#125 Crossing The Streams Is Going Vegan (Bonus Ep19)

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 0:29

Hey, oh, it's Jeff Dwoskin. Great to be back for another bonus episode of crossing the streams. Always excited to be in your ears and whisper some great TV binge watching suggestions to yeah, this bonus episode is ripped torn from our live show that we do every Wednesday at 9:30pm Eastern time on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter you can join us live or just sit back casually wait for this to be fed directly into your ears. Or if you can't wait for that there's over 70 episodes on our YouTube channel you can watch all the full shows that every one of these segments is pulled from segments. That's right, the bonus episodes pulled three segments from the live shows various live shows you can get kind of a feel of the live show with hopes that you'll love it and you know tune in but also we want you to take the recommendations to heart the whole idea of crossing the streets at a bunch of pals getting together like you would with your friends and just talking about the TV shows you're binge watching. So the crossing the streams answers the ultimate universal question. What should I watch next? What should I be watching? What do I need to see? Well, you've come to the right place. We have three great reviews for you today. Episode 56 mixed tape from Episode 55 alpinus and from Episode 67, bad vegan, it's all coming at you and it's gonna come at you quick and fast. Let's kick it off with Casey Ryan plot and bad vegan. Take it away, Casey. All right, let's go. Let's do another show. Let's talk about bad vegan. Another Netflix show they owe us money. I think Casey Ryan plot Thank you.

Casey Ryan Plott 2:14

All right, so bad vegan. I am on a roll with these shows. So last time I was here we had the Twitter the tinder swindler, which was

Jeff Dwoskin 2:22

which is everywhere. I never heard of it before and then all of a sudden was everywhere. So that was blew up

Casey Ryan Plott 2:26

became huge. Well, this is another swindler and action story. Bad vegan so bad veganism can be found on Netflix. It's a story of sarma melon, guileless never really quite figured her name out even after four episodes. That's problematic. But her name was sarma. She started as a big like celebrity chef. So 90 Knightswood culinary school by 2005. She had this vegan storefront. And the name of the place was one lucky duck and Pure Food and Wine. So this place was huge. It was serving all kinds of elite. Everybody was coming to it. It was a raw vegan place. So it was a big deal in the restaurant world, New York City. It was a big scene spot. And she started making money. She had opened it originally with fellow chef and then she, they split and they were done. So she decided, well, I want to have a dog instead. So she gets this dog. And this dog seems to play a really important role because she meets Alec Baldwin becomes friends without Baldwin through the restaurant. That's fascinating. Bit, there's a bunch of twists throughout while this dog she becomes so attached to it's basically her life. And she finds a guy who talks about helping it become immortal. Things get crazy now. Yeah, that was that was sort of normal leading up to this. Well, this guy apparently claims he's a Black Ops special ops guy. Apparently, he's been friends with Alec Baldwin through Twitter. So that's how she got to know him. And he starts asking her for money. And she starts giving him money, because he talks about how he's going to help support her and by her giving him this money, he's going to pay it back tenfold. Right now, these are all tests, and she just has to continue giving him this money. So this is all the detriment to her own business. And she's an intelligent woman who went to college. She worked as an investment banker when she first got out of college before going to culinary school. So this is like her second career, you think she would be pretty well together. And yet she completely falls for this guy in a cult like manner, to the point where she doesn't pay her staff. She's not taking care of anyone. And she just takes off, wind up owing people around like $850,000 to $1.2 million that she just swindled and took from investors just bailed. Done, gone. It was insane. And all for this dude who's not attractive, who's a jerk and all he does is he goes to casinos and just spends money. He's just been screw with her the whole time. Yeah, it's a wild ride. It's four episodes of a very intense weird shell game. that she she's playing victim. So they interview all of the staff from the restaurant. They it's interviews going with back to her she's actually speaking the entire time. They have phone conversations have recordings of all the things that she went to in the way he would talk to her about these demons and people coming after her. And if she had to keep paying this money, so that way he would keep his brother at bay. It makes no sense any logical person listen to this. It's a very strange set of circumstances. And the way it all unfolds is just a wild tale of absurdity. And the way she gets caught being so they go on the run. Obviously, you know, you're that big in debt they just took off. And that's what the entire last episode focuses on. And she got they got caught because they bought Domino's Pizza. So this big vegan restaurant or it's nailed because of the Domino's Pizza

Jeff Dwoskin 5:51

or so. Yeah. Choose your credit card or how Yes,

Casey Ryan Plott 5:56

use a credit card with their names on it. I've had charges against them, but I love

Ron Lippitt 6:01

stories like that. That that's fantastic.

Jeff Dwoskin 6:05

I think there's that we could do a whole podcast on like criminals who got caught just because they like we're speeding and got pulled up. Yeah, that happens all the time. Yeah,

Casey Ryan Plott 6:15

it does. That's how you get nailed busted taillight. Sorry, yes. Well, no, who got caught? Oh, so the couple that ran off. So she got married to this guy. Oh, basically screwing him the whole time. I mean, he was just finding any way to just ask for more money and come to find out he's spending it all to Casino. Just gambling. Just high rolling. It's ridiculous. So they and then he shows up. And at one point, he sends her to Rome for like two months or and he's like, Yeah, you go for you need a vacation. And he tries to take the business out from underneath her while she's on this vacation the whole time. He's like, Oh, I'll be out there tomorrow. But I miss my flight. So while he's like meetings with her entire staff, and he's in charge of all of her electronic devices to like, it's wild how we did this. It's not all just by asking for it asking sera, sera,

Ron Lippitt 7:08

how did you choose this? This film this show? Okay, so this one

Jeff Dwoskin 7:11

was research based. Tinder sWINTER then,

Casey Ryan Plott 7:17

I mean, yeah, first, Tinder swindler. I realized this was just, you know, a blueprint. This, like a secret plan that was like, it's exactly the way to go.

Ron Lippitt 7:26

Got it. And so was it served up to you by the algorithm? Or it was?

Casey Ryan Plott 7:30

Yeah, absolutely. And I was totally hook line and sinker and I love my Netflix Docu dramas. The crime dramas are fantastic. So I'm I can chew through real quick and go ha their life is way worse than mine. You know, I

Ron Lippitt 7:42

Jeff, Jeff, I got a new show for us that we should think about. We give each other our Netflix login and we go through the recommendations to see how sick each of us are with with our with our respective recommendations. I can only imagine what CRP is.

Casey Ryan Plott 8:00

Oh, it's fantastic. It's very out of rom coms and crime dramas. It's weird.

Jeff Dwoskin 8:06

Man, that is too funny. Let's go to ISO real quick. Same question. Is it a documentary? It's four episodes didn't need to be four episodes.

Casey Ryan Plott 8:15

It was actually I think timed very well. Each episode being roughly 52 minutes running time. It was intelligently done, it was a lot of fun. Once again watching this roller coaster of crazy unfurl, they did a really good job of telling the entirety of the story and definitely picked up some pointers. Found some good tips of what not to do. You know what to pay attention to how not to get caught in traps.

Ron Lippitt 8:38

How many how many Xanax pills out of five DO WE DO we get with

Casey Ryan Plott 8:42

Oh this one is a full four and a half Sandy

Jeff Dwoskin 8:50

oh hey, Carmen's here Hey Carmen, Carmen All right, that was bad vegan and Casey Ryan ply friend of the show and frequent comments are during the show the Casey Ryan pot did we convinced Casey segment check that out in the live shows the common theme All right, let's keep this going. Sal never disappoint Saudi familia never disappoints with his rom com choices mixtape from Episode 56. Take it away, Sal. It's time for Sal to shine with mixtape about making mixtapes around Christmas.

Sal Demilio 9:30

Yes. It was recommended to me. And I think Netflix is listening because I was I think I was on the phone with you Bob. When we were talking about that Kenny Loggins song. We couldn't think of a movie that was from so I don't know, maybe Netflix is listening to me and then they they threw mixtape up on front of my face. And I'm like, You know what? I read what it was about. I'm like, Oh Allah. I'll see what this is all about. The setting takes place in 1999 in Spokane, Washington. It's the last A couple of months of the year so it's that y2k kind of thing was going around in the news and in people's lives. So if y'all remember what that was like, that's kind of where the takes place. And it's about this girl named Beverly, who's played by Gemma Brooke Allen. She's a wonderful little actress. She, she's about 1314 years old in this movie. I don't know what she really is, but she's really good actress just to start things off with. She plays a girl that lost her, lost her mom. And she never really got to know her mom. And her mom is played by Julie Bowen. She's been a lot of stuff. A lot of families are grandmother, she plays her grandmother, I'm sorry. And yeah, she looks really young to be aggressive. swishy and

Jeff Dwoskin 10:46

so Adam sandless right. Yeah, I don't watch.

Sal Demilio 10:49

And she looked very recognizable when I obviously saw her so I looked her up as well. She plays her grandmother who's raising her and they don't really have like a good relationship. The movie starts out where this Beverly wants to talk about her mom and get to know her mom because she never got to know her. The grandmother just shiz away when she wants to talk about her her daughter she she just clams up. So Beverly is kind of going through life not knowing about her mom and it bums her out. And then she kind of gets in with some. There's some older girls at school that start bullying her and she actually becomes friends with these girls. But for this particular part of this story, they're bullying her, she goes home, she's very flustered. She goes up in her act and she's just just bummed out she starts throwing things up in the attic and stuff and out pops out this mixtape that are that her mom had made when she was given birth basically pregnant with her and and just made a tape of when she was younger, not just only when she was pregnant, but and this just energize Beverly, and she's just oh my god, I got it. She said set in a cassette player that was in an old box, which I cracked up, she puts it in there and tries to play it. And I'm like, okay, there'd be no the batteries when last three years there

Jeff Dwoskin 12:01

was several days showed these.

Sal Demilio 12:09

They showed the singing, there was a little cord on the end of it. So maybe she plugged it in, but I didn't see your plug it in. But anyway, it gets tangled up. Like we all I know, we're all old on this panel, but it got tangled up and the tape ruin but she had to listen to the songs. So anyway, not to tell you guys about the whole movie, she kind of wants to know about the songs around this tape. So she goes to a record store because it is 1999 she meets this gentleman named Anton who's a store owner. And he kind of helps her out by trying to find these songs, some of them he can't find. And then he puts them on a tape for her. But he did the first song for her. And I got to know what the name of it is. Hang on a second sorry. Anyway, so she's, she's got a she wants to listen to the songs and, and just get to know the songs because she feels like that she gets to know her mom through that she found a little diary as well, some of the things her mom was going through and everything. So anyway, that's pretty much the plot of the story along the way she meets these friends I told you about they start like a garage band and they kind of learn the songs that are on the mixtape, every single song, she just listens to the words like she had to do this. She had to get up in one of her classes. And she recites the lyrics to surrender by cheap trick and, and it's such an obviously such an old song even for that time period that the teacher was kind of impressed that she knew all the lyrics and stuff to that song. It's just a kind of a cute movie. You know, obviously, just along the lines of, you know, teenage girls just kind of going through high school and stuff. And she's just getting to know her mom through these tapes and develops a better relationship with her grandma with her grandmother along the way. And then so it's a really good felt story about how a grandmother and a granddaughter have to deal with life without the mother anymore. And it's a it's a poignant story in that regard. But you get to know some of these songs along the way. And it's a really really cool movie great supporting cast with her girlfriends in there. I don't know all their names, but they kind of like almost like a sandlot movie with a except with musicians or whatever music I it was a good, good solid movie. So I want to I want to list for you some of the songs that were on our tape. I'm not going to list all of them, but I just want our listeners and then I can name that song and two notes. So some of the some of the songs that were on that tape and they are they are played throughout the movie too, which is really cool. If you're into that kind of that era. I got to write by Iggy Pop surrender by cheap trick which plays a really good role in the movie. best I ever had. I forgot who's saying that one. Some of these were covered by other bands but I remember that song teacher's pet was sung by the quack I want candy by Wah wah wah wah Oh yeah. Fly away by Lenny Kravitz, better things by the kinks. There was a really good kind of letter about that. So next day, yeah. And dancing in the moonlight. is the very very last song and Gemma whose is Beverly sings the song herself. I read it I Googled it, and she actually sang that song with the with the, you know her bandmates there and she actually really did sing that song at the end of the movie. It's a really really cute movie. I give it for tomato sauce jars. I really wow. Okay, with that said, I would like to ask our panel here because you're all about my age. I'll start with Bob because I know I know for sure you had a mixtape there buddy. There's a couple songs man what was on your mixtape and we'll go around the go around the circle. Idol Richie was on mine, Bruce Springsteen. I kind of was more of a top 40 kind of guy but go ahead Bob. What were you what was on your mixtape?

Bob Phillips 15:43

During the time I would have made a mixtape for somebody I would be the Ramones and Warrens Yvonne Elton John.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:53

I was screeching pterodactyls making noises

Sal Demilio 16:04

What about you, Jeff?

Bob Phillips 16:07

You're banned for that? I did. It took me a moment to get that and in that moment I went making he's making old joke about me.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:20

I can honestly remember sitting there with my jam box and had to tape two cassettes because I was alone, I'm sure hello and waiting for. I hate to use it alone and knowing what am I about to say waiting for beaded or weird anywhere to house. So I can record it because, you know, people don't understand is to hear something back then. You had to actually you had to be listening at the time. But yeah. Jeff and

Howard Rosner 16:53

I had a very close fraternity brothers of ours, fraternity brother of ours, who unfortunately passed away a few months ago, who was the absolute king of music and mixtapes. And I still have, I'm looking I have like, on Spotify. I have just a general playlist of songs I like that I just add to all the time that's not you know, a specific artist or album or something like that. And there's so many songs that I never had like I'm just looking at there's like three here like solar sex panel by the little village who has an incredible band thing of beauty by Hothouse Flowers. Hold on I'm common Sam and Dave. Like he was the king of the mixtape and all he's like he was from Chicago. I have one here that was called the dying Cubs fans last request that I remember the first time I listened to it on a mixtape people I like he was the king of the mixtape. My mixtapes that I made always include. I've been a fan of Rush since I was 10. And then like later in my high school years, was I was big into a lot of British new wave invasion bands like general public I

Sal Demilio 18:07

love general public. Yeah, I was just gonna say

Howard Rosner 18:09

ultravox big country. Were band bands like that, that I was huge fans of those were always a good choice.

Bob Phillips 18:20

I just want to say so this is one of the reasons we're friends. You You have such a sunny disposition that like these movies, I probably couldn't get through 20 minutes of them I love you. I love that about you. It cracks me up because I'm drawn to this dark shit.

Sal Demilio 18:41

Yeah, I'll do some of that sometimes too. And I like to sports documentaries and but I'm not into the like the spider I know you guys love Spider Man and all that stuff. I don't get into those movies. I don't know why.

Jeff Dwoskin 18:55

All right, so never disappoints with a heart with a tear jerking heart chugging movies. Up next is a movie that I loved and I take lead on that alpinus pulls from our live show episode 55 is a great one. You're gonna enjoy it. Take it away me. So let's talk about The Alpinist let's talk is it l pin is L Pinus. I open whatever it needs. It's about I discovered this because friends Carol on Facebook mentioned it posted about it and said if you like free solo you would like this movie to Alpine climb. To set a to climb alpine style is to climb hard mountainous roots. A climber of high mountains, if you will. Is an Alpine honest alpinist Is it helpful? I think it's an openness and openness. Let's go with alpinist Oh Pina just to give you an idea, so is like you can kind of see the bookshelf behind me when I was putting records on a opera shelf with a a step stool. I got a little uneasy.

Jeff Dwoskin 20:04

A little uneasy. Okay, so this is the story of Mark Andre, the color, maybe the color. I'm gonna call Mark Andre. Oh, this is the story of him. He's he's an output alpinist and considered one of the greatest in the world. I think the movie, these two people, Peter Mortimer and Rick, Nick Rosen, decided to make a film about Mark Andre. The reason they focused on him was he's this complete unknown alpinist but yet has climbed some of the largest, most challenging things that make other people scared that had been doing it their entire lives. This guy does it, he goes up. Now, keep in mind, these folks don't use ropes. They don't use anything. And they're like, I mean, this is 1000s of feet, right? I mean, this is like, this is like one slip and you're, you're gone now. So if you watched free solo, and Alex Honnold, I can't remember had all the star of that is he's quoted a lot in this. He has a lot of Marc Andre stories that Alex does free. So on rock, which is a dry rock, so they're using like their fingers. He's using his fingertips to like, hold on to things in climb, and he climbs without ropes to and that's an amazing watching him scale. El Capitan is a movie you should definitely watch. And that's on Netflix as well. But this this one, Mark Andre, what he climbs is giant mountains that are like full of ice and snow. Okay, so he's got the boots, hooks in, and then he's got like these hooks, so he'll go, you know, and like, hook on to something. And then he'll hook the other arm and then like, ice axe, yeah, like a little ice axe, but the whole time. Now keep in mind there is 1000 feet up at any given time. And I mean, how they shot these must be like drones or whatever, because it's gorgeous. When he even allowed them to shoot him. It's not like this was connected to him. It's not like your kids pacifier, they went to drops his pillow connected by a binky, and I get that you pick it back. It's like, I kept thinking about what happens if he drops this while he's up there. You know what I mean? I was just, I was like, it was like I said, I am not good with heights. So the whole thing was a little anyway, so this guy, Mark Andre, when he was really young, his mom gave him a book on mountain climbing. It just changed his life. And he looked at these mountains, and they call to him. And he's a very quiet kid, kind of an introvert, and his mom encouraged him to follow his passion was alive. And when I tell you when they want you watch him climb these mountains. The other thing that's different than the free solo movie, this particular person is the free solo person, you watch him train up the mountain before he goes without the ropes. Like he trains with ropes, like he practice routes, Mark Andre didn't practice routes, like he would just go, he would just do like, that's how great he was. They would they would be filming him. And you couldn't even believe that this is a human being climbing these mountains, the way he's climbing people like this. And I think that Alex and for you solo is the same way. They don't have that fear that normal people have when things happen. They don't, their hearts don't raise so they can control themselves in a way much different than other people. And so here he is, he's climbing the highest heights in the world. Right? And like they have all these other alpinist talking about him. A they can't believe it, like everything he does is is a world you know, it's just shockwaves throughout the entire alpinists world, and half the time there's no camera and he never even brought cameras or phones with them. So like, even while these people were making a movie, he just disappears and they're like, oh, by the way, I just climbed these three giant mountains, right? And they're like, why don't you tell us he goes well, if you were there, I wouldn't be alone. I wouldn't be I wouldn't be soloing. And so that's how like pure this guy was. This guy is Mark Andre. A lot of the movie is about focuses on Torrey Anchorage and Patagonia and he's going to be the first person to solo it in the winter. Okay, but most people do this, like whatever non wintertime he's going to do it in the winter. So he goes up and the only time he has like a backpack on right he all he has is his backpack. He goes up there and then when he's whatever, a million feet up, he's like four clicks or whatever to the top but he's got to stop he's got to sleep. And then so he heightened you know, they hang from the mountain in sleeps, which is crazy. It's crazy. So and then the winter, the snow comes in. I keep mine they waited for this snow pattern to come in. Snow comes in. He can't do it. They don't talk a lot about how they get down. on which to me gave me just as much anxiety, but apparently they repelled down and it comes back down. And instead of leaving, it waits and he's like, Oh, wait, there's a small window of weather coming. And so he says, Okay, well, since I already did it once, I now know the path. So keep in mind, like the first time he did it, he just went, right. So now when it says, I know the path, I can do it, and I can do this all in one shot. So he doesn't take any of the equipment with me. He has like, barely anything in that backpack, but nothing to sleep with. None of that stuff to hang with. All that he just takes is in a just basically flies up that mountain. Never done before thing. It basically does it all in a day, and then comes back down that day, because he'd say is like, I know, I can do it. And he was right. Oh, yeah, he did it. And I mean, it's just, it's just crazy. And they did this other thing called the Emperor's face and Mount Robson and it's just absolutely incredible. There's a lovely story also about his girlfriend, read Harrington and they're in a nice relationship. Now keep in mind this guy, Marc Andre doesn't have a car they sleep in tents. I mean, this guy is is is his nature as you can and edges it there's something so pure about it. And the movie really kind of the message I took away with the movie was you know, when you there's something you want to do in life and you're meant to do just go all in and do it. You just and you have to enjoy life and you have to do everything that you're meant to accomplish this movie on like the last one we talked about as 93 critic and 97

Jeff Dwoskin 26:42

rating on Rotten Tomato. It's It's fascinating. I had the same issues that I watched when I watch free solo, which I issues is my personal issue, which is it's such anxiety watching people on these mountains without ropes. There's so high up. I mean, let's be honest, you only have to be 15 feet up and fall and you could die let alone as high as these people are going without ropes and no, you know, no clear way down without all that hassle. But I totally recommend it. If you haven't seen free solo make it a double feature. This is only a 90 minute movie. So it's it's really great to kind of digest and take in and I think free solos probably only about a 90 minute movie also. So definitely check this out this mark Andres it's inspirational. It's a great story. I highly, highly recommend it.

Ron Lippitt 27:36

So Jeff, you may you may remember that in addition to free solo I had talked about on a previous crossing the streams, Meru which was produced and filmed by Jimmy chin. Who is the photographer? Who who did free solo. Right? So when you said that you were going to do The Alpinist I'm like, I immediately looked up thinking this was gonna be another Jimmy chin film. His filming is just gorgeous that and I think that's half when you view movies like this shows like this, that just it's so awe inspiring that the video of what these people are doing, but I see that it's not a Jimmy chin film. It's it's actually Peter Mortimer is the filmmaker. So I guess my question back to you is would you describe this? Is it a beautiful film? Or is it more of a? or is it not that kind of movie?

Jeff Dwoskin 28:27

It's both it's it's beautiful. And it's it's a really great it really gets into this mark Andre and his relationship with Brett and the other climbers, openness, reflecting on and telling stories about Mark Andre and how they felt about him. It was a good combination of both and felt like the same kind of movie but completely different because it's different people it's a different type of climbing. And so you know, I'm sure it was just respect amongst each other because Alex from free solo was in it in this time.

Jeff Dwoskin 29:00

So all right, that was a great one. We talked about the alpinist bad vegan and mixtape and feel free to tweet at us at Jeff Dwoskin show hashtag mixtape and tell us what's in your mixtape with a alpinist is it up in Israel? Pinus? I still can't I confuse myself. Anyway, check out free solo, all the other stuff we talked about in there as well. You got a lot of homework three great shows for you. So here's what you gotta do. Head over to your favorite spot on the couch, grab their remote cross your own streams, and we'll see you next time.

CTS Announcer 29:39

Thanks for listening to this special edition of crossing the streams. Visit us on YouTube for full episodes and catch us live every Wednesday at 9:30pm Eastern time. Now turn this off and go watch some TV. And don't forget to tell your family yeah, I'll be busy for a while.

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