#99 Crossing The Streams To Get To You (Bonus Ep9)

CTS Announcer 0:01

Looking for your next TV show or movie to binge? Well buckle up, grab the remote and settle into your couch for this special edition of crossing the streams. We're here to help you tune in and get the most out of those 50 monthly streaming channels you're currently paying for. So without any further ado, here's your host of crossing the streams. Jeff Dwoskin

Jeff Dwoskin 0:30

Hey, everybody, it's Jeff Dwoskin. back for another amazing bonus episode here to serve up some of the best of crossing the streams right to your ears. What is crossing the streams? It's our live show me and a bunch of pals we get together and we talk about TV shows and movies you should be binging and streaming on the million streaming services you have this show is the ultimate answer to your eternal question. Hey, I just finished now what should I watch? We're here for you. The podcast episodes serve up three segments from the vast catalogue of live shows that we've done. You can also join us live every Wednesday at 9:30pm Eastern time on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and fireside chat app we love when our fans chat along with us this episode we got some great shows to talk about from Episode 47 The devil next door all about Ivan the Terrible, an amazing sitcom from Episode 29 Grace and Frankie and from Episode 39 malice at the palace served up by our host Howard Rosner, who was actually at the palace when the malice took place. So that's a special segment coming up in a few but first let's kick it off from Live episode 29 Grace and Frankie with our guests from that episode Jimmy star and Ron Russell take it away Jamie. Grace and Frankie shame

Jimmy Star 1:56

that's mine. You guys, this is a great show. First of all, it's on Netflix. Anybody can watch it it's got six seasons I think on Netflix. It's a lot of fun and stars Jane Fonda Lily Tomlin Sam Waterston, and Martin Sheen is the main characters but then the backup characters like the who play their kids and everything is Brooklyn Decker Ethan every June Diane Raphael Baron Vaughn and and they're terrific. I'm a really really big fan of, of Ethan Embry if you guys remember him from like, oh, Empire Empire records to the Korea show. So basically, this show is great. It's got six seasons, it has all kinds of guest stars. And basically it's about two guys who are partying. You guys who are yes, it's recommended two guys who are like lawyers together they've had a law firm together. One of them's married to two Lily Tomlin One of them's married to Jane Fonda they come I invite them out to dinner one day to tell them that they're leaving their wives because they've actually been lovers for like 30 years and they want to like get married and dumped their wives and then the whole show ensues after that how you have your how they split up the houses and what they're going to do and what the ladies now we're going to do to support themselves and Grayson Frankie are the actual two female characters in it. And they're really the stars Jane Fonda and Lily, Lily Tomlin. And it's it's really hilarious, the way they do everything. They have to like, figure out a way to support themselves. So they become they make like female vibrators and jelly and dildos and stuff. And it's hilarious the way the whole thing works out. And it's really got something for everybody because it's got young cast members for young people. It's got the older cast members, for old people the story is hilarious. And there's all kinds of great cameos like Ernie Hudson comes in and Peter Gallagher comes in and you see a lot of old time actresses and actors you know, that are like in their 70s that you don't even really recognize because they didn't age all their friends. But his kind of friends and it really is a good show. I would recommend I really could have somebody for every something for everybody actually. And June Diane Raphael I think her name is who plays the daughter. She was recently and I don't know if you guys saw that shot at least the raw movie where she ran for president the comedy with her Will Ferrell underfoot that that hilarious one was she was the one who played Charlene Stevens main like eight or whatever. The blonde who like was in charge of everything great. She's a phenomenal actress and I think Brooklyn is fabulous. That's when I met Brooklyn. Decker. That's

Ron Russel 4:16

when I met her. You said the wrong name. No, Brooklyn Decker. Really? She nailed it.

Jimmy Star 4:22

Yeah, she's hilarious. Just

Ron Russel 4:23

the best. I mean, you you wait for her to come on screen. That's how good she is.

Jimmy Star 4:27

Yeah, Brooklyn. Have you guys ever have any of you guys seen any of Grayson Frankie?

Jeff Dwoskin 4:30

I've seen I've seen I think I've seen the first season. It's it's good show. I think once it went on hiatus, the one time I just they never it was never one of those shows on Netflix that they you know, they just put out fireworks whenever it came back. So I never never saw one. I never always missed it when it was coming back and I'm so far behind on it. It's my wife. It's a great show, though. It's a really great show. It appeals

Ron Russel 4:54

to older audiences. That's why the younger people don't know what we'll get it. All of my Are people at my age or younger they watch it and they love it because there's a lot of stuff in there about Jane Fonda. You know her hips are bad and she can't do this and a lot of stuff that older people are going through right now and they've been able to make it fun. So it kind of eases the pain that some of the older folks have.

Jeff Dwoskin 5:19

We will have the Kaminski method.

Jimmy Star 5:23

I love that Minsky man loved

Ron Russel 5:24

that show, too. Michael does the book job.

Howard Rosner 5:27

Jane Fonda is range comically in her just the sarcastic sense of humor. Like she was fantastic on the newsroom at HBS she her sense of humor was so great and sarcastic and dry but hysterical. I've always been a big fan look.

Ron Russel 5:48

I've been in Jane Fonda's company three times I believe I've been in her company once was in Connie Stevens is health farms stalk because she she had her aerobics thing across the street on Beverly from Connie Stevens who had a

Jimmy Star 6:03

I don't know who Connie Steve. Connie Stevens was a big star.

Jeff Dwoskin 6:05

You know,

Ron Russel 6:06

she was in Greece. Yeah. And she was in Paris in Hawaii. Hawaii Five Oh, something but anyway, Jane Fonda. In real life is an extremely intelligent, well spoken, well informed woman. I don't think she's ever said anything that you could correct her on. She's a brilliant lady, and quite beautiful. For a she's my age. You were exactly the same age. She's 81 Also, or going to be stunning woman so you have good taste my friend.

Jeff Dwoskin 6:36

Thank you. Excellent. So that's a big thumbs up, Jimmy.

Jimmy Star 6:39

Yeah, it's a total big thumbs up. I absolutely loved it. And it just gets better and better. And, and I think the first season they set set everything up. And it was really good. But it actually gets better after the first season because then you know who the characters are already. And they introduce other characters and when they start making like the dildos in the vibrators in the loop and stuff. It's hilarious.

Ron Russel 6:59

And Lily Tomlin I met 60 years ago before she was anybody. We were all working at a comedy club called the improv in New York City. And Lily Tomlin was one of the comedians that night and she just was different than most and a lot of people said boo, she's not gonna make it and what do they know? Look at Lily Tomlin a superstar and I met her girlfriend at the time who was a stunning redhead, beautiful redhead girl with and they would together for like, a lot of years and Lily I don't think is with her anymore. And when I see Lily, I'm gonna ask her what happened to her beautiful redheaded lover

Jeff Dwoskin 7:38

All right, that was Grace and Frankie Thank you Ron Russell and Jimmy star with a little bonus Lily Tomlin trivia I bet you are not expecting next up Ron lipid is going to take us through the documentary The Devil next door. And Ron is going to talk about Ron live it's going to talk about the devil next door

Ron Lippitt 8:00

devil next door yet another algorithm from our friends at Netflix that put it in front of me and I said heck yeah. You know, I love World War Two. And you know, I love mysteries. And you know, I love documentaries. And you know, I love things that don't really have full answers. Nice job Netflix. So sure enough, I did check this out. I was familiar with the story of John Demjanjuk, just from what I read in the papers, and I had a very, you know, distant understanding of exactly what went on. And for those that don't know the story, John Demjanjuk was a Ukrainian dude who moved to Cleveland after the war, he never tried to deny the fact that he had served in the German military. But what had turned out to be the issue for the United States was that he lied on his immigration forms. And it turned out that he in actuality was being accused of being one of the most if not the most notorious concentration camp guards at Treblinka in world history. In fact, he was known by the folks that had been at your event that Treblinka as Ivan the Terrible, and this was a moniker that followed him, right. And so what had transpired was a long series of court battles here in the United States, which ultimately revoked his citizenship and sent him to Israel to be tried for crimes against humanity. Now, mind you, they can't prove that the guy was Ivan terrible, all they can prove was that he he served in the German military and just like many people did from the Ukraine. And sure he is a bad guy, and they definitely knew he lied on his immigration, but they couldn't prove that he was this man that was responsible for 1000s and 1000s. of deaths. But what transpires in this five episode documentary on Netflix each episode, usually between 45 minutes and 60 minutes, it was a series of at the time, and this is we're talking in the 70s and 80s, and then ultimately in the 90s, a series of an ever shrinking population. Have Holocaust survivors. I mean, this is an aging population at this point. And it was a series of age aged people seeing this guy in the flesh for the first time since the war. And you can see the pain on their faces when they come to get in front of this of this John Demjanjuk because they recognize him for exactly who he is. And he is I haven't terrible and and the documentary goes into great detail to point out all the absolutely horrendous things that I won't go into in detail, but they do in the documentary about just how much joy he got from the suffering of the people he put into the gas chambers, and so on and so forth without ruining the story. Because this is this is historical, and so I'm not ruining anything. He was found guilty. He was sentenced to death. But then in the in the appeal, there were problems. There were there were issues in the appeals, there were issues with the credibility of a number of senile Holocaust survivors, there's just were a lot of problems. And they ended up finding a minister and he moved back to Cleveland. And that's where the story was supposed to end. But it didn't end there. Ultimately, the United States said you lied on your immigration forms, we know that's a fact you can't change that. And so they ended up deporting him finally, and ultimately, back to Germany. And that's where he lived out the last days of his life in a home where he was very sick and ended up dying in Germany. That's the end of the story. But here's what you find out. This is the most interesting part about the documentary that coming out of World War Two, the United States was beginning to ramp up it's it's true engagement with with the Soviets in the Cold War. And the fact is, there were no more anti communist people in the world than former Nazis. It's like you're talking about the polar political opposites, the fascists, and the communists, right? And what you find out is that in the 40s, and 50s, that this country of ours openly welcomed many former Nazis into the United States because they knew that they were tried and true anti communists at the time of McCarthyism and and whatnot. So it opens up a whole story about who we are as a country and what we stand for, and welcome here as part of the fabric of the United States. And it's, it's part of kind of the conversation today. Who are we like, what does it mean to be American? And that was, I thought the super interesting part of the end of the jam that John Demjanjuk story, so it's a terrific documentary, they do a very great job. It's hard to watch. I'm not gonna lie, it's very detailed, and they talk in very, very specific terms what happened, but it is a very thought provoking documentary as you guys know, I love documentaries, or any shows they make you think days and days and days after you watch it. And this This five part documentary has done that.

Jeff Dwoskin 12:42

Oh, it's just saying you bring that up about the Nazis coming to the United States because if you watched as we've covered the show on the show hunters on Amazon with ALPA Chino, it's about a bunch of people hunting Nazis. It's loosely based on something called Operation Paperclip, which is a real life program authorized by the government, and welcome Germans and Nazis into the United Yes.

Howard Rosner 13:07

Especially into the military apparatus, right?

Ron Lippitt 13:09

Well, they spent a fair amount of time Jeff talking about Wernher von Braun was a notorious Nazi. But he was spearheaded our rocket programming basically got us to the moon ahead of the Soviets, he was fervently anti Soviet, and worked tirelessly for the Americans to see to it that we were ahead of the Soviets. And without von Braun, we would not have beat the Russians to the moon, no doubt. So it's so you know, it's politics. Right. And it's also optics, right? They I think people were done with the war. And I think people, particularly Americans and Truman at the time, and then ultimately, you know, getting into McCarthyism, I think Americans, definitely the government were willing to wash their hands of the whole hatred of Germans and wanted to profit from what were some very good opportunities for the United States.

Jeff Dwoskin 13:55

Yeah, it's just being opportunistic, and being able to just get what they could get, regardless of what they did before. Yeah.

Ron Lippitt 14:03

And I'll just say one last thing we can we can move on. And that is they go to great lengths to talk about how many former German and Ukrainian and people that serve the Nazi regime came to the United States and worked in factories for gym and how fabulous of workers they were like that just as a community of people, they worked incredibly hard. They did their job, they were never late. They had a code of ethics, that perhaps the suggestion that, you know, Native American Americans who were in the country before the war would not have so companies like Ford and GM really benefited from having folks from from Germany come to our factories here and state's interest Hey, Brian,

Howard Rosner 14:43

it's this was not a traditional Netflix could have easily been an hour and a half documentary. Instead, they put it into five episodes, was it?

Ron Lippitt 14:54

They definitely could have told the story of John Demjanjuk himself in one episode, so there is some truth To that, but it's a long story there were a lot of ups and downs and they tell a lot of it from the perspective of the people who suffered the most so I didn't think it was unnecessary I thought it I thought it was well done good.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:11

If you enjoyed Ron's Review Check out his other uplifting reviews and previous episodes most of them covering the 911 while you get

Ron Lippitt 15:22

me first Jeff Yep, now we can we can benefit from other positivity to come.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:30

All right, that was the devil next door with Ron Oh, epic from Episode 47 Your love documentaries. You love history. Definitely check that one out. We have one more documentary for you this episode. It's called malice at the palace. It was a big rumble between the Pacers and the Detroit Pistons that happened at the Palace of Auburn Hills in Michigan. Our very own Howard Rosner at the time worked for the Detroit Pistons and was at the palace when the malice occurred. Enjoy this review and firsthand commentary. Take it away. Roz. Speaking of crimes? Yeah, one. Let's talk about the untold story, which is a Netflix series. This one specifically malice at the palace. Howard's gonna take point on this, but I did watch it as well. A bunch of us started Ryan. Yeah. So to Ryan and this is where, you know, we're coming to you live most of us from the great state of Michigan and Detroit and not too far from the palace of which the malice took place. So Howard,

Howard Rosner 16:31

yeah. Was actually which is, which no longer exists, by the way, right. Well, they

Jeff Dwoskin 16:36

destroyed at the end of the Yeah, the tragedy of the

Howard Rosner 16:39

Yeah. So for our millions of viewers around the world that aren't familiar. I was a vice president of marketing for the pistons by the time I left, so when this happened in 2005 2004, actually, sorry, the oh, 405 season. You know, I was I was there. I was in the building. I have my world championship ring that I'm wearing right now. Yeah, thank you. It was so unbelievably surreal to be there. So let me I'll talk about the movie a little bit first. So in the first couple of minutes, I was skeptical about this film going in because it's produced essentially by Jermaine O'Neal, from the Pacers. I'm like, Okay, well, this is gonna be horseshit. And then in the first couple minutes of the movie, they start talking about it, like if anybody knew the real story, and my wife was watching it with me, and she's like, you're gonna be so pissed off by the end of this because it's all gonna be skewed. Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. It is skewed certainly to, to frame them. It's, it's an interesting movie, there's some fantastic, never be foreseen the security cams and stuff like that in slo mo, and some things like that. It was also great for me, because some old friends of mine that I work with are interviewed in it. And you know, seeing the footage, it's crazy. So, a couple of things I just talked about that night quick, and then I'll give you some analysis. So that night was unbelievably unbelievably charged emotionally. I always tell people, the biggest mistake in my eyes that was made about that night was the last game, the pistons and pacers had played was the clinching game of the Eastern Conference Finals the year before. And then the last couple of minutes and they showed us in the film run our test basically puts a forearm shiver in Richard Hamilton's face knocks him down on the ground gets technical file that ended up really sealing the game in a clinching game. In the final minutes. They hated each other those two teams, and it was constantly physical and all the games of the playoffs. So that game was the first time the mouse at the palace game was the first time they played since the playoffs and they had a really Junior officiating crew, which was a humongous mistake. What's worse is when the pushing and shoving happens at the end of the game. The horrible officiating job was to let it go on as opposed to immediately saying, run our tests. You're out Ben Wallace, you're out, get the frick off the court, have security escort them off and defuse the situation. So I'll just talk about that night. So it was a crazy night. It was super emotionally charged. Like I said, everybody was on edge. It was a little hostile. Certainly, I for those who've never, I've never been to the palace of Auburn Hills, the lower level suites at the palace opened up into the bowl and then there was a sliding glass door and then on the front of the suite or the back of the suite was a door that opened into the sweet hallway. So my client was Quicken Loans rocket financial, as they were called, at the time the presenting sponsor the team and I had it was the end of the game. Indiana hit two three pointers pretty much put the game out of out of reach I walked through their suite to go to the Grill restaurant bar where I was gonna, you know, see some folks maybe have a beer and kind of brush off the loss. I went over there, and then saw the scrum happening on TV ran back into the seat. And by the time I got back into the sweet, all hell had broken loose cheeses that sweet was directly over a visiting player tunnel, where all the footage of them getting everything dumped on him and everything. We myself and the person who was managing their suite that night, we pushed everybody back into the suite closed and locked the sliding glass door because frankly, we were terrified, it was out of control. It was insane. It was just absolutely an unbelievably crazy thing to see. And then I spent hours there after the game until about one in the morning, you know, got to kind of be a fly on the wall of watching our security folks and our upper management kind of go through some of the security tapes to try and figure out what happened and see some of the people the kid who got called clocked by Ron our test in the stands, who was next to the guy that actually threw the beer was there like, did he throw it? And then one of the other guys like, no, that kid had worked Guest Services at the pistons previously, like there's no way whatever his name was, there's no way Jonathan did that. And he didn't. So it was an unbelievably weird event that the most interesting things that I learned from the documentary that I'd never really knew I never really knew how much the there was animosity between Jermaine O'Neal and Ron Artest because of Ron Artest craziness and then and that they traveled that entire season leading up to it with a psychiatrist for him on the road. But then, you know, the voice of reason was Reggie Miller, who's just such a smart, thoughtful guy twice great as a color commentator now and he made the comment. The other comment that I always said is the thing to me that always set everything off was why the officials let him lay down on the scores table was taunting the pistons players and taunting the fans to do that. And it was just begging to happen, unfortunately, just crazy. That's a good movie. Again, a little bit in my eyes a little bit biased. You know, I don't think the Pacers took enough blame for what happened. He tried to paint it as being victims. With the exception of our tests. They'll set our test was crazy person. But yeah, it's it's a good watch. It's a quick our watch.

Ron Lippitt 22:37

So Howard. First off, I completely agree. I think a lot of people agree that Ron is laying on that Scores Table lit the fuse to what transpired that night. But I just say this. I said this to you earlier today. But I stand by this when you watch this documentary, they show from three different angles. This impossible shot that this guy with the beer through if you watch this in the documentary, he throws this beer 30 feet up in the air. Like there's no if he had 20 More tries to do this. He could never repeat what this guy did. He threw this beer up in the air and it lands right on Ron our test, whatever. 15 rows down and off to the side. Yeah, just think about that. It's impossible. How do you and the fact that this beer week No, right? Yeah, this beer lands dead center mass on run our test. He's laying it laying on that scoring table and he goes Berzerk and charges up in the stands is, you know how this whole thing went down. But clearly, if our test doesn't lay down, this doesn't happen. But I wouldn't go even further and say, if this guy doesn't make this impossible beer shot, this probably wouldn't have happened either.

Howard Rosner 23:46

Yeah, it was. It's yeah. And again, it never would have hit him. If he was laying wasn't laying on the Scores Table. You know that that's never gonna get to him. And for Reggie Miller, so

Jeff Dwoskin 23:57

Nick, I had no right to throw that beer. No.

Ron Lippitt 24:01

Yeah. I also talked about that. There was only three police officers working there. Did you Did you see that

Howard Rosner 24:06

part of it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's 1000 fans. It was crazy. Okay, I got clocked by our test. I mean, he had to have sued, right. I don't know if he did. I mean, the guy who got clocked, who was on the floor ended up getting charged. I think criminal trespass and the guy busted or whatever, you know, I mean, that I mean, that's, that's a million dollar case. Right there. Right. I'd love to know what happened with that guy. Yeah, I don't I don't know to be honest with

Jeff Dwoskin 24:42

a guy on the floor was such a D bag. And like, and still even in the interviews now. Like thinking like, Dude, you cross into their world. You're 58 feet tall and I'm just gonna destroy

Howard Rosner 24:56

you. And it's, it's always really it's always really amazing. If you've never had the opportunity to, to sit in a floor seat, especially a front row floor seat for an NBA game, it is it's literally the only seat of its kind in sports, there's no barrier between you and the action you are feet away from you know, and very often become part of the action on lose somebody diving after loose ball, it is an unbelievably unique way to see a sporting event. So how it hasn't happened more often is stunning, frankly, you know, you see beer spills and stuff like that, that affect the game. And obviously, there's tons of crap talking. I mean, it is, you know, Tim Smith, who is an old friend who was interviewed for it, you know, one of our heads of security, you know, he talked about it, like, you know, people show up the games and have a couple of drinks, and they think there's no repercussions for being a douche and saying whatever you want to play. I always appreciated I saw, I think I tried to do the math, something like 400 Plus NBA basketball games in my time with the pistons and I always appreciated fans that got on a player's case in a unique and funny way. And like one that stands out to me, I was sitting I remember standing for the entire second half of the game with Tom Wilson, the former president of the pistons, who I love. We were laughing because there was a guy whose name was like Zarko Chewbacca, who played for Golden State. I think every time he touched the butt it was these guys kept calling him Chewbacca. And every time he would touch the ball, they go, Ah, that was fun. Like that's a great smart Heckle, and I'll never forget Tom and I just standing there leveling up every time those guys did. I like that good hack.

Jeff Dwoskin 26:58

All right, that was malice at the palace. Head on over to live episode 39 on YouTube if you want to catch a glimpse of that blank buying Howard Rozner was shown to the camera his very own Detroit piston championship ring. It is quite a piece of jewelry to behold what an episode Am I right malice at the palace brace and Frankie and the devil next door, you've got a lot of streaming homework ahead of you. So I'm gonna say goodbye, let you head over to the couch and start crossing your own streams. We'll see you next week. And of course, Join us every Wednesday 9:30pm Eastern Time Live or the live edition of crossing the streams or just wait for this bonus episode and we'll deliver it right to your ears. Either way. I'm Jeff Dwoskin. And we'll see you next time.

CTS Announcer 27:48

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