it into a perspective of like the world as a whole and it's just like, yeah, as a basic fundamental human right, we all deserve to be paid like so that we can live we all deserve health benefits.
Speaker 2:We all deserve these things, yeah, and well, natalie was living in a car for three years. Yeah, like the like these people's day-to-day lives, like I'm like we're also fairly sure we don't know for a fact where christopher smalls was getting his money from, but we also know that part of his organizing campaign was like giving away free food.
Speaker 1:Free food and then also free weed so we're like they got a ton of signatures that day yeah, what was the next film that we saw? Uh, was look into my eyes yeah, so it was interesting because before we decided to go and see it, we had no idea that it was an a24 film 24. Tell the people what. Look into my eyes so it was.
Speaker 2:It was a look into my eyes. No, it was a look into the psychic and medium of new york city of new york city.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they followed I think it was like five or six uh mediums and they opened the film with like a bunch of readings with various people and then they sort of looked into like these people's lives and it was very, it was very emotional. It was like the opening reading was with a doctor who was like hey, I have had this one interaction at the beginning of my career where this small child was shot and killed in a drive-by, and that has stayed with me for the past 20 years, and so that really set the tone for the entire yeah, and you kind of get to know these individuals, you get to know what draws them to this work.
Speaker 1:Do they think that what they're doing is unethical? Or if they are like just making up shit as they go along?
Speaker 2:and the. The consensus was they did say like all of them had misgivings, except for most of them weren't identified, they all just went by psychic, and one of the one of them who had like a master's in counseling and like a certificate from another, like psychic school of some kind, yeah, school of some kind yeah, um were like. They were like yeah, uh, I am constantly not sure about myself. Yeah, I don't know how much of?
Speaker 1:this is real, yeah, but then things start sticking and it's like confirmation yeah, and it was interesting like there was a few people I think we talked about this after we left as well where I was like if I was in a room with this person and they were giving me a reading. I would feel like they were just lying.
Speaker 2:There was one person who had a lot of nervous energy. Yeah, Even if he was the most skilled psychic got like 100% of things right all all the time. You would leave a reading and feel weird yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:So I think it was a very interesting film. Yeah, I think we both agreed it was a bit too long a little too long.
Speaker 2:Of the four films we've seen so far was my least favorite, but it was still. It was not at all what I was expecting it to be. It was. It's not a go in feel good. It's a go in and watch people grapple with existential crisis and depression sounds like everyday life.
Speaker 1:I know I'm like I deal with that a lot, so the next one yeah, the next day we went and saw um a film called disco's revenge. It was made by two directors from toronto, omar majeed and peter mashara. I really hope that I'm saying that correctly.
Speaker 2:I think more more accurate than the previous, yeah, previous executive producer nowile Rodgers, the man, the myth, the legend, the guy who wrote like 90% of Every pop song in existence.
Speaker 1:I still, to this day, cannot believe I've seen him live. I know In an intimate setting, In a very intimate setting. I worked for an agency that were like we're just going to book Niall Rogers to play at our Christmas party.
Speaker 2:I was like, wait, the guy who wrote I'm Coming Out, excuse me, Anyways, that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 1:The film I would say, out of all of the films that we've been to so far, this the crowd was so like electric oh, I mean, I don't want to be like everybody loves disco, but I feel like everybody loves disco. Yeah, this goes awesome disco is awesome and everybody was just like so into. I think I even did it too, Like something happened in the film and I clapped.
Speaker 2:I was like yeah was a place for gay, for trans, for people of color, for just straight white folks like, and they were all just gathering in this small loft called the loft in philly yeah, and like there was this one dj spinning and yeah, slowly but surely there got like they went into like four on the floor with a hi-hat and they went into nile rogers being with a high hat and they went into now Rogers being like yeah, I mean, I heard this playing at the loft for the first time and I was like this is how we reach the people. And he's like I think that disco did more for the people than the Panthers ever did when I was with them and I'm like are you the most interesting man in the world?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what I also loved about the documentary, because they had people that they did interviews with who were like, obviously involved in that era, that Renaissance, that time. But they also took out archival footage to sort of like Lots of archival. Yeah, to sort of like build up what you were looking at and experiencing. But then they also spoke about how disco kind of morphed into what we now know as like the house music scene and also hip hop.
Speaker 2:Are you thinking about Frankie Knuckles? I was thinking about Frankie Knuckles being like the protege of this one dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so like there was this one.
Speaker 2:He was nicky something, yeah, I think his name was nicky.
Speaker 1:He opened up a club called the gallery and I think he said he opened it up when he was 17.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is crazy, he, the thing that I not to cut you off but like he was talking about bringing. He was like I want a third turntable, so I would like put three turntables in and have sound effects between things. And it just clicked me when they were like we'd never heard continuous music.
Speaker 2:I'm like holy shit yeah, he was like a turntablist, but for that time like just even the fact that people are like oh yeah, like you could listen, like they this was when the 12 inch was hadn't been invented, it was all like 45s yeah, so part of this story was Nikki, who created the gallery.
Speaker 1:Frankie Knuckles came and there was some other individual whose name I'm blanking on came to work here, and they were originally hired as designers designers but then nikki was like don't worry, I will teach you how to dj. It's like storytelling. Yeah, taught them. It was like so this frankie knuckles is like known as like one of the founding fathers of house music and the other guy whose name I can't remember.
Speaker 1:He like really played in on the b-boy scene, yes, uh, and which then obviously translates into hip-hop, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, and like they also, they talked to grandmaster flash yep and talked about like freddy yeah, and they sort of grandmaster flash he was talking about was like when I first sort of was trying to make beats and spin for people, I was taking different disco records but I was cutting them together, yeah, so like the very early versions of sampling it like we like musically, owe so much to disco and then, like you can't talk about it, like it got so emotional afterwards because they were like oh yeah, also like every like so many gay artists were involved in disco period and in the 1980s, late 70s is when the AIDS epidemic happened and when you think about you know queer people are the backbone of this sort of like movement, this music movement, this music, and then all of a sudden, so many of them like are disappearing and I seem to remember there was a jellybean that yeah, yeah
Speaker 1:and he was saying he had an exclusively like queer night that he dj'd and week after week the numbers were going down and down, not because people weren't coming but because they were dying yeah, or just too sick to come.
Speaker 2:It was like genuinely like, like both of us were just like oh yeah, I guess this is.
Speaker 1:You have to talk about this well, I think I I told you afterwards I was like I started crying because, I was like it's hard, like you don't think about that, and then you see it and you're like fuck that, that isn't that long ago.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:And it's so sad to think of how many people we lost because you know the the the world just thought it was gay cancer.
Speaker 2:An entire generation generation. Well, the government certainly fucking nancy.
Speaker 1:Nancy reagan yeah, fuck her fuck the reagans, like yeah the reagans, fuck them, they no good no good, you heard it here first. We don't like the reagans, yeah if if you live in canada, the film disco's revenge was also produced in part with Crave, so we're almost certain that it will eventually end up on Crave.
Speaker 2:We just don't know when you gotta see it Like go out of, like this was my favorite, like this was so much fun. It was very emotional. Nell Rogers has the most fascinating stories about like not being able to go see Grace Jones at studio 54 and the bouncer going off, fuck off. And then they wrote a song called off, fuck off, which turned out to be freak out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like. Oh, talk about turning a negative into a positive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude, so yeah, go see this, it's wonderful.
Speaker 1:Also sorry, that's just made me remember the Nile Rodgers story, where there was the black club.
Speaker 2:Leviticus, leviticus, leviticus.
Speaker 1:And the guy said go to the door and tell them that you wrote this song. And he was like everybody there is always dressed so nice, like I won't have.
Speaker 2:I'm wearing a flannel shirt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like and jeans like they're not gonna let me in. The guy was like trust me, just do it yeah goes to the door. They were like sir, you can't come in. And he was like but I wrote x, xyz song. And they were like wait, you wrote this song they let him in dj play.
Speaker 2:It proceeds to play it for an hour and he was very he was like I'm not joking, it was actually an hour. I'm not saying that this isn't hyperbolic, it was at least an hour yeah, it was a jam.
Speaker 1:It was a great film. Honestly, I would think I think I said this to you too it's between probably Disco's Revenge was like top, then Union, and then like I don't know, which is in my. I would say this next film is probably in the next place. Swamp Dog Gets His.
Speaker 2:Pool Painted. Yeah, that's. That's actually my number two. I love Swamp Dog.
Speaker 1:Okay, interesting. Tell the people about Swamp Dog of painted. Yeah, that's, that's actually my number two. I love swamp dog.
Speaker 2:Okay, interesting, tell the people about swamp dog so swamp dog, who I had never heard of before, gives nile rogers a run for his money for the most interesting man in the world. Yeah, he like produced his first single when he was like 14 yeah and it must have been 54 or 55. Yes, uh, and that sorry, he wrote that for a little bit.
Speaker 1:When he turns 30, rebrands himself as swamp dog and then doesn't stop releasing albums for the next 50 years yeah, but also in that he gets hired as an A&R guy at a few labels he produces for other people. He writes songs.
Speaker 2:He managed Dr Dre. Yeah, they had a little guest appearance from Snoop Dogg.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:They called him Calvin and I'm like huh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so like this, man has lived a life.
Speaker 2:But he's in his 80s now, so his wife has passed on and he's got like this big house and he it's his daughter calls it like a retirement home for aging musicians. Yes, so he lives with two other guys guitar shorty yes, who I had also never heard never heard of and then we learned about him through the film.
Speaker 1:But we also went and looked him up afterwards and like this man has played with everyone as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. Well, he was briefly married to jimmy hendrix's sister, step sister yeah and jimmy hendrix cites recited past tense him as a major influence on his style yeah, and he played with ray charles ray charles, he didn't record with ray charles but he did play with him. Yeah, he won the gong show yeah he comes out play like rips, this amazing, like guitar solo, does two front flips and then stands on his head and starts playing guitar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wild yeah, I was like he was built different. So and then we, we would be remiss to not mention moogstar I was literally just about to talk about moogstar yeah this.
Speaker 2:So we saw this man and he was like swamp dogs, like, yeah, he's like. He's like most talented musician I've ever met can play any instrument. Well, uh, fascinating dude produces for me, makes magic happen. And like we see him and we're like, yeah, like this must be like sort of his protege you should describe what move start looks like.
Speaker 2:I think that will really well, he looks like he's in his late 30s, early 40s maybe. Yeah, he's always got. He's got these little mickey mouse ears on. Always he's got like a little gap tooth. He has this monkey that he always has velcro to him. Yeah, and he's always wearing like a pair of sunglasses, pair of sunglasses and alternates his wigs between like braid, like viking willie, nelson braids, yes, and like so just to give you an eccentric character.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like we need to describe it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he does not seem of this world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, which is also how he describes himself.
Speaker 2:And then we go and get his backstory. We find out he's been married for at least eight years, he has several kids and we're like wait, how old is this guy?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like wait, is he as old as Guitar Shorty and Swamp Dog?
Speaker 2:We looked him up afterwards.
Speaker 1:There's like no internet footprint whatsoever on this man Nothing.
Speaker 2:He's credited on on so many albums but like there's just nothing he's like he's tommy wiseau we don't? He's like haha, I'm 20 and it's like you're not you can't be the life.
Speaker 2:Well, my favorite story about him was when they played a show and then this bunch of people were like, hey, we're going to go check out Evil Knievel's grave. And he was like, yeah, I'll come with. So they go and they get him to put on Evil Knievel's suit, they take some photos, he goes to touch the grave to say, hey, thanks for being here, because you're who I want to be. I need to let go of all this fear.
Speaker 2:And then this white owl swoops in from nowhere and follows them home yeah, and apparently the white owl like actually showed up at their house yeah, la, yeah in the valley yeah and so meanwhile there were so many guest stars yeah, literally so many they're like just this one guy walks in through like the backyard and goes, hey, and it goes, tom kenny, and it's like what's fucking spongebob doing?
Speaker 1:here. I should also note he swamp dog is actually getting his pool painted he's oh, yes, this this entire time, yeah this is the.
Speaker 2:The backdrop to it is there's this man named jesse. He's in the pool all the time, he's just painting and they're all sitting in the backyard having this conversation yes, johnny knoxville shows up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mike judge yeah, mike judge yeah, random yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:In the end we see the swamp dogs's pool that has been painted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's actually one of his album covers Rat On.
Speaker 2:Look up Swamp Dog Rat On.
Speaker 1:That was his pool.
Speaker 2:It's of Swamp Dog riding a rat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what I really appreciated about this film. Similarly, I had no idea who Swamp Dog was. I wasn't listening to any of his music all of this. I really enjoyed.
Speaker 1:A how like humorous and light it was, but also that it had a really great storytelling aspect to it because it told the story of this man and just like how many lives he has lived and so the crazy things he has done, like he has he. He went through some of his like album covers. There was one of him like the the rat on one where someone was like I couldn't believe you photoshopped yourself onto a rat. I didn't know it was photo magic there was one of him stuffed into a hot dog bun Like this.
Speaker 2:He was going to sue somebody for a best of album where they had a picture of a dog biting him in the ass and his wife was like you're going to lose this because look at all your other fucking album covers.
Speaker 1:But not only just that. He had his own record label or record distribution company and he released the most random shit like a Beatles cover album that was performed entirely by the. Markles yeah, I think that's actually what it was called. Yeah, yeah, so I just loved that. It was like here's this person, here's this life that he's lived. Also once you think you know, you have no idea, there's more. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Highly highly recommend it. I loved it, you loved, you liked it a lot. Yeah, I did like it my number two for sure. Yeah, I had so much fun. I think if I had had a better time with seating arrangement with union it might've given it with a run for its money. But hey, context matters.
Speaker 1:Context matters. I'm going to see two more films today.
Speaker 2:I am burnt out, so I'm not yeah but that's fine.
Speaker 1:But I feel like this we, when we were thinking about what we were going to record for this week, we were like you know what?
Speaker 2:we should just talk about all the films that we have watched this week because you after after disco's revenge on our, our way back, you had kind of like a little breakdown about like culture oh yeah, just about how I think I kind of I very very high level talked about this, but just about like funding in general and you look at like the 60s and how it was like, oh, we had like.
Speaker 1:now roger said this is this type of music is doing more for people than than, like you know, the Panthers was doing. I look at like something like that and when I was growing up, I'm gonna it feels like I'm gonna date myself now. But when I was growing up I would go to raves and I, when we were in the cab back home, the cab, the Uber I had mentioned. Like I remember seeing Frankie Knuckles at a house night, like a house a literal house?
Speaker 2:yeah, no, no, not a little like a house night.
Speaker 1:I like was still in high school I think I was like 16 at the time but it was called industry in Toronto and I saw him there like he would play. I just like I don't think that things like this exist. Like there are raves, I, but I just I don't think that there there's no like super underground scene.
Speaker 2:I I used to go to parties and like warehouses and shit, not to be like back in my day, well, but I feel like what this goes revenge and sort of this, like your experience has proved, is one queer people are at the front of culture. Yeah, two, break laws. Yeah, break laws. Laws are just threats of violence of the dominant socioeconomic ethno group.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and I mean going back to the whole like arts funding and everything is really struggling. Post-pandemic, I think. That sort of like links into it is that right now as a whole in general we're really struggling to sort of keep funding for the things that matter and arts is such an important thing for culture in general.
Speaker 2:We would have never learned about Swamp Dog if it weren't for right, this, this funding correct, and my life is better knowing about swamp dog yeah and I mean I.
Speaker 1:There's so many festivals that we go to and there's so many things that we slowly disappearing and yeah, they're slowly disappearing. Yeah, just for laughs, is dead. Hot dogs has said that they're in jeopardy and they don't know if they'll be returning next year. And it makes me sad to think that all of these sort of arts festivals, these culture centers, we don't have funding or capacity for them. So what is left?
Speaker 2:Geoteines is what's left. That's unfortunately gonna have to be how we reclaim our culture yeah, well, I I'm just feeling sad about it at all me too. I wish we didn't have to bust out the guillotines I really do I mean but I mean, it is what, it is what. What other choices do we have? We?
Speaker 1:have none.
Speaker 2:None.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's our episode.
Speaker 2:I think that's our episode.
Speaker 1:We ended it on quite a dark note. Yeah, but you know, hopefully we didn't bum you out too much. Where can people find us? You can find us on our website, it's highlowbrowpodcom. You can also find us on all of social media except for twitter, because fuck that place? No, not so we are at high low brow pod on tiktok threads instagram boosh yeah, if you're able to boycott loblaws this month, yeah I mean that's more of a canadian thing, but you should still do it Should still do it and Free Palestine.
Speaker 2:Free Palestine, leave as a voicemail.
Speaker 1:Yeah, leave as a voicemail.
Speaker 2:Least important of those three things, but you know.
Speaker 1:Tell us what you want to hear If there's something that we should watch as well. We're just in the midst of watching Fallout right now. We just started the newest season of we're here, which features canadian drag royalty peronka, and we'll probably review them on an upcoming episode, probably, so look out for that. I think that's it. I think that's it all, right. Thanks for listening, bye, bye.